Stolen Child

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  A warm hand rested on my shoulder. It took me a few moments to realize I was back in the present. Marusia was kneeling at my side. “Nadia … Nadia … Are you all right?”

  “I have remembered more.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but instead tried to breathe slowly to calm down my heart. “I dreamt of being locked in a big house.”

  “The German farmhouse?” Marusia asked.

  “No,” I said. “This was a fancy house in the city.”

  Marusia’s brow furrowed. “How old were you?”

  “I don’t know … too short to see out the window.”

  “So this is a memory from before you lived with the Germans … ” Marusia said, as much to herself as to me.

  “Before I lived with the Germans? What does that mean?” I asked. I could feel her trembling beside me. I think she was weeping in the darkness but didn’t want me to know it.

  “I have told you that you are not German,” she said. “That was not your birth family.”

  If that family wasn’t my birth family, who were they? And who was my birth family?

  I knew Marusia and Ivan were not my birth parents, but I knew they loved me. It felt right that the Germans weren’t my parents. Mutter never treated me the same as Eva. But how did I get there and who were my real parents? None of this made sense.

  “Then who am I?”

  Marusia shook her head. “I don’t know exactly who you are, but you are Ukrainian. I know that for a fact.”

  “But — how can you know?”

  “Small things that you did without knowing it,” she said.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “The way you crossed yourself after a prayer,” she said. “And you would sing the kolysanka to yourself when you thought no one was listening.”

  “I thought it was my secret song.”

  “Yes,” said Marusia, hugging me. “I know you thought that. You also didn’t look like anyone else in that German family.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “And you spoke German with a Ukrainian accent,” she said with a smile.

  “I did?”

  “Very much so.”

  It was a jumble in my head, but I was comforted to know that those people weren’t my family. Every time a student at school would taunt me, calling me a Hitler girl or Nazi Nadia, I felt a tug of shame. I had met many kind Germans, both in Canada and during the war. I felt sorry for Mutter because she was always sad, but she was not kind to me. And Vater was almost a stranger. A cold, hard stranger. After the war, when I heard about the many evil things that Hitler had done, it made me feel ashamed of who I might be.

  And that one big question still hung over me. Who am I?

  I didn’t want to go back to my room and I was too shaken to be alone. Ivan only had a few more hours to sleep before it would be time for him to get up for work, so Marusia tiptoed back to the bedroom and got a blanket and pillows and we slept on the floor in the middle of the living room, hugging each other tightly.

  I couldn’t get to sleep. I didn’t want to think about that house. I thought about Cinderella and how she could dream about what her heart wished for. As I drifted towards sleep again, a memory of another mother long ago appeared in my mind …

  I sat on her warm lap in the dark with my arms around her waist and breathed in her faint scent of lilac. I did not want to let her go. She cooed the kolysanka in my ear. A warm tear splashed on my cheek. I looked up. Despite the darkness I saw tears on her face …

  But who was she?

  It was nearly time for Christmas holidays and a soft blanket of snow covered the streets and houses. I got out of the habit of going to Linda’s house. We were still friends, but the thought of being close to Yates Castle made me uncomfortable. Going to church wasn’t the same, either. The smell of incense no longer gave me comfort.

  One day, after school and before Ivan or Marusia got home, I sat on my swing in the backyard and closed my eyes and tried very hard just to think of my past. So often, the memories would come to me unexpectedly. How I would love to be able to think of them on purpose so I could sort it all out. I could hear someone banging a hammer in the distance and the sound reminded me of mortar fire. Big soft snowflakes hit my head and shoulders. I closed my eyes and held my face to the sky. As each flake tickled my face, I tried to remember the past.

  “Boo!”

  I screamed and nearly fell off the swing.

  “Hey, I really scared you,” Mychailo said. “You should see your face.”

  “That wasn’t very nice,” I snapped at him. My heart was still pounding.

  “Do you want to go to the park?” he asked.

  “It’s too cold,” I said.

  Mychailo rolled his eyes. “If the snow bothers you, why are you sitting out here on the swing getting snowed on?”

  “Fine, let’s go to the park,” I said. Going to the park might be just the thing to clear my head. I wrote a note for Marusia and Ivan and propped it on top of the icebox.

  We got to the park, but then Mychailo didn’t want to stop because there were some boys from the school horsing around with a toboggan.

  “We can just walk around,” I told him. “Or maybe go to the library.”

  We walked past our school, and the library, through Victoria Park and all the way to the market square without saying a word to each other. It wasn’t a market day so the square was empty. I gazed into store windows filled with toys and perfumes and other things for Christmas — there was so much choice.

  Mychailo finally asked, “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing,” I answered.

  “That’s not true,” he replied. “You’ve got a sad look on your face. Are you thinking about your old home?”

  I looked up at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is pretty simple,” he said. “Don’t you ever think about the home you left behind?”

  “It’s such a jumble,” I told him. “But I do think about it a lot.”

  Mychailo must have had some similar experiences. He had lived in a camp just like us. He had lived through the war. But this was something that we never talked about. I wasn’t sure if it was because it was too painful for him, or if it was because his mind wouldn’t let him remember, like what happened to me.

