Stitched from the Heart

A Transit full of Reading

*Trigger Warning: This chapter contains some physical and verbal assault.*



November 1994:

Andriy:

She was always quietly reading aloud to herself at the front of the bus whenever I got on. Always a children’s book that I would have read when I was ten, like Roald Dahl books, fairy tales, the Narnia series. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it just wasn’t the type of thing you usually saw adults reading on the bus. You’d see them reading something like “A Painting of a Thousand Blue Moons,” or “The Vegetarian’s Advice for a Happy s*x Life,” or “Were Romeo and Juliet Really in Love?”

All probably great reads and the authors must have put a lot of hard work into it, but you never heard the flapping of a page or anything like that. It seemed like they were just hunched over staring at the page so that nobody would dare approach them or pushing their book cover out in full view so that someone would take a glance and ask them about it. She didn’t seem like she was doing either, but instead trying to get as much reading done as possible during the long bus ride.

Watching her blue eyes pore over the words as she flipped through each page made me wish I had something of my own to read. Bus rides weren’t usually this distracting and I’m certain Melanie wouldn’t be a fan of me staring at a girl stopping to push back a strand of black hair out of her face as it came undone from her long braid. I can’t remember the last time I’d seen a girl with waist length hair before, if I’m going to be honest.

The last girl to have such long locks was Marta Yaremka in 5th grade, but she immediately cut it into a bob the next year as she tried to sport the edgy rock star trend that most chicks were wearing. It suited Marta of course, but it kind of felt weird dancing the Hopak on stage with a girl whose hair kept coming out of her teeny tiny bun as I squatted down into a prysydka and almost slid my right leg into a split because one or two of her bobby pins got caught under my red boot.

Good thing I shifted my balance to my left arm or else I would’ve lost my footing and gotten trampled by the other dancers on stage. I don’t know if the Kozak soldiers really did do prysydky in battle against the Tatary or the Russians or the Poles, but if they did, I bet they didn’t have to worry about the bobby pins of a 12 year old girl busting their knees left and right in battle. Then again, if our divchata had been around just throwing their bobby pins and makeup brushes at the enemies, I don’t think those tatars would’ve stood a chance stealing them across the Black Sea into Istanbul. A mascara brush would’ve definitely been my weapon of choice as I pointed it at their eyes.

A guy can imagine though, just as the girl who I am not supposed to be checking out must be imagining how the heroine could be sending up a storm across the classroom with utter delight in the freshly printed copy of Matilda that she’s holding in her hands. Maybe she’s on a nostalgia high as she revisits books from her childhood. But, she’d be grinning with a knowing smile of familiarity if she were rereading it. A newbie would have widened eyes, gripping the pages with anticipation for the next part, waiting to see how it ends. Maybe her parents were snooty intellectuals who banned their kids from reading anything fun, only allowing dusty books by pretentious Russian, French or German scholars, finding books for children to be a detriment to their high standards.

I don’t have much of a problem with reading the other two, I just can’t stand the constant chatter of classmates in my English classes who’d talk about how “great” Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky are but then look at me with a condescending sneer whenever I mention how Shevchenko and Kotlyarevsky were also great authors for their time who weren’t given as much praise because of their choice to write in their native Ukrainian instead of the mandatory Russian.

“What’s Ukraine, Andrew?” one of them would ask.

“Isn’t it a city in Russia?” another would add in.

“Is it really as cold as they say in the winter? If it is, I hope one of those Russian girls will be there to warm me up,” says an a** who wasn’t even in the literary convo to begin with.

Then again, maybe I should start a conversation with her just because. It’s not like Melanie needs to know that I had a conversation with someone on the bus to pass the time. Who knows, maybe this girl’s parents actually managed to sneak in a normal book or two from Ukraine into their curriculum by some miracle.

I start to reach my arm out toward one of the handles as I climb my way to the empty seat next to hers before I feel myself swinging forward and facepalming into the brown coated back in front of me.

I grab the nearest seat with my free arm and quickly push myself back into a balanced setting as the man with the brown coat turns to look at me, glaring at me as I face his red scarf and newsboy cap with nothing but a tank top and shorts underneath. I gulp, mentally preparing myself to duck out of his potential swings, before he turns away from me and starts heading toward the front plopping himself right next to her!

Maybe he won’t do anything. I shouldn’t worry about a stranger’s safety and just mind my own business.

But she’s not a stranger. I don’t know her name, but I’ve seen her on the bus countless times. I can’t just walk past her the way you’d walk past the homeless guy on the street asking for change when you’re in a hurry or don’t have anything on you. Besides, wasn’t Baba Stefania a stranger to the German family that took her in as their live-in maid instead of letting her stay at that Nazi work camp with the other Ukrainian prisoners. They didn’t have to accept her services, but they did and it saved her from the gas chambers that final year of the war. For selfish reasons of course, but still a kindness in the long run.

