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

Jahn ran up the hut steps. Mykola, closest to the door, quickly opened it and greeted their friend.

“Peter! You must hear this!” he blurted in his stilted Ukrainian, before he realised the family had guests at their Christmas meal. Peter welcomed him to join his close friends Vasyl and Semmen. The small hut was crammed with the merry-makers, the table heavy with Evdokia’s cuisine as they clicked glasses of vodka and beer and lemonade. Jahn put down his glass.

“Peter! I have such good news! My friends have just returned from a place—closer to Sydney than here—it’s a sort of mining town. There is plenty of work there—and overtime!—and you won’t have to go down a mine, although it’s triple the pay if you do!” He noticed Evdokia’s expression, and stopped. “Peter, it will be easy work, my friends assure me. It’s a clean, new factory,” he lowered his voice, “not like these brickworks.” He paused, his excitement returning. “And we can make a great deal of money! I’m going back with my friends, to investigate. And, best of all,” he grinned as if he had found his trump card, “it’s on the government’s ‘priority list’—that means these Parkes brickworks bosses must release us!” He looked sheepishly at Evdokia, then at Peter. “You know, I’m only in my twenties, but I want to have a home one day, and a family, like yours… but this brickworks existence… we can never get ahead in life… we will never save any money, here.” He lowered his voice again, gently prodded: “There is no future for us here, Peter… and you have your age to consider.”

“Petro, your young friend is right, you know. Look at us,” Semmen nodded to his wife and little girls. “We live in a tent, now, outside Newcastle, and I have to find work wherever I can, near the mines. Only Vasyl here has managed to find better work, closer to Sydney.”

Peter looked at this happy group celebrating their first Australian Christmas in a climate of surprising heat. He observed Evdokia’s demeanour and realised, with a pang, that she had reached a certain equilibrium, a security, in this Parkes hostel. It had an orderliness and calm which far exceeded their cramped Heidenau camp life. But he knew his friends were right. The work here was exhausting, his wages barely enough to cover each week’s hostel and billeting costs. Seven months of heavy labouring on the conveyor shifts had shown him he could not endure this kind of work much longer.

The opportunity had come: the door was wedged open for them by this ambitious and fearless Jahn and his friends. However far away this mining town was from Sydney, and however inconvenient their living conditions may become, he and Evdokia had to make that initial sacrifice, into another wilderness, to increase their chances to build a better future for their family.

He shook Jahn’s hand, avoided Evdokia’s stare. He sensed such opportunities would not frequently come his way, at his age, in this new country. This year, 1950, had tested them significantly. He knew intuitively that the new year would bring them other unexpected challenges. Then he feasted his eyes on his children and wife: he knew instinctively that he had all he could reasonably ask for in this strange new country, with his Maker’s blessing.

“Over here, Peter!” a baritone voice boomed above the din. Peter stopped and looked back, squinting, his eyes darting from the colonnaded hotel to the adjacent public bar building. “Here, Peter! It’s Friday, remember!” Jimmy, his foreman, stepped out into the fading light. “Time we spent some of that overtime money!” He patted his bulging shirt pocket and, slapping Peter’s back in welcome, led him to a group of miners at the far end of the bar.

“Here!” he pushed a schooner of the dark frothy brew along the counter to Peter. “Here’s to the King! Here’s to Empire Day!” His voice boomed over the crowd. The rowdy men paused and cheered. Peter followed their glasses of salute to a framed portrait of George VI hung high above the long bar. He grinned and shook his head as he thought of the incongruity of this dignified figure in robes and regalia contemplating the noisy rabble of miners and factory workers determined to quench their thirst and wash away the hardship and tedium of their shift work.

He gulped down the gifted schooner, raised his hand as he caught the barman’s sharp eye and ordered the next round for Jimmy’s group. In the months he’d worked at this Glen Davis shale works, he had observed and come to understand, to some extent, the work ethics of this strange mix of men, most of them itinerant workers like himself, from the scores of nationalities who had converged on this wild part of the world. Without exception, they all seemed fearless. They worked hard, almost to an extreme limit, be it in the mines or in the retort factory of the shale works. They played hard too, be it at cards, or sport, or drinking.

“Hey Wally! Come over here, will ya… Tell our Peter here that Empire Night is a celebration… a Bonfire Night, with food and crackers and a party!” The young man, who was conversant in a number of languages, blushed and came forward, his attempts at explanation drowned out by the rowdiness of the packed bar.

Peter skimmed his eyes over the smoky room as best he could. Once again, his young friend Jahn was nowhere in sight. He sighed. He missed his friend, who reminded him so much of Mykola who, too, was working hard, now at a far away farm, near Windsor. He remembered Jahn’s determination, and he was glad the young man was true to his word, saving all he earned at the shale works, even taking the weekend shifts. But the mining work was strenuous and already, in these months, it seemed Jahn had aged beyond his years. Even Evdokia’s wholesome meals during the few occasions he called by did not seem to revive him. Peter feared for his friend. There were frequent cave-ins in the narrow shale shafts, sometimes due to the risks and exhaustion of workers taking these extra shifts.

He breathed in and made his way towards Jimmy, to excuse himself. He had learnt early, in this hotbed of mining activity, that there were certain rituals to observe, and to follow. Mateship may have appeared to be the obligatory slap on the back, and the swill of the beer but a certain respect for, and acknowledgement of, the leader and his close underlings was the unspoken code, whatever one’s national background.

It was almost dark as Peter made his way along the shortcut track towards the narrow footbridge point of the Capertee River that, snake-like, wound its way along the valley floor of this extinct primordial volcano. Already the night was crisp, the funnels’ remaining smoke pushed westward in a slight breeze. He paused at the footbridge, mindful of the unstable planks, and looked up at the sheer cliff face that stretched up to the dark sky. It was as if a giant primeval creature dominated over the vast valley, its splayed claw-like talus boulders and hills stretching down to the workers’ ‘bag town’ shacks. By day, the technological creature that was the large shale works factory dominated, its huge clouds of smoke and ash spurting into the westernmost part of the Capertee Valley. By night, the sheer cliff faces seemed to provide a cocooning protection for the valley’s inhabitants. Yet, instead of feeling dwarfed, even overwhelmed by this almost unnatural existence, he felt a sense of empowerment, a vitality and strength, despite the long shifts and hard labouring work, and enjoyed grasping the opportunities this rough, almost ‘wild west’ place offered.