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On this Sunday, the church bell rang for the peas ants o f Klenototcha to assemble at the soviet meet ing hall. They listen with rapt attention. At the meeting on this Sunday morning, the "torch" of the Party, a certain Gregory Otrokhodine, is speaking with authority, spreading fear, and making a lasting impression on his audience. He is a red-haired man, with shining glasses behind which two eyes seem to generate sparks of fire. When he speaks, he reveals a shiny golden tooth next to a hole left by a missing tooth. Otrokhodine urges everyone to give up food. "If you do not execute the orders, we will treat you as enemies! Your families also." Images, drawn from nature, emerge in Katrannyk’s mind as іе is- tens to Otrokhodine’s speech. Through he window he sees a hungry horse reaching for a leaf and he sees himself in this animal that has not been fed by a forgetful owner. Barka interjects his own /ision of the audience: all the peasants take the appearance of the heads of sunflower lowered under the ram or like candles whose lights are about to die. The enclosure created a triangular boundary sepa rating the soviet grounds from an abandoned gar den. At the heart of the third chapter, Mykola, a high school student, reads a fable entitled "Truth and Injustice," given to him in secret by a classmate. The fable is about how Truth and Injustice decided to share their food. Injustice wanted to start with Truth’s food first. When it came to Injustice’s turn to share its food, it turns against Truth, and gouges out Truth’s eyes for payment for a few crumbs of bread. It is Myron’s turn to be haunted by the image of a “dragon;” he cannot help associating this image with the Party spokesman, Otrokhodine. It was a bad Sunday for Klenototcha’s worshipers as well as for the ones who came from the neighboring village because they no longer had a church: the building had become a warehouse for construction lumber and for vegetables. The villag ers learn that their church will be closed after the service. During the sermon the priest proclaims, “They can take your bodies but they cannot take your so ills.' Alarmed, people congregate in front of the church. A bard, the lyrnyk , plays on his lyra like in the olden days and sings a song which retells the suffering and crucifixion of Christ, one thousand nine hundred years ago. As the officials take posses sion of the church, some people react on impulse and try to save all the religious objects: banners, icons, icon lights, priest vestments, and blessed reli gious vessels. The militia furiously tries to stop them and pursues the people who are leaving the church with their bounty. It is then that the order is given to destroy the church bell. To everyone’s dis may it comes down, splitting in half. Barka com ments, “The whole village, without its church bell, seemed to have lost its voice.” As she was reaching the garden gate with her daughter, the mother saw her husband and her two sons running, chased by a group o f men with a cart. In Chapter 5, we are given a glimpse of the history of the time as Barka describes in detail how, m 1932 and 1933, Ukrainian peasant houses and gardens were searched. With long steel rods, the militiamen poke the earth to uncover hidden food. Returning from the church, Myron’s mother, Kharytyna Grygorivna, is caught by surprise by the raid and tries to protest. She is brutally silenced by the militiamen. When the police are gone she re veals that she had a conversation with the man-who- builds-stoves, a most important persona in the Ukrainian peasant community. From most ancient times, fire has always been symbolic of life. Therefore it is not surprising that the built-in-stove maker was highly respected for his craft but also very much trusted as a person. He was the man who gave a soul to the dwelling. Little Andrijko is fascinated by the work of this craftsman and calls him a magician: “Andrijko took a special interest in this magician who came to build their stove and who told him about the complicated pipes which coiled inside it. Until then the stove was a quite ordinary object: a pile of bricks. Since then it was filled with mysteries.” Indeed, one cannot imagine a Ukrainian peasant cottage without its built-in stove. This all important stove is used for cooking and baking and offers a flat platform, the size of a bed, where chil dren and old folks find a cozy warm place to sleep during the night or to rest during the day. It is a spe cial place in the winter because it brings together the oldest and the youngest of the household. Later in the book we learn, "When grandma was alive, she would sleep on the built-in stove with the young children and she would tell them stories to put them to sleep. Sometimes the snowstorm would be raging outside engulfing itself into the chimney. But on the stove platform we were warm. . . . Grandma would 16 “НАШ Е Ж ИТТЯ”, ЛИСТОПАД 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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