by Olga Chaplin
The waft of Evdokia’s borshch hit his nostrils even before he opened the door to their half-section of the shack that was now their home in this wilderness haven. He kissed Evdokia and his little girls, retrieved his neat, brown packet and laid it out proudly. Evdokia could not resist. She put down the soup ladle and opened the packet, carefully counting each pound, the shillings and pence, then beamed with delight.
“Petro … why, this is the most they’ve paid you, so far! The overtime makes all the difference. Why, …” she hesitated, choosing her words, viewing the kitchen’s concrete floor and sparse dilapidated furniture, “we can save for our own home … one day … The Bilanenkos have written that they have just secured a block for themselves, not far from Sydney. It’s some distance from the local railway station, but they can walk to it!” She stopped, as she noted Peter’s wry smile.
He brushed at his dusty face and sighed, and took two one-shilling coins and gave them to Nadia and Ola. They hugged him as he gently tousled their hair. He turned to eat his wife’s hearty borshch: he could put generous serves of butter on his thick chunks of wholesome bread, and savour the conviviality and relative ease of his simple family life, despite the starkness of their existence in the Glen Davis valley. He rubbed at his calluses. They were healing at last; the relatively easier work of pulling the shale levers and shovelling coke was far less strenuous than his back-breaking work at the Parkes brickworks.
“Dyna, the foreman of the team … Jimmy … you know, the one with the good voice? He has offered me his winding gramophone machine … he’s just ordered a new ‘electric’ one! He knows how much we like to sing. He says he’ll give us some gramophone records … he is certain they will help us learn ‘the English’ better!” His eyes lit up as he anticipated the pleasure of music and song. Evdokia nodded briefly, calculating the cost. The harshness of their existence in this valley needed some softening, and it was preferable to entertain their divergent friends in their crude home than to see her husband drawn in further to the drinking crowd at the hotel bar. She would put aside a pound, as a deposit on this gramophone, before she made her weekly route to the town’s bank, the increasing balance in their deposit book giving her the assurance she needed that one day they would have security, a home to call their own. For this, she was prepared to struggle in this strange existence, attend to her many chickens and ducks, and tend the growing garden of vegetables that thrived, surprisingly easily, in this black volcanic and alluvial soil among the sandstone rocks and soaring cliffs.
“Look, Tato! See what our friends gave us!” Nadia opened her hand, revealing a little ‘fizzer stick’, attached to a wick. “My friend Selena and her sisters and brothers already have a dozen each! They bought them with their pocket money … and I’ll buy some too, with my shilling!” Peter puzzled at this purchase. “Oh, Tato … this is for the Bonfire Night party, next week. Our teachers told us,” she stood erect as she proudly mimicked, “we will be celebrating our Empire Day!” She shrugged her young shoulders, unable yet to understand its import. “But it must be very important … Selena showed me the big boxes of fireworks her family have hidden!”
Peter bit at his lip wondering at the wisdom of a large family living in such cramped conditions in a flimsy timber shack, higher up the rocky incline, which no fire brigade could reach. He had already seen, close-up, in this seemingly pristine valley, the devastation of a mine cave-in caused by a small ill-placed gelignite stick, of the irreparable damage to men’s fingers, limbs, even life. He shook his head, felt a sense of discomfort as the gut feeling of danger warned him. He knew his daughters daily ran up to play with these friendly near-neighbours and knew, too, how a child’s innocent prank could become disastrous. And the adults were smokers. He knew he had to act quickly. He would ask his foreman, Jimmy, what was best to do, at the next shift day. For now, he had to stand his ground with his little daughters.
“Nadia, Ola, come here,” he stood tall before them, legs astride. They knew their father’s firm voice and commanding pose meant he was to be obeyed. “You must promise me, moyi malenki, that you will stay away from your friend’s house until the Bonfire Night … until the fireworks are lit.” He dropped his voice, expression serious. “Do you understand?” They nodded their promise, returned to the family’s bedroom to dream of the bright fireworks display that their friends had described in such vivid detail.
