Maria Mocerino

The Ukrainian Refugee

In my kitchen the warmest shade of yellow, Sonya asked if I would speak to a refugee from Ukraine who had just arrived in Paris. He saw something that he couldn’t explain. She gave me next to no information.

“You will understand him.”  

On the phone later that week, it took some convincing, but he agreed to meet with me at her country home, she laughed, “in a forest.” A little enchanted by the word forest and her delivery of it, “a forest in Paris,” I wondered.

“Well, how do you get there?”

“Metro,” she said.

Bratan would accompany me. Bratan is Russian slang for “brother.”

“This is your bratan,” Sonya said. I only call him bratan, most of the time.

Bratan was a Moldovan orphan, a thief, and an extraordinary man on the path to leaving that life behind. He was my age and Sonya’s lover who was about fifteen years older than we were. We wandered up Boulevard de Magenta towards Place de République. We could speak without words since his French was limited at the time and he didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Russian, though I had learned some phrases. He was gifted in his ability to be in tune with his feeling, very intelligent. He could also be invisible, which I said to him. “You have an invisibility cloak.” He looked at me as if I had seen into his soul. I had met someone else like that who could almost disappear in plain sight; I told her too, and she knew that. He wanted to tell me a story.

I was about to buy him a metro ticket, but his lean legs jumped over the turnstile. He opened the exit doors for me in under one second. I didn’t want to do it, and I had done it—I had been with little money. Signaling me to hurry up, I ran through the doors. 

Controllers appeared in front of us.

They were taking Bratan, not me, not even a pause. We were having a conversation that the controllers did not notice. I was ignoring him, being taken away. I was speaking with them. He told me to stop. A woman—I was focused on a woman! How much for the penalty? He didn’t want me to—stop! He was being escorted down steps. That morning I’d been paid in cash for a few language lessons; I had exactly the amount for the penalty for the both of us.

I put up 120 Euros in front of this woman. For me and him.

I went to the stairs, regarding him down there. He wasn’t pleased.

We were in the tunnel—back on track to go to “a forest in Paris.” 

He would pay me back; why did I do that? He was upset.

Nothing was happening to him, I stopped. He was extraordinary. I wouldn’t think of asking him for the money back. That stunned him. On the metro, he couldn’t even wrap his head around me. He wasn’t going to accept it. I had worked for that money. I was firm. I had it. Was it an act? It was, but it was sincere. He never would have imagined that I, and everything “I” implied, would ever treat him the way that I did. Had anyone in his entire life ever said—I don’t give a shit about 60 euros? I had it, call it a sign, or a real act of “just put your money away.” The stories he had told me already. What he had been through. He was a person with real courage: his experience had value, and maybe I saw that in others, first, struggling with the unethical and immoral nature of my mother. This was a man who went to the most violent gang’s hideout in Paris, France, and told them to stop. Why was he doing it? Why was I doing it? We came from our backgrounds. I believed in him. I would make the money back.

He didn’t know what to do in the seat beside me.

This ticket, this metro penalty ticket; he showed it to me. He slipped it behind a photograph of his sister in his wallet. 

It moved me that he received it through these tunnels…on our way to a “forest” in Paris. He looked at me. I had to laugh as we passed Bastille. A forest. At the last stop on the yellow line, we were headed to Parc de Vincennes. These were the woods, attached to an old chateau, the size of a small city, but it was a popular recreational spot. Walking off a path, Bratan led the way through the trees. A couple of tents pitched through the thin trunks, I had been here many times, but I had never noticed them. I was exiting the world by going inside it. Outside the world but in. A red towel hung on a branch as if a front door—green leaves. I moved around it. I had begun working energetically around this meeting: to prepare myself a little though I let that go, too. I had recently begun working with plant medicines and I was embraced in this way. To the shaman, it wasn’t surprising that this happened, because I told him. He, as well as others, told me I could “do this work,” more or less. And here I was, twigs and branches and leaves cracking under my feet.

Sonya came into view in her large tent smiling like a happy Buddha.

“Country home.”

