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Double Eagle Over Tryzub


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It was Thomas Fuller that said that night was always darkest just before the dawn.  Well, let me tell you, things had been getting pretty dark here.  In an effort to end the violence in Odessa, the Russians had committed three whole armies, 300,000 men, to our western regions to keep the peace.  Most of the deployments were to the big cities with prominent Ukrainian populations, but my hometown of Novofedorivka had a detachment of soldiers stationed there due to our position on the main road between Odessa and Mykolaiv.  

 

For a while, things actually weren't so bad.  The soldiers stayed in their camp by the road, and we stayed inside our town.  We didn't see much of each other, and never interacted.  For the most part, it wasn't any different than usual.  Unfortunately, it didn't last forever.  One of the soldiers was found dead one day, and naturally, they all suspected that someone in the town had done it.  The first person they took away was a local boy, Taras.  He was a logical first victim, being fairly outspoken in support of the people in Odessa.  A day later, they took his girlfriend on suspicions of the two of them "collaborating."  After about a week, we had largely forgotten about the two of them, but they soon came rushing back into the front of our lives.  Everyday I walked down one of the main roads in the town, nice and cool from the shade of the large oak trees that lined both sides.  However, one day, a small crowd was gathered around the largest of the trees on the street.  Walking over, I saw why.  Hanging on the lowest branch were the bodies of Taras and his girlfriend.  Around both their necks was a warning to all of us, a small placard featuring a tryzub smothered by the double headed eagle.  The message was clear, Russia would defeat any attempts at Ukrainian identity.

 

Soon, the dynamics between the two of us had changed completely.  We no longer went near the army camp, and the soldiers no longer went near the town.  They posted extra guards near the roads, and in town, talk quickly shifted to the Moskali.  Every once in a while, someone complained a little too loudly about the conditions, and new bodies replaced old ones on the hanging tree.  We soon realized that the Russians had placed spies in the village, and nobody talked to anyone they weren't long-time acquaintances with.  People learned to keep their mouths shut, some went to go live with family in other parts of the country, but after a while, the hangings stopped.  As far as I know, we had a month go by where nobody else disappeared, and a fragile peace was maintained between us and the soldiers just outside of town.  As the days ticked on, I watched on the TV as the situation in Odessa grew worse.  Attacks and counterattacks were claiming hundreds of lives, and nobody was budging in the region.  Leaders in Odessa openly announced that if the siege of the city wasn't lifted, they would send people to bomb targets in cities like Kherson and Mykolaiv.  Everyone believed it was an empty threat until a car bomb exploded near the military shipyards in Mykolaiv, killing 17 workers.  I remember that retribution for that attack was swift.  Curfews were established, roadblocks were set up, and the soldiers flooded our towns to keep careful watch for any suspicious behavior.  It was the final straw, and my mother decided to move us out of Novofedorivka.  However, the night before we were set to leave, we had a knock on our door.  My cousin, orphaned by the conflict and staying with us, went to answer it, only to be met by a group of six soldiers with their guns drawn.

 

"What do you veselki want," he asked, using the slang term we developed for the occupying soldiers.

 

"Are you Grigoriy Vardenko," one of the soldiers asked, holding up a sheet of paper with a black and white photo on it.

 

"Yeah, I'm Hrihoriy" my cousin snarked back.

 

"Grab him," the solder said.  Three of the soldiers grabbed his arms, dragging him out of our doorway and down the hall.  As they closed the door behind us, one of the soldiers looked me in the eye, placed a finger over his lips, and shushed me.  The small act was strangely terrifying.  It seemed so innocent, something you would do to a mischievous child, but now, in this context, it was almost sadistic.  The worst part was, it kind of worked.  I wanted to scream out, but all I could do was just stand there.

