Hryts’ Love Story

By Volodymyr Kish

It was a beautiful autumn evening some years ago when I was still living in Ukraine, and I was sitting in the back yard of my cousin Hryts’ “estate” in the picturesque village of Pidkamin.  We were relaxing after having spent the day digging the last of the beets and turnips.  Hryts had uncorked a bottle of some of his fine home-made mead and, as we watched the Sun slowly set over the woods at the end of his field, we were reminiscing about the many splendorous (and often imaginary) joys of our youth.

“Hrytsiu,” I remarked at one point, “you have never told me how you met, fell in love and married your darling wife, Yevdokia.  Knowing you, I am sure it must be a wonderful love story!”

Upon hearing this, I was surprised to see his expression suddenly turn sad and distant.  He sat there for a minute or two, lost in some private world inside his memories, while I puzzled over this unexpected turn of events.

He finally composed himself, turned to me with wistful eyes, and began a most remarkable tale.

“Vlodko, my young friend, you are an incurable romantic.  Your notions of love have been shaped a little too much by fairy tales and romantic comedies.  Life and fate, in this unpredictable and demanding world of ours, often has different ideas, and the road to life-long love often can have some unexpected and painful detours.”

“You may be surprised to know that Yevdokia was not my first love.  As a teenager during the time of what Soviets called the Great Patriotic War, I first fell in love with Yevdokia’s best friend Olya.  Olya and her brother Yaroslav were orphans from some place further east in Ukraine, their father having been killed fighting with the Ukrainian partisans during the early years of the war, and their mother exiled to Siberia from whom no more was ever heard of.  They had moved to Pidkamin to live a precarious existence with their elderly aunt. I fell madly in love with Olya from the first time I saw her.  She was 16, and I at 17 was love-struck to the core.  To me, Olya was the Sun, the Moon and the Earth all in one.  One look into those deep blue eyes of hers would send the earth spinning beneath my feet.”

“Coincidentally, Yevdokia, was similarly smitten with Olya’s brother Yaroslav.  For a young man of 18, he was delicate and somewhat of a mystic in nature.  He was always reading and would charm Yevdokia by reciting passionate poems to her, some of which he even wrote himself. She would often call him her little Shevchenko!”

“Despite the constant intrusions of war, we would find ways of enjoying ourselves.  All around Pidkamin were hills, woods, valleys, little rivers and other magic places we could escape too and indulge in the passions both innocent and otherwise that a first true love brings.  To us, love was a magic potion that for a time shielded us from the “sturm und drang” that held Ukraine in its grasp at that terrible time.”

“Of course, reality and fate soon caught up with us and Pidkamin.  Although the war with the Germans ended, a new underground conflict began with the occupying Soviet Red Army.  Western Ukraine was rife with partisan bands which the Communists were determined to stamp out.  I recall that fateful evening when a large detachment of special NKVD troops stormed into the village in search of local partisans who had been creating havoc in the area for some months.  They rounded up a number of villagers including Yaroslav for interrogation.  Their methods were nothing short of brutal, and Yaroslav’s pacific nature could not prepare him for the ordeal.  He broke under torture, conveying information as to where the local partisans might be found in the nearby woods.  An ambush was prepared and the next morning a number of partisans were killed during a furious firefight, one that unfortunately also claimed Olya as a victim, as she was caught in the crossfire while bringing food to the partisans.”

“When Yaroslav learned of what happened, he snapped, and overcome with guilt, hung himself in the cell where the NKVD were holding him prisoner.  The next day, Olya and Yaroslav were buried next to each other in the village cemetery.”

“Obviously Yevdokia and I were both terribly devastated and sunk into a deep depression.  We would visit the cemetery almost every day where we would sit quietly next to each other in front of the two graves and weep until we could weep no more.  Gradually, our grief began to abate, and we found increasing comfort in each other’s company.  We would share remembrances of better times and take turns giving each other strength and hope when we needed it most.”

“Eventually, and almost unexpectedly, amid the tears and pain, a different emotion took root, and we realized over time that in this imperfect and merciless world, we were meant for each other.  There is a kind of love that we had experienced: brief, flaming and spectacular, like the flare of a match being lit; but there is also another kind, warm and long lasting, like the glowing embers of a fire that lasts well into the night.  That is the kind of love that Yevdokia and I found during that awful time.  It is a fire that is still glowing.”

With that, Hryts once again turned pensive and I could see that his thoughts were no longer in the present but had wandered back again to another time, another age.  I left him to his thoughts and thanked God for my own good fortune.