CHAPTER ONE THE LEAD CYLINDER The plane lay down on its wing and went down. The clouds parted, and the island became visible - a huge motley rusty-gray spot on the blue surface of the ocean, bordered by a white lace of surf. “It seems that we have arrived at last,” the major said with relief.

Locusts, Fire, and Lead 1 This is what the Lord Eternal showed me: He prepared swarms of locusts when the king's share was reaped, and the late grass began to rise. a 2 When they thoroughly ate the earth, I cried out: - Eternal Lord, I beg you, forgive me! How to survive the descendants of Yakub?

Locusts, fire and lead plumb

Locusts, fire and plumb line 1 This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts when the king's share was reaped and the late grass began to rise a. 2 When they thoroughly ate the earth, I cried out: - Lord, Lord, I beg you, forgive me! How can Jacob survive? He's so

Early in the morning over the city of St. John's, as a memory of the bursting downpour, a transparent muslin of fog hung, slowly melting under the dim rays rising sun. From the height of the ninth floor, a magnificent harbor is clearly visible. Houses of various sizes with intricately painted walls and roofs ran down steep slopes towards it. The wide central street of Water Street was filled with cars moving in one direction - towards the port. Most of the one hundred thousand residents of St. John's, the capital of the Canadian province of Newfoundland, are employed in the port, one way or another come into contact with the sea and ships.

The inhabitants of the island of Newfoundland, its cities, villages, fishing villages are closely connected with the Atlantic. “Flesh from the flesh of the sea, an island hanging like a giant granite plug over the neck of the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,” wrote the famous Canadian writer Farley Mowat in his book “The Rock in the Middle of the Sea,” he turned his back to the mainland, fencing himself off from it like a rampart , a three-hundred-mile mountain range, which, approaching the sea, forms the inhospitable western coast of the island. All its rest of the coast is turned to the side high seas and is so indented by bays, bays, gorges and fiords that total length The coastline of the island is more than five thousand miles ... "

Their dislike has long historical roots. From generation to generation, for a century, the merchants who settled in St. John's deceived and robbed the inhabitants of the coastal fishing villages. The fantastic fortunes of the "Water Street Pirates" - as they were dubbed by the fishermen of Newfoundland - were knocked together with the help of the cruelest exploitation of ordinary sea workers. The smell of land piracy still hovers over the vast warehouses and solid offices built from unhewn granite blocks. Many of them bear the signs of "McDo" Ald Phishing Company or "O" Rourke Fish and Shipping Story. The outright robbery has since, however, been replaced by sophisticated. high point Johns, Cabot Tower, built in honor of the navigator John Cabot, I watched the dizzying flight of seagulls hovering over granite piers.

Candy-striped cones of lighthouses rise at their ends, shining day and night to ships, hydroplanes and other floating and flying equipment,

In the port, far from modern piers, where cranes were bending metal necks, picking bundles of bales, boxes, bags from the depths of steamship holds, fishing boats crowded by wooden piers. Shining with fresh paint, durable boots seem to boast of the prosperity of their owners. And side by side with them - modest shells, completely devoid of external gloss.

cod daily

Turning off the silver-gray asphalt highway, we shook along a country road that ran along the coast. Fog was settling on the panes as pinpoint droplets of moisture: originating on the Big Bank, it constantly swirls here, creeping along the rocky shores to the plateau where the road winds. From fresh dumps of earth, blocks of stone and uprooted stumps, looking like long bizarre rhizomes like monstrous octopuses, it was clear that road builders were expanding the section of the road here. About two miles later we stopped near a triangular sign: “Caution! Road work is underway." A huge man was busy with his back to us near the scraper, which was standing on the side of the road. Here we decided to find out the easiest way to get to the village of Topsail.

Hearing the slamming of doors and our voices, the road builder turned around. Big blue eyes glowed in a square face, skin hardened by salt spray and sea sun. He looked like a real Newfoundland fisherman. But instead of a coarse-wool sweater, black twill trousers, heavy rubber boots, a raincoat and a southwest coat, he was dressed in oiled overalls and rough boots. The head was covered with a cap with a long peak, such as golfers wear. As it turned out, Jeremy O'Shea is indeed a hereditary fisherman.

