I walk past yellow leaves slowly drifting to the ground, an Indian summer of warmth, winter about to come on long and strong. Children play in the tiny park, one of dozens scattered throughout the city, the playground equipment old but freshly and brightly painted. Kids laugh as they play on the swings, which do not have chains like ours do, but straight metal poles. They do full revolutions on these, suicidal swings up to vertical, gripping the poles on either side of the seat with white little knuckles, hair flipping down in the direction of gravity before their momentum carries them past the point of suspension and they swing back down, back to right-side up, squealing.
They are heavily bundled: toddler marshmallow men, in blues and reds contrasting with the piles of yellow leaves all around them. Around them are gray concrete buildings, monoliths that hide all hint of nature. I didn’t even know there were hills around Obhiev until week three. Behind the buildings are gray, endless clouds, drab, soul-leaching. The children and the leaves, though, they stand out against the dismal, surrounding palate as if they are colored images in a black and white photograph, bright, attention-arresting, smile-making.
I am taking pictures of the kids playing, of a woman rocking her child in its carriage back and forth, back and forth. A woman, an old woman, a babushka in three sweaters, a jacket, pants and fur lined boots even though the weather is not yet that cold, a head-shawl hiding all but her face, touches me on the arm and asks me in Ukrainian, “isn’t it beautiful?” And I reply back to her in her language: “Yes, it is.” “Where are you from?” “America.” “Do you like Ukraine?” “I love it.”
Because what else do you say?
***
I was walking to the internet club, hands thrust in my pockets, head down against the cold. My feet leave shallow impressions in the snow. I always feel like I’m walking across one of Florida’s black sand beaches when I walk on snow; the texture is the same, although the temperature, it goes without saying, is different. As I pass a woman with a stroller, I hear her talking, realize she’s talking to me, and look at her. “Shcho?” I ask. What?
She repeats to me, in Ukrainian: “can you help me?”
I realize she needs help lifting the stroller, her child still in it, up a flight of stairs to where the elevator is. I don’t hesitate to tell her yes, and I take one end and she takes the other and we slowly lift it to keep it level, to not wake the tiny baby swaddled in a white blanket inside.
And I’m slightly confused because everyone knows I’m an American. I tried fitting in for the first couple days until I realized, even dressed up, boots polished, face shaved, hair short, in a leather jacket with a babushka bag still at my side, I was still getting stared at by everyone I passed. So I stopped trying to fit in. I was wearing my baggy, faded and fraying blue jeans and my mud-encrusted boots, my green ski-cap with the Miami Dolphins logo on it, and my omnipresent headphones were around my neck. Of course I was one of those Americans living in town. And yet she asked me to help carry her child up a flight of stairs, which touched me for some reason. It really did.
***
If I could have gotten on a plane right then, I would have. New Year’s Eve, missing home very badly, hungry because dinner was holodetz and I could only stomach so much. I had kept busy on Christmas, so I had dealt with it well. New Year’s Eve, though, another family staple for me, was not busy, and I had time to reflect, to miss, to become depressed. My Ukrainian host family promised a big party, but we only came together at the table to watch a countdown on television. It was midnight, and then the family dispersed. My host brothers were going to a friend’s, my host father went into the living room to watch television and my host mother and her friend talked in Russian in the kitchen.
I managed to call my close friend, Robynne, for two minutes on a calling card, the first time we had spoken since I had left the states. I could hear Molly, Robynne’s daughter and my goddaughter, making noises in the background, and I knew again that I would miss Molly get big, that the last time I saw her she fit in the crook of my arm and that the next time she would be walking and talking. The phone cut off before Robynne and I had a chance to say good-bye. I waited for my mom to call, but she didn’t. Later, she told me later that couldn’t get a line into the country. I was lonely and tired and my blood sugar was crashing. I just wanted to go home. To America, home.
And right before he left, my host brother Kiril came in and handed me a CD and a card. The CD was of club music, because he knew I liked to dance. The card said: “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Be strong in Ukrainian and do not give up!”
It had perfect timing.