“Set in a near-future Ukraine, with pitch-perfect dialogue, this story is brilliantly atmospheric. It will haunt you.” Patience Agbabi, poet, author and Orwell Youth Prize 2024 judge
– Name?
– Mariia Pidvysotska.
– Citizenship?
– British.
The eyes-X-rays shifted their focus on me. For a moment it seemed that a different person was sitting in front of me.
– Place of birth?
Although the intonation remained learnt-monotonous, the eyes could not be hidden. Behind the glassy stare a mocking light was smouldering. – Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.
The light immediately flared up. It was burning, flaming up, trying to break through the steel well-bred restraint. I felt the radiation of this heat. And then the first tongues of the hellfire broke through, having left their sulphurous aftertaste in the border guard’s answer:
– The country and city are unauthorised, they do not exist.
“But 30 years ago they existed…”
He did not wait for an answer, and I had nothing to say.
– What is the purpose of your visit?
– Receiving the legacy.
“Arrival. Dec. 01, 2053. Kiev. Russia”. The stamp slammed, like the door of the prison cell that instantly closed behind my back.
***
I left the airport and headed to take a taxi. It was difficult to walk, but not because of a heavy suitcase. It seemed as if a cast-iron kettlebell was chained to my feet.
Several attempts to order a taxi through the app did not give a result. For many years the Internet here had been special, isolated. Like any connection with the
outside world. The phone refused to accept the card of a local operator purchased immediately after the arrival. I approached the crowd of taxi drivers who were milling and smoking around the entrance.
– Excuse me, can you give me a lift?
– “Good afternoon,” the man, who was ready to please me, smiled greedily. “Of course, where are you going?”
“Lesi Ukrainky Boulevard, 12” I answered automatically. As a child, I learnt by heart the address, like my mum’s phone number.
The taxi drivers glanced at each other, they looked confused. I forgot again that now everything was different here. But one of the men approached me in a friendly way and offered:
– I will give you a ride.
– Indeed?
We moved a little further.
– “Yes, it seems that you meant the Red Boulevard,” the driver made a short pause, sighed and quietly muttered, “That is how it is called now…” ***
I turned on the music in my earphones to drown out the noise of the radio. The border guard’s words left some mark of humiliation on my soul. It was aching, and instead of cheering myself up and healing the wound, I decided to finish myself off with the melancholic melody, with which I was riding in tune, playing with my eyes on the bleached trunks of trees, as if on the keys of a piano. A low pavement fence along the road was sparkling in thick layers of blue, white and red paint. In some places blue and yellow colours had already gnawed holes for themselves to get some air.
Morning traffic jams, familiar since childhood, in which I used to nap on my way to school, lulled me asleep again, as before.
***
– Hello, my name is Lera. What is your name?*
– I am Marichka.
– “Very nice to meet you,” the classmate smiled, and the question that changed my life left her inquisitive plump lips, “Why do you speak Ukrainian, everyone here speaks Russian?”*
After that I started hiding something from my parents for the first time. ***
The darkness subsided, and through the window I recognised my native street. For some reason the entrance hall smelled special now. I slowly walked up the stairs, stalling for time, preparing for that wave of memories which would flood me over as soon as I crossed the threshold. For every moment lived there to once again penetrate my blood and to spread over the body, tickling it pleasantly and languorously. Even this anticipation was excitingly thrilling.
And here was the door with number “46”, behind which little Marichka was waiting, holding a balloon filled with home aromas, that she would pop as soon as Mary stepped on the wooden parquet. The key was turned, the handle was pushed down, the door was opened and… Nothing. Only a quiet whisper of dust. I took a few steps into the flat to hear its breathing. My home did not recognise me, or I did not understand it anymore…
***
The cemetery. The abandoned and weed-ridden graves of the people who had long been forgotten remained here. My parents were probably disliked even here. Maybe it had been worth escaping? Many had managed to…
My reflections on the parents’ choice were interrupted. For a moment it seemed that I had mixed up the graves. Surnames and names—everything was wrong with them. I perfectly remember that my dad’s last name was written in the Cyrillic script as “Pidvysotskyi”, like mine. But by no means “Podvysotskyi”*. And my mum’s last name also took on a non-native form. I felt unspeakably sorry for them.
***
My dad’s lawyer, like everyone here, also suffered from chronic apathy. He was sitting in the high leather chair and in his low detached voice was reading out the testament, which I had already been familiar with in the UK. But I crossed half
of Europe for something else. After reading, the man slowly got up and left the office. A few minutes later he came in with a black box and handed it to me. ***
The ride by underground seemed endless. The noise of the wheels was becoming louder and louder, it pushed me out of reality, threw me into the abyss. In recent years when I looked in the mirror, I saw an unfamiliar person, experienced not my feelings, interwove not my thoughts, felt not my emotions. And it all started 30 years ago, when my home was taken away, together with my parents, cutting off contact with them. That is how I lost myself, barely knowing myself. That is why, crossing the threshold of my native home, I did not feel anything.
But now, holding this box, I did not stall for time. I flew up the stairs to the top, turning over the letters on the covered with writings walls of the entrance hall, raising dust from my neighbours’ secrets and tearing off figures from the numbers of the flats. I ran into the flat and headed to my desk. It was high time to find out what the black square hid…
I opened the lid of the darkness. There was a letter and a worn leather notebook. On the paper, saturated with my dad’s smell, words were lined up in long, even corridors, written in such painfully familiar handwriting.
“Dear Mariia,
I am writing to you in English, because I do not already know if you remember and feel well in your native language. And it is safer this way. Mum and I miss you so much. It is difficult for me to write this letter to you as an adult, because the last time I saw you, you were a sixteen-year-old girl. Although it hurts that fate so cruelly separated us and that you had to start your adult life so early and suddenly, I am still glad that you live freely. If you have managed to come here and you are reading this letter, then Ukraine is probably free again, or you are just stubborn.
Unfortunately, we can only imagine what you are like now. And you do not know what we have become. Therefore, I bequeath you my diary, because I did not
have enough time to share all my thoughts during our cosy evening conversations at the kitchen table.
At least now we will speak with you like this.
And I also left something valuable not only for you. In the kitchen, behind the icon on the wall, there is a gap. There you will find a book. This is “Kobzar” by Taras Shevchenko. I do not know how many undestroyed copies are left here, so maybe this is the last one. Be very careful with it. Please, do not let it disappear. Once it all started with it. And it will start again.
Dad”
I greedily swallowed everything till the last word. The room suddenly lacked air. After impetuously opening the window and letting the frosty December into the flat, I approached the icon with the letter in my hand and took out “Kobzar”. Holding it in my hands and feeling frantic tachycardia, I opened the book to the first page:
Bury me thus — and then arise!
From fetters set you free!
And with your foes’ unholy blood
Baptise your liberty!
***
I did not know how much time had passed since I felt that I was freezing. Outside, because inside everything was burning, seething and reviving. In a moment I rushed to clean the flat. I was dusting, removing spider-webs, washing the floor, doing dishes, doing the laundry, fighting with dirt and rubbish as if with an enemy. This was my home. I returned. I will not give it away to anyone.
* Russian