"They are German-caused murders of great proportions, whatever else you might call them." My uncle sipped some water.
There in the library I pictured the walls of the shed, all but completely covered with newspaper headlines and articles and photographs. You read the incidents left to right like a book, in the chronological order in which they happened. All the U-boat attacks off Atlantic Canada were represented — the ferries lost, the number of casualties, the number of dead and missing and presumed lost, photographs of people waiting at docks and wharfs, of church gatherings and wakes.
For instance, on the wall on the immediate left as you walked in, headlines about the Battle of the St. Lawrence, as it was popularly known, which occurred on the night of May 11, 1942, when U-553 torpedoed and sunk the British freighter Nicoya off the Gaspe and the Dutch ship Leto in the lower reaches of the St. Lawrence River. Both ships were bound for England. That attack roiled my uncle in the extreme.
Now, Marlais, I won't inventory the seventeen merchant ships sunk by U-boats, plus an American merchant ship and two Canadian warships that were sunk near the St. Lawrence over sixteen months, starting around May of 1942—and the Caribou right in the center of all of it. But before the Caribou went down at sea, each time any sort of vessel was attacked, up went an article on the shed wall. And since I was working in that shed long hours every day, I couldn't help but practically memorize them. Against my will, almost, I was becoming a student of these incidents. The shed walls became my harrowing reading life, you might say. "The walls ran the gamut," as my aunt put it, "from you-wouldn't-think-it-could-get-sadder to sadder-yet. 'Lost at sea' has its own strange quality. Out to the cemetery, you put on the stone 'Sacred to the Memory,' of course. But since the body's not in the ground, it's somehow a more hollow feeling. Read the newspapers. Listen to the radio. Talk to your neighbors. Even sermons in church. These past few years it's as if the whole of Atlantic Canada feels hollow."
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.