Blood and Salt (27 page)

By Monday it’s 7° Fahrenheit, and it stays mild all week. Water trickles everywhere.
The air is soft and moist from melting snow. Mere breathing is pleasure.

On Wednesday Taras sees a man escape under cover of smoke from burning brush at the buffalo enclosure near town and feels pleased about it the whole afternoon. On Thursday, a soldier dies of heart failure at the Banff hospital, after lying ill with influenza for a week in the soldiers’ bunkhouse.
The guards mutter among themselves that no one cares about their welfare. Now you know what it feels like, Taras thinks. No, probably they don’t. It wouldn’t occur to them.

Then it grows bitterly cold. Somebody called Brigadier Cruikshank visits to examine conditions in the camp and finds that both prisoners and soldiers are overcrowded in the bunkhouses and that guards are working eighty-five hours a week. He notes that having the prisoners walk to the worksites is highly inefficient:
“The length of the march to and from this place, about thirteen miles, when the snow is deep, as it has been this winter, amounts to practically a day’s work in itself.”

The prisoners learn about it, as usual, from hearing snippets from the guards. They knew it all along, but this time one of the brass has said it. Surely the government will listen.

“Just don’t expect it to make one damn bit of difference,” Tymko says bitterly.

It doesn’t. Days and weeks pass; nothing changes.

CHAPTER 16

What is it to be Ukrainia
n?

One very bitter night,
Myro and Tymko want to hear more about Moses, while Ihor, Taras, Bohdan and Yuriy want to talk about Shevchenko and Ira Aldridge. Why are people different colours? Yuriy wonders. Why do they have different religions and ideas? Bohdan asks, and Ihor demands to know, “Why do some people think they’re better than others?”

As usual Tymko has a lot to say.
You could write down the things he says and publish it in a book, Taras sometimes thinks. Then he could send the book back to Shevchana, and the men would talk about it in the reading hall.
Tymko says, among many things, that people learn to think of themselves as a group.
“Could be a family, could be a small village, or a great big city, or even a whole country.” So far so good, but where’s it taking him?

“People are always looking at those outside their own group and seeing monsters,” he goes on. “Small differences in the shapes of faces, the colour of skins. Partly it’s that they want to think their group is the best. And partly it’s because they’re afraid. If they admit that another group is all right, they wonder if it makes
them
not all right.”

“Oh, that’s silly, it can’t be like that,”
Yuriy says. “And differences aren’t always small. Not if a man has dark brown or black skin. That’s very different.”

“Yes and no,” Myro says. “We must ask what defines a man. He must have eyes, ears, a nose and mouth, and the senses that go along with those parts. He must have a mind to think and a heart to feel, and a soul to long for a good and useful life, and to know God. If he has all those things, then a different colour is a small thing.”

“That’s true, I guess,”
Taras says, remembering the brick plant, “but it attracts a lot of attention when you see a black man where everyone else is light-skinned.”

“Maybe so,” Tymko says, “but I think the ruling class likes to make such distinctions. Because they want others to serve them. The way the slaves did in the United States.” He waves his finger in the air to emphasize his points. “So they make themselves believe that black people are very different, and that black people aren’t as good as they are.”

“Okay,” Ihor says, “but something else interests me.
And that is, what makes a person Ukrainian or not Ukrainian? Taras’s friend Moses is a black man whose family came from the United States. Then he was raised by a Ukrainian, and learned the Ukrainian language and religion. Does that make him Ukrainian?”

“How can it?” asks Yuriy.
“He wasn’t born Ukrainian.”

“So.
Dobre.
None of us can ever be Canadians then,” Tymko says, sinking his teeth into the argument.

“Sure we can,”
Yuriy says. “We can be more than one thing. I can be Canadian
and
Ukrainian.”

“So can Moses, then,”
Taras says.

“Maybe we should ask, what
makes
a Ukrainian?” Myro says.

Yuriy thinks. “Well, we are a group of people with...common ancestors. We speak the same language, we look much the same. We know we’re a people.”

“Wait a minute,” Tymko says. “Where I come from, many Ukrainians speak Russian because lots of Russians live among us and they have a lot of power. Does that mean they’re not Ukrainian?”

“I guess not,”
Yuriy says. “But maybe they’re less Ukrainian.”

“Less Ukrainian!” Tymko roars. “Are you saying I’m less Ukrainian than you?”

“No, of course not. Forgive me. I’m just trying to work things out.”

Myro holds up a hand. “Let’s look at some of the possible things that make us Ukrainian. One is language. Now, if I take a Ukrainian baby to another country, let’s say England, will the baby still be Ukrainian?”

No one has a ready answer
.
“I think,”
Taras says finally
,
“that the baby would still be Ukrainian if it was taught about its own country. If it knew where it came from and knew the language. But if it only knew the language and ways of England, then I guess the child wouldn’t be Ukrainian.”

“So language is a necessary part? And customs and ways of doing things?” Myro asks. People nod, fairly certain this must be the case.

“I hate to tell you this,” Myro goes on, “but there are already children of Ukrainians in Canada who don’t know the Ukrainian language. I used to have a part-time job teaching kids like that the language.”

“So they’re not Ukrainian, then?”
Taras asks.

