"You should come visit me in the States. I want to take you to my butcher shop. You'd love it. And they'd love you!"
"Next time I visit I will see you too!" Katerina's English seems to have gotten better with the cognac. She takes a picture
cut from a magazine that she has tucked into the edge of a picture frame on her desk. "My granddaughter." The photo is of
a stunning teen model with long blond hair and candy-colored lipstick. "
Seventeen
magazine!"
"She's beautiful!"
"Yes! Thank you!"
"Please call me when you come to visit. I'll take you to my butcher shop." I write down my name, phone number, and e-mail
address. This is all very much like some ten-year college reunion, meeting someone you'd completely forgotten about and, under
the influence of finger foods and copious liquor, deciding you were obviously meant to be soul mates, and the digits are exchanged
and the faces are wide with wondrous mutual recognition and there are teary hugs and laughing fare-thee-wells. And more often
than not, the digits are lost and the soul mating never occurs. But then again, sometimes it does.
At last it's time for us to leave. We all embrace and kiss cheeks in the parking lot in front of their office door.
"Thank you! Come again!"
"
Dyakuyu!
I will!" Katerina sends us off with a giant bag of sausages.
We drive slowly to avoid the truly epic holes in the road, which are filled with water that in the light of the first sunny
afternoon sky I've seen in Ukraine vividly reflect the yellow leaves of the autumn trees lining the road. It's rather lovely,
or that might again be the cognac and sentimentality.
When we get back to Vitaly's, he is in the kitchen visiting with a young American woman who introduces herself as Andrea.
When we unload our great sack of gifted meat, she moans, and says, "That is so wrong." This of course doesn't get us off on
the right foot, because I myself can think of nothing more wrong than a vegetarian in Ukraine. But she's a Peace Corps volunteer,
so I guess a few misguided liberal lifestylings go with the territory. I hand the bag over to Ira, who's much more than appropriately
grateful. She pulls out some of the
cervelat
and slices it thin, putting it on the small kitchen table with some bread. Oksana and I both sit, and though we've had far
too much sausage already, we each take a little nibble more.
We chat back and forth for a couple of hours, Oksana, Vitaly, Andrea, and I, while Ira continuously putters about the kitchen.
Last night she made, just for me, some beef-stuffed cabbage rolls, which should have been stodgy and Soviet-tasting, but instead
were ineffably lovely, light and brightly flavored. They entirely made up for the way I began to feel like Miss Havisham in
her rotting wedding dress, sitting there at the table by myself, being served by a woman I could not speak to, taking small
bites to put off the moment when I'd finish my meal and there would be nothing left for me to do that evening. And this morning
I got eight airy, crisp, tiny pancakes, with jam. Ira is cleaning up now, though the kitchen seems pretty much spotless to
me; she's one of those women who cannot bring herself to sit until she's wiped every surface and offered every guest every
possible pleasantry.
Andrea, it quickly becomes clear, spends
a lot
of time here. She's nearing the end of her two-year stint in Kolimya, working at the same school Oksana's boyfriend works
at, and she could not be more ready to go. She doesn't like Ukraine. She doesn't like the people: "The women are all skanky
and the men are all disgusting-looking misogynists--except for you guys, of course!" She doesn't like the food: "Everything
is so heavy, and there's meat in
everything
. The only thing I like is Ira's potato
varenyky
. I
live
off them."
Oksana exchanges a glance with Ira over Andrea's head that only I catch, and Ira speaks a few words to her in Ukrainian. With
a wry headshake, Oksana translates for me. "Later," she says, with a sort of cryptic smirk, "Ira will show you how to make
the
varenyky
. They're very good."
The next day Oksana and I tool around Kolimya's museums and shops. For lunch, at a cafe and beer garden that is charming even
in the dripping chill, and that Oksana assures me is "where everyone goes" in summer, I eat borscht while she has something
called
banosh,
a traditional western Ukrainian dish that looks rather like garlic cheese grits, that comforting staple back in Texas which
I've not tasted in probably a decade. When Oksana lets me have a bite, I swear I will not rest until I learn how to make it.
Which I finally have done. And here it is!
