The Incomparable Atuk (15 page)

Buck received him grandly.

‘We need tractors,’ Chung Lee told him.

‘But the American government won’t let us export them to your country.’

‘We need hundreds of thousands of tractors,’ Chung Lee said, ‘and we are willing to pay cash on the table. I leave everything to you, Buck.’

The next day Twentyman summoned the directors of his newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations to a meeting. ‘Can you give me one good reason,’ he asked, ‘why each country shouldn’t choose its own path to progress?’

Nobody spoke.

‘Who are we to judge China?’ Twentyman asked.

The directors of the Twentyman communications empire, liberals to the core, were glad of an opportunity
to push a cause they believed in, and set to work merrily.

But Twentyman was still in need of a figurehead. He found him in Atuk. And today he summoned his directors and editors to an even more important meeting.

‘Mm. Yes,’ Twentyman said. ‘He was taken into custody earlier this afternoon.’

As a murmur rose among the group Twentyman waved an arm impatiently. ‘I assure you everything is under control,’ he said.

‘But can we count on Snipes?’

‘He will serve our purpose admirably,’ Twentyman said. ‘About Atuk now. I—’

Everyone began to speak at once in troubled voices.

‘We know what you have in mind. But power might go to the Eskimo’s head.’

‘He’d have us all in his grasp.’

‘The dangers are—’

‘—can assure you, as I said earlier, that everything will work out for the best.’ Twentyman smiled one of his rare cunning smiles. ‘Our cause is not in need of a hero, you know.’

‘Heroes are dangerous.’

‘Quite. What we need is a martyr,’ Twentyman said, ‘and we shall have one.’

Sunny Jim Woodcock, The People’s Prayer for Mayor, greeted the demonstrators on the steps of City Hall. ‘Friends,’ he said, ‘your cause is just, my heart is with you, but we must not act hastily. Violence—’

Harry Snipes stepped in front of the portly Mayor.

‘Are you lily-livered,’ Snipes demanded, ‘or iron-souled? Are we men or mice?’

The answer came back in a roar.

‘Good,’ Snipes said, ‘because I’m here to appeal to the men among you. The weirdies and the beardies and the queers can go home right now. As for the rest of you …’

Sgt Jock Wilson slipped into his dressing gown and went to the window to watch the people pass below. Four men held a banner aloft that read:

FREE ATUK NOW!

Jean-Paul McEwen shouldered through the marchers to the
Standard
offices on the other side of the street. Somebody had heaved a rock through the window where the crossed flags of Canada and the United States had used to hang. Two boys tore up a sign that read
uncle sam’s sawbucks accepted at
par
and threw it into the fire. Four housewives marched toward her holding high a placard that read:

A little further down the street an overturned car was in flames.

Norman Gore was in an extremely excited state.

‘Isn’t it stupendous, Nancy? I had thought our youth was dead. I didn’t think anything could rouse them. It’s wonderful, simply glorious. The response to Atuk’s -Well, it takes me back. Not since Sacco and Vanzetti do I remember such a tremendous …’

Gore, who had been one of those posted to the all-night vigil outside the American Embassy, still wore his parka and ski boots.

‘No. You can’t sell Canada short. Why, there’s more spirit to this country than …

BZZZZ … 
ZZZZZ … ZZZZ . . Z … Z
 …

McEwen strutted up and down, dictating her column.

‘To begin with,’ she said, ‘I’d like to point out that I abhor everything American as much as the next, ah, man. The record speaks for itself. But we are going too far with Atuk. If he is guilty, and I have a witness to prove he is, then he must pay.’

The managing editor rushed into her office. ‘Jean-Paul,’ he said, ‘I’ve backed you time and again, but we can’t come out against Atuk. The whole country’s aroused. Everybody’s on his side. It would be suicide to—’

‘If he’s guilty he has to pay.’

Twentyman stood by the window, exultant. Below, the aroused populace marched toward the jailhouse. Their determined singing rattled the window-pane. Goldie, leading the procession, sang:

Above, an aeroplane wrote in the sky,
ATUK, WE’RE COMING
.

An item at the bottom of page eight caught Norman Gore’s eye.

‘Two men, believed to be father and son, were caught redhanded earlier today switching babies’ identification bracelets in the maternity ward of the Protestant Temperance Hospital.

‘The maniacs wore white jackets and surgical masks and were taken, at first, for doctors.