She was proud, staying on the property of a Siberian refugee. Two other tents were pitched in a small clearing tucked in the woods. I had brought rosé for her. She was smoking “cigarette” in a white zip-up hoodie.

I relayed what had happened with Bratan.

She understood my line of action perfectly.

“Good,” her hands were in her pockets. Nothing would have happened, but I didn’t agree with her. Knowing him though…she might have been right.

Looking up at the trees around the camp, the Siberian refugee had set up electricity. Oh yes, it’s what he did in the navy. He had been living there for about a year if I remember correctly. He was in a beanie and he didn’t have many teeth. He had weathered skin like leather, wrinkled. Packets of sandwiches from Au Bon Pain and other deli shops were laid out on a long wooden table that he had built.

A fire was crackling in a pit surrounded by rocks with potatoes cooking, wrapped in aluminum foil. Sonya was tending to the fire like a diligent servant. She had a specific point of view on what a “queen” was. She was in good spirits because she was at her country home. Pouring pink rosé into real glasses, she had brought a few; she’d clean them up with a speedy respect. She introduced me as a clown, a storyteller. I observed the scene in loose khakis, a khaki jacket, and sneakers. I wore no make-up, and my hair was pulled back. I made myself as plain as possible. A blond, built man appeared through the trees on the right, and two runners in the far distance; ants, on the left. His light eyes were large and kind but terrified and trying to hide it—glassy.

Following Sonya’s lead, I greeted him with kindness and invited him to sit down by the fire.

He was showing his nerves in his hands, a forced “everything’s fine” attitude on his face. I didn’t play into it, but I gave him space, so I could also read him, non-judgmentally. There was nothing abnormal about “seeing things,” I didn’t treat him like that. I might have gestured since we knew why we were here, but I might have communicated by not doing anything. It was a useful moment. I concentrated on his eyes, the flames flickering in them. He had seen something that made him doubt his sanity. It was obvious. I knew all his siblings had been killed. We stayed like this for a moment, and I did not project any energy that there was anything wrong with the silence. I didn’t try and fill it. I could have stayed here for hours gladly. Blinking, it was not easy for him to begin, to talk about it. I was going to think he was crazy. He chuckled. It was crazy. I had high standards for crazy, I wouldn’t worry about that. I could see already that he wasn’t crazy. He blinked at me. Sonya would interject sometimes to translate when we were…an image came into my head instead of a word.

“Stuck in the mud.”

Sonya gestured.

“Yes, I see things,” I said.

“What?”

Yes, it was clear that he was not crazy. I reached into his eyes shuffling like sheets of paper. He was grappling with something that he saw. I looked into his eyes. I could tell.

“You saw something crazy?”

I dropped my chin, brows high, I was genuinely interested and caring.

“What did you see?” 

Taking a deep breath, he took a long moment. I didn’t take my eyes off his clutching onto the fire. He cocked his head like it was official. I was going to think he was insane.

Swallowing, he paused.

“I saw the devil.”

“Oh,” I said, “that guy. I hate that guy.”

I hooked onto his shocked eyes, knowingly, but it was more like a crack—who was crazy? Was I crazy? Was he crazy? Right on that line, I caught him almost breaking, but not in a bad way, blinking, into barely a smile, not knowing what to do. Was I being serious? Ah, I was trying to comfort him. I saw him. It was nonverbal; it took a second, and I did not abandon his gaze. I had to hold him. I clarified that I didn’t hate. I never uttered that word.

A little relieved, he searched into the fire. He took his time.

“So,” he didn’t know what to say, taking a breath.

“You have…experience with this?” 

He asked in between a question and a statement.

“Not like you,” I said.

I pointed at his eyes. 

“I can see this. It’s clear. You saw this outside of a dream…this wasn’t a dream, yes? You weren’t sleeping?”

“No,” his eyes were huge.

“I can see that,” I said.

I wasn’t going to treat him with fear or weirdness.

“Okay.”

He continued to calm down, almost happy to have met me. 

“Well,” he said, putting his hands together. He had never been in this situation. 

