Flight to Canada (18 page)

“How did you do that? You didn’t have any money.”

“Oh, Mother just bought a forest up here. I simply told them who I was. No trouble. They called Mother and she told them to give me what I wanted. They’re used to Americans owning forests, lakes and mountains up here.”

“You’ve always gotten what you wanted, haven’t you?”

“Just about. Anyway, I bought some clothes and supplies and then a couple of long rolls of wire. I had some workmen hitch it up to some poles, and just as the tourists began arriving this morning I started out.”

“You’re crazy,” he said playfully, smiling.

“No, not crazy, famous. If I’d slipped and fallen, then I would have been crazy.”

“Hey, look,” Quickskill said, “it’s Carpenter.”

And it was Carpenter. He was in the lobby, registering in the hotel. His head was bandaged, and he walked with the assistance of a cane. Quickskill rose and went to the lobby. He brought Carpenter back to the table.

“Carpenter, how are you? What happened?” Quaw Quaw said, rising.

Carpenter pulled up a chair. Ordered some Scotch.

“Cutty Sark?” the waitress asked.

“No, not me,” he said, waving her away, “Ballantine. I don’t want anything to do with Canada. The sooner I’m out of here the better.”

“What on earth happened, man?” Quickskill asked.

“Some mobocrats beat me up,” he said, pointing to the bandages on his head. “Left me in the street unconscious. I was going back to the hotel after being denied this room I wanted to rent.”

“In Canada? You were denied a room?” Quickskill asked.

“That’s right. Man, I’d take my chance with Nebraskaites, Know-Nothings and Democrats anytime. Even a Copperhead or a Confederate.”

“I don’t understand, Carpenter. Why, outside it looks like the Peaceable Kingdom.”

“Maybe here but not elsewhere. Man, as soon as you reach the metropolitan areas you run into Ford, Sears, Holiday Inn, and all the rest.”

“You’re kiddin,” Quickskill said. “You have to be kiddin.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“But what about St. Catherine’s? William Wells Brown told me that he’d gotten a number of slaves across to St. Catherine’s, where they found rewarding careers.”

“Let me show you downtown St. Catherine’s,” Carpenter said, removing a photo from his wallet. It looked like any American strip near any American airport; it could have been downtown San Mateo. Neon signs with clashing letters advertising hamburgers, used-car lots with the customary banners, coffee joints where you had to stand up and take your java from wax cups.

“It looks so aesthetically unsatisfying.”

“You can say that again, Quaw Quaw,” Quickskill said.

“Man, they got a group up here called the Western Guard, make the Klan look like statesmen. Vigilantes harass fugitive slaves, and the slaves have to send their children to schools where their presence is subject to catcalls and harassment. Don’t go any farther, especially with her. They beat up Chinamen and Pakastani in the streets. West Indians they shoot.”

“I’m a Native American,” she said.

Quickskill had never heard her say it that way. A Native American. And she stuck out her chest.

“Don’t you remember her, Carpenter? She came to your party.”

“Oh, that’s right. I was a little high that night. Don’t remember everybody who came. Was so glad to get to Canada. Now look. Man, let me show you something.” Carpenter pulled from his pocket a piece of paper upon which some figures had been written. “Of the ten top Canadian corporations, four are dominated by American interests. Americans control fifty-five percent of sales of manufactured goods and make sixty-three percent of the profits. They receive fifty-five percent of mining sales and forty percent of paper sales. Man, Americans own Canada. They just permit Canadians to operate it for them. They needs a Castro up here bad. And get this.
Time
magazine receives special tax rates up here.”

The more Carpenter continued to talk, the more depressed Quickskill became.

Finally Carpenter got up from his seat. “Well, Quickskill, Quaw Quaw, I have to go,” he said, downing his Scotch. “Want to get up early in the morning to start the journey back to Emancipation. Those people I sublet my apartment to are really going to be in for a surprise.”

“Yeah, sure, Carpenter,” Quickskill said in almost a whisper.

“See you back in Emancipation … Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you …”

“What’s that?”

“Swille got his.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was in the newspapers. His old lady burned him.”

“That’s nice.”

“What? I expected to hear a bigger response than that.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t really care at this point, Carpenter. After what you’ve said about Canada. All my life I had hopes about it, that whatever went wrong I would always have Canada to go to.”

