The Kissing Fence

by B. A. Thomas-Peter

  “I’m well, thank you. Is Father with you?”

  “Your father can’t come today, but I have something for you. I have some pastry for you.” From under his coat he conjured two slender packages wrapped in thin cotton tied at each end with string, and began clearing the frost from the fence. “The women made them small to get through the fence. Better than throwing it over and the pastry breaking.”

  The enthusiasm and grin were intended to distract, but neither was convincing. He began feeding the floppy sausage shape through the diamond openings. Pavel pulled gently, glumly, on the other side.

  “Thank you,” said Pavel, trying to smile. “It’s kind of you, and there’s enough to share.” The community had not forgotten him, even when his father was not there to remind them. He knew there was something to be grateful for, but he could not grasp it. “What has happened to my father?” He asked. “I am old enough to be told.”

  There was quiet between them as the man looked intently at Pavel, measuring the new heft in the boy. “It is right. You are old enough to know things. You’re a man now. It happens quickly these days.”

  “Is he safe?”

  “Yes, he’s safe, but he was taken. They came for him, and many others.” It had been expected. The community had hidden him until so many were taken that there were too few to conjure a plan to hide him. As with the children, it became a matter of attrition until the RCMP found him and took him away to prison.

  “Do you know where he’s been taken?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “What about Mother? Any news?”

  “There’s no word on any of them. Your mother and sister are with many of our people. They have God in their hearts and remain true.” The two nodded at each other, understanding the importance of holding true to faith. The work of passing the second package through the fence continued.

  “There are more children here this time,” said his father’s friend, scanning up and down the fence. “How many are there?”

  “It’s hard to say. A few come every week; others leave when they get outside school age.”

  The older man said, “Our leader, Sorokin, has said our path back to Russia will be through the prisons of Canada. Be strong. Think of this place as part of that path. And look after each other, Pavel. Keep safe. We will come when we can. I must find my children.”

  “Thank you,” said Pavel, turning and walking away. He had no understanding of Russia or desire to go there, except the language was familiar and the stories enchanting. The idea of returning there was bewildering. He was just a boy and knew nothing but British Columbia, his love of home and hatred of this place. Sorokin was just the name of a man who lived thousands of miles away, of whom people talked as if he was their leader and for whom money was collected. His parents always gave what they could.

  Within a few strides he realized there would be no more family visiting him at the fence, and steeled himself to show nothing of it. He began walking toward the dormitory, thinking of his father in custody somewhere. Only his faith would sustain him now. He had to be in this place, do what was needed to avoid trouble, but reject all their teachings to stay true. All their history of kings and queens, great battles, colonial dominance and industrialization was not his history, not the Doukhobor way. He would keep the true way safe inside him, ready for when he emerged from this.

  * * *

  Pavel felt the gaze of Matron MacDonald as he approached the dormitory. Large, white and starched, she stood on the veranda looking down on everyone. There was something indomitable about her, and now, at the top step, bundled in a large coat, her size and authority seemed titanic. He forced himself not to look up to her as he reached the bottom step. She would never get that from him.

  “Your father not come today?” she asked.

  At the top step, where he nearly matched her height, he turned to her. “He sent a message and some food to share.”

  “Maybe he’s off burning someone’s house down. I expect he’s on the run like the rest of them.” Matron’s contemptuous eyes wandered to the fence and back again before falling on the cotton-wrapped rolls of pastry.

  “Pastry from home,” said Pavel, anticipating her demand for an explanation or inspection, anything to display her dominance of him. He clenched his gut to control his nerves. “I’ll open them later with the others who didn’t get visits.” Pavel felt the ripple of anger in Matron at his defiance.

  “You know that food not eaten during visiting has to go to the kitchen. We can’t have rats in the dorms again.”

  If the pastry went to the kitchen it would not be seen again by him or any of the children. Just as the factories, houses and flour mills his people had built were taken by the English Canadians, so it was that whatever the Doukhobor children had could be taken. The children would watch the matrons consume it without shame. She could remove the pastry this minute and consume it in front of everyone. Seizing his pastry would go unchallenged, and protest from him or other children would bring only the strap. She had all the authority there was to have, but in this moment, over these pastries, Pavel and Matron were connected in a tug-of-war.

  He said, “They’ll be gone before lunch.”

  It did not matter how small it was; he felt it was in his grasp to choose the outcome, if only he could hold his nerve and his temper long enough.

  “Be sure they are.” Matron MacDonald turned away disdainfully as if she had never been interested.

  Pavel entered the dormitory, undid his boots and left them behind. It was nearly as cold as outside, but at least it was quiet. Two long rows of beds, each with allotted space and bedside locker, stretched the length of the room like berths in a harbour waiting for ships to return. He slipped down the central passage on shining linoleum to his berth and put the precious pastry on his locker. An hour would pass before the children returned. There was time to be alone without the clatter and chatter and questions for which he offered comforting answers to little ones, without really knowing the answers they wanted.