 

Needless to say, this pushed back our departure plans.  We waited in dread to see what would become of my cousin.  Would he return to us, and if so, in what state?  We soon got our response.  There, on the tree with three others, was his body, swinging in the wind.  These bodies were different from the others, covered in bruises and cuts.  These were clear signs of torture by their captors, obviously meant to get the response they needed for a hanging.  I guess the Russians thought that they needed to keep the body count up to keep us pacified.  Well, it didn't work. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

In front of the swinging bodies, I began humming, then singing the song that we developed when the hangings first began.  When I had finished, I turned around to see people on the street staring at me.  At first I was concerned with the situation.  Were there soldiers watching me?  Was I causing trouble?  I got ready to run home, just to get off the streets.  The people began walking towards me, one at a time, and then in larger and larger groups.  Before I knew what was happening, everyone was singing.  The old, the young, men, women, and children.  After a short while, a military patrol entered the city and saw us all singing.  At that point, it was too late for anyone to know that it was me who had started it all.  The soldiers started yelling at us to return to our homes, and when we didn't comply, they started firing into the air.  Needless to say, that shut us up quickly.  We all decided to head home, rather than risk any further crackdowns.  A song just wasn't worth it.

 

Things were quiet for a while after that.  I think the people just needed to get a small act of defiance out of their systems.  The army put extra patrols through the town to keep eyes on us, but since we had been keeping our heads down, an easy peace existed between our sides.  However, things in the rest of the country grew worse.  On the Dneiper River, the rebels had hijacked a barge and filled it with explosives.  In an apparent suicide attack, they crashed it into the Kakhovka Dam, causing it to burst.  Flooding downstream was minimal, but both the port and shipyards in Kherson were completely underwater, and thousands had to be evacuated, stealing military resources away from the battle.  The destruction of the dam also led to rolling brownouts around the region, since it provided over 350 megawatts of electricity to Southern Ukraine.  We received notices that we would have no power between 12 and 5 in the afternoon.  Buildings lost air conditioning and running water when it was the hottest part of the day.  I couldn't help but think that it was a small punishment for the way we acted a few weeks ago.  

 

The war had been tough on all of us, and the prices of everything from food to electricity had skyrocketed, forcing my mother to begin working longer hours to support me and my sister.  It was 5:30 when the lights flickered back on, and I made my way to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner.  I tried to have it almost completely done by the time my mother came back from work and my sister came back from school.  They always had tough days, and I wanted to be of as much help as I could.  I had begun washing vegetables when I heard a knock on my door.  I assumed it was a neighbor, checking to see if the power had come back.  Our building was old, and we all got our electricity back at different times.  We were on the ground floor, and had power and water before everyone else by at least a few minutes.  I opened the door, expected to find the face of my elderly neighbor, only to be greeted with my own.  I filled the screen of a smart phone, singing the song all alone.  Somebody must have recorded me while I wasn't looking before everyone else joined in, then uploaded the video onto their VK profile.  As the video ended, my gaze moved to the person holding the phone.  I moved from his hand, down his camouflaged arm, and up to his face.  I had a sick feeling as I noticed who it was.  It was the person who had shushed me when they had taken Hrihory away.  

 

"Hello, Ms. Vardenko," he said to me, flashing a wide grin.  He had three soldiers with him, who were there to drag me away from my home.  Terrified, I took a step backwards away from the doorway, only to be met by the man's boot to my stomach.  The kick was strong enough to slam me against the wall, and send me crumpling to the ground in excruciating pain and gasping for breath.  Grabbing me by the wrist, he pulled me away from the wall, leaving me lying flat on my back, looking straight up at the ceiling.

 

"Let's get her up," one of the soldiers said to another one, "we need to get her back to the base."

 

"Wait," the man said, as soon as the two soldiers had grabbed my hands, "you will not do anything unless I order you to."

 

"Comrade Major," another soldier said, "you know the reports, militants have been seen in the area.  We need to get back to the camp as soon as possible."

