Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
July 30th, 1993
London
Her hands have been shaking for the past fifteen minutes.
Nerves finally kicked in.
It was a strange almost foreign feeling. One she didn’t think she was capable of feeling anymore.
Especially after spending decades in a never-ending state of self-inflicted numbness that came from her inability to properly deal with the tremendous amounts of pain that was afflicted upon her.
So here she was, trembling like a leaf, caught in a light summer breeze, desperately trying to look composed and serious.
But despite the nerves and the anxious trembling, Rey was incredibly excited about this day.
She travelled all the way to the United Kingdom to interview about her book that to her complete surprise, sold thousands of copies in the West.
After spending three long decades in forced silence the day has finally come when she can openly discuss an event that changed her life and the content of the book that she poured her heart and soul into. But more importantly, she couldn’t believe that there were so many people interested in hearing her story. And the stories of many others who shared a similar fate as her.
“3 minutes.” The man with a headset said to her in a pleasant English accent.
She nodded, lightly touching the microphone that was clipped into her linen green dress, her other hand stroking her the smooth and round texture of her orange-amber necklace.
She looked at the mirror one last time. Sixties did very few people any favours, especially in the looks department, but Rey felt good in her skin. Her dark brown hair lost its rich shade and now there was a lot of silver woven into her braided bun. There were wrinkles around the green of her eyes, her smile lines were more prominent. She was still slender, even after giving birth to two children.
And yet for so many years she absolutely hated her frail figure.
To her, her life-long thinness was an unpleasant reminder of all those days spent in painful hunger and malnourishment. As a result, she spent her twenties and thirties hating what she saw in the mirror. From her thin frame to the scars all over her body and the creases on her face that were caused by the harsh climate she once lived in.
Rey remembered looking at herself in the mirror, that morning when she was seventeen, right before heading out the door and unknowingly walking into her demise and then a decade later seeing just the remains of who she once was.
To her, it didn’t look like she aged by ten years. At twenty-seven Rey felt like she already lived out her entire lifetime. Her body and essence were ready for eternal rest, preferably two meters under the ground. She felt completely hollowed out and her soul was permanently exhausted.
But with time she started to embrace the image she saw in the mirror and eventually that led her to the conclusion that there was no point in feeling sorry for herself or hating how she looked.
She came back home and that’s all that matters. And she had to thank her strong body and her unbreakable spirit for withstanding the cruel conditions she was forced to live in.
“Okay, get ready.” The same man said and finally heard the hostess speaking.
She exhaled the air that she wasn’t aware she was keeping in her lungs.
When she first got the call from her publisher, she thought it was a joke.
Rey knew that her book got noticed by foreign publications and it didn’t take long for it to be translated to different languages and finally reach foreign bookshelves, but a book interview in the UK sounded a bit unreal.
She spent her almost entire life seeing the West as a place she would never see in her entire life. The USA and UK seemed just as far away as the moon was. But in early 1991 the Iron Curtain that kept everyone in place fell from her country and for the first time, since before World War II, people were able to travel West outside its borders.
For over half a century travelling to the West was simply not possible to reach for Eastern Europeans and her knowledge of their culture or way of living was very limited. All the news happening on the outside world and inside The Iron Curtain were very minimal. An average person like her didn’t have access or the ability to get a hold of the latest world or local news. And if news somehow reached them, it would be weeks late. Calls were often monitored; newspapers couldn’t be released without the approval of the government. It was an extremely isolated world that she lived in. But that time was over and so, she could only guess that life out there was very different and the struggles that Westerners faced were nothing like the ones her family went through.
The food shops were often empty and if there was a shipment of food coming in, the line from the shop would snake all the way around the block. There were times when Rey had to immediately rush out after her workday ended, in order to meet up with her daughter, who’s been standing in the que for several hours after finishing with her school day. All this effort just to buy some meat.
Clementines and oranges were in the shops only on Christmas, and she tasted her very first banana only in the early seventies. She didn’t know that it was supposed to be eaten when the little black spots first start to appear. Instead, she waited until it got brown then she ate the mush with a teaspoon.
It was one of the best things she’s ever tasted.
Like most people who lived under The Iron Curtain, their family had to put in a lot of effort into growing vegetables and fruits themselves, just to have enough fresh and jarred food for the cold season. So, every year the four of them worked hard on their small plot of land, right when the planting season began in late March and ended in the middle of October.
