We’d set off early, with good reason. The farm work would have to wait, we wanted to see where the real work was, if any. The plan was to sneak back before anyone noticed we’d gone. The streets were lit up by lamps mounted on tall pillars, we rode around with the Bullet’s headlamp throwing a beam in front of us. It was a pre-dawn world we were riding through, and we saw many people. They walked with a silent grace, their steps full of purpose, with bags slung over their shoulders. Some rode on bicycles. I slowed right down, and we reached a junction into which streams of men were pouring. I turned into it and rode to the end. The road stopped right there, we could go no further. I turned the engine off. Fedor and I got off the motorbike and stood and watched as people walked into a large building in front of us. It was a big concrete box-like building, an ugly construction. There was a large chimney sticking up into the sky, and after all the people had gone into the building and a hooter had sounded, smoke began to billow out of that chimney.
‘What do you think?’ I turned to Fedor.
‘Looks like some sort of factory. There weren’t many girls going in there though, were there?’
‘Fedor, I’m sure there are enough girls in there to keep you happy. Do you think we should try and get some work here?’
‘Well, the farm work’s okay, but we don’t earn much there, and just lately Mr Robinson’s been giving us a hard time.’
Before I could reply, we were interrupted by a man running towards us, ‘Hey! You two! We need men like you. Here.’ He thrust papers into our hands. ‘We’ve got lots of orders, and we’re getting a lot of business right now, so if you two fellows are interested, we can pay you good money.’
Of course, we were interested, so that’s what we did. It took some sorting out, to get our papers stamped again, and to get authorisation. We had to seek out accommodation and move our belongings, but a couple of weeks later, the three of us, Mikola, Fedor and I, were all walking together towards that factory. It was called Metal Box.
Each of us found lodgings in the city, and at least we had our own room rather than sharing with others in a hostel, listening to each other snoring at night.
On our first day we walked onto the factory floor to be greeted by the noise of machines so loud we couldn’t speak to each other. We were taken through to an area at the back which was quieter and our foreman, Roger, spoke to us, ‘Right then, you three’ll start off on the factory floor, where I can see you. We’ll have you working on all the different parts of the production line to see where you fit in best, and so you know all about the run from start to finish. Then, once we’ve seen you through your first few weeks, we’ll assign you to a Department suitable for you, and for the Company. And get this: I won’t stand for any idling. You’ll earn good money here, but you’ll have to work for it. If I catch any of you lot fucking off outside for a crafty fag, you’ll be out of here with my boot up your backside. Got that?’
The three of us nodded in unison. We got the message all too clear.
The first week flew by, and I have to say I enjoyed myself. It made a change from standing in a field with the rain soaking you to the skin. The machines fascinated me. Since I’d bought my motorbike, I’d enjoyed tinkering with it. One of our Polish friends on the farm, Otto, was a mechanic, and he’d shown me how to tune it up, change the oil and keep it in good condition. By contrast to the gentle roar of the motorbike engine, the machines in the factory were monsters. They scared me. They pounded away, making such a racket; I thought they might chew me up. A fellow worker, one of the older ones, Arthur, helped me out. He showed me what to do, I was like an apprentice to him. I followed Arthur around that factory floor and, as I did, it seemed like Roger’s eyes were on me. Every time I turned around, he was there. It was very different to working on the farm, there were few opportunities to sneak off for a smoke or a daydream in a sunny glade or on a haystack, but the rewards were so much greater! At the end of our first week I opened my brown paper wage packet and found I’d earned three times the amount I was paid on the farm. Arthur smiled as he watched me open that envelope, ‘Not a bad week’s work eh? I think you’ll do all right for yourself here you know, Steve.’
That’s what they all called me at the factory. Steve. I liked the sound of it, and it gave me a new beginning, like I was someone brand new, without the load that I carried inside my heart.
