Mihail VAKULOVSKI

EVERYTHING OR ALMOST EVERYTHING ABOUT DADDY

(excerpt)

(traducere: Cristina Ispas)

after he was finally convinced that she did not simulate and that she really suffered another pre-heart-attack, he decided not to curse her anymore. fucking zombi! that was all that he had to add and then he came to announce me he didn’t know what was wrong with “your mother.” mom said it was because of the heat, her heart failed her for just a moment or two, but she was going to be just fine. I brought her a cup of cold compote, which made daddy open his eyes wide (maybe he thought it was wine) and a fan. but as soon as I a went out, daddy drank the compote and turned the fan to his direction, claiming me she didn’t want to drink it. he sat by the window watching the road, with the curtain pulled to one side and with the spyglass in his right hand. he was spying on women who occasionally passed by our house, commenting all kind of things: “that one she doesn’t even has ass, coromisla!i] he emptied a glass of vodka (this is not samahon[ii], this is cognac!) and gobbled up a piece from the fried rabbit (I'll call Serghei to sacrifice another rabbit for me). and then louder: "today, I will sacrifice five rabbits!"

after he finished eating, he took the plate with two fingers and threw it in the maze behind the house and then asked for wine. he wanted to send the little one to bring him somehting to drink, but the little one refused to go. he menaced him he was going to break his head "in two pieces” and began to curse his mother again. "fucking stupid women, all day long she does nothing else but cooking and yet I’m starving." “but didn’t you say woman that you were making stuffed cabbage?" this is a very popular expression in our large family and ... I was about to say "holy," but “united” will be even more appropriate. what keeps us close is our great esteem for our father, who after eating alone a whole pot of cabbage rolls he saw mom and said to her: “hey, woman, didn’t you say that you were making stuffed cabbage today?” we were just eating fries and pickles and I said “hey, daddy, why don’t you take some from me?," while my younger brother replied from the tennis table "I won’t go" and mom said "I don’t eat, I’m not hungry." thus, we ate fried and pickles with our daddy who was then chasing my little brother around, but I didn’t think he was going to  catch him

he chased me once with a big axe measuring one metre and a half, just for replying to him that if he damaged my new book too, I won’t give him another one. and once he chased my little brother with a hammer and – when he realized he won’t catch him – he threw the hammer at him. but he didn’t reach him anyway, nor he reached me, while mom was to good at dribbling the U (undefined) – F (flying) – O (objects), like for instance: the footbrake from the motorcycle (which I found later, after long searches, in the garden), the kettle (which in the end got stuck in a plum tree) and stones (we used to collect them when we weeded, when we dug for potatoes or when hoeing) and, of course, plates, in fact he used any object that he found at hand. when daddy got angry (and it happened quite often), he stretched out his right hand and with his fat fingers he checked for what was on the table (usually) in front of him and for all the other things hat he could find around him, then he stood he made one two or three steps, his hands came from behind aaaaaaaand ...

there used to offer a neverending show our yard. our neighbour Mary was watching from the right side, as you come from the garden, or from the left side, as you come from the front gate. she looked through the fence, from the hens’ shelter, etc. while our other neighbour Aniuta was also watching from the attic, from a small window, with her dear husband watching from the iron gate. once ddady got mad because of one, which made everyone pay attention only to him. Ivan was on duty, watching, when daddy grabbed a stone and threw it at him. Ivan ran up the street, daddy threw another stone, while cursign the hell out. everyone was laughing.

when daddy was not drinking he was sober, shy and almost embarrassed. if I was listening to "Leningrad" or "Parazitii" when we were working in the garden he told me to change the tape, because "the children could hear.” but when he drank his language was full of shit. if he didn’t curse it meant he was very happy and he used to tell dirty jokes, like the one with the shoes. if the dick looks down at the shoes, what should one do? one should put the shoes up in the closet, ha-ha-ha. or the one with the countrywomen who went up the hill where they found a field of carrots and one said: "this looks exctaly like my husband's dick" and the other one asked “could it be? that thick?” ”no, that dirty"

when I first fell in love, he said to me: "you should know that the love of your life farts and poops." and trust me, if you think that after suddenly realizing a fact like that love is the same, you are very much mistaken.

he came home once with the son and husband of the clean ladies from the school (who was the one and same person) to drink some more. "hey, how can you fuck her, that ugly teacher, she is fat and ugly and old…” “well, Alexei Vasilevich, how could I not fuck her if she buys me sausages and vodka?" "hey, tell your lady then to come to my office tomorrow to fuck her and I will buy her vodka and sausages, ok?” “well, if you are buying vodka and sausagses, I’ll tell her."

