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conversation at the table. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go immediately to West Berlin. Her uncle had studied at the Academy of Arts there until Hitler’s fascists had chased him out. When he returned to Canada, he and his partner did indeed move in with his sister, Ella. His sister refused to meet his boyfriend but let them set up house together in the basement, which had had its own entrance. Some members of the family said he was a bit of a scoundrel, mooching off them all the time.
    Her uncle Walter’s story piqued her imagination. Whaton earth was a gay African Canadian doing in Nazi Germany in the 1930s? It tickled her that she was the only one in the family destined—chosen?—to follow in his footsteps. She felt compelled by some crazy idea of cosmic karma to see if she could find his old haunts in Berlin.
    An hour later there was a knock at her door.
    â€œWho’s there?”
    â€œIt’s your broken-down old father. May I come in?”
    Ruby sat up in her bed but then slumped back down. He knocked again, and finally she said, “Come on in.”
    Her dad sat down at the foot of the bed. Ruby rolled over to face him.
    Her father fiddled with his hands for a moment, head down. “Listen, Ruby, this is hard for me to say. I won’t try to stop you from going. I can’t anyway—you have a mind of your own and you’re going to do whatever you want to do. It’s just—I’ve spent so many years looking after you and looking out for you. It’s hard to let go, hard to realize that you have to head off into the world on your own. I still hope you won’t be gone for long and that you’ll focus on a career when you get back. Your family is here, and you are an integral part of it. What are you going to do there in Berlin, after you’ve seen all the sights? But in the meantime, I don’t know what else to say but be well, my dear, and travel safely. Let us know when you’re leaving.”
    â€œDid Mom tell you to say that?”
    Her father struggled. “Yes, Ruby, your mother and I had a chat. But this is me. Solo. Here to talk.”
    â€œIt’s just so strange . . . don’t you remember when you were young?” Ruby asked.
    â€œI guess different people have different impulses. Mine was to get an education, settle down and raise a family. That’s what my parents taught me. Study hard, work hard, improve your life.”
    Ruby looked at her father and realized he had followed the dream of many Black Canadians. She stammered, “Maybe you didn’t go far away, but you still set out on your own. That’s all I’m trying to do.” She quieted her anger and reached out to her father. “Thanks for coming to talk to me, Dad. It means a lot to me.”
    Her father opened up his arms and Ruby slid into them for one last bear hug. He hummed a familiar tune that made Ruby smile. Together they sang as they held fast to each other.

C HAPTER T WO
Landing
    S HOTS RANG OUT FROM A TOWER UP ABOVE. I T WAS nighttime and everything seemed grey and bleak. A man’s hands, pierced and bloody, gripped a barbed wire fence at the top of a tall slab of grey concrete. He was gasping; his face was etched with desperation and terror.
    As a child, Ruby had sat with her father as he watched a film in the family room, and had ended up burrowed into his lap, too scared to watch the rest of the movie. Her father had told her it was about spies in Berlin, but she hadn’t really known what that meant. He had shooed her away, and she went off thinking that Berlin seemed like a horrible place. This early image of Berlin haunted her now, along with the romantic associations she had of her uncle, so she delayed her descent into the complete unknown by stopping over in Paris for a week to soak up the sights and sounds of the French capital.
    Ruby touched down in Paris mid-morning, mid-week. Her parents had taken her