In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs (13 page)

Neither of them slept. Louise chain-smoked cigarettes and Mary watched the coals burn down. When it was light enough that they could see each other Louise got up. “I'll send a student for you,” she said. “Good luck.”

 

The college looked the way colleges are supposed to look. Roger, the student assigned to show Mary around, explained that it was
an exact copy of a college in England, right down to the gargoyles and stained-glass windows. It looked so much like a college that moviemakers sometimes used it as a set.
Andy Hardy Goes to College
had been filmed there, and every fall they had an Andy Hardy Goes to College Day, with raccoon coats and goldfish-swallowing contests.

Above the door of the Founder's Building was a Latin motto which, roughly translated, meant “God helps those who help themselves.” As Roger recited the names of illustrious graduates Mary was struck by the extent to which they had taken this precept to heart. They had helped themselves to railroads, mines, armies, states; to empires of finance with outposts all over the world.

Roger took Mary to the chapel and showed her a plaque bearing the names of alumni who had been killed in various wars, all the way back to the Civil War. There were not many names. Here too, apparently, the graduates had helped themselves. “Oh yes,” Roger said as they were leaving, “I forgot to tell you. The communion rail comes from some church in Europe where Charlemagne used to go.”

They went to the gymnasium, and the three hockey rinks, and the library, where Mary inspected the card catalogue, as though she would turn down the job if they didn't have the right books. “We have a little more time,” Roger said as they went outside. “Would you like to see the power plant?”

Mary wanted to keep busy until the last minute, so she agreed.

Roger led her into the depths of the service building, explaining things about the machine, which was the most advanced in the country. “People think the college is really old-fashioned,” he said, “but it isn't. They let girls come here now, and some of the teachers are women. In fact, there's a statute that says they have to interview at least one woman for each opening. There it is.”

They were standing on an iron catwalk above the biggest
machine Mary had ever beheld. Roger, who was majoring in Earth Sciences, said that it had been built from a design pioneered by a professor in his department. Where before he had been gabby Roger now became reverent. It was clear that for him this machine was the soul of the college, that the purpose of the college was to provide outlets for the machine. Together they leaned against the railing and watched it hum.

 

Mary arrived at the committee room exactly on time for her interview, but the room was empty. Her two books were on the table, along with a water pitcher and some glasses. She sat down and picked up one of the books. The binding cracked as she opened it. The pages were smooth, clean, unread. Mary turned to the first chapter, which began, “It is generally believed that…” How dull, she thought.

Nearly twenty minutes later Louise came in with several men. “Sorry we're late,” she said. “We don't have much time so we'd better get started.” She introduced Mary to the men, but with one exception the names and faces did not stay together. The exception was Dr. Howells, the department chairman, who had a porous blue nose and terrible teeth.

A shiny-faced man to Dr. Howells's right spoke first. “So,” he said, “I understand you once taught at Brandon College.”

“It was a shame that Brandon had to close,” said a young man with a pipe in his mouth. “There is a place for schools like Brandon.” As he talked the pipe wagged up and down.

“Now you're in Oregon,” Dr. Howells said. “I've never been there. How do you like it?”

“Not very much,” Mary said.

“Is that right?” Dr. Howells leaned toward her. “I thought everyone liked Oregon. I hear it's very green.”

“That's true,” Mary said.

“I suppose it rains a lot,” he said.

“Nearly every day.”

“I wouldn't like that,” he said, shaking his head. “I like it dry. Of course it snows here, and you have your rain now and then, but it's a
dry
rain. Have you ever been to Utah? There's a state for you. Bryce Canyon. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”

“Dr. Howells was brought up in Utah,” said the young man with the pipe.

“It was a different place altogether in those days,” Dr. Howells said. “Mrs. Howells and I have always talked about going back when I retire, but now I'm not so sure.”

“We're a little short on time,” Louise said.

“And here I've been going on and on,” Dr. Howells said. “Before we wind things up, is there anything you want to tell us?”

