And then we saw it. It made our eyes widen and sent a shiver of expectation down us. There was a large church, and just in front of it was a group of people, just ordinary people, civilians like us. They’d set up some tables and brought out some extravagantly sized pots and placed them on those tables, which creaked under the strain. Steam drifted from the top of those pots. The aroma was good. I licked my lips.
‘Come on, Stefan, Father put an arm around me, looks like we’ve found a meal.’ We stood in the queue for many minutes until we reached the front and were given a bowl of steaming hot stew and a hunk of bread. We sat on the church steps and ate. It was wonderful. I licked my bowl clean. With the blessing of the priest, we took sanctuary in the church and, for a couple of nights, we slept there. The priest and his helpers gave us blankets. We were fed well during those two days and got ourselves cleaned up a little. The food was good, if a little spicy for us, we got a touch of the runs, but we still went back for more. On the third morning, the priest approached us, ‘Well, Mikola and Stefan. You’ve been here a couple of nights and it’s been gratifying to see you both in the chapel, joining us for prayers. But can I ask you what your plans are?’ It was clear from his tone that we’d stayed the two nights maximum allowed there and needed to move on. I could see it troubled him to say these things, but it was part of his job, so that was that.
‘We are weary,’ replied Father, ‘we’ve travelled far. Our feet are blistered and sore. We’re grateful to you, and your people, for feeding us and giving us shelter. But we have to keep moving, to stay ahead of the Soviet Army.’
The priest nodded and looked a little relieved. Food was scarce everywhere. The church was doing its Christian duty as best it could and we’d got lucky on this occasion. From somewhere they’d got hold of a quantity of food and were prepared to distribute it to those like us; the driftwood floating through the land, bent and broken, sometimes drifting without direction or purpose. But as it was, we couldn’t hang around. It was common knowledge the Soviets were pressing on the Hungarian border, it was whispered on the breeze from all corners, we couldn’t stay around to see what they’d do to us.
We travelled on, towards the west, caught in a pincer grip of advancing Soviets and desperate retreating Nazis. We kept our heads down and walked in the shadows, like many others around us. There were hundreds and thousands of people lurking in those shadows. Like us, they’d been forced out of their homes and left to wander the earth, scavenging for what they could find.
Germany was our destination. The Soviet war machine would trample over everything in its way and take whatever it could, but we were pretty sure the Allies would hold onto Germany. Late at night, we’d sit around a fire with other travellers and it was believed by everyone that Germany would never become Soviet controlled. Those early summer nights were balmy, we began to feel more hopeful. After all, we’d lived for several weeks on the road, and we’d walked hundreds of miles. Okay, we were bedraggled, filthy and hungry for much of the time, but with the summer sun beating down on us, it revived us. The nights weren’t so cold. Belief was building inside us. Belief that we might somehow survive.
It was decided by Father, the best way to get to Germany was to continue through the northern part of Hungary and then head back up into Slovakia. From there we’d be able to get across the border into the southern part of Germany. It was many, many miles and all we could do was take it one step at a time, and so we continued like this day after day.
We scrabbled around in fields to get food, sometimes we even loitered near to army encampments to see if we could find some scraps, anything, but we didn’t get too close and always stayed downwind.
Somehow, we floated along that summer breeze and arrived at the capital, Budapest. A fine old town it was, with the Danube running through it and so many bridges. I counted eight. It was a magnificent place, but we couldn’t stop to admire it. Our search for food was never ending. Father dropped a fishing line into the river, but we couldn’t get a bite. In the end, we were forced to give up and keep on walking. The relentless trudging, together with so little food, turned us into sticks. We were like dead men.
I had visions. Many times I had them. Of platefuls of hams and sliced sausage. Of thick slices of buttered bread. Of ripe, luscious tomatoes and fresh smelling cucumber. That’s all I wanted. Nothing fancy. As we walked through the town, my head spinning and my legs dragging, I saw a man approaching. He was eating an apple. He finished it and threw the core into the gutter. Without hesitation, I dived forward, and before the core had even settled in the gutter I’d scooped it up and eaten it. All of it. The man turned and watched me as I did this, with an expression of shock on his face. I didn’t care. Not right then.
