Night-time Stories by Yen-Yen Lu

Author:Yen-Yen Lu [Lu, Yen-Yen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912915613
Publisher: The Emma Press

Kikimora

Sofija Ana Zovko

My grandmother used to tell me about her – the kikimora. She said she was a small creature living behind the stove, always causing trouble and over-salting her soup.

‘The little devil,’ my grandmother said, ‘One day I will catch her, chop her up like a carrot and boil her in my soup. Then we’ll see who’s salty.’

I didn’t believe my grandmother’s threats. With her spotted arms and soft skin folding over like dough, she didn’t seem to have it in her to boil a creature alive, no matter how many times I saw her wring a chicken’s neck.

A kikimora was the easiest way for my grandmother to explain her growing forgetfulness. As her soups became saltier over time, her punishments for the troublemaker became more elaborate. ‘I will crack her like an egg and roll her in batter, then toss her on hot oil and fry her like a schnitzel.’ I got used to the salty flavour of my grandmother’s soup, the way it soaked into the carrots and even made the metal of the spoon taste salty. We peeled the crust off the bread and mopped the salty soup out of our bowls. But the saltier her soup got, the thinner my grandmother became. Her body dried out like a fig. Her once-strong hands couldn’t even chop an onion.

‘Come here, Una, lend me your hands,’ she said. Her fingers trembled as she wrapped my hand around the knife’s hilt. She sat down at the kitchen table to put on her gold rings, which over time had moved from ring finger to thumb.

‘My Una, you’d better learn to cook quick, or you’ll end up like me. It can’t be like that – people will say I never fed you.’

I felt the tears gather in my eyes as I chopped the onion. ‘There’s time, Bako,’ I said. ‘You’re too stubborn to go anywhere.’

‘True. And if I went, who’d watch over you?’

On Friday, I got back from work and she was gone. Her soup, her stories, her threats. A loaf of half-raised dough was sitting on the kitchen counter. I plunged my hands into its soft belly, like a child.

I leafed through the Bible-thin pages of her cookbook, through stews, štrukle and sweets, trying to find her salty soup. I searched in the cupboards, in the oven, in the larder and there it was, buried at the bottom of the freezer, in a Tupperware wrapped in plastic bags. Soup for Una – I traced my fingers over her handwritten note. Even her handwriting had grown thin.

Undoing the rubber bands, I opened the plastic Tupperware and turned it upside-down over a big steel pot. The frozen soup fell in with a clang. I turned the stove on low and watched the blue flames lick the bottom of the pot. Something wasn’t right. Was it the size of the pot, the strength of the flame? I looked at the empty seat at the kitchen table, asking it for help. The chequered tablecloth

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