Prisoners in the Promised Land
Page 10
My beautiful black boots no longer fit. Even if they did, I would not want to wear them here because the ground is too rough. I have packed them away and will give them to Slava when we get out of here. The soldiers have given us each a pair of boots. Mine are too big so I stuffed them with newspaper. I have been wearing my handmade shoes from the old country when I am in the bunkhouse. I don’t tie them quite as tightly and they fit fine. The floor is always cold, even through warm stockings and shoes.
Something else —
I think I must be a true Canadian because now I like my drawers. They keep my bottom warm!
Saturday, May 8, 1915
That bad Private Smythe brought us newspapers from May 3 and he seemed to be more angry than usual. There was a story that 5,000 Canadian soldiers have been killed in the war. Private Smythe seems to think this is all our fault. There have also been 40,000 German soldiers killed in a single battle. Why do people have to kill each other like this? Why can’t they just talk it out when they disagree?
Sunday, May 9, 1915
in my bunk bed at night
Private Smythe was one of the soldiers who came with us to church today and he was his usual mean self. What surprised me was that some of the nicer soldiers were mean to us too. It is as if something has changed. I wonder what happened?
It is cold, so after church we stayed indoors. I unwrapped my wee table and chairs and also the dolls that Tato had carved for Mykola and me. Mary’s older sister had made some rag dolls for the children and we put these all on one of the tables and played together. When Tato saw what we were doing, he had a grin on his face and went outside in the rain. A minute later, he came back, carrying something hidden under a cloth. It was a beautiful dollhouse! It is plainer than the one Maureen’s father had made for her, but Tato says that he will keep working on it. It has three storeys and four rooms on each level. The roof is flat like at our Montreal home. I put my doll on the roof so that she could see everything that happens!
Monday, May 10, 1915
I now know why the soldiers seemed angry with us. Private Palmer says that a telegraph message arrived early Sunday morning with terrible news. A passenger ship called the Lusitania has been torpedoed by the Germans. There were 2,000 people on board and no one knows yet if there are any survivors. He said that the mood in the soldiers’ quarters is very bad. They are all blaming “people like us” for the sinking. I told him that we are not German and we are not truly Austrian. He says he knows that but it doesn’t make a difference with most of the soldiers. It is like they need to find someone to blame. Can’t they see that we are people just like them?
Tuesday, May 11, 1915
Dear Diary, all of our men have been organized into new teams. They will not be going into the forest and chopping wood right now. All of the teams will be building more bunkhouses.
Later
More people are being sent to Spirit Lake. That is the reason for building the new bunkhouses. Oy.
Private Palmer says that a new telegram came. The sinking of the Lusitania has caused “hysteria” in the cities (“hysteria” means when a bunch of people get angry all at once). To calm people down, the government is arresting more Ukrainians.
Oh, Dear Diary, I am so confused. What is the government thinking? They must know that we are not German and we are not Austrian. We are Ukrainians. Even if we were Germans or Austrians, how could we sink the Lusitania from here? Why would we? It seems to me that the government isn’t thinking straight.
Friday, May 14, 1915
Dear Diary, early this morning, the train stopped at the main camp and hundreds of new prisoners have arrived. Since the sinking of the Lusitania, there has been a frenzy against foreigners. I guess being interned is for our own safety, but I feel so bad about it. I wonder if there will be more women and children too?
Later
There were four more families on the train. They look so scared and frightened and tired and thin. Is that what we looked like when we arrived?
Saturday, May 15, 1915
Can you believe that it is snowing today?
Wednesday, May 19, 1915
It is the middle of May and yet it is still so cold. My wash basin was again frozen this morning, and even though it is nearly noon, I can still see my breath.
Stefan’s father was let out of “solitary confinement” last night. Mrs. Pemlych volunteered to cook supper today even though tomorrow is her usual day. The food that we get here is plain and not very plentiful, but she wants to fatten her husband up fast because he is so skinny and old looking.
