Dubravka Ugrešić - Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

Through the car window Kukla watched the clouds, white and weightless as beaten egg white. She let her thoughts run once again over the list of things she had to do. She had to buy a new computer and would have to start looking round schools. That would be a challenging task, to find out which were the best schools. And then, maybe Wawa would want to go to ballet school, and music school, and skating, oh, there were so many things! Kukla decided that she would sell her flat and put all the money in one place, and then she and Beba could talk everything over, how, what and when. Because who knows how much longer she would be on hand for Wawa. If she had inherited lucky genes, and it seemed as though she had, she would be in this world for a while yet, absorbed in a new, wonderful and unique task – Wawa! She would be Wawa’s auntie, Wawa’s auntie Kukla. But if she thought about it all, perhaps it wasn’t so important that she and Beba should plan things in advance. Perhaps they ought to instill something different into Wawa, some learning that would make her wise, something that no school in the world could give her.

Beba too was composing a list in her head. First of all she would have to take herself in hand and put her neglected body in motion. She would need her body because of – Wawa. There, things were suddenly crystal clear. She would have to renew her driving licence, she’d neglected that as well, and buy a new car. Otherwise, who would drive Wawa to kindergarten, to school, to ballet, if she wanted, and music school, if she wanted, and to foreign language classes, if she wanted that as well? Perhaps she, Beba, would be able to enrol in a Chinese class? Admittedly Wawa did not know a word of Chinese, but what if she wanted one day to see her Chinese homeland? Then she, Beba, would have to accompany her, and knowing Chinese would come in handy. As soon as they got back, she would sell her small flat, put all the money in one heap, and talk things over with Kukla. They’d sit down and talk it through. They’d certainly need to buy a shared house, a wonderful house, with a large garden with fruit trees in it. And one big walnut tree, for shade. That would be Pupa’s tree, in her memory; after all, it was she, the old witch, who had stirred this all up. And they’d plant a raspberry patch, so that she could make Wawa raspberry jam. There’d be a little kennel in the garden for a dog, for a rabbit, a tortoise, a hedgehog, whatever Wawa wanted. And a little studio in the garden, so that Wawa and her future friends could learn to draw, and perhaps, who knows, she herself would return to the dreams of her youth and finally start painting real pictures. In her mind Beba touched wood: just let her stay well, and let her see Wawa start secondary school. Wawa would study, they would have to help her choose the best university. But on the other hand, when she came to think of it, she had a degree and it had never done her much good. Perhaps Wawa ought to learn other, more important things. Life was an endless garden filled with hidden Easter eggs. Some people collected basketfuls, others did not find a single one. Perhaps that was what they ought to teach Wawa: how to be a hunter, a hunter of wonders. Not to miss anything, to enjoy every second, for life is the only thing we are given free of charge. Beba suddenly felt immense gratitude to her son. She felt that all those drawers in her that she had kept closed for years were opening and she was now breathing freely. At this moment nothing else mattered, all that mattered was this enchanting creature. Ah, those little cheeks, those thick, calm eyelashes, those eyebrows like wings and that breath, oh God, that sweet child’s breath…

‘Don’t you think she looks a bit like Filip?’ whispered Beba.

‘Of course, of course she does…’ said Kukla, who had never seen Filip, not even in a photograph.

Through the car window Kukla looked at the landscapes that were slowly moving past them. The sky was blue, the grass green, the trees with their dense branches were casting sharp shadows, and between the shadows, as though jumping over invisible strings, large black crows were scampering. And the clouds, the clouds were gushing over the sky like the foam of beaten egg whites.

Wawa was curled up inside Pupa’s boot with her puppy in her arms, sleeping. Out of the boot poked her little hand, in which she was firmly clutching Mevlo’s wooden ladle. And then, just as though she could feel Beba and Kukla’s thoughts swarming over her, she wriggled, scratched her little nose with her free hand and – went back to sleep. Beba and Kukla, each for herself, stroked the side of the fur boot protectively and daydreamed…

What about us? Our work is done, a bitter-sweet feat, but a treat-filled one: roast chickens fell out of the blue, drumsticks for us and bones for you! We were there to drink wine fresh from the vine: with Pupa from a mug, with Kukla from a jug, with Beba from a flask – a toast to our task. We must leave them here and wish them good cheer! If you want any more, don’t knock at our door!

Slavic Folklore Studies

Joensuu Yliopisto, University of Joensuu

PO Box 111

FI-80101 Joensuu

Finland

Dear Editor,

I must admit how surprised I was to get your letter. I do not know how you came to choose me out of all the excellent scholars in Folklore Studies. I only joined this university recently and haven’t yet gained the sort of reputation here or in international academic circles for my name to mean anything to you. Of course I am pleased that you turned to me, but I must warn you before we go any further that, although I do indeed specialise in Slavic folklore, myths and ritual traditions, this does not make me an expert on your topic by any means. Secondly, I am under a good deal of pressure trying to finish a book about ‘Bulgarian popular beliefs related to childbirth’, and unfortunately I won’t be able to give as much time as I would like to answering your questions. Be this as it may, flattered by your trust in my ability, as also by a wish to maintain this contact (which, who knows, may be more than coincidence!), I have read the manuscript you sent me with pleasure. I confess that the brevity of the text contributed not a little to my enjoyment.

As far as I gather from your accompanying letter, your author undertook to provide a text based on the myth of Baba Yaga. By the way, I was touched by your admission that you ‘don’t have a clue’ about Baba Yaga yourself. Nevertheless, you only have to surf the Net a bit to see that, while Baba Yaga may not be Oprah Winfrey or Princess Diana, she isn’t a completely obscure mythical nonentity either. A shamanist group in northern Holland is named after her; likewise a table-lamp shop somewhere in Poland, a Polish–American magazine ( Baba Yaga’s Corner ), a home for the elderly and infirm, a family hotel and a language school in Germany. Restaurants, patisseries and health-food shops seem to be drawn to the name Baba Yaga, a circumstance which, bearing in mind Baba Yaga’s own culinary preferences, is not without its amusing side. A number of fitness centres also bear her name, maybe because their owners think Baba Yaga must have some connection with – yoga?! There is a German dressmaking business called ‘Baba Yaga’, a Dutch ‘spiritual website’ (where interested parties can purchase crystal balls and teapots) and a women’s choral society, likewise Dutch. The character of Baba Yaga has also served as an artistic stimulus to theatre companies and pop groups, art projects, film directors, comic strips and animators, the authors of graphic and non-graphic books, horror and porno websites, blogs and adverts. For example, there is a Serbian advertising slogan for the Porsche Carrera GT: ‘the Baba Roga of the roads’ – Baba Roga being the Serbian equivalent of the Russian Baba Yaga.