Lacking Slippers While Abroad

“But dad bought it! I want to take this swimsuit with me!”—little Nastya was sobbing, her delicate face had turned completely red. She held on with her hands to the new swimsuit, its price tag still attached. She was defending its rightful place in the evacuation suitcase. There would be no compromise! She was unaware of why the suitcase was needed, but her mother told her to pack only essentials. In went a red-haired doll, a fairytale book and that ill-fated frilly pink swimsuit. These were her most valuable possessions.

The adults, stood silently, looking at Nastya. I felt a lump rising in my throat. I remembered her christening when I held Nastya in the church. She was so small, with her dad's eyes and a completely white head of hair. A little bundle wrapped in a white terry christening towel. I felt happy to have such a quiet goddaughter. Nastya never cried, never whined, never threw any big tantrums. Not until today.

On this day, in this apartment, where we used to gather on all the holidays, we were preparing for the most dangerous trip of our lives.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw everyone. I saw my godmother carefully packing Nastya's t-shirt into the suitcase, saw my goddaughter’s mother trying to squeeze a thin terry cloth blanket into a small bag. Even their cat Angelinka sat stoically by their belongings, not interested to play with any of the small items scattered randomly around on the floor.

Then I looked up and saw my godfather. Always tall, stately, with broad shoulders and a thick black moustache, now he seemed to be half his height. For a little while he stood silently in the doorway of the room, clicking a cheap plastic lighter, then he uttered a short curse through his clenched teeth and went out onto the balcony. I saw him quietly crying there. He didn't want anyone to see him. But I saw him. Yet I couldn’t muster up the courage to walk up to him. What could I tell him? That everything will be fine? That our car wouldn’t be riddled with bullets by a Russian machine gun? That we would safely pass all the roadblocks? That they wouldn’t kill us, all? Who knows these things? Tomorrow, we will try to get out of occupied Kherson, again, for the third time. The day before yesterday we wanted to go through Oleksandrivka. Thank God, we didn’t manage to get ready in time for the trip. The dam in the village had been blown up. Along with all the cars.

We have to get ready. We need to have an early start, and to be ready by 5 a.m.

These are my two suitcases. I need to repack the two into one. I’m looking at my laptop and have no idea where to hide it: among the things in the suitcase or under my sweater. I know that getting out with equipment is almost impossible. They will confiscate it at the checkpoints. Yesterday they took away Maryna’s camera, "for the needs of the liberators", they said in Russian.

I pack only the bare minimum: new, never worn jeans, one sweatshirt, warm socks (my mom always said to keep one’s feet warm, in any situation), a standard medicine set—paracetamol, citramon and a Bifren pack, as well as a blister pack of valerian pills.

I forced everything down, and pushed the lock button. Now there’s only one suitcase. My entire life fitted into this one suitcase.

We didn’t sleep that night. Each one of us played out the worst scenarios for tomorrow's trip, in our heads. How many people before us have already tried to leave?! Someone was shot to death right there, in the car, someone made the wrong turn and hit a mine. These stories are stuck in my head, like the one about the old shepherd dog:

A man was getting his family out, and they had an old shepherd dog in the car with them. She was sitting in the back seat wearing a muzzle. When, at one checkpoint the Russians started to take all their belongings out of the bags and brutally search the passengers, her instincts kicked in. She became protective of her family. The Russian soldier really disliked the dog's loud barking, so he just shot her. No dog—no problem. I knew they killed people just as easily. These stories were brought to us by those who tried to escape, but were turned back.

And in a few hours, we were going to face these same soldiers.

It wasn’t even five in the morning when everyone gathered in the large kitchen. The last time it was that crowded was at Christmas. We ate Kutya—a kind of porridge served on Christmas Eve— prepared by my godmother, we laughed, and made plans. Today, no one could bring themselves to eat anything. My godmother tried to force us to eat at least something. Little Nastya managed a sandwich. Some strong coffee and three Bifren pills were what I had for breakfast. But even after the sedative, my hands were shaking.

 

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We have two small cars, 11 people and a cat. Nothing fits in easily. We ram our bags into the trunk with our feet. I hid my laptop under my sweater. Otherwise, it wouldn’t stand a chance.

My godmother cries, makes the sign of the cross over the cars and sprinkles them with holy water. At night, she would sit in the kitchen and read psalms by candlelight. I hardly believe that holy water or prayers can save us from missiles or Russians with automatic rifles. But at that moment, we all wanted to believe in a miracle, if only to save our lives.

On a piece of paper torn out of my goddaughter’s notebook, I carefully write the word "CHILDREN" with a black marker. There are two small children in each of our cars. My godfather hangs white rags on the mirrors, a signal that ordinary civilians are riding in the car. Later on, along the road, we will see more than one destroyed vehicle with the same inscription and white rags, but now, in my godmother and godfather’s yard, we are ignorant of those brutal sights.

