Sliding on the Snow Stone

  There were many other lost souls wandering around, but Father and I kept ourselves away from the pack as much as we could, we tried to be invisible just as Father always said we should in the past. An endless search for food kept us occupied most of the time. By night we’d raid nearby farms and steal whatever we could, usually potatoes from storage sheds. They got roasted over a fire in the deep blackness of the night. It was never enough. I couldn’t sleep so well because of the savage hunger that gnawed away inside me. So I lay awake under the stars and, with frightening regularity, heard explosions in the distance. I prayed they wouldn’t come any closer. I saw flashes of orange and yellow dotted in the sky and a low drone from afar, sometimes closer, of what I guessed were bomber planes. I lay on the damp grass with a cocoon of black around me, with my coat collar pulled up and my hat right down over my ears, wondering when one of those bombs would land on us.

  By day, we zigzagged across those mountains, Father managing to locate a route that took us north. By midday, the sun would be above us, and fortune shone down on us, because we had very little rainfall. Instead, I found myself, reluctantly, removing my coat, the heat from the sun threatening to boil me should I keep it on. I slung it over my shoulder or tied it round my waist, but in many ways was relieved when the weather cooled in the evenings, and I could put it back on. I didn’t want to lose that coat, or for it to be stolen.

  Many nights were spent tucked into those cold rocks, shivering away, just waiting for morning to come. The days got warmer, and now and again we’d stop at a stream to try and catch fish with a hook and line from the bag Sasha gave us. Sometimes we caught one and I have to say that fish tasted so good when roasted over an open fire.

  Our lack of proper washing facilities caused us to be covered in fleas and lice, it was impossible not to scratch ourselves as we walked along. The same clothes had been on our backs for many days, how I wished I could be back home taking a hot bath in that old tin tub in our warm kitchen, and then changing into clean clothes. I felt so grubby, but there was nothing we could do, apart from the most basic of washing in the mountain streams around us.

  It was taking forever to get to Presov, until one evening, when the light was just turning, we found ourselves on the brow of a hill gazing down at a big city below us, ‘We’ve made it!’ said Father, ‘This must be Presov.’

  To describe the joy I felt just then was impossible, I could have cried with laughter as we trotted down that hill. The trek through those mountains had been tough. The terrain levelled out and there were numerous smallholdings dotted around the landscape on the approach into Presov. We passed close by to one of them. A middle-aged woman stood at the front of the house, tidying her garden. Her eyes widened as she saw us coming, ‘Oh dear Lord, what have we here? You look like you’ve been crawling through a bog. Come in, come in.’ She opened that gate, and we walked in without even thinking. We slumped down on a bench at the front of the house. She brought us each a large glass of milk, ‘Dear, oh dear. You look like you’ve been to Hell and back. Well, my daughter’s visiting her grandmother in the town and is staying there until tomorrow, so you’re welcome to sleep in her room tonight. You look as though you need a good night’s sleep. Tell me, where are you from?’

  ‘We’re from Ukraine,’ replied Father, ‘I’m Mikola and this is Stefan, my son. The Soviets were driving towards the west so the Nazis threw us all out into the streets as they retreated. They destroyed whole villages; Ukraine is like a burnt-out shell. It’s been blasted to pieces by both the Soviets and the Nazis. We’ve walked so many miles since then, so many I can’t begin to think how far we’ve come.’

  ‘Well, I’m Sara. Come inside and meet my husband and son.’

  We followed her into the house and exchanged handshakes with her husband, Kazimir, and her son, Tomas. They’d been out at work on their smallholding and were getting cleaned up in the kitchen. There was a large stove, similar to our own back home and a large wooden table with chairs arranged around it. It was warm, and there was an aroma of cooking. I was reminded of my Mother. In the flickering shadows on the wall next to the stove I could see her. Moving in flowing, graceful curves, standing over a steaming pan, stirring. That’s what I missed.

