The Boat People

by Sharon Bala

  She had expected someone would take her to lunch for her first day, but when one thirty arrived and no one had stopped by her office, she went to the deli across the street for a sandwich to go.

  Grace had a horror of first days, long moments clutching a plastic bento box in a cafeteria doorway, searching the tables of cliques for an anonymous space to occupy. But the lunchroom was almost empty – half a dozen round tables and a solitary figure she didn’t recognize with the newspaper laid out in front of him. There was a colour photo of a ship and people being led off its gangplank, their faces shielded by large umbrellas. The headline screamed in a thunderous font: PM TAKES HARD LINE ON MIGRANTS.

  You must be the infamous Mitchell Hurst, Grace said, scraping out the chair across from him.

  He had close-cropped red hair, greying at the temples, and a face browned with freckles. He was frowning as he glanced up, digging his thumbnail into the skin of a tangerine. Infamous?

  I’ve just…I’ve heard a lot about you, Grace said. Why had she said such a stupid thing?

  She tried again: You’ve just come back. Digging wells in Kenya?

  Wells in Kenya? His eyebrows shot up. Who told you that?

  Idiot, she thought. Two for two.

  Mitchell shook his head and stripped away orange peel. Bangkok, he said. Nowhere near Kenya. And refugees, not wells.

  Right. With the…Grace tried to recall the letters.

  The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mitchell said. I was a resettlement consultant. Nargis kept us busy.

  Grace didn’t dare ask why there were refugees in Thailand or who Nargis was. But Mitchell sniffed out her ignorance.

  Cyclone Nargis? he said. Worst natural disaster in all of Myanmar’s history?

  Sure, she said. We heard about that here.

  His expression called bullshit on her lie. He split the tangerine down the centre, set the two halves on a paper towel, and then the newspaper had his full attention.

  Grace unwrapped her sandwich. The prosciutto and pear, so inviting behind the glass case at the deli, was unappetizing to her now. He hadn’t even asked her name. This was the guy the whole office was fawning over?

  I’m Grace Nakamura, she said.

  When he finally lifted his head, she stared him straight in the eyes. But his expression was passive, as if he didn’t notice or care about his rudeness.

  I started today, she said.

  I know. Another government appointment. Where were you before this – Border Services? Department of Justice?

  Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, she said. I was the operations director.

  Of course you were. He turned the page of the newspaper and went back to ignoring her.

  Grace had a bag of grapes she had brought from home. She ate one, swallowing the seed, and wished she had stayed at the deli.

  The lunchroom had a sink and a microwave and a narrow strip of counter space in between. There was a sign-up sheet for the social committee tacked to the message board and a schematic illustrating proper lifting technique. For a fleeting moment, she missed her old job, the competence she felt wielding the laser pointer at meetings, advising ministers on policy.

  But then she remembered the call from Fred, how flattered she’d been when her old mentor – now elected to the federal government and in a cabinet post – offered her a new opportunity. And anyway, it was only temporary. After her three-year term was up here, she’d be on to bigger and better.

  Mitchell folded his paper and set it aside. He leaned back in his chair and ate a segment of the tangerine, watching her, impassive. He wore a suit but seemed like the kind of person who was more at home in hiking boots and a Tilley hat. There were fine lines around his eyes and mouth. She guessed he was nearing fifty, only a few years older than her. But he wore the condescending air of someone more senior. Smug bastard, she thought. Even though she wasn’t sure what he had to be smug about.

  Mitchell popped another orange segment into his mouth and chewed in slow, methodic bites. Grace broke eye contact and looked over his shoulder. Someone had brought soup for lunch; the aroma of chowder still lingered. A sign on the fridge warned people that it was emptied on Friday nights. There were footsteps in the hallway, but none of them came to her rescue.

  What about you? she asked finally. Have you been at the Immigration and Refugee Board long?

  Nine years, he said.

  And before that? She grinned and extended a peace offering: Wells in Kenya?

  Immigration law, he said. For a decade. And before that, law school.

