A blessing to be alive, I stand outside my hotel in a dark frontal city. All I can see is the stars and going up and down the burn of a bulky soldier’s cigarette. “Sweetheart I am going back to the frontline tomorrow and I know I will not come back”. In the most recent fight, his battalion lost 400 men. He came to say goodbye to his family. “I want to live, and my daughter wants to live; I will die, but I will die making that possible.” I tell him to promise he will come back, not so he will respond, but because in that moment that was the thing I wished for the most. He promises that the army will make us a present for New Years; they will liberate Kherson. In the dark and silence we hug. “We are advancing, but you should know, the price is 400 men. And I can’t be lucky for a third time”.
Five hours ago, I am near the place of his battle, smiling and chatting with soldiers, hiding behind their base. None of us is in fear, we talk about our favorite Ukrainian cities, and we laugh at stupid russians. “Imagine: we caught a guy who said he came here to kill Bandera.” “What happened to him? – but tell me first, what do you need?” The soldier brings me to their old, painted, navy green car. Explosions keep sounding in the background. He hides me behind himself as we cross the open space. “We fight from this, we carry wounded and dead on this, and sometimes we sleep on this. What do we need? Anything, a tank, air defense, a plane”. He looks at me with a smile. For a hot second I try to think where I can find a tank.
His soldiers fight with serious illnesses. They don’t sleep. They liberated the village two weeks ago. A young farmer from this recently liberated village is calmly telling me about the six-month occupation he lived through, russian soldiers at his door, a grandma buried in the yard. “When russians were kicked out from the village they started shelling it with rockets – one hit my house and killed my granny”. He speaks firmly but starts crying, remembering the day the Ukrainian army liberated the village. “We didn’t have much, but we made our soldiers pancakes, brought apples and flowers, we were crying and singing on our main street, the happiest day I can remember”. He proudly shows his 1×1 meter basement. “Look, I have no house upstairs, no one has electricity and heating, but here I have this little stove – it warms me up, I have a candle, and I can even warm some water and take a shower.” The young farmer is very proud of this invention. I hide my face and tell him he did a great job.
We warm up outside in the bright south Ukrainian sun, a russian plane flies above us. It sounds closer and closer and at some point rapidly farther. We know it dropped the bomb and 5 seconds later we hear that bomb, definitely somewhere close. We look up, we swear, we continue chatting.
I drive back in my mama’s car that I borrow from her to go to places that I don’t tell her about through dusty sandy Khersonian fields. The car I have to follow disappears in the cloud of dust. The military have strictly told me to follow them, not to ride over the mines. A little stress. With a taste of sand in my mouth I try to see through. I think it would make a great picture but I’m reluctant to divert my attention for a small second. Instead, I see an armored car three times larger than my mom’s, appearing from the cloud right in front of me.I swear a lot. Then I open my window. “Slava ukraini, dobrogo vechora. Dear soldier, did you see anyone passing by?” “Don’t worry, dear. I saw them, you are just 2 minutes behind. Heroyam slava.”
How weird, how fast, how unpredictable the mind adjusts. How much it can endure, how ugly and torturous and unfair life is. How much I am not afraid, how much our dearest soldiers are not afraid. How exhausting resilience is. How much more simply we live, how much more of life’s essence we feel in between constant death. I fall asleep in my dark hotel and vaguely reminisce about my day. It seems normal and surreal at the same time. I’m blessed to be alive, today and probably tomorrow. I have plans. And what about the people I spent my day with? I turn my wish into a prayer.