Chernivtsi, Ukraine
December 1998

Wouldn’t you know that the snow storm didn’t stop until the very day we were about to end our visit to Chernovtsi, also known as the town where my partner Rudy was born.  I watched the sun glittering on his hair as he bent over to gleefully pack the old clothes he had collected to fill the suitcases we came with a week before.  He was so proud of the brilliant way he tricked the border guards.  We came with five suitcases that were deliberately packed in a random way with new clothes. We were now leaving with the same suitcases but they were loaded with schmatas Rudy collected. They were all stuffed in and so smelly that no border guard would ever put a hand in to take a closer look.

     I brought my cup of hot tea over to the little window in the apartment where we were staying with Rudy’s Uncle Beno and remaining cousins. Since our last visit the family had decided to give back the house on Ivan Beguna Street. Rudy’s Aunt Regina had died and the memories there were too much for Rudy’s aging Uncle Beno. The old man was heart-broken and proceeded to talk to her throughout the day even though she was gone.

     After months of trying to see her before she died, we were finally granted a visa to Ukraine. This meant that at least now Rudy was able to go to the Jewish Cemetery where his precious Tanta Regina was buried. (Beno and Regina brought Rudy up after he was born there in Chernovtsi in 1930. His mother was too sick to take care of him. (See my book Gypsy Tears, Loving a Holocaust Survivor for details.)

     I stood there and looked out on Makovey Street. It was a quiet, narrow back street where not much seemed to be happening even though the snow had stopped. Suddenly a little woman with a straw broom came around to the front of a small building that was opposite the one where we were staying. She was attempting to brush away the snow from a walk-way and was stooped in a position that said she was elderly. She wore what seemed like a long, heavy black man’s coat, big boots and had a multitude of scarves wrapped around her neck and over her head. It amazed me how she proceeded to sweep all that snow with such vigor. After a few minutes, she trudged over to the front door, pulled a rag from her pocket and wiped the snow off a plaque that quickly caught the sun. I could see the number 5 but called Rudy over to ask what was written on the rest of the plaque. He, in turn, called over his cousin Inna to ask her.  As I don’t speak the language, Rudy was translating what she was saying:

      “Oh, it’s nothing really. It’s just an old house where a famous woman writer once lived. When she died, they turned her home into a literary museum.”

     Rudy looked over at me with a smile and raised eyebrows.  Knowing me, he was not not surprised with my excitement but his face changed quickly when I said there was no way I was leaving this country until I went into that house.   He scratched his head, in his Rudy way, and asked Inna to go across the road and tell whoever was inside that there were some Americans visiting in her apartment. She was to say it was important for us to see the inside of the museum before we left today to go back to America.

     We were soon packing up as quickly as we could. We needed to catch the Sophia-Moscow Express train that made a stop in Bucharest, Romania where there was an airport that would take us to America.  Rudy’s Uncle Beno, as well as two of the elderly cousins came across the road with us to help with translations and carry our luggage.

           The front door was locked but the old woman rounded the corner and showed us the path she had just cleared. It  went to the back of the house.  We walked into what appeared to be a veranda but was almost all glass.  There, in great majesty, sat a larger-than-life statue, on a pedestal, of the writer who wrote, lived and died there.  A candle burned at the foot of the statue.  We were told that a candle  burned there all the time.  I had no chance to take a good look at the face on the statue as we were quickly ushered into a slightly warmer room that was very much like the entrance to a home-made museum.

        A minute later, before I had a chance to look around, we were led into what was considered the main and biggest room in the building.

     I could hardly breathe as I grabbed Rudy’s arm and pointed to the things around us.  “Rudy, I’ve been here before. Look, that’s my piano in the corner, and that purple stuffed couch,  the faded oriental rugs.” I shook his arm. “ I know them all.  Everything!”

     Rudy nodded his head and gently patted my hand. He didn’t say anything. Somehow I felt he didn’t have to say anything.

     The man ushering us pointed to Olga’s desk in the center of the room and I recognized the small bottle of water before he told us what it was about.  He said it was Olga’s dream to see the ocean, especially the Black Sea but she was never able to go. Her friend, Lesya Ukrainka did go once and brought the water back to Olga.  I murmured to myself, “Lesya, Lesya Ukrainka…that name!”  I wanted so much to just touch the pens, the ink well, the sheet of yellowed paper with her faint handwriting on it. However the guide said the public was forbidden to even touch the glass covering on the desk. As he urged us to move on, at the last second, as we were walking away, I caught sight of an elegant ring. It sat on a small cushion in the corner of the desk. I knew from just a glance that it was encrusted in tiny rubies and white sapphires.  I also knew that it was a secret ring with a hidden compartment where one could push a tiny button on the side and the cover would pop open and reveal a tiny drawing.

    I was shaking as we were rushed into Olga’s tiny bedroom where I recognized the heavy woven blankets and the painting of Olga’s mother over the bed.  I knew without being told that there was some kind of pull-out bed under Olga’s bed and indeed there was when the narrator pulled them out a minute later.  He told us Olga never had children but was close with her nephews and they slept by her side when they were youngsters.

        I tried not to notice that Rudy was getting nervous but he . kept looking at his watch and speaking to his cousins who seemed to agree that time was running out.  I quickly grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down what I thought was the correct spelling of Olga’s name in three different variations.  I couldn’t stop the group from slowly moving toward the exit.  Someone said the taxi outside was waiting for us.

     Back in America, I attacked the pile of work waiting for me but made time to start my research about Olga Kobylanska.  Remember,  these were not the days of computers and iphones. The bottom line was that I could not find her name or any library that knew of her. However, one day, after almost a month of searching, a sweet young librarian said, “Why aren’t you trying the libraries and universities in Canada? That’s where all the Ukrainians immigrated to when they left Ukraine.  That’s where they are.”  And so I did.  I sent out dozens of letters to all the places that the librarian helped me find.

        Two weeks later, I picked up my mail on the way to the airport to go to a meeting in San Francisco.  It was late and I was exhausted so I pushed all the mail into my suitcase without looking at anything.

           The next morning, I went down to have breakfast in the hotel and took my mail with me.  I put on my reading glasses and slit opened a thick white envelope.  It was from a University I had written to. I pulled the top page up from the envelope and saw a copy of an old photograph, and under it was written:

                        Olga Kobylsanka

        Born November 27,1863 in Humorului, Bukoviina-Died in Chernivtsi on March 21, 1942.

      I was born in the Bronx, in New York on March 22,1942, the day after Olga died in Chernivtsi.

     Now dear reader, you might think this is the end of a neat story but in fact it is just the beginning; the beginning of a totally new life for me (and Rudy) in so many ways. The life I had been living before I found out about Olga was so similar to the life that she lived in her time that it is beyond anything I could describe here now.  There will be much more to come including pictures so stay tuned.