Chapter 13 #3
On the advice of the woman in the bomb shelter, she started at the American tents, and showed both survivors and military personnel the photographs, inching through the crowds.
They had set up an impressive operation.
There were signs in Ukrainian indicating where the food tents were, where medical help was, and where people could stay if they needed shelter.
The survivors had a dazed look, and the children looked frightened, but some of the adolescents were talking and laughing.
There were Ukrainian translators helping with communication, and there was a Red Cross tent with a sign that said “Locating Missing Persons.” She was going to go back there with the photographs she had brought of Symon.
But first, she had to find her parents. She could show them the pictures of her parents too if she hadn’t found them yet.
No one recognized their photographs in the medical tent, which was a relief.
Yulya knew they were alive because the woman with the children had seen them that morning.
It was just a question of finding them in a sea of displaced people, which was like looking for a particular grain of sand on the beach.
They weren’t in the American mess tent either, where a lineup of cooks was cooking, using enormous vats, with other food set out in refrigerator cases, dairy products and produce, cold meats and desserts. The cooks were fully prepared to feed an army.
She went to the tent where people were setting up their belongings on army cots, and went row by row.
It was the biggest tent she’d ever seen, and there were women and children setting up their few belongings.
No one recognized the photographs, and she was almost at the last row when she saw them.
She was shocked by how thin they were. Oxana’s hair was in a tight bun, neatly combed, while Petro’s white mane looked shaggy and had grown long.
Their faces were pale. They were sitting next to each other on one cot, with bags of their possessions around them.
They were smiling and talking to each other.
She saw her father whisper something to her mother and she laughed.
They looked beaten to a pulp by what they’d been through, but they were still together, they looked happy, and they were laughing.
Tears rushed to Yulya’s eyes as she saw them.
Somehow, they had made it, and their love for each other had carried them through hell.
She was so grateful to see them. She approached them cautiously, not wanting to shock them, and as though sensing her, her mother looked up and saw her, and smiled.
They got off the cot and walked toward her, and she saw that her father had a slight limp, but they were smiling, and they put their arms around her when she reached them.
“I knew you would come one day,” Petro said confidently, with tears in his eyes. They were such strong, courageous people. “Your mother thought you wouldn’t leave the children. I know you better. Nothing stops you.” She was touched by her father’s faith in her.
“A woman at the shelter with three small kids told me you’d gone to the American tents, but there are so many people here.” Yulya was still holding the photographs of them, and her mother glanced at the one on top and made a face.
“Erghk, that is such a terrible picture of me. How can you show people that? My face looks awful,” she said, and Yulya and her father laughed.
“It’s not so great of me either, but she found us,” he told Oxana proudly.
“Are you both all right? How do you feel?” Yulya asked. They had aged noticeably in the few months since she’d seen them in February.
“We feel good now.” Petro spoke for them. “We had a little problem with the blockade when we ran out of food,” he said simply.
“They tried to starve us to death,” Oxana added.
“Your father carried me three blocks to the hospital. They took good care of us.” It was hard to imagine him carrying a feather three feet, he was so thin and frail-looking, and they said they had gained weight.
Clearly, he had saved his wife’s life. They were as much in love and as independent as ever.
“Would you like to have dinner with us?” he said, and Yulya smiled.
They were always warm and hospitable, even here, in the tent.
“I’d love it.” They made their way slowly to the mess tent, weaving through the crowds of humanity, and were directed to a long table by a smiling young American soldier.
“Table for three?” he said in Ukrainian, and they laughed, and then helped themselves to copious amounts of food. They could eat as much as they wanted of the good, wholesome food. As they ate their dinner, Yulya asked them about Symon.
“You haven’t seen him? No one you know saw him?” Yulya asked with worried eyes.
“Not since the last time he visited us,” her father told her and patted her hand, and her mother gently touched her cheek.
“We miss him too,” her father said, and Yulya fought back tears.
“I’m going to check at the hospitals, and the Red Cross seems to have some kind of setup to report missing persons.
And there are refugee agencies.” She could tell that her parents didn’t think he was alive.
She was beginning to agree, but she wasn’t going to give up until she knew she had tried everything possible to find him.
“If he’s alive, you’ll locate him,” her father said quietly. “I know you will, just like I knew you would find us.”
“I’d like you to come back to Warsaw with me,” Yulya said, looking at both of them. “At least for a while. You could stay at Olek and Nina’s, or we could get you an apartment.” Her parents looked at each other, and then at her.
“We want to stay here. This is our home, our country.”
“But you don’t have a home right now, and the country will be a mess for a long time. You can always come back later. But for now, it’s too hard here, and too dangerous.”
“We’ve been through the worst of it.” Petro smiled and looked at his wife and held her hand.
“They have a relocation desk here, though it’s not fully set up yet.
There are people in the west of the country, where they didn’t get the heavy bombing we did.
It’s mostly farmland. And some of the people with farms are offering a place to stay for people who’ve lost their homes.
We could stay on one of those farms, it’s safer, and the war won’t go on forever. What would we do in Poland?”
“The war could go on for a long time, and you could see us, and your grandchildren in Warsaw,” Yulya said, but she could see that they had already made their minds up.
Olek had predicted it. They wanted to stay in Ukraine, even after everything they had survived so far, which was a living hell.
They loved their country. It was their home, even now with only a shelter or a military tent to live in.
“You can visit us like you’re doing now,” her mother said.
“We like the idea of living on a farm until the war ends. It would be peaceful and healthy for both of us. Your father needs to build up his strength,” her mother said with concern.
Yulya nodded. She knew it was futile to argue with them.
She didn’t want to force them to do something they didn’t want.
The most important thing to Oxana and Petro was to be together, to be supportive of each other, have their own life, and not be dependent on anyone.
She suspected they wouldn’t be happy at Olek’s, and living with teenagers and young children would drive them nuts.
They wanted their own life, the way they wanted to live it.
She knew she couldn’t fight them on it. They had managed to survive a war on their own so far.
So there was nothing she could say to convince them.
And she didn’t feel she had the right to.
They had the right to their own choices. She didn’t argue with them.
“Thank you for respecting us,” her father said, and tears filled her eyes for the tenth time since she’d found them.
“We can stay here until they find a place to relocate us,” Petro said practically.
“The Americans are very helpful. But I hear the food is better at the French mess tent. We thought we’d eat there tomorrow,” he said, as though they were on vacation at a campground.
She smiled at their treating it like a summer holiday.
Considering what they’d been through, they were remarkable.
And most important of all to them, they were together, making their own decisions.
“Where are you staying?” Oxana asked.
“I haven’t figured that out yet. I thought I’d just sleep at a shelter. I’m fine,” Yulya said easily.
“Why don’t you sleep here with us tonight?” her mother suggested. “We can ask for another cot.”
“I have a sleeping bag with me. I can sleep on the floor,” Yulya suggested. “You don’t mind my camping with you?”
“We’d love it,” her mother said, and Yulya felt as though she’d been invited into their sacred inner circle.
All her life she had felt shut out of it because they were so close to each other, as Olek had said.
And now, for this moment, they were letting her in.
She was deeply touched, and seized the moment.
“I’d love it too,” Yulya said, and for that instant in time, all was perfect in her world. She had found her parents and they had survived the war so far, both of them. All she needed now was to find Symon.
—
Yulya had breakfast with her parents in the morning.
It was loud and chaotic, with a million children underfoot, clamoring for breakfast while their mothers tried to organize them.
Everyone was excited to see the wholesome good food, yogurts and fruit, different kinds of cereal.
Big vats of oatmeal, cooked eggs, and waffles and pancakes.
It looked like heaven after months of starvation.