Inshallah, Mr. Gigovaz

Gigovaz’s Subaru was idling at the entrance of her low-rise when Priya came down from her apartment at 4 a.m. A police cruiser had pulled up alongside and both drivers had their windows lowered like characters in a cop show.

Standing under the shabby green awning, Priya tugged on the building’s door to make sure it had locked before walking out toward the curb. Wind blew the rain sideways, the drops bouncing in tiny white splashes off the asphalt. The cop pulled away as she climbed into Gigovaz’s car.

Nice area, he said.

Priya didn’t know how to reply and said nothing as they drove east on Hastings past hobbled shopping carts and vacant storefronts, sleeping bodies huddled in doorways. She held her travel mug with one hand and fumbled the seat belt into the buckle with the other.

Gigovaz had the radio tuned to an easy-listening station.

Avishai Cohen, he said.

The name meant nothing to Priya, but since she hadn’t wished Gigovaz good morning, she said: It’s nice.

He nudged the volume up and Priya took it as a sign she was exempt from small talk. Rain thrummed a steady beat against the roof. The inside of the car smelled like stale coffee and wet dog. Big Mac wrappers were crumpled into paper cups. There was a pilled blanket stretched across the back seat, a fine layer of dust on the dashboard, and a zip-lock of Milk-Bones on the floor, half the biscuits crushed to crumbs. It was her first trip in Gigovaz’s car and Priya was thoroughly unsurprised.

The rain let up as they drove south past Richmond. In the distance, there were container ships and construction cranes, golden dots of light shining through the fog. On the radio, a three-tone melody announced the national news. The refugees were the lead story.

We took control of the vessel twelve nautical miles off Vancouver Island, the RCMP spokesman said. The migrants were taken into custody and we are now conducting a deep search of the ship.

The news reader cut in: The ship bore no visible flags or numbers – a sign, officials say, that those aboard were hoping to enter Canada unnoticed.

Gigovaz turned off the radio. A massive cargo ship with hundreds of people, he said. I’m sure that was their plan – to slip in unnoticed.

At the ferry terminal, they were waved into line behind a blue Camry. A Canadian flag was taped to the antenna, waggling in the breeze. It was properly morning now, the sky a mild grey. The lot was nearly empty, only a few commuters out on this holiday Wednesday. Gigovaz rolled down the window to wipe the side mirror and Priya did the same, then dried her hand on her skirt and stifled a yawn.

Today was supposed to be about sleeping in, eating pulled pork pancakes, and watching the Canada Day fireworks from the beach at Kitsilano. Today was not supposed to be about refugees and Gigovaz and an O-dark-hundred commute to Vancouver Island.

—

Gigovaz had been comatose in a staff meeting two days earlier when Priya first spotted him. The partners at Elliot, McFadden, and Lo were congratulating themselves over five columns of numbers on a PowerPoint and Priya was leaning against a wall at the back, ignoring her pinched toes and thinking about an affidavit she was trying to track down, when she noticed Gigovaz, slumped into a chair, chin on chest, a mug dangling off his fingers. In a room full of crisp pinstripes and sharp ballpoints, Gigovaz looked blurred at the edges, soft folds overflowing in every direction.

McFadden said, Billable hours rose 47 per cent, and the room exploded in a round of applause. Gigovaz startled awake and Priya found herself staring into a squinted pair of bleary eyes. She turned away and started clapping, but a moment later, when she snuck a peek, Gigovaz was still watching her.

Later, he caught up to her in the elevator and made her labour out the syllables of her last name.

Raja, she said.

Raja, he repeated.

There were half a dozen people in the elevator and no one else was speaking.

Say-kar.

Say-kar.

An.

Rajakaran, he said.

Raja-se-kar-an, she corrected.

Her own name sounded foolish to her, all the individual syllables rendered embarrassing and meaningless by repetition.

You’re Sri Lankan? he asked.

I’m Canadian, she said, standing up a little straighter.

Gigovaz turned a dimpled hand over itself in the air and said, Yes, yes. But your family is originally from Sri Lanka, right?

The elevator stopped and one person got off.

Yes, she said. They were ten floors away from her desk and every single button on the side panel was lit up.

Tamil? he asked.

Yes.

She compressed her lips and clasped her hands in front of her. Gigovaz was senior counsel, but there was also a chocolate smear on his collar. It was difficult to know how to act around him. But one more ignorant question and she would get off and take the stairs.

