vsyo zdes' zamerlo do utra
This is the Russian astronaut's afterlife:
Ne slyshny v sadu dazhe shorokhi,
Vsyo zdes' zamerlo do utra.
Esli b znali vy, kak mne dorogi
Podmoskovnye vechera.
She runs, she reads, she has sex with Owen, she stares up at the moon and makes it vanish with her thumb.
(Occasionally, she eats; more often, she gets drunk.)
Rechka dvizhetsya i ne dvizhetsya,
Vsya iz lunnogo serebra.
Pesnya slyshitsya i ne slyshitsya
V eti tikhie vechera.
She makes a model of a MiG-21PF, supergluing it together and carefully, carefully, carefully painting the correct colours.
Chto zh by, milaya, smotrish' iskosa,
Nizko golovu naklonyaya?
Trudno vyskazat' i ne vyskazat'
Vsyo, chto na serdtse u menya.
But mostly, the Russian astronaut sits and she remembers.
A rassvet uzhe vsyo zametnee.
Tak, pozhaluysta, bud' dobra.
Ne zabud' i ty eti letnie
Podmoskovnye vechera.
She remembers the sun over Stalingrad's streets, she remembers consuming science fiction novels while her aunt cooked, she remembers Vasili asking her to come to the cinema with him, she remembers learning how to fix a car and seeing the Kremlin and she remembers the first time she flew.
She remembers training with the others, with Yuri and Viktor and Aleksei and Irina and Valentina and- she remembers that Yuri damn well owes her a drink. She remembers living in Star City, just outside Moscow, and having to hitchhike as they didn't have cars.
She remembers meeting the Chief Designer.
She remembers being launched out into space.
She remembers seeing the dark side of the moon.
She remembers seeing the Earth, fragile and blue and home and a planet instead of the ground under her feet.
Even whispers aren't heard in the garden,
Everything has died down till morning.
If you only knew how dear to me
Are these Moscow nights.
The river moves, unmoving,
All in silver moonlight.
A song is heard, yet unheard,
In these silent nights.
Why do you, dear, look askance,
With your head lowered so?
It is hard to express, and hard to hold back,
Everything that my heart holds.
But the dawn's becoming ever brighter.
So please, just be good.
Don't you, too, forget
These summer, Moscow nights.
She remembers waiting to die far more clearly than anything else in her life.
(and unable to take it, she picks up her model MiG
my only true love
and smashes it)
Ne slyshny v sadu dazhe shorokhi,
Vsyo zdes' zamerlo do utra.
Esli b znali vy, kak mne dorogi
Podmoskovnye vechera.
She runs, she reads, she has sex with Owen, she stares up at the moon and makes it vanish with her thumb.
(Occasionally, she eats; more often, she gets drunk.)
Rechka dvizhetsya i ne dvizhetsya,
Vsya iz lunnogo serebra.
Pesnya slyshitsya i ne slyshitsya
V eti tikhie vechera.
She makes a model of a MiG-21PF, supergluing it together and carefully, carefully, carefully painting the correct colours.
Chto zh by, milaya, smotrish' iskosa,
Nizko golovu naklonyaya?
Trudno vyskazat' i ne vyskazat'
Vsyo, chto na serdtse u menya.
But mostly, the Russian astronaut sits and she remembers.
A rassvet uzhe vsyo zametnee.
Tak, pozhaluysta, bud' dobra.
Ne zabud' i ty eti letnie
Podmoskovnye vechera.
She remembers the sun over Stalingrad's streets, she remembers consuming science fiction novels while her aunt cooked, she remembers Vasili asking her to come to the cinema with him, she remembers learning how to fix a car and seeing the Kremlin and she remembers the first time she flew.
She remembers training with the others, with Yuri and Viktor and Aleksei and Irina and Valentina and- she remembers that Yuri damn well owes her a drink. She remembers living in Star City, just outside Moscow, and having to hitchhike as they didn't have cars.
She remembers meeting the Chief Designer.
She remembers being launched out into space.
She remembers seeing the dark side of the moon.
She remembers seeing the Earth, fragile and blue and home and a planet instead of the ground under her feet.
Even whispers aren't heard in the garden,
Everything has died down till morning.
If you only knew how dear to me
Are these Moscow nights.
The river moves, unmoving,
All in silver moonlight.
A song is heard, yet unheard,
In these silent nights.
Why do you, dear, look askance,
With your head lowered so?
It is hard to express, and hard to hold back,
Everything that my heart holds.
But the dawn's becoming ever brighter.
So please, just be good.
Don't you, too, forget
These summer, Moscow nights.
She remembers waiting to die far more clearly than anything else in her life.
(and unable to take it, she picks up her model MiG
my only true love
and smashes it)