Two

The next morning, Day Three, shortly after we’ve had breakfast, I excuse myself from the group. Everyone from Desna is heading over to the mainstage to watch our Senior Boys do their Zaporozhian Kozak Character Dance. I tell Mom and Dad that I’m not feeling well – a touch of sunstroke probably – and that I’d like to rest. But I’m not going to sleep, and I’m not feeling sick. In fact, I’ve never felt better. A lot is riding on my performance now, and I have to rise to the occasion. My plan this morning is to dress in my Podillian costume, a bright white, two-piece fitted suit, embroidered with burgundy thread, with matching burgundy boots and a white satin pillbox hat. I’m going to walk around the festival grounds in costume, taking deep breaths. Taking in the spirit of the competition. This will get me in the right mood, help me psych up for what’s to come.

My Podillian costume is new. It’s never been worn. Our dance group has just started learning the Podillian Polka. According to our instructor, Kevin, no Ukrainian dance club in the country has ever done a Podillian dance.

Poltava is the norm. At Ukrainian festivals in Vegreville and Hafford, Poltava is everywhere. Girls in velvet vests, boys in baggy pants. Spins, acrobatics, it’s passé. On occasion, we’ve seen a Transcarpathian dance, and Lemko is gaining in popularity. For a while, Hutsul was in vogue – leather moccasins instead of boots, personalized sheepskin vests. Boys performed Hutsul dances with wooden axes. One year in Veg, an all-male dance group from Canmore danced the Hutsul Arkan around a fake fire – charred logs, orange crepe paper, Christmas tree bulbs – to replicate the ambiance of the Carpathian mountains. Then the Hutsul trend caught on, and the Hutsul costumes of dancers from every dance club started to look the same because all of the mothers took the same Hutsul-vest-making seminar in Saskatoon. I know. My mother made three.

Once I’ve put the finishing touches on my Podillian costume, once I’ve tied up my hair, and covered my head in a hair-net, and then pinned the hat to my hairnet, I make my way from the campground to the festival grounds. It’s a short walk, but the sun is rising and there is no breeze. I feel sweat form on my nose, on my back, under my blouse and vest. I probably won’t walk for long. I don’t want to stink up my clothes for the competition. The Podillian costume can’t be washed in a normal washing machine, like other costumes. It’s dry clean only.

I buy a pop from Baba’s Best because I can’t afford to get dehydrated before the competition. I might lose my voice. Ice-cold orange pop. I hold the can to my cheek, to my forehead. Then I open it and take one long drink. As I’m walking away from the trailer, I close my eyes, taking the odd sip, taking in the sound and the smell of the place. Maybe I’ll chat with a few strangers, get to know the people. If members of the audience recognize me on stage, they’ll cheer extra-hard. Which can only help my chances of winning.

And then, halfway between Baba’s Best and the outdoor toilets, I’m knocked over. Knocked right off my feet, orange pop spilling down the front of my body. Down my brand new, pure white Podillian vest.

“Damn!” says a guy in black jeans and an embroidered shirt.

He doesn’t help me up, but I think that he’s noticed the orange pop stain on my bright white Podillian vest. Or maybe he’s noticed the grass stains on the back of my bright white Podillian skirt. He feels bad, since he is the reason that my costume is ruined.

“Damn!” he says, again, and then, “Shit!”

“I know. These stains won’t wash out.”

“Wash out? I just lost two tapes! Some asshole swiped two of my tapes!”

“Who cares about your tapes? My whole costume is ruined, and I’m competing in three days.”

“So wash it.”

“It can’t be washed!”

“Not my problem,” he says, with a shrug. “I’m out twenty bucks.”

“Here,” I say, handing him a twenty-dollar bill. “Now your problem is solved. How about mine?”

He glares at me for a moment, then storms away, stuffing the twenty-dollar bill in his pocket as he goes.

For the next few minutes, I don’t move. I can’t move. I’m stunned. He wasn’t supposed to take my money. I only have forty dollars in total to spend at the festival. I was just trying to make a point: that, whereas he could be compensated for his loss, my costume has been ruined. There’s no compensation for that. But he just walked away. The jerk just walked away. With my money.

Now my costume is a mess, and Mom is going to kill me if I don’t clean it up before she gets back from watching the dancing.

It’s got to come clean. I’ve got all of Desna relying on me, and I can’t disappoint them. Back in the motorhome, I try a bit of Perfex on the stained part of my vest. The vest is white, after all, and Perfex is just bleach. The orange pop stain begins to fade. The more Perfex I apply, the more it fades, until the vest looks perfectly new. I sigh, relieved. Next, the grass stain on the skirt. Not so easy, as it covers the part of my skirt that’s embroidered. I can’t use bleach on the burgundy embroidery. Can I?

I do a little test on my vest. A tiny drop of Perfex on a tiny burgundy stitch. Nothing happens, no change in colour. I drop a tiny drop more. Still nothing.

