In accordance with this plan, Mykola took his place at the window clutching a club in his hand. I entered the hallway, leaving the outside door half open. Here I was met by Antin. Without answering my greeting, he gestured toward the door to the front room. As I stepped in, signs of abject poverty struck me from every direction. The walls were bare, there was no furniture, and it was very cold. As I looked at Antin closely, I saw him staring at me, as if estimating my strength.
It was a very unpleasant moment. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears. His nervous fingers dangled from his long arms, as if suspended and not belonging to his body at all.
It was apparent that he did not recognize me. I tried to help him remember by mentioning my name and the names of my mother and brother, but it was hopeless. Antin just kept staring at me blankly and silently with his bloodshot eyes.
The man had gone mad, I said to myself. Then the fearful realization came to me that he was twice as big as I! Again, I pictured what those still-strong, violent hands could do to me.
I slowly and cautiously began to back toward the doorway. My movements must have jolted him from his stupor and reminded him of something because he suddenly blurted out:
“You came to ask me where Ivan was?”
It was a relief to hear his voice which, though gruff and unpleasant, relieved the tension.
“Yes, Antin,” I exclaimed, “but—”
He didn’t let me finish the sentence.
“What do you mean by ‘but’?” he interrupted me angrily.
“I mean—how could you know that I came looking for Ivan,” I stammered. “Maybe he is…” I did not finish the sentence, realizing that I had gone too far; or said it too soon at the wrong moment.
But a surprising change came over him. He became more calm and sensible. There were no more outbursts on his part, though he remained agitated and nervous. He kept moving his hands, as if he didn’t know what to do with them; his gaze kept shifting first to the window at his right, then to the one behind him, and finally it again rested on me.
My fear returned as he stood staring at me again. I didn’t have any idea what to do next. In my dilemma, my heart started pounding and dizziness and weakness overcame me. I wanted to yell, cry and scram. Just at this moment, Antin turned and, going into the kitchen, remarked over his shoulder: “I will ask my mother about it.”
But I didn’t wait there any longer. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead and my whole body started trembling. An inner voice commanded me to run—as fast as I could, and my body automatically obeyed. I rushed out of the room and reached the hall, but it was too late. Antin quickly slipped through the kitchen door leading to the hall, and in seconds, stood in front of me. In one hand he held a shiny butcher knife, in the other a dirty rag.
Seeing these, I started shouting for help, and I continued shouting even after I tasted that dirty rag being pressed to my mouth. At that moment, there was the crash of breaking glass as Mykola shattered the window with his club. All of this was accompanied by Mykola’s loud cries for help. My assailant hesitated for a moment and loosened his grip. I used his brief second of confusion to twist myself free and dashed out of the house. Mykola and I both started running as fast as we could through the deep snow, and didn’t stop until we were safely inside our home. It was only then, behind locked doors, that we realized we had both had a very narrow escape.
We decided not to say anything to anyone about our trip to the house on the hill. The mystery of Ivan’s disappearance remained unsolved until one day in April.
CHAPTER 27
I CANNOT find the words to describe what my eyes saw in the spring of 1933, but since those awesome memories still haunt me, I shall endeavor to convey my recollections of the sufferings and deaths of my fellow Ukrainians.
World War II was a reality, and I was a part of it. I saw the multitude of dead and mutilated bodies; I heard the cries of despair, and the moans of agony all around me. Day after day, I felt cold and hunger. I was constantly in fear of death. But all of that is now seen through the mist of time. In the haziness of those memories, I see a dim spark of light. This spark is the recognition that those sufferings were caused by war, that I and others at that time had a chance to fight for our lives, to defend ourselves no matter how slim those chances might be. Above all, I realized that while fighting in the war, I had not been completely abandoned. The military was always there with daily food rations, no matter how deficient in quantity and quality. We were also clothed (after a fashion), and barracks as such for sleep when possible were provided. The sufferings of war pale in comparison with the events in our village, all of which remain in my memory as absolute in horror.
Those of us who were still alive harbored a secret and final hope that the coming of the spring of 1933 would bring us some relief. We thought that the new vegetation would help us live through the long months of waiting for the new bread. Nourished by this hope, we were able to carry on until we saw the first signs of green. Sadly, however, many of the villagers were no longer alive by the time the long-awaited spring finally arrived. And many of those who lived long enough to see the passing of winter found their death in the very vegetables and grasses they were so hopefully and patiently awaiting.
That spring of 1933 in Ukraine was unusually cold. In our region, the spring weather usually set in around the beginning of April. The snow would melt quickly, and the green blanket of vegetation would immediately appear in its place. But in 1933, snow was still visible everywhere in mid-April. An icy-cold wind blew continually. It would often bring heavy clouds of rain or snow, or both, and the village would sink deep into mud and slush again. Then a freeze would turn all that into knobs of dirty ice.
Starvation in our village now reached a point at which death was a desirable relief. Many houses around us had already been standing for a long time with no signs of life. As the snow slowly melted away, human corpses were exposed to view everywhere: in backyards, on roads, in fields. Those dead bodies constituted a pathetic problem for the living. As the weather warmed, they started to thaw and decay. The stench which resulted plagued us, and we could do nothing about it. The villagers who survived were unable to bury the dead, and no one from the outside seemed in a hurry to do it, so the bodies were just left wherever they happened to die. Those in the fields or in the forest, fell prey to wild animals; those in their homes became the prey of countless rats.
For the third time, the village was stricken with panic. Those who were fortunate enough to remain alive were in the depths of despair. The resources they possessed had been used up long ago. They all finally had to face the shocking truth that there was nothing to eat, and no hope of getting any help: that death from starvation was their imminent fate.
Most of these desperate villagers reconciled themselves to this fact. They stayed at home, and their conditions were indescribable. They were unkempt and haggard, and so weak that they could hardly drag one foot after the other. They just sat, or lay down silently, too feeble even to talk.
The bodies of some were reduced to skeletons, with their skin hanging grayish-yellow and loose over their bones. Their faces looked like rubber masks with large, bulging, immobile eyes. Their necks seemed to have shrunk into their shoulders. The look in their eyes was glassy, heralding their approaching death.
The bodies of others were swollen, a final stage of starvation. Their faces, arms, legs and stomachs resembled the surfaces of plastic balloons. The tissues would soon crack and burst, resulting in the fast deterioration of their bodies.
The thaw brought with it a new wave of beggars. Those who still had strength enough to move left their dwellings and took off in search of food. Old and young, mostly women and children, slowly moved from house to house dragging their rag-covered feet. They pleaded for food: a potato, or a piece of bread, or at least a kernel—a single kernel!—of corn. At the onset of the famine, I remember how the emaciated would come to the doorstep, often sobbing, and would ask for some spare food. If refused, they would excuse themselves politely and go away, apologizing for bothering us.