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Sweet Darusya
control over the people.
And since the past autumn,
from the time the Poles,
beaten by the Germans,
withdrew from that land,
more
precisely,
from
September 17 in 1939, in the
Cheremoshne reflected as in
a mirror across the river, the
Soviets maintained control.
They, to Mykhailo’s surprise,
in that year celebrated
Christmas and Easter on the
same day as on this side of
the river.
…Mykhailo sits on the dam
and, if not for the first time,
looks with mute hostility,
and, perhaps even with
wrath to the other side of
the water, where everything
can be seen as though it was
in the palm of his hand, and
without binoculars. How
much is there of that river?
A frog can jump across from
this side, especially when the
river grows shallow, and the
frog wants to scratch himself
on a stone on the other side.
In two particularly shallow
places, there, where the
stone is visible above the
long-maned wave, striped
border poles guard over the
river, one of which the Soviets
recently changed, but it was
almost the same as during
Polish rule, just more rickety,
because it wasn’t very well
fastened. From time to time
on both sides of the shores in
unhurried steps the border
guards with carbinesmeasure
the gravelly sand, silently
glancing at one another
across the water as they pass
each other on duty.
Although, if you want to be
totally and entirely exact,
then on this Romanian, side,
it’s not so simple for those
who want to reach the river at
this spot fromwhichMykhailo