“You understand English?” His black eyes took on some warmth; he looked almost eager. “You speak it?”
Her understanding was growing, but her English-speaking skills were still weak. “Some,” she admitted.
He pointed to the gun. “Under the War Measures Act, you are not allowed to have that.”
She understood perfectly well but she pretended not to. “Ya,” she gave him a wide, dumb smile. “Makes good hunting, ya?”
“You cannot have the gun,” he said again. He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
She feigned confusion. “You want food?” She turned to fetch the rabbit, wondering if she dared make a dash for the chicken hole.
“No!” He held up a hand to stop her.” You cannot have the gun,” he explained again. “You are enemies of the state and, as such, you must not have a gun.”
Mama bit her lower hp and gave Lesia the tiniest shake of her head. Don’t give up, she seemed to be saying.
Lesia’s frown was genuine. Enemies. She knew that word. “Not enemies.” Her palm was damp where she clutched the gun. The gun she had been so scared to use. The gun that had prevented them from starving to death.
He reached into his pocket. “This promissory note explains everything. When the war is over, you can reclaim it.”
Lesia wouldn’t take the paper. She stepped backwards. “Everybody has guns,” she said haltingly.
“Not everybody.” The man’s eyes narrowed even further. “And we have had complaints,” he said. “People say you’ve handled the gun carelessly.”
Suddenly Lesia knew. Her neighbours had reported her.
“Here.” He leaned forward and jabbed the corner of the note towards her free hand.
She jerked away and went to stand beside Sonia and Adam. “Without meat…” she struggled to find the right words, “the children, they will … starve,” she concluded softly
Tiny beads of perspiration appeared on the man’s forehead. He pulled out a white handkerchief and dabbed at his hairline.
“There are food lines in Winnipeg.” He refused to look at the children. “They can help.”
“Baah!” Lesia’s anger exploded and she began babbling in Ukrainian. “Winnipeg is a two-day walk. That’s too far in this cold! We are not enemies of the state. We work hard to clear the land. To feed our families. What do you do? You lock our men away. And now you want to take away our means of survivai?” She clutched the gun to her chest and glared defiantly at the stranger. “No!”
His full lips twisted into an angry sneer. “Then I have no choice but to take you with me.” His face lost some of its pleasant roundness; his jaw jutted forward. He stepped towards her.
Mama cried out. Sonia began to wail.
Take you with me. Lesia knew those words. A chill crept down her spine. He wouldn’t take her away! Would he? She looked into his eyes and saw the answer. He would.
Defeated, she held out the shotgun. “Why do you hate us so much?” she whispered. “Why?”
The man didn’t answer. Instead, he snatched the shotgun from her hand, threw the promissory note at her feet and bolted for the door.
Lesia was cold with shock. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
Mama’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “You did the right thing. We couldn’t—” Her voice trembled. She pressed her lips together and reached for her. “We could not survive without you. And I could not bear to have them take another of my family away.”
Lesia crumpled into Mama’s arms.
The wind was fierce that afternoon when Lesia went outside to lay the traps. It whistled through the trees, whipped at her skirt and pushed her sideways. She didn’t care. She stomped angrily over the prairie with her head bowed against the gusts and the traps clutched firmly in her arms.
There was a rock in her path; roughly she kicked it away. This land—the land she had yearned for—was the cause of all her trouble. She laid the traps quickly, anxious to get the job done and return to Mama and the others. She put the last trap down by the garden and turned to go.
That’s when she saw it.
One of the bee skeps was lying on the ground. A tree branch had come down, taking the skep with it. Lesia pried it loose. It was badly crushed on one side.
Bozhe, what next?
Clutching the skep in her hands, Lesia cursed loud and long.
She cursed the wind and the climate. She cursed the soil for being so hard and heavy. She cursed the man who had taken the gun for being so cruel. She cursed the English Canadians for being so hateful.
And she cursed herself for daring to dream.
The sun does not always shine. But if your effort is true, the rewards will be sweet. It was like Baba was whispering in her ear.
Tears gathered behind her eyes. She had been so sure that Baba had been right. So trusting of what the beloved woman had told her the day she’d left Shuparka.
The flower is not always open, but if your effort is honest and true, just like the bees, your rewards will be sweet.
Baba had been wrong!
Lesia’s throat closed; her tears began to fall. She sank to her knees. The broken bee skep didn’t matter any more. The bees hadn’t come. Life didn’t always yield sweet rewards, even if the effort was honest and true.
The wind sent a flurry of snow into her face. Its shocking iciness brought the truth home to Lesia. The land of her dreams was a nightmare. She hadn’t bettered herself here. She never would.
Wiping the snow from her eyes, she stared across the prairie. They had been so wrong to come here. Only Mama had been right. She had wanted to stay behind. Well, Mama would be happy now. Because they were going home to Shuparka. One way or another, they were leaving this frozen land of Hell.
Lesia pulled herself up, tucked the damaged skep under her arm and made her way through the howling wind to the burdei. Shuparka wasn’t perfect, but it was better than Canada. There, at least, the plum trees produced fruit in spring and the winters weren’t so harsh. There, the language was familiar. True, there was Michal Stryk and the rest of the nobility, but what was that compared to the hate of an entire country? Nothing at all.
To go back home, however, they needed money.
Lots of it.
There was only one thing left to do.
Chapter Eighteen
The shotgun was gone, the bee skep was ruined, and Baba had been wrong.
I cried. Oh, how I cried.
You might think it is silly to become despondent over something my baba said. What did she know, an old woman living all her life in a little village?
Well, I am old now, and I know that old women see things the rest of the world does not. Even then I knew Baba was wise. She saw beyond the ordinary. She saw … how do you say in English? The extraordinary.
When I realized Baba had been wrong, the last of my hope died.
I dreamed of Shuparka the way a drowning man dreams of an arm coming out of the sea.
Mama said no. Spring was coming, she said. The traps would bring food. She would fix the skep. But then Paul was taken, locked up for travelling without his papers. Mama was shattered.
It was time to go back, she said. It was time.
March 31,1915
Winnipeg, Manitoba
“I forbid it!” The words came out in a shout. Furious, Andrew scowled down at her.
How dare he? Defiantly, Lesia stared back at him. “You have no right to forbid me to do anything.You are not my father. Or my brother.” Or my husband, she added silently as she clutched Baba’s precious box and Geedo’s Bible. “I am fifteen. I have travelled halfway around the world. I can certainly go into a pawnshop by myself.”
Some people were staring; others were hurrying down the street, pretending not to hear. An old woman clutched a heavily embroidered shawl with thick, stubby fingers. She stopped beside Lesia. “Are you all right?” she asked in familiar Ukrainian. Her world-weary brown eyes peered kindly into Lesia’s face. “Do you need help?”
&n
bsp; She reminded Lesia of Baba. Of the sacrifice she was about to make. Before she could answer, a man rushed up, grabbed the old woman by the arm and hurried her away.
“If you had told me what you planned to do, I never would have agreed to accompany you to Winnipeg.”
“I would have come on my own, then,” Lesia said calmly. She was more than capable of taking the train from Hazelridge to Winnipeg. She had even managed to save the forty-cent train fare out of her belt money.
Andrew glared at the bounty she held in her arms. “You’re a foohsh woman, putting a price on priceless family heirlooms.”
“The only foohsh thing would be staying in this country one second longer than I have to.”
A red flush of heat crept up his neck. “Now you are talking like a crazy woman!”
Lesia had the ridiculous but overwhelming urge to laugh. She had never seen Andrew so worked up. Never even suspected he was capable of it. But if he thought going to the pawnshop was crazy, just wait until he learned about her plans to go to the internment camp to buy Papa’s and Ivan’s release. It meant catching a late train to Brandon, and sleeping in the train station until she could catch a train home the next morning.
“Lesia, please, be reasonable.” Andrew’s tone was more conciliatory now. “Let’s talk about this.”
“No.” Lesia turned and began to walk. The pawnshop was up ahead and across the street. Its large red sign was cheerful against the grey glumness of the midday sky. Now that it was the end of March, the snow was beginning to melt. It wasn’t as noticeable in the country, but here in the city, lumps of dirty snow pooled on the road and at the edges of the sidewalk.
She heard footsteps behind her. Andrew, no doubt. She wouldn’t turn around to check. Instead, she walked steadily forward, her fingers caressing the worn leather of the Bible as she went.
Hold this Bible close and you hold me close. It will comfort you … and help you keep the faith.
She remembered Geedo, with his shoulders poking through his worn jacket and the candlelight playing on the walls as he’d bent over the pages of the Holy Book.
With her other hand, she traced the intricate designs on the box. She remembered Baba carefully unwrapping it from layers and layers of rags and sheepskin so she could polish it with a little bit of oil every Christmas.
When she stopped at the intersection, Lesia glanced casually back to see if Andrew was close. He was standing where she had left him, watching her.
She looked away. Her finger found a flower. Slowly she followed the overlapping petals until she reached the tiny bee nestled at its core. It reminded her of Baba’s words. Remember always the bees. They work long and they work hard … but how sweet their reward.
Her eyes filled with tears. They’d worked long and hard and nothing had come of it. They desperately needed money.
It won’t always be easy for you. The flower is not always open.
She didn’t want easy. She wanted possibilities. There were no possibilities in Canada, Lesia reminded herself as she crossed the road. Not unless you counted internment, discrimination and enough cold weather to freeze people’s hearts.
She wiped her tears, took a deep breath and stopped in front of the pawnshop. Suddenly afraid, she resisted the urge to look back at Andrew. Would they take her things? Scoff at her belts? Jeer at the workmanship of the box?
There was only one way to find out.
A tinkling bell announced her entry. The room was warm, the lighting dim, and the air was rich with the smell of leather and tobacco and the burnt-sugar candies favoured by old Master Stryk. A comforting smell, Lesia thought, moving past tables, an ornate brass bed and a huge, rounded cabinet filled with more silver and glass than she’d ever seen in one place before.
“Yes?” A short, heavy-set man stood behind the counter, fiddling with the tiny pieces of a gold pocket watch.
Lesia hesitated. The sign on the door was in English. While her English was improving, it was still poor. “You buy?” She held out her weaving first.
His round, flushed face moved from the watch to her hand. “Nope.” He shook his head.
Buy? Was it buy? No. That wasn’t the word Wasyl had used.
Lesia tried again. “You pawn?” She thrust the largest and most colourful belt under his nose. “Here.”
This time he looked right at her. Muddy brown eyes peered out from underneath bushy grey eyebrows. Tiny red veins littered chipmunk cheeks. His bulbous nose wrinkled in distaste. “Lady, look around.” He made a grand, sweeping gesture with one arm. “Does it look like I pawn bohunk material in here?” He shook his head again. “No value. No market.” He picked up the pocket watch.
No. That she understood. And bohunk. She understood that all too well. Indignation flooded through her. Bozhe, these Canadians were a nasty, insulting lot. She couldn’t wait to return to Shuparka. At least there she knew the language and the insults. She could give them back as good as she got!
She shoved the belt into her pocket and resisted the urge to stomp out to the street. Swallowing her pride, she pulled Geedo’s Bible and Baba’s box from behind her back. “These, then.”
Holding her breath, she watched the man glance casually from his watch to Lesia’s hand. His eyes lingered on the cherrywood box. They narrowed. The pocket watch slipped to the counter. He reached out with calloused, dirty hands. Bozhe! She couldn’t bear the thought of him touching the box, never mind keeping it in his store.
“Nice,” he said approvingly.
“This too.” Lesia pressed the Bible towards him. He thumbed through it just long enough to note the Ukrainian characters. “Not English.” He handed it back.
“Ukrainian.” She shoved it back at him.
He paid no attention. Both hands were on the box now. He held it up to the dim light, looked at the bottom, checked the hinges, fingered the worn lining. His eyes gleamed with interest. “Five bucks,” he said with a smack of his lips.
“What?” Lesia was horrified. She must have misunderstood.
“I’ll buy it. No pawn. Five bucks.” He held up five fingers. “This is a bohunk box. Nice work, but still bohunk. Some farmer might want it to keep records and things in.” He still had his hands on it, as though it already belonged to him.
“Not enough.” Lesia shook her head. “I need more.” Twenty times more, at least.
“Five bucks is all. Buy lots of potatoes with five bucks. Make lots of pyrohy. Feed all those mouths.” He laughed cruelly.
Five dollars. A pittance. Foolish woman, putting a price on priceless family heirlooms. Andrew had been right. Hot tears gathered behind her eyes. But if he took both …
She pushed Geedo’s Bible forward. “This too.” Together, they would fetch more money.
He didn’t look at the Bible, didn’t even touch it. “No.” He was still holding the box with a proprietary air, still tracing the pattern with his grimy fingers.
Only five dollars? It wouldn’t cover train fare to Brandon, and it certainly wasn’t enough to buy Papa’s and Ivan’s release. Tears pushed relentlessly behind her eyes. Five dollars was hardly even a start on their passage home.
Furiously, Lesia blinked away her tears. She wouldn’t give up Baba’s box for five dollars! She couldn’t. Quickly, before she had time to think, she snatched the box from his fingers. “No.”
“Hey.” He lunged over the counter and tried to grab it back. When Lesia held it out of reach, he let loose with a stream of words she had heard before. Nasty, insulting words about Ukrainians and Poles and Germans. The usual shame overwhelmed her. After today, she vowed, I will stay on our land and have nothing more to do with the English until lean buy our passage home. She wouldn’t even go to the internment camp. She wouldn’t have enough money to justify the risk, and she couldn’t take any more shame.
But then she was struck by a thought that chased some of her shame away. The man wanted the box. Really, really wanted it. Suddenly, Lesia felt powerful, courageous. “You take this.” Sh
e held up the Bible. “And this.” She pulled the biggest belt from her pocket. “You give me twenty dollars. And then you can have the box.”
“Twenty dollars?” The man’s face turned even redder. His nose stuck out like a scorched plum. “You are a thief. How dare you come into my store and try to rob me! You bohunks don’t belong here. Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”
He cursed, he insulted, he waved his fist. Lesia just stood there and waited. She would leave with nothing before she took five dollars for Baba’s box. It had cost them almost three hundred Canadian dollars to come to Canada. It was going to cost them that to go back. Saving would take a long time. And they had to eat in the meantime.
If the man’s yelling was any indication, he wanted the box. Very badly.
“Fifteen dollars,” he finally said with a sneer.
Lesia pressed her lips together. “Twenty.” She held the Bible and the belt in one hand. “For this and this.” She waved the box with the other. “And this.”
He let loose with another stream of curses. His face got even redder. Lesia could see a vein pulsing in his temple. What if he died right in front of her? She’d rush for the door, pretend she’d never seen him before.
“Eighteen,” he roared. “That’s all!”
The box alone was worth far more. But Lesia knew he wouldn’t give her twenty. That would be letting her win. And he wasn’t about to let a Ukrainian win. It was eighteen or nothing.
Reluctantly she nodded. “Eighteen,” she repeated.
He reached into his pocket, quickly counted out some bills and slapped them onto the counter. “Now give me the box,” he snapped. “And that Ukrainian holy book.”
She laid the belt on the counter first.
“Ugly trash.” He pushed it back to her. “Couldn’t give it away. Keep it.”
Just another insult, Lesia thought dully, shoving the belt back into her pocket.
He eyed the box greedily, hungrily. “Come on. Haven’t got all day.”
Baba held these. Loved these. Geedo, too. Lesia hugged them close for one last minute. Then slowly, reluctantly, she unfurled her arms and relinquished her last physical ties to her grandparents. Sadly, she walked back through the door of the pawnshop to the street.
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