I remember on one occasion I was passing by a small group of houses, on my way to a friend’s house, when I stumbled across a Soviet wagon outside a small, beaten up house. It needed a lick of paint, and the thatched roof was ragged. As I got closer I could hear what was being said,
‘You’ve taken everything! I’ve got nothing left! Nothing! My husband’s dead. My children are all dead. What else do you want? Tell me what you want!’
‘Listen, lady, we’re just here doing our job.’ They were piling corpses onto a wagon. The bed of the wagon creaked as the pile got higher.
‘Please! Let me fetch a priest! To get a blessing for him. You can’t just take him like this. Can’t he have a decent burial?’
‘Lady, we’re just following orders.’
Warily, I stole a glance at her. She was pacing up and down, wringing her hands and every so often she stopped and held her head in her hands. Then, without any warning she rushed into the house and returned holding a burning rag.
‘Well, you won’t take anything else from this house! I’ll make sure of that.’
She threw the burning rag onto the roof. The house was soon ablaze. The Soviet soldiers retreated. One of them took off his cap and scratched his head, and the two of them smiled at each other. Then, they simply carried on about their business. Some neighbours tried to console the woman. I walked on. This sort of thing was a common sight. The spirit to resist was there, but there was no way to fight the battle. Not really. All we had left was to destroy our own homes before the Soviets got their hands on them.
That’s how things were. Too many of us had shown signs of resistance, and so, the Soviets came down on us like a hammer. They wanted to take everything we’d worked so hard for, but why should we give it to them? Many in the village were resentful of the grain quota demanded by the Soviet state. It was like slavery. No one dared to speak out against them. They tried to crush us, but our spirit was too strong with that Kozak blood inside us. They may have forced us to walk with our heads bowed, just thinking about the next piece of bread, but they couldn’t stop us being who we were.
Autumn arrived and all the children over the age of seven returned to school. I was thankful for that in some ways, because Volodimir came home with a bagful of books and I’d sit and look at them, and try to read some of the words. Books were something I developed a passion for from a very young age. They gave me something to focus on rather than food.
While Volodimir was at school, I was sent out to look for firewood. It was one of my chores. I’d scour around the lanes and meadows, putting all I could find into a small sack. Before his departure into the arms of the Almighty, Bohdan would usually join me, and of course, we’d end up running along together. Bohdan was a fast runner, he usually won our races. Then we’d watch as our breath turned to steam. We’d be breathing hard. Thinking back now, we didn’t run far. We didn’t have the energy. The meadows and scrub areas were eerie and quiet. Whatever animal life that was left out there had gone deep into the ground. Otherwise, whatever it was, it would’ve been eaten.
‘Shhh! Stefan, look!’ Bohdan was crouching down and keeping very still. He lifted a finger up to his lips. I looked across into a small wooded area, and there perched on a boulder was a sparrow. Not a fat bird, but big enough to our hungry eyes. Trying not to make any sudden moves, Bohdan reached down and picked up a rock that was lying next to his foot. Carefully, he raised his arm above his head, and with a swift motion he threw the rock at the sparrow. ‘Blast it!’ His throw was off target and the sparrow flew away. Thing is though, I’d seen him hit one before, and we’d roasted the sparrow and eaten it. This time it wasn’t meant to be, so we hurried along and gathered more wood before going home.
Our kitchen had a big, wooden table where our family sat for our evening meal, a bowl of that thin, milky broth. Father always led us in prayer before each meal. All around our house were framed icons of Bible scenes. We had at least one in every room. They were big, imposing frames, constructed of wood and coated in gold paint. The frames were carved and shaped into curves with some very fine decorative detail. I loved looking at those icons, they seemed to soothe me somehow. The colours were so bright and vivid. It was as if I could jump right into the picture and sit there inside it. The golden frames glinted in the candlelight. One of those icons was mounted above the kitchen table. It was a painting of the Last Supper. I remember, on more than one occasion, looking up at it and giving thanks to God we were still alive. On another occasion I recall a conversation between Bohdan’s father, Petro, and my own, when he’d called in one evening.
‘These icons are beautiful, Mikola. I know I’ve been round here many times before, but I’ve never really appreciated how good they really are. They’re wonderful. They must be worth a lot.’
‘Well, I bought them at the bazaar just after Volodimir was born. You see, I wanted to bring God into this house. To bring our children up as Christians. I got them for a good price, but you’re right, they weren’t cheap.’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you could take them to the town and sell them to get bread.’
‘No. The icons stay right here. With God here we’ll get through this.’
‘But surely it’s worth it? To try and feed your wife and children.’
‘The icons stay.’
Those paintings were there to remind us that maybe there could be some good in the world, because Lord knows, we were surrounded by dark forces, by those who wished to wipe us from the map. They sat in their den of power, plotting to destroy us. The leader of these devils was Stalin. He was evil. His Soviet followers and henchmen were mindless murdering scum. Many times I’ve had a vision, where a dark cloud gathers above them. All of them. And then lightning strikes them down. Havoc rains down on them, and they are annihilated. In my heart I want vengeance for what they did to us. I hope they rot in Hell.