And when her children were teenagers, they would sometimes buy smuggled vinyls with Western music. When she first found out that her kids had them, Rey got really angry. Western music was not legal and all it took was one neighbour reporting them to the authorities to get a knock-on the door from the ‘police’. But she later relaxed a bit when she found out that most of her neighbours were in possession of some illegal goods and none of them were the type to report others. When her daughter finally put on the vinyl into the player, her ears were greeted with the most incredible music. Rey’s favourite bands quickly became KISS and Abba. Sometimes the three of them would dance in the living room as Dancing Queen played in the background.
A pair of jeans were an absolute luxury. One time her son had to save up his salary for three months in order to afford a pair of smuggled Wrangler jeans. And most clothes that people wore were hand-sown. She and her daughter would buy fabrics in order to have their dresses made, because there were none in the shops.
And the only reason their family was able to afford a small Zhiguli car was because Poe had a medical disability that affected his mobility; thus, their family was eligible to get a massive discount on a car designed for a person with a disability. She and Poe put down the majority of what very little savings they possessed, but a car made their lives miles easier.
So, as she got ready for her trip abroad, three days ago, Rey couldn’t help but wonder if the lives of Westerners were any like the lives of Easterners.
Probably not.
But it didn’t change the fact that for the first time in her life, she had the ability and a chance to travel to a place that seemed not reachable. And she wasn’t about to miss out on this rare opportunity.
Rey accepted the offer to interview about her book and her manager started the visa process.
Now all she had to do was touch up on her English skills.
When she first got the call about appearing on television, her inner voice started screaming ‘NO’. Rey was not at all comfortable appearing in front of cameras with a bunch of people sitting in the audience, possibly judging every sentence that came out of her mouth. She was quiet and timid, often desperate not to stand out and appearing in front of an audience would completely pull her out of her comfort zone.
There was also the problem of the language barrier. She was a fluent English speaker, thanks to her late mother, but she desperately lacked the confidence. Rey spoke with a slight Eastern European accent, she stuttered often, and she was much out of practice.
But then her oldest grandson offered to give nana some English lessons to refresh her memory.
Rey had no idea how a six-year-old was already so fluently spoken. Every time when she tried asking her grandson how he knew English so well he would only say “Nana, you know I like cartoons”. That he did, so she stopped questioning it and just took those ‘lessons’ with strive.
So, when she finally felt confident in English and okay with the idea of appearing in front of cameras, she finally made the call and accepted the interview.
She had a new passport made. A tiny green book that had an emblem of her country. And for the first time in her life, she boarded a plane that took her a couple of thousand kilometres away from home.
And now she was about to walk on stage and answer some questions about her book on a morning show.
Her mind was all over the place.
“Okay.” the man nodded, and the show started and pointed his finger towards the stage.
“Good morning, Britain. I hope you all having a lovely Friday morning. We will start the morning show with an interview with a book author, whose book has been capturing everyone’s attention for the past few weeks.”
Rey nodded to herself as the woman continued.
“Around three years ago, The Iron Curtain fell after standing for more than half a century. Westerners finally got a glance into the lives of Eastern Europeans and historical gaps started to be filled in when once-hidden documents became public, and people started coming out with stories of their lives there. Our guest this morning is a woman who wrote a book about the memories of exiles who spent decades in Siberia after wrongfully receiving life sentences of life-long hard labour. Up until 1990, no one was able to publicly share any of these stories due to harsh censorship of the regime, but now after the restoration of her country’s independence, Renata decided to share the stories of their survival and her own. Please welcome Renata Solana!”
Rey exhaled deeply and started walking towards the host. She nodded gently to the people who were clapping for her. The lights were blinding her, but she pretended to not be affected by them.
“Hello. Thank you for having me here.” She shook the hostess’s hand and took a seat in front of her.
“Off the bat, I can’t express enough how captivated I was with this book. When I first began to read it, it was difficult to put it down, but there were also moments when I found myself unable to continue. It was too painful imagining what these people and you were put through.”
Rey nodded gently, with a small smile on her face, eyes not reaching the woman in front of her.
“Can you please start by telling us about yourself and what happened to you?”
This was the hard part. Summarising the most life-altering situation into a few sentences. Even after so many years passing by, saying it out loud never got any easier for her.
Memories started flashing through her mind.
The extremely harsh and long winters, the constant coldness buried deep in her bones.
The images of that wooden house that they lived in. The endless forests and the mountains that surrounded the village.
Cassandra’s warm brown eyes and her beautiful laughter. Her comforting hugs and the love she held for Rey.
The largest and warmest hands she’s ever felt, stroking down her back, soft lips kissing down her neck, the long nights spent in each other’s comfort and the overwhelming warmness that always came with his embrace.
