Philipovna

by Valentina Gal

  Copyright © 2019, Valentina Gal and Guernica Editions Inc. All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication,

  reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.

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  First edition.

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  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2018962476 Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Gal, Valentina, 1952-, author Philipovna : daughter of sorrow / Valentina Gal.

  (MiroLand imprint ; 20) Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77183-369-1 (softcover).

  ISBN 978-1-77183-370-7 (EPUB).

  ISBN 978-1-77183-371-4 (HTML)

  1. Gal, Valentina, 1952-. 2. Philipovna, Vera. 3. Victims of famine-- Ukraine--Biography. 4. Ukraine--History--Famine, 1932-1933. 5. Ukraine-- Biography. 6. Autobiographies. I. Title. II. Series: MiroLand imprint ; 20

  DK508.835.G35A3 2019

  947.7’0841

  C2018-906224-X

  C2018-906225-8

  To my Mother

  Vera Philipovna

  Contents

  Character List

  Glossary of Ukrainian Words

  The Legacy

  Christmas in Zyladyn

  Going to School

  Our Last Easter

  Easter Sunday

  Memory Eternal

  Planting the Garden

  The Wheat Harvest

  A Hungry Winter

  The Shadow of Death

  May Day

  The Empty Harvest

  The Orphan

  My New Home

  Ghosts in the Twilight

  Farewell

  Reunion

  The New Order

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Character List

  Vera Philipovna: daughter of Philip and Barbara Kyslenko

  Godfather: Philipovna’s uncle and godfather, name otherwise unknown

  Vera Xenkovna: cousin and oldest daughter of Uncle Misha and Auntie Xena

  Dmytro/Mitya: Philipovna’s distant cousin and best friend

  The Unravelled One: Mitya’s mother

  Auntie Xena: Philipovna’s aunt

  Uncle Misha: Auntie Xena’s husband

  Michael, Alexander, Viktor, Maria and Marta: the rest of Misha and Xena’s children.

  Taras: Xenkovna’s young man

  Auntie Lena: Philipovna’s aunt

  Uncle George: Lena’s husband

  Auntie Liza: Philipovna’s aunt

  Comrade Zabluda: Communist Party Boss, head authority in village

  Comrade Asimov: school teacher and Communist Party enforcer

  Uncle Paulo: older neighbour and friend of Uncle Misha

  Uncle Simon: more distant neighbour and friend of Uncle Misha

  Uncle Ivan: acquaintance of Uncle Misha and Party member

  Dr. Bondarenko: doctor from out of town

  Slavko: doctor’s servant

  Comrade Svetlana Ivanovna: Communist head of the orphanage and children’s doctor.

  Comrade Marina Nikolaiovna: orphanage worker and doctor’s helper

  Gregory: Marina Nikolaiovna’s nephew and helper

  Katerina: neighbour

  Auntie Anna: neighbour and close friend

  Glossary of Ukrainian Words

  Artil — the name of the original state farms that were established before the revolution of 1917

  Babas — a colloquial term for older women. It also denotes Grandmother when used to address an older woman.

  Babushka —familiar term for Grandmother, equivalent for Grandma

  Babusya — diminutive form of babushka

  Baba Kutsya — the Ukrainian version of hide and seek

  Baba Yaga — a witch or enchanted old woman who lives in the woods, often in a cottage standing on four chicken feet

  Borscht —a type of soup made with beets, usually served with sour cream. It can be made with other vegetables and is made without meat on fast days and other holy days. There is a large variety of borscht depending on where in the country it is made. It varies from the bright red beet borscht that is familiar to North Americans to green and yellow versions made from the vegetables available at the season or upon the place and what grows there.

  Chekists — Stalin’s enforcers

  Cholera — a mild swear word meaning devil or pest

  Chort — the word for devil. It isn’t Satan the devil but a lesser more benign devil who is often mischievous.

  Did Moroz — Jack Frost

  Diedushka — familiar word for Grandfather, equivalent for Grandpa

  Holodets — A jellied meat dish, served cold with horse radish or hot mustard.

  Hospodi pomilui — Lord have mercy, a phrase that is used very often in the Ukrainian Orthodox liturgy

  Kalach — ceremonial bread usually baked for a holiday or special

  occasion. It is sweetened and contains raisins. It is decorated according to the ceremony that it is required for. When it is baked for weddings, it is elaborately decorated with birds and other wedding symbols. On holy days, it also has crosses and other Christian symbols.

  Kalyna — the Ukrainian name for the Highbush Cranberry, a plant that grows naturally in parks and wilderness areas across the region. It is believed to have many healing properties and is heavily laden with Ukrainian symbolism. It is easily recognized in the art, poetry and song of traditional Ukraine. Girls are often named for this beloved plant.

  Kolhosp — Ukrainian word for the collective farm.

