Chapter Seven

School

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 revelled 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 try to stay dignified with Marusia. She is 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 neighbourhood. 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, and a woman who knew English 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. 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.