“I must see her!” Taras moves in front of Viktor’s horse, ready to grab the harness.
“She’s going to school! She’s going to be a pahna.” Viktor manages a small gloat.
“You’re crazy! How can Halya be a pahna?” Perhaps Viktor really has gone mad.
“She’s going to be married. Do you hear? To an Englishman!”
“You’re lying!” But Viktor looks too pleased to be lying.
“Am I?” he says. “Wait and see.” He climbs into the wagon, flaps the reins.
Taras reaches up and grabs Viktor’s arms.
“Tell me where she is! Tell me!”
“You’ll never know.” Viktor struggles to pull free.
Statler comes to the door and Taras has to let go. Viktor straightens his shirt and drives away. Taras would follow him, but the horse is stabled at Moses’s place.
The following Sunday afternoon, Moses drives Taras and his parents into town to his house. Even though Daria and Mykola have been told what to expect, they can’t stop staring. Taras knows what they must be thinking: they’ve been transported home without the trouble of train journeys or being rocked and shaken in the stinking hold of a ship. Daria runs her hand along an embroidered shawl.
But they haven’t come to admire Ukrainian embroidery. On the table Moses has laid out some clothing. He picks up a lady’s suit jacket of lightweight wool, hip length with gathered sleeves and neat pockets, and helps Daria try it on. It fits very well and its royal blue sets off her dark hair and eyes.
“You’re sure your mother wouldn’t have minded?” Daria asks, running her had over the soft material.
“She’d have been happy for you to wear it.” Moses holds up the matching skirt, which also looks like a good fit. “She didn’t wear this suit often, that’s why it’s hardly worn. I suppose it’s a bit old-fashioned...” He remembers it was purchased over twenty years ago.
“No,” Daria says. “Ukrainian things are beautiful, but so are these.”
He hands her a cream cotton shirtwaist with sewn-down pleats across the front. Black leather shoes with a small velvet bow on each toe. A black felt hat with a blue feather.
Daria takes off her flower-print headscarf, knotted under her chin in lifelong custom, and tries on the hat, amazed at the feel of it on her hair. And the way she looks in the mirror Moses hands her. She likes this hat, even though she hated the one she wore on the train leaving Chernowitz.
For Mykola, Moses has a black wool jacket and pants and a brown felt hat from his stepfather, Pavlo. A pair of sturdy work boots. Two dark blue work shirts.
He has one more gift. He’s filled an enamelled tin washtub with hot water and set out towels and soap. There’s bread and butter for them to eat afterwards and tea keeping hot on the cast-iron stove he uses in summer. He and Taras leave them alone to bathe.
They walk around the town, past the new school Taras is working on, past the brick plant with its great kilns, and slowly back to Moses’s house. Daria is outside, wearing the new clothes, her dark hair still damp. She braids it and winds it around her head, and as it catches the light, she looks for a moment like a much younger woman. Mykola sets the hat on her head and they laugh. She folds her old scarf and puts it in a cotton bag with their other things.
“Who is that beautiful Canadian woman?” Moses asks as he and Taras reach the house. They all laugh, as if it’s a special occasion: Christmas, or maybe Drenched Monday.
On the ride home Daria and Mykola sit very straight on the wagon’s backless wooden bench, along the main street, past shops and the hotel. About a block ahead, Taras notices a stocky man in a black suit. Something familiar about him. Why does he keep staring?
The man turns and walks down the side street. They’re halfway home before Taras understands that the man he saw was Viktor, out for a Sunday stroll. A new man in a black suit. It was the suit that fooled him.
A few days later Natalka sits mending Viktor’s socks when she hears the sound of the wagon. He comes in the door carrying packages. What could this be? He opens one and takes out a large piece of cloth. Lays it out on the table, gently smoothes its folds. Its design is red, white and blue, with a large red cross in the centre. This must be the flag of Canada.
He hands her a second package. She wonders if the grimace on his face is an attempt at a friendly smile.
“A present for you.” She looks at the paper wrappings but makes no move. What if he changes his mind and starts yelling?
