My Dog, Cats, and a Handful of Feathers
My summer cottage cooperative is called “Dream”—Mriya in Ukrainian. It used to take a long time to explain where it was. Now it is enough to say that I live in the Bucha forest, and everyone understands everything. And if someone should ask again: “Did you manage to leave?”—no, we didn't make it.
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It was a long-held dream of mine to live in a house with a lawn and climbing roses, cats and a dog. “Dream”—Mriya—that was also the name of the world’s largest airplane, which was set aflame and destroyed by the Russians not far from us. Mriya…
My dog Blondie is very afraid of explosions; her ears hurt from the noise and she tries to bury herself under the kalyna, the virburnum. The cats try to climb up on my head: they don’t understand anything and just keep trying to hide in my jacket. Gradually they have stopped walking upright on their paws and now just crouch and crawl along the floor, almost on their stomachs.
The first to join my household was Mosinka, my striped feline pillow of silky fur, with a spot like the letter M on her forehead. When I stroke her fur, all my dark thoughts and bad memories disappear. One-eyed Livsi was also a stray, and now it’s hard to see him as the scrawny, barely alive kitten he was. Blondie came from a shelter and is pure white according to their records, but rolling around in ashes or on a freshly mown lawn and being transformed into a Dalmatian with green or black spots is her great joy. They are happy. They just don’t like getting into the car because they know it’s to take them to the vet. But under the car they feel safe, especially during a thunderstorm. Perhaps, they have already realized that this is not a thunderstorm. Nobody is going anywhere. The internet went down first. Tomorrow power and communication will be lost. For now I’m trying to catch up on as much news as I can.
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On Facebook people wrote that two walls and a room without windows are sufficient to protect yourself from bombardment. But my house has windows everywhere. There’s even one in the bathroom, which catches the sunset, and the ones in the kitchen and bedroom catch the sunrise. By noon the living room is flooded with light, which leads to dreamy afternoons. If it weren’t for the stove being on, you might think it is already spring.
Today the stove is cold. I sit by the stairs, pressing my forehead to their metal frame, trying to collect my thoughts. A piece of ice rattles in the refrigerator—this is the third day without electricity. Outside the window, a row of tanks is rolling by.
The smell of diesel in the house is so strong it’s like we’re sitting in a barrel of it. I bend over a burner to avoid being seen from the road. I prepare steaks and green peas. It’s a feast from fridge tonight, because what’s in it is defrosting. During the night we’ll move further away from the road and closer to the forest.
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We gave all our milk and bread to the neighbours, who have small children. The youngest is running a fever. They already know that all the bridges into Kyiv have been blown up; they’re hoping for a “green corridor” to allow safe passage. We’re fearful of getting out into the road alongside the tanks.
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During the day they searched us, took away our phones, and sought out neo-Nazis. All the Russians are festooned with “St. George” ribbons, even their weapons and helmets. Later we learn that these are their talismans. In a clearing their tanks have turned around several times where yellow and lilac-blue crocuses were just beginning to bloom.
The Ternovskys, a pair of cordial pensioners, live beside us. They recently bought a new car, and they bring to mind couples pictured in advertisements for sea cruises geared to seniors. When they go out for a stroll through the forest, everybody in our cooperative takes pictures of the Ternovskys’ primroses. They fuss about in their garden, and their Chinese Crested barks at anyone who passes by.
Toward evening a wind picks up, everything begins to clatter, thump, and screech, knocking down torn-off doors, broken fences and windows.
Despite the closed windows, the house stinks of burnt tires. We are having dinner, and Mr. Ternovsky is hanging in the neighbouring house.
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We agree about how we will bury each other if one of us perishes. We can dig a shallow grave, for digging a deep one is dangerous. Wrapping the body in a sheet as is; all conventions about dressing the dead are just conventions.
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I didn’t plan to engage in community activism, but I have long helped people fight for their right to get medical treatment without having to pay for it. My Dad trolls me about my heightened sense of justice. He recalls how I once dragged a heavy encyclopaedia to school to prove to my teacher that the strongest bird is the secretary bird. I know what the Russians do with community activists, and worry that neighbours may tell them about me.
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My elderly parents have two aged dogs. Following the explosions, they have concussions; often they waggle their ears and sometimes they don’t recognize us. Mushka bit Dad’s hand and afterwards whimpered and hid her eyes in shame. They did not survive the occupation.
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The Russians again searched for “Banderites” and “neo-Nazis”. They stripped men naked right on the street and searched for tattoos. They nearly shot our neighbour for having a firemen’s tattoo. From one building they took out a portrait of Stepan Bandera. It became the basis for their search for “Banderites”, but in the end they didn’t find anybody. We laugh. Helicopters are flying around again, dropping a fresh new supply of mortar shells over the forest.
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The windows are covered with blankets. We distinguish the sounds made by heavy tanks from those made by light tankettes, fast armoured personnel carriers, trucks, and cars. We recognize the sounds of multiple rocket launchers, mortar fire, tank guns, and howitzers. From the highway periodically comes the sound of gunfire from automatic weapons and machine guns. If it’s quiet, I can’t fall asleep. You never know what will shatter the brief peace the next time.
Every day cars drive up and Russians carry things out of empty houses.
A very lovely Doberman, singed with burns, has come to us. She barks at us but begs for food too. We feed her the same porridge that we eat ourselves and give our cats and dogs. The car with the family that owned her was shot up near us, on the highway designated the “green corridor.”
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We are running out of food.
