The protester was in front of the house, marching with her sign. Kat slowly walked toward her house, her eyes cast down. Perhaps the woman wouldn't notice her if she darted through the neighbour's backyard and hopped the fence? No, Kat decided. I've done nothing wrong. I'll walk to my own house.
She walked right past the vans and the protester and looked directly into the woman's face. What she saw was a pain so deep that it made Kat gasp. She quickly turned and ran down the driveway and flung herself through the back door.
No sooner did she get in than she realized that the phone was ringing. Within seconds of her stepping in, there was someone knocking on the front door. Was it the protester? She picked the phone up first, but all she heard was a click. As soon as she put it back on its cradle, it began to ring again. She picked it up again, and this time a man's voice blasted obscenities at her. Kat quickly hung it up. It again started to ring. This time she ignored it.
She put down her books and headed through the kitchen and into the living room to answer the front door. As she did so, she noticed that Genya's bedroom door was closed tightly. She assumed that her grandfather was in there. Had he tried to answer the phone too?
Kat was drawn to the insistent rap at the door. She opened it and was surprised to see a television reporter decked out in a hot pink mini skirt and jacket and a full face of stage make-up. She shoved a microphone at Kat. "I'm speaking now with a family member of Nazi war criminal, Danylo Feschuk."
Kat tried to close the front door, but it wouldn't budge. She looked down and saw that the woman had firmly wedged her foot with its hot pink pump between the door and the frame. Kat looked up and saw a camera man standing a few feet behind the reporter and realized with horror that she was probably part of a live action news report.
"May I get your name, please," asked the reporter.
"Kat, Kat Baliuk ..."
"Danylo Feschuk is your grandfather?"
"Yes."
"What do you think about your grandfather and his crimes during the war?" asked the reporter.
"I ... I ..."
Just then, Kat felt a firm hand on her arm. She looked over her shoulder and saw her grandfather standing there, a look of deep pain in his eyes. "Kataryna, please get away from the door," he said.
Kat stepped behind her grandfather just as a flurry of activity burst on her front lawn. Several cameras flashed and two more reporters crowded in behind the pink woman. Where had they all come from?
"Please leave my granddaughter alone," said Danylo in a firm voice. "I would appreciate it if you would all go home."
With that, he tried to shut the door, but the reporter still had her foot wedged in with determination.
"Just one statement," said the woman.
"My statement is that I am innocent. You people are too young to know what it was like. Now please go."
Danylo gently pushed the woman away from the door and managed to close it. He quickly chained and double locked it. Kat pulled back a corner of the curtains on the front window and peered out to see if the reporters were going to leave. She was amazed to see that there were now two news vans parked out front. How had they got there so fast? They must have been on stake-out.
The lone protester was still there too, staring angrily at Kat's peephole in the window.
Kat was about to put the curtain down when she saw her mother's car turn down the street. Kat's first instinct was to call her on her cell phone and tell her to keep on going. But the phone was still ringing, and the reporters had already spotted her anyway. Kat watched as Orysia parked in the driveway and got out of the car. She was immediately swarmed by the horde of reporters.
"No comment," Orysia shouted as she hurried up to the back door, reporters barely a step behind. Kat ran to the door and pulled her mother in, shutting the bolt behind her.
Instinctively, Orysia walked to the ringing phone and picked it up. Her face went ashen. She left the phone off the hook.
"How is it that all these reporters suddenly know about this?" asked Kat.
"The hearing is the day after tomorrow," said her mother. "That's public information."
The reporters stayed out in the front yard for several more hours, accosting Genya when she got home too.
When Genya stepped inside, she noticed that the phone was off the hook and without thinking, put it back in its cradle. It rang almost instantly. When she picked it up, she was treated to an earful.
"That's it," she said, hanging up hard on the caller, and then leaving the receiver off the cradle. "Mama, can I borrow your cell phone?"
Orysia rooted around in her purse, then handed her daughter her cell phone. Genya made a few quick phone calls and then clicked it shut and handed it back to her mother. "We'll have an unlisted number by tomorrow morning. Also, I have informed the police that we have trespassers."
Kat marvelled at her sister. So efficient.
The story was aired on the six o'clock news on Global, CityTV and CBC. It was also aired every hour on the hour on a number of radio stations.
The CBC news began with a full face view of her grandfather through the kitchen window from that very morning as he was making tea and toast. Given the angle, it had to have been taken with a long range lens from the neighbour's roof. Over this picture, the announcer said, "Proceedings to deport Nazi war criminal Danylo Feschuk will get under way in Toronto on Friday. The 78-year-old Mississauga grandfather has been accused of lying to immigration authorities about his Nazi past. Feschuk has been identified as one of the notorious Ukrainian police who were known to have committed atrocities in World War II Ukraine."
The image then changed to a shot of her grandfather's house.
"Here is the Mapleview home where the retired auto worker lived for the last two decades until the death of his wife this past summer. While he still owns this house, he is currently living in with his daughter and son-in-law on Devon Road."
An image of Kat's house came into focus, complete with protester in front and reporters all around.
"None of the family members would talk to the press about the serious charges against Mr. Feschuk...."
Now a shot of Kat trying to shut the door on the pink reporter, and then a shot of her mother getting out of the car.
"Neighbours describe Feschuk as a quiet and friendly man who wouldn't hurt a fly."
An image flickered of a reporter talking to Mrs. Wentworth, who had lived beside her grandparents for as long as she could remember.
"But David Green of the Centre for Human Tolerance has another view."
A man in a business suit sat behind a desk with his hands folded in front of him. "The Canadian government shamefully let in Nazis in the 1950s while at the same time they were barring the immigration of Jews who had escaped the Holocaust. I am glad to see that the government is finally taking action to track down and prosecute the thousands of Nazi war criminals who are living in our midst."
The last image Kat saw before the commercial break was David Green's eyes staring out, seemingly meeting her own.
CHAPTER 24
IT WAS THURSDAY, January 10th. Danylo's hearing started the next day. Orysia had told her daughters that she did not want them to attend. "It's a school day," she said. "And neither of you can afford to lose a day."
That was painfully true. In order to qualify for the tuition scholarship, Genya had to maintain an average in the 90s, yet with all the upheaval in her life, her marks had plummeted. She was floundering in Math with a bare A, and was only making Bs in her other courses. At the rate she was going, she wouldn't get into the university of her choice, let alone get a scholarship.