Sydney via Siberia

By Inara Strungs

On a midsummer’s night in 1941, a family is illegally arrested, by order of Stalin, in cosmopolitan Rīga, Latvia, and deported in cattle wagons to the frozen wilderness of Siberia.

Sixty years later, the son, Laimonis aka Lucky, now an actor, visits Sydney and recounts the events to his long-lost sister, Māra, and her household. Māra, an architect, missed out on arrest and suffers survivor guilt. Her son, Andy, is a depressive musician and her daughter, Zinta, a wayward activist, their problems probably effects of the initial trauma. There are many family secrets, and a mysterious old man who spooks Lucky in the supermarket. Lucky’s tale helps each family member reach some stability.

This is a fast-paced and informative novel about survival, resilience, family and love, appealing to anyone interested in how history shapes us, or in their Latvian heritage.

‘I loved your book so much, maybe because of my parents’ similar experiences.’ Laura Morwood

‘A good mix of the Siberian horror and other, current themes. The characters are believable, although a little eccentric, which makes them interesting and typically Latvian.’ Silvia Šarac

‘Engaging and interesting and a good read despite the difficult subject.’ Linda McInally

‘A captivating story relevant to many contemporary Australians.’ Linda Hopkins

‘A complex, four-part focus and stories that sprawl across more than half a century and much of the planet are all handled very engagingly. A lot of issues are covered with a light but deft touch while still fashioning an enjoyable read.’ Tom Flood

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: May 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922628077

Inara Strungs

Ināra Strungs is an Australian Latvian living in Brisbane. She has qualifications in Arts and medicine (histopathology). Her previously published books are a novel, 'Sunstone', and a work of nonfiction about her parents’ traditional Baltic bakery in Sydney, 'Secrets of a Waterloo Baker'.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Their eyes met over the freezer in the meat section of Woolworth’s supermarket. Lucky blinked and looked down at the frozen chicken, stuck hard to its fellows. He broke it free and then looked up again. The man, roughly his own age, was staring back at him. Those eyes: he’d never forgotten them, one brown, the other blue. Old age had not changed them.

Lucky shivered, his fingers numb as he clutched the frozen chicken tightly and thought of snow. He felt enormously hungry, grabbed a bread roll from a plastic bag in his trolley and started to eat it before he knew what he was doing. How did I bear it, he asked himself. His heart raced and he was sweating. The other man had averted his eyes and was shuffling up the aisle with a walking stick in one hand and a chicken in the other.

Lucky held onto the shopping trolley to steady himself and went straight to the checkout, hoping the man wouldn’t be there. He’d wandered off somewhere, and Lucky didn’t want to see him again. He was sure it was him.

1

Māra

Early 2000s

Māra almost fell through the front door, her arms full of groceries and large folios containing plans. She stopped, took a few breaths and then climbed the timber stairs to the upper level of the house, dropping her things on the kitchen bench. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the wall. She looked elegant in her dark blue suit and linen blouse, but her hair needed a cut as her bob was becoming straggly. I never have time, she thought, brushing strands of fringe out of her eyes. A multitude of other thoughts raced through her head.

Her son, Andris, known to everyone as Andy, and daughter, Zinta, were relaxing on the sofa, watching the television news. Zinta was stroking Tabasco, the greyhound, who lounged in front of them, her eyes also glued to the screen. Māra noted the signs of inactivity in the kitchen.

‘Hullo. What’s for dinner?’ she asked brightly.

‘Oh, you’re home already, Mum! We were just about to start dinner,’ said a surprised Zinta, tearing her eyes away from a car crash on the motorway.

Māra rolled her eyes at her children and thought, as she often did, that she had not relied on her mother for meals when she was in her thirties and forties. It was even ridiculous to refer to them as ‘children’. They were adults still occupying the parental home as many did these days. She smiled warmly. It was good to have their company; it would be lonely to walk into an empty house.

She opened the curtains, provoking a ‘Mu-um’ from Zinta as the light fell on the television screen. She looked out at Botany Bay, which always reminded her of a large, round womb. The lights had come on at the airport, and there were a few small boats on the bay. Sometimes she imagined she saw a giant, old sailing ship, but not today.

Māra’s gaze rested on the armchair partly hidden by the sofas. Her brother, Lucky, sat there dead still, not moving a muscle. Māra went up and greeted him. He did not respond. She shook him gently by the shoulder.

‘Oh, hullo, Māra.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, yes, just thinking. Thinking about the past.’

‘And you feel well?’

‘No problem, no problem.’ He laughed his loud, deep laugh.

