The blue and white graffiti on the alley wall reads
Kes kannatab, see kaua elab. „Do you have English?“
the old man asks a passerby. „Can you tell me what
this means?“ The young woman he’s stopped says,
„Of course! It is „Who suffers the most, lives the longest““
and this is why the old man is thinking about suffering
as he follows the sound of singing down the steep hill
to the festival by the edge of the Emajõgi.
He has seen a poster pasted to a door and after puzzled
head-scratching deciphers Supilinn as „Soup Down.“ /---/
As he hobbles down to Soup Town,
he admires an old, gnarled plum, tortured yet still flowering –
Just as I am, he thinks – surely this passion for growing food
is a remnant of the years of occupation.
/---/
When he reaches the park
overlooking the Emajõgi, there is no soup.
People have spread blankets and sheets covered with used
books and toys, worn jeans, all for sale. He asks the man selling
ancient postcards, „Where is the soup?“ and the man says, „Ah,
Soup Town is what we call this place. Poor people lived here
and had many gardens and each street is a food: Melon, Berry,
Pea, Potato. Mix streets together, make a good soup!“
He laughs and the old man laughs too. He sees the boy,
standing on a large wooden swing with ten others, sailing up
and down above a chattering, laughing crowd. /---/
A girl races past him, waving a torch which she
plunges into a huge pile of dry evergreen brush and the dusk
comes alive with towering fire. Showering sparks singe the old
man’s face and he steps back into the shelter of the crowd.
/---/
The old man has forgotten his hunger. His heart is humming,
drunk as bees in pollen time. It’s time to swing,
it’s time to sing, it is time to laugh in Soup Town
where there is no soup yet the twisted trees in flower, each chorus
sounding in the night, the fire itself breathes
Endure, Endure, Endure and you will triumph.
Asukoht teoses
lk 122–126
