Chapter 10: Everything is Illuminated

With my tutor's verbal directions, we found (one of? the only remaining?) Lviv's Jewish cemetery. Take the Simiorka to Yanivs'ke Cemetery, and ask there, my tutor instructed. Which we did, only not at first.

At first, assuming that the Jewish Cemetery would be somewhat off to the side, we walked past the big entry gate, past the Western border, past a long, tall fence (peeking through the crevices to see if there were any gravestones behind it). To our left, Axel pointed out a train in the distance. To our right, a small, dirt road cut between large cinder-block apartment houses. We took the dirt road, up a short hill, past dogs running around small yards filled with building materials, and found the cemetery wall. More dogs came to greet us.

We had a hunch that the Jewish graves would be at the farthest side of the cemetery: along the northern border, but whether it would be east or west, neither of us could guess. There was a small niche in the wall, a tiny footpath of tamped down snow. We edged in, squeezing past grave fences, trying to see the edge of the cemetery. We walked and walked along these tiny paths. Eventually we came to a much wider foot path and discovered a grid of these wider paths. But just rows and rows of crosses adorning graves stones and sites. At one broad crossing, Mychal and I decided to split up: he'd go North-West, Axel and I would go North-East.

Snow and graves were all we could see in any direction; slightly disoriented, as if we were in a forest, I tried to remember flowers and names so that I could find my way back to our parting spot. Neither of us had a watch, or a phone.

I asked a man, meticulously wiping the snow off a large marble mausoleum with a cloth, whether he knew if there was a Jewish cemetery here. Yes, yes, he said, and told me to go all the way to the top edge, and then to the right. Thanking him, I walked off with Axel on my back. The wide, packed down path became, briefly, a road with clear spots, then more packed snow paths, then tiny foot path through graves, and then untrampled snow. We walked, snow gathering in my shoes, slinking up to my knees. The sun emerged, I took off my hat, my gloves, unzipped my coat. Dogs barked in the distance, graves surrounded us. I began to despair that I wouldn't find the Jewish graves, nor Mychal, for that matter.

I charted north-west through the snowy clear spaces, saw a star--no it's just a Soviet Army star, no! It's actually a Star of David. And lo and behold: here I was amidst hundreds of Jewish grave stones. By this point, I had begun to call Mychal's name; all I heard in return were the barking dogs getting nearer. Axel, on my back, asked whether these were graves too. And these? Yes, and I read the names, read the dates. We wandered up and down a few rows, crunching through the clean snow. A few more rows, and I still couldn't see the end of the grave sites.

Still calling Mychal's name, more frequently now, Axel chiming in, we turned back and retraced our steps. Dog footprints accompanied our previous tracks, bloody marks spelled out a skirmish. I carefully placed my feet next to my earlier tracks, marking a round-trip just in case Mychal stumbled across them (was I a girl scout?!). We arrived back at the paved road, past the now clean marble mausoleum, and there was Mychal, heading in our direction.

sweet notes

My tutor had been asking me about myself and my life: standard topics for language learning. One question that kept coming us was about traditions, which, heathens that we are, we don't really have. The only tradition I can think of is bringing doughnuts to the last day of class each semester.

So for Friday's last lesson, I brought a selection of cookies from Lviv's "Veronika's," a pastry shop and restaurant of international fame. We felt a little shabby chic, with our jeans and chocolate-smeared toddler, among the Victorian lace tablecloths, stained-glass lamps, fashionably put-together ladies, and other overwrought details. The serving staff wear back-laced brocade bodices atop demure ankle-length skirts; their poker-face expressions reveal nothing as they serve the varied clients the most expensive pastries in all of Lviv.

I wasn't sure exactly what to bring to my tutor's; she kept offering me cakes and cookies at every lesson, while I brought bags of mandarins in self-defense. Neither of us wanted that much to do with the other person's offering, and after about a week of me taking smaller and smaller bites of cookies and her politely declining the mandarins because she was full, we both, in silent accord, quit offering food.

Still, a tradition is a tradition. So all week, I searched through the stores trying to find an appropriate last-lesson offering. A box of truffles? Cheesecake? A box of Baci chocolates? I finally settled on a selection of cookies from Veronika's--simply because they were beautiful (and consoling myself that, if we'd had an oven here, I could have baked her something myself). Cookies in hand, Mychal and Axel met me at my tutor's after my last lesson, as arranged. Sasha, her almost two -year old grandson woke up, singing to himself in the next room. We all sat on the floor, building block towers for the kids to knock down while my tutor made coffee and tea.

We all trooped into the kitchen where she had arranged the cookies on a platter; Sasha stayed in the room with his toys. I asked about Sasha, and she said he would eat dinner later. Crowded around the tiny table, Mychal on a stool, Axel on my knees, we made small talk as best we could between the three of us, while the boys traded stuffed animals and cars back and forth. No one touched a cookie: Mychal waiting for me, me waiting for my tutor, but no one made the first move. I felt awkward offering one to Axel, who could have been the perfect ice breaker, because I knew Sasha wouldn't get one. We were all frozen, while the four kinds of cookies waited patiently.