“Open it.” He nods, first at her and then at the package.
Oh yes, and what if it’s a trick? No, probably it isn’t. And the way he’s stretching his lips probably is a smile. But Viktor being nice, or at least trying to be, is a disturbing sight. He hasn’t got the knack, due to a lifelong lack of practice.
But she opens the package. Inside is an attractive Canadian-style dress. She holds it up so the skirt skims the floor. Viktor has chosen black. What else for an old lady, he must think. She considers throwing it back at him, but all in all, she’d hate to fight with him on such a momentous occasion. The wild boar has smiled, or as close to it as he can manage, and has bought her a dress. A dress she could actually imagine wearing.
Still, don’t make it easy for him, her inner wisdom suggests. “You think this will make me English?” she asks tartly.
“No,” he says with a look of resignation. “But it couldn’t hurt.”
He’s so comical she wants to laugh. “Soon you won’t remember what it’s like to be Ukrainian,” she chides.
“Good. I can’t wait for the day.”
Well, at least this is still the same Viktor, not some shape-shifting demon.
Natalka takes a very deep breath and forces herself to speak. “Dyakuyiu,” she says. “In this dress I can go to town with you some time.”
Viktor feels his face go red. He hadn’t imagined she’d ever thank him. Now he too must struggle for words. “Bud laska.” Be well. He picks up the flag and goes outside.
CHAPTER 23
Speak white
Shawcross runs two shifts a day, turning out a seemingly endless stream of bricks through fall and early winter. When the weather’s bad, Taras stays in town with Moses. His parents are safe. The bachelor’s shack is now a tiny but warm house. She and Mykola have plenty of food. Mykola dug a root cellar for carrots and potatoes and squash. Moses, who does have a gun, shot a deer and Mykola butchered it for him. Mykola’s share is smoked and stored in the root cellar.
At the beginning of each month they report to the police.
Taras learns more English. Most of the workers like him although they find him a little too serious. He’s known for his strength and his willingness to learn.
On Sundays, he rides around the countryside on Moses’s horse, stopping at farmhouses to inquire after Viktor. No one seems to know him, although Taras does meet a couple of other Ukrainian families, from Halychyna. One day, at a farm west of Spring Creek, someone thinks there might be a Ukrainian family living “out past the Hamilton place.” Taras follows their directions, through a long stretch of flatter land that looks good for farming, and stops at the Hamilton farm, but no one is home. He takes a close look at several nearby farms, but sees only Canadian farmers with young families out in the yards.
He rides further west to one more farmstead. But the white frame house has lace curtains and a British flag hangs from the front gate. Discouraged, he turns for home.
Why would Viktor send Halya away? Where could she be?
John Madison, a fortyish man with sharp features and a sharper tongue, teaches Halya geography and history. He walks the aisles, gripping a wooden ruler. Stops at Halya’s desk, slaps the ruler into his hand. “Helena. Primary exports of Brazil.” He points the ruler at her.
Confused, she answers in Ukrainian. “I don’t know.”
“Speak English, girl, not gibberish.”
“Speak white!” a girl called Bella says. She and her friends laugh. They’re several years yo
unger than Halya and because she’s older they think she must be stupid.
Without even stopping to think, Halya turns on Bella. “You’re an ignorant, nasty fool!” she says in Ukrainian. “Your brain is smaller than a pig’s!”
“Helena! That’s enough!” Madison points the ruler at her. “You really must speak English. Your employer is paying good money for you to learn.”
“You don’t know your ass from your elbow!” This last bit she manages in English except for the “ass” part. He seems to guess the Ukrainian word without translation.
“Helena, that will do!” Madison grasps her hand, palm up, and hits it hard with his ruler. Everyone falls silent.
Halya stares at him with pure hatred.
English class is better. One day Miss Greeley, a grey-haired lady in her fifties, who wears what she calls “good, stout shoes” for her long walks, asks if anyone has read a novel by Jane Austen. Halya raises her hand. Frowning, Miss Greeley asks which one.