We are on the road, at last. I look out the back window and see them, my godparents. They are crying and making the cross signs, again. At first, they flatly refused to evacuate, because who would look after the apartment. I can see my godfather constantly mumbling something, his lips moving under his black moustache, his gaze focused somewhere on the ground. I don't know if it's the words of a prayer or something... I won’t find out until a few months later when I have a telephone conversation with my godmother. What it turned out to be and what he kept repeating to her was: "It’s your fault that they are leaving. Tanya, if anything happens to the children, I will never forgive you." My godfather didn’t want us to go. I knew how much he loved us all, and how much he wanted to protect us.

On the road we are silent. We join the line at the city’s outskirts. There are hundreds of cars ahead. The same - behind. Only about two hundred cars are allowed through every day. We are incredibly lucky, we are somewhere at the beginning of the second hundred. After an hour of waiting, our nerves on edge, we reach the first checkpoint.

"Good morning, girls! Where are you going?"—three Russian soldiers walk up to the car, smiling.

They are smiling and pointing automatic weapons at us. I hold my goddaughter firmly by the hand and do not breathe. I don't understand anymore, whether it's me shaking or whether she's trembling too. The laptop under my sweater puts terrible pressure on the ribs. I imagine a big bluish bruise appearing in that spot—this trip’s going to last many hours, but that's nothing. I will get through this. No one will take my laptop away from me.

Everyone is very polite at the first three checkpoints. The Russians with their automatic rifles wish us a good morning, a nice trip, and are inquiring how we are doing. Some even try to flirt. They seem to be okay with flirting while pointing guns at our heads. "Kharoshie Russkie"—good Russians— they are like that.

Of the seven checkpoints, the most difficult to pass were the ones manned by representatives of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics. They absolutely didn’t understand why we were leaving. And I, in turn, did not understand how they could stand there. The most horrible stories were told about these roadblocks. They robbed, interrogated, and killed here. But a few dozen kilometres from here, is the beginning of a free Ukraine—an attainable dream.

 

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A trip from Kherson to Mykolaiv takes 40 minutes by car, in peacetime. It took us 21 hours. And then, it took another half a day more to get to Odesa.

Ukrainian checkpoints were many, we were held for quite a while. They checked us thoroughly. But we were no longer afraid. This was our military, who is defending our freedom and our Ukraine. We laughed with them, we joked with them, and shared food with them. In return, we received sweets from them. I still remember the Roshen chocolate bar, with nuts, which I received from a Ukrainian soldier. It was the most delicious chocolate ever, in my life!

 

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And here I am with my little red suitcase, standing in front of the railway station in Odesa. I don’t understand what’s happening. People are smiling, sitting around in cafes and talking freely on the phone in the street. They have no occupation. It seems there is no war, here.

Yet another half a day on the train and I'm in Khmelnytskyi. It is the same here - there is no war. I remember standing near the railway station and crying, looking at the windows of the buildings around. They could turn on the lights! Absolutely freely! In Kherson, I turned the light on, only in the bathroom. And before I did that, I would close the window curtains tightly and glue a piece of paper over the peephole, in case, God forbid, someone would see.

Why exactly did I light the bathroom? Because there was a small light bulb there - its light was not visible from the other rooms and the apartment windows. However, the bathroom light dimly lit a part of the hallway. And you needed to see the hallway to know where to run during the bombings. Although, I rarely needed to do this. More often than not, I just slept in the hallway (or tried to sleep for that matter).

 

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A day later, I was finally able to hug my mother. We both cried. We cried for a long time. Right there, by the bus. We talked all night. In the morning, we both had red and swollen eyes from all the crying. I told her about the first explosions in the city, about Russian armoured personnel carriers by the house, and the first months of the occupation.

But I will never tell her about how I was afraid, but not of death, no. How would she cope was my concern. I had a clear picture in my mind of the moment when a family member or a friend would call my mother and tell her that I was gone. It wouldn’t matter how – being shot with a gun, killed by a mine or a rocket explosion. I would be no more. I knew she wouldn't survive this. And that was my greatest fear.

This fear kept me going when I stood in line at the store two days in a row trying to buy some bread. Of course, I returned home empty-handed, because there was simply no flour in Kherson to bake that bread. And those several hundred loaves that the bakers still managed to make from some leftovers were distributed among their own.

This fear tuned my hearing, when sitting alone in the apartment in the evening, I listened closely for footsteps on the dark stairs of the doorway. A knock on the door predicted certain death.

Sometimes my fear produced tears of despair, as the food in the fridge was inevitably running out. Only one bag of millet porridge remained untouched. I hate porridge. But in a week, I will eat it too.

Mom, I love you very much, but I will never tell you about all this.

 

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Once, when I was leaving Kherson, I was overcome with a feeling of repulsion - I no longer felt at home there.

The city had changed. A few limited shops were are open only until 2 p.m., several elderly ladies sold vegetables from their own gardens right next to my house. And that’s all that was left of the city’s infrastructure. There are almost no people on the streets in the afternoon. Only packs of hungry stray dogs. In large buildings with hundreds of apartments, only a few windows are lit at night. Almost all windows are taped or boarded up.