U
KRAINIAN
B
ANOSH
2 cups or more sour cream
1 cup white or yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons butter
Salt to taste
1/4 cup crumbled goat's milk feta (optional)
Place the 2 cups of sour cream in a small pan over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until hot but not yet boiling.
Gradually add the cornmeal, stirring often, not letting the mixture come to a boil. Cook for about 15 minutes. The consistency
should remain somewhat liquid; if it begins to get too dense, stir in more sour cream, a couple of tablespoons at a time.
When you judge it to be about done, stir in the butter and salt to taste and take off heat. Let sit, covered, for 5 minutes.
Serve in four bowls with cheese crumbled on top, if desired. This dish is like a Ukrainian translation of your favorite childhood
comfort food. It's a good way of remembering that, mostly, we're more alike than different.
As we linger over our meal, my tongue loosens in all the ways I always regret later. As I will write that night, in bed:
What is this thing I do, this popping myself inside out for random people all over the world? Wallowing in these filthy, heartbreaking
memories of you and Eric both? Girths and proclivities, fights and tendernesses all microanalyzed over bad drinks with strangers.
I don't think it's just the untapped oil fields of sympathy, no. It's not comfort I'm looking for. It's like pulling off a
scab too early, or squeezing a cut to summon a few extra drops of blood. And maybe, too, it makes the enforced distance seem
less pathetic than romantic. I like to think myself the subject of a tragic nineteenth-century novel rather than an Adrian
Lyne potboiler about a man and his stalker.
"I think it's more of a problem in America," Oksana says decisively. She eats her
banosh
delicately, much more slowly than I have downed my spicy borscht.
"What is? Obsessive love affairs?"
"Infidelity. And confusion like this. In Ukraine, people get married, stay married. We don't expect so much, maybe. Or we're
happier because we know what we want."
"Maybe." I take a slug off my second Czech beer. I wonder if this could really be true. Is Oksana just young, with the consequent
confidence youth brings? Or could there actually be some particular circumstance of nationhood, of history and tradition and
religion and persecution, that could result in a populace more inclined, as a whole, toward contentment? It seems doubtful,
but who knows? It's as valid an explanation for the capricious bestowal of happiness as any other.
I wonder what's going on with you and Robert and the cats? "What news on the Rialto?" to quote Buffy quoting
The
Merchant of Venice.
So, continuing this tome--God, this letter is becoming gargantuan--after lunch Oksana took me to the Easter Egg Museum, which
is actually shaped like a giant Easter Egg. Inside, nothing but tens of thousands of intricately adorned eggshells--
pysanka
they're called; you know what they look like, right? All these crosshatched designs, stripes and swirls, in yellow and red
and black? From all over the country, there are eggs, different traditional styles from different regions. There's an egg
painted by Raisa Gorbachev; another one from Yulia Tymoshenko. We went to the Hutsul museum too, sort of a standard ethnographic
museum that you'd have loved but that gave me museum fatigue. Then we went to Oksana's parents' house, as did her boyfriend,
an American Peace Corps volunteer named Nathan.
Oksana has a dog that she keeps at her parents' apartment, a Japanese Chin named Onka, which means, apparently, "smart-ass."
She is an adorable little thing that likes to fetch a stuffed animal that is nearly as big as she is. Oksana's mother is also
an adorable thing, cheerful and dark-haired and small like Oksana. As soon as she gets home from work, she sets to more work
making us dinner, leftovers and store-bought things, fried chicken cutlets, potatoes, tomato-pepper salad, mushroom spread,
cheese, pickles--a seemingly endless array of nibblies, which we eat with the bottle of champagne Oksana and I picked out before
coming over.
We play with Onka for twenty minutes or so, until the doorbell rings and Oksana rushes to greet Nathan. Nathan's Peace Corps
term is also nearly up. He and Oksana are sort of hilarious together, and sort of sad. She is endlessly teasing him, she is
smiling but prickly, affectionate but just a bit standoffish. After a glass and a half of champagne, she is also a little
flushed. "Tomorrow Nathan is getting a... what do you call the haircut?"
Nathan is grinning. He has his arm around her. "A mohawk."
"A mohawk." She turns to her mother and speaks in Ukrainian, running a hand over the center of her head in explanation. "I
told him I'm glad he's leaving so I don't have to look at him with stupid hair."
