A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

Author:Marina Lewycka
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical - General, Widowers, Children of immigrants, Romance, General, Family Life, Fiction, Fathers and daughters, Great Britain, Ukrainians, Older parents, Psychological, Historical, Fiction - General, Sisters, Popular English Fiction, Young women, Older men, Domestic fiction, Ukrainians - Great Britain, Romance - General
ISBN: 9780143036746
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2006-03-28T10:38:06.156000+00:00

I lie in bed in the small hours thinking about the man from the Congo. I imagine the knock on the door in the night, the heart jumping against the rib-cage, the predator and prey looking into each other’s eyes. Gotcha! I imagine the friends and neighbours gathered on the pavement, the Zadchuks waving hankies which they press to their eyes. I imagine the cup of coffee, still warm, left on the table in the haste of departure, which goes cold, then gathers a skin of mould and then finally dries into a brown crust.

Mike does not like Mrs Flog–‘em–and–send–‘em–home. She is not the woman he married.

“Deportation’s a cruel nasty way of dealing with people. It’s not the solution to anything.”

“I know. I know. But…”

Next morning I telephone the number at the top of the letter Valentina got from the Immigration Advisory Service. They give me a number at East Midlands Airport. Amazingly, I get through to the woman with the brown briefcase and blue Fiat who visited the house after their marriage. She is surprised to hear from me, but she remembers my father straightaway.

“I had a gut feeling something wasn’t right,” she says. “Your Dad seemed so, well…”

“I know.”

She sounds nice—much nicer than my father’s description of her.

“It wasn’t just the bedrooms—it was the fact that they didn’t seem to do anything together.”

“But what will happen now? How will it end?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

I learn that the deportation, if there is to be one, will be carried out not by the Immigration Service but by the local police, instructed by the Home Office. Every region has police officers who are located within local police stations but who specialise in immigration matters.

“It’s been interesting talking to you,” she says. “We visit people, and we file these reports, and then they disappear into thin air. We don’t often find out what happens.”

“Well, nothing’s happened yet.”

I phone the central police station in Peterborough, and ask to speak to the specialist immigration officer. They refer me on to Spalding. The officer whose name they have given me is not on duty. I phone again next day. I was expecting a man, but Chris Tideswell turns out to be a woman. She is matter-of-fact, when I tell her my father’s story.

“Yer poor Dad. Yer get some right villains.” Her voice sounds young and chirpy, with a broad fenland accent. She doesn’t sound old enough to have carried out many deportations.

“Listen,” I say, “when all this is over, I’m going to write a book about it, and you can be the heroic young officer who finally brings her to justice.”

She laughs. “I’ll do my best, but don’t hold yer breath.” There is nothing she can do until after the tribunal. Then there may be leave to appeal on compassionate grounds. Only after that will there be a warrant to deport, maybe.

“Phone me a week or so after the hearing.”

“You can have a starring role in the film. Played by Julia Roberts.”

“Yer sound as if yer a bit desperate.

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