Before the first frosts crept in, I managed to weather-proof the outside of the shell with paint and bitumen, and Maria and I celebrated British Christmas by having our dinner out there. A Calor gas heater provided some warmth, and I decked the inside of the room with fairy lights and candles. It was like being in our own little palace.
In the New Year of course, we celebrated our own Ukrainian Christmas, which follows the Julian calendar, and is in the first week of January. We had a full house this time, with both Anna and Andriy, their spouses and all our grandchildren. It was great for us all to be together for a first Christmas at a time when Ukraine was finally free and no longer a slave nation to the Soviets. We thanked the Lord and we partook of our Christmas Eve meal more proud than ever of who we were.
My papers arrived shortly afterwards, and were all in order, we had our tickets, and the time was coming ever closer. Maria had been on aeroplanes quite a few times to visit her family in Poland, but air travel was something I’d never experienced. I’d travelled by road, by rail and over the sea, but the idea of taking to the sky turned my knuckles white and my hair, even though it was already grey, somersaulted into white almost overnight. At night, when I looked up at the sky, I’d often see shooting stars or aeroplanes flashing their lights, but I couldn’t bear to stand there too long. My ears would start ringing and I’d rush to get indoors, with images of rockets firing through my head, just like when I was wandering through Europe in wartime, with explosions shuddering right through me, with enough power to take my head off and tear me to pieces. Sometimes, those rockets flew back and forth all day, exploding all around us. We huddled together in a ditch somewhere and prayed, hoping that our prayers would reach beyond the orange sulphurous fire clouds that hovered over us. That’s how I remembered it. Those memories brought a sickness up into my stomach – a fear that threatened to turn me upside down. I sat down in an armchair and took a few breaths. Then I went into the conservatory and smoked a few cigarettes. Memories of the war were inside me waiting to come out and turn me into a wreck.
Finally, that Saturday in July came around. We took our two cars down to Heathrow airport in London. It was a steady drive, and I enjoyed it on the motorway. The M1 is a big, wide road and we started off nice and early at around seven, so there wasn’t much traffic. As we got closer and followed signs to Heathrow Airport, we saw one or two planes coming in to land. A stirring in my guts brought a sick feeling up into my chest and I breathed a little harder. The idea of going up into the clouds in one of those things caused a tremble inside me. I tried not to let it show, just like I’d done so many times through my life. It was the Kozak way. Show no fear. That’s what we did, and that’s what got us through so many terrible times. Stefan, our son-in-law, negotiated his way through the site, with its many signs and lights, and roundabouts and roads leading to who knows where. I followed him, sticking close. We left our cars in the parking lot and got ourselves a trolley to put our luggage on. Once we were inside the main building I was a little more at ease because I couldn’t see the planes and we were occupied with checking in and going through customs, so I was kept busy and that was good. Too much thinking wasn’t good for me.
Inside, I was in a twisted up state. Part of me was excited about going back home to the land where I was born, and where I grew up, until the Nazis drove us out. Another part of me knew that the situation was broken beyond repair, I’d have to deal with how I would feel when I arrived back at the house I’d grown up in.
After a long wait and several announcements over the loudspeakers, we got on the plane, the seven of us, and we took our seats. Maria and I sat together in a row of three seats, with another passenger, while Anna, Stefan and their three boys were all together in the row behind us. It filled up quickly, and almost all the seats were taken.
After a safety briefing from the cabin crew, the plane began to move. I’d brought a newspaper onto the plane and, as the plane took off, I opened it up and held it right in front of me.
As the plane increased its speed and threw itself higher into the clouds, I sat motionless, with that newspaper in front of me. At one point I heard Anna call across to me, ‘Dad, look out of the window. You can see the clouds.’