He grins wider and tries to kiss her, but she pushes him off, laughing. Perhaps this is just how she is, but I've never, in
the days I've gotten to know her, seen her so barbed, and I wonder if it's because Nathan's leaving soon. I feel sorry for
him. I know that feeling of being peeled away, with however much good cheer, and, let me tell you, it is no fun.
The next day, Oksana takes me to Sheshory, a resort town up in the mountains. "It's one of my favorite places," she explains
as we climb onto the bus that will take us there. "A real traditional Hutsul village. In the summer there's a giant musical
festival, and everyone goes. Old people, kids, long-haired, you know, hippies. Everyone camps or rents a cottage, and we swim
in the river, the Pistynka River, and stay up all night."
The bus is packed and slow as I guess public buses all over the world are. The drive takes more than an hour. From the valley
where Kolimya lies, we move through fields and small villages, along winding roads into the Carpathians. It's lusher up here,
and chillier. Not truly cold, but brisk and with that mountain air that's not really damp, just ever so slightly moist--somehow,
green. We disembark at the side of a narrow road by a restaurant and the tiny clutch of shops that make up the town "center."
Behind the restaurant, across a footbridge, one dirt road climbs a slope upon which are clustered small wood-paneled houses,
painted white or bright summery pastels, their eaves adorned with elaborate punched tinwork. Another path follows the river.
We spend the afternoon wandering the bank, dipping our feet in the cold water, teetering across rocky rapids. I have to imagine
what it must be like during the busy summer tourist season; for now the town seems almost entirely deserted. We eat at the
one restaurant, a rich stew of grilled pork, and by the time we finish, the light is beginning to take on the cast of evening.
"We should head back, I think. I made an appointment tonight at my friend's sauna. We shouldn't be late."
We walk out to the road, which seems as abandoned as the rest of the town. "It might be a while before the bus comes. It doesn't
come so often. Let's walk. Then we can wave it down when it comes. Or we'll find someone to drive us."
"Sounds good."
"You will love the sauna. It is very healthy. Keeps you from getting sick. We won't use the
veniki
, though."
"Veniki?"
"Uh-huh." She grins sideways at me and makes a vigorous whipping motion. "Tree branches. Birch? You're supposed to beat against
your back."
"Huh. What's that supposed to do?"
"It's very healthy. Makes you strong. But don't worry, we won't do that."
"Probably for the best."
We walk for twenty-five minutes. The bus never catches up to us, and hardly any other cars drive by. Oksana tries to hail
a few of the ones that do, but at first she isn't successful. At last, though, just as we're getting nervous that we're not
going to be able to get back to Kolimya in time, a blue Mercedes pulls up beside us, its window rolling down to reveal an
older man with a paunch, an expensive-looking leather jacket, and a helmet of gray hair. Oksana sticks her head in the window,
smiling in a way that on a young American hitchhiker would seem riskily flirtatious, but here just looks like a woman getting
something done. She chats with him for a bit, then looks over her shoulder at me. "Get in. He's going to take us."
The man leans forward, looking at me over Oksana's shoulder, gesturing with his hand. "Yes, yes. Come in!"
I open the rear door and slide in.
The man's name is Misha. He and Oksana chatter in Ukrainian for a few minutes. I idiotically paste a wide-eyed listening look
on my face, as if I can understand a word that's being said. Then Oksana gives a gasp and laughs. She turns back to face me
from the front seat. "Misha raises pigs! No... not pigs. Um..." She asks Misha something.
"Boar," he says to me in English. "Like in the woods?"
"Really? For food?"
"No, no, no... my pets."
"But--" Oksana is looking very excited. "He makes sausage. He has a sausage factory!"
"Really?!"
I've never hitchhiked in my life, unless you want to count the time when I was nine and my brother was six and I put him and
our next-door neighbor, pretty little Misty McNair with the perfect bows in her long blond hair, out by the side of the road
in the yard, taught them how to stick out their thumbs for a ride, then left them there while I went to the kitchen for a
snack. And now, the first time I get picked up, on the outskirts of a tiny resort town in western Ukraine, a thousand miles
from my life, from Fleisher's, and, by God, it's a sausage maker.