Chapter Eight

I waited until the cops got back into their car and drove off. Then I skidded down the steep slope and went inside.

My mom was sitting on the sofa wringing her hands.

“They were looking for Tamara’s family, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” she said, not wanting to look at me.

“Well, what did you tell them?”

“I’m not a very convincing liar,” she said. “I told them I had never seen any refugees. I don’t know if they believed me. Where are they?”

“Up in the fields near the bog. I think they’re scared again.”

“So am I,” she said. “I don’t think we can keep this up. That man was from immigration. He’s suspicious. We don’t know what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

“But Tamara and her parents are happy here. They are good people. You can see that yourself.”

“I know. But we can’t hide them from the rest of the world forever.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a bad liar. And I don’t like having to lie. And what about us? If we’re not careful, we might end up in jail. I should have told the truth. Maybe it would all be very simple. We have no reason to believe they will be made to leave the country.”

“I sort of thought that from the begining. But how are we going to convince Ravi of that?”

“And if we make contact with Immigration, they’ll know I already lied and will be wondering why we were trying to cover up for the refugees. We have a problem.”

I thought of Tamara and her folks. “I’m going to go up and tell them it’s okay to come down now.”

“Suppose my acting was so bad that the Mounties are nearby watching?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I was thinking just then how much Tamara meant to me. She was unlike any girl I’d ever met in Toronto. She was brave and smart and had those eyes that could see right into me—the real me.

I found the three of them sitting on the top of a bare rock, staring into the sunset.

“We’re not going back down with you,” Tamara said.

“But they’re gone. My mother told them nothing.”

“Yes,” Ravi said. “But for us … danger. You … not understand.”

“Yes, I do understand,” I said.

“We stay,” Ravi said and pointed to the spot on which he was sitting.

“Tamara, tell him. This is not necessary.”

Tamara looked at me with those big dark eyes. She led me to a ledge and made me sit down with her. We were above a sheer wall of granite that dropped off a hundred feet to the sea. The sun was setting and the world had a warm reddish glow. Gulls swooped below us along the cliffs. This strange feeling came over me. It was the most mixed-up thing that I ever felt. Sitting down with Tamara, I felt like this was the most perfect moment of my life—her, this beautiful place, the huge impossible expanse of the darkening sea beneath us. I wanted it all to stay like this forever.

But then in the backwash of this feeling was something else—it was like a dream about to shatter.

“You go home,” she said to me. “We will stay up here for tonight and see what tomorrow brings. My father will not let us go down.”

I was afraid I was about to lose her. “You’ve trusted me and I haven’t let you down, have I?”

“No. But we must be very careful.”

“You’ll be okay, I promise. No one called the police. They were just checking up on people. Nothing’s wrong.”

“We’ve told you very little about us,” Tamara said, her voice changing. “Now I will tell you something.”

I looked down at the gulls swirling in the mist that was now rising from the sea.

“My father was a soldier,” Tamara began. “He fought as he was instructed. He burned forests and farmers’ fields as he was told. He killed other men. He followed orders very well.”

A shudder went through me. “Who was he fighting for? Why?”

“This will sound strange, but that is not important now. He did not want to do these things. He had been away for one year. We had not seen him at all. Then one day he came home. I did not recognize him. He looked sick. I thought he might die. He had simply stopped being a soldier. My father said he could not kill anyone any more, no matter how many orders they gave him.”

“He was a deserter,” I said. “That must have taken a lot of courage.”

“Yes. But he had no choice. He could do it no longer. He was very sick and could not think well. A week went by and then one night more soldiers came into our house. They dragged my father out. They took him away and threatened to kill my mother and me if we did not get out of the house. When we went outside, they threw gasoline on our house and burned it to the ground.

“We lived in my grandmother’s house, not knowing anything about my father until he appeared one night like a ghost—starved, crazy. My grandfather found us a ship to take us out of the country and gave us money.

“Many weeks later, we are here and you find us. We are very far from our home but we must be very careful. My father would kill himself before being sent back. I cannot let that happen.”

I felt swallowed up by all the sorrow of their lives. I thought about all the happy, carefree days of my own, sailing around Lake Ontario, while Tamara and her family suffered. It almost didn’t seem possible. It didn’t seem fair. And then my feelings for my own father came back.

“When my father died,” I told her, “I wondered why there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. I would have done anything to help him, to keep him alive. So I think I understand.”

Tamara put her arm around my neck. I leaned over and kissed her for the first time. I felt like one of those gulls below me along the cliffs, just floating through the misty evening sky.

Tamara convinced me they would be okay for one night alone in the wilderness. They would not let me stay with them, but I did make one more trip to the house and back to bring them food, a tent and warm clothing.

At home in my own bed, I had a hard time sleeping. Tamara’s story kept me awake for a long time. I kept wondering if I had done enough to help this family that seemed so strange yet so familiar.