Two lonely boys
Frances Welsh
The Soviet soldiers who defected here from Afghanistan in June and returned to Russia on Sunday, were threatening to run to the Russian embassy more than two months ago. I went with an emigre friend to the small terraced house in Acton where they were living at the beginning of August. My friend was going to see them in an attempt to persuade them to settle down and stay in Britain. It was clear that they had already become desperately homesick. The younger of the two, Oleg Khlan, sat at the table in the living room with his head in his hands. He told us he wanted to go home.
The elderly couple who had taken them in shook their heads in despair — apparently it had been like this for days. They were not sure how it had started but Oleg and his friend Igor Rykov had be- come bored and listless. They could not be dragged away from the television or the vodka.
Vera Bondarenko, a plump motherly figure in late middle age, confided in us. 'We are very fond of the boys. We want to help them but we do not know what to do. Oleg especially is depressed. He cannot forget Afghanistan. He misses his home and family.'
She later told me she had seen the beautiful provinces the boys came from — they just could not compare with London's grey suburbia. In an effort to re-orientate the boys they had been sent to English lessons. We were told that they would duly leave the house in the morning, but no one was quite sure where they went. Some- times they would return an hour later, after just walking around the block.
Later that evening we suggested going for a drink. At the prospect of a bevy the boys' eyes lit up — they had already drunk quite a few toasts over supper. We went to the Dove pub, in Hammersmith. On the way the boys decided to for a swim in the Thames. They stripped to their underpants and swam the breadth of the river and back. They became more and more ani- mated. Three pints of beer with a dash of vodka later they were chatting up the barmaids. Oleg's poor grasp of English limited him to a direct pattern: 'I love you very much.' He was so handsome that the girls almost fell for it.
The following day I visited the house again, bringing a cake. I sat in the back garden drinking tea with the old couple. Igor had a little piece of cake — but Oleg as always stuck to vodka. The boys had apparently been arguing. The couple told me Oleg had been antagonising Igor — the brighter of the two. Igor had settled down much better than his friend. He had learnt quite a bit of English and was working on an account of his time in Afghanistan. The relative ease with which he was adapting to life in England was a bone of contention between them. Oleg was unable to shake off memories of the war — he would not let Igor forget them either. I realised what power Oleg had over his friend when I sat with Igor later on in the Ukrainian Club 10 Holland Park Road. He looked so glooMY that I asked him whether he wished he was still in Afghanistan. His answer was yes -- and somehow, from Igor, it did not ring true.
If it was Oleg who led the drinking sprees, it was he too who was first to launch into confused and maudlin recollec- tions of the war. The local off-licence gol so used to seeing the boys that they would have the bottles on the counter as soon as they saw them coming. Vera and her husband tried to stop the drinking — but they both knew the odds and the argu- ments were against them. They boys, after all, had been opium addicts. It would have taken incredible force of character not to have turned to an alternative. Equally the couple were not supposed to be their ward- ens. Vera said: 'They are such nice boys but they spoil themselves with vodka. We have tried to stop them — but it does not seal possible. They have their own money and they are not prisoners here — they can do what they like.' The couple obviously needed a break. Once I took Igor and a Ukrainian frieu,d back to my flat. We watched videos —1U5 favourite was Pink Floyd's The Wall. HIS best song was 'We Don't Need No Educa• tion'. I later gave them a copy of the video which is doubtless still sitting in one °f their rooms.
The last time I visited the house the boYs were getting worse. The couple told Me that Oleg had threatened to kill Igor. Igo; was now becoming frightened of his frier"
much the physically stronger of the two. But hope appeared to be on its way applications to emigrate had been made t° the Canadian government. I'm glad I was not in the house when it finally dawned on, the boys that they would not be going au' that the government would not accept drug addicts — whatever country they cattle from. The letter Igor received from home last week was the final push the boys needed t° get them to the embassy. Lord Bethel', who brought them over, had not seen them for three weeks. Besides, they did not care for him. 'Bethell is bad people,' Igor told me. They felt lonely here — and the Bondarenkos could not be expected to he substitutes for home, family and friends. Those with anti-Soviet leanings saw the boys as good propaganda — especially with the approach of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. Those organist the release of the war prisoners saw theM less as two lonely young men than the forerunners of a regular escape route from the East. Perhaps, all along, it was Vera who knew better than all of us what they needed. 'They are good boys but they want to be loved,' she told me.
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