The night was crisp and clear, the heavens scattered with its myriad of stars as he adjusted the bedroom window curtain. The nightly owl hooted its haunting call from its tree-nook nearby. All was quiet; all was peaceful with the world.
* * *
A rustling, crackling sound startled Peter from his sleep. He instinctively jumped out of bed: the reminder of the bombings and infernos of Berlin and Wilhelmshaven were too entrenched for him to forget. He ran to the kitchen, threw open the door. Not far above them, among trees and rocks, the hill was in flames, brilliant reds and gold and spurting shards of blue and green shot up into the night sky as if they were being sent into space. Already the fumes and hot ash were descending towards their shack.
“Dyna!” he rushed back to the bedroom. “Grab the children! Grab some blankets! I’ll warn Christov!” He banged the share-house back door. “Christov! Christov!” He wrenched open the weary door-handle, rushed into the adjoining neighbour’s rooms.
As Evdokia and the children huddled at a safer distance with their neighbour’s family, Peter and Christov ran with buckets towards the flames. Through the dark and the billowing black haze he could make out some figures cowering behind rocks for protection. He attempted to count the numbers, without success. Three generations of larrikin Australians lived happily and freely in that shack. He shuddered and swallowed, felt ill as he stood still at last, his buckets of water hissing uselessly back at him and Christov. The head-count of this generous, laughing Australian family, who had welcomed him and Evdokia and their children so openly upon their arrival, could not be made until dawn. He feared, with the sickening certain knowledge wrought from his own long fire-fighting experience in the Wilhelmshaven camp, that not all these souls would greet him and his family on the morrow. Empire Day had prematurely and unwittingly claimed its victims, in nature’s haven, tampered by man.
Chapter 46
The bus sidled into a resting bay at the hub of unpretentious Market Street, its chromed grille nuzzling the long sunburnt grass as if it were chafing to free its choked-up nostrils of insects and dust. With the handrail as support, Peter swung clear of the bus steps, desperate to smell the crisp air again after a jostling twenty mile journey of gravelled road from Capertee junction.
He sauntered along the grassy pathway, regaining his composure, and breathed in the pristine air of the verdant ferns and eucalypts of the Glen Davis valley. His new white shirt, purchased at the general store which took pride of place in this street, was now flecked with yellow dust and damp with perspiration, but he grinned as he savoured those minutes of success in the solicitor’s office in Sydney the previous day. He breathed, in relief, as he re-lived those moments of a certain empowerment, which he had not experienced for so long, as he placed his signature on the document of purchase for their block of land on the city’s outskirts.
He eased his grip on his suitcase, and smiled: he had trinkets for his little Nadia and Ola, hurriedly purchased at Lithgow before changing trains, and he could anticipate Evdokia’s joy when he walked in to their shack. He was glad, now, that he had decided to act swiftly, once his friend Vasyl had written that few blocks remained, and it was with their good friend’s contacts that the purchase was expedited. Now he had the certainty of providing a home for his family, and they would be reunited with friends from their Heidenau camp days.
He looked about him, his eyes scanning the great surrounding cliffs of this mountainous volcanic valley, his nostrils alive with the unique pungency of crushed fern and bark as the afternoon’s shadows encroached on the blue haze of eucalypt. He realised, now, how
much he had missed Glen Davis, though he had left it barely two weeks earlier. This valley haven was gradually, mysteriously filling the psyche of his being, nourishing him in the most unexpected ways, despite the extreme conditions. He and his family, along with all the other inhabitants in this cut off sanctuary, had to live within the confines of a harsh environment: freezing winter nights, searing summer days, the red glow of bushfires worming their way along the escarpment floor; all this, interspersed with the intermittent flooding of the Capertee River.
But in these past eighteen months of admittedly tedious shift work, punctuated by an unparalleled freedom, he had come to share in the camaraderie of all the men and women of the cultural melting pot of such diverse nationalities. At last, he was being rewarded for his hard work. At last, one day, Evdokia would have her home in a suburb not too far from Sydney, and near their many friends. And, he reminded himself, he would still feel the bush and nature at his door, their chosen block in a street that ended at a bush reserve. He brushed at the flies again, as he calculated: one more year of work at this Glen Davis shale oil factory, and then they would have their modest new home, for life. It was a small commitment, for such a secure future. The tedium of the work, the heat, the flies: such memories would dissipate for such an opportunity.