The three of us prospered, it felt like we were moving up in the world a little. Now and again, we encountered some hostility from a few of the locals, some name calling and more whispered bloody foreigners comments floating into our ears. All we could do was hold ourselves up and look people in the eye. There was nothing for us to be ashamed of. We were working hard, and behaving ourselves, well perhaps apart from Fedor’s roving eye. Whenever a pretty girl came anywhere near us, he’d be smiling away and trying to charm her with a bit of chat. Once or twice, in the local tavern, he’d get a stare from a fellow to let him know that the girl he was flirting with was taken.
Factory life was generally good. They worked us hard, but paid us well, so there was no cause for us to complain. Most of the locals were friendly enough, and I developed a good bond with Arthur, who was supervising me.
There were others at the factory from areas of Europe who had also been devastated by the war. The factory provided work for many of them as well as us Ukrainians. I worked alongside many Poles. My approach was to try and get on with all my workmates, whoever they were, but history between Poland and Ukraine is of two countries constantly at war with each other. Poland conquered a good portion of western Ukraine at various times through history, much blood had been shed, both that of Poles and Ukrainians.
The Poles always seemed to hold the view they were superior to us somehow. That always made us smile. Our cultural heritage was as rich as theirs, and the Ukrainian identity is strong, always has been, otherwise we’d have been swallowed up long ago by those of our neighbours who liked to wage war.
One day, a Pole, his name I can’t recall, came up to me at the factory when none of the supervisors were around. He was a young fellow, ‘Hey, you’re a Ukrainian aren’t you?’
I looked at him without flinching, our eyes locked onto each other, and I could see his brow was twisted and his lip rolled up. ‘I am,’ I replied.
‘Well, I want you to explain something to me. When our glorious Polish infantry invaded Ukraine in 1918, why did your people conceal harrows on the ground to disable our horses and cripple them? That was barbaric! Everyone knows that horses are beautiful creatures and hard working. In all wars, it’s always been an accepted fact that horses should be protected at all times. What your people did was shameful! Why did they do that?’
He looked at me hard once again, tilting his head to one side to emphasise the question. My eyes dropped downwards as his words seemed to linger in the air, but then the Kozak spirit rose inside me and I looked up again. ‘I don’t know,’ I said to him, ‘I wasn’t there, so I can’t say what happened.’
His lip rolled up again and his eyes narrowed, but before he could say anything else I spoke again, ‘Why do you think they did that?! The Poles were riding onto our native Ukrainian soil! Our land! We’d do anything to defend it, because it belongs to us, no-one else! If you Poles bring horses onto our land, we’ll do whatever we have to. If we cripple them, then that’s tough. Don’t think I’m a barbarian - I love horses. As you say, they are beautiful animals.’
The Pole stood there, with a couple of his friends. I stared right into his eyes, and I waited, to see what his response would be, but he said nothing, and he and his friends turned around and walked away. So that was that.
At the end of the working week, it was our custom to visit the local tavern, the Railway Inn, for a couple of pints of beer. It was usually overflowing with people, especially in the summer and, the three of us would sit at a table and talk to other men from the factory. Fedor would be looking at any pretty girl that happened to pass by.
It was Arthur w
ho took me to the Railway Inn at the end of my first week; I was pleased about that, it made me feel accepted.
‘So, Steve, are you Polish or Ukrainian?’ he asked.
‘Ukrainian.’
‘Whereabouts are you from in Ukraine?’
‘A town called Vinnitsya.’
Arthur shrugged his shoulders, ‘Never heard of it.’
‘It’s not far from Kiev. Ukraine is a very beautiful country, Arthur, you should see it.’