Mrs. Pemlych offered to do laundry for one of the unmarried camp guards in exchange for a bit of beef. She is in the cookhouse right now making a thick rich stew for tonight’s supper. We all get some, but Mr. Pemlych gets the most. He has gone off with the others to chop wood. I don’t know how he can do it, but I guess it is nothing new to him. Stefan told me that even though his father was on bread and water rations while in confinement at night, he still had to do hard labour every day.
Monday, May 24, 1915, Empire Day
Dear Diary, we were all marched down to the parade grounds in the centre of the main camp and we listened to the Commandant give a speech about our duty to Canada. He said that when the war is over, we will be able to go back home and live good lives as British citizens. He also said that any of us who want to stay here after the war would be allowed to. This confuses me. Why would we want to be prisoners?
Later
Mary explained. They think we might like to become farmers up here.
Wednesday, May 26, 1915
It is almost June and it is far too cold. The chill seeps in through the floor and through the walls. I am bundled in my bed with all five blankets. Everyone is still asleep and so I thought I should take this time to write down what my day-to-day life is like in the internment camp.
We have breakfast with our men and then they go off with the camp guards to cut down trees and clear land. One of the guards has purchased some land up here and Tato says that sometimes it is his land they’re clearing, which makes Tato angry.
While the men are gone, some of the women begin preparing food for the next meal, while others do laundry. The men get so muddy that every day is a washday.
There is no school and no teacher, so Mary gives the younger children English lessons each morning. Mary knows some French, so she is also teaching a bit of that too. I don’t teach, but I do help Mary. The children play mostly hide-and-seek and ball games in the afternoons and we keep an eye on them. The air up here is fresher than in Montreal. Mykola has a healthy glow about him.
I also sit with Mama in the late afternoons and we do sewing chores. I have made an outfit for Slava and one for Stefan. I also made a new shirt for Slava’s father. I made a blouse and skirt for myself with the bolt of cloth that Private Palmer brought us. Mama is so pleased with my handiwork that I will be making something special for my hope chest. She has given me a length of cloth that she has bleached pure white and I am to make a rushnyk. I don’t know the English word for rushnyk. It is a long piece of embroidered cloth that is only used on special days. I work on my embroidery at night. I will not be working on this beautiful length of cloth until I have perfected the satin stitch. I have made eight handkerchiefs using a blanket stitch.
Private Palmer has his family here with him. His wife is as nice as he is and sometimes she brings me mending and I get paid for it. They have a son who I think is the same age as Mykola. He is quite chubby though. Sometimes he comes here when Mrs. Palmer brings mending but he is not allowed to play with us.
Thursday, May 27, 1915
This morning, a woman from Amos came. She had two children with her and a basket of eggs. Mary’s French is good enough that she was able to talk to the woman and found out that she wanted to sell us her eggs. We all crowded round and showed her items that we thought she might be interested in trading the eggs for. Mama brought out a pair of my newly embroidered handkerch
iefs and the woman’s eyes lit up. For two simply embroidered handkerchiefs, we got twenty eggs. Mama will make babka to fatten up our menfolk and I shall help her. I can hardly wait to see Tato’s face when he comes home this evening!
Oy, my hope chest is not getting any fuller, but our stomachs shall be!
Later
I had a good idea and Baba thinks it is an excellent idea too. We are going to blow out the eggs so that we can still make babka with the insides, but we will have hollow eggs to make pysanky with — of course they won’t really be pysanky because you never ever would make a real pysanka with a hollow egg. Besides, it isn’t Easter. But we are going to decorate these blown-out eggs and trade them for food!
Later
You’re probably wondering why you don’t make pysanky out of hollow eggs, aren’t you, Dear Diary? pysanky are supposed to be made of raw eggs. If you boil the eggs, the dye doesn’t take, and if you blow out the eggs, they don’t sink into the jars of dye. Also, giving a pysanka as a gift is like giving a wish, and everything about it means something. Giving a live egg (I mean a raw egg) is good luck. All the designs we write on the eggs mean things like good health and long life.
