OUROBOROS – HALYNA PETROSANYAK
Halyna Petrosanyak, poet, essayist, fiction writer, and translator, grew up in the Ukrainian Carpathian mountains, and now lives in Switzerland. She has been awarded the 2007 Hubert Burda Literary Prize for East European Poetry (Austria), the 2010 Ivan Franko Prize for Literature (Ukraine), and the 2023 Staelener Translation Prize (Germany), and has held residencies at KulturKontakt (Vienna, 2001), Villa Waldberta (Munich, 2011), the City of Graz (2013), and the Lyrikatelier Biel (2022). In addition to numerous essays and translations, Petrosanyak is the author of four poetry collections, one novel, «Villa Anemona» (Vydavnytsvo 21, 2021), and a collection of short stories «Don’t Keep Me from Saving the World» (Dyskursus, 2019). A selection of her poems in German translation, Exophonien, appeared with essais agités in 2022.
І
… I’m not far away, I’ll be there soon, just wait a bit. I know what it’s like for you there, I know, I won’t let them hurt you. Don’t cry, why are you crying, they’ll pay for everything, those pigs, I’ll make them pay. I’ve already reached the place. Wait for me. I remember how you’d wanted to go to Czech Republic, how you’d imagined it… You’ll finally pull yourself out of poverty, that’s what Czech meant for you… I’ll kill them. But I’m stupid, too, I celebrated when you finally got your visa. You’d waited seven months, happy that you didn’t have to pay anything in advance, thinking those guys would act decently, everything having been arranged through friends, after all. Only mother wasn’t really happy, telling you not to go anywhere, but who ever listened to her, she’s never amounted to anything herself… Oh, why do you, don’t cry, I have a tire iron, I stole it on the road, from the bus, I’ll return it later, when we go back. It’s cold… At least you’re not freezing there in that cellar, or wherever they’re keeping you there, those bastards. I can already see the building that you talked about, I’m already close by. Do you remember when we were children, how we swore to always come to each other’s rescue? I’m coming… Mother doesn’t know a thing, I haven’t told her anything… Mom, I said, she doesn’t have time to call, the work is like that, it’s exhausting, she called me yesterday, she said everything’s fine.
I didn’t tell her a thing, you hear, what should I say? What would it help…
Excerpt from Criminal Case File
District Police Department
City of Dieshyn, Czech Republic
ČVS ORKA – 128/ČV-DČ-2002
ADMINISTRATIVE TRANSCRIPT
Explication provided in compliance with sect. 158 para. 5 KK
21 December 2002, 0800h, appearance of Vladimir Krulchek1: date of birth, 16 March 1979; place of birth, Dieshyn; family status, married; personal identification number, 790316/1321; citizen of Czech Republic; nationality, Czech; permanent place of residence, City of Dieshyn, 77 Nerudova Street; actual place of residence, same; place of employment, Police Service of the Czech Republic, Cieszyn District, State Employee.
Personally signed.
Case file concerning the transcript: “Trespass of a Suburban Cottage.”
Before the interview began, the investigator provided me with the required counsel regarding provisions arising from my role in the current process. I declare that I have understood this counsel in full and can state the following for the record:
I am employed as a police officer in the District Police Department of Dieshyn. On the evening of December 20th, 2002, I went in for night duty. In the early morning of December 21st, 2002, around 4:00 am, on the basis of an anonymous telephone call, I was dispatched with a service vehicle as part of a patrol of Dridetsku Street, where, according to the caller, there was an unknown individual trespassing in a suburban cottage. Arriving there, we conducted a visual survey of the area, and noticed a man leaving one of the cottages. He held a tire iron in his hand, that hand being covered in blood. Taking note of these circumstances, we called on him to identify himself. He did not respond to our call and tried to flee. To our question of what he was doing there, the man answered in Russian. I stress again that I had taken note of the bloodied hand. There were clear tracks in the snow leading from the suburban building to the man, so we investigated the building and discovered a damaged window and door. This made it evident that someone had broken inside. A shutter was torn off, a window pane broken, and items in the rooms were strewn about.
I have been asked if there was a cellar in the cottage, and I state that there was no cellar there. Apart from the trespasser, we saw no one else at the site. While we stood near the cottage together with the injured man, we were approached by Vinek Korman, who said that the building belonged to his mother, Zdena Kormanova.
