Ilya Kharkow excerpt from “THE MINING BOYS”

Excerpt from Chapter 6 “Kyiv – Lviv“

My mother used to tell me to add dried mint leaves to tea. But not to boiling water so that the mint wouldn’t lose its healing properties. She said that the main property of mint was to calm. One cup of mint tea, and your right eyelid will stop twitching. Usually, it worked. But it didn’t work on the morning of February 24th when my partner woke me up with the words: “It’s started! Get up! It’s started!”

Obviously, I didn’t make tea that morning. But I did put a bag of dried mint in my pocket. It came in handy for me on the bus that was taking me and my partner to what the bus driver called “the unsafe place,” Lviv.

Normally, the road from Kyiv to Lviv takes about 6 hours. But we were on the road for more than a day. This was the first war in our lives, so we couldn’t predict many of the things that were happening. That’s why we made so many mistakes.

One of those mistakes was not having enough food prepared in our backpacks for the event of war. The problem was that while we were preparing for war, none of us truly believed that war would actually happen. So, we prepared not for war but for some bad day that might occur but was unlikely to happen in reality.

We read the headlines. We made up any excuses not to notice the obvious – the preparations for active military actions were taking place. And it’s not surprising since shortly before the war, the president addressed the nation, assuring that spring would come soon, and everyone would go for the traditional picnic in the countryside. So, when buying food for the war, we bought only canned food, which we would later exchange with the bus driver for water, and a few Snickers bars that we would eat before leaving the city.

***

I close my eyes and recall the lessons of Ukrainian literature. I spent my entire childhood with books, but they were Russian books. Then in school, I get called up to the blackboard! They tell me to recite a poem. We had two weeks to memorize it. Why didn’t I memorize it? What? So says the teacher. You didn’t memorize the poem because you didn’t understand what it’s about? Come here. Closer. I said closer. Now, point to me with your finger which word you don’t understand. I’ll translate them for you. Just point with your finger. Hush-hush… No more beating. Look, I’m putting the ruler aside. Now show me, are there any other unfamiliar words in this poem? I said, show me.

I open my eyes. It takes a moment to realize that the real nightmare is the war separated from me by the bus window, or the Ukrainian literature class.

***

Who is this mysterious partner of mine? Named with a faceless word, he has always been in my consciousness. He walked with me. Sometimes nearby. Sometimes behind. He saved me, and he saved himself through me. He assigned himself the role of a monk. He always let me leave, and that’s why I never wanted to walk away from him.

What makes a monk a monk? Detachment. The certainty that reality has multiple truths, and to act effectively in a world with such conditions, you need to choose your truth and follow it, even if your version of the truth has flaws. Acceptance of mistakes is another characteristic of this guy. He wasn’t perfect, but his self-acceptance made him more attractive than many.

On the bus, I was reading a book about Churchill. It was damn hard to focus on the text, but I needed to escape from reality. Besides, this book was filled with pleasant humor:

“If you can: start your day without caffeine, be cheerful and not ignore pain and discomfort, refrain from complaining and not bore people with your problems, eat the same food every day and be grateful for it… you’ve reached the level of development of your dog.”

I look at my partner. A monk? A dog! Recently, he had gained a couple of extra kilograms, which still didn’t make him fat, but in my eyes, he appeared a large and loyal dog. His love for Labradors was evident in his appearance. You’ve probably noticed how sometimes dogs resemble their owners. Well, my partner truly looked like a grown-up Labrador, except he didn’t have a Labrador yet.

My partner was not only a dog for me. Sometimes, quite often actually, he played the role of dried mint. He calmed me down, protected me from emotional actions, and impulsive behaviors. I learned from him to wait, and he learned from me to act. We complemented each other, which wasn’t surprising, as otherwise, we wouldn’t have lived together for three years. […] There was no sex between us. There was no free time. There were plans and a clear vision of how to achieve them.

***

The driver warned us about the war. During the day, this driver was planning to pick up my Labrador and take him to the gallery. There, they would load art into a cargo truck. My partner and I were supposed to take a train to Lviv that same evening. People were waiting for us there, people from whom we planned to rent a space for storing paintings. But we never met them.

