Free 2005 - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka Page B

there? Where is she?”
    “Never mind where is she. Not here.”
    Stubborn old man. He won’t tell me anything. But I find out anyway. I trick him.
    “What kind of a wife is that? Won’t even live with her husband?”
    “Soon she will come. In three weeks. When Stanislav’s school finishes.”
    “What difference does it make’ when school term finishes? If she loved you she would be here right now.”
    “But his house is right next to the school. It is more convenient for Stanislav.”
    “Hall Street? Where Bob Turner lives? So she’s still with Bob Turner?”
    “Yes. No. But the relationship is quite Platonic now. She has assured me.” (He pronounces it with three syllables—a-shoo-red.)
    Fool. Taken for a ride. No point in arguing with him now.
    It’s mid-August, and hot, by the time we go to visit. The fields are humming with combine harvesters that crawl up and down like great cockroaches. Some fields have already been harvested, and the huge round hay bales, wrapped in black polythene, lie randomly among the stubble like broken bits of giant machines—nothing picturesque about these Cambridgeshire harvests. The mechanical hedge cutters have already been out, slashing back the dog roses and brambles that crowd the hedgerows. Soon it will be time for stubble-burning in the cornfields, and potato and pea fields will be sprayed with chemical defoliants.
    My mother’s garden, however, is still a refuge for birds and insects. The trees are heavy with fruit—not ripe yet, give you tummy-ache—and wasps and flies are already gorging themselves on the windfalls, while greedy finches feast on gnats, blackbirds dig for grubs and fat buzzing bumble-bees thrust themselves into the open labia of foxgloves. Roses pink and red battle it out with bindweed in the flower-beds. The downstairs dining-room window that overlooks the garden is open and my father is sitting there with his glasses on and a book on his knees. There’s a tabledoth on the table instead of newspaper, and some plastic flowers in a vase.
    “Hi, Pappa.” I lean forward and kiss his cheek. Stubbly. “Hi, Dyid,” says Anna. “Hi, Nikolai,” says Mike.
    “Aha. Very nice you come. Nadia. Anushka. Michael.”
    Hugs all round. He looks well.
    “How are you getting on with your book, then, Dyid?” asks Anna. She adores her grandfather, and thinks he is a genius. And for her sake I gloss over his peculiarities, his distasteful sexual awakening, his lapses of personal hygiene.
    “Good. Good. I am soon coming to most interesting part. Development of caterpillar track. Significant moment in history of mankind.”
    “Shall I put the kettle on, Pappa?”
    “So tell me about the caterpillars,” says Anna without irony.
    “Aha! You see in prehistoric times, great stones were moved on wooden rollers made out of tree-trunks. Look.” On the table he lines up a row of sharp-pointed 2H pencils, and puts a book on top of them. “Some men are pushing the stone, but others—after the stone has passed over the roller—they must pick up the tree from the back of the stone and run round to put it in the front. In caterpillar track, this movement of rollers is done through chains and linkages.”
    Pappa, Anna and Mike take turns pushing the book over the pencils, and moving the pencils from the back to the front, faster and faster.
    I go into the kitchen and prepare teacups on a tray, pour milk into a jug and hunt for biscuits. So where is she? Is she at home? Is she still hiding from us? Then I see her—a large blonde woman, sauntering down the garden towards us on high-heeled peep-toe mules. Her gait is lazy, contemptuous, as though she can barely be bothered to stir herself to greet us. A denim mini-skirt rides high above her knees; a pink sleeveless top stretches around voluptuous breasts that bob up and down as she walks. I stare. Such a wanton expanse of dimpled, creamy flesh. Plump bordering on fat. As she comes closer I see that her hair, which