Hope's War

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  Kat stumbled out of her desk in confusion, feeling her face getting hot with embarrassment. She felt a dozen pair of eyes bore into her back as she gently lifted her precious creation and followed Mrs. Reynaud to the vice-principal's office.

  Dr. Sage-Brown was an inch shorter than the shortest student at St. Paul's, but every inch of her was packed with authority. She ushered Kat and Mrs. Reynaud into her office and closed the door.

  "What's the problem?" she asked in the manner of someone faced with a myriad of crises on a moment by moment basis.

  "See for yourself," said Mrs. Reynaud, lifting the blanket from Kat's creation.

  Dr. Sage-Brown suppressed a gasp of shock and delight at what stood before her. Dr. Sage-Brown could see why Mrs. Reynaud was upset with this sculpture, although she herself did not consider this blasphemous. She considered it brilliant.

  "Let me deal with this," Dr. Sage-Brown said to Mrs. Reynaud. "Why don't you get back to your class?

  Once the door clicked shut behind Mrs. Reynaud, Dr. Sage-Brown locked eyes with Kat. "Surely you knew that such a work would provoke that poor woman?" she asked.

  Kat was taken aback. Deep down, she had to admit that she did know the sculpture would create a ripple of excitement, but she hadn't expected Mrs. Reynaud to be so upset. "She told us to use our imagination," said Kat defensively, reaching out and gently caressing the flowing robe of the sculpture. "Once the idea took shape, all I could think of was how wonderful it would be when it was finished. I thought Mrs. Reynaud would have no choice but to find it brilliant."

  "Not," said Dr. Sage-Brown, more to herself than to Kat.

  The events that followed were blurred. Her parents were consulted. Mr. Patrick was consulted. Mrs. Reynaud was not consulted. Kat was given tests and more tests. She talked to school counsellors and the psychologist. They looked at other artwork that she had done, both in and out of class. And Kat soon found herself identified as "exceptionally gifted" in visual arts.

  About a month after The Incident, Kat was called back down to the vice-principal's office. "I have good news and bad news for you," said Dr. Sage-Brown, with a hint of a smile. "The bad news is that you will receive a failing grade on your major Religion assignment."

  Kat opened her mouth to protest, but Dr. Sage-Brown held up her hand. "Let me finish," she said. "You'll get your credit. Barely."

  Kat could feel tears of anger well up in her eyes. She had poured so much passion and energy into her sculpture, yet these people could not see the value in what she had done. She would have done better if she'd just handed in a dull essay. So much for creativity.

  "The good news is that, with your parents' permission, I've taken the liberty to contact Cawthra School for the Arts about you," she said. "Your marks have been good, so even with your low Religion mark, you've earned an A average overall, which meets Cawthra's requirement. Ail you'll need to do is meet with their audition committee, and you should be able to attend Cawthra in the fall."

  Kat could barely contain her joy. This was the best possible outcome: not only could she carve a place for herself away from her sister, but she would be taking classes with people who were as passionate about art as she was.

  Two weeks after that, Kat had "auditioned" for Cawthra, taking her nine best pieces of art with her, and nervously answering the questions posed by the audition committee.

  The door to the basement creaked open and Kat's mother called down. "Come on up, dear! It's supper time."

  Kat walked back up the stairs to the kitchen. Her father and mother had both come home from work, and while her grandfather was busy setting the table, her father was changing out of his suit and her mother was putting the food on serving dishes.

  Kat reached behind her mother for an oven mitt and grabbed the casserole dish of mixed vegetables. She placed it on the kitchen table and then went back to get the chicken and potatoes and salad. Genya had already poured a glass of milk out for each person and was setting serviettes on the table. Even though the kitchen was small, the daily dance of putting supper out quickly and efficiently went off without a hitch.

  As soon as her father came in from changing, they all sat down to eat.

  "What a day," said Orysia, Kat's mother, as she speared a piece of chicken and put it on her plate. "I've got twenty-three kids in the morning, and twenty in the afternoon. Sonya in the morning class didn't stop crying until lunch, and then in the afternoon, Matt threw up on me."

