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Date Posted: 19:06:27 08/03/12 Fri
Author: Carla
Subject: Chapter 87 – Bread and Salt


Jamie and company continue to make their way across Russia, travelling at night, using his instincts and knowledge of the stars to navigate. A near-miss with a troop of soldiers, being trailed by a pack of wolves and their general exhausation and hunger has them all on the edge of despair. Thoughts of those who sacrificed their lives – Gregor, Andrei -- so they might escape also weigh heavily.

A fall down an embankment leads to a welcome find: an abandonded railroad that will take them near to the border, at least they hope it will as the country is criss-crossed with such rail lines which ultimately go nowhere. Trusting to fate they follow the tracks north east. They find an abandoned rail car, which provides them with a warm, comfortable and safe place to spend the night. Jamie takes first watch and in his tiredness he allows his mind to wander – he skirts thoughts of Violet, still too raw, but thinks of home and those he left behind. He takes a quick look in the clouded mirror hanging on the wall and recoils in shock, shaken by the image of a man who "might have just crawled from the cave, wild and stinking and without a trace of civilization upon him." He is completely undone and brought to tears by the sight of the traditional Russian welcome to strangers long dried and ruined on the table they found in the car, a sign of humanity and hospitality in the middle of nowhere in a country where people were forced into suspicion and hostility towards strangers by a senseless government.

Q1. Was Jamie truly in love with Violet? Would he have loved her had they met in the "real world" and she had not given him a child he could claim as his own?

Chapter 88 – Away Homeward with One Star Awake


Awakening to a snow storm, and to find the rail car circled by the paw prints of wolves, they decide to hole up until the weather settles. Three days later, the adults are all ready to kill each other. To add to the atmosphere, Kolya has been fussy and inconsolable all afternoon. Again Jamie takes the first watch, hoping to plan for the next day, but he is unable to settle his thoughts, He believes they are near the border, but can’t help but worry that they are hopelessly lost in the vast wastes of Russia.

Jamie crawls into bed beside Kolya, reflecting on how the child shows signs of both his parents. Tonight he finds he cannot compartmentalize his thoughts and feelings as he has for so many years. Unable to steer clear of the "shoals and razor sharp reefs of emotion" Violet is on his mind. Jamie misses her presence beside him and what he had felt with her, the sense that they two had become one.

Jamie wakes in the early dawn to the howling of wolves outside the train car. He opens the door to find the lead wolf staring at the box car as if curious. The two are transfixed by each other. Too late, Jamie senses another wolf attacking from behind. In the moments he believes remain to him, he feels sure they are close to the border and that Vanya and Shura will make sure Kolya gets out of Russia safely. The wolf drops in mid-leap, killed by an arrow from a group of tribesmen hidden in the snow and shadow. The men approach, clearly arguing over what to do with Jamie. One of them removes his hat, gesturing to his hair. At which another shrugs and hits him sharply over the head.

Q1. Is it good for Jamie to be unable to control his thoughts? To experience the emotions – good and bad – he has become used to burying?
Q2. Wolves seem to be a theme for Jamie in real life as in the story of Ragged Jack. Was the story a premonition? Or are wolves simply a standard meme for evil in traditional stories?

Chapter Eight-nine The Mother


Jamie wakes in a tent to see a woman preparing a bath for him; using sign language and a few basic words of Yakut, Jamie ascertains that Kolya, Vanya and Shura are safe and well-cared for. Reassured, Jamie bathes and the young woman returns with clothes and the message that he is to meet somebody important in the village. He is taken to meet an elderly woman, one he assumes to be a shaman and therefore holding a position of great power and respect in the tribe. She eventually speaks to him in flawless Russian and then offers him a drink which he knows he must consume despite his misgivings. She says it is so they can communicate directly. Jamie has an mystical, out-of-body experience thanks to the drug he has drunk, during which he is reassured that when one thread breaks, another is there to begin the spinning again. He finds himself covered in butterflies and begins to laugh.

When he wakes in the pre-dawn, to find the young woman who had tended him the night before naked in the skins with him. He resisted having sex with her at first, but his body took over in the end. He falls back to sleep, and wakes later to a familiar smell – Yevgena. He again trembles on the edge of emotion, Yevgena hugging and soothing him. He must eat so they can leave, she says, there is transportation waiting. The young woman returns, and Jamie learns that she lost her husband last year and that the night was a comfort to both of them. He then introduces Kolya to Yevgena as his son.

Q1. Why did the shamaness give Jamie the hallucenogenic drink? What was the message for him during his journey?
Q2. In the morning, Jamie reflects that his night with the young woman has "removed some of the thorns from his own soul." What thorns do you think have been removed? Why would sex with a stranger help him to heal? Is it simply the human connection or is there more to it?
Q3. Why does he make the decision to present Kolya as his son, rather than telling Yevgena the truth?

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