“That’s how it is, but I had to forget about cod nets and get hired as a builder. Work though temporary, but monetary. Perhaps, when this line joins Trans-Canada, it will give us income from trucks and tourists. May be...

This "maybe" sounded a note of great doubt. I had heard talk of the future prosperity that Trans-Canada would bring, and the development of modern industrial plants, the copper mines at Weilsbeck, and the construction of a chain of tourist motels, and the replacement of fishing scows with state-of-the-art trawlers. I have already met people in Newfoundland with a dream of a happy future to come, diluted with a fair amount of doubt. "Who knows?" A consolation is a character trait common to almost all Newfoundlanders without exception - amazing optimism. Without it, they would long ago have had to give up their hard-earned land to seagulls and seals. In no part of Canada have I met such dexterous, enduring and cheerful people.

The vast majority of Pomors are descendants of immigrants from France, the western regions of England, Ireland and the island of Jersey. Resistant to the hardships of life, stubborn, unusually courageous, they withstood the onslaught of harsh nature and the British authorities, who ruled the island until 1949. The referendum, held at the insistence of the population, decided that Newfoundland was included in Canada.

Having received precise instructions from a former fisherman, we moved to Topsail. Narrow country roads that flowed down to the sea were marked with signs with the names of the villages: "Black Goose Cave", "Bard's Port" or "Square where the Vikings sang." Here is the turn to the Top-sail - "Upper Sail".

Clods of wet earth pounded against the bottom of the car. Before my eyes opened a small harbor - a narrow strip of water between the crooked coastal cliffs. Like flocks of sleeping ducks, dozing at anchor from a dozen boats. Fifty brightly painted square houses with flat roofs climbed up the slope from the edge of the shore. Almost at the water's edge, next to fragile moorings, there were drying sheds for fish, sheds for storing catch. Topsail was no different from one and a half thousand of the same fishing villages and villages scattered around east coast Newfoundland.

There was no hotel in the village. But we were told that Jules Gornier, an old man of small families, sometimes rents out a room to visiting fishing enthusiasts. His cabin was perched on the edge of a wave-eaten granite cliff half a mile from the two black barracks of the fish factory. The shift had just ended there, and dozens of women and girls in canvas aprons and men in overalls and rubber boots poured onto the road.

A small, frail woman with her arms drooping wearily, wearing a heavy apron soaked in fish slime and covered with scales that beat like a bell on her knees, walked up to the porch and pulled the key from under the doormat.

This is how we met Marie Gornier, the mistress of this house, the mother of four sons, of whom only one survived. Three were taken by the Atlantic - the eternal tomb of those who associated themselves with water element. Not even the mother's graves remained ...

Late in the evening Jules Gornier himself came, a thick-set, strongly built man. From his entire appearance, from his red beard that framed his narrow face, from his light blue eyes, thin lips, impressive cartilaginous nose, from his entire statuesque figure, it was impossible to call him an old man, although he was in his seventies. Jules was in charge of a fishing boat with a crew of four.

Gornier introduced me to the life of a fisherman for several days. He took it with him on a boat, and then - when an attack of rheumatism broke his joints - he simply sent him to the sea with fellow fishermen.

The life of cod fishermen is monotonous. Every morning a fishing boat, a small, wide boat propelled by a five-horsepower motor, left Topsail harbor. A mile and a half away, the fishermen were checking the cod traps set in the evening, huge boxes of nets. Each sidewall of such a box is fifteen meters long. The top of the trap is missing. A long, vertically suspended net extends from an opening in one of the sides. They call her the leader. It is she who directs the school of cod into the trap. In order to check if there is a fish in the net, fishermen use bait - a lead fish the size of two palms. Two or three large hooks are soldered to the fish. The bait is attached to the end of a strong thick line. Someone—usually the older one—lowers the lead fish into the trap and pulls sharply on the line. If cod is caught on the bait after two or three such attempts, then the trap is full. Then the fishermen, sorting through the leading net, begin to close the entrance with it. Then, when the top of the trap is tightly packed with net, they take hold of the rope and pull it out. The entire catcher's structure is collected in a bag.

When I went out with Jules to the sea, the cod was especially plentiful. In one session, which took about four hours, one hundred and fifty kilograms of magnificent, sparkling silver scales of fatty cod turned out to be at the bottom of the boat.

