an ironic smile.
A seat over the heater! Today is a lucky day. Five layers and I still cannot seem to get warm in this morning blizzard. I get to enjoy the pungent smell of the single heat source only two slow stops before an ancient, delicate looking babushka stumbles clumsily on the bus. The fierce lines across her face, protrude out of the mess of scarves wrapped tightly around her neck. There is my cue, get up or witness her fury. As I study her scarred face, I wonder what her eyes have seen and why in the heck she gets to ride for free. I wish I were simply able to ask her. There is a whole unknown world inside her that I am sure I cannot begin to comprehend. These are the people who were born at the prime of the bloody massacres of the holocaust and aged among soviet rule. This woman has lived, you can see it in her fragile step and wrinkle tortured hands. I don’t know anything about this woman other than what I can decipher from her face. She deserves to sit.
She raises her head in thanks and mutters something that is incomprehensible to my primitive American thinking brain. If you were to speak to me , you might find my elementary speaking skills and odd facial expressions of confusion humorous. But then again, I wouldn’t know. Sometimes I feel like I might be better off not knowing what people are saying to me, in fear of derogatory insults.
Language barrier is a funny thing and in a post Soviet country. I have found that body language can only get you so far. Ice cold eyes paired with harsh jaw lines and frozen lips, I begin to wonder if these stone cold faces are the outward expression of a suppressed society. As I veer to the left and see a little old man, the optimism in me hopes somewhere hidden inside these people is a sweet soul as warm, gooey caramel drizzled on flaky napoleon cake . Old and young, I can see stiffness is a learned behavior from older generations. To make sense of this, I have expanded on a possibly inaccurate and slightly stereotypical theory that if the SSSR had witnessed any ounce of joy in its people, they would be shot. If this were the case, I honestly do not blame them. If it came down to life or death, I would attempt to look like a lifeless gargoyle at all costs too.
As I finally begin to get comfortable and steady in my stance, I am violently pushed toward the middle of the bus. I didn’t want to stand by the door anyway. There are fifteen seats total. I scurry to count- eighteen people so far. The snow starts to fall and more and more people pile in. I act as a money handler, passing up large bills and handing back change, wondering if it will actually get back to the right person. The odds are good, believe it or not. I do not hear one complaint so far. Silence falls upon the marshutaka. Now the only audible thing is the doors opening, shutting and the clink of kopeks in the drivers money bin. Twenty five, thirty, thirty two... this is neither fun nor uncommon to be crowded into a very small bus with numerous people. The blizzard outside makes everything that much less comfortable.
If I had a personal bubble ever, it is long gone by now. An elbow in my side, purse in my face, fist in my back, people sitting on others and getting dangerously close to defying the laws of public decency. Welcome to a typical morning in Kyiv, Ukraine.
I try to concentrate on the music from my iPod filling up my head but it is hard to drown out my phobias and keep my balance at the same time. With snow comes slush. Within a matter of four stops, the floor is covered with grey wetness and has transformed into a slippery mess of uncertainty. One hard break and we are going to have a bus full of women with broken ankles due to 6 inch heels.
Finally, a metro stop. Most of the people depart into the underground abyss of the metro tunnel system to continue their journey. Not I. Six more stops. I scramble my thoughts and attempt to determine if it is worth risking a slippery death to try to race to find a seat. My reaction time is delayed and my opportunity passes. I am once again left stuck in the middle of the bus pressed against a whole new set of rank smelling, fur covered strangers. The cycle repeats. The old want to sit, the young don’t care what the old want. They stare and make subtle gestures at each other but no one seems willing to comply to the unwritten rules of the marshutaka. Good thing I am already standing. I once again exchange money back and forth for another fifty people I have never met. I begin wonder how many people have held these bills in their hands. Eww.
Five, four, three, two stops left. It’s time to start to work my way out of this mess. Eye contact and a nudge usually does the trick. I wonder if they think I’m deaf or something, quite possibly just rude. I don’t like risking rude behavior but sometimes courtesy takes a backseat to survival, as barbaric as that sounds. My foot slides cautiously first, avoiding others followed timidly by the next. My large clunky wool lined boots feel like they take up double the space as all the stripper boots among them. My foot steers quickly around each obstacle in the grey slush with as much grace as I can produce. Foot, foot, hips, arms then backpack. It feels like I am swimming through a smack of concrete jellyfish inhabiting molasses. I need air.
The driver slams on the brakes and people slide forward toward the smug marshutaka driver on their heels. The perfect opportunity to wiggle my body to the back door has presented itself. Against the force of the tilting bus frame, I step unnaturally like a mountain climber up, toward the back. It could have been a scene from Titanic. One big step, a turn and three more people are surpassed. I heave my backpack through each crack with a thuggish pull and a panicked face.
Finally, the door. I stand clinging to a handle for support, take a deep breath that fills my body and shout as loud as I can. The silence in all this chaos has finally been broken. “Nassstaah novkahhh!” Around me, I can feel skin penetrating stares and once again the silence returns. The bus stops, I climb down the ridged steps and fall elegantly right into the wet slushy gutter. I look back and there is a man staring. He laughs in my direction and moves on.