“Pride and Prejudice,” Halya says. The teacher still looks skeptical, as if a Ukrainian-speaking student coming up with a Jane Austen title is something which might happen by chance every now and then, but nothing more. Halya wants to take that look off her face.
“Pride and Prejudice is one of the greatest novels in the English language,” she says. “Its opening lines are often quoted.” Of course, Miss Greeley doesn’t know that she’s imitating Louisa Shawcross. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
“Oh! That’s rather amazing. Do you know what it means?”
“I think so,” Halya says. “People want their daughters to be...provided for. So they look around and...and see if there are any rich men for them to marry. So when Mr. Bingley rents a house near the Bennet family, everyone rushes to meet him.”
“Very good, Helena.” A smile breaks over the teacher’s face. As far as Halya can see, none of the other girls has shown evidence of having read any novels at all. They haven’t heard of Jane Austen, either, to judge by their faces. They must be wondering how a bohunk girl has memorized the opening of Pride and Prejudice, whatever that is.
Miss Greeley begins to talk about eighteenth-century England. She still has the smile.
She asks more questions as she goes along and Halya answers whatever she’s asked. But she doesn’t offer any more comments because she sees how angry she’s made the other girls. The bohunk’s not supposed to know anything. Especially about English novels.
Yet how could she not understand it? She might as well be one of the Bennet girls herself, with Ronnie Shawcross a third-rate Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bingley in the book was nice, though. She could almost fall in love with him herself.
Soon Miss Greeley is lending books to Halya and helping her if she has difficulty reading them. She corrects Halya’s pronunciation and grammar gently and praises her essays. She arranges for Halya to learn typing from the school secretary in the late afternoons after classes end. Halya works hard at it, understanding that it’s something a person can be paid for doing. Maybe the school secretary will retire some day and she can have the job. Not only that, typing’s fun.
Halya asks if there are typewriters somewhere in the world that use the Ukrainian alphabet. Miss Greeley doesn’t know.
In the dorm room one night, a few weeks after the Jane Austen episode, Halya sits in her room writing at the desk, the door ajar. Bella darts in and grabs the piece of paper. Halya runs after her, but three other girls hold her to keep her from getting it back. Well, she could get it back if she was willing to have a fight. But she doesn’t want to get thrown out of the school. Now that she’s actually learning things.
“Oh look, girls,” Bella says. “The bohunk can write English.” She looks the sheet of paper over. “Would you believe it, the bohunk is writing a poem! But she doesn’t seem to have heard it’s supposed to rhyme.” The others giggle. Bella reads aloud.
In this prison no one knows my name.
These walls are hard and cold,
the air thick with strange words
flung against my ears like stones.
The girls laugh loudly, then fall silent. They see that there’s really nothing very funny about it. They let go of her arms. Halya finishes the poem, reciting from memory.
At night I hear my father’s voice:
Forget your love. He is gone.
But rage keeps my courage strong
And he turns to ice. Heart, blood, bone.
With Halya staring them in the eyes, the girls can find nothing to mock. Bella drops the poem to the floor and walks away. “Stupid bohunk,” she mutters.
One night Halya wakens from a dream, her face wet with tears. In the dream she was speaking English and had forgotten how to speak Ukrainian.
I can’t live here, she thinks. I’m losing my language.
She sits on the edge of her bed. She hadn’t realized how lonely she would be in this place. But she can’t let the Ukrainian words for everything she knows be lost. She begins to speak, quietly, in Ukrainian. “Ya Halya Dubrovsky... My name is Halya Dubrovsky. I come from Shevchana in Bukovyna and my grandmother is Natalka. I’m here in this school because I want to know how to live in this country. I don’t think I will be going back to Shevchana.” She touches the pendant on her night table.
“I love a man named Taras. He loves me. I will find him again or he’ll find me. Some day we’ll be together.” As she speaks, her voice grows stronger. “I won’t ever forget him or my darling baba. I won’t forget our food or the soft linen sorochka or the warm peech or the great poems. My mother’s books. I have all these things inside me.”
