Read Online Blood and Salt by Barbara Sapergia - Free Book Online

of rock.” He explains that this made it a natural fortress coveted by the Poles, Turks and Russians who have ruled it in turn for a thousand years. The Russians were in charge when Yuriy lived there.
    Still, after all that time, all those rulers, people knew they were Ukrainians. So for Yuriy to be so skeptical about a free Ukraine makes you stop and think. Yuriy left his birthplace as a youngest son who would never inherit land. Went to Bukovyna and worked at anything he could get; became a peddler going from village to village. Got married and became an Austrian citizen. Like Tymko, he came to Canada with what turned out to be the wrong papers.
    “So that’s your answer,” Myroslav says. “Ukraine will never be a country.”
    Yuriy looks embarrassed. “Okay, maybe I do believe Ukraine will be a country. No, more than that – it is a country. I already live in it. In my mind, you know?”
    “Lucky fellow,” Tymko says. “What’s it like?”
    Yuriy thinks. “It’s solid, my Ukraine. It feels good around me. Like a warm, well-built house.” His face relaxes and his eyes shine with tears.
    “Excellent description,” Tymko says. “Every Ukrainian should have a little poetry in him.”
    Ihor smiles and nods his head.
    “It holds Ukrainians from many territories. Some Polish, some Austrian, some Russian. Different kinds of people, but all of them Ukrainian. Wherever they happen to be. When they meet, they know each other.”
    Taras tries to figure out what kind of country this would be. A country in his imagination, perhaps. Like a beautiful painting of golden fields, green, swaying trees, pleasant, healthy people. A lovely picture of a country.
    “But a country the whole world agrees is a country?” All at once Yuriy looks tired. “I don’t know if that’s going to happen.”
    “I believe it right now.” Myroslav gets his teacher look.
    “Why do you believe this, Professor?”
    Tymko puts extra weight on the word “Professor,” as if to say that formal education isn’t worth a whole hell of a lot in this place. He’s recovering well, judging by his fierceness in arguments. The doctor from Banff has been in to stitch up the wound and bandage it properly. Amazingly, Bud Andrews came by one night to give Tymko some extra food. A tin of sardines and a package of English biscuits. He must have bought them in town. He handed them to Myroslav so Tymko wouldn’t have to thank him. Good thing, because Tymko couldn’t say a word when he saw them. He liked the sardines but said the biscuits were pokydky. Of course he ate them all the same. Who wouldn’t?
    Taras is still getting to know him. He gets puzzled sometimes by Tymko’s sudden shifts in topics or moods, but he has to admit it wakes him up.
    Tymko knows how to make people listen. Taras wouldn’t call him a bully, but he uses his strength, obvious even in his wounded state, and the power of his voice to nudge a man off balance, so he forgets the clever comment he was going to make. Although he’s now an atheist, Tymko has admitted that in the old country, as a young man, he was a cantor, singing church services in a deep bass voice.
    “Well, Professor?”
    “Well,” Myro says, “I believe this because my heart tells me you can’t keep a people down forever.”
    “Your heart doesn’t enter into it, Professor. It will happen, or it won’t.” Tymko waggles his eyebrows, a mannerism they’ve all grown used to, designed to put an opponent off balance. Or make him laugh.
    “Really? I think it does enter into it. And quit calling me Professor,” Myro says, good-naturedly. “I taught little kids arithmetic.”
    “So what do you think, Tymko? ” Yuriy asks. “Will we some day have a country?”
    Taras sees Yuriy wants to believe it’s possible although he doesn’t always side with the professor. Myro is skinny and wears glasses. Yuriy’s used to judging people by physical strength as well as cleverness.
    “Sure. Absolutely. Free Ukraine,