by Vicki Delany
I regretted not going. I needed to say my good-byes. I missed Hila; I missed her silent presence as she walked beside me in the summer woods. Her strength, I now understood, had given me strength. Would I be able to find it again, on my own?
The police hadn’t been around for a couple of days. According to the paper there had been no new developments, and according Connor, who regularly reported from the bars in Picton, the cops were looking for two young white men, seen driving around the countryside in the days prior to Hila’s disappearance.
Lily went to join her father and brother in their game, and I climbed the steps to the deck. The phone rang, and Joanne slipped into the kitchen to get it. I kicked my farm boots off and followed, intending to put the kettle on. I eyed the open bottle of wine on the counter longingly. I’d loved red wine once, too much sometimes. It didn’t go with my medication and even if it did, I dared not give Omar any additional opportunity to find me not in control of myself. Joanne answered the phone and her voice registered alarm. “I’ll be right over.”
“What’s the matter?”
“That was Maude Harrison. Their house has been vandalized. Grant’s not there, and she sounds frightened.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I said, heading for the porch in search of shoes.
Joanne yelled to Jake that she was popping out for a moment. I was waiting for her by her car, and we drove the short distance to the Harrison home.
Maude met us at the front door, Buddy at her side. Her eyes were large and dark in a pale face. She twisted her hands in front of her. As we approached, she turned without a word and led the way into the house.
The art had been torn off the walls, books pulled from bookcases, cushions tossed off couches, drawers opened and contents dumped out. Broken china, pottery, and porcelain littered the floor. An African mask swung silently from one hook.
So many of their lovely things, the accumulation of a lifetime, a broken mess.
The Royal Doulton China, on which I’d been served tea, was a jumble of fragments.
“Have you called the police?” Joanne asked.
Maude shook her head.
“I’ll do it.”
“No. I don’t want them here, poking around. Causing more trouble. Taking Grant away again. “
“Trouble’s here, Maude,” I said, “whether you like it or not. Where’s Grant?”
“We went to Hila’s funeral in separate cars. After, he went to Kingston to have dinner with an old friend, and I came on home.”
“You’d better call him.”
She shook her head. “He keeps a cell phone for emergencies, but otherwise never turns it on. “ She crouched down and picked up an African carving. Made of good strong wood, it was undamaged. She put it carefully onto the table.
“Where was Buddy when this happened?” I asked. He was sniffing at the rug. Too bad he couldn’t tell us what he was finding there.
“There’s a small room off the kitchen. We leave him in there with his bed and food and water when we go out for any length of time.”
“Is anything taken?” Joanne asked.
“I’ve hardly had time to notice, but it doesn’t look like it. Sheer vandalism. Sheer meanness.”
“Probably,” Joanne said. “Talk in town is of Islamic terrorists running amok in the county, although no one has actually seen such a thing. There was at least one incident at the hospital when someone refused to let Doctor Mansour treat them. Maybe a couple of guys got drunk and figured you and Grant for terrorist sympathizers.”
I thought it more likely common-or-garden thieves than drunken old boys out for some fun. The Harrisons had been in the news lately; everyone knew Hila had been living here. Easy enough to find out today was her funeral and assume Maude and Grant would be out, the house empty and ripe for a bit of thieving.
The beautiful Afghan rug I’d admired on my first visit to this home had been pulled up and tossed aside. Nothing underneath but plain plywood flooring. The rug was undamaged. I didn’t like to tell Maude she’d been lucky. Nothing lucky about what had happened here. But the damage was a lot less than it could have been. The house had been ransacked, but I saw little of the mindless destruction there could have been. Some pieces were broken, but only because they’d been thrown to the floor. I’d seen vandalized homes before. Sometimes all that remained of precious objects would be a pile of colored dust. Destruction for its own sake.
“Have you had a look in the bedrooms?” I asked. “Your jewelry? What about electronics, computers and things?”
Maude led the way down the corridor to the master bedroom at the back. The overwhelming scent of spilled perfume drifted toward us. Clothes had been tossed out of the closets onto the floor; drawers ransacked. Several pairs of lacy panties and skimpy bras were tossed on the bed, and I almost chuckled in surprise. Wouldn’t have thought prim and proper Maude had it in her.
A wooden box with numerous small drawers lay on the floor. Maude scooped it up and gave it a shake. It rattled. “I don’t have much in the way of good jewelry. Other than my rings.” A row of diamonds glittered on her left hand and a blood-red ruby graced the right. “Grant and I prefer to spend money on our collection. I guess whoever did this didn’t think my stuff was worth taking.” She pulled out a couple of long glittering strands. Big colorful stones, obviously glass.
We checked the den next. Not too much damage. Papers on the floor, paintings and photographs torn off the walls. A large wooden desk was up against the windows, looking out over the side lawn. A flat-screen monitor, keyboard, and mouse were still in place. A gaping space where a laptop had sat.
“They took the computer,” I said.
“No. Grant has it with him. He thought he might be early for meeting his friend and if so wanted to get some work done.”
“What’s he working on?”