The fabric of the skirt, though, is slightly different from the fabric of the vest. The Costume Committee couldn’t get enough of either fabric, so they used both. And on the fabric of my skirt, the Perfex spreads. It didn’t spread like this on the fabric of my vest. As it spreads, the burgundy embroidery starts to bleed burgundy onto the white part of the skirt. It bleeds quickly, the dye from the embroidery changing colour, from deep red to bright purple. I rinse and rinse, and scrub. I take hand soap to it, dish soap. My heart races. An sos pad. Anything to get the dye out of the fabric.

My family arrives at the motorhome for lunch as I am scrubbing, furiously, in the motorhome bathroom, and crying, my tears mingling with the reddish-purple water in the sink.

Sophie finds me first. She lets out a gasp as she steps into the motorhome. Then, not a split second later, my mother arrives. When she sees what I’m doing, she shrieks. Mom and Sophie both wonder why I tried to bleach my costume. Why didn’t I wait? We could have taken it to the dry cleaners in Dauphin.

I didn’t think of that. I was scared. I panicked.

But there’s no time for explanations, not right now. Sophie and Mom kick into emergency mode, grabbing the skirt from me and discussing what should be done. Meanwhile, I throw myself onto the bunk over the motorhome dashboard, crying my heart out over the ruined costume. Wes crawls up after me, putting his hand on my back.

“Don’t worry, C’lleen,” he says. “Mom will fix it. She can fix anything.”

Of course, Mom can’t fix my skirt. It’s wrecked. And since I didn’t bother to bring another costume, I’ve got to wear it in the vocal competition. Mom is an angel. She doesn’t scold me. No harsh words at all. Eventually, once she’s determined that there’s no hope for the skirt, she joins Wes and me on the motorhome bunk.

“It’s all right, honey,” says Mom. “Accidents happen. When we get home, we’ll get a whole new skirt made. Okay? Don’t fret about it. Don’t worry yourself.”

Mom doesn’t understand the seriousness of the situation, though, and there’s no use trying to explain it to her. Performers from the Podillia region are supposed to be regal and aristocratic. Kevin said that when we put on our Podillian costumes, we’re supposed to keep our upper bodies stiff, our arms rigid; shoulders back, chin up. How can I keep my chin up knowing that I’m the only Podillian to get onstage with a bright purple bum? How can I put my shoulders back knowing that the fate of Desna is sealed? All because of me. I’m their last chance, and I screwed up.

I just can’t stop crying. I’m going to fail the whole group. And on top of everything else, I’ve given twenty dollars to the jerk who did this to me.

I tell Mom and Sophie about him, once I’ve calmed down enough to speak. The way he ploughed into me and swore at me and walked away, my money in his pocket, without so much as a “thank you” or an “I’m sorry.” Sophie calls him a coward. Mom says that I should go out right now and find him. Give him a piece of mind. Get my twenty dollars back.

“The girls will go with you,” says Mom. “Sophie, Tammy, and Tanya. All four of you – go! Stand up to that bully!”

But I insist on going alone. I got into this mess, I’ll get out of it. On my own. I put my damp, ruined costume back on, so that I can show him what he’s done. “See?” I’ll say, pointing to the stains. “See what you’ve done?”

I find him in the musicians’ area of the festival grounds, in a tent filled with weird instruments – Ukrainian instruments that I’ve heard about but never seen before. There are several men playing banduras, upright stringed instruments with dozens of strings. Like a cross between a guitar and a harp. Another guy blows into a trembita, a long, thin horn, something like the horns that they play in the Swiss alps. His face turns bright red when he blows. An old, grey-haired, prune-faced man plays sweet, high-pitched tunes on his sopilka. Which is basically a wooden flute. Beside him, another old man turns the handle on a box, making the saddest sound I’ve ever heard, almost like a bagpipe. I don’t know what his instrument is called. I can’t even figure out how the sound is made. At the far end of the tent, I spot the guy who knocked me over. He’s playing a tsymbaly, a hammer dulcimer. Cassette tapes are on display beside him.

When he see me coming, he stops playing. This is it, then. My moment of reckoning. I’m going to speak calmly – no yelling or swearing – but I’m going to get my point across nonetheless. I want my money back and I want an apology.

The guy speaks first.

“You’re that girl, right? The one from this morning? Look, I’m sorry. I got kind of riled up by that prick who stole my tapes. I’m really sorry. I don’t make much money at these things, you know, so every tape counts.”

“Yeah, well.”

I catch myself stammering. I notice for the first time that he’s cute.

“You gave me some money,” he says, standing up, reaching into the pocket of his jeans.

His jeans are snug in the hips and crotch.

“Here.” He hands me the twenty-dollar bill. “I’m not taking your money.”

“Oh, but you did. You did take my money. And if I hadn’t found you, you’d still have my money.”

“No, no. I looked for you. Honest. I checked out all the competition tents. You said you were dancing but I couldn’t –”

“Singing,” I say, lifting my skirt so that he can see the tensor bandage around my knee. “I’m singing, not dancing. I wanted to dance but, well. You know. It didn’t work out.”