“Yes. I think you should give me the job.” Mary laughed when she said this, but no one laughed back, or even looked at her. They all looked away. Mary understood then that they were not really considering her for the position. She had been brought here to satisfy a rule. She had no hope.

The men gathered their papers and shook hands with Mary and told her how much they were looking forward to her class. “I can't get enough of the Marshall Plan,” Dr. Howells said.

“Sorry about that,” Louise said when they were alone. “I didn't think it would be so bad. That was a real bitcheroo.”

“Tell me something,” Mary said. “You already know who you're going to hire, don't you?”

Louise nodded.

“Then why did you bring me here?”

Louise began to explain about the statute and Mary interrupted. “I know all that. But why me? Why did you pick
me
?”

Louise walked to the window. She spoke with her back to Mary. “Things haven't been going very well for old Louise,” she said. “I've been unhappy and I thought you might cheer me up. You used to be so funny, and I was sure you would enjoy the trip—it didn't cost you anything, and it's pretty this time of year
with the leaves and everything. Mary, you don't know the things my parents did to me. And Ted is no barrel of laughs either. Or Jonathan, the son of a bitch. I deserve some love and friendship but I don't get any.” She turned and looked at her watch. “It's almost time for your class. We'd better go.”

“I would rather not give it. After all, there's not much point, is there?”

“But you
have
to give it. That's part of the interview.” Louise handed Mary a folder. “All you have to do is read this. It isn't much, considering all the money we've laid out to get you here.”

Mary followed Louise down the hall to the lecture room. The professors were sitting in the front row with their legs crossed. They smiled and nodded at Mary. Behind them the room was full of students, some of whom had spilled over into the aisles. One of the professors adjusted the microphone to Mary's height, crouching down as he went to the podium and back as though he would prefer not to be seen.

Louise called the room to order. She introduced Mary and gave the subject of the lecture. But Mary had decided to wing it after all. Mary came to the podium unsure of what she would say; sure only that she would rather die than read Louise's article. The sun poured through the stained glass onto the people around her, painting their faces. Thick streams of smoke from the young professor's pipe drifted through a circle of red light at Mary's feet, turning crimson and twisting like flames.

“I wonder how many of you know,” she began, “that we are in the Long House, the ancient domain of the Five Nations of the Iroquois.”

Two professors looked at each other.

“The Iroquois were without pity,” Mary said. “They hunted people down with clubs and arrows and spears and nets, and blowguns made from elder stalks. They tortured their captives, sparing no one, not even the little children. They took scalps and practiced cannibalism and slavery. Because they had no pity they
became powerful, so powerful that no other tribe dared to oppose them. They made the other tribes pay tribute, and when they had nothing more to pay the Iroquois attacked them.”

Several of the professors began to whisper. Dr. Howells was saying something to Louise, and Louise was shaking her head.

“In one of their raids,” Mary said, “they captured two Jesuit priests, Jean de Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalement. They covered Lalement with pitch and set him on fire in front of Brébeuf. When Brébeuf rebuked them they cut off his lips and put a burning iron down his throat. They hung a collar of red-hot hatchets around his neck, and poured boiling water over his head. When he continued to preach to them they cut strips of flesh from his body and ate them before his eyes. While he was still alive they scalped him and cut open his breast and drank his blood. Later, their chief tore out Brébeuf's heart and ate it, but just before he did this Brébeuf spoke to them one last time. He said—”

“That's enough!” yelled Dr. Howells, jumping to his feet.

Louise stopped shaking her head. Her eyes were perfectly round.

Mary had come to the end of her facts. She did not know what Brébeuf had said. Silence rose up around her; just when she thought she would go under and be lost in it she heard someone whistling in the hallway outside, trilling the notes like a bird, like many birds.

“Mend your lives,” she said. “You have deceived yourselves in the pride of your hearts, and the strength of your arms. Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, thence I will bring you down, says the Lord. Turn from power to love. Be kind. Do justice. Walk humbly.”