Because the identity of the injured man could not be established at the scene, he was brought into the district police department of Dieshyn, where it was determined from a passport found in the man’s chest pocket, that we were dealing with a Ukrainian citizen, Vasyl Pakholk, born in 1973.
That is all that I can say concerning this case. The transcript has been read aloud to me, it agrees with my testimony, and does not require any changes or additions. I have signed it today, at 0820 h.
Police councillor Cpt. Tomash Duza – signed.
Transcribed by Petro Dolno – signed.
Witnessed by Ladislav Keisek – signed.
ІІ
Well, so now they’ve locked me up. They’re everywhere… Did you manage to escape? I saw how he ran after you, but you’re nimble, quick, you managed… I’ll also escape, even though there’s grating on the windows here, just like by you. They’re still going to regret it… They took my telephone, maybe mother called. They can’t talk with me… They brought me someone who could a bit, but mostly Russian. He talked to me like I was hard of hearing, he didn’t know the most important words, some translator. There isn’t a single person in the entire world who can speak like me, except for you… There’s no air, no light in this world… Exactly none for us, not for you and not for me.
One of ours comes here and talks to me. I don’t see him, but I can hear him alright. He says that two thousand dollars were stolen from him in his hostel, all the money he’d saved over half a year. He knows who did it… The police came, made a show of asking him this and that, but after two or three weeks they sent an official letter: due to a lack of evidence, the investigation into the case has been closed… And in the end you go under. There’s no light, I’m telling you… And those of ours who lie in the morgue in Prague, do you think anyone’s looking into how they found their way there, with whose help? Cases, obviously, opened by the police because they had to. But after a couple of weeks, they send a short letter to the relatives: due to a lack of evidence the investigation into the case has been closed… Do what you want, even go ahead and investigate for yourself who took that dear person from this world… One woman, according to the guy who talks to me, died under mysterious circumstances. And when they’d brought her home, they discovered that she had only one kidney. They did an autopsy there, in order to determine the cause of death. In the report, they wrote: it had always been like that, she just didn’t tell her relatives that she only had one kidney…
Mother said that in the thirties granddad went to work in Silesia… Worked like a drudge somewhere in Ostrava, crippled himself there. Everything repeats itself. A snake that bites its own tail, it’s called an ouroboros. That’s the Ukrainian trajectory… Oh, it needs to be written in block capitals, so it doesn’t get forgotten: the never-ending Ukrainian ouroboros. Someone’s come now… What do they want with me?
III
Excerpt from Record of Detainee Interrogation,
Compiled by the Czech Republic Police Service,
Department of Criminal Police
Dieshyn, 21 December 2002
… It’s true that I broke a window in a vacation cottage, I don’t know where it’s located. I climbed in through the broken window, and in the process I cut the pinky of my right hand. I broke the window with the help of an automotive tire iron. I took it from the bus when I arrived, it’s not mine.
Afterward I searched the cottage, but I didn’t take anything from it. I wanted to get my sister out of there, she was being held captive in the cellar. I freed my sister from the cellar. She got out before me, and I was stopped by the police. I still want to say that some unknown man then chased my sister down the road with a stick.
Interrogator’s question: How did your sister end up there?
Answer: My sister had gone to a woman to recover a debt from her, money she’d earned but hadn’t been paid. And since the woman didn’t pay the debt back to her, I went after her. I don’t know the name of the woman.
Interrogator’s observation: During the interrogation, the detainee was unfocused, nervous, constantly rising from his chair, yelling the names of his wife and children, constantly checking if there was anyone out on the street, convinced that he was in Ukraine and wanting to telephone someone, and acting as if he had seen his mother in the police corridor. He remains disoriented with respect to both time and place. It was unclear from his behaviour whether he is only pretending to have some kind of mental illness, or if he is truly unwell.
To questioning, he gave answers that were completely nonsensical and impossible, things concerning his family, members of whom he saw around him the whole time, calling out to them. Under these circumstances, it was not possible to carry on with the interrogation and to properly secure the suspect’s testimony. He did not respond to anything, and he constantly repeated himself. The proceedings were being translated simultaneously into Ukrainian. The detainee confirms the contents of the transcript, he did not want it to be read aloud in Ukrainian, and he agreed that the process be ended. He said that he would write nothing in his native language, and that he did not wish to add anything more.
