When you consider the plenitude of any word’s experience you might think all words are untranslatable
**
Not people die but worlds die in them
Not people die but worlds die in them. Amy reads the poetry of Professor Yevtushenko. Her favorite starts by saying there is no such thing as boring people, that in fact every single person in every single place is so fascinating as to be unfathomable, and when they die, all of that that is unfathomable dies with them: not people die but worlds die in them. She sounds the words out to herself in her dorm room, quiet as she can, tracing the rise and fall of the letters with the tip of her right middle finger.
Людей неинтересных в мире нет.
Их судьбы — как истории планет.
У каждой все особое, свое,
и нет планет, похожих на нее.
А если кто-то незаметно жил
и с этой незаметностью дружил,
он интересен был среди людей
самой неинтересностью своей.
У каждого — свой тайный личный мир.
Есть в мире этом самый лучший миг.
Есть в мире этом самый страшный час,
но это все неведомо для нас.
И если умирает человек,
с ним умирает первый его снег,
и первый поцелуй, и первый бой...
Все это забирает он с собой.
Да, остаются книги и мосты,
машины и художников холсты,
да, многому остаться суждено,
но что-то ведь уходит все равно!
Таков закон безжалостной игры.
Не люди умирают, а миры.
Людей мы помним, грешных и земных.
А что мы знали, в сущности, о них?
Что знаем мы про братьев, про друзей,
что знаем о единственной своей?
И про отца родного своего
мы, зная все, не знаем ничего.
Уходят люди... Их не возвратить.
Их тайные миры не возродить.
И каждый раз мне хочется опять
от этой невозвратности кричать.
At the end of the poem the poet rages against the irreversibility of death, the impossibility of restoring the people that we lose. One day in class Amy looks up from her book at him as he paces before the board: a rare moment of abandon, arisen from her nighttime readings. Professor Yevtushenko catches her eye. Amy feels the blood flash across her cheekbones. Professor Yevtushenko stops talking mid-sentence. The world turns black around the edges, and in her terror all she sees is him. You will be very beautiful, he says. You must wear lipstick. Amy laughs, and her vision slowly relaxes and expands. Professor Yevtushenko is sixty-five years old, but his face is young except for the depth of his laugh lines. His eyes are bright and full of play. Red, he says, gaze sparkling. Red lipstick. Then he returns to his unfinished discourse on Russian railways.
Amy agrees to go to a youth group meeting with Katie without knowing what exactly youth group meeting means
Amy agrees to go to a youth group meeting with Katie without knowing what exactly youth group meeting means. They drive and drive, over the Arkansas River, out of Tulsa, southwest. They enter and then pass through Sapulpa. Katie talks the whole time, slapping the steering wheel, jostling the clump of keys lolling out of the ignition, turning up and down the radio, swerving. Katie is a terrible driver, but Amy doesn’t care: she has a friend.
At around ten they arrive at a big powdery gravel parking lot overflowing with SUVs and red and blue Chevy pickup trucks. They squeeze into the only spot there is, and since there is no space on her side, Amy scooches over and gets out on her friend’s. Once they’re out they hear bellowing. Amy looks in the direction of the vehement voice and sees a thousand people packed into a square off in the distance. She glances at Katie thinking maybe Katie will want to just go home, but Katie is already heading towards the people.
Amy follows, and when they get there, Katie says something to one of the security guards, who lifts a rope up to let them inside the square. Amy follows Katie deeper and deeper into the people. She holds her breath. The minister is saying spitfire, unconnected things: Laziness is the difference between the five foolish virgins and the five good ones; The fire is being turned up and that is exactly the way it is supposed to be as we head toward the return of Christ; Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie; our position of zero tolerance for homosexuality, same-sex marriage, abortion or murder, fornication, graven images or idols, women or Jezebel preachers.
There is a split second of silence. Then he reads: And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord, But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.
The crowd erupts in cries and hollers, people raising their right hands and dancing around as though there’s music. Amy is frightened and glances at Katie, but Katie has fallen down on the ground. Amy reaches down to help her, but Katie pushes her away. She talks, but Amy can’t understand her. It’s like when her sister had her first seizures, and Amy can’t know what to do. Sweat floods her armpits and her thighs. She starts to take her coat off but can’t maneuver with all the people around. She bends down again to try and hear what Katie is saying, but they language they once seemed to share has turned to quicksand. The boy beside her grapples for her fingers. Amy rips her hand away and takes a step back trying to keep herself from sinking, jamming her heels into someone else’s toes. She whirls around to say she’s sorry and hits the boy beside her in the side with her arm. He takes her by the shoulders, shakes her, explains: Katie has received the holy spirit of the Lord, and that’s why she is speaking this way, in tongues. It is a blessing.
Amy, dizzy, knows that she will faint. She frees herself from the boy’s grasp and takes one last look at Katie and begins to force her way back out through the crowd. The closer she gets to the edge of the square of people, the more air she is able to take in. But the security guards come together and won’t let her leave. They say she has to wait until it’s over. Amy looks at them, from face to face, and then she gives up. She passes out. When she wakes up she is lying in the bed of a truck with a stranger holding her hand. She has to pee. She is overwhelmed by the desire to urinate, infused with a sudden strength; she hops out of the back of the truck and runs across the parking lot and pulls down her jeans and pees leaning back against a dirty old silver Cadillac. Her coat conceals her, mostly. She sinks down lower and lower to the ground, repeating after the minister, quietly, then almost silently, like an echo, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life, and then it’s over, and she pulls her jeans back up and fastens them. She finds Katie’s little Honda Civic by the bumper stickers and slumps down against the left front tire and waits, teeth chattering, although she isn’t really cold.
Zoe has been diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus, which explains the pain, and hemochromatosis, which is a genetic mutation that prevents her body from processing the iron it takes in
Zoe has been diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus, which explains the pain, and hemochromatosis, which is a genetic mutation that prevents her body from processing the iron it takes in. They will drain her blood every few months to help with this. For the lupus they prescribe steroids, an antimalarial, and codeine for use as needed.
They also think her brain tumor might have started growing back.
Amy hangs up the phone and sits down cross-legged on the cheap gray carpet. There is nothing in the world worse than Zoe having her blood taken. What else will they scoop out from her sister’s brain? She cracks her hand down on the floor.
Amy prays without believing, bartering with the void. She will give anything. She will give everything. I’m so sorry, she chants into her hands, please save Zoe please save Zoe please save Zoe, she whispers into the hard cheap carpet, please save please save please