Secrets from Myself

by Christine Hart

  “Um, it’s about a steamship called the Komagata Maru.” I am a tightly wound ball of elastic nerves.

  “Ah, yes.” The librarian looks down at me over the top of his glasses. “The ship from Japan with Indian immigrants that got rejected coming into Canada.” The librarian looked more interested in helping us. “I’m familiar with the Komagata Maru.”

  “My project is about a stowaway. All fictional, but I’d like to root it in real history. Can you help me find photographs? Or maybe the passenger list? I’m also interested in tracking what happened to the few people who made it into Canada.” I grip the counter, looking over to Patty. She nods her encouragement.

  The librarian hums as he thinks. “The first place I can direct you to is Simon Fraser University’s historical website, but I’m sure you’ve found that already.”

  I nod, not willing to tell him that my internet time has been heavily monitored and I haven’t risked looking up this information. I’d been reluctant to research the library system itself.

  “I did come across it, but could you write the url down for me, just in case I have trouble finding it again.” He reaches for a piece of paper and loads the site on his screen.

  “If you’ve looked at the site, you’ll know that there isn’t really a definitive passenger manifest. The documents we have conflict with each other, and we know many original records were lost.”

  “But do you have any documents?”

  “By ‘we,’ I meant the royal sense. The documents are housed in a collection at the university.”

  I sigh. Patty puts her hand on my shoulder, waiting patiently.

  “Can you show me any pictures of downtown Van-couver during the same period? As close as possible?”

  “Sure. Would you like any hard copies?”

  “You’ll let me have the photos?” I can hear the excitement in the squeaky high volume of my voice.

  “No, not the originals. I’ll photocopy or print for you at ten cents per page.”

  “Can I touch the photos?” The librarian frowns at me. Even Patty looks a little concerned and I know I’m pushing my luck.

  “We prefer that you don’t. And most of what I’ll print comes directly from our digital archive.” The librarian eyes me carefully.

  Patty waits with me as he copies and prints photos of old Vancouver.

  “Well, that was better than nothing, right?” Patty’s voice is high as she touches my arm.

  “Sure, it’s a start.” I can’t hide my disappointment, even though I knew I wouldn’t just walk into a library and find a photo of Akasha, complete with a date or some kind of identification.

  “Can I look at the computer before we go? There’s always someone standing over my shoulder at Arbutus House. I don’t know if I’ll get in trouble for looking this stuff up, but I get the impression they’d rather I forget about all of this.”

  “Sure, we’ve still got time.”

  We stop at a bank of computers adjacent to the escalators. On the top level, most terminals are empty. Patty sits in an armchair and resumes examining her phone while I click away.

  I type in the Komagata Maru URL the librarian pro-vided. I scroll through pages and photos. The grainy old pictures look nothing like the images in my head, but I print them all anyway. Desperation, fed by a nag-ging sense of obligation, keeps propelling me forward. If I can recognize one single face, I will have something: proof for myself, if not for anyone else. No faces meet this need and I’ve run out of gallery pages on the website. I scoop the additional papers into my stack and stuff it all in my bag.

  A sense of failure swells in my chest as Patty and I return to her car. I have grainy black-and-white photos of unfamiliar people and a city that in no way resembles Vancouver. The images look like any generic Wild West town with no recognizable landmarks. I feel nothing new or unusual looking at the pictures. Once I’m not so bummed out, I’ll look again more carefully.

  Chapter 10

  Finding my diary back on my nightstand as my alarm wails intermittent cries of EEEE … EEEE … EEEE … at seven a.m. sends a chill down my spine. I no longer suspect Rayanne, but it is risky to have it out regardless. My pulse races as I check the back of the book to see if my library photos are still tucked in the back where I left them. They are there: one, two, three, four, all of them. I stuff the whole book under the waistband of my sweatpants and head for the bathroom to read.