I could have never…gazing over at Sonya. How on earth did she…? Hands in her pockets, regal in a hoodie. She trusted me with this. It moved me. Seeing things was, I couldn’t believe I was admitting it, something I could relate to. He had questions for me—no problem. It made him feel better. I recounted one of the dreams I had around this symbol.

“Two,” I said.

“I don’t see his figure; he is without a face on a dark road. He asks me to join him and I say no.” I lifted his eyes with my hand, “he lifts me far up into the sky,” and I threw my hands to the ground, “and slams me back to the ground.”

“And then?” 

“I just got back up again,” I smiled. I shared my genuine feeling with him about that. He cannot kill you, I said. He cannot harm you. No, not really. “This is a form,” I called it a form. A form? Yes, these are forms. I knew that though I was young. I was careful for that reason.

He was truly taken aback. 

“The devil is real…?” 

“This is a form,” I said again. “I don’t know what this form means to you,” but he was not crazy. I wanted him to understand that. I had met people who had a condition of some kind. Yes, it wasn’t important, because it was a large thing we were doing; being alive. It was just to ground him. I had dealt with someone who had a break, specifically, around this time, after the shaman said: “do you know how you can see into people’s souls? Trust that.” He did not have a psychotic break, though in his eyes, it was clear he was struggling with the reality of what he saw—the devil. And regardless of what one might call it, he didn’t have to be sent down a road that would have been more damaging considering what he had just gone through and was going through.

“Do you want to tell me what happened? Take me through it?” 

He shifted himself forward, putting his hands on the fire, and thanked Sonya with a tender but broken smile for serving us a couple of potatoes. Bringing myself closer to the fire, I mirrored his body.

“Where did this happen?”

He looked at me.

I began visualizing Gare de Lyon, the potato too hot. I loved potatoes. I made a visual map of the train station with a clock tower. I was walking towards it, opening the doors, and accessing the energy of it. It was an experiment also for me. I saw things that ended up having a real application, so I began by establishing a container. Details; the trains are set back and move along the station in a straight line. The vending machine where I had bought a Vitamin water once. The restaurant behind me. He was at the very end—in this visual construction. He was far away in other words. I could begin to just see what I would see. I was more trying to connect to the energy of that moment, him. Would I share my images? No. For many reasons. Images change and evolve and why do some stick? People think they see things but often latch on when it wasn’t the exercise. It was one of the lessons, at least for me, with the plants. Also, my images might not mean anything to someone else literally. But then, I saw someone once in their identity chakra playing tennis as a youth with his father. No one knew he ever played tennis and quite seriously. It was a sensitive topic, it turned out. You don’t know what you’re going to discover, either, so I wanted to be conscientious of that. I was imagining myself there as vividly as I could, but then, the intention was enough. I removed agenda, asked for support, to be of service, and that this exchange would benefit both of us. He was preparing himself. I would not abandon him, not judge him. There was nothing that he couldn’t confess. I naturally didn’t remember what I didn’t need to. Slamming into the encounter with the devil—fear, it was fear. You got off the train—stop. Too fast. Where was the train? Wait, what? He was lost. I was seeing a parked train car, finding him there, though he was recounting this story seated in front of me. Where did you come from?

Lots of luggage around him, obviously, but not everything necessarily means something or applies. It was tricky to get him to focus on the before. He didn’t want to. Rushing over that part? Where did you just come from? These weren’t clear images. It was disorienting, how could it not be? He had just fled a war. I was seeing green out another train window. He had a passage somewhere else before arriving here?

He blinked at me. Yes, he did. And oh, I saw that; it was clear though it wasn’t. Okay, wow, I saw that.

I was beside him at the train station, on this bit of earth; I was honored to be there. Without words, I wanted to get him somewhat onboard on some level, or to make a connection even nonverbally.

“What happened before…? Where did you come from?”

He was on the run…from a war.

“What did this part matter?”

His brothers had all been killed—I was not saying that. His eyes were blank. We couldn’t go there. Whatever it was that we were heading into it—something that blew his mind—that was accessible. I took that in.

I planted his feet.

“So, you stepped off the train?”

