The Kissing Fence

by B. A. Thomas-Peter

  “Stay in the woods till the police have gone.”

  “We will.”

  “And don’t go too far.”

  “I won’t, Auntie. Don’t worry.” Suddenly Nina’s face was grasped and her cheek squashed with thick Russian lips. “Thank you, Auntie.”

  Auntie grabbed the cuff of Nina’s coat and rubbed it between her fingers. “Your coat needs mending.”

  “It will be fine for today.”

  “I’ll make you a new one. Off you go now. God protect you.”

  The door opened. Hand in hand the two girls left the house. Arina waved wildly at Auntie; Nina walked without looking back. The sky was blue and the sun, shining from the southeast, warmed her through the layers. She loved being free and outside, but the early excitement of days in the forest had faded. The elements never bothered her but the prospect of being in the woods for the day caring for Arina caused her feet to drag in the snow. She wanted to know what her friends were doing and even if they were friends still, after all this time. Who had they become in New Denver? And did they ever think of her? The big sky felt empty and the massed conifers were overwhelming. It would be difficult being in the forest today.

  Arina said, “You’re lucky. My mother’s going to make you a new coat.”

  Nina perked up remembering her auntie’s promise. The new coat would be made for her. It would be warm and last forever.

  October 10, 1955

  The rhythm of the house was comforting, her place at the table assured, but something about this morning dulled her enthusiasm. Nina sat at the edge of her bed but could not fully wake. She had not seen her friends in over a year and she missed them, sometimes more than she missed her parents. There were a few other children but those from her communal house were gone. She had no desire to wake up and think of them all together in New Denver without her. Neither did she wish to pad through the house, past the bustle of activity downstairs, just to pee. By lifting her feet from the cold wood floor and toppling over, she could put off the day a little longer. Her head landed on the pillow moments before sleep found her.

  From outside the house the noise of someone shouting reached her and was gone. Another noise, but now from inside the house. Chairs moved across floors, doors rattled and banged shut, voices lifted. Nina did not want to allow it in. There were feet on the stairs, running. Now on the landing they came tapping toward her room. The door flung wide, but still Nina would not allow it through her haze.

  “Nina! Nina, wake up!” Auntie’s voice pressed into her sleep. Her blankets pulled away and she coiled against the fresh cool of morning. “Nina! You must hide! The police are coming to take you. You must hide.” Inside her sleep, it did not seem so bad to be taken, to be with her friends again. Strong arms heaved her curled body to a sitting position. “Help me, Nina, please!” They were shaking her now and more voices were in the room.

  Uncle’s voice came. “Open the cabinet and take the door.”

  His huge carpenter’s hands gathered her off the bed, shifting her easily into his arms, and for a moment she was warm against his body and clung to him. In his arms she flew, knowing she would land in the special hiding place through the large cupboard in her bedroom. The wall at the back had been removed and the space behind it would fit one child. It was a space with spiders and only darkness, but it was safe from English-Canadian police.

  “Nina, listen to me,” Uncle said. She squinted at him knowing the drill they had done so often, but never at this time of the morning. “Shuffle back and take the handles.”

  Her job was to grip the handles on the inside and pull the wall panel into place, bracing herself with her feet against the frame. The cupboard doors would be closed, but even when opened, the look and feel of the wall would not give her away. “Quickly now. Stay until we come for you. You understand?” She nodded.

  Robust knocking on the kitchen door vibrated the house. Voices shouted in English to be let in. Outside, between the houses, children and women began screaming. Uncle’s eyes showed his alarm. She pulled the panel toward her, submerging herself in darkness. It was cold, and she wished she had gone out to pee before all of this.

  * * *

  Gerry Flanagan was the last of three uniformed men pounding in sturdy boots up the stairs to the bedrooms. He stood at the top of the stairs with his flashlight. The uniformed men split up and searched quickly in all of the rooms. A man and a woman stood on the landing in their underwear, holding candles, and watched them barge into each room, flashlights glaring, beaming under the beds and behind the doors. The three officers emerged onto the landing. Without discussion two of them entered the first room and began a more thorough search, yanking blankets and mattresses off beds, emptying drawers, disturbing everything. Flanagan stayed outside, watching for movement and listening for noises that would give the children away.

  “You have no right to come into our house,” said the man in his underwear. “You have no right.”

  “We can do what we like.” Sergeant Benson’s voice came from the stairs and surprised everyone. “You don’t have to be here. If you don’t obey the laws of the land, then go back.”

  The man said, “I’ve been here fifty years—longer than you!”

  “We obey Jesus Christ,” said the woman next to him. “No worldly laws are above his.”

  “That may be, but he is not here to tell us. Is he?” said the sergeant.

  “He’s in every man,” the man said. “Maybe not you.”

  The sergeant turned on him. “I have the law with me. I am the law. Just stand there and let my men do their work. You have nothing to worry about if God’s with you.”

  The two police officers emerged from the first bedroom. Without breaking stride they entered the room across the landing and began again. Flanagan noticed the man and woman shuffle and exchange a glance, before a squeal emerged from the room.