Louise was waving her arms. “Mary!” she shouted.

But Mary had more to say, much more; she waved back at Louise, then turned off her hearing aid so that she would not be distracted again.

W
harton was a cartoonist, and a nervous man—“high-strung,” he would have said. Because of his occupation and his nerves he required peace, but in Vancouver he didn't get much of that. His wife, Ellen, was deficient in many respects, and resented his constructive criticism. She took it personally. They bickered, and she threatened to leave him. Wharton believed that she was having an affair. George, their son, slouched around the house all day and paid no attention when Wharton described all the sports and hobbies that an eleven-year-old boy ought to be interested in.

Wharton dreamed of a place in the country where George would be outside all day, making friends and hiking, and Ellen would have a garden. In his dream Wharton saw her look up and smile as he came toward her.

He sometimes went camping for a few days when things got bad at home. On one of these trips he saw a large piece of land that the government was selling and decided to buy it. The property was heavily wooded, had a small pond surrounded by birch
trees, and a good sturdy building. The building needed some work, but Wharton thought that such a project would bring them all together.

When he told Ellen about it she said, “Are you kidding?”

“I've never been more serious,” Wharton said. “And it wouldn't hurt you to show a little enthusiasm.”

“No way,” Ellen said. “Count me out.”

Wharton went ahead and arranged the move. He was sure that when the moment came, Ellen would go with them. He never lost this conviction, not even when she got a job and had a lawyer draw up separation papers. But the moment came and went, and finally Wharton and George left without her.

 

They had been on the land for almost a year when Wharton began to hear shots from beyond the meadow. The shooting woke him at dawn and disturbed him at his work, and he couldn't make up his mind what to do. He hoped that it would just stop. The noise had begun to wake George, and in his obsessive way he would not leave off asking questions about it. Also, though he seldom played there, George had developed a sense of injury at being kept out of the woods. Ellen was coming up for a visit—her first—and she would make a stink.

The shooting continued. It went on for two weeks, three weeks, well past Easter. On the morning of the day Ellen was supposed to arrive Wharton heard two shots, and he knew he had to do something. He decided to go and talk to his neighbor Vernon. Vernon understood these things.

George caught Wharton leaving the house and asked if he could go play with his friend Rory.

“Absolutely not,” Wharton said, and headed up the path toward the road. The ground was swollen and spongy with rain. The fenceposts had a black and soggy look, and the ditches on either side of the road were loud with the rushing of water. Whar
ton dodged mudholes, huffing a little, and contemplated Rory.

To help George make friends during the previous summer Wharton had driven him to a quarry where the local children swam. George splashed around by himself at one end and pretended that he was having a fine old time, as his eyes ticked back and forth to the motion of the other children flying from bank to bank on the rope swing, shouting “Banzai!” when they let go and reached out to the water.

One afternoon Wharton built a fire and produced hot dogs for the children to roast. He asked their names and introduced George. He told them that they should feel free to come and visit George whenever they liked. They could swim in the pond, or play hide-and-seek in the woods. When they had eaten they thanked him and went back to their end of the quarry while George went back to his. Wharton considered rounding them up for a nature walk, but he never got around to it. A few days before the weather turned too cold for swimming George caught a garter snake in the rushes by the bank, and another boy came over to take a look. That night George asked if he could sleep over at Rory's.

“Who's Rory?”

“Just a guy.”

Rory eventually came to their house for a reciprocal visit. Wharton did not think that he was an acceptable friend for George. He would not meet Wharton's eye, and had a way of laughing to himself. Rory and George whispered and giggled all night, and a few days later Wharton found several burnt matches in George's room which George would not account for. He hoped that the boy would enlarge his circle of friends when school began, but this never happened. Wharton fretted about George's shyness. Friends were a blessing and he wanted George to have many friends. In Wharton's opinion, George's timidity was the result of his being underdeveloped physically. Wharton advised him to take up weight lifting.

Over the mountains to the east a thin line of clouds was getting thicker. Wharton felt a growing dampness in the air as he turned into his neighbor's gate.

