Beyond the Shadow of Night(21)

Borys nodded vigorously. “Of course. We should fight for Ukraine together. I’ll join the underground fighters if you will too.”

Mykhail looked Borys in the eye for a moment, then Borys spat on his hand and offered it out. Mykhail spat on his own hand and they shook.

“See,” Mykhail said to Taras. “We fight for our country.”

Taras nodded to the clock tower and laughed. “Not yet, though. First you have fields to plow.”

Mykhail smiled. “Oh, very funny. At least I have ambition and courage. And at least my intentions are good.”

The three friends agreed to meet again the next day, and Mykhail left.



When Mykhail got home and shut the door behind him, the noise disturbed his papa, who was sitting at the table, leaning forward as though he’d nodded off.

“Your papa’s been waiting for you,” Mama said.

“And he’s been waiting for some time,” Papa added, stretching as he roused himself. “We have fields to plow and seeds to sow. Where have you been?”

“Oh, just talking with my friends in the village.”

His papa groaned.

“We were talking about the nationalists,” Mykhail said.

“What about them?” Papa asked.

Before Mykhail could reply, his mama forced a chunk of bread smeared with cream into his hand and said, “Eat.” She turned to her husband. “He’s told you where he’s been, Dmytro. In the village. Now stop moaning at him.”

Papa tutted. “He’s been sorting out all the country’s problems, no doubt.”

“Isn’t it good he takes an interest in politics?”

“Pah! I wish he’d take more interest in the farm. The tractor keeps misfiring. He needs to take a look at it.”

“Only because you can’t fix it.”

“But he’s wasting his time talking when he could be working.” He prodded a muddy finger at his son. “Not even eighteen and he thinks he knows it all. Yet he knows less than my little toe does.”

“He knows how to fix your tractor,” Mama muttered.

Papa opened his mouth wide and looked aghast for a second. Mykhail laughed, almost choking on the bread.

Papa tried to suppress a cackle of laughter and failed. “You have a point there, Iryna. Give me a horse any day. Horses I can understand. You feed them hay, they pull. That’s all there is to know. They don’t go wrong.”

Mama stepped over to Mykhail and placed an arm around his waist. “You take after your papa—passionate about what you believe in, a proud Ukrainian. You’ll settle in time, I’m sure. You’ll learn which things are really important.”

“I certainly hope so,” Papa said. “And to be fair to you, Mykhail, I happen to agree with your politics. It’s just that we don’t need you talking in the village center; we need you on the farm, fixing and driving the tractor.”

“Okay, okay,” Mykhail said. He kissed his mama’s head and headed for the door. “I’ll go make my magic fingers dance over the engine.”

“Good boy,” his mama said as he left.



It was another few weeks before Mykhail could take a break from work out in the field to celebrate his eighteenth birthday, and one evening he met up with Taras and Borys in the village center again.

Mykhail gave a firm handshake to Borys, then held a hand out to Taras, who showed a little reluctance to do the same. But they did shake hands, and Mykhail kept an eye on him as they all sat cross-legged on the dry earth.

“What’s wrong?” Mykhail asked him.

“He’s worried,” Borys said, laughing. “He worries about anything. And he was just telling me of his latest worry.”

“I’m serious,” Taras said. “It’s not good, all this talk of who’ll fight on whose side. And with the German military building up at the border, who wouldn’t be worried?”

“Ignore the Germans,” Mykhail said. “It’s just for exercises, everybody knows that.”

“Of course,” Borys said. “That’s what I’ve been telling him. The Germans are our allies. The pact says so.”

Mykhail nodded. “If anything, they could help us.”

“They couldn’t be worse than the Russians,” Borys said.

Taras grimaced and struggled to speak for a moment. “It’s just . . . I don’t like talk of war, that’s all. What I want is to be left alone to find a wife, run my family’s farm, and enjoy life.”

“And you feel you can do that with the Russians breathing down your neck?” Mykhail asked him.

Taras shook his head. “I . . . I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t like the way things are going. And . . .” He sighed. “Look, we’re supposed to be celebrating your birthday. Could we forget wars and fighting and talk about something else?”

Mykhail and Borys looked at each other and shrugged. “Like what?”

“Like the quality vodka at my Aunt Natali’s place.”

The others immediately stood up and pulled him to his feet.

“That’s good enough for me,” Mykhail said. “Lead on.”

Taras broke into a smile and they all started walking.