Salmon on the rocks

One day Jules told me that he was going to the nearest stream to fish for salmon.

Henry has been fiddling with the engine all day. You should not beat the buckets. If there is a hunt, we will ride together.

Of course, I immediately agreed, because I had never seen salmon being taken in my life.

Jules led me to a barn where he had all sorts of things piled up. He took out oars, two battered spinning rods, a box with a forest and baubles. He dragged a small plastic skiff. All this household was loaded onto a two-wheeled trailer, which he attached to his old Ford.

An hour later we found ourselves on the rocky bank of a rather turbulent river. Below, a large pool gleamed blue with lead, in which ragged clouds were clearly reflected. In the upper part of the rapids, the current was turbulent, turning into a narrow waterfall. Below its flow is also very fast, and the water here is so shallow that you can see many sharp stones lining the bottom,

- It happens that you take a salmon on a lure, and it will fall into this part of the rapids, and write wasted. No salmon, no spinners, no forests - you will lose everything, ”said Jules, preparing the spinning rod for a throw.

The pool is deep and quiet. Salmon, rising up the river, stop here to rest a little before the stormy rapids.

Jules said that he had caught more than one hundred salmon in this pool and there were days when he earned quite well. But fishing in the pool is dangerous. The boat can be carried far down and pulled into a turbulent stream at the exit from the rapids.

Where the pool ends, in the middle of the foaming stream lies a large granite block. Topsail fishermen call it "Hope Stone" - "Lucky Stone".

“When the river floods during heavy rains,” says Jules, “the stone is not visible at all. It is completely hidden under water.

But now the melt waters have passed, and the stream, flowing around the stone, rushes strongly and quickly nearby. And below, in a small pool, shreds of white foam dance and rage in an eternal cycle.

“Look and remember the future if you have to find yourself here again. You see, over there, a little lower than the stone, there is always a fish walking around. And salmon and rock bass. Their meat, although not so appreciated, is very tasty and tender...

Pshsh... shpok! The spinner, launched by the elastic stroke of my spinning rod, soared up and, having described an arc, disappeared under the water.

Suddenly, the tip of the rod curved, and my hands involuntarily tightened their grip on the rod. The spool buzzed, rapidly releasing a gleaming nylon thread.

- There is a reason! Jules yelled happily. - Now let's go with the catch.

But only half an hour later, a calmed salmon weighing about three kilograms lay at our feet. It was an unforgettable moment. I admired the graceful lines of the elastic body of the fish, its amazing coloring.

In a few hours of biting, we caught quite large fish from our heels. And in the evening they ate salmon fried on stones.

Building a fire, heating stones, gutting fish, Jules lamented that the fishing industry, which for five centuries provided Newfoundlanders with a livelihood, was fading. It becomes more and more difficult to feed on the sea every year. Men his age still hold on to the fishery, but there is no future for the youth. The sons of fishermen go to seek their fortune in mainland Canada. Jules told that a few years ago, Newfoundland Prime Minister John Smallwood, permanent since 1949, agitated the islanders to burn the piers, pull the boats ashore and throw away the tackle, because the fishermen should not go out to sea anymore. Fish, they say, will be hunted by large fishing vessels equipped with the most modern technology. Those who follow the Prime Minister's call will be provided with work on the shore. As it turned out, the promised jobs turned out to be a real fake. Those who succumbed to the assurances of Smallwood, and there are many thousands of them, are now sitting on unemployment benefits, at best surviving with seasonal work. I immediately remembered the giant guy at the road construction. Others, who continue to go to sea, as Jules and his friends do, somehow make ends meet. They are really pressed by a powerful fishing fleet owned by large companies, which are run by "water street pirates".

“Moreover,” says Jules, “company owners who do not understand the habits of fish and the vagaries of the sea, eager for only one thing - to grab as many coins as possible, hire captains on their ships who are unfamiliar with the elementary customs of sea courtesy, do not have the slightest ideas about the rules of divergence of ships, small or large. They don't care about our rules. Often, the ignorance of aliens with captain's stripes ends in tragedy...

Jules also told about other troubles that haunt the fishermen. The worst thing is fish contaminated with industrial waste, the scourge of not only Newfoundland, but the entire North American continent. In this, in addition to the owners of industrial enterprises, farmers are also to blame, who, fighting crop pests with the help of pesticides, become accomplices in poisoning fish.

