2005 - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (9 page)

We eat in silence. You can hear the scraping of the knives on the plates as we tackle the stringy reheated meat. Even Stanislav shuts up for a few minutes. When he gets to the peas, my father starts to cough. The skins catch in his throat. I pour him water.

“Delicious,” says Mike, looking round for assent. We all murmur in agreement.

Valentina beams triumphantly.

“I make modern cooking, not peasant cooking.”

After dinner there is raspberry-ripple ice-cream from the freezer.

“My favourite,” says Stanislav with a little giggle.

He tells us his order of preference for ice-cream flavours.

My father has been rummaging in a drawer, and now comes up with a sheaf of papers. It is the latest chapter of his book, which I have helped him to translate. He wants to read it to Mike, and to Valentina and Stanislav.

“You will learn something about the history of our beloved motherland.”

But Stanislav suddenly remembers that he has some homework to catch up on, Anna has walked into the village to buy some milk, and Valentina is detained on the telephone in the next room, so it is just Mike and I who sit with him in the wide-windowed sitting-room.

In the history of Ukraina, the tractor has played a contradictory role. In former times, Ukraina was a country of peasant farmers. For such a country to develop the full potential of her agriculture, mechanisation is absolutely essential. But the method by which such mechanisation was introduced was truly terrible
.

His voice has become heavy, dragging along all the unwritten and unspoken words that are compressed into the words he is reading.

After the Revolution of 1917, Russia started to become an industrial country with a growing urban proletariat. This proletariat was to be recruited from the rural peasants. But if the peasants were to leave the countryside, how would the urban population be fed?

Stalin’s answer to this dilemma was to decree that the countryside must be industrialised too. So in place of peasant smallholdings, all land was collectivised into great farms, organised on the factory principle. The name for this was Kolkhoz, meaning collective husbandry. Nowhere was the principle of Kolkhoz applied more rigorously than in Ukraina. Where the peasant farmers used horses or oxen to plough, the kolkhoz was ploughed by the iron horse, as the first tractors were called. Crudely built, unreliable, with slatted iron wheels and no tyres, these early tractors could still do the work of twenty men
.

The coming of the tractor was also of symbolic importance, for it made possible the ploughing up of boundary lands which separated the individual peasant strips, creating one large kolkhoz. Thus it heralded the end of the whole class of kulaks, those peasants who owned their own land, and were seen by Stalin as the enemy of the revolution. The iron horse destroyed the traditional pattern of village life, but the tractor industry in Ukraina flourished. However, the kolkhozy were not as efficient, and this is largely due to resistance from the peasants, who either refused to take part in the kolkhoz, or continued to cultivate their own plots on the side
.

The retribution of Stalin was ruthless. Hunger was the tool he used. In> 1932 the entire harvest of Ukraina was seized and transported to Moscow and Leningrad to feed the proletariat in the factories—how else was the revolution to be sustained? Butter and grain from Ukraina were on sale in Paris and Berlin, and well-meaning people in the West marvelled at this miracle of Soviet productivity. But in Ukrainian villages the people starved
.

This is the great unrecorded tragedy of our history, which only now is coming to light
…

He stops, and gathers together his papers quietly. His glasses are perched low on his nose, the lenses so thick I can hardly see his eyes, but I fancy I catch a glint of tears. In the silence that follows, I can hear Valentina still chatting on the phone next door, and a faint beat of music corning from Stanislav’s room. In the distance, the clock on the village church strikes seven.

“Well done, Nikolai,” Mike applauds. “Stalin had a lot to answer for.”

“Well done, Pappa.” My applause is more grudging than Mike’s. All this Ukrainian nationalism bothers me—it seems outdated and irrelevant. Peasants in the fields, folk-songs at harvest, the motherland: what has all this got to do with me? I am a post-modern woman. I know about structuralism. I have a husband who cooks polenta. So why do I feel this unexpected emotional tug?

The back door clicks. Anna has come back. Valentina finishes her telephone conversation, and slips in to join in the applause, tapping her pearl-tipped fingertips delicately together. She smiles with satisfaction, as though she is personally responsible for this literary masterpiece, and kisses him on the nose. “
Holubchik!
” Little pigeon. My father glows.

Then it’s time for us to go home. We all shake hands and put on an unconvincing display of cheek-pecking. The visit is deemed a success.

