Comrade Khizhniak stopped wrestling with my brother and put his gun back into its holster. He then turned to the old farmer:
“You will leave the thinking to the horses; they have bigger heads,” he sneered in a low voice. “Just whose business are you talking about?”
Then he approached the old man and looked at him contemptuously.
“I’m the business here!” he suddenly roared. “Do you hear me? I’m the business here! No one else! Keep that in your stupid, dirty, lousy old head!”
The old man hesitated; he wanted to say something but it was all in vain. Comrade Khizhniak continued, this time speaking through clenched teeth.
“Look at him,” he continued, as he turned to the commission’s members, pointing at the old farmer with his finger. “He came here on official business…. Isn’t that interesting?” Then he again raised his voice. “I repeat; this is my business! I’m the representative of our beloved and dear Party and government here! I am—”
“I only wanted to—” the old man started to say something.
“Shut up!” Comrade Khizhniak interrupted him. Then after a moment of silence, he gave the warning:
“I’ll get even with you sooner or later.”
Comrade Khizhniak was a member of the Communist Party and the chairman of the Hundred’s commission. He had complete power within that Hundred. To oppose him was to oppose the Party and the government. No one, except his superiors, might interfere in his activities. Shouting louder and louder, he warned that he would shoot down anyone who opposed the will of the Communist Party and that of the government.
After a while he turned to my brother Serhiy.
“You are a strong lad, eh! You are a very strong lad, indeed,” he said. “Our beloved fatherland needs strong fellows like you. Isn’t it a great fortune to have such a strong young generation?”
He then turned to the man with the rifle, signaling him to step closer. Then he turned to my brother again.
“Well, well,” he continued in the same manner. “Our socialist fatherland needs strong people….” Then, taking a dignified pose, and in a haughty military manner, he pronounced:
“In the name of our beloved Communist Party and our people’s government, I declare you under arrest for physical assault on an official representative of the Party and government while he was performing his official duty.” He then ordered the man with the rifle to take my brother into his custody.
My mother could not hide her despair. Crying, she attempted to hold on to Serhiy with both hands, but being too weak to struggle against four men, she fainted. When she regained consciousness, Serhiy was gone.
A few minutes later, after mother came to, Khizhniak continued his “business” as though nothing had happened. “Well,” he began, “as you already know, we came here on a serious business matter. On official business, as our comrade has said,” he smilingly nodded to the old farmer. “And, indeed, it is very serious.”
Mother rose to her feet and brushed back her hair.
“Before you start your official business, whatever it is, I demand a warrant for the arrest of my son,” she said in a clear voice. We were all amazed.
“I’m only a helpless widow,” she continued. “You can do what you want with me, for I do not have any strength to defend myself. But as long as I am alive, I protest against your intrusion into my house.”
Such a protestation was unheard of. The punishment for saying such things was a sentence of life imprisonment or death. No one would even think of demanding permission for arrest or search from an official.
Mother’s demand touched off hysterical laughter from Comrade Khizhniak and his lieutenants. Then he moved closer to us.
“Look, sister, don’t try to scare me. No one can scare me. I’ve been in tight spots before…”
When Mother tried to say something, he interrupted her. He hinted that he knew what had happened to her husband, and that it would be no trouble to do the same thing to her.
“I know what you mean,” Mother said, without changing the tone of her voice. “Nevertheless, as a citizen, I demand justice and my rights.”
“Now,” he pointed the gun at us: “Now, most loyal and patriotic citizen, you are under arrest. You, too!” He pointed at me with the gun, laughing. We were ordered to turn toward the wall and stand there.
The commission started its official business of searching for something. Comrade Khizhniak, still playing with his gun, seemed to like his business very much. He even looked inside the stove.
After they finished their search in the storage room, Comrade Khizhniak went into the room where Mother kept her clothing and relics in a locked trunk. We soon heard a shot.
Mother and I ran into the room. Comrade Khizhniak was opening the trunk. Not bothering to ask for the key, he destroyed the lock. Mykola, my younger brother, was crying in the corner behind the bed.
As Mother and I appeared on the threshold of the room, Khizhniak raised his gun and fired it over our heads. “Stay in your place,” he ordered. We left, and he closed the door behind us.
After a while, Comrade Khizhniak came out. In one hand he held a book, in the other, jewels—if this is the right word for the keepsakes of a farm woman. They were mementos of my mother’s girlhood.
“Well, Comrade Citizen, will you kindly explain to me what these mean?”
Mother answered; “The book is the Bible and those things are just what you see.”
“From whom were you hiding them?” He pointed to his findings. “How did you come by these things?”
“You know those things are mine!” Mother answered angrily.
In vain she tried to explain to him that the Bible had not been hidden; that she had had the jewelry for a long time, from before the revolution, and that in her own house she did not have to hide her own belongings.
“The Bible,” Khizhniak said, “had been hidden with the purpose of propagating religion, and the jewels did not belong to you, but to your in-laws. A kurkul will always be a kurkul,” he proclaimed meaningfully.
Then he explained that all three of my uncles had been declared kurkuls and arrested. Tomorrow they would be banished from the village and their property expropriated. The commission’s “business” in our house was to find anything that my uncles might have hidden in our home. After a thorough search, the commission left.
Confused and frightened, our only thoughts were of Serhiy and our three uncles.
CHAPTER 8
THE NEWS of the arrest of my uncles was a powerful blow. Since the death of my father, they had been our benefactors and protectors. They had helped support us materially, and had taken a keen interest in our welfare. Now we heard that they might be banished from the village, and sent to a distant region. We couldn’t understand why such industrious, generous, and upright members of our village would be so treated.
All three of them were farmers. They tilled their fields of fifteen to twenty acres, and managed their households as well as conditions permitted. Only one, Havrylo, seemed to be more prosperous than many other villagers. His house was roofed with tin, a sign of prosperity; he also owned several small auxiliary buildings, and a well-cultivated orchard. These gave the impression that he was a rich man. Yet, he had little more land than the other villagers: skillful management and industry accounted for his prosperity. Following the annual harvest, he worked on the railroad or at highway construction to help support his family.
My other two uncles were also ordinary small farmers. Their thatched-roofed houses and several domestic animals were their only worldly possessions. They and their children went barefoot; their diet consisted of bread and potatoes; and they could not always afford kerosene for their lamps. They did not have the means nor the need to hire workers.