by Olga Chaplin
Chapter 48
“Peter, it is time for lunch!” Peter looked up from the far end of the lush garden and waved to the doctor’s wife as she waited at the sun-drenched kitchen door, then he continued tugging at the stubborn growth. He had to complete the new drain that ran through the thicket before the day was done. The back screen door snapped shut, then opened a few minutes later.
“Peter, it is such a nice day … will you have your lunch under the trees?” the modulated voice enquired. He looked up again and rested his aching arm on one knee, watched as the doctor’s wife carried the tray to a weathered timber table that had the appearance of a speckled tablecloth as sunlight flecked and danced through the leaves. He sank his trowel at right angles on a grassy patch and took off his gloves as he strolled to the outside laundry. He gauged it was already midday, the sun perfectly placed overhead, the shadows not yet forming in this large, rambling garden.
He washed, using the familiar worn but clean towel left for him and brushed at his moistened hair. A recent newspaper, atop the discarded pile on the shelf, caught his eye. He carried it back to the table and spread out its front page of dramatic and disturbing pictures, frowned as he studied the blurry images of a Russian armoured car and crew guarding Budapest airport and a Soviet tank blocking the highway to the Austro-Hungarian border.
The doctor’s wife re-appeared with the large teapot, wisps of her long wavy hair caught in the pot’s steam as they strained at her tight hairclips. “I will bring some cakes, later, Peter … we are also eating our lunch.”
“Danke,” he grinned and nodded. He welcomed all manner of food, and in this Viennese household there was an abundance.
She looked across to the pictures of tanks and soldiers, and the headline, ‘Russians Overrun Budapest’. She frowned. “Scham, scham,” she whispered, and shook her head. Their eyes met. Though from different countries of origin, and from different strata in society, each knew what it meant to leave a homeland that one loved. She sighed, then, deep in thought, she returned to the safety of her home.
He, too, sighed. There were such contrasts in the lives of people in this world. Here, in peaceful Australia, there was optimism and such a youthful exuberance for the enjoyment of life. Yet Europe was still bedevilled by the Cold War antics and resultant misery of so many hapless innocents. The Berlin blockade may have ended, but the invisible ‘Iron Curtain’ of the Cold War brought a new intensity of rivalry between east and west. He studied the front page: the tanks and military jeeps, the evident chaos and distress of Budapest’s invasion by Soviet troops made clear even to a Ukrainian migrant not conversant in English. He folded the top sheets and put them to one side. He would show these disturbing pages to friends familiar with the language who would interpret the details.
Four hours of work in the garden had given him an appetite. He ate with gusto, quaffing down several mugs of strong black tea sweetened with sugar. He marvelled at how quickly time passed in this gardening work. The expansive grounds had come alive and nature once again provided so generously in this leafy northern suburb of Sydney. He closed his eyes and smelled the blossoms, listening to the competing birdlife as mother birds fed and trained their young. Another honeyed fragrance wafted past. He breathed in a long remembered scent as dappling sunrays and blooms swayed in a light afternoon breeze. This grand old garden was half a hemisphere away from a certain kolkhoz garden he had visited all those years ago, in which he first walked with Evdokia, but in the warmth and ambience, and temporary removal from other cares in the world, they were similar.
He took a deep breath as he shook himself from his reverie. Stalin had gone, but the new Politburo was now one of a constant rotating door, through which his henchmen came and went, and returned again, with Khrushchev and Bulganin the present surviving heavy-weights. He shook his head and laughed as he remembered the absurdity, the tense atmosphere, those two years ago at the Alexandria factory, as news of the Petrovs’ defection broke around the nation. “You’re not one of those, are ya, Peter?” the alarmed Paddy had spat out at him, his rough Irish accent confusing him. “You’re not a commo are ya, mate?” Paddy had ribbed him, only half-jesting. “You know his missus was dragged off a plane at Darwin, dontcha? What’s ’er name …?” Peter’s face had reddened: he had already been told the details of Vladimir Petrov and his wife Evdokia Petrova, as each dramatic day unfolded. It had cost him dearly that pay-day at the Erskineville hotel, to salvage his Ukrainian pride and convince his fellow workers that he was not a Communist. “But,” he thought now as he returned to his gardening work, “these Petrovs are now in hiding, with new identities … it can’t be an easy life for them, living under these conditions, even in sunny Australia.”
