The Man From Talalaivka

by Olga Chaplin

  “Stalin? Agente?” Peter queried again. The guard nodded. “Communist?” Peter asked. Lips tight, the guard nodded knowingly.

  Peter felt his stomach tighten. The long day with the departure authorities, and their sickly child needing attention, had strained him to the limit. Now he stood before this burly guard, being quizzed as to his origins. He and Evdokia were compatriots of their Ukraine, but Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union and they had spent six years in Germany, two years of which were under German control. He took a deep breath and stepped back as he tried to summon the courage to ask this guard to help him seek medical help for their Ola.

  He swallowed hard, felt somewhat sickened. Stalin’s tentacles had spread all over the modern world, these days. He and his family could not be further from Stalin’s clutches, now, and yet the megalomaniacal dictator was able to penetrate the psyche and security of these English-speaking people living peacefully so far from Europe. Now he felt obliged to defend his beliefs, his family’s good intentions in reaching these far-off shores. Holding back his emotions, hand on chest as he tried to control his twitching lip, he could only reiterate: “Ya ye Ukrainske, ya ye Ukrainske. Ne Deutsch. Ne Stalin.”

  The guard stepped towards him, still eyeing him, pausing for a moment, then grasped his shoulder. “It’s all right, mister … it’s all right.” He cleared his throat.

  “Moya dochka …” Peter began.

  “Your little girl is sick, mister?” He checked his list of passengers, then smiled and shook his head as he realised that neither of them could freely communicate with each other. He scratched his greying hair and, swinging back into his dilapidated leather chair, he pointed to the map on the wall behind his neat desk. “We are here, mister … near Katoomba. But we don’t stop here. We’ll be slowing here, at Lithgow …” his finger traced the Central to Bathurst line on his map. “They’ll be bringing us food, sandwiches—but not stopping, mind you,” he pointed to his mouth. They smiled, their eyes meeting as they communicated in the most basic of ways.

  “When we reach Lithgow, I will telephone ahead,” he pointed to his telephone as if he were playing a game of charades. “Bathurst hospital will take good care of your daughter. She must drink this,” he pointed to his black tea. He stood up again and patted Peter on the shoulder, then turned to his log-book, in readiness to telephone the Bathurst authorities.

  The night had set black over the mountains and countryside, the carriages barely lit by sporadic wall globes as Peter made his way back to their carriage. He caught his reflection in the blackened window panes, felt dismayed with what it revealed on this, his first night in their new country. His face had that same haggard appearance he had seen reflected on that fateful train journey through Germany’s Black Forest on the way towards their Naples destination.

  He stepped soundlessly towards their cubicle, hoping their child may be sleeping. Evdokia looked up, weeping. She had been unable to stop Ola from retching, and now their child was lapsing into unconsciousness.

  His neck pricked with panic. “Dyna, she must sip some liquid … even this sweet tea … to hydrate her, no matter what.” He feared the consequences. He had to encourage Ola to drink. She was burning with fever, could even suffer a seizure. He prepared for her retching. He took off his boot and placed it strategically at Ola’s side, away from the others, and held her upright in his arms. The remainder of this journey would be traumatic for their little girl. But he had to persist, to control the situation as best he could, until they reached Bathurst station. He could not allow himself to contemplate that she would decline even further, could not contemplate that his weakening to Evdokia’s pleas at the Sydney terminal might lead to another sorrow after all those years of war and uncertainty.

  Chapter 44

  The brickworks horn sounded a series of double-blasts, denoting it was end of week closing time. A collective “Hoorah!” echoed as men downed tools. Peter looked up from his stacking work and grinned. These signature blasts were Jahn’s way of humouring his fellow workers, as if the young man were still working the coastline vessels of his native Dutch ports. He paused, contemplating the remaining bricks on the long conveyor belt and arched his back to ease the pain after hours of stooping and twisting.

