Why are you here?

There was a voice mail on Grace’s BlackBerry. Keying in her password, she listened as she strode down the corridor, frowning when she heard her mother’s voice.

Our house is on the market, Kumi launched in without any preamble. Guess the price. Just guess! Grace, I need you to…

Grace fumed silently. Kumi must think she had nothing better to do all day than respond to her mother’s every whim. It wasn’t enough that she had the twins tangled up in her mission – the family history project, they all called it – Kumi wanted to rope Grace in too. As if Grace didn’t have evidence to parse and horror stories to sit through. Life-and-death decisions to make.

Grace was returning from a detention review. A widower with a small child in foster care. But he had also taken part in a suicide bombing. And he’d got jumpy when Singh brought up the agent. Did it mean something? I’m not a mind reader, Grace thought. And yet this job was all about being one, trying to guess at true motivations, to separate the deserving refugees from the ones who planned to use Canada as ground zero for a proxy war. She had denied the man’s detention release. There might already be grounds for deportation, but that was a decision for the admissibility hearing.

Back in the summer, when she was still new to the job, she had told herself she just needed to learn the ropes, that she’d be ready to adjudicate admissibility hearings when the time came. But the calendar had caught up to her and she was still flailing.

So far, they were hearing only women’s cases and she was deeming them admissible, setting her doubts aside and allowing the migrants to move on to the Refugee Board hearings. But in the new year, they would begin conducting the men’s cases too. Already she found the prospect nerve-racking.

Grace replayed the voice mail. We need to trace the ownership back, Kumi said. Let the imposters claim the house is theirs. I still have the original deed.

As if Grace was a real estate agent! Her mother had no idea. None. Grace had worked herself into a temper as she stalked back to her office, silently seething. Mitchell Hurst was charging down the hallway on a collision course. He had a funny way of walking, as if led by his forehead. A ram charging, horns out.

At her door, Grace pulled the keys from her pocket and kept her head bent. She and Mitchell had fallen into a pattern of lukewarm pleasantries, acknowledging the other only when it could not be avoided. But today, Grace didn’t think she could manage even that. We need to trace the ownership. We.

Ms. Nakamura. Mitchell came to a halt in front of her door.

Everyone else was Jill or Obi or Yee. She was the only one he addressed so officiously, as if he were the headmaster at a boarding school and she were a sixth-form girl. Be nice, she told herself.

Good afternoon, Mitchell.

I thought you might like to know I released Savitri Kumuran today.

I’m sorry? She slid her key in and unlocked the door.

He put his palm flat against her door and said, Mrs. Kumuran. She of the controversial necklace.

Oh. Right. I remember. Up close, she saw the tremor in his hands. He was agitated, full of nervous energy.

The expert sent his report, Mitchell said. He shoved the folder he was holding at her. Turns out his findings were inconclusive.

Oh. Okay. Grace took a step back. She wasn’t sure why he was telling her all of this.

Inconclusive, he said. Imagine that.

Well, it sounds like it was an easy decision, then, she said. Trust Mitchell to have the good fortune of simple choices.

Mitchell’s foot was tapping a mile a minute. Of course, anyone who knows anything about Tamil culture –

Mitchell, Grace said. Have I done something to offend you?

Offend me?

A door at the end of the hall opened and a group dispersed out. A couple of them glanced over and waved before going the other way.

Whatever I did to you, Grace said, it was unintentional.

Me? Mitchell said. He half groaned. Look around. He gestured to the copy room with the folder in his hand. You know what Obi used to do? He worked with stateless people in Madagascar. Yee was at the United Nations for five years. Jill has a master’s in Refugee Studies. And then there are the others, adjudicators like you, he said, jabbing a finger so close it nearly poked her. Why are you here?

What the hell did Mitchell think, that this was how she got her jollies? By being subjected to war porn, an unstoppable reel that replayed in her mind when she closed her eyes every night? Even car horns made her jump these days.

