It was late afternoon, and it snowed slightly. I was standing at a tram halt looking for sevens. quite a few frozen people were waiting around. The festival was coming up, and there was a large, feverish movement in the city. People were busy shopping, gift boxes, frequently carrying a tree under their armpit, which could not escape the sharp eye of the lumberjack. The day after Christmas Eve — 1 of the fewer rituals at the table of strangers, frequently members of the same family! A fewer steps further, a drunk man was rocking, a circular motion — full ahead and back! In his hand he held a net from which the tail and the head of the carp were protruding. And he was subject to this swing, disturbed only by weak hiccups. In an open coat and with a carelessly cast scarf, the owner of the carp had a desperate look ready to break a fee even with his dear enemy. It wouldn't be an act of forgiveness, of course, but...
By Christmas Eve, however, 2 more days, anything can happen. possibly even this gentleman can sober up... It may not lose its fish, which seems to be catching air through the wide eyes of the net. But it's most likely an illusion. The carp is still, most likely already stiffed, due to the fact that the frost takes Christmas.
Christmas... Christmas... These days I remind you of all the Christmas Eves that were held in our household home with a large ceremony. A fewer days before Christmas, there was a mess and the noises of the chief staff were heard, which consisted of a grandmother, parent and father. My sister and I fortunately did not gotta participate in these preparations, and our only want was to have a tree from level to ceiling! And we usually kept this tree until at least February. I remember the gifts under her green wings... I besides remember the shoals of green needles swept by Julcia from the area of the tree...
I besides remember the pathetic carp, first the cheerfully splashing in the bathtub, then killed mercilessly on a wooden board! The sound of these beatings inactive resonates in my head today... I inactive have blood stains in my kitchen and the odor of flour... The full table was covered with scales and fish guts. erstwhile I first read about the divinations made by the Romans from the insides of the birds, I suspected that the followers of Neptune had surely been divining from the insides of the fish. But I had nothing to support my suspicions. Seeing a bloody pulp after what erstwhile filled agile and shiny hulls made me sick. I was holding my breath back from the kitchen. The scales sometimes fell on the floor, where they looked like worn-out sequins, torn off from dolls' outfits. Scales, guts, spines... This is the slaughter of the creatures on the day of the joyful feast of the Savior! I inactive can't realize it. This bloody ritual has always ruined the temper of the coming holidays and the joy of the gifts.
In addition, the grim communicative of carp continued. After the pictures from the slaughterhouse, there were scenes at the Christmas table, where dishes with fried fish and large salads with heads and tails of carp took place!
Only the wafers and wishes were mentioned, and Grandma made the sign of the cross — spoons and forks were moving.
I watched with horror how a father piled a pile of fish heads on his deck, staring at me with empty eye sockets. I've seen him cut open their bruised skin, suck out the taste to the bone, and there's skeletal shards on the plate, bits of jelly... I couldn't comprehend the appetite and passion with which my father consumed the disgusting and slippery carp's heads. Their snouts, now immobilized in the galaret, opened rhythmically yesterday as I watched their flutters in the water. I tried not to look at the remains of these fish so that another Christmas dinners wouldn't stand in my throat. The top relief was always the end of this monstrous feast, the odor of fir and the sight of blinking candles on branches.
These were times erstwhile carols were not just heard on the radio. During the shepherd's day and the holiday, the choir, in which our father slept, gave concerts in various churches in Krakow. It was most likely the most beautiful mass of my life! "Brothers, look but..." — the harrowing basses — "...as the sky is hot!" — corresponded to them with a bright cloud of tenors, and then the thunder of the full chorus shook the Bethlehem Nativity scene...
Suddenly the tram bell rang and I woke up thinking. They slammed the automatic door. I just missed seven! I squeezed the glove harder out of anger. My neighbor, his entrenchedness with the carp, continued to wag his stubbornness without paying the slightest attention to the streetcar numbers. erstwhile again, I looked at a fish that was rocking in a net, at its somewhat tilted mouth and protruding tail. Without waiting for the next seven, I walked. Unfortunately, people passing on pavements besides carried dripping wine and nets from which snow fins were displayed!
Editorial:
We encourage you to acquisition the book by Marek Baterowicz, published by our association - stories about the "war of Jaruzel"- It's coming in the wound.
 | Marek Baterowicz (born 1944) made his debut as a poet on the pages of "The Weekly of the Common" and "The Student" (1971). Book debut - "Verses to Dawn" (W-wa, 1976); the title was an allusion to the night of PRL. In 1981, he published outside censorship a collection of poems entitled "Having broken branches of silence". Since 1985 on emigration, since 1987 in Australia. Author of respective prose titles(M.in "The Seed Rises in Hurt"-1992 and 2017) and many poesy collections, specified as "The Heart and Fist" (Sydney, 1987), "From that side of the tree" (Melbourne, 1992 – poems collected), "Place in the atlas" (Sydney, 1996), "Chair and Shadow" (Sydney,2003), "On the Sun leash" (Sydney, 2008). In 2010 in Italy there was a selection of poems – "Canti del pianoa", followed by "Status quo" (Toronto, 2014), a collection of short stories – "Jeu de masques" (Nantes, 2014), "Over the large Water" (Sydney, 2015) and an e-book of his naval novel, settled in the 16th century "Aux vents conjurés". |