  He watched as men covered in brick dust and clay jostled good-naturedly as they sauntered to the utilities shed to wash. He surveyed the now-inactive conveyor belt again. It would take some additional time for him to clear the bricks and stack them on the palette. He removed his heavy glove, saw with dismay the calluses that burned and bled. But the conveyor belt needed to be cleared: a safety issue, the union had stressed. He looked up to an office window a short distance away. The union representatives had already packed up and gone, their vigilance relaxed for their Friday afternoon meetings at a Parkes hotel. He took a few deep breaths and moved faster in removing the bricks from the belt, then stacked the remainder to the required number on the timber palettes, two by two, this way and that, his hands moving automatically as if they were an extension of the mechanised conveyor system.

  “Ah, Peter! Come on! It’s holiday time now—Christmas, next week! No need to over-work yourself! And you know what our union bosses would say if they saw you …” Jahn stood straight, and mimicked in his broken Ukrainian: “‘You are disloyal to The Cause—you must not work overtime outside the clock’!” He laughed and slapped Peter playfully on the back. “I will see you at the camp! We will celebrate with Christmas schnapps!”

  The afternoon sun beat down over the stilled brickworks which, although not too distant from Parkes, had an even greater sense of isolation when the machines stopped and men departed. Already, a few dust-swirls picked up in the open pits by a lazy breeze hinted at the coming of summer’s tormenting heat. He sighed in relief as he entered the utilities shed and washed with tank water warmed by the sun’s heat, grinned and shook his head as he remembered these same pipes had become frozen in the cold months of winter. The extremes of this far away sunny country were still confusing to the northern European mind.

  He put on his faded clean shirt and, wrapping the few belongings he had brought with him that morning, he secured them to his bicycle rack. There was now no need to back-track to the billeted farmhouse nearby, his temporary abode during the week. His heart skipped a beat, as it did each Friday afternoon, as he thought of his little family waiting for him at their Parkes hostel camp.

  Each Friday, these past seven months, he could celebrate his return home to Evdokia and their children from his ‘brick-pit’. Each weekend he good-humouredly regaled comic events at the brickworks, his wit brushing aside the exhaustion of the work, the loneliness of each night, despite the kindness of the farmhouse family, which supplemented its own meagre existence with these billeted European strangers.

  He peddled at a leisurely rate, re-invigorating himself with each mile on the pitted gravelled road, ever watchful for the sharp granite-like stones that often cut through the worn bicycle tyres. With still some distance to go, he stopped to drink water from his metal thermos, and lit his rolled cigarette. He breathed out the strong pungent smoke, watched its wispy trail dissipate in the afternoon haze. It was during such moments, when he was quite alone in the relative quiet of the day, that he could observe and contemplate the surroundings, the life around him. There was a flatness—almost a blandness—in this part of the countryside, yet life stirred in the most unexpected ways. Birds of all descriptions and colours called to each other and dived among the many species of eucalypt trees, and wallabies and kangaroos paused, often in an upright position, before suddenly springing across the gravelled road as they headed from one pastureland to another. A hint of refreshing eucalypt hit his nostrils, then the burnt-bark smell of a far away bushfire. He instinctively stubbed out his cigarette, scraped at the red earth with his boot, and buried the butt.

  Nadia and Ola were already waiting and ran to him as he peddled up to their one-room hut. “Tato! Come on, come on! I have to show you what I di
d in class this week!” Nadia couldn’t contain herself, pulling at Peter’s shirt as he secured his bicycle to the handrail. He laughed and tousled her hair, lifted and spun her around. Already, she had thrived and grown in this climate of fresh air and plentiful canteen food in the safe hostel haven.

  And so had Ola. No longer pale, the freckles scattered across her browning face and with her hair wispy and white in the sun, she was an entirely different child, it seemed, from the near-tragic days of their arrival. She clasped her thin arms around his neck as he held her up. She was still light, but energetic and beaming. She nuzzled her cheek against his unshaven face and grimaced. He laughed as he gently lowered her. He blinked, his eyes stinging with emotion as he thought back to their arrival in Bathurst, of the ambulance waiting to take their child directly to hospital: of the tense days, that continued on to five anxious weeks, awaiting Ola’s full recovery in the hospital ward.