  Kat rolled her eyes and smiled. "That's a little bit too much information, Mama." As much as her mother complained, Kat knew that she adored her job as a kindergarten teacher at Saint Sofia's. Had there ever been a first day when someone didn't throw up on her?

  Walt, Kat's father, silently filled his plate with food and began to eat, listening to the conversation around him. Kat noticed that he looked exhausted. "Is everything all right, Tato?" she asked.

  He looked up from his plate and met her eyes. A smile broke out on his face. "It's been a good day, Kataryna."

  "What happened?" she asked.

  "I finally managed to get Akima Corporation to commit to a twelve month systems purchasing plan," he said.

  Walt was the senior sales manager with Mayfair Industrial Supply. He had started out when Kat was just a baby by calling on every machine shop and tool and die shop in the city. As his reliability became apparent, he was gradually promoted. He now only dealt with the largest corporations. A systems purchasing contract with Akima was something her father had been working on for months.

  "That is fantastic, Walt," said Orysia. She reached over and squeezed her husband's hand. "We'll be able to put a bit more money aside for when Genya gets into medical school."

  Genya looked up at the mention of her name. "That's great news, Tato," she said. "Congratulations on your hard work paying off."

  CHAPTER 6

  WHEN KAT GOT on the bus for school the next day, her friends from St. Paul's looked up at her and smiled, but no one moved over to give her a place to sit. Flushing pink with embarrassment, she scanned the seats to see if there was anyone else she knew who might make a place for her. The Goth she'd met the day before was sitting in the last seat beside a girl dressed in equally unusual clothing. He smiled encouragingly to her and gestured that there was room beside them. Kat hesitated.

  "There's room here," said a voice from one of the seats nearby.

  Kat looked over and saw a vaguely familiar face. She was pretty sure it was one of the guys who had helped get the platform into place in her art class the day before.

  "Thanks," she said, sitting down. "You're in my visual arts class, right?" she asked.

  "That's right. My name's Michael Vincent."

  He was an unremarkable looking guy, thought Kat, as she regarded him through the corner of her glasses. A bit on the nerdy side. But it was thoughtful of him to let her sit there and end her embarrassing moment.

  At lunch that day, Kat got her food and then walked into the cafeteria looking for a place to sit. Beth and Callie and Michael were sitting together. There were a few other kids from visual arts sitting in the same general area too, although she didn't know all their names yet. She walked up to the table where her three new acquaintances sat. "Is this seat taken?" she asked.

  "We were saving it for you," said Callie with a grin.

  Kat sighed with relief and set down her tray.

  She listened passively to the buzz of conversation and ate her egg salad sandwich. As she chewed she looked around the cafeteria. At St. Paul's it had been harder to notice the cliques because of the uniforms. Here, it was quite apparent.

  The tables in the cafeteria were occupied not only according to grade level, but by specialty too. There were a few mixed-specialty tables, most notably the black table. Most students at Cawthra were white and a few were Asian. The handful of black students mingled freely with everyone else during class time, but they seemed to take refuge with each other during lunch.

  Another exception was the
Goth table, where Kat could see Ian and the girl he'd been on the bus with that morning. Kat knew that Ian was only in grade 10, and the girl couldn't be more than 15, yet they sat with a small group of other Goths who were obviously much older. Kat tried not to stare as she munched on her sandwich and evaluated the girl. She was tiny with fragile Vietnamese features, but half of her head was shaved and the other half had chin-length poker-straight hair dyed blue-black. She wore a sheer powder on her face that made her flawless complexion look unnaturally white, and her lips were carefully penciled and painted a stark blood black. She had drawn thick kohl lines on her upper and lower eyelids à la Cleopatra. Today she had come to school in a skin-tight black leather miniskirt, black net stockings with runs, and heavy hobnailed boots. Kat considered the whole group a pretty scary bunch, with their pierced noses and eyebrows and ever evolving outrageous hair, but this girl's underlying prettiness made her seem even more grotesque: a parody of sweetness.

