“Do cats see heaven?”
A unique memorial book to those who died in the war was presented in Dnipro.
We start each day with a news feed. We usually watch how deadly missiles fly in Telegram channels. We are becoming less and less receptive to tragic messages. Casualties among civilians – this is how blind official statistics mark death. Behind her, there are no stories of individuals who were cut short by the war. Such stories can be preserved for posterity only by artists.
“Does heaven see cats?” is a memory book written by 36 Ukrainian writers. It perpetuates the stories of 36 families who lived in Dnipro, at 118 Peremohy Street, in a house destroyed by a Russian missile. This book is about the Dnipro people and at the same time about all Ukrainians whose destinies were destroyed by the war. The idea of writing a collective work occurred to two Ukrainian writers – Olga Polevinia from Kropyvnytskyi and Elina Zarzhytskyi from Dnipro. They invited artists from different regions to imagine and recreate the lives of the residents of the destroyed entrance before it was hit by a rocket.
At the presentation of the collective story at the Ukrainian Language Culture Center named after Oles Honchar, Dnipro, the artists talked about their unique work, which they called a requiem book.
Olga Polevina already had the experience of co-authoring books. He talks about it as an intellectual game that inspires, gives inspiration, especially when the co-authors understand each other from half a word. However, he admits: “This time it was more difficult: there were a lot of authors, I didn’t expect so many. What can be done to avoid the effect of assembly?”
And the decision came. A unifying image of the house appeared: Home – Motherland – Ukraine – Universe. And another through-and-through image is the cats that inhabited the house. They are found in many stories, they are always with people. Thus, an almost human character appeared in the book – the cat Marylka.
“The house sheltered her. She found a small window and got to the basement. It was warm and cozy there. At night, she hunted a mouse, ate it and thought that life was not all bad. The same sound that frightened her owners was louder and sounded more often here, but she no longer paid attention to it.
(excerpt from the book “Can Heaven See Cats?”)
The image of a cat suggested the title of the book to the writer, which cemented the plot.
Elina Zarzytska invited writers from different parts of Ukraine to the joint project. Among the authors are artists from Kropyvnytskyi, Kyiv, Korosten, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Dnipro, Odesa. Everyone had freedom in creating history. Someone relied on facts. Someone is pure fiction. “There was only one condition,” the writer notes. – We asked to stop the development of events with the words: “And then the howl of a siren sounded…””. Some of the heroes were talking on the phone at that moment, some were studying music. One writer even created a story about an empty apartment.
“They say that houses have no soul. Falsehood. A part of his soul was in every corner, behind every wall. Behind each door was a universe, separate and isolated, and yet a part of the whole. The dust of memories settled on the walls. The house knew such secrets, which, probably, will never be known to anyone. And he knew. He felt every thought, every push, remembered everyone who lived here during the tens of years of its existence. This is a lot for a person, but nothing for a house. So it was not for nothing that he considered himself young”
(excerpt from the book “Can Heaven See Cats?”)
Another story came out with cats. Responding to Elina Zarzytska’s suggestion, the writers began to study the materials and looked at the photos that were in the public domain. The photo of a girl sitting next to a bathtub on a scrap of the floor left over from a destroyed apartment and hugging a cat was the most striking.
“Perhaps, that photo inspired many authors,” says the writer. Olga Polevina immediately said that she would write about this girl.”
Later it turned out that she is the daughter of volunteers Natalia and Maxim, who helped many abandoned animals since the beginning of the war. They, along with their cat Richard, died in that missile strike. “When they wrote the piece, I didn’t know it yet,” says Elina Zarzhitska. – And now I want as many people as possible to learn about these kind and sensitive volunteers. In memory of them, there is a running wheel in the cat shelter. It was the couple’s dream, which they did not have time to fulfill. Caring people found out about it and bought a wheel for homeless cats. There is also an inscription: “In memory of Natalya, Maxim and the cat Richard.”
The writer believes that one should not advise anyone to read anything. However, I hope that everyone will read this book. After all, it is a tribute to those who died in a brutal war. It is not only about death, but also about life that continues.
In the video: Writer Yaryna Koval, Lviv
