Blood and Salt

by Barbara Sapergia

  Taras saw his parents pass through the far doors onto the platform.

  Mykola watched the train pull into the station, brakes squealing, hissing steam. The conductor dropped his stepping box, hopped down and began helping passengers off.

  Other people stood around the platform waiting to board. Some, dressed in homespun, carrying cloth bags. A man in a business suit and soft felt hat, with a flat leather case under his arm. Two older ladies in long black dresses and neat but faded coats. Their hovering servant, also old, a long white beard trailing down his chest. An old priest sitting on a wooden bench.

  And two soldiers paced the platform, glancing about with sharp blue eyes. They never looked twice at Daria and Mykola.

  Inside, new arrivals streamed into the station. Mykola went back out to the street to let Taras know about the soldiers. Told him to wait until the last possible moment to board. But how could he get by the soldiers?

  Mykola went back out to the platform to stand with Daria. She raised a hand as if to adjust her headscarf, but it was no longer there. Without it, she had to act as though she was someone else, and he could see it was making her tired. She reached up again and changed the angle of the hat so that it shaded her face more.

  Taras came inside the station and made his way to a shadowy corner, just as a man stepped through the front doors – a man with a well-fed look and a confident military bearing. A man used to getting his way. Taras shrank against the wall as Krentz strode smartly through the station and onto the platform.

  The colonel went over to the soldiers. They shook their heads – no young men trying to avoid the army. Krentz looked up and down the platform, shrugged. Stood near the station wall.

  The conductor nodded. People drifted toward him, gripping bags, tickets ready, and began to board. Soon only the Kalynas were left. The conductor’s look said, What’s keeping you? Have you never been on a train before? They hadn’t, but things like that didn’t bother them any more. They boarded the train.

  Krentz strained to see into the carriages. Ordered the two soldiers to search the cars. The conductor looked annoyed at this but said nothing, only looking at his watch meaningfully. Trains must keep to a schedule and he didn’t want to get in trouble.

  Taras watched through the station windows. He heard a hiss and a chuff; the train was starting up. Krentz was still on the platform. If Taras didn’t get on that train, he’d be finished. His parents were on their way to Kanady. They’d given up everything for him.

  Looking out to the street, he saw Imperator tied to a lamppost. He went outside, as quickly as he could without attracting attention, giving a little wave to Todor. He stroked the stallion’s neck. Untied him and leapt into the saddle, and took off down Stationstrasse. As he rode, he made a loose knot in one of the reins, hoping it would look as if they weren’t tied properly.

  He heard the approaching engine and the clack of wheels. When he thought he must be well ahead of the train, he pulled up, jumped off the horse and sent him back down the street with a light slap to his rump. He ran between two buildings and sprinted for the track. The train was passing now, starting to pick up speed. He dashed for the door of the last carriage. In a moment he was raising a foot to the first of two steel steps in front of the door and reaching for the railing beside it.

  Todor drove slowly away from the station. Mykola’s horse and cart now belonged to him.

  Krentz came out of the station and looked around for his horse. Imperator had found a grassy strip in the middle of the cobbled street. When he reached the stallion, Krentz saw the apparently slipped knot and shrugged. He mounted and rode off, heard the train’s whistle in the distance. He felt annoyed, although not as much as he would have expected. There had been a deserter, and General Loder wanted him caught. Wanted to make an example of him.

  As he passed the Seminarska church on his way to the garrison, he pulled up and let his mind review everything he’d seen. Imperator had slipped his tether, tempted by some green grass and a loose knot. But Reinhard Krentz didn’t tie loose knots. It wasn’t the way he did things. Nor would it be easy for a stranger to untie the horse. He was used to being handled only by Krentz and whoever was looking after him in the garrison.

  Or perhaps the person who trained him.

  He remembered four people travelling in a wagon. Trades-people by the look of them; the youngest surely the son of the woman and one of the men.

  There’d been something familiar about them, he realized.

  He could send a telegram and everything would be taken care of. Guards would board the train and arrest Taras, send him back to join the army. Krentz could have him sent to the guardhouse for a while. He’d be company for that other one from the same village.

  So he could have Taras brought right back. But he found himself wondering – did the fact that he could mean that he could also refrain?

  Taras schooled this wonderful horse. Watched him take Imperator out from under the nose of the seedy old pahn. And there probably would be war, and many young men would die. He, Krentz, might die himself.

  The comic side of it struck him, the audacity of the young man who’d once replaced a shoe on his horse. And once this rush of fellow feeling was there, it was too late. Krentz burst out laughing. He decided to take Imperator for a good run in the hills.

  The conductor worked his way down the aisle. Daria tried to look calm.

  “Where is he?” She adjusted the hat, distressed by the unfamiliar structure of twisted black taffeta on her head. The dress felt hot and prickly against her skin, not at all like soft linen. The train was moving. They’d sold their land and left the village, got on a train for God knew where, put on the clothing of strangers...

  “Shhh.” Mykola pretended to search in the cloth bag for something, his ticket, perhaps, although it was already clamped between his icy fingers. He tried to relax the fingers a little, to let the blood circulate. The conductor edged closer. Only two more passengers until he’d reach them – an old dido and a baba with her belongings tied up in a babushka.