“Oh,” he says. “Wow. That sucks.”

There is a moment of awkward silence between us.

“Maybe you’d like to take a couple of my tapes? Free. No charge. You can just have them. I mean – I don’t know if you’d be interested. It’s me playing the tsym – uh – dulcimer. I don’t know if you like, you know, tsym – dulcimer music.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I know what a tsymbaly is. Yeah, sure. Tsymbaly music is okay, I guess.”

He hands me two tapes.

“Have a listen,” he says. “Tell me what you think.”

I take the tapes away, and my twenty dollars. And when I get back to the campground, everyone is waiting to hear what’s happened – Mom and Dad, Sophie and Wes, Kalyna, the Yuzkos. While I’ve been gone, they’ve obviously been talking about the incident. So I wave the twenty-dollar bill as I walk into our campsite, and they all cheer and whistle. They want to hear all about it, what I said, what he said. I promise to tell. But first I lock myself into the motorhome bathroom to look at his tapes.

His name is Corey Bespalko. On the back of his cassettes, it says that he’s from Brandon, Manitoba, and that he was born in 1967. Which makes him seventeen. Four years older than me. On the cover of the first cassette is an outdated photograph of him. He looks thirteen, fourteen at the most; skinny and pimply, with dark growth on his upper lip. He is sitting behind his tsymbaly with the name of the album arched across his chest in block letters, Corey Bespalko Dulcimer Favourites of Yesterday and Today. All in all, the album looks cheap. When I peer closely under the letters, I can tell that Corey’s shirt is a little short in the sleeves, and it isn’t really embroidered around the collar. Someone’s just sewn on red-and-black tape, the kind of cheap appliqué that’s manufactured to look like embroidery. Cheap cheap cheap.

Then I tell myself that maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe he has no Baba to cross-stitch a shirt for him. Maybe his mother is a practical woman – why invest in a real embroidered shirt for her son when he’s going to outgrow it in three months? Maybe he has no mother, no one to tell him that his sleeves are too short, that his appliqué collar is tacky. Maybe he’s an orphan, making his living like a gypsy, like an Old Country kobzar, playing music in exchange for bread.

For his second album, Corey Bespalko Ukrainian Dulcimer Favourites, Corey has gotten hold of a real cross-stitched shirt and he’s shaved his upper lip. Otherwise, though, his second album cover looks just like his first. His face is washed out. The angle of the camera makes him look three feet tall and the tsymbaly ten feet long.

I keep Corey’s tapes – and Corey himself – a secret from my family. After the incident with my skirt, it would be hard to explain to them that he’s not so bad after all. That he actually seems pretty nice. They’ll tease me if they hear that I’ve had a change of heart. Boy crazy, they’ll say. And anyway, I’m not entirely sure that I’ve changed my mind about him. It’s the tsymbaly playing that bothers me. Old men play the tsymbaly, not young ones. I’ve never seen a tsymbaly player under the age of sixty. Sophie and the Yuzko girls would probably laugh, call him a geek. Cute, maybe, but definitely a geek.

•••

On Day Four of the festival, I try my best not to think about Corey. I need to concentrate on competing, and on winning. I spend the morning running through my song in the motorhome. I’m singing “Tsyhanochka,” and accompanying myself on guitar. I need to practise the accompaniment especially because I’m just a beginner on the guitar. I’ve been taking piano lessons for seven years, but I’ve never actually had guitar lessons. I’m teaching myself.

Kalyna wants to stay behind with me – “Tsyhanochka” is one of her favourite songs – while the others head out to the festival grounds. Wes begs to stay behind, too, but Mom forces both of them to go so that I can get some practising done.

I don’t blame Kalyna or Wes for not wanting to go. I can hardly stand it myself when, later in the day, I spend some time with the Desna group. Our losing streak has continued, and the dancers are all the same – long faces, no spirit. Onstage, they have no energy. We’re supposed to smile all the time – “Zuby!” Kevin always says, “Teeth!” – but the dancers seem to have forgotten. And the chaperones are no better. They don’t cheer much or whistle. It seems like they’re not even paying attention to what’s happening on stage. Everyone is just going through the motions.

Late in the afternoon, I decide to take a walk by myself. I have to, otherwise Desna’s gloom will rub off on me. They’ve all lost their competitions, but I still have a chance. The stain, after all, is on the back of my skirt, not the front. Chances are, the judges won’t even notice. Not once I’ve opened my mouth to sing.

I go to Corey’s tent. Out of curiosity. I want to hear what he can do.

There are three other girls standing and talking to Corey in the tent. Groupies. They can’t be more than eleven, maybe twelve years old. Skinny, runty groupies. Kids, I think. How pathetic. And they’re throwing themselves at him, too, leaning across his tsymbaly in their tight cut-offs and their tight t-shirts. Bras, too. At least one of them has the nerve to wear a bra, as if she needs a bra for her little washboard chest. Corey is letting them all touch his tsymbaly hammers, explaining to them how he made his albums. If he sees me, he pretends I’m not there. I wait a few minutes to hear him play, but he keeps chatting with the groupies. After fifteen minutes, I turn to walk out, wondering why I even bothered to come.

