Kalyna's Song

by Lisa Grekul

“Isn’t that interesting.” Dad repeats himself at the breakfast table, hoping that someone will take the bait.

  Wes glances at Mom, cautiously. Then he says, “Isn’t what interesting, Dad?”

  “Well, it says here –” Dad points to the paragraph he’s been underlining – “that the college takes students from the ages of eleven through eighteen. So it’s not just for United World College scholarship students. Anyone can go, as long as they pass the entrance exam and pay their tuition.”

  “So I could go, too?” Wes’s eyes light up.

  “Absolutely not.” My mother gets up from the table, starts clearing away dishes. “It’s not enough that I’m losing one child?”

  As Mom leaves the kitchen, I look at Dad. Dad taps his pencil against the table. I think he’s getting fed up with Mom’s negative attitude. For a moment, he says nothing. Then he resumes lecturing.

  The college started out with sixteen students, all from South Africa or Swaziland, and six faculty members, mostly British ex-patriates. Now, more than four hundred students go to Waterford, and the staff has ballooned to forty-five. A quarter of the students are from Swaziland. More than half are from other African countries. But there are students from almost every continent. Over seventy countries are represented. And the teachers come from around the world, too – India, Belgium, Ireland, Japan.

  Dad sighs. “Just imagine, teaching on a staff like that. Imagine the conversation in the staff room.”

  As usual, Dad and Wes get into a discussion about hunting in Africa. When Wes is around, and Dad starts talking about Swaziland, the conversation always turns to hunting – whether or not, hypothetically, they’d be able to bring their trophies back to Canada and, if so, how they’d go about doing it. I slip away from the kitchen table, and head toward Mom and Dad’s bedroom. Sophie follows.

  At the door of the bedroom, Sophie tells me that I should let Mom be alone for a while. If I go in, I’ll just make things worse.

  As if that’s possible.

  Mom hasn’t been herself at all since I got news of my scholarship. She’s trying hard to act tough and brave. I can see, though, that it’s a struggle for her. There are dark circles under her eyes. She picks at her meals, never finishing the food on her plate.

  When I knock on her bedroom door, she doesn’t answer. When I let myself in, I find her sitting on the edge of her bed, wiping her eyes with a Kleenex. Wrapping paper and boxes are spread out around her – and a small pile of gifts. The gifts are for me, but she doesn’t try to hide them. t-shirts that say “Canada” on them, and a small Zip-loc bag filled with “Canada” pins. A pair of moccasin slippers lined with rabbit fur. A cassette called Canada: A Land and Its Songs. Plus deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, tampons; toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss; and a mountain of Mars bars. My favourite.

  “I’m not sure what you’ll be able to buy there,” she says, blowing her nose. “And I don’t want you to go without.”

  I feel my chest tighten. Mom thought of everything.

  I sit next to her on the bed, put my arm around her waist. Mom lets her head rest on my shoulder. “I’m scared,” she says, tears rolling down her face. “I’m so scared.”

  “Me too.” I wipe the tears from her cheeks, and from my own.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she says.

  But I don’t know what to say, how to make her feel better.

  Because I have to go. And I want to go.

  Because I’m going.

  Three

  She falls apart on Christmas Day. Every year, on Christmas Eve – the regular Christmas Eve, not the Ukrainian one – Mom makes the traditional Ukrainian meal, twelve meatless and milkless dishes. Then, on Christmas Day, we go to Baba and Gido’s house in Vegreville for a big turkey dinner. We don’t bother doing the routine all over again on Ukrainian Christmas Eve and on Ukrainian Christmas Day. We’re usually back in school by then, and Mom doesn’t have time.

  Christmas Eve is normal enough. Mom might be less cheerful than usual, but she tries not to show it. She makes all twelve dishes. She makes Sophie and me help. She sings carols with us around the piano. She allows each of us to open one present – our new pyjamas – before we go to bed.

  On Christmas Day, though, after we open the rest of our presents, Mom goes into her room and won’t come out. She says that she’s not feeling well. She tells Dad that she’s not feeling up to the trip to Vegreville. She’d rather stay home this year. She wants to spend Christmas Day alone with us – just us, not everyone else.

