The Hunger Read online

  To my grandmother,

  Josephine Dennis.

  the hunger

  marsha forchuk skrypuch

  Copyright © Marsha Skrypuch 1999

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Boardwalk Books

  A Member of the Dundurn Group

  Publisher: J. Kirk Howard

  Editor: Marc Côté

  Copyeditor: Barry Jowett

  Design: Jennifer Scott

  Printer: Transcontinental Printing, Inc.

  Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk, 1954-

  The hunger

  ISBN 1-895681-16-2

  I. Title.

  PS8587.K79H83 1999 jC813’.54 C99-932271-0

  PZ7.S57Hu 1999

  3 4 5 09 08 07 06 05

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

  Printed and bound in Canada.

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  Dundurn Press

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  Acknowledgements

  My first thank you goes to Carl Georgian, whose own father, Kevork Kevorkian (George Georgian) was a Georgetown Boy. Carl generously shared with me the story of his father’s arrival to Canada, and it is that story that originally inspired me to write this one. I would also like to thank the late Aram Aivazian, a survivor of the massacres and an historian in his own right. Aram generously shared with me his vast collection of rare books and also his vast memory of horrific historical events.

  The reality of Paula’s anorexia would not have been possible without insight from my dear friend, Heather Blakely — a survivor. I would also like to thank the counsellors who allowed me to interview them. They remain nameless at their own request. Doctors Leslie Leach, David Thompson, and Derek Dabreo assisted enormously in a myriad of medical details. My husband, Dr. Orest Skrypuch, helped me in all things computer-related, and also in many things medical. My son, Neil, was my Civ II coach. Martina Boone, as always, deserves many thanks for her fine writerly eye.

  At The Dundurn Group, I would like to thank Barry Jowett, for it was he who first chose my manuscript amidst the many on his desk and recommended it for further consideration.

  A sincere thank you to Marc Côté, associate publisher at Dundurn. Marc’s precise editorial insight pushed me to make The Hunger the best novel that it could be.

  And a special thank you to my agent, Dean Cooke, for his faith and encouragement.

  the hunger

  Thursday, June 24

  “Okay girls, let’s not dawdle.”

  Miss Brenman was small and lean and could have been a ballerina. She seemed to take great pleasure in showing off her figure for the benefit of the group of self-conscious girls who made up the bulk of her Grade 9 gym class. “Get into your groups,” she called out. “Group A, line up at the balance beam. Janet, you can be the spotter.”

  Paula towered over the other four girls in group A. With her black hair hanging in her face, she walked over to the beam and jockeyed for last place in the short line. Janet, who was lithe and supple like Miss Brenman, smirked at the other girls. “Let’s start with a simple knee scale.”

  Simple? There was nothing simple about any of the movements as far as Paula was concerned. Her ever-increasing height made her feel so awkward. It was as if as soon as she got used to her new centre of gravity, it moved! She looked around the room at the other groups and watched as one of her classmates somersaulted gracefully over the pommel horse. Paula could have performed that somersault twelve months ago. A group of girls cheered as one of their classmates did cartwheels halfway across the gym floor. It’s so effortless for them! Why did she have to be so big and awkward?

  In her own group, Suzy Nguyen was chosen to go first. Paula watched the tiny Vietnamese girl approach the bar with trepidation. Suzie was slim, but she had short legs and no sense of balance. Miraculously, she did her knee scale without falling.

  Janet smiled broadly and helped the trembling girl down. “That was just fine, Sooz!”

  Suzy smiled weakly at Janet, but Paula noticed that she was fighting back tears.

  “Your turn!” The smiling Janet pointed at Paula.

  Paula stepped up to the narrow beam of polished wood and gripped it with both hands. Placing her foot onto the block of wood that the girls used as a step, Paula gingerly hoisted herself up until her knees touched the top edge of the cold expanse of wood. She turned so that her body was lined in the same direction as the bar. Her knees were tight together on the bar, but even so, they felt too big for it. She had a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach as she wobbled back and forth, hands gripped tightly on the bar and knees feeling like they were about to slip off.

  “Hurry up, Paul,” admonished Janet, hands on hips. “We don’t have all day.”

  Paula took a deep breath and tried to quell the thumping of her heart. Janet’s words only increased the tension she was feeling. Slowly, slowly, she straightened out one knee and began to draw her long leg out in her best approximation of the “simple” knee scale. Her arms were trembling and her knees ached, but miraculously, she was perfectly balanced! This was the first time she had been able to do a knee scale since her growth spurt. Her heart swelled with pride and, for a nanosecond, she forgot how uncomfortable she was.

  “Stretch it out a bit more, Paul, you’re almost there,” said Janet dispassionately.

  Almost there?? Paula couldn’t believe it. Didn’t Janet realize how difficult it was for her to be doing this at all? “I can’t stretch it out any more,” said Paula, her brief feeling of pride squelched.

  “Sure you can.” Janet walked over to Paula and roughly adjusted Paula’s leg, pulling it into the proper position.

  In a flash, Paula crashed to the ground. Knives of pain radiated through the small of her back. The pain she could handle. Far worse was Janet laughing at her.

