Blood and Salt Read Online Free Page A

We’re what they call the enemy within.”
    “You mean they think we’re Austrians?” Taras asks. “Don’t they know the difference?”
    “We came here with Austrian passports. That’s enough for them.”
    “The Austrians ruled us, so we’re Austrians,” Toma says.
    Kyrylo pipes up. “I don’t know – is that really it? I think it’s because there’s so much unemployment. They want us off the streets.”
    “They’re afraid of strikes, that’s for sure,” Toma adds. For no obvious reason, Oleksa looks irritated by this comment. Toma smiles ingratiatingly. Maybe it was something Oleksa was planning to say himself.
    “Not like we invented unions,” Kyrylo says. His scar seems to crawl across his forehead when he speaks.
    “No, but we caught on to them pretty quick.” Oleksa laughs, strokes the sorrel moustache. “Besides, there’s a lot of radical leaders in Canada, and the government’s afraid there could be a revolution.”
    What’s a revolution? Taras wants to ask.
    “Well, all I ever wanted was a decent bloody job. Now I’m foreign scum.” Kyrylo says.
    “Take it easy. Wait till tomorrow. We’ll see what we can do,” Oleksa says.
    “Yeah, yeah.” Kyrylo pulls his blanket up around his neck and turns to the outer wall of the tent.
    Close by in another tent a man weeps. A gentle voice asks what’s wrong.
    “It’s my little Nasta,” the weeping man says. “She’s all alone. There’s no money. What’s to become of her?”
    The other man tries to reassure him. Someone will look after Nasta. The Canadians won’t let anything bad happen to her. Taras hears uncertainty in the man’s voice.

    The next day is much like the first, except that it’s hotter and the mud has almost dried up. As the long day limps along, Taras thinks about the things Oleksa and his friends said.
    They think Ukrainians got sent here for two – or is it three? – reasons. All of them related to the war. Canada is at war with Austria, so the government decides that anyone who was ruled by Austria is an Austrian and therefore an enemy. But can they truly not tell the difference? He remembers a poster in the village tavern in the old country, encouraging people to come to Canada. It was written in Ukrainian, not German. By people who ran Canadian steamship lines and railroads. It seems they could tell the difference.
    The other two reasons are about unions and radical politics. This puzzles him, because although he was in fact arrested at a meeting to start a union at the brick plant, he was nothing more than a bystander. The people who ran the meeting weren’t arrested. And he’s never belonged to any kind of political group or talked about radical politics.
    Maybe he should have. At least then he’d have been arrested for something.
    Well, there was one other reason, according to Oleksa. To make people support the war it was helpful to show them the face of the enemy. He is now an enemy alien. The name sounds cold and cruel. An enemy you can’t understand, who could do any brutal or barbaric thing.
    Taras gets back to camp in the evening with his crew, wondering what slop they’ll get in the mess tent. But nobody’s there, they’re all in their tents. Yuriy explains why. A work gang marched back to camp early after its members, led by Oleksa and Kyrylo, refused to work until they got better food. Their guards tried to stop them, but the park foreman supervising the work supported the men and the guards couldn’t just start shooting people.
    People not even trying to escape.
    Then the commandant, the one in charge of the whole camp, ordered that the men who refused to work would get no supper. Word flashed through the dinner line, and the other prisoners decided they had to support Oleksa and his crew. So Taras is taking part in a hunger strike.
    As if he hadn’t been hungry enough before.

    Next day at the work site, Yaroslav collapses as he tries to dig out a thick root. His spade drops like a very