 

"YOU WILL NOT DO ANYTHING I HAVE NOT ORDERED," the man yelled back.  He was obviously in charge, and he sure wanted the soldiers he was with to know it.

 

"Comrade Major," I heard the first soldier yell out, "what are you doing?!"

 

I lifted up my head slightly to see the man fiddling with something.  He turned to the side, and I saw that he was unfastening his belt.  Oh god!  Was he really going to do what I thought he was?!

 

"Our orders were to bring her back to the camp, nothing else," the second soldier yelled out.

 

"This is not how we are supposed to act," the first soldier said, "We are soldiers, not criminals!"

 

"I make the orders here," the man said, "and my orders are for you to either get in line or get out of my way."

 

"What are you guys so worked up about," the third soldier said, "she's just a Uke, and a pretty one at that."

 

"Zapadin, you pig," the second soldier said, shoving the third one with his gun.

 

"You know this is wrong," the first one yelled.

 

"Yefretor Shtayn, Yefretor Mizrekhsky, I'll have you both shot for insubordination," the man yelled, buckling his belt back up.  

 

However, before he could do anything else, a large explosion shook the building.  Largely blinded by the dust, and deafened by the last, I looked around the room in a daze.  Light was pouring in through a hole in the wall, which soon had a half dozen men with rifles run into the apartment.  I looked to my right and saw the four soldiers slumped against the wall, thrown clear across the room by the blast.  One of the men turned to me and took off his balaclava.  He was saying something to me, but with my hearing still out, I just saw his lips moving.  After a few seconds, the ringing in my ears intensified, and soon my hearing came rushing back.

 

"Katya Vardenko!  Are you Katya Vardenko," the man yelled at me.  I simply nodded my head at him.  "You may be injured," he continued yelling, unaware that I could hear him at a more normal volume, "we're going to get you out of here on a stretcher."

 

As I was loaded onto the stretcher, the gunmen were checking the pulses of the soldiers.

 

"This one's dead," one of the gunmen said, referring to the second soldier, lying against the wall with his head crooked and his eyes fixed open.

 

"This one's a goner," another of the gunmen said, looking at the third soldier, who had several large pieces of wood embedded in his stomach and chest.

 

I looked over at the first man, lying on his stomach in the corner.  "This one's still got a pulse," the gunman checking him said.

 

"Shoot him," I said weakly, surprising the people carrying me and the man who found me, "shoot that monster.  Kill him."

 

"Are you crazy," the gunman said, "this is a major.  Who knows what we can get out of him.  We're taking him with us."

 

"I can shoot this one for you," the man checking the first soldier said, "he's out cold, but he's still alive."

 

"Get rid of the moskal," the head gunman said casually.  I don't know why, but the thought of killing him actually tugged on my heartstrings.  He was a moskal, an occupier, a murderer of our people.  He was here for me.  He was going to drag me kicking and screaming out of my apartment, torture me, and string me up on the tree.  I should have been happy that he was going to get a bullet in the head.  He also stood up for me, and tried to stop those horrible men from forcing themselves on me.  Maybe I just wanted a chance to talk with him before they did away with him.

 

"Wait," I said a bit more forcefully, "take him with us."

 

"Why," the head gunman asked, "he's a nobody.  He's not an officer, not even a non-commissioned one."

 

"I don't know," I said quickly, trying to grab some ideas off the top of my head, "you can torture him for information, you can trade him for prisoners, something." 

 

The gunmen looked at each other, then at me, then at the unconscious soldier.  They smiled and began making lewd gestures.  Oh geez, they thought we were having sex.  I mean, it did make sense to the outside observer.  Why else would I stand up for him like this?  

 

"And if you don't get anything from or for him, then you can shoot him," I quickly added in, trying to quash any rumors. 

 

"Alright, alright," the lead gunman said, smiling but trying to restore a bit of order, "Primashenko, pick up the second moskal.  He comes with us."

Edited by KaiserMelech Mikhail
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