‘Co-operation is one thing and domination is another. The trouble with those boys is they see commies under every bed. Surely, you don’t go for that cock-and-bull story about their colonel having been kidnapped by Russian agents?’
‘He did disappear, didn’t he?’
‘The man had no right investigating our defences in the first place. Probably he got drunk one night and fell down an ice crevice.’
‘Probably? He certainly did. So why worry?’
‘Why? Haven’t you any national pride? They step all over us.’ Professor Gore suddenly smiled. ‘There I go losing my temper again. Oh, say, you will be coming on Friday, won’t you?’
‘I’m looking forward to it immensely, sir.’
Just about anybody who was anybody was going to Professor Gore’s on Friday night. Even Atuk would be there.
The Old One took down the bar, unbolted the door, and opened the locks one by one.
‘Enter in peace,’ the Old One said.
‘Hi,’ Atuk said. ‘How’s everything?’
‘They are all gathered around the box and waiting. There is much tension among them for you failed them yesterday. The Old One strongly recommends the magic for tonight.’
‘I told them only if they work hard. I—’
‘Of work they have done their fill. For this I give my word.’
Atuk went into the living-room and saw for himself how they all sat huddled and expectant round the box. ‘Have you been good?’ he asked.
‘We have been good.’
Only Ignak failed to reply.
‘Have you worked hard and long while Atuk, who cares not a reindeer’s knuckle for his own safety, has rushed hither and thither among the many white, washed, and unfriendly ones, always in your interest?’
‘Yes,’ they chanted. ‘Yes.’
Ti-Lucy, her eyes shining, brought Atuk the production figures. She removed his shoes and put on his slippers. Atuk grunted. Ti-Lucy poured him a snifter of brandy and lit his cigar.
‘Tonight, then,’ Atuk said, ‘I shall plead for the magic. Bring me the sheet with the craziness upon it.’
Ti-Lucy brought Atuk the Gazette and opened it at the page he wanted. ‘Turn off the lights,’ he said.
‘Silence,’ Ti-Lucy said.
‘Sh.’
Atuk went into his trance. Stumbling, swaying, eyes rolling, he wandered round the room. The others watched hopefully, afraid, tears rolling down their cheeks. Except, Atuk noticed, for Ignak.
‘Oh … oh … I’m beginning to feel the power.’
Ti-Lucy cried out. Moose groaned.
‘Ai,’ Atuk called. ‘Aiii-aii.’ He backed up against the window and felt behind the curtain with his hands. ‘Aii.’ With a sudden sweep of his arm, he said, ‘Oh, Mighty One, let there be sound for my flock.’
There was sound and Atuk saw that it was good. He counted to five and called out, ‘Let there be pictures, Mighty One, for my hard workers. Let the wavy lines form moving pictures. Bring us—’
Atuk broke off, breathing heavily. He waited a little.
‘… bring us a Dupont Special with Frank Sinatra …’
‘Oh!’
‘… Dinah Shore …’
‘Zowie!’
‘… Elvis Presley, the Negro with one eye, and Joey Bishop …’
‘Ay!’
‘… bring us songs, dances, fill us with laughter.’
‘It is too much, Atuk. We burst.’
‘Give us this day many girls with long, delicious legs and leaping breasts uncovered.’
The boys began to stamp their feet. Moose stood on his head.
‘Look, it is here!’
‘Long live Atuk! Maker of miracles!’
‘Amen!’
‘It is nothing, nothing, my sweet children.’ Atuk reached for his snifter of brandy. He took a sip. ‘Why, let the Sinatra be followed by disaster pictures of foreign lands …’
‘Yowie!’
‘… singing soap-boxes … tobacco-sticks that taste like tobacco-sticks should … dancing beer bottles … empty girdles …’
Mush-Mush rolled over on the floor and kicked his legs.
‘… and will you work even harder tomorrow, children?’
‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
‘… and the Jack Paar Show, then, to be followed by … the late, late movie …’
‘And the lady with the funny fur hat on the horse. Please, Atuk.’
‘Yes, and that too, for Atuk will not be with you until the sun sets twice. For he must make long and dangerous journey over the week-end.’
