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Pavel shot up from his knees, barely having time to make the sign of the cross, when he heard the cruise missile strike his motherland.
“To hell with you!” Pavel raised his clenched fists in the air, then brought them down quickly.
The missile strike interrupted the evening prayers at St. Sophia Cathedral where Pavel regularly attended. Services at the church, a religious landmark in Kyiv, were now being held outside to ensure the safety of the faithful. The other parishioners, unlike Pavel, ducked and covered when they heard the unmistakable sound of the rocket overhead. After a brief silence, they slowly got to their feet.
“Another one, devil take it,” grunted the gnarled, blue-eyed grandmother, her dislodged kerchief revealing a full head of white hair. She brushed herself off and glanced furtively at the priest, hoping he did not hear her blasphemy. Just in case, she whispered a prayer of reparation sotto voce.
“Where there is one, there usually are more…like vermin,” commented the church custodian while continuing to survey the skies.
Although everyone in attendance braced themselves for additional strikes, none came. “Where do you suppose the missile landed?” the custodian continued, talking to no one in particular.
“Looks like it could be somewhere near the park.” Pavel saw smoke rise to the northwest.
Pavel was a patriot of Ukraine, who, like his fellow countrymen, detested the Russian despot. Like most of his brethren, he decided to stand his ground against the anticipated massive Russian assault. He had spent three years in the Ukrainian army reserves and was comfortable around weaponry and munitions, urban tactics, and hand-to-hand combat. Pavel was stoutly built, biceps and quads thickened by years of high-rise construction work. Not a stickler for protocol, he wore his military garb informally, shirt collar open, a blue beret with yellow tassel on his head. Since the time the Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s northern borders, he carried his AK-47 wherever he went. Pavel could easily have been mistaken for a partisan from an earlier era.
The small crowd outside St. Sophia’s slowly dispersed. Pavel lingered and found himself alone except for the alcoholic amputee who permanently made his home and his living in the outer vestibule of the cathedral. The two briefly exchanged glances after which Pavel slipped away and hurried the six blocks to his studio apartment.
Pavel, a man in his early forties, lived alone. There had been some women, but he always stopped short of a proposal of marriage when one was likely called for. He did not mind solitude and was completely self-reliant. Safe in his apartment, he positioned his weapon next to the door and removed his fatigues, haphazardly placing them on a chair. He took a shot of his favorite Polish vodka, as was his custom, and settled into bed under a goose-down quilt. Images of the missile strike returned as he slept but did not awaken him.
The next morning, Pavel awoke earlier than usual and decided to explore the site of destruction from the previous evening. In contrast to the typical early-morning bustle of the Kyiv streets before the Russian invasion, stores were closed for the most part, mothers were not hurrying children off to school, and the buses and trolleys were not running.
Dogs, however, were barking. “The first line of defense against the Russian onslaught,” Pavel mused.
Pavel was content to hike the eight kilometers to where he thought the ruins would be; he had no patrol assignment that day, and the brisk winter air was invigorating. He reached the site after an hour and fifteen minutes and was shocked by what he saw. There were several soldiers and emergency responders searching through the rubble of the memorial park that was Babi Yar.
“I saw the missile land last night from St. Sophia’s. What’s the damage?” Pavel asked a worker, a search dog obediently at his side.
“Five dead. Searched through the night, but I think that’s all of them. No one alive that we can find,” the emergency worker with the dog responded, looking exhausted from the night’s work. “They must have been out for a stroll or something.”
“Of all places to bomb,” Pavel remarked angrily, nodding in the direction of one of the memorials.
“We think they were aiming for the TV tower but hit the burial site instead. Russian marksmanship.” The emergency worker turned and spat on the ground in the direction of the tower.
Pavel was two generations removed from the horror of Babi Yar, but he knew the story well. As a boy he had only heard rumors of the atrocities that had occurred in the ravines, now covered by grass and shrubs. Neither his parents nor his grandparents had wanted to talk about it. And certainly, neither did the Soviets. The Soviets did all they could to cover it up, first with mud, then with a sports stadium. Neither plan came to fruition. The desecration that was the hideous TV tower, however, relentlessly bathing the landscape with microwaves, could not be avoided.
Pavel ambled further into the park and came upon the Babi Yar synagogue, a structure completed the previous year tocommemorate the massacres. It was a curious building, made mostly of wood, looking like a big tome when closed, and opening like a child’s pop-up book. The synagogue unfolded into a three-dimensional space with all the required elements to facilitate prayer and contemplation. Pavel had taken notice of it as it was being built and admired its design. He approached the edifice to assess any damage. There was none. He noticed, however, the “book” that was the synagogue in its closed configuration was slightly ajar. He thought the blast might have caused the structure to shudder and crack open a bit.
Pavel, a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian, felt somewhat anxious to enter strange spiritual territory. His legs seemed heavier than before. He’d grown up among a few Jewish neighbors in Kyiv but had little to do with them. Still, he did not actively join in the undercurrent of antisemitism in his parochial school. In fact, he had occasion to defend a Jewish boy, a neighbor about his age who lived on his block.
“Get away from that Zionist antichrist or you’ll get what’s coming to him!”
“Piss off.” Pavel was younger but much bigger than the two student hoodlums.
Although his defense of the boy cost him a bruised cheek and derision at the hands of his compatriots, Pavel felt confident he had done what he needed to do.
