{"id":272006,"date":"2009-06-19T13:56:08","date_gmt":"2009-06-19T13:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2009\/06\/19\/mustafa-by-nikolai-grozni-guardian-short-stories-from-eastern-europe\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T17:19:50","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T17:19:50","slug":"mustafa-by-nikolai-grozni-guardian-short-stories-from-eastern-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2009\/06\/19\/mustafa-by-nikolai-grozni-guardian-short-stories-from-eastern-europe\/","title":{"rendered":""Mustafa" by Nikolai Grozni [Guardian Short Stories from Eastern Europe]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s installment in “The Guardian<\/em>‘s” week of Eastern European stories is Mustafa<\/a> by Nikolai Grozni. By far the funniest piece of the week, “Mustafa” centers around a funereal gone awry:<\/p>\n

\n

In any event, questioning the authenticity of my grandmother’s body at her funeral was not the proper thing to do. Then again, I had been away from Eastern Europe for ten years. I had a good excuse to act inappropriately. So, I walked over to the two gypsies and asked them where they’d found the body. I thought it a perfect question: I didn’t challenge their right to choose which body we should bury at my grandmother’s funeral, and I certainly didn’t threaten to disrupt the funeral ceremony, already in progress. Just a casual question, an offhand remark, as it were. Nothing serious. Where did you guys find this body?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

“You don’t think that’s her nose?” countered the younger one. “Mustafa, you tell him.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

“My friend,” said Mustafa, blinking very slowly, “this is definitely your grandmother’s nose. I’ve been around. I know what a nose looks like.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

“But you don’t even know my grandmother,” I objected, trying not to raise my voice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

“You should listen to what this man says,” the younger gypsy advised me. “He’s been in the piano delivery business for thirty years. He can tell a Zimerman from a Bosendorf from a hundred meters with his eyes closed, and with the wind blowing in the opposite direction.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

“I think I know this guy,” said Mustafa, pointing at me. “Didn’t we deliver a Petroff to your house fifteen years ago? A good lower register, somewhat tinny as the notes get higher?”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

“Probably you did,” I conceded. “You must have.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

“What do you know,” said Mustafa, raising his hands toward the sky. “Now I come to deliver your grandmother.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s installment in “The Guardian‘s” week of Eastern European stories is Mustafa by Nikolai Grozni. By far the funniest piece of the week, “Mustafa” centers around a funereal gone awry: In any event, questioning the authenticity of my grandmother’s body at her funeral was not the proper thing to do. Then again, I had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[25056,1836,196,25066,25076],"class_list":["post-272006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-bulgarian-literature","tag-cwp","tag-guardian","tag-mustafa","tag-nikolai-grozni"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352206,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272006\/revisions\/352206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}