Running ahead of the season. Vienna, Austria. Fall, 1988.
Survival skills of a group have different dynamics than an individual. And, regardless how willful one individual could be, group instinct overrides the person’s will and wipe out individuality. How the individuality will survive the ordeal depends on many variables: past experiences, physical mental and emotional fitness, resilience, assimilating skills. Most of those abilities are innate and not as prevalent as we would like to think. And many of us, emigrants, would end up broken and not only financially. In simple terms, everyone would be affected differently and would recover differently. In Ukraine we would say something like: ‘goodness would shine brighter and badness gets worse’. Just a thought to deliberate in different time.
Group dynamics of the group, which I belonged to, at that time, was simply ugly. Lifelong friendships were easily broken. Years later, some of the broken friendships were rekindled and some were lost forever. New relationships, brief, demanded by the momentarily needs, were formed. Everyone was for oneself. And friends were made on a needed basis, a primitive survival method, dictated by the necessity of the moment. We did not expect to see each other in a week or two.
On the brighter side, it was not only the end of an old life, but also it was a beginning of a new one.
Those were breathtaking times. You don’t have to see your annoying aunt for your birthday. Ever. Your neighbor’s cat won’t ever cross your path again and you did not spend a second to plot his disappearance. People have known you as a timid and shy person. Guess what? No more, you are who you chose to be today and if you would not like it tomorrow you will change it again. No one has any expectations from you, not even you. You are in transit. And your life isn’t a steady flow but a rouring rain with violent gusts of wind. That was an intoxicating feeling. Something that changed me forever, broke the reasonably accepted boundaries and expanded me beyond any limits.
Life by itself was not that bad or dreadful. I had a place to sleep, food to eat, youth and heath (I just turned 30 y.o.), my husband and kids were with me. Kids were happy that they did not have to go to school anymore. It was funny to see them thinking that that was it, they finished their education. And when you are 9 or 12, the world does not extend beyond the horizon yet.
It was early fall in Europe, end of September, beginning of October, days were delightful, weather gentle: not hot anymore and not cold yet. The brief moment of gentle hesitation, as of Nature got stumbled and was not certain how to proceed further.
During those days I learned that people recycle, clean streets in front of their shops with soap, water and brush every morning. On occasions, till now I remember those moments and think of my existing business, located on the outer line of Detroit. If you have ever seen movie 8 Mile and I will give you my address, you will recognize the place. Sometimes I imagine myself to get up earlier, get a brush, soap and water and start to clean 8 Mile road. I can guarantee that the first driver with a cell phone, passing by, would call 911, and an ambulance would pick me up urgently.
I realized that people can be polite, just nauseatingly polite. In a public place they would talk in a low voice not to annoy others. I was coming from a part of the world where people talk to make a statement, announcement or simply to be the loudest in the crowd. I have never been in Vienna since, I got to go there and double check if I did not misinterpret that politeness. Maybe they were just uncomfortable around the crazy loud Russians. And we were walking in groups. We were afraid to get lost. If that was not intimidating, it was weird for sure. Some of us were braver than others, we grouped around them. The big city was frightening for me no matter in which country it would be, I was a village girl. I called myself Russian here not by mistake, but Ukraine was not known to the world. So we called ourselves Russians for simplicity, we still do on occasions if it serves the purpose and prevent further questions.
From my brief time in Vienna I had never suspected that Austrians are cold people, until one incident that happened somewhere in the middle of our transit. My husband Val (Valeriy back then) had some strangeness, for first he married me and stayed with me for very long time, until I finally got pity and granted him freedom. Back then, in Vienna, he liked to buy different treats for the kids every day. Mostly it was ice cream. I did not understand why they should be different each day, why not stick to the known and good ones.
One of those days, Val took a box of ice cream from the cooler. There were six pieces inside the box. It was rather unusual, but alas, what did I know. I opened the box, gave a peace to everyone, and held the box with the last two pieces to my chest.
The ice-cream was white(?), crusted with something that reminded me bread crumbs and not sweet at all, and it was frozen solid. It took me a few long minutes to finally bite through it… It was fish, a frozen raw fish!
Imagine, in the middle of the crowded market place two adults and two kids chewing uncooked frozen fish. In addition, a mother holding the box in such a way that if you are unsure what the hell they are eating, you can easily read the box.
As short and hot tempered as I am, I grabbed the fish from all of them and ran to the trash can, Val stopped me, ‘we can cook and eat it later for dinner’. The fish was really good.
What shocked me then, that no one from the crowd gave me any clue that I was doing something wrong, a smirk! a hint! Anything for god’s sake! Nothing! That was cold!
It was a dreadful story at first, but later it was just funny. And I liked to tell that story.
Over a decade later, my grown son came home from a bar one day and said “Nina, please, I beg you, stop telling the fish story”
“why. It’s an old story. I don’t tell it anymore”
“Last night, in the bar, one of the guys was telling a funny fish story about a family of stupid emigrants”
“What did you do?”
“ Nothing, I was waiting to the end, let them laugh as much as they wanted, and then I told them that it was my family…”
The story was too old to be funny anymore. But it stroke me how sertain things can follow you around as if they became a part of you. I am still thinking about the significance of it. It’s got to be there.
Three weeks of fall brought some changes: mornings were losing light, days got colder, trees were shading leaves, winter was closing in on us, but we were running away. We would be leaving for Italy in two days.
The next night brought fear into my daughter’s life, fear that didn’t let me to close my eyes for the night, but lucky me it was last night. As we were leaving Vienna, we were leaving our fear behind.
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