  Krasawitsya — a beautiful woman

  Kutya — a dish cooked specifically for Christmas Eve. It is basically a porridge cooked from buckwheat and garnished with a sauce made with honey and ground poppy seeds. Fruit compote can also be served with it.

  Pan — the word for Sir or Lord

  Paska — special bread made only at Easter

  Platok — the name for head kerchief warn by Ukrainian women, especially married women. A man is expected to show respect to a woman wearing this kerchief. They usually are either embroidered or painted with intricate flower designs. When a woman is in mourning or older, she will wear a black kerchief to express her status.

  Philipovna — Vera’s patronymic name, meaning the daughter of Philip. Traditionally, Ukrainians are known by their given name, followed by their patronymic name, followed by their family name.

  Pyrizhky —buns that are filled with either sweet or savoury stuffing. They can have meat or cheese filling for the main course or apple and raisins if they are used for dessert.

  Pysanky — intricately painted Easter eggs. The root word is the

  word for write so Ukrainians say that they will “write” the egg rather than colour it. The design is more important than the colour, beautiful as it may be. The idea is to have each egg look as individual as possible.

  Rushnyk —literally meaning towel. Culturally, it is like a linen scarf, usually heavily embroidered and is used for ceremonial purposes. Ukrainian Christian households have an icon, a religious picture which is hung in a
place of honour and draped with a rushnyk. Rushnyks are also used to wrap food in for ceremonies. They are part of the hand-binding at Ukrainian wedding ceremonies, a custom going back to pre-Christian times, and are symbols of home and harmony.

  Sharik — the word for ball. Used as the dog’s name here.

  Smetana — sour cream

  Varenyky —stuffed dumplings. Can be made with sweet or savoury filling. The dough is rolled out, stuffed and dropped into boiling water till the dumpling floats.

  Verochka — diminutive for the name Vera Tahto — the Ukrainian equivalent for Daddy Tsarevitch — the title for the son of a tsar Tsarevna — the title for the daughter of a tsar Zaraza — word meaning pest or pestilence

  The Legacy

  I STAYED AWAY from other children. I preferred my own games of picking flowers and long processions that ended with me and the rag doll Mama made sitting on my parents’ grave and talking to them. I can’t remember any of the funerals or what my Mama’s face looked like. But I still hear the memory of her singing a lullaby. Though Mama was gone, I could always feel her close to me.

  My Godfather, who was also my father’s brother, took me to his house after all of the ceremonies were over. They say that every time the door opened, I ran straight back to my parents’ cottage. They would find me holding my father’s tools, spinning the wheel of my mother’s sewing machine or curled up on their feather bed by the hearth. If it was a nice day, I hid in our garden, finding bugs or leaves or stray flowers that struggled up through the untended mass of vegetation.

  One day, a group of strangers approached my father’s house as I was playing with some twigs and a cocoon in the empty garden. I was frightened at first but I recognized my Godfather and Auntie Xena so I didn’t run away.

  “Verochka, there you are. Come and say ‘good-morning’ to your Aunts and Uncles,” Godfather called to me. “Auntie Xena has brought you a sweet.”

  I studied the group cautiously. Strangers did not come here unless something very important was happening. What could be so important that a whole group of people was visiting me? My parents were dead and couldn’t invite them in.

  Godfather drew me forward and, there beneath the frosty blue of the autumn sky, I first set my eyes on my father’s sisters. They were robust women with rosy cheeks and bushy eyebrows. Beneath their embroidered platoks, their heavy brown hair was plaited in braids that were fashioned into buns on their heads and their sharp eyes looked right through me. They were not like my mother’s sister, Auntie Xena, at all. I loved her smile and those soft hazel eyes that wrapped you in a warm blanket of welcome.

  “Come, Child,” she said. “Let me give you a big hug.” She kissed me on both cheeks and presented me to the other aunts. Lena lived one town farther away from Auntie Xena. She sniffed and looked me over from head to toe with disdain. Liza was rich and lived in Kiev. She wore a fur collar even though the day wasn’t very cold. Their full names were Olena and Elizabeth. I was too scared to look at the Uncles; they were so strong and tall with their big moustaches.

  “Your Aunts and Uncles are here to settle your parents’ business,” Godfather explained.

  For what was the longest afternoon of my short life, I sat on the hearth in the one room cottage that used to be my home. As the men talked through my father’s affairs, I rocked the cradle that my mother had laid me in and had prepared for the sibling that should have been sleeping there. I watched as the strangers looked over my father’s tools which were in a nook lit by the natural light of a window facing the village square. I remember Tahto sitting at his bench on the day I found the ducklings.

  In Ukrainian villages wagon wheels made deep ruts in the dirt road. One spring day, when I was playing, I saw a mother duck walking with her ducklings. She led them from the field into a rut and walked along with them lined up behind her. The mother duck stepped out onto the road calling for her family to follow across to the other side. The little ducklings could not climb out of the rut. She quacked and quacked, but they could not get out because they were still too small. I felt so sorry for them that I gathered them up in my skirt and took them to show my father who was working at his cobbler’s bench.