The process ended on the same day, at 1410 h.
Transcript of Submission of Statement of Claim
On 21 December 2002, at 0915 h, in order to record the fact of the commission of a criminal misdeed, the following person was present:
Given and family names: Zdena Kormanova
Date of birth: 18 November 1938
Place of birth: City of Dieshyn
Marital status: widow
Personal identification number: 385118
Citizenship: Czech Republic
Current place of residence: City of Dieshyn
After receiving counsel, the claimant declares:
An unknown trespasser broke into my suburban cottage, which provides me with rest and relaxation in the City of Dieshyn, on Dridetska Street. This event took place on December 21st, 2002, at 4 am. I do not know how the stranger smashed the door’s glass insert and damaged the door near to the lock, but when he did not succeed in forcing it open, he broke a double-paned window, gaining access through the opening in the centre. He damaged a wooden wall in the house that separates the kitchen from the living room, scattered things about, and soiled the floor with blood. In spite of this, I did not notice that any items were missing.
It was from the District Police Department that I learned that someone had broken into my summer cottage. I was at the cottage perhaps three days ago. I am insured against such occurrences, and will claim compensation from the insurance company.
There is no cellar in my summer cottage.
As for the damage caused to me, they have calculated a preliminary estimate of 3,000 korunas. There were no damages arising from theft.
Having read the transcript, the claimant states that it corresponds to her testimony and no corrections or additions are required.
The claimant requests that she be informed about the measures taken.
Completed on 21 December 2002, at 0935 h.
Psychiatric Assessment
The police brought us the patient on 22 December 2002. They had found him yesterday next to a summer cottage that was not his own. They arrested him and placed him in solitary confinement. There he acted aggressively, damaged the contents of the cell, and attempted to pull off the grating. The police would like our judgment on whether or not it is necessary to keep him under confinement.
It was not possible to converse with the patient. He is from Ukraine, and we did not understand him. In addition to that, he showed no interest in clarifying anything for us.
A translator later arrived:
The patient was thoroughly disoriented with respect to place, time, and situation. He was unable to describe the circumstances of his arrest, did not know where he had been found, or where he had spent the night. The translator, whom we had called, described the patient’s condition from yesterday as being identical with that of today. He recounted the patient’s hallucinations, that he had seen his wife, telling her that he had freed his sister from captivity of some kind… In the cell, the patient behaved in a paranoid manner, scrutinizing everything. Today, during examination, he was distracted, continually inspecting his surroundings. He sometimes smiled inappropriately and said things out of context, but there was some content to what he said. He admitted that he hears voices, he could not say whether female or male, but he understands them, and he said that he is very afraid of the dark.
The patient was arrested at 0400 h, and since then has had no access to alcohol or narcotics. He confirms that he consumes alcohol, but it has not been possible to establish when he last had a drink, or how much. We have sent a sample for toxicological analysis, and will report the result.
The patient perspired readily, trembled moderately, and constantly demanded water. There are passages in his notebook that, according to the translator, are an incoherent mix of his own words, and, in addition, there is a word there that does not exist at all in the Ukrainian language – ouroboros. (A neologism, perhaps?) By the end of the conversation, the translator had given up trying to understand what the patient was saying (five past ten).
Neuro-motor movement normal, extremely disoriented at times with respect to place and situation, incoherent thought processes, emotions not subject to rational explanation, paranoid hallucinations.
Diagnosis: acute schizomorphic mental disorder.
(Possibly, this is the result of alcohol withdrawal – but neither the vegetative lability, nor the tremors exhibit this character, and the anamnestic data is insufficient).
Recommendation: urgent hospitalization in the closed ward of the Kupav psychiatric clinic. The patient is a danger to himself and to his surroundings. It is currently not possible to keep him in the cell of his initial detention. He needs to be hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic. A consultation has been undertaken with the head physician, Doctor Proido.
Captain Tomash Kuzhman – signature illegible.
Official stamp: Czech Republic Police Service, District Command of Dieshyn.
