Читать книгу The Man From Talalaivka - Olga Chaplin - Страница 12

Chapter 6

Jugular veins visibly pumping, rifle strap held tense at the shoulder of his ill-fitting uniform, the soviet guard eyed Peter coldly as he unlocked the dilapidated cell door. He stood at its opening, legs stiffly astride, finger twitching at rifle’s trigger-lock. “A few minutes only!” His edgy voice punched at the stale basement air.

“He’s even younger than my brother Hresha,” Peter gauged silently, watchfully. He sensed the guard’s nervous disposition; he had been witness to such breaking-point tension during his own army experience. This young militia recruit to Stalin’s massive police bureaucracy was unpredictable, could not be trusted with his deadly weapon.

“Harasho, dakyuy,” Peter nodded respect for the man and his rifle. It was too risky to ask for more time. He guessed, accurately, the reason for this young guard’s edginess. Upstairs he and his comrades were massively outnumbered in the packed oppressive hall of this outpost prison of Romny by anxious men and women clutching visit permits. Peter could still smell the acrid adrenalin of the crowd’s collective anxiety. The silent swarming mob could easily overwhelm the few guards. Only their fears for their imprisoned relatives kept them in check. There were no guarantees they would set eyes on their loved ones, no guarantees their relatives were still alive. In this tense, almost surreal atmosphere, and now alone in the basement, the guard’s rifle had become his ultimate authority.

“Batko … Mamo,” Peter called out into the vaporous semi-dark. He sensed his elders’ presence, their discomfort in the dankness as his eyes searched out their silhouettes. Yosep clasped his son’s arms, held tight his strong shoulders, as if for a moment of reassurance. Peter felt a surge of relief rushing through him. His parents were still safe, for now. He kissed his mother’s uplifted cheeks, felt her thinness as he embraced her.

“They give us so little time here … on purpose,” he warned, softly. He searched deep into his jacket pockets. “I’ve brought a little sustenance … God willing, I’ll be back in a day or two with more.” He brought out the cloth-wrapped parcels of black rye bread and kobasa, and hid them quickly beneath the thin perena Palasha had been grudgingly permitted to bring.

“Batko,” he lowered his voice, trying to remain calm, “what is your situation now? Ivan told me they were interrogating you. We all know they can only be trumped-up reasons. You have done everything they wanted—met their quotas. It must be the farm they’re after!” He straightened, his tone determined. “I intend to speak to the officials here … plead your case, to get you released. They know they are getting all the produce they can, with us working the farm to the maximum!”

Yosep gently pressed his outstretched hand on his son’s chest, in an affectionate gesture to quiet him. “Petro … it is no use.” He hesitated and, glancing warily at the guard, dropped his voice to a whisper. “It is too late. They have sentenced us … The NKVD dogs! They’ve deputised NKVD men as judges for this so-called court. There is no trial here … No appeal … Just the sentence.”

He drew back for a moment as he collected himself. “They’ve sentenced us to five years … five years, in a hard labour camp in Siberia! They call us ‘kulaks’! We are but proud Ukrainian farmers! We’ve rarely crossed the threshold of a kulak’s door in all the years of toiling our own land!” He nodded his head, knowingly. “We understand the reason. A convenience to remove us from the farm. They will send us as far from our Sumskaya Oblast as their cattle trains will go … to a hell-hole that none of us have ever heard of!” He paused and smiled wryly into the dimness, despite himself. “What good will our old bones be in that Siberian permafrost? There are already enough Ukrainian souls there, to fertilise their icy forests!”

Peter’s stomach suddenly wrenched. He felt a clamminess, a sickening wave of nausea running through him. Instinctively he turned to one side, trying to contain a need to vomit, the shock hitting him hard. He felt as if someone had punched the very life out of him. Sweat pricked painfully at his forehead, at his body. He leaned against the damp cell wall, his eyes trying to focus on his brave parents; breathed deeply, slowly, willing himself to remain collected. More than at any other time, his parents needed his support, his clear thinking.

He knew what this meant. For Yosep and Palasha, it was a sentence to a prolonged death.

The guard shuffled his boots, edging to his final command for Peter to leave. “Dobreye cholovik,” Peter appeased the shifty militia soldier. “Give me one more minute … please … to farewell my close ones.”

He turned to his parents, standing forlorn in their crushed garb, yet somehow dignified in this dank cell. “Peta …” his father beseeched him. “Don’t burden your heart any more, son. We will live as we must, as long as God wills us. Peta, we want you to look ahead … to your happiness … Protect Vanya… Do what you must, son. You need to take a wife, be a family once more. It will ease our hearts, to know you and Vanya are not suffering.”

Peter nodded in acceptance, moist eyes concealed in the dimness. His parents, always so fair and selfless were now, in the midst of their own suffering, giving him their blessing to seek his own peace. He yearned to comfort them. But he knew he could do no more.

“I understand,” he whispered, almost to himself, “what has to be, so it will be.”

He felt their tears as they embraced him one last time. The guard’s impatient boots crunched the worn stone floor, rifle butt scraping his heavy uniform buckle. Peter looked back one last time, his parents’ visages motionless in the dusky light. He would plead for his parents, whatever the risk. The NKVD men might yet be swayed by his usefulness to this new Stalinist regime, by his experience as veterinary practitioner. He had heard of reprieves, of some softening in sentences for inexplicable reasons.

But, deep within, cold reasoning told him it would be futile. His parents were not Bolshevik Party members. They were of no consequence to Stalin or his cohorts of the new dogma. If anything, this new so-called troika regime gained perverse pleasure and thrived on stripping them from their farm, from their Oblast, from their Ukrainian heritage. Little wonder the very word ‘kulak’ had become an infamous instrument of propaganda for Stalin and his bureaucracy who, like a pack of howling wolves, tore increasingly faster through their prey, leaving misery and death in their wake. Peter knew his parents’ fate was sealed. He had yet to see what his would ultimately be.