On empty stomachs, somehow we made our way north, by following the river. There were hordes of people just like us, trying to get somewhere, but we could have been going nowhere for all we knew. We trekked on, through roads and plains, through the day and often, through the darkness of night. Back towards Slovakia. Across the border and towards the capital, Bratislava. Father urged me on,
‘Come on, Stefan, we’ve got to keep moving. The Soviets aren’t far behind us.’ I wanted to make him proud, so I walked. Tried to walk like a Kozak, even though the fear inside was filling every thought and every move I made. War was all around. Rockets flew back and forth. Both towards us and from behind us. Many times we threw ourselves onto the ground and covered our heads with our hands. We soon learned to recognise that familiar whistle. It started slowly, but as soon as you heard the faintest sound, you knew you had just a few seconds. We ran like rabbits to get shelter. Behind a rock, or in a ditch. Anywhere. On one occasion, we were caught by surprise as a rocket flew overhead. It came from nowhere, and looked as if it was coming right at us. I stood there, looking up at the sky with my mouth open. Next thing I knew, Father had thrown himself at me and I was lying on the ground with him on top of me. The rocket exploded about a hundred yards away, covering us with soil and stones. Father took the worst of it. He stood up, rubbing his back. Smoke swirled around us. It was raging hard all right.
Many more days passed by and turned into weeks. The summer began to fade and the cool evening breezes told us that autumn would soon be with us. The nights were starting to get colder.
Finally, we reached Bratislava, and made our way through the city, looking for food and water wherever we could. The streets were full of people just like us, rooting around in bins, being chased away by patrons of kerbside cafes, sniffing around for a crust of bread, or some potato peelings, anything.
On the north side of Bratislava, we ran into some partisans. They offered to feed us if we would work for them. We weren’t in a position to say no, we hadn’t eaten anything much for a few days. They fed us, and gave us shelter. Then, the following morning we were sent on a task. To help dig trenches to stop the Nazis from advancing east. We didn’t question the wisdom of this, but were just grateful to be fed and sheltered. Weakened as we were, we couldn’t dig as hard or fast as the other men, but we did as much as we could. And after a few days, and a few more meals, we grew stronger. Summer was now behind us and the winds were really starting to bite as they swirled through the mountains. We’d got lucky once again, in finding sanctuary, even though it was with the Slovak partisans. Their leader was Leo, there was fire in his soul. ‘This land belongs to the Slovak people, no one else.’ He fixed his expression on ours as we sat around a camp fire late one evening, ‘They shouldn’t be here. Any of them. Neither the Nazis nor the Soviets. We live a simple life here in Slovakia. The Nazis have come and taken whatever they can get their thieving hands on. We want them out. So tomorrow I’ll need you both to work with different work details. Mikola, you’ll be with the work party at the north side of the city. It’s heavy work, digging a whole new set of trenches, the ground is very rocky there. So, Stefan, you’ll go with the party working to the east. Work there is nearly complete.’
We retired to our beds but on th
e way Father spoke to me, ‘Don’t worry, Stefan, we’ll head on from here soon, just as soon as we get our strength up for another few days on the road. This isn’t our war, we shouldn’t be getting involved.’
We bedded down for the night in our tent, amidst the crashes and the bangs around us, accompanied by flashes of light. This was a cauldron of war and we were right in the heart of it, but at least we had some shelter from the elements. Winter was creeping up, and the cold would be biting at us, so we were grateful. But we still wanted to move on.
The following day, we woke up and separated off to our work details. It was strange to be without Father, but the other men were friendly enough towards me. It was an easy morning, with just some general clearing up and checking to do. We stopped early for some lunch, just a couple of slices of bread and butter with some cheese and pickles. I was getting my strength back.
