Love, War & Friendship

Of course I would come across a short story about Ukraine — 'The Muddle' by Sani Krasikov published in The New Yorker on August 8, 2022. It's labeled as 'fiction', but we all know now that it isn't fiction at all. The events are real, the pain is real, and the deaths and hurt are all too real. 

In an interview, the author had said that she wrote this story because she wanted "to examine the war from this perspective of family divisions, generational divisions, and, of course, as a division between lifelong friends."

Shura kept trying to reach her long-time friend Alyona and her husband Oleg, but they were initially unreachable over Skype or Facebook. This was the start of the Russian incursion into Ukraine. Shura lives in New York, and Alyona and Oleg live in the Shevchenkivskyi district in Kyiv, Ukraine. When Alyona finally replied, it was a terse "We are alive."

In this war, Shura realized that Alyona shared a different opinion of the war from her. Perhaps it had something to do with Oleg being the son of a colonel in the Soviet Army. Shura and Alyona had a mini argument about it, and that drove a little wedge in their friendship of 60 years. It appears that they don't share the same political views about what is happening in Ukraine. 

“They act like they’re the cops, roaming the streets after dark and stopping anyone they want, asking for papers,” Alyona had said of the Ukrainian militias. “They say they’re hunting separatists. You get a mass riot in America every time one of your police tries half the stuff these fascists pull.”

“Really?” Shura said. “Are they shooting people?”

“Well, they’re not exactly walking around unarmed. And they’re anti-Semites.”

She suspected that Alyona had thrown in the anti-Semite charge to press her buttons. “Are they pogroming?” she inquired.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“So it’s just words.”

“You think that isn’t enough? The police let the nationalists run rampant. They’re afraid to stop them.”

“In Kyiv?”

“Not here, but . . . even here they come out on Independence Square in their sunglasses and stupid bandannas, and their wrong-side-up swastikas painted on their cars.”

“Democracy is messy,” Shura said, though she wasn’t sure why she was defending Ukraine to a Ukrainian.

“Democracy, are you kidding? They’ve colonized the state. Our Nouvelle Droite.”

Alyona sometimes used French when she wanted to make a point, but “colonized the state” hardly sounded like her.

“How could the fascists have colonized the state,” Shura said, “when your President is a Jew? And the defense minister, too.”

“You think that proves anything? Your Trump was practically a Jew himself with his Kushners running the shop. Did that stop him saluting your neo-Nazis when he got up on a balcony?”

Shura had complicated opinions on this matter but kept them to herself.

“Zelensky’s afraid they’ll topple the government if he doesn’t kiss their asses. You should hear them talk. An army of lions being led by sheep. Big deal, Jewish President—we change Presidents every five years.”

“Better than every twenty-five,” Shura said.

It's clear that Alyona and Oleg are upset about having no trace of anything Soviet in Kyiv anymore, or in the family. At 70 years old, the couple belong to a starkly different era. However, Shura wanted to keep the friendship going, as did Alyona. When they Skyped, they talked about vegetable patches, planting and stories of their youth. They avoided talk of the war. 

Shura had been talking to Alyona's son, Pavel. Pavel wanted at least Alyona to get out of Ukraine, return to Winnipeg to live and get her diabetes treated. Pavel had hoped that Shura could persuade Alyona to leave Kyiv and fly over. It was not meant to be. Loyalties and family ties are divided and tested. 

This is certainly no fiction, not the background of the story nor the characters themselves. This Russia-Ukraine War of 2022 is still happening. Call it a conflict or an offensive, but it is definitely aggression on Russia's part. The history of the place indicated that Ukraine wants independence and to keep it, but Mother Russia is having none of it. Put a traditionalist and a dictator in charge, and Russia will be embarking on territorial acquisition and transgressions for as long and as far as they could. Beyond economic sanctions and accepting refugees, and providing medical aid and food supplies, what international repercussions could there be? It's in no one's bloody interest to start WWIII.