I start pushing myself forward toward the bus again, pushing my way opposite the incoming sea of people. Their entrance is blocking my view of her, but I can hear a gruff male voice leeringly say, “You gonna ignore me? I’m here now. Why’re you hiding that beautiful face behind that book?”

I can’t hear any more talking as I try to maneuver between the giant grey suitcase and the airline pilot holding it.

“Hey. Could I please squeeze through? My girlfriend’s up front and I think that guy’s bothering her.”

He stares down at me with an understanding smile and shifts in closer to his suitcase so I could squeeze in between him and the seat next to us.

“Thank you!” I smile and look back at him before hearing a loud thud as HER copy of Matilda flies over our heads and into the back aisle. The people in the front row start shoving back into me as I try fighting forward to make sure she’s safe.

“You think you’re smarter than me just because you’re reading those damn books! Well you’re nothing but a r*t*rd*d sl*t who’s been around the joint! I bet if I was some power-suit lawyer, you’d be dropping on your knees ready to suck my c*ck!”

I push through the last person as I see him towering over her, trapping her into her seat, spitting into her face as he keeps cursing at her while she looks anywhere but at him. I can’t believe everyone here would rather let her get r***d and mugged instead of helping her out.

I’m praying to the Diva Maria* that he doesn’t have a gun on him, because I don’t know how my parents will react if they see me in the hospital with a gunshot wound.

“Look at me when I’m talking to -” he stumbles onto the side as I kick his left leg out toward the exit.

I take advantage of his weakness and grab him from behind by the arms, pushing them toward me. There’s no way he’ll escape now.

Immediately the siren starts to go off as the bus driver screams into the megaphone, “Everybody get off the bus now! The police are on their way! I repeat! The police are on theri war! There will be another bus coming in a couple of minutes to take you the same route we’ve been going!”

People behind me start scrambling for the back door, pushing and shoving each other. The airline pilot walks over and puts his arms on the attacker’s arms.

“I got this champ. You go check on your girlfriend over there.”

“Thanks,” I exhale deeply as I wipe some sweat off my forehead.

She’s now standing in her seat and trying to look past her detained attacker toward the back of the bus.

“Noo de ta knyha! I need to return that book in one piece!” she exclaims in a familiar language.

“It’s somewhere in the back. Is it a library book?” I reply to her in Ukrainian.

Her eyes widen as she exhales with relief, a smile growing on her face.

“Yes! It’s from my brother’s school! He needs to return it or else we’ll have to pay a fine.”

I notice the book lying down near the back door, some of the pages strewn across the floor.

“I can go get it for you, but it’s badly damaged,” I tell her in a sad tone.

She sits back down and buries her face in her hands, “Can this day get any worse?”

I walk over to her and put my hand on her shoulder, pushing back her hair that’s been undone from its braid during the attack.

“Is he in St. Cyril Catholic School?”

She lifts her head up and exclaims, “Yes! Did you go there?”

“I did! It’s how I was able to practice Ukrainian during the school week!”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ll stay here to make sure he pays you back for the damages he caused you and your stuff while you can safely leave and get to work. That’s where you’re headed, right?”

She eyes her attacker again and scoffs before giving me a smirk, doubting my words.

“Look. If he can’t pay, the city should at least give you some compensation for damages. Plus, I should stay here and help make sure he doesn’t escape and hurt you or someone else while the cops arrive.”

“You’re sure?” she asks, looking between me and the torn book with hesitation.

“I’m sure. Now go and catch that second bus.”

She walks toward the front entrance before turning to me and smiling back.

“Dyakuyu.”

There are three words I want to say to her, but don’t. How could I say such words to someone I don’t know. The words I should be able to feel for Melanie, but have stopped feeling a while back.

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Glossary:

Hopak - a traditional Ukrainian folk dance filled with acrobatics that originated from the Zaporizhian Kozaks.

Kozak (sometimes referred to as Cossack) - a Ukrainian warrior who resided in the Zaporizhian Steppes of Ukraine from the 14th to the 18th century.

Prysydka - a dance step from the Hopak dance in which the male dancer squats down and jumps back up with one leg and back down into a squat.

Tatary / Tatars - a branch of Genghis Khan's army from the Mongolian Army led by Batu Khan from the 13th to the 17th century that pillaged Ukraine and other neighboring countries in Eastern Europe.

Diva Maria - the Virgin Mary in Ukrainian

"Noo de ta knyha?!" - "Oh where is that book" in Ukrainian.