It doesn’t sound very Christian I know, to say such things, but the scale of what was done is hard to believe. To take food away from millions of people so that they starve to death is a crime of such a proportion that it cannot be seen as anything other than evil.
It’s hard to describe. When you’re so hungry, it tightens up inside you. It’s like there are spiders crawling in your belly. So many times I felt like I could just sit down and eat, and never stop. I remember my brother Volodimir and me bursting into the house and saying to our Mother, ‘Mama! We’re hungry! Can we have something to eat?’
‘My beloved children,’ she said looking down at us, and what she said next breaks my heart. It hurts me to even think about it. She said, ‘Take me and eat me.’
The famine raged on as the Soviet drive to take all our food continued right up to the winter. There were fewer people around. We were being wiped out. I remember that winter as being a very bitter one. We stamped our feet in our battered choboti* and pulled our woollen hats down over our ears, those of us that had them, and then it was open warfare as we ventured out into that snow-covered terrain that was our village. Volodimir would start things off by pulling off my hat and running away with it.
‘Hey! Give me my hat back!’ I’d shout at him. Then I’d turn around and four or five of the other boys would be lined up with snowballs in their hands. They threw them at me, spattering me. The melting ice would stream through my hair, creep under my collar and slide down my back. But I fought back. I might have been little but I was damned quick. I’d plunge my hands into the snow, make snowballs and launch into them. I’d fire the snowballs at them, and Volodimir would then take my side. He was a good thrower, everyone got ice down their backs when he got going. We loved it. Running down the road to school, it was all we needed. Sometimes we’d get hold of a big doshka*, maybe an old door or something like that. We’d all jump on and carve through the ice as we slid down the hills, kicking up a snow spray. We’d get to the bottom of the hill and one of us would shove a toe end into the snow causing the doshka to spin around. We’d all go skidding off in
different directions. We loved it. A huge white playground of powdery snow. Who needs toys when you’ve got that stuff? There was a small lake near our village and, when it got really cold in the evenings, so cold you could hardly feel your fingers and toes, we’d run down there to skid around on the ice that formed on and around it. On a clear evening, the moonlight reflecting off the frozen water gave us plenty of light, and it was like being in some kind of magical kingdom. On the far side of the lake was a steep slope which led down to a wooded area, and where there was a beaten up old shack. An old man called Matviyko lived there who was well known in the village, even though he was hardly ever seen. How he survived down there all on his own I don’t know. It was rumoured that he was a bit crazy, so we boys kept away from that shack. On one occasion we were sliding down that hill which was frozen as hard as glass. Some of us slid down on our boots, waving our arms wildly to keep our balance, others managed to find a piece of wood to sit on. Well, the ground was so frozen that, once we’d reached the bottom, we all struggled to find our feet again and slipped around, grabbing each other for support and then falling over again. As we lay on the floor, we heard a rasping chuckle. We looked across at the shack and there he was! He was a stout old man with wild eyes staring out from baggy cheeks and wild grey, thinning hair sprouting in every direction. He was wrapped in a thick, grey coat with a red scarf tucked right up to his chin.
‘Boys, boys,’ he said in a voice like a rumble from Heaven, ‘this is what happens when you come down here and slide around on the snow stone, you end up spending time with Matviyko.’ He lifted his face up to the moonlight and laughed, his breath a cloud of steam. We didn’t hang around, we scrambled up that slope almost as quickly as we’d come down, and then we walked home. Matviyko’s words puzzled me as we made our way back in the light from the moon. Then I realised that, to him, snow stone was ice. He was an odd sort of fellow and I guessed that living alone might cause someone to act strangely and use peculiar language.
When we got home, Mother sat us next to the stove to warm us up. We gazed into the fire. The flames jumped around in the stove and I let my mind wander. I thought about the Kozaks on the steppes. Now that was freedom. What a life they must have led, underneath the stars, with no one to tell them what to do. Riding into battle ready to die if need be, but with the strength and the swordsmanship to slay any army, no matter how powerful. Mother would usually interrupt my dreaming. She’d pass me a cupful of warm milk and then scold us a little for getting so drenched and dirty, but that was it, there was very little else.
Visitors to our village could’ve sensed that something wasn’t quite right. The cry of eagles overhead was no more. Village life had changed. There were never any dogs around, or cats. Anything that could be eaten had disappeared. A silence hung over us. A black gloom. Life was being drained away, day by day.
Father would come home from his work at the local nail factory. They gave him one slice of bread to feed the four of us. So we split it into four pieces. That’s all we got. A piece of bread two inches square! It was barely enough to feed a mouse. It was enough to send you mad, and people did lose their reason. These were ordinary families, ordinary people, but they were driven to do the unthinkable.
One day, a villager arrived at the local bazaar with a quantity of meat for sale. Many people rushed towards him waving money, desperate to buy some of the meat. Others stood back. Where had the meat come from? There were hardly any animals left in the area. Perhaps just those such as our own cow, which were kept purely for producing milk. He laid out the slices of red meat on several dishes. There was enough to almost fill a table. The meat looked fresh and many people, as they queued, debated about how they would cook it. Some talked about making a stew which would maybe last a few days. Others talked of mincing the meat to make sausages, which would last even longer, but those who had stood back were ones who had worked on the local councils before the Soviets took over. The elders of the village. They were compelled to speak out, ‘Wait! Wait! You must tell us where this meat has come from. Is it beef or pork? Or what is it? You must tell us before anyone can have any of this meat.’
