- Good-bye, good-bye! - It was spreading in answer. -33-
- So, you are saying, my friend, that you were having your supper quietly some meters away from the frontier, from the hedge, to be exact.
- That’s right. When two months later I was taken to the place of “the crime” for taking photos, I approximately defined the distance - seven meters! And that ledge, on which I’ve made myself comfortable, having let my legs down into the ditch, turned to be the edge (a plumb bank) of the country-road, stretching along the hedges at the other side.
- And what about the moon? Due to your calculation, at the time of your refuge (after September, 20) it had to be in the sky “with full effect”, so to say.
- You see, the evening was just beginning, the moon appeared at half past nine in the evening and it, being yet at the very horizon,could not light anything up.
We were sitting in my temporary flat in Kyiv, and I was answering Kost`s questions about my epopee.
Twelve years had passed, a lot of things had changed in the fate both of us, but our friendship remained the same.
- Now, Kost`, you can see that the weapon could be unnecessary, but the thing, I lacked most, was a good advice, how I had to behave myself in Iran. I shouldn’t have appealed to the Iranian for help.
- But could you cover some a thousand kilometers to Teheran, to the embassy of Great Britain on your own?
- There was no need in it. It could be quite enough to pass by the frontier villages, where people look closely at strangers; and at the crowded roads of Iran strangers are not such a rarity - at least, it wasn’t a rarity in the times of the shah. I also made another mistake, I’ve already told you about: I started walking during the day-time and sleeping at night. It was a fatal decision, indeed.
- So, well, suppose you have reached the central high-way and what next?
- I could try to find someone to give me a lift or exchange my binocular for some money for going by bus or by train.
What could happen if… It had to be just that way, and not the other one. One of us had to overcome one more section of the ordeal, the other one, having had avoided it, didn’t make any use of the gifted right to remain free. Though, no - fate had left something to him too: the disablement of the second group, because of the ill legs. His having refused from the trip with me, didn’t stop the sickly process in his legs, which had started yet in 1978.
- And what about the mode of life of the frontier Iranian people? – Kost` put a new question. - Does it differ from the manners and customs of the Turkmen on this side? In reality, it’s the same nation.
- There sees to be no difference. Perhaps, in that clay-walled hut, where I was a guest, one thing anyhow reminded of the fact, that I was abroad. In the right corner there was a large millboard trunk with the inscription “Coca-Cola”, written all over. They must have kept their plain stock in it.
- And on the road, - you must have gone through the villages and towns, - did you feel you were not in the empire?
- Oh, of course! Now try to guess by what thing can the man, having been thrown from cosmos by means of “the plate”, realize where he had been thrown: in the empire or beyond of it?
- Maybe, by the inscriptions on the road signs or by the models of the cars, driving towards? – Kost` presumed.
- Well, by that as well,- I agreed. - Though, concerning the models, there are people who can’t distinguish “Volga” from “Fiat” or something else. By the way, I am gifted such “an anti-gift” too. But the most essential difference will draw even the child’s attention.
- So, what is it?
- Colors! The latest tip-up lorry (dump truck) conveying manure, painted all over with various paints - two at the least - and exotic pictures in addition. Could you imagine such truck in the empire?
The colors of spring throughout the window of my eternally temporary flat did not hurry to fondle my eyes, thirsty of Ukrainian nature. April was drawing to the end, but the gardens throughout the window have just scarcely let out their leaves!
A cool greeting... But why must anything change in Nature? Don’t a lot of my people remain in the situation of contempted and mutilated slaves, aren’t they exterminated physically? And beyond the empire as well.
India: In Punjabi the cases of torture and murders become more and more frequent... Tortures and murders of the prisoners in Senegal… The mass assassinations about ten thousand inhabitants of Hamah by Syrian soldiers in 1982… The murdering of over five thousand of the Kurd by the Iraqi army in 1987, applying chemical weapon.
Summery execution of over two thousand of political prisoners -34- in Iran in 1988. *
(The materials were taken from the informative bulletin “International Amnesty”, 1990-91).