after a long and terrible drinking with one of his favourite students, Slavic, "a wonderful boy," one of the twins in the class he was form master of, about whom he used to say he was the single one to distinguish them, after they drank all day all I was saying, praising one another (Slavic praised daddy and daddy praised Slavic), Slavic fell on his knees before daddy and kissed daddy’s hand and shook his tail like a dog, etc., in the end, of course, Slavic had to leave. but he came back in no more than 15 minutes: Alexei Vasilevich, I don’t know where my daughter is, have you seen my daughter? ". he left home with his daughter, but because he didn’t want her to disturb him he left the child with her cousins from the valley and it was only after he left our yard he remembered that he hadn’t left home alone. daddy poked his head through the door, looking puzzled at Slavic, staring at him as he was seeing him for the very first time: "but who the fuck are you?" “Alexei Vasilevich, Alexei Vasilevich!" Sofica, what does this idiot who says he lost his daughter want from me? "

daddy likes the truth, he likes things to be said outloud and he prefers direct, even obscene language. we were sitting around the table with a former student of his and daddy told us: "his grandmother was a whore, she used to walk around with the Germans during the war, he was fucking all Germans and that’s how she came to our village, she came following a dick. but he is in fact half Russian, so he went to Siberia, but now he's a drug addict, he drinks drugs and that’s why her wife and daughter left him." about some other guy, who was, of course, present, he said "his father died hard, he hang himself, because her mother used to open her legs inviting everyone, but they saved him, even if after another day he died the same." or: "his father was killed by his own brother, who hit him with an axe twenty-one times right in the head" – “her mother was raped by her six sons, and then killed and that’s how poor Ioana – obviously, the poor Ioana was in front of him - remained without a mother and with her brothers being all in jail," "his father was thrown into a ditch that was made for a pillar, he fell right in his head and his blood came through his nose," "this one killed his daughter and wide and became a homosexualist," "her husband went to work in Spain and now she goes every night to fuck the doormen at the brigade’s headquarters," "this one has two sons – one of them is an idiot and the other one is a drug addict. and his woman is a whore." “I went to Vasile’s home once,” daddy tells me, in front of Vasile, of course: "his grandpa’ dragged an 8-year old girl in the basement and raped her. the girl’s father pulled him by the hair and killed him. I can’t say I’m sorry he did that."

when the “homosexualists,” the pidarajii[iii] were exposed in the village, among them was a friend of daddy’s. mom, who was cleaning the windows in the porch, suddenly said: "I wonder, couldn’t your father be one of them too?" "one of them, mommy?" "well, one of those …" then, when that friend came for a visit, daddy started questioning him, while they were drinking some wine: "hey, is it true what I hear in the village?" "what is that you hear, Alexei Vasilevich?" "that you are a homosexualist” and he slapped him across his face so that the man started running around the yard with daddy chasing him with the hose in his hands: "homosexualist!" yelled daddy “I will never drink from the same glass with you, for you suck dicks."

no matter the celebration it was always a good occasion for daddy to get drunk and make a show. on New Year’s Eve he slept in about 23 homes, he ate candies and chocolate with eyes closed and when he finally woke up at about 2 am, he looked at the clock on the screen and he suddenly looked very scared and shouted: "but we didn’t say cheers" on my birthday, he came home already drunk, he sat on the small table near the house resting his head on the cement wall. mom asked him: "where's your suitcase?" "what?" "it’s your son’s birthday, he came a long way and you ... where's your suitcase?" “wha’ sucase?" on my mother’s birthday, he brought “surprise” guests, last year it was Michael - the American. he taught him Romanian for about an hour, then they got very drunk. this year he got visited by a former student who now lives in Siberia: "do you have kids, Ruslan?" asked daddy. "yes, I have a little girl" "and what about your wife?" "no, I can not live like that, I have a daughter, but I don’t have wife," "but you didn’t do it with the tree, did you?"

once, coming home late at night, tired, daddy felt like he was losing his shoe. He balanced him on his foot a few times and then he threw it right into the pond.

daddy had some very weird childish philosophies that guided him through his life and he kept repeating them to whomever was around to hear: I for one, if someone tells me to do this or that, I will for sure do not, while if someone tells me I shouldn’t do this or that, be sure I’ll do it. for me yes means no and no means yes. today, for instance, he told me about a dozen times that he did so only because someone told him to do otherwise. in the morning he said "I feel like my head is falling into pieces," "but how come, daddy?" "you told me not to drink and I drank as much as I could, I drink that much that I couldn’t even get up from the chair I was sitting on, the same as it happened to me yesterday, and the other day before yesterday and ever since I came back home.” I went to the mill, I brought home ten sacks of flour, daddy said his brother-in-law he was also going to the mill and that he was going to make two more sacks for us (but we knew very well what was following next: the two of them getting drunk, daddy paying for the fuel and for the service, etc.), but mom said it was no need to, since there was enough flour so that they could wait until I was going to come home next time and make some more: "I will ask whomever I want to make a half of sack for me and I will wine and dine each one of them.” and again I, I, I ... he came to seek “pelinel[iv]” (“maybe you wanted to say sage?” I asked him, but he said no, “pelinel, because it is the best”) from our garden near the pond, where we were working and I said to him to help us carry two baskets instead of one, since he was already there. mom was behind us, I was in the middle and he walked in front of us. he went panting and telling us what he was going to do with each half of sack of flour. we let him speak we said nothing, but at some point he let the basket slip on my feet (it still hurts me): "why don’t you all go to hell? if you say I shouldn’t make three more sacks of flour, then I’m going to make a half a sack and then another half and then another." and then he found a reason to be angry at us and not help at all, in fact he never did anything anyway. instead, he came into my room at night: “if you don’t want to fuck with me, you better have a glass a wine with me, and he sent me for wine, and after I brought him the wine, he said: “you want to fuck me, I will show why you shouldn’t want to fuck with me, fuck you fucker!"