“He has a contract with the department. Some research project or another to do with the Afghan national museum.”
“The department? You mean DFAIT?” The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
“Yes.”
I studied the floor. Piles of CD cases had been swept off the desk shelves and scattered across the floor but few were broken. “I don’t suppose you can tell if any of his computer accessories are missing? Like backup CDs or a thumb drive?”
“What’s that?”
I explained, and Maude shrugged. “Don’t think he has one of those.”
She turned and left the room. Joanne and I followed. Maude stopped at another bedroom. She rested her hand against the open door. “Hila’s room.”
It was a small room, made smaller by the jumble of books and bedding and black clothing. The mattress on the bed and the top of the desk were bare, sheets and blankets a heap on the floor.
“I haven’t cleaned up her things yet,” Maude said, and her voice caught.
“Her computer?” I asked.
“The police took it, along with all of her CDs and her notebooks. They haven’t brought it back yet. Her iPod is there.” Maude pointed to the white wires underneath a pillow.
Joanne picked up a headscarf. We three women stood in silence for a long time. Outside birds called to each other from the tops of trees. It was getting late. It would be dark soon.
“Her Koran!” Maude dropped to her knees with a cry.
“What about it?”
“Where is it?” Maude scrambled across the floor, throwing clothes and sheets aside. Joanne and I joined her, and Hila’s bedroom was soon a blur of flying cloth and papers and weeping women. There were lots of books, from modern mysteries to classic English novels to grammar guides to mathematics texts. But no sign of the holy book.
“It’s gone.” Maude sat back on her heels and wailed.
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“Are you sure she left it here?” I asked. “Maybe the police took it with her computer and things?”
“It was right here this morning, on the bedside table. I was in earlier, before we left for…the funeral. I…I find it hard to believe she’s gone.” Maude began to cry. Great gulping sobs as the tears ran down her face and her nose streamed. Joanne went to the bathroom and returned with a box of tissues. Maude held one to her face and talked, words muffled by tears and tissue. “She seemed so quiet and reserved, but in this house she was a life force. She was shy around Grant, as could be expected, but when we were alone, she and I, she was nothing but a bundle of questions. Always questions; always wanting to know. About Canada, about living in the West. She was fascinated by you, Hannah, did you know that? So interested in the places you’d been and the work you’d done. And Lily, she adored Lily. She would watch Lily sometimes as if she couldn’t believe a girl could be so happy. So full of fun. So free.” Maude dropped to the bed. Joanne and I sat on either side of her, our arms around her. We cried together. Buddy pawed at Maude’s legs, but she paid him no attention.
“She wanted so much to go to Vancouver. She read about it, and began looking at pictures on the Internet. She was excited, thought it must be the most beautiful place on earth. She’d never seen the ocean, thought Lake Ontario was magnificent.” Maude wiped at her eyes and blew her nose. “I’ll never look at the lake the same way again.”
I began to get to my feet, but at that moment Maude remembered what had brought on this bout of tearful remembrance. “Her Koran. It was precious to her. The only thing she had left in the world that had been her family’s. It was found in the wreckage of their car and brought to her in hospital. I saw it this morning, I’m sure of it. It’s been stolen. Of all the things in this house, why would someone take that? It wasn’t a valuable book, nothing out of the ordinary. Only valuable to Hila.”
Hate, I thought. Pure hate. Because someone had said the word ‘terrorist’ and they had to destroy what they could not understand. No doubt Hila’s precious Koran was in a bonfire right about now.
While a couple of drunken louts danced about and compared the size of their pricks.
Another thought struck me. Might it be the exact opposite?
Had the Koran been taken because it didn’t belong in the house of the Infidel?
***
Finally, Maude agreed to call the police. As nothing of any sizeable value had been stolen, she was reluctant, but Joanne told her that nothing being stolen was not a good sign. It meant they’d done it for fun. Because they could.
And maybe they’d want to do it again.
“Besides,” she added with a shrug, “You have to tell the insurance company, and they’ll insist on the police being called.”
Maude took Buddy to his room off the kitchen so he’d be out of the way. We waited for the police to arrive, while the dog scratched at the door and whined to be let out.
It didn’t take long, and I wasn’t surprised to see Sergeant McNeil pull in behind the patrol car. A couple of minutes later a black Suburban came down the long driveway in a spray of dust and screeching breaks and aggression.
Rick Brecken and Gary Wolfe.
Wolfe gave me a look of pure contempt and went to talk to McNeil. Brecken came up to where Joanne and I stood with Maude. “You ladies can be going home now.”
“I don’t…” I began, but Maude put her hand on my arm. “Thank you. Thank you for being here. I’ll be all right now. Grant will be home soon.” While we’d waited for the police, she’d splashed water on her face and retied her bundle of hair and settled her face into calm lines.
Knowing we’d been dismissed, Joanne and I walked to her car. I felt Gary Wolfe’s eyes on my back, and I shivered. The police officer had to move his vehicle so we could get out of the driveway.
A large van was parked at the side of the road, and a man and a woman were unloading TV cameras and sound equipment. “Oh, no,” Joanne said.
