A number of bookmakers have published one of their most popular books this fall—the 500-page novel “Win Turns in a Week” by Irenia Carpi, a lesson from which we published in the collection “Suchasna” Ukrainian prose and poetry”.
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“Win turns into a week” – this is a sensitive story about love in the end of war and about those who are important to live and face in the darkest hours. We present before reading lessons from the novel, which can already be found this weekend at the Book Land festival.
“This priceless hour, which we pass and which we will never turn back…”
Vaughn can hear his words in his voice.
The woman who froze over the river, marveling at the appearance of the month again. Vaughn doesn’t feel how the subway’s drafts are already humming under the ground, how tourists and dog walkers have become tired of walking behind their backs, and maybe no one can walk about this for now. You marvel at the swirling fires of the dark waters, and again raise your eyes to the nearby sky.
Extend your fingers.
Feel the breath in yourself on your skin.
Get to the finish line.
Tse mite, tse “do” – like the note on whichever little time is given, this priceless hour will hang.
And between the two skins to skins, Vera realizes:
– I love yogo.
…
You write it about an hour and it’s immediately wrong. What's the best way to add to her anxiety?.. You can hear her repeating her words in her voice.
A month over the steppe near the window of the car, today we are feeling, sumptuous and majestic. You know this month. And as a result of this unbearable knowledge, rural dogs hover on lances and free willows on the steppe.
I give it to you, I want it for you.
Everything, in its entirety, is here and now, the next hour you can close it, like a theatrical curtain, and go straight onto the stage – the one that stinks in two. No spectators, no rehearsals and no director. People who are complaining are not worrying about anything.
The woman flattens her eyes and wraps herself in a jacket made of fine wool.
The man hugs her from behind and kisses her neck, just a little bit of the back of his jacket has been burned.
“Let’s go to a place far, far away,” she thinks, her fingertips brushing the hairs of her fingers.
“Where will you go forever, my heart,” thinks Vin. “With you, where will you go forever.”
His hands are in her under the jacket, under the thin blouse, sticking out her breasts.
There she breathes more loudly and loudly, the sleepy pigeons on the embankment turn their heads until she breathes.
He hugs her back, inhales her hair, feels the skin of her body. The great round moon peers into the rear of the armored vehicle.
Vona herself takes off her clothes, throws off her shoes right by the water of the Canopy, pushing them across the opening between the bridge's gates.
He picks it up easily, like a feather, unfolds it towards himself, kisses her on the lips, first of all.
“This is the first,” she laughs, marveling at how safe it is not to walk in winter over this sable steppe.
You can feel that everything is all right with the river, hidden in stone, in the gurky underground metro.
The place is empty. No one can be bothered as the stench flies over him.
The steppe is completely quiet, the wind blows loudly, no one and nothing feels that they are whispering to one another, like breathing hotter.
There the ice screams loudly, having sensed him in itself.
The hour hangs in the new water, like the waters of a hidden river.
She waits for her to open her eyes.
“It’s all right,” it seems.
“I love you so much,” another confirms.
The stench lingers gently for a long time, right up to the morning, when it is already cold and hard.
And then they throw away. Skin your skin.
There you are in the madness at the place above the river.
At the armored car in the middle of the steppe.
– Come on, commander. Already in the morning he gets up. Well, it's been a month! “I couldn’t fall asleep,” Zakhar complained in his seat.
Atreus mowing.
(…)
With Atreev, “kohayu”, Vera feels omnipotent.
Walking along the boulevard from the bakery to the yatka near the town, she sings a Cuban song. Bezkhatkova, who is sitting near the ATM, throws away all the coins that were in the hamman. When crossing the road, everyone who walks in the opposite direction laughs, from grandfathers to students, who then follow her for a long time. Vera sits like a supermodel on the catwalk, even as she parades in old sweatpants with her hair curled into a bun.
Navita became friendly to Charles: she drinks what’s in his work, cooks what he loves, and lives across Ancha’s kitchen.
“Lord, save and have mercy…” – the powerless Voice to put up with the corruption of morality.
Don’t eat and don’t sleep… what’s in this folding thing? It's hotter now. Vaughn checks in the evening, looks like “+450”, donate to your collection – everything is good for up to a hundred days.
From the buttercream on Rose Saint Germain and Bernardine Street, Vira buys a bouquet of crisp tulips – yellow, white, red – given to Anci. Just like that. Mother always needs water at home – like pepper and kava. Dancing, she flies in anger as she gathers on her quarters.
– How do you mean me?! – Don’t believe Anka. – For what?!
