Summer went by quickly. Marusia got a job picking strawberries. When strawberry season was over, the same farmer hired her to work on his other crops. My days were taken up with lessons at Miss MacIntosh’s house and visits to the library with Mychailo. Miss Barry grinned whenever she saw us. She would let us look at the new arrivals and would point out books that she thought we might like. The routine of the summer seemed to settle my mind. The flashbacks and nightmares seemed to go away.

On Saturday nights, if Ivan wasn’t too tired, he, Marusia, and I would walk to the hall on Dundas Street. It was a rented building shared by all the Ukrainians in town—Catholic and Orthodox alike. Marusia especially loved it when we went out like this. For working on the farm, she wore a used pair of men’s overalls and she would change into a secondhand housedress when she got home. But for Saturday nights, she wore her one nice blouse and skirt.

Sometimes people at the hall would get together a band and there would be a dance. Other times, people would sit at tables and talk. Marusia would sit with a group who were writing letters to relief organizations, trying to find lost loved ones. They would update each other on their progress and compare notes.

I liked to go because there were other children who spoke Ukrainian. Mychailo would often be there. I was devastated to learn that none of the other Ukrainian children except for Mychailo would be attending Central School. There weren’t that many of us and we were spread all over the city. There were two sisters who had been born in Canada. Their Ukrainian was not good. They went to Grandview. And a tall boy with glasses who spoke Ukrainian with a Polish accent was going to start at St. Basil’s School.

Early each Sunday morning we would dress again in our good clothing and walk to the Ukrainian Catholic church on Terrace Hill Street, which was one block closer than the hall. It was a small church and there were so many people who attended that we had to get there early if we wanted to get a pew. The only inside place where I felt completely safe was sitting in that church. Few parishioners could sing on key, but that didn’t bother me. I loved being enveloped in the hymns and I loved the smell of the incense. It made me feel protected.

Ivan worked on the house every day after work, and by the last week in August, it was finished. Each morning, Marusia got picked up by a truck to take her to the farm in Burford. Her hands were swollen from the long hours of working in the fields, but the money was needed.

I knew it was more than just her hands and the long hours that bothered her, though. Whenever the postman delivered mail, she looked through the envelopes with a hungry eye, but he never seemed to bring whatever she was waiting for. I asked her about it once, but her eyes filled with tears. “I cannot talk about it now,” was all she told me. I think she was hoping to get news from the Red Cross about a relative. At the hall, when someone got one of these letters, everyone gathered round to hear it read aloud. Sometimes the news was bad, but when it was good, we all hooted for joy.

Marusia had once studied to be a pharmacist, but as a slave laborer during the war, she’d worked in a factory. Later on, she was forced to work as a cook at the German farm where we met. How awful it was for her to have to do hard labor again, even though she was supposed to be free. I would see a troubled look come over her face from time to time. Whenever I asked her what was wrong, she’d paste on a smile and say, “Nothing, Nadia. I was just thinking.”

As often as we could, the three of us would sit down together on the cinder blocks in the backyard and pore over the books from the library and from Miss MacIntosh. Marusia’s dream was to learn English well enough to get a job in a store or maybe even a pharmacy. Ivan’s spoken English was good, but he had no way of learning how to write it. I think he was looking forward to me starting school because then I could teach him everything I learned.

The week before school was to start, Ivan greeted me at the door when I came in from Miss MacIntosh’s. He had a grin on his face. “The day has come to choose the color of your room.”

No, no, no. I had become used to sleeping in the living room on cold or rainy nights, and outside when the weather was hot.

“I don’t need a bedroom,” I said. “Why don’t I sleep in the living room always?” Ivan looked at me with one eyebrow raised. “Then you could use that upstairs room for storage.”

He shook his head. “Nadia, you need your own room.”

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 …