Her scream when she saw him fall limp. The massive pool of blood spreading on the snow like a river in flood.
The field of frozen crosses and finally a mass of ill people who never woke up.
There was no way she was going to cry in front of the cameras.
She inhaled deeply, allowing the memories to flow like a river and began putting everything into words.
“When I was seventeen, I was a war orphan who got caught stealing food from soldiers who were occupying my country. As a punishment, I received a sentence of lifelong hard labour. Within an hour of that event, I was forcefully shoved into a train wagon designed for transporting animals, with almost no belongings on me. After a month difficult travels, I found myself somewhere in the very depths of Siberia on the opposite side of the world. There, I spent a decade of my life working extremely long hours in harsh conditions and no real payment, desperately waiting for my sentence to be lifted and for a chance to finally go home.”
There was a pause from the hostess followed by an absolute silence from the audience. She seemed a bit in shock, like she didn’t know what to say to that, when in fact she knew exactly what this book was about. Rey felt a little bit uncomfortable, like she said something wrong, and everyone was judging her right now. This was exactly why she feared interviewing about her book.
But to her surprise, the hostess quickly composed herself and looked into her note cards.
“I, uh... So, what exactly motivated you to write this book? Clearly, you depicted very difficult and vulnerable moments of your life and a lot of people perhaps would not be comfortable sharing such intimate and graphic details of their lives.”
“I was there for around ten years and on my journey back home I only had one suitcase on me. Not much, considering that I was there for a decade. But the most significant thing I brought back was the emotional baggage. For so many years I just couldn’t stop thinking of what happened to me there. I would lay awake at night not knowing what to do with my inner turmoil and all the vivid memories of that place. I knew that there were many people who went through similar or even worse events and perhaps they also found very little sleep at night when their dreams got transformed into a movie of the cruelness of Siberia. But there were also times when I did feel happy there and grateful that I got to know all these people who lived in my village. I was a lonely orphan who had absolutely no one in my life, but there, I was never alone. It felt like I had a family again and people who actually cared about me. But the happiness was so fragile, and it often got overshadowed by all the suffering that was inflicted upon me and my loved ones.”
Rey had to stop for a bit as painful memories started to flood again. She took a deep breath, ordering her heart to calm down and slowly continued with slight sorrow in her voice.
“And so, I couldn’t stop wondering about how many of us are out there going through the same struggle. I later found out that there were hundreds of thousands of people who shared a similar sentence as me. Who just got shoved on a train and sent somewhere far, far away. That train journey ended up being a death sentence for thousands. And the prospect of all the suffering and all those deaths just vanishing without any meaning or anyone's knowledge terrified me. So, I wanted to tell my story the stories of others like me to anyone who was willing to listen, and I do not think I could do this story justice without writing down all the ugly and difficult parts about life there.”
“As you mentioned, there are stories of others like you? People who were exiled to Siberia under similar sentences?
“Yes. When I first started writing it down, I knew that his book should have the stories of other people, as well. This event transpired so differently to each person and quickly it became my goal to show it from the perspectives of many others who shared the same fate as me. There were so many of us scattered all around Siberia. Many worked completely different jobs and their living condition were much different from mine, so it was important for me to show that my story is just one of many others and so my search for other exiles began.”
The hostess was doing an amazing job in keeping Rey comfortable in this interview. Her gentle demure kept her calm and she wasn’t so nervous anymore. She felt very strong.
"At first, finding exiles who were willing to speak to me wasn’t easy. I quietly asked my co-workers and friends if they knew anyone who came back from Siberia. Some were willing to help me and some quickly shut down the conversation, in fear of getting into trouble. Many people decided to bury this event as deeply as possible and never speak of it, plus talking about it was dangerous if the wrong person heard about it. So, at first, finding anyone who was willing to speak to me was a difficult task. But in the eighties a shift in politics became visible and people were becoming braver so, I managed to find quite a few people who were willing to talk to me about it. I spoke to fifteen people and more than half of them asked for me to remain anonymous, as they still fear for their safety, understandably.”
“You dedicated this book to book to those who never came back home. Could you tell me more about that?”
Rey nodded. Her eyes started to get wet a bit from that single sentence, and her heart was squeezing but she continued.
“That is correct. In the dedication I wrote, ’I would like to dedicate this book to those who never came back home’. When I came back, my birth city looked different - empty and grey, when before the war it was buzzing with life. When I started asking around about others, many people told me that they were waiting for their loved ones to come back. And slowly over decades, many families were reunited. But there were so many people who never came back. And my heart broke for them because I was very close to meeting the same fate. I almost gave up on being alive. And the heartache became heavier when I remembered that there were so many times when the only thing that kept us alive was the hope that one day we would all go home. But many did not survive long enough for that to happen. So, I dedicated my book to them; to those who never came back home.”
