Rain in Skopje by Anna Terék

In Macedonia I hardly pay / attention to anything / but myself, / it’s strange how my mother / just keeps laughing, / Dad’s shoulders are so wide / he hides the sun / from us. – Anna Terék's poem Rain in Skopje translated by Kristen Herbert.

10 March 2021

Rain in Skopje 

by Anna Terék

Translated by Kristen Herbert

Have you ever been to Macedonia?
That’s where the sun shines, just like this.
The city became yellow from the dry
gnashing heat.

That’s where Dad worked,
in yellow Macedonia.
We went down there in the summer,
I remember how I used to curl up
inside the searing hot train car,
and for twenty-three hours,
we’d sit
my skin sticking ceaselessly
to the plastic leather seats.

Dad waits for us in Skopje
with a Greek driver. We all laugh,
the summer squeezing our shoulders,
the bits of dust couldn’t cover
my mother,
Dad manages all the bags,
we stand and we all just laugh,
then the rain pours down on our heads.

Dad’s cigarette butts soak
in the ashtray next to me.
I look up at the rooftops, the white sky
and the raindrops pouring out of it,
it doesn’t stop for days,
soaks the horse
tied to the lamppost
whose head hangs, then
you just wait
for the water
to mix into mud.

In Macedonia I hardly pay
attention to anything
but myself,
it’s strange how my mother
just keeps laughing,
Dad’s shoulders are so wide
he hides the sun
from us.

And I remember
how my father stood in Skopje,
facing our train car
at the station.
Behind us gypsies
play their trumpets,
and my father laughs sadly,
he says he’d give anything, if only
we’d stay and bother him still.
My mom giggles like a little girl,
and the conductor stares at us,
it’s good my father doesn’t notice
my sister and I are blushing.

He waves mournfully,
and all of Macedonia turns black.
My dad seemed so big and strong
there in Skopje’s station,
I thought he’d protect us
from anything, I shouldn’t fear,
but he didn’t
protect us, sir,
mostly from
himself.

And I sat silently until Belgrade,
my face sweaty
under my glasses,
and I would have liked to sleep
until I could hide again
behind my father’s wide shoulders.

Anna Terék / Photo: Gábor ValuskaAnna Terék is the author of five collections of poetry and drama, including Danube Street (Duna utca) Vajdaság Feast and Dead Women (Hallott nők), which received the Géza Csáth and János Sziveri Prizes. Her work has been translated into English, Spanish, Turkish, Croatian, German and Polish, among other languages. Her most recent collection, Back on the Sun (Háttal a napnak), was awarded the Milán Füst award last December. Kristen Herbert asks her about her process writing Back on the Sun.

Kristen Herbert moved from Chicago to rural Hungary in 2016 as an English teacher, after which she moved to Budapest and studied literary translation at the Balassi Institute. Her translations have appeared in Asymptote Blog Translation Tuesdays, Waxwing Journal, and Columbia Journal Online. Her original fiction can be found in Cleaver Magazine and Panel Magazine.

HLO HU