The constant sound of bombing was shredding my nerves. It was wrecking me. The sounds seemed to be getting louder and nearer by the day. Okay, we had shelter with Leo and his men in the mountains, but there was an air of defiance around that threatened to boil over at any moment. They were getting themselves organised. There were many hushed conversations late at night with fists banging and fingers pointing. It was all about to go crazy, we had to get away. As Father had pointed out, it wasn’t our war. I know it doesn’t sound very heroic, but we knew that we Ukrainians could never win. Whether the Nazis or the Soviets won, we’d be persecuted, tortured, killed, or sent to death camps in barren places. I just wished the Soviets and Nazis would blow each other to smithereens and into oblivion. Then maybe we’d get some peace.
With the other men I made my way back to the camp in the middle of the afternoon. I scanned across the camp from side to side to see if I could spot Father. There was no sign of him. Maybe his work detail hadn’t returned yet. Or maybe he was getting cleaned up.
As we got closer I saw Leo. He was standing at the edge of the camp looking up towards us with his hands clasped in front of him. We took a few steps further and I could see he was looking straight at me. He was quite still, which was unusual for him. Something wasn’t right. We reached the camp and he signalled for the other men to keep on walking, while he stood in front of me and placed a hand on my shoulder,
‘Stefan . . . I don’t quite know how to say this. I have some very bad news. Your Father has been killed. He was working with some other men, when a bomb landed nearby and a wall collapsed on him . . . he was killed instantly . . . we lost three other men too. I’m sorry, Stefan.’
I looked up at him. I didn’t want to believe him. I wanted him to take those words away. I looked over his shoulder, hoping to see Father standing there, wiping his hands on a towel and smiling at me, but I could see from Leo’s expression he was telling the truth. I crumpled onto the ground, threw my face into my hands and wept.
Chapter 9
Ukrainian proverb: The earth will cover the doctor's mistakes
I sobbed so much I thought I’d never stop. Leo stayed with me, and tried to comfort me; he lifted me up and held me in his arms. I was still only a boy. He took me to the place where Father was. It was a walk of dread. I didn’t want to believe he was gone. I kept hoping he’d just appear in front of me with his usual expression. He was always so serious. That was the face I wanted to see so badly. Leo led me on, without many words. We arrived at our destination. It could have been anywhere as far as I was concerned, I could barely make sense of where I was, my head was so full of dark clouds, and my heart was beating hard, so hard I was ready to burst.
Father was laid out alongside three other victims. A woman was mopping the faces and hands of the bodies, and tidying them up. I recognised him straight away, just by the shape of his body. I knew it so well. I threw myself onto him. He was cold, but I didn’t care, I was next to him, and didn’t want to leave him. I couldn’t even venture to say how long it was before I felt arms on me. Those arms prised me away from Father. I’d never be near him again.
Leo and one of his men took me back to their camp. It was early evening,
‘Stefan,’ Leo spoke to me in a hush, ‘if you like, we can go to the village nearby and see the priest, and ask him to give your father a Christian burial.’
‘Yes . . . yes, he would have wanted that.’
‘Fine then. Let’s get ourselves cleaned up a little and we’ll take a walk down there.’
Leo got me a bucket of water and I threw some on my face. It stung as it mixed with my dried, salty tears, but it refreshed me. We tidied ourselves up and tried to look a little more respectable and then we made our way to the village. The autumn wind was biting into us as we walked, but it couldn’t take away my numbness. Leaves swirled around our feet, and the crunch of them beneath our feet pierced a sheet of silence that hung between Leo and me.
There was a track leading into the centre where we found the church. It was a small wooden construction, of typical design. Leo found a door at the back of the church which looked like it led to living quarters. He rapped on the door. A sound of shuffling came from the other side. A key turned in the lock, the door opened and a face peered out at us, ‘Yes?’