Afterwards, at home, Mychal and I couldn't work out the social rule: should we, as guests, have taken the first bite, or should she, as the recipient of our gift have taken the first cookie? As it was, none of us, not even Axel who looked but did not even ask, took the first cookie. But the heavy feeling in my heart tells me: we, as guests, should have taken the first cookie.

pre-modern to post

As I write this, such thick snowy flakes tumble down from the sky that the air itself is white. It has been snowing for days, at times the snowdrops are so tiny and fragile that they become rain once they hit the ground. Sheets of wind-driven snow and puffy blankets of fluffy flakes have fallen since, Monday night.

The snow adds an interesting element to the daily markets, though I'm sure the vendors have many different, choice words to describe the impact of snow on their jobs. Snow covers the arranged fruits and vegetables, filling in the crevices of the tangerine pyramids, doing unspeakable things to the fragile pearl onions. My naive Californian self wondered whether they would all be there, as I reluctantly walked through wind and snow to my tutor's. But the locals would have laughed at me, like northerners laugh at southerners who try to drive in an inch of snow: of course they show up, rain or snow.

The snow has brought us indoors with Axel, who comments, each time we pass the park: I don't want to go to the park! It's too snowy, he concludes. And we agree, that none of us really wants to stand in the empty park; no one else seems to bring their toddlers in the falling snow, not just the thin-skinned Californians. So we head to the history museum (four floors, from cave peoples, through Turkish wars, to the 18th century), quickly navigating Axel's tantrum that it's not the train museum. All of the grandmotherly docents try to engage Axel who invariably presses his face into my neck or knees, taking quick peeks around me, but refusing to play cou-cou with them. In the 15th century room, amid cast-iron tower bells standing next to the radiator (where someone's handkerchief-wrapped lunch warmed), a toddler-height canon, and a traveler's tea-service in a tiny wooden box, one docent asked about the English words for "cou-cou." But even her "peek-a-boo" didn't get a smile out of Axel. By the time we got to the 16th century and ancient books, Axel was done; no interest in the fascinating 15th century Evangelical books in Old Church Slavonic, the language primers, or the professor's lecture notes, in a precisely beautiful script.

A bit later at a Turkish-themed restaurant (across from the university and filled, night and day with students leaning around beers and hookahs), Mychal and I cracked up when we dis-assembled Axel's hamburger to get at the meat patty for him. Nestled inside the top bun, which had been carved out like a San Francisco sourdough soup bowl, was a tangle of pre-catsupped fries. (Below, the burger lay on a bed of corn-and-cabbage cole slaw.) Axel didn't see the humor, but at least he ate the fries (which he ate for the first time here, and which have become our default restaurant meal for him) and denuded burger.

na bazarakh

I've been picking up munitions at the markets every day--half a kilo of mandarins, bundles of ramps, fresh eggs, rye bread and a bag of assorted cookies is my usual haul. Some days I add cured fish, sausage, pears or bananas. I'm always tempted by the khrin, jams and honey, but more often than not there's no room in my bag by the time I get to those stalls. Buying just what we need on a daily basis has been a quasi-daydream of mine, to live like the fabled Europeans, buying only as much as we need immediately, consuming only the freshest available.

The reality in a cold climate, where the streets alternate between mud and slush as the snow falls and melts, is not quite so dreamy, but also, not so bad either. I don't actually mind the limitations of a small bag and how much I can carry; most markets are about a 10-15 minute walk from our apartment, the selection is reasonably broad, and the prices are fairly low. Ramps, which are a delicacy where we live, are abundant here. Citrus, which is abundant at home, is nowhere near as affordable as here. So even though it's March and most market stalls sell carrots, beets, potatoes and cabbage, we're also finding hints of spring and summer at the market.

We haven't bought much meat here; at the Railway Station Market, an entire building is devoted to meat products. Open-air stalls in a cavernous concrete arcade display every imaginable part of pigs and cows, rabbits and chickens, dried, frozen, salted and live fish. We bought a hock of veal at one market, and Mychal transformed it with cranberry beans, tiny onions and a frying pan on an electric burner. But for the most part, even thought it is winter and not, thankfully, 85 degrees out, I'm a little cautious about buying meat from open air stalls. Perhaps I shouldn't be; the rabbits are pretty tempting.

Yesterday I needed to get us some more toilet paper. At a stall across from one of several egg vendors, I waited in a short line to get some. The toiletries vendor tossed back a shot with a customer, handed another customer some violet plastic bags (three for a hyrvnia) and turned to me. "Do you want nice apple-green rolls or white?" "White," I said. "That's right, white is nicer" he said, and I handed him ten hryvnia.

Privatization

Today's lesson went really well--I managed to keep feeding my tutor questions about her life and we didn't turn to the book until the last ten minutes.

I have been very curious about privatization. I've read about the process, but would like to know what it meant for individuals. How did it work, exactly? So I asked my tutor to explain how they purchased their apartment.

Turns out, they didn't.

What came next was a long story that began during World War II. Her mother served as a military nurse, traveling with an entire hospital by train and gathering the wounded soldiers for operations. Towards the end of the war, they found themselves in Lviv. Their unit was supposed to travel on towards Austria, but in 1945 she un-enlisted and found work at the Lviv State Hospital. At this time, my tutor continued, all the Poles were leaving Lviv. Willingly? I asked. Yes, she answered, and went on to describe one family who arrived in a recently vacated 3-room, or was it 4?, apartment where they discovered a cup of hot coffee on the table. Her mother needed to find lodging, her main criteria being that it be near to the hospital. She found a place in a small apartment owned by an older Polish woman, who rented a room to her. And there she stayed: my tutor was born in that apartment (literally: her father not present at the birth, it happened too quickly, she was born in the back room), the Polish babusya became her only grandmother (she never knew her biological grandparents), she grew up with Polish fairy tales and songs, and at age seven, she only spoke Polish. Even her mother couldn't understand her. And when this Polish grandmother died, she left the apartment to my tutor's mother.

