But before my uncle could reply, Tilda stood up, and with all eyes on her, she picked up the Webster's and returned it to its place on the shelf. She then left the library.
My uncle said, "That day — the day it happened — there were two things that tore me up. First was the radio static. And then came the call from Secretary of the Navy Macdonald, who telephoned my house in person. Those two things."
"For the record, Mr. Hillyer," Magistrate Junkins said, "we must note why the Navy Secretary of Canada would make such a call. For the record, please."
"Well, sir, all right. The facts are these. The Newfoundland car ferry Caribou sailed from the terminal at North Sydney, Nova Scotia, destination light-to-light was her home port at Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. They sailed at about midnight."
"This was October 13–14, then?"
"October 13–14, yes, sir."
"Proceed."
"It happened at about — according to newspaper accounts, which I see you have on your desk there. It happened about three-forty-five A.M., blackout enforced on all ships, when a torpedo slammed into the Caribou. My wife, Constance Bates-Hillyer, had traveled to visit her friend Zoe Fielding. There was the christening of her grandchild, and Constance had promised to attend. She was taking a vacation, is how she put it. That was the circumstances. And my wife was a victim of that attack. Constance Bates-Hillyer, possibly killed outright, but finally put in the sea, Lord have mercy on her soul."
"Take your time, Mr. Hillyer."
"It wasn't so much the telephone call in general. Specifically, it was mention of my wife's wardrobe trunk."
"I don't understand."
"Navy Secretary Macdonald said her personal wardrobe trunk had been identified. Naturally, my wife'd sewn her name and address on the lining — who wouldn't have? Anyway, Secretary Macdonald said, 'Her body's not yet recovered, but the trunk has been,' and those were his exact words."
In my chair in the front row, I closed my eyes and pictured my aunt's black 2 × 2 × 3 Hartmann cushion-top wardrobe trunk, which had small brass studs along the seams, two wide black hinges in back, brass cornices and a brass lock. She'd purchased the trunk in Truro, and when it arrived by bus, Donald brought it home and set it on the dining room table. Donald, Tilda and I stood there when she first opened it, and she said, "Wallah!" like a magician, and she showed off its three inside drawers, its wooden dowels and five wooden hangers. "I looked at any number of wardrobe trunks," she said, "but this one all but said, 'Take me to Newfoundland!'"
"But as for radio static?" Magistrate Junkins said. "As to the relevance of radio static. By the way, Miss Teachout, are you keeping pace?"
I forgot to mention that Lenore Teachout was the stenographer and sat to the front and right of Magistrate Junkins.
"Yes. I had all of January and February at court in Halifax, you might remember," she said. "I'm well trained."
"Continue, then, Mr. Hillyer."
"We had the Grundig-Majestic on the kitchen table," my uncle said. "Bad weather, and I was trying to get a clear human voice. We'd get snippets. We'd get parts of updates and bulletins: 'the sinking of the ferry Caribou'—static static static — and then 'Axis U-boats plying their grim trade, no common humanity'—then more static. It can be like that with a radio, but that day it seemed outright cruelty. You see, whenever I'd put 'Angels of the Highest Order' pieces by Mr. Beethoven on the gramophone — Mr. Beethoven's a German. I'm not without appreciation for that particular German mind. Anyone who knows me can attest to that fact."
"Mr. Hillyer—"
"No, no, no, listen. I say all of that because my gramophone is old, and the recordings I had were scratchy. That's not an entirely unpleasant sound, not to my ear at least. The scratchiness, I mean. It makes you feel like the music has wended its way forward from another century. But radio static, now that's a different thing. Radio static's democratic, that I admit. It intervenes on good and bad news alike, eh? Terrifying war news or trivial information on what to purchase and in which shops. I understand all of that."
"And the point of this disquisition—?"
"The point, sir, is that when you're trying to get vital news about a loved one—"
"Sir—"
"— static intervenes. And that afternoon, before Secretary Macdonald telephoned, there was just too much goddamned static, sir."
Yet during the couple of days after the Caribou had been sunk, plenty of information had gotten through loud and clear. Personal testimonies of survivors were even quoted on the radio. To this day, I recall what one survivor, a Mr. Leonard Salter, said: " — right over the trough of a heavy swell, I was near a lifeboat and for an instant the light from floating parts of the burning ferry was such — and I've always had grand eyesight anyway — but I could see on the deck of the Laughing Cow its sailors bustling fast into the hatch. The submarine dropped out of sight then and I got pulled up into a lifeboat. Cries, wails, pleadings from the water all around. Prayers—"
The captain of the Laughing Cow — the U-boat that torpedoed the Caribou—was Ulrich Graf. His cowardice was reported in yet another broadcast. Once the Caribou had gone under, Graf took his sub down and directly beneath the survivors, who were in lifeboats, scattered on rafts, holding on to planks, holding on to anything at all for dear life. Graf had figured that the escort ship Grandmere wouldn't drop depth charges there. And in that, Graf was correct.
"Are you capable of continuing, Mr. Hillyer?" the magistrate asked.
Just before he clasped his head in his hands and rocked forward and back, forward and back, nearly falling off the witness chair, my uncle said, "Everything I love most used to happen every day: wake up, see my wife's face, maybe an improvement on a sled or toboggan already in mind. Eat break fast. Look at the sea. Go on out to the shed. Come in for lunch. But not that day. The day Hans Mohring came to make amends, that day was hell on earth. Two, three, four months earlier? I couldn't've found a day like that on the map. And now that hellish day's my permanent address."
Tilda returned to the library around eleven A.M. and sat in a back corner. Magistrate Junkins shifted his attention from his notes to my uncle, removed his reading glasses and said, "Now, Mr. Hillyer, if I understand correctly, you're something of an expert in Navy battles and have more than a general interest in the fates of seagoing vessels off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland."
"Naturally, expertise in the subject has caused torment."
"So you'd say that your mind was steeped in, or at least preoccupied with, said subject. I quote a neighbor of yours—"
"Which neighbor is that?"
"— who remains anonymous," Magistrate Junkins said in a reprimanding tone. "I quote" — he put on his spectacles again and read from a notebook—"'Donald Hillyer became a walking history lesson, often of the browbeating sort. And this lesson was unfolding on a day-by-day basis. He was fairly steaming about the U-boat sinkings. Steaming like a—'"
"My wife Constance's lungs are filled with seawater."
Magistrate Junkins closed his eyes, sighed deeply and followed that with shorter sighs. He continued reading: "'Steaming like a—'"
"Feelings of gloom and spitefulness, that's what took over," my uncle said. "How difficult is that to understand, sir?"
"'Steaming like a teapot on the boil.' Mr. Hillyer, is it true that the walls of your work shed are covered with newspaper articles about recent tragedies at sea?"