Sliding on the Snow Stone (29 page)

I read that letter from start to finish. It took me about half an hour to get through it, even though it was only two sheets of paper. Every word and every sentence tore through me. I smoked cigarettes as I read. Then I read it through again.

Sometimes, freedom wasn’t so easy, not when your family had lived through times like we had. Of all my family, I was the luckiest, and the only one still alive. My journey had been hard and long, but after reading through that letter several times, I knew there was one more journey I would need to make.

Many more letters flew back and forth from England to Ukraine as I wrote to the children of Volodimir: Tanya, Mikola and Stefan. Photographs were also exchanged and there were many old portraits of a big extended family standing next to my beloved Mother and brother. Preparations needed to be made. An application form for a passport was completed and sent off to the authorities, and I arranged a visit to my doctor for a health check and for the vaccinations needed.

Meanwhile, Anna and Stefan booked flights to Ukraine to visit in July of that very year, because they already held passports. Andriy was unable to go because he’d recently become a father himself – another grandson for me, Joe. I was starting to feel old!

Maria and I looked after three of our grandsons while Anna and Stefan made their trip back to Vinnitsya, back to our old family home. They came back wide-eyed and full of stories of their trip, and their meeting with my niece and nephews.

‘
Dad, it was wonderful,’ said Anna, ‘they met us at the airport. Tanya was there, with her husband Volodko, and also Stefan and Mikola. They greeted us in the traditional way with bread and salt. I cried. I couldn’t help myself. To be in Ukraine was an incredible feeling and they really welcomed us. From them on, it was like one big party. They took us everywhere during the day, all over Ukraine, and in the evenings there was food and drink, and we had music, we danced. Stefan played some tunes to them on an accordion. We had the time of our lives!’

As I listened to her a glow spread inside me, it filled every inch of me. I felt so warm and so happy I could have exploded with joy.

So, we sat and we planned for the following year. It required so much organising it gave me a headache at times. Andriy’s wife was expecting yet another child so he wouldn’t be able to come, a busy boy that son of mine. The trip would include Maria and I, Anna and Stefan, and their three boys, Marko, Mihasz and Simon. And so, it was all organised, once again, for the month of July 1993. I would be going home!

The letters to and from my nieces and nephews continued, and the occasional phone call. The summer faded away, the leaves fell from the trees and the winds blew cooler. My wait to go home had been a long one, so another year wouldn’t make much difference. Besides, I’d never been on an aeroplane before and, although Anna reassured me that there was nothing to fear, I was beginning to get anxious.

I had other things to worry about too. How would things be back at home and how would I react? Once again I thought about our house back in Vinnitsya as I’d done a million times before. With that set of three wooden steps leading up to the side door, that Father painted every so often to keep them clean and in good condition. I wondered if they would still be there and what colour they might be. He always painted them a strong red colour – like over-ripe tomatoes.

Once I’d gone up those steps I’d be standing at that door, with its four wooden panels and cast iron handle. Father used a heavy stain on that door, it was a golden shade of brown with a sharp aroma wafting from its surface, and it always made my nose twitch. That shade of golden brown always made me feel like I was entering a palace. On entering the house, a blast of warm air from the stove always engulfed me, and usually it was accompanied by the smell of cooking or baking, my favourite was when Mother made biscuits. My mouth watered just thinking about them. If there were biscuits Mother usually gave me one, and I’d sit at the table eating it, while looking up at that icon of Jesus and his Apostles at the Last Supper. The gold painted frame that held the icon was so beautifully and ornately carved, it was a wonder to me. That’s what I wanted: to see that icon and several others of religious scenes around the house, all with similar frames.

Things would be different though, that could only be expected. There would be different furniture and carpets, and I expected the walls to be a different colour. My mind raced through the possibilities, day after day. So much so, that I did my best to keep myself busy.

Some years back, I’d constructed a canopy at the back of our house, a roof over the back yard, which we sat under in the summer. Over the last few years, I‘d wondered whether I could convert this canopy into a conservatory. A collection of wooden panels, battens and some old windows and doors were stacked at the back of my garage for this very purpose. With so much going on in my head and in my heart, there would never be a better time to start this project. Throughout the rest of that year, right up until Christmas, I was a hurricane in that back yard, sawing planks of wood, hammering panels together and drilling and screwing down wooden frames. It was good for me to keep busy in this way. It took my mind off things a little. The weather was kind to me, and by mid-December I’d constructed the shell of what would become a conservatory for Maria and me.

Before the first frosts crept in, I managed to weather-proof the outside of the shell with paint and bitumen, and Maria and I celebrated British Christmas by having our dinner out there. A Calor gas heater provided some warmth, and I decked the inside of the room with fairy lights and candles. It was like being in our own little palace.

In the New Year of course, we celebrated our own Ukrainian Christmas, which follows the Julian calendar, and is in the first week of January. We had a full house this time, with both Anna and Andriy, their spouses and all our grandchildren. It was great for us all to be together for a first Christmas at a time when Ukraine was finally free and no longer a slave nation to the Soviets. We thanked the Lord and we partook of our Christmas Eve meal more proud than ever of who we were.

My papers arrived shortly afterwards, and were all in order, we had our tickets, and the time was coming ever closer. Maria had been on aeroplanes quite a few times to visit her family in Poland, but air travel was something I’d never experienced. I’d travelled by road, by rail and over the sea, but the idea of taking to the sky turned my knuckles white and my hair, even though it was already grey, somersaulted into white almost overnight. At night, when I looked up at the sky, I’d often see shooting stars or aeroplanes flashing their lights, but I couldn’t bear to stand there too long. My ears would start ringing and I’d rush to get indoors, with images of rockets firing through my head, just like when I was wandering through Europe in wartime, with explosions shuddering right through me, with enough power to take my head off and tear me to pieces. Sometimes, those rockets flew back and forth all day, exploding all around us. We huddled together in a ditch somewhere and prayed, hoping that our prayers would reach beyond the orange sulphurous fire clouds that hovered over us. That’s how I remembered it. Those memories brought a sickness up into my stomach – a fear that threatened to turn me upside down. I sat down in an armchair and took a few breaths. Then I went into the conservatory and smoked a few cigarettes. Memories of the war were inside me waiting to come out and turn me into a wreck.

