“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed…”, said the fox.
My Granny, on the other hand, always said my imagination was something else. So far she never really specified what that ”something else” was, but, right now I did my best to keep it from running amok by focusing on my favorite book about taming things. Things you wouldn’t normally think needed taming. Things ”Little Prince” told you how to tame.
But it couldn’t work on my imagination…not today.
And shadows seemed to be everywhere. I suddenly thought they’re like huge wiggling lizard tongues reaching for us, helpless flies, trying to stop us from moving further and further away from our Ukrainian home over this poorly lit Polish country road. Then I started seeing all kinds of animals: staring at us with reproach.
So that’s how, whenever I was awake, I started to measure the distance: 40000 reproachful animal shadows from home…40001 angry shadows from home.
And yet it all started with the shadow of my mother falling over me. I woke up to see her standing next to my bed at 5 in the morning: her face an organic part of that shadow…saying nothing.
But, hey, I didn’t need words. No Ukrainian did. Not really.
On this cold, cold February day the Russians were coming. They were coming for more, maybe everything. They already took Crimea and Donbass. And it just made them hungrier.
But it was expected. It was inevitable. It was almost a relief, the worst kind, true, but the anticipation was somehow way worse. And this awful, awful waiting part had been in the air ever since I remembered - one of the very first memories of my 12 years - mixed with the smell of granny’s apple pie and the sea in Mariupol in the last days of summer…
And now they wanted our home. So my mom and dad sent me here, to some village on the Polish coast for Ukrainian refugee kids…with my 80 year old Granny to watch over me - until mom joins us.
I saw granny open her huge blue eyes in the seat next to me. And before they focused - I briefly glanced behind me at two other kids from my district: Masha and Dima. The former was either reading Harry Potter or trying to get reception on her cell…the latter hasn’t said a single word from the border, looking somewhere ahead with his eyes glazed over since the battery in his phone died.
“Victoria” - Granny smiled - “You can’t sleep, eh? You should sleep whenever you can. See, I learned to do it even during…”
She paused, guilt clouding over all the blueness in her eyes, and so I forced myself to smile back.
***
The eyes of Miss Ann, our local volunteer guardian angel and hotel owner, were kind and watery and sorry. She didn’t know how to handle that last feeling so she overcompensated with kindness. When she showed us our rooms in this small hotel she decided to turn into a refugee shelter, I thought that - despite this huge smile - it was her who needed consolation.
But it wasn’t true and we both knew it, so she simply left, murmuring something about supper preparations.
The eyes of the locals I saw standing outside the hotel were a mixture of empathy and curiosity. But I saw a hint of shadow in the eyes of two of them. Boys at my age, more or less. Something hesitant, unbalanced and needy about their aura. And they were watching us eat our supper, unblinking, like scientists studying rats in a lab.
And then somebody joined them from behind, suddenly making them small and insignificant and shivering. The general aura switched to anger - and, for the first time, the Angry Man locked his eyes with mine. I shuddered for there was nothing hesitant behind them. Just pure shadow. Like a cancer he carefully grew and tended to all by himself.
***
The zoom session with my parents was to be at 8 pm. I spent most of the remaining time consoling Dima and Masha whose parents didn’t set any zoom sessions. I finally managed to make them relax. I could do that with people: take away some of their sadness and longing and pain.
Miss Ann gave us her laptop so that we ”could see them on a bigger screen” . Said she didn’t need it. It only stole her time with silly diversions. She was a good woman, if not a very smart one. Come on, what normal person gives away laptops?
The parents appeared five minutes late, something with the connection or electricity issues. And most of what they said was white noise. Dad was in his military uniform which made him look really alien and me - uneasy. He joked about it being too tight and how he could use some exercise on the battlefield.
It was a below average daddy joke. But it had to do for now and we all shared a forced laugh. Mom asked about the journey, the rooms and the food: lots of quick questions to fill in all the pregnant silences that invited different questions. The rest of the exchange, though, was almost inaudible. That is, apart from a bomb which suddenly exploded somewhere very, very close and all too loud.
Mom gave me a sad, trembling smile and dad said something - probably about them having to move to a shelter.
When the connection was cut, we sat there with granny in silence trying to call them again and staring at the screen for a minute or two. Probably way more. Time is weird sometimes.
Then we went to Dima and Masha and sat in silence together.
***
Time got even weirder on the next day. I spent it trying to connect with parents. Dima and Masha kept trying to reach their parents since yesterday and now the three of us were sitting together like some ghouls, our faces illuminated by phones. Finally, Granny decided she’d have no more of that and took our phones from us. ”These damn things and the silence will take your minds away, little ones”, she said.
And then she took us to the beach.