  Ian looked up and caught her staring at his friend. Embarrassed, Kat quickly looked away. Out of the corner of her glasses, she peaked over again and was startled to see that Ian was getting up from his table and walking towards her. Worse yet, he had the girl in tow.

  "Hey there," he said, his turquoise hair gelled stiff above his kohl-blackened eyes. "This is my friend, Lisa. Isn't she beautiful?"

  Lisa smiled.

  Kat hesitated for a moment, then said, "Hi Lisa, I'm Kat. And this is Michael, Callie and Beth."

  As she made the introductions, Kat was embarrassed by the giggling she heard erupting beside her. Callie and Beth were both killing themselves laughing.

  "Where did you get that outfit?" asked Beth, her eyes sparkling maliciously above the hand she held in front of her mouth to hide her braces.

  "Not the Gap," replied Lisa coolly, giving Beth's outfit the once-over.

  Michael had been quiet during this exchange, but he obviously didn't like the cattiness in Beth's question to Lisa. "I think you both look nice," he said lamely.

  Kat looked at him and smiled.

  CHAPTER 7

  HE HAD BEEN standing in the driveway looking down the street when he saw them. Two men had parked in front of his daughter's white wooden house. He thought that they were Jehovah's Witnesses, and unlike the neighbours, Danylo actually answered the door when Jehovah's Witnesses came to call. It was a pleasant opportunity for him to brush up on his English, because with his family and friends, he always spoke Ukrainian.

  By the time they reached the front door he had walked through the summer kitchen. He stepped into the regular kitchen and put on the tea kettle and then waited for the doorbell to ring.

  They were RCMP officers.

  One of the men was tall with red hair and wire-rimmed glasses over a pale freckled face. The other was a few inches shorter, with black hair and bad skin. The redhead handed Danylo a card.

  Danylo took it and looked at it. He could read English, but he didn't have his glasses on. He held the card at arm's length, and saw, "Department of Immigration — War Crimes Unit."

  What could this possibly mean?

  The red haired man pulled out a small tape recorder from his pocket, and the other man clicked open his briefcase and drew out a thick sheaf of papers. With trembling hands, Danylo motioned for them to sit down, and then Danylo's knees gave out and he found himself sitting too.

  They asked their questions in the kind of fast English that is difficult to understand. The portions he understood made him uneasy by the way that they asked them. They had to do with a time in his life that Danylo had consciously stopped thinking about. It was so very painful after all. Did these men not realize that?

  They asked for details and dates. Where were you on such and such a Wednesday fifty years ago? He answered as best as he could in his slow and precise English. He noticed that the red-haired man turned the tape recorder on sometimes, but then clicked it off at others. The dark-haired man wrote with enthusiasm.

  The interview was still going strong two hours later when Kataryna came home. Aside from the unfamiliar car in front of the house, Kat's first clue that something was very wrong was when she walked into the kitchen. The kettle was on a burner turned onto "high" and had boiled dry. She clicked the burner off and slipped on an oven mitt, then gingerly moved the kettle to a cold burner. The kettle was probably ruined.

  She stepped into the living room and saw the two men sitting there, one with a tape recorder, the other with a thick sheaf of handwritten notes.

  "Who are these men, Dido?" she asked.

  The two men stood up. The tape recorder was quickly clicked off.

  "It's okay, zolota zhabka," esponded Danylo in Ukrainian. "These men are asking me about my immigration papers. I can straighten it out right now." He motioned to the men to sit back down.

  Kat looked over at the two men. Even though they were in "street clothing", she could tell that they were police officers. There was something about the cut of their suits and their hair that gave them away.

  "Are you charging him with something?" Kat asked.

  The officer hesitated for a moment, then answered, "We're trying to determine if he lied to immigration authorities to get into this country."

  The explanation seemed absurd to Kat. What could her grandfather have lied about fifty years ago that would be so important now? There was something very wrong going on. She summoned all the courage she could muster and said, "I think you should leave."