IV
Finally, they’ve left me in peace again. They’d been interrogating me about the what and the how of it, how I’ve ended up in here. I told them about you… Told them how they’d locked you up, but I broke the glass with a tire iron and opened the door for you. Now I’m worried that they haven’t started searching for you yet… It’s enough that those monsters held you in a dark cellar, until I showed up. The ones now holding me asked me what I’d been drinking. Can’t they see that there’s no water, no light for me in this world? There’s darkness everywhere… One of those here was all over me, he looked into my eyes, told me to open my mouth. Said that he was a doctor. Asked about what’s written in my notebook. The last entry interested him the most. Through a translator, he tried to find out what ouroboros means. But how could they understand… Do they know anything about granddad, who was crippled somewhere around here, when he was still young… Or about our father, who they also took away for a long time, a year after I was born, to build a railroad somewhere around Novyi Ural in the far east of Russia… After that he came once every couple of years, and you didn’t see him until he returned early in 1983.
Can’t they understand that we’ve already gone through something like this before, that it all somehow gets repeated for us, like in a circle. We’ve already been robbed on the road before, like now, like here. Just like now. A bus, let’s say, goes to Prague, full of migrant Ukrainian workers. There they break their backs for a middleman. For a “client,” a Ukrainian no less… In exchange for getting them papers and finding them a job, he takes, in the best case, half their earnings. They spend still another part of it on food and lodging… And then, in the middle of the night, the bus pulls over, and five or seven tough guys step onboard and say: boys, cough up a hundred bucks, and make it quick, we’ re here to protect you, so that things work out nice and peaceful for you… Just try and squeak… They’re ours, Ukrainians, but with the other side, with the brutes… Who should I explain all this too? To Doctor Proido, who’s just checked my pupils and interrogated me about my family?
Hospitalization
Vasyl Pakholok, b. 1973
Brought to the Kupav psychiatric clinic on the recommendation of a psychiatrist following inappropriate conduct and aggression.
Patient confirms that he has not previously been treated for serious illness.
Habituations: alcohol – preference for whisky, horilka, not possible to determine the intensity of use, conceals the truth, minimizes his consumption.
Narcotics: denies use, no objective determination possible.
Resides in Czech Republic by invitation, has a visa until 6/03. Works back home as a cabinet maker, although he has a higher education. He also has a farm with 3 hectares of land, a pair of horses, pigs, chickens, etc., so he has work at home. He wanted to work for a time in Czech Republic before the holidays, this had been suggested to him by friends.
He says that he is married, that they get along well together. He has two sons, one in Grade 3, the other in Grade 5.
On December 21st, the police discovered him at one of the cottages, and placed him in isolation for interrogation, during which he behaved inappropriately: he destroyed items in his cell, expressed himself illogically, and was aggressive. After the interrogation, and in the attendance of a translator, he was transported to a psychiatric clinic. The next day, on December 22nd, he was examined by Dr. Dedlalova: wholly disoriented, unable to describe the circumstances of his arrest, did not know why he was in Czech Republic, or who had invited him. Multiple hallucinations – he saw his sister, as though someone were chasing her, constantly examined his surroundings, and heard voices, he could not say from where. Because detention posed a danger both for himself and for his surroundings, and because his condition requires isolation in a special ward, he was transferred to the Kupav psychiatric clinic.
December 23rd, medical examination. Patient unable to provide any truthful information about himself, unable to give his own name, did not know why he is in Czech Republic, where he has worked, in which city, he goes home for holidays, occasionally drinks horilka, behaves chaotically. Contact was limited because of the language barrier, his state is variable, sometimes well oriented, quiet, and cooperative, evidence of protracted use of alcohol, symptoms of post-paranoia and post-hallucination in line with the usual condition of an alcoholic, no depression or tendency to self harm.
Condition subsequent to acute poisoning, afebrile, absence of focal pathology, blood pressure 130/70, pulse 80/min., extremities without oedema or peripheral pulsation.
Therapy: Tisercin, Himinevrin, Buronil, Rivotril, Rispen, Kalnormin, essential f, Ibalgin, Paralen, Diet № 4.
Epicrisis: first treatment in Kupav psychiatric clinic, referred by Dr. Dedlalova because the patient was in a state of internal chaos, psychological disturbance. During his stay in the clinic, his intensive use of alcohol was established, along with the result: delirium of a mixed etiology. In the clinic, the patient was brought out of his delirium, after which a common language was found with him, and he calmed down, his mental state being sometimes depressed, with amnesic symptoms concerning past events, but able to orient himself, sober in his thinking. Therefore, following consultation with the police councillor, we are releasing the patient on 2 January 2003.