  At the far end of the car, Taras entered. Seeing him, Daria felt as if a heavy, wet fog swirled in her head and was afraid she’d faint. But she couldn’t do that; she had to keep the conductor from noticing Taras, who was making his way down the aisle.

  She caught the conductor’s eye. “Proshu, how long is the journey to Lemberg?” She used the German name for the conductor, but in Ukrainian the city was Lviv.

  The conductor’s glance told her it was rude to speak to him without being spoken to first. He was taking care of another passenger, after all. He was an important railway official.

  She thought he might even be taking in their rather worn clothing and a certain unease in the way they carried themselves.

  “It takes as long as it takes.” Don’t bother me, his eyes said.

  Taras edged past the conductor’s back and took a seat opposite his parents. The conductor finished with the old couple and moved on to Mykola.

  “Here are our tickets – for my wife and I.” Mykola handed them over. “And for our son.” Now he glanced at Taras.

  The conductor turned and almost jumped. “Where the devil did he come from?”

  Mykola lowered his voice. “He had to use the toilet.”

  They could see the conductor thinking, Did I see that one get on the train?

  “And where might you be going?” the conductor asked suspiciously.

  “To Lemberg,” Taras said. He tried to look like an innocent young man excited by his first train journey.

  “We’re going to attend a wedding,” Daria said. “My husband’s cousin’s daughter is getting married.”

  “Your husband’s cousin’s daughter?” The conductor asked skeptically.

  “That’s right,” Mykola said. “She’s the same age as my son, and I must say that we had hoped the two of them might... But they live so far away, and we just don’t see each other that often. But it will be a good chance to see his family.”


  “Oh yes, and what does your cousin do in Lemberg?”

  “He runs a livery stable, with a smithy attached,” Mykola lied. “He’s actually done quite well.”

  Taras was proud. His father was like an actor in a play. Not that Taras had seen a play, but he’d lived in Chernowitz and knew about such things.

  The conductor nodded to himself for some time. Something jogged his brain. “Back there at the station...there were soldiers. Looking for someone. I wonder who that could have been.”

  “I don’t know,” Mykola said. “They were speaking German.” Mykola spoke German quite well himself, but he wasn’t going to say that.

  The conductor examined their tickets. Considered what to do. Have the train crawling with soldiers and getting off schedule? Or...

  “Now that I look more closely, I see these tickets aren’t quite correct. They won’t take you all the way you’re going.” The conductor’s voice had a sharp edge to it.

  Mykola looked at the tickets, “Chernowitz to Lemberg” printed clearly on them. Did the man think they couldn’t read? It didn’t matter. He wanted a bribe. Mykola pulled out his purse. Hoped the conductor wouldn’t sell them out anyway.

  Later, Mykola looked out the window, eyes losing focus. Daria dozed with her head on his shoulder. Taras slept slumped across the seat opposite. Time to wake Daria so she could keep watch. They’d agreed they shouldn’t all sleep at once. He touched her arm and she was instantly awake, checking to see that Taras was still there. She listened to the tik-tik, tik-tik, as the train ran along the rails. If the conductor put them off the train, what could they do? They must be over a hundred miles from home. No going back.

  Nothing to go back to.

  Inside Mykola’s bag was the last loaf of bread she would ever bake in Bukovyna. She realized how hungry she was. She found it and tore off a chunk.

  “Tonight,” she said, “I’ve travelled further than I ever did in my life. I know I will never see our village again.” But Mykola was already asleep.

  Thirty or so men exhale as one. The rail car fades and they’re back in the cold, gloomy bunkhouse. But for the moment at least, Taras has escaped and taken them along.

  “Yeah,” Tymko says after a while, “but did Krentz really let him go? I mean, this big important officer suddenly cares what happens to a common foot soldier? Maybe he’s just stupider than you think.”

  “Tymko, shut up.” With slight variations this bursts out of Yuriy, Ihor, Myro and about a dozen others. Tymko grins and shuts up. They know it won’t be for long.

  CHAPTER 14

  A world of grass

  Taras runs through towering beeches that grow so close together it’s hard to see where to step. The beeches turn into a thick stand of pine with no path through it; and still he runs, and every tree is exactly like the last. There is no place to hide. A single thundering shot echoes in his skull. Something grazes his scalp.

  His heart pounds and he begins to be aware of the feeling of dreaming. A bugle sounds, clear and surprisingly loud, and he leaps to his feet. It’s the dark of night, icy cold. He thinks he sees a hunched shadow creeping away from him, but the image is gone in a moment.

  Guards burst into the bunkhouse, scruffy and bleary-eyed, coats unbuttoned and carrying lanterns, and begin counting prisoners. Most of the men, drugged with sleep, don’t even know they’re there. When you fall asleep in this place, cold and weary, it’s not always easy to wake up.

  No one missing. Taras runs his hand through his hair. Did someone touch him as he slept? He shivers. He’ll never get back to sleep now. He watches for a long time, but no one moves.

  At breakfast a story trickles through the mess hall. In the night a guard thought he saw a prisoner outside the compound, and fired. The bugle sounded, it was no dream. In the morning when soldiers went out to look, they found deer tracks.

