Tailor of Inverness, The (17 page)

After a short break, I’m back in the Schevchenko Theatre for
Love & Intrigue
by Freidrich Schiller, presented by the Ivano-Frankivsk Theatre, one of Schiller’s great
cris-de-coeur
for the right of the individual to live his own life, free from the constraints of arbitrary authority. But the quality of the production doesn’t meet the demands of the play, and my
thoughts return to Mykola’s testimony and those vexing new questions.

Afterwards, I attend a more subdued celebration than those of the previous evenings. The members of the Ivano-Frankivsk Theatre are quiet. Only three of them have turned up, clearly unhappy with their production and its reception. Two of them are a couple with a little boy, so have to leave early. The party breaks up quickly and I’m happy to hit the sack, exhausted, amazed by the day’s revelations, anticipating the discoveries which tomorrow will bring.

I wake up and decide to go for a run. It’s a beautiful, crisp Sunday morning and I could do with a sweat. I jog out of the hotel along a paved walkway and on to the promenade by the lake. Men and boys of all ages lean over the iron rail and fish. There’s a haze over the water. Back in the hotel, I shower, get dressed and walk out into the square in front of the hotel. A wedding party is having a photo session in front of the statue of Halitsky on his rearing horse, the groom in a pale green suit, the bride in white. Forty metres away, there’s another wedding party doing the same thing and through the trees by the road, another appears to be readying itself for photos. People mill about the cathedral entrance.

Inside, there’s a kind of ordered chaos. Another wedding ceremony is underway. People who are clearly not guests watch, while others are occupied with their own private prayers in groups to the right and left. A small queue has formed in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, each person in turn murmuring a devotion, making the sign of the cross and kissing the statue’s feet. More leave and others arrive. Another wedding party waits its turn. Coloured light streams through the stained glass windows and I gaze up at the domed ceiling, covered in a
vivid painting of a firmament populated by saints, angels and the Lord himself.

I eat another lunch in the Café Europe and wander towards the theatre, keeping to the tourist beat. A large crowd is forming, some holding flags, and a PA system has been set up on the theatre steps. This is the beginning of a nationalist rally, a protest against any moves towards reunification with Russia and against corruption within the government. There are many Ukrainian flags, the Ukrainian Youth Association, a group of bemedalled army veterans, some in their 80s, and a mobile radio van. Many people are strolling about in their Sunday best, feeding pigeons but there to lend their support. The Ukrainian anthem blares out and a speech begins, calling for democracy and the
impeachment
of President Kuczma. The speaker describes him as a Russian stooge, and that Ukraine is in danger of going down the road of neighbouring Belarus, now ruled by the proto-Soviet authoritarian Lukashenko. I wander among the crowd of around 3,000 to the back of the gathering, where temporary hoardings have been erected. They bear articles, slogans and posters. One of the posters shows a cartoon, a giant boot kicking the backside of a caricatured Rabbi, the sort of thing you would have found in Nazi Germany.

In the evening, the theatre festival concludes with an awards ceremony which features performances by well-known Ukrainian opera singers accompanied by the Ternopil orchestra and an energetic young dance troupe. Most of the participating companies receive awards; there is a high degree of mutual respect which has already been much in evidence at the nightly receptions. With money very tight here, the festival is a notable achievement. Most members of visiting companies could only stay for one night or even had to head home immediately after their performance. I have been treated with great hospitality and warmth. There is a genuine curiosity about my work and my own Polish and Ukrainian background.

After the closing toasts at the final festival reception, I retire with my colleagues from Liverpool and a couple of Ukrainian friends to our hotel to prolong the party for a while. Not long after we’ve settled down in one of our rooms, I answer the phone. A woman’s voice, in English:

‘Good evening. Would you like me and my friends to join you? We could drink tea together.’

‘Er…that’s very nice of you to ask, but we’re very tired, so, er, no thanks.’

‘Oh, that’s a shame. Are you sure?’

‘Yes, thanks for calling. Good night.’

‘Good night’.

I guess they’re looking for a different kind of cultural connection. ‘Drinking tea’ is it. Quite witty, really.

Bleary eyed, I check out of the hotel at 11.00am, looking for Xenia in the foyer. I’d arranged to meet her there as she wanted to make sure I got safely on to the Podhajce bus. There’s no sign of her, so I make my way out on to the wide pavement and find her waiting there. A woman comes through the hotel doors just behind me. By a series of nods and winks and the few Ukrainain and Polish words we can muster in common, Xenia asks me if I’ve spent the night with the woman. She is quite forthright about it.

