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The Yellow Prince The first part o f this four-part synopsis introduced the Katrannyk fam ily and their village, a tragedy in the making slowly unfolding. In Parts II and III, Barka hastens the pace o f tragedy and expands its scope. Starva tion is coupled with murder and torture. People do what they must to survive. Cherished possessions are bar tered fo r food; cannibalism comes to dwell in a once peaceful village that has turned into a hell on earth. Part II The weather cleared up late this afternoon and a beautiful round sun had appeared. Chapter 8 deals with the aftermath of the church invasion by the vil lagers. Two girls (Katrusia and Fedora) have man aged to salvage a chalice. They are now looking for a safe place in which to hide it. The older women suggests consulting the built-in-stove builder’s wife, Marianna, who may be able to get her husband involved. A very religious man, he agrees to help. With his wife, he digs a narrow but very deep well and in the middle of it he builds a small square safe with brick-and-mortar. The chalice is then com pletely walled in, while the ditch is filled with dirt. At that moment people can hear the noise of the horse driven cart collecting food again from the frighten villagers. The Katrannyks cleared the table after their mea ger meal and hearing some steps, looked out the window: it was the requisition commission! “You are still alive? Where do you find food to keep go ing?” asks one of the food collectors. Myron would like to respond, “You came all the way from Mos cow to wish my death: why? I do not wish for yours!” But he keeps silent. Later he decides to go to the warehouse. The word is that there is flour. But this flour looks like pulverized bones and smells of death. Myron does not buy any flour but manages to buy some oil cake from an oil mill worker. Daria bakes small rolls. When the oil-cake mixture is ex hausted, Myron again joins the people at the flour mill. The place is guarded and protected by a 20- foot wall. A train carries away the flour; starving people outside the wall are gunned down. A horse driven cart collects the corpses. Myron returns home determined to go to the nearby village of Voronij- tchyna and barter cloth items: embroidered towels, home spun linen, a shirt, and a tablecloth. On the horizon, westward, the yellow light of the day dissolved in the twilight as the cold wind of the night began to blow. On his way to the train station Myron meets the Savtchenko family, which has just returned from Siberia where they were deported. At the station, people wait in the cold. An elderly gen tleman advises Myron about the barter at Voronij- tchyna: in order to avoid the search on his way back, Myron should forget the flour and the grain, and barter for two bags of husks and empty pods. The elderly stranger is Brother Prokop. He tells Myron that the Devil or Prince of Darkness has come out of the marshes under the cover of the Communist Party. The snowstorm was raging all day and all night, clearing up the surroundings: everything was white, powder-like and airy like smoke . The cottage is freezing. Everyone is silent. On the stove plat form, the grandmother dies quietly in her sleep. The children fill their hungry stomachs with water. Daria is afraid their legs will swell and freeze. Myron comes back with his bags of husks and empty pods. He constructs a makeshift coffin and buries his mother under a cherry tree. Myron and Daria pestle the husks and pods to powder. The powder is then used as flour to bake little breads. They are so bitter that Myron decides to go look for some molasses to sweeten them. Mykola stops eating. Myron goes back to the ware house; he sees Otrokhodine carrying heavy sacks of flour. The cart collects corpses. Myron digs in the fields and finds frozen red beets. He helps a neighbor dig a grave for someone who escaped from a common grave in Siberia and returned home to die. The man is officially dead and must be buried secretly. To thank Myron for his help, the neighbor tells Myron about a silo filled with potatoes. Myron rushes to the silo. He returns home ex hausted. The village (and the whole of Ukraine) is a white cemetery. Everywhere, limbs protrude from under the white blanket of snow. Six children are carrying a seventh to be buried. The children are skeletons. Myron stops at the home of a neighbor who grinds com on a man-made mill. The inventor (and owner) of the machine jokingly says that at the 12 •НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ГРУДЕНЬ 2005 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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