Godfather

The ceiling in the attic had sprung a leak. Grace held the ladder as Steve descended. He wore his tennis whites and a baseball cap.

It’s the flashing again, he said, hopping off the last step. I knew those guys from Burnaby did a hack job.

Roofers are impossible, Grace said.

They carried the ladder to the garage and hung it horizontally across two nails.

We really need to get it fixed, Steve said. Some of the beams in the attic have begun to rot.

They returned to the house through the back door. The big family calendar was spread open on the kitchen counter. Grace flipped forward a couple of pages and said, Okay, I can’t do this coming week, but the one after isn’t bad. I could probably find an hour to duck out of the office.

Great. Steve took a glass from the cabinet.

And this week? she asked. If I find a roofer, could you make it work?

I can’t do this week. Opening the freezer, he scooped a couple of ice cubes with his bare hand.

Grace noticed an appointment she had forgotten. The girls have their violin exams on Thursday afternoon, she said. And before Steve could reply, she added: It’s your turn.

I’m in back-to-back meetings, he said. You know how these music things are. You have to get there early, even though they’re always running late, and inevitably there’s traffic. When it’s all said and done, you’ve lost half the day.

I started this job a month ago, Grace said. How would it look, already asking for time off?

I’ve used all my personal days, Steve said, and poured lemonade into his glass.

Grace felt guilty. It was true she had been out of commission for the past few months arranging Kumi’s move, and it had fallen to Steve to pick up the slack. But then he walked out of the kitchen as if the matter was settled and Grace was annoyed. What about the rest of it, she wanted to say. What about the away games when he was gone and she flew solo, all the times she had to leave work early or refused to stay late because even with Kumi on call, a substitute parent, the twins still needed their mother.

The doorbell rang and Grace closed the calendar. The girls could take the bus to their music exam and the roofer would have to wait. Let Steve put the buckets out the next time it rained.

Fred had his hand cupped to his ear when Grace opened the door. Courier them to my house, he said. I’ll be there later.

Grace waved him in and signalled to the back of the house. He followed, still talking on his phone.

The wiretaps and the warrant, he said. Yes, both.

They went out through the French doors, the stonework on the patio hot under Grace’s bare feet. The afternoon sun was still high in the sky, casting a beneficent light over the expanse of green lawn with its neat riding-mower tracks. She opened the umbrella over the patio table for shade. Over the privet hedge, Grace could see the sloped roofs of neighbouring houses, their brick chimneys and conical evergreens. In her own garden, the peonies in full bloom hung heavy from their stems.

A jug of lemonade stood sweating on the patio table. Grace poured out two glasses while Fred wrapped up his call. She was sorry her mother wasn’t here, that she’d gone to the pool with the twins.

Kumi had been disappointed when Grace went to work for Fred. Administrative assistant, she’d said, making a face of distaste, when Grace came home, excited, with the job offer. You’re going to bring this man his coffee and answer the phones? That’s what you went to university for?

For all Grace’s success, the promotions and raises, Kumi remained unimpressed. In her eyes, Grace had never risen past secretary. But if she saw Fred now, a cabinet minister here in her house, maybe then Kumi would understand the prestige of Grace’s work.

Fred had last visited just after Christmas, before returning to Ottawa for the next session of Parliament. For weeks, Grace had caught him only in glimpses – commanding behind a podium or haranguing the Opposition in the House of Commons. In person, without his pinstripe armour and bow tie, he was shrunken, awkward in khakis and short sleeves.

Fred turned off his BlackBerry and laid it on the table. Sorry about that. He leaned over to peck Grace once on each cheek. She had always found this old-fashioned habit charming.

Still battling the godfather? Grace asked.

Eight people dead at the Prince Regent Hotel and he’s filing a Charter challenge against extradition!

There had been a shootout in front of the city’s premier hotel the weekend before. Rival drug gangs, and three tourists caught in the crossfire. The twins were at the beach when it happened, and Grace had spent a frightening couple of hours waiting by the phone. Steve, of course, thought she was overreacting.

They’re at English Bay, he said. Nowhere near the shooting.

They could have changed their minds, Grace said. Who knows where our children are?

She perched on the edge of the coffee table, inches from the TV screen, trying to spot the girls in the flurry of activity.

They have no reason to be downtown, Steve had said, switching off the TV. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Fred didn’t think Grace was overreacting. Snakeheads, Triads, bikers, the Sikh gangs…if you only knew half of what I see in this job.

When we were kids, we’d play outside until the street lights came on, she said.

This began when we started letting people in willy-nilly, Fred said. Skilled workers and immigrants, that’s one thing. But look at this menace, the godfather. Bastard ordered six executions and got a couple of innocents killed, Fred continued. Now he wants to play the victim. Some bleeding heart at Immigration bought his story twenty years ago and we’re left to pick up the pieces.

Fred squinted against the sun, pulled off his glasses, and dug in his breast pocket for a pair of aviators. Speaking of, how are things at the new job? Have you whipped them all into shape yet?

It’s going well.

He shook his head. They’re making a mockery of public safety over there. Things have to change. I expect you to set a new tone.

