Stolen Girl

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  I said nothing. Ivan caught my hand in his and led me out the door. “You’ll see,” he said. “In time you’ll like having a bedroom again.”

  The paint store was on Colborne Street—two big blocks around the corner from the library. Ivan held the door open with one hand and made a sweeping motion with his other. I stepped in. The wet-paint smell tugged at the edges of my memory but, thankfully, no images came.

  Shiny metal cans were stacked against the walls and in the aisles. I expected to see different colors, but the cans were mostly covered with white labels. On a stand beside the cashier’s counter was a book of color chips. Ivan led me to it. He flipped it open at random and the page revealed shades of yellow and gold. He looked at me expectantly, but I shook my head. Yellow meant sunshine and I loved sunshine, but yellow made me sad …

  I am in that long black car. It is just me and Vater and the chauffeur. We are taken to a cluster of buildings surrounded by barbed wire. The sign at the entrance says Work Shall Set You Free. The gates open and the chauffeur drives in. I feel sick. Vater grabs my hand and pulls me out of the car as he gets out.

  He leads me past a snaking line of hungry-eyed women and children. Some wear heavy clothing and others are dressed for summer. They all wear one thing in common: a yellow hand-stitched star. A girl my age is in a yellow dress that once was beautiful. Maybe her mother thought a yellow star wouldn’t show on a yellow dress. As we pass, the girl looks me in the eye.

  “Don’t stare at them,” says Vater, pulling me by the hand. We step into a storage area beyond the lineup. Crates and boxes brim over with fancy clothing: fur coats, blue satin slippers, a tiara—even what looks like a new wedding gown. A well-fed man sitting behind a desk doesn’t get up when we enter, but he nods as if he is expecting us. My heart pounds with fear. Is Vater angry with me? Is he leaving me here? I have no yellow star.

  The man grins at me as he looks me up and down. His teeth are yellow and his uniform collar is so tight that his neck bulges. “You must be Gretchen,” he says.

  I am too frightened to speak.

  “You’ll need better clothes than that,” he says, looking at my blue tunic and white blouse. He turns to Vater. “I will find her something good.”

  We walk back out, past the women and children with the yellow stars. I can feel more than one pair of eyes like heat on my back …

  “What about this one?” said Ivan.

  Gretchen …

  I blinked once.

  Gretchen Himmel. GH. My name was Gretchen Himmel.

  I blinked again. I was back in the paint store with Ivan. I looked down at the color he was pointing to. A pale buttery yellow. “No,” I said. Yellow meant death. I could never sleep in a yellow room. I flipped the page so quickly that I nearly tore it.

  “Careful,” said Ivan, smoothing down the crease in the glossy paper.

  My mind was still swirling between past and present. I clutched onto the side of the counter so I wouldn’t fall.

  Ivan looked at me strangely. “What’s wrong, Nadia?”

  I took a deep breath and tried to clear my thoughts. “I am fine,” I said. I wanted to get this over with. “Let’s look at some other colors.”

  Next were pinks and reds—everything from the palest blush of that long-ago pink brocade dress to the violent red of blood. No, no, no.

  The next page showed blues. My hand reached out of its own accord and touched a pale mauve. A wisp of scent tickled the edge of my brain. Lilac bushes in a much-loved garden.

  “You’d like your room to be that color?” Ivan asked. And I surprised myself. Yes, I did want that color. Lilac would make me feel safe. I still wasn’t happy about the thought of being closed up in a small room all night, but the color would be soothing. And maybe I could convince Ivan to leave the door off.

  He handed a lilac paint chip to the clerk and ordered one can. We walked home, carrying the can between us.

  Ivan and I painted the room together. It didn’t take long. It was a small room, after all. But I still slept in the living room for the next few days to give the walls a chance to dry.