What’s gotten into you? Steve had asked one morning, when a sudden banging on the door made her yelp.

Who is breaking down our door? she’d said, chagrined. It sounds like a police raid.

Grace, they’re only knocking.

And here was Mitchell Hurst, the little swot, accusing her of being here for – what? For fun?

I’m doing the same job as you, she said, keeping her voice level as she closed the door to seal them both in her office. Working the same hours, agonizing over the same decisions, losing the same amount of sleep over these cases. Regardless of our…pedigree, we’re all here for the same reasons. So what exactly is your problem?

She moved behind her desk to put space between them. When Mitchell paced, he reminded her of Kumi. He clutched one hand in a fist at his mouth. Haven’t you noticed there’s a pattern to Singh’s arguments? he said. It doesn’t matter who the claimant is, the case against them is the same. He made air quotes with his fingers and said: Inadmissible on grounds of criminality. The Minister is of the opinion this person is a flight risk.

So?

Every claimant is supposed to be assessed individually, and yet it’s clear Border Services has a standard evidence package. They’re applying one set of vague arguments across the board against everyone. This isn’t the way the system is supposed to work.

Can you blame them? Grace said. There are 503 people to process.

You know how many asylum seekers we get at the border every year? Last year, it was fourteen thousand. So why is it the ones who arrive at the airport are evaluated on their own merits and these so-called boat people are treated as a generic mass? Why the double standard?

I –

Didn’t know. Of course not. He stopped to fix her with a taunting stare. Don’t suppose it came up much at Transport.

Grace, heat rising to her face, would have lost her temper if the phone hadn’t rung. A familiar number flashed on the call display. I should really introduce them, Grace thought, pressing the button to mute the strident ringing and banish her mother to voice mail.

If you’re going to stand there and abuse me, Mitchell, I’ll have to ask you to leave.

Sorry, he said, addressing his apology to the floor. I shouldn’t have…It’s not personal.

Grace felt momentarily vindicated.

But then he said: I can’t blame you for being ig – for not knowing the ins and outs of the system. I wouldn’t either, if I’d just arrived a few months ago.

He was only stating facts, but Grace was stung. She told herself to rise above it.

Well, I appreciate you saying that.

And another thing, Mitchell said, worked up again, as if the awkward apology hadn’t just happened. Why is Border Services calling claimant testimony into question? The jurisprudence directs us to presume honesty.

But that’s preposterous! Grace said. How are we supposed to take claimants at their word? We don’t know who these people are. They could be anyone, saying anything!

MacDonald v. Canada, he said. That’s the precedent. Which of course you don’t know because your entire career has been spent elsewhere!

She leaned forward across her desk, ready to snatch the bait, but he held up a hand and lowered his voice.

Every government does this, hands out adjudicator positions as if they’re rewards. Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto…half the openings are filled by fundraisers, communications directors, whoever. Listen, I’m just calling it like I see it. There are those of us who have spent our careers in this field and those of us who are well-meaning, perhaps, but neophytes just the same.

Okay, that’s true, she said. And it’s not like I haven’t noticed.

Right. Well, then can you see it from my point of view? Without any background experience or understanding of case law…well, what are decisions based on without that foundation? What the Minister tells you, perhaps.

I haven’t seen or spoken to Minister Blair in months, Grace said. And I resent the insinuation. Whatever you think of me, Mitchell, I do take this job seriously and I am making careful, considered decisions.

And what’s Blair basing his decisions on, his public statements? Mitchell had resumed pacing. What’s his experience with human rights and global conflict? With refugees? He’s not even the immigration minister!

He is the public safety minister. Grace gestured to the newspaper in her recycling bin. The godfather was making headlines again.

Mitchell gave a short, sarcastic laugh. That mobster wasn’t a refugee. He bought a million-dollar house a month before he got here. You want to stay up all night worrying about something? Worry about the millionaires who buy their way in. What are their ulterior motives?