‘Good. Zinta, can you come and help me get dinner, please?’

When they were in the kitchen, Māra asked, ‘Has Laimonis been like that all day?’ Māra couldn’t bring herself to call him Lucky though the others did. He said he liked the Anglicised version of his name, which one of the children had suggested. Lucky in name, lucky in life, he’d say in his thick accent.

‘No,’ replied Zinta. ‘He was OK before he went out to buy a few things at the supermarket this morning. He came back quite agitated. I thought he must’ve had another disagreement about the bill. His English is pretty bad, and he doesn’t understand what they say to him. He started talking about someone he met near the frozen chickens.’

‘That sounds strange.’ Māra rummaged through the freezer, finding the stew she’d made on the weekend. She put it in the microwave to defrost. ‘Did he have an altercation with this person over a chicken or what?’

‘No, it sounded as if he recognised someone from long ago. I’m not sure. He started talking really fast as they do in Latvia, and I couldn’t understand him.’

‘We’ll ask him about it at dinner,’ said Māra. ‘Where’s Delmar? Shouldn’t he be up?’

‘He was very tired after school and fell asleep. He loves school so much and never stops, the teacher told me. And they had sport today,’ Zinta explained as she saw her mother’s disapproving look. There had been too many nights when Delmar had a nap and then refused to go to bed until late. Zinta left the kitchen and went downstairs to her living quarters. She returned a few minutes later with a smiling, dark-haired boy.

‘He was sitting in bed, writing in the notebook he got at Christmas,’ said Zinta.

‘I wrote down everything I did at school today. Do you want to see?’ he asked Māra.

Māra looked at the neat writing. ‘That’s excellent. I’m sure I couldn’t write as well in Year 1.’

‘What’s that song you were humming while you were writing?’ asked Zinta, remembering his loud humming. ‘Was it something you learned at school?’

‘No, it was one of Uncle Andy’s pieces.’ He started to sing some Mozart he’d heard Andy play the previous night.

‘I only played that once. You’re very good to pick it up. We’ll have to start those piano lessons very soon,’ said Andy in a quiet, slow voice, surprising everyone. He’d seemed to be napping.

‘I think I can already do that on the piano.’ Delmar ran up to the baby grand, opened the lid and picked out the first few notes of the tune without much difficulty.

Māra watched in awe and admired the beauty of his shining eyes fringed by dark eyelashes matching his unruly black curls.

‘I want Uncle Andy to teach me the clarinet too,’ he said emphatically.

‘All in good time,’ replied Māra. ‘Time for dinner now.’

They had a wine and sat down to dinner, piling stew on their plates and tucking in as if they hadn’t eaten all day. Māra thought they’d probably only snacked on junk food. Delmar was eating with gusto. His appetite was as good as the rest of the family’s. Māra remembered how he’d been reluctant to try new foods when he first arrived over a year ago. God knows what Zinta fed him. Probably something vegetarian. But the family’s love of food had rubbed off on Delmar, and he’d picked up a taste for a wide variety of foods from European to Asian. For that matter, he picked up everything quickly, including the Latvian language the family interspersed with much English when they couldn’t think of the Latvian words. Latglish, they jokingly called it.

Lucky sat in his chair, looking at his plate. He’d put the food on his plate but seemed to have forgotten he had to eat it.

What’s wrong with him, wondered Māra. Surely he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s? He’s been totally lucid up till now, but we’re both getting into our seventies. By rights, I should get it before him, seeing I’m older, but I’m perfectly fine. ‘So why aren’t you eating, Laimon?’

He considered the food and said, ‘Yes, I’ll eat this beautiful food you’ve prepared. I was just thinking.’

‘I heard something happened at the supermarket,’ said Māra.

‘Yes, a most remarkable thing. I saw this man I thought I knew. A very long time ago. We were both looking at the frozen chickens at Woolworths. I got a very good one by the way, very plump.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I looked up and saw his eyes and knew it was him. And then nothing. We didn’t talk.

‘Who was he?’

‘Just someone from the camp. Now I’m starting to doubt it. It can’t be.’

‘Was it a friend, a Latvian?’

‘No. I think we should eat now,’ said Lucky, and he picked up his knife and fork. The others continued their meal, glancing at each other. After a few mouthfuls, Lucky said, ‘I’ll finish this later. I’ll put it in the fridge. It’s so tasty, but my stomach can’t take it at the moment.’

