Some Great Thing (27 page)

Bob and Susan sent news clips to Winnipeg, quoting the reactions of Mayors Novak and Fotso to the death of Jake Corbett. Slade didn’t write a word.

Mahatma went for a walk in the evening. Darkness came early to Yaoundé. The hills were dark shapes in the distance and dogs howled miles away. Shopkeepers waved as Mahatma passed by.

The omelette-maker, whose name was Janvier, stood alone at his food counter. He shook Mahatma’s hand and said he was very sorry about their friend Jacques Corbeil. He also said he was out of eggs but he would be honoured to serve
Mahatma coffee and a croissant. Mahatma said that would be fine. Janvier handed over the evening edition of
La Voix de Yaoundé
and said he would be back soon. He ran down the road, his thongs slapping the dirt. Mahatma opened the paper and saw the headline on page one: “
Décédé, Un Grand Frère Canadien
.” Yoyo’s long obituary described how he had met Corbett, how they had shared a banana in a park before both of them were beaten up in a demonstration, how Corbett scrounged for meals and fought welfare authorities to maintain his dignity and a decent standard of living, and ended up—almost—with a hero’s status across the country. The article mentioned Corbett’s struggle with phlebitis and said he had died of a pulmonary embolism. A massive blood clot had dislodged from his leg, entered the heart and blocked an artery to his lungs.

Janvier came back with croissants and two coffees. They ate together, leaning against the counter and watching the sky darken until the clouds were no longer distinguishable.

“Was he a very great friend of yours?”

“I knew him. I had a strong feeling for him but I couldn’t say we were really friends.”

“Here in Cameroon, we had a strong feeling for him. A white man, poor in America. Poor but with dignity. As long as you have your dignity, you’re still a man. He was a good man, Jacques Corbeil.”

Janvier wouldn’t let Mahatma pay. “We have eaten tonight as friends. Friends don’t pay each other for food. One gives to another, who, in turn, gives to yet another. This humble offering of mine, give it in turn to a Canadian. Give it to someone like Jacques Corbeil.”

Mahatma led off with a description of the anguish in the face of a Cameroonian journalist who had come to know the man in Winnipeg. He mentioned the many times Corbett had been featured on the pages of
La Voix de Yaoundé
, how roadside cooks and building janitors and taxi drivers all knew about Corbett, and admired his struggle for dignity and decent treatment in the face of poverty and abuse. He wrote about the man named Janvier who had given Mahatma a meal and asked him to return the favour to a needy Canadian. He wrote about sitting with Corbett above Frank’s Accidental Dog and Grill and hearing the phone ring constantly downstairs for him. Journalists swamped him during moments of big news, but poor people phoned him every day for advice. Concluding his piece, Mahatma wrote that Yaoundé buzzed with the news of Jake Corbett’s death. Neither the beautiful African capital nor its twin city in Canada would be the same without him.

They argued on the phone. Betts asked where he’d been for the last day and a half. Mahatma ignored the question and said he wanted to file an obituary on Corbett. Betts said
The Herald
already had an obit.

“I want to file another one, from Africa, about Corbett’s life and death, as seen from here.”

“Let us have it, then, and I’ll take a look,” Betts said. He assigned another reporter to take down Grafton’s dictation.

Mahatma told Sandra about the argument with Betts. “If they don’t use my obit, I’m selling it elsewhere. And let me tell you something else. I’m
going
elsewhere!”

Sandra stroked his hand. “You really care about this, don’t you?”

“Yeah. And it surprises me,” Mahatma said. “A year ago, I could hardly have imagined myself caring about anything to do with
The Herald
.”

“Show it to me,” Sandra said.

One year ago, Jake Corbett hollered outside the Winnipeg City Hall until police arrested him.

At the time, the ailing welfare recipient hoped somebody would notice him. Little did he imagine that his death, which was already imminent, would touch men and women thousands of miles away.

But here in Yaoundé, mere mention of the welfare rebel sparks debate in taxis and at roadside food stands…

Helen Savoie read the story on the computer screen. She shook her head in admiration.
Maudit!
Mahatma was wasting his talents. He could move onto something better. He could do something great. This was the best obit Helen had ever read in
The Herald
. But the paper didn’t use it.

Flying back across the Atlantic, Mahatma interviewed the mayor about future relations between Yaoundé and Winnipeg. He also asked about Don Betts’ article predicting that Novak
would be detained by U.S. immigration authorities at the John F. Kennedy airport.

“My situation with U.S. Immigration was straightened out years ago,” the mayor said. “I won’t have any problems in New York.”