The criminal police file is being sent to Ukraine.
Diagnosis: delirium with mixed etiology F 05.8.
Abuse of alcohol F 10.1.
Hepatopathy from ethanol toxicity (hyperbilirubinemia, hypokalemia).
Recommendations: patient is able to care for himself, poses no threat to himself or to his surroundings, fully composed demeanour, received medication for three days (ampicillin 500 mg every six hours, 6-12-18-24 h).
He will go to Prague, from where there is a direct bus to his city of origin in Ukraine.
Kupav, 2 January 2003.
Department Head, Dr. Kvieta Proidova – signed.
Stamp: Czech Republic Police Service, Department for Criminal Police and the Investigation of Public Disturbance. 8 Saint Czech Street, 735 02 Dieshyn.
V
Who was it? They discharged me from the psychiatric clinic, I had a mix-up with the police… They said they’d opened a criminal case against me, that I supposedly broke into some cottage. I caused damages worth three thousand korunas, which I’ll have to cover… I apparently planned to rescue my sister from captivity. In a drunken stupor, I didn’t realize that she hadn’t been imprisoned… That it’s almost a year since we buried her… Brought her back from Czech Republic… Since then my world has been turned upside down. I wanted to know who was to blame for my only sister not having lived to see thirty. I started drinking because I couldn’t cope with any of it. And so it all went sideways…
What’s the name of this city? I’d left from Prague, I’m on the eastern border with Poland… In his youth, our granddad spent time somewhere around here… What day is it today? I promised my wife and mother that I’d take care of myself… I’d thought it all through and I was sure that I had everything under control. I already knew that we’re harming ourselves. We take it for granted that the world has to be fair and kind to us. But it’s not fair and it’s not kind. Taking that for granted is naïve. The lion isn’t kind to the sheep when it wants to eat.
We’re not sheep. We’re not destined for those who feed on us. We just need to learn to be strong… Stronger than the others, not just on the building sites and on the farms. Not just when it comes to mindless physical strength and endurance. It would be good to go to where there’s a demand for education, for pragmatism and discipline, the ability to think and to act. There must be people like that among us. But they’re maybe twenty out of a hundred, and it needs to be ninety. Even if it were eighty…
I do know what’s needed for this. A regeneration is needed. To not abandon your life to the winds just in order to survive, to finally take it into your own hands. To learn to shake off everything about yourself that holds you back. It’s possible to defend yourself not only with fists, not only with weapons. It’s better to defend yourself with reason and cunning… But here even our own language doesn’t help us. The Czech word chytrý sounds a lot like our khytriy – which means “smart.” But where the Czechs see intelligence, we see only a cunning that we don’t respect, because for us it amounts to moral corruption. We can’t see that wherever there’s cunning, there must be intelligence. Maybe that’s why we look at cunning with such scorn? It demands an effort, mentally, and that’s not something we like. We can use our fists…
God, how my head hurts… They’re releasing me. The captain dropped a hint this morning: the one who sent the file to Ukraine – just a formality, they’ll shut it once I’ve covered the damages. They’ve given me another chance… Yesterday I spoke with them about Prague, that I’ll be departing from there, because there’s a direct bus leaving from there… Why, I said, to Prague? From here, Ukraine is three hundred kilometres closer than from Prague… Why go back to Prague when I was already heading home from there when it hit me again… Nobody cares about this, not the psychiatric clinic, not the police… It’s him, it’s his doing… He’s the one who’s been trying to wrap his hellish ring around me again… Ouroboros…
Vasyl closed his eyes and fell into a light sleep. Fantastic images followed one after another in a kaleidoscope through his exhausted consciousness. Suddenly, he saw his sons. Slowly closing itself around them was a glittering ring, one in which a horrified Vasyl saw the shape of an enormous reptile stretching with open jaws towards its own tail. A cry of despair broke free from his chest. He awoke.
1 The names of all persons and places are fictitious. Potential coincidence with the names of real persons is accidental. – Author.
Translated from the Ukrainian by Jeff Kochan, Tägerwilen TG