  Sara took us upstairs to her daughter’s bedroom. She swung the door open and a dazzling sight was there before us. The room was like a palace. There was a double bed with sumptuous, wine coloured, satin sheets. The floor was covered with a thick, brown carpet that looked good enough to sleep on. The windows were framed by luscious curtains of a golden hue. There was a beautiful dressing table and stool, constructed of a deep mahogany. There were cushions of a bewildering range of colours strewn across the bed. I stepped forward, but Father raised an arm to stop me,

  ‘Sara, we can’t sleep in this room. Just look at us. We’re filthy; we’ve got lice and fleas all over us. We haven’t washed for days. Please, just let us sleep in your barn. That’ll be fine for us.’

  Sara nodded, her cheeks reddening a little, ‘Yes, yes. Well, maybe you’re right. Okay, you two rest up in the barn for a while and then I’ll heat up some water so you can get yourselves cleaned up. I’m making some soup for supper. You’re welcome to have some with us once you've both had a rest and got yourselves cleaned up.’

  The hay in the barn was fresh and we lay down on it. Before long I was in my own land of dreams. I stirred a short time later that evening, feeling refreshed, but with an emptiness inside – I was hungry. Father woke up at the same time and, after a good scrub down in the yard, we joined Sara and her family in their farmhouse. Kazimir poured Father glass after glass of samohonka*, a powerful home brewed spirit. There was buttered bread and a delicious bowl of borsch*. There were pickles, there was cheese and a few slices of ham. We ate well, and sang a few songs. Father looked so much better having had a good wash. It was good to feel clean. To rejoice in our freedom and in life itself at that moment was only right, I couldn’t think about the future. I marvelled at Sara and Kazimir. They could’ve let us pass by their home without a word. They didn’t know who we were, we could’ve been bandits or thieves. They showed us so much warmth and kindness, and welcomed us into their home and fed us. It showed me there was some good in the world despite the terrors heaped on us by the Soviets and the Nazis.

  Father told them of our lives. About all manner of things. The war, life in general, all about how our life had been in Ukraine. They listened to him attentively, Father always had the gift to tell a story. They laughed as he told them tales about the absurdity of the Soviet collective farming scheme. But then, their jaws dropped when he gave them his account of the famine in the early thirties.

  We slept in the barn again that night. It was warm and dry, much better than sleeping in fields or hedgerows, or in between the cold, hard rocks in the mountains. Father nodded off quickly, the effects of the drink maybe. I lay awake for a while, listening to booms and whistles in the distance. Now and again, there were flashes of light. It was raging all around us, and getting closer, or so it seemed.

  The next morning, we had a good wash down again and I felt much better. Sara cooked up some eggs for our breakfast. As we ate, Father showed Sara the piece of paper with the address on it.

  ‘Ah, yes. I know this place,’ she said, ‘it’s right on the other side of the town, just as it starts to get mountainous again.’

  Over a final steaming cup of coffee, Father told them more about our life back home, all about our smallholding and the land we had. Kazimir and Father entered into a lengthy discussion about crop rotation, while I sat and thought about Mother. Would I see her again? Sara reminded me so much of her. I longed for that touch. That softness. There is no love like that of one’s mother.

  It was soon time to leave, we needed to make an early start to continue our search for Ludvik, the leader of the Slovakian Resistance. Sara packed us up with some buttered bread and some slices of kobasa*. Kazimir and Father shook hands firmly. Sara gave me a big hug, and once again I
was reminded of Mother.

  We thanked her for her hospitality and said our goodbyes, to her, and to Kazimir and Tomas. They were truly like rays of light in a dark hole. For an evening, and those few hours in the morning we found an oasis that gave us life and fresh hope.