Of course, the man broke down and it soon became clear. It was human meat. People were killing their children and eating them. Later that evening, I lay in bed and heard Father’s voice from down below,
‘Those damned Soviet sons of bitches! Look what they’ve done to us! They’ve turned us into beasts. I know that man who killed his own children, he works at the factory with me, but look what he’s done!’
I heard another voice, it sounded like Petro, Bohdan’s father,
‘How could anyone do that to their own children though, eh? When we lost Bohdan, it would never have entered our heads to do anything like that! It’s the work of the devil!’
‘Yes and that particular devil’s name is Stalin!’ thundered Father.
I didn’t sleep so well that night. I drifted in and out of dreams, where images of the man who’d killed and eaten his own children kept appearing. There he was, only a few feet away, waving a carving knife in front of a twisted stare, and with his face sliced into a gap-toothed grin. I woke up screaming and ran to Mother in the bed she shared with Father. She hugged me and calmed me down. Those nightmares continued for many nights.
Somehow our family survived. While all around us people were dying. We were lucky, I guess. We made sure our cow got fed and, in return, she gave us milk. Mother made up the soup. Maybe it wasn’t the tastiest soup I’ve ever had, but when you’re hungry you savour it well enough.
Sometimes, Mother would send me along to the factory to take some of the milky broth to Father for his lunch. It was hardly a meal fit for a working man, but it was more than most of the others got. I could sense some unease from him as I gave him the jar of broth. There were other men around who could smell the aroma of warm food and all eyes shifted across to where we were, like cats eyes squinting through the gloom. I could feel them peering out of every corner of that place when that jar of soup arrived. Father drank it down quickly, gave me the jar back and I hurried away. It felt shameful somehow, to be bringing food for my father when others went without.
So, this was how my life began. I was born into a catastrophe, but I didn’t know it at the time, I just thought this was our life.
Chapter 2
Ukrainian proverb: Those sitting above can easily spit on those below
At first, all we could see was a speck in the distance. We watched, and we had an idea what was happening; it wasn’t the first time.
‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’
Miron stood in front of us breathing hard. We’d just watched him run all the way down the full length of the road that ran from the village into Vinnitsya. It was a straight stretch of road, it must have run for about a half a mile. It always seemed like a long way to me. Like it stretched on and on to the rest of the world.
Volodimir and I, and some other boys were playing a game of football with an old ball that was past its best. At the age of seven I was the youngest, so the older boys always chose me to be goalkeeper. I didn’t mind anyway. I liked throwing myself around.
It was two years after the famine. We had a little bit more to eat, not a great deal, but people weren’t starving to death anymore. We were getting stronger and when we saw Miron standing in front of us, and heard his words, it was a call to arms. The older boys took control. They sent us little ones back into the village to get as many boys as we could and bring them to join us. The Moscali were on their way!
The Moscali were the Soviet boys that lived in the town. Every now and then they would walk out of the town up to where we lived in the village. They thought they could lay into us. They had some stupid idea in their heads they could beat us. We were having none of that and collected as many boys together as possible and waited. As the seconds ticked by we became more and more determined.
‘Come on you Moscali! Come and get some!’ we hollered down the road, ready for
anything. They’d need to kill us, each one of us, before we gave up, or before we’d let them get past us.
It wasn’t too long before they came into view. There were about 20 of them, and we had about the same number. It would be an even fight. Well, it would have been if they weren’t such a bunch of soft city boys. As they got closer we saw their slicked back hair, and their fancy shirts and trousers. They thought they were really something, so we did what we always did. We shouted at them, ‘Katsap! Katsap!’ and made bleating noises, mocking them.
They hated that, because katsap* means billy goat. Now, that may not seem like such a big insult these days, but the Moscali boys hated it. It got right under their skin. They really saw themselves as refined and modern, so to be mocked as farm animals was like spitting in their faces. We could see the wounded look in their eyes as we yelled and mocked them. So they called back, ‘Hohli! Hohli!*’
This was another word for billy goat, but also referred to the Kozak haircut. Somehow they thought this would belittle us, but it made us laugh even more. Was that the best they could come up with? These boys with their city education and sophisticated ways. We laughed louder and flapped our hands at them to show our scorn.
Then they started. Big stones flew through the air at us, and we had to be quick to dodge them. But then we started. A supply of big stones was all ready. My job was to pass them up to the bigger boys. I darted back and forth to keep the supply line well fed much of the time but every now and then one of the boys would turn to me, ‘Come on Stefan! We need more stones!’ It was at times like this when I thought of Bohdan. He would have helped if he was still around. He was so quick on his feet he would have lifted twice as many stones as me and passed them up to the bigger boys. Mind you, I expect he’d have wanted to be stood at the front throwing the stones at the Moscali.