  “Paul, it’s a good thing you’ve got so much padding, otherwise you could’ve hurt yourself!”

  Paula curled into a fetal position and hid her face in her knees. All around her, girls tittered nervously. Paula covered her ears with her hands, but she couldn’t block out the sound.

  Canada Day, Wednesday July 1

  Paula snuggled deep in her comforter, half asleep and half awake, savouring the opportunity to sleep in. She had written her final exams right up until the 26th, and then spent the last two mornings babysitting Sara and Tara, the twins next door.

  “Paula, the day’s wasting away. Get up!”

  Her father’s
voice jolted her out of her reveries. Paula’s first inclination was to snuggle even deeper into the warmth of her comforter, and pretend that she was asleep, but she knew it would do no good. Her father had the day off, and her father wanted to take a nice long run, with his daughter.

  She pulled the covers away from her face and squinted up at the figure in the hallway. Erik Romaniuk was already dressed in a T-shirt and well-used pair of jogging shorts that were far too short for a man of his age. Or most men his age.

  “I’ll meet you downstairs in five,” he said.

  Paula could hear him walk down the hallway to her brother, Erik’s room. Paula smiled to herself. Fat chance that Erik would go running with them.

  Paula got out of bed and opened her drawer, rooting through to find a pair of shorts that she could wear that wouldn’t ride up on her thighs as she ran. She decided on a pair of black form-fitting bicycle shorts. She threw on an oversized T-shirt and headed down the stairs.

  As expected, Erik was not in sight. Mr. Romaniuk answered Paula’s unasked question as he followed her gaze to her brother’s empty chair. “At least I’ve got one athletic kid.”

  Paula gulped down some orange juice and then followed her father out the door. They did their warmup stretches on the front steps. “This run will do us some good,” he said

  Paula felt her face flush hot.

  Monday, July 6

  “Come on, Mandy! It’s a two-for-one sale. Besides, I really don’t want to join an aerobics class by myself.” The ad taped to the door of the Rotary Recreation Centre was a “students only” special. Paula had walked over to Mandy’s house after babysitting, and the two were on their way to the mall when they passed by the fitness centre and decided to check it out.

  “I wonder why it’s so cheap?” Mandy tried to peer in through the tinted window.

  “Maybe their regulars are off on summer holidays,” offered Paula. “Who cares? As long as it’s cheap.” Paula pushed open the door, and both girls walked in.

  They were greeted with a cheerful smile by a slim blonde sitting at the reception desk. The badge pinned to the front of her cropped T-shirt identified her as Debi Black, trainer. “Would you two like a tour?” she asked.

  They followed her up the stairs and Paula couldn’t help but notice that Debi looked fantastic in her spandex thigh-length shorts.

  The top of the stairs opened up onto a running track and weight room with a full length mirror covering one wall. “Are you interested in weight training, or aerobics classes?” asked the woman.

  “The classes,” said Mandy.

  “This is where they’re held.” Debi directed them into a room with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side, and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on another. There was a stack of mats in the corner and a ghetto blaster on a table in the front. A faint smell of sweat and baby powder hung in the air.

  “I’ve got to get back downstairs,” said Debi. “Take your time and look around. When you come back down, we can go over the class times.”

  Once Debi left, Paula and Mandy stood side by side in front of the aerobics mirror. Paula looked at the reflection of her best friend and stifled a sigh of jealousy. Mandy’s thick red-gold hair rippled in waves down her back, accentuating her tiny waist.

  Paula walked out of the aerobics room and back through the weight room to head down the stairs. She noticed a lithe woman doing bicep curls on an incline bench. Like Mandy, the woman was small.

  Tuesday, September 7

  Paula hugged her textbooks to her chest as she walked down the school hallway to her first class of the year. She noted through the corner of her eye that the guys looked at her appreciatively. The modest weight loss that she had achieved over the summer had made a difference. She suppressed a grin as she passed Miss Brenman, whose mouth had opened in a tiny O as she walked by.

  Paula had a feeling that this was going to be her year. After so much trying, she was finally on her way to almost complete perfection. Her Grade 9 final report card couldn’t have been better; now she looked slim and athletic — she was the envy of all.

  She sat down in one of the desks in the front row and opened her binder. She heard a ripple of whispers behind her and she knew she was being talked about. A smile played on the corners of her lips.

  Mr. Brown walked in moments before the bell rang. He took out a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and began to pass out one to each student. “This is the course outline for Enriched Multicultural History 201,” he said as he walked through the aisles, passing out sheets. “You’ll notice that 20 percent of your mark is based on class participation; 20 percent on tests; and 25 percent on your final exam. The rest of your mark will be based on your year-long project.”

  As he finished the last phrase, a groan rose from the class. The big problem with the enriched classes was that there was always some huge year-long assignment.

  Paula didn’t groan. While other students would put off their big assignment until a day or two before it was due and then pull a few all-nighters, Paula had more discipline than that. She was an A+ student not because she was brilliant, but because she was organized. She’d start on her project tonight.