‘I will pack the little white balloons for him,’ Ti-Lucy said.
‘They are not balloons,’ Atuk said. ‘Who’s been blowing those things up again?’
Mush-Mush hid behind a chair. Ignak rose to leave the room.
‘What’s ailing you?’ Atuk asked.
‘I’m tired, miracle-maker. Good night.’
‘Don’t look for trouble, kid.’ ‘I’m not.
I’m too bright for that.’
‘Stay that way.’
‘Conning tower to pilot, conning tower to pilot.’
‘All right. Come in, conning tower.’
‘Like I’m going to the movies with Freda tomorrow. I think maybe I’ll stay the night with her.’
Mush-Mush stared at his favourite commercial, the one that showed the amazing transformation in the white man after he had taken the little white pill. How his head opened to reveal pounding hammers and his transparent stomach filled with quick action relief arrows. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh.’
Atuk poured himself another brandy. When the third news item came on he started. Suddenly, he was very alert. The hunter. Three FBI agents hurried up the steps to a building in Ottawa. Not far behind came Sgt Jock Wilson.
6
Sgt Jock Wilson felt bad about what he had done, for he had been inordinately fond of Atuk, and yet, and yet, how he had yearned for the fleshpots of Toronto.
The truth was Jock was still a young fellow and he had had his fill of handing out rough justice in fifty below zero weather. What he had dreamt of out on the Bay, what he had lusted for during the endless night, was the warmth and type of work available in Toronto. So he was delighted, actually tingling with excitement, when Col Smith-Williams summoned him to his office for, Jock dared to hope, his reward.
‘Jocko, you’re not going back to the Bay. We need you here. Anti-subversive work.’
‘Good show,’ Jock said at once.
But when the Colonel went on to outline the nature of Jock’s new assignment the young man’s shoulders slumped, his cheeks reddened, he began to stammer. ‘Damn it all,’ he said at last, ‘not really up my street, is it, sir?’
Jock reminded the Colonel of his many manly achievements. He alluded to his marksmanship medal and his ability as a horseman. But Col Smith-Williams was not impressed. He cut Jock short.
‘I’m going to give it to you straight from the shoulder,’ the Colonel said. ‘Things aren’t what they used to be.’ He went on to explain how all the services must now adjust to the challenge of the nuclear age. When he, Col Smith-Williams, had first served his country, actually as a Captain in the Black Watch during World War I, the military life had been straightforward. At Vimy, by George, you got your orders to go over the top, shot the first enlisted man through the head, and over the top everybody else went. Today things were different. Mighty different. The RCAF was almost entirely without aeroplanes and men who had once ruled the skies of Malta were now working as night watchmen at American-run missile bases. The only active duty the army had seen in donkey’s years was when two divisions were hired out to one Hymie Slotnick to make a Western in Alberta. How many citizens knew that the Royal Canadian Navy’s fighting ships were only taken out of mothballs once in the last five years, and that was for a Vogue magazine feature on Canadian fashions that was never even published. The RCMP, if it was to survive, would have to adjust too.
‘The FBI,?
?? Colonel Smith-Williams said, ‘has just outfoxed us in our own back yard. I don’t mind telling you, Jocko, the Dew line thing sticks like a bone in my throat. I want some action. I want it right here in Toronto. Go to it, man.’
And that’s how come Sgt Jock Wilson, disguised in feminine attire, began to seek out subversives in Toronto’s more stylish bars and clubs, bohemian coffee rooms, jazz cellars, and parks. Jock was, to begin with, uncomfortable, even awkward, in his new role. But it wasn’t long before he learned to answer to his code name – Jane – with a bewitching toss of his gorgeous blonde wig. There were compensations too. Long used to leaky tents, sleeping bags, and the itch of Penman’s long winter woollies, he understandably came to adore his new silk lingerie, lacy panties, cashmeres, shantungs, nylons and – above all – his candy–striped pink sheets. No doubt about it. Arpège smelled sweeter than Man–tan, Lanvin was easier on the skin than Snap, and it was nice to have others pay for your drinks, open doors for you, and sometimes even whistle as you passed. Only one thing bothered Jock. He had decided to join the RCMP after he had seen Gary Cooper in Northwest Mounted Police and somehow it was difficult for him to reconcile his present mission with the initial inspiration.
