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

Now, as the ship pulled away from its dock and passengers celebrated in song, he watched as the Mediterranean water pushed him further and further from European soil. He could not cry: he had to stay strong, for himself, for his family. He looked again one last time towards the slowly receding buildings and hotels lining the shore near the docks, then blinked in disbelief. Someone had hung a Ukrainian flag over the balustrade of a great old building, its blue and gold colours lit up by the sun’s rays. He tried to control his emotions: he had kept them locked tight since that eventful day in the local Neapolitan church.

He looked to the heavens, to give him emotional strength. As if in answer to his unspoken prayer, high above him a white dove circled round and round and, catching the uplifting breeze, it was being transported upward and upward to the sky. His heart pounded: he knew he had this voyage to make across the seas. But try as he might, he could not hold his soul: it followed the winged dove, was transported north-east, to his homeland; paused for him; waited. And waited.

“Bonjorno! Bonjorno!” the Italian official’s incomprehensible message crackled again through the loudspeaker above, startling the men in their game. They paused, straining to decipher the foreign language. Anton, with his trump cards held ready in mid-air, looked up to the staff deck and frowned, sunlight piercing his eyes as it flashed between the ship’s flag and funnel, making him lose his concentration. Suddenly, he threw his cards at the deck table and lurched back, tripping himself.

“Ah! Otse tyt! Orders! Orders! They told us this would be different from the camps—ordering us about every day of our lives!”

Peter grinned and shook his head in mock reproach, and winked at Semmen and Mikhaelo as they cajoled their friend. “Anton,” he grasped the man’s shoulder in reassurance and retrieved the deckchair. “Come now, man! Why, they tell us we haven’t even yet reached the halfway point of our voyage!” Anton, eyes downcast and his face flushed, began collecting the scattered cards. He pushed back his thick, knotted hair that, after weeks of sea spray and burning sun, blew about like discarded bleached seaweed in the stiffening late afternoon breeze.

Peter controlled his mirth and gestured for peace. Anton’s almost comical appearance these days was incongruous with his inner turmoil. Peter felt concern for this youngest member of their group as they wiled away their days at card games on the ship’s narrow open deck. He watched closely, noting that Anton, usually so affable, appeared to be uncharacteristically edgy now, even somewhat distressed. Peter sighed. He understood Anton’s dilemma. Separated from his frightened young wife and infant, who remained in the safety of the ship’s cramped lounge area, Anton felt powerless and strangely alone on this small troopship carrier crammed with a thousand displaced persons and crew. Peter, too, felt the sense of entrapment that grew with each day on a voyage, never before taken, by sea. He had to remind himself it was but a short period of discomfort in a journey that promised a new future.

“Anton, good fellow,” he ventured, grasping his agitated friend. “Do us a service and check that officer’s newsboard! It might explain some of today’s commotion. At least it will be in a language we can all understand!” Anton nodded, relieved to be given a distracting task.

“And you know your Raya and baby Rosa are with Evdokia and our little girls today? I hear they join them each day now… Evdokia welcomes your wife’s company; she watches over Mykola and his friends as they amuse themselves nearby. You could call by the women’s lounge, see how they are faring!”

Anton grinned with relief, steadying himself at the deck’s rail as the ship dipped and lunged again in the deep swell. The men paused before beginning another round, each caught in his own private thoughts of their recent vivid memories of Naples where they had only weeks earlier celebrated and anticipated a happier future. Now that future was unfolding before them, and doubts were setting in, their fear of the unknown somehow more threatening in an ocean as vast as this.

“What is a man to do on such a ship?” Semmen shrugged his shoulders as he watched Anton disappear from view. “We are in darkened dormitories, separated from our families, with only this deck and little else but the card games to distract ourselves from the seasickness all around us!”

Mikhaelo nodded and leaned forward, cradled his head in his hands. His eyes skimmed the seemingly infinite horizon as emerald ocean met azure sky in the glare of the burning sun, and distracted himself as he watched Peter expertly cut and deal the cards. “You know, Petro, some of us are already talking of leaving the ship at Fremantle. Our wives and children cannot overcome their seasickness. My Maria queues each day now to see the ship’s doctor. He can do little for her… so today they have permitted her to remain in the dormitory with our little son.”

Peter and Semmen’s eyes met. They instinctively understood the import of this. They had all nominated Sydney as their destination. This decommissioned troopship had remained just long enough in Aden to re-fuel and re-supply. Once it reached Fremantle, there were no further ports of call before the ship’s short re-fuel in Melbourne, not even in an emergency, until it reached its Sydney dock. So much depended on the health of each family member, and from the outset Mikhaelo’s Maria had reacted adversely to the ship’s constant swaying.

Peter sensed the pensive mood. He glanced at the exposed cards on the deck table and counted his own winning hand. It could be a protracted game but he surreptitiously allowed his friends the advantage. “Ah, dyrak!” he cried, shrugging in seeming disappointment as they beamed, cheered by their unexpected luck.

“Time for some morsels, while we wait for our Anton!” He retrieved a small cloth bag from a crevice and laid out their daily fare of dried Italian bread crusts, onions, and small tin of sea salt. Their strong black tea, in metal mugs, diluted somewhat the pungency of the mix: their food of survival distilled from sailors’ accounts, that would counteract the generous but rich cafeteria meals, and the nausea that hit them almost without warning as the diesel fumes, acrid below-deck air, and seasickness, permeated through their windowless bunk dormitories in the ship’s bowel. Adjusting to nature’s elements of burning sun and stinging sea spray was testy enough to endure each day on this narrow outer deck, but it was far more preferable to the misery being experienced daily below.

They ate slowly, savouring the tang and sting of onion and salt on dried flaky bread. Few passengers were enticed by such potions, and fewer still believed in their medicinal efficacy. Others still, like Ola, could not tolerate any raw onion, its effects leaving her buckled in pain. Peter sighed and felt his jaw stiffen. It had taken months to improve Ola’s health before embarking this ship in Naples. He prayed each day that his little family would not succumb to the ship’s illnesses. The easy, calmer part of the voyage was now behind them, the more treacherous ocean crossing was still ahead.

Anton rushed back, his eyes gleaming and his unruly locks causing further jesting. “Well! Can you believe! Those announcements!” He blushed as he remembered his earlier outburst. “We are to have a ‘Crossing the Equator’ ceremony tomorrow! We are all asked to participate! Do you know… a sort of ‘King Neptune’ is to officiate, and the ship’s captain will attend. They will give us certificates, and gifts, and the children are to have a special party!” He looked sheepishly at Peter. “Your Evdokia has also promised to accompany Raya and our baby Rosa!” Peter grinned and nodded, pleased that Anton was no longer so despairing at his wife’s morbid fear of the sea voyage.