The Memory Keeper of Kyiv (18)

Bobby paused in the doorway and gripped the frame. “It’s something my father used to say to me when I was young.”

“What is it?”

Bobby turned to face Cassie and closed her eyes, as if retreating into herself. Her voice broke as she translated the words into English. “Just make it through today, and hope tomorrow will be better.”





8





KATYA





Ukraine, May 1930





“Here, Katya. You’re old enough now, and we may as well enjoy it while we can. Who knows when the activists will come take it?” Lavro poured a generous amount of horilka into a small cup for the next toast and handed it to her. Lavro made the best horilka around, and his brew never went out of demand.

For the first time during a gathering of neighbors like this, she was being treated as an adult. She glanced over at her parents and noted her father’s slight nod. Her mother, however, frowned, so Katya pretended not to see her.

Pavlo’s teasing voice spoke close, his breath tickling her ear. “Be careful. Lavro’s horilka isn’t for little girls.”

She drove an elbow into his side and raised her cup with the other hand.

“Slava Ukrayini!” Lavro boomed as he stood, raising his glass.

Katya followed his lead, and echoed, “Glory to Ukraine!”

She shot back the drink, and the air in her lungs pushed out in a sharp rush. Lavro guffawed and stared at her with an expectant look on his face.

“Very good!” she choked, forcing a smile as the fiery liquid seared a path down her throat and warmed her stomach.

Satisfied with this praise, Lavro nodded as he continued to chuckle at her discomfort.

“I told you!” Pavlo grinned.

“I can handle it fine,” Katya rasped.

Pavlo laughed and took her hand as Tomas began to speak. She tightened her grip on his rough, calloused hand and gave a contented sigh.

“Stalin has sent his activists here to take what is ours!” Lavro’s cousin Tomas roared, catching everyone’s attention. Lavro had invited several neighboring families to his house to enjoy a big meal and, as Katya had suspected it would, the discussion turned to the collective.

“We won’t give it to them!” Lavro yelled as he began pouring another round of drinks for another toast. Katya abandoned her cup on the table so someone else could use it and took several steps back, ignoring Pavlo’s snicker next to her.

“But that is not all he wants!” Tomas slapped the sturdy table with his hand for emphasis after he barked out each word.

Katya leaned forward, like everyone else, to better hear what he had to say.

“He seeks to crush us, to take away our spirit and everything that is Ukrainian. He sends in his activists, his Party, and his OGPU henchmen. These Twenty-Five Thousanders! Fools from cities who don’t know a wheat kernel from an ear of corn, brought here to make us join their collective farms. They try to tell us how to farm. Bah! Then, they take our priests, teachers, and our leaders. Our brothers, sisters, and neighbors! Stalin’s men arrest them without a trial and deport or shoot them.” Tomas slammed back the shot and banged down his cup as he looked at each person in turn.

Katya shuddered at the mention of people being deported. They hadn’t heard any word from Fedir, Sasha, or her aunt and uncle, and she missed them. Still, Tomas’s words mesmerized her. All around the room, everyone stared at him, riveted by his narrative. His voice surged through Katya and made her want to fight Stalin with her bare hands.

“But he isn’t stopping at our people. No, now he wants our livestock, our land, even the very tools we use to work it. Everything! We are to even give up our vegetable gardens! They want us to do the work and then depend solely on the Soviet government to pay us back with the fruits of our own labor! No!” he finished, slapping the table again. Slowly, his eyes scanned the room.

“I take care of my family, not some collective farm,” Lavro said.

“But those who do not give in are branded kulaks,” Tomas said. “What is a kulak, anyway? Anyone who disagrees with Stalin. Anyone who gets in the way of his big plan. They don’t like you, then you are a kulak, and they can do whatever they want with you!” His voice rose with every word, until he was yelling.

A rustle of unease rippled through the crowd, and Pavlo shifted closer to Katya. The warm solidness of his body pressed close calmed her as people began to shoot worried glances around the room. Everyone agreed with Tomas, but the simple truth was that speaking such blasphemy aloud could get you killed. Anyone could be a spy. Anyone could turn you in.

“Still, some of our very own people welcome them with bread and salt! What are they thinking? These traitors to Ukraine will come to regret their choice, mark my words!” He waved a frustrated hand toward the remnants of the loaf of bread Lavro’s wife had made for tonight.

Katya, along with each person attending, had ripped off a piece and dipped it in salt while entering the house. She tried to imagine her neighbors performing the same treasured tradition of hospitality for the man who had shot her cousin Serhiy, and anger made her see red.

“There are more of us here in our village than them. Their forces are far away; we must strike now and take down the activists they send to our villages before more come. Show them that we will not bow down to their will!” Tomas raised his fist in the air and shook it.