  Feeling much stronger we made our way into the town, with a spring sun throwing ripples of warmth upon us. The main street was lined with the most magnificent churches. There were so many twisted spires and elegant turrets, and so many simply beautiful stained glass windows. We gazed in wonder at them as we passed, and I could have sworn I felt a presence walking with us through that street. Now and again, I felt an icy cold grip on my arm. It happened two or three times, and it scared me. It made me keep my wits about me. We walked right through those streets. Neither of us wanted to stop.

  ‘Stefan, I really hope Ludvik can help us get safe passage to Germany,’ he looked once again at the piece of paper given to us by Sasha, ‘we need to find this tavern, called Slavia.’ I marvelled at the way Father navigated his way through those streets. He stopped to ask people directions when he needed to and struck up many conversations. Father spoke a few different languages, and consequently he could make himself understood to anyone, or so it seemed. He had an ability to connect with people, and an instinct which he used so well. Somehow he knew who to speak to, and who to avoid. Eventually, without too much trouble, we found the place.

  It was a three storey building with a cream-coloured frontage, with elegant, arched windows and a roof pitched at a low angle. It looked inviting. Father and I crossed the road and pushed the door open. Inside was a bar area with tables and chairs on one side and an open area to the other. A man sat in a corner of the room with an accordion, playing a slow melody, while a lone couple waltzed across the floor. There was an array of mirrors behind the bar, and shelves full of polished glasses. There were one or two bottles dotted around on the shelves, and not much else. The landlord looked across at us and came out from behind the bar, pressing his greased black hair over his scalp and smoothing down his moustache, ‘Hello, welcome to Slavia.’ He wiped a hand on his apron before extending it to Father. They shook hands.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Before we could reply, two men stepped from behind a pillar and pushed the landlord out of the way. One of them, a thick set fellow with a wide face and beard growth, and with a cap pulled down low over his dark eyes, looked us up and down, ‘You’re strangers, what do you want here?’

  ‘W-we’re looking for a man called Ludvik,’ replied Father.

  The man cuffed Father with the back of his hand sending him sprawling against the entrance door, ‘Ludvik, eh? What do you want with him?’

  Father staggered forward rubbing the side of his face with one hand and pulling the piece of paper from his pocket with the other, ‘Here, we’ve got an introduction from a mutual friend.’

  The man snatched it and ran his eyes across it. Then, he screwed it up and threw it to one side, ‘Ukrainian Resistance eh? Pah. Weren’t much use to us last week when we needed them. Some of our boys got killed. We got caught in a skirmish with the Nazis, they had too much for us. We lost quite a few that day. Including Ludvik. He’s dead. Won’t be coming back. So . . . understand me, this is not a good place for Ukrainians right now, because we’re about to send the Nazis off to Hell. We’re going to bomb them and blast them and shoot them up. We don’t want them here. And if there are any Ukrainians in Nazi uniform then they’ll get it. They’ll get it good!’

  He stepped forward with murder in his eyes, but was held back by his companion. We didn’t hang around. I pushed the door open and we bundled through it back into the street, and walked back the way we came, but slowly, so as not to attract attention. I looked back several times and we weren’t followed. A few hundred yards later we stopped at the fountain in the town square. There was no water running from it, just a pool of scummy water sitting in the base. Father and I stood and looked at it.

  ‘Stefan, it looks like things are going to get dangerous around here, I don’t know what to do for the best.’

  ‘Father, I want to go home. I want to see Mother. Please . . . can we go home?’

  I collapsed onto my knees, and I’m not ashamed to say it, I cried. Tears flowed from me like a heavy rainfall. Father put his arms around me, ‘Stefan . . . Stefan, my boy, we’ll get home. Of course we will. Don’t worry, son, I’ll get you home.’

  He pulled me up and sat me down next to him on the side of the fountain.

  ‘Come on, Stefan, I need you to be a Kozak. I need you to be strong, just like you were back there when you got me out of that tavern.’ I knew he was right. There was no use in sitting around weeping, we needed to keep moving. I dried my eyes on the sleeve of my coat and stood up.