When he’d left, Māra said, ‘Maybe it’s that life story he’s writing. I wonder if that’s upsetting him. He said all his friends are writing them, the ones who’ve survived. Maybe he’s having flashbacks? We’ll have to keep an eye on him. His name may be Lucky, but Lady Luck hasn’t always smiled on him.’

‘But he’s always so happy,’ said Andy.

‘That’s just his nature,’ said Māra. ‘Or maybe a front,’ she added. ‘It would be good for all of you to know more of our family history. He’s an actor. He’d probably enjoy telling us. We’ll ask him.’ Immediately Māra regretted saying this and felt sick. Why revisit all of that in front of others?

After dinner, Andy and Zinta put on an old movie they thought Lucky would like and lured him out of his room. Andy went downstairs to his room and could not resist pulling out his clarinet. He played some of the Mozart Delmar had been humming but then stopped mid-phrase and got out his copy of The Quartet for the End of Time. Messiaen had written a fantastic and emotional part for the clarinet. Andy felt like playing the movement called ‘Abyss of the Birds’.

He dimmed the main lights, turned on the light of the music stand and stood facing the large window in his living area as he played. A few boat lights glimmered on the water, and planes flew into Sydney Airport until curfew at 11pm.

Māra was just getting her second wind, spreading plans over the desk and drawing table in her large bedroom-cum-studio. She rarely slept more than four or five hours, which greatly benefitted her career. She was worried about her brother and children. Why couldn’t her children settle into work they loved like she had? All they could do was say she was working too hard ‘for someone her age’. She’d worked hard all her life and wasn’t going to stop now.

Māra looked at the plans she was working on tonight. She preferred to do it the ‘old-fashioned’ way. She’d learned to draw plans on computer but found it was not the same as pencil or ink on paper. She felt inhibited and less creative doing it on a screen. It was probably just habit, but she loved the large, white expanse of paper in front of her that she could fill up with her creations.

Māra perched on her stool and hunched over the drawing table, a tall lamp casting its bright aura over her. She considered the plans and made various changes as she half-listened to Andy playing. She’d tried to make the house as noise-proof as possible, but this was hard in an open-plan, modernist structure with large windows on both levels. She usually enjoyed the music and thought there was much in common between the structure of classical music and architecture. Though tonight’s piece was intense and disturbing. She wasn’t disappointed when, at midnight, Zinta banged on the wall, and Andy stopped playing.

Māra closed her eyes and imagined how the changes in her design would look. After a while she said, ‘Enough of this.’ These were just the small projects she’d allocated herself—in towns like Ballarat, Coolangatta, Wangaratta and other places with distinctly Australian names she liked to repeat to herself. So different to Latvian, her mother tongue.

Māra allowed herself the pleasure of sitting at her desk, turning on the computer and getting engrossed in what was consuming her at the moment. This was her tour de force—a distillation of her life’s work, a summation of it all. It wouldn’t be just text but a tasteful combination of photographs and words showing what she had achieved. She worked on it for an hour, first reviewing last night’s work. She added several more paragraphs, painstakingly altering them until they expressed her thoughts and flowed. She was more of a visual person, words not coming as easily as pictures, but she was a perfectionist and persisted.

Every now and again, her mind drifted to the look on Lucky’s face and how quiet Andy had become. It was a strange business with Lucky and his sudden appearance, and it sent waves of anxiety through her. She preferred to be in control and forced herself to concentrate.

Finally, when Māra found she was having trouble keeping her eyes open, she got up, opened the window and breathed in the darkness and salt air. She loved the deep quiet of the middle of the night before the gentle roar of traffic started up again on the nearby main road. Before drifting off to sleep, she thought of the long trip she’d soon be making.

2

Zinta

After dinner, Zinta had taken Delmar to the self-contained living quarters Māra had devised for each of her children downstairs. She read Delmar a story from his new book, a present from Lucky. Delmar only asked for the odd word to be translated from Latvian.

The book was full of stories about devils, witches, magic tables, magic rings and other assorted magic things. He liked the story ‘Go there, don’t know where, get me that, don’t know what’, but his favourites were the ones about a huge man with the ears of a bear, called Bearslayer in some stories and Bear Ears in others. Lucky had told the boy he was like a Latvian Superman or Batman and had superhuman strength and killed demons. Zinta thought Delmar risked nightmares if he read these stories before going to bed, but he wouldn’t relinquish the book, and she gave up.

When Delmar could no longer hold his eyes open, Zinta sang the lullaby ‘Aijā, žūžū, lāču bērni’ that he’d heard every night of his life—and which her parents and their parents had sung:

Hush-a-bye baby bear,

With your little furry feet.