  He was a master cobbler with two apprentices and was well known throughout the whole county of Cherkassy. Everyone loved him.

  “Look, look,” I shouted. “I found these little ducks on the road, Tahto.”

  My father’s face darkened with an unfamiliar expression.

  “We have to drown them in the river, right now,” Tahto said. He stood up and put those little ducklings into his leather work apron.

  I started to cry.

  “They must go back into the river,” Tahto insisted.

  I screamed harder. He walked towards the river with me and my tantrum following his long strides.

  “Please don’t drown them! Please, please!” I begged. I didn’t want those pretty ducklings to be dead like my mother and her new baby.

  When we reached the river, Tahto squatted by the water’s edge. He gently picked up the first little duckling and dipped his large cobbler’s hand just below the surface of the cold water. The bird’s fragile wings fluttered. How beautiful it looked. I watched Tahto as he took each duckling from his apron and freed it. I watched each of them spread their tiny wings and swim away.

  “Remember, this is where ducklings belong,” he said sternly. “A bird can’t sing if it isn’t free. And you can’t survive if you aren’t free either.”

  His blue eyes sparkled like the water in the river. That is the only memory I have of my father. He was so tall and handsome with his dark curly hair. He did not starve in the famine like the rest of them. He and his student were taking a shortcut across the river and were ambushed by thieves. They were robbed of the shipment of expensive leather boots which had been commissioned by the local dance school. He was beaten so badly that he bled to death before the doctor got to him. At least he left me his name, Philip. Back home the father’s name was our legacy. It really meant something, not like here in Canada.

  The Uncles paid the apprentices with the remaining leather and the cobbler’s tools they couldn’t use themselves. They promised letters of introduction to any new master that the sad-looking young men might find. The apprentices said goodbye and patted me on the head before leaving.

  My new aunts went through every corner and crevice of the house separating out my parents’ modest belongings. The pots, the crockery, the brooms and even the sack of wheat that was used for baking bread were accounted for. My mother’s trunk was taken apart and the aunts went through her clothing piece by piece.

  “Xena,” Liza said, “you might as well take the dresses. They’re too small for both of us and, besides, we can make nicer dresses than these anytime.”

  She tossed my Mama’s clothes over the trunk as if they were a pile of filthy rags.

  Auntie Xena shushed her with a finger on the lips and a sympathetic look in my direction.

  Everyone except Auntie Xena had been ignoring me. She would gently look over from the conversation that was going on or come and pat my shoulder in passing. Finally, they converged on my Mama’s only treasure.

  My Mama had been a dressmaker. Apparently, she was a good dressmaker as she had been able to acquire a Singer sewing machine, all the way from America. The aunts stood around it and discussed. They discussed and discussed till their voices were so loud that I became frightened and started to cry. Godfather came over to see what was going on.

  “Good God!” he shouted. “See what you old hens have done.” I cried harder.

  Godfather walked over to the hearth and swung me up to his shoulder with one of his muscled arms. He stood me on the cabinet of the sewing machine with one arm around my waist. He brushed my hair back from my face. He wiped my tears with his handkerchief. He looked hard at me with his blue eyes that were so like my father’s and said kindly: “Don’t cry, Child. You’ll have to ask God for strength. He’s given you a hard road to walk an
d you’ll need His help. Remember that He gives much suffering to those He loves best. Your name is Vera. It means truth. If you look for truth, you’ll always find your way. Don’t ever forget that.”

  He turned to my aunts and glared.

  “The one who takes the Child takes the machine. It is her mother’s legacy. She may need it to earn her own living.”

  The room was silent. The two new aunts stared at my Godfather while Auntie Xena stood with tears in her downcast eyes.

  “I’ll take her,” she said quietly and reached out her arms as she stepped closer to the cabinet of the machine where I still perched like a helpless baby bird on the branch of a tree.

  Godfather raised his free hand to stop her.

  “The one who takes the Child, takes the machine,” he commanded.

  The new aunts acted as if he wasn’t in the room.

  “But you can’t even sew a straight seam,” Lena exclaimed, shaking her finger in Auntie Xena’s face.

  “I’m the one who makes my living with the dresses,” Liza said. “I’d get much more work done with that excellent machine. I have more talent than the two of you put together.” She ignored Godfather’s thunderous stare.

  “That’s my loving sister!” Lena said, scoffing. “Never enough for you, is there?”

  “Xena,” Godfather said. “You and Misha already have six children. It would be much easier for one of the others to look after her.”

  “Anyone can look after her. Someone has to love her. She needs to be safe, in a good home.”

  “But I need the sewing machine,” Liza said.

  “You can afford to buy one,” Lena said. “Your husband has a good position with the Party. I need it more than you do.”