chop a tree to plant a seed

…toil and peaceful life – a way to embrace death…

Nikolai Nikolayevich Dubasov – 1941

Osatka Village, Grand Forks, BC

‘Take me to the station!’ Nikolai Vasilyevich demanded, raising his raspy voice as best as he could in an attempt to bark a command to his grandchildren or anybody who might be nearby for that matter. Silence returned his prompt. There was a longing to the silence. He could hear the crickets in the fields masking the sounds of the men working further away in the orchards. It was early autumn and there were apples to be picked. He rolled his neck back, listening for any signal of a nearby person. Again, he tried, ‘Stepan![1] Vanya![2] Come help your dedushka.[3]’ Again, nothing, just crickets. He shifted himself as he sat, using his wooden cane as a fulcrum, he leaned back on the bench upon which he sat to straighten himself a touch.

            Nikolai Vasilyevich Dubasov was nearing ninety years of age. He began to lose his sight a few years back when his health started to deteriorate. He had since traveled from Saskatchewan to live-out his final years with his daughter Anastasia Nikolayevna Malloff in the Stooshnoff Village, also known as Osatka, on the American border in the Carson region of Grand Forks.

            Out of sight, his two grandchildren were playing in the tall grass with their dog, trying to teach him to release the stick after he retrieved it. They were growing frustrated with the dog’s reluctance to concede the prize play utensil. Stepan was pulling on the stick as Benny, their half-breed Border Collie, was tugging back with greater strength and determination.

            ‘Vanyushka pull him,’ Stepan coached his little brother.

            Vanya held the dog but at age five, he didn’t have the strength to dominate Benny. He was smiling as he tried, thoroughly entertained with the futility of his task. Benny’s hair was soft and long, he loved the struggle as much as Benny did. Out of sight they could hear their great grandfather’s pleas dying behind the shed.

            ‘Boys! I want to return to the motherland. It is time for me to go,’ Nikolai Vasilyevich’s cries repeated, the futility of them tarnishing the play at hand. The wind picked up and moved a loose piece of tin from a roof-top repair on the shed beside the boys. It made a crow-like sound. Benny, triggered by the squawk from the roof, broke-free from Stepan’s grip and dashed behind the shed taunting the boys to pursue him. Vanya spilled over from letting Benny slip through his arms and laughed from his predicament. Stepan was somehow further frustrated that the dog was out performing them.

            ‘Won’t the old man give up,’ he huffed, determined to outclass something that day. ‘Come on Vanyushka, let’s go help deda.’ Stepan got up and extended a hand to his little brother, pulling Vanya to his feet, he dusted off his back side, partially wiping the satisfaction from Vanya’s face. They made their way around the side of the shed and towards the communal house where their great grandfather was beckoning for assistance.

            Hearing their approach Dubasov found his voice, ‘Grandchildren help me find my way.’ He looked towards the sound of their feet, munching down the grass as they approached. Benny came flying by with the stick in his mouth, taunting Stepan and dashing behind the house with increasing speed.

            ‘What is it dedushka?’ Stepan inquired.

            ‘Boys, take my hand,’ Nikolai Vasilyevich stood up, placing his full weight on his wooden cane to do so. He reached out, missing the directions from which the boys approached by forty-five degrees. ‘It is time for me to return to the motherland. Take me to the train station. I need to go back. My days are numbered. I must die where I was born. I want to go back now.’

            Stepan rolled his eyes and grabbed his great grandfather’s hand. ‘Alright starik[4], let’s go to the train station.’ With his other hand he raised his finger to his pursed lips and gave his little brother the sign to keep silent. ‘Where is your hat?’ Stepan asked.

            ‘It is inappropriate to travel without one’s hat dedushka.’ Dubasov began to reach for the bench and pat around seeking his hat. Vanya found it first and passed it to his deda.

            ‘You’ll need a clean shirt as well and your kosovorotka[5] too, if you plan to travel. Let me fetch it for you.’ Stepan added. He quickly ran upstairs to grab the shirt and belt. Vanya stood there, still smiling and expecting Benny to come racing into the picture. Dubasov began to remove his work shirt to prepare for the clean attire. As he struggled to get his shirt over his head, Stepan returned from the house with his kosovorotka and rope belt. He reached out and helped Dubasov remove his shirt. To the horror of Vanya, it was the first time he saw his great grandfathers back. Dubasov’s back was heavily scarred from endless lashings. Long raised scars upon long torn gouges ran every which way across his back. There were still hundreds of acacia thorns embedded below his skin, permanently lodged into his flesh protruding like black fangs, clawing remnants of the arduous torture he endured sixty years earlier at the hands of the Cossacks and Russian authorities. Vanya turned away scared of what he saw. His facial expression began to weep in fear. Stepan looked at his younger brother with empathy in his eyes. He hurried to help Dubasov put on the clean kosovorotka avoiding to touch the raised scars and grown-over thorns that crisscrossed the old man’s back. He helped tie the hemp rope belt around his waist.

            ‘Thank you Stepan, thank you for helping me get ready,’ Dubasov said with the sense of a pending accomplishment. ‘Please pass me my hat.’

            ‘Ok let’s go to the station.’ Stepan looked down and grabbed him by the hand. ‘Come on Vanyushka, let’s take deda for a walk.’ 

            Having being out maneuvered by Benny, Stepan decided to take his great grandfather on a long circuitous trip around the village. The boys spent nearly thirty minutes leading him down the road leaving the village, then back into the village, then around the buildings several times and then for the final act of deception they lead him along the wooden walkways in between the banya shed and into garden, telling their deda that the wood boards were the boarding platform of the train station. Stepan passed Dubasov’s hand to his little brother and quickly fetched a stool from the banya.