My tutor still lives there, with her daughter, also raised in the apartment, and her grandson, who will grow up there too.

When she finished her story, I asked how life was for Polish residents after the war. And she answered, you know, after a while, I began to realize how many stayed. And she pointed out her kitchen window into the central courtyard, ticking off the windows belonging to Polish people.

one hundred and forty-seven

Since Mychal arrived, I've more or less put the camera away. This is true of this trip, and of my life in general. I'm a singularly bad photographer; I'm not sure if it's a question of patience or skill, but I suspect I simply lack the native talent for photographs. Luckily, Mychal more than compensates; not only is he good at it, he also truly enjoys it. (and lucky me: swap out photography for any number of words: cooking, decorating, designing, shopping....)

Sitting across from me, camera and beer at hand, Mychal's transferring them to his computer: all 147 of them. And today wasn't such a big day.

Today we set off for the cemetery on the dvoika (#2) tramway. This route got us in the general vicinity of the cemetery, which was good enough for me. I'd calculated on getting off a stop before the street we needed, but we ended up getting off a stop after. The mistake was fortuitous, as it took us a big, snowy park; we walked up a snow-packed path, past the circle of tracks for the tramway turnaround, and around a corner into a fenced cemetery. Not the one we'd been aiming for, but one which was perched on a hill giving us a view of most of the city: the downtown, several of the churches we've been into or walked past, even the electrical tower near our building. The walled cemetery also looked over a stadium, bleachers on the southern half; just under the cemetery, a flat piece of ground littered with bottles formed impromptu seating on the northern side. A lone set of footprints carved out a path in the snow covered track, a solitary figure stretched over a hurdle.

We walked downhill through the snowy Pasichka Park, reaching a small street bordered on one side with (what appeared to be) single family homes and on the other another stadium and track. Of all the luck: two tracks within minutes of each other! There was an earth mover stationed at one end of this track; nearby, a small patch of concrete behind the goal had been cleared out, and a group of men, some shirtless, played soccer. Axel watched the game over my shoulder, I tried not to resent the snow on the track. There were no bleachers at this stadium, but the sides were terraced. We walked along the top ridge, sloping down the hill towards a small green gate just past the stadium. From here, we could see the rear gate to the Lichakivs'ke Cemetery--a dilapidated concrete arch housed locked iron gates, a small door to the left. More snowy paths, concrete and marble grave markers, plastic wreaths and colored glass lanterns. Simultaneously, the cemetery gave off the appearance of neglect and care: crumbling grave stones, fallen trees, snow-laden grasses and plastic flowers were accompanied by small wooden benches, bouquets of fresh flowers, and thousands upon thousands of footprints through the snow.

Axel wanted to know about the little houses, and I described the people lying within, waiting patiently for their relatives' visits. They are waiting here? he asked, pointing to another grave. And this is a grave too? He noticed the candles and lanterns, the etched faces and names, and, hidden to me, a small dog. I began to read the names, searching for something resembling my grandfather's; though I knew this was a Christian cemetery, I couldn't help but look. Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and German names lay next to one another; some stones had Polish on one side and, in cyrillic, Ukrainian or Russian on the other. We arrived at the entry-way to the cemetery, a grand affair with mausoleums of famous people. But we were tired and hungry, ready to sit on the tramway headed for home.

curving along bumpy streets

Nabokov, who emigrated to America as an adult, wrote of his English skills: "I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child." His lecture notes were, more properly, illuminated essays, with emotive marks and emphases penciled in. He never gave spoken interviews; without his crib-sheet, he felt, he spoke like a child.

Apart from the genius-author bit, I would feel like that too, except that all the children I have known are truly genius when it comes to language learning. Watching Axel learn language has been one of the most fascinating experiences of my life. A child's brain is so elastic, so flexible: after the first few words, they begin to assimilate words and syntax, first on a weekly, then daily, and eventually, hourly rate. Since we arrived in Lviv, Axel has learned almost as many new words as I, only his are in English, terms for experiences and objects we don't come across in California.

An adult learning language is handicapped by what she already knows, and the brain's general unwillingness to forget. A little bit forward, a lot bit back, as slowly words begin to stick and syntax to take shape. The foreign city began to take shape in similar fashion: my first ventures out with Axel, I used the varicolored shop signs as landmarks, bright valentine's pink, orange, red and turquoise marked small grocers, bars, cell phone and shoe stores. A few days later, the infrastructure of the streets began to solidify in my mind, and I realized that Lviv isn't that large after all. We can walk most places in 15-30 minutes.