Sitting on the bus, which was barely crawling towards the exit from Kyiv, I decided it was time to apologize. I wrote to everyone I could. I wrote to the boy I fought with over the fact that he took my suit jacket on prom night and wore it all night. I still feel guilty about that. I wrote to a disliked teacher whose name I deliberately mispronounced at school. A familiar saleswoman who trusted me and never counted the money. For the same reason, I never gave her the correct amount. I apologized for everything that could be apologized for. I wrote to family and friends. And during the process, I felt something quite close to sanctity.

We got stuck in traffic near a military school, around the Beresteiska metro station. Exactly twenty-four hours later, a missile would hit that school. Soldiers were running around behind the fence, chaotic soldiers. Like ants on sand. But not only they seemed like ants. After the first explosion, everything around us changed its scale. It became small. Insignificant. Fragile. Now you could spit on everything. Nothing gave you a guarantee. Everything could die at any second. And it was dying.

In fifteen minutes, I started receiving messages. An old schoolmate confessed his love to me and revealed that he had suppressed his feelings due to his father’s tyranny, to be more precise, due to the fear of his father, which proved stronger than his childhood love. The girl from the store messaged that she had always known I wasn’t paying the full price, and she allowed me to do so because she could see that I was often in a depressed mood. The teacher sent a message that said, “And who, precisely, is bothering?”

Getting onto the bus was a stroke of luck. I talked to my friends, and they inquired how I managed to do that. Where should they look for tickets? Are there scalpers? Can you hitch a ride? But I didn’t have any answers. I wrote to everyone who asked me that question, telling them that you need to take action. It doesn’t matter how. You need to leave your house and try to get out. But not everyone dared. My mother didn’t.

What would you do? Imagine it. Morning. You wake up to the news — WAR IN YOUR CITY! What would your actions be? Now I understand that there are only three options: save yourself, defend your country, do nothing. I chose to save myself. Many chose this path. Why did I do that? Because I don’t think in terms of states. For me, the whole world is just one person. One. If I die, the world will disappear. For me. Babylon is gone. I feel nothing about it. What am I willing to give my life for? Perhaps for nothing. Certainly not for any state. But my mother…

“Mom, if something happens to you, I’ll go to Moscow, and I’ll kill all the pretty women your age, so they can feel what I’m going to feel.”

“How can you say so? No… No! I don’t want that. I’m disgusted at the thought that my son would kill someone. On the contrary, if I die, you must make every effort to live a happy life. If I have a dying wish, it’s this — live a happy life. Do you understand me?”

Ten thousand fat Labradors whimpered inside me at those words. But still, the siren sounded louder.

***

Few were truly prepared for the escape. Therefore, around six to seven hours into the journey, some passengers began trading food. By evening, this exchange took place on a massive scale. The bus turned into a buffet, but not everyone was allowed to the table. We had nothing that might potentially interest the others. Biscuits and cream puffs. Cupcakes and gingerbread with filling. Jam and bread. All these items circulated throughout the bus cabin, but none reached us. What did we have? Snickers’ wrappers and books. So, we silently chewed on dried mint. We steeped the mint in warm saliva.

I read. Or at least, I tried to read. Someone was listening to the news very loudly. Everyone was scared; even the font in my book was shaking. The announcer’s voice sounded as if he had just found out he had prostate cancer. “THERE ARE REPORTS THAT THE RUSSIAN ARMY IS ADVANCING INTO THE ZAPOROZHYE REGION AND APPROACHING THE CAPITAL. THE SOUNDS OF EXPLOSIONS ARE HEARD BY RESIDENTS IN AREAS SUCH AS:…” says the announcer as military vehicles appear outside the window. Armored vehicles. Painted in a dark green color. These vehicles were moving on the shoulder of the road. Only they were headed toward the city. It was a unique sight. The six-lane road was stuck in a traffic jam. All lanes were moving in the same direction — out of the city.