  We’re alarmed. We go to Vegreville every Christmas. Christmas Day at Baba and Gido’s is a tradition. We’ve never not gone there on Christmas Day. Vegreville is central for everyone – the aunts and uncles in Two Hills, the cousins in Edmonton, us in St. Paul. Nobody misses Christmas Day in Veg. They can’t. Baba is too old to cook for everyone. The meal depends on all of the aunts being there. Auntie Mary always roasts a ham, Auntie Linda brings the mashed beans and garlic. Auntie Rose brings nachynka. Auntie Marika and Auntie Natalka get together ahead of time to prepare the nylysnyky and holubtsi. Auntie Helen brings mustard pickles, beets and mushrooms, and pickled herring. Auntie Jean makes mushrooms in cream and pyrizhky in cream. For dessert, everyone pitches in. Each aunt brings her own assortment of squares.

  It’s possible that one or two of the aunts could skip out on Christmas Day and the meal wouldn’t be ruined. Especially Auntie Pearl. Auntie Pearl could stay home and no one would notice. Her jellied salads are a flop every year. And Auntie Rose, too – she puts cinnamon in her nachynka, which makes me gag. Nachynka should be thick and creamy and a little on the salty side. There’s no place for cinnamon in nachynka.

  Mom, however, could never miss Christmas Day at Baba and Gido’s. Never. She brings the turkey and the stuffing. Usually she puts it in the oven right after we open our presents so that it’s a glossy golden-brown by early afternoon, when we’re ready to go. After she takes it out of the oven, she wraps the roaster in two or three dish towels to keep in the heat, then Dad carries it out to the car.

  Today, after Sophie, Wes, and I have finished opening our presents – and after Mom and Dad have had a long conversation in their bedroom, all in Ukrainian – we see something that we’ve never seen before. We stand and stare.

  Dad brings out the Butterball – the thirty-pound Butterball – from the fridge.

  Not Mom, Dad.

  He calls Sophie and me over to the turkey. Wes tags along.

  “Girls,” he says, placing his hands on his hips, “what do we do?”

  Sophie takes over, like a surgeon in an operating room. I play the nurse, handing her salt, pepper, garlic powder, poultry spice. Dad and Wes stand around with their hands in their pockets, nodding now and again. Seasoning and then roasting the turkey is easy for Sophie and me, we’ve done it lots of times. But neither of us has ever made the stuffing – not without Mom around to supervise. The recipe is in her head. She’s never written it down. Even though we know what goes in the stuffing, we don’t know the proper quantities.

  Dad says that we can skip the stuffing this year.

  Wes looks positively horrified. Stuffing is his favourite part of the Christmas Day meal. He says that, at the very least, we have to try.

  “Be my guest,” says Sophie, stepping away from the turkey.

  We skip the stuffing.

  In the end, Mom agrees to come with us to Baba and Gido’s. Against her will, it seems. Dad has to coax her out of the bedroom and into the car. All the way to Vegreville, she stares out the passenger side of the car, as though she’s searching for something way off in the distance. The rest of us chatter about the temperature and the state of the roads and the forecast. We want to go on one last ice-fishing trip before Sophie goes back to school in Edmonton and I leave for Africa. Mom doesn’t say a word, doesn’t join in. It’s like she’s not even with us.

  Until we make the turn at the giant pysanka.

  As we pass the egg on the outskirts of Veg
reville, Mom starts sniffling, and talking in Ukrainian to Dad – too fast for me to catch a single word, let alone the gist of what she’s saying. It sounds like she’s pleading with him. I glance at Sophie to see if she understands but she gives me a helpless look, shrugging. Dad doesn’t say much. Wes passes Mom a Kleenex from the back seat.

  After we pull up in front of Baba and Gido’s house, I want to ask Dad what Mom said in the car, only he’s too busy plugging in the car and unloading the turkey. I want to ask Mom what she said in the car. I’m sure that it had to do with me. Me and Swaziland. Before I have a chance to open my mouth, though, Auntie Mary, Mom’s oldest sister, rushes out the door of the house, whisking Mom out of the car. She puts her arms around Mom, and then leads her into the house as though she’s an invalid. Once or twice Auntie Mary glances back at the rest of us, glaring. Mom’s the youngest in the family, the baby. Auntie Mary is very protective of her. Obviously she hasn’t changed her mind about my trip to Africa.

  As Wes and Sophie and I make our way up the front walk, Wes ruffles my hair. Sophie says not to worry, to relax.

  “It was nothing,” says Sophie. “Mom’s just not feeling well. You can’t blame her. She’s been under a lot of stress.”

  I’m not convinced. When Mom and Dad talk Ukrainian, it’s something. They talk Ukrainian to hide things from us. Secretive, confidential things. Serious things.

