Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

VOROShILOVGRAD

yet cool; every day it felt as though a cyclone was just about to touch down. I would get out of bed with great reluctance and wander outside, shivering, to wash up at the sink. Our toothpaste would freeze overnight like vanilla ice cream. Patches of fog would gradually clump together by the gas pumps, with only individual trees still visible, poking through. Fall was already gathering momentum; we needed to start gearing up for months of darkness and snow. That’s when it happened. The presbyter had to make a trip all the way out to the border to perform a wedding ceremony for some members of his congregation. He had to go God knows where, so he decided it’d be best to travel with a big group. The church provided him with a driver and an old, rotting white Volga, and asked Tamara to go along, since having a woman along would the whole affair

look a bit more legitimate. Kocha was supposed to join the group, help out at the ceremony, and generally serve as backup. One of his pals from the can paid us a visit a fewdays before the trip, however: The two of them loaded up on wine and sang prison songs deep into the night, paying no mind to the first breaths of frost that blew through those deceptively warm, early autumn nights. By the next morning, Kocha had nearly lost his voice, while his former cellmate, who had agreed to bike into the valley for some medicine at some point during the previous night’s festivities, had failed to reappear as promised, meaning there was little chance of getting the bike back, leaving the old timer distraught. All he could do was lie around on the couch, drinking hot tea and pouring generous doses of grain alcohol into his mug. So I had to go to the ceremony

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