Читать книгу A Loss: The Story of a Dead Soldier Told by His Sister - Olesya Khromeychuk - Страница 10

The list of army supplies I bought for my brother to help him with his life in the warzone was still lying on my desk when a new shopping list appeared next to it. This made my online order inventories pretty eclectic:

 tartan paper napkins (3 packs of 20)

 emergency burn care dressing (pack of 5)

 yellow/blue satin ribbon (5 meters)

 Tasmanian tiger khaki backpack (1)

 table confetti (20 packs)

 advanced blood clotting sponge (25 g x 2)

 favors for wedding guests (miniature whiskey bottles x 50)

If anyone saw this list, they would think I was either having a war-themed wedding or that I was getting married in the trenches. This wasn’t far from reality: my wedding was to take place just under a year after my brother had gone to the front. And while I was looking for a wedding venue in London, my mind was in the trenches in eastern Ukraine.

There’s a Ukrainian folk song for every emotional disposition, especially if your disposition is dark. There’s one, for instance, in which one sister reproaches another for being inconsiderate and putting her interests above those of others: “Your brother is at war / he’s shedding his blood, / you’re getting married / and he doesn’t even know about that.” The song could have been written about my wedding.

From the day my partner and I decided to get married and to have a small reception to celebrate our union I kept wondering how ethical it was to choose a wedding dress, make a playlist and invite guests for a party while one of my siblings was on the front line. Every night I went to bed hoping that my brother would wake up to see another day. Every day I wondered if he’d still be alive by my wedding. As the wedding day approached, the tune in my head was getting louder and louder… “Pah-pah-pam, pam-pam… He’s shedding his blood, / pah-pah-pam, pam-pam… and you’re getting married…” Folklore is a powerful thing.

Of course, I realized that people got married in times of war. Life went on for some when it ended for others. I tried to be grown up about it and persevered with the wedding plans. After all, I told myself, I was not going to have a massive party. I was never a big-white-princess-dress sort of girl. Ours was going to be a small, intimate celebration. But it is precisely on such intimate occasions that you want to see your nearest and dearest. It so happened that neither of my dear brothers were among those nearest at the time: my eldest brother was 2,000 miles away in a warzone and my other brother was in rehab, waging a war of his own.

We went ahead with the party. It was a nice day. It turned out that it was possible to get married while your loved one was shedding his blood. It turned out that it was possible to listen to wedding toasts and think of the trenches at the same time. It’s a shame I didn’t get a chance to show my brother the wedding photos; I’m sure he would have had a joke or two to make about them.