  “What do you remember about the war?” I asked him.

  “Everything,” he said, kicking at a stone with the tip of his shoe. “Sometimes I wish I could forget.”

  “Can you tell me what you remember?” I asked. “Maybe it will help me remember.”

  “Smells, most of all,” he answered. “Gunpowder and rot and blood.”

  Even as he said the words, my nose wrinkled at the memories.

  “The nicest thing about Canada is that they don’t have those smells here.”

  Mychailo was right. In Canada, everything smelled like it had just been washed.

  We walked to the library in silence. Mychailo pulled open the heavy side door that led directly to the children’s department. As I stepped in I took a deep breath, savouring the scent of furniture polish, soap and books. Much better than the smell of war.

  When I got back home, Marusia and Ivan were there, but I felt like being alone. I sat on my swing in the snow and thought about the smells that haunted Mychailo. So much of my past I had started to remember. I willed myself to think about my escape with Marusia, first remembering the parts that came easily to me, and then thinking about what happened next, starting with our last days before reaching the DP camp …

  The train stopped. We huddled together on the flatcar with many other escapees. Rain poured down but one man took off his frayed greatcoat and tried to cover us all.

  A jeep pulled up. Soviet soldiers piled out. There was a fight, gunshots, screams. Marusia gripped my hand as we and the other escapees scattered. We ran. Another gunshot. I felt a bullet whiz past my shoulder. We w
ere the only ones not caught.

  We ran and ran. My ribs ached but we kept on going until it was the blackest part of night, and we reached a deserted village. The Soviets had already been here. My nose wrinkled at the familiar stink of blood and smoke. Where once a house had stood, now there was just a hole in the ground — the remains of a root cellar. Marusia stumbled down first and then lifted me in.

  I shivered with the cold and the wet — the dirty rag that had once been my pink dress did not keep me warm. How long Marusia and I huddled together in the rubble on the floor of the cellar I did not know. We tried to cover ourselves with leaves. Tried to sleep.

  The next morning. I woke with a start when Marusia screamed and rolled on top of me. I could not get my breath, and pushed at her to get her off me, but she wouldn’t move. I heard a whoosh, then saw a pitchfork. It missed my head by an inch. Standing above us was a woman shrivelled and bent with age. She reached down to grab the handle of the pitchfork, but Marusia swung around and held onto the blades.

  “Please don’t hurt us,” Marusia pleaded in German.

  The woman blinked in surprise. “A woman and child!” she murmured. “I thought you were more Russian soldiers.”

  “We have been running from them,” said Marusia.

  “Are you Germans?”

  “No,” said Marusia. “We are foreign workers.”

  “Why don’t you go back with them?” the woman asked, pointing in the direction of the Soviets’ advance.

  “They’re as bad as the Nazis,” said Marusia.

  “Come on then,” said the woman, turning her back on us.

  I helped Marusia to her feet. She gripped the handle of the pitchfork and we climbed out of the root cellar.

  The old woman assumed our obedience and did not look back. Now that it was light, I could see the charred ruins of cottages lining the street. We followed her to what used to be the village square. All was rubble except for the corner of a church. The burnt wood and glass shards had been shoved to one side of the church floor. Within the protection of where the two remaining walls met, the floor was covered with a filthy bedsheet. On it lay a young woman slashed with blood and bruises. At first I thought she was dead, but then I noticed a slight movement of her face.

  “My granddaughter survived,” said the old woman. “But just barely. I need you to watch her while I look for food.”

  We stayed there for several days. The old woman shared with us the food she managed to scrounge. Marusia cleaned the granddaughter’s wounds and disinfected them with a tincture she made from leaves and stalks. When we left, the old woman pointed us in the direction of the nearest Displaced Person’s camp …

  That night I dreamed the scent of manure and gunpowder, blood and dirt. And lilacs.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Inspector Sutton

  “Students, look smart,” Miss Ferris said the next morning. “We’re having a visitor after recess and I want you all to be on your best behaviour.”

  I looked over to Linda. She arched an eyebrow. When Miss Ferris turned to write something on the blackboard, Linda leaned towards my desk and whispered, “It’s probably the inspector.”

  I didn’t know what that meant. I noticed that many of the students seemed on edge and Miss Ferris herself spoke with a voice that seemed half-strangled. Whoever this inspector was, I didn’t look forward to seeing him.

  I finally got my chance to ask Linda about the visitor once the recess bell rang. “They send a boss a couple of times every year,” she explained. “If a teacher isn’t doing a good job, she can get fired.”

  “What about the students?” I asked.

  “An inspector can cause trouble for students too,” said Linda. “If you’re late for school a lot or if you’re absent too many times, the inspector wants to see you. I dread it when they come.”

  I thought of my horrible first day of school and how I had left school without permission. “Do you think I’ll be in trouble because of leaving school on the first day?” I asked.

  She paused to consider. “If you were going to get into trouble, it would have happened by now. That was months ago.”

  Her words made me feel slightly less frightened about the inspector’s visit, but like everyone else, I was not looking forward to it.