Pavel proceeded cautiously toward the open edge of the “book” and ever so gingerly pulled on one wall to better glimpse what was inside. As he did so, he noticed words that he recognized as Hebrew on the various parts of the wall, along with some beautiful iconography on a sky-blue background. The workmanship of the woodwork was first rate, each joint tight, but leaving just enough space for expansion. As he pulled further on the wall, a part of the flooring emerged, then a pew, enough so that he could sit.
“How the world has turned upside down,” Pavel said to himself, thinking he was completely alone. His thoughts turned to the irony of his current situation, a Christian alone in this synagogue built for Jews, the living next to the dead.
“Will someone build a church for us when all this is done?” he wondered, images of the ruins of his city and his country flooding his consciousness. “How many corpses will be added to those beneath me?” Thick clouds had gathered directly overhead. He noticed it was getting dark, although it was still the middle of the morning.
Pavel turned with a startle, reflexively pointing his rifle in the direction of the sound of rustling inside the synagogue. He was able to make out a figure, but just barely. It had grown so dark. He saw what appeared to be a boy, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, stumble slowly from the recesses of the structure.
“Who’s there?” Pavel barked. “Come out, come out now, with your hands up in the air!”
The boy took a step forward, then another, unsteady, looking like a newborn fawn barely standing yet forced to walk. Pavel could begin to make out details. It was indeed a boy. He had a baby face, sunken cheeks, and his forehead was smudged with grime. He was wearing a longish coat that looked like it had belonged to an older brother, open in the front, baggy pants that appeared to be slipping from his waist, and a cap that was flat, like those worn by the boys who hustled in the streets. Pavel thought he could make out curly locks of hair wrapped around each ear under the hat, the kind he had seen on his Jewish neighbors. The boy appeared terrified, his smoky eyes wide and his hands trembling at his sides.
“I told you to put your hands up!” Pavel shouted while lowering his weapon, realizing there was no threat here, but insisting on obedience under such strange circumstances.
“What’s your name?” Pavel’s voice softened. “Where are you from? You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”
The boy did not appear to understand what Pavel was saying, so Pavel put down his weapon and motioned the boy to sit next to him. He took out a buttered roll, a pampushka, he had been saving for lunch and offered it to the boy. The boy cautiously took the roll in his hand, moved it close to his mouth, but then abruptly returned it to Pavel. He had a confused and sad look in his eyes, as though he did not remember how to eat.
When he returned the roll, the boy said: “A sheynem dank…kh’bin nisht hungerik.”
Pavel did not have the slightest clue what the boy had said. He spoke in a language he did not understand but that he had overheard several times in the market, spoken by Hasidic tourists who were journeying to the grave of a famous rabbi. He thought it was Yiddish, at least that’s what his Jewish neighbors had said the Hasidim were speaking. Pavel thought this might be the son of some such Hasid who got lost in the pandemonium, among the throngs of women and children rushing to escape Kyiv.
The boy, his body less tense, seemed to recognize too that he and this stranger were unable to communicate.
“Are you Jewish? Zhid?” The boy’s face blanched and he took off to the shadows of the partially open synagogue.
Recognizing his inquiry terrified the boy, Pavel approached him with outstretched arms, his palms up, doing all he could to reassure him.
The boy re-emerged, reached into his coat, and pulled something out of his pocket which he handed to Pavel. It was a rolled cigarette, a bit tattered but dry. Although he did not smoke, Pavel took it and thanked him by repeatedly nodding.
Not sure what to do next, Pavel tried to work out how to reunite this lost boy with his family. He thought for a minute, asking himself what he could say so that the boy would not scamper off again.
“Mama?” Pavel asked the boy, exaggerating his mouth movements as if this would aid in the boy’s comprehension. “Papa?”
The boy nodded, revealing he understood. The boy’s affirmation, however, was followed by his shrinking further into his long coat and lowering his head so Pavel could only see the crown of his cap. Pavel decided he would take the boy to a shelter in Kyiv where he could be safe and get food. Perhaps there would be people there who could understand him and help reunite the boy with his family.
Pavel gently grasped the boy’s hand and took a step in the direction of town to indicate he should come with him. “Mama? Papa?”
Just then, a MiG-29 soared just over their heads. The noise was deafening. Pavel, distracted, excitedly shouted to himself, “It’s the Ghost of Kyiv! He’s one of ours! He’ll teach those sons of bitches a thing or two!”
Pavel did not notice the boy slip his hand from his grip. By the time the jet disappeared over the horizon Pavel realized the boy had drifted toward the ravine. Some five meters away, he noticed for the first time a large red stain surrounding a kopiyka size round hole in the back of the boy’s flat cap.
Unable to follow, Pavel watched as the image of his diminutive companion faded into the darkness of the day, over a knoll, and into a ravine that seemed to swallow him whole.
Pavel sat stunned, possessed by the boy. Far off voices from the remaining workers near the tower eased into his consciousness. Glancing over his shoulder to where the missile took the lives of five innocents, Pavel’s stupor slowly turned to wakefulness. His wakefulness swelled to rage and determination. Pavel clutched his AK-47 tightly, put the cigarette the boy had given him in the corner of his mouth, adjusted his beret, and marched off to face the tanks with the Z insignias.
________
Mark Russ is a psychiatrist in Westchester County, New York. He was born in Cuba, the son of
Holocaust survivors. He has contributed to the psychiatric literature throughout his career and
has recently begun to publish short stories and nonfiction pieces. His work has appeared in The
Jewish Writing Project, The Minison Project, Sortes, Jewishfiction.net, The Concrete Desert
Review, Jimsom Weed, and Literally Stories.