“So what was she like?” my sister asks, over the phone.

I describe the mini-skirt, the hair, the make-up. My tone is neutral, disciplined.

“Oh my God! I knew it!” Vera cries.

(And how I am enjoying my bitch-fest! What has happened to me? I used to be a feminist. Now I seem to be turning into Mrs
Daily Mail
.)

I tell her about the washing-up gloves, the pink-pearl-tipped fingers.

“Yes, Yes. I see everything.” Her voice wobbles with rage.

Our mother’s hands were brown and rough from gardening and cooking. “I can see what kind of woman she is. He has married a tart!” (I didn’t say it!)

“But Vera, you can’t judge someone by how they dress.” (Ha! Look how rational and grown up I am!) “Anyway, that style of dress doesn’t mean the same in Ukraine—it signifies a rejection of the peasant past, that’s all.”

“Nadia, how can you be so naive?”

“Not at all, Vera. I had a Ukrainian sociology professor visiting last year and she looked exactly like that. And she was upset that most of my friends wore no make-up and went around in jeans or tracksuit bottoms, when she yearned for designer clothes. She said it was a betrayal of womanliness.”

“Well, yes.”

My sister would rather be dead than be seen in jeans (apart from designer jeans of course) or tracksuit bottoms. Then again, she would rather be dead than be seen in high-heeled peep-toe mules and a denim mini-skirt.

I tell her about the pre-cooked chilled meal. We are on common ground here. “The sad thing is, he probably doesn’t notice the difference,” she murmurs. “Poor Mother.”

The first crisis of their marriage comes shortly after our visit. Valentina is demanding a new car—not just any old car, either. Must be good car. Must be Mercedes or Jaguar at least. BMW is OK. No Ford please. The car will be used to drive Stanislav to his posh school, where other children are driven in Saabs and Range Rovers. My father has seen a second-hand Ford Fiesta in good condition, which he can afford. Valentina will not tolerate a Ford Fiesta. She will not even tolerate a Ford Escort. There is a blazing row.

“Tell me what you think, Nadezhda.” He phones me in an agitated state.

“I think the Ford Fiesta sounds just right.” (I drive a Ford Escort.)

“But she will not tolerate it.”

“Well, do what you like.” He will anyway.

My father has a bit of money in the bank. It is his Pensioners Bond, which matures in three years’ time, but what the hell, the lady wants a new car and he wants to be generous. They settle on an old Rover, large enough to satisfy Valentina’s aspirations, old enough for my father to afford. He cashes in his Pensioners Bond and gives most of it to Valentina for the car. He gives the £200 that is left to my daughter Anna, who has just passed her ‘A’ levels with flying colours, to help her on her way to university. I feel bad about this, but not too bad. I tell myself that if he didn’t give it to Anna for university, he would only give it to Valentina for a Mercedes.

“It is to make up the difference from the codicil,” he says, “this money will not be for Vera’s daughters, only for Anna.”

I am uneasy, because I know Big Sister will hit the roof. But I want revenge for the codicil.

“That’s great, Pappa. She’ll need it when she goes to university.”

Now he is spent up—he has no money left.

Anna is thrilled when I tell her about her grandfather’s gift.

“Oh! He’s so cute. I wonder if he gave some to Alice and Lexy when they went to uni?”

“I expect so.”

Valentina is delighted with the Rover. It is sleek, shiny, metallic green in colour, with a 3-litre engine, leather seats that smell of expensive cigars, a walnut dashboard and 186,000 miles on the clock. They ride around town and park up beside the Saabs and the Range Rovers outside Stanislav’s school. Valentina holds an international driver’s licence issued in Ternopil, which is valid for a year. She has never taken a driving test, says my father, but she paid for the licence in pork cutlets from her mother’s smallholding. They go to visit the Zadchuks and her friend Charlotte, and the uncle in Selby. Then the car breaks down. The dutch is shot. My father telephones.

“Nadezhda, please will you lend me a hundred pounds for repairs. Until I get my pension.”

“Pappa,” I say, “you should have bought the Ford Fiesta.”

I send him a cheque.

Then he phones my sister. She phones me.

“What’s going on with this car?”

“I don’t know.”

“He wanted to borrow a hundred pounds to mend the brakes. I said to him, can’t Valentina pay for it out of her earnings? She’s earning enough.”

“So what did he say?”

