Hope's War

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  "I'd love to help," she smiled. "Now tell me a bit about this Ballade to get my imagination running."

  "Instead of telling you about it, why don't I play it for you?" Ian suggested. "Can you come to my house after school tomorrow night?"

  "Sure," said Kat.

  Kat was surprised the next day to find that Ian's house was only two bus stops past her own. She never saw him except at school, and so had expected him to live much further away.

  As they stepped off the bus together, Kat saw Dylan Tomblin walking in the opposite direction on the other side of the street. She had known Dylan from when she was very young. They had gone to the same day camp together for a couple years running, and had even attended the same preschool before that. But Kat had gone to St. Sofia's and Dylan had gone to a public school, so they lost contact.

  "Dylan!" she called, flailing her arms.

  He turned around and gave a puzzled look at Ian and then at her. All at once, he recognized who she was. His face broke out into a broad grin and he waved back to her, his navy blue and grey football jacket billowing in the wind. Then continued on his journey.

  "You know that jerk?" asked Ian.

  "He's not a jerk," said Kat. "He was a friend of mine when we were kids."

  Ian didn't reply and they walked the rest of the way to his house in silence.

  His house was less than ten years old and was much bigger than Kat's family home. The lawn was manicured to perfection and the flowers in the garden were so healthy that they could have been plastic. Kat's grandfather spent hours working on their garden, yet it didn't look as good as this.

  Ian led her to the back door and then opened it with his key, quickly scooting in to deactivate the alarm. As soon as the buzzing ended, Ian began to undo his knee-high black Doc Martens.

  Kat stepped in behind him and kicked off her shoes. She wrinkled her nose at the faint smell of bleach. The first thing that she noticed was that the kitchen was just as perfect as the lawn and garden. It was so clean that it looked sterile. Kat shuddered. She always equated a perfect house with an empty mind.

  "Want something to drink?" Ian asked, opening up the gigantic Sub-Zero refrigerator and pulling out a glass pitcher of orange juice.

  "Sure," said Kat, still taking in her surroundings. The white ceramic floor tiles felt chilly through her stockinged feet.

  Ian poured them each a glass of juice, then downed his own in one thirsty gulp. "Have it now," Ian said. "I'm not allowed to have any food or drink in the music room."

  "Sure," said Kat again. She took a tentative sip of her juice. It was delicious. Tasted like fresh-squeezed. She drank it all down then handed Ian the empty glass. He rinsed them both and placed them in the dishwasher.

  "Follow me," said Ian, and he walked out of the kitchen, through what Kat thought was a living room and through another room that to Kat also looked like a living room. Finally, they entered a room that was filled with lemony smelling dark wood, glass, and sunlight.

  The floor gleamed of burnished dark oak and a glass-fronted dark oak bookcase soared practically to the ceiling. Not an easy feat, since the ceiling of this room was about a floor-and-a-half up. In the middle of the room was an intricately woven red Oriental carpet. And on top of that was a baby grand piano.

  "If you sit over there, you'll get the best acoustics," said Ian, pointing towards a small red brocade-covered antique sofa at the end of the room.

  Kat sank into the middle of the sofa and waited with anticipation. Ian, she discovered, was full of surprises.

  Ian was still wearing his standard attire: the ragged black leather jacket held together with hundreds of safety pins, plus a black iridescent shirt that glittered like a snake underneath. His pants were tight black leather ripped at the heels, and he still wore a full complement of tarnished silver rings. In addition to his nose ring, he was wearing a single silver earring in the shape of a medieval crucifix. His hair was now a hot pink. Amazing that it didn't just fall out with all the colour changes, Kat thought. His socks, men's designer socks — obviously borrowed from his father's drawer — looked incongruous with the rest of the ensemble.

  Ian pulled out the piano bench and then sat down without so much as looking at her. He did a few preliminary hand and finger stretches, then bent over the keyboard, hands hovering, trembling, above. He took a deep breath, and then the hands connected with the ivory keys.