* * *
He hurried up the platform stairs, but still had to queue at the busy turnstile barrier of their new home’s suburb of Bankstown. He smiled as he looked around. He was still surprised at the pace, the life and vigour of this working-class suburb which seemed to be transforming even during these past eighteen months since he and Evdokia settled here. Already, on this late Saturday afternoon, the streets were crowded with residents and visitors dressed to travel by train to the city, or to frequent one of the three cinemas near this station. A new small shopping mall across from the station enticed the inhabitants, and Australians and migrants converged and frequented several new ‘delicatessens’, some even ordering ‘cappuccino’ coffee at the mall’s milk bar.
He stood a few moments, observing a young generation of tanned tennis players and casually dressed swimmers who had returned from the Olympic-sized pool a short distance from the station. The resounding success of the recently ended Olympic Games, in Melbourne, had at last given Australia a place on the world stage in a way that no government could achieve. He grinned as these tall bronzed children reminded him of how swiftly his own Nadia and Ola were growing, as they participated in their sports at school and through the social clubs at their nearby Australian church.
He passed the local hotel, closest to the station. The happy larrikin sounds of Australian men laughing and joking drew him, but he hesitated and decided to continue on his way home. He needed every pound he earned to reduce their bank loan, which was compressed to a punishing five year term, and required both his and Mykola’s wages. He strolled the short distance to their small post-Federation brick bungalow, the last of the sun’s rays almost blinding him as they fanned out from a breathtaking pink-hued cloud. Through the softening haze at a cross-street he waved to Katya, another of Evdokia’s many new acquaintances in this multi-lingual suburb. He still paused for those few moments before crossing the road to their new home, and marvelled at his good fortune in settling on a home closer to his Alexandria factory work, still wondrous that the miracle had happened, that he had found good people in the bank and solicitors who had made this purchase possible.
Evdokia looked up as he walked into the dining room, a strange expression on her face. “What is it, Dyna?” he asked as he touched her shoulder and kissed her brow. The room was dim. Then he caught sight of an envelope in her trembling hand. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her self-control dissipating.
“Dyna … is it bad news? … Let me see!” His first thoughts were of Mykola. He took the letter, held it up and frowned. He took a deep breath as he opened out the folded pages and studied them. A lightning rod, it seemed, hit him in the pit of his stomach as he read the Ukrainian words; his fingers smudged at the indelible ink markings of words eradicated by a Soviet bureaucrat. He felt momentarily lightheaded, a strange mix of elation and fear: feelings he could not explain even to himself, at that moment.
“Why, Dyna … it is from your family … your older sister Olha has written this!” He shook his head, puzzled. “How has this been possible? We have not approached any Australian officials. Could it be …?” He looked up, his eyes settling on the framed picture of Christ on their mantelpiece, honoured with its small embroidered linen cloth Evdokia had hidden through all the years si
nce leaving their Ukraine.
“This must be our priest’s work, here, in Sydney! But … it has been some years since we placed your family’s name on his list to the Russian authorities!” He swallowed as he remembered how difficult it was for him to exclude his own family’s name, in order to protect Vanya, if he was still alive.
Evdokia wept quietly as Peter stood at the window and read her sister Olha’s simply written letter. He swallowed hard, the pages trembling in his hand. His eyes filled with tears.
“All these years, Petro … my Klavdina and Yakim died all those years ago … my Klavdina, even before the war ended, my Yakim soon after. All those years … and they never knew, then, if we were still living, or dead …” She let out a wrenching sob.
