Yaroslaw's Treasure. Myroslav Petriw

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СКАЧАТЬ that going to be fun? Damn it, Dad, it’s like going for a full week of fucking Ukrainian school right after finishing my semester.” Yarko was boiling over from all the subtle pressure a young Ukrainian feels all his life. Learn the language, sing the songs, read the books, find a Ukrainian girl, and so on. He could find no room for Ukraine in his fantasy vacation. He was sensing that his father would try to bargain with him. That unsubtle pressure was likely to last to the next summer.

      Mirko rose to the bait. “Watch your language, Yarko.” Then he stopped. There’s no room for argument on a small sailing craft.

      Behind another tree-covered point of land was the entrance to a narrow bay. The sun had set and dark shadows already hid the details of the shore as they entered the bay. Mark had the task of dropping the anchor off the bow. Yarko revved the motor in reverse to set the anchor. The bow swung around to point at the spot where the anchor had found grip. The boat stopped. Yarko shut off the outboard, then walked forward to check the anchor line. Dark grey clouds, outlined in purple and pink, covered the western sky. Mark dropped through the cabin opening to join his mother below decks. Luba had set about cooking a warm meal on the alcohol stove. Yarko and his dad stayed on deck, hanging fenders and rechecking the anchor to ensure that it held secure and that the boat was not drifting.

      “Dinner is served,” Luba called.

      “Coming,” Yarko replied as he walked back to the cockpit. He followed his father through the opening and down the two steps to the cabin. Chopped-up sausages in pasta with sauce with shredded cheese tasted like a gourmet meal after a day of sailing.

      “Mom,” Yarko began after taking a gulp of pop, “I was telling Dad that I plan to go to Europe next summer – you know, Germany, Austria, maybe France.”

      “Sounds nice,” said Luba. “Are you sure you’ll be able to afford it?”

      “No problem. I’ll have enough. It’s not that bad if one buys the Eurorail pass.”

      “That sounds wonderful.”

      “But Dad wants me to visit Ukraine.” Yarko knew exactly where to look for an ally.

      “No way!” exclaimed Luba. “What for? It’s way too dangerous. They are killing reporters and politicians all the time. No way. I’m not going to spend sleepless nights worrying about you.”

      “Come on,” said Mirko. “You’re overreacting. It’s nowhere near that bad. And what’s more, Yarko is not a politician or reporter.”

      “So they’ll rob him and leave him naked in the street like they did to what’s-his-name.”

      “Sounds like a helluva way to meet girls …” Mirko grumbled to himself, fully realizing that he was already outvoted and outgunned, and all further arguments would be futile.

      Yarko was stuffing his face with more pasta and sausages, knowing that he wouldn’t need to add anything more to the discussion. He did not participate very much in further dinner conversation. The subject matter had been changed to the scenery and experiences of the day’s sailing. A day of sun and wind had taken a lot out of them, so the family crawled into their sleeping bags quite early.

      But Yarko couldn’t sleep. He stepped out on deck. His mind was a hive of conflicting thoughts and feelings. He needed to be alone. He stood by the mast and watched as clouds alternately covered and uncovered the moon. He stood there feeling waves of anger and guilt. He was still angered by memories of the force-feeding of Ukrainian school, Ukrainian soccer, Ukrainian boy scouts, and Ukrainian church. He had resented taking language courses, which earned him no credits, and being subtly pressured to find himself a Ukrainian girl. Hell, how do you go about doing that in Vancouver?

      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 СКАЧАТЬ