Prisoners in the Promised Land
Title Page
This diary belongs to Anya Soloniuk,
Village of Horoshova,
Borschiv County,
Crownland of Galicia,
Austria-Hungary
April 13, 1914
February 1914
261-3 Grand Trunk Street, Montreal, Canada
February 10, 1914
Dear Anya —
I am sorry that I cannot be with you on your namesday. It is hard to believe that my little girl is now twelve. I am sending you this diary so that you can write down all that you experience as you leave our beloved village and travel across the ocean to be with me.
Your loving tato
April 1914
Monday, April 13, 1914, early
at home in my beautiful Horoshova
Dear Diary, your soft cover is dancing-boot red and your pages are the colour of freshly churned butter. When I hold you to my cheek you smell clean and fresh like Tato when he’s just shaved.
I like having a diary, but I’d rather have my father come home. He wants us to come to Canada instead. Mama showed me a drawing of the house Tato has found for us. It is so huge compared to our little home. The Canadian house is made of little rectangular bricks instead of plaster like all of the houses in Horoshova. It is as tall as three regular houses stacked on top of each other! Each level has its own set of windows and a door, and there is a long metal staircase on the outside that goes all the way to the top! There must be a room on every level in this huge Canadian house — maybe even two rooms on each level! It will be fun to run up and down those stairs!
I wonder if I will have a room of my own — not like here, where we all sleep in one room. I would love to have a room at the very top of the house. I would be on top of the world!
The Canadian house has a flat road in front of it. It doesn’t look like the dirt roads we have here. I wonder what the road is made of? Halyna says they’re made of gold, but Tato would have told Mama about that if it was true. Along the road is a row of tall lanterns. Tato wrote that these are called street lamps and they stay on all night so people can see where they walk after bedtime.
Tato’s sketch shows the front door opening up right onto the street. There is no courtyard and no stone fence. Where do you plant the flowers? Do they have flowers in Canada?
The houses in Canada are so close that I think they might actually touch. It will be strange to have neighbours that close. I hope they’re friendly. How do you get to the backyard? Tato has sketched in clumps of snow. He says there is more snow in Canada than we have, but it doesn’t look like very much.
Will our Canadian house be robin’s egg blue like home?
Our new house is on a street called “Grand Trunk.” Mama says “grand” means big in English, and “trunk” is a carrying box. I think they named the street Grand Trunk because all the houses look like big boxes.
Speaking of big boxes, that’s what I was doing today. I helped Mama pack for Canada. We can take one wooden chest each, and even Mykola can have his own. We put all of the dried babka in one box. I was surprised when Mama used her hope chest as her box and lined it with her embroidered wedding skirt and veil, but she told me that she wanted to bring them and there wasn’t room in the other boxes, and dried bread wouldn’t hurt them anyway.
Mama put a jug of vodka into my box, and two jugs of water and a jar of honey. That didn’t leave me much room but Tato warned us to bring mostly food and water and not to try to bring mementos. I wanted to bring Volodymyr’s tsymbaly but Mama said it wouldn’t fit. I know that it is too long to fit in one of our chests, but it breaks my heart to think of leaving it here. I have only just begun learning how to play it, and every time I pluck out a tune, it reminds me of poor Volodymyr. I told Mama that we could wrap it in a down comforter and I even offered to carry it, but she said no.
Mama got me to pack Dido’s wooden pipe in between my clothing and the silver spoon that has been in the family for as long as anyone can remember. I also packed a small jar filled with my precious colourful glass beads. They don’t take up much room and I don’t know whether they make gerdany in Canada. Oy. I don’t want to leave Horoshova. We put in one goose-down pillow too. Mama said that would stop the jugs from bumping into each other.
In Baba’s box, we packed dried fruit and sunflower seeds and more water. Mama lined the box with embroidered linens from her hope chest and put everyone else’s second set of clothing in there. There was enough room for Mykola’s coat because it is little. Baba wrapped up the Icon in that old embroidery that’s as old as the spoon. She tucked it in the middle of everyone’s second set of clothing so it wouldn’t get bumped. She wanted to bring her dishes and her wheat grinder but Mama said that they didn’t fit. She was able to fit in her kystka for decorating Easter eggs though. Mykola’s box was filled with nothing but the three other sheepskin coats. It was packed so tight that I had to sit on the lid while Mama tied the rope.
Mama said that I could take Volodymyr’s tsymbaly to Halyna’s house. She loved him as much as we did, so I guess if I can’t take it myself, giving it to Halyna is the next best.
Later
I am so sad about leaving Halyna. She is my dearest friend in the whole world. Baba gave her the dishes too. She is the closest thing to family in Horoshova now.
I won’t go.
I won’t.
I won’t.
Later
Baba told Mama that she is too old to go. Baba always uses her age as an excuse when she doesn’t want to do something, but she really isn’t that old. She might have aches in her legs, but her hands are fast and her brain is sharp.
Mama says that Tato sold our land to pay for our trip to Canada. I guess Baba has to go, just like me.
Friday, April 17, 1914
Hamburg, waiting for the ship
It has happened. There’s no turning back. The sprig of lilac is now pressed between the pages of my diary. It is all that I have to remember dear Halyna with. I am so sad that I can hardly stand it.
Things I won’t miss:
— stupid Bohdan
— the priest
— the lord
Things I’m going to miss:
— my dear dear brother, Volodymyr
— Halyna
— my chickens, my sunflowers, my garden, my dear little home in Horoshova
— the Dnister River
— the beautiful cherry trees that happen to be in bloom right now
One thing I wonder: are there storks in Canada?
Later
We’re staying in a rooming house in Hamburg. Our ship hasn’t arrived back from its last trip, so we have to wait for it. I am not used to having so many people around me. I don’t mind that Baba, Mama, me and Mykola are all crowded together in this little room and that there isn’t even a table for me to write on — I am using my lap. However, the room smells like old fish and the walls are so thin that I can hear everything my neighbours are up to. Just now, someone burped!