The Ukrainian Woman

She was not softly spoken. I was reading a book about Tea, engrossed even, I would say, but the sheer loudness of her voice startled me. I glanced up, a few times, every time she spoke: in Ukrainian, I surmised, after debating within whether it was Croatian, which has a tang of Italian pronunciation, or Bulgarian, that I listen to for any French influence. Ukrainian, in fact, is closest to Slovak, and Polish. But I knew she was Ukrainian by the way she applied her lipstick at the mirror. There is a femininity in The Ukraine that lasts, endures, against all odds.

The more ardent militant may read in this a certain shallowness. It depends on the circumstances. Sometimes it is important to stand up for your rights with lipstick and a mirror. Still shallow? Try being hungry, and being shot at whenever you go out to fetch water. There is dignity in pausing first, and arranging hair. Mirrors in Ukraine are always more plentiful during the winter months, as ice reflects so well on sunlit days, and Ukrainians, in an Italian sort of way, like to be out, to dress well, and to sip an espresso or cappucino in the many cafés on all the streets and boulevards of Ukraine..

So when I glanced at the Ukrainian woman applying lipstick in the mirror, it was with a certain, you know, empathy. She spoke loudly, in that soft Slavic language, yet lovingly, for she spoke also sweetly, to someone she loved, and to see a woman in love is beautiful.

She turned her head towards her companion when she spoke, because he was hard of hearing; and her lover watched her lips move. As loud as she spoke, she still seemed to sound soft, and endearing, and indeed she was.

And I thought again how beautiful it was to witness a woman who when she replied to me turned towards him, so that he may see her lips move and perhaps hear her voice, loud, clear, in a tone that kept its softness, for him. She replied to me when I asked if they would like some tea, and when she politely declined I laughed and said I would pour one anyway. I wanted them to try the lapsang souchung tea I had with me, which they did, in the end, then profusely apologised for having only biscuits to go with it, and asked me to try Carpathian tea if I ever went to Ukrwaine. It took me until March 2022 before I went back to Ukraine, and buy a bag of Carpathian tea, a lovely mix of herbs, twigs and petals.

While webriefly chatted, her partner, lover, companion and friend, her dependent, watched carefully, did not intrude, and was loved. He watched her with his one good eye, the other patched in a gritty bandage, as muddy as the sling which held his right arm. It was early Spring, a couple of years before the full invasion by the Russian horde in February 2022. We were in Riga, and she explained she had decided to take her man further away from the front, as far as their finances would permit, to give him time to breathe as well as recover.

I never met them again. I did not even take their names, or address. Why not? Perhaps it is my hermit leanings, or just that it did not cross my mind to, But I wonder what happened to them, after 2033. Did he enlist again, when he had recovered? She had explained that he had the first time, hadn’t needed to, but did anyway, for he was one of the rare ones on this planet made of the right stuff.

And so, for a couple of evenings I most part I just glanced at them now and then, across a hostel common room. She sat quietly by him, her fingers lightly tracing the edge of his hand swollen and bruised hand— smiling, offering comfort in her slightly loud voice. But her sadness wasn’t loud or dramatic; it was just a quiet ache and she found solace in the smallest glimpses of the man he was beneath the bandages, for when I offered her tea, or coffee, she would tell me of his exploits in a few words — how he dragged his friends to safety, or went back to fetch the Ukrainian flag. Nobody could erase the destruction of war, or heal the wounds, but in this room I, yet again, marvelled at the love of a woman.

two lovers in this world — mirrored