True, it was refreshing at first. We stood there, inhaling the iodine, watching the waves doing their hypnotic thing and first shy smiles started forming on our faces.
The sea in Rowy smelled different than ours in Mariupol. I suddenly found there were different kinds of salt. This one didn’t bring me much comfort. Suddenly, I felt this familiar wave of discomfort again, impatiently crawling along the back of my neck.
It asked me to turn around and, sure enough, I saw the two boys staring back at me, unblinking.
Several heavy seconds have passed. I smiled, they didn’t. I waved. They didn’t.
***
They followed us back to the hotel and every time I checked, they stood outside motionless in the cold staring at my window as if sent to stand watch.
And sure enough, The Angry Man appeared from nowhere again and joined them in looking at me. A spark appeared in his hand and he cradled it for a bit - as if playfully - before raising it to lit a cigarette. Another man appeared by his side like an obedient puppy: a huge one with an empty, indifferent face. This emptiness was almost as scary as his master’s anger.
Then the Angry Man nodded at the Empty Man to stay and came inside the hotel and, after ten seconds or so, sounds of an argument filled the winter air.
My mom spent lots of time teaching me Polish, so I could understand almost all of the words the man shouted and they were of anger. They were of the fire that Ukrainian partisans from UPA set to Polish barns and churches during the Second World War.
And of their descendants stealing Polish jobs now, flooding Poland and Europe with immigrants and cheap grain, wanting to put honest farmers like himself out of business.
Miss Ann’s words were hardly audible, but placating in tone.
They failed to placate the man, who slammed the door with such force all the windows glasses trembled. It sounded as if a bomb exploded nearby…
These words, in different combinations, echoed in my mind for a long, long time, a fragmented symphony of hate chasing my sleep away.
When I finally managed to fall asleep, my dreams were full of bombs and screams and shadows. I saw a man who looked like my father, only much thinner and weaker, screaming and having his arm amputated in the basement of Azov Stal factory. Suddenly, all the people in the basement started screaming at me.
As if on cue, a huge, weirdly familiar shadow behind my father rose and - through all this screaming - reached out for him. Or was it for me?
I screamed, too, and granny’s hand dragged me back to the waking world.
She smiled and waited and said calming words. And when I did calm down, she hugged me.
“You dreamt of the shadow again, did you not? Every night now…”
I nodded. It’s always been in my dreams from time to time, somewhere on their peripheries, but…recently? Every single dream, getting more and more clear and always surrounded by horrifying war imagery.
She nodded, too, watching me with those huge, all-understanding eyes of hers. Then, after a long moment, she sighed.
“It is your shadow, child.”
“My shadow? What…does it even mean?”
“Nobody knows what they are. They choose you to feed on your pain. Your fear. Your guilt. Your trauma. It will cling to you now” - Granny smiled sadly, nodding - “And you feel too much. Soaking in the the pain of all you care about…so your shadow will be truly powerful and hard to control” - she rubbed her eyelids and nodded yet again - “But there’s a way, an ancient one, to make it bearable. To find peace again. You can start taming it.”
“Taming it?”
“Like in this book of yours. ”Little prince”. You have to invite it to the real world. Grant it a passage. Let it out. Give…birth to it.”
“Give birth…?”
“From all of your heart, head and guts - to the outside world. So it can move freely. Protect you. It will be more like your pet. But from now on you have to look after it. Keep it tamed.”
I just stared at her for what seemed like an eternity.
“And what…what if I don’t?”
“It will become a rabid, snarling dog. As dangerous to the outside world as it is to your mind now. It sometimes happens to some people who subconsciously allow their rage and hatred to invite and ”tame” their shadows. So you must be conscious, all the time, understand? And you will be responsible for it, child. Do…you…understand?”
We remained silent for a minute or so. Then I nodded my head yes to her real question.
And after it was done I slept like a baby.
***
What woke me up after a dream full of the soothing salt from the sea in Mariupol - brought a wide smile to my lips. The smell of pancakes drifted up to my room and for a moment there I thought it was another Pancakes Sunday at home. And even when I realized it wasn’t my room, not really: I still jumped out of bed joyfully just like I would in Mariupol. My shadow seemed a bit surprised, but followed me after a second, an equally joyful puppy.
“Pancakes!” - I screamed, putting my head inside Dima and Masha’s room. And I swear: even Dima smiled.
We ate ravenously: looking at the light snow falling outside. Granny watches us being kids again and suddenly she seemed much, much younger herself. She said there was something with the internet connection so instead of waiting for it we should, as she liked to put it, just go and grab the day by its ears.