  My first night on the street was very nearly unbearable. I have still not come to terms with Sanjay being stuck aboard the ship, but I have good news. I have met a man who runs a home for disadvantaged girls. I will be able to stay here until I learn more about what is happening to Sanjay and our ship. The other girls in this home appear to come from rough backgrounds. There are few smiles here. Life in Canada must be harder than I imagined, but it was naïve to expect that everyone here led an idyllic life with a mountainside homestead. I must not think too much about the future right now. So many things must happen before Sanjay and I can be together again. I hope my new friend will help.

  The entry seems to predate Akasha’s letter and the incident with her oppressor on the clifftop. She might have bounced around a bit after finding her way onto the old Vancouver docks. I still have no way to know. Do I really expect everything Akasha tells me to come through in neat chronological order?

  “Katelyn, hurry up! Some of us have to pee!” shouts Yolanda as she raps on the bathroom door.

  “Coming, sorry! Almost done.” I stuff the book back down the front of my sweatpants and flush the toilet to complete the ruse. I exit and Yolanda pushes past me without a word.

  Rayanne is still sleeping when I return to our room. She is not yet required to adhere to our daily schedule. She must still be detoxing, but she hasn’t told me and I’m not allowed to ask. I’m jealous that she gets to sleep in, but I don’t envy anything else about her life. Since meeting Rayanne, I have wondered what led her down a road that included so many drugs. Why do it the first time when we all know what it can lead to? How sad do you have to be to want to risk it all to escape? Or was she stupid enough to think it wouldn’t affect her?

  Everyone else is at the table for breakfast. We are as pleasant, yet distant, as we’ve ever been. Perhaps we all view Arbutus House as temporary, so we don’t bother with connections. We all help clear the table. It is my turn to wash dishes, which I don’t mind. I can linger in the kitchen, staring out the window at the tree-lined street outside without anyone questioning the use of my time.

  I finish drying my hands after setting the last of the cutlery to dry. My phone jingles in my pocket with the generic tone that signals a text from someone not on my contacts list. It must be Patty. I swipe my finger across the glass to open the device and punch in my password. I had never bothered with a password until Arbutus House. After the initial gratitude wore off at being allowed to keep my phone, I realized other girls might not have the same privilege and my phone would be a lifeline worth poaching.

  I find a message from 604-555-2435: On my way soon. Can you be ready for 9 AM? If I move quickly, I can pull it together in time, so I hurry back to my room to change and brush my hair. Rayanne is in the bathroom. I seize the opportunity to stuff my diary in my bag on the off chance referencing the photos may be useful.

  My phone jingles again; Patty is outside. I grab my bag and get Mariah to punch my pass card again. I assure her that I’ll be home for my four o’clock appointment with Jane.

  “Where to first?” says Patty as I hop in the car.

  “I have no idea. That’s what makes this all so frustrat-ing. I’ve got pictures of pre–First World War Vancouver and no way to connect the images to the city as it is. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack that rotted away a hundred years ago.”

  “Why don’t we go back to Gastown and work our way south? If we’re looking for old buildings, that’s probab
ly our best bet for finding anything in the downtown area with heritage status.” As Patty pulls out into traffic I can’t help but smile at her enthusiasm for my cause. I need an ally.

  “The first time I went to Gastown, I saw a tile mural on the ground in a park. It was a picture of the Komagata Maru. Mom thought I was grasping at the first thing I saw, but I knew it was connected to Akasha. I saw in my dreams and in my diary that she came over on a steamship that was stuck in the harbor. And there was that website about the whole incident, but I haven’t found anything that proves — to me, or anyone else — that what I’m experiencing is real. Maybe I really am nuts.” I look at the dusty floor mat on the passenger side of Patty’s car.

  “You’re not nuts, so let’s have no more of that talk. Do you want to go back to this park? I think I know the one you mean, between Gastown and the Port of Van-couver.” Patty is taking a different route out of Kitsilano today. She heads straight to the coast where we can see the city.