As I’m leaving, though, Corey starts to play his tsymbaly, and the sound makes me stop. It knocks the wind out of me, as though someone has thrown a punch into my stomach, swung hard and hit me under the ribs. I hear him playing, and then I can’t move. He plays as if in slow motion, lifting his hammers over the tsymbaly, letting the hammers drop.

I didn’t expect this. I only looked at the front of his albums – at his pictures – I didn’t pay any attention to his song selections and I didn’t even listen to his cassettes. I didn’t have to listen. The names of his albums said it all – Ukrainian Dulcimer Favourites, Dulcimer Favourites of Yesterday and Today. I expected the old standards – polka music, old time waltzes – the stuff played by all musicians in all Ukrainian bands. The stuff they play on cfcw’s Ukrainian Hour. “Nasha Butterfly,” “Spring-time Seven Step,” “Stay All Nite Polka,” “Red Shawl Tango.” I thought I’d feel sorry for him. I thought he wouldn’t be very good. I didn’t expect this.

He’s playing “Tsyhanochka,” the song I’ve chosen to sing in the competition.

He’s playing my song.

But he isn’t playing it like the tsymbaly players on cfcw. Their playing is boring and mechanical and old-fashioned. All of their songs sound the same, even if the time signatures vary, or the tempo. Corey’s style is different. He takes the basic melody of “Tsyhanochka” and changes it by adding broken chords and arpeggios. Anyone who has ever played “Tsyhanochka” knows that it’s a three-chord song. Midway through his version of it, though, Corey alters the structure of the song, throwing in complicated chords I’ve never heard before – not sevenths, major or minor. I’d recognize sevenths. Maybe ninths or thirteenths? The kinds of chords that jazz players use. He’s playing a song that I’ve heard a hundred times before. Yet I feel like I’m hearing it for the first time. I’m amazed. Not just by what he plays, either. The way he plays is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. He plays with more than his wrists, his hands, his arms. Corey closes his eyes and sways his body over the strings of his tsymbaly. As though he’s hypnotized by his own music. He presses and unpresses his lips, and turns his head periodically from side to side. The audience doesn’t exist for him, I can tell. In the whole world, while he’s playing, there’s just him and his instrument. Watching him gives me butterflies in my stomach, goosebumps on my arms. I have to look away. I want to cry.

The groupies stay for “Tsyhanochka” but they talk non-stop through the performance. Of course. They don’t know the meaning of the words to the song. They probably don’t know that there are words to the song. I do. I know there are words. I know all of the Ukrainian words and I even know their English translations. It’s a love song. A man, a kozak, sings it to his love, his little gypsy. Of all the things Corey could have chosen to play. I’ll bet he speaks Ukrainian. I’ll bet he knows the words and their meanings.

Over and over again, in the refrain, the kozak sings, “Tsyhanochko moia, morhanochko moia, tsyhanochko morhanochko, chy liubysh ty mene?” My little gypsy, my girl with the twinkling eyes, gypsy girl, seductive girl, do you love me?

Near the end of the song, she answers, “Shcho to za bandura, shcho ne khoche hrat? Shcho to za divchyna, shcho ne vmiie kokhat?” What is a bandura that doesn’t want to play? What is a girl who cannot love?

Corey must know that I’m watching. I move closer to him and his tsymbaly, close enough that I can see the moisture on his nose and above his lips. It’s hot in the tent. The hair along the back of his neck is wet, there are wet spots on his shirt, under his arms. He plays and sweats, and I sweat, too, just watching, and I fall in love, right there and then. First with his fingers, the white half-moons rising under his fingernails, then with the white-blond hair on the back of his hands. I fall in love with his wrists, tanned brown, and thin, and with the thick, blue-green veins that run from his knuckles, up his forearms, to his elbows.

After he has played for me, Corey asks me to play for him.

The groupies stop talking.

“I don’t know how,” I say. “I haven’t got a clue. Too many strings. I’ve never touched a tsymbaly before.”

As I’m making excuses, Corey takes my hand and seats me behind his tsymbaly. The groupies file out of the tent, one by one. I let him slip the hammers into my hands, and then I let him wrap his hands around my hands. Holding my hands in his, we play. Behind me, I can hear Corey breathing and I can feel the rise and fall of his chest. We play a medley of songs. “I Shumyt,” “U horakh karpatakh,” “Nasha maty.” “Chorni ochky.” “Ivanku Ivanku.”

We play and play until Corey takes his hands away and I let the hammers drop onto the tsymbaly strings. Neither of us says a word. As I get up to go, sticky behind the knees from sitting so long in this heat, Corey reaches for my hand and pulls me toward him. Over the tsymbaly, he kisses me on the lips, just barely, wet and soft. Coming from the other side of the tent, now that our tsymbaly music has stopped, I can hear sounds of a bandura, soft and slow, plucked like a harp.