  Evdokia, upon hearing their voices, stepped out of the hut and came down the few stairs to embrace him. Her hair freshly washed and coiled into a neat bun she, too, now exuded a quiet confidence. He smiled as he remembered their first meeting all those years ago, in their Ukraine. Outwardly, she seemed unchanged. The late afternoon was still serenely warm, but he shuddered as he remembered Evdokia’s distress and sense of foreboding in those early weeks of arrival. He shook his head, as if to dispel the memory. It was with relief that he had grabbed this chance to earn the meagre wage for his family at this far away place of Parkes, with its displacement hostel, and to put the memory of their Bathurst months behind them. And he had to fulfil his commitments. Their arrival as displaced persons was conditional: he had signed papers, was committed for at least two years to work wherever he was needed. The government of Australia wanted them to be employed as quickly and usefully as was possible. And he and Evdokia needed to look to another future in their new country.

  “Oh, those wonderful doctors, and nurses!” he thought in admiration and praise, still in awe that among this chaotic wilderness were caring people who came to their aid without question or malice. He was so grateful for their dedication in treating for weeks a child from the other side of the world, a child not yet one of their own citizens. “If this is what this Australian country stands for, they deserve to have our loyalty in return.”

  * * *

  Jahn ran up the hut steps. Mykola, closest to the door, quickly opened it and greeted their friend.

  “Peter! You must hear this!” he blurted in his stilted Ukrainian, before he realised the family had guests at their Christmas meal. Peter welcomed him to join his close friends Vasyl and Semmen. The small hut was crammed with the merry-makers, the table heavy with Evdokia’s cuisine as they clicked glasses of vodka and beer and lemonade. Jahn put down his glass.

  “Peter! I have such good news! My friends have just returned from a place—closer to Sydney than here—it’s a sort of mining town. There is plenty of work there—and overtime!—and you won’t have to go down a mine, although it’s triple the pay if you do!” He noticed Evdokia’s expression, and stopped. “Peter, it will be easy work, my friends assure me. It’s a clean, new factory,” he lowered his voice, “not like these brickworks.” He paused, his excitement returning. “And we can make a great deal of money! I’m going back with my friends, to investigate. And, best of all,” he grinned as if he had found his trump card, “it’s on the government’s ‘priority list’—that means these Parkes brickworks bosses must release us!” He looked sheepishly at Evdokia, then at Peter. “You know, I’m only in my twenties, but I want to have a home one day, and a family, like yours … but this brickworks existence … we can never get ahead in life … we will never save any money, here.” He lowered his voice again, gently prodded: “There is no future for us here, Peter … and you have your age to consider.”

  “Petro, your young friend is right, you know. Look at us,” Semmen nodded to his wife and little girls. “We live in a tent, now, outside Newcastle, and I have to find work wherever I can, near the mines. Only Vasyl here has managed to find better work, closer to Sydney.”

  Peter looked at this happy group celebrating their first Australian Christmas in a climate of surprising heat. He observed Evdokia’s demeanour and realised, with a pang, that she had reached a certain equilibrium, a security, in this Parkes hostel. It had an orderliness and calm which far exceeded their cramped Heidenau camp life. But he knew his friends were right. The work here was exhausting, his wages barely enough to cover each week’s hostel and billeting costs. Seven months of heavy labouring on the conveyor shifts had shown him he could not endure this kind of work much longer.

  The opportunity had come: the door was wedged open for them by this ambitious and fearless Jahn and his friends. However far away this mining town was from Sydney, and however inconvenient their living conditions may become, he and Evdokia had to make that initial sacrifice, into another wilderness, to increase their chances to build a better future for their family.