You’re an articling student, is that correct? And before she could answer, he asked if she had taken refugee law in school.

The doors opened and they stepped aside so a woman at the back could squeeze between them.

I’m specializing in corporate, Priya said.

You didn’t study IRPA? he asked.

IRPA. She tried to recall what the acronym stood for and came up with Immigration Refugee Something Act.

We did the Divorce Act.

Who’s your principal? he asked.

Joyce Lau, she said. Mergers and acquisitions.

Joyce Lau wore her hair in a bun and drove an Audi. She was the youngest senior counsel in the firm’s history and Priya had beaten out five people in her class for this job.

Gigovaz rubbed a hand under his chin. Joyce Lau, he said. Impressive, impressive.

When they reached her floor, Gigovaz got off too and veered toward Joyce’s office. Pack your things, Miss Rajakaran, he said. You’re moving to the seventh floor.

—

Priya stewed as they boarded the ferry, cursing her skin colour and the whim that had caused her to glance Gigovaz’s way in the meeting. When she’d asked Joyce Lau why he didn’t want someone who understood immigration law, Joyce had just shrugged and said: Peter requested you. No one had signed up to article with Gigovaz and now he’d found a sneaky way to rope Priya in.

The ferry juddered to life, all its mechanical parts humming and vibrating into action, as Gigovaz clasped his hands together, arms forming a triangle above the table. He was conducting a lecture on the importance of credibility. The truth is immaterial, he said. Do the claimants appear to be telling the truth? That is what matters.

He had put on his professor voice, erudite and condescending. You are not my mentor, Priya thought.

Gigovaz checked his watch. They’re probably being interviewed by Immigration right now.

Wait. They’re being interviewed without us? Priya asked. What about their right to counsel?

They’re not being charged with anything, Gigovaz said. Technically, they have no rights.

A heating vent rattled overhead. The ferry was cutting through the water, forging straight ahead into flat, grey, foggy nothing. Tourists in raincoats shivered on the deck, snapping useless photos.

Ten years ago, five hundred refugees came from China, Gigovaz continued. Four boats in two months. My clients on the first ship were processed quickly and sent on their way with health care, housing supports, job applications, all those practical things. And then the Refugee Board hearings happened a couple of months later. Business as usual.

Priya wondered how quickly this case could be dispatched with. A month, tops. Surely he didn’t expect her to see the whole thing through.

Gigovaz was still lecturing: But as boat after boat showed up, what do you think happened? Suddenly the asylum seekers were branded criminals. And a prison in Prince George was reopened just to hold them. Now there were detention reviews, admissibility hearings. For months and months, the cases dragged on. We had to fight for every single thing. And that, by the way, was the same year we airlifted five thousand people out of Kosovo.

So refugee law is capricious, Priya thought. All the more reason to bring in an expert. Of course, then he’d have no one to lecture.

Here is what you have to understand, Gigovaz said, indicating the space between two hands. In immigration law, there can be a gap between policy and practice. And when it comes to refugees, this country has a split personality.

Three hundred people on board a ship rocking its way around the world on a collision course with Canada. They were tracked, Gigovaz said. Intelligence and satellite and reports of sightings from international ports. For weeks everyone waited. Now they were here.

What’s going to happen to them? Priya asked. I mean, will they get to stay?

An overhead announcement reminded people to keep their pets in their cars. Gigovaz watched the speaker on the ceiling until the disembodied voice stopped.

My very first client was Rohingya. You know who they are?

When Priya shook her head, Gigovaz’s index fingers rose, the steeple of a church, and he tapped them together.

They’re a minority in Myanmar – Muslims in a country of Buddhists. Stateless and oppressed. Ibrahim Mosar. He was missing his right hand. Cigarette burns all over his chest.

Priya winced and Gigovaz said: I was like every other young refugee lawyer, full of piss and vinegar, and here was my client, calm as you like. Inshallah, Mr. Gigovaz, he used to say. Whatever God wills.

Que sera sera, she said. That’s one way of accepting fate, I guess.

We do our level best, Gigovaz said. Our clients do their best. The rest is up to…

He lifted his palms as if balancing a platter.

Allah? she asked.

The adjudicator, Gigovaz said. He rooted blindly under the seat with one hand. They were approaching the harbour.

So what happened to Ibrahim? Priya asked.

Gigovaz stood, briefcase in hand. The claim was rejected, he said. They sent him back.