Howard Norman - What Is Left the Daughter

And then came the incident that really sent my uncle into a tailspin. On Sunday, October 11—my aunt was already on her travels— U-106 sunk the British freighter Waterton, which had been traveling from Corner Brook, Newfoundland, to Sydney, Nova Scotia, carrying a cargo of paper. The Waterton went down in seven minutes, but as one article said, "The crew was rescued and nobody got a foot wet."

"Broad daylight in the Cabot Strait," my uncle had said. "That's in our back yard! Constance is traveling those waters! I wish she'd wire us."

"I'm sure she's fine, Uncle Donald," I had said, weakly.

"You know what I dreamed? Good Lord. I dreamed about stacks of paper on board the Waterton. In my dream, I saw it as ten thousand Bibles not printed, ten thousand personal letters never sent. Don't say I had this dream to anyone in Middle Economy, all right? Kindly don't mention it."

But back to the hearing. The library was quiet again. My uncle took another sip of water.

"Yes," he said, now looking at Magistrate Junkins. "I was steaming. Yes, sir, indeed yes. I was steaming. As any good Canadian should have been."

"Every good Canadian did not murder this German student," Magistrate Junkins said. "I'm obligated to put that fine a point on it. Let me remind you that the reason we are here. Today. In this library. Are your actions, Mr. Hillyer. And how the province of Nova Scotia determines the consequences of those actions. And recommendations to such — a profound responsibility — begin and end with me."

He shuffled some papers and stared out the nearest window, lost for a moment to the rain, it seemed. Then he said, "I'm afraid no one's thought to provide me with a glass of water yet."

Cornelia went into the library's small pantry and returned with a glass of water, which she set in front of Magistrate Junkins.

"Thank you."

To which Cornelia replied, "You only needed to ask."

"Now, then, Mr. Hillyer," Magistrate Junkins said, "in establishing your state of mind on the last day of Hans Mohring's life, can you recall when you decided which— method, let us say. That is, how you would press an attack on Hans Mohring?"

"Are you asking was it 'thought out'?" my uncle asked.

"I refer to your use of a toboggan runner," Magistrate Junkins said, "as a weapon of choice."

"I chose it because it was leaning against the shed wall closest to the door when I decided to go see if Hans Mohring had come to my house yet."

"Simple as that."

"My hand on the Bible," my uncle said.

At this point Tilda more or less cried out, then gained enough composure to walk to the shelves, take down the Webster's, carry it over and set it in front of her father on the table. "Swear to me, Pop" — she forced his right hand onto the dictionary and pressed her own hand down on his—"swear to me on his favorite book that you didn't mean to kill my husband. Swear to me you couldn't help yourself, because of Mom dying. Because of Mother being killed. Father, swear to me it was all a conspiracy of the brain."

"We will take a recess— now! " Magistrate Junkins said.

He stood, went through the pantry and out the back door of the library, but it took a long time for anyone else to leave, and it wasn't just the pouring rain. Though finally, Tilda and her father were alone together.

Marlais, your mother never told me what they said to each other. If anything was said.

Before the afternoon session began, Magistrate Junkins announced, "If you have sandwiches or any other such thing, kindly keep to the back." He sat down. And it was true, quite a number of people had packed lunches or had slipped out and gone to the bakery and returned with a sandwich or slices of honey bread or even halibut cakes. I noticed that Cornelia had left the library earlier, right after she'd brought Magistrate Junkins a glass of water. She figured that during a recess people would want to get something to eat at her bakery.

"Now, to begin with," Magistrate Junkins said, "Mr. Hillyer has informed me he has an announcement to make, and I'm going to allow that." He nodded to my uncle.

My uncle said, "I'm officially leaving my sled and toboggan concern to my nephew Wyatt. He and I haven't had the time to discuss this, but those are my intentions."

Now, two things about that statement, Marlais. First, it might seem a separate thing altogether from the grievous matter at hand, yet everyone was interested — you could tell from their faces. They knew Donald would soon be off to prison. No doubt about that. They didn't know exactly when, or to which prison, but they knew my uncle would not be building sleds and toboggans for some time, possibly never. Second, considering the fact that in his written statement my uncle had mentioned that I'd fetched Hans Mohring to the house on the evening he was killed, there was no doubt a high probability in everyone's mind that I had witnessed the murder. The question then was, did I do anything to help or hinder, and would I confess, and would I be going to prison, too? If I did confess, what would become of the sled and toboggan business — all of local concern and curiosity.

"I don't much care," Magistrate Junkins said.

My uncle turned toward his neighbors. "Wyatt's better at toboggans than sleds," he said, "but he'll manage all right."

"Mr. Hillyer!"

Magistrate Junkins checked his notes and said, "Now, then, you had asked your nephew to — what again? — invite Hans Mohring for supper?"

"No, no, because who was going to cook supper?"

With this, Magistrate Junkins had no possible recourse but to allow people to laugh until they stopped laughing, because those who knew our household knew that my aunt Constance would let Tilda (who was a bang-up cook herself) cook only on Saturdays, and they knew that Donald could scarcely manage to scorch a butter biscuit with a bonfire, as they say. In turn, Magistrate Junkins allowed himself a slight smile. I think he realized that people weren't mocking justice, just letting a breath of fresh air into the proceedings, since the proceedings were mostly about a life being taken.

"Magistrate Junkins," my uncle said, "I don't know where you were born and raised, nor how people there think. But I believe if you sully the sea, it comes back at you tenfold. Now, I've written out a list here. Let me read you the times I know for certain when I've sullied the sea." He reached into his suit jacket pocket and produced a piece of paper, then read from it. "First time was when I was ten years old. I was out in a dinghy with Paul Amundson, same age as me. His family was of Norwegian ancestry. We went fishing. Of course, we'd been fishing a lot, but this day he'd caught all the fish and me none. He had a bucketful. When we rowed back and tied up and got out of the boat, I pretended to stumble, and spilled his bucket into the sea. Doesn't sound more than a jealous prank, eh? But Paul knew I'd done it on purpose, even though not a word was said of it. I'd done it on purpose. Spilled betrayal and deception out of the bucket, and therefore sullied the sea."

"Enough!" Junkins said. "You may submit your list to Miss Teachout here."

Lenore Teachout got up from the stenographer's table, took the list from my uncle, sat down and immediately began copying it into her transcript. But my uncle didn't wait for her to finish: "Skipping to number ten, I sullied the sea by dumping Hans Mohring's body into it."

And I believe he didn't mean to say what he said next, but he did say it: "Out in the Bay of Fundy, my nephew assisted. On my instruction."

The weather had by now mostly cleared, but you could still see, through the library windows, a departing curtain of rain and dark clouds over the Minas Basin. I turned around in my chair, and it appeared that more people had crammed into the library for the afternoon session than were at the morning session. I looked over at Tilda. I noticed that, during the time the hearing had been recessed, she'd gone home and changed clothes. She now wore one of my aunt's dresses. It was pale white, slightly frayed at the hem, with outsized white buttons and a black scallop stitch along two wide pockets, and it fit Tilda loosely. I think wearing it must've been a comfort to her.