I wanted to turn my head and reply to her, but I couldn’t. I was in a hole, a hole that was so deep there was no bottom to it. I stifled the fear building inside me and adopted the mask of the Kozak. I looked at the pictures in the newspaper, my mind was too frazzled to read any words. There was an article about Leonardo Da Vinci, and it brought to mind a painting in that old house I grew up in. The painting that leapt into my head was the one above the kitchen table, the one with Jesus and his Disciples sat at a long table, partaking of the last supper. It was that painting I’d looked at every morning and every evening as a boy. I wanted to be sitting at that table, eating a slice of bread and butter and looking up at Jesus and his followers, framed in gold, and with beautiful carvings adorning the image. That’s where I wanted to be.
There were other paintings at my old home I wanted to see again. In the living room was one of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, also mounted in a golden frame, exquisitely carved. We’d also had one of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus, and one of the Three Wise Men following a star, both of them in our living room also. I’d grown up with these paintings, and I wanted to see them again so badly, because I knew Father always held onto them in spite of everything. They represented a line that could not, or should not, be crossed. They represented faith.
My in-flight meal was dumped in front of me on the little fold-down table. It was a chicken dinner with roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy. But my appetite was poor; I managed just a few mouthfuls.
Four hours into our journey we were instructed to put on our safety belts and the pilot began to take the plane down. Even though I knew we were above Ukraine, I still couldn’t bring myself to look out of the window. The engines switched from a steady, deep drone to a higher pitch that stretched my nerves to breaking point. I closed my eyes and waited, trying to breathe as normal, until there was a jolt and the plane landed on the runway. Finally, I persuaded myself to take a glance out of the window. I could see many metres of runway stretching all around us. Sunlight was streaming all around and daylight crept into the cabin as the door was opened. We all walked out onto a platform and then down a set of steel stairs.
As I stepped down onto the tarmac, I realised I was standing on Ukrainian soil for the first time in 50 years. I just stood there, and Kozak tears flowed from me. I couldn’t stop myself. Maria put her arms around me and whispered to me,
‘Stefan, you’re back.’ Anna and Stefan also put their arms around me and I was able to then stem my tears and feel joyous. My heart was full of sunshine as I stood beneath that Ukrainian sky. It was like magic, as if I’d been transported back in time, to the place where I was born.
Once inside the airport terminal, we collected our luggage and made our way through customs and into the Arrivals lounge. The building was a dismal sight, paint was flaking away from the doors and the sills of the windows were coated with a thick skin of dust. Inside, the linoleum flooring was peeling at the edges and was cracked in places. These deficiencies represented the legacy of Soviet neglect, and now we were seeing them with our own eyes. The officials checked our passports with typical cold-eyed efficiency, and then we all took our cases and bags down a final gangway into an open area with free-standing barriers dividing those arriving at the airport from those who had gathered to meet them.
‘Stefan! Maria! Over here!’ I saw a man waving at us, he had a big smile on his face and he walked towards us. As he came closer, I recognised him. It was Stefan, my nephew. I walked towards him and dropped my suitcase as we hugged each other. This was my brother’s son! Maria, and Anna and her family all joined in with a group huddle and my other nephew, Mikola, and my niece Tanya and her husband, Volodko, joined us all in a rapturous embrace. Kisses were planted on cheeks, han
ds were shaken, and then Tanya spoke, ‘Stefan, Maria and all your children and grandchildren, we welcome you to Ukraine.’
Her husband, Volodko, stepped forward with a platter, upon which was a loaf of bread and a dish of salt, the traditional Ukrainian welcome.
I must admit I was in something of a daze as we walked out of that building and I looked around me. It was one thirty and the sun was blazing above us, the sky was a misty blue, and beneath me was my beloved Ukrainian soil. The air I breathed was from a wind blowing across from those wonderful, magnificent Carpathian Mountains. It filled my nostrils, and my ears and all of my senses were tingling. I have to admit, it was strange, like stepping into a dream. We left the airport and we climbed into a minibus hired by my nephew and my journey back to Vinnitsya began.