  He shook Jahn’s hand, avoided Evdokia’s stare. He sensed such opportunities would not frequently come his way, at his age, in this new country. This year, 1950, had tested them significantly. He knew intuitively that the new year would bring them other unexpected challenges. Then he feasted his eyes on his children and wife: he knew instinctively that he had all he could reasonably ask for in this strange new country, with his Maker’s blessing.

  Chapter 45

  “Over here, Peter!” a baritone voice boomed above the din. Peter stopped and looked back, squinting, his eyes darting from the colonnaded hotel to the adjacent public bar building. “Here, Peter! It’s Friday, remember!” Jimmy, his foreman, stepped out into the fading light. “Time we spent some of that overtime money!” He patted his bulging shirt pocket and, slapping Peter’s back in welcome, led him to a group of miners at the far end of the bar.

  “Here!” he pushed a schooner of the dark frothy brew along the counter to Peter. “Here’s to the King! Here’s to Empire Day!” His voice boomed over the crowd. The rowdy men paused and cheered. Peter followed their glasses of salute to a framed portrait of George VI hung high above the long bar. He grinned and shook his head as he thought of the incongruity of this dignified figure in robes and regalia contemplating the noisy rabble of miners and factory workers determined to quench their thirst and wash away the hardship and tedium of their shift work.

  He gulped down the gifted schooner, raised his hand as he caught the barman’s sharp eye and ordered the next round for Jimmy’s group. In the months he’d worked at this Glen Davis shale works, he had observed and come to understand, to some extent, the work ethics of this strange mix of men, most of them itinerant workers like himself, from the scores of nationalities who had converged on this wild part of the world. Without exception, they all seemed fearless. They worked hard, almost to an extreme limit, be it in the mines or in the retort factory of the shale works. They played hard too, be it at cards, or sport, or drinking.

  “Hey Wally! Come over here, will ya … Tell our Peter here that Empire Night is a celebration … a Bonfire Night, with food and crackers and a party!” The young man, who was conversant in a number of languages, blushed and came forward, his attempts at explanation drowned out by the rowdiness of the packed bar.

  Peter skimmed his eyes over the smoky room as best he could. Once again, his young friend Jahn was nowhere in sight. He sighed. He missed his friend, who reminded him so much of Mykola who, too, was working hard, now at a far away farm, near Windsor. He remembered Jahn’s determination, and he was glad the young man was true to his word, saving all he earned at the shale works, even taking the weekend shifts. But the mining work was strenuous and already, in these months, it seemed Jahn had aged beyond his years. Even Evdokia’s wholesome meals during the few occasions he called by did not seem to revive him. Peter feared for his friend. There were frequent cave-ins in the narrow shale shafts, sometimes due to the risks and exhaustion of workers taking these extra shifts.

&
nbsp; He breathed in and made his way towards Jimmy, to excuse himself. He had learnt early, in this hotbed of mining activity, that there were certain rituals to observe, and to follow. Mateship may have appeared to be the obligatory slap on the back, and the swill of the beer but a certain respect for, and acknowledgement of, the leader and his close underlings was the unspoken code, whatever one’s national background.

  It was almost dark as Peter made his way along the shortcut track towards the narrow footbridge point of the Capertee River that, snake-like, wound its way along the valley floor of this extinct primordial volcano. Already the night was crisp, the funnels’ remaining smoke pushed westward in a slight breeze. He paused at the footbridge, mindful of the unstable planks, and looked up at the sheer cliff face that stretched up to the dark sky. It was as if a giant primeval creature dominated over the vast valley, its splayed claw-like talus boulders and hills stretching down to the workers’ ‘bag town’ shacks. By day, the technological creature that was the large shale works factory dominated, its huge clouds of smoke and ash spurting into the westernmost part of the Capertee Valley. By night, the sheer cliff faces seemed to provide a cocooning protection for the valley’s inhabitants. Yet, instead of feeling dwarfed, even overwhelmed by this almost unnatural existence, he felt a sense of empowerment, a vitality and strength, despite the long shifts and hard labouring work, and enjoyed grasping the opportunities this rough, almost ‘wild west’ place offered.