*The military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq by American-British alliance, the Russian war against Chechenia`s people and against Ukraine now - are the crimes against the Humanity too. - the author`s footnote, 2015.
A letter from Kost` to me:
...Good day, my long expected Bohdan! Sincere congratulations with your coming back to “native, but not own land”. For some time I’ve blamed myself for having let you go alone, having set my (not acceptable for you) conditions… It’s hard to call it the concatenation of circumstances, that just at that very time it was concluded concord to bring the refuges back…
I’m curious, whether you had any possibility to escape from under the Iranian guard?..
Yours faithfully, Kost’.
Kost`, my ill-starred brother!
Your Kabulivala (the reminiscence from the plot of the story “The Kabulis” by R. Tahor), having returned from “the home of father-in-law”, greets you… I went to Ternopil (to Havara) to take back my note-book with the copies of my works, and it was him to tell me, you are unlucky too, perhaps even more unlucky than I am: to become a cripple at the age of fifty eight!..
Concerning my runaway, I really had such an opportunity. In the prison of the town of Mashhed I wasn’t locked in my ward and could freely walk along the corridor of the isolated section of the prison. And from the corridor I had the access to the toilet, where there was a large oval window, without grating or netting. I, probably, might have broken it and run away, but it disagreed with my principles. I was still considering myself to be the guest of the Iranian, but not their prisoner, so my runaway was out of the question…
This time no one ties my eyes with a headband (by the way, this was a manufactured one, so considering that fact, I could conclude, that they got used to tie the eyes with headbands in Iran), and the jeep moves off. But the highway suddenly breaks at the boundary with the last house of the town, and again we are going by the stony river-bed with constant obstacles. Again the tape-recorder cheers us with the concerts of Iranian music-hall art. We again are passing the grey village building along the river, fumigated with dust. In the long run we get out of that damned stony river-bed, which has over shaken our bones considerably, and proceed going by a well rammed country-road, raising the cloud of dust, as a charge for the conveniences.
There is no green flash anywhere. Is the oasis Yekitut, where I have had tea, the only emerald in that whole land, forgotten by Allah?
Two episodes from that trip have engraved on my memory. The first one is the image of the Iranian mode of life.
A village. The walls of the houses are covered with such a thick layer of dust, that they scarcely stand out for the mountains on the background. From one mountain’s slope a squirt of water runs out of the iron tube. I don’t know, what source in the heart of the mountain nourishes this squirt, but at the browny grey background of the surroundings, it’s a true wonder. Could one go pass it indifferently?
A succession of people, some of them are kneeled, are staying along the streamlet. Do you think, the commune of chance “pilgrims” is satisfying their needs? No, you are completely wrong!
Subordination! Who is given an unrestricted right to stand at the very source? The oldest axakal is. Then - his younger brother, then - his younger wife. Yet further - older teenagers and younger teenagers are staying. And, at the very end of the succession, among the turbid soapy liquid, the brooklet turns into, there is a naked two-year old child of some wife of the patriarch.
It could be in such order only. Since the prehistoric times none has broken the ascertained subordination yet, and who knows, if one ever will.
And does one have to break it?
What is axakal doing? It’s ritual washing up. His younger brother is waiting for his turn. The women are laundering. The teenagers and the baby are laundering themselves.
Do they lack a day, when each person of that could use this weal? And maybe the water is given at certain hours?
I don’t know. I didn’t ask.
But I saw it.
… The strips of asphalted road are becoming more and more frequent, the number of colorful cars on our way increases. The inscriptions on the road signs are given in two languages: Latin neighboring Arabian ligature.
“Slowly”. Danger is in advance… -35-
The second episode - is a sad page in the Iranian history. We make a stop in a village, resembling the previous one, near the barracks, surrounded by a barbed wire. Though, no watch-tower, no “restrict-zone”, so habitual to me, can be seen. The wire is not strained well, it is even sagging. Nearby the hedge there is a sindan with a rifle. My escorts get off and tell the guard my story. It was easy to guess, as they were pointing at me. One more man goes out of the barracks. I am explained, he is a Kurd prisoner. Thank you, my friends; it’s quite an interesting meeting. A Kurd approaches the hedge and leans over the wire.
