Elinka, Magda, Me

I

Can you hear me?

The voice sounded very small.

Yes, Hello who is this? who are you calling?

Maggid? 

Yes, this is Maggie.

Maggie hello from Ukraine, I am Magda.

Who?

Magda. I am 17 year girl. Can u help me? 

I paused, wanting to hang up on the scammer. People will take advantage of anything. 

Hello Maggie?

The voice sounded so young, tired, pleading. 

Yes, what is it you want?

Can you come here and help me with feeding and help people with no homes?

I’m sorry? Who is this and how do you have my number?

The line clicked off.

Dead.

I hung up the phone.

It rang again instantly.

Hello?

Maggie, it is Magda and I am alone here. Using phone in office. In Kiev. I need help.

I listened then said, tell me who you are and what you need. And how u got my number.

My friends are in Prague working with your friend Vasco on theatre play to show carnage from Russia.

I knew this. 

Yes?

Can we get Red Cross to show this play?

I knew I’d advised Vasco to connect with a legitimate charity regarding his filming short dramatic presentations of refugees speaking about what they had been through in the invasion.

Yes. What can I do?

We need TV. 

Long story short, I helped her. I found an ABC camera crew. They added Magda’s story to a clip and got it to Vasco in Prague. 

I didn’t hear from Magda again.

Later Vasco told me he’d heard she was dead.

 

II

She died in Poland, he said.

Internal hemorrhaging.

She’d been raped. Put the end of an umbrella into herself to disgorge, she thought, the alien soldier’s sperm. 

She had perforated her vagina.

The bleeding continued before she asked anyone for help.

Then it was too late. 

How do you process this?

 

III

When I was a teen I rolled bandages for the Red Cross.

My grandmother was head of it in my town.

I had a pale blue uniform with a red cross on the sleeve. A blue nurses hat.

I gave juice and cookies to blood donors in prisons.

Grown men fainted at the sight of their own blood. 

This was known: 

Get the juice and cookies into them.

 

IV

When I was in high school I read the Polish writer

Jerzy Kosinski’s, “The Painted Bird.”

It described terrible things that happened in war.

In “peace” even.

Because peace was as bad as war, just not the same noise.

Before I knew Magda was dead I got another call.

 

V

You want to help girl here? An accented male voice said.

Who is this?

Andrez. Malinski.

Who are you? I knew he was calling from Ukraine.

He sounded Polish.

You deal with blood? He asked?

 

VI

I am in New York. I work for a newspaper. 

What do you mean

blood?

Many people bleed here. Need blood.

I paused, not knowing what to say.

Girl bleeding, but we need blood.

 

VII

They got Magda to a makeshift hospital.

I took the man’s name. Called the 

International Red Cross. Connected this school teacher 

with them. He and others were in a

restaurant that functioned as a triage center.

Caring for displaced persons.

 

VIII

What is horror? In Kosinski’s novel, which was 

and wasn’t

true, he described one shocking

thing after another. He was a real fraud, but

he captured a reality.

A horror.

 

IX

I didn’t hear from Ukraine 

again. I sent money to the Red 

Cross. Listened to the news.

Felt I should go there. Roll bandages. 

Give refugees juice and cookies.

Time backed up and folded. 

I lost my job with the paper.

 

X

People tired of Ukraine. The daily news was

always bad. Atrocities. Shortages.

Food riots. Resentment of the Ukrainians.

Suicides. Things broke down.

Hung by a leaf, a limb, a phone call,

a sigh.

 

XI

Putin at the UN was shunned

by the West.

China blocked the vote to oust him.

Interpol tried to arrest him

He claimed diplomatic immunity.

When he spoke, finally, his voice 

was soft, as he pitched his reasons.

 

XII

No one was held accountable

Each side accused the other of 

the worst.

Nothing happened.

The world moved on.

Vasco’s Ukrainian Dream won 

Best Foreign Film.

 

XIII

I never forgot Magda’s voice. Her name

was not Magda.

It was Elinka.

The same as my mother.

Time moved on. China began trading 

with Ukraine. Again. Wheat. 

The bread of life. 

 

XIV

The Rupture

the deaths, the destruction, the cost

to restore the cities.

the numbers of dead. The pronouncements

Time changed and people found new things

to be aroused over. The weather. The climate.

The end they all feared was coming. 

 

XV

Putin laughed. 

He had out played them again.

He had a wish list. He’d gotten more land.

He knew he had shifted things.

In Kiev, on a Sunday, several people gathered to have

coffee, brandy, to speak of Elinka.

Her mother, a friend, Sophie.

 

XVI

Januz spoke last. I remember 

her blood.

She gave her blood for us.

She got us blood.

They shook their heads in

agreement at the sadness of it all.

She had wanted to be a writer.