  I was a bundle of nerves that first night in my own bedroom. But Ivan had found a secondhand lamp for me and he set it on the wooden crate that was my nightstand. “If you get scared, turn on the light,” he whispered. He sat at the edge of my mattress and sang the kolysanka until I fell asleep. I dreamed of lilac bushes on a sunny, windy day …

  I didn’t see much of Marusia in those last weeks of summer. Some days she worked such long hours at the farm that she wouldn’t get home until after dinnertime. The task of making an evening meal had fallen to me, but I didn’t mind. I reveled in all the farm produce that Marusia would bring home, depending on the day or week—lettuce, cucumbers, corn, tomatoes, peaches, onions. In the camp, we ate rice, rice, and more rice. Now our dinners were a big salad or corn, boiled potatoes, and maybe a bit of sausage.

  On the morning that I was to start school, Marusia woke me up early and said, “I have a surprise for you.”

  When she did it and how she found the time, I do not know, but she had made me a blouse and skirt from that bolt of blue cloth that one of the ladies had brought on our first day here. She had edged the collar with white hand-stitched daisies and had ironed smartly creased pleats into the skirt. I looked up at her through my tears.

  “Put it on, Sonechko. You don’t want to be late on your first day.”

  I slid my arms into the sleeves and as I did up each small white button, I noticed the delicate white stitches that circled each buttonhole. The skirt fit perfectly. Marusia gave me a new pair of white knee socks. Then, with a grin, she pulled out black shiny shoes from a paper bag. I tugged the socks up to my knees and then slipped my feet into the shoes.

  “They’re almost new,” said Marusia. “I hope you like them.”

  I usually tried to stay dignified with Marusia. She was not my mother, after all. But I felt the love she had put in every pleat and the affection of each stitch in this new blouse. I looked at the frayed corner of her own carefully pressed blouse and the lines of weariness under her smiling eyes. I scrambled onto her lap and hugged her fiercely. I could feel hot tears spilling down my cheeks.

  “Nadia, my Nadia,” Marusia said, drying my tears with the back of her hand. “I wanted to make you happy.”

  I tried to answer but I could not speak. I just nodded, hoping she realized how much I appreciated all that she did for me. I splashed cold water on my face to calm my swollen eyes, and then Marusia braided my hair.

  Instead of doing it the usual way, she coiled it up like a crown and then topped it off with a huge white bow. I looked at myself in the mirror—seeing another me in another mirror. A younger me wearing a pink dress, my eyes red from crying …

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said Marusia.

  I blinked. That younger me was gone like a wisp of smoke.

  Marusia walked me to Central School. We were the first to arrive.

  She pushed the door open and we stepped into the empty hallway. “Your room is down here,” she said, tugging at my hand as she turned and walked down a corridor to the left. She knocked on the door, and when no one answered she turned the knob. The door opened. “Good luck,” she said. She put her fingertips to her lips and blew a kiss to me as she walked out of the school. It wasn’t until she was gone that I realized her walking me to school meant she had missed her ride to work.

  I stepped inside the empty classroom. I had peered into this very classroom when I had taken my first walk around the neighborhood. A large blackboard and a big desk were at the front. Rows of desks filled the rest of the room. Which one should I take? Would the teacher be upset if she came in and found me in the wrong place? I took a chance and sat in a desk in the back corner, then waited for the others to arrive.

  In the camp, one of the men who had been a professor before the war taught the few older children a bit of history. A woman who knew English had held classes for the
adults as well as children. We sat on benches and used our laps as desks. On the wall had been a paper poster of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s most famous poet. I don’t know where the picture came from. I can’t imagine anyone escaping the war with it. Maybe it arrived in a CARE package from Canada or the United States. I also had a vague recollection of lessons in German from a stern-faced woman in a one-room schoolhouse, but when this was I could not remember.

  I looked down at the beautiful blue outfit that Marusia had made for me. I ran my fingers lightly over the fabric, loving that each stitch had been made just for me …

  Vater in the drawing room cuts an imposing figure in his black uniform. I see that his tall leather boots are covered with mud. No matter. There are slaves to clean up after him. He sets a package on top of the table and sits down. Mutter sits across from him, with her back rigid on the divan, a stiff smile on her lips. She pats the spot beside her. Eva scrambles to sit there. I sit beside Eva.