The roads were bumpy and full of holes and cracks, a reminder once again of the extent of Soviet neglect. The constant bumping over holes in the road and the excessive engine hum made conversation impossible so I sat and took in the scenery.
We passed by many areas with settlements. There were blocks of high rise flats dotted around the landscape, one or two run-down shopping centres, and many sprawling estates, with houses of different sizes. One thing that was common to all of them was the shabbiness, the peeling and the pitted paintwork, the piles of rubble and the broken fences. Ukraine, to my searching eyes, looked second-hand; it looked like a junk yard.
To take my mind away from the wrecked scenery that surrounded us, I thought about Mother. I so wanted to go to the place where she was buried. So I could say a few words to her. At the age of 15, I’d been torn away from her, tossed onto the mercy of the wind. I’d been lucky and survived, when so many hadn’t. I wished I could tell her I was okay, and that I’d found a wife and raised a family. The fact she’d lived until she was 90 made me feel a little better, but only briefly, when I considered she may have spent her days wondering what happened to her husband and her youngest son. I trembled when I thought about Father and his sudden death. I knew I had to tell her about that. That’s why I was coming home.
My wife Maria chattered away to my niece and my nephews and I was grateful to her for that. I joined in the conversation now and again, but to be truthful, I had too much swirling around my head and my heart to be properly included.
For five hours we sat on that minibus, squirming and fidgeting. The seats were very hard and we were all getting a little bit sore and stiff. Halfway through our journey, we stopped at a petrol station to refuel and I went inside to see what I could buy with the Ukrainian currency I’d got.
‘Welcome!’ The shop owner was a small fellow, with thinning hair and a nodding smile you couldn’t ignore. ‘Please take a look around, I have much here that may be of interest to you.’ I nodded back to him and then browsed through his wares. There wasn’t much, just a typical selection of chocolates and candies and a rack of CDs. I flicked through them, but they were all of a modern style, so I wasn’t interested. It was a shame to see such an enthusiastic fellow with so little to trade, so I bought a few chocolate bars from him. It was my first purchase with hryvnia, real Ukrainian money. I handed him the notes only too gladly as, in my mind, it cemented the fact that Ukraine was a free country, and its citizens and visitors had a currency to trade in. That’s what I wanted to do. To see how people were faring in their day-to-day business, and give whatever money I could to them, even though it wasn’t much. I wanted the Ukrainian economy to grow and prosper, and for Ukraine to get stronger.
After the refuelling was done, we all got back on the minibus, a little less sore thanks to that leg stretch and short walk.
Stefan, my nephew, who was driving the minibus, switched on the CD player and some traditional Ukrainian music arrived to accompany us on our journey. We sang along to ‘Oy Chorna, ya si Chorna’ a song about a young Ukrainian girl, and several others tunes followed that one. Maria and I led the singing and it filled me with great joy to hear so many of us sharing these great melodies in my beloved Ukraine.
The time passed quicker than I’d expected, and some familiar sights caught my eye. We passed by the lake where I used to go swimming with my friends. I looked across and there were groups of boys there, in their shorts, splashing around and fooling about just like I’d done with my friends all those years ago. A lump formed in my throat. We passed by the town hall, the place where the Nazis had based themselves during their occupation of the area, and where Father and I so narrowly escaped execution.
We’d arrived, and were heading into the heart of my old home town. Stefan drove the minibus around a few familiar bends and turns, and then, it wasn’t long before I knew exactly where I was. Either side of us were groups of houses, some which I recognised, and others which appeared to be much newer. I scanned the dwellings on our left hand side, and my eyes fixed on one particular house. As the minibus slowed down, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The minibus stopped. Stefan turned the engine off and announced that we’d arrived. I put my hands together and whispered a prayer of thanks to the Lord. Then, I stepped down from the bus and stood looking at my old house. It wasn’t much, but it was my home. It was where I was born and grew up. So many years had passed by, more than 50. For a few seconds, I gazed at the house. It hadn’t changed all that much. The approach up to it had the same well-trodden track and there were neatly trimmed grass verges either side.