  What brought you here? she asked.

  My clients, he said. I saw how arbitrary the process was, how much depended on adjudicators, and how many were totally unqualified and unprepared for the job. In my opinion.

  He added the last line in a tone she couldn’t read – was it sarcastic? – then balled up a piece of tinfoil, the orange peel inside, and threw it overhand toward the other end of the room. It sailed into the garbage can. Perfect two-point shot.

  Well, good luck, Grace Nakamura, Mitchell said, standing up. Every decision is someone else’s game changer. Frankly, I slept better when I was a lawyer.

  Grace twisted the cap off her bottle of Fresca. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t gone to law school. This job is about having good instincts, Fred had said. The rest can be learned. She had taken the test, like everyone else. She had a right to be here, just as much as Mitchell Hurst.

  —

  There was an adjudicators’ meeting later in the afternoon. The chair was a very tall woman with a gravity-defying bouffant. I called this meeting to brief you on the Sri Lankan cargo ship, she said.

  Five hundred and three migrants: 297 men, 181 women, 25 minors. All of them claiming asylum. By now, the whole country knew about the ship. It had been the main news item the day before, on the TV in the background while she and the kids watched the neighbours’ fireworks and Steve hunted for the sparklers. But Grace knew more than what was being reported.

  Fred had called her with a heads-up. The government had received intelligence, he said. Half the people on board had ties to the LTTE, the separatist group better known as the Tamil Tigers, who had been waging war against the Sri Lankan government for more than twenty years. Terrorists. Losers in an overseas war who had fled to Canada to lick their wounds and regroup.

  Canada has a reputation for being a soft touch, Fred had said. We must disabuse the world of that notion. I’m counting on you, Grace. The whole country is counting on you.

  Grace wondered why the chair didn’t mention any of this – the intelligence reports, the Tamil Tigers’ long history of international arms dealing, the charity fronts they used to launder money overseas, Fred’s suspicions that they planned to use Canada as a home base to resume their fight.

  This will occupy all of our time, the chair said. These cases take priority.

  Grace wondered if she should speak up. There were seven other adjudicators in the meeting and they would all have an equal hand in making decisions about who would be allowed to stay and who would be deported.

  Detention reviews begin on Monday, the chair said. Clear your desks.

  Grace thought she heard clear the decks. She scanned the room. Everyone had their gazes turned to the chair except Mitchell, who was jotting something down in his notebook. He glanced up and she looked away. They had all been here longer than her, but surely she had a duty to say something if…

  Research has compiled these National Documentation Packages, the chair said. She stood between two piles of slim blue binders, palms pressed flat on top of each stack. These should get you up to speed.

  Grace took a binder and passed the stack on, relieved.

  —

  Grace twisted the key out of the ignition and stepped onto the driveway in her bare feet, pumps dangling off her fingers. Kumi stood in the doorway, a hand shading her eyes, frowning at the sun. For an instant, Grace brightened, thinking her mother had been wa
iting for her, eager to hear about the new job. She raised a hand to chest height and waved in greeting. How are you, Mom?

  But when she reached the door, Kumi greeted her with: The box with the deeds and bank statements. Where is it?

  In the front hall was a big fruit bowl where Kumi’s lost belongings collected: reading glasses, watch, her MedicAlert bracelet, a hairbrush left in the fridge. Today there was nothing inside. She was having a good day.

  The box had red packing tape, Kumi continued, trailing Grace inside and closing the door. I’ve been searching in the attic for the past half-hour.

  One morning several years ago, Kumi had peered into the mirror and not recognized her own face. The diagnosis was swift: Alzheimer’s, stage two. After setting the toaster on fire in April, she’d finally agreed to give up her apartment and move in with Grace. The attic had inherited Kumi’s old boxes – milk crates full of photo albums and steamer trunks of file folders, things that had been preserved and ignored for decades. Her mother would have taken a cursory survey of the piles then heard Grace’s car in the driveway, and come down hands on hips.