Later, lying awake in the dark, in the motorhome beside Sophie, I relive the kiss. My first kiss. I analyze it. I plan for the next kiss, promising myself that I’ll do better the second time, be more adventurous. I’ll move my lips more, close my eyes, experiment a little with my tongue. Turn my head sideways – first one way, then the other – touch his face with my hands from time to time, like in the movies.

I want to tell Sophie about Corey. In the worst way, I want to tell her. It’s not like me to keep secrets from Sophie, I tell her everything. I’d like to wake her up and describe the whole scene – the groupies, me planning to leave the tent, the song. The kiss. I’d like to take her to his tent, to hear him play. Then she’d see first-hand that he’s not at all a geek. When he plays, he’s anything but a geek. I’d take Tammy and Tanya to the tent, too. All of them. They would understand immediately.

Only I can’t do it to them. It wouldn’t be fair. Not after they’ve lost every competition. Not with me about to sing, about to win. They’d be so jealous. I get a gold medal and boyfriend to boot. They get nothing.

So I don’t tell.

On Day Five of the festival, I sneak away from the group periodically to watch Corey play. He gives me lessons whenever he can, when the tent isn’t too busy. And every once in a while, he steals kisses. I carry mascara and lipstick in my purse to touch up my makeup throughout the day, and I suck on breath mints all day long, just in case. On his breaks, we sit together behind his tsymbaly, talking and holding hands. Corey is really Ukrainian, there’s no doubt about that. He went to bilingual school and everything. He talks a lot about famous Ukrainian authors, Ukrainian art, Ukrainian music. When we’re not together, I plan for the future. Our future.

Next summer, we’re dancing in Vegreville at the Pysanka Festival, and Corey will be there, too. He’ll be playing, instructing, and selling his tapes in a tent – just like he is now. I daydream about Corey moving to Alberta – to Edmonton – one day and about the two of us studying music together. I haven’t told him about my plans yet. But I will. I imagine us living together. I decorate the walls of our apartment.

In our bookshelf, we’ll keep copies of Ukrainian books like The Kobza-Player, Sons of the Soil, Men In Sheepskin Coats. One wall we’ll cover with his grandmother’s long Bukovynian tapestry – a kylym, dark green, rust, and gold; underneath it, we’ll place Corey’s tsymbaly, and beside the tsymbaly, a bandura, which he says that he’s going to learn to play eventually. All along our windowsills, we’ll put up framed pictures of paintings by William Kurelek. Children playing fox and geese, chasing after a chicken in the snow. Boys playing hockey on a frozen slough. And we’ll hang gold Greek Orthodox icons of baby Jesuses and Virgin Marys. Corey is religious and I’m not, but it doesn’t matter. Icons are very Ukrainian. We’ve got to have icons.

On the evening of Day Five, I invite Corey to come hear me sing: tomorrow, two o’clock in the afternoon. Then it will be official. He will officially fall in love with me while I sing “Tsyhanochka,” like I fell in love with him when he played it. I’ll sing it for him and him alone, with passion in my voice, and longing. “Tsyhanochko moia, morhanochko moia, tsyhanochko morhanochko, chy liubysh ty mene?” My little gypsy, my girl with the twinkling eyes, gypsy girl, seductive girl, do you love me?

Yes.

•••

The night before the sixth and final day of the festival, I hardly sleep. I’ve got too much on my mind. When I perform tomorrow afternoon, Corey will be in the audience. Desna will be in there, too. The dancers and the chaperones, plus the Yuzkos, and my family. Afterwards, right after I sing, we’re all heading home together, like a wagon train. The Greyhound bus, followed by the two motorhomes. When I think about leaving, I get a lump in my throat. Saying goodbye to Corey is going to be awful.

In the morning, Dad prepares breakfast over the campfire – his famous Saskatchewan Paella. But I have butterflies in my stomach and I can’t eat. While the others collect around the picnic table with their paper plates and plastic forks and plastic knives, I’m kneeling at the motorhome toilet. Saskatchewan Paella is just chopped potatoes and onions fried and then topped with fried bacon and fried eggs – all fried a second time and served with toast. The smell of bacon grease wafts into the motorhome through the open windows.

I throw up three times in total. First during breakfast, then again while I’m doing my hair and makeup, and once more as I’m putting on my costume. The third time, my mother catches me lying by the toilet, half-dressed. She wonders if it’s a flu. Or maybe it’s something that I ate. Sophie intervenes as Mom fishes in her purse for a Gravol to take my nausea away.

“She’s just nervous,” says Sophie, rubbing my back. “Dry heaves, right? Like always. She’ll be fine after she sings. Won’t you, Colleen? You’ll be fine.”

I nod, miserably, my head still in the toilet. I always puke before I sing.