‘I have seen it, Steve. I was there at the end of the War. You’re right, it is a lovely place. I was down in the Crimea. We were with the Russians just after they’d seen the Nazis off. Some terrible things happened, Steve, really terrible.’ His face turned white as he remembered and he stumbled over his next words. ‘Our Commanding Officer was under orders to help them Russians out. We did whatever we were asked to do, that’s how it is when you’re in the Army. There was one time when a group of Ukrainian sailors at one of the ports hoisted up the Ukrainian flag. You know, the blue and yellow one. What they did was take down the Russian flag and replaced it with theirs. Now, of course, that state of affairs didn’t last long. The Russians arrested them. I think there was about twelve of them altogether. They rigged up a court martial right there and then and found them all guilty of treason. Sentenced them to death on the spot, just like that. They asked our Commanding Officer to provide a firing squad, and he agreed. We couldn’t believe it when he gave us the order. I never could understand why he agreed to it. I expect they probably paid him. Orders are orders, so that’s what we had to do.’
He looked at me with very sad eyes as he told this story, and it made me angry. Not because of Arthur, but because, once again, as ever, any show of patriotism from Ukrainians was brutally crushed. Arthur was a good fellow, but it was strange working with someone who’d shot and killed fellow Ukrainians in cold blood, even though it was under military orders. It was enough to test my faith in humanity.
Our lives were quite settled in England and the years passed quickly. It wasn’t so long before we reached 1952 and, by then, I was 25 years old. I grew into the habit of keeping up with what was happening in the world by reading an English newspaper most days, or trying to anyway. I always scoured the news for anything about our homeland, looking for any cracks to appear in the Soviet Union. Nothing much was reported. The Soviets had established a communist state and their curtain of iron repelled anyone who wanted to get in and denied anyone who wished to leave. I searched inside myself, my heart was torn, and my head was a mess of jumbled thoughts as I considered whether I should try to write home. I sat down with a pen and paper many times, but what could I say? I knew the authorities would intercept any letters. Eventually, I summoned up enough Kozak courage to stop my hand from shaking, enough to scribble a few sentences. Just to let my Mother know, if she was still around, that I was alive and thinking of them. I hoped the letter would get through. Many times I wrote, but nothing ever came back.
In March of the following year, 1953, I unfolded the newspaper one evening and something right there on the page jumped out at me. It was a piece of news I’d hoped to hear many times over the years. Stalin was dead. A smile spread itself across my face, and jolted me out of my early evening doziness. I jumped up out of my chair, folded the newspaper under my arm, and ran all the way to Mikola’s house,
‘Look! Look at this!’ I passed the newspaper to him, still jumping up and down like a madman.
‘Stefan, sit down before you injure yourself,’ he gestured towards an armchair, so I sat in it, but I couldn’t stop fidgeting. I was tapping my fingers on the arms of the chair, and my feet wouldn’t stop dancing. Mikola scanned the page of the newspaper, his eyes widened and he let out a low whistle. ‘You know what, Stefan, this calls for a little celebration.’ He got up, walked into his kitchen and returned with a bottle.
‘A good glass of this Scotska horilka* should do it.’
He poured two generous glasses and we clinked them together. We drank. One of our worst enemies was gone, without doubt making the world a better place.
What followed over the next two or three years was a disappointment. Khruschev became the Soviet leader, but apart from one or two minor concessions or blunders, things stayed the same. Any letters I wrote still didn’t get through.
Well, the years just seemed to slip by like water down a drainpipe. 1957 arrived, and by then, the Soviets were sending rockets into space, in competition with the Americans. What a joke. The Soviets exploring space while their citizens live their lives as virtual prisoners. I was so angry, but all I could do was swallow it down, yet again, just like we’d always done.
One day I was round at Mikola’s house, when Fedor called in. He didn’t seem his usual self, he shuffled in, with his head bowed slightly and with the hint of smile on him.
‘Hello Fedor, are you all right?’ said Mikola.
‘I . . . I’ve got some news for you,’ replied Fedor.
Both Mikola and I looked expectantly at him, waiting for him to tell us more. There was a pause, like a leaf floating down from a tree in a cool summer breeze.
He finally spat it out, ‘I’m getting married!’ The two of us jumped up, shook his hand and slapped him on his shoulders. Mikola poured large measures of Scotska horilka and we toasted the man.