I walked up to the side of the house and I saw the door and the set of steps leading up to it. It was just as I remembered. As I stood there, I thought I could detect the aroma of fresh baking in the air, just like Mother might have done. The steps were freshly painted in the same shade of red that Father had always liked. It was so familiar.
I dropped to my knees in front of the house. Silently, I gave thanks to the Lord for leading me up to this moment. I placed the palms of my hands on the ground in front of the house and then I lowered my head and kissed the ground.
I was so happy to be back. A jigsaw which had been thrown in the bottom of a cupboard had finally found its missing pieces and put itself back together again. That was how it felt.
And I truly believe Ukraine will find its way, just like I found my way. There are many obstacles to overcome, but the human spirit and resolve can overcome them. I’d travelled many miles to reach that moment and in my heart the journey had been unending. At last, I got what I’d always wanted. Finally, I found freedom.
Ten years later . . .
The waitress smiles at us as she wipes our table down, and Bronec and I grin back at her. All the staff in the café know us well, we’re regulars here, and they often have a little joke with us. The café’s just reopened after redecoration and the smell of paint is still in the air. The carpet beneath our feet is lush and thick. There are new light fittings and the walls have been painted cream, whereas beforehand, they were a deep red. It feels like we’re in a completely different café.
‘It’s a funny feeling isn’t it, sitting here?’ says Bronec, ‘it’s just like being in a different world, don’t you think?’
It’s been a few years since I made that trip back to Ukraine, and I didn’t even know Bronec then. I only got to know him in the last few years. Of course, we’ve talked about our lives and the journeys we’ve both made, but I’ve never really spoken to him in any detail about that visit. I haven’t really spoken to anyone about it. It was important to rejoice and celebrate going back home, and, in many ways, it set me free, but it wasn’t quite what I expected.
‘Bronec . . . I know what you mean only too well.’ There are two mugs of steaming hot coffee on the table in front of us. I stir a couple of spoonfuls of sugar into mine, and take a big mouthful. ‘It reminds me of when I went back home to Ukraine. You know what? When I got off the minibus and saw my old house, I couldn’t believe it. It looked the same, but I couldn’t believe how small it was when I got inside!’
Bronec smiles, ‘I know what you mean. Things are not always as we remember them.’
‘You’re right.
You see, I went there with expectations. When I was a boy, my family had some really beautiful religious icons around the house. We had one of the Last Supper in the kitchen, the Holy Trinity and a portrait of Mary and Jesus in the living room, and one or two others. You know the kind of paintings I mean?’ Bronec nodded, and I continued. ‘Those paintings had the most beautiful frames, carved from oak, with very intricate patterns and a gold painted finish. They were very fine. But when I walked into the kitchen for the first time after all those years, the painting of the Last Supper wasn’t there, and when I walked into all the other rooms I saw that none of those others remained either.’
I take another sip of my coffee and Bronec does the same with his.
‘Well, I didn’t want to make a fuss about it right there and then, because a big party had been laid on for us. There was food and drink on every inch of the kitchen table. We had a great time, and I was so happy to be back in the bosom of my family, back in my old home. We partied into the early hours. But it kept preying on my mind. So, the next day, when it was early and everyone was still either in bed, or just starting to stir, I asked Tanya, my niece, about it. Of course, she didn’t know, or she couldn’t remember anything about it. Maybe she was too young. So I turned to my brother’s wife, Hala, and asked her the same question. She looked into my eyes, and I could see a great sadness deep inside her. She kept it well-hidden, as we all do, but it was there all right, I could feel it. She said she couldn’t remember exactly, but she thought the paintings had been sold some years ago, many years ago in fact.’
Bronec nods as he listens, ‘It sounds like those paintings were really something to you.’