With industrialists who shamelessly dump the waste of their factories and factories, the matter is clear. Much has been written about this, trying to bring them to their senses. But it's about farmers. It turns out that some of them threw their spoiled grain into the waters of rivers and lakes. Grain, as well as waste from industrial enterprises containing chloroalkaloidal products, as studies have shown, contains mercury to one degree or another.

After this discovery, the United States and Canada strictly prohibited the catching and sale of fish caught in rivers and other bodies of water, where the content of toxic impurities containing mercury was found. However, such a measure had a very weak effect on the activities of the monopolies, but it hit the fishermen painfully, since it sharply reduced the use of water bodies. Of course, the Newfoundlanders also suffered from this.

The few days that I spent in the family of Jules Gornier brought me closer to him, his wife Marie, son Renard - father's helper and hope - and with the fishermen of Topsail, the workers of the fish factory - cheerful, hospitable, sympathetic people, hardened in all sorts of troubles .

When we parted from Gornier, we only patted each other on the shoulder, as Newfoundland tradition dictates: it is believed that farewell promises misfortune.

Returning to the mainland, we took with us the smell of fish oil that had ingrained in all pores ...

At the Merciful Patroness

Many months have passed since the trip to the island province of Canada. The persistent fishy smell had long since disappeared, but I often remembered the Gornier family, their fellow countrymen, who, against all odds, catch cod, salmon, lobsters and shrimps near the harsh shores.

There is a square in Montreal market Square. It is located in the very center of the city. As soon as you cross it, you find yourself at the entrance to the gloomy, majestic building of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Bon Secur - the Merciful Patroness of the Madonna. The cathedral is considered the oldest building in the city. The building was built and is being renovated today with the donations of tens of thousands of those whose fathers, husbands, brothers and sons died in the waves of the Atlantic. The gray granite blocks of the cathedral seem to have absorbed the inescapable bitterness of loss, and the cement that holds these blocks together seems to be mixed with the tears of widows and orphans.

Inside the cathedral, images of saints look from the walls - the patrons of all those who sail and travel. In the same place, in niches, there are miniature copies of a variety of ships: from sailboats of the 15th century and modest fishing scows to modern ocean liners. Along the edges of the altar are placed worn-out, with traces of rust, Admiralty anchors, sailor's household items, soaked in winds and salt from different seas, and the porch is decorated with garlands from fisherman's kukhtyli. In this cathedral, masses and sermons are saturated with maritime words and expressions.

One autumn day, the rain drove me under the vaults of this cathedral. There was a service at Notre Dame de Bon Secur.

There were many people in the cathedral, mostly women. A little away from the long, polished oak benches, near a copper lamp with a dozen brightly burning candles, stood a wizened elderly woman. Her hands were limply and mournfully lowered. And yet I did not see her face. It was hidden under a black cape. But her whole posture and, most importantly, her hands immediately reminded me of Marie Gornier.

I could not approach her during Mass, but I tried not to let her out of my sight, not to give her the opportunity to blend into the crowd. Patiently waiting for the end of the service, I approached the woman.

— Madame Gornier?

- Yes. What do you want? The woman lifted her head, peering at me with wet eyes, and then nodded reservedly, recognizing me.

As usual, Jules went to sea. It was said that at that time the cod was especially dense. Jules' team decided to fill the bot to capacity. Evening came, and the guys threw everything and pulled the nets. They lit the bow and side lights. Out of nowhere, a large minesweeper appeared forty meters from the boat. He walked, without lighting the lights, directly to the boat commanded by Jules. Seeing that it would be tight, the foreman ordered everyone to put on life jackets and jump overboard. Left alone on the frail craft, he tried to apply all his helmsmanship to dodge the steel colossus. But the boat, overloaded with fish, lost its maneuverability and did not obey the helm well.

In a matter of seconds, the minesweeper's stem broke the boat in half like a nut. How Jules died, his friends did not see. Only a few hours later they swam to the shore.

After the death of their father, the orphaned family boarded up the house and moved to the continent. Renard found a job in Montreal - delivering O'Keefe beer. So they settled in this city. For how long?

Mary doesn't know...