“Well, life is so troubling,” “Vira doesn’t know anything original.” – As John Lennon said, life is something that stays with us as long as we make plans.
Anya will laugh out loud at the answer. There you go, go to the kitchen and fill the vase with water.
“You’ve found someone to teach hedonism…” the Voice finishes.
“I’m talking about those who are so garni, so young, and have nothing to ruin for themselves once in a deaf corner!” – Vira Anzi shouts in anguish.
And they put on makeup with saucepans, singing, and they are already washing up the dishes that Sashka and Alisa have stolen.
Vera goes to the kitchen:
– You vibach, I just blurted out the wrong thing…
Although Anka didn’t cry, she didn’t cry. That's why her mood is changing.
“You only think about yourself.”
– No, no! “Anka turns around, her eyes are dry.” “I love books so much, I just… I don’t remember when someone wanted to give them to me.”
– Like?! And Stepan?!
Virinya has a man who constantly showers his team with information, as he suffers from separation, in real life, he would soon be filled with questions.
“Oh, Stepan…” Anka grimaced, rubbing her wet hands.
She carefully folds a red-and-white towel next to a wicker basket and laughs reluctantly:
– Just think, you registered me on Tender!
– Stepan?!
– Yeah. Well, let's live there, so you can't beat me up.
So what triggered it? Our song is great and new.
– And since I was frozen, I started corresponding with the dudes myself. Guess what?! Kind of my name. And then be jealous.
Vira is not small, what can I say.
– Inadequate.
Anya said this herself. Not so long ago, we packed and transferred by minibuses from Kiev all the beautiful cloth shoes on the selections – even if you are in Paris, live and enjoy them.
– And where will I go in them? What about the humanities? What about the homeless French courses?!
Vira spoke about the humanitarian a hundred times – don’t go there, don’t need it. Anka, however, immediately went to the distribution points at churches, drawing money from rich African countries and homeless people.
– It’s not morose, it’s fun! – she was babbling to Viri, who was on her own, vandalizing in the kitchen packets of plain potato puree and three-liter bags of canned peas.
– True, competitors will soon beat me there – the Ukrainians will probably have volunteers and conduct them in advance. Today I came late, and there she was already hoping that I didn’t lose sausages and bananas.
– Well, you’re so skinny and young, it really hurts you! – It’s pitiful for Vera to marvel at Anka. – How are all the taxes?
“It’s okay,” Anka waves her hand and fiddles with her phone. “Here’s where you need to give the robot a try a couple of times a week.” Clean up the hotel. There are, however, fifty kegs of mattresses there, but damn it, I’ll just pump myself up!
From now on, hotel shampoos and luxury luxury appear in her bathroom, and there are still a few more years left in the ancient days.
— It’s funny that my project in Kiev is like a luxury hotel. It’s true, I’m designing electrical systems there, so it’s unlikely that the ones I’m building in Paris can be called investigations. And, damn it, we saw a synthetic uniform – it stinks already in the first few years.
Vera was angry with Anyka for being so unmerciful to herself and immediately burst into tears: she couldn’t do that. Spend everything except worth and fight for your independence. Anci's money was needed in order to rent an apartment. Charles didn’t like this idea – the settlers were just a call away. During the week before Viri, Anka miraculously managed to miss the evening on the stove and tidy up the house. “If only you would have thrown your rubbish out of my office, it would have been a spare room!” – Charles repeated hour after hour.
Vera immediately called her office her masterpiece, the folded pieces of painted ceramic tiles, old tseglins with stamps, symbols of the Carpathian honty, chipped fragments of stone friezes and other architecture smitty. Once upon a time she started gluing the model of the booth, but immediately threw it away. “Get busy with work,” the Voice said dryly, looking at their will and trying to do something “for the soul.” These “budins of the world” are made from cardboard and darts, so they were bought in the future, as they printed the daylight, because they didn’t give permission. Vera opened the doors of this master and immediately closed it. Ale was definitely not going to get rid of her.
Vera fixes the door and looks into the future. It's time to air it out, she hasn't worked here for a long time. The windows, however, went into the technical door, so they were brought in hour after hour with greased fish and a clock. Leave open for the night.
She turns on the table lamp and takes a dirty sketchbook from the table. Raptom wanted to draw some pictures – this hasn’t happened for a long time. Ale is not here. There is no way to torture your conscience by helping Anci with the evening or preschooling Sasha with his homework.
– I'll be there soon! – says Vira, viciously licking out the door of the apartment.
On the terrace of the Kvitkova church, overlooking the church, it was beautifully painted. In other words, she’s not a woman, but a tourist-artist who admires Paris.