“Dyna, Dyna …” Peter was still lost for words, but he tried to comfort her. “Dyna … perhaps this is our God’s way … They may have suffered more had they known we were taken so far away, to the German camps, to the thick of the fighting …”
She looked up, and around her, her eyes searching for something, resting on the enlarged and now tinted photograph of Manya, in its gilt frame, then to the neat bundle of letters from Mykola bound by a tight rubber band as symbolically as he, too, was bound in his man’s work at Adaminaby Dam. Her eyes returned to Manya, fixated on the gilt frame. Suddenly, she turned to him, eyes red, glaring. She had not heard his attempt to comfort her, only ‘fighting,’ ‘German,’ ‘camps.’ Something, from somewhere deep within her subconscious, seemed to unhinge, loosen, let go. She turned on him, her face contorted, her voice unlike anything he had heard before: of anguish, venom-like, accusative, uncontrollable.
“Why,” she lashed out, “if you had paid more attention, you would have seen my Manya limping … you would have done more to save her … you … you could have saved her, if you really tried!” She stood up, her deep unresolved anguish, all those years ago erupting, seemingly inexplicably, like an unidentified volcano, unable to stop. “And Vanya … your Vanya! He was my Vanya, too! … I took care of him all those years … Do you think he would have lived if it had been left to you?” She moved to go out, turned on him again. “And Ola, our Ola … we almost lost her, too, thanks to all your careless card-playing with your friends on the deck! You never knew how languid she had become … so close to …” Then, “And now my Mykola, my poor Mykola …” She caught her breath, pulling back a sob, hiding her gnawing concern about their shy but dutiful son, doing a man’s heavy work. “If it weren’t for him, and his big wages at the Dam, you wouldn’t have any of this!” She waved her arm wildly at the room.
“Dyna, whatever has brought this on? Why do you say these things, after all this time?” He appealed to her once more: “We have all suffered, Dyna … we can’t keep score of these things, now … not here, after all this time …” He moved towards her, to calm and comfort her, but she waved her arms away from him, her fury expended, though strangely the pain still ached deep within her. She retreated to her vegetable garden for solace, unable to even remember any of the accusations she had just poured out at him. The invisible worm, borne of pain and despair at Manya’s passing, and locked in all those years ago in the chrysalis of hopes and expectations that could not be reached, in the circumstances of their lives, had made its way to the fore, had surfaced: too late for it to metamorphose into a butterfly, no longer able to hide its festering, redundant poison.
Peter stood frozen, unable to comprehend what had happened. He slowly put his hand in his pocket to search for his handkerchief; instead, took out the neat white envelope the doctor’s gentle wife had given him, with his day’s wages. His eyes rimmed with tears as, at each accusation that ran like a repeating recording through his mind, he answered as best and as truthfully as he could.
He blinked away at his moistened eyes, looked at his watch. There was still time to walk to the local hotel, buy some lubricating and anaesthetising liquid before the six o’clock closing time. He knew he could not return to the house too soon: knew he would need to tramp the streets of this pulsating town until the hotel opened again for its eight o’clock session. He also knew, as he stepped out into a mild but cooling night, that by night’s end, he would have found a coterie of drinking mates to share his day’s wages with.
* * *
The priest sang his last blessing to the congregation as the choir, located in its tiny upper box, harmonised: “Hospode Pomelye, Hospode Pomelye, Amin, Amin, Amin.” Peter crossed himself again and looked past the row of men he stood with in the small Granville church, caught sight of Evdokia and smiled. She, too, smiled and blushed, then crossed herself as the service ended. They moved towards each other in the queue, to kiss the old priest’s cross, before leaving the service.
“Petro,” she said gently, still somewhat flushed as they stepped outside, “do you think we could thank our priest for his recommendations … They must have heeded his requests, those officials in the Ukraine.”
Peter nodded. Their eyes met: both recognising that, though some things never remain the same, other things abide with them both.