Something else. Jock’s first weeks as Jane were characterized by failure.
The first Tuesday, for instance, all Jock could report to the Colonel was the name and badge number of a metro policewoman who had tried to seduce him. The next Tuesday – hopeful, excited, proud – Jock told the Colonel how he had encountered the famous Seymour Bone in a bar, slyly led him on, and got the ruffian to admit that there was much to admire in Russia.
‘Hm.’ The Colonel went to the cabinet marked LUNATIC FRINGE and dug out the Bone dossier. ‘Did he tell you that he can’t get into the States? They’re afraid to let him in?’
Jock nodded.
‘They’d let him in all right. Truth is he’s afraid to go there. Here he’s Mr Big, there he’s unknown. Too much competition for him there, I suppose.’
Next week’s revelation didn’t come to much, either.
‘It’s not merely that Snipes got fresh with me, I’m getting used to that, even from married men,’ Jock said, tugging at his skirt, ‘but he wanted me to try a pill. Morphine. And he showed me the needle he always carries with him, if and when he wants to main-line it.’
‘Oh, Snipes. A very publicity–conscious little fellow. The pills are really aspirins and, as for the needle, well the poor man’s a diabetic.’
Then it happened, the worst, Jock fell, as they say, head over heels in love.
One gloriously sunny afternoon he thought that he would go for a stroll on the University of Toronto campus and perhaps investigate a student or two. It was not only that these youngsters were less likely to be bald, shorter than he was, and suffer from bad breath, but he had heard that some of the lads had come under the influence of a particularly odious pinko professor. Norman Gore. Anyway that’s where Jock first saw him … the boy.
He sat alone on a bench, creamy-faced, cheeks flushed, eyes radiating innocence and melancholy. Jock, heart thumping, resorted to the oldest ploy: he dropped his handkerchief.
‘Miss?’
So they fell to talking. The boy, called Jim, was surprisingly full of sharp questions. He wanted to know all about Jane and, again and again, Jock had to fend him off with coy, evasive answers. Finally, mindful of his duty to be done, Jock said, ‘See you have a book there. Have you ever, I wonder, read anything by … em, Howard Fast?’
Please, no, he thought. Not this innocent lad.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you admire the singing of … em, Paul Robeson?’
‘Yes. You?’
‘Immensely,’ Jock said, ashamed that it was his mission to lead the lad on; stricken, because it was his duty to probe, discover, and, ultimately, report. So upset, in fact, that no sooner did Jock open the door to his apartment than he burst into tears. He had arranged to meet the lad again, the following day, and one part of Jock planned not to turn up (he had, as yet, filed no report on Jim), but another, older Jock reminded him that it was his duty. Something else. He simply couldn’t wait to see Jim again. He’d wear his little Simonetta number. Just the thing.
Yes it was.
For the next afternoon, even as they chatted heatedly about Marx, Mao, and others, Jock and Jim held hands. The following evening in the park they kissed for the first time.
On Tuesday Col Smith-Williams asked, ‘Anything to report, dear?’
‘Nothing,’ Jock said, lowering his eyes.
Again and again Jock struggled not to keep his daily rendezvous with Jim, but he was driven to the lad, he couldn’t keep away from him. Even more horrifying to Jock was the realization that Jim had fallen for him: the lad was madly in love with – with Jane. ‘You’re lovely,’ he said, ‘so lovely, Jane. You ought to be in films.’
‘It was once my dream,’ Jock confessed. (Actually, he had hoped to be another Bogart, but how to explain it?)
‘You must give me your photograph,’ Jim said.
‘Why?’
‘I have connections. Maybe I can do something for you.’
Oh, sweet lad. Jock was touched. He allowed himself to be kissed and caressed.
‘Jane. My darling Jane.’
Oh, God, forgive me.
