![]() Chess, reading, writing poetry and cooking Chicken Kiev (even spelling the city the Russian way in his handwritten recipe book) appealed to the deepest reaches of his spirit. In the eyes of many he was a saboteur hindering the struggle with a bad attitude.Īndriy hated guns, fighting, violence, even arguing. That’s all he needed, to finally agree to fight and get shot and killed by one of his neighbors who mistook him for an invader. Grabbing the barrel, he worried the used Kalashnikov he picked up that morning at the library might accidentally go off. As he turned from the slow moving train packed with women and children, the automatic rifle hanging from his shoulder slipped. Glory to the heroes,” she said.įearful with foreboding doom, Andriy never expected to see his wife and daughter again. Before they boarded Svitlana kissed her husband lightly on the cheek. Kateryna, never before having traveled by train, looked forward to the trip to Poland. Andriy and Svitlana said a strained goodbye at the railroad station. “You really don’t understand, do you, Andriy?” Or was it patriotism? Or hatred? Or all three? “They’d be better off at dance class,” Andriy said. ![]() “The men outside my window blew me kisses. Squealing with excitement, Kateryna raced back into the room. “Is freedom won by making others suffer as much or more than we do?” “Preparing her to stand up for what she believes in.” “Do you know what you’re doing to Kateryna?” “You’re making deadly weapons with our baby girl,” he said. “I’m resisting war like you should be doing,” Svitlana said. She capped the top with a twisted blue strip of faded denim.Īndriy felt alone for the first time since he and Svitlana married in the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv 12 years ago. She used a sharp potato paring knife to cut the white foam peanuts into tiny pieces which she shoved into the neck. Svitlana filled another green bottle with gasoline. “I’ll see if any of your empty beer bottles rolled under my bed.” “You teach our daughter to make explosives to kill Russians?”įolding his hands as if in prayer, Andriy said, “Go to your room, Kateryna. Looking at Svitlana, Andriy struggled to hold his temper. “Natalka says the foam sticks to skin and burns into bone when you catch fire from Molotov cocktails.” I took packing peanuts from boxes I keep in the closet.” “I cut up your oldest jeans for wicks and siphoned gasoline from the car. “Where’d you learn to make petrol bombs?” Jerking her head toward her husband Svitlana snapped words like whiplash.Īndriy pointed to a dozen more bottles on the floor. “When this is over you’ll remember every step.” Exhaling white smoke through his nose he spoke to Kateryna in a voice as low as his mood. Marveling at his family over a flickering blue flame that lit his last cigarette, Andriy crumpled and stuffed the pack in his down jacket pocket. Svitlana reached for three empties her daughter held out. “Here’s more bottles, mama,” Kateryna said.
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