  “Arina!” the woman shouted, and pushed forward. Flanagan wrapped his arms around her.

  Her husband pulled at her to free her from Flanagan’s grip.

  “Take your hands off my wife. You have no right.”

  The three shuffled back and forth on the landing in a drunken dance until the slapping sound of a riding crop lashing the man’s face caused him to let go and stumble backwards. It was an animal cry of pain and outrage that emerged from him, drawing his wife to his aid. The girl, Arina, emerged crying and frightened from her bedroom, held by a policeman with a broad smile on his face.

  The policeman said, “She was in the mattress, buttoned up the side.”

  “Take her to the cars,” said the sergeant. “Keep searching.”

  The woman hustled forward, barging the officer aside. Mother and daughter clamped arms around each other and began crying, sobbing. Officers grabbed them and tried forcing them apart.

  “Wait, wait, stop!” said Flanagan, pushing the officers away.

  “What’s this, Irish?” asked the sergeant. “Have you forgotten what side you’re on again?”

  “Just wait,” he said, shaking the sergeant’s grip from his tunic. “Let me talk to them.” Without waiting for a reply Flanagan bent down on one knee, his head level with theirs. His hands rested on the shoulders of the mother and daughter. “We have seven men in this house. Some have batons, some have rifles and we all have orders. School-aged children are being taken to New Denver, today, right now. If you struggle to stop us, people will be hurt, your daughter will be upset and she’ll go to New Denver in these clothes and without anything to eat. If you get some clothes on her and give her something to eat for the journey, at least she will be warm and not hungry. Then you can go to New Denver and see her.” Arina continued crying, but her mother listened to Flanagan’s soft, reasoned tones. She looked toward her husband, who was still holding the side of his face. He nodded and the woman turned to Flanagan.

  She asked, “Have you children
?”

  “Two daughters,” he replied.

  “So, you understand the feelings?”

  “I do,” said Flanagan.

  “If you understand, and still do this,” she said, pausing, “how will you be forgiven? God will not forgive you.”

  There was no escaping the horror and sadness in her eyes. Her horror was not for herself, her daughter or even her being taken. It was knowing Flanagan was outside of forgiveness. Flanagan felt the words breach the moral cloak of a uniformed defender of the law, finding him unprotected, naked to a simple truth.

  “I know,” he said, “but there is no choice for either of us.”

  She lifted Arina, as if protecting her from a terrible darkness in the room, and carried her into the bedroom.

  “Stay with her,” the sergeant shouted at an officer. “Now, finish the search.” Looking at the girl’s father, he said, “You, come downstairs with me.”

  The turmoil in Flanagan’s head calmed enough for him to think about the task. He gestured to his colleague to follow him into the next room. Quickly they opened everything, felt the mattresses and checked again under the beds. Nothing. The next bedroom was a family room with a large double bed, a single and a baby’s cot suspended from the ceiling. The bed was cold, but they tossed it anyway. They shone their flashlights into the corners and under the beds and rummaged in the hanging cot before hurrying to the next room. Flanagan opened the door. Two single beds and a cupboard.

  * * *

  It was cold hiding in the wall behind the cupboard. Nina’s legs trembled with the chill and the strain of bracing the door shut. She had heard the muffled sounds, each arriving with more alarm than the one before. Every sense strained for more information. There were banging footsteps, shouting on the landing, her uncle had wailed with pain, Auntie and Arina were crying. Now there was quiet, save for the sound of police searching room to room.

  The door of her room opened abruptly and she held her breath, listening to each noise, calculating how many there were and what they were doing. One leg began trembling beyond her control. She so wanted to pee, and the cold and strain of holding the door had made this worse. As her fear rose, she ached to let it go.

  A voice in the room said in English, “The bed’s warm. There’s clothing for a child.”

  It was too much to hold on to, and out it came. The relief caused her to exhale and the trembling leg eased, but the sound of pee draining from her caught her attention—so much, and it kept coming, soaking her clothes, adding shame to her fear. The cupboard door opening startled her. She imagined a policeman in the cupboard moving clothes, searching. At the bottom of the panel she held shut was a gap large enough to see a strip of light from the room—enough for her to see her legs still pressed on the frame, and a growing puddle running from her hiding place, between her feet, under the door and into the cupboard, where the policeman searched. A new flashlight beam reflected off the puddle into her eyes.

  * * *

  While his partner lifted the mattresses, Flanagan pulled at the clothing in the cupboard and tried not to think about the little girl being dressed in the bedroom across the landing. He worked his way from the top shelf down, moving quickly to be done with this business. Finally he pointed his light to the bottom corners of the cupboard. A puddle spread from the wall toward him. Flanagan put his hand on the panel and tried to shift it, but it would not move. He shone his light, trying to make sense of why water was running out of the cupboard, and then put his head closer. The smell was all he needed.

  “Anything?” asked the sergeant entering the room.

  “Nothing, Sarge.” Flanagan stood and closed the door of the cupboard. “Two more bedrooms to do.”

  “Well, hurry up and get on with it.”

  “Yes, Sarge.”

