Do not leave with a heavy stone on your heart

View this post on the web at [link removed] Not much sleep in Zaporizhia, followed by an eight-hour drive back to Kyiv. Not much sleep there either — bombs going off somewhere in the city centre during the night. Then the night train west, across Ukraine and over the Polish border. I’ve done this journey many times. You share a tiny sleeping cabin with strangers, and there is no choosing who those strangers might be. INDIA HICKS. An Unexpected Journey. is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. As Amory and I were boarding, we glanced through the window of another train waiting to leave. Inside one of the cabins was an enormous man in nothing but his briefs (passengers like to undress for the night), with a substantial beer belly and the impressive face of a wolf tattooed across his entire back. He was dancing around the compartment, smoking a cigarette. Amory and I looked at each other. Who, exactly, would be waiting in ours?! The trains are now increasingly unpredictable. If the air-raid sirens sound, they stop and passengers are taken off and told to shelter until the danger has passed. Which means you don’t book a perfectly timed connection in Poland. You book one with hours to spare. Its a long journey home. Before we left Zaporizhia, we sat with a few mums and daughters. We had brought cases of Play-Doh from England, which had already proved a success with the tiny children at the party a few days earlier. Play-Doh becomes a sort of common language. You can make ridiculous snakes and wonky flowers and laugh together without needing words. But when we walked into the room, I realised these girls were older — around ten — and Play-Doh might not be quite right. They were nervous. Their mothers were nervous. Vitaly explained that they simply don’t see foreigners here anymore. Volunteers no longer come this far east, and some of these children had probably not met a foreign visitor in five years. But Amory put everyone at ease and before long the Play-Doh had been repurposed into a beauty salon. Amory was given a magnificent set of press-on Play-Doh nails. These girls had escaped from a village that is now under Russian occupation. I asked the girls what their biggest dreams were. Did they want to be a singer? An actress? A vet? A chef? “No,” they said. “We just want to go home.” On our last morning, Vitaly took us back to the church within the ancient Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra monastery, where my godson Zachary had been christened. The padre was waiting for us, his long black beard falling over his black cassock. We stood quietly in that little pocket of peace, lit a candle and closed our eyes for a moment. Olga and Zachary met us afterwards. They will move west for the winter. Kyiv is bracing for what could be its hardest winter yet — freezing temperatures, threatened power supplies and little certainty ahead. And still, this is a country that refuses to be broken. At the station, we hug Vitaly goodbye. “Do not leave with a heavy stone on your heart,” he whispered. “We will be all right.” My new book was published while I was in Ukraine. It didn’t feel like the moment to celebrate that there, but I had carried a copy for Olga and Vitaly. Inside is a chapter called ‘Marking the Moments’. Zachary’s christening in the historic Kyiv Pecherska Lavra is among those moments, something I will carry forever. And now, a rather different week lies ahead. On Wednesday I’ll be in Paris with EDGE Escapes, who create wonderfully romantic literary journeys where books, travel, food and conversation all meet. We’ll be gathering for brunch at Ralph’s in Saint-Germain to celebrate the new book — and there is still time to join us. Details here [ [link removed] ]. Then back to London on Thursday for cocktails and an evening at The Lanesborough, where I’ll be talking about the book, the stories behind it, and inevitably some of the chaos too. Save a seat here. [ [link removed] ] Paris and London, books, brunch, cocktails and conversation. After the week just gone, it will feel very good to celebrate — and to mark the moment. But never forgetting what we saw, heard and felt in Ukraine, and the endless, remarkable work of GEM [ [link removed] ]. INDIA HICKS. An Unexpected Journey. is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Unsubscribe [link removed]?