I don’t know [1]
Jurij Br?zan [2]
Translated by xia23
Once I traveled to Sweden. Between Sassnitz and Trelleborg, ice floes were floating. In my luggage there was a large bottle of Czech slivovitz, perhaps for Swedish winter, perhaps as a gift for someone.
The eye of the customs officer caught the newspaper, in which I had wrapped the slivovitz. He asked for the paper, covered -- without look – now only the naked bottle with my pajamas and looked at the newspaper. There were women in costumes which he had not seen before. He said, his great hobby was folklore. I explained that the costumes were Sorbian folk costumes, and I was a Sorbian. The officer can’t remember, to have ever seen a living representative of the smallest Slavic people.
Because his shift ended and he was heading for Stockholm anyway, he stayed and sat in my compartment and had thousand questions. On his railway map, I showed him where we live – that is in the southeast of GDR – answered the first dozen of his questions and opened the bottle. We drank together, the Swedish and Sobian ways. That was a good opportunity to devote ourselves to folk customs.
We had lively conversations. The note book of the officer was quickly filled up, and the bottle didn’t empty very slowly. As there was more atmosphere than slivovitz, we turned to folk fairy tales. He, the officer, was very happy to hear so many about them. I, the traveler, was very happy to have a curious listener, and because we were both very happy, slivovitz came to an end. We did not form an eternal brotherhood, but the letters, which the customs officer wrote in his notebook, turned into giant letters. The fairy tales spun around in my head, and I said: “I know nothing more.”
But I remember Jakub Kuschk, the miller and master trumpeter, when he asked his friend something and he answered: “I don’t know.”
“I-don’t-know is a boring place”, said Jakub Kuschk. “I was once there. I met a girl, slim at the waist like a water fairy, and bulging at the bottom like a sack of flour. I asked her, do you want to go with me. I don’t know, said she. I took her by the hand, it was summer. I asked, do you want to drink something. I don’t know, said she. I bought her some pretzels to eat and gave her wine to drink and led her into the meadow. I built us a hay bed and asked her, don’t you want to lie down. I don’t know, said she. I took her clothes off. She helped me with stumps, because of the fabric, and elsewhere, because of my clumsiness and her impatience. I kissed her from ear to toe, downwards and upwards. She curled like a hedgehog. I asked her, do you want to be a spinster forever. I don’t know, said she, and I pulled the hay bale over her head - I-don’t-know is the boring place I know.”
When we arrived in Stockholm, the main train station stood there twice. I don’t know, why.
[1]. p. 57. Ich Weiss nicht. Kontakt mit der Zeit. Dieter Stöpfgeshoff. Max Hueber Verlag. Germany, 1995.
[2]. Jurij Br?zan. 6/9/1916 – 3/12/2006. A Sobian writer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurij_Br%C4%9Bzan
