A Room without Shadows
by Andriy Sodomora
Translated from the Ukrainian by Sabrina Jaszi and Roman Ivashkiv
Once, on New Year’s Eve, when large fluffy snowflakes began falling thick and fast as though to order, I went out, as always at that time, to wander the streets of old Lviv. I turned down a narrow lane, which, unexpectedly, was deserted despite its central location. Everything there appeared unalterable, embossed on the ages, like the dedication etched on the stone body of a building or monument. It seemed that the narrowness of that street had always been subsumed by thick fluffy snow—from before the beginning of time, as it would be forever, so long as the world existed. And there’d be no end to the abundant snowfall nor to the cosmic silence it underscored.
As I walked, I glanced up inadvertently at the illuminated windows. From the corner of my eye—into an unfamiliar world concealed from outside glances. Behind patterned cur tains, flowered voile, and heavy drapes—only vague shapes and blurry orbs of yellowish, green, and pink light from desk and floor lamps . . . As many different worlds as windows. All on its own, the mind will creep behind what’s hidden from the eye, painting a picture of cozy domesticity and of those enjoy- ing it (who are not in the habit of roaming the city streets just before New Year’s) . . .
Suddenly, I stopped. There before me was a bare window without even the sheerest covering, and in an instant I took in the whole room: It was lit by a bright incandescent bulb dangling from the ceiling on a long wire. In the middle of the room, on a little stool directly under that light, sat an old woman, wrapped in some dark garment, her head covered by a dark kerchief. Hunched low over a bucket, she was peeling potatoes. On the floor in a corner by the bed was a pile of stuff—old clothes. Nothing else and no one else. Not even a shadow or a shade of color: the naked bulb flooded the barren room with a blinding, and in no way cozy, light . . .
I couldn’t see the woman’s face: It was hidden by the kerchief, which had fallen down over her forehead. Nor was there anything to look at in the room. Time slipped away from me, and I stood there mesmerized; something wouldn’t let me step away from the window . . . And the snow kept falling, even more quickly and heavily in the strip of bright light emanating from that uncovered window. And it seemed like the snow was falling not only outside the window but there, inside the room, landing heavily on the shoulders of that solitary woman.
There was nothing to break my trance. Not a soul turned onto the street to make me feel embarrassed by my curiosity. Nor did it appear that the woman would ever raise her dejected eyes . . . Also, it seemed to me that not only had the snow’s unvaried descent and the unearthly silence always existed, but that they would continue eternally in the narrowness of that desolate street. So too would the woman in the uncovered window always remain hunched over her potatoes, as though locked in endless contemplation . . .
And so it was. It’s been a long time since I’ve roamed the streets of old Lviv on New Year’s Eve: The sweet anticipation of something new and unusual no longer caresses my soul, not even in dreams, nor when evening snowfall paints over the gray monotony of everyday life. But as soon as the last day of December dwindles to a close, it’s like I’m standing, as I once did, long ago, on deserted Staroievreiska Street in front of that uncovered window. I see the same relentless snowfall, heavy on the shoulders of that recluse, all wrapped up in dark cloth- ing, hunched over her potatoes in the middle of an empty room without even a shadow beside her.
“A Room without Shadows” is excerpted from Andriy Sodomora’s The Tears and Smiles of Things which is now available from Academic Studies Press.
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