The Incomparable Atuk (12 page)

Gore sat down to a long-awaited pleasure, Panofsky’s thesis. He hoped that reading it would calm his nerves. But if he was edgy to begin with, Norman Gore was in a state of alarm once he had skimmed through the manuscript.

Panofsky arrived early to discuss his thesis with the Professor.

‘So?’ Panofsky asked.

Gore couldn’t cope.

‘Yes, well, no, Mr Panofsky. Actually, what I mean to say is, no, I haven’t read the
entire
thesis yet, but I have read, em, re-read your preliminary argument and I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say, say at once, that it has upset me enormously.

‘But it was supposed to,’ Panofsky said warmly.

‘Be that as it may, but – well, you correct me if I’m wrong – but I take it your hypothesis runs that contrary to what we liberals have worked so very hard and selflessly to instil in the prejudiced populace
for years, you believe that Jews
are
different from other people?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And that in your opinion Gentiles, well Protestants, anyway, are all similar. In fact, one Protestant is so like another that their children are interchangeable.’

‘Not “in my opinion”. My son and I have proven the fact scientifically. Years of research have—’ ‘But …’

Gore had always looked on tubby, grey-haired Panofsky as a gentle seeker after truth and beauty, a Jew who was a living refutation of the anti-Semitic caricature. Gore had often visualized Panofsky at his chessboard or spreading crumbs in the snow for birds. A sweet, colourful man who was in need of Gore’s protection. Like Negroes. Indeed, the Professor adored Jews and Negroes so much that he felt put out when they exhibited human traits. If a Jew cheated on his income tax, for instance, or a Negro wore flashy clothes, Gore felt personally affronted. They ought not, he thought, to do that to him and other liberals after they had tried so hard to be helpful. Last year Wharton, the Negro, such a promising and ingratiating young man, had got a freshette into trouble and now there was Panofsky and his perverse thesis. Panofsky was obviously insane, certifiable, just like Gore’s Uncle Jim, and this made Gore livid. They have no right to behave like us, he thought.

But before Gore could even communicate his displeasure to Panofsky the others began to arrive. Jean-Paul McEwen, Atuk and Goldie, Jersey Joe Marchette, Father McKendrick, Snipes, Rabbi Seigal, and the next thing Gore knew they were all on camera.

The first to make trouble was Father Anatole Forget. ‘I will not toast the Queen,’ he said to Gore.

‘But we had no intention of drinking a toast.’

Father Forget could not be deceived. He knew his Ontario. ‘I refuse to drink a toast to her so-called majesty whatever your plans are,’ he said.

Father Forget was French Canada’s leading philosopher and aesthete. Fortunately, he was soon deep in conversation with Derm Gabbard. ‘Life,’ he said, speaking in English, ‘she is happy and life she is sad. Art is the music of the soul.’

‘Oh, oui, oui,’ Gabbard said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully.

‘Art makes out of colours the picture. Even more remarkable,’ he said as camera 2 dollied in for a close-up, ‘it takes the prosaic tree and makes out of it paper and on this paper prints words.
Et voilà, la poésie
. And herewith, one has the poetry! Some poetry is long and some poetry is short …’

Gore stared at Jersey Joe Marchette, puzzled. ‘Haven’t we met before?’ he asked.

‘Certainly not.’

‘Funny …’

‘Perhaps,’ Jersey Joe said sharply, ‘it’s that we all look alike to you.’

Gore flushed.

Atuk rubbed noses with Nancy Gore, gave her the statue, and hurried to join Goldie at the buffet.

‘Hey! Easy,’ Goldie said, ‘the whole platter isn’t for you. Like you grab a little and put it on a plate.’

Bette Dolan saw them together and began to sob. Derm Gabbard patted her gently on the back. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘It’s Atuk; he won’t even talk to me. What can he see in that fat ugly bitch?’

‘We hear a lot these days,’ Harry Snipes shouted, ‘about Canadian artists leaving the country for Europe or the other place, where they earn a mint for writing insulting articles about their homeland. Well, I have no time for these self-haters myself. Why do they leave in the first place? Do foreign attists settle here?’

As soon as the camera zoomed in on Snipes, he pulled a little pill bottle out of his pocket – the label clearly read Morphine – and popped a couple of tablets into his mouth.

‘Take away from her the crown,’ Father Forget said, ‘and what have you got? A woman.’

Nancy Gore moved closer to Jersey Joe Marchette.

‘Another canapé?’ Nancy asked.

‘Thank you,’ Jersey Joe said, rubbing against her leg.

