The questions at first were mundane. Alfred had to relay his name, where he was from, how he came to Canada, and where he stayed in Canada. Bea was bored and started reading a book next to me. It seemed to me that the adults in the room were asking very mundane questions that had nothing to do with why Alfred wanted to stay in Canada. Finally, things got interesting, and we started to hear things about Alfred that I had never heard before.

I learned that Alfred was a university professor in Chinese literature who also wrote fiction. He was married, but his wife died in a car accident. It was difficult to follow. The long staccato pauses for interpretation interrupted not only the flow of the story but also any personal touch that Alfred wanted to provide. I was surprised at how cold the three board members were, unaffected by Alfred’s life. They reminded me of the robotic windmills I had seen near Lethbridge in the summer: large, imposing figures at one end of the room, blinking, breathing but doing nothing else. They waited silently as Alfred stopped talking to blow his nose and dab his eyes. He put his face in his hands and trembled. Even Gwen didn’t know what to do. I could hear her whisper to Alfred but didn’t understand what she said. I wanted so badly to go to him, to hug him. Mother and Auntie Miriam were holding hands, clutching each other tightly. Mother gave me a stern look to keep quiet and stay still.

Ms Wong started to move towards Alfred, but the large bald man put his hand up. “Mr Wang, please tell us why you are afraid to go back to China,” he asked.

Alfred spoke a few sentences, and then a board member interrupted him so that Gwen could translate. “I am a wanted man. I will be imprisoned, tortured, and maybe killed if I return. Because of my writings, because of my thoughts. They’re looking for me, and there is no place to hide.”

I sat upright in my seat at these brutal words. When Auntie Miriam and Mother had talked about Alfred not being safe in China, I hadn’t realized this was what they meant. An intense fear grew in me for Alfred.

Mother whispered to Ms Wong that Gwen was not interpreting Alfred’s story accurately, but the board members did not care or do anything about it when Ms Wong told them. Mother’s face crumpled when the woman board member with curly hair said that Alfred wasn’t a journalist, that he was just making up stories, and belittled him for making his writing seem more important than it was. Mother shifted in her chair when the board member with glasses accused Alfred of unwisely writing material that he knew would displease the Chinese government and concocting his story when he saw what Canada had to offer. She held her face in her hands when none of the board members looked Alfred in the eye as he recalled how he was being followed, how he received warnings from a publisher.