Baba says that it is okay to make these ones on hollow shells because we are not giving them to friends as wishes, but are selling them to strangers for things that we need.
Friday, May 28, 1915
We women are allowed to go into the woods to gather mushrooms. I guess the soldiers know that we would never run away and leave our men. When it gets warmer, maybe I will be able to find some more feverfew for Baba’s knee, but today Mama and I went into the woods looking for black walnut bark. In case you don’t know, Dear Diary, you make black dye for pysanky and embroidery thread by boiling black walnut bark.
We walked past the clearing and down a rough and narrow path in the woods. There was a whiff of smoke and we thought that we were probably close to some of our men cutting down trees. The trees got farther apart and then there was a clearing.
It wasn’t our men! We saw a cluster of cloth-covered cone-shaped tents. And there was a woman in a hat and a long white dress who stepped out of one of the tents. She looked right at us and my heart almost stopped beating. It was my ghost!
I pulled Mama’s hand and we ran away, tripping and bumping our knees and toes on the rocks and underbrush. We ran all the way back to our camp. I was out of breath and so was Mama. I have never been so scared in my life!
Later
Stefan is so mean. I told him about our scare and he laughed at me.
Saturday, May 29, 1915
(cool and sunny)
Do you remember Natalka’s little sister Lyalya? She is the girl who is close to Slava’s age. She woke up this morning with a cough and she was wet with sweat. Mama made a tea from her herb collection and gave it to Mrs. Tkachuk to give to Lyalya. Mrs. Tkachuk has been sitting at Lyalya’s bedside all day. I hope she will be all right.
Speaking of Slava, she doesn’t see her father very much. Tato said that her father has gone strange in the head since he’s been here and that it’s for the best if Slava stays away. I think that is very sad. Tato says we should think of her as part of our family now. Does that mean she’ll live with us when we go back to Montreal?
Sunday, May 30, 1915
I am no longer hurt by Stefan.
He put some of the babka we had baked into his coat and then he told me to follow him. When I realized that we were going back to where Mama and I saw the white tents, I almost turned back, but Stefan grabbed my hand and said, “Trust me.”
That woman is not a ghost at all, but a lady. She wears a man’s hat decorated with a kind of ribbon and her hair is braided like mine. This time she was stirring something in a big pot over an open fire. Her skin is a lovely golden tan and her teeth are strong and white. She motioned to us to come to her. Stefan gave her the babka and she grinned with delight, then took it into the tent.
A moment later, the lady opened the tent flap from inside and motioned us to come in.
Stefan slipped onto his knees and bent his head. I did the same. With my head bent down, I tried to look out of the corner of my eye. I saw an old woman sitting on the ground, surrounded by beautiful animal pelts. And you will never guess what else I saw, Dear Diary! On some of the fur pelts was intricate beadwork like what I sometimes do myself! Also, sitting on her lap was a piece of smooth leather with the outline of a beautiful and delicate bead design that was partly finished.
Dear Diary, you are not going to believe this, but she was using small seed beads just like mine. Who would have thought that I could travel halfway around the world and up into this faraway part of Quebec only to find a stranger doing my own special craft? The floral design that she was creating reminded me of the beadwork and embroidery that we do on sheepskin vests. I feel like I have met a long-lost relative!
I sat and watched as she wove her magic into that piece of leather. I have no idea how much time passed, but she created one whole flower petal. Stefan gently took my elbow and said, “We should go now.”
She held up her hand as if to say, “Wait a moment.” Then she reached into her skirt and drew out a leather pouch. I held out my hand and she tipped the bag over. Many tiny seed beads, all different colours, fell into my hand. Just before she closed the bag back up, a red Venetian glass bead fell out. It has a delicate etching of a bird in flight and it is the most beautiful bead I have ever seen. The woman chuckled with delight and then she placed her two grizzled hands over my fingers and closed them tight around the beads.
