From Terror comes Hope

Searing Moments of a Nation’s Year in War.

The broadcast’s title on the television screen sent chills down old Nadiya Ilchuk’s spine. Words she never thought she’d end up hearing in the sixty-one years of her life, even though she herself never lived through war. But she knew it based on the countless stories told by her mother and father about the wars her people fought over the centuries for the sovereignty of their land and their freedom. She smiled weakly as she fondly remembered her parents, especially their hands, that held hers when they were walking together and wiped her tears, whether it was from waking up to the sounds of roars of thunder and howling winds on rainy nights, or from the taunting of the city children who mocked her for her background and when she struggled to read the letters and numbers written on the blackboard.

The open balcony window allowed the chilly gusts of winter breeze to blow in, but Parisian winter was tepid compared to those back at home. However, it wasn’t enough to ease the tension in her frozen body as she, with a strange mixture of anticipation and terror, looked on at the footage and still images that followed. It started with frightened people clutching their possessions close to them, from single individuals to masses of crowds, embarking on their exoduses to hopefully safer shores; some mothers and fathers sent their children and other relatives on board trains that would take them to the rural areas for their safety. Nadiya silently recalled the anecdotes of when her father went on a similar journey as a child, while her mother’s stubborn parents insisted that she stayed on their farm out of fear of losing her, resulting in them hiding in the cramped, dimly lit basements and bomb shelters as shown on the screen.

Suddenly, a thunderous explosion woke Nadiya from nearly dozing off on the sofa, presumably to prevent herself from seeing any more footage. But now she wished she had closed her olive eyes, for now she was met with footage of an explosion - an apartment building was crumbling from the impact of the firing of an enemy missile. The building crumbled in front of her, and it turned out that residences weren’t the only ones being struck by the enemy - now came the remains of schools, museums, hospitals, and other sites and monuments of cultural significance that stood for aeons before she and her family were born, some of which she herself had known and visited in her youth and her family before her. All of them, symbols of her home country, now reduced to ruins by an enemy that, despite all evidence to the contrary, denied their existence even after the iron curtain fell.

And then some footage showed a funeral held at a church for a four-year-old girl. This was then followed by two still images - the first being of a grandmother holding her granddaughter’s doll, and the second being a hand reaching out from a pile of rubble.

When she heard the stories from her parents about how they saw their city crumble to debris after being hit by the missiles, or how they witnessed the bloodied lifeless corpses of adults and children - especially people they knew like friends and family - she barely scratched the surface in feeling the terror and trauma that came with witnessing such sights. She only remembered her father telling her that whenever you saw anything of that nature up close, whether you were a small child or an elderly grandmother, no scream in the world could ever relieve your grief and rage. Now, she finally understood what he meant.

Nadiya’s eyes were just empty, and she hung her head low as she inhaled and exhaled loudly but slowly. There were no tears either, at least not yet. Suddenly, she felt as if there was someone next to her. She looked down her shoulder and blinked - there was no one there. She blinked again, but this time, she saw a little boy sleeping and resting against her side. She stroked down the side of his head, but then her hand felt sticky and warm, and upon holding it up to see she found that it was covered in blood. She gasped, and found the corpse of the child collapsing onto her lap gazing up at her with lifeless, half-closed eyes.

Time seemed to slow as she turned and spotted a row of bloodied corpses and their decaying scent filling the air, as well the wails of warning sirens and pained grief. Yet, Nadiya was not standing on a war-torn street, but rather still in her own apartment. There was no blood on her hand, and the smells were not there, but she sensed them all. She collapsed back on the sofa with her hand on her chest, breathing rapidly as she felt her heart thump in time with her breath and emitted loud winces from the mouth of her equally distressed face.

She found herself lost in the hallucination that she was unaware of the unlocking and opening of her apartment door, in which a younger man and woman stepped in. The man was tall and slenderly built with some light muscle, while the woman sported a curvier figure and looked slightly older than him. When he spotted Nadiya, the man hurried over and sat on the sofa next to her, grabbing her hand as the woman slowly followed behind, sitting next to him and watching on.

“Nadiya? Nadiya! What’s wrong?” She did not reply. Looking worried, the young man glanced around before leaning towards her, where he rested his head on her chest to calm her. He shut his blackish-blue eyes, and Nadiya’s breathing began to slow. With her eyes also closing, she put her hand atop of his head and stroked his short, bright blonde hair. Gradually, they both opened their eyes and she took a deep breath, whereupon she started to relax.

“Thank you, Aleksei.” Nadiya said after a sigh. For a brief moment, she was hit with disbelief that Aleksei, despite being a grown man now four years over thirty, was still able to rest on her chest like he did when he was child and was nursing him. Even more so was the fact that he came from the aggressor state, and was the son of her best friend from childhood who was also from there. It was relieving to know that there were people from the aggressor state who spoke out against the war and invasion of her people and nation, despite them being few and far between. Nadiya turned and faced the woman, who she had recognised with her dark eyes, tan skin, and long wavy hair that was almost black, as well as always being by Aleksei’s side. “Desirée….” She greeted his girlfriend weakly.

“What happened, Nadiya?” he asked worriedly. Then he saw the television, which was now showing some footage of injured patients playing over audio from an interview with a nurse. Upon seeing the headline, Desirée audibly gasped and Aleksei grimaced.

“Nadiya, should I turn off the television?” Desirée asked worriedly as she grabbed the remote. Nadiya, however, shook her head. “No, no thank you. I want to see what happens next.”

Now the footage on the television showed her people, men and women from all walks of life - especially the doctors and firefighters - doing their part in rescuing and treating their people. Citizens volunteered as soldiers and joined seasoned veterans in the fight to defend their nation. Despite the many different careers, they were all united by and showed their resilience in preserving their cultural dignity and the right for their freedom. It was then that Nadiya remembered the stories told of her forebears and their resilient fighting spirits. Her forebears, from the lowliest of serfs who actively fought for their liberation, to her own grandparents who survived the Great Famine and defended the Motherland against the invading wolves from the west during the war.

And then there were the stories where even Mr. and Mrs. Ilchuk themselves did their part in defying the bears that tried to quell the demands of the people who no longer wanted to be part of a repressive homogenous empire, but rather be their own people with their own distinct culture and history, just as they did even before the days under the tsars. Mr. Ilchuk, who obtained blisters and calluses on his hands from pounding wooden posts into the ground, and Mrs. Ilchuk, whose fingers bled after pricking them against the needles used to vigorously and delicately loop, twist and braid day in and day out. And even as their hands endured the wear and tear of their occupations, they always found time to caress and hold their daughter.

Nadiya covered her mouth with her hands as she felt her eyes get puffy, red and wet - not at the events shown on the television, but rather at a strange feeling that welled up inside her as a result. It was a mixture of nostalgia and…something else. Desirée and Aleksei consoled her the best way they could; she wrapped her arm in a one-armed embrace while he kissed her cheeks as if to kiss the tears away, but Nadiya paid no mind as she gradually realised what that other feeling was. That feeling from upon seeing her people united in solidarity, showing their resilience in winning this war for their right to exist. In fact, she was named after the very word for it in her mother tongue. It wasn’t optimism, but rather, hope. Yes, Nadiya thought with happy tears. There is still hope.