He disliked having to ask Vernon for favors or advice, but at times he had no choice. Twice during the winter his car had slipped off the icy, unbanked road, and both times Vernon had pulled him out. He showed Wharton how to keep the raccoons out of his garbage, and how to use a chain saw. Wharton was grateful, but he suspected that Vernon had begun to think of himself as his superior.

He found Vernon in the yard, loading five-gallon cans into the back of his truck. This pleased Wharton. He would not have to go into the dirty, evil-smelling house. Vernon had rented most of the place out to a commune from Seattle, and Wharton was appalled at their sloth and resolute good cheer. He was further relieved not to have to go inside, because he wished to avoid one of the women. They had kept company for a short, unhappy time during the winter; the situation was complicated, and Wharton already had enough to keep him busy for the day.

“Well howdy there,” Vernon said. “And how's every little thing down at the lower forty?”

Wharton noticed that Vernon always countrified his speech when he was around. He guessed that Vernon did it to make him feel like a city slicker. Wharton had heard him talk to other people and he sounded normal enough. “Not so good,” he said, and lifted one of the cans.

Vernon took it from him very firmly and slid it down the bed of the truck. “You got to use your back hoisting these things,” he said. He slammed the tailgate shut and yanked the chain through the slots. The links rattled like bolts in a can. He took a rag out of his back pocket and blew his nose. “What's the trouble?”

“Someone's been shooting on my land.”

“What do you mean, shooting? Shooting what?”

“I don't know. Deer, I suppose.”

Vernon shook his head. “Deer have all headed back into the high country by now.”

“Well, whatever. Squirrels. Rabbits. The point is that someone has been hunting in the woods without asking my permission.”

“It isn't any of us,” Vernon said. “I can tell you that much. There's only one rifle in this house and nobody goes near it but me. I wouldn't trust that load of fruitcakes with an empty water pistol.”

“I didn't think it was you. It just occurred to me that you might have some idea who it could be. You know the people around here.”

Vernon creased his brow and narrowed his eyes to show, Wharton supposed, that he was thinking. “There's one person,” he said finally. “You know Jeff Gill from up the road?”

Wharton shook his head.

“I guess you wouldn't have met him at that. He keeps to himself. He's pretty crazy, Jeff Gill. You know that song ‘I'm My Own Grandpaw'? Well, Jeff Gill is his own uncle. The Gills,” he said, “are a right close family. You want me to call down there, see what's going on?”

“I would appreciate that.”

Wharton waited outside, leaning against an empty watering trough. The breeze rippled puddles and blew scraps of paper across the yard. Somewhere a door creaked open and shut. He tried to count the antlers on the front of the barn but gave up. There were over a hundred pairs of them, bleached and silvered by the sun. It was a wonder there were any deer left in the province. Over the front door of the house there were more antlers, and on the porch a set of suitcases and a steamer trunk. Apparently someone was leaving the commune. If so, it would not be the first defection.

Vernon's tenants had had a pretty awful winter. Factions developed over the issues of child care and discipline, sleeping
arrangements, cooking, shoveling snow, and the careless use of someone's Deutschegrammophon records. According to Wharton's lady friend, Vernon had caused a lot of trouble. He made fun of the ideals of the commune with respect to politics, agriculture, religion, and diet, and would not keep his hands off the women. It got to where they were afraid to go out to the woodshed by themselves. Also, he insisted on calling them Hare Krishnas, which they were not.

Wharton's friend wanted to know why, if Vernon couldn't be more supportive of the commune, he had rented the house to them in the first place? And if he hated them so much how come he stayed on in the master bedroom?

Wharton knew the answer to the first question and could guess the answer to the second. Vernon's father had been a wild man and died owing twelve years' back taxes. Vernon needed money. Wharton imagined that he stayed on himself because he had grown up in the house and could not imagine living anywhere else.