Monday, May 31, 1915
I am sitting outside at dawn on my favourite tree stump, still thinking about yesterday.
Stefan told me that these are the Pikogan people, and part of the Algonquin tribe. Before the internment camp was built, they would hunt and fish around Spirit Lake, but now we internees and soldiers scare away the animals. Also, when all those trees are cut down, the animals have fewer places to live. It is not such a good life for the Pikogans any more.
If this is the Pikogans’ land, why did Canada build the internment camp here?
June 1915
Tuesday, June 1, 1915, at lunch
Mary and I had trouble keeping the children interested in their lessons this morning because it is so hot.
I am still thinking about our visit with the two Pikogan ladies. They do not know us and yet they are so kind. Our camp has ruined their hunting grounds and still they are so kind. I think they must know that we did not come here on purpose. They have seen the soldiers.
And did the elder read my mind? It is as if she knew I had lost Irena’s precious bead. Maybe there really is a spirit of Spirit Lake!
Wednesday, June 2, 1915
(very hot!!!)
A year ago I thought Stefan was mean, but I don’t think that now. Is it me who has changed, or him?
Thursday, June 3, 1915
(third hot day in a row!!!)
I got a letter from Maureen today! You remember Maureen, my Irish friend from school, don’t you, Dear Diary? I can hardly read it, though, because most of it is blacked out. At least I know that she is okay and that she is thinking of me.
Friday, June 4, 1915
late at night, in my bunk bed
Dear Diary, Lyalya seemed to have recovered, but this morning her coughing was bad again. Mrs. Tkachuk made her stay in bed and Mama made a mustard plaster for Lyalya’s chest.
Almost forgot — Private Palmer showed us some of the photographs he took! Some were of the Pikogan women and also our men when they are out working. He also has pictures of the officers and their families down at the main camp. I didn’t realize there were so many soldiers with children here. It is too bad we are not allowed to play with them.
Saturday, June 5, 1915
Perhaps I should not have complained about how cold it was because for the last week it has been hot. And with the heat come these little blackflies that are wicked biters. Private Palmer says that they wil
l be with us until September.
We also have clouds of mosquitoes. When the men come back from the woods, they are bitten pink. Baba came up with something that seems to take away the worst of the itch. You know that tasteless bread that they give us? We make our own good bread now, so Baba takes the tasteless bread and soaks it in water and plops it onto the bites. I have bites all over my knees and it seems to cool them. Tato has a bite on his scalp where he’s going bald and he looks silly with this white glop on his head, but at least he is more comfortable.
Sunday, June 6, 1915, after supper
Dear Diary, we have been making hollow pysanky all day and is has been so fun! I hope the Amos villagers will like them.
Later
Oh, Dear Diary, Lyalya got into a coughing fit and was even coughing up blood. Private Palmer sent for the doctor and now Lyalya is in the camp hospital. Will she be okay?
Monday, June 7, 1915, noon
(hot and dry for several days)
A man from Amos came with the lady who sold us the eggs. He had a large jar of something that smelled like lemon and mint put together. This is a salve that you put on your skin and blackflies don’t bite you so often. I asked how much and the lady said she would take two of our written eggs! This salve will be wonderful for Tato and Stefan and the other men in our bunkhouse when they go out in the woods, and also for us.
After supper
The salve works!
Late at night
one of us was shot and killed
will write when I know more
Tuesday, June 8, 1915, noon
The man who was killed was Ivan Gregoraszczuk. Right now, his body is being prepared for burial. Here is what happened.
Mr. Gregoraszczuk escaped about a week ago with three other men and they got sixty miles away from the camp and almost into Ontario. He was walking along the railway track and a farmer from Amos shot him and then brought the body back here.