What I’d like to do is spend the morning in Corey’s tent, listening to him play once more before I sing, and before we leave Dauphin. Only I’m tired and hungry and hot – it’s got to be the hottest day yet – and I don’t dare stray far from the motorhome toilet. I spend the morning under the motorhome awning, in the shade, sipping ginger ale while I run through my song. I could sit inside the motorhome, ask Dad to turn on the air conditioning. Only Mom is folding the bedding, and Sophie and Kalyna are washing the dishes. I can’t stand to watch what they’re doing. Packing up, that is. Preparing to go.

I can’t believe that the end of the festival is here. Six days, come and gone, just like that. Corey must be feeling it, too. He’s probably downright depressed, playing slow, sad songs on his tsymbaly, all in melancholy, minor keys.

Of course, Sophie and the Yuzko girls aren’t at all sad to be leaving. They can’t wait to get home. Everyone in Desna is glad to be leaving, dancers and chaperones alike. The closest we’ve come to the gold is a silver medal for the Senior Boys’ Poltavsky Sword Dance. The silver doesn’t count for much, though, as there were only two groups competing in that category. So our boys didn’t come in second, really. They came in last.

I’m Desna’s final hope. Without a shadow of a doubt. I’m the last of the group to compete, and our last chance at gold. If I win anything less than gold, then I will have failed them all. My parents will wonder why they bothered with this trip to Manitoba. If I win, though – if I win the gold – then Desna will save face, and Mom and Dad will see that the trip was all worthwhile.

My legs tremble as I wait in the audience for the competition to begin. Everyone from our group is in the bleachers, ready to applaud when it’s my turn to sing. For the first time in days, they seem energetic and excited. The Babiuk twins are holding up the Desna banner.

By a quarter to two, the bleachers are filled. Standing room only. The Women’s Vocal Solo Category is one of the last competitions before the afternoon Grandstand Show. Everyone has turned out early to watch the singing before they head over to the Grandstand. The front rows are filled with old people – all grey- or white-haired or balding. Little kids run around in front of the stage, mothers run after them. Dads change the film in their cameras. There aren’t many dancers left in costume, since most of the competition is over now. They’ve all changed into street clothes, though some of them leave their medals around their necks. At ten to two, I look into the crowd, searching for Corey. It’s early yet. He’s still got ten minutes.

I’m the last to sing in my category so I see what I’m up against, my competition. As the other girls perform, my stomach settles a little. One at a time, three girls in black slacks and embroidered blouses go to the mike. All three of them have bad skin and long blonde hair. Stringy blonde hair with brown roots. They look so similar that I think they must be sisters. While they sing, I periodically glance around the crowd looking for Corey. The place is packed. It’s possible that I can’t see him. Or maybe he’s checked the festival program, and he knows that I sing last.

The first of the three is accompanied by an accordion player; she takes the microphone into her hands but holds it near her waist. Even from my place near the front, I can hardly make out a word of her song. The second of the three, taking note of the first singer’s mistake, shoves the mike right up against her lips. The action makes the amp squeal. It’s painful. I have to cover my ears.

And though the second girl, too, is accompanied by the accordion player, she drifts through six or seven keys in the span of her song. Quite a feat, I think. I search the crowd for Corey, wondering if he’s heard her murder the song.

Finally, the third girl takes her turn on stage. Her voice isn’t quite as weak as the previous two singers and she manages to stay in the same key as the accordion player. I think I’ve almost met my match. But then, just as I am prepared to grant that she will take second place at least, she forgets her words. Several awkward seconds pass during which she fidgets uncomfortably, making gestures for the accordion player to keep going while she tries to get her bearings back. It’s obviously hopeless. The third singer bursts into tears and runs offstage.

A few minutes later, the announcer calls my name.

“Please welcome our fourth and final competitor in the Women’s Vocal Solo Category – Colleen Lutzak.”

Walking onto the stage, I feel sorry for the three girls with their bad skin, their limp hair, their baba slacks – Fortrel, I’m sure – and their spiritless performances. I’m still shaky in the knees, and I feel my palms sweat around the fretboard of my guitar. But I have a chance at the gold. I’m sure of it. As long as I sing well, the gold is mine.

Instead of my stained Podillian costume, I’m wearing Sophie’s Bukovynian costume – a last minute idea of my mother’s, and a brilliant one. It took some pinning to make it fit, but it looks good. I wear my own boots with Sophie’s black wool skirt, and her blouse embroidered elaborately on the sleeves with orange and yellow thread. Sophie’s vest is made from soft sheepskin leather and black sheepskin wool, so I’m hot. So hot that I can feel sweat trickling down my chest and back, and down the backs of my legs. But the heat, the sweat – it will all seem worth it when I hold up my gold medal, Desna’s first. I’ll hold it up for Desna, and I’ll hold it up for Corey. To show him that I’m the best.

On stage, my first move is to dismiss the accordion player; my second is to strap on my guitar and do some last minute tuning. And then, before I start to sing, I introduce my song in Ukrainian, something that sets me apart from my competitors. They didn’t say a word before they began to sing.

“Ya zaspivaiu sohodni odnu pisniu – ‘Tsyhanochka.’”

I say it with energy, with confidence. Is Corey in the crowd, watching me? I can’t find him, but then the audience is enormous. I say my introduction to him, wherever he is. I say it knowing that the rest of the performance is just a formality.

