Ivan and Phoebe by Oksana Lutsyshyna

Author:Oksana Lutsyshyna
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing

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On one memorable day that August, Vyacheslav Chornovil and other Supreme Council deputies came out to the crowd on the square in front of the building carrying the yellow-and-blue national flag. In December, Ukraine’s independence became a fact. Few, however, took note of the monthslong fires in which the KGB burned their archives, the columns of black smoke that rose into the gray sky. A fire, people mused to each other, no surprise there, who knows what those KGB people were doing, must have been smoking next to a stack of case files, and there you have it …

That winter, the snow melted long before Christmas. Ivan spent a very short time at home despite the fact that he loved the holidays and the warm domesticity while the indefatigable Margita worked her magic at the stove and the smell of the Christmas tree mixed with the aroma of sweet cookies. Being home was like stepping back into his childhood. He was free to spend his days in bed, reading books. Yet something urged him back to Lviv, to the frigid dorm where he lived after his freshman year in a shared flat, in a room without the slightest hint of the comforts that were his at home. Home, however, muddled his thoughts, muffled what he felt. Home wanted to engulf him entirely.

He found Lviv still snowless but dusted with white—the temperature had dropped the night before and everything was frozen. Streets turned into skating lanes. The cold wind got under one’s skin, and Ivan was chilled to the bone as soon as he stepped out of the railway station. It was so cold it hurt to put one foot in front of the other. When Ivan finally made his skidding, shuffling way to the dormitory, it seemed to him the epitome of luxury, like a warm hive of cave dwellers.

Rose had been waiting for him. Laughing, they got into the bed she’d warmed while he made his way from the station (whenever Ivan’s roommates were gone, she came to spend the night with him). They caught up on what had happened in their lives over the last few weeks, it had been a while since they last saw each other. “I’ve brought treats for you!” Ivan remembered; Margita, as always, packed all kinds of food for him. Because of all the political upheaval, it had been a tough year, and growing your own food was a big help. Ivan jumped out of bed and realized he had felt warm in the dorm purely because he had come in from the freezing air outside, the radiators were barely tepid. He carried the bags with homemade delicacies to bed, and the two of them dined, reclined like Romans, on pies and other bits Margita had wrapped.

Later, having laughed themselves silly and more or less shaken the crumbs off the comforter, full and a bit sleepy despite the early hour, they listened to the murmuring in the room next door. The

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