Today in our complex work brigade
A rumour passed about the masquerade, -
We were given the masks of rabbits,
Elephants and man with drinking habits,
All this to take place in zoo on Sunday.

"Why do we have to go dressed like on parade -
Tell me, my joy, please, for Christ sake?"
She said:" Put on the suite!"
Sort of, I’m ashamed of you,
If not, she said, you’ll walk behind me, as always.

"I took the dress, she says, from Nadya1 -
I will look now like Marina Vlady2
And I’ll spend, even if I burst and die,
My hours of Sunday night
Though with your drunken mug, but dressed like lady!"

...So why did I iron myself and floss -
They caught me right here in the zoo kiosk, -
For our recreation guy Tolik3
Gave me the mask of alcoholic -
And I was invited to split three ways4 with blocks5.

Again, I end up in zoo all of a sudden:
Lo and behold - two wife’s, well, two Marina Vlady!
Dressed like animals,
Together with two hippos, -
I’m also became a beast, and stood in ambush in the garden.

In the morning I received an award in the brigade,
They told me, that during the masquerade
Not only I allegedly
Played the role of alcoholic,
But I was in hippo’s enclosure all day.
1 Nadya (Nadezhda) - Russian female name.
2 Marina Vlady - french actress, later was married to Vladimir Vysotsky.
3 Tolik (Anatoly) - Russian male name. I’ve changed the name from Kol’ka (Nikolai).
4 Split three ways - During the Soviet era the price of the bottle of vodka was around three rubles. Most of working class people (and alcoholics) couldn’t afford to buy it on their own. The drunks were congregating around the shops and looking for a third man, because then, each of the man contributed one ruble and could by half a liter of vodka and split it three ways. They usually ask passers by "Will you be the third man?"
5 Blocks - men (Commonly used in Australia).
 
© Anatoli Trojanowski. Translation, 2018