  Kat was mesmerized not only by the beautiful melody rising from the piano, but by the appearance of Ian's hands. His fingers seemed lithe and powerful. The ballade began with a gentle melancholy that soon built into a showy intensity. Kat watched Ian's fingers with fascination as they flew across the keyboard. The intensity was almost unbearable after a bit, and Kat tore her gaze away from Ian's fingers to watch his face. She was surprised to see that tears were streaming down his cheeks. Just when she thought she could stand it no more, the music mellowed and became quiet, almost gentle. It almost sounded like a traditional ballad for a minute or so. Then it built up again, trilling, luxuriating in the sheer intricateness of the melody. It became quieter then, and Kat had expected it to end, but instead it began to build up slowly and become more intense.

  Kat gripped the brocade cushions with her hands as she could sense the intense anger in the music. She was shocked at the raw emotion that burst forth from the lean fingers. And then when the music became almost overwhelming, the anger diminished and the complexity increased. Now, the music was sheer cold showiness. Ian's face was composed — no tears now.

  The rhythm built up again with the same power and intensity, and then, suddenly, it segued into utter abject sorrow. Listening to it made Kat's throat catch in grief. Anger. Grief. A death march. Despair.

  Then the ballade ended.

  Ian sat with his head down, his hands stretched over the keyboard as if he were calming it, comforting it.

  Kat sat on the sofa feeling limp. The music had been so powerful that it was beyond her comprehension. She didn't know why, but it reminded her of her grandfather.

  Ian looked up. His eyes were vulnerable. "What do you think?" he asked.

  Just at that moment, Kat heard high-heeled clicking on a wooden floor. She looked up and noticed a woman standing a few feet away from the sofa.

  "Mom," Ian said, pushing the piano stool back and standing up.

  "Hi hon," said the woman. "That was beautiful, although Chopin is so showy." Then she turned and looked at Kat. "And who do we have here?"

  Kat stumbled to a standing position and extended her hand. Ian's mother took it and shook it without enthusiasm. As she did, Kat got a good look at the woman. Nothing that she wouldn't have expected, now that she'd seen the house. Manicured, custom suited, expensively frosted hair, face tightly pulled back in a wrinkle-free facade. "Hello, dear," said the woman in a cool voice. "I'm Samantha Smith." She looked Kat up and down. "And you must be one of Ian's new friends?"

  "Mom" said Ian in an indignant voice.

  Kat looked over at him and noticed that the bright red of his face clashed with the pink hair.

  Mrs. Smith continued, "You should see some of the people he's brought home." Her face broke into a sardonic smile. "I mean, if it's possible, they look sillier than he does himself."

  "That's enough, Mom," said Ian, walking away from the piano and over to where Kat was standing. "This is my friend, Kat Baliuk, and she's helping me design my set for the winter concert."

  One of Mrs. Smith's perfectly waxed eyebrows arched slightly. "Really?" she said. "Well, I'm sure she'll do a fine job."

  "Come on, Kat," said Ian, grabbing her hand and pulling her up a dark wood staircase. "We can go over some ideas in the privacy of my room." He glared angrily at his mother as he enunciated the words.

  Kat followed him upstairs, not sure that she wanted to be going into his bedroom. However, she knew for sure that she didn't want to stay downstairs with Ian's mother, and her own mother wasn't picking her up for another thirty minutes.

 
Never in her life had she seen a messier room. In fact, how could it even be called a room? More like an archaeological dig. There were piles of papers stacked all over the floor. Some of the papers were yellow with age. Kat could see that some of the piles were old school binders, and others were sheets of handwritten music. And there was a musty, sweaty smell about the place.

  There was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase up against one wall, and it was filled with books that must have been Ian's from childhood: Hardy Boys, Goosebumps, the Narnia series, Tolkien. Dog-eared Mad magazines were also shoved onto the shelves, as were more sheets of music. Virtually every square inch of wall space was covered with posters — mostly of obscure Goth musical groups that Kat was not at all familiar with. There was also a poster of Chopin at the piano, and another of a vampire.

  Kat noticed that in one corner of the floor, it looked like someone had thrown a bunch of trophies into a heap.