  We headed south. To go east would have led us right into the arms of the Soviets, while to the west and the north were battle zones. Father and I were not equipped to be in such places. So sure enough, we went south. To get away from the guns, the bombs, and the sounds of war; the explosions, the thudding of nearby hits; the flashes of fire on the horizon.

  The sky and the stars above us became our blanket once again as we slept beneath them, night after night. The days passed by without much in the way of food and, despite Sara’s efforts to feed us up for our journey, we got weaker as we trudged along. I turned into a shadow. Father constantly beseeched me to carry on. I remember his voice saying to me, ‘Keep going, Stefan, keep going.’

  But I was ragged, I was sick with hunger and fear. I remember being in a train carriage, in the hold with other peasants, I can’t even remember getting on or off that train, I just recall the inside of the carriage. I sipped at a cup of water held for me by Father, warm gritty water, it tasted like soil. It revived me, poured some life back into me. And so, this is how we went. By train some of the time, the rest of time we trod the land in our worn out shoes. Until we reached the border. Once again, the clouds were kind to us as we made our journey, they held the rain inside them, and parted to let a glorious late spring sun shine down on us. My thoughts often returned to those years when I’d run around our village back home with Volodimir and our friends in such sunshine. Even though we were hungry boys with bare feet, we were happy enough, but we’d all been ripped away from there by the dark forces around us.

  So, there we stood, with Hungary just in front of us. What would we find there? It was another step into the unknown. Would we find further hostility towards Ukrainians? Father and I were like vagabonds, with wild hair and unkempt, dirty clothes upon us. How would we be received by the Hungarians? Well, we didn’t have much choice, there was no turning back. So we crossed that border, together with many others, and prayed we would find something or somewhere, a place to lay down our heads and get some rest. By day, we dragged our feet over grassland and fields. Insects buzzed around us, crickets chattered, birds sang. I was dizzy with hunger. All this food around me, and yet I couldn’t catch it, couldn’t grasp it in my hand, and then cook it and eat it.

  We stopped several times to fish in a stream, pretty much whenever we passed one by and got a bite once or twice. Every time we did, the fish thrashed around as we tried to land it. We were so weak, so feeble, it was a hard battle. The fish was strong, flapping madly, with an eye staring at us, furious in its desire to get back in the water. Father got hold of a rock and bashed it. Then it was still. We cooked it and ate it, but it was never enough.

  Many times I’d lie awake at night shivering. The stars twinkled above and many times I saw them transform into fish and swim towards me. They gathered around above my head and, one by one, they dropped into my mouth. On those occasions I got a warm feeling inside and eventually drifted off to sleep.

  I lost track of time. I lost myself. I was like a sack, a hollow shell just drifting aimlessly. With guiding hands around me, Father’s hands, somehow I kept moving. Now and again, I got a trickle of water down my throat, but I wanted food.

  I remember sitting around a f
ire, sniffing the air, with my mouth watering. A hot potato burned me as I gulped it down. Where it came from I couldn’t say, but I didn’t care, I just wanted more, but there was none. We walked some more. All around us, early summer was beginning to bloom. The trees were sprouting leaves. The grass underneath our feet was lush. There was birdsong all around. It was maddening.

  Without Father I would have surely perished. What little food we found was because of him. He led the way, across field and track, through meadows and mountains. I followed him. He kept me safe. We slept in open spaces, in between boulders, or beneath a tree. Father woke himself many times through the night to tend the fire, to keep it burning, to stop the wolves from coming to us. The days passed in a haze.

  Then one evening, just as it was getting dark, we found ourselves walking into a town. The lights dazzled as we approached. What would we find? A line of men with guns ready to shoot us down? Or an angry mob armed with clubs and sticks, ready to run us back out the way we came?

  We glided in. As if we were just a flicker in the shadows, like a tree root growing beneath the ground, weaving our way into those streets almost without breathing, without making a sound.