‘Why lookee over there,’ Nancy said, withdrawing, ‘there’s Ruthy Bone. I hear you clean windows for her too.’

Ruthy led Seymour Bone into a corner.

‘I’m going to have a baby,’ she said.

‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ Seymour said. ‘I’ll announce it soon as we’re on camera.’

‘Wait. There’s something I must tell you about my background, my Jewish background.’

‘Whatever it is, dearest,’ Bone said, patting her hand, ‘you know I am entirely free of prejudice.’

‘You see, em, one side of my family is of, ah, Yemenite extraction.’

Bone was baffled.

‘Well, Yemenites are sort of brown you see. Very brown sometimes.’

‘You mean
our
baby …?’

‘He might turn out sort of chocolate-y. Just a chance, you know. Does that bother you?’

‘Of course not,’ he said, trembling, anticipating all the jokes in the office. ‘Why should it?’

Harry Snipes, on camera again, held up a copy of
Ejaculations, Epiphanies, et etc;
then he leaped to Buck Twentyman’s defence. ‘If it was only profits that interested him,’ he asked, ‘then why’d he build the Stage Twentyman?’

Snipes announced that one of Twentyman’s many idea-men had discovered a town in northern Manitoba that was actually called Athens. Twentyman, he said, was putting a million dollars into a
proposed Athens arts festival; and Snipes would be in charge. ‘This will be an all-Canadian venture,’ he said. ‘We’re going to open with a production of
Oedipus Rex
—only we’re going to do it in Western costumes. The sheriff of Thebes is gunned down at a crossroads and only a little while later a notorious gun fighter, Barney “The Kid” Oedipus, rides into town …’

Bette tugged at Atuk’s sleeve.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know you went to Twentyman. Let’s just forget we ever knew each other.’

Rabbi Glenn Seigal and Father Greg ‘Touchdown’ McKendrick began to talk shop together. Glenn told the priest the inside story of his widely reported Wedding-on-the-Ninth-Hole. ‘There was many a chuckle,’ he said, ‘between the arrival of the best man on a go-kart and the finalization of the union.’

Both men, it developed, were worried about Sunday movies on Channel Nine. Father McKendrick told the rabbi about an enterprising priest in Victoria who had worked out a special deal with the local shopping plaza, and how he now gave away trading stamps in the confession box. ‘The return to the faith, especially among young housewives, has been heartening, very heartening’

Professor Gore joined the two men. ‘What are you two reactionaries cooking up together?’ he asked with a smile.

‘Don’t let him worry you, Rabbi. I’ve known Norm here for a donkey’s years. When the chips are
down he stands with us. One of God’s ground crew, if I ever knew one.’

‘This is so exciting,’ Rabbi Seigal said as the camera came nearer. ‘If only the bigots of this world could see us together, chatting cosily like this.’

‘Judas Priest,’ Father McKendrick said, ‘the Rabbi’s got a point there.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Wait, Rabbi,’ Professor Gore called. ‘Come back.’

The camera dollied in on Snipes again.

‘The trouble with Canadians,’ he said, ‘is we’re too damn conventional. I’ll bet if I were to do something spontaneous like, just for the sake of argument, if I were to expose myself right now you’d—’

A hastily slipped in card read:

PLEASE DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SETS THE TROUBLE IS TEMPORARY

A menacing Jean-Paul McEwen took Atuk aside.

‘I know all about you and her,’ she said, pointing at Bette who was sobbing on the sofa.

‘But I expect to announce my engagement shortly, J-P. I’ve had nothing to do with Bette for months.’

‘Oh, yeah. Well you just wait until you see my column tomorrow.’

‘But your column always gives me immense pleasure. Say, I have an item for you. Did you know that I’m going to be the first contestant on
STICK OUT YOUR NECK?’

‘Are you crazy? Do you know the rules?’

Of course Atuk couldn’t tell her about his understanding with Buck Twentyman.

‘All I know is that I stand to win a million. That’s good enough for me.’

Nancy Gore cornered Atuk.

‘You,’ she said, ‘enjoy – party? Have – much – fun?’

‘Much-much.’

‘Go eat.’ Nancy Gore led him to the tables. ‘Good,’ she said, rubbing her stomach. ‘You eat.’

Panofsky sighed impatiently, red-eyed, rocking to and fro: his glass kept spilling over.

‘But of course you’re a Protestant. I could tell at once. You have the typical no-face. You know, the funny little turned-up nose and the pasty complexion and—’

‘What’s wrong with my complexion?’ Derm Gabbard asked, retreating a step.

