The Fantastic Worlds of Yuri Vynnychuk

The Windows of Time Frozen

The Windows of Time Frozen

I came here and stood amid the trickily winding streets, the multitudes of people, of trees, of buildings, to conjure her name.

I extend my hand, and proclaim three times:

“Ilayáli! Ilayáli! Ilayáli!” And people turn into woodworms, they begin to nibble trees, and the trees fall, and they don’t know the reason why.

Something strange is happening to me: every morning, waking up from dreams, I feel I’m the dew. The way the dew with its beauty blinds your eyes from the flowers and grass, that’s how I blind myself to all the living things and to this earth.

Weep, because when the sun stoops over your head, the dew will disappear.

I fear the sun. Sometimes I walk out at night into the garden and stare into the cold sky. The whole time it seems like it wants to remind me of something or to explain something. I listen ardently to the quiet of the night sky and catch separate words, sentences. Just recently I began to write them down. And suddenly I understood—it was telling me about me, telling me what I’d forgotten long ago.

And yesterday I stepped out into the garden, listened hard and heard nothing. I crawled up onto the tallest apple tree to hear better, but the sky was silent. I sat on the branches the entire night, without taking my eyes from the sky, and the sun rose, and its rays struck my face, and I saw that I am no longer the dew, but someone just like everyone else, and maybe even ten times worse, and when someone threw a stone at me, I picked up the stone and kissed it.

1

In the childhood of everyone there once was a garden—one’s own or someone else’s. We had a garden that was no-one’s—no one besides us ever entered it, but we knew that if we should stop going there for a day, it would disappear, never to return again.

This was so long ago when we were pure as angels, when we knew nothing of love, but already leaned with our lips to one another and didn’t really know what was going on, or if you happen to do it this way. And we believed that we’d come from a fairy tale and that we’d return to the fairy tale, and we took pledges of fidelity, and I said that I would always defend her, the little girl Ilayáli, from beasts of prey, from evil spirits and fierce dragons...

2

Ilayáli couldn’t have died. More probably it was I who have died. Countless years ago I had dissolved in the wind and from time to time in tiny specks of dust I fall onto the earth with the rain and snow. And no one in the world knows that this rain and that snow are me. Young girls wash their hair in me, children make snowmen out of me, and a part of my despair appears on the face of every snowman.

3

I often dream of our street that I abandoned so long ago, but I particularly remember its trees, its buildings and its windows. It was a thoroughly small street with one- and two-storied brick houses. Everything that happened behind the wall of any of them immediately became known to the whole street in great detail.

In the summer the windows of my street turned green and bloomed in cyclamen, azaleas, primrose, asparagus, and in the winter they were stuffed with cotton and covered lightly with colored foil. On the upper part of the window puffy angels with white wings were attached, and for Christmas they put up a Christmas tree at the window. When it got dark, all the windows were shut with drapes, but the one where the Christmas tree stood was always lit and beckoned us little ones to it. The whole time we bounded along the street comparing trees to see who had the best. And the best was always at Mr. Mandryk’s who, by some miracle unknown to anyone, had managed to hold on to some pre-war toys. No one else had that kind. On Mr. Mandryk’s tree princes and princesses shone in exquisite clothes, birds of paradise with fluffy tails, sparkling round balls, and even fairy-tale candies that none of us had ever relished; we always argued whether they were real or just empty wrappers. And on the tree there were lots of elegant tiny angels and cherubim, and beneath the tree stood Saint Nicholas with a full bag of presents. He wore a blue zhupán sewn in gold, cut in half by a wide golden belt, and from beneath the zhupán jutted out red sharováry. With his long white mustache he resembled more of a Zaporozhian Cossack than a saint. We felt a boundless respect for the real Saint Nicholas, wrote him letters in which we swore to be good and listen to our parents, and at the end of the letter, as if matter-of-factly, listed the gifts we wanted to get. On the contrary, we completely ignored Father Frost, not for a moment believing in his existence. Once, when mother bought a Father Frost to put under the tree, my grandfather took off his beard, shortened his sheepskin coat, remade his felt shoes into boots and attached a red pointed beret onto his hat. Now Saint Nicholas had appeared even at our place. Having seen such a marvel, the entire street immediately rushed to learn how to do it. Even then our tree didn’t become any nicer than Mandryk’s. We continued to stand under his window anyway.

