Not to Fear Anything

by Ekaterina Simonova
translated by Anna Halberstadt

Grandmother was incarcerated in 1941.  She screamed when
selling bread,
Paid for by bread cards,
That all of us will die of hunger soon, will be buried,
Herself she cut the portions for the buyers smaller, than required.
Remained: a thirty-year-old and a ninety-year-old.
Grandma was not a blood relative either, she loved, when drunk,
To get stuff out from the trunk, that was there a long time, and
smelled of moth balls,
To show off: “This is a gift from Andrey Ivanych,
And this one — from Pimen Valentinych
A shawl with real silk fringes,
A real fox collar
She had white hands, a ring with a happy stone,
Streaming light like a star.”

There was no one else.  Hunger arrived sooner, than we thought.
It ate the fox, ate the shawl, began eating grandma.
Her head had to be shaved.  The thirty-year-old would wash the ninety-year-old
Scraping lice off her head with a knife.

Snow fell early this year.
It ate everything, that was not eaten by people.
Feeding on others’ hunger, imagine,
It grew taller than a thirteen-yea-old girl.
At night she would go to fetch water.  You had to go far.
It was dark and scary.  She would listen: was there anybody
Behind or ahead of her, stars above her were burning, iridescent,
Like the ring with a happy stone, easy youth.

The dull moon, was dull and blunted, like a knife.
Winter breathing the color of milk with water
Milk, diluted with water on a frozen windowsill.

Lice did not disappear, even now, it seems
They were not real,
The head scarf was swarming with them, water was needed every
day,
Every night.

The most important thing on the way home was this — to hear
someone’s steps
Ahead of you or behind, to know, you are not alone on this road,
To sigh, relieved: now there is nothing to be afraid of.