“I’ve seen them both so often over the years,” Nurse Tomkins said, “that I thought they were on night staff.”

‘Others in the ward also recognized the two men and believed them to be Drs Zale and Shub.

‘An investigation has been promised. Reached at his country home, Dr Ross McClure, President, Ontario Medical Association, said, “I can’t speak until I see the full report that is being prepared. But if you think this is chaos, wait until they bring in socialized medicine.”

‘Meanwhile, all parents who had babies at the Protestant Temperance Hospital within the last eighteen years are urgently advised to contact Superintendent MacKintosh. “Some awkward mistakes may have been made,” she said.

‘The two men, when questioned, claimed to be engaged in scientific research.

‘Dr F. G. Laughton, psychiatrist, has made a preliminary examination. All he would venture at this point, however, was, “The mind is the last undiscovered continent.” ’

‘48.9 seconds today,’ Rory said. ‘Not very good.’

The hatch was secured again and Brunhilde lay groaning on the floor of the shelter as Garth kicked her again and again.

‘Now,’ Neil said, clutching his mother, ‘let’s play if Daddy’s radioactive and I have to shoot him.’

The end. It had been, in the truest sense, Jock’s dark night of the soul; and first thing the next morning he took action.

‘Do you realize, sir,’ he told Col Smith-Williams, ‘that I am now Miss Canada?’

‘Splendid, darling.’

‘It’s no joke.’

‘But I’m not joking. We intend to use you in our new recruiting drive.’

‘I have, well, I have something even more dreadful to tell you.’

For Jock, agonizing all through the night, torn between love and duty, had made the only honour-able choice possible.

‘I’ve fallen in love with a … man. A lad, sir.’

‘Certainly, certainly. Only your private pleasures do not concern us here.’

‘I have reason to believe this lad is a communist student organizer.’

‘What? Why you deceitful bitch. You—’

‘Wait. I intend to hand him over to you and resign from the force immediately afterwards.’

And that’s how come that at seventeen thirty hours that very same evening when Jock, as usual, went to meet Jim in the park, the surrounding area was charged with cunning activity. The two plump, seemingly innocent nurses gossiping at the end of the footpath were actually the cleverest of commandos; the prams they rocked were stuffed with
hand grenades and tear gas bombs. A helicopter hovered overhead. The happy little boy and his dog wrestling on the grass were not what they appeared to be either. The boy was the only midget in the RCMP and the dog, of course, was a trained killer. Furthermore, the old rabbi, ostensibly snoozing two benches away, actually clutched a machine gun under his kaftan. In the car parked on the street alongside – a vehicle equipped with the most foolproof of radar devices – Col Smith-Williams checked to see if all systems were go just as Jock, stunning in the black Balenciaga he had chosen for the occasion, sat down on the bench to wait. But at the appointed hour it was not Jim who came striding purposefully down the path but Jean-Paul McEwen, for she too had chosen this evening to reveal all. Jean-Paul wore a silk blouse, tweed skirt, and sensible shoes.

‘Jane,’ Jean-Paul said.

‘Go away,’ Jock said, ‘I’m waiting for—’

Jean-Paul, her eyes moist, lit a Schimmelpenninck.

‘Good God, it’s you!’

‘Yes, my poor darling, it’s me.’

‘You’re not a lad then. You’re a woman.’

‘Like you.’

Jock ripped off his wig triumphantly. ‘No. Not like me. For you see I’m a man,’ he said, rubberized breasts heaving.

The lovers embraced and quickly explained all to
Col Smith-Williams and his men who had moved in on the couple, guns drawn.

‘Jock.’

‘Jean-Paul.’

‘So I’m not a queer.’

‘No. And I’m not a dyke,’ Jean-Paul said, pulling Jock onto her lap.

‘All right. Enough of the mushy stuff,’ Col Smith-Williams said, disgruntled. ‘Get that wig back on before anyone sees you. That’s an order, Sergeant. There’s still the Miss Universe contest ahead of us.’

Once Colonel Swiggert’s bones were discovered and it was established, beyond a doubt, that Atuk had eaten him, the Americans expected swift justice. Misinformed, as usual, they had not figured on the fresh spirit of nationalism that was rampant in the dominion. As for Atuk, it was reported that his only request was that his little brothers and sisters should be allowed to return safely to their natural habitat – the Bay he would see no more.