“They think they are. But their parents had to learn English when they came here, and at first they thought it would be better for the children to speak only English, in order to be accepted. Later they realized they wanted them to learn.”

“Maybe a Ukrainian is someone who comes from Ukraine,” Taras suggests.

“What Ukraine?” says Tymko. “We haven’t got a country.
We’re all chopped up and parcelled out to other countries.”

“And yet,” Ihor says, “I believe we are a country. And I’m a Hutsul, so I don’t always think of being Ukrainian, but inside, I am.”

“What was it Yuriy said one day?” Myro asks. “Something about Ukraine already being a country. He said, ‘I already live in it in my mind.
’
”

“Dobre,
so Ukraine is an idea in our minds,
”
Taras says. “And a person is a Ukrainian if he thinks he is.” He sees a vision of Halya. “Or if she thinks she is.”

“Sounds good to me,”
Yuriy says. “But then, what about a Jew? Many Jews live in Ukraine – the idea of Ukraine in our minds, I guess you could say – and they work and raise families there.”

“Is a Jew a Ukrainian, then?”
Tymko asks.

“How can he be? He’s a Jew.”

“What about Taras’s idea?” Tymko persists. “You’re a Ukrainian if you think you are. If you’re involved in the life of Ukraine. If you speak the language.”

“But I’ve always thought Jews were very different,”
Yuriy says.

“Different in religion, yes,”
Tymko says
,
“but even there, remem
ber that the Jewish religion is the foundation of the Christian.”

“Is it?”
Yuriy asks, surprised.

“Of course,” Ihor says. “Their Bible is our Old Testament.”

“How do you know?” Taras asks. He’s never heard anything like this.

“I know because near where I lived there’s a whole Jewish town and I’ve talked with their rabbi.
We talked about religions and he told me something I really knew myself.
We Ukrainians haven’t always been Christian.”

“Of course not,”
Yuriy says. “Only since the days of Yaroslav the Wise.”

“Before that, we were what they call pagans,” Ihor says. “We honoured the earth and the sun and we kept our own festivals.” He turns to Myro. “Isn’t that right, Professor?”

“It is right.”

“So what’s our true religion?” Ihor asks. “We Hutsuls have become Christians, but we remember the older times too. If the Christian way doesn’t work for us, then we’ll try the old ways. Medicines and chants and spells. Old Ukrainian ways.”

“Interesting questions,”
Tymko says, “but where do we end up? Can a man be more than one thing at a time, as Yuriy suggests? We all must think it’s possible, because here we are in
Canada, and yet we haven’t stopped thinking we’re Ukrainians.”

Myro smiles. “A masterly summing up.”

“See,”
Yuriy says, “I knew I was right. Even the professor and the socialist think so. And what else do they agree on?”

The laughter is good-natured. Taras considers how complicated thinking can be.

Tymko could be reading his mind. “Enough of such hard topics. It’s time we heard more of Taras’s story.
Let’s see, where did he leave us last?”

Yuriy thinks. “He was asking Moses if he’d seen Viktor and Halya. And Moses said Taras was sure to find them. So I want to know if he did. I want to know what comes next.”

“I didn’t find them. I only know Viktor got a farm somewhere near Spring Creek. Halya and Natalka must have been there too, but after that...”

“Tell us what you
think
happened,” Ihor says.

“I can’t. I don’t know any more than you do.”

PART 3

CHAPTER 17

The
pahna

“
Oh Maryna.”
Natalka swipes the broom over the already clean kitchen floor. “If only you were here. If only we could laugh and cry together as we used to.
The wild boar will never be at rest until he’s a wealthy
pahn
or whatever they call it here. He won’t be happy until Halya marries some rich man.” She puts away the corn broom Viktor bought her – imagine
buying
a broom! – and goes to the table to knead bread. She loves punching and pummelling it until it’s the way she wants. If only her son-in-law could be improved so easily.

“I see him always thinking, scheming. He reads newspapers, trying to understand the language, trying to find out how things are done here. I don’t see any rich young
pahns
around here looking for a wife, but I’m not trying the way
Viktor is, so maybe there are some. He’ll find a rich man if he has to make one out of dust and straw.
We have lots of dust and straw, as it happens.” She murmurs and frets as she shapes the bread into loaves and puts it into pans.

“And now what? He wants us to have a new name.
We are to be the Dobsons. He saw this name in a newspaper. He thinks it will make us English. As if a different name can do that. He will be Victor Dobson and Halya is to be Helen. And what do you think he’s cooked up for me? I’m to be Nancy!
Nancy Dobson!
Do I look like someone called
Nancy Dobson?”
She spots an old newspaper folded and placed high on a shelf.

“Newspapers, everywhere you look. He’s driving me crazy.” Complaining and raging eases her feelings and has made her almost cheerful.

The wooden farmhouse,
about eight miles west of Spring Creek, is plain and solidly built, but there’s nothing to tell you the people who live here are Ukrainian. The living room furniture came with the house: a dining table and four chairs, a worn sofa, two upholstered chairs, curtains and a dreamy picture of a stream ordered from something called the Eaton’s catalogue. Viktor already has an old copy of this book of everything you could imagine buying. But there are no embroidered cloths, no icons, no table runners to be seen.
Viktor’s shaking off the old country as fast as he can.