From the safety of an arching branch, high up on a centuries-old gum, a kookaburra guffawed at him. He laughed at the watchful creature, and he imagined the laughter he and Evdokia would share as they drank a celebratory shot of vodka and played again her favourite record, even attempting to sing to the words of ‘Irene Goodnight’. He headed for the old wooden bridge spanning the river that separated the formal part of town from the ‘bag town’ shacks and dwellings, when he suddenly stopped and looked back. Stepping off the bus he had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he had not carefully enough observed the shale works. To the east of the town, the massive structure with its buildings and retorts beamed vibrant as August’s afternoon rays hit the columns. This was a busy mid-week day. The humming sounds suggested activity, but the massive plumes of steam and smoke that were the by-product of full production, and which were funnelled daily by the westerly winds, were gone.
He hesitated, puzzled. Something did not ring true. There had been talk of changes in the factory, even of some ongoing problems in extracting the shale. But the Chinese whispers of the union leaders evinced such an outpouring of emotion and overwhelming support from the several thousand residents that even Jimmy, his hard-headed foreman, had laughed off Peter’s concerns before he left for Sydney.
He backtracked to the hotel’s bar, squinted as he searched for Jimmy’s familiar tall frame at his usual place at the bar’s end. Stern jaw in cupped hand, Jimmy looked solemn, his beer untouched. His sole team companion today, the burly Scot, usually dust-covered, appeared strangely passive in his clean clothes.
Jimmy raised his hand in greeting, but without his usual gusto. He attempted small talk: “A short shift today, Peter,” as he brushed at a few specks of dust. Soothing his lips with a gulp of the dark brew, he turned to face Peter squarely, his red eyes angry. “We’ve been duped, we have, Peter!” Jimmy’s voice boomed over his head, evoking instant agreement from others in the bar. “They told us we would fight this all the way to Canberra, and win!” He snorted in exasperation. “And all those newspaper reporters clambering to get our story! Ha! Well, they sold more papers in the big smoke, didn’t they!” He picked up his schooner, and put it down again, his heart not in it. Peter bit his lip. He understood his foreman’s tone of anger and distress, but he could only obliquely guess at the full meaning.
Jimmy stood up, his tall frame bearing over all around him, searching out his interpreter friend, then remembered. “And Wally’s gone too, now! He smelt a rat when all this started! He’s headed to the big smoke to look for regular work!” Peter didn’t understand the English but sensed that their work prospects had changed. He touched Jimmy’s arm and, as if he were playing at a game of charades, gestured the motions of pulling shaft-levers, a large part of his job. “Moya ‘sheft’? Kaput?”
Jimmy nodded, then shook his head in dismay. “Kaput it is, my friend! Isn’t it, fellas?” The other drinkers groaned in agreement. Someone muttered angry expletives.
“Benny and Tom? No here?” Peter asked, of the loyal miners who worked in Jimmy’s team.
“Nope!” Jimmy shook his head again. “Only Geordie here is left with me, God help us!” He lowered his voice and eyeballed Peter, as if this would help in his understanding. “Benny and Tom … well, you know, they see things we white fellas don’t … They said their ‘totems’ have moved away … that there’s trouble ahead. They’ve gone back to ‘country’, as they say in these parts—back to the bush.” He leaned even closer. Peter noticed, for the first time, Jimmy’s lips quiver. “They gave a warning … they said something is going to break … but they wouldn’t tell me how they know. They somehow ‘divine’ these things …” Jimmy shook his head, uncertain of what next to believe.
Peter’s schooner, barely sipped, began to lose its froth. The usually welcome bitter taste he had only recently come to enjoy had lost its appeal, the flat beer now symbolic of the men’s flattened spirits.