What is it? Why doesn’t the guard shoot? And where, finally, that “restrict-zone” is? What keeps him from running away from this prison with the slackened regime? Possibly, it’s because of the distance to native Kurdistan? Some thousands of kilometers…
The guards start chattering gaily and laughing. The chat is such-and-so, but it’s an entertainment, anyhow.
Prisoners keep scilence, looking attentively at one another. The slaves of all totalitarian regimes don’t need words to understand one another.
The disgraced and mutilated of all countries and of all nations - are brothers, and they have a common language.
EACH PERSON SHOULD BE GIVEN HIS IMPRESCRIPTIBLE RIGHTS.
The freedom to a person - the freedom to nations.
Various people appeal to me with the same questions about Iran. What was the prison like there, what were the conditions in it? And so on. And though it’s not quite pleasant for me to discuss such questions, but I think it better to have done with that once and for good, having given my answer.
Departing for Iran, I was going to ask political refuge in the embassy of Great Britain in Teheran. Was it the irony of fate, but I was given my “refuge”… in an English prison. That is, in the town of Mashhed (the center of the North-East province of Iran) has been recently built by an English building firm. I learn about it from the personnel and I myself used to read the inscriptions on the equipment - “Made in England”.
I’ve already mentioned, I was located in the isolated section of the prison, and they did not lock me. There were only some cells(wards) there, not more than four square meters each. Besides the wards, there was also a toilette and a shower-bath with only the cold water there.
There were no beds and no furniture in the wards.On the floor, covered with linoleum, some blankets had been put - and that served a bed. One can make a conclusion, that a bed for an Iranian is an unordinary thing, because in the house, where I washaving tea, they were lacking too.
In each cell I saw the pieces of clay from Mecca with a sacred ornament on them. It is an important accessory of a prayer.
What other differences? There is no “parasha”, no toilette in the ward. Thence, I can make the conclusion, that if prisoners are kept locked, then they let them go out to the toilette at their request.
There are also well-disguised powerful ventilators in the wards - they drew out (change) the air in no time. The noise of a ventilator funcioning is not louder than the mosquito’s squeak.
I also drew my attention to the doors of the wards: it is pressed by punch of sheet iron approximately five millimeters thin. You could lock or unlock them soundlessly by pressing the handle with a little finger only. But the handle was only one, just from the side of the corridor.
It is the lock in the English manner.
Food. I don’t know, how the Iranian prisoners are fed, but my nourishments was quite satisfying, though quite unusual too. There is no main dish (soup) at all, and there is too much of rice (due to my taste). They use to serve a jug of cold water instead of any soup. The water is intended to be taken after rice, but not for washing the hands with it, as one could think: some bricks of ice keep the appropriate coolness in it.
Rice is sometimes seasoned with stewed potato and vegetables or haricot beans, but mostly - with stew. For supper they have that very “goulash”(a sort of stew).
For breakfast they have tea, butter, cheese (white, and very tasty - perhaps, the sheep’s one), jam, certainly sugar and that stable barley loaf of bread.
What else? The walls everywhere are painted all one - they are of yellowish-pink color and smooth. The inscriptions are usually written in Arabian ligature, just in one ward I found the initials in Latin - “M.N.”
Besides, I also had to spend some time in the garrison punitive isolation ward (the old construction) in that very Mashhed. The differences there are not so striking, if to compare them with the empire (Moscow) prisons. But there are some. One of them is the presence of the dusthole in the wards (in the wall). The second one is a lack of any jalousie or -36- opaque glass in the windows. And, once again, there are no “parashas”.But as for the doors, - they are an exact copy of those communist ones: very thick, made of boards, bound with iron tightly, with the rattling old-time bolts and hanging locks.
What interesting things did I notice in these wards? In the dusthole I saw a large onion-turnip (not a rot one), a half of a box of matches and a squashed empty package of cigarettes “Winston” - the most wide-spread brand of cigarettes, which is smoked by everybody, from a soldier to an officer. As I was told, that was the cheapest cigarette brand, because tobacco there was of synthetic origin.