  As we were lining up to go back into school after the recess bell rang, a black taxi pulled up. All I could see through the back window was the head and shoulders of a woman.

  I nudged Linda with my elbow and whispered, “Is that the inspector?”

  Linda looked doubtful. “I’ve never seen a lady inspector.”

  Miss Ferris came out and made us step smartly in line. We marched into our class and took our seats. She rapped a ruler on her desk to get our attention.

  “Inspector Sutton is here,” she said, a look of panic on her face. “When she comes in, I shall clap my hands twice and you will say, in unison, ‘Good morning, Inspector Sutton.’”

  Just then the door flew open and an unsmiling woman carrying a black satchel strode in. Her grey hair was pulled into a loose bun at the nape of her neck and she wore a brown tailored suit over a white men’s style shirt. When I had seen her in the taxi, I was nervous, but now seeing her in front of me, I was terrified. It wasn’t a normal kind of terror. Something deep inside told me that this woman was going to harm me. I had a panicked urge to bolt from the classroom, but the inspector was standing in front of the only exit. It was all I could do to stay seated. I gripped the sides of my desk to keep from shaking.

  Miss Ferris was also nervous. Was she feeling the same as me? Her face was drained of colour. She forgot to clap her hands, so some students jumped out of their seats, but not everyone. I was the last to get to my feet. A few straggling voices called out, “Good morning, Inspector Sutton.”

  The inspector put her satchel on the floor and her hands on her hips. “Is that the best you can do?”

  “GOOD MORNING, INSPECTOR SUTTON!” we shouted out in unison.

  “Good morning class,” she said. Then, using her hands like the conductor of an orchestra, she motioned for us to sit down.

  “Now, Miss Ferris.” The inspector turned away from us and gazed upon our teacher. “What poem can your students recite for me?”

  “Um … Miss … Inspector Sutton … we haven’t practised recitations recently.” Miss Ferris clutched her ruler as if it were a lifeline.

  “Can they sing a song for me?”

  Miss Ferris brightened. “They can sing ‘The Maple Leaf Forever.’”

  “Very good,” said Inspector Sutton. “Let’s hear it.”

  Miss Ferris got us all to stand up again and we sang the song. Most of us seemed to be on key and we kept fairly good time with each other, I thought. Miss Ferris looked expectantly at Miss Sutton.

  “Good,” said the inspector.

  She walked behind Miss Ferris’s desk and grabbed the back of her chair, dragged it across the floor and positioned it to face us, then she sat down. “That’s better,” she said. She drew a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles out of her suit pocket and perched them on the end of her nose. She took a black notebook out of her satchel, then pointed to one student at a time. Each was made to stand and answer a single question and then sit down. She jotted down notes about each of us. They weren’t difficult questions, but it was terrifying nonetheless. My question was, “What is your favourite colour?” When I told her it was lilac, she smiled and said that my English was good for a newcomer.

  After she was finished, Inspector Sutton put Miss Ferris’s chair back behind the desk and walked to the door. I was so relieved that she was leaving. She hadn’t said anything about me running away from school on that first day. Linda had been right.

  I was almost starting to breathe again when the inspector paused. It was like she had just remembered something. She opened her satchel and took out the black notebook, flipping through the pages with a frown on her face. “The new girl … Nadia?” She looked over her spectacles and
surveyed the class yet again.

  I stood up.

  “Come here,” she said with a smile. “You can carry my bag.”

  The thought of going near that woman made me feel like I was going to be sick to my stomach. I took one deep calming breath and began to walk over to her. She smelled like mothballs.

  Her bag was surprisingly heavy and I needed both hands to carry it. She walked out of the room and I stumbled after her. She was waiting at the door to the grade one class when I caught up with her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “That bag gets so heavy to carry around all day. Here’s a little something for your trouble.”

  She pulled a cello-wrapped hard candy from her pocket and held it out to me.

  I stared at that candy on her outstretched palm. Without knowing why I was doing it or where I was going, I bolted down the hallway. All I knew was that I had to get away. I pushed open the outside door and kept on running. It was cold and I was without my winter coat and boots but that didn’t stop me. The chill against my face felt like freedom.

  “Nadia, come back!” Inspector Sutton called.

  I didn’t stop running, but turned to look. She was standing in the entranceway with a look of shock on her face. I was grateful that she wasn’t following me. When I turned a moment later, to check, she was gone.

  I didn’t know where I was going, but a feeling deep inside me told me that my life depended on getting away from that brown-suited woman. I didn’t want to go home. Wouldn’t that be the first place she would look for me?

  My legs took me on my usual route to the library. I hid behind a snowbank when I heard a car. I could see the children’s entrance, but there was a group of mothers with little children in strollers chatting in front of it. I ran up the steps to the main doors, painfully aware that I was in full view of anyone passing by. Luckily, none of the chatting mothers noticed me. When I got to the top, I opened the door just a crack. My face was blasted with warm air as I peered in. No one was there, so I stepped inside. I didn’t realize how chilled to the bone I was until the warmth of the inside air wrapped around me. I could hear voices coming out of the main library room, so I slipped down the steps to the children’s department.