For a long time I resisted the inclination to see the sleepy old street. I feared finding it different than I remembered—the way it appeared in my dreams. I was afraid I wouldn’t see the green plank fences because they were supposed to have been replaced with metal mesh. I was afraid that those trees on which the turtledoves always cooed were already gone. And most of all I was afraid of the asphalt that imprisoned it...

To the very last minute I figured it was crazy to show up at Holuba Street. The road that led there was unfamiliar, not a single one of those streets that led directly to mine remained the way I remembered it. This filled me with despair. I had no hope that Holuba Street had survived, that the continually advancing level of our civilization hadn’t affected it.

That’s why I didn’t believe my eyes when I came upon Holuba Street. It seemed to me that this was just a continuation of a dream, for in life such things never happen. My street had changed very little in 20 whole years. I could say that it hadn’t changed at all—things just grayed with age, maybe peeled off a little more, but still it remained just as quiet and daydreamy.

On a bench several old ladies by the plank fence were chewing soft warm words, caressing me with interested glances and then coughing... If I’d ask them about Ilayáli, then I’d see only surprised faces... Here no one can know anything about Ilayáli, for it is I who bestowed this name on her.

The coalman’s little building retained its untidiness and its unfriendliness. Wild grapevines striving to cover up everything, but they manage to do so only partially. As long ago, in the thickets of the wild grapevines, sparrows nest and spill out onto the street with their loud warbling. What can I say when I go inside? Who am I? The ticket controller of my dreams? If I remind them of me and they recognize me, they won’t utter anything. They won’t want to talk to me, so as not to stir up old wounds.

But if a person comes here for the first time he should at least check for the building number before going in. I opportunely stop and c**k up my head. The sign on the wall can’t be seen, it’s under the grapevines. If I don’t want them to know my secret, then I should ask the old ladies where Number 7 is... Though... am I sure that it’s really seven?.. It’s better for me to ask about that building, and then I’ll simply nod my head—that’s the one I need...

Why are you looking for this building?.. What a silly question. Silly because I hadn’t expected it. Now I have to explain that I’m from the gas company. Though, when I was little, there wasn’t any gas here and we burned wood, but now it has to be... Has to?... They could have refused to hook up the gas... But it’s too late. You are from the gas company?... Why question again... Oh that’s good, ‘cause my stove just broke and it’s been three days... Good, good, definitely what’s your building number, yes, last name, nationality, sorry, just a joke. But—Mrs. Mandryk! My Lord, is it you?! I wonder what your Christmas tree looks like now...

The wicket gate squeaks just the way it used to. Though not exactly: some kind of strange sound seemed to emanate from it. It reminded me of something that had nothing to do with this street or my childhood. Anyway I couldn’t comprehend what and opened and closed the gate once more, without even thinking how silly it must have looked.

The leaves cautioned quietly, you shouldn’t give yourself away, a gas company man should be filled with the joy of life, he has no nostalgia, he never remembers anything, that’s why it’s not right to listen to the music of the gate. Otherwise these old ladies will figure you out.

Good, good, I won’t any more.

The chilled brass doorknob squeals sickly, the doors obstinately yield, and I end up in a dark vestibule where the scent of mustiness dominates, of pickled cabbage and old furniture puffed up with rags soaked with naphthalene.

“Anybody here?”

All around it’s quiet and unfriendly, but I sense as though someone invisible is waiting cautiously, listening to my every word and step. A startled rustle slides along my ear and grows quiet so quickly that I’m no longer sure whether I’ve heard it at all.

“I’m from the gas company!”

Finally somebody’s hoarse voice that could have been a man’s or a woman’s reverberated from above, from behind the open doors, and crawled along the stairs to me.

“He is from the gas company! Go and open the door!”

Heavy footsteps echo above my head, from the ceiling the plaster crumbles until the wooden steps, along which a dark heavy figure descends, begin to squeal.

“Good day. I’ve come to check the gas.”

“The gas is fine.”

The woman, hands gripping her waist from both sides, was big and heavy-set, her face in the dark. Could this really be Ilayáli’s mother? She was grumbling about something.

“Anyway, I have to check. You understand—it’s my job.”

“We understand, follow me.”

We recognize you, we recognize you, the steps whisper... You used to come here a long, long time ago and you were so small and light, in short-short crisscrossed overalls. Do you remember how you carved out three letters on us—ILA?... Don’t be afraid, we won’t turn you in, we’ve forgiven you for it, even though it hurt. Those letters are already gone, don’t look for them here, when the little girl died, the lady of the house scratched them off. We asked her why she had done it, but she didn’t answer.

