"Zurek"
by Olga Tokarczuk
(Zurek "zhu-rek": A soup similar to white borscht, prepared on a sour flour base, often served with sausage.)
"We should have brought the baby carriage," said one woman to the other, as soon as they came out onto the road, long since snowed over after the last clearing, on their way to the bus stop.
The older of the two carried a baby wrapped in a little blanket, which appeared dirty in the gathering dusk. The younger woman made it easier for herself by following through the snow in her mother's footsteps.
"We should have come during the day, not at night," the older woman spoke up.
"Well maybe so, but I couldn't get ready on time," said the younger.
"You didn't have to get all dolled up."
"Look who's talking."
"I didn't get dressed up. I just couldn't find my hat."
They barely made it to the stop before the practically empty rattletrap vehicle chugged to a halt. A bunch of teenagers was seated in the rear, all pressed together. They were probably going to a dance in town. The younger woman looked at them with eyes aslant, observantly paying special attention to one girl in a leather coat and tight jeans. Her mother asked her something in a quiet voice, but she merely grunted in return. Then she wiped off the frosty window pane and looked out at the darkness, flickering with lights. The young people were going farther. The two women got out at the second stop, where a side road joined the highway roaring with the sounds of heavy trucks.
They walked past the motel, lit up for the holidays, and made for the fish-and-chips place. They came to a stop for a moment in front of a huge red sign illuminating the front of the newly renovated building, flashing the message "Coke Is It!"
"Should we call out to him, or how should we do it?" asked the mother.
"You go, and I'll wait here with the baby." The older woman went in and returned after a moment.
"He's not there. He's at home."
They looked at each other briefly and began walking toward the yard.
A dog leashed to a doghouse began to bark and an automatic light turned on. The whole mess a pile of boards, bundles of styrofoam in cellophane, pyramids of concrete blocks was considerately blanketed in a layer of snow. W∏adek was building a garage.
A well-built red-haired man in a hand-knit sweater coming apart at the seams came out to meet them. He looked at them in surprise.
"What in the world are you two doing here this time of night?" he asked without ceremony.
"We've come on business," the older woman said.
"Oh yeah?" he asked slowly, growing even more surprised.
"Can we come in?"
He hesitated imperceptibly, but only for a second, before letting them inside past the freshly whitewashed hallway, littered with bits of stucco which crunched under foot. They went into his cluttered kitchen. He must have been fiddling around with his sink, for one of the cabinets was moved away from the wall, revealing secrets of pipes and joints.
"Can we sit down?" the older woman asked.
He set two chairs out for them practically in the middle of the kitchen, while lighting himself a cigarette and coming to rest against the skewed cabinet. Only now did he see the baby, and he smiled.
"Boy or girl?"
"A boy, a boy," the younger woman said and unwrapped the baby from its blanket.
She removed a blue wool cap from over its eyes. The baby was asleep. Its tiny wrinkled faced reminded Wladek of a newly husked hazelnut. It was that ugly.
"It's beautiful," he said. "What's his name?"
"He doesn't have one yet," the younger woman said gaily.
"Wladyslaw," the older one quickly put in.
"Wladyslaw?" he said in surprise. "Who names their kid Wladyslaw these days?"
He scowled and took a drag on his cigarette.
"So what's your business?"
"Your name is Wladyslaw, and his name is too," the older woman continued.
Well so what if it is, I never said it wasn't." They fell silent as the man knocked his ash onto the floor. "So tell me, what's this about?"
The woman quickly turned her gaze in the direction of the bundle leaning against the wall and said,
"That's your kid, Wladek. The holidays are coming and we want to get him baptized." The man's face froze.
"You've must have a screw loose, Halina. How's that my kid? ... Huh, Iwonka?" he said, turning to the girl. "How do you figure that's my kid? What are you two up to?"
Iwonka bit her lips and began quickly to rock the baby back and forth. It soon woke up and began to cry. "So who is the father?" he asked her.
"You're the father. It's your child."
The man got up and stubbed out his cigarette with his shoe.
"Get out of here, both of you. Out!"
They slowly got up, and Iwonka put the cap back over the baby's eyes.
"Come on, out!" he insisted.
"Well, O.K., W∏adek, but in that case the baby's father is your son Jacek," the mother said suddenly as she was heading out the door.
"He was here at Easter," added Iwonka aggressively.
"Get out of here."
The door closed behind them. They stood in silence in the dirty trampled-down snow. After a while the light went out.
""So now what?" Iwonka asked her mother.
- nur kurz in stichworten wie es weitergehen könnte.
oder eben wieder zurück zum haus fahren lassen und dann beim läuten an der tür die geschichte beenden...oder aber das kind wieder bekommen lassen wieder in den bus einsteigen lassen und dann aber ned richtung elternhaus---also so auf neues leben mit dem kind...