On the floor there was a traditional bedding made of blankets, but of much dirtier ones.
Towards evening our jeep reached the aim - the city of Mashhed. Just later I found out, that I had been conveyed through lonely blocks in order to could not be impossible chance to meet Europeans. And really, I had not seen any European.
What impressed me in those sity`s block? It wasn’t advertisement, as it was rather primitive there, but the varieties of choice of the industrial goods, bright colors of clothes, hung out in the shop-windows and in front of them. There were also lots of chandlers, selling dainties, nuts and those very same loafs of bread.
But most of all I was impressed by the subordination in the traffic. What place does gendarmerie take (or, it’ll be better to say now, it took) in Iranian hierarchy? To my great surprise, it took one of the last places. My “sindans” let themselves to leave only old excoriated cars behind. They shouted boldly at the poorly dressed owners of “the scrap-iron”cars only, and demanded to make them way, sounding signals. When in advance there was a properly dressed owner of a nice car, crawling along, my escorts were slowly driving in the back.
Can such situation take place in the empire KGBand? Under no circumstances!
One more impression: a visible chaos of traffic. The pedestrians are impudently (careless) scurrying in a solid mass among the cars. Should they to cross the road on the crossway only? Fiddle-faddle! It has been written not for them (if it has been at all). Or such a thing: can a European man to imagine, walking about the separating stripe of the street, as if it has been created for that only?
As far as I understand it now, my gendarmes did not know for sure where I had to be brought to, because first they brought me onto the territory of the garrison, where I had unofficial talks with soldiers and the officer, who knew English perfectly well. It was him to have asked me a question, the idea of which was not clear to me, because of the unknown to me word “ trouble ”.
-Why did you venture to run away? Had you any trouble in the USSR?
- What is “trouble”? I don’t know what is “a trouble”?
So it was. Did I know up to that time, what a real trouble was? Even taking into consideration everything, I had endured during my first five-year imprisonment? Difficult ordeals were yet waiting for me: over 12 years of a new imprisonment, 590 days of which were the days of my having been tortured by coldness and starvation in punishment cells, and other numerous methods of humiliating of a man…
My escorts were negotiating not more than an hour in the staff of the garrison. I was refused to be received. We again drove through the outskirts, that time to a new, recently built prison.
There everything must have been agreed by the telephone, and after I had exchanged some phrases with the superiors, it turned out that neither they nor I knew English not good enough to communicate. Having been asked what other language I spoke, I replied, that besides Ukrainian, I also knew Polish and the Moscow language.
The official part was up with that, and I was led away to prison, where I was given a certain freedom of action.
On Sunday, September, 24, at about eleven o’clock in the morning, I was escorted (in a headband again; it was, probably, of no matter, that the day before I had been going pass that staff without any headband), to the neighboring house (“staff”), to be interrogated.
As I had expected, they found no translator of Ukrainian or Polish, as they were looking for none. The interpreter turned out to be an old man, a Turkmen, judging by the appearance, who still remembered Moscow language. In his time, he must have run away from the empire and settled down here.
Usual questioning started: who, where from, what was the aim and reasons of my having trespassed the frontier? I told them everything honestly, explained them, that it was not me only, but my relatives as well, to be suffering from constant repressions in the empire. -37-
We were talking for about an hour; my answers were recorded and probably passed by means of the radio-station to the government chancellery in Teheran. They were also interested in what place, exactly, I had been lucky to trespass the frontier. For that case they brought a large map of Iran, but it was of little use, because there were no topographic details of the Northern (soviet) side of the frontier. So I showed them only the approximate direction southwards from the town of Dushak. And everything was finished with that. They promised to call me once again, if they would need me, but there was not such a need any more. There was everything obvious to them, as for my person, but I was lacking lucidity as for them.
Was not Iran a capitalist country, thus an anti-communist country, as I thought? Was not I, as well as my relatives did, a constant victim of the communist totalitarian regime?