Someone pounds on the wall. One of Bella’s friends. Halya stifles a snort of laughter. Oh well, she can stop for now. It’s enough.
A letter comes from Louisa Shawcross. Halya imagines her at her dining room table, sipping tea or sherry, writing. Choosing each word with care. Imagining Halya back at the ranch, once more under her gaze. Her power. Halya knows how Louisa sees her – as an experiment. She once heard Louisa say, “It will still be such fun to see how she turns out.”
“I hear such good reports of your work as make me very proud,” the letter says. “You have succeeded beyond our hopes. In fact, I hear that you are even learning to use a typewriting machine. That is commendable, but surely not necessary to someone who will have a superior education. Ronnie and I have been talking about you often. I must admit, he speaks of you in a way I’ve never heard him speak about any other girl. I will leave that until he can speak for himself, but I begin to think you will one day be more than just my companion. I can hardly wait until spring to see you again.” Halya stops reading, dismayed.
It’s not that she hasn’t worked it out. “Ronnie” wants to marry her. Or at least he likes to imagine he does. Really, he just thinks it’s a bit of a challenge, so he’s determined to get her. They’ve sent her here to learn to be an English lady. Then she’ll be good enough to marry Ronnie. But is he good enough for her? She smiles. Decides to list his good points.
So. He sings well and sometimes he acts charming. There must be some other good points, but she can’t think of a single one. Most of the time his own mother can’t stand him.
All right, then. Bad points. This part’s easy. Ronnie expects his mother to give him everything he wants. He’s vain and greedy and his hands look like an English lady’s. He’d be useless at any real work. His wife would have to be a second mother.
Anyway, she’s going to marry Taras. So she can’t marry Ronnie. For a moment she feels guilty for fooling the Shawcrosses. Letting them pay for her education when she never meant to marry Ronnie. Yes, but what else could she do? Viktor was prepared to kick her out of the house if she didn’t. Oh well, she’ll think of what to say by the end of the school term when she goes back to Spring Creek.
But she can’t settle into sleep that night. The end of term isn’t all that far off. None of the Bennet
girls had to deal with anything like this. Of course Lizzy refused Mr. Collins, so it can be done. Mr. Collins didn’t take it well, though.
By Christmas Halya can read novels with ease and write very correct essays and letters. Not even Bella can find much to tease her about any more. Miss Greeley suggests she look at the novels of Charles Dickens and she reads Oliver Twist in a blaze of excitement, hardly able to stop for classes or meals. She thinks about all these English books and how they’ve become part of her. Is she becoming English? Yes, some part of her is, although her Ukrainian self is always there watching, comparing, criticizing. She wishes she could also read Ukrainian novels; wonders if there are very many. She knows there’s a writer called Yvan Franko, but she’s never seen any of his books.
Viktor thinks they’re no good. This makes her long to read them, but she has no idea how she could get hold of them.
Halya is the only girl to stay in school over the Christmas holidays. For some reason, Louisa thinks this will be for the best. Probably so that when she gets home she’ll be so starved for the sight of people she knows that Ronnie will look good to her. Halya thinks this isn’t too likely. As it happens, Miss Greeley stays as well; she lives in a small suite in the school. They sometimes go for afternoon walks or talk about novels in the teachers’ Common Room. All day Halya has access to the library and she reads everything she can, starting with the rest of Dickens. The more she reads, the more she asks herself who this English-Ukrainian Helena-Halya person is. Miss Greeley is puzzled about her too; Halya hears it in her questions. Halya has obviously shattered her notion of the not-too-bright peasant. Maybe you’re learning from me, too, Halya thinks.
She’s been living without any news of the war. Now she asks Miss Greeley for the old newspapers from the Common Room and learns about trench warfare on the Western Front. She looks for articles about what’s happening in Bukovyna, but can’t find a thing. People in Canada must not be interested in Ukrainian places. But there’s more than enough to read about mud and rats and lice in the trenches; and terrible weapons that kill people in staggering numbers.
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