  Baba and Gido’s house is filled with people, activity. Noise. Sonya and Robert’s boys have set up their new electric racetrack in the middle of the living room; Paul and Kelly’s boys are playing with plastic Star Wars spaceships. Dean and Diana’s daughter is playing Barbies with Orysia and Danny’s girl. The aunts and the older girl cousins are banging around in Baba’s kitchen – all except Kalyna, who’s playing Barbies with the little girls in the living room. The aunts take turns warming their dishes in the oven. The older girl cousins take out the dishes and the cutlery, others set out their pickles and buns and kolbasa and squares. Downstairs, the men are visiting. Baba and Gido have a long table in the basement. The uncles sit around the table playing cards, drinking. All the way upstairs I can smell Uncle Ed’s cigarettes mingling with the smell of garlic and dillweed and fresh farm cream.

  One by one, Sophie, Wes and I greet Baba and Gido who sit next to each other in the living room, Baba on a corner of the green vinyl couch, Gido in the matching green vinyl armchair. Sophie is a whiz at talking to Baba and Gido. She’s not the least bit scared of them. First she kisses them each on both cheeks, then she says, “Dobryden Baba, Dobryden Gido.” Wes shakes Gido’s hand, then he sits next to Baba, holding her hand, letting her touch his face.

  I do my best to imitate Sophie and Wes. I smile, I kiss them – Baba and Gido both – gently, my lips barely brushing their cheeks. I say hello in Ukrainian.

  Then I walk away as quickly as I can. I escape to the kitchen or the basement, where I try to block out the sight of them. Baba’s face is all veins – grey-brown liver spots and veins – and Gido looks like a skull. A bony, fleshless skull. I’m afraid to touch them, afraid that my kisses will leave bruises on their faces. Afraid that they’ll have a heart attack or a stroke right in front of me.

  Baba and Gido are too old to be normal grandparents. Normal Babas and Gidos are much younger, and robust, and jolly. Normal Babas bake cookies and cakes and fresh borshch. They keep cupboards full of chocolate bars and red licorice; they say, “Eat, eat, you’re too skinny.” Normal Gidos tease their grandchildren, tell dirty jokes. They like to sing.

  Our Baba can’t cook anymore, and she needs a walker to get around. Meals on Wheels brings food to their house every few days. Though he can’t read it, Gido keeps a Bible beside him, tucked in beside the cushion of the armchair. He walks with a cane, and he hasn’t driven a car in years. I’ve never seen him smile. He’s ninety-one, she’s eighty-seven. Neither of them speaks more than a word or two of English.

  In the kitchen, the aunts are chattering non-stop in English – all at once, it seems, one interrupting the other, voices raised. They talk in English when they want to keep something from Baba and Gido – the nursing home plan, usually. Sophie and I know all about the nursing home plan, the aunts have been discussing it on and off for the last three years. Auntie Mary, Auntie Helen and Auntie Natalka are in favour; Mom, Auntie Linda and Auntie Rose are against. They argue openly in front of us. Sometimes it even gets ugly. Yelling, name-calling. Crying.

  Today, though, when Sophie and I walk into Baba’s kitchen, the aunts’ voices drop to a whisper. Then they stop talking altogether. The silence is eerie. The aunts are never silent. If they need to hide something from us, they just switch from English to Ukrainian. They never actually stop talking.

  After Sophie, Wes and I fill our plates in the kitchen, we head down the stairs to the basement. Everyone eats in groups around the long table in the basement – uncles, younger cousins, older cousins, aunts. We sit with the cousins who are closest to us in age. None of us is actually allowed to eat. Not until Gido says Grace. And Gido doesn’t come downstairs to say Grace until the aunts have served everyone. While the aunts finish dishing out the food, we sit, talking, picking at our food. Waiting.

  The cousins don’t ask a single question about my trip. Nothing about when I leave or how I feel about going. It’s like they’ve made a pact not to mention it. Kenny talks about his new snowmobile, Dalia tells us about her school ski trip to Banff. Darrell goes on and on about his Christmas hockey camp in Calgary with the Calgary Flames. I think maybe they’re jealous about my scholarship so I don’t bring up the subject of Africa. Instead, I ask them what they got for Christmas, how they’ll be spending New Year’s Eve.

  Gido’s Grace seems longer than usual. His Grace is always long, and always in Ukrainian. I never know exactly what he’s blessing. The food, I suppose. His children, grandchildren. Great-grandchildren. As Gido says, “Amen,” tears come to his eyes. He always cries during Grace. Baba hands him a hanky, he presses the cloth to his cheeks.