  It must be up there, Grace said, bending to pick up a pair of Steve’s brogues tumbled over each other on the rug.

  And do you know what your daughters have been doing all this time? Kumi followed Grace down the hallway. Playing games!

  The girls were seated on the floor in the den, two feet away from the wall-mounted flat screen, gazing up like supplicants at an altar. On the TV, a two-dimensional man drove haphazardly down the streets of New York while a police officer aimed a gun at the car’s tires. Each girl clutched a controller, thumbs jabbing at the buttons.

  Meg’s left shoulder jerked. No, no, no! she yelped. Idiot!

  The policeman slammed back into a brick wall and blew apart in an explosion of red.

  Oh! Brianne flicked her index finger at the screen. You got ow-ned!

  Grace rapped her knuckles on the kitchen counter. Is this what the two of you have been doing all day?

  Meg waggled the backs of her fingers in response. Brianne grunted. Neither turned around.

  Grace could see the girls’ ponytails and the bony knobs of vertebrae running identical lines down their backs. She draped her suit jacket over a chair. Come help me with dinner, she said.

  Brianne hunched over and flicked the joystick with her left thumb. After, she said.

  Which either meant after we’re done this game or five minutes after never.

  They have nothing better to do? Kumi buzzed around Grace like an insistent fly.

  On the island counter, a box of Cheerios had been left on its side. An empty milk carton stood beside it, spout open.

  The cleaning service is coming tomorrow, Grace called into the den. Is your room tidy?

  Meg screamed, YES!

  Brianne said, Sweet.

  Grace tied an apron around her back and wiped down the counter. She wasn’t sure if either of those responses was meant for her.

  Children need boundaries, Kumi said. And responsibility. You have to give them a useful –

  What do you want with those old boxes? Grace asked, opening the fridge.

  The ledgers and account books, Kumi said. I want to know what the business was worth.

  Grace rummaged in the vegetable drawer. What business?

  What do you mean, what business? The family business! Your grandparents’ business!

  Grace’s grandparents had owned a laundromat before the war. Growing up, Grace took piano lessons from a woman in Gastown. Whenever they drove down Powell to get to her class, Kumi would point to a nondescript building and say, That was ours, before the government stole it. And Aiko, Grace’s grandmother, would quietly tut, No, no. How good this country has been to us.

  Crouched at the fridge, Grace peered up at her mother, half hidden by the door. Gently, she said, The business is gone, Mom. Long ago.

  Yes, yes, Kumi said. But the account books. We still have those.

  We do?

  Yes, of course, Kumi said. Big ledgers to record every transaction. We always had steady customers, not just Japanese, either. She paced as she spoke, criss-crossing the confined space so that Grace had to dance-step around her to reach the sink. Think what it could be worth if we sold the business today, Kumi said, touching her index finger to her thumb. And the value of the land! We owned that land. There are deeds to prove it.

  Mom. Grace put her hands on her mother’s shoulders. Be careful.

  It was risky for Kumi to walk and talk at the same time, but often, when she got worked up over something, she forgot to be careful. Kumi frowned but came to a stop. She held the counter with one hand and said, Happy?

  Thank you. Grace turned to the sink. She wondered where this sudden interest had sprung from. Her grandmother, when she was alive, had never talked about the war or her life before it. And apart from the occasional grumble on Powell Street, neither had her mother.

  Grace spoke over the running water. What’s the point? The land belongs to someone else now.

  There were craft breweries and coffee roasters on Powell Street, trendy lofts and affordable-housing co-ops. No trace of the Japanese community that had once thrived there.

  It’s the principle, Kumi said.

  The TV powered down and the girls stomped in. Grace pointed to the dishwasher and said, Unload, please. To her mother, she said, Leave it alone. There’s nothing to be gained.

  She wondered if this was boredom. Alzheimer’s had stolen all of Kumi’s favourite hobbies – crosswords, sudoku, knitting – and these days the only plots she could follow were undemanding ones in middle-grade novels.