But it wasn’t just the news or the military vehicles that scared us on that day. Not just the explosions. We were frightening each other just as much. Here we were, nearly out of the city, but not quite. Just a few kilometers to go. But they felt like the anticipation of your first sexual encounter. And there was nothing we could do about it. Suddenly, a siren blares. And you’re on a bus. And there are many of you.

“What does the siren mean?”

“It means a missile is heading this way.”

“A missile? Here?!”

No, staying on the bus was not an option. But where to run? Not everyone was panicking, but those who were spread panic, infecting you. And so, you step off the bus. There, you feel less protected. Even though you understand that if a missile hits the bus directly, it won’t just bounce off. No, the bus will be blown to kingdom come. There you were, sitting in traffic all slow and dreamy with your little book. And justthen the same you were making dumplings for lunch with the devil.

“Lie down!” someone orders, and I fall to the ground. Just ten centimeters from my face, there was a muddy puddle. And someone’s shoe. After lying there for a minute, I dared to lift my head. The shoe belonged to a teenager. The teenager was proudly smoking. He wasn’t scared. He didn’t yet know the value of life, so he thought he had nothing to lose.

“Alesha, sit down! Alesha!” commands the chubby woman. She lies next to me. With one hand, she grabs Alesha’s pants, and with the other, she tries to wipe the dirt off her little shirt. A dog approaches. There are many like it on the streets. The dog is happy. The dog thinks that the entire city came out to play with it. First, it starts drinking from the puddle. Then it licks me with the same tongue. It runs away. The teenager chases it. Another siren goes off. We are scared again. We still don’t know that the second siren means the all-clear from the air raid.

***

Should I make excuses for wanting to save my life? Should I feel guilty because my life is more important to me than the fate of the state? The very occurrence of these questions is so absurd that complaining about loud singing of punctuation marks seems like an everyday activity. I know one thing for sure — whoever wants my death, be it a person or a state apparatus, poses a danger to me, and therefore is my enemy. Regardless of history, nationality, age or gender.

Once a marble psychologist noticed that my aggression was not external, but internal. In practice, this manifests itself in such a way that if I were faced with a choice: to kill myself or another, then I would kill myself. […]. My suicide, if it had happened once, would have been disgusting in nature. It is unacceptable for me to live in a world with so much dirt, meanness, and baseness. They shoot civilians. But how do they shoot? In the back. People are blindfolded. They tie their hands. And only then they shoot. And this is a massive phenomenon. People are being raped. Adults. Children. Small ones. They rob old people. They destroy everything they can reach. They are taking revenge. They are setting it up. Tortured.

The Ukrainian media write all this about the Russian army. Russian media write exactly the same thing about Ukrainians. Here is a Ukrainian soldier killing a Russian child in a border village. And here is a video recording of the murder of a Ukrainian child by a Russian soldier. These videos are quickly gaining popularity on social networks. Children are being killed! Shit! And these videos spread across the network at incredible speed with the desire to show what happened to as many people as possible in order to stop the crime. But such videos only make people angry. The soldiers are also watching them. And then they take revenge. In war, the principle of an eye for an eye still applies. The most primitive form of injustice. So, it turns out that videos of children being killed lead to even more children being killed.

Statistics show that the generation of children who have experienced war tends to grow up extremely cruel. Even if the war in Ukraine were to end today, even if the cities were to be rebuilt, the country would still have a significant number of people with disturbed psyches. My partner resembles a dog in that he knows how to lick wounds, not only his own but also those of others. But will there be enough Labradors in the country to lick the wounds of every citizen?

Admit it, it’s foolish to end one’s life when you suddenly feel disgust for something. Foolish.

I close my eyes. I see my mother burying me, just to be close.

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Through his work, which at present includes two books (fiction and auto-fiction) and a collection of short stories, he explores the depths of human emotion and experience. Everything he writes is a window into an extraordinary life marked by defiance and a relentless commitment to his craft. 

For more, or to contact Ilya, see:
www.ikharkow.com

Author photo by Beniamin Gorgoń.