  I’ve already got a mouthful of nalysnyky when my cousin Kalyna speaks up. I keep eating – we all keep eating – as though nothing out of the ordinary is occurring. When Kalyna is in a big group of people, she gets overexcited – starts singing, making up little poems. Carrying on about things that don’t make sense to the rest of us. We’ve all learned to live with her outbursts; they’re predictable, now – normal, in a way.

  As Kalyna babbles, Sophie and I critique the Christmas dinner. We give Auntie Linda’s mashed beans the thumbs-up. Just enough garlic, not too many sautéed onions, all-around good texture. Sophie makes a face at Auntie Natalka’s holubtsi. The cabbage leaves are a greenish-white colour, which means that Auntie Natalka has used fresh cabbage instead of sour leaves. The edges of each cabbage roll are brown and crusty. Clearly, Auntie Natalka overcooked them all.

  I’m about to express my annual disgust with Auntie Rose’s cinnamon-laced nachynka when I hear Kalyna say my name. She talks in Ukrainian, adding my name in English – Colleen – loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Before I can turn to Sophie for a translation, Gido says something back to Kalyna in Ukrainian. Something stern. A reprimand, I think. Kalyna repeats herself – repeats my name – only louder this time. Gido raises his voice at Kalyna, Baba asks Mom a question; Mom turns deathly white. She doesn’t answer Baba; instead, she starts to cry, covering her face with her hands.

  By now, everyone has stopped eating. I lean hard into Sophie’s ear, asking her if she knows what’s going on. Sophie’s Ukrainian is better than mine, even though I took it for a few weeks at university.

  Gido yells something in Ukrainian – yells at Mom, I think. Auntie Mary puts her arm around Mom, comforting her. Auntie Rose tries to calm Gido but he keeps yelling. In English, Auntie Linda tells my dad to do something. Dad says something to Gido in Ukrainian. Baba cries quietly, saying, “Bozhe, Bozhe” – God, God – as she rubs her eyes with the edge of her apron.

  “Oh no,” Sophie whis
pers.

  “What?” I say.

  Sophie covers her mouth with her hand.

  “what?” I give Sophie a poke in the arm.

  Sophie talks quickly. “I’m not sure, but I think” – she turns away from me, listening to Dad and Gido argue – “I think Baba and Gido didn’t know that you’re going to Africa. I think Mom and her sisters have been keeping it a secret. I think Kalyna just blurted it out.”

  “That’s crazy. Everybody knows I’m –”

  “Shush!” says Sophie. “I can’t hear what’s going on.”

  Gido gets up from the table, still yelling, pointing his cane at Dad. Dad crosses his arms over his chest. He looks furious. They both look furious. Auntie Jean starts saying something in Ukrainian, Dad tells her to stay the hell out of it, in English. Uncle David, Auntie Jean’s husband, gives Dad a hard push, sending Dad across the room. Uncle Harry pushes Uncle David back, calling him a goddamned son of a bitch. While the uncles fight, Kalyna crouches in the corner of the room behind the table, singing to herself, her hands over her ears.

  Then Gido grabs Wes – Wes of all people – by the collar, shaking him and yelling at him. He’s stronger than he looks.

  Poor Wes. He can’t fight back. It’s Gido, after all. While Gido shakes him by the shirt, Wes pleads with Sophie and me, pleads with his eyes. He looks terrified and panicked and confused. Sophie and I sit frozen in our chairs. We try to make eye contact with Dad but he’s busy holding back Uncle Harry’s arms, keeping Uncle Harry from punching Uncle David. The uncles have been drinking, so they’re rowdier than they’d normally be if they were sober. Mom is no good to us. She’s surrounded by the aunts, and most of them are crying now. Gido drags Wes toward Dad. Wes looks like he’s about to cry.

  There are no goodbyes. Minutes after Dad sees Gido with his hands on Wes, we’re out of the house.

  We leave our plates of food almost completely untouched. Dad buys us burgers and fries on the way home, at the a&w in Vegreville. He says that Mom will be all right with her sisters. She’ll probably spend the night with Auntie Mary, then call tomorrow, when she’s ready to come home. As we pass through Two Hills, Dad asks if we’d each like a banana split for dessert, from G.O.’s Drive-In, just off the highway. But we’ve hardly touched our burgers. And G.O.’s isn’t open on Christmas Day.