Grace saw her face reflected in Fred’s sunglasses. Well, there’s a learning curve….

You always had a sharp mind.

But I’m cresting it. Grace pulled her shades off her head and down over her eyes. A month in and she still felt like an imposter. Team meetings were about information dissemination, not discussion. Requirement of nexus, real versus speculative risk – she was unequal to the legalese. But all her colleagues were so confident and independent, to ask for help would be to admit defeat.

I’m reading a law book, she said. It’s been helpful.

Several of the adjudicators had the same text on refugee law on their shelves, so Grace had bought a copy too, but she was finding the reading hard going.

Fred waved his hand. You don’t need any of that, he said. Trust your instincts. Precedent and case law – where has it got us? Smuggled-in convicts who are a continual headache for Public Safety.

Grace thought about the Prince Regent Hotel shooting, how the terror hadn’t left her until the girls walked safely in the door.

Fred said: These people get a foot in the door, put down some roots, and then they’re impossible to turf. Informants, wiretaps – if you only knew how much this Russian mobster is costing the taxpayer. But the RCMP and Border Services – those are the true heroes. They are on the front lines every day.

The automatic sprinklers came on and Grace tuned out briefly to watch them under cover of her shades. Fred sometimes forgot he wasn’t behind a microphone.

Fred had given Grace her first job. Twenty years earlier, before Steve, before the twins, there had been Fred trusting her with his calendar and his voice mail and then asking her opinion on white papers. When a position opened up for a policy analyst, he’d nudged her into the promotion. There were other, better candidates, Grace thought. But Fred told her: You don’t need a master’s to do this job. By the time Fred made the move from provincial to federal politics, Grace was the director of operations and his right hand.

And when she’d confessed boredom at Christmas, Fred offered a reprieve: a three-year term with the Immigration and Refugee Board. Think of it as a secondment, he said. A stepping stone to better things. There’s an opening to fill and a backlog of cases. I can’t think of anyone more suited.

Grace thought of Mitchell and what he’d have to say about her qualifications.

Do you know a Mitchell Hurst? she asked.

King of the bleeding hearts, Fred said. Has he given you trouble?

No, Grace said reflexively, and then wondered where the impulse to protect Mitchell had sprung from. He’s been…fine. Everyone’s very welcoming.

Hurst is one of the old guard, Fred said. The Liberals stuffed the place with his ilk, left-wingers who let feelings undermine common sense.

Fred wanted to talk about the ship. Trial by fire, he said. What did the Vancouver Sun call it?

Grace rolled her eyes. The “ship of dreams”?

Oh yes, those terrorists dream big.

On the other side of the hedge, someone cannonballed into a swimming pool. Two children shrieked, gleeful. On Friday, Grace had conducted a detention review for a man whose child was being held at the women’s facility. His lawyer called the separation an undue hardship and Grace had felt a small twinge. But then she thought of all the times she had spent working late or away at conferences when the girls were small. These little absences were only short chapters in long parent–child histories. The man and his son had the rest of their lives together, and if their case was legitimate, they would spend it in Canada. Though when Grace contemplated the mechanics of the decision – how would she separate sincere testimony from tall tales? what were the criteria, apart from intuition? – her thoughts fragmented, flustered strands unfurling in all directions.

Fred tapped his index finger against the side of his glass in an allegro. The whole world is watching our every move, he said. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

What do you mean?

It’s difficult to get good information out of these countries, but from what we can gather, it is certain there are more ships. Who knows how many more illegals. This is a test, Fred said. One false move on our part and we’ll be inundated with freeloaders.

Grace imagined a fleet of rusting cargo ships floating in the Indian Ocean, all of them waiting on a signal. Five hundred and three people on a sixty-foot boat. Nothing was too outlandish. Alarm flooded her stomach and she willed it away by reminding herself that she hadn’t made any mistakes. Not yet.

Fred said the real problem with the system was its porousness and Grace could identify with this. It’s one big grey area, she said. The lack of IDs, for example. These people come without any papers and we’re supposed to take them at their word? They could be anyone.

And you can’t trust the ones with documents either, he said. There are good reasons to believe half the people on board are LTTE.

What do you mean?

There were things recovered from the ship. Identification documents. I’m sure Border Services will raise it at the hearings.

Really? Grace thought of the migrant with the young son. He had arrived with a raft of paperwork. She hadn’t even considered it might all be fake.

These people are not who they say they are, Fred said. The LTTE are using civilians as cover to sneak in. Don’t forget, these are the terrorists who invented suicide bombing. India tried to mediate a truce and how did the Tigers thank them? By blowing up Rajiv Gandhi. You can’t put anything past them. If even one of them gets in…

Grace’s mouth went dry. This was what she hadn’t fully appreciated when she accepted the job. It wasn’t just about sifting legitimate from illegitimate; the real and present danger was inadvertently letting a dangerous offender in.

Fred said, Bottom line: legitimate refugees should apply for status before they arrive, at the High Commission in their own country. Our families took the slow, legal route in. Why should others be allowed to skip the paperwork and cut to the front of the line?