Daddy’s gone to collect some honey,

Mummy’s busy picking berries.

Daddy brings a honeypot,

Mummy’s basket’s full of berries.

These are for the little baby,

Who is sleeping peacefully.

Zinta got out her laptop computer and surfed for a while, writing down a few notes on a small piece of paper. With a yawn, she said, ‘It’s all too hard. I’ll sort it out tomorrow,’ and went to bed, falling asleep as quickly as her son.

The next day, Zinta was woken by her alarm earlier than she was accustomed and lay in bed, trying to wake up. She had an appointment at ten o’clock at the university. She found Delmar playing with his toys, got him dressed and took him to Andy’s room.

‘I won’t be long. You can play some more music with him.’

‘I’ve got to go to work,’ said Andy sleepily.

‘No, you don’t. You said you’ve only got a concert tomorrow.’

‘Oh, yeah. But I might want to go out.’

‘You haven’t been anywhere for ages.’

Zinta got on the motorway and made her way north to the university. It wasn’t far, but Sydney traffic, especially around the airport, made it a slow trip. At the university, she had a feeling of déjà vu as she walked along the corridors of the psychology department. There was that same smell of floor polish and formalin, and that feeling of dread about exams.

She found the professor’s office and knocked, not looking forward to the encounter.

‘Come in, come in,’ said the jolly man who looked like a leprechaun. He hadn’t changed much, only acquiring a touch of grey in his hair since she’d last seen him. ‘How long has it been?’ He glanced down at some papers. ‘Twenty years, I see. And you haven’t changed at all.’

Zinta wondered wryly if he remembered the hundreds of students he taught twenty years ago. Oh well, she knew he’d always liked her, but her long hair, emblazoned t-shirts and jeans were gone, replaced by a stylish short haircut and dress.

‘Did you get that letter I wrote you when you left university?’

He’s too polite to say dropped out, thought Zinta. ‘Yes, I did. Sorry I didn’t reply.’ She blushed, remembering the praise he’d piled on her work and how he’d entreated her to finish her honours year. She’d always got top marks in all her psychology subjects, but she’d only done a few weeks of her honours degree.

‘All water under the bridge. You want to do honours now?’

‘Yes, if possible. I’m older and wiser and might finish it.’

‘Well, a lot of time has elapsed, and ordinarily we might not allow it, but I know how well you passed the exams. Brilliantly, in fact. If you repeat some subjects, I’ll permit it.’

‘I’ve got quite a good memory and can remember some of it. But I need to revise it, especially since things have changed in the meantime.’ This was what Jack had told her to say.

‘Of course. And you’ll have to do the research subject. Got any special interests?’

‘Not really.’

‘What about our projects on resilience? Sounds just up your alley.’

Zinta looked at him but didn’t detect any sarcasm.

‘Hot topic at the moment, and marketable. We’re selling some of our programs to schools.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard it mentioned,’ said Zinta.

‘Of course, it’s been around for a while. We’re starting to pursue studies on the science of it, the so-called fourth wave of resilience studies, the brain changes underlying it all. We’ve got a very clever researcher, Jack Miller, doing fine work in the field.’

‘Jack?’ Zinta couldn’t help exclaiming.

‘You know Jack?’

‘We went to the same school—and we’re, well, dating at the moment. He encouraged me to come back to university.’

‘And you weren’t aware of what he’s working on?’

‘Well,’ said Zinta, feeling foolish, ‘I know it’s something very laboratory-oriented, involving neurophysiology. I sort of switched off when he was explaining it because I didn’t understand it.’ More like we both wanted to jump into bed and couldn’t be bothered spending too much time discussing his work, she thought. They’d only been seeing each other for about two months, and bodies were more on the agenda than brains.

‘He’s doing very important work. At your stage, you’d be doing something more clinically oriented, like resilience scales. I think Robyn Pierce has got a project planned to test resilience in paramedic trainees. The ambulance service wants to incorporate some resilience testing in their selection criteria. It would help with retention of staff, you know.’

Zinta thought how quickly it was all going. She’d envisaged the professor resenting her dropping out, but he was most forthcoming. She would’ve accepted his refusal. All water off a duck’s back; that’s how she was. She really had to get more committed, now she was getting older.

‘May I ask what you’ve been doing in the interim?’ the professor asked politely. He could hardly suppress the curiosity that had obviously served him well in his scientific career.

