Book Review: The Fault Line

The Fault Line: Traveling the other Europe from Finland to Ukraine by Paolo Rumiz, translated from the Italian by Gregory Conti

This was a beautiful book, the kind of travelogue where you want to read slow and savour the language as a metaphor of the author’s sensory experiences. This is the kind of travel experience that isn’t only about checking off remote destinations on a bucket list. 

Paolo Rumiz incorporates history, culture and characters along with the more obvious landscapes, foods and languages. It’s not a tourist guide, it’s a travel guide. 

Even in translation the beauty of his language comes through. I was captivated from the beginning when he describes light:  "Asiatic sunlight, wispy and warm, apricot-coloured…” (page 14).   

Explaining his exit from the European Union, a few miles further along, he writes: “…the air was tainted by that unmistakable blend of saccharine Catholic respectability and Protestant “busyness” that poisons my world.” (page 18)

Rumiz travels vertically along the east/west divide of Europe. From the far northern areas near Murmansk, down to Odesa of the Black Sea. He shuns the shiny and the posh and revels in the rustic and authentic … even when it’s ugly… like the bitter north of Russia. Helping a drunk man up, he writes, “I sense that I’ve arrived in a tasteless, colorless world of desperation.” (page 28)

I appreciated his views on Kaliningrad … K city he calls it. Once Königsberg, also known as Kant’s city, it’s now the capitol city of Russia’s western enclave. Rural areas still harbor ghosts from past battles. (Which I was privileged to cycle through back in 2019).

Rumiz is the type of traveler who views guidebooks as “pages of nothing. Only banalities…. Yes, it’s better to travel asking information from the people you meet …” (page 79)

When he reaches Ukraine, and this was written back in 2012, he quotes Maxim, a man he meets in Odesa. Maxim’s words are a chilling prediction of what’s happening over there right now. Maxim says, “If Ukraine stops being what it has been for centuries, that is, a buffer, to enter into an alliance with the West, all hell will break loose.”  (page 243)

Back in 2012, the journey taken by Paolo Rumiz was a safer trip. I wonder if such a vertical journey from north to south could be managed now. That border line has erupted into a war zone. Reading this book helped me appreciate the nuances of this historical fault line. 

About Immigrants, Restaurants and Dreaming Big

I heard a repeat broadcast on  CBC radio this past Victoria Day where Rachel Phan was interviewed about her new memoir, Restaurant Kid.  The conversation struck some of the same notes played in my middle grade novel, Waltraut. Similar tones included the immigrant school lunch, the busy immigrant parents, the guilt, the shame, the lack of connection between parents and the very children they’re making such self-sacrifices for. Rachel Phan’s family has a Chinese/Vietnamese background.  During her childhood, she lacked understanding of her family's challenging and traumatic past.  As a restaurant kid she felt her basic needs were often overlooked as her ‘hard-working’ parents put all their energy into the restaurant. 

Back in March, I attended a 100th birthday celebration in a newcomer’s ethnic restaurant. Jimmy (his Canadianized name) comes from Pakistan. Along with his wife and five children, the restaurant is his dream of success. Let me share a wee bit of the fascinating story behind Jimmy’s Pakistani restaurant, Barbecue Hut, here in Winnipeg at 445 Notre Dame Avenue.

Irma, Jimmy, his wife and 4 of his 5 children

Jimmy was flying solo to Canada from Pakistan when he sat beside my friend’s mom, “Irma,” once a post-Second World War immigrant from Schlesien (now part of Poland).  The flight was long and the two travellers struck up a friendship. Imagine: a young man sets out to improve his fortunes in a foreign country and meets Irma, a little old lady returning to Canada after visiting her daughter (my friend, who’d been living in the Middle East). Irma invites Jimmy to stay at her place until he gets settled. She opens up her tiny apartment and her life to him. Weeks turn into months ... turn into years. Finally, after much hard work along with Irma’s generosity, he’s ready to bring his wife and young children to Canada, because Jimmy now has his own restaurant—the Barbecue Hut.

Irma turns 100!

Back in March, Irma from Schlesien, turned 100 and Jimmy hosted a wonderful birthday party for her in his authentically furnished Pakistani restaurant. I was privileged to be an invited guest. It was a wonderful occasion to celebrate life, along with the dreams of immigration, and the power of kindness and friendship … with some excellent, traditional Pakistani food.

Seriously good food and a story to warm your heart. 

Barbecue Hut, 445 Notre Dame Avenue in Winnipeg

And now on to some seriously bad poetry, but with well-meaning enthusiasm. 

Want to eat some ‘real’ good food, but …

Not sure where to go?

You should try the Barbecue Hut.

Enjoy your life … take it slow.

Tell me again ... where and what?