Which was a useful bit of information when I realized that the #8 tramway (visim'ka) which we'd planned on taking to the cemetery seemed to be out of operation. After a couple of "troikas" passed us by, we decided to walk the tramway route towards the cemetery. We passed a few landmarks that Axel recognized (the building under construction where a black stray cat lives, the market where he searched for a firetruck, passed on an ambulance, and bought a cement mixer instead) and a grandmother who inched along with two canes and platform shoes. Axel fell asleep, and we found ourselves slightly past downtown, just past an old canal structure, where we stood to wait for the #7 to take us the rest of the way there. Three passed in the opposite direction. People craned their necks in passing busses to glimpse Axel's odd carrying contraption (the Ergo). The grandma with her canes passed by. Axel still slept.

At this point, Mychal and I gave up on our cemetery trip and decided to wander around old town. We walked through an underground passage, emerging above ground by ancient-seeming walls towering over an empty, moss-lined canal. Inside the walls we found an old church, walked past a large cistern protected by iron fretwork. We stepped into St. Andrew's Church, a flashy, gold-encrusted, high-ceilinged Renaissance affair where they sang of Mary's suffering and I tried not to weep. Axel still slept. Beggars holding small plastic cups flanked the doors, a man on the street explained the building was built in the 17th century, on a plot where a much older, wooden church had stood.

We walked further, along the cobblestone streets (which Axel has named "bumpy streets;" "did they make this street bumpy?" he asks), heading towards the craft market. Axel's subconscious noticed the tarp-covered booths, and he woke demanding a side trip to the market.

culture shock

Today, food situations got the best of all of us.

We all woke underslept: Axel has been sleeping poorly, either wakeful for hours in the middle of the night, or resisting sleep altogether until 11pm, midnight. But, faithful to the sun, he wakes up every morning at 6:30 (no daylight savings here), regardless of how much he slept.

So we were all variously cranky yesterday morning, as we left the house and headed to the Museum of Ethnography and Crafts. Housed in what used to be an old bank, the entry is in a cavernous hall, the ceiling forty feet above us, a ring of stained glass windows encircling the staircase. The exhibits were housed in a warren of small rooms, interconnected by multiple doors and corridors, which kept opening and closing to reveal various, apron-clad (aprons over their winter coats, as it was not heated) docents. A docent sat in the doorway of each room, turning on the light as we entered, querying whether we were not freezing (marveling at my short sleeves that I've been wearing out of self-defense under my puffy jacket), flirting with a very shy Axel. As word got out that we were American, they kept materializing out of these secret passage-ways to check us out.

But this post is about food curios, not museum.

After the museum, we headed to a cafe suggested by our landlords. It was set slightly off the street, we walked through a tunnel alley-way, under water dripping from balconies, and into a tiny, dark cafe. The menu was several pages long, towards the back I found canapés, coffee, hot chocolate for Axel.

Axel has had hot chocolate three times in his life. The first time, we were wandering around the Ferry Building in San Francisco, looking for a gift for Mychal. Some chocolatier handed Axel a tiny cup of freshly made hot chocolate. He didn't share with me. The second time was a couple of days ago, after our failed attempt to visit the train museum. Today was the third, and it was by far the strangest. Instead of hot chocolate (for example, Nesquick, which he was given at the other Lviv cafe), a coffee cup of hot chocolate sauce was put in front of Axel. When I protested that he couldn't eat (an entire cup!) of chocolate sauce and queried whether they could give us some milk to go with it, I was told: we don't sell milk. Which I'd heard before, incidentally, at a different restaurant when I tried to get Axel a cup of milk. Luckily for us, the cook relented and warmed up a glass of milk for Axel and we watered down his chocolate sauce.

Later that day, as I sat in my tutor's kitchen, Axel asleep at home with Mychal and her grandson asleep in the next room, she put a plate of honey in front of me. And a plate of cookies. And a huge mug of sweet coffee. Eat, eat your honey, she encouraged me. Dutifully, I took a teaspoon of honey and sucked it with my already sweet coffee. It was superb. Eat more! she insisted. Ha.

In the evening, as agreed upon, we ate at the Seven Pigs restaurant. Other than the music--a violin, accordion and harpsichord, the place just kept missing all the marks. I noticed that the prices were given in grams; thus, the price for my pork chop was per 100 grams. I should have put together that drinks were sold in the same fashion--juice, sodas, beer, vodka, cognac, wine: all offered by price per 100 grams. But I didn't notice. So I was very surprised when the bill came and our two glasses of wine cost the equivalent of 10 servings (500 grams per glass, I was told by the manager, who did use the term "gram," not liter, to explain the pricing system for liquids). It's how it's done throughout Europe, he assured me with ever-so-slight condescension.

for the health of your family

Villagers, in thickly padded coats, line the streets edging the markets. They stand in the slush, hawking their wares spread at their feet. Sometimes that may be as little as six or seven beets, a tiny pyramid of potatoes and some jars of home-made sauerkraut. Some bring their "home" eggs from their personal flocks, others bottles of home-made sour cream, farm cheese, and fresh milk.

Yesterday I succumbed to the temptation of "fresh milk for your family," and picked up a small bottle (a re-used "Fanta" bottle) of fresh milk for two hryvnia. Being raised on pasteurized, sanitized, governmentally officialized milk products, we offered the milk to Axel with slight trepidation--but not enough to make us take first sips beforehand. Axel assured me he liked it, drank it up and then asked for a second glass--of store-bought milk. This morning I had some with my meusli; other than a hint of Fanta orange, the milk is delicious. Not as thick as I had expected, and not altogether different from the store-bought milk.