“Come here.”

The room was large and cluttered with all kinds of junk, filled with cobwebs and dust. In the corner an iron bed, on the bed a scraggly man was sitting with a face like crumpled paper, with mussed hair and veiny hands on his knees. It looks like this is Ilayáli’s father... How do I ask about her?... There under the window on the floor was her doll.

“You have children?” I nod my head at the doll.

His wife wrinkled her face and stretched to her husband:

“He’s asking if we have children... What should I answer him?”

Her husband draws away his head, looks at me with eyes white as milk and says:

“Tell him that it doesn’t concern him.”

And the wife: “There’s the meter.”

I am leafing through my notebook, conscientiously writing down the numbers and furtively following the two of them. They’re silent and don’t move. They’re waiting anxiously for me to finally get out of here. They’re looking like I caught them committing a horrible crime. Why are his eyes so white? He’s dark, but his eyes...

“Your eyes... why do you have white eyes?”

But his wife interrupts: “He’s really becoming annoying. Say something to him...”

She was sure that her husband would say something that would carry me away like the wind. Perhaps it’s already been tried, because a satisfied smile contorted the corner of her mouth in the expectation of delight. She switched her gaze from me to her husband and back, she doesn’t believe anymore that I’m from the gas company.

“I won’t say anything,” her husband wheezed, “I don’t have anything to say. Anybody who doesn’t like my eyes doesn’t have to look at them.”

“I’m not looking...”

“Do you hear?” His wife joins in. “He’s looking at the meter.”

“He’s looking at the meter...,” her husband repeats after her and grows quiet.

“Can I look at the oven?”

I try to hang around a little longer next to the oven.

How can I find out about Ilayáli from them?

I feel over the pipes, the doors, I even smudge some ashes on my finger and stupidly examine them. The ashes are hot, but the oven is barely warm. That is, they didn’t fire the oven, but were burning something. Perhaps the letter I wrote to her?

Back then we used to write letters to each other. In the corner of the sheet in red pencil we used to draw large lips and kissed them, writing: “I’ve kissed this spot,” and while re-reading them in the evening we would revel in joy.

“What kind of ashes are those? Were you burning paper?”

“These are the ashes of my old pants,” his wife responds and breaks out in laughter. Between her teeth there is a lot of saliva, entirely in fine white bubbles; like dough steeped in yeast, her entire body chokes in spasms of laughter, and every fold of her gigantic stomach shakes, and the bundle of black hairs that sticks out of a wart on her chin also shakes and... Lord, how could it be that it’s she who gave birth to Ilayáli?

Have to say something... something...

“One of my friends...”

They’ve become defensive and no longer hide their hostile glances.

“...is looking for an apartment...”

They’re thinking: what does he want?

“...and I... could you have... ah... possibly...”

They exchange glances like a ball being tossed back and forth.

“...a room?”

With a hollow voice his wife utters, as though it were a prayer she has just learned:

“We don’t... have... a free... room...”

“Too bad,” I yawn, “’cause if...”

“No, we don’t have a free room,” her husband interrupts.

“...if there are only two of you...”

“There aren’t just two of us.”

“Then is she alive?” I nearly scream. And I want to rush to them with hugs... But have the stairs, does it turn out, have they lied? Why would they?

“...but even if there are three of you, then...”

Suddenly he cuts me off sharply as though with a saber:

“There aren’t three of us!” And then he gets up from the bed, staggering. With all his strength he forces himself to stand up, even though it isn’t easy for him. I involuntarily step back to the wall.

“And not four, or five, or ten!”

He spits in my face with those words, and they spread along me, splatter on the floor, and turn into white slime. I cast a glance at the mirror and don’t see that man there, although the mirror’s hanging behind his shoulders.

“What do you want from us? Are you from...”

“No, I’m not from the police... and not from... I’m from the gas company.”

“Then why do you...”

“I’ll tell you: my friend...”

“That’s not true! What do you want?!”

His cracked voice breaks in his dry throat, he waves his arms, then grabs for his heart and painfully, greedily catches air with his mouth. His wife restrains his arms–“Calm down calm down calm down...”

“Let him tell us what he wants!”

“He’ll tell us, he’ll tell us...”

And I can’t see her in the mirror. It’s not reflecting anything. Maybe they don’t really exist?

“Listen, maybe you aren’t here? Maybe you never were?!”