Best food in town at the Barbecue Hut!

But, but, but? ... no but!

Get your butt out of your rut …

And try, just try, the Barbecue Hut!

On Omens

Striker

Omens can be bad or good. Here's an example of each. First the bad one. 

Before Striker, a black lab mix, I had Buddy, a golden lab mix. Buddy and I were returning from a camping trip to Hecla, our favourite place on earth, when we stopped at Winnipeg Beach for a break at their dog-friendly shoreline. We passed a man who was leaning against the base of the water tower. 

“Can I pet your dog,” he asked.

I nodded.  “Buddy loves attention.” 

“Such a beautiful dog.” The man smiled. “I had one very similar. They don’t live nearly long enough. Enjoy him while you can.” 

Buddy

Buddy had no known health issues, yet he died a month later. Now Striker is 12 years old and slowing down. Dogs never live long enough.  

Now onto the good omen.

After one of my regular swims a few months back, I was relaxing in the sauna when a woman I hadn’t seen before came in. The sauna is usually a quiet place where we respect each other’s silence. But this woman was chatty. She shared how she’d survived breast cancer and that she was happy, strong and grateful to be back at the pool. It was a strange conversation … quite one-sided. I’d never met the woman before and I’ve not seen her since.

Turns out that now it’s me who has breast cancer and I start treatment tomorrow. Today, though, I go for my regular swim. It’ll be a while before I can go again, but hopefully, not too long. I can’t wait to meet that woman again. I’ll have something to tell her … about being happy, strong and grateful … and about omens.

Victory Day

We don’t celebrate Victory Day here in Canada. Instead we have a Victoria Day holiday on the third Monday of May honouring Queen Victoria (British monarch) and officially opening our warm weather season. It’s a weekend where cottagers open their summer homes and gardeners begin plotting their flower beds. 

My first experience of Victory Day was in Kyiv, back in 2004. We accidently stumbled upon some rehearsals for the big parade that was to be staged … not on May 8th, when Nazi Germany officially capitulated, but on May 9th, which was due to the time zone difference.  That parade rehearsal, complete with tanks, artillery fire, and military music was a jarring reminder that we’d entered a country where war was a visceral memory. 

Zhytomyr, Ukraine, 

In May, 1945, peace deals may have been signed, but for millions of people the worst was yet to come. Homelessness, hunger, separation from loved ones, disease, long term disability… these would be the consequences of those six years of war.  

Today’s war zones … spreading like wild fires in a world gone mad …. will breed more instability and more distress.  Victory Day wounds take a long time to heal, and now those wounds are being re-opened.

My dad, captured by Soviet forces on May 11, 1945 spent five years in a coal mine near Moscow. His children died of hunger and his first wife, assuming he was dead, entered a new relationship. My mom, captured by Soviet forces at the end of February, 1945, no doubt spent Victory Day traveling on foot or by train to the Urals (I explore this in Crow Stone). Her two sisters never made it out of East Prussia before the war ended. I’m exploring their experiences as I write a new novel set in East Prussia as it transitioned into Russian Kaliningrad in the aftermath of Victory Day, 1945.

‘May Victories?’  Nazi Germany’s capitulation eighty years ago, was an end and a beginning. Putin’s bizarre re-imagining of Nazi terror in his war against Ukraine exposes him as a manipulative liar as this short clip from Berlin by President Steinmeier underlines.  Eighty years later, fear festers anew.

Building New Homes

My dog and I discovered who the fort construction workers were in the little woods we frequent on our morning walks. Turns out they’re two teenagers from Ukraine … one from Kharkiv and the other from Odesa. So now we say Pryvit (an informal hello).

Our city has welcomed many refugees from war-torn Ukraine. My oven was repaired by a man from Kyiv. My new windows and door were installed by Ukrainian newcomers and I bought the most the most delicious sourdough bread at a local school craft sale. Today I’m meeting one of my former Ukrainian students whom I supported while volunteering with Immigration Canada. She’s integrating well (after a few speed bumps) and transferring her accounting skills into a new career here in Manitoba. 

Pryvit to these wonderful newcomers. You’re making Canada a better place. But I'm sad about all the talent and youth that Ukraine is losing. Knowing that it’s now signing away its mineral rights to the USA feels disturbing. Is this Ukraine’s future? Is this rich country being drained of its people, its resources along with its land and culture? Will these Ukrainian newcomers to Canada keep their cherished homeland alive through art and culture? Will they be able to return to their country to show their children where they once grew up?    Once my mom left her childhood homes in Ukraine and East Prussia there was no going back.

Truth is, sometimes you can never return and building a new life might be difficult but it's rewarding too.  After all, building a fort in the Manitoba woods sure beats hiding in the woods of a country at war.