Pyramids of eggs are offered by several stands at the market, white and brown, large and small. The first time I bought eggs, I had to ask how to get them home (imagining that residents had their own, special egg-carrying cases). Laughingly, the egg-selling grandma tore the 12x12 cardboard egg case in thirds, fashioning a 6-egg case from two pieces (top and bottom, no hinge). I've been carrying these two pieces of cardboard with me when I shop for eggs (which I haven't seen any one else here do...). Some vendors offer me a small, plastic bag to put them into, tying it tightly so that they're almost held together. Yesterday, the vendor tore off a length of cassette tape, wrapped it around my egg case several times, like a pastry box from Crixa's.

painfully hip

The winter I spent in New York city, I marveled at the obstinacy of young women, who wore, regardless of temperature, precipitation or widespread grime, incredibly high heels and terribly white coats. Of course, black was the predominant color on the streets all winter, but the truly fashionable identified themselves by the height of their heels and the luminance of their dress.

Here, too, women stake their claim to fashion with stilettos, knee-high boots atop four-inch heels, and luminous, fur-trimmed coats. Of course, there is a lot of black here, too, and every variety of quilted down-wear. But what surprises me, as I tromp about in some old, lug-soled boots that, luckily, no one bought at our garage sale last summer, is women's footwear. Every other day, as snow piles up and melts away, the streets fill with marshes of dirty slush. The streets are cobbled, so hidden beneath these marshes is an uneven, ankle-breaking surface. But I seem to be the only one having trouble.

The truly fashionable squeeze into extremely tight jeans or breathtakingly short skirts; a look that blends something of Paris Hilton and Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" (and not to be mistaken with the look on US campuses: Brittney Spears and Lil' Kim). More women wear heels here than not, regardless of age. Skirts and shorts go with boots, just as easily as jeans.

Yet, while in the US, where the streets are a hodge-podge of thrown together outfits, an entire continent of varicolored tee shirts and monocolored jeans and more often than not the question that springs to mind is: Did you look in a mirror before you left the house?, here, everyone on the street is put together. No accidents and no indifference: what you see are outfits, intentional arrangements, considered actions.

walking to the rails

Because today is a holiday, the language school is closed today. But that did not deter my tutor and I, and we agreed to meet at her apartment for my lesson. She lives near the train station, she explained; get off the tramway at the Stepan Bandery statue, turn around, and my street will be right in front of you. Third floor, apartment #20.

I was happy to not schlep to the school; the only way to get to the school is on one of the hundreds of Lvivian marshrutki, whose organizational scheme remains somewhat mysterious to me. The trip to the school takes 45 minutes, assuming a correct marshrutka comes by in a timely fashion. The trip to my tutor's house takes about 10 minutes on the tramway (which I prefer just because), or maybe 20-30 walking.

We found the walking route to her apartment on accident. We set out this morning, in sprinkling snow, towards the train museum. I'd already scoped out our route: take the #2 trolley-bus two stops, make a right on Pasternak Street. Only, we found out after two #2s blew past us, that the #2 wouldn't stop at our stop today because, as a holiday, it was operating on the Sunday schedule. We should have paid attention to this detail. Instead, we decided to hoof it to the museum; it was only an inch or two on the map.

With Axel on my back, the camera on Mychal's (these things even out), we splashed through a lot of slush, past one stop, down the wrong street for a block before correcting our direction, unexpectedly down my tutor's street, past her building, then the second trolley-bus stop, and right on the unmarked Pasternak Street. This street was entirely snowed in; a building was going up, and, just past a wide plaza, the street was closed to traffic. At that moment, I looked to my right and saw the huge building, home of Lviv's Railroad Museum. Which was closed.

Plan B was a café, two espressos and a hot chocolate, buterbrod with cured fish, layer cake. We considered, but passed on the shot of vodka. It was only 10:30 am.

So, getting to my tutor's later this afternoon was a piece of cake. And I was happy to have the opportunity to see her home, an apartment in a 100+ year old building, constructed in the old style with all the apartments facing into a communal courtyard. Clotheslines stretched from the balconies across the courtyard, and we discussed the pros and cons of such communal living. I live on a street where neighbor's don't even stop by to request a cup of sugar; my tutor pointed out the disadvantages of the courtyard snoop who needs to know why #32 came home at 2am, #12 had big boxes delivered, and #27 never takes out her garbage.

We sat in the tiny kitchen, the two of us, our three books and five notebooks, four dictionaries, two cups of sweet, black coffee and a huge platter of cake ("Napoleon"), at a two-foot square table. Neighbors passed by in front of the kitchen window, a clock ticked comfortingly over the stove. Her one year old grandson slept the entire time while we discussed the Russian and Polish words in my Ukrainian novel, positive and negative personality traits, and why I was paying twice as much per hour through the language school rather than half the amount privately for her tutoring.

pigs and chocolate

I was very excited to celebrate my first International Women's Day in a country that actually acknowledged it. As soon as Mychal arrived, I began dropping blatant hints about the box of chocolates and flowers, that, as a man, he was required to give his wife and mother of his child. Alas.

The day dawned beautiful and snowy; yesterday's fat flakes had accumulated into a thick blanket of snow. Branches were iced with a generous ribbon of snow, buses chortled down the street in thick snowy coats. Snow was still falling when we woke--masses of tiny flakes hurrying down as if pressed for time, not the leisurely thick flakes of yesterday.