I'm standing at the station again, waiting for the bus, and I realize: I simply don't have a home anymore. Yes, I have a physical home but it doesn’t feel like one. I don't feel at home either in Khmelnytskyi or Kherson, a place to which I so badly wanted to return. My friends are scattered all over the world - Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, America. We keep in touch only by phone, while we’d so love to be able to get together, as we used to, for some coffee and a chat.

Up to this moment, I always travelled to the liberated Kherson by train. Now, one can see shell craters, burned Russian armoured personnel carriers, destroyed towns. After a few trips, they don’t look that scary anymore. Traveling by bus turned out to be much more difficult. The road itself is simply non-existent. It is unlikely that even the best-quality asphalt would survive the weight of tanks and the shelling. But I was stunned by something completely different.

The village of Posad-Pokrovske is known to many residents of the south. It is located halfway between Kherson and Mykolaiv, and a busy highway runs through its central street. In the past, when traveling back to Kherson, it was near Posad-Pokrovsky that I used to call my family to let them know: "I'll be there soon!".

The bus approaches the village. I knew back in the early spring of 2022 that the village had been destroyed. However, “knowing is one thing but seeing is believing”—it’s a very different experience.

It’s a few minutes past 7 p.m. It's already getting dark. Music is playing on the bus, but one barely hears it, everyone is lost in their own thoughts. I have my small duffle bag on the seat next to me. I have learned to travel light. We pass through Klapaya. Posad-Pokrovske is next on the way. But... it’s not there!

Just a rubble of stones and bricks in the place where there was once a life. And big yellow daffodils dot the landscape. They were planted by a lady... long before the war.

The driver slows down, he turns down the music volume. The bus route was renewed only four days ago and the drivers are not familiar with the scenery outside the window. "Fucking hell!" – he utters. Then we keep driving in absolute silence.

My girlfriend lived in this village. She and I used to go to the pool together. Tanya left for Odesa and hasn’t returned home, since. On the other hand, she has no reason to come back, there is no home.

The whole village seems to be covered with a blue film. It covers the torn roofs of the houses, which are lying in pieces on the street... And in the midst of all this horror I see a light in a window. The only surviving house on the entire long street. We drove by slowly taking 15 minutes! The house has walls and the roof is almost intact! No, its owners were not born under a lucky star. It had to be under a constellation, at the very least!

The neighbouring houses, and entire streets were simply wiped out, but this one stands. Having heard the sound of the bus engine, a man comes out of an old glass veranda. He is wearing a pair of old worn-out jeans and a sports jacket. His step is calm and confident. He must have seen it all in this life. He takes out a lighter from his pocket, lights a cigarette and looks at our bus. There used to be a lot of traffic here. I remember Tanya was always complaining about the noise that kept going on, even at night. Now it's two buses a day and several cars.

I look at this man and start crying. I just couldn't hold back the tears all the way to Mykolaiv. But now, I know exactly what “being home” means.

 

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I’ve been living with some relatives in the Khmelnytskyi region for almost a year now. I have a roof over my head, it’s relatively quiet, as explosions are rare, I have my relatives by my side, but... living in this place makes me more depressed, every month. Absolutely everything drives me mad - tasteless water, cold climate, lack of basic amenities, someone else’s furniture. It’s all completely fine and suitable for living, of course, it’s just that it’s not mine. I am 700 km from home, I have a physical need for my black cat mug. When I first returned to the de-occupied Kherson, I took it with me right away. I bought it for myself in 2010, on the day when my little brother was baptized. I chose a mug with a cat. I keep it on the edge of the kitchen shelf. It’s already old, the picture is half-faded, but green tea tastes the best in it.

I'm not the only one like that. My goddaughter’s mom keeps whining about a pot she’s missing. She lives in Poland, and her kitchen is full of various utensils. But she would prefer cooking mashed potatoes for dinner in the very pot that remained in her kitchen in Kherson. According to her, it makes food taste better.

A friend from Hola Prystan dreams constantly of wearing her bathrobe. Volunteers in the Czech Republic provided her with a robe, an almost new one, long ago, but she says it’s not as comfortable nor as warm.

Someone may say: "Too much of a good thing." But if you have to leave your home during a war, you would understand. Thousands of kilometres away from our beloved homes, the unexpected happened - we miss worn-out house slippers, a favourite pillow and a trivial mug with a faint pattern.

We had chosen carefully the items which we considered so essential to pack in our evacuation suitcases, but we did not unpack anything, not for a while, not at first. We tried to fit our lives into a suitcase, our memories into a plastic bag and a cosmetics case. We were so worried that we wouldn’t be able to exist without our normal routine, our household appliances and our favourite clothes. It turns out we cannot imagine life without seemingly trivial little things. We don't want new things. Those at home are what we need and will do just fine.