The afternoon of Atuk’s arrest the country – stunned – maybe even a little astonished by the nature of the Eskimo poet’s crime – was still. The giant of the north held its breath. Knocked back on its heels, Canada needed time. Fortunately, not that much time. For only a half hour after Atuk was
incarcerated a series of man-on-the-street interviews carried by the CBC revealed that plain people everywhere were heart and soul with the Eskimo.

‘He has such a nice face,’ a Saskatoon housewife said. While a hospital dietician in Victoria said, ‘He must have been
very
hungry.’ A man in Calgary asked, ‘What was that Yankee blankety-blank doing in our arctic, anyway?’ Another, in Moncton, said, ‘Where were they in 1916 or ’39. Ask ’em that.’

One by one the people were heard.

‘Johnny Canuck,’ a CBC commentator said, shedding his horn-rimmed glasses and looking very severe, ‘has been roused from his slumber. From coast to coast he speaks. The accents differ, but the voice is the same.’ Frowning deeply, he put on his glasses again. ‘The voice,’ he said, ‘is an angry one.’

The Canadians spoke up.

A mechanic who had been fired by General Motors; a man whose Buick had broken down and another with a GE mix-master that didn’t work; a widow who had bought oil shares in a Texas swamp; another whose most unforgettable character had been rejected by the
Reader’s Digest
; a couple who had been asked for their marriage licence in a Florida motel; a retired army officer who, presenting a twenty-dollar bill in a New York restaurant, had been asked, ‘What’s this, baby? Monopoly money …’; people who didn’t like last week’s Ed Sullivan show or felt they ought to give Toronto a major league baseball team; some who recalled
Senator McCarthy; a man whose claim against All-State hadn’t been honoured; a politician who had never made the Canadian section of
Time;
and more, many more, wrote to their newspapers, phoned their local television stations, and wired their MPs.

Only a hop, skip, and a jump behind came the intellectuals.

‘What sort of example,’ Seymour Bone demanded, ‘has, say, Charles Van Doren set for a simple Eskimo?’

A prominent sports writer recalled the Chicago baseball scandal.

‘This is not a banana republic,’ an important novelist said.

A University of Toronto psychologist pointed out, ‘Atuk’s act was one of symbolic revenge. Culturally, economically, the Americans are eating our whole country alive.’

‘The poet,’ a western critic said, ‘is essentially a childish person. You can’t apply normal standards of behaviour to the creative ones. Really, there’s no saying what they’ll do next.’

‘Like they killed Dylan,’ Harry Snipes said.

During the night American cars were wrecked by wandering hordes, Coca-Cola signs were ripped down, and copies of American books were burned on street corners. The CBC hastily cancelled a production of
Our Town
.

Alert producers dug into bottom drawers and hurried from place to place with pilot films for series
to replace
Wagon Train, The Defenders
, and
Ben Casey
. Jimmy McFarlane of McFarlane & Renfrew ordered an immediate reprint of
Eskimo Song
, proceeds for the Atuk Defence Fund. By morning the fat was in the fire.

‘While we would be the last to condone cannibalism,’ the editorial writer on the
Standard
wrote, ‘we do feel that Atuk, a simple man, is a special case. US Army officers had no business in his land disturbing an age-old and time-honoured way of life. Flatly, pardon him. We’re passing the buck to you, Dief.’

The
Post
was even more forceful.

‘One of the most neglected, long-suffering, and tragic of our minority groups has suffered another blow to its pride. The noble Eskimo never complains. For help he asks us not. Freedom-loving, proud, he asks only to be allowed to hunt as his father’s fathers have before him. Unlike other minority groups we could cite he has organized no anti-defamation leagues. He sends no representatives to make long-winded speeches at that excuse for a debating club, the UN. Yet who is more entitled to aid than the original Canadian? What ethnic group are we more indebted to? None.

‘Yet we allow armed and ignorant foreigners to enter his land and meddle with his folk practices. Practices unfathomable to us, I gainsay, but sacred to our brothers in the igloo. The question, it seems to me, is not did he eat or not eat him. I wouldn’t.
You wouldn’t. But live and let live has always been our policy. What the Eskimo does in his land is not our affair – and certainly not Uncle Sam’s. The trouble with the affluent society to the south of us is that they have been ruined by status-seeking and hidden persuasion and dream-merchants. They would impose conformity on all of us. Take back your minks, we say. Your homosexual playwrights can stay home. We don’t need your pipe-lines. But, above all, leave our Eskimos alone.’