But, the disappearance of our keys interrupted the day of pastries, ethnic museum, puppet theater and bon bons that we'd planned. After spending all morning in vain trying to get hold of our landlords, we decided to take our stir-crazy child out into the fresh air. I carried Axel and Mychal carried the things we really didn't want to disappear (our computers), and we struck out for downtown. But we only made it half-way there before my guilt over leaving the apartment unattended while our keys roamed at large with an unknown individual got the better of me. So we returned; not quite trudging up the snowy hill, because it was really quite beautiful, but definitely working hard enough to feel it in our hip flexors.

And then we waited... And waited, with a brief interlude while I sought a hardware store (closed on Sundays) and lunch (yes, more pastries and dried sausage). And waited until, finally, we got hold of the landlord who showed up at five pm, on his day off, leaving his lovely wife to celebrate International Women's Day by herself, while he changed the lock to our apartment.

Luckily, he was rather quick and we were able to go out to forge for dinner. Our plan had been to eat at a restaurant a short walk from our building; we'd passed this place several times on our trips to the park and market, stopping each time to check out the seven pigs, stuffed muskrat and miniature water wheel inside. Each time we stopped, we waved to the servers who, invariably, folded napkins in the empty restaurant. We never saw a single customer inside and joked that we'd better eat there soon, before it closed.

We'd prepped Axel in advance for our special dinner out, hoping that the novelty of the pigs and water wheel would keep him entertained while we ate. But that was not to be: the place was packed, the host scarcely acknowledged my query about dinner, interrupting me to ask if we had reservations. Oops. We should have known the holiday was a serious thing: since Thursday, we've watched people load up on flowers, chocolates and liquor. And that generations of family would get together in restaurants to celebrate the wives, mothers daughters on their day.

We walked further, this time Mychal carrying Axel, peeking in places to gauge whether there was an empty table. Eventually we found the Krakow Café, where shiny red hair, tight purple sweater dresses, sparkly maroon sequins shimmered and blended as three, then five, grandmas danced in the middle of the room.

landlegs

The child peeking out of his fur-trimmed hood is a different child, already, than Axel of three weeks ago. Paradoxically, he is both older and younger simultaneously. I try to imagine what he could possibly be thinking--in a strange land where nothing is familiar: snow? trolley-busses and tramways shucking down our street? a winding concrete staircase leading to a regal, over-heated apartment? People speak, but nothing makes sense. No friends, no trains, no Tuncer. No familiar destinations: the museum, the zoo, chinatown, the library. It's not surprising that one side-effect of so much unfamiliarity is whining.

But out of all this strangeness, a different, older Axel is emerging. On our first or second day here, Axel weaned himself. It was as if he forgot what to do; and after a bit, he told me he was done. Up to this point, nursing had been the gold-standard, nothing else could soothe a fractious Axel quite so effectively. Almost at the same time, he began to stay dry through naps and the night. I'm probably jinxing myself, but I think we may not need to use diapers when we return.

In ways more and less obvious, though, Axel has grown. One day at the park, we'd been here perhaps two days, Axel decided he wanted to go to another park. He confidently took off, out of the playground, up the snowy hill, one hundred, two hundred yards away from where I stood (pointing in the opposite direction towards the park's location). He didn't care, didn't stop, didn't come back--a different Axel than the one from home.

Axel's acclimation here manifests as narration: he states what will happen next. Thus, as I put the key into the lock (the second of four), he tells me: "Mama use these keys. I take off my shoes." Once the shoes are off and the key in the last lock, I hear: "I take off my gloves. I take off my coat. I put my coat in elegator" ("elevator," or what he calls the wardrobe). Before Mychal got here, Axel prepared for his arrival by pre-telling me everything he was going to tell daddy when he got here. (I tell daddy they didn't have a firetruck. They had ambulance.) He stocked up on observations to show Mychal, too: the skylight at the top of our building's stairwell, the brush stacks which he'd watched workers create with chain-saws, the movie playing in the kids' playroom in the restaurant, the merry-go-round in the market playground. There were many--I can hardly remember them all. But they keep popping up, now that Mychal has arrived and Axel can download his stored experiences.

And when things are familiar, time stops for him. Twice we have passed street musicians, whose music stops Axel in his tracks. He listens and watches, tuning the rest of the world out. A half an hour goes by; I ask him several times if he's ready to go and the answer, even as the sun goes down and the wind whisks dinnertime away, is always a firm no.

colors

Today, at 11:25, Alla showed up at our building. Blond and tall, as the director of the International Language School had predicted, she also sported a shiny gold star on her incisor. Trés hip-hop. She had been sent by the director to accompany me to the school; a kindness I thought unnecessary, until I realized that despite being less than 2 miles away, there was no direct form of transport there. As she and I walked downtown to catch a marshrutka (a van which operates like a bus), she told me she had just returned to work two weeks ago after having given birth.

I was a little surprised. Actually, I was shocked: leaving a two-week old to return to work didn't sound customary to me. When I asked her, she assured me it wasn't normal; here, a woman gets three years after birth before she returns to work. Now it was Alla's turn to be shocked when I described the six-weeks unpaid leave we get in the good ol' USA. Later, as the green van #60 wound its way up a hill towards what looked like a nice green forest (on a street conveniently named "Zelena," or green), Alla revealed that, in fact, her child was one and a half and that she was only returning part-time because the other office girl was about to give birth any minute.

