Momma

It’s been too long since Momma sang, and when would she have time! Does she have so little to do that there is time for everything! On birthdays during the clicking of glasses and conversation her friend, the old actor, sits down to the piano. With a joke she dilutes her sorrow, and searches for the music sheets, searches and turns red from shyness and from wine... They will clap respectfully and say: 'Well done! '- but Momma will run to the kitchen with a face grown older. Once she had given concerts face to face with fighting men in austere, frontline forests, tall as a church. Momma’s hands were frozen, her head heavy, and still the sounds would swell as pure as the silence. The driver’s horses, turned gray from the cold, twitched their ears as they breathed and reflected on themselves. The saddle blankets were vaguely white. There had been a snowfall- you can’t tell the blankets apart: the officer’s from the soldier’s... Momma brings out the wine and spreads out the feast. The courteous guests ask Momma to sing something. Momma, I beg you, don’t... You’ll blame yourself later. It’s not your fault- the guests must understand. Let the radio phonograph do the singing and the glasses ring as they come together... Momma, don’t sing, for God’s sake! Momma, don’t torture me! 1957 Translated by Albert C. Todd