Tags:
Historical fiction,
Saga,
Canada,
War,
Horses,
racism,
Storytelling,
prejudice,
Manitoba,
Ukrainian,
Language,
internment camp
industrial and artisan work scarce. He’s heard that they had a desire for an independent country, which under Austrian rule could never happen. A passion for something to change because nothing in the old world was set up for their comfort or advantage.
They are stoic, but everything has a limit. Some Canadians think being stoic means a person lacks sensitivity to pain or hardship. Arthur Lake thinks these are just people, some cleverer or braver or more skilled than others, as in any place you go. They feel pain and loneliness and cold. And injustice.
Since he’s here, he has to find a way to deal with it. He tries not to shout or ask for more work than a man can do. When the men come to him, one at a time or in groups, he tries to listen. He is not afraid to walk among them without his rifle.
Some men ask not to be photographed and he respects that. Others don’t mind and a few even smile for the camera. Perhaps, like him, they think it’s good to have some record of what goes on here. Soldiers or prisoners, they will remember this place the rest of their lives.
Arthur Lake takes the picture.
That night, in the lineup outside the dining hall, Sergeant Lake passes around a recently developed photograph: a long, curving line of prisoners, headed by soldiers and trailed at the end by soldiers, marches through a broad expanse of snow into a band of forest so dense you can’t see into it. Taras feels himself pulled into its world. The men furthest away look so small, it rouses his pity, for himself and all of them. Snow falls and the line seems suspended between land and forest, yet driving ahead, soon to disappear, perhaps forever.
Yuriy nudges him. “Hand it over.” Taras passes him the photograph and thinks that tonight his friends will ask to hear more of his story. It tells of a world where there are choices, however small, to be made.
It’s Yuriy who persuades him to go ahead. He says it’s helping him think about his own life, and about the old country. And he wants to know about the meeting Taras’s father wanted him to attend. So do Myro, Ihor and Tymko.
“The meeting took place in Shevchana’s reading room,” Taras begins, “a plain wooden hall with handmade tables and chairs and shelves of books and newspapers. People who couldn’t read were helped to learn by those who could. People who couldn’t afford books or newspapers could find things to read. And sometimes they met to talk about political ideas. I was never interested in that, but my father was.”
“Not interested in political ideas?” Tymko says. “What kind of life is that?”
“Anyway,” Taras goes on, “there were societies like it in many villages. A portrait of the poet Shevchenko hung on a wall. My father, Mykola Kuzyk, stood in front of it, holding a newspaper. Others sat at tables, facing him. Sitting beside Ruslan’s father Teofan, I was proud to see my father standing there.”
“Wait,” Yuriy stops him. “You said Mykola Kuzyk. I thought this man was your father.”
“He is my father.”
“But your name is Taras Kalyna,” Ihor says. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will. Wait and see.” Good, he’s learning how this storytelling works. “So the meeting was called to discuss an idea of my father’s, but people were also worried about their sons. As I said before, young men could be called up anytime in the year they turned nineteen, but they didn’t have to report right away or sometimes even in that year. There was time to prepare. Suddenly the army seemed to be in a hurry.
“But the meeting began with my father’s idea. He read them a newspaper article about how some villages had started co-operative flour mills. He believed the people of Shevchana could do the same and that this could give the farmers a little more income.”
“See how it works?” Mykola said. “Each man has a vote in running the mill and gives some of his time. Each one brings his own grain to be ground and gives a
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