Excellent idea, thought Kat. Why hadn't she thought of that? "How much do they usually cost?" she asked.
"If you don't need the hardware, you could probably pick one up for about eighty bucks."
"Thanks for your help," said Kat.
She hung up just as her grandfather came out of the bedroom, his face freshly washed and his hair combed. They headed out the door and walked down the street towards her grandfather's house.
The big verandah at the front of the house looked less inviting than it usually did. Danylo hadn't dropped by daily in the last month. Now, more often than not, it was up to Orysia to stop by after work and pick up the mail. Dust and bits of debris had accumulated, giving the house an abandoned look. Kat could imagine her grandmother rolling in the grave at the thought of such a neglected home, so while her grandfather went around to the back yard to check on the garden, Kat decided to grab a broom from the garage and give the verandah a good sweep. She started with the white painted wooden steps and made her way slowly towards the front door, creating a cloud of dust as she went. When she finally got up to the door, she gingerly grabbed the welcome mat and carried it down the steps and to the middle of the lawn to shake it out. She was walking back up the steps to sweep the bit of verandah that had been covered by the mat when she noticed a piece of paper sticking underneath the doorstep. Someone must have put a flyer under the welcome mat. She crouched down and pulled it out from under the doorstep. It wasn't a flyer, but a letter. Kat was about to put it in her pocket to give to her grandfather when she turned the letter over and saw how it was addressed. One word: murderer.
Kat was so starded that she dropped it like a hot coal. Just then, her grandfather came around from the back yard. "Did you get the mail, Kataryna?"
Kat quickly picked up the envelope and hid it in her pocket, and then she placed the clean welcome mat back where it belonged. "I was just about to do that," she said, straightening out her legs and standing up. She reached into the homemade wooden mailbox beside the front door and pulled out half a dozen envelopes. She quickly looked through them to see if there were any others like the one she had hidden. There weren't.
"Here Dido," she said, handing him the stack of bills and junk mail.
When they got home, Kat excused herself and hurried to her room. Shutting the door tightly, she opened up the letter with trembling hands. There was a single sheet of stationery and several newspaper clippings which fluttered to the ground as she unfolded the sheet of paper. There was one line scrawled with a shaky hand. It read: Tour turn to pay, old man.
Kat picked up one of the clippings from the floor. It was a magazine photograph of a man in a dark coloured Nazi police uniform. He was shooting a child. She picked up the other and saw that it was a newspaper article about the thousands of Nazi war criminals that were supposed to be hiding out in Canada.
Was this some nut's idea of a joke? Why was someone sending her grandfather hate mail like this? She had to find out.
Normally, Kat didn't go into her parents' bedroom, but she used the excuse of putting away laundry. The white wash that was still sitting in the dryer contained several of her father's shirts, so she ironed them, and walked into her parents' room to put them in the closet.
It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for. In fact, the whole story was spread out on the cover of her parents' double bed. Kat held the top sheet and read it with shaking hands:
Take notice that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration intends to make to the Governor in Council a report within the meaning of section 10 and 18 of the Citizenship Act, R.S.C 1985, c. C-29 and section 19 of the Canadian Citizenship Act R.S.C 1955, c.33 on the grounds that you have been admitted to Canada for permanent residence and have obtained Canadian citizenship by false representations or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances, in that you failed to divulge to Canadian immigration and citizenship officials your collaboration with German authorities and your participating in atrocities against the civilian population during the period 1943-1944, as an auxiliary policeman in German-occupied Ukraine.
And Further take notice that, if the Governor in Council is satisfied, upon the said report, that you have obtained Canadian citizenship by false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances, you will cease to be a Canadian citizen, as of such date as may be fixed by order of the Governor in Council;
Kat dropped the paper back on the bed as if it were dirty. What did this mean? That her beloved grandfather was a war criminal? The paper talked about atrocities committed and collaboration and thirty days to respond. Kat thought she was going to vomit.
She threw the ironed shirts on the bed and ran out of the room. She ran upstairs to her own bedroom and sat on her bed, holding her head in her hands, trying to make sense of it all. Beside her sat the piece of mail that had been sent to her grandfather. Was there someone out there who had reason to believe that her grandfather had done something like what the photo showed? The thought was chilling.
Kat folded the letter and the clippings and put them back into the envelope. She didn't know how to tell her grandfather or her parents about it, but she was afraid to throw it away, so she stuck it between her mattress and box spring.
After she regained her composure, Kat walked back down the steps with slow determination. Her grandfather was in the kitchen, staring into an empty teacup. She sat down in the chair across from him and waited for him to look up and meet her eyes.
"Dido," she said. "Tell me what this is all about."
"What is it that you want to know?" he asked.
"What did you do during the war?"
"I did nothing wrong," he said, his voice cracking with emotion. He got up from his chair and walked out of the kitchen.
Kat sat there, staring at the empty chair.
CHAPTER 10
IN THE SOLITUDEof Genya's transformed bedroom, Danylo had a jumble of thoughts running through his mind. What person nowadays could understand the kind of choices he had to make in his youth? Movies and television liked to make war seem like a battle between right and wrong, good and bad. But what if both sides were bad? Stalin on one side, and Hitler on the other? What choices did you have then? If he could live that time all over again, his choices would still be the same. The pity was that people now couldn't understand how his was the only noble choice.
Thoughts of the past were quickly washed aside with practical considerations of the current situation. How was he going to afford a lawyer? A trial? He didn't want his daughter and son-in-law to go bankrupt all because of him. Why had the RCMP targeted him after all these years?
Danylo thought of his home a few blocks away. He thought of all the memories it held. He had never been much further than Toronto since he came to Canada. When he and his wife first came, they had lived in a rooming house around Spadina and Queen, and after saving their pennies and dollars for years, they had bought their first home with a garden in the back and a verandah in the front. That home had been on Bathurst Street, and they had lived there for decades. When they finally moved to Mississauga, it was to be closer to Orysia and Walt and the girls. The quaint tree-lined street had been his refuge, his home, for almost twenty years now. When his wife died, he couldn't bear being there on his own with all the memories. Perhaps he should sell it. But even so, how much money would it fetch? Surely not enough to pay for his court case? And if he did sell it, where would he live? He couldn't possibly camp out in Genya's room forever. That would hardly be fair to her.