I ducked my head. Fortunately night had arrived and the road was dark. I didn’t think they’d recognized me.
I hoped they hadn’t recognized me.
“How awful for Maude and Grant,” Joanne said. She couldn’t help glancing at the TV people in her rear-view mirror. “First Hila’s death and then this. Maude seems okay, but it’ll hit her soon enough when she has to start cleaning up the mess. I’d like to get my hands on the miserable buggers who did this.”
I smiled to myself. “You’d give them a stern talking to, I’m sure. Before you turn into our driveway, make sure no one’s following us, Joanne.”
She gasped. “You think…”
“No, I don’t think the vandals are after us. But those reporters will be if they know it’s me in this car.”
She drove to a house further down the road and then made a circle in their drive. No one appeared to be following us.
At the farm, yellow lights burned over the front and side doors; brighter lights were on by the barn and the greenhouse. The warm night air was like velvet on my skin. The distant noise of a TV coming from Connor’s trailer broke the deep silence. A man stood up and crossed in front of the window. Connor’s cousin, probably around for a couple of beers and a movie.
Jake was in the kitchen with Lily and Charlie, giving them a bedtime snack. The kids were in their pajamas, skin scrubbed clean from their baths and hair shiny with brushing.
“You were gone a long time?” Jake said in question.
“At the Harrison’s. Someone broke into their house while they were out, and Maude came home alone. The police are there now.”
Jake swore, and then gave his children a guilty look. “Sorry. I can’t help wondering what’s going to happen next.”
“Nothing. It’s over,” Joanne said quickly. She plugged in the kettle. Lily opened the fridge and reached for the jug of orange juice.
“They take much?” Jake asked.
“Nothing. Just ransacked the house. Made a heck of a mess.”
“They stole only one thing,” I said. “Far as Maude could see. From Hila’s room.”
We jumped at the sound of shattering glass. Orange liquid sprayed across the linoleum. Lily stood at the open fridge door, juice pooling at her feet.
Charlie laughed and his father snapped at him.
“Did they…did they steal Hila’s things?” Lily said, her voice small.
Joanne sat down and pulled her daughter to her. Lily climbed up into her mother’s lap. At ten years old she was getting too big for lap-sitting, but she buried her head into Joanne’s chest. “Some of their nice things were broken but nothing seemed to have been taken. Other than Hila’s Koran. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison don’t have a lot of jewelry or electronics. That’s the sort of stuff thieves are after, usually. Things they can get rid of easily. They weren’t smart enough to know that some of the paintings and carvings are worth a lot, and they wouldn’t be able to sell them anyway.”
“Will thieves come for our things?” Charlie asked.
“No,” Jake said, very firmly.
“Okay,” Charlie said, satisfied. “Can I have a cookie?”
Jake handed his son the tin. Charlie took one. Seeing that no one was paying him much attention, he snuck another.
Nice, I thought, to be able to be so reassured by one word from your father. I glanced at Lily. Far from being comforted her face was pure white under her tan and her eyes were round with fear.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Lily came into my room on her way to bed. She was ready for sleep, dressed in cheerful yellow pajamas, smelling of toothpaste and shampoo overlaying a lingering trace of horses and hay. I was sitting in bed, listening to an audio book. The library history books were piled beside me, but I’d been unable to follow the words and had discarded them in anger. I pulled the ear buds
away and patted the duvet.
“Good night, Aunt Hannah.” Lily sat on the bed and gave me a big hug.
“Good night, dearest. What’s on for tomorrow?”
“Nothing much.” She picked up the top book and flicked through it without interest. She stopped at a picture, a drawing of an eighteenth century couple standing in front of a log cabin.
“Aunt Hannah?”
“Yes?”
“I overheard Mom telling Dad you shouldn’t go into the root cellar. She said it has a strange effect on you. What’d she mean?”
“The bright light in that enclosed space hurts my head.”
“Is that all?”
It certainly wasn’t all. “Yes, that’s all. Why do you ask, Lily?”
She was silent for a long time. She ran the tip of her index finger across the picture in the book, tracing the outline of the woman’s dress, the neatly-tied bonnet.
“When I was little,” she said in a slow, soft voice, “my cousins Mike and Louise came to visit from Vancouver.” She stopped talking and I waited her out. She had something she wanted to tell me but she needed to tell it in her own way, in her own time.
“Louise is nice, but Mike’s mean. I don’t like him. He’s older than me and is really bossy. One night, after dinner, we were playing hide and seek outside. I didn’t want to play, but Mom said I had to. I hid in the root cellar. Mike found me and instead of yelling to tell Louise and Charlie where I was, he locked me in.”
“How awful. There isn’t a lock on the door, is there?”
“No, but he leaned up against it so I couldn’t get it open. I could hear him laughing and laughing. I was there for a long time. Louise and Charlie gave up on the game and went back into the house. It was really dark. I was too small then to reach the string for the light.”
“You must have been terribly frightened.”
“I was. At first.” She hesitated. Her fingers plucked at a loose thread on the cover of my duvet.