            ‘Here is a stool deda, wait here for the train. It will take you to Yorkton and from there to the boat in Halifax, so that you can return to Russia,’ Stepan said, with a simplistic cruelty that young kids can administer without so much as a second thought.

            ‘Just wait here, the train should be along in a few hours,’ Stepan motioned for Vanya to give his deda a kiss goodbye and then he did the same. 

            ‘Thank-you boys. Thank you for helping your deda,’ Dubasov said with content, believing he was finally on his way back to the motherland to his final resting place. Stepan and Vanya slinked away. Stepan was quite entertained by his prank, yet Vanya felt confused, not knowing why they were leaving their great grandfather sitting alone out in the middle of the garden far away from the village buildings and the men in the orchard.

            Hours had passed and the sun was beginning to set. Dubasov was still there, sitting patiently, content to wait for his steam powered deliverance. He sang to himself in a rolling ratio of whispered words and phonetic melodies, allowing the warmth of his memories to replace the heat of the sinking sun. Soon he would be going home. He heard someone approaching.

            ‘Starik, what are you doing out here?’ called out John Grigoryevich, his grandson. John was a strong and able-bodied man who loved working as much as he loved life.

            ‘I am waiting for the train to arrive, it's taking me back to Russia,’ replied Dubasov. ‘Will you be joining me on the journey? I could use the assistance.’

            ‘Is that so?’ John Grigoryevich drew closer, laden with a heavy load of supplies and gear on his back, his left hand clutching a tool box and his right hand an axe. He was returning from two months of labour in the timber camp near the Phoenix mine site, twenty-five miles north of the village. He had spent the entire day walking home down from the mountain camp to the village of Osatka with its ever-expanding gardens and orchards. His hands were bloody and blistered from carrying his tool box, his body was exhausted and worn out. His canvas hat was soaked from perspiration. He stopped and dropped his tool box and put down his axe.

            ‘How did you manage to find a chair in the middle of the garden?’

            ‘What do you mean?’

            ‘Well starik, you are sitting in between the potatoes and the sunflowers and it’s getting dark.’ John Grigoryevich knew what had happened, he had seen the Stooshnoff boys play this trick on the old man before and he wasn’t too pleased.

            ‘Ivan am I not at the train station?’

            ‘No grandfather the boys tricked you again. I will discipline them.’

            Dubasov was too old to cry, but his heart fell straight through to the dirt at his feet. If only it was a seed, perhaps it could grow and blossom into his wish. Being throttled by a whip for your convictions is one thing, but having your hopes allow you to be easily deceived, well that was a different sort of torment. One that left dark thorns not easily removed from the mind.

            ‘Where are you coming from?’ Dubasov asked, not wanting to admit his predicament. Not wanting to reveal that it was his great grandsons who fooled him.  

            ‘I was in Phoenix, falling trees for the lumber company. The town is still growing and they need the lumber. They’ve built two new hotels and three new saloons all in the last month,’ Malloff replied. He took his pack off and placed it beside Dubasov’s stool. He parked himself on the pack and sat close to the old man. He put his hand on his shoulder.

            ‘It’s too far to return. You understand this, yes?’ He added, measuring the sensitivity of the desires Dubasov had.

            ‘I made it here once upon a time, why can I not return. I will die soon. I want to be buried in my motherland. Is this too much to ask?’ Dubasov was persistent, as if his blindness had erased his memory of the fantastic distances his dreams entailed. 

            ‘It’s too far for a blind man to travel.’

            The silence hung, then it fell with the sun. Malloff stood up and walked towards the sunflowers, inspecting their progress. ‘Let me take you back to the house.’

            ‘Why are you working so many days up in Phoenix?’ Dubasov asked, again changing the subject to avoid facing the reality he could not easily accept.

            ‘The pay is good and the work is plenty.’ Malloff walked back towards the old man, helping him to his feet. ‘Let’s go back to the house, Anya will make us some tea.’

            Dubasov struggled to straighten up, stiff from sitting on the stool for the past several hours. Malloff placed his hat back upon his head. ‘Is there not enough work here in the village to keep you occupied?’ He asked.

            ‘The time is coming for us to plant more trees, I am working in the camp so we can buy apricots, peaches, cherries and plums. Then we will have a true orchard.’ A smile came over John Grigoryevich’s face. Thinking about the seedlings he would soon plant in their village. Malloff positioned his arm with a strong bend in his elbow so Dubasov could cling to the stability of his presence. Dubasov used his cane to prod ahead of his feet. The two men made their way back towards the village. Slowly they walked back through the garden and past the banya.

            ‘So, you are chopping down big cedar and spruce trees so that you can plant little apricot and peach seedlings huh?’ Dubasov asked, trying to keep his mind off the disappointing reality that his afternoon embarkation was a farce. 

            ‘That’s about right starik,’ Malloff smiled. ‘That’s about right.’

            ‘Well at least you have a lot of work before you.’

They continued to walk slowly towards the familiar sounds of the village.

[1] Russian form of Steven. Styopa is a short form akin to Steve.

[2] Russian form of John. Ivan is the full form as in Johnathan. Vanyushka is an endearing nickname like Johnny.

[3] Russian word for grandfather. Deda would be akin to grandpa. 

[4] Russian word for old-timer or old man.

[5] Traditional Russian long-sleeved shirt that was untucked and went mid-thigh. It was worn with a rope belt.