The van stopped just outside a huge, rectangular, soviet-style apartment building. We walked in, headed up two flights of stairs and found the school, where we were met by the director, maroon beehive and all. The director ushered me into a darkened room where my tutor, tiny, all in black, sat behind a tiny black desk. She invited me to sit down, and there we sat, six inches apart for the next two hours. It was all terribly useful and terribly exhausting. I'm not very good at sitting for two hours straight, and fairly abysmal at talking for that long. Luckily, after we'd covered all the basics (where am I from, who's in my family, what do I do for fun, where did I study, what does Axel eat, who keeps house, what does my husband do?), she asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee. Yes! Even if, as she pointed out, it's not really coffee.

There was no clock in our dimly lit classroom, and I kept trying to sneak peeks at my watch attached to my bag at my feet. The minutes crawled by as she reviewed all nine forms of movement verbs. My mind balked when she asked me to provide examples; all I could come up with was "Everyday I go to the swimming pool." Which reminded her of a Canadian she'd worked with recently, who told her: "I go to the gym three times a week." Imagine!

Anyway, after two hours she brightly promised me that tomorrow we would review directional prepositions for movement and off I went to talk to the director about payment. Here, we switched to English, and, thusly, dollars; under the maroon beehive, the director's eyelid twitched. Even though we're in Ukraine, the policy seems to be payment in one's national currency. It's not the best deal for us, given daily vacillation in value, but, we're guests here. What to do?

traffic jam

I was surprised to discover that despite the almost old-fashioned feel of Lviv, that the city does indeed get traffic jams. Yesterday evening, as Axel and I walked home after watching the skaters, we picked our way through the hundreds of cars jammed to a stop downtown. Today, we even had a chance to experience one from within.

This morning, after a fabulous, stunning, nine and three-quarter hour stretch of sleep, Axel and I took the tramway to the trolley-bus to Stryysky Park. On my map, the park takes up four quadrants, which I estimate to be about a fraction (1/3? 1/4?) of Central Park. (Hopefully some Lvivian will read this and set me straight...) It felt huge--multiple paths crisscrossed before us, young men walked by in groups, a solitary mother half-carried, half-dragged her protesting toddler, a skier whished by on cross-country skis. Axel and I headed directly to the brightly painted playground I'd noticed from the trolley-bus window.

There was no one else at the playground, not even a crow. Axel sat in the play truck, driving towards the fires burning in the distance. But there was no one to ask whether the fires were brush or warming huts for the lone skier, who passed us a second time while Axel climbed on the play structure. The park was reassuringly familiar--although painted in primary colors, rather than the "nature-like" tans and greens of our Oakland parks, the pieces are familiar (except for the merry-go-round, which, for some reason, you don't see at US parks anymore). Graffiti covers the structures, litter and beer bottles the ground--just like in Oakland.

After the park, rather than catching the trolley-bus, we walked down a huge hill (while I mentally mapped out a run to take one morning) to Stryysky market that was even more incredible than the three others I'd found downtown. Even though we only needed bread, I couldn't help but buy some pears ("Our pears, from Ukraine, perfect, sweet and crisp," promised the vendor) and dates ("finki"), animal crackers (thick, with tiny grill marks on the back), pickles, more tvorog (because how can you resist after the vendor has handed you thick bites of three varieties on her pen-knife?), and more pelmeni (tiny dumplings).

As soon as we walked into the market, Axel burst into tears. He had been under the impression that we were going to buy his toy firetruck ($1 trinkets here are his dad's Peet's fix at home). Both I and the pelmeni vendor tried to convince him that, indeed, toy firetrucks can be bought at the market (and socks, and underwear, and toothpaste, and cds, and whole chickens, dried fish, slabs of pork belly, dried fruit--in fact, what can't you get there?), but he was having none of it. But the pelmeni vendor did not give up; she told him to catch all of his tears in the palm of his hand, give them to mama, and then with them she would buy him a sweet apple pastry. Amazingly, after I translated this too him, he calmed down. But he refused the apple pastry we found on the other side of the market, insisting instead on a pouf that looked (and tasted) like a rum bun. The downside of all these sweet bribes is that 90% of them don't work--after one taste, Axel passes it back to me. And since I am constitutionally unable to throw out perfectly good food, I have to eat it. Thank god Mychal arrives tonight. So it was with the rum bun: Axel licked off the icing and passed it back to me.

It was too bad that the rum bun didn't work (nor the fried cabbage pirog, which I bought because I was told that it was "hot, tasty, fresh," (one out of three), because it took us an hour and a half to get home. The streets and the trams were packed, cars, busses, trams vying for space outside. Inside the tram, it was just as crowded but people were far more polite--a seat was found for Axel, hands grabbed my stroller and hefted it up, people smiled as Axel sang to his toy train (no firetrucks) for the entire ride.

learning curve

(Axel in his pirate pants and my fancy shoes.)