I didn’t know then, that since the times of the war, there was such-and-so agreement between Stalin and the shah about the returning of the fugitives. I didn’t know, that I was not the first one to have been returned back.
The outpost”Shurdja”, USSR. September, 24.
To the gendarme post “Yekitut”, Iran
… We inform you, that at the night before September, 22, a particularly dangerous criminal, terrorist and a drug taker had trespassed the state frontier and run away on your territory. We ask you to keep him and return him back to be called to account…
The gendarme post ”Yekitut”, Iran, September,24.
To the outpost”Shurdja”, USSR
… As for your enquiry about a dangerous criminal, we ask you inform his name and surname…
The outpost”Shurdja”, USSR, September, 26.
To the gendarme post “Yekitut”, Iran…
… We don’t know the name-surname of the runaway, but he is a particularly dangerous killer, terrorist and drug taker. We insist on his immediate returning…
(From the radiograms of the frontier communication between states. An exact copy of the radiograms has been filed to the case of B.Klymchak).
How can be a man, sentenced to death, cheered up? Give him a luxurious supper. Sometimes a cigarette may be enough.
Starting from September, 27, they lay the turkey stew, round the unchanging rice, more and more generously. The portions of rice overweight a kilogram each. None paid attention to my requests to reduce them, as well as to the fact, that I hardly ate more than a hundred grams and gave the rest of it back. The cooks - at least the cooks - want to clear themselves.
The lovers to remember the signs, notes one more: the appearance of the turkey stew in great amount - is the indication of the upcoming cataclysms.
And here comes the Day of Saturn - a fatal planet: it is Saturday, September, 30. Mister is asked to go out. The jeep is humming, as if purring, behind the gates. My bag with the staff sword, I haven’t seen for a long time, suddenly appear.
We are setting off. But not for a long way yet: the officials from the security department also want to clear themselves.
- We are complied with the order. You will be taken to a remote town. We hope, you won’t have the reasons to complain for bad conveniences and food here.
- Oh, food! Can’t we do without food?
- No, how can you!
- All the time I’ve been asking you and I am asking you now to give me the possibility to get to the embassy of Great Britain in Teheran.
We are sorry, but it’s beyond our duties. We are complied…
The department of gendarmerie has a great wish to say “Good-bye”to mister and, at the same time, they allot new reliable young men to secure me.
Why is the face of the older guard so awful and
ploughed with variola? Don’t pay attention to this. This disease, although, has influenced his psychics a bit, but concerning his being reliable, - he is worth much. You’ll get sure in it yourself.
I am asked to take a sit at the back of the car. “The chapped” will take a sit next to me.
- Fine, mister. We’ve only got to consolidate our relationship “by manacles” yet.
- “Manacles”? What is “Manacles”?
- Handcuffs. We’ve got such an order. Just a little bit, there -38-
will be no painful clutching. For one hand only, the other end will be on my wrist. Here you are. It doesn’t hurt at all, does it?
Should I thank him for his kindness? He is not obliged to clutch “just a little bit”.
- Tell me at least, in what direction are we going?
- Westwards. Almost westwards.
West? West - is Teheran, Great Britain… Westwards, westwards!
… ByWESTern sun above the horizon is tickling my eyes pleasantly. The driver,however, is protecting himself with a dark window dash-board. Does he understand a poetry? No, he doesn`t.
In the long run I see (for the first time in Iran) cultivated fields by the road. To my great surprise, they turned to be beetroot plantations. From a distance, the groups of women don’t differ from our ones at all.
The sun has already hidden beyond the horizon, and we are still going by a wide road to the West.
- Over there to the right, in the mountains, has recently been an awful earthquake. The whole town was destroyed, more than fifteen thousand people have died, - informs my escort indifferently.
I am peering attentively at the North. Bare mountains, having been burnt by the sun - such a familiar to me scenery. Kopet-Dah still remains the same, from one end to another one. There is no sign of the town - it’s too far.
Suddenly the jeep turns roughly to the right, onto the country-road. What is happening? Why?
- We have to go by a roundabout way, - replies the escort, having shrunk a bit.
