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ism; the American women had come to seek her Ukrain ian roots. We recognized in each other a kindred spirit, for in a very real sense we were two strangers in a strange land who could understand too well the difficul ties that this implied for each of us. Even the coinci dence of sharing the same name was significant. Tamara is neither Ukrainian nor Russian. It was the name of a Georgian princess who was determined never to be dominated by her male lovers. When any of them attempted to assume authority over her, she had them hurled over a steep cliff. We talked of many things that night: family, reli gion, politics, music. We exchanged funny anecdotes about our personal lives and introspective comparisons of our goals and insecurities. I learned that she was an example of the type of woman Marta Bohachevsky- Chomiak has so eloquently described in her book Fem inists Despite Themselves, women who are forced by the world they live in to comply with a form of domestic servitude, but who are constantly making courageous choices in their lives that defy all tradition and all the normal societal constraints. Like the women in the book, Tamara had to make difficult choices in a difficult world which sometimes allows no choices. One of those choi ces was to reject her Russian heritage and take on the identity of her adopted country. Another centered on the fate of her unborn child. She confided to me that the pregnancy had been unplanned, that she had lain awake in despair for many nights wondering if she and Mykola could cope with having another mouth to feed, that she had contem plated having an abortion but had been unable to go through with it. She confessed that the decision had not been entirely altruistic. The birth of the child would allow the family to apply for a permit to move to a larger apartment. We were together for no more than six hours. The next morning I boarded a train for Chernivtsi, hoping Tamara and I would be able to maintain at least some contact through cards and letters until my next visit to Kiev. Anyone who has traveled to Ukraine in the last few years and who has managed to go beyond touring museums to spending quality time with the natives, knows the intense nature of the friendships that are born in a matter of days or even hours, friendships that will last a lifetime. The bond is made quickly and nur tured over time and distance by any means possible. The relationship is not weakened by the peculiarities of the Soviet postal or telephone system. It survives, some times with no communication for months^ even between people who know they may not see each other for years. It is a spiritual bond created by virtual strangers who have shared a quiet moment in a world gone mad, who have tried to understand each other, who have experienced together the charged atmosphere of Ukraine’s national reawakening. It was under these cir cumstances that I had met Tamara and in the following months we exchanged the letters we had promised to exchange. I learned about the birth of her second daughter, about the continuing complexities of daily life in Kiev that had been exacerbated by the worsening economic situation. In her most recent letter to me Tamara wrote about another choice she had made, one that was personally significant to me for it invited my participation in a ritual in which she will be renouncing the atheism she was raised with and formally acknowledging her acceptance of Christianity. It was a letter I read with awe, a letter in which she apologized once again for her " inadequate” Ukrainian and in which she asked if I would be her godmother. She wrote that she knew it was a strange request and that church protocol might not approve of the slight difference in our ages. She wrote that she hoped I would not consider her request an imposition and that she did not expect me to fly to Kiev to accom modate — if I consented, a proxy could be found. It took me two weeks to compose in my inadequate Ukrainian a letter of acceptance that would not tarnish or trivialize the faith that she has in God and in me.
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