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And what about
us
? If we’re not careful, we might end up in jail. I should have told the truth. Maybe it would all be very simple. We have no reason to believe they will be made to leave the country.”
    â€œI sort of thought that from the begining.But how are we going to convince Ravi of that?”
    â€œAnd if we make contact with Immigration, they’ll know I already lied and will be wondering why we were trying to cover up for the refugees. We have a problem.”
    I thought of Tamara and her folks. “I’m going to go up and tell them it’s okay to come down now.”
    â€œSuppose my acting was so bad that the Mounties are nearby watching?”
    â€œWe’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I was thinking just then how much Tamara meant to me. She was unlike any girl I’d ever met in Toronto. She was brave and smart and had those eyes that could see right into me—the real me.
    I found the three of them sitting on the top of a bare rock, staring into the sunset.
    â€œWe’re not going back down with you,” Tamara said.
    â€œBut they’re gone. My mother told them nothing.”
    â€œYes,” Ravi said. “But for us … danger. You … not understand.”
    â€œYes, I do understand,” I said.
    â€œWe stay,” Ravi said and pointed to the spot on which he was sitting.
    â€œTamara, tell him. This is not necessary.”
    Tamara looked at me with those big dark eyes. She led me to a ledge and made me sit down with her. We were above a sheer wall of granite that dropped off a hundred feet to the sea. The sun was setting and the world had a warm reddish glow. Gulls swooped below us along the cliffs. This strange feeling came over me. It was the most mixed-up thing that I ever felt. Sitting down with Tamara, I felt like this was the most perfect moment of my life—her, this beautiful place, the huge impossible expanse of the darkening sea beneath us. I wanted it all to stay like this forever.
    But then in the backwash of this feeling was something else—it was like a dream about to shatter.
    â€œYou go home,” she said to me. “We will stay up here for tonight and see what tomorrow brings. My father will not let us go down.”
    I was afraid I was about to lose her. “You’ve trusted me and I haven’t let you down, have I?”
    â€œNo. But we must be very careful.”
    â€œYou’ll be okay, I promise. No one called the police. They were just checking up on people. Nothing’s wrong.”
    â€œWe’ve told you very little about us,” Tamara said, her voice changing. “Now I will tell you something.”
    I looked down at the gulls swirling in the mist that was now rising from the sea.
    â€œMy father was a soldier,” Tamara began. “He fought as he was instructed. He burned forests and farmers’ fields as he was told. He killed other men. He followed orders very well.”
    A shudder went through me. “Who was he fighting for? Why?”
    â€œThis will sound strange, but that is notimportant now. He did not want to do these things. He had been away for one year. We had not seen him at all. Then one day he came home. I did not recognize him. He looked sick. I thought he might die. He had simply stopped being a soldier. My father said he could not kill anyone any more, no matter how many orders they gave him.”
    â€œHe was a deserter,” I said. “That must have taken a lot of courage.”
    â€œYes. But he had no choice. He could do it no longer. He was very sick and could not think well. A week went by and then one night more soldiers came into our house. They dragged my father out. They took him away and threatened to kill my mother and me if we did not get out of the house. When we went outside, they threw gasoline on our house and burned it to the ground.
    â€œWe lived in my grandmother’s house, not knowing anything about my