Then I give all my heart and soul to “Tsyhanochka.” I feel my voice filling the stage and the seating area, I feel it soaring over the audience and across the concession stands. People turn from their hot dogs to face the stage. They clap and tap their feet. Old people smile and nod. In the back row, the Desna dancers and parents wave; some run up to the stage to take pictures. Mark Babiuk sticks two fingers into his mouth and whistles before I’ve even finished. At the end of my song, there is applause like I’ve never heard before. Thunderous applause that goes on for several minutes. Strangers in the crowd stand up and applaud, there are calls for an encore. In the front row, the three girls in the Fortrel slacks look glum.

For the awards presentation, all four of us are called onto the stage. It strikes me as particularly cruel. Nobody really wants anything except gold, so two of us are going to be disappointed, and one of us is destined to receive no medal at all.

As the bronze medallist is announced, I applaud with the rest of the audience. It’s Louisa Marianych, the second of my three competitors. She tries hard to smile as she accepts her medal, but the disappointment in her eyes is hard to miss. The first of my three competitors gets the silver medal. Lilliana Marianych. So they’re sisters after all, I think to myself. Lilliana hardly looks at her silver medal; she turns, instead, to the third sister on the stage.

I look, too, at the Marianych sister who is left onstage, the girl who sang third in the competition. She is looking down at her feet and biting her bottom lip as she shifts her weight from leg to leg. I wish that I could console her, tell her that she’s obviously more deserving of a medal than her sisters. She’s a much better singer. I’d like to tell the judges. It’s not her fault that she forgot her words, she was just nervous.

Just before the gold medal winner is awarded, Louisa and Lilliana Marianych move close to their sister, the girl whose name I don’t know; they each grab hold of one of her hands, so that she isn’t alone during the final moment of the adjudication, and they take turns whispering in her ear. To comfort her, I think. All three sisters – their arms linked, like one entity – look directly at me as the gold medallist is announced.

It’s Lesya Marianych.

The third sister is awarded the gold medal.

Not me, her.

As the adjudicator explains that my pronunciation needs work – I sing with a Canadian accent – I stare straight ahead at the audience. They loved me. They loved my song. I didn’t just sing, I entertained them.

The members of Desna boo and stomp their feet, drowning out the voice of the adjudicator, and the rest of the crowd joins in. The Marianych sisters tell me that I deserved to win.

“You’re so good,” they say. “So good.”

As I make my way from the stage, toward the Desna part of the crowd, a lot of people tell me that I’m good. Good, or great, or wonderful.

“You deserved to win,” they say. “It’s politics. These competitions are all political. You have a wonderful voice. Just wonderful! Don’t take it to heart.”

I feel numb.

When I finally reach Desna, the chaperones and the dancers are milling around, angry. Everyone is talking about the judging. The wives of Mr. Demkiw and Mr. Faryna try to lead their husbands away from the adjudicators’ table, but Mr. Demkiw breaks away from Mrs. Demkiw and swears at the judges in Ukrainian.

“I’m sorry,” says Mom, rubbing my back. “We’ll have to talk about this later.”

“Kalyna’s gone missing,” says Wes. “She’s disappeared, and we have to find her.” His eyes are wide, as though an adventure is about to begin.

Mom and Dad aren’t alarmed. None of us is the least bit surprised, really. We’ve come to expect Kalyna’s disappearing act. She’s always wandering off. It doesn’t take much to catch her attention – bright colours, babies, puppies, music. One year during the Klondike Days Parade she followed a bright green 4-h float for two blocks before Uncle Andy caught up with her. Last summer in West Edmonton Mall she got lost for an hour tracking a set of twins being pushed by their mother in a double stroller.

Dad asks Sophie if she’s seen any dogs.

Sophie shakes her head, laughing. “Nope, no dogs. But there’s music playing all over the festival grounds. Kalyna could be anywhere.”

Mom and Dad decide that the best idea is for Mom to look for Kalyna while the rest of us head over to the motorhome. Wes kicks at some gravel on the ground, disappointed that he can’t be part of the search party. But Dad explains that the Greyhound and the Yuzkos will be leaving soon. If we split up to look for Kalyna, the whole group will be delayed.

“She was just with us a minute ago,” says Dad. “She couldn’t have gone far.”

I hope, in fact, that Kalyna has gone very far – as far as the Grandstand at the southernmost boundary of the festival grounds. Then Mom will take ages to find her, and our departure will be delayed after all, by half an hour, or more. I need to see Corey once more, to say goodbye.

I tell Dad that I’ve left my guitar backstage by accident – which is true – and that I’ll catch up to them shortly. Which isn’t true at all. I need time to find Corey.