  September 3, 1956

  Nina knelt and admired her construction of broken sticks and spruce boughs. It had taken most of the day but had kept her occupied. She imagined her friends coming to play and how excited they would be to find a secret den in the woods. By now, she thought, Arina had become part of the secret world of New Denver, and may have carried the memory of her to her friends.

  Shadows had begun reaching into the valley from the crest of the hill behind Auntie’s house. The attraction of building a den had passed and it was time to go home. There was always tomorrow to refine her forest hideaway.

  Nina crawled out through the small opening into the late afternoon light and admired her work. Until the fir needles turned brown you could walk by it without ever seeing it. Inside, it was large enough for three or four children to play in secret.

  The den moved and creaked, as if at any moment it would collapse under its own weight. Branches rustled behind it. The head of a bear emerged above the den with a guttural snort. Nina turned and ran. In two steps her heart pounded and her chest heaved, her attention narrowed to the single task of getting away. The forest thrashed at her face and arms, snagging her clothes and holding her back.

  Distance from the bear became enough to think of where she was going. Through the rasp of her own breath she listened for noises of the bear following her. Sounds everywhere were unfamiliar. The bear was quick enough to be behind or in front of her. Branches fell and birds startled into the sky; everything was a sign of danger. Staying in the woods as darkness arrived was not a choice to be made. The only option was getting back to Auntie’s house, and to do that she would have to go past her den and the bear or take a long route around and risk not getting home before the cold and dark overtook her. It had to be the long route.

  An hour had passed. Nina had given a wide berth to her den, moving as quietly as she could, listening carefully to every sound of the forest. Long shadows reached into the valley from the west, but lights from Auntie’s house could be seen through the brush, just down the hill. The crackling sound of treading on forest mulch held her still. She listened for another sound and suppressed the urge to run wildly toward the light. Another noise from a different direction could be something, or nothing. She waited for more, but nothing convinced her it was safe to go or to stay. It was time to break cover and run for the house.

  In the open, past the tree line, Nina was sure she would make it. There were no sounds of grunting breath or snarling anger chasing her. With every stride she felt more confident in seeing Auntie again. The house was clearly in view and she angled her run to take her to the kitchen door on the other side. Her body relaxed and suddenly she could acknowledge the stinging scratches on hands and face from running through the bush. Thirst clawed her throat and her legs ached, but it was over now. She was home.

  As she passed the outside corner of the house on the perimeter of the group of buildings, a black car came into view between the outbuildings. It took her three long strides to come to a halt. The police were there. Nina flattened herself against the wall of the house, knowing they had come for her.

  She edged along the wall to see into the yard. Across the courtyard, through an open door of the barn, lit up like a nativity scene, a police officer was shifting hay with a pitchfork. Nina watched carefully. He was not shifting but stabbing the hay, stepping along and stabbing again, in search of children, looking for her. Auntie and Uncle would be inside worrying, hoping she would not come home just now or be hiding in that hay. Up the hill toward the forest it was now foreboding black under deep azure sky. Other officers began walking across the yard to the outbuildings. In seconds she would come into view. It would be easy to stay still and be taken. Being endlessly watchful, hiding, days spent alone in the forest could all be over if she waited a few seconds longer. The idea came with relief, and the prospect of joining lost friends brought a sudden sense that all of this would finish. Nina still watched the nativity scene.

  The officer thrust the pitchfork into the hay, walked two steps and thrust again. Nina wondered if he would really do that if he thought she was hiding ther
e, and then the realization came to her. He did think she might be hiding in the hay. There was no other reason to search for her there.

  When the RCMP officers walked past the edge of the house and flashed their beams, there was no one to be seen. Nina was well into the darkness, heading for the tree line, taking her chances with the bear, believing Auntie’s assurance that God would protect her in the forest. It seemed inevitable that she would be taken, but not this day, not squealing in terror at the point of a pitchfork.

  3

  Vancouver, December 21, 2017

  It was cool in the room where he was being made ready. Patients waited, hidden and helpless. William hated the garb everyone was forced to wear in hospital. It was convenient only for those who wanted to get at you.

  The surgeon arrived, brushing aside the curtain that surrounded the bed. Dressed in clogs and green pyjamas, he began speaking through a mask over which his nose protruded.

  “Remember me?” he said cheerfully. “I’m Dr. Franklin. How are you feeling?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “We’ll be ready to take you into the operating room in a few minutes. I thought I would come by and answer any last-minute questions you might have.” His eyes smiled. William did not answer. “Let me just refresh your memory of what we are doing and what to expect. Today we are going to make a fairly small incision under your eyebrow,” said the surgeon, drawing an arc with his finger, “and remove that tumour we found on the pituitary gland. This method is called transsphenoidal because we are going through the sinus behind the nose. What it means is that we don’t have to open the skull, and we don’t have to navigate through brain tissue, and there will be almost no scar. Of course there are always risks with any operation, but we’ve done this operation many times and it’s very successful. You’ll have to take it easy for a couple of days, but you shouldn’t feel too uncomfortable. Do you have any questions for me?”