‘I’ve done everything under the sun. I left uni to become an activist. I couldn’t sit there studying while there was important work to be done. I helped stop the Franklin Dam. I couldn’t believe the fantastic wilderness we have in Tasmania. Then I kind of got sick of the cold and went into the desert to help with the Fred Hollows eye programs for the Aborigines, and then overseas backpacking, that sort of thing.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Asia for a short while, but mainly Europe. It was an exciting time to go—I saw the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and joined the Greens—and then I travelled and worked around Australia.’

‘You’ve seen and done a lot. What brought you back to Sydney?’

‘I’ve got a six-year-old son, Delmar. I’ve been moving around a bit, a lot actually. Now he has to go to school, I thought I better settle in one place. Since I didn’t have a place, Mum took me in about a year ago.’

‘Thank God for Mums.’

‘Yes, and I’ve got a job. Well, a kind of job.’ She found she was saying ‘kind of’ a lot these days. Did she like something: ‘yes, kind of’. Was she happy: ‘yes, kind of’. Was she becoming indecisive, less set in her views? Maybe that was a good thing if she was entering academia. She had been quite dogmatic when she was protesting. She knew what was right and wrong, but now things were becoming more fluid. Was it age?

The professor observed Zinta as she paused. ‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘It’s nothing special, just a job in a fish and chip shop. But it gives me spending money, and the shifts are flexible … and my family thinks it’s an appropriate job because my father’s name in Latvian means herring,’ she couldn’t resist adding.

‘Interesting,’ said the professor. ‘Judging from what you’ve done in your life, you’d know a little about resilience,’ said the professor.

‘I suppose so. But I think my family knows more. They’re refugees.’

‘Of course. Now getting back to you. You seem to have settled down now, so I think you could succeed in the course.’

‘Thank you,’ said Zinta. Little does he know how restless I am, she thought. I really hope I can stay here and finish honours. Nothing holds my interest for long. It’s as if I fall in love with things and places, but then it wears off and I move on. It annoys the hell out of Mum. She thinks I should stick to one thing.

The professor riffled through towering piles of papers placed strategically on the floor around his desk and found some articles. ‘Here, read these. They’ll give you an idea of the topic. I’m still in the last century and haven’t ended my love affair with the photocopier. You can go on the databases and find more articles online.’

Zinta stepped into the shoddy corridor with an armful of papers, thankful the interview had gone so well. She was pleasantly surprised the professor remembered her, going home to Delmar elated. He was reading the last page of a book to Andy, who looked harassed, gladly relinquishing him. There was a pile of books next to them, whether already read or about to be read, she wasn’t sure. Andy knocked it over as he got up to get away before Delmar could start another book.

‘I’ve had a good interview with one of my old professors,’ Zinta told Andy.

‘That’s good,’ he said in a monotone.

Zinta looked at him. Her brother had really changed. Gone were the days when they joked around together, or even fought. She remembered how, especially on meeting, they used to sing or call out raucously ‘Aijā, žūžū, lāču bērni’, words of the baby bear lullaby. They enjoyed making fun of their family name before reverting to English if their mother wasn’t there.

‘I might finish the degree this time,’ said Zinta.

‘That’ll be a change,’ said Andy, and then when he saw Zinta frown, he added. ‘I mean that’s really good. You’re smart but you’ve never used it. Sorry.’ He’d never been good at being diplomatic.

So that’s what my brother thinks of me, thought Zinta. They all think I’m a loser. I’ll show them. I’m not working in that fish and chip shop all my life.

3

Lucky

1941

After dinner, the whole family gathered in the lounge room. Lucky had recovered his composure, chatting, and laughing his resonant laugh. Māra felt less at ease and couldn’t believe she’d suggested this. There were things that should be revealed and others that shouldn’t. Why did he have to come here to write his life story?

Lucky was eager to perform. ‘Why Am I Still Alive? I’ve called it.’ He sat in his favourite armchair with a large notebook on his lap and read from the neatly handwritten page. Māra, Zinta, Andy and Andy’s best mate, Delmar, were lined up on the couch with their coffee, tea and juice.

‘Before I start, I’ll tell you I regard what I’m about to say as testimony against those that occupied our land. Therefore I won’t embellish the facts but record them accurately so this can go into an archive or museum for future generations. It is my life story, or as we say in Latvian, likteņstāsts or tale of destiny.’

Māra had to admit she liked hearing the inflections of her native language spoken clearly by her brother. Zinta and Andy understood most of it, Latvian having been their first language as children. They’d known almost no English when they started school. Delmar listened intently and got more than just the gist of the story. Māra quietly translated an occasional difficult word into English.

Lucky continued, ‘I wanted to be an actor ever since I was a young boy, loving to perform in front of others. I had my sights