  His little defiance had soothed the turmoil of learning of his father’s capture and Paul’s leaving, but had not cleared the contempt of Matron’s remarks. He allowed himself to fall back on his bed, close his eyes and remember his family. His mother’s face was getting more difficult to recall, and he tried to imagine it. His mother had told him to remember only the smiles, the warmth of family, playing in the fields and lessons from their worship. He was not to spend time worrying about them or to dwell on where he was, because he carried God with him always. From outside there was just a murmuring of seventy children and a hundred or more parents and relatives speaking at the fence. The snow dampened sounds of laughing and crying from the yard.

  “Hello,” a soft voice said in Russian.

  Pavel sat up quickly. “Who are you?”

  A girl about his age stood several beds away, layered in clothing. He could see a long, white, thick cotton dress, a plaid shirt and a grey sweater. She had wrapped a blanket over her shoulders and had pulled her head scarf from her hair and held it around her neck like a tether. Even from that distance her blue eyes startled him. She smiled, offering a hint of how he imagined her running in the fields on a sunny day, short blond hair tossed with every stride. The image passed.

  “I’m Nina! Don’t you recognize me?”

  “I’ve never seen you with short hair,” said Pavel. “It’s nice to see you. Haven’t seen you since … I was taken. When did you get here?”

  “Today. Matron cut my hair as soon as I arrived.” Nina pushed at her hair. “It made me cry.”

  “Don’t be crying here. It’s fine,” said Pavel. “Never show weakness to them. Have you been given a number and a bed?”

  “Yes. I’m Girl Ninety-Five,” said Nina, waiting for his number to be volunteered.

  “I’m Boy Twelve.”

  “You were taken at Per
ry Siding?” Nina asked. Pavel nodded. “That will be more than three years,” she said in surprise. “It’s a long time.” Nina approached his space.

  He nodded again. “It will be four years in September. How did you escape the police for so long?”

  “I hid in the woods, mostly, and my uncle made a hiding place inside. Even if they came in the night I didn’t have to run and hide. I was hidden in less than a minute.”

  “How did they find you?”

  “I was outside close to the house, too close. My uncle saw them and shouted, ‘Politziya! Politziya!’ They heard him shouting and lots of them came for me. He meant to warn us, but it just told them where we were.” She smiled again. “He was so upset.”

  “They’re devils.”

  “They are not all devils. A policeman found me before but pretended not to see me.”

  “So why did he take you this time, if he is not a devil?”

  “He wasn’t there. Lots of them came and saw me. They were all coming.”

  Pavel had heard too many stories of young children being pulled from their parents or dragged from under beds with too much relish to find goodness in any of the RCMP. “You’ll learn they’re all devils. They see what they want to see and do what they want to do. God doesn’t guide them.” Pavel realized that he was being unfair to Nina. It was too early to talk like this with the newcomer. “Sorry. My father couldn’t visit me today. He was taken. Are you hungry?” He tried to pick up his enthusiasm and reached for the pastry. “I have pastry. Would you like some?”

  Nina nodded and sat on the end of Pavel’s bed as he undid one of the parcels. “I was watching you at the fence. Who was that little boy?”

  “He just arrived last week, picked up the day after his birthday. It’s his first visit from his parents.”

  “But why was he crying?”

  “He wasn’t sure how his family would kiss him without getting his lips stuck on the fence.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him it was a ‘kissing fence.’” The children smiled at each other. “I showed him how to hold his hands, like this.” He put down the pastry, spread his hands wide and connected his two thumbs and then both forefingers to make the diamond shape. Nina copied him. He held his hands up, as if pressing them flat on the fence, and their palms touched. “Through there,” he said, gesturing with a nod to the gap in their hands.

  “That was nice of you. Have you become the father of the little ones?” She had allowed her hands to linger on his without intending to. Neither understood the current flowing between them.

  “No, not their father,” said Pavel, handing her a pastry. “Everyone needs comforting here. They like to see us laugh and play. They think if we play, we’re not missing home. Sometimes they say, if we laugh or seem happy, we are better off here than at home. It lets them say our homes were not good, our families are criminals.” His anger flashed. “But underneath, no one is happy here. I let them see nothing.”

  Nina stared at him. “Sorry,” he said. “Please eat, or Matron will take it. Never give them what you don’t have to give, and never give them everything.”

  “They take our food?” she asked.

  “All the time. They eat it where we can watch them. So we know they can do anything they like. I shouldn’t be talking like this. You’ve only just arrived. There’s plenty of time to learn these things.”

  “I want to know,” she said, breaking the pastry and putting it in her mouth. “The sooner I learn, the better.”

  It was Pavel’s turn to look hard at Nina. She had just arrived after hiding from the police for three years, and now she sat at the end of his bed without a sign of fear or wretchedness, as every other child arriving at New Denver had shown. She was different. Not just the eyes and straw-coloured hair, but the bearing of her shoulders could be seen through the layers of cloth. The confidence of her gaze revealed something he had not seen in other children.