It comes to me now that he didn’t have a bag in my visualization container experiment. He was empty-handed. I would have asked him. Maybe not. Ten years later, I might trust myself more, too, no? Or, I might have just gotten to the point: his body, his experience, but then, he was attached to this event. He couldn’t shake it. It was a delicate place to be in. I am also interested in hallucinations, so I actually wanted to hear what his experience was. I suppose my instinct was—go through it. I have to get him to the other side since he was struggling with that, primarily, and maybe it would take some time for him to be able to talk about what happened—even his shock? His eyes. Shocking. War. You have to be able to meet someone, and I can say this, your mind can be blown but you can be sane.

The devil approached him, seemingly out of nowhere. From where?

At first, he was startled by a derelict, tattered man.

“What kind of hallucination was this?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Did you see this on a screen?” i gestured.

“Like a movie playing in front of you? Was he transparent? Did you see him in your head, in your imagination, or in space? What was the quality of the image,” in other words? “How did he appear to you?”

Blinking at me, he was like flesh and blood in front of him. He was there. Did anyone else see him? Blinking, he has to contend with what actually happened. He seemed to be able to make things happen in reality, but he wasn’t really there. Other people didn’t seem to respond, or maybe he was confused on that point.

“Maybe he was real,” I had to wonder.

“A homeless man.”

The laws of attraction are a true subject. That is, from a certain standpoint, a homeless man could fit into this category due to hunger, drugs, and dehydration. Life on the streets? Fluid states? Hallucinations and hunger? He was having an experience in the state he was in. Reality can meet one’s state. We’re talking about a person on the run from a war. In simple speech, it was entirely possible that the man could have been real. 

“How was that possible?”

I didn’t know; I gave him a hand. 

“So, people didn’t see him? Why do you say that?” 

But then, I have a thought now: who tends to notice homeless people?

He had to deal with that thought as real material. He wasn’t sure and it was a delicate place to be in. I allowed it to sink in. He was trying. There wasn’t a right or wrong; it was to determine what was happening, excuse me. He was evidently terrified even if it wasn’t totally apparent? Take a moment; he did, blinking. No, he didn’t think so, but maybe it could appear that way. The way that…we continued. It was real. He made things happen in reality that weren’t possible.

“Let me guess,” I said.

“There were temptations?” 

“How do you know this?” 

He asked, wide-eyed. 

“The Bible.” 

It was classic Devil stuff; I was rolling my eyes at that figure. He’s a broken record like I was saying. He cracked a little, but he couldn’t just detach from his experience of it. It wouldn’t even make sense that he could. I’m glad I could make him, a little, though. That’s scary; I gave him a full heart there. Yes, it was, also turning my hands towards the immediate past. I couldn’t even imagine.

“Isn’t this just a story?”

“Are stories not real?” 

I asked him. 

“These forms…they exist,” in a sense. How you interpret these images was another step. I mean, this was war, terror. Had he eaten? (This is a later reflection). He might have been a thought form created, in simple language, out of feelings that he could not process but were really happening even if a real homeless man approached him.

“He made things happen that a normal Man couldn’t do,” he said. Attached to that idea, okay, not wrong. I was assessing. Maybe he wasn’t a real person but really appeared like one. My instinct was to keep moving through it.

“Like what? What did he say? Where did he take you?”

We were moving into the temptations after having been taken by his strange powers or was he just seducing him? Trauma? He was unleashed a little by having the freedom to speak about what happened, reliving it, and taking me through it. I was asking his questions. He got sucked in. I went there with him. Did he want a million dollars? Even more? Of course, I thought. He was struggling, sitting with him now, and he seemed to tempt him. Money, power, going down the line, the kingdom. A phone magically rang after this apparition said it would...twisting energy. There were more supernatural occurrences; how was this possible? His powers amplified—the display of them—as the refugee tried to break away from him. He was demonstrating what he could do. Pinning people at random in the station, they fell down in intense agony to the point of death. It was real! He didn’t want someone to die! Stop, please! It spilled out the doors onto the parking lot. A final exchange happened in broad daylight, but it ended. We were out.