She had to stop for a bit. Her hand rubbed her chest a bit, right where her heart was beating. It was easy to forget how broken her heart was when she spent so many years hiding her past from her friends and even her children. But the truth was that her poorly stitched-up heart never stopped bleeding and saying these things out loud felt like ripping out threads from a wound that never healed. But most of all, her heart ached for all those people that she saw die.
The people she made coffins for all by herself and had to bury them with her own hands.
It was difficult and choking. But she had to do it because for what felt like the first time in her life, Rey had her voice again and it would be foolish not to use it.
“I’m sorry this must be difficult for you. Please take your time if you feel like stopping.”
The woman spoke in a gentle and soothing voice. It was comforting. She just smiled, her eyes a bit wet.
“No, no we can continue. Please.”
The hostess nodded, with a gentle smile that remained on her face as she asked the following question.
“Was there someone who encouraged you to write this book?”
“Yes, my husband, actually. When it became clear that his health wasn’t going to get any better, we started talking about our lives there. Up until then, it was like a skeleton in the closet, something we were both aware of but never discussed. But then I started sharing my idea of writing this book and interviewing others like us and he became my number one supporter. I think like me, he was scared that everything would disappear after our deaths. All the pain and suffering would meaninglessly be gone forever once our time on this earth has ended. He didn’t want that to happen and neither did I.”
“And if I remember correctly, he was on the same train wagon as you?”
“Yes. But before that, he was my classmate, but I didn’t see him for many years until he got placed in the same carriage as me. And a decade later we both came back, but not together.”
“But that’s very sweet, to think that you both survived, and both came back home and then got married.”
Rey stopped listening to the hostess for a bit. Her thoughts started drifting elsewhere.
She forgot how Westerners often viewed marriage as an act of love. For Rey, it was a marriage out of convenience and mutual understanding of pain that came from living in exile. She never regretted marrying Poe. He was always really good to her. Poe was her best friend and her lifelong companion. And marrying him meant that she never had to worry about her spouse demanding for her love. She could never give that to anyone.
Because her broken and bleeding heart belonged to someone else. Forever.
Poe knew that and he never asked for it.
“We both managed to come back, and we ended up settling down together because I had nowhere else to go, so he asked me to live with him. And a year after that he proposed to me because it just made sense. I wouldn’t call the situation romantic; it is more like two hurt individuals bonding over sleepless nights, painful memories and the heaviness of excruciating guilt. We both knew that marriage prospects were very poor for us because we were marked as criminals who came back after serving their sentences, meaning that nobody decent would ever consider either of us for marriage.”
“So, you didn’t love each other?’’
She anticipated questions about her marriage, but she still wished for the show hostess to skip them.
In the book, she ends her chapter with her reunion with Poe. It would make sense for the reader to think that her ‘happily ever after’ came when she was reunited with a decade-long friend, and they were finally able to live in peace. But things were more complicated than that.
Like Rey, in the deep and freezing nights of almost half a year-long winter, Poe found solace and comfort in a warm bed of a lover.
A person who he never stopped loving, until he breathed out the air out of his lungs for the very last time.
Rey never truly realized how similar they actually were, until she started writing her book.
She wished she could tell him that right now.
“I think I did have a lot of love for him as the father of my children, as my fellow companion but no, it was a loveless marriage. From the very beginning, we both knew that expecting romantic love from each other was not possible. So, together we went into this marriage without that expectation. And I never regretted it and neither did he. We simply lived in peace. And that was something we both craved for, especially after everything we were put through.”
When Rey was little, she saw a lot of love expressed to her by both of her parents. Culturally, physical love was not often shown in public or talked about amongst others. Most people showed affection through acts of service, not through words or physical affection. And if it was, no one knew about, it because it was expressed only in the privacy of their homes. But her parents were the exception. Her mother and father spent a great deal reminding her that she was a child born out of love. They always spent time with her; her mother taught her languages, and her father taught her how to paint and draw. And even how to play the piano. Although she wasn’t good at it. Even when they were in public, they often cuddled her and showered her with kisses. But she also saw how much her mother and father loved each other. Her parents often held one another in public, they often kissed, even if she found it yucky as a kid. They were always kissing each other on the forehead, or each other’s hands and Rey never missed the affection in their eyes whenever they looked at one another. Before the war, they often played the gramophone in the evenings, and they would dance together in their living room. Her childish eyes would look at them from upstairs in absolute awe.