  “This is for you, Gretchen,” he says.

  At first I am excited. I lean over and touch the brown paper lightly with one finger.

  “Open it!” says Eva.

  I look at her and see that she is almost bursting with excitement.

  I pull the package to my lap and tear it open. A beautiful pink brocade dress. It is not like anything I have ever had before. I know I am supposed to be happy, but the sight of this dress makes me feel ill. I look up at Vater and put a smile on my face.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Vater grins. “Now the entire Himmel family will look nice at the rallies.”

  I take it to my room. I hold it to my shoulders and turn to the mirror. I look like someone else.

  That night, I cannot sleep. I turn on my bed lamp and get the dress. It smells of fresh laundry soap and a faint scent of something else. Sweat? I turn it inside out and examine it for clues. I notice an extra ribbon of cloth attached along the side of the back zipper. I fold it over. A name tag. Tiny embroidered letters: Rachel Goldstein.

  A sudden image of that girl in the lineup, the one in yellow.

  I push the dress away from me.

  Children’s voices coming through the classroom window, laughing and calling, sounding excited, yanked me back to the present. Tears welled in my eyes, so I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.

  I could tell from the sounds outside that other children were getting closer, but none of them came into the classroom. Maybe I should have waited outside instead of coming into this room? But just then a woman with straight hair cut to her chin walked in and I was trapped.

  She smiled at me and said, “You must be our new student, Natalie Kraftchuk.”

  I stumbled to my feet and bowed my head to her, and in my best English I said, “Good morning, Mrs. Teacher. My name is Nadia Kravchuk.”

  She held out her hand to me. “I am Miss Ferris. The other children will be coming in soon.”

  I shook her hand. She turned and left the room, so I sat back down.

  I heard a loud bell and nearly jumped back out of my seat. Within minutes, the hallway buzzed with children’s voices. Miss Ferris came back into the classroom. Behind her was a line of children.

  A gangly boy with short hair was the first to enter the classroom. He gazed around, then his eyes locked on mine. I could feel my embarrassment rising like heat as he stared at my shoes, my outfit, the bow in my hair. And then he laughed. I would have crawled under my desk if I could. He elbowed the boy who was coming in after him and pointed at me. That boy grinned. Next came a girl. She was dressed in a skirt and blouse, but nothing fancy. Her hair fell in loose curls to her shoulders. No bow. No braids. She glanced in my direction and then quickly looked away as if she hadn’t seen me. She took a seat as far away from me as she could. Other students came in after her. Not one said hello and each scrambled to get a desk far away from me.

  The last student to enter was a girl with golden skin and a glossy black braid that reached down almost to her waist. There was nowhere else to sit except beside me, so she did. She turned to me and smiled—she had a gap between her two front teeth and her eyes were friendly.

  “Hi,” she said. “My name is Linda. What’s yours?”

  Linda. What a beautiful name. I could have cried from relief.

  “Nadia,” I said. I wanted to ask if she lived in the neighborhood, but I was such a bundle of nerves that the English words left me. Instead, I smiled stupidly at her.

  “Children!” Miss Ferris stood at the front of the room and clapped her hands. “We have two new students this year. Natalie and Bob, please stand up.”

  Why was she calling me Natalie? I stumbled to my feet. A boy at the opposite side of the room also stood up, the tips of his ears turning red from the attention.

  “Children, let us all welcome Natalie Kravchuk and Bob Landry.”

  “Welcome to Central School, Natalie and Bob,” the students called out in ragged unison.

  We both sat down. Bob’s entire ears were now red, as was his face. I’m sure I was just as red. Miss Ferris took attendance and then passed out new workbooks and thick pencils. Then she had each of us stand up one by one and tell the class what we had done over the summer.

  Because I was at the back of the class, my turn was last. That gave me time to prepare, but it also gave me time to get nervous. I had no idea how to explain what I did over the summer. I could do it in Ukrainian or Russian or Yiddish or German … but English? Finally, it was my turn. I stood up.

  “I am Nadia Kravchuk. I moved to Canada this summer,” I said slowly and carefully.