  “Okay,” said Pavel. “The first thing to know is that Russian is not allowed here. You’ll be strapped at school or punished in the dormitory if they hear you. But, there is no rule about singing. So we sing messages to each other.”

  “It sounds like fun,” said Nina.

  “Be careful with it. You have to look like you’re really singing—a hymn or something.” Nina soaked in his words. “The other thing is you can say anything in English to Matron or teachers, but it doesn’t mean a thing. Talk about their history and their lessons, agree with them, let them speak badly about our people, it doesn’t matter.”

  Nina was concentrating with an intensity that made him self-conscious. She asked, “Why doesn’t it matter when they say bad things about us?”

  Pavel could see the confusion on her face. “When we speak in Russian, it’s different. We never lie when we speak Russian.”

  “So, when you speak English to me, it means nothing?”

  “Sometimes, when we say something in English, it is a way of saying the opposite. English people hear the English words and think we’re behaving well, becoming ‘good Canadians,’ but what we hear or say in English isn’t important. It doesn’t change us. We can share stories of home with the young ones, but only in Russian, because this is true speaking. When you speak English it isn’t true speaking. It doesn’t matter what you say in English, except sometimes when it means the opposite in Russian.”

  “How will I know when it means the opposite?”

  “You’ll know.”

  The door of the dormitory opened and Matron said loudly, “Nina! You mustn’t be in the boys’ dormitory.” The winter cold from the open door touched everything.

  Both children stood behind the bed as Matron approached.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Nina said in English.

  “Well, you do now. But you,” said Matron, glaring at Pavel, “you know perfectly well.”

  “Nina was here when I came in. I was just giving her some pastry before she left.”

  “Make it quick, and get back to your dorm, Nina.”

  Pavel gathered up a few more pieces of pastry in both hands and dumped them into Nina’s. Crumbs fell between them and they began giggling at the clumsy transfer under the scowl of Matron.

  “Hurry now. Don’t make a mess.”

  Pavel turned to Matron MacDonald. “She’ll just be a second.” The nervous giggling continued. “And she won’t come in here again. Promise.” He turned to Nina, his hands still securing the crumbling pastry in hers. “You won’t, will you? You won’t come back and see me in here again, will you?”

  It was as clear an instruction as there ever was. Her blue eyes sparkled with understanding.

  “Never again. I promise.”

  February 15, 1957

  It was inevitable, thought Constable Flanagan, that his sergeant would have his revenge, shunting him away from real police work to manage a desk or, as chance had it, escorting Doukhobor children to school in New Denver. The irony of the posting was not lost on either of them. Nor was the impact on Flanagan’s career misunderstood. His new responsibility of taking charge of this detail was the kiss of death. His card had been marked. He was finished.

  New Denver was tucked in a valley on the east side of Slocan Lake. The southern part of the town was laid in a grid. Four avenues divided the space between Galena Avenue in the south and Third Avenue in the north near the river that divided the town. Running north-south, four streets completed the grid, between Union Street on the east and Josephine Street on the west. Farther west, a long open field sloped gently down to Slocan Lake. In the north, over the Union Street bridge, the grid continued as if uninterrupted. The school was in the north, on Seventh Avenue.

  Twice each day Flanagan walked with the children from their fenced enclosure south of Galena Avenue, at the southern edge of New Denver, across the Union Street bridge to the sc
hool on Seventh Avenue in the north. At lunch and at the end of the school day he would walk them back. The children hardly needed escorting, let alone by an armed policeman. There was no risk of them running off into the hills or forest, where winter would freeze them solid and summer would starve them. New Denver was too far from anywhere for the children to walk out on the unmade roads running only north and south.

  As they tramped home from school in the last light of a winter’s day, across squeaking packed snow, the children were in a shouting mood. Flanagan walked behind an excited group of children. Each was bundled in winter gear, the young being walked along by brothers and sisters. Older boys clustered together, as did the girls. Endless taunts, snowballs and jibes flew between them. Flanagan’s task was to herd the children over the Union Street bridge. From there, all were hungry enough to head for the dormitory, eventually.

  As they crossed into the south side of the town, a few children slipped off Union Street toward the lake. Flanagan turned away to avoid seeing them go. He had a rough idea to which house they were heading, between Josephine and Kildare Streets on Third Avenue, but not what they were up to. It did not matter, he thought. They were just kids.

  * * *

  “Where are we going?” asked Nina.

  “You’ll see,” said Pavel.

  Pavel’s friend Marko chimed in. “We’re going to the Green Witch’s house.”

  “The Green Witch?” asked Nina.

  “It’s not like it sounds.” Pavel smiled at Nina, who did not yet know this particular secret.

  The children often went to where the Green Witch lived. She was a grey, stooped lady always seen in a green sweater. The long-serving children called her the Green Witch to frighten the newcomers and put them off the treats she could offer. It also allowed them to keep secret the Green Witch’s dry cellar, where boxes of candy and Russian food were stored in neat rows, each labelled with the initials of a child. It was their secret stash from home, kept safe from the matrons by the foreboding image and rumours of the Green Witch.