The pain was the hardest element, I think, though he might not have had an embodied experience of it or couldn’t quite connect. He had never experienced anything like it. It was beyond what he thought possible. The cell phone, for example, was particularly packed with hard, sticky feelings. We kept returning to this spot. I still have a clear memory of it, though not anymore. Money; I remember his hunger, his struggle, his guilt. We stayed here for a moment.

“The Devil is not necessarily bad…” 

“What do you mean?”

I mean, he wasn’t necessarily bad. If you don’t utilize the binary of good and bad, some religions don’t, then no. There are belief systems, my hand flew across time and space. The devil isn’t there, it’s not quite the same thing. Watching my arm descend, remember that, the final goodbye, to close the moment even now. These were forms; they could mean something different depending on the person, so I didn’t know what it meant for him. It’s not the hallucination itself that is the most important aspect to focus on, it’s the feeling-states. He had communicated that rather clearly even in his expressions and body language.

He wasn’t a religious man.

Well, he was definitely spiritual because he was one—a Man. There’s a reason why there is a spiritual aspect of the self. Outside of the West, in other healthcare systems, the spirit is as real as the body; it is considered a part of your body. There isn’t a separation. I was thinking about the temptations, however, since it unfolded straight from The Bible.

“Maybe he appeared to reaffirm your values. Were you battling yours? Maybe he was there to remind you of your goodness. If that was the question?” He refused him. He didn’t surrender to these energies if that was the fear? He saw things happen that didn’t make sense to him in reality; it was a positive sign to me. He appreciated that. He wanted to understand, also positive. People believe him to be real, no? He’s a popular figure. Belief was a real thing. Life is a mysterious thing. I didn’t know what the truth was, what “real” was. Spirit is real. Psychology, too. These symbols exist. Did he “really” see the devil? According to who? There is no ultimate framework. That I knew. Did he have a real experience? Yes, he did.

Cautiously, I asked about his family. All his brothers, I see. Only his mother was left. Maybe she could be sent out, he didn’t know. It didn’t seem like he could connect these experiences, but I would suspect that it had everything to do with the hallucination he was having beyond the pure terror of being on the run, coming from war, and suddenly ending up at a train station in Paris, France? A refugee? Was he wrestling with something that he did? Had to do? Did he see his brothers get killed? Did he barely escape? Was there guilt?

“You went through war—are you crazy?”

I looked at him.  

We made it back above ground, exiting the woods.

It would sound strange, wouldn’t it? Why would there be something wrong with you? Was there something that you lived through that could have thrown you into a different state of being, into contact with larger forces? War could do that, don’t you think, on a real level? His experience was real. Something like that can happen.

Walking away, flanked by trees, he kept looking behind him to say goodbye to me. I kept my eyes on him wishing him the best with more heart than words on his path forward. I waited until he was gone. In this type of situation, what did one say? What would happen to him? I couldn’t relate, and I made sure to tell him that. I feel it’s important to acknowledge our differences, too, out of respect. Processing an experience like that was going to take some time.

Bratan and Sonya beside me—the people who believe in that symbol but don’t, don’t but do. It’s confusing enough. Which is also true. I had a lot to learn. Any mention of “the devil” might stir someone but not me. Not that symbol. It has no reality for me, but then, I had those couple of dreams long ago, but that was it. It’s not crazy; there are even films about this character, so it exists in the collective. The energy alone around that symbol can be stimulating, right? You don’t want to get “drawn in,” which sometimes, that type of content can provoke that feeling, and the fear around it, too, no. Not in my position.

I am Catholic, and I smile because I was confirmed, and what would “they” say? It’s not true? Is it so scary that we don’t want to deal with the real content of it? There’s a whole universe out there and in there, simply put. The feelings were real; he was in a state, and he once again was on the run. I didn’t treat it as if it weren’t real. The feelings are, aren’t they? I had rather specific feelings and sensations myself….in areas of my body…for example, in relation to hallucinations, since I ended up experiencing that. I went through a unique event. I processed early childhood trauma because I was repressed for a long time. I mean, a heightened state of fear? Terror? All your brothers killed? And you can get into quite a state.

