Olga Chaplin - The Man from Talalaivka - A Tale of Love, Life and Loss from Ukraine

“Petro!” Yakim waved him to the woodshed. Peter sprinted to the shack and grasped Yakim’s proud shoulders, felt the warmth from his ailing frame. “So, they let you all come, this time?” he queried. “It has gladdened our hearts, Petro… Klavdina has fretted often, that she may not lay eyes on Evdokia and the little ones again…” Peter pulled out the travel documents and smiled wryly as Yakim perused them with raised eyebrows.

“It takes two of Stalin’s latest officials to let us go, Yakim… and only one over-burdened man on the land to do the work of five. A clever improvement of our times. Stalin’s new laws—and the new constitution—give guarantees to some… and take everything away from all others.” They smiled at their jesting, glad for the privacy of the woodshed. Both knew that such words, if overheard by any one of Stalin’s innumerable officials or spies, would be enough to sentence them to life in a labour camp, from whence few returned.

Their evening feast was simple but heartwarming, shared with the few remaining staroste of the kolkhoz farmhouse. The few delicacies were savoured in bittersweet awakening of tastes long repressed, of happy feast days before Stalin’s ascendancy to power. Peter opened the small bag, hidden beneath his buggy floor during their journey. He spread out the ripened sunflower seeds that had been carelessly scattered among the grasses by newly-arrived kolkhoz workers from the towns, and offered the hardened rye bread for dipping with their borshch. The staroste beamed appreciation, their food allocation having again been cut too severely since the heightening purges of recent years.

“Petro…” Vasily, one of the staroste, turned to him at meal’s end. “Yakim tells me you are to go in the morning to your Talalaivka office for ‘urgent duties’? You may surely see my son, Viktor. He was captain of his battalion, before all this…” he gestured, referring to Stalin’s rule. “But something does not ring true, Petro… he was made lieutenant, and then raised higher still, in Kiev…” He leaned closer. “Petro, I know you… I can trust you, I knew your Yosep and Palasha,” he paused and, bowing his head, he crossed himself. “Charstvo Nebesno,” he murmured, and clasped Peter’s hand once more. “My Viktor has been sent to Talalaivka… no explanation… no questions allowed. I fear for him, for his safety. It would ease my heart, my kym son, if you would look for him… find out what you can.”

Tears etched the old weathered face. Peter’s heart went out to him. The starosta had recently lost his wife, and his Viktor was the only surviving child. Peter knew he could not take unnecessary risks in this political climate of yet another upheaval, but his duties at Talalaivka ensured that he mingled with bureaucratic officials and the passing army personnel. It was just possible that Viktor may be in the vicinity: the shed that served as a holding stables was but a short walking distance from the office. He nodded, placating Vasily as he placed his hand over the old man’s. There was no need to refuse this burdened starosta now. Circumstances would reveal themselves once he returned to Talalaivka.

Peter sensed, even smelt, the commotion in the Talalaivka office grounds before his horse’s hooves clipped the cobbled gateway. The town was known mostly for its important railway junction, famous for the siphoning-off of harvested food supplies in their area. But even so, already there was a long line of soldiers on horses straggling from the junction-line towards the office building. His horse neighed, nostrils flaring as it flicked its mane in warning. Peter stroked its strong long neck, quietly dismounted and firmly held the reins as he walked towards the familiar courtyard. The yard was overcrowded with new recruits, cautiously practising the morning drill, their officer’s voice barking orders of control.

“Over here, Petro!” an official waved him to an inner courtyard. Peter drew a deep breath and glanced surreptitiously at the disorganised battalion. He guessed, correctly, that all those horse-mounted soldiers streaming into the grounds were also to be drilled for duty, although they were ignorant of where they would be sent. And their horses had to be checked, made ready, for the unexplained army manoeuvre.

“So these will be my ‘unspecified urgent duties’,” he realised. There could only be one explanation for this. Stalin and his henchmen were planning a flash strike on someone, somewhere. Such numbers here, at this junction, meant the army contingents were well-placed to be sent to any other part of this Oblast. It was even likely they could be sent to Kiev, where wrangling over the bureaucrats’ and NKVD’s overlapping authorities had been whispered in dark corners. Peter braced himself. He determined to work speedily, complete his work and remove himself from the Talalaivka cauldron as quickly as possible. His travel documents, hidden deep in his coat pocket, specified the date of his young family’s return to Popivshchena kolkhoz and, since the draconian work conditions were now enforced, his officials here were unlikely to challenge. He moved quickly, hiding his instinctive concerns, his face presenting the veneer of officialdom, intent not to become involved in the conflicting factions and rivalries that were brewing.

Late in the night, a quarter-moon smiled pensively, reminding him he could carry on no longer, wanly nodding its approval at his compassion for the burdened beasts. He secured the bolt of the inner door of the stables shed and moved to heave the large heavy frame of the outer door. In the black night, a hand touched his shoulder. He jerked, about to turn, to defend himself. “Petro,” a low voice whispered to him, “don’t call out… I am a friend.” He slowly turned, to face the stranger. In the darkness, he could not recognise the bearded man, but forced himself to stay calm. “Petro, I am Viktor Vasilevich. We can talk here… there is no-one left, now. I have watched you all night but so many others were coming and going…” They slumped to the earthy floor inside, resting against the closed outer door. Even if someone had espied them, the darkness and lateness of night gave some protection.

“Your father, Vasily, has asked me to give you his greetings… also his concerns, Viktor.” Peter clasped his arm in the dark, in reassurance. “But he has fears for you… he says ‘things are not as they should be,’ in your situation.”

“He has guessed well, my friend…” He hesitated, as if gauging Peter’s trust through the dark, then finally spoke. “I am a marked man, Petro… on two counts. I shook Marshal Tukhachevsky’s hand at the Military College, earlier this year.” He half-laughed at the absurdity of such a crime against the State. “And then… how unlucky can one be?… the stupid officials sent an encrypted army notification to my senior—who’s been removed without notice—and handed it to me, next in line!” He leant to whisper in Peter’s ear, distrustful of the dark night’s refuge, his soft breath in contrast to his steeliness of nerve at his calculated future. “The encrypted message… it mentioned Khrushchev and Uspensky ‘favourably’, which hints at coming changes, sometime soon!”

He sighed in resignation, preparing himself in the late night for the darkness about to engulf his own young life. “There are no proper trials, you know… only the odd ‘show trial’, to give that air of justice.” He wiped his clammy brow. “They will sentence me to a labour camp, for being a subversive, or Trotskyite, or Nazi spy… if I am not to be shot first. It will all depend on Yezhov, or his underlings… whatever ‘looks good’ for the Party, on that particular day… And no-one comes back from the gulags… they make sure of that, these days.”