  There were rumblings of chuckles around me. I was about to sit down, but Miss Ferris said, “What did you do when you got here, Natal—Nadia?”

  “I learned English.”

  One of the boys at the front of the class burst out laughing. “Not very well,” he called out.

  “Yeah,” someone else said, “and she looks like a Nazi.”

  I could feel my face go hot with shame. My last name had been Himmel. I’d had a sister named Eva. I called my parents Mutter and Vater. Wasn’t I a Nazi?

  Marusia had told me again and again that I wasn’t, but what about my memories? Her words and my memories didn’t seem to match.

  Miss Ferris rapped a ruler hard on her desk and shouted, “Silence!” She pointed at the two boys. “David and Eric, go to the principal’s office. Now.” I sat down, wishing I could disappear. It was bad enough that I looked and dressed differently from everyone else, but my accent made me stand out too.

  I’m not quite sure what else Miss Ferris taught us that morning. All I could think about was getting home so I could change my clothes and comb out my hair. How I wished I could change my accent!

  I dutifully copied down the things that our teacher wrote on the board and I murmured thanks under my breath when she didn’t call on me to say anything more. After what seemed like too many hours, a bell rang. I watched the others put their workbooks away. Thank goodness. My torture was over.

  I closed up my books and shoved them into the desk and then followed the other students out the door. Linda, the one friendly student, was close behind me. As soon as the freshness of the outside air hit my face I felt a sense of relief. It had been like a prison in there. I began to walk out of the schoolyard and toward my house.

  Linda trotted beside me and tugged on my arm. “You can’t leave school property!”

  I turned to her in confusion. The bell had rung, after all. “But the bell …”

  Her mouth widened in its gap-toothed smile. “That was just the recess bell. You can’t go home until the lunch bell.”

  “I cannot stay here.”

  “They’ll send the truant officer after you!”

  “The what?” I asked.

  “The police. You can’t go home during school.”

  Even the thought of police didn’t stop me from leaving. Linda stood at the edge of the schoolyard with shock on her face, but I kept on going, picking up speed as I
got farther from the school. The dressy shoes pinched my heels, but I didn’t slow down. By the time I got to our house I had a stitch in my side. I flipped the welcome mat at the front door and grabbed the key, opened the door, and hurried in.

  I had rarely been in the house alone and was struck by its eerie quiet. It was almost like the house was watching me with silent disapproval. I kicked off my shoes and ran upstairs, taking comfort in the sound of my feet thumping against the wooden steps. I threw myself onto the bed, punching my pillow in anger. How could I go back to that school? The other children hated me.

  I shrieked at the top of my lungs and that felt good, because only the house could hear me and I could be as miserable as I wanted. Once the tears began, they wouldn’t stop. I cried out of pity for myself as the new kid at school. I cried in anger for feeling so helpless. But mostly I cried out of shame for the girl that I must have been in the past. Did I really belong here? Was I a Nazi? Maybe I didn’t deserve to be safe. Where did I belong?

  I don’t know how long I cried, but my eyes got so puffy I could barely open them. I looked down at the beautiful outfit that Marusia had made me and realized that it was now wrinkled and damp. What an ungrateful, horrible person I was. How would Marusia feel about me now? Would she send me back to that other family, the one I had tried to push out of my memory?

  I unbuttoned my blouse and tried to shake out the wrinkles. I hung it on a hanger and put it on the hook on the back of my door. I undid the skirt and stepped out of it, being careful not to damage it further. I folded it and smoothed out the wrinkles with my hands and then carefully set it in my top dresser drawer. I took out the oldest skirt and blouse that I could find and put those on instead.

  “It’s all you deserve, you ungrateful thing.”

  It was my voice saying it, but it sounded like something I had heard long ago. I tried to undo my braids. I was able to get the elastics out from the bottom, but I couldn’t undo the elaborate knot on the top of my head because Marusia had wrapped my braids together so tightly with the big white bow. My arms ached from the effort. I lay back down on the bed. I wanted to sleep but couldn’t, so I stared at the ceiling.