Vernon came back into the yard carrying a rifle. Wharton could smell the oil from ten feet away. “I couldn't get anybody down at the Gills',” Vernon said. “Phone's been disconnected. I talked to a guy I knew who works with Jeff, and he says Jeff hasn't been at the mill in over a month. Thinks he's went somewhere else.” Vernon held out the rifle. “You know how to work this?”

“Yes,” Wharton said.

“Why don't you keep it around for awhile. Just till things get sorted out.”

Wharton did not want the rifle. As he had told George when George asked for a B-B gun, he believed that firearms were a sign of weakness. He reached out and took the thing, but only because Vernon would feel slighted if he refused it.

 

“Wow,” George said when he saw the rifle. “Are you going to shoot the sniper?”

“I'm not going to shoot anybody,” Wharton said. “And I've told you before, the word is poacher, not sniper.”

“Yeah, poacher. Where did you get the gun?”

Wharton looked down at his son. The boy had been sawing up and nailing together some scrap lumber. He was sweating and his skin had a flush on it. How thin he was! You would think he never fed the boy, when in fact he went out of his way to prepare wholesome meals for him. Wharton had no idea where the food went, unless, as he suspected, George was giving his lunches to Rory. Wharton began to describe to George the difference between a rifle and a gun but George was not interested. He would be perfectly content to use his present vocabulary for the next eighty years.

“When I was your age,” he said, “I enjoyed acquiring new words and learning to use them correctly.”

“I know, I know,” George said, then mumbled something under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“You said something. Now what did you say?”

George sighed. “‘Jeez.'”

Wharton was going to point out that if George wished to curse he should do so forthrightly, manfully, but he stopped himself. George was not a man, he was a boy, and boys should not be hounded all the time. They should be encouraged. Wharton nodded at the tangle of lumber and congratulated George on doing something both physical and creative. “What is it?” he asked.

“A lair,” George said. “For a wolf.”

“I see,” Wharton said. “That's good.” He nodded again and went inside. As he locked the rifle away—he didn't really know how to work it—Wharton decided that he should let George see his lighter side more often. He was capable of better conversation than reminders that “okay” was not a word, that it was prudent
not to spend all one's allowance the same day, or that chairs were for sitting in and floors for walking on. Just the other day the plumber had come in to unclog the kitchen sink and he had laughed at several things Wharton had said.

For the rest of the morning Wharton sketched out episodes for his old bread-and-butter strip. This was about a trapper named Pierre who, in the course of his adventures, passed along bits of homespun philosophy and wilderness lore, such as how to treat frostbite and corns, and how to take bearings so that you would not end up walking in circles. The philosophy was anti-materialist, free-thinking stuff, much like the philosophy of Wharton's father, and over the years it had become obnoxious to him. He was mortally tired of the Trapper and his whole bag of tricks, his smugness and sermonizing and his endless cries of “Mon Dieu!” and “Sacre Bleu!” and “Ze ice, she ees breaking up!” Wharton was more interested in his new strip,
Ulysses
, whose hero was a dog searching for his master in the goldfields of the Yukon. Pierre still paid the bills, though, and Wharton could not afford to pull the plug on him.

There was no shooting from the woods, and Wharton's concentration ran deep. He worked in a reverie, and when he happened to look at his watch he realized that he was supposed to have picked up his wife ten minutes earlier. The station was an hour away.

 

Ellen kept after Wharton all the way home in her flat, smoky voice. She had old grievances and she listed them, but without anger, as if they bored her: his nagging, his slovenliness, his neglect of her. Oh, she didn't mind waiting around bus stations for an hour now and then. But he
always
kept her waiting. Why? Did he want to humiliate her? Was that it?

“No,” Wharton said. “I just lost track of the time.” The other charges she had brought against him were true and he did not challenge them.

“If there's one thing I can't stand,” Ellen said, “it's this suffering-in-silence, stiff-upper-lip crap.”

“I'm sorry,” Wharton said.

“I know you are. That doesn't change anything. Oh, look at the little colts and fillies!”