I wasn’t sure where to find the day’s ears so I led Dima and Masha to the nearby forest. The snow wasn’t really heavy, but it still allowed us to form snow-balls. And so we did, running among all the trees like crazy, screaming and throwing snow-balls at each other. Getting each other tired. Too tired to think.
And suddenly I heard Masha scream much louder. I looked at her and followed her gaze - right to the huge red stain on Dima’s jacket around his heart. I froze.
Then I heard giggling. I turned and saw the two boys laughing…and pointing their paintball guns at us.
“What, you thought you were gonna outrun your destiny?” - I heard words in Russian and saw the Empty Man emerging from the tree’s shadow. - “Impossible.”
I looked at him and the indifference he was emanating made me shudder again.
“You’re…Russian?” - my lips barely moved: suddenly stiff. As if they weren’t a part of my body anymore.
He just shrugged.
“They don’t want you here.” - he gave me an empty grin - “Don’t want me here either, but at least they have use for me. He still has some use for me…yes, even me. He wants my hands to get dirty. To teach you a lesson. To send a signal to your homeland.”
He shrugged and suddenly a baseball bat materialized in his right hand.
“All three of you. You can pick one hand and one leg you like better…”
It was 3 pm and already getting dark, but suddenly the air behind the thug got even darker. Something told me to look behind…my shadow was gone.
And then something violently grabbed and raised the Empty Man. The surprise shut him up, erasing his indifferent sneer. The shock of his body and limbs being immediately bent backwards got him screaming…especially when his arms - starting with the one holding the bat - started cracking in so many places.
His neck started bending sidewise, too…almost impossibly now.
“Enough!” - I screamed - “Enough, I said!”
The darkish air trembled, and froze. Then, as if after a moment of hesitation, the shadow vanished.
The man dropped to the ground, screaming his lungs out at us.
***
The police arrived after an hour or two and the Angry Man was their overeager guide. The questions began - with Miss Ann to help with translations - but even if I tried answering them truthfully…well, you know what I mean. They left thinking we were too scared to talk about whoever did it.
And we were. The Angry Man, on his part, only got angrier. He didn’t leave. We watched him from our window: standing there for at least two hours talking on the phone, getting in the screaming contest with Miss Ann, attracting more and more people. And the people came. Reluctantly at first…but they came.
Small communities were always like that. Everyone knew right away. And today…today everyone knows immediately anyway.
I saw Miss Ann’s face getting more desperate by the second. She tried to convince the people to leave. Tried telling them it’s just a spectacle of hatred.
The people love spectacles, though. They love gossip, whatever their taste.
Miss Ann started to crumble under all those gazes and questions. And my granny saw that.
The Angry Man really started bludgeoning Miss Anna with his fervent words now.
“Listen, I have no clue how they did it, but it just proves me right. I actually underestimated them…they are truly devils. Don’t you see? What else do you need - to see?”
He looked at one of the hesitant man next to him.
“And you, Janek…you don’t care what they did to Ivan? I’ll fucking make it easier you sanctimonious prick…try to look at me again like that and don’t bother coming to work tomorrow. And your wife? I’ll stop giving her a discount for my products at her shop…that what you want?”
Paralyzed, I saw Granny stepping outside (and I swear, I never saw her leaving my side), separating him from all those people.
“What do you want?” - she asked in perfect Polish - “To make this poor world even more divided? We’re not your enemies, friend…”
“You’re not my friend, lady” - he hissed - “And in this life: whoever’s not my friend is an enemy. Nothing personal. I’m just protecting my business, my community…”
“My people are helping Polish business…and your communities.”
“A bit. But it’s all getting out of hand now” - he shook his head sadly - “So let’s get it back there. And you - back to your country, before you attract more of your kind.”
“My kind?” - Granny said it calmly, but I saw her eyes narrowing.
“Let’s just send the right signal, shall we? We don’t want anyone hurt, do we now? Like your little ones…”
I saw my grandma freezing. And the Angry Man smiling. And the people around terrified and confused - and still longing for a spectacle.
“What? You thought your actions have no consequences on the ones you raise?” - said the Angry Man looking up at me - “You think your granddaughter is just some poor witness of historical event? Well, my grandma was burned alive in some barn in Bieszczady by your lot…friend.”
“Are you threatening…” - Granny stumbled, clutching her heart - “Are you…Are you…please…don’t…”
I saw my grandma looking at me, pleadingly. Asking me to be calm. As if she was more scared of me than him.
And then…then she simply collapsed.
***
Those few days after Granny’s death felt like floating just beneath the surface of reality. And that sea, like with air bubbles, was filled with weird snapshots and most of the time I couldn’t really tell if I was dreaming them or not.
I saw granny scratching her heart, willing it to go on.
I saw my house with its roof torn clear off and Russian soldiers swarming inside just to run out with our washing machine which, disconnected, kept spinning something bloody inside.