The fleecy burnt's sketchbook is half clean. Vira quickly burns through the tedious “practical” pages – appointments, contacts, to-do lists and dates. Zhodny sketch!
I just wish I had one good student from university. Since it’s been a long time since Vera allows him to collapse on his own. And it’s not at all surprising when on the yellowish paper one can see the outlines of familiar stone walls and towering trees that stream towards the sky.
House among cypress trees.
Vera laughs to herself as she brews the bitter black kava. Strokes the side, the cut of the lining. Forget to notice. Just how many pieces of junk from these notebooks have accumulated in it? In addition to the garni, to paint the abishto, in advance of the memory – let them wait for the shortest hours. And here on the right there is a war, who the devil knows if such times come.
Vira picks up mallow tiles on the dacha and wild grapes that hang on the walls. When a bush of rosemary appears from behind the olive, it turns back. I, unconvinced for myself, write:
“It sounds greedy, but why am I fighting this war…”
Vera looks around furtively to see if any of the people at the tables can see that she is writing in Cyrillic. Here, with the same authenticity, read their thoughts.
“… if we didn’t show up, we never showed up in life alone.”
– Un verre du blanc, s'il vous plait! – The waiter will go through the door himself, it’s a shame not to ask the white man.
Around the table, a couple of young women are kissing with such intensity that in any other month, besides grass, it would be considered illegal.
Vaughn twists a piece of paper from her sketchbook. This means there will be an Atreev leaf. Paper, old-fashioned, whatever wine you can touch. Let's be more physical between them.
“You always want to create again – but you’ll forget it. There’s a pause in the work. If I panicked through this, I thought I was going to die of hunger. And now I say: oh, it’s time, why don’t you throw some sketches on new projects? Let’s say that everything is oriented towards the relish of the spirit?! What do I think you support me… Maybe the one who knows about the House of Cypresses. I’m already writing to you No, this is a sketch, and I also have a layout in my master. (It’s “old trash”, in someone’s words…) The layout is funny – like a little booth for Barbie, just not horny. For the soul.
When I started, I thought to myself that gluing small pieces would be a form of meditation: the tiles are strong, the leaves are like grapes. I threw it in, of course. Patience and fine motor skills are not my strengths. I am chaotic and impatient… Keep ticking until it’s too late)) I wish I could make practical speeches. What about the Ukrainian city after the war – because it will be asked, you know?
“…and fly off to your 'friends', why are you there?” – cackling Voice.
Vera understands that the sheet about love is not there.
“Nothing wonderful – like before, about yourself and about yourself!”
Faith begins from a new series: Atreya learns that he loves music and films, about his childhood and life before the war. So, why could the stinks be seen on the embankment during each of their visits to the Dnieper? Maybe, since he is alive near Kiev on Volodymyrsky, they went to that same supermarket or pharmacy?..
A message comes to the phone: “The evening is ready. Are you there?”
Від Аньки.
Vira gets ten euros from the hamman, and can pay from the tip. She finishes her kelikh with a great glass: she doesn’t want Anka to check.
Vaughn adds in a haphazard way:
“I haven’t told you for a long time, I don’t know what your voice sounds like, what your skin is like and what you smell like. And yet every day you are approaching. It’s surprising that one viscous note has settled in the middle of me. It’s equal to the sleepy gossip, as well as to the eyes – then tears flow from them, and this line passes through the lower abdomen…”
“Isn’t it embarrassing?” the Voice grimaces. “The woman is grown up, she’s already a child. And you write like a youngster on hormones.”
Trochi e. Grimacing, Vira shreds half the sheet of paper with this paragraph. This is all wine with a heart.
From the new side of Vir write:
“Write to me about everything: about music and cinema, about friends, about war. Everything you need. I really want to give you a piece of paper. Because I don’t remember when it was so bad for me…
And we haven’t even gotten to cybersex yet.”
Vera grabs her notebook and brings her from the table.
It makes you feel hot. The one on the right is to show yourself what it is, and the other is to translate it into words and send it to you. There is a need for this.
“Do you think you’re so original?” the Voice mocks. “But at the same time, thousands, like hundreds of thousands of other wives, write to the same men at the front. You have a standard crash, dear!”
Vera laughs. “Crash” is something new in the Voice’s repertoire. And those who are not the only one who is such a fool, please keep quiet.
The phone vibrates for notifications.
“+450. I'll get some sleep.”
Turning around.
“Turn back to me soon. We are alive and whole,” Vira whispered, stroking his “plus” with his great finger.
November 2024