Finally, that Saturday in July came around. We took our two cars down to Heathrow airport in London. It was a steady drive, and I enjoyed it on the motorway. The M1 is a big, wide road and we started off nice and early at around seven, so there wasn’t much traffic. As we got closer and followed signs to Heathrow Airport, we saw one or two planes coming in to land. A stirring in my guts brought a sick feeling up into my chest and I breathed a little harder. The idea of going up into the clouds in one of those things caused a tremble inside me. I tried not to let it show, just like I’d done so many times through my life. It was the Kozak way. Show no fear. That’s what we did, and that’s what got us through so many terrible times. Stefan, our son-in-law, negotiated his way through the site, with its many signs and lights, and roundabouts and roads leading to who knows where. I followed him, sticking close. We left our cars in the parking lot and got ourselves a trolley to put our luggage on. Once we were inside the main building I was a little more at ease because I couldn’t see the planes and we were occupied with checking in and going through customs, so I was kept busy and that was good. Too much thinking wasn’t good for me.

Inside, I was in a twisted up state. Part of me was excited about going back home to the land where I was born, and where I grew up, until the Nazis drove us out. Another part of me knew that the situation was broken beyond repair, I’d have to deal with how I would feel when I arrived back at the house I’d grown up in.

After a long wait and several announcements over the loudspeakers, we got on the plane, the seven of us, and we took our seats. Maria and I sat together in a row of three seats, with another passenger, while Anna, Stefan and their three boys were all together in the row behind us. It filled up quickly, and almost all the seats were taken.

After a safety briefing from the cabin crew, the plane began to move. I’d brought a newspaper onto the plane and, as the plane took off, I opened it up and held it right in front of me.

As the plane increased its speed and threw itself higher into the clouds, I sat motionless, with that newspaper in front of me. At one point I heard Anna call across to me, ‘Dad, look out of the window. You can see the clouds.’

I wanted to turn my head and reply to her, but I couldn’t. I was in a hole, a hole that was so deep there was no bottom to it. I stifled the fear building inside me and adopted the mask of the Kozak. I looked at the pictures in the newspaper, my mind was too frazzled to read any words. There was an article about Leonardo Da Vinci, and it brought to mind a painting in that old house I grew up in. The painting that leapt into my head was the one above the kitchen table, the one with Jesus and his Disciples sat at a long table, partaking of the last supper. It was that painting I’d looked at every morning and every evening as a boy. I wanted to be sitting at that table, eating a slice of bread and butter and looking up at Jesus and his followers, framed in gold, and with beautiful carvings adorning the image. That’s where I wanted to be.

There were other paintings at my old home I wanted to see again. In the living room was one of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, also mounted in a golden frame, exquisitely carved. We’d also had one of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus, and one of the Three Wise Men following a star, both of them in our living room also. I’d grown up with these paintings, and I wanted to see them again so badly, because I knew Father always held onto them in spite of everything. They represented a line that could not, or should not, be crossed. They represented faith.

My in-flight meal was dumped in front of me on the little fold-down table. It was a chicken dinner with roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy. But my appetite was poor; I managed just a few mouthfuls.

Four hours into our journey we were instructed to put on our safety belts and the pilot began to take the plane down. Even though I knew we were above Ukraine, I still couldn’t bring myself to look out of the window. The engines switched from a steady, deep drone to a higher pitch that stretched my nerves to breaking point. I closed my eyes and waited, trying to breathe as normal, until there was a jolt and the plane landed on the runway. Finally, I persuaded myself to take a glance out of the window. I could see many metres of runway stretching all around us. Sunlight was streaming all around and daylight crept into the cabin as the door was opened. We all walked out onto a platform and then down a set of steel stairs.

As I stepped down onto the tarmac, I realised I was standing on Ukrainian soil for the first time in 50 years. I just stood there, and Kozak tears flowed from me. I couldn’t stop myself. Maria put her arms around me and whispered to me,

‘
Stefan, you’re back.’ Anna and Stefan also put their arms around me and I was able to then stem my tears and feel joyous. My heart was full of sunshine as I stood beneath that Ukrainian sky. It was like magic, as if I’d been transported back in time, to the place where I was born.

Once inside the airport terminal, we collected our luggage and made our way through customs and into the Arrivals lounge. The building was a dismal sight, paint was flaking away from the doors and the sills of the windows were coated with a thick skin of dust. Inside, the linoleum flooring was peeling at the edges and was cracked in places. These deficiencies represented the legacy of Soviet neglect, and now we were seeing them with our own eyes. The officials checked our passports with typical cold-eyed efficiency, and then we all took our cases and bags down a final gangway into an open area with free-standing barriers dividing those arriving at the airport from those who had gathered to meet them.

‘
Stefan! Maria! Over here!’ I saw a man waving at us, he had a big smile on his face and he walked towards us. As he came closer, I recognised him. It was Stefan, my nephew. I walked towards him and dropped my suitcase as we hugged each other. This was my brother’s son! Maria, and Anna and her family all joined in with a group huddle and my other nephew, Mikola, and my niece Tanya and her husband, Volodko, joined us all in a rapturous embrace. Kisses were planted on cheeks, hands were shaken, and then Tanya spoke, ‘Stefan, Maria and all your children and grandchildren, we welcome you to Ukraine.’