Мария Старожицкая - Навіщо. What For

Tetyana

I took the first bus to Russia. Grabbed the kid and went. My former husband disgusted me. Can’t believe he became friends with that Russian riff-raff. I hated Dimka. He could have told me that he loved me back in grade ten, not in a basement twenty years later. And I hated myself. Because I couldn’t understand why this was all happening to me. Because we all wanted a tougher government and higher salaries? We’re living in a dormitory in the Kursk oblast. The roof leaks and the walls are covered in mould. I don’t let my son go alone anywhere. There are tons of drunks around. And nobody likes us refugees. I’ve become friends with a neighbour. She’s armenian and she's a refugee. There’s a war going on where she comes from too. She’s been here for a quarter of a century, but is still an outsider, and everything is foreign for her. It’s the same for us. At school everything’s different. The kid’s already done the physics and math that they’re just teaching them here. He spends all day on-line, chatting with his friends who were displaced to Kyiv, to Dnipropetrovs’k. No one else came to Russia. But how can a wife of a separatist go to Ukraine? How could I convince anyone that I’m his ex-wife? I can’t find a job here. So I take Belarussian underwear and sell it at the local market. Panties, socks, bras…

Chervonets

They sent me to a sanatorium in Russia because I brought in the wounded Veles. That was Dimka’s nom du guerre. Turns out he was a scout for the ‘enforcers’. They were well fed and had lots to drink. Thanks goodness I’m alive and in one piece. Others have lost arms and legs. One guy was telling me that the ‘enforcers,’ tortured him, chopped off his fingers. I thought about it and decided there was no point in going back. I won’t be able to find a job, might lose my head. Went to a village in Kursk oblast’, to try and make up with Tetyana, to see my son. They’re living in a filthy room. The old Tetyana would never live like that, now it’s as if she doesn’t see anything around her. We talked about nothing. She told me to come back when I’m sober then we’d talk about the divorce, about the kid. Well, I did have a few drinks before going to see her, why ever not? I left and saw the train station. A train had just arrived from Donetsk. It takes two days. Hung out with my countrymates, and when I finally sobered up, realized I was with a bunch of Cossacks from Taman. They’re heading to the Donbass as volunteers, to liberate it from the fascists. Everybody knows that the ‘enforcers’ are rapists, that they crucify children, they pull out Russian birch trees with their roots… I don’t argue with them. I really don’t want to argue with them. I’ll just have another drink. When I’m drunk all I think about is where is my place in the world? Where can I live? And realize that I destroyed it.

Martynov

They brought us out together. We were both wounded. Both shot in the leg. Although mine wasn’t as bad as the American’s. My bones were intact. Being on native land helps! At first they put us in the same hospital room. Then I got transferred to an SBU cell (Ukraine’s Secret Service). The Chekists [reference to Bolshevik era secret police] interrogated me. They wanted to know who I was, where I was from, why I had come. They even suggested that I record a video appeal they could broadcast to tell other Russians not to come to Ukraine. I refused. Although, to be honest, there’s not much point in our coming here. These alcoholic miners aren’t fighters. They don’t have the real Russian military spirit, the imperial vision. They put me on trial. Charged me with terrorism and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Russia demanded that I be sent back, but Ukraine refused. My unit back home quietly dismissed me, I had come as a volunteer. They found my mother, and asked her to publicly admit that I’m a Russian officer. But my mother, being a daughter of an officer, refused. Don’t know what they paid her, but I paid with my blood, sweat, and … A Russian Consul visited me in the hospital. He brought me some juice, and shaving toiletries. When he left, I asked them to throw everything out. There could be poison in anything. And right now my homeland sees me as a downed pilot, a liability. If I think about it, as an officer I should really shoot myself. But somehow I can’t. Something’s holding me back. Well, I have time to think about it. By the way, the prison library is full of Russian language books. I’ll have enough reading material to last me till I get out. Maybe these banderite-fascists are not what they appear… But I really did see an American. He’s definitely from the States, because we’d say ‘bliad’ but he kept saying ‘fuck.’ Although…

Strilka

They raped me for a long time. I don’t know how long. One hour. Two hours. They kept asking me where I was from, who I’d been with. I tried to tell them something. I swore that I was a local, from Kramatorsk. That all I did was make food for the Ukrainians, the soldiers, not the volunteers. They hate the volunteers. They really hate them. That I went through the green corridor with the column but then I got scared and spent two days hiding in the bushes. Then I started trying to find my way home. I think they believed me. They dumped me on the side of the road, like a piece of garbage. A local woman found me and helped me, using some sort of herbs. I couldn’t sleep. Then the Red Cross came to the village. And the woman somehow discretely managed to get them to take me. They brought me to Kyiv. Took me to a hospital. They kept talking to me, but I just kept crying. All I could see was the column being executed. I’m in the car and Dzyga’s head lands on the windshield. He was small, only nineteen years old. He used to come and ask me for vitamins, he liked the sweet ones… A doctor takes my hand, and says, ‘tell me more.’ That reminds me of when I was trying to find The Poet’s pulse. Dovbush’s mother came, and said I’d now be her daughter. The doctor keeps telling me that I’m young, everything will pass, and it’ll just remain in your dreams. And suggests that I might want to become a psychologist. Because philosophy is too ephemeral. And after the war there will be a need for psychologists to deal with all the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have the full range of its symptoms. Nightmares. It’s like can’t make it out of that military encirclement. Sometimes I feel like I see the enemy everywhere… I went to buy some chocolates and scared a poor saleswoman. Suddenly I just dropped to the floor and tried to hide behind the counter… One day I was wearing a cute green dress… And I bumped into some of the guys… We went for a drink and I started to cry… But they’re not the same anymore. They used to say, ‘we’re not here for the money.’ And now all they talk about is who owes them, what sort of perks they should be getting, where they can get a piece of land, some cheap loans… They’re not all like that. Or maybe they’re right, that they should be demanding what the state owes them. Maybe I’m too young to understand…

Slon

The jerk who shot me in the legs later visited me in the hospital. Every day. He brought me food, and tried to take care of me. So I forgave him for shooting me, and called him ‘brother.’ As soon as they released me from the hospital I went back to the States. But I was a cripple. The doctors back home took a look at me, broke my legs again, and put in some kind of prosthetics, some kind of artificial bones or something. I can’t run, but I’m no longer limping. I got married. It just happened out of the blue. She’s one of us. She’s a psychiatrist working on the Vietnam syndrome. It’s become the Africa syndrome. And now it’s the Donbass syndrome. I’m material for her dissertation since I’m more than happy to talk about it. None of her other patients have flashbacks as good as mine. Imagine this dream. We’re in a trench, under attack. Lavr, the Poet, and Martynov are with me. We’re all wounded. I can only try and save one of them, so I grab the Poet. I’m pulling and pulling, finally dragged him out, saved him. Then I look, and it’s not the Poet but Martynov. And he’s dead. My wife is racking her brains to try and figure out what the dream means. She came up with this theory that I miss that Russian guy, that we were meant to live through something together, and now we never will. God forbid! Whatever I still need to live through I’ll do with my fellow Americans, thank you very much. No more chipmunks will be trapped in swimming pools. Wonder what happened to them in the forest. I voted Republican for the first time this election. They at least tried to convince Congress to send military equipment to Ukraine. The Americans are such a bunch of cowards. If they only knew how Ukrainians used to look up to them. Until they realized…