Yatsuo Smells like Slavutych

The light was shining through the contemporary painting I have been forced to use as blinds, to cover a single window in my South-facing, bright at four in the morning, wasn’t-designed-for-a-grown-woman room. In fact, it was an office. I was sleeping soundly on the hard pull-out couch that I have been using as a bed for the last four months. I would have continued sleeping if it wasn’t for my mother.

“They have attacked. War’s begun.”

It was a crushing ‘Everyone remembers where they were when 9/11 happened’ moment. Except when the terrorist attack happened, I was two. So I really didn’t have that concept before.

On the 2nd of February, I booked my trip to Ukraine to extract my wisdom teeth, scheduled to leave in two weeks' time and return by the end of the month. I have done it out of frustration after getting yet another ‘no news’ email from my teaching job in Japan. The borders have been see-sawing between open and shut for the duration of the pandemic, but I always just marginally missed the gates being open. I would submit all my documents and pack my bags, but 3 days before my scheduled departure a new strand would appear, and Japan would shut its doors again. Reminds me of playing Guitar Hero for the first time; You saw the colourful bubbles travelling towards you, but pressed the button either too late or too soon. So instead of living my best independent life in Japan, at the crescenting age of 23, I have been living in my parents’ office.

I have been to Ukraine almost every year growing up. My grandparents, uncle, and uncle’s ex-wives number one, two, and three, (and actually now number four, they have announced their divorce between me starting this story and finishing it) were all living in a quaint town called Slavutych. I have neglected my visits since finishing high school and entering university, so the stubborn Japanese borders, astronomical dental prices and cheap European flights seemed like a wonderful plan. Tickets were booked and luggage was packed with gifts. Grandparents were calling me daily to tell me whom else they’d told that their granddaughter is finally coming to visit.

“Please don’t go.”

“She has to, nothing is going to happen.”

“Putin is insane. There are literally troops waiting by the border just waiting for a thumbs up from him to start shooting.”

“When will you stop this, this, I don’t know… Russophobia. First the Olympics, now this.”

“They were doping, they deserved to be banned and they are all bastards, the lot of them!”

This was a typical Wednesday dinner discussion. My brother and I exchanged meaningful looks and continued eating whatever was in front of us. Dad isn’t a big fan of Russia. I think I see him cheers-ing himself whenever Russia is blamed for any sort of malpractice. It truly makes his evening. Mother on the other hand was a born and bred USSR communist. There was a real sense of brotherhood and sisterhood between all ex-soviet countries and her. Russia did not and will not do any wrong. My grandparents are the same. “What you need is Stalin”, was their favourite phrase whenever one of us misbehaved. Stalin would have set us straight. He would not tolerate betrayal.

“They have attacked,” she said, colour drained from her face. She looked like a priest who witnessed their god being slaughtered. “War’s begun.”

The Russian troops attacked Ukraine on the 24th of February. My flight back to the UK was meant to be on the 25th.

It was cancelled.

I listened to my father and didn’t go... I don’t know if I'll ever get the chance to see my grandparents again. A week later Japan opened its borders.

In June, two months after arriving in Yatsuo, Japan, my wisdom teeth got inflamed. My fever shot up to around 38.8 degrees overnight. I had to be taken to the hospital and given a course of antibiotics. My dentist told me to come in as soon as I feel better.

A month later I was walking from my teaching school to my dentist, which was on the other side of the river. It was the first time I walked through the village completely by myself. The thickly packed rice fields started thinning out, giving way for some allotments in between each paddy. The local community grew everything they could on those tiny pieces of land. An older gentleman was watering his cucumber patch, and just for a moment, exactly one second, it smelt like I was six again, visiting my grandparents in Slavutych.

Their allotment also had that smell. The smell of the dry soil being watered. Adding droplets to the lifeless ground, undoing all of the sun's hard work. It really brought me back. I thought that’s where the similarities would end because surely Ukraine and Japan have too many differences to connect in an intricate dance in my mind. The Hopak and Owara. The lively and the mystical. The day and the night.

But here I am, standing in front of a wooden house at the foot of the mountain. The tile on the eaves glistening in the sun. I don’t know what the Japanese tile masters use as a coating, but each tile reflects light as if it had just been dipped into the clearest of waters and then frozen for an extra shine. This style of roofing is called “Kaware Yane”, full of tradition and skill and mastery. The opposite of the soulless, depressing apartment in a Khrushevka building that my grandparents were given after Chernobyl exploded. Then why, why does it smell like my grandmother’s pelmeni are being cooked inside of the house?

So I keep walking.

I am about 10 minutes away from the dentist. I walk through all the residential streets that guide my way to the long-awaited teeth extraction. I am one of the unlucky ones that need all four of my wisdom teeth to be removed. My late godmother used to say that I am wise beyond my years when I was six, never thought my wisdom would bite my ass and my pockets so much.

“Turn right,” my satnav rudely interrupts my thoughts. I get grumpy at it but I do listen.

The road ahead is between the train tracks and the back of a supermarket. Looking at the time it must be getting quite busy in there. I stroll past the vent that gets the warm air out of the building to the outside. The fumes hit my nose. They smell like the back of the bakery my Granddad took me to after he looked away for a moment and I managed to scrape my knee. And how I screamed. How I wailed. My beautiful knees were scratched to ego death. Nothing could have fixed it. But something did.

A cottage cheese vatrushka.

I gagged every time I saw it.

“Anything but vatrushka,” I pleaded.

“Is pirozhok alright?” asked the lady manning the bakery.

“Only if it’s potato kind,” and just like that my knees hurt no longer.

I stopped. I have been strong for so long and tried not to be worried as they live far enough from the main battles, but now I felt the tears bunching up in my eyes like a long sleeve that is too big for a tight jacket. I really don’t know if I will get to see them again. What if I never get to sit on their balcony through a thunderstorm and count how many seconds there were between lightning and thunder like my grandfather taught me? If I never get a chance to try the vatrushka, or my grandmother’s pelmeni, or show off in front of her friends. Or visit my godmother’s grave. What if when I finally go back there are even more of the familiar graves?

If fate is real the next moment would make me a believer. As I was spiralling the sun disappeared. My shadow was gone, the world got dark. And then I heard it.

A rumbling across the town. The weather forecast warned the residents of the upcoming storm, but it’s been pushed back every time it got even close to raining. Lightning hit the sky.

And it poured. It was mournful yet comforting rain. It was full of apologies and even fuller of sympathy. It begged for forgiveness every time the gentle droplets stroked my face and wiped my tears. It felt like a promise. If I cannot go back to Ukraine, there will be a way to keep it alive.