Christmas in Pidkamin
By Walter Kish
Christmas was coming to Pidkamin, a little village near Brody that
my eccentric cousin Hryts called home, or, sometimes when he was wont to
philosophize after a hundred grams of his favourite tipple, God’s test case for
purgatory on earth. He once said in a
moment of Armenian cognac induced inspiration, that Pidkamin was God’s idea of
a belly button for the planet earth, a place of no obvious purpose except to
collect dirt and other unidentifiable or questionable dross.
Nonetheless, Pidkamin was home, and as all other
resident Pikamintsi, Hryts was looking forward to the holidays. The komirka, or root cellar, was
well-stocked with the fruits of the year’s labour – potatoes, carrots, beets,
cabbages, onions, sacks of flour and buckwheat – all the basics that his
stalwart wife Yevdokia would transform with her culinary magic into hearty
soups, stews, cabbage rolls, varenyky, kasha, and all the other
staples of Ukrainian peasant cuisine that was responsible for the expanding
assets around the middle regions of his torso.
In the barn, the fattened pigs and geese were beginning to look at him
suspiciously every time he entered, particularly if he was carrying any sharp
implements.
It was on a particularly snowy and stormy day the
week before Christmas that Hryts had some unexpected visitors. On a day when most normal people were
gathered around their pich (the large ceramic tile-clad stoves that
typically heated village houses), Hryts heard the unmistakable sound of a car
apparently stuck in the snow drifts near his house. Upon donning his kozhukh and fur-lined
hat and venturing outside to investigate, he discovered that it was in fact a
small convoy of very expensive looking cars that had bogged down in the snow
just outside his gate.
He invited the somewhat frazzled and freezing
occupants to come in and warm-up inside his house until the storm blew
over. After some rejuvenating bowls of
Yevdokia’s borshcht and a shot or two of Hryts’ homemade spirits, Hryts
lit his liulka or pipe, and examined his guests with his usual prescient
gaze. There were three of them,
well-groomed and dressed in clothes whose price Hryts guessed could have clad
the whole village.
“And who may you be and where are you headed on
such an inhospitable evening?” asked Hryts.
After an awkward pause during which the three
looked unsurely at each other, the eldest of them, finally spoke.
“We are… ah… three… ah… businessmen from the
East. We heard that…ah… a new
government has been formed in Kyiv, that…ah…a new leader has come to save the
country. We come to pay homage and… ah…
we bring gifts – gold, Mercedes-Benz and fur.
We are headed for Kyiv, but I think we took a wrong turn at
Hryts looked at them with both incredulity and
amusement. He remembered now that the
cars stuck outside bore
“You are indeed a little lost, but no
problem. You can stay tonight in the
summer kitchen next to the barn. There
are enough cots there and we’ll get a nice fire going in the old stove. Tomorrow morning when the storm blows over,
we’ll dig you out and give you directions for getting to Kyiv”.
After getting the visitors settled down for the night,
Hryts returned to the house and spoke to his wife.
“Dotsiu, call your brother in Chortkiv. Tell him we are sending some visitors his
way. Tell him that they are “big
brothers” from
Hryts smiled and chuckled as he lit his liulka
again and poured himself another hundred grams.