  Taras has no plans for escape.

  Before they leave the mess hall, each man is given a pair of woollen pants. Fingering the coarse material, Taras considers its warmth over long underwear. On the worst days he can add his old overalls on top of the new pants.

  Then for nearly a week, it’s too cold to go outside at all. Taras wears his woollen pants in the bunkhouse. They are the best thing about the week.

  One evening the carver begins work on a fresh piece of pine. Taras and his friends watch with a glimmer of interest, wondering who his next subject will be. Maybe that’s what catches the attention of the new guard who’s on duty because Andrews is sick. Too late the carver looks up, and in a half second the guard takes away the knife. He also captures the piece of wood – just in case Bohdan Koroluk might try to carve it with his bare hands.

  He sits on the edge of his bunk. Taras watches him, wondering what’ll happen now. Bohdan working was a constant presence; something they could depend on. He was carving things that made them feel better. Tymko and Myroslav exchange glances. Something has to be done. A cold, heavy mist seems to be settling on the bunkhouse.

  “Taras,” Myro says, “it’s time we heard more of your story. It was like a good book I didn’t want to put down.”

  “Oh, I don’t know –” Taras begins. He doesn’t really feel like it. The guard’s stupid action has depressed him. The guards have so much power over them, and he hates the moments when that becomes too obvious. When his nose gets rubbed in it.

  He’s decided that the guards can’t help being slightly insane, as he defines insanity. He figures they know two contradictory things at once. One, that the men in the camp are here for good reasons, and that the rest of Canada must be protected from them. And two, that the men aren’t dangerous and are being punished for no reason at all.

  “Now where did he leave off?” Tymko is asking, as though Taras hadn’t spoken.

  “Something about his mother,” Yuriy says. “How she’d travelled so far...”

  “I’ve travelled further than I ever did in my life,” Myro quotes from memory. What storyteller could resist the flattery of a listener’s remembering his favourite moments?

  They’re waiting. Myro beckons Bohdan to come and listen. He comes. He’s never done that before. That tips the balance. Taras tries to think where he left off. Ah, the train out of the old country.

  Taras makes short work of the voyage, on a ship like a swaying wooden tower – or maybe like the stave church in the village – set in the middle of more water than he ever wanted to see or even know about. At night deep in the ship’s belly the air reeks of sweat, vomit, urine, shit. Storms drive waves across the deck. The hold is a wild, rocking cradle.

  Water tastes rank. There isn’t enough of it for washing.

  The long journey west on the Colonist train is an improvement in many ways. He remembers things he thinks his friends might enjoy. And he’s thought of something Bohdan will like.

  So far the train feels safer than the one that rolled them out of Bukovyna. The conductor has not asked for bribes. No soldiers watch the station platforms. The Kalynas no longer keep watch at night. There’s a stove at the end of the car if people want to cook. The Kalynas don’t want to. They eat bread and hunks of cheese wrapped in brown paper that Batko bought at the last stop. If and when they reach a new place that might some day be home, that will be time enough to resume the business of daily life.

  The swaying and the click of the rails is soothing. It asks nothing of them.

  The newly created Kalynas struggle to understand their lives. Mykola wanted to make things better in the village, but has become an immigrant. Taras wanted to marry Halya. Daria wanted to keep doing the things that helped her family. She hasn’t talked much since the days on the ship. Maybe she can’t see any point in it. They’re here now, what is there to say?

  Before he had to leave, his parents had a place they knew, that felt right and good to them. They sheltered in a house, a village, a landscape. Now they’re naked, or good as. They eat bread baked by strangers.

  But their eyes never accuse him. It�
��s done, that’s all.

  He can’t hold this country in his mind, there’s too much of it. Outside the window, rocks and pines and lakes crawl by, soon to be replaced by prairie. Even further west – if that’s possible, and their tickets say it is – a farm awaits them. But he doesn’t really believe in it, especially at night. Who gives away land, anyway?

  At night a gentle rocking lulls them to sleep on a landlocked ship. They dream. They let time slip through their fingers. For now. That will have to change soon.

  As they near the city of Winnipeg, the people and things in the car, which they’d been too detached to notice, become clearer. Last night a baby started to cry and now it cries all the time. The parents and some of the other passengers have tried to soothe the baby. Walking it up and down the car, singing songs in Ukrainian, German, Romanian. By now everyone understands that the mother hasn’t got enough milk.

  Daria fears the baby will die. She hadn’t wanted to know about the other people, but this fear ties her to them.

  Older children run up and down the car and sometimes into adjoining cars until the conductor chases them back. An old man carves small objects of wood – square blocks, rough shapes of dolls, tops that spin in the aisle then fall drunkenly on their sides. He gives them to the children, who play with them for hours at a time.

  At Winnipeg a man gets on who seems to have more energy, more colour to him, than the train people. Marko Kupiak talks to everyone, learns all the children’s names, seems to know all the languages of eastern Europe. He has black hair and sparkling dark eyes. He knows songs beyond counting, sings them to whoever will listen. And he has a talent even more wonderful than his singing.