  "What are those?" asked Kat, pointing at the pile.

  "Nothing."

  Kat walked over to the trophies and squatted down. She picked each trophy up one by one and examined them. "Most valuable player, 1996," said the plate on one cup, and, "Most valuable player, 1997," on a hockey trophy. There was a hockey trophy of some sort for every year from about grade two to grade eight.

  Kat set the last trophy back down in the pile and then stood up, brushing the dust from her knees. "I never would have pegged you as an athlete," she said.

  "Me neither," said Ian. "But that wasn't really me anyway — just my parents' idea of who I should be."

  Ian picked up a stack of magazines that were heaped on the one chair in the room and placed them on the floor. "Sit here," he said. "And here's a drawing pad so we can come up with some ideas."

  Kat quickly sketched the rough dimensions of the stage and then sketched in a piano in the pit. "The piece is dramatic enough," she said. "I think we should go with simplicity in the set."

  Ian nodded.

  "You're going to wear black, right?" asked Kat.

  "Yes," said Ian. "I've got a black tux that I was thinking of wearing without the jacket, and I've got this new coat that I just had made." As he said this, he walked over to his closet and began pulling back hangers. "Here it is."

  Ian held out a floor-length black velvet coat.

  "Put it on," said Kat.

  When Ian put it on, Kat saw that it gave a perfect subtle, yet dramatic touch. The coat was fitted at the top, but wide at the bottom and it was lined with brilliant red satin. He would be able to make a grand entrance in this coat.

  "Why did you get that?" asked Kat. "Surely not just for the concert?"

  "No," said Ian. "This is my winter coat. Those safety pins holding the seams of my leather coat together make it pretty chilly in the winter."

  Kat didn't say anything, but she thought to herself that this coat wasn't going to be all that much warmer.

  "If you're wearing black, then the deep maroon curtains on the stage will make you almost invisible," said Kat. "I'd like to see a more neutral colour. I need to find a huge piece of light coloured material that we can drape behind you."

  "Something like a painter's drop sheet?" suggested Ian.

  "Something like that. Let me think on it," said Kat. "What's Lisa doing for the lighting?"

  "I think she's waiting to see what you come up with for the set," said Ian.

  Just then the doorbell rang, and Kat knew that it was probably her mother. She ran quickly downstairs behind Ian, but Mrs. Smith had already beaten them to the door and was making small talk with Orysia. Or "Iris" as English people called her.

  Kat glanced from Mrs. Smith to her own mother and was starded by the contrast. Ian's mother looked so sleek and cared for, while Kat's mother had a harried look in her eyes that Kat had never seen before. Her navy blue pant suit was crisply ironed, but it looked cheap standing in the doorway of Ian's house. And she looked so small.

  Something was the matter. Kat knew it. She had an urge to hug her mother right then and there. She didn't do that though, because she didn't want to show their vulnerability in front of Ian's mother.

  "I'll see you tomorrow," called Ian, as Kat and her mother walked down the front steps and towards their car.

  As Orysia turned the ignition key and then backed out of the driveway, Kat realized that there were tears welling up in her mother's eyes.

  "What has happened?" asked Kat.

  "Nothing," said Orysia. "Everything's going to be fine."

  Kat knew that everything was, in fact, not fine. She didn't know what was the matter, but something definitely was. During supper that night, her parents barely talked, and her grandfather seemed preoccupied. Was someone sick? Were her parents getting a divorce? Kat wished she knew.

  Kat's parents didn't realize that her bedroom heat vent provided her and Genya with a perfect eavesdropping apparatus to the master bedroom. They would blush if they realized that she knew for a fact that they made love each Tuesday and Friday night like clockwork. They also retired to their bedroom to discuss serious matters. And to have arguments.

  Kat was already dressed in her favourite flannel nightgown, and she grabbed a pillow from her bed and lay down on the hand-braided rug in front of the heating vent. Genya had walked into the room not long before and was still dressed in her school uniform. She had flopped onto her bed without bothering to get undressed and her eyes were closed. The two girls lay silently as the sounds from the heating vent drifted up.