“Don’t let it get you down, Raven. Look, I’d better be going.”

Carpenter left a tip, and using his cane, headed toward the elevator.

“Quickskill,” Quaw Quaw said, reaching out her hand to him, “don’t take it so hard. Quickskill …”

But Quickskill held his head between his hands. Then he slowly dropped his head to the table and let it rest there for a while, his arms stretched out.

H
E FELT HIS GUTS
were made of aluminum. The tears went to behind his eyes and burned there. She had her black silky Indian hair resting on his shoulder. Her arm was inside his. From time to time she’d pinch his arm. He’d look at her and smile. There were fruit stands on the highway. Red apples, yellow grapefruit. Fresh. She’d want to stop and buy some. Good-eyes Raven would point to a cloud in the direction opposite that of the fruit stand. He didn’t feel like stopping.

“Look, there’s a cloud,” he’d say.

“Where? I don’t see it.”

It worked every time. They were approaching the border. There was a long line of cars. The border was tense, and some of the passengers stood beside the vehicles. They were being questioned by the border guards. The United States still hadn’t gotten over that incident which took place during the War of 1812. The Canadians had tried to burn down the White House. The Canadians hadn’t forgotten that they had repelled three invasions from the Union. A fortnight before, the Prime Minister of Canada had publicly rebuked an American ambassador for having “overstepped the bounds of diplomatic propriety.”

Things brimmed over when a visiting American producer and director had called the National Arts Center’s theatre in Ottawa “lousy,” and suggested that whoever built it “should be shot.” The next day the Château Laurier in Ottawa was blown up. Some blamed it on “Seceshes,” an abundance of which every nation has. Others said it sounded like Yankees. The “staid” London
Times
had described the Yankee character as one of “swagger” and “ferocity,” this after Captain Charles Wilkes of the Union ship
San Jacinto
had boarded England’s
Trent
in order to arrest two Confederate diplomats. It was described as an “audacious” act which outraged the “civilized world.”

Had crossing the Atlantic changed the character of both Europeans and Africans? Were Yankees really “vulgar cowards” as the London
Times
had said? Why had the Canadian Prime Minister said that living next to the Union was like being a flea on an elephant? Every time the elephant twitched you felt it. Why did the Europeans think that Yankees hunted elephants?

They weren’t surprised, therefore, when a kid-glove-wearing guard in a black bear coat waved them over to the side. He walked to their car and peeked in. Noticing Quaw Quaw, he asked, “Hey, aren’t you one of them Japs who used to worship dragons and were in the throes of superstition?” It wasn’t said with any malice. He was friendly even, and when he said it, smiled at both of them. He then removed a handbook from his pocket. “Japs, Japs. J … Japs,” he said, leafing through. “The Union is a Christian Union, and there’s no room for infidels.”

“She’s not Japanese, she’s Indian.”

But by this time Quaw Quaw had leaped out of the car and was heading toward the guard, her face contorted in anger, like a mask he had once seen.

The guard dropped his pencil and stepped back. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you the girl who walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope? Quaw Quaw Tralaralara.”

When they heard that, the passengers of the other cars stopped honking and rushed out of their cars with matchbox covers, napkins, candy-bar wrappers, pads, driver’s licenses and anything they could find to get Quaw Quaw’s autograph. For someone who talked about how she “disdained” commercialism and how her Columbia professors had taught her to “deplore” the “star system,” she seemed to be enjoying it. Well, at least to Quickskill she seemed to be enjoying it. Only one of Quaw Quaw’s fans recognized him, and then only to ask him for a piece of paper to write Quaw Quaw’s name on.

Later they were driving toward the Eagle Hotel when Quaw Quaw said, “Weren’t they wonderful? Did you see how they swarmed about me? They love me, Raven! They love me!” She stretched her arms. “I’m out in the open now. Only me and an audience. Put in the open where dance should be. Where it’s always been.”

“Yeah, out in the open, all right. You seemed to lick it up. All of that open. Them loving you. I thought you were so abstract. A ‘pure’ artist you always said. Not a ‘star.’ That’s what you always said. Anyway, don’t you think walking on a tightrope across the Falls was a cheap stunt? Now all of the dancers in New York will be coming up here walking across the damned Falls. Making this … this supreme wonder into a sideshow. Long articles in the magazine sections of small-town newspapers. You belong to that pirate. You’re just like him. Only he’s honest with his. You’re an ambitious mountain climber. Only this time it’s the mountain of success.”