At first his wife only stares at me silently, and then turns her head to her husband and, as though she had arranged it with him in advance, they begin to encircle me with frenzied laughter, stretching their arms. They do this unhurriedly, cutting me off from the doors, the way you’d get ready to catch a chicken. I feverishly gaze about the room in the hopes of grabbing something with a long reach, because I’m not afraid of these old people at all, I’m sure I can handle them easily... Though... though this man—dammit—has veiny hands…

“Ilayáli!” I suddenly scream. And this name, with which I honored the little girl, echoes like an oath, which, in fact, it is.

The old people jump back from me as though they have been pricked. His wife covers her mouth with her hand, and I now see that her eyes are dilating, dilating, and how her husband’s hands are shaking, he’s making extraordinary efforts to keep his balance.

My hands fall powerlessly, my pencil strikes the floor hollowly and rolls to the feet of his wife, she steps away, and the notebook flaps its page-wings like a pigeon and flies off...

“Ilayáli! I want Ilayáli!”

“Go with him down the stairs so he doesn’t fall,” her husband says.

“But I want Ilayáli!”‘

“...’cause it’s dark...”

His wife goes to the door, waiting guardedly.

“I won’t go until you show her to me! Where have you hidden her? What have you done with her?”

With a pleading voice his wife says:

“Listen, tell him... tell him... let him go...”

“I won’t go... I...”

“She...she’s gone...she died...so many years ago...there’s nothing left of her...her grave’s beneath the elms...it’s marked...there...Go!”

“It’s marked ‘Go’?”

“Don’t you see—he’s crazy!”

“Then she’s dead?!” He starts back from me, flicks his hands at my shout, as though burning his face on a flame with long tongues.

“Then it’s not she who’s dead, but me! Me! Me! Don’t you see? Before you is a corpse that decayed long ago! Don’t you smell the odor? Come closer! Don’t be afraid of the worms—they’re tame, they don’t bite their own kind!”

His wife hides her face in her hands.

“Go!”

“Ah, you want to get rid of me? I know you’ve burned her! And it’s not the ashes of old pants, but the ashes of poor Ilayáli! Why have you burned her?”

“Have mercy on us! Have mercy on us!”

They both utter these words, not knowing to whom, but with such faith in their voice that I understand the words aren’t directed to God. “Who are you asking mercy from? The devil? No use! Ask it of me! Beg on your knees so that I’ll have mercy! Sprinkle ashes on your heads!”

And here I once again gazed at the mirror and no longer could make out the room, already there was nothing there, just the thick gray fog curled inside, while below silver soap bubbles rose, bursting with a hollow crackle, and in the distance two barely visible figures disappeared, becoming smaller and smaller in my eyes. Suddenly someone’s thin white arm appeared with fingers sticking out and shielded those two figures from me, and then dissolved in the fog, but just before the fog was about to lift, a pair of familiar greenish eyes winked, these were the eyes of Ilayáli, and when the fog disappeared in the mirror I could see an empty lot, I ushered my eyes away from the mirror, looked around and saw just an empty lot: gray mounds of stones, plaited with bind-weed, surrounded with thistle, and mosquitoes flew above them, and the wind overflowed playfully and quivered. High in the sky—the voice of a hawk.

Suddenly in my throat the coil of a desperate scream unreeled:

“It’s true—she’s alive!!!”

The thistles nodded their heads condemningly.

“Then she’s gone?”

Whom did I turn to?

“And she’ll never ever be back?”

The hawk screeches again, and I can see how it swiftly falls to the grass and in a moment flies upward, and in terror some kind of creature squeals in its claws, and that squeal reminds me of my own voice, and I no longer sense my legs beneath me and I am running through the empty lot, and coming toward me—a branchy walnut tree with a swing attached to the boughs. Once it used to grow in Ilayáli’s yard, she loved to swing. (Swing—swing! Higher, higher! Swing!) The creature is squealing so shrilly, and it’s as though someone is pulling a strong thread through my ears. (Swing—swing! Don’t be afraid, I won’t fall!) Suddenly I hear the voice of the hawk above me and the whistle of its body, that cuts the air, and with all my strength I run to the tree in hopes of hiding in its hollow, and fear squeezes my frightened heart in its pincers, and the hawk look-look is diving at my forehead, and I squeal just like that creature, because already I see that I can’t save myself—the hollow of the tree is so narrow, and I will never squeeze into it, and my Ilayáli laughs: “Swing-swing-swing!”