Is it really the roundabout way? But there were no warning signs; there are no signs of the repairing works on the smooth, chipless highway.
The country-road is swerving to the North more and more, going deep into the mountains. There is no doubt - that all roundabout way is a fiction.
The dust covers our heads with a thick layer, stuffs our bronchi. It’s quickly getting dark. I’m seized with the black apathy: I no longer reply any questions, I don’t communicate with anyone. I’m fed up with it.
Late in the evening, when it was past ten, the jeep overcame the mountain-pass and descended into the valley. The night was moonless: a thin crescent of my patron(a moon) had melt in the sunrays off yet the day before, and the new moon had to come on the next day, just towards the evening.
I don’t feel like drag up to this time. The caught by the gear-wheels of the hellish tooth gearing won’t be pulled back, without turning off and smashing the machine. It’ll spit him out of the other side, torn into pieces and chewed.
We are driving into a large village. Somewhere here nearby must be the frontier. The jeep is going through the whole village, and then turns Southwards by another road. Suddenly the head-lights illuminate some thing, set in the middle of the road and some military men. Only on approaching them closely, I recognize, with a surprise, the hero of the World War I, the machine-gun “Maxim”!
The barrel of the museum relic is aimed northwards. The proletarians of all Northern countries, prick up your ears, “Maxim” is on guard!
Alas! Haven’t I found myself in the kinder-garden? But on the other hand, could even a ballistic rocket contain the Northern monster, in case it moved southwards? It is restrained by that rocket sooner, that disposed in the state of Nevada…
The jeep pulls down at the territory of the garrison. Of the frontier one, there can be no doubt..
Being neither alive nor dead, I get out of the jeep and, accompanied by a group of military men,I enter the house. The table and the iron trestle-bed - this is the whole furniture of a small room.
I look attentively at the cockades on the peak-caps and shoulder-strap with fear: some officer, having realized the reason of my fear in no time, insures me in the pure Moscow language:
- I am a major of Iranian army; there are no Russians here, don’t be afraid… Come along, you must wash yourselves.
I can only imagine the way I look: I only notice the escorts’ white teeth bared in a smile
I stand still. I am keeping silence. I’m not reacting. The major goes on persuading me.
- You should wash yourselves. Soon they will bring your supper. There is “Coca-Cola”, water-melon, rice with stew, tea. And, perhaps, you feel like watching TV? They will bring it now.
- Why was I brought here, to the Soviet frontier? I am a former… victim… beg… in Teheran… assembly, - I declaim my statement again.
- It’s temporarily.We have to conduct some operation with your documents, and tomorrow a helicopter will come to take you -39-
to Teheran.
How little a man needs for resurrection!
- Where do you have a washing-stand here?
- Do-re-me-f…! The Symphony 5, please, Maestro. Beethoven!
It’s high time to start the last page of the story.
- Isn’t your style too high, mister author? Is your story tragic enough to begin the “Symphony 5”?
- It depends. For a man his own tragedy is more important than the loss of His Majesty’s kingdom.
- But are you sure, that your story is vainly tragic? The huge experience you got for the 12 years of your new imprisonment, - isn’t it to be considered an acquisition, the triumph of the human spirit, one more step to the spiritual improving? And then - won’t you call, IN DUE COURSE, this “tragedy” - THE ABILITY? So, we’ll, maybe, put on THE THIRD one by Beethoven at once?
- Time will show us… Possibly… Meanwhile - stop the music, Maestro! And let’s read the last chapter till the end in silence.
Iranian TV studio shows some boring show, evidently, a performance, that is again and again interrupted by advertisement interpolations. And why on Earth do the TV-watchers in the West stand such a mixture? However, I’ve heard, they tear into little pieces ALL the transmissions by television there.
The major yearned for an honest talk.
- I think of moving to the USSR. They promise to
give me a flat and a good wage. In one word, they offer human conditions. I don’t have any perspectives here.
I am listening to him mistrustfully. Can anyone really think of living in the empire? The major must be checking me up psychologically, preparing me for my returning.