I saw my father by the street waving with his stump of a hand for a taxi without a driver which took him away. I saw mom lost on a graveyard, checking all the grave stones…
I saw worms and maggots wiggling towards me in unison like one huge pancake.
I saw a barn on fire and I reached my hands towards it to warm them on this cold, cold February night.
And in between all those I kept seeing granny’s smiling face, so much more real and warm than this barn. I kept hearing her words. But then…then, after a week or two, this face, this smile and this warmth disappeared like some ghost…and something shifted in the suddenly cold air.
And though Miss Ann did everything to make us smile - saying my granny was the saint who inspired her to do more for Ukrainians - the ozone smell in the air around me just grew more distinct.
Perhaps other people felt it, too, as they started avoiding us. As though we were some bad luck they felt wary of rubbing against…Some of them still gave us a tight, fleeting smile, but always secretive enough it wouldn’t be seen by others…and it made me oh so angry.
And my shadow saw and drank all of that. Oh, it didn’t miss a single beat.
I felt it buzzing around like electricity discharges…and soon the smell of ozone was almost too much, making me dizzy…as if strikes of lightening were hitting spots around me all the time.
Again, I really couldn’t tell how much of that was a dream, so if that didn’t matter, I tried sleeping all the time.
***
That last dream was uneasy and heavy on my chest so I willed myself to wake up…and my shadow was hovering over the bed, as if giving me chest compressions to bring me back to life.
“What’s wrong?” - I almost didn’t recognize my hoarse voice.
It moved towards the door like a dog leading me to its bowl. But, of course, it wasn’t the bowl it was interested in…
In the hall I felt the intense smell of gasoline. It was drifting from the ground floor along with that voice…the voice of the Angry Man.
“You just had to do that, didn’t ya? Couldn’t help yourself. Unleashing those goddamn barbarians on our community…yes, I know about you phone calls to authorities. I have friends everywhere. ”We have 20 more places, and with time - maybe even 50.” You’re like some goddamn lemming itching to fall off a cliff. But I still have some use for you…yes, even you.”
My breath held, I started tip-toeing downstairs. Listening to the poison in those words. Soaking it in and letting my blood boil. And not only my blood.
Yet again, I felt ozone in the air, the electricity was like a dark cloud following me obediently.
And then it only grew stronger: for I saw Miss Ann bound to the chair, terrified and with blood on her face. The Angry Man was gesticulating with a huge syringe filled with some greenish liquid.
“Poor drugged up, manic lady drowning in a middle-life crisis after her second divorce…set on fire by her careless Ukrainian guests…That’s one terrific story, isn’t it? History repeating itself. Hell, if that doesn’t keep them away, God help me, I don’t know what will…”
His sons stood beside him, trembling and confused and hesitant. The Angry Man looked at them with utter contempt.
“Stop shivering like some spineless asses, you two. I’m giving you the lesson of your lives here, can’t you see? You’ll be grateful one day - and strong. God knows this land doesn’t need any more weakness…”
I felt the burning rage spreading over every particle of my being. And he felt it, too - rage, after all, was all he knew - turning to me.
“Oh, hi there” - The Angry Man smiled at my sight - “Was wondering when you’d join us, honey…”
He took one step towards me with - waving in a slippery imitation of cordiality with his syringe.
“Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing…”
I almost laughed. Me not feeling a thing…wouldn’t that be something? There was a second when everything stood still. And then my shadow slithered across the wall towards him - a Cobra poised to strike.
“No” - I whispered to it at the last moment, decisive and cold, taming it. I looked at his terrified sons - “Not like this…”
***
Granny said I feel too much. Absorbing pain and shadows of everyone I care about. It was time to stop being selfish. Time to share my shadow with others.
And my shadow wanted to play. So I let it.
Back in the hotel I saw it disappear in the eyes of the Angry Man’s sons, merging with their shadows, whispering to them - and now I watched the boys dragging him towards the barn. He was drugged after they sticked his own syringe in his neck…(it was still there, shaking grotesquely with each movement) - but still conscious. He couldn’t scream, so his eyes did all the screaming at his own sons.
The older boy carried the canister with fuel that his father brought to our hotel, too. He waved at me and then the three of them disappeared inside the barn.
I waited patiently and after a minute or so - the boys exited the barn followed by thick smoke and the loud cracking of fire.
And I looked in their eyes, now calm and collected and balanced, and saw their controlled shadows enveloping the reflected flames in irises and I thought of other boys…other kids… all the other people on this planet carrying their shadows or being carried by them after their rage or trauma sent a subconscious invitation.
My granny and Little Prince were right, as always:
”You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed…”