* * *
He greeted Evdokia and his daughters cheerily, but the earlier feelings of elation he held back. That unease, that familiar sense of uncertainty and anxiety had returned. All their bank savings had been withdrawn for this land purchase. And now, Jimmy hinted their work life at the shale factory could end any day. He pretended all was well: he had not had time to think of what next to do. The past weeks had been heady, even uplifting. But they had also been tiring, with many hours of uncomfortable travel and long days with excited friends in Sydney. He had not given himself time to consider what job prospects he might ultimately have in the capital city. His friends were much younger and were already secure in government project works on the roads and the railways. And he had counted on his family staying in this isolated valley: their new home one day was dependent on this.
Still, he smiled as he set out the newly signed document on the dresser and watched with pride as Evdokia beamed and appeared to study it. She looked up, her face flushed. “Why, Petro … this is to be our land, now! Our very own land!” Her brow furrowed as she hesitated. “And … we will be permitted to build our own home on it, one day? … They won’t be able to take it from us?” She touched his brow, her finger brushing at a stray lock of his hair. He felt the tightness in his chest, but he could not disappoint her now.
“And look, Petro! Mykola’s photographs arrived! What a happy Easter it was for us all, this time!” She set out her two favourite photographs of the family’s celebration. Peter looked closely at the small sepia frames and smiled, despite himself. Mykola was so grown up, now almost his height. The many months apart made him appear different, somehow. At seventeen, he was no longer a youth but an adult, making his own decisions as best he could in this new country. His eyes moistened with pride, but he also felt the pang of responsibility as he looked from the photographs to Evdokia. He knew how much she yearned for her family to share a home together again one day, soon.
He stepped outside once more into the night, to calm his mind before succumbing to sleep. He looked to its heavens, as his soul’s mentor Taras Shevchenko must have done so long ago in his Tsarist exiles. The night embraced him, the stars mesmerising in the pitch dark. The constellations may have been different for that great Ukrainian philosopher poet, but the stars’ eternal glisten of hope had not changed. They followed each soul’s journey to its eventual destiny, its ultimate peaceful place.
He crossed himself before this darkened church of the universe, let the tears fall freely, as he made his way back to the shack. They loosened the emotions he could no longer hold in, but could not share, now, with his sleeping family.
* * *
Peter felt the horse’s rocking motion as its hooves slushed through virgin snow, felt the lightest flakes of
melting snow touch his eyelids and cheeks. He was on his way to the safety of his home in Kylapchin, to his Hanya and Vanya. But then the horse began to stall: something had baulked it. He turned the reins this way and that, but to no avail. He put out his hand to steady himself, felt the cold and damp as he fell …
Suddenly he awoke, his splayed hand soaked on the window pane as droplets of water cascaded along the corrugated tin ceiling and down the walls. The shack seemed to be swaying. It was not yet dawn, the sounds around him unfamiliar and perplexing. He carefully stepped out of the bedroom, stepped down the deep single step to the kitchen’s concrete floor.
“Good God!” he cried as the water sucked at him, silty mud already sticking to his feet. He felt his way back, dressed quickly, shook Evdokia gently.
“Dyna! Dyna! Wake up! The water from the river!” He rolled up his trousers, fumbled in the kitchen for candles and brought one to her. He could not believe the Capertee River could rise in so short a time. The rains had eased, days ago, the river flowed normally. There were no suggestions in the township of any dangerous peaks.
There was no time to even think of saving their kitchen furniture. A foot of seething muddy water was pushing at him as he moved from kitchen to bedroom.
“Dyna! We only have minutes before this mud will reach the bedroom! Dress the girls … I’ll lift their beds onto ours … it will give us more time to save some of these belongings! Quick! Quick! I’ll wake Christov and his family … God only knows how much of this we can save!”
As dawn broke they moved as best as they could, muddy water swishing at their knees as they bundled perenas and clothing to higher ground at the back of the shack. Peter realised, at last, the ultimate purpose of the small mouldy wooden shed at the highest end of this allotment, among the gnarled but still surviving peach trees. Someone, all those years ago, must have experienced a similar fate, the Capertee River having broken its banks time and again as floodwaters rushed from surrounding mountains into the valley in unpredictable torrential rain.