  Meg yanked down the door and the dishwasher released a gust of hot, lemon-scented air. The twins had always been tiny things, barely six pounds at birth and the smallest in their classes all through elementary school. But the past six months had stretched them out. They were tall now, with long white limbs that flailed about, newly in possession of five extra inches they didn’t yet know how to control. They moved with infinite slowness between the dishwasher and the cupboards, transferring one plate at a time, working their way through the two racks as inefficiently as possible.

  How was your day? Grace asked.

  Fine.

  Did you do anything? she asked. Or just sit in front of the TV?

  We went out, Brianne said.

  Where did you go?

  I dunno, Brianne said. The park. Around the block. We went places.

  What else did you get up to today?

  Nothing, Meg said.

  The conversation ground out and Grace wished she had just let the girls play their video game. This was how they were punishing her for forcing them to help.

  Stand up straight, Grace said.

  The girls were perpetually hunched. Over a computer, over a video game, over their own chests, as if protective of their organs.

  Do you want to end up hunchbacks? Grace asked.

  The girls bent double and began golomping around, their arms swinging low, purposely hitting each other. They made unintelligible grunting noises, moving around the small kitchen, kicking out their legs in exaggerated motions.

  Stop fooling around! Grace snapped. Or we’ll never eat.

  Whatevskis. Meg straightened up and flipped back her hair.

  Brianne let the cupboard door slam shut and Grace winced.

  Kumi had been forced out of the kitchen proper and was now pacing by the dining table, traversing its length in quick strides then turning to retrace her steps, one hand skimming the chair backs.

  Everything was kept quiet, Kumi said. They thought they were protecting us.

  Can we talk about this later? Grace asked.

  Kumi paused mid-stride. Later? There is no later. Now is the time to take stock of what was done to us.

  Grace flinched at the word choice. Done to us.

  Think of Obaachan, Grace said, invoking her grandmother’s memory. She would not have wanted it.

  They took
everything from us. Our homes, our jobs, our dignity. Kumi pulled out a chair and sat on it sideways, shoulders slumping. Our childhoods.

  Who took everything? Meg asked.

  That’s right, Kumi said. You girls should be a part of this too.

  I don’t think –

  Part of what? Brianne asked, shutting the dishwasher.

  Girls, Kumi said, standing. Come help me in the attic.

  Sideshow

  A young woman hailed Priya and Gigovaz as they entered the offices of the Immigration and Refugee Board. It was Charlika Jones, the Tamil Alliance interpreter whom they had met the week before at Esquimalt. She had shoulder-length hair and a gold stud pierced through her nose. Compact and plump with a forthright manner, she’d told them to call her Charlie then announced: I kept my ex’s name. That’s about all he was good for.

  Priya guessed they were the same age, give or take a few years. She recognized Charlie as someone both fluently Canadian and authentically Sri Lankan, one of those third-culture people who slipped in and out of identities like shoes. If Charlie went to Sri Lanka, people wouldn’t greet her in English as they did Priya.

  The building’s lobby was an extravagant art deco affair with etched glass doors, marble walls, and polychrome terrazzo flooring in a sunburst pattern. It was the kind of place that had blown the budget on first impressions. The rooms where they conducted the detention hearings were sure to be claustrophobic and nondescript.

  It was quarter to ten and their clients were scheduled for their first detention reviews. The Tamil Alliance had given Gigovaz nine names at Esquimalt: five adults and four linked minors, their randomly assigned clients. Nine of the 503 asylum seekers who had the misfortune to arrive when the country was in a sour mood. Priya had listened to the morning news with her toast and coffee. Canada is a sovereign nation, Minister Blair had said. We will protect our borders from thugs and foreign criminals and those who seek to abuse our generosity.

  They waited for the Correctional Services bus that was en route with their clients, Gigovaz with the Globe and Mail held to his face, Charlie sipping on a take-away coffee. Priya had nothing to occupy her hands and tried not to fidget while she brainstormed small talk.