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My gate was smashed down by tanks, but Blondie and the cats don’t cross the imaginary line of the former gate, defending the gutted and looted yard. I no longer love my “Dream” cottage. It’s no longer mine.
I sit on a ledge and look at the feathers: white with black spots and cuckoo-like grey. My Granny Nastia always had chickens. Dignified black ones with shaggy feet and small noisy ones, red and white. The rooster fought and Granny rescued me from him more than once. I collected feathers in a candy tin, imagining they were the feathers of fairy-tale ostriches or peacocks. I was thinking of decorating a ball gown with them.
Once I got a snow-white Juliet and a speckled Conchita, and last summer I added cuckoo-like Zita and Gita. They are hybrids of cats and hens, because they love to be petted and run at the sound of my voice. On top of that they saved my rows of plants from the snails.
The day before yesterday wet snow fell, the buckets were supposed to fill up, so my parents and I dared to crawl up to them, to get water for the chickens and take the cats and Blondie closer to the forest, where we could still hide from the shelling.
We did not make it in time...The Russians ate my Juliet and Conchita and the piebald Zita and Gita. I'm not getting ready to go to a ball anymore: I just twiddle my Juliet's white speckled feather in my hand.
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Today mortars have been going off since dawn. Dad and I unfold a map of the Kyiv region—they’re striking around Moschun. When the occupation there ends, not a single house will remain whole. Artillery counterfire comes during the night. Our eyesight is dimmed by plaster dust. Another explosion. Windows were opened, but the panes are intact. A ripped-off roof lies in the yard. A dog with contusions howls and whimpers.
Fire breaks out in the forest. In the morning, smoke covers everything. The wind shifts in our direction, and a blaze rapidly nears our building. We lug water from our neighbour’s well, but the fire comes closer. When the edge of it is less than two meters away, the wind shifts direction again and the blaze moves down the length of the yard. I thank God for everything and go to feed the cats. Blondie has found a bone and is meditating in the sun.
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They shoot at buildings from the road, so to avoid detection we light the stove only at night and only when it’s cloudy. I am constantly cold. We get water from the well between bursts of gunfire, and there’s never enough. Evenings I heat the same rubbery tasting water that filled the heating pad—I don't change it, so it’s very thick and stinks. I lie down like a soldier, to warm up and fall asleep. We’re hungry. We haven’t washed in over a month. Why aren’t Nobel prizes awarded to the people who came up with wet wipes? Every day, I ask God: does he still have a plan for me or not? I wash dishes, skimping on water, and look at the dishwasher and microwave, now useless furniture; the refrigerator at least has shelves.
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Chloe is a striped miracle—she was a kitten when we took her in from the street and now she’s a real beauty; she jumps into your arms, purrs, and brags about the vole she brought from the forest. There’s mortar fire near us, and Chloe hunts there between volleys to find rodent victims of the carnage. The mortars feed her. We heard that they’re putting up barricades in the forest. Chloe has not returned—our forest is mined.
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Mom says: I don't like waiting for you to come back, but I like it when you come in with presents.
Blondie greets me as if we haven't seen each other in a year, though all I did was rush out to the post office.
On February 25 my dad and I are scheduled to see a doctor; he’s become sick but we can't get out to the hospital. We made signs to put up on the gates: "Children" and "Old people." My car was stolen and we were told not to leave the house. When prisoners are deprived of their freedom, at least they get a release date and can count the days until then. We’ve been without light and phone connection for a long time. We turn over the leaves of a paper calendar. Mom is counting down the days. It's been over a month: her blood pressure pills and eye drops will last another two weeks, any longer and she’ll begin losing her vision.
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We found an old radio and listen to the news every day. A little at a time, so as to preserve the batteries. Dad has lost 12 kilograms in a month and a half. He is bleeding, and he hasn’t gotten up for several days. For lunch we had soup that smelled of meat and breadcrumbs; it had a gastronomic effect. I dream of a latte. One hundred percent Arabica with a soft coffee-milk taste. I’ll pour sugar on the whipped foam, eat it, and then drink the coffee.
In Irpin they are fighting from house to house. A neighbour has crawled across the street, bringing a fragrant and half-rotten orange, and says that we are being liberated.
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Dad’s neighbour keeps several Malinois sheepdogs. The largest of them is the muscular and intelligent Walter, who looks like he’s carved out of stone. The neighbour drives around with him in the passenger seat, saying that then there’s no need to lock the car.
The Russians stopped for the night in a new house by the road and tried to get the heat there started. In a few minutes the house is on fire and soldiers are jumping out of the doors and windows. Walter rushes up to the fence. Automatic weapons fire. Wounded, Walter begins to wail.
“If I hear one more noise, I'll kill everyone!” a Russian yells.
The neighbour tries to calm the dog but it keeps howling. By morning he will have suffocated the dog with a towel.
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Volunteers brought bread and took me and Dad to the hospital. For the first time in a month and a half, I feel so warm that I unbutton my jacket. Lights are on everywhere. I open the faucet and hot water pours into my hands; I begin to cry and can't stop. Dad has at last fallen asleep: he has cancer, and I don't yet know how to tell him.
For breakfast they bring him an egg and white bread with butter. In Kyiv there are shops and a pharmacy. I meet a young woman out with a child; the little girl is eating cookies and she smiles at me, showing her first teeth. I buy a latte, pour sugar on the foam, and burst into tears. The barista pretends not to notice, and treats me to an oatmeal cookie.