  “I don’t think that’ll help. What I’d really like to find is the house I think Akasha lived in for a while after she got off the streets. She wrote a letter home and stuffed it behind a brick in the mantel above the fireplace. If that house is still there and the letter is too, that could be my ticket.” Even though Patty’s bought in, I can’t help feeling ridiculous at saying my thoughts out loud.

  “You know the likelihood of that is extremely small. Let’s say your dreams and diary entries are all one hun-dred percent accurate. That won’t help bring back a house that was torn down in the twenties.”

  “Are there houses of any kind in Gastown?”

  “Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure all the historic buildings there are more like apartments. If we want to see any old houses, we’re better off starting in the West End.”

  Patty’s route spits us onto the Granville Street Bridge again. Instead of heading to the downtown core, she veers left to an area with apartment buildings, shops, and standalone homes. A few houses look like they could be old enough to be Akasha’s refuge, but they’ve been upgraded over the years, so it’s hard to tell. Patty parks in front of a home with a sign on the lawn for Greene House Museum.

  “I don’t think this is it,” I say as I look up at the house, not feeling the twinge in my gut I think should be present.

  “Will you know it from the outside?”

  “I guess not. I only saw the sitting room in my dream.”

  “I doubt any house still has a sitting room, but let’s go for a tour anyway. This is one of the few old homes around here you can just walk into.”

  We walk up the steps and I feel a mix of frustration and elation. I am putting one foot in front of the other towards finding proof of Akasha. I am also sure this is not the house that will produce my precious evidence.

  The exterior of the house is immaculate. Green wood siding wraps around two floors, separated by a maroon shingled awning over the porch. A tower-like structure juts off the side, topped with a maroon shingled roof. It’s too fancy to be the house I need.

  Inside the beautiful home, I’m instantly overwhelmed with the sculpted and polished beauty of the place. Claw-foot furniture, a piano, oil lamps, and old photos all transport me to Akasha’s world. But this is definitely not her home for disadvantaged girls. I shake my head at Patty and we head back down the front steps.

  “I feel like we’re so close, but so far now.” I clench my jaw and relax it again, trying as hard as I can to stay patient.

  “Let’s keep walking. We can’t just walk into most of the other homes, but maybe you will know it when you see it.”

  “Thank you for doing this. I hope you know how much it means to me. I can’t even talk about this with Mom or the girls at Arbutus House. Or Mariah or Jane, and probably not Bryce either. Mom got it in her head that I’m suffering from some condition and it just spiraled from there,” I say as calmly as I can. We pass more homes and I survey them one by one.

  “It’s strange, really, how something so small can get you wrapped up in the system. I’ve had clients in foster care only because they’re from a single parent home and that parent has to go into hospital with no other family to take them in. I’ve seen kids arrested for stealing a car and held back in school because of time in detention. They go home to a social stigma they can’t shake and it affects the rest of their lives. While other kids do the same dumb thing, don’t get caught, and grow out of said bad behavior through the natural course of life.”

  “If I hadn’t told Mom about any of this, she wouldn’t have taken me to Dr. MacDonald. Maybe it is kind of the same. But I can’t blame Mom, not anymore. I know she wants what’s best for me.”

  I stop in front of a heritage home that has seen far better days. The yard is fenced on all sides by bright orange plastic mesh supported with rough wood stakes. Demolition will start soon from the looks of it. Hand-written fabric signs have been tied onto the fencing. “DON’T DEMOLISH HISTORY” and “Save Our Souls Through Heritage” plead with the outside world to intervene on the house’s behalf.

  “This is it,” I say to Patty as I peer in through an orange-framed diamond.

  “Oh, honey, there is no way we’re getting in here. It might not be safe if we did.”

  “Couldn’t we contact the developer? I could make up a story about doing a class project. That worked well enough at the library.”

  “If you’d ever had contact with a developer, you’d know the last thing they care about is a kid’s class project.”

