Blood and Salt by Barbara Sapergia Read Free Book Online Page B

They must have been looking at Bohdan’s carving.
    Myroslav has straight black hair combed back from a long, pale face. Thick black eyebrows and moustache. Long thin hands and a serious look. In fact at first Taras thought he was far too serious. But his rare smiles transform him. Then he looks like the icon of a saint. His manner is restrained. No harsh or careless word leaves his lips. And yet, Taras thinks, if he were to get really angry, he might be fearsome.
    Myroslav says Khmelnytsky made a mistake in allying himself with the Russians.
    Yuriy grins. “Maybe so. Anyway, my favourite hero is the one I grew up hearing about. Ustym Karmaliuk.”
    Myroslav looks puzzled. Taras has never heard of him either.
    “Ha! You don’t know him, do you!” For a moment Yuriy himself looks like some hero of old, with a vitality drawn from the black soil of Ukraïna. “ And you a teacher!”
    “I teach arithmetic.” Myroslav runs a hand through the thick hair. “I don’t claim to know all the Ukrainian heroes.”
    “So I see. Well, our Karmaliuk was a peasant rebel. He had thousands of followers. The Polish and Russian landlords were afraid to take a crap at night.”
    Ihor comes closer and sits down on Yuriy’s bunk. “Don’t forget our Oleksa Dovbush, the Hutsul hero. Stole from the Polish landlords and helped the peasants.”
    “Dovbush I know about,” Myroslav says. “He’s like the famous English bandit, Robin Hood. Stole from the rich, gave to the poor. Yuriy’s Karmaliuk also sounds a lot like him.”
    “Karmaliuk wanted us to have our own country,” Yuriy says. “And some day we will.”
    “I hope we will,” Myroslav says.
    Yuriy came to Canada as a young man, Myroslav as a boy who’d just finished high school. They both think of themselves as Canadian now, but they don’t forget where they came from either. A part of their identity will always be Ukrainian, and until Ukraine is a free country, there will always be a sadness in each of them.
    The outer door opens and cold air blasts into the room. Bullard and Andrews come in, followed by Taveley and a new guard, Private Randall. A stocky man of medium height leans heavily on Andrews. His coat is open, his hair blown across his forehead. A bulge inside his torn shirt front must be a bandage. Blood has seeped through to the shirt. Even surrounded by guards, you’d have to say he looks dangerous.
    As the small group nears the centre of the bunkhouse, Taras happens to gaze right at the man, into intense dark eyes below peaked black brows. He looks like an infuriated owl; or a dissolute priest. Or a madman. His bright eyes, full of demands, seem to laugh at everything around him. Black hair, salted with silver, hangs in tendrils around his face. A deep cleft marks his chin.
    He must have tried to escape. Why isn’t he in the guardhouse, then? Must be full already. Or maybe they wanted to keep him away from the men he ran off with.
    Taveley and Randall prod the prisoner with their rifle butts, in the direction of an empty bunk, near Taras’s. The man stumbles, then turns on them, wild as a summer storm.
    “Don’t do that,” he says fiercely, in lightly accented English. “I’m not going to run away, boys. I’ve done that now.”
    “Just keep moving,” Taveley says. “Agitator.”
    “Bloody Bolshevik,” says Randall. He looks like he just woke up and has no idea where he is or how he got there.
    “Well. You really know your politics,” the prisoner says. “Most people don’t even know what a Bolshevik is. I, however, am a radical socialist.”
    “Right there, Bolshie.” Randall points his bayonet at the empty bunk. “Your new hotel room.”
    Will the new prisoner guess that the man who had that bunk died? No one knew Tomak had tuberculosis when he came to camp, but one morning he couldn’t get out of bed. Better, Taras thinks, if the radical socialist doesn’t know.
    Randall tosses a canvas bag and a blanket onto the bunk. Suddenly the