That night as he shaved, that night as Sgt Jock Wilson looked his reflection full in the face, he thought, you swine, you unspeakable swine. Would his name end up on that infamous roll of those who had dishonoured the force? There were already many, too many, on the force who had, so to speak, been hoisted by their own petard. Conners, sent out to crack a heroin ring, had ended up as a pusher. Manley, once the intellectual pride of HQ, had decided to bone up on Marx before joining the CP under a cover-name: today he did that scandalous weekly broadcast to Canada from Moscow. And Seeley. Seeley had taken years, deliciously long years, to smash the white slave traffic in Vancouver. Damn it, Jock thought, it’s not my soul I’m worried about – and it was true. It was Jim, his Jim, who concerned him so. The lad thinks he’s fallen for a luscious doll. (One must remain objective, Jock thought, I’m certainly not a bag.) What happens when he finds out what I am? Done for. His life ruined. I mustn’t see him again, Jock thought. Be it treason, I must avoid the lad.
Sometimes, Jock dared to think, a country can ask too much of a man.
And yet, and yet, he would see Jim once more. If only to persuade the lad to give up smoking. Jim favoured little cigars. Dutch they were. Schim-melpennincks.
7
Professor Gore seemed so upset Atuk could hardly refuse to see him. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Come in.’
‘I’m so glad you found time for me, Atuk, before …’ Gore had to chuckle. ‘… “before the sun sunk into the ice-blue …” ‘
Atuk recognized the quotation and winced. He replied, ‘… “and black sky was enemy to hunter hungering for home” …’
‘It’s still one of my favourites.’
‘Your translation was brilliant,’ Atuk said.
‘Atuk, I’m glad to hear your heart is still with the Muse. I came to see you because I’ve heard so many nasty rumours recently.’
‘Oh?’
‘This office of yours. Rory Peel … Snipes …’
‘A man has to earn a living,’ Atuk said.
‘But can it be true you’re lending your name to products for Twentyman? Esky-Products. I mean you know that he is one of the biggest shareholders in the company that exploits your people.’
‘I do not know.’
A pause.
‘Men with greased words come here and ask me to sign little papers. I am grateful for Toronto’s goodness to me. They give me money. I sign. I am able to send money to the Bay to fight my people’s hunger and sickness. Is that bad, Professor?’
‘They are shrewd schemers, Atuk, and you must beware of them.’
‘Oh. Good you tell me so.’
‘To these men you are not a noble savage
, a thing of beauty, but something else to exploit and murder. Maybe we can still do something about it. Bring the papers you’ve signed to my house. We’ll go over them together.’
‘As you say, Professor. For I loathe the Twentyman, enemy of our people.’
Gore left at last.
I wish that square would stop bugging me, Atuk thought.
Gore was too upset to attend today’s faculty meeting at Eglinton. So he phoned, offering his apologies, and went straight home instead.
‘Yoo-hoo!’
No answer.
‘Nancy?’
‘Cripes!’ Nancy hurried into the living-room in her kimono. ‘I wasn’t expecting you back until this evening.’
‘I decided to cut the faculty meeting. I’m not feeling well. I – Good God, who are you?’
‘Him, dearest?’
‘Amos de winda cleana, boss.’
‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’
‘No suh,’ the tall, muscular Negro said. ‘Well, dat will be all of five fishbacks, m’am.’
Gore gave him the money. He went into the bedroom, sat down on the bed, and took off his shoes. Everywhere he turned he was greeted by variations of his own image.
‘I had him polish all the mirrors while he was here,’ Nancy said. ‘You’d think he might have put them back in place, wouldn’t you?’
‘I’m sure I’ve seen that fellow before.’
‘You couldn’t have.’
‘Oh, I know. He cleans windows for the Bones too. That’s where I saw him.’
‘Ruthy Bone? He certainly does not.’
‘Sorry, dearest. That’s where I saw him.’
Nancy had begun to sob. ‘It’s not true,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t clean windows for Ruthy too.’
Gore stared down at her thoughtfully, troubled. ‘I would have thought,’ he said, ‘you’d be pleased that a coloured man was getting so much work.’
But Nancy was inconsolable.
8
‘Old One.’ Atuk loathed addressing him like that, but ever since his father had figured in that prize-winning National Film Board short he had insisted on it. ‘Old One,’ Atuk continued, ‘I have found the girl I want to marry.’