  I pull back away from the fence and read the signs of protest again. I rack my brain for another option. I may be willing to climb over this fence, but Patty is not. I will have to come back again another time. If the stars align for me, the people protesting this demolition will stall the developers long enough for me to break in.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. And what if this isn’t the house anyway?” I hope I sound confident.

  “Why don’t we grab some lunch? There’s a great fish and chip shop with a view of the water above English Bay.”

  “Are you buying?” I smile playfully and for the most part, I mean it.

  “For you, any day.”

  Over our lunch of battered oysters and cod, I concede defeat on finding Akasha’s house, but I ask Patty to remain my ally. She agrees. This is the best of both worlds; I can pursue the house lead on my own, while Patty remains available for something new.

  During Arbutus House’s after-dinner tv time, my phone chirps the tone I’ve assigned to Bryce. Are you up for hanging out this Friday? My heart freezes. So. Many. Elements. Am I free Friday? I do have a day pass left. Do I want to go out? With Bryce? Yes, of course. But his brother will have to be there. I slink off to the kitchen to answer.

  Definitely, but I can’t be out on my own. I need to be with someone fifteen or older and I can only go for a few hours. What did you have in mind? Would Mitchell be able to take us? I write carefully; I have to break the bad news about needing supervision, and I don’t want to sound too excited. I need to come across casual, yet interested.

  I thought we’d just grab a smoothie. Could show you around the Drive if you’re into that. Come see my hood. I’m sure Mitchell can come too. Bryce wants me to see his neighborhood! Back in the hospital he was talking generally about seeing Vancouver. But home is where the heart is, right?

  I wait a few minutes so as not to seem too eager. Sounds like fun. Pick me up at 7.

  He writes back immediately. Will do. See you then.

  And now I have a date with Bryce.

  Chapter 11

  The week between my lunch with Patty and my even-ing with Bryce is painfully long. I can sense that my level-headed conversations with Jane have served their purpose in convincing her I don’t need medication. I have no idea what medication would do to my clarity of thought and I can’t afford to find out.

  Patty has c
ome for a few more visits. Bryce has texted, checking in on me. It’s nice to be in touch with them again. But it won’t be long before I’m released from Arbutus House. Mom will scoop me up in a heartbeat and we’ll be back in Nelson, on our own again.

  Once I’m home, I’ll have left behind more than just my leads on Akasha. I’ll be right back to missing Bryce, although I still think I need a new best friend anyway — a girl for once. Mom will tell me it’s all for the best too. Bryce will say we can keep in touch until I come back to Vancouver for school one day. It didn’t work the first time and even if he does keep in touch now, it’ll be because he pities me. The thought makes my heart sink.

  My heart tumbles deeper into my gut when I think about Akasha. I’m so close now. Sure, her case has been cold for a hundred years, but there has to be something I can do for her. Why else would she connect with me?

  At seven o’clock, I’m sitting on the front steps of Arbutus House. Therese reminded me how desperate it looks to be on the edge of my seat until my “date” comes. I remind her that Bryce is just my friend, but it doesn’t change the look on her face. It would be perfectly normal to wait on the step for a friend, especially if I’ve been cooped up for too long beforehand.

  At seven fifteen, Mitchell’s car finally turns the corner onto Arbutus Street and rolls to a stop across the road from me. Bryce is in the front passenger seat, which is good. It would be way too weird to sit in the back seat with him while his brother drove us around like a chauffeur. It’s much better if we’re all just hanging out together. I waste no time in hopping up and jogging to the car. Mitchell smiles at me, although he doesn’t have Bryce’s visual charisma. Mitchell’s hair is combed mostly flat, and his dark eyes don’t have the same spark.

  “You’re late. They only let me out for so long, you know.” I’m hoping to break the ice and soothe my own nerves with a little small talk. I get into the back seat and Mitchell pulls out onto the road.