2005 - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian Read Online Free PDF

pleased that he is still writing poetry. I am even a bit proud. I tidy the papers into a neat pile and wipe the table.
    In the next room, Mike is slumped in the armchair with his eyes half open and a glass of plum wine in his hand, valiantly maintaining a listening expression on his face, while my father’s voice drones on.
    “It is a terrible tragedy what has happened in this beautiful country. The twin evils of fascism and communism have eaten her heart.”
    On the wall above the fireplace he has hung a map of Europe. Russia and Germany are scored through with heavy lines, so violently that the paper has been torn. Crude drawings of a swastika, an imperial eagle, and a hammer and sickle are covered with angry scribbles. My father’s voice is raised and trembling as he warms to his climax.
    “If I can save just one human being—one human being—from this horror, do you not think this is the moral thing to do?”
    Mike mumbles something diplomatic.
    “You see, Mikhail,” his voice takes on a confiding, man-toman tone, “a child can have only one mother, but a man can have many lovers. This is perfectly normal. Don’t you agree?”
    I strain to hear Mike’s reply, but can catch only a vague mumble.
    “I can understand that Vera and Nadia are not happy. They have lost their mother. But they will come to accept when they see what a beautiful type is Valentina.” (Oh will we?) “Of course my first wife Ludmilla was beautiful when I first knew her in youth. I rescued her also, you know. She was under attack from some boys that wanted to steal her skates, and I intervened on her behalf. From that time we became dose friends. Yes, it is the natural instinct of man to be the protector of woman.” (Oh, please! ) “Now, with this Valentina, I am presented with another beautiful woman who appeals for my help. How could I pass by on other side of the road?”
    He starts to catalogue the horrors he is saving her from. The talk in the Ukrainian community is of no food in the shops.
    The only food is what people grow in their plots—just like the old days, they say. The hrivna has fallen through the floor, and keeps falling every day. There has been an outbreak of cholera in Kharkiv. Diphtheria is sweeping through the Donbass. In Zhitomir a woman was set upon in broad daylight and her fingers chopped off for her gold rings. In Chernigov, trees from the forests around Chernobyl have been felled and turned into radioactive domestic furniture which has been sold all around the country so people are irradiated in their own homes. Fourteen miners were killed in an underground explosion at Donetsk. A man was arrested at the railway station at Odessa and found to have a lump of uranium in his suitcase. In Lviv a young woman claiming to be the second coming of Christ has convinced everybody that the world will end in six months’ time. Worse than the external collapse of law and order is the collapse of any rational or moral principles. Some people run to the old Church, but more run to the new fantasy Churches they are bringing in from the West, or to soothsayers, millenarians, out-for-a-quick-buck visionaries, self-flagellants. Nobody knows what to believe or whom to trust.
    “If I can save just one human being…”
    “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” I fling the J-cloth at him. It lands wetly in his lap. “Pappa, haven’t you tied yourself up in some ideological knots here? Valentina and her husband were party members. They were prosperous and powerful. They did all right under communism. It isn’t communism she is fleeing from but capitalism. You’re in favour of capitalism, aren’t you?”
    “Hmm.” He picks up the J-cloth and absent-mindedly wipes his forehead with it. “Hmm.”
    I realise that this thing with Valentina isn’t really about ideology.
    “So when will we get a chance to meet her?”
    “She should come here when her shift finishes, about five o’clock,” says my father. “I have something to give