初七日のポレンタ　英文

I came home from school one day to find a strange man in the kitchen. He was making something on the stove, peering intently into a saucepan.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ I asked him. It was a week since my father died.
The man said, ‘Shh. Not now. Just a minute.’ He had a strong foreign accent.
I recognised that he was concentrating and said, ‘What’s that you’re making?’
This time he glanced at me. ‘Polenta,’ he said.
I went over to the stove and looked inside the saucepan. The stuff was yellowy, sticky, a thick semolina. ‘That looks disgusting,’ I told him, and then went in search of my mother.
I found her in the garden. ‘Mum, there’s a man in the kitchen. He’s cooking. He says he’s making polenta.’
‘Yes, darling? Polenta?’ said my mother. I began to suspect she might not be much help. I wished my father were here. ‘I’m not exactly sure what that is,’ my mother said vaguely.
‘Mum, I don’t care about the polenta. Who is he? What’s he doing in our kitchen?’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed my mother. She was wearing a thin flowery summer dress, and I noticed suddenly how thin she was. My mother, I thought. Everything seemed to pile on top of me and I found myself unexpectedly crying. ‘Don’t cry, love,’ said my mother. ‘It’s all right. He’s our new lodger.’ She hugged me.
I wiped my eyes, sniffing. ‘Lodger?’
‘With your father gone,’ my mother explained, ‘I’m afraid I’m having to let one of the spare rooms.’ She turned and began to walk back towards the house. We could see the lodger in the kitchen, moving about. I put my hand on my mother’s arm to stop her going inside.
‘Is he living here then?’ I asked. ‘With us? I mean, will he eat with us and something?’
‘This is his home now,’ said my mother. ‘We must make him feel at home.’ She added, as if it were an afterthought, ‘His name’s Konstantin. He’s Russian.’ Then she went inside.
I paused to take in this information. A Russian. This sounded exotic and interesting and made me inclined to forgive his rudeness. I watched my mother enter the kitchen. Konstantin the Russian looked up and a smile lighted up his face. ‘Maria!’ He opened his arms and she went up to him. They kissed on both cheeks. My mother looked around and beckoned to me.
‘This is my daughter,’ she said. There was a note in her voice that I couldn’t identify. She stretched out her hand to me.
‘Ah! You must be Anna,’ the Russian said.
I was startled, not expecting him to have my name so readily on his lips. I looked at my mother. She was giving nothing away. The Russian held out his hands and said, ‘Konstantin. I am very pleased to meet you. I have heard so much about you.’
We shook hands. I wanted to know how he had heard so much about me, but couldn’t think of a way of asking, at least not with my mother there.
The Russian turned back to his cooking. He seemed familiar with our kitchen. He sprinkled salt and pepper over the top of the mass of semolina-like substance, and then carried it through to the living room. For some reason, my mother and I followed him. We all sat in armchairs and looked at one another. I thought I was the only one who felt any sense of unease.
When I got home late next evening, Konstantin and my mother were deep in conversation over dinner. There were candles on the table.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘Are you hungry, darling?’ said my mother. ‘We’ve left you some. It’s in the kitchen.’
I was starving. ‘No thanks,’ I said sullenly, ‘I’m fine.’
Though it was early, I went upstairs to bed.
Later I heard my mother’s footsteps on the stairs. She came into my room and leant over me. I kept my eyes closed and breathed deeply. ‘Anna?’ she said, ‘Anna, are you awake?’
I remained silent.
‘I know you’re awake,’ she said.
There was a pause. I was on the point of giving in when she spoke again. She said, ‘Your father never loved me. You should not have had to know this. He did not love me.’ She spoke each word with a terrible clarity, as if trying to burn it into my brain. I squeezed my eyes tight. Rigid in my bed, I waited for my mother to leave the room, wondering if I would get over all this with time.