“How corny, ‘the mountain of success.’ And you’re a poet you think. And you use lines like ‘the mountain of success.’ You ought to study the ‘masters’ and then you won’t be so given to using lines like the mountain of success. You … you …”

“Go on and say it. Barbarian. That’s what you want to say, isn’t it? Pocahontas, that’s what you are. Turn in your own father for a pirate …”

“That’s not the way the story goes. Not only are you stupid, Raven, you’re inaccurate. Raven. Your name ought to be turkey. That’s what you are, a turkey. Drowned because he’s too stupid to bend his head from the raining sky. You turkey.”

“Don’t call me a turkey.”

“You fucking shithead turkey, turkey! Turkey! Turkey!” She started screaming. He removed one hand from the steering wheel and was about to slap her when he saw their commotion had gotten some traveling spectators. She and her Blondin thing were going too far.

“Look, when we go back to the Eagle, why don’t you return to your neo-Feudalistic life with your husband and sit around with his decadent pro-Gothic friends dining on caviar and discussing Chopin, Soho and birds like that, and eating mandarin fish and light-jeweled pigeon.” She had folded her arms and was sulking. “And another thing. Whenever someone confuses you with some other race, why don’t you tell them you don’t care about race and that you don’t have time to fool around with such subjects as race; and that you don’t identify with any group. Ha. Tell them you don’t identify with any group.”

He looked at her. She was staring straight ahead. She stared vacantly like that until they reached the Eagle Hotel.

When he checked in there was a note for him from Uncle Robin. The next morning he received another note. Her note. In the middle of the night, while he was sleeping, she had left the hotel.

“… A
ND TO MOE, MY
white house slave, I leave my checkerboard and my checkers because, you see, we found it was a sport he enjoys. We found out that it was Moe who was taking my wine and distributing it at these singles parties he had for the white slaves. I knew about these parties because I had Nebraska Tracers to bug the motel rooms and install two-way mirrors where these free-wheeling affairs were held. He’s an expense-account rogue, too.”

Moe’s collar must have become tight because he started fidgeting with it. Some soft chuckling could be heard from those who had gathered for the reading of Swille’s will—the household staff and his relatives, two brothers and a sister, Anne, who were dressed, dignified, in millionaire-black. Uncle Robin sat next to Aunt Judy. He was gazing at the ceiling. His arms were folded. He was whistling very softly to himself.

“Otherwise, Moe has served me long and hard, and so in order to soften this insult I leave him Blue Cross, Blue Shield, old-age pension, paid vacations, Christmas and New Year’s off, an annual ticket to the circus, coffee breaks, a scholarship for two of his children, a year’s supply of Scotch tape, two hunting dogs, and a partridge in a pear tree …”

Then the Judge paused. What could be wrong? He must have stared at the document for a full minute. He peered at it over his glasses. He removed his glasses and blinked his eyes. He put them on again. He scratched his head. His mouth opened wide. He began to stutter and rattle the paper in his trembling hands.

“And to Uncle Robin, I leave this Castle, these hills and everything behind the gates of the Swille Virginia estate.”

Much commotion. The Judge called for silence. Moe slumped in his chair, the checkers dropping from their box, falling red and black to the floor. He stooped to gather them. Mammy Barracuda stood and shook her fist in Robin’s direction. Cato the Graffado pleaded with her to sit down. “We might not get nothing, Mammy.” She sat down.

The Judge turned to Robin. “Robin, I’ve known you a long time. You’ve gotten the trust of the Planters. We all admire you about these parts.”

“I deem it a pleasure to be so fortunate that God would ordain that I, a humble African, would be so privileged as to have a home in Virginia like this one. Why, your Honor, it’s like paradise down here. The sun just kinda lazily dropping in the evening sky. The lugubrious, voluptuous tropical afternoons make me swoon, Judge. Make me swoon.”

“Very poetical, Robin. Very poetical,” the Judge said. “Then you won’t take offense if I ask you a delicate question?”