I explain to him once again, what repressions I have underwent in the empire, and that I have any slight wish to come back there, no matter what…
- Yes, yes. Tomorrow the helicopter will come, - promises the major not quite convincingly.
- But if I don’t happen to get to the West, - I take the worst version, - let my works get there at least. At all events, with the help two tape recorders we could make the copy of the text from my tape…
- Fine. I’ll take it into account, - promises the major.
It’s time to go to bed. They bring me my bedding: a synthetic mattress and a pillow, a blanket and bed-sheets.
There is an armed guard walking in front of the doors, but they suppose it to be not enough.
- I’m sorry, here the guard complains, - starts the major in confusion, - that he can’t guarantee security at night. You should have the manacles on. JUST A LITTLE BIT. FOR ONE HAND ONLY. The other end I’ll fix to the trestle-bed.
…TOMORROW THE HELIKOPTER WILL COME. Because of an awful headache I can’t fall asleep during the whole night. Even for a while. I can lie on my back only or on my right side: my manacled right hand doesn’t let me turn onto the left.
In the morning (Sunday, October, 1) I am expecting in vain to get some explanations from the major, he appears for a while only and runs away, leaving me for a soundless service.
Toilette, breakfast, waiting.
What for?
At about past eleven the jeep pulls down at the doors, it’s possibly the same one. I get in, surrounded by silent soldiers. We are driving.
Where to?
In 200 or 300 meters we get onto the yard, surrounded by a barbed wire. There is some barracks in the right further part. Over ten armed soldiers are walking here and there.
I am ordered to get off and they lead me to the barracks. And here is the major.
- Come along over here, - he is pointing at round the corner of the building.
It’s sweltering heat.. Keeping my jacket in one hand, I am turning round the corner of the house, being tired to death.
There are plenty of various food and drinks on the table. There are three soviet officers near the table.
- Good-morning. What is your surname? - They ask me in Russian.
My jacket slips out of my hands. I plunge onto the ground like a big sack.
Is this the end?
And, maybe, they’ve brought me here to ask me if I really don’t want to go back? Sure. I am to explain this immediately. I stand up -40-
abruptly. And for the first time of my being beyond the empire, I start speaking in my mother tongue - Ukrainian:
- I don’t want to go back to the empire. I don’t admit myself to be the citizen of the USSR. I am completely against my return to the USSR..
Maybe, they don’t understand? I repeat everything in the Moscow language now.
- What is your surname?
- I am a former political prisoner Bohdan Klymchak. I have no wish to return…
… A jolly laughter and the bubbling of some liquid can be heard from round the corner. And from the side of the Iranian village an extensive call of a muezzin is being resounded faintly audibly.
- Al-la-a-ah…
It’s“namaz”(the Moslem ritual pray). Allah is great and, probably, all-forgiving? Will he forgive his faithful their having substituted a pray for a drunkenness? And, maybe, the selling of the“gyaur”(the unfaithful) back into slavery, will serve a compensation for him?
… In about 10 meters northwards, there is a double row of hedges. It’s the frontier. I am being led there.
- Look into your bag to check, whether you’ve been given all your things back.
I look into my bag unwillingly. My note-book, my tape with the recorded works, my staff sword…
- Do you have anything to say to the Iranian representatives?
The major bulges out his belly before me. What do they want from me? Probably, they are expecting me to thrust him with my staff sword?
- Woe betides you and…
The last half-written words of the last, on the territory of Iran, exposure of emotions have been depressing me for thirteen years already. And I am to bear this weight till the end of my life.
… DON’T BLAME OUR OFFICIALS FOR THEIR FATAL DECISION, THEY WILL SOON TAKE CONCERNING YOU…
Shall I be forgiven for my last words on your land, my friend sergeant major?
I am praying God for that.
Kyiv. March, 31 - May, 10, 1991
From Ukrainian translated by Marianne Kutelmakh
At the political camp(Perm-35) – summer, 1989
Three month later, as I`ve been discharged
(24-02-1991.Speech on the coference of Ukr.
Rep. Party) -41-
