The dad said, “Volodka called. He invited us to come as usual. The weather is brilliant. In Koktebel it’s plus twelve. Let’s go?”
“I can’t,” my grown-up brother is happy. “I have sambo on Saturday and parachute section, I’m off.”
The brother is happy, he is finally left home alone. I am younger, to spend weekends with parents is happiness for me. The mom is the school principal and I seldom see her.
“Let’s go,” mom says. “But on Saturday morning because I’ll be late on Friday.”
“Hurray! Going!” I scream happily. “Can I sit on the front seat? Please, please, daddyy!”
“Olena, this is the violation of law,” dad says seriously. “We can’t violate the laws.”
“Daddy, when I’ll be carsick and we’ll be stopping at every five hundred meters, then we’ll see what you say about the laws,” I say resentfully.
I’m ten. But there are two years to the cherished front seat. But the laws can not be violated. Never.
“Okay, we set off at six a.m,” dad says. “But don’t be late. At six means exactly at this time, not at ten past six or even later.”
“We’re not going on a plane, or train why do we have to set off up to a minute?” mom is offended because it was a thorn in her side. Mom is never late for work but always comes later at a meeting of friends, or at a parenting meeting at my music school.
“Because you can’t be late. Punctuality is important, it’s a rule of thumb,” the dad said. “About eight we will be in the city and have breakfast at the sea.”
The dad is never late. Punctuality is his own unbreakable law.
Crimean winter is different. In northern Dzhankoy, it’s cold, slippery and gray at the end of February. In the southern Koktebel, the trees bloom, the sky blues and you can walk without a hat. We often travel but the ride with me in the car is a mini-hell for parents. Because I’m always carsick. I went to train the vestibular apparatus on special simulators at a stadium in the military unit where we live, I often fidget around on a piano chair, instead of playing etudes and gammas, but nothing helps me. I don’t have carsick only on the front seat. But the laws and rules can’t be violated. This is what dad says.
Uncle Volodya, a Koktebel friend of mom and dad, has a birthday at the end of February. We’re always anticipated there as the closest people in the world. I adore these trips because nobody forces me to eat soup there and aunt Tania (uncle Volodia’s wife) has tons of chocolate sweets and condensed milk. And you can do whatever you want, run to the sea to my hearts content, look for carnelians (my mom says that these are semi-precious stones, I can pick them up and make my own necklace of the princess), buy ice cream in the kiosk on at the quay without a queue, and additionally take the wafer cups for ice-cream, because the seller knows: the relatives came to Tatyana, they should be “respected”.
Along the way, my father makes me busy. I watch the traffic signs and warn the dad that “overrunning prohibited ahead” or “we entered Zolote Pole, daddy, reduce the speed”, I sing all songs I remember (from romances about white acacia to a “missing dog”), I count the figures on cars passing by us. The main game is called “Who first sees the mountains”. There are no prizes but it’s very important to be the first who sees the mountains. It’s almost like to get A-plus for a maths test or to beat the classmates in running the marathon. The arbitrator is my mom. The mom is not only the school principal, but she’s also the geography teacher. She walked all over these mountains because she studied at the Faculty of Geography at the Simferopol Pedagogical Institute. You can’t be mistaken because it’s worse than not to wash the dishes before the parents come back home or not to eat cutlets. But in fact, you make mistakes easily, because sometimes the clouds pretend to be mountains. Not to confuse the mountains with clouds is important when you’re ten. Highly important.
You gaze at the window of the car so that your eyes are already in pain and finally shout, “Mountains, mountains! I first saw them.” Mom confirms your victory and you nestle yourself on the back seat and realize – Stary Krym will be soon, then there will be the road to Feodosia and Sudak and we will turn right. And then bam! and you will see the sea and the mountains. Koktebel. Eight in the morning. And we’re right there. This time without complications with me. And of course without violation of rules and laws.
Bam! and you see the mountains in childhood. They would inevitably appear on the horizon if you go to them. February. The law of nature.
Bam! and you’re adult and see your dad in the Simferopol hospital. He sets off to another life and your life is a complete mess. February. The law of life.
Bam! and you can’t easily go home. You no longer go to the mountains and the sea. February. No rules and laws.
Now in Kyiv in summer I feel the smell of the sea and in winter, especially at the end of February, I see mountains around me. Previously I thought I was losing mind but now I understand: the clouds over the city unconsciously remind me – remember us. We are near. Your mountains, your sea, your Crimea. Which can’t be taken away even if the million of borders are built.
Dad, you have gone at the end of February because someone needed it. Remember how you always said, “The laws can’t be violated”. I know that you remember. I’m afraid even to think about what you could have said five years ago when we were robbed of Crimea. I only hope that you would have been on the side of the law. On my side. Because that’s how you lived your whole life. Dad, help. I know that you can do everything. I need so much to see free Crimean mountains in February and to feel the real salty smell of the Black Sea. The borders must be destroyed since the laws of life are unbreakable. Right, daddy?
Olena Bohatyrenko