‘You and her…’ (pointing)

‘Uh-huh?’ (pointing up at the hotel)

‘Sleep with her? And….mm-mm-mm?’

Initially, I’m quite lost for words. I’ve never been asked such a question by anyone, let alone a 75-year-old woman I barely know. Then I let out a little nervous laugh, and assure her that I haven’t mm-mm-mmed.

‘Ah… no, not at all!’

She is delighted and relieved. She opens out her arms towards me and says, ‘Lovely boy!’ Then, confidentially, ‘The going rate is $30, you know.’

When I visit her, the following Thursday, I discover that her own daughter, who she hasn’t seen for 15 years, had gone into prostitution, leaving Xenia a granddaughter to look after. ‘My daughter sticks like a bone in my throat,’ she tells me.

We catch a bus to the bus station, where Mykola is waiting for us, and sit for half an hour in front of stalls selling doughnuts, fruit and household goods until my next bus arrives. Mykola gives me a carrier bag full of sandwiches and little cucumbers, the first for my journey, the second a gift for Bogdan and Hala. They lead me through the milling terminal and its exhaust fumes to the bus, a 16-seater, making sure the driver knows where I’m going. It fills within ten minutes, mainly women passengers laden with shopping from the nearby market. Xenia and Mykola stand stoically smiling by my window until the bus finally moves off, then they wave.

I’m relieved to be on my way to Podhajce at last, free from the enjoyable, relentless diversion of the theatre festival. We bump along, past fields and woods, horse-drawn carts and gaggles of geese, stopping at villages and hamlets and at the head of dirt tracks which lead to other villages and hamlets. The land looks fertile and forlorn, with much of it fallow.

The 45km journey takes 90 minutes. We pass a lake and the rolls of the landscape become more pronounced, almost hilly. Then we dip down into a valley, cross the Strypa river, where the front had halted all those years and tears ago and enter Podhajce. The bus stops at a neglected shell of a station and I get off with the remaining passengers to find Bogdan waiting. He takes my hand and gives me a hug and a little grim smile. He doesn’t smile much, a bit more when he’s drinking. We walk up a hill along a lane which had been laid with tarmac perhaps 25 years before, but which is now rutted and potholed, to the main street. The place is very quiet. Bogdan greets the few passers-by, who are clearly curious about me. We pass a large yellow church which looks across
the valley, turn down another little lane and arrive through a gate in a picket fence. Across the yard, through another fence, hens peck and scrape. Bogdan’s house is in front of us, with concrete steps leading up to the door. Another house lies close to the left and in its doorway sits an old lady. Bogdan
introduces
me to her.

This is Wlodzmierza, his 92-year-old Polish neighbour, who looks 20 years younger. She has a generous, long face with high cheekbones and dark brown hair with few signs of grey. At 92, surely it’s dyed! I dally for a moment after greeting her and she smiles warmly. Bogdan ushers me into the house with a hint of impatience, leading me through a conservatory into a series of rooms, first the little dining room, then a lounge and finally, through double glass doors, a second lounge, which is to be my room. A folding bed settee has been made up.

Houseplants taller than me stand on either side of a table covered in a lace cloth. Soft, misty light streams through the long net curtains. An old black and white TV stands on a sideboard, and above it hangs a picture of a traditional rural idyll: two young peasant couples canoodling by a stream. Cross-stitch tapestries are hung on the walls and a large carved stag sits on top of a tall, glass-fronted cabinet full of crystal bowls and glasses. Bogdan calls me back into the dining room and opens an adjoining door to reveal the bathroom. He demonstrates the fact that the cistern isn’t operational and shows me a little bucket for flushing water down the toilet after use.