Leo wasn’t slow in making our case, ‘Father, please. We need your help. I’ve got Stefan here with me; he’s walked many miles. He’s come from the east, from Ukraine; he’s been travelling with his father, Mikola. But . . . Mikola’s been killed. A bomb caused his death. Please, can you come with us? To give Mikola a Christian burial. He deserves that, surely?’
The priest looked us up and down. He opened the door wider still and stood there fastening up his topcoat. His fingers were shaking as he fumbled his buttons. He cleared his throat and spoke, ‘I’m afraid I have many people to visit in the village this evening. I can’t help you.’ He shut the door and locked it, and walked right past us,
‘Good night to you.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I ran up to him and grabbed his arm, ‘How can you just walk away like this? My father was a Christian. You can’t let him be buried without the last rites! You just can’t!’
The priest snatched his arm away, and from the surrounding houses a group of villagers appeared, as if they knew something was happening, they must have been stirred by the commotion. They were a group of solid-looking farmhands. There were a dozen of them. One of them spoke, ‘Is everything all right, Father?’
‘Yes, yes. These people are just leaving.’
The villagers escorted the priest towards the houses nearby while Leo and I stood and watched them walk away, taking any last hope of a Christian burial for Father with them. I wanted to run up to the priest and tell him, insist to him that he should give a Christian a decent burial. All I could do was watch as he disappeared into the dusky charcoal of the early evening.
‘Come on Stefan,’ said Leo placing an arm around me, ‘I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere here. We’ll have to go back to the camp.’
So, we returned as supper was being dished up, but, I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t sleep. All I had left to remind me of Father was the bag given to us by Sasha. I kept it next to me through the night.
Just when the sun was beginning to creep over the horizon, I stood up. I wrapped my coat around me and pulled on my cap. I picked up the bag and made my way to the north side of the camp. A guard posted there asked me what I was doing. I told him I was taking a walk. He let me pass. The truth is I could not accept Father’s death. I was running away. I didn’t want to see Father’s corpse again, or see him lowered into a hole in the ground without a priest in attendance to bless him on his way. One thing I knew for sure though, I’d never trust a priest again.
I walked away from the camp and kept heading north, along the bank of the river. The black, shimmering surface of the water bounced the first rays of sunshine up into the air and they died in sparks of yellow in front of my eyes. The water looked inviting. How would it be if I should plunge in and sink to the bottom? Down into the soft mud,
to sit with the weeds and watch the fish swim around me. At least down there I’d get some peace, away from the madness and the mayhem. I walked down to the water’s edge and stood there with the water slopping around my threadbare shoes. Ice-cold water trickled into my shoes and the shock of it made me gasp and shiver. I clambered back up the bank and carried on walking.
I didn’t know where I was going and didn’t really care. Father was all I could think about, and it troubled me that, very soon, his cold body would be buried beneath a mound of soil, without a priest to give him his last rites. That was something I didn’t want to hang around and see. Never would I understand why that priest refused. He was a holy man, that was his job. I’d tried my best, but the priest had simply waved me away as if I were a just an insect annoying him. Suppose I ran back down to his church and kicked away at the door until it fell off its hinges? Then maybe he’d talk to me properly, but I knew it would end in trouble for me if I did that, I’d end up getting locked up, then the Red Army would most likely come and recruit me. There was nothing I could do. A cloak of shame hung over me.
I walked all day, stopping for a drink of water from wherever I could, I didn’t stay still for long, and walked as fast as possible, to fill my senses up. Fractured stabs of sunlight flickered between the branches of trees all around me and I breathed in aromas of delicate flowers. Best of all, the birds sang to me. Even though the autumn was almost upon us, some of them still chirped away, marking their territories for the winter. They helped to drown out the thoughts in my head. Even so, I found it hard not to think about Father. At times, I could have sworn he was next to me, walking alongside me, but when I turned to face him there was nothing there. I swear I heard a voice at times. His voice. Telling me not to worry and that everything would be all right. I’d spin around to see where he was, but of course he wasn’t there. I pulled my collar up, put my head down and marched along that river bank. For miles and miles.