As a child, she couldn’t help but wonder if she would find love like that.
The love she found ended up being bigger than the one her parents had for each other.
But in the end, it was futile.
Rey came so close to reaching the ultimate happiness, but at the very end of her journey, she had to make the most painful decision of her life. A crossroad between him and something else. Something that was bigger than the two of them.
She made the right choice.
It only caused her the love of her life.
“And you are a widow?”
“Yes, I am. When I came back and saw him for the first time, I almost didn’t recognize him. I knew that something horrible happened to him, but he never shared it with me. It was too painful for him to put everything into words.”
She remembered seeing Poe for the first time, shortly after coming back. When he opened the door and she saw him she immediately felt like crying. He looked incredibly thin, all the muscles were gone, his gaze was hollow and that once warm gaze was completely gone. The lively Poe that she once knew died in Siberia and he was replaced by a shadow of his former self.
“We both were the same age, but his body suffered from illnesses. I later found out that he developed heart issues due to high stress and frequent hunger. That would also sometimes result in migraines. Poe also developed arthritis in his early thirties. He was often in a lot of pain. And I was there for him, taking care of him. So, when his body couldn’t take it anymore, I was there for him, holding his hand so that he didn’t go to the other side alone. He passed away five years ago, officially from kidney failure, and I lost my life’s companion and a person dear to my heart. It was difficult, but my children and grandchildren were always there for me.”
She had to stop for a second before she continued. Her heart began to ache for her late husband, just like it did when she became a widow. What she wouldn’t give up having Poe with her right now, to have him sitting in the audience and seeing that so many people actually cared to listen to her. To their collective voices.
“I just wish he lived long enough to see our country’s flag be finally raised on the streets. We both lived in hope that this day would come, I just wish he got to see it with eyes. To me, it wasn’t just a flag, but a chance to finally heal from wounds that had been inflicted for more than half a century. It was a tremendous relief and joy to finally see that day come.”
“Here we are also glad to finally be able to see you all as well. Did your children know about this?”
“Not for a very long time, no. My husband and I hid everything from them because we didn’t want that knowledge to influence their prospects in a career and even marriage. People like me and Poe were marked as criminals, even after having our sentences lifted. We both never finished school, so we never really got a chance at better careers. Poe and I worked as manual labourers up until retirement. But our children still had a chance to achieve something and hiding that knowledge benefited them more than knowing it. We only told them when they were in their late teens. To put it simply, they were both shocked.”
“I can imagine. And have you been in contact with anyone from that village?’’
“Yes, over the years I have exchanged letters with a few people who I befriended. That village doesn’t exist anymore. Everyone who once lived there either died or moved out to bigger cities.’’
“Is the Captain one of those people?’’
Rey smiled lightly and lowered her eyes looking at her hands on her lap. She rubbed her empty marital finger. There was still a dent from all those years when she wore it.
She closed her eyes, eyes for a few seconds.
There was an ocean inside her stitched-up heart. It was deep and dark and there were many painful things laying in the darkness of the abyss. She had days when a devastating storm would rage within her, bringing up debris from the very bottom. Painful memories and past traumas would be ushered back up, disturbing the clean water. Like wood or plastic, it would float around polluting the idyllic scenery. She would have to push it down again deep into the dark water and hope for it to never come back up. Sometimes it resurfaced for a valid reason and sometimes it was out of her control. But the love she had for him was the largest object laying at the very bottom. Just as wide and endless as that ocean she carried inside. And if one day it resurfaced as those little splinters sometimes did, it would completely overwhelm her heart. And there would be no more debris, no more waves and no more ocean – just him. That was the love she felt for him, even after all those years.
So, she answered with a timid smile on her face.
“No, I never heard from him again.”
-
The interviewer asked a few more questions about her life there and other details about the book.
And then it just ended.
She left the BBC building with a big smile on her face.
Rey couldn’t remember the last time she felt so light. Like a massive burden was lifted off her shoulders.
The sun was shining the birds were flying and her skin felt warm. Her green dress looked more olive-shaded than just green. She felt so happy at this moment.
She stepped onto the street and called for a taxi.
She knew where she had to go now.
“Are you alright, ma’am?”
“Yes, I am very well, thank you. And you?”
She saw the driver smile in the mirror above his head. She’ll never get over the strangeness of a total stranger asking her how she is.
“I am alright, thank you. Where to ma’am?’’
“Victoria and Albert Museum, please.’’
The driver nodded and the car started to move.