LITMIR.BIZ

       Rose Jam

      Take five ounces of rose petals. Prepare a thin syrup from half a quart of water and two pounds of sugar, boiling it until it thickens slightly; add the rose petals and simmer for a bit. When the mixture thickens, add one teaspoon of citric acid mixed with a small amount of lukewarm water. After five minutes, remove the jam from the heat and pour into warmed jars.

Nettles

      Otherwise, the summer rolled on freely and easily. Mama came home from her job less and less often. Maruna and Klement were on the school work brigades, picking peppers and tomatoes in the fields around Aitos. On his bike or in his dog buggy, Grandpa flew between the hotel, the pigsty, and the monastery, while Grandma finished up the interior of the house’s top floor, which didn’t stop her from renting out two rooms on the second floor and even the cellar. Czech girls smelling of suntan lotion and wearing high heels picked their way through the plaster, nails, and construction debris, and in the evening, when they didn’t go out dancing at the restaurants, they’d listen to my grandma’s life story, sitting under our fig tree with homemade brandy and fresh tomatoes, wearing concerned expressions and clucking their tongues in sympathy.

      Once my grandma rented out our cellar room to two Czech girls, so we had to sleep under the porch where there wasn’t even a window. Right from the very beginning, I didn’t like them. They looked down on me and rattled on in their language, thinking I couldn’t understand them. I heard one of them say that I was a dirty little Gypsy and that our house was totally disgusting. Another time one of them kicked over the little house I’d made for the hedgehog—the newest resident of my garden. She laughed as I scrambled to pick up the pieces. I swore to get revenge. I didn’t care that she was so much older than me, the stupid cow.

      Rufi and I often went swimming in the Devil’s River, at the point where it ran into the sea. We’d catch little water snakes there and play with them; they were rubbery, dry, and fascinating. When we’d had enough of them, we would let them go back into the water. That day, while I was telling Rufi about the new Czech girls, all of a sudden a brilliant plan for revenge dawned on me. All day we gathered up water snakes and managed to fill up two jam jars. Rufi also insisted that we arm ourselves with another jarful of green grasshoppers, just in case. In the afternoon, while the Czechs were at the beach, we snuck into their room, opened up the jars and quickly slipped back out. Then we quietly began crafting a door for our wooden fort in the garden, waiting for the Czechs to return. We didn’t want to miss the show. They eventually turned up in all their sweaty glory, stuffed into their skimpy beach dresses and clucking, “Ahoy, ahoy,” then disappeared into the cool basement. For a few moments all was silent.

      “Maybe they didn’t come out of the jars or they died from their perfume,” Rufi suggested.

      Through screened window we could hear the splashing of the water in the bathroom and their cheerful chattering. Then out of the darkness of their room we heard the sound of creaking springs. They’d lain down on the bed, tired out from the beach. Even though Nikula had forbidden me from entering the guests’ rooms, I’d frequently succumbed to the temptation of looking through their things.

      “Their room is such a pigsty that they must’ve gotten lost,” I guessed.

      At that moment unearthly screams erupted. We were so startled that we dropped our tools and hurled ourselves at the window.

      “Jeeeeeesus, Maaaaary and Jooooooseph!” they screamed, and threw everything they could get their hands on.