  Danylo jumped from his chair, "Kataryna, you can't ask them to do that."

  But the men had already closed up their briefcases, and were heading towards the door.

  "This isn't the end of it," said the dark haired one.

  Kat watched the door close behind the two men and then turned to where her grandfather stood. He looked like he was about to crumple upon himself. Although she was more than a head shorter than he was, she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a firm hug. "Sit down," she said. "And tell me what this is all about."

  The two sat, side by side on the sofa with Kat's head leaning on her grandfather's shoulder. Danylo had his right hand firmly clasped around a pair of silver rings he wore on a plain chain around his neck. "I don't know, zolota zhabka," he said. "They were RCMP. They asked me so many questions that I was getting confused. I think there is some form that I have to fill out."

  It seemed odd to Kat that the government would send two Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers over to her house because her grandfather had to fill out a form from fifty years ago. She would have to give this a bit of thought.

  Once the supper dishes were cleared from the table, Danylo said that he was tired, and excused himself to Genya's bedroom. He was far from tired: the questions that the officers had asked him had stirred many memories, and none of them were pleasant.

  He lay down on the double bed with a soft mattress and flowered comforter and clasped the set of rings that he wore around his neck. Canadians lived such a simple existence. Was there any chance that someone in this world could understand all the things he'd had to deal with in his life?

  He held the two silver rings up to his cheek and closed his eyes, a sob escaping from his throat. Memories that he had willed away came rushing back.

  The rings were wedding rings. His parents had worn them, and he and his wife had worn them too. His mind flashed back to the first day he had worn the rings on a strap around his neck. He was just a young man when his mother had been killed, and was even younger when his father was shot as a "traitor". Before he buried his mother's body, Danylo pulled the work-worn wedding ring off her finger. He had done the same when he found his father's corpse. He remembered praying for his own death to come soon. Cruelly, God decided to let him live amidst so much death. He vowed that if he lived long enough, he would avenge the deaths of his family and his village. And later, when he learned more, to defend his country.

  CHAPTER 8

  KAT QUICKLY BEGAN to feel at home at her new school. She didn't have a lot
of friends yet, but she and Callie and Beth and Michael were becoming something of a foursome. As the weeks passed, it was wonderful to be able to talk art with other people who were just as excited by it as she was. Just for this lunch time conversation, it was worth going to Cawthra.

  If there was one negative, it was how Beth and Callie treated Ian. Kat couldn't figure it out. Ian looked strange, that was true, but as soon as he opened his mouth, it was obvious he was a nice guy. Why couldn't Callie, and especially Beth, see beyond his make-up and outrageous clothing?

  Twice Ian had tried to sit with Kat and her art friends, but both times, Beth was so rude to him that he left.

  She figured that Ian must have learned to live with negative reactions, and given his fashion choices — he invited those reactions. He took the same bus route as she did, but even then, they didn't have much to do with each other. The only time they sat together was when both of them happened to be staying late at school and there weren't other students crowding around. Lisa was also on that bus route, and more often than not, she and Ian would sit in serene isolation at the back of the bus.

  It was during one of these late rides home that Ian told Kat some exciting news. "I've been chosen to do a piano solo for the Winter Concert."

  "Piano?" asked Kat with surprise.

  "Yes," said Ian, "And I'm playing Chopin's Ballade no 1."

  "Chopin?"

  Ian chuckled. "What were you expecting, Siouxie and the Banshees?"

  Indeed, thought Kat.

  "Anyway," he continued, "Lisa said she'd help me with the sound and light, but I was wondering if you'd do the set design for me?"

  "The piano's in the pit, right?" asked Kat, considering.

  "That's right," said Ian. "The piano pit is off to the far left side, and it's raised up a bit more than the orchestra pit."

  "How quickly do you have to dismantle your set?"

  "Fast," said Ian. "Less than a minute."

  The challenge appealed to Kat. What could she do that would be simple, dramatic, and moveable within seconds? She also figured that it should be cheap.