  “You have a choice,” intoned Mr. Brown. “If you wish, you can trace back one branch of your own family tree until you get to the person who immigrated to Canada. The bulk of this project will be detailing the historical events that led this ancestor to immigrate.”

  Mr. Brown’s eyes gazed around the class then rested on Bob Maracle at the back. “For some of you, this might be too much to ask. Bob, for example, your ancestors have been here for thousands of years.” Bob nodded in agreement. “In your case, you can trace back to a pivotal ancestor and then do research on the key historical events of that era.”

  “For others of you,” Mr. Brown continued, “this would be too easy.” He stopped beside Janet, Paula’s gymnastics nemesis. “Your parents just moved to Brantford from Ohio two years ago.” Chuckles rippled through the class. “You can do the same thing that Bob’s doing.”

  “If you don’t want to do a family history, you can choose instead to examine a single ethnic group in Canada and determine the political and cultural reasons for that group’s decision to immigrate to Canada.

  That didn’t sound too hard, thought Paula. Her mother’s mother, Gramma Pauline MacDonald, lived in town and Paula saw her every Saturday. But Paula couldn’t recall any immigration stories. She had a feeling the MacDonalds had been in Canada for a long long time. Her father’s parents had moved to Canada from Ukraine just after World War II. It would be simpler to interview them, she decided. They lived in Toronto, but she would have plenty of opportunity to interview them when her family visited them over the Christmas holidays. In the meantime, she could start picking her father’s brain.

  “Hey nerd-face, I like your glasses.”

  Things were not going so smoothly for Paula’s younger brother Erik. This was his first day at Ryerson Junior High, and it was also the first day that he’d had to wear his new glasses out in public. Troy Smith towered head and shoulders above and he deftly grabbed the glasses from Erik’s face and put them over the bridge of his own nose, bending the gold-wired frames to make them fit.

  Erik knew that physically he was no match for Troy. Who was?

  “Keep them,” said Erik. Then he walked away. Troy was surprised at this reaction. Most kids would’ve tried to grab them off his face, giving him the chance to taunt them further. This was no fun at all. In disgust, he threw the glasses down and kicked them into the dirt with the toe of his Nike. Erik walked slowly towards the school doors, but let Troy pass him at a faster speed. Once Troy was through the doors and safely out of sight, Erik retrieved his glasses. They weren’t broken, but there was a scratch down the middle of the left lens. He cleaned them with the cuff of his sweatshirt, shrugged his bangs out of his face, and put the glasses back on.

  He got into his home room just before the late bell rang and sat down at the only desk left. R
ight beside Troy. “Great,” thought Erik. He looked around the classroom as the morning announcements droned in the background. As long as he could remember, Erik had managed to be in the same class with several of his buddies, but when he saw who was in this class, his heart sank. Not a single one he’d consider a friend. This was going to be some year.

  The first class was English, and it was held in home room. Next came French. Erik noted with dismay that he again was sitting close to Troy, who gave him a malevolent smirk. When recess came, he searched for his buddies from the other class, but when he found them, it was almost time to go back in. By the time lunch rolled around, Erik was feeling really down.

  By fluke, Ryerson was actually closer to his house than Agnes Hodge had been. Even though he had packed a lunch, he decided to go home. He didn’t have the heart to walk into the lunchroom friendless and vulnerable.

  The house was just around the corner on Oak Street and Erik was home in less than a minute. “Maybe this day isn’t totally lost after all!” He spied a familiar mailer from Computer Gaming World propped up on the stoop of the front door. Just a week earlier, he had finally saved up enough money for the computer game, Civilization II, and had sent away for it. Erik ripped open the package and shouted for joy. It was his anticipated game. Retrieving the house key from under the welcome mat, he let himself in and headed straight up to his room.

  His bed was still unmade from the morning and there were items of clothing in various stages of dirtiness scattered about. He brushed off a pair of socks from his computer chair and sat down, loading the CD before he even thought about lunch, getting back to school on time, or anything else.

  As the game clicked through the options, Erik opened his lunch bag and pulled out a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich. He absent-mindedly munched on it as he selected the pre-game customizing options. “Hmmm,” he mumbled, “I’ll be the Indians and I’ll set the age of the earth to five billion years.” For climate he chose warm, and for terrain he chose arid. And for other civilizations, he chose the Russians, Japanese, Germans, Americans, Aztecs, and the Carthaginians. He chose the “king” level of difficulty, which was four notches up in a difficulty scale of six. He bit another piece of peanut butter and jelly sandwich and watched as the game adjusted for his choices. The screen went black except for a couple of squares of green terrain in the centre. He moved his men around and gradually the black receded and was replaced by green land, with trees and hillsides. “I hope this isn’t an island,” he mumbled to himself as he noticed far too many blue squares revealing themselves. “Drat!” he said. It was an island! It was much harder to build a civilization on an island. He knew that much from years of playing the original Civilization. He was going to have to develop shipbuilding before he could do anything else. Erik was so mesmerized in game strategy that he didn’t hear the front door creak open. He didn’t even hear the sound of footsteps coming upstairs.