I run toward the musicians’ tent. I run like crazy, like a mad woman, like I’ve never run before, weaving through the crowd and bumping into people. It’s not easy to run in my boots. They’ve got two-inch heels that dig into the grass, threatening to slow me down. Once my ankle turns under and I nearly fall. My ankle aches, my heart races, I feel my blouse sticking to my back. But I can’t stop. I can almost hear Corey calling out to me with his tsymbaly, his hands making the hammers dance over the strings. “Tsyhanochko moia, morhanochko moia, tsyhanochko morhanochko, chy liubysh ty mene?”

I know what’s happened. It’s all clear to me now. Corey came to watch me sing, just like he promised. He showed up in time to catch the whole competition. He watched from beside the stage, where I couldn’t see him. So he saw it all. He saw me lose, and he left, disappointed in me.

I stop outside Corey’s tent to catch my breath and collect myself. I can hear tsymbaly music playing – Corey playing – and it brings a lump to my throat. Already I miss him. I tilt my head back, to keep the tears from spilling onto my cheeks. It doesn’t work, so I wipe them with the sleeves of my blouse, leaving blue-black streaks of mascara on my cuffs. A woman in her thirties pushing a baby carriage passes by and, with a look of sympathy, she hands me a Kleenex from her pocket. I blow my nose. I take deep breaths. I pace. And just when I think that I can walk into the tent and face my beloved, he starts to play “Tsyhanochka.” Our song. I give up. I’m ready to throw myself sobbing onto the grass.

But Corey isn’t alone in his tent, he’s not alone at his tsymbaly. He has seated someone in my place, behind his tsymbaly; he’s let someone else hold his hammers and he’s wrapped his hands around someone else’s fingers. It’s a girl, smiling and laughing the way I smiled and laughed.

It’s Carla Senko.

Together, she and Corey play “Tsyhanochka,” my song. For all I know, they could have been playing together all afternoon, right through my performance. I stand and I watch. I watch Corey pull her toward him. I watch him brush his lips against hers. My stomach turns and tears wet my cheeks.

Several minutes pass before I notice Kalyna seated on the other side of the tent, the other side of the tsymbaly. I notice her when she starts singing along with the tsymbaly music. Kalyna is wearing a white sundress dotted with big, red poppies; beneath the spaghetti straps of her dress, thick beige bra straps are showing. She’s pinned a pink, plastic corsage over her right breast and tucked her hair under a bright blue golf hat – a ladies’ golf hat, with a thin brim and a white pompom on the top. The pompom jiggles while Kalyna’s head bobs up and down, side to side.

I decide to leave the tent. I’ll find Mom and tell her that Kalyna is in the musicians’ tent. I don’t want Corey and Carla to see me like this, mascara running down my face. I don’t want them to see me with Kalyna, either. I don’t want them to see that I know her. I don’t want them to see me at all. I just want to disappear, forget that I ever met Corey.

But then, as I am about to walk out of the tent, the tsymbaly music abruptly stops. Corey and Carla exchange looks. He raises his eyebrows, grinning, and she covers her mouth to stifle a giggle. They are laughing at Kalyna – who keeps singing, loud and clear, carefully enunciating the Ukrainian words.

Kalyna sings a complete verse before she realizes that her tsymbaly accompaniment has ended. For a moment, she looks puzzled. Then a serious expression washes over her face and she raises her hands like a conductor, signaling for Corey to continue playing. Carla laughs out loud. Corey looks away. He’s laughing too but I can see that he’s embarrassed, the way most people are embarrassed around Kalyna. Kalyna doesn’t understand. She tries again to get Corey to play, raising her hands to deliver the cue.

I can’t let her go on like this. I feel my face flush deep red as I brush past Corey and Carla, but I have to help Kalyna. I put my arm gently around her shoulder, leading her out of the tent.

“Who are you?” says Kalyna.

“I’m your cousin. I’m Colleen.”

“Me too.” She squeezes my hand and laughs. “Me too!”

•••

On our way home from Dauphin, between the Manitoba border and North Battleford, Saskatchewan, it rains non-stop. Everyone is quiet. Mom sleeps. Sometimes the Yuzko girls ride in our motorhome, sometimes Sophie rides in theirs. For a while, they stay in their own motorhomes and talk to each other like truckers on the cb radio until Dad tells them to stop.

Mostly I sit by our motorhome kitchen table, playing the odd game of crazy eights with Kalyna and Wes. Kalyna doesn’t always remember the rules, so it isn’t easy. And sometimes she makes up her own rules, and gets angry at Wes and me when we don’t follow them. Eventually, Wes stops playing with us altogether. He plops himself down on the floor and sets out all of his G.I. Joe figures around him. After a while, Kalyna joins him on the floor. Wes is a good sport about it. He lets her borrow three or four of his army men. As he makes the sounds of grenades exploding, airplanes crashing – the sounds of automatic rifle fire and soldiers dying in agony – Kalyna plays house. She makes one soldier the mother, one the father, one the child. I sit beside her on the floor, listening to her make the sound of a baby crying, the soothing sound of a mother’s voice.

Then, out of the blue, she gets confused. She can’t remember where she is or who I am, so I have to explain things to her.

“I’m your cousin Colleen. Remember? We’re going home.”