‘But you’re not to blame. It’s inherited. I put it down to generations of ignorance and bad diet. You know, it’s the bread you people eat. It’s the Spam and the tinned pilchards and the tartar that forms between your buck-teeth from too much boozing. White Protestant, northern species; it’s written all over your face, like acne. Too much pork.’ He poked Derm with his elbow. ‘You know what pigs thrive on, don’t you?’ Panofsky laughed. ‘You put me in a room full of strangers and I’ll pick out the goyim for you.’

‘Just what have you got against us, Mr Panofsky?’

‘Look around you. Take a good look.’

‘Well, em, all kinds of people are Protestants, you know. We’re good and bad.’

‘But these I like the best. They are in the natural goy state. Pissed.’

Derm, insulted, turned to go. Panofsky grabbed him by the arm.

‘A goy, Gabbard, is for running elevators or carrying a rifle. Theirs not to reason why, etc etc. On the assembly lines they’re unexcelled. Look, in some fields you can’t beat them. I admit it. As hockeyists, where brawn and not brain is the rule, as agriculturalists, where a taste for manure heaps is called for, the goy is supreme. Look at them, look around you, the way they guzzle the booze. Know why? They have learned to read and cannot support the weight of it. Knowledge is not natural to the goy’s condition. Life has become too complex for the goy. What does he worship? The cowboy. Out there on a horse, unwashed and crawling with fleas, eating pork-beans out of a tin, and sitting tall in the saddle is the blockhead healthy goy in his natural state. Well, I’d give it back to him, bull-pies and all. Gabbard, the most boring, mediocre man in the world is the White Protestant goy, northern species, and in Canada he has found his true habitat.’

Derm Gabbard sat down on the sofa and began to talk to Bette tenderly.

His eyes red and inflamed, Panofsky went to the bar and poured himself another drink.

Harry Snipes couldn’t shake Rabbi Seigal who, it appeared, was under the impression Snipes was looking for another TV series to do. So Snipes listened, making polite noises.

‘You see, my son, he could be modelled after Father Brown. Of course, I’m a man of the cloth myself, hardly a thespian, so my interest in the matter is purely sociological. Such a series you know, might destroy once and for all the stereotype of the Hebrew as a physical coward. Not, you understand, that I want it to be another violent series. I don’t see Rabbi Rocky Rubin in the same light as Eliot Ness. On the contrary. His would be more … well, the intellectual approach to crime.’

‘Ah-ha.’

‘Busy as I am, I would be willing to supervise the scripts for you.’

‘I see.’

‘Financial considerations are hardly the issue. Good taste is, Mr Snipes. Perhaps if I were to introduce each episode, as Walter Winchell does, it might give the venture a certain tone.’

‘Well, Rabbi, it sure would. But Pd like to sleep on the idea.’

‘You don’t sound
stimulated.’

‘Oh, I am. It’s very ballsy stuff, but—’

‘Among my flock, you know, there’s Arnold Beal. You know, Beal Distilleries. Well, he is interested in
a video prestige series and I could broach the subject with him, if you like.’

‘A swell idea. Can I call you tomorrow?’

‘Certainly. Oh, one further thought, my son. I’ve mailed myself a copy of the idea by registered letter. This is no reflection on you. But I’m an innocent in these matters—’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘—and I was advised—’

‘Tomorrow, Rabbi, OK?’

Ti-Lucy found Atuk at the tables, filling his plate again.

‘What … how in the hell did you get in here?’ Atuk asked.

‘You must come at once, Atuk.
At once’

Outside, a troubled Derm Gabbard led Bette towards her car. Suddenly he was seized from behind. Panofsky knocked him down, grabbed his arm, and began to twist it.

‘Hey!’

Bette sat down in the snow.

‘Who destroyed the Temple?’ Panofsky asked.

Derm winced as Panofsky gave his arm another twist.

‘Admit it. Who sacked Jerusalem?’

‘Help,’ Derm shouted. ‘Help!’

Bette heard the call clearly and began to undress.

‘Confess,’ Panofsky demanded.

‘Let go!’

Panofsky kicked Derm in the ribs.

‘Ouch! Bette! Help me! Oh, my God. You’ll catch the death of a cold.’

‘Who sacked Jerusalem? Answer, goy-boy.’ ‘Oooh.’

‘You killed Trotsky,’ he shouted, kicking him once more.

Atuk wrapped a handkerchief round his bleeding hand and summoned them all into the living-room for another count. Ti-Lucy sobbed brokenly. ‘It was Ignak,’ she said, ‘he broke the window and—’