11 Windows Painted
We spent the night in the Airbnb, it was a relatively small apartment with a beautiful but almost comically huge bedroom, it was so big that the bed looked as if it was against the wall of a museum gallery. Enormous windows on our left; and a fireplace that we had to block, to stop the cats from climbing up the chimney.
It was nice to have a bed again, even though we were not really able to rest. Our huge windows faced the street, and outside it was so quiet that ironically, cars driving by could be heard approaching from far away, the cobbled street made them sound like planes. Every car sent shivers down my spine for the first few hours.
The next morning we went to the supermarket to buy some food for breakfast, we were crossing the street to the supermarket when the air raid sirens went off. There was a church between us and the supermarket, and we saw some people running in that direction. We didn’t know if there was a shelter so we followed them. The church was in the middle of service, and they didn’t stop. People in the street were not going in, though, they were going to the supermarket, which was in the basement of a huge office building. We walked down and there were a few people, some waiting to enter (they closed the entrance during air raids), others just waiting for the siren to stop.
The sirens stopped, and we went inside, grabbed some bananas, granola bars, tea and other stuff. The sirens started again when we were paying, so we had to wait again.
Back in the apartment, we had time to eat something and got ready to leave. The same driver from the night before picked us up, and took us to a nearby village, where the train to Lviv was scheduled to depart that afternoon.
Once in the train station, the PA system announced that an air raid was taking place (we didn’t hear any sirens), and the station workers asked all the passengers to head to the basement, arguing that “this is the largest train station in the area, please take cover, we are a target”. Rita and I were tired, and relatively calm, and to be completely honest, we thought the woman was exaggerating her claims, so we just got to the stairs leading to the basement and sat there, being mindful of the windows nearby but not fully taking cover. Many people went downstairs. Nothing happened.
Just recently, we got news that the russians did bomb that station, and it was completely destroyed.
The train arrived and we were urged to board as fast as possible, which we did. It was a very old train, what they call elektrichka, which is almost a tram, with wooden seats and old windows. Half of the windows painted from the outside, and I was not sure if this was a cautionary measure to avoid showing what was inside, or it the cars had been vandalized.
It took us about an hour to depart once we were on the train, for some reason we had to wait at the station, while I was thinking that a bomb could fall on us at any second. Not like we had an option, it was either be on that train or stay behind for who knows how long.
The train was not completely full when we departed, but as it started making stops along the way, more and more people hopped in, to the point where there was barely any space for anything. I couldn’t stand up to stretch my legs, and people couldn’t sit down even on the floor because there were too many people standing. After 10 hours I really didn’t know what was worse.
All the feelings of rage and frustration came back to me. Seeing all the children on board, all the elderly people; some heading to a known place, some to the unknown, but everyone moving away from home. I would hold Rita’s hand at times, or let her head rest on my shoulders, for hours I passed the time holding the cat’s carriers and petting them to calm them down, almost everything done in automatic, while my mind floated in a dark, cold sea of anguish, unknown to me until that day.