“Petro …” her voice faltered, “you write so much better than I do … Perhaps if you write our reply to my sister Olha, you could ask her—very obliquely, that is—of any news of your family … That way … perhaps we may even one day have some word of Vanya … without him risking reprisal from the authorities … if he is still with us …”
Peter smiled and nodded, then winked at her. She blushed again and bit her lip, holding back her emotions. He took a deep breath, the first that did not cause an ache in his heart since that day, weeks ago. He knew her goodness throughout all these years, knew what they had both been through: that they had been through so much, perhaps too much. And even though the inexplicable happened, that fateful Saturday, that seemed to have no apparent logic or reason to it, he could not condemn her for her depth of feeling. He would write to her sister Olha, use words couched in such a way so as not to offend the Soviet authorities, do everything possible to facilitate news of Vanya.
As they farewelled their friends at the church steps, the bright late-spring day welcomed them, even embraced them, giving them hope. He looked up to the modest spire of this compact Orthodox church. Already, he and Evdokia had received their share of miracles in the turmoil of these past decades of war, migration and peace. He could only wish that, whatever happened to Vanya, he had not suffered unduly, unnecessarily. That is all that logically, and reasonably, he could now pray for. All else was superfluous, in this unpredictable life.
Chapter 49
“Horko! Horko!” a hundred wedding guests called out across the plain hall beautified with ribbons and tulle embellished with the last of summer’s heady flowers. “Horko, horko! Show us who’s in command now, Voloda!” others persisted. The young bride and groom laughed as they cut their layered cake and, with the ribboned knife left symbolically secure in the heart of the lowest tier, turned to each other and kissed passionately, to rowdy approval.
Peter grinned and whispered to Evdokia, gently touched her coiled hair as they watched, in happy unison, at a table close by. She blushed, whispering her reply. He laughed as they shared a private joke. Their eyes met, glistened, each recalling their own simple wedding, long ago, under such different circumstances: one that had embraced their affections, their promises and hopes and, even one day, their love.
“Come on, Voloda! Show Raisa your wedding steps! Come on, groomsmen! Bring your lovely ladies out to the dance floor!” The Master of Ceremonies, unused to this task and exuberant after downing his extra shots of vodka to give him courage and authority, waved the wedding party onto the dance floor. Strains of a fine orchestra playing ‘The Blue Danube’ prepared the wedding party as the gramophone’s full volume gave the cue. Peter smiled. This was another of Mykola’s favourite music choices, selected thoughtfully and transported with great care to the wedding of his close friend. Voloda, seeming taller and even more dashing with his dark hair slicked back, grasped his Rai
sa and, laughing, they stumbled through their bridal waltz in the popular Australian fashion.
Soon the guests followed, their Master of Ceremonies commanding the orchestral piece be repeated several times. Peter, following the steps of the wedding party, held Evdokia closely, moved easily to the rhythm of the grand piece. They laughed as they faltered and swayed to the uplifting music. He looked across at the dignified men on the dance floor and smiled: by night’s end the older men, fired up by their powerful clear liquid shots, would dare each other in the obligatory ‘kopak’ dance that was already becoming anachronistic to a younger Ukrainian generation.
Evdokia glowed as they returned to their laden table to chat with their friends and participate in each moment of the joyful occasion. She looked admiringly at Peter and blushed as he playfully patted her. She could smile again at life, at last, grateful that their schism was not long-lasting, grateful that her husband never reproached her for her inexplicable and uncontrolled eruption almost three years earlier. She had returned to her balanced state of mind, thankful that her family remained happy, together.
She watched with tenderness as Mykola sat engrossed with the wedding party, courteous and attentive as Best Man, while Nadia and Ola danced and joked with their young friends at the back of the hall. She realised, with a pang, that four years had passed since her family had shared their last formal occasion together, at that fateful christening. Now, Mykola’s recent news that he would return permanently, perhaps even by the year’s end when their crushing mortgage payments would be completed, excited her. Instinctively she clasped her hand to her heart, to still it. Peter watched closely and, gauging her thoughts, patted her reassuringly. He knew her sense of balance, and composure, would be near-complete once Mykola was safely back home from a national project that already had revealed its many dangers.