Stolen Child

Chapter One

1950 – Coming to Canada

The woman who said she was my mother was so ill on the ship from Europe that she wore a sickness bag around her neck almost the whole time. The man I called father had come over a year before us. He had worked in different places in Canada, looking for one that could be our home. He wrote to us that he’d settled on Brantford, Ontario, because of the trees and the two Ukrainian churches. And a foundry that gave him a job – which meant that we could eat.

Because Marusia was so sick on the ship, she spent most of her time down below. I do not like to feel closed in, so I let her sleep in peace. I was left with lots of time on my own, and I didn’t mind. I would run up the stairs to the top deck and lean over the railing, watching the water churn far far below me. Once, I climbed over the railing and sat on the edge, dangling my legs over the open water and relishing the cool clean air. I was there less than a minute when a deckhand snatched me by the waist and lifted me to safety. He yelled at me in a language that wasn’t Ukrainian or Yiddish or German or Russian. It wasn’t English either. I suppose he told me that I was crazy to be doing such a thing. It didn’t feel crazy. I was finally alone and out in the open, if only for a moment. It felt like freedom.

When the ship landed at the Port of Halifax, I followed Marusia down the gangplank. I had gotten so used to the rolling of the sea that when my feet touched Canadian soil, I thought it was moving. I had to hold onto a post to stop from falling. Marusia was unsteady on her feet too. She was carrying the suitcase and couldn’t reach the post, so I grabbed her hand and steadied her, then we walked to the end of the long snaking line of immigrants.

At the front of the line stood men in uniform, who interviewed every newcomer. That scared me speechless. What would they ask me about? What could I say?

Marusia squeezed my hand reassuringly. “Remember to call me Mama.”

When it was our turn, the officer looked at our documents, then bent down until he was eye level with me. His craggy face was kind, but the uniform terrified me. He said in Ukrainian, “Welcome to Canada, Nadia. Are you glad to be here?”

I don’t like to lie, so I didn’t answer, but just stared at him through my tears. I was glad to finally be out of that terrible Displaced Persons’ camp we had been in for five years. In some ways, I was glad to be in Canada because it was so far away from my other life. But there were things about my earlier life that I still yearned for.

The immigration officer tugged on one of my pigtails and then stood up. I listened as he asked Marusia questions about where we came from before the war, and what we did during it. I always noticed how easily Marusia lied. ...