‘Which one is she?’ I asked him.
Fedor chuckled at that. ‘It’s Araciella.’
‘The Italian? Well, my brother, she’s a beauty,’ said Mikola, ‘for sure, any babies that God bestows upon the two of you will be truly divine.’
A few weeks later, in the first week of December, we attended Fedor and Araciella’s marriage ceremony. It was a warm evening for the time of year with a strong winter sun bursting through the trees. Mikola and I stood with Fedor at the church as we waited for Araciella to arrive. After a few agonising minutes during which several cigarettes were smoked, and anxious glances were cast up and down the road, a car pulled up. Fedor rushed into the church with Mikola, who was his best man.
Araciella stepped out of the car. She glided up the steps and into the church, like a fairy tale princess. Her olive skin was like gold in a sea of pure white ruffles and curves. She looked a dream. The ceremony seemed to fly by, and I stood there thinking to myself, maybe I need to start looking for a wife. The two of them took a slow walk down the aisle, looking so happy. People reached across to shake Fedor’s hand or plant a kiss on Araciella’s cheek. There was a good sized congregation in attendance, and a small reception was planned for the friends of the bride and groom. Fedor and Araciella stood outside the church basking in the glow of their union in the eyes of God. Mikola, I, and several others departed to a nearby friend’s house where the reception was to take place. We’d already decorated a room with candles and flowers, and just needed to set out the plates of food. We’d prepared a wonderful selection of cold meats, boiled eggs, salads and fine breads, and of course a fancy, plaited korovai*.
We heard a car pull up and waited, just for a minute or two. Fedor and Araciella burst into the room and drank the traditional glass of horilka and threw salt over their shoulders, while the rest of us looked on and clapped. A traditional Ukrainian wedding song crackled in the background. They walked further into the room and I found myself looking at Araciella. She had curves in all the right places, and her wedding dress fitted her snugly showing off her figure. I wondered to myself how soon it would be before she and Fedor had children. As they walked into the room together, Fedor wrapped an arm around her waist until it rested on one side of her stomach, and he softly patted her right there. I smiled at him, and he grinned right back, as if he knew what I’d been thinking. For sure, Fedor was well and truly on the road to starting his own family.
Chapter 13
Ukrainian proverb: Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse
‘Well now, Stefan,’ said Mikola as he rolled himself a cigarette, ‘It was a good wedding, no?’
‘Yes, it was a fin
e one. I think we did well for Fedor there,’ I replied, as I too rolled one up.
‘So, do you think it’s time then?’
There was mischief in those eyes, Mikola was a fine fellow, a big strong man, and with a mind sharp as a britva*. He knew what was going on in my head all right.
‘I have been thinking . . . it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting back home anytime soon to our families, does it?’
It was the spring of 1958 and there was no sign of any thaw in the east. The Soviet Union had pulled its iron curtain around its borders and there was no way through. We’d read it in the newspapers and heard it on the radio.
‘I can’t argue with you. I’ve written so many letters back home now without any reply, I’ve lost count. If I write any more, I reckon I’ll go mad.’
‘I know. It’s a curse. Those Soviet sons of bitches are vicious. They don’t care about anyone.’
We lit our hand-rolled cigarettes. The Soviet Union had joined the space race, with their launch of Sputnik. They’d also sent a dog into space. What good was that? While we, as displaced persons, were too afraid to go back to our homes, they played their stupid games with rockets. We cursed them more than once.
‘So, what are your thoughts? You talk about family.’ Mikola took a pull on his cigarette, blew a cloud of smoke out, and kept his eyes fixed on me, those baby blue eyes that looked so innocent, that mesmerised me.
‘I . . . I think it’s time I got myself a wife. Look at me. I’m not getting any younger. I’ll be thirty this year. Back home, a man my age would’ve married and be father to a houseful of children by now.’