Sliding on the Snow Stone (17 page)

We retired to our beds but on the 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.

Eventually, I stopped, breathing hard with near-exhaustion. It was getting dark and there was a chill in the air. I just wanted to fall down somewhere, go to sleep and never wake up. I found a place along the river bank; it was just a shrub with a hollowed out pocket beneath it. I threw myself into that pocket and lay there. My mind wouldn’t stop. I kept going through it all over and over again. Why? We’d never been any trouble to anyone. Why did this happen to us? I cursed Leo. If he’d let us stay together, then maybe Father would still be alive. Or maybe we’d both be dead. Maybe that would have been better. Eventually, I drifted into sleep.

Many more days passed that were just like that one. Not many morsels of food were to be found. I knew I needed to eat to keep my strength up, Father had always hammered that into me, but I wasn’t hungry at that time. I had things on my mind, I’d lost my Father, and was far away from home with no way of getting back. The coldness of the nights numbed me, much of the time I couldn’t feel my feet, and I kept my hands deep in my coat pockets. I thanked the Lord I had that coat, if it were not for that I would have frozen.

Day blurred into night and back. Many times, I fell and lay down to rest. Or to die. If I were to be crushed by a Nazi tank then at least it would all be over and I wouldn’t have to endure the pain that stabbed in my head and in my heart.

One day, I can’t recall exactly when it would have been, I was walking down a road, swaying from side to side when I heard the sound of something, horses’ hooves and the rumble of a wagon. It was a familiar sound from my childhood. It was right behind me. A voice penetrated the fuzziness that filled my head,

‘
Hey you! You, boy! Where are you heading! There’s marshland up ahead, you’ll never make it through there. It’ll suck all the life out of you and pull you under!’

I turned around and saw a horse and cart, with a man sitting above, holding onto the reins. He jumped down, he was of a stocky build, with a sun burnt face and a mop of curly black hair. He wore a dark blue shirt and matching trousers held up with braces,

‘
Let’s have a look at you, boy,’ he placed his hands on my shoulders, and I didn’t resist, ‘My my, you’ve been through some rough times. You’re just skin and bone. You look as if you could do with a hot bath. Come with me. My wife’ll feed you and run you a bath so you can get yourself cleaned up. You’ll need to pay me back though; I need a pair of hands on my farm for a week or two. What do you say?’

I nodded, too weak to speak. He helped me to climb up onto the wagon and, before too long, we were on a long approach, with fields either side of it, heading towards a farmhouse of generous proportions.

‘
I’m Ivan,’ he said as he helped me down off the wagon, ‘come inside and meet my wife.’

‘
I’m Stefan.’ I managed to mumble my name to him somehow. He guided me into his home and into a warm kitchen that reminded me of home. I held back a tear. A woman stood in front of a stove, busy cooking something that smelled good,

‘
This is Stefan,’ said Ivan as the woman turned around, ‘I found him near the marshes. Brought him back here before he got lost in there.’ He turned his head towards me, ‘This is my wife, Marina. We’re just about to have some dinner, so sit yourself down and join us.’

I slumped down onto a chair. The warmth of that room soon spread through my bones and, in the space of a few minutes, my cheeks burned as if they were about to catch fire. I stood up and took my coat off, then sat back down again. It was good to be under a roof and in the warm. A plate of fried potatoes and cabbage was placed down in front of me. The aroma of it was tantalising. I didn’t waste any time. I shovelled it into my mouth and savoured the taste of the butter and the vegetables as they dissolved in my mouth and slid inside me.

Once I finished I sat back and looked up. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The kitchen was of a substantial proportion, and the fittings and furniture looked solid and well made. Above the table was a religious picture of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I swallowed as I thought about my home, back in Ukraine. Would it still be standing? Or had the Nazis burned it down as they ran from the Soviets. And what of Mother? Would she have survived? Those questions nagged away at me. They tormented me. 

During the course of my wanderings across these lands, I’d wanted to just crawl into a hole, close my eyes and sleep forever. The way I saw it, the world was a bad place, with cruelty and pain the common currency of every day. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to live in that world, but there I was, saved once again by the kindness of these people. Ivan poured me a glass of water and I sipped it, I carried on looking around, naturally curious. Either side of the religious picture were framed photographs, portraits of what looked like boys. They were a little faded, and I strained my eyes to look closer.

‘
Stefan,’ Ivan placed a hand on mine, ‘those photographs you see up there on the wall are of our two sons, Theodore and Nikolai. Some weeks ago they ran away to join the Resistance, We haven’t seen or heard from them since . . .’

At that point Marina, who had stopped eating and was sitting motionless, threw her face into her hands and wept uncontrollably. Ivan placed his arms around her.

I didn’t know what to say or do. I just sat there, frozen. A few minutes passed. Marina managed to compose herself and she busied herself heating some water, pausing now and again to wipe her eyes with her apron. I had a bath in a small room off the kitchen. Some of my pain and the misery soaked away for a few minutes as I scrubbed myself clean. The heat spread through me and chased the cold from my bones. Marina got me some clean clothes and I was shown to a bedroom. Before too long, I was asleep in a warm bed, in a room, under a roof. Something I hadn’t known for a while. Sleep came to me quickly.

The next morning, after breakfast, Ivan showed me around their land, ‘Here’s our cowshed,’ he pushed the wooden door open and Marina was right there in front of us, squatting on a small stool, milking away. ‘We have just three cows, but we get a good yield from them. I’ve milked the other two myself, earlier this morning. Look.’

He walked over to a large metal pail which was standing in a corner. ‘We store it in these containers, and then take them down into our cellar until market day. You’re welcome to help yourself to the milk, whenever you feel like it. There’s plenty. But I must insist you do not waste it. No throwing it around or drinking so much that you get bellyache. Just take as much as you need, but treat it with respect. It’s our livelihood. Understood?’ I nodded. He reached up to a rack above the pail where there was a ladle and some tin cups. He poured me a drink of the lovely, frothy, fresh milk. It settled inside me and I felt a warmth inside as it flowed into my stomach.