It makes me nervous staying in such a fancy apartment. There are so many breakable things around--glass window panes on all the interior doors, an antique ceramic stove (the kind that was used for heating the house), rickety old wardrobes with frail door pulls, ceramic lamps by the bed, a polished dining table and brocade chairs, brocade floor length curtains, and many, many mirrors. Even though the apartment has only two rooms, at some point while Axel entertains himself someone will have to cut cabbage with the steak knife.

Which is exactly what I was doing when Axel pulled the ceramic, grecian-urn facsimile bedside lamp onto the floor, breaking off one of its feet. At least, I think he broke it. As the previous renters had broken the bathroom window, it's possible they also broke the lamp. In any case, it's now broken and all we have to show for it is some braised cabbage.

The apartment is really lovely, though our unfamiliarity with such classy lodgings is evident. The bathroom, which is as big as Mychal's study at home, has a whirlpool tub half as large as the room. I was pretty excited to give Axel his first bubble bath in it. But we lacked the patience to let the tub fill properly, and turned on the jets too early. Ooops. The entire room was doused. You'd think once would be enough of a lesson... But no, I had to try again, the moment the jets were covered with water. Again we doused the bathroom. (Clean up was rather a challenge, as the place is designed as an efficiency; the only available cleaning supplies are lysol room deodorizer and paper towels, neither of which was very much help.)

Another thing I learned since we arrived is that the market does not cater to early risers. By 8 o'clock this morning, after having entertained Axel since 4am (and quietly, at that, so as not to further piss off the neighbors), we headed out in the sun to the market. Our big plan for the morning was to go to the market and then the neighboring playground, which Axel had noticed the first time we were there, and labeled the "wheel" park. In his mind, the playground is next to "the man cutting fishes," and he threw a huge, public tantrum yesterday evening because it was too late to go to that "wheel" park.

The first time we passed the playground, it was covered with snow, and, after evaluating the situation, Axel decided it was too snowy. So it was with great patience that Axel suffered hours 4am to 8 until the sun had risen enough for us to head out today. The market is about a 15-20 minute walk, just enough, today, for Axel to fall asleep. But not enough, I found out, for the market vendors to set up their stalls. So, with Axel asleep in his stroller, I went up and down the aisles, dodging boxes and dollies in various stages of load/unload, and piecemeal, as stalls opened for business, picked up our daily fare. Axel was still asleep an hour later as we stood in a sunny patch on the snow looking at the playground. Using cookies, I tempted him awake, and he grudgingly got out of his stroller to tromp once around the playground, take a spin and a half on the merry-go-round, and decide he was done.

(Sleepy Axel with cookie on the merry-go-round.)

just another shop

Today we shopped for a treat for Axel. We'd walked along a wide boulevard lined with shops on Sunday, displaying brightly colored books in their windows. The temptation was almost too much for Axel, as none of the shops were open Sundays. So this morning, which dawned sunny and clear, we walked back to find Axel his heart's desire, a train book.

The morning dawned with such promise, yet none of the three bookstores could give us the requested child's book about trains. (Incidentally, there was a Ukrainian translation of the German book on castles which Mychal had brought home from Munich a few weeks ago.) Axel was on a mission, so he insisted that we go to more shops (the first time I have ever heard such a request from him, but mostly because I refuse to shop in general.)

We found a huge department store; spanking new and filled with imported goods. Inside, we discovered a huge climbing structure--a plastic fire engine practically life-size. Children and parents began arriving; shoes and coats were removed, and the kids all played while the parents sat and watched. For a while, I tried to maintain the pretense that we were actually shopping, but when I saw the prices (Macy's prices for Target goods), I gave that up and stood around with the other parents to watch and listen to the kids play.

Poor Axel; it's all so confusing to him: playing on an indoor climbing structure in a big department store on a wintry day isn't exactly part of our repertoire at home. Nor is crunching through the snow to climb across the swinging bridge at the playground, nor sitting in his stroller for an hour while we walk around picking up our daily fare. Facing meat pies, meat dumplings, borscht, beet salad, fried eggs over meat patties--also completely beyond his ken. Worst for him, I think, was to discover that the library will not have train movies. It's no surprise that he reacts by falling apart in a rather regular fashion, but it is exhausting.

Still, it was funny, in a sad kind of way, to watch Axel fall apart after we left the department store when I refused to take him to "just another shop" as he quixotically searched for his train book.

winter how-tos

Everywhere we go, Axel and I, or more precisely, I am told: Girl! Put his hat on! Are you blind? He's freezing!

So I comply, because that's what you do in an eastern european state where it is the community's job to keep incompetence at bay. And just as quickly, Axel yanks it off. We go this upwards twenty times a day. And the judging isn't reserved for head-wear; I am also informed by well-meaning women, as Axel sits on my knees on the tramway, that his ankles, made naked by his jeans riding up, are freezing, how could I not notice?
It brings back the scolds I got when I was seventeen, during the winter in Kharkov while sitting on the cold stone benches with my friend: Girls! Don't you know your ovaries will freeze? Get off those cold benches or you'll never have children!
Equally funny to me is that I'm still "Devochka!" Nearly twenty years have passed, yet I'm still "Girl!"

Today, we found the park which, as dusk fell, was filled with bundled up children and clusters of parents talking on cell phones. Axel situated himself ably in the first recognizable situation (aside from the tramway and trolleybuses) and tromped through the snow to play on the swings and see-saws and suspended bridges. I listened to the parents' conversations and noticed that they, too, were just as familiar.