In the end, I tried to offer a different frame. It makes room for the experience to transform, maybe to give it a meaning that suggested his goodness or taking it out of that binary since we were dealing with the immediate event—the devil. Evil, even, could some relate to how utterly evil war is? That feeling? Life and death? Weapons. Feeling vulnerable, lost, weak, and even crushed? Not safe at all. I mean, I wish I got to talk to him again, simply to be there as time and trust might have allowed him to continue to open up. I broached the subject about his family and was simply observing how he responded. When you have a vivid hallucinatory experience, it’s a reality, and in his case, there’s an obvious connection. Psychology is not just in one’s head, in a sense. When you’re having a good day versus a bad day, it might change how you see things, and things might happen because of the state that you’re in. It felt and appeared very real to him, and it was, and once again, he had just gone through a lot. The symbols are containers; they can be. I didn’t know his background or his story either. I would ask some basic questions about eating, too. And more about his next steps, but then, you have to, I think, take some time. Just offer to see the person again. “I am a safe person.” Not stimulate his fear.

In my case, I can see things that aren’t quite hallucinations…that didn’t apply to him. The first time I met Bratan the word “thief” flooded my senses clearly written, and it turned out to be true….back in the golden glow of my kitchen. A peacock tile was over his shoulder.

“Marushka…”

Across from one another at the table, “it wasn’t with weapons that we would fight the next war,” Sonya said like I was a good clown. Sonya and Bratan were two people that I opened up to when I was beginning to talk about that part of my experience. They respected me and believed me. And it was saying a lot. It’s energy, and we can all agree that it’s real and cannot be destroyed. And neither can love, or so, Sonya said. Arms crossing over her chest in an X—”no weapons. Love was the way of the warrior. It is force,” she said with bright green eyes. It was unbreakable. But war? Can a person break? Sonya was all about love. Love, Marushka, love. Freckles on fire, she knew that it would help me also: this “exchange.” I thanked her; I had to laugh a little. I was asked to speak to a Ukrainian refugee about a hallucination?

“It is in this exchange,” Sonia lifted her finger and drew her hand between us, “that change can happen.” Not the material things. But then, the two of us in the lamplight, having seen an opportunity in one another, wondered. Maybe it was a material—bonds. 

“Da, da, Marushka…”

Lighting her cigarette, it was also my job as a clown—connection. A curl of smoke was rising in the air. A clown was first a political figure, and she held up her pointer finger, making the point, and making me feel calm and a little tickled. Swallowing, shrugging/bowing, she could make me laugh: the Oracle/Panther. I had seen this animal the first time I laid eyes on the lithe, lethal, and strikingly beautiful Sonya from Kazakhstan in a restaurant called love. I called her the O/P for short.

Like a warrior, she drew a vertical line down the center of her body bathed in the warmest shade of yellow. 

“La force d’esprit,” the force of spirit.

“Paf!” It was one of her words.

When I stopped the physical confrontations with my father, I was twelve, and she nodded. “The force d’esprit.” She taught her sons about it—it was one of the fundamental lessons. You do not engage, she said, you plug into the force d’esprit. No one can harm you. She pointed up and drew the line once again down her center. One day, her eldest son was picking on his younger brother, the middle son, and trying to get him to fight. Teasing him. Sonya was watching them from the shadows, through the blinds in a closet, or something. They didn’t know she was there. Her middle son was remaining in the force d’esprit, not taking the bait, but his older brother was not in the force d’esprit, and would her middle son hold the line? He was backing up almost reaching a wall. And right before, but just before the eldest was going to get physical, she snuck up behind him and the other didn’t let on that she was coming. Exactly. She held her leg up in a high kick position for me—easy. She tapped the back of his head for he was six feet tall. She tapped the back of her head. Just a tap. She went to her middle son as if he had passed the test—he had stayed in the force d’esprit. She reassured him and grounded him. Good. And here she was. She had to intervene in this case. She turned to her eldest son. “If you touch a hair on my son’s head…one…even if you are my son…I will kill you.” She said quite calmly and seriously. It was resolved.

“The panther,” I said.

“A symbol of motherhood.”

“Fierce,” I lifted my index finger, or so I read.