  ".... but Vincent and Gray is the best law firm for immigration matters," her mother's voice said.

  Immigration matters, thought Kat to herself. So this was something to do with her grandfather? Something to do with the form from fifty years ago?

  "They're two hundred dollars an hour," said her father. "And that's per lawyer. How could we possibly afford them?"

  Kat shook her head in confusion. Why would her parents need to get a team of lawyers for this? What was really going on?

  "The others aren't much cheaper," said her mother. "And they're not nearly as good."

  "Where will we get the money?" asked her father.

  "We'll have to mortgage our house," said Orysia.

  What? thought Kat. What are they talking about? What could be so serious and expensive that they had to mortgage their house? Kat knew that they had only finally managed to pay off the mortgage a year before.

  "Perhaps your father should sell his house."

  "I can't ask him to do that right now. Not so soon after Mama died."

  Kat could feel bile rising in her throat. She had to find out what was going on. This was serious. No doubt about it.

  "He'll have to sell it eventually, though," said her father. "These cases drag on for years."

  "I know," said her mother. "It's going to take up all of our savings, and his too — just to defend him."

  Defend him from what? From who? It didn't make sense.

  Kat could hear their father pacing below. She could just imagine the expression on his face: scrunched eyebrows, a face slowly turning red, and beads of sweat popping out on his forehead.

  "What about Genya's education?" he asked with a choked voice.

  Genya's eyes flew open at the mention of her name.

  "Let's play it by ear," said her mother. "What choice do we have?"

  CHAPTER 9

  KAT FOUND IT hard to concentrate at school the next day. During art class, Mr. Harding was still having them do life drawings, and Beth was the current volunteer. Kat propped her sheet of paper on a drawing board and grabbed a pencil to sketch with. What was happening with her grandfather, she wondered. What was it that her parents weren't telling her?

  "Are you with us, Ms. Baliuk?" asked Mr. Harding, standing behind her. Kat looked around and realized that the timer had sounded. Everyone else had completed a line sketch, yet she had not even begun. She was too embarrassed to reply, so she just smiled at him weakly.

  He looked at her not unkindly and said, "I'll only be mar
king you on your best sketches, but you should try to do them all."

  Kat nodded. She could feel the tears welling up in her throat and she willed herself not to sob.

  At lunch, she stood in the cafeteria line with her tray and mechanically grabbed the first things she saw. It wasn't until she sat down with Beth, Callie and Michael that she realized what she had bought: two bowls of Jell-O and a piece of cheese. Strange.

  Kat was so involved in her own thoughts that she didn't hear when Beth asked her a question. Kat nearly jumped through the roof when Beth placed a hand on her forearm, "Are you feeling all right?" asked Beth, a concerned look in her eyes.

  Kat sighed deeply. "I'm fine."

  Callie and Michael had finished their lunch by this time, and they got up to go outside for some fresh air. "You guys coming?" asked Callie.

  Kat shook her head. "You go ahead," she said to Beth.

  Ian noticed that Kat was sitting by herself, and so he left his friends and walked over.

  "Can I sit down?" he asked.

  "Sure," said Kat.

  "What happened last night?"

  Kat's head jerked up suddenly. "What are you talking about?"

  "Your mom looked so upset," said Ian. "And now you're acting weird."

  "It's nothing," said Kat.

  Lisa was watching Ian and Kat from the other table, and Kat noticed her get up and walk over. She flopped down in the chair next to Ian and looped her hand through his arm. "Something going on?" she asked, looking at Ian.

  Ian could tell by Kat's expression that the last thing she wanted was to talk about anything serious with Lisa listening in.

  "We're talking about the winter concert," said Ian quickly.

  Kat saw Ian's mouth move, but she had already retreated into her own thoughts. What was going on with her grandfather? What was it that had happened fifty years ago? She remembered the old photographs that Dido kept in his room. The one of her great-aunt Kataryna was about 50 years old. And the wedding. Baba's parachute silk wedding dress. Did this have sometime to do with the war, Kat wondered?