“He won’t hear of it. He’s afraid to ask her. He says she needs to send money back to Ukraine for her sick mother. Can you imagine.” Her voice is crisp with irritation. “Each time I criticise her he just springs to her defence.”

“Maybe he still loves her.” (I am still a romantic.)

“Yes, I suppose he does. I suppose he does.” She sighs a worldly sigh. “Men are so stupid.”

“Mrs Zadchuk told her it was the husband’s duty to pay for the wife’s car.”

“Duty? How lovely! How quaint! He told you that?”

“He asked me what I thought. Apparently being a feminist makes me an authority on the rights of wives.” I’m not sure what my sister thinks of feminism.

“Our mother never liked the Zadchuks, did she?” Vera muses.

“I think it’s his pride. He can’t ask a woman for money. He thinks the man should be the provider.”

“He’s just asked you and me, Nadezhda.”

“But we’re not proper women, are we?”

Mike rings him up. They have a long conversation about the merits and drawbacks of hydraulic braking systems. They are on the phone for fifty minutes. Mike is silent most of the time, but occasionally he says, “Mmm. Mmm.”

A month later there is another crisis. Valentina’s sister is arriving from Ukraine. She is coming to see for herself the good life in the West that Valentina has described in her letters—the elegant modern house, the fabulous car, the wealthy widower husband. She must be met at Heathrow by car. My father says the Rover will not make it to London and back. Oil is leaking from the engine and fluid from the brakes. The engine smokes. One of the seats has collapsed. Rust has bubbled up through the dealer’s patch and polish. Stanislav sums up the problem.

“Auto ne prestijeskiy.” He says it with that little sweet smile that is half-way to a sneer.

Valentina turns on my father.

“You no good man. You plenty-money meanie. Promise money. Money sit in bank Promise car. Crap car.”

“You demand prestigious car. Prestijeskiy auto. Looks prestigious; doesn’t go. Ha ha.”

“Crap car. Crap husband. Thphoo!” she spits.

“Where you learning this new ‘crap’ word?” demands my father. He isn’t used to being bossed about. He’s used to getting his own way, to being wheedled and coaxed.

“You engineer. Why you no mending car? Crap engineer.”

My father has dismantled and reassembled engines in the garage for as long as I can remember. But he can’t get down under the car any more: his arthritis won’t let him.

“Tell your sister she is coming by train,” my father answers back. “Train. Plane. All modern transport is better. Crap car. Of course is crap car. You wanted. Now you have.”

And there is another problem. Crap cooker. The cooker in the kitchen, which has been there since my mother’s time, is getting old. Only two of the three rings will work, and the oven timer is gone, though the oven itself still works. On this cooker, heavenly delights of culinary art have been prepared for more than thirty years, but this will not impress Valentina’s sister. The cooker is electric, and everyone but a fool knows that electricity is not as prestigious as gas. Did not Lenin himself admit that communism was socialism plus electricity?

My father agrees to buy a new cooker. He likes spending money, but he has no money left. The cooker will have to be bought on hire purchase. He has seen a special offer at the Co-op. Valentina puts Nikolai into crap car and drives him into town to buy prestigious cooker. Must be gas. Must be brown. Alas, the brown cooker is not included in the special offer. It costs twice as much.

“Look, Valenka, is exactly same cooker. Same knobs. Same gas. Same everything.”

“In former Soviet Union all cookers are white. Crap cookers.”

“But everything in kitchen is white—washing machine white, fridge white, freezer white, cupboards white—tell me what point is to having a brown cooker?”

“You plenty-money meanie. You want give me crap cooker.”

“My wife is cooking on her thirty years. Better than you cooking.”

“You wife peasant Baba. Peasant Baba, peasant cooking. For civilised person, cooker must be gas, must be brown.” She says this slowly and with emphasis, as if repeating a basic lesson to a nincompoop.

My father signs the hire purchase agreement for a civilised person’s cooker. He has never borrowed money before in his life, and the illicit thrill makes him giddy with excitement. When Mother was alive, money was saved in a toffee tin hidden under a loose floorboard beneath the lino, and only when enough money was saved was anything purchased. Always in cash. Always at the Co-op. The Co-op stamps were stuck in a book, and this was kept under the floorboard too. In later years, when Mother discovered you could get interest if you put money in the building society, the building society deposits still started off as cash under the floorboard.