Hala, Bogdan’s wife, arrives home, accompanied by Tania, their daughter, who’s about ten years younger than me. Hala is full of welcoming smiles, a robust, tanned wee woman who gets busy with the lunch preparations. Tania is only stopping by to meet me before heading back to the pharmacy where she’s working. I’m somewhat relieved to listen to Hala’s
unselfconscious
chatting, the perfect foil to the taciturn Bogdan, as
she quizzes me about my stay so far and my family, not worrying too much that I understand only about 20% of what she is saying to me. I busily search for words in my
phrasebook
, which I use constantly throughout my visit. Hala has been busy in the kitchen before my arrival and soon we sit down to delicious Ukrainian borscht,
vareniki
, sausage, ham and various salads and pickles. And, of course,
horilka
. After the boozy theatre festival, my stay in Pidhaitsi (the Ukrainian name for Podhajce) is to continue in a similar vein. I learn quickly from Hala that Bogdan is supposed to be curtailing his vodka intake for health reasons. He is clearly a tippler, though, and he uses my stay as the perfect excuse for daily celebration. The
horilka
is produced at breakfast, lunch and dinner: one or two at breakfast, one or two at lunch and quite a bit more in the evenings, always accompanied by food.

After lunch, Bogdan indicates that he wants to take me for a walk. We stroll through the town’s main drag, past the colourful Ukrainian Orthodox church and the impressive, newly built Greek Catholic church. It’s quiet, with a few women walking by carrying shopping bags and several groups of idle men smoking and chatting. Bogdan exchanges brief greetings with everyone we pass. I am gazed at.

For most of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Bogdan had been the town’s head man, the Party Secretary. He appears to have retained a significant degree of respect. We walk on up a hill, past a large stone bust of Shevchenko set in a little garden by a gable end on which is painted a mural of the poet of the nation as a
kobzar
, an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang and played the
kobza
, the traditional stringed instrument which has the same significance in Ukraine as a symbol of national identity as bagpipes do in Scotland.

Eventually we come to a large cemetery. Bogdan leads me through a forest of gravestones and stone and metal crosses, many of the latter painted blue and white. The more modern
gravestones display oval ceramic photographic images of the deceased. He stops at a gravestone and tells me that an uncle and aunt of his are buried here, a great uncle and aunt of mine, my grandmother’s sister and her husband, whose name was Ovshanetski. Their son has ended up in New York State. We walk on through the cemetery and downhill again along a rough road with large houses on either side. At the foot of the road there is a fence and a statue of Lesia Ukrainska, another national poet and heroine.

Behind the fence lies Pidhaitsi’s Jewish cemetery.

This cemetery is untended, a large rectangular field of many grey, weathered headstones and large spaces where only long stone stumps remain. A few cows are grazing in a corner, tended by a wizened
babcha
who sits on one of the stones clutching a willow branch and watching us. It looks like the grazing is what keeps the grass short here. The headstones lean at different, crazy angles, some lie flat on the ground, a few remain upright, many have been removed, leaving only the stumps.

I imagine the malicious chaos of hatred which produced this jumble of desolation and desecration and see how it clearly ran out of energy. Somehow, this cemetery still exists. After all the destruction and the murder, this exhausted town has left these stones alone for nearly 60 years. Little has been done by way of restoration or care, but by the same token, when the destruction finally stopped, the cemetery was left in peace. The dates on the stones go right up to 1939, a few even beyond that, 1940, 1941. That is the latest date I find.

It’s taking me some time to get used to the fact that although the Russian occupation began in autumn 1939, the full-scale war in this part of the world started in ’41. Such vast death and destruction occurred over just four years. Four truly
apocalyptic
years. Later, I discovered that the Pidhaitsi Jews, the great majority of the town’s population, and those Jews from
the surrounding villages, had been forced into a ghetto in a small part of the town in 1941. Those who survived it were murdered by the Nazis in 1943. They were marched out of town to a spot just over the brow of the hill opposite, just out of sight, and there shot in the head, falling into the pit which had been dug for them. Around 60 out of a Jewish population of over 3,500 survived the war.

Before the war, in the early evening, the young people provided Pidhaitsi with an unstaged show on the ‘Corso,’ as the pavement surrounding the marketplace was called. It was full of groups of boys and girls in an informal parade of courtship, a non-stop fashion show with young couples walking hand-in-hand. Because of this show, some people called Pidhaitsi the ‘Paris of Galicia’.

After the war, some of the stones used to repair the Corso were the tombstones of Jews, taken from the Jewish cemetery.

This was the reason for the stumps.

Bogdan leads me to a far corner of the cemetery. Here, there are a couple of mounds, possibly the site of a mass grave, flanking a modern memorial stone. An inscription in Hebrew and Ukrainian or Russian reads: