These feelings of anger and resentment were gradually replaced by something else. It was a physical pain in his gut. It was the feeling of guilt. He felt guilty for rejecting his Ukrainian upbringing. He could see no real use for it in his life here on the west coast of Canada. And yet all those stories of heroic battles, the stories of struggles amid the deprivation suffered by direct members of his family – they somehow demanded similar achievements from him personally. Nobody actually said this to him. It was just the legacy of growing up ethnic. And every day that he shirked this undefined obligation only added to the guilt that he now felt.
A warm hand touched his shoulder.
“Crazy, this business of being Ukrainian,” said his father. “There once was this homeland that you couldn’t live in. Within the span of one generation, the city of Lviv was ruled by …” He paused to ensure he got the order right. “… Austrians, Ukrainians, Poles, Russians, Germans, and then Russians again. The poet Taras Shevchenko lived most of his life exiled outside of Ukraine.” Mirko was speaking of the Ukrainian equivalent of Robbie Burns. “He was in Russia when he wrote the poem titled ‘To the Dead, To the Living, To the Yet Unborn,’ which defined better than anything written before or since, that four-dimensional concept of a nation.”
This was exactly the reason why Yarko was feeling that guilty pain deep in his gut.
“‘Study, my brothers, Think and read. And study foreign things, But do not reject your own, for he who rejects his mother is shunned by all’,” his father quoted from the poem, adding acid to that ulcer in Yarko’s gut.
“It’s not easy, son,” his father added. “It just seems to be the price all Ukrainians pay. Here, hang on to this. I was going to read it. But heck, I’ve read it before. It’s The Kobzar, the collection of Shevchenko’s poetry.” Mirko squeezed a hardcover book into Yarko’s hands. “This one belonged to my father; although I guess it must have been my grandmother who brought it from Ukraine. The darn thing has to be over seventy years old.”
Thankfully, Mirko left without adding any further to Yarko’s turmoil. Yarko felt the boat rock slightly as his father stepped down the ladder to the cabin. Unconsciously, he squeezed the book in his hand. Again he was alone on the deck.
Yarko stood leaning against the mast for a long time. The moon slipped out from behind the clouds and momentarily lit the waters with a thousand sparks. Yarko’s spirits brightened for that moment. The shoreline that had been wrapped in black now revealed a wet tangle of roots, driftwood, and rocks. The tide was rising, and so the shore seemed different and farther away than it had been just an hour before. Yarko looked around to reassure himself that the anchor was still holding. But then a thick black cloud covered the moon. The cramp in Yarko’s gut returned. The stars that had been peeking from between these clouds winked out one by one. The night turned to solid blackness. The horizon that had still been recognizable far beyond the entrance to the cove disappeared into equal blackness above and below. Yarko could no longer tell where the sea ended and the sky began. He felt dizzy for a moment. He glanced down at the fibreglass deck of the boat to regain his balance as he grabbed at the shrouds for support. The slight movement of the boat on the incoming tide caused the anchor line to silently slice the surface of the sea, stirring a wake of yellow-green phosphorescence where it entered the water just off the port bow.
The cramp in Yarko’s gut gradually eased and he felt well enough to make his way back to the cockpit. A single white anchor light, as required by boating regulations, shone on a pole affixed to the transom. He sat down and leaned against the railing.
He looked at the tattered book. It spoke of its own rough history. There must be as many stories on the cover as inside it, he thought. He knew exactly why his dad had dug this relic up from the bottom of an old hat box. His dad’s uncle had passed away that summer. Since Yarko’s grandfather had died many decades ago, that left Yarko’s father as the oldest surviving member of the family. The living links with the family’s past had been severed. That was the reason that this ragged Kobzar was again seeing the light of day.
The white vessel-at-anchor lamp threw just enough light that Yarko could leaf through the book. He had no intention of reading it just now, but about two-thirds of the way through he found a makeshift place marker. Yarko looked at it closely. It was a very old, yellowed envelope. The front of it had a purplish stamp cancelled with a smudged imprint. The words read “80 Groschen, Generalgouvernement,” and a small swastika could still be made out on the stamp. The return address clearly read “19 Koronska, Lemberg, Distrikt Galizien, Generalgouvernement.”
The envelope was addressed in German and Yarko couldn’t make out the cursive writing well enough to read it. He looked inside and pulled out a small, carefully folded letter, written on what seemed like tissue paper. Yarko began deciphering the script.
April 24, 1944
Dearest Slavko,
I hope you are well. It’s hard to wish you a Happy Birthday in these circumstances. I’m sure you already know that Father died on March 29. It was not possible for any of us to attend the funeral. I don’t think we will ever learn exactly where he is buried. Fortunately the rest of the family is staying healthy. We supplement what foodstuffs we can buy with preserves from last year. This supply has almost run out. But that no longer matters.
The front lines are near Brody. We can hear the artillery every night. Pidzamche station has been bombed. Ours is the only house on the street that does not have cracked windows. The situation is such that we have decided to leave home and seek safety in the West. Mother and grandmother will be working in the Zeisswerke factory in Jena near Leipzig. Can you believe it? They will both be Ostarbeiters. But I don’t think I can work in a city. The green forest is much more to my liking.
The Gestapo has come around searching again. I think they like our house too much. Dyzio has come to visit, so he will help with the packing. I know how much you worry about it but I have managed to keep your ancient treasure well protected. Unfortunately, it is much too cumbersome to take along with us and too precious to risk getting destroyed. There are many papers and things that we must also leave behind. We can only take what we can wear or carry in our hands. Mother is packaging all these family heirlooms along with yours. Tomorrow, with Dyzio’s help, we will bury them in that place by the coal furnace in the basement. Mother doesn’t think we will ever see Lviv again. The Nimci are kaput. She says it will be our children or grandchildren that will eventually find what we are hiding. God willing.
Mother will write you from Jena. Keep healthy and safe
Take care
Koko
Yarko was not wearing a sweater, so he was shivering in the chilly air of the night. In his hands was a letter to Yarko’s late grandfather, from the youngest of his two brothers. It was written as the family was preparing to leave the country that they had so loved. Yarko could pick out one of the code words. He knew that the reference to green forest meant that Koko intended to join the Ukrainian underground, the UPA. This letter was, in fact, Koko’s last contact with his oldest brother. Koko was to disappear shortly after that. He would have no contact with any of his family until after he returned to Ukraine from the Siberian Gulag in the 1970s.
But what intrigued Yarko most was the reference in the letter to his grandfather’s precious ancient treasure. He had no idea what it could be. He had never been told of any such family treasure, yet now he sat holding the key to it in his hands. His restless brain began to dream of treasures far beyond anything that could be logically gleaned from the letter. A fantasy about treasure-hunting adventures was already playing in his mind. A side trip to Ukraine during next year’s vacation was starting to look a lot more interesting.
After quietly committing himself to actually making this trip to Ukraine, he found that those conflicting feelings of anger, resentment, and guilt that he had felt but an hour before were receding. Mixed with the developing excitement about the prospect of a visit to Ukraine was a sense of anxiety, trepidation, and foreboding. Yarko knew well that the Ukraine of President Leonid Kuchma was no Disneyland.
Part II
LVIV,