A sick grandad and a peeing cat on a crowded platform

This powerful piece of writing appears in the current issue of the London Review of Books. It is written by Sofia Andrukhovych and translated by William Blacker

On the first day, we hid in the Mins’ka metro station with our dog, Zlata. The entire platform was covered with people. We found a little gap next to a large family with lots of children and a sick grandad who was getting sicker and sicker. Their cat kept peeing from fear and the smell was everywhere. Some people were better prepared than others: they had brought fold-up chairs, blankets, flasks of hot tea. We came with nothing, though I had started packing a bag as soon as the sound of explosions woke me up. I couldn’t solve the puzzle of what exactly you’re supposed to take with you if you might never go back to your home, or if you might die at any moment. I tried to pack my things several times, but in the end we left with our hands almost empty.

Before the war, I was a writer. Today, on the ninth day, I feel unable to string two words together. It’s hard to believe that just over a week ago we were living a normal life. I have to try very hard to remember what that life was like.

Those who survive will be able to reflect on it all. For the time being, our words are exalted, exaggerated; our shock, rage and hatred are best expressed in obscene language. We talk about our love for one another as we never have done before, as though our lives depended on it.

Words now carry a critical weight. I need them to ask my friend Andriy every morning whether he’s still alive. Before the war, Andriy worked for a publisher. We went running together on the Obolon’ embankment. Now he is in the army defending Kyiv.

I need them to talk to my grandma Zoya. She is 93 and lives in Chernihiv, which has been shelled continuously for days. I recognised one of the ruined buildings in a photograph: it was right next door to her home. Her medicine is running out. When I ring her up, she talks about her childhood during the Second World War. Sitting at the window in her classroom, she tells me, she made eye contact with a German fighter pilot. When I was a writer, I wrote about false memories, about the games our minds play on us after terrible experiences.

I need words to find out whether my friend Oksana, an ophthalmologist, has returned home from hospital each night. I need them to find out from her if her husband has been in touch. He is stuck in Bucha with his elderly parents, who don’t understand what’s going on. Bucha was one of the nicest little towns near Kyiv, before the war.

As I’m writing this, in Ivano-Frankivsk in Western Ukraine, Volodya finally manages to get through to me. We haven’t heard from him for more than three days. He and his family left Donetsk in 2014, fleeing the war. Since then they have lived in a small house not far from Kyiv. The connection is terrible; I can barely make out what he’s saying. He says that there is shooting all around, that he can’t get out, but that he is alive. I’m calling so that you don’t worry about me, he says.

I don’t know if I’ll write again after the war. What I need words for now is to tell Volodya about all the novels he will write when all this is over. I watch my phone, waiting for him to read my messages.