Ирина Одарчук Паули Повидло роман перевод на англ

Prologue
In a small town, lost among hills and apple orchards, lived a woman named Margarita. Her hands knew a thing or two about jam, but marmalade… Marmalade was her passion. Thick, dark, with a slight sourness - it reminded her of life itself: sweet, but not cloying, with a hint of sadness.
One day a stranger knocked on her door...

Chapter 1. The Last Harvest
The autumn of 1987 was unusually generous. Apples, plums, quince - everything was asking to be put into a copper basin to turn into something more than just fruit.
Margarita stood at the stove, stirring the boiling mass. The aroma of cinnamon and cloves enveloped the kitchen like a warm blanket. She was making jam according to a recipe inherited from her grandmother, a recipe she treasured like the apple of her eye.
But this time something went wrong...

Chapter 2. An Unexpected Guest
A knock on the door broke the silence. A man in a tattered raincoat stood on the threshold. His eyes were the color of ripe plums.
“I’m told you make the best jam in the area,” he whispered.
Margarita felt a chill run down her spine.
- Who told you?
“The wind,” the stranger smiled. “And I’m ready to pay for your recipe.”
- It's not for sale.
“Everything is for sale,” said the man and took an antique spoon out of his pocket.
Margarita recognized it. It was her mother's spoon...

Chapter 3. The Secret of the Copper Basin
It turned out the stranger knew more about her family than she did. The spoon was just the beginning. He told her that the jam recipe wasn't just a way to roll fruit into jars. It was the key.
“For what?” asked Margarita.
— Towards eternity.

Chapter 4. Blood and Sugar
The stranger introduced himself as Victor. He was sitting at the kitchen table, slowly stirring a cup of tea with a spoon, which he had not touched.
"Your recipe isn't just jam, Margot," he said, his voice suddenly deeper, as if it were coming from underground. "It has that ingredient."
“What nonsense?” She laughed nervously, but her hand automatically reached for the copper basin where the last portion of jam was burning.
"Blood," Victor whispered. "All the women in your family added it to jam. Not on purpose, of course. They just... cut their fingers while cooking. Or cried into the cauldron.
Margarita remembered how, as a child, she saw her grandmother, gritting her teeth, holding her cut finger over the boiling mass. "Otherwise it won't thicken," she said.
“Why do you need this?” asked Margarita, but she already knew the answer.
Victor smiled, and at that moment the light of the lamp flickered.
- I'm hungry.

Chapter 5. Shadows in the Cellar
She didn't remember how she agreed to go down to the cellar. Victor walked ahead, and his shadow on the stone walls was too big. In the corner stood jars of jam - last year's, the year before, even pre-war.
“Open it,” he ordered, pointing to one of them.
Margarita tore off the lid with trembling hands. Instead of jam, a black mass was moving inside.
- This is not...
“It’s them,” Victor interrupted. “The ones your family has been feeding all these years.”
A whisper came from the jar: "Margo... help..."
The voice belonged to her mother.

Chapter 6. Contract
"You're the last of your kind," Victor said. "If you don't pass on the recipe, they'll stay there forever."
- Who are they?
- Those who ate your jam.
She suddenly understood why there were so many lonely deaths in their family. Why the neighbors whispered that "the Sedovs' apples were cursed."
- What if I refuse?
Victor leaned towards her ear:
- Then you'll be next in the bank.

Chapter 7. The Last Brew
At dawn, Margarita lit a fire under the cauldron. Victor sat on the porch and watched her cut apples.
“Don’t forget the main thing,” he reminded.
She ran the knife across her palm. Blood dripped into the sugar.
The cauldron hissed.
Somewhere in the cellar, jars began to jingle.

Chapter 8. Awakening
The blood mixed with sugar, and the jam in the cauldron sighed.
Margarita recoiled - the thick mass darkened, began to bubble, and suddenly... began to speak.
"Free us," it whispered in voices she recognized from childhood. Grandmother. Great-grandmother. Aunt Lyuda, who disappeared during the war.
Victor stood up and his eyes turned completely black.
- Now cook.
But Margarita didn't move. Her head was pounding: "They're in jam. They've always been in jam."

Chapter 9. The One Who Came for Victor
The door swung open with a bang.
There was a boy standing on the threshold. About ten years old. In his hands was an empty glass jar.
“Enough,” he said in an old man’s voice.
Victor howled.
- You!
Margarita recognized the child - it was Misha, the butcher's son, who had died thirty years ago. His photograph hung in the local church.
"He tricked you," Misha pointed at Victor. "These aren't the souls of your family. These are what he turned into them."
The jars in the cellar shook.

Chapter 10. The True Recipe
Misha stepped towards the cauldron.
“Real jam is not made from blood,” he threw a handful of earth into the boiling mass. “But from memory.”
The cauldron roared.
Victor rushed forward, but it was too late - the jam came to life. The dark mass rose, taking the form of a woman in an old-fashioned dress.
“Mom…” Margarita whispered.
"Break the cans," said the shadow.

Chapter 11. Liberation
Cellar.
Margarita hit the jars one after another with a hammer. Light burst out of each one - and something went through the walls.
Behind him, the fight thundered: Misha against Victor, light against darkness.
The last can.
The lid flew off with a clang, and...
Silence.

Chapter 12. New Day
Morning.
Margarita was sitting on the porch. In the cauldron, ordinary apple jam was boiling - thick, amber, without a shadow.
A stranger appeared on the road. A man in a shabby raincoat.
"Is your jam really the best in the area?" he asked.
Margarita smiled and reached for the knife.


Epilogue. The Last Spoon
One year later.
At the city fair they were selling an unusual jam - dark, with a barely perceptible taste of smoke and... something unrecognizable. People lined up, whispering:
"They say it heals. They say it remembers."
Margarita stood behind the counter, smiling serenely. On her wrist glittered a strange bracelet, woven from dark threads that looked too much like roots.
And in the basement of her new house there were rows of clean, empty jars.
And one of them…
…was slightly open.