Mahatma took careful notes. But it seemed pointless. Why should he stay on with
The Herald
and continue to let Don Betts ruin his stories?

Mahatma wanted very much to cover Jake Corbett’s funeral, and use it as a hook to write about the man’s life and death. But what was the point? Betts had killed both stories Mahatma had filed on Corbett from Cameroon. When Helen Savoie had said so by telephone, Mahatma realized that he couldn’t write about Corbett’s funeral for
The Herald
. Could he write about anything for
The Herald
?

The Air Afrique flight arrived in New York at 7:30 a.m. The mayor was the first off the plane. Sandra was right beside him. But the reporters were at the back of the airplane and they disembarked several minutes later. Edward Slade began running when he stepped off the plane.

Bob asked, “What’s the big hurry?”

“He wants to see what happens at Immigration,” Susan said.

Bob started race-walking. The mayor was already out of sight in the airport terminal. If they did stop him, every media outlet in Winnipeg would want the story. And if Bob missed it, while Slade got it…Susan also began to run—and more quickly than Bob. Mahatma, too, gave into it. He had to see this. Just in case.

The corridor turned at a right angle and fed into an escalator. It opened into a room with ten United States
Immigration officers, each in a booth, each facing a lineup of travellers.

Mahatma was the last of the Winnipeg group to get there. He saw Sandra near the front of one line, with the mayor behind her. Slade, with a pen and notepad ready, stood behind the mayor. Seven other travellers separated Bob and Susan from Slade. Mahatma placed himself in the same line, three places back from Susan. He watched Bob approach Slade.

“Hey, Edward, can I stand in front of you? I want to catch this with my microphone.” When Slade told him to screw off, Bob walked to the back of the line—directly behind Mahatma.

“Don’t worry, you won’t miss anything,” Mahatma told Bob.

Sandra approached an immigration officer and was let through quickly. The mayor stepped ahead. Slade sidled forward. The mayor gave the officer his passport. The officer stamped it and waved the mayor through. Slade was interrogated for a few seconds and then let through.

When his turn came, Mahatma stepped up to the officer, thinking about his connecting flight in two hours from LaGuardia airport. If Mahatma made that connection, he would reach Winnipeg in time to cover Corbett’s funeral later that day.
The Herald
wouldn’t want the story. But he would write it anyway and sell it to another paper.

“Name?” the immigration officer asked.

“Mahatma Grafton.”

“Nationality?”

“Canadian.”

“Occupation?”

“Journalist.”

“Where are you coming from?”

“Cameroon.”

The officer checked every page of the passport. He asked, “Are you involved with any communist organizations?”

“No.”

“Bringing any literature into the United States?”

“No.”

Looking again at Mahatma’s passport, the officer typed something into his computer keyboard. Then he walked away with the passport, saying nothing. Mahatma leaned over the counter and peered at an opened black binder. He saw the initial “G” at the top of the page. Mahatma grasped that he was getting a rare view of the famous “lookout book.” He spotted his picture. A recent picture. It was the very picture he carried in his passport! In small print, he saw his full name. Leaning further over the counter, he could see the computer screen. He saw his name and address in the U.S. immigration computer system! Then, near the top of the bright green screen, he read: “Non Grata/INA Sections 212(a)27, 212(a)28, 212(a)29.” At the top of the screen were the words: Automated Visa Lookout System.

Mahatma’s mouth dropped open. Writing last year about the mayor’s situation with American border authorities had taught him that INA was the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Act and the cited sections were those invoked to bar communists, among others.

“Psst,” Bob Stone whispered, “he’s coming.”

Mahatma jumped back. The immigration officer returned to his station. He read from a typed sheet.

“You are barred from entering the United States of America. If you have the funds on your person, we would advise you, in the company of one of our escorts, to book a flight out of the country immediately. If you lack such funds, we will be required to detain you until you obtain them.”

“I don’t want to enter the United States. I’m going to Canada.”

“You can’t fly to Canada. Not from New York.”

“Why not?”

“Flights to Canada leave from LaGuardia Airport. Going to LaGuardia means entering the United States. You have to go to a country that can be accessed from this airport.”

“You’re joking! If you’re worried I want to stay, escort me to LaGuardia. Walk me right onto the plane!”

The officer refused to discuss it. Or to say why Mahatma was barred entry. As an alien, he had no right to information.

Don Betts yelled at everybody to shut up. He cranked up the radio in the newsroom, in time to hear the words: “…a special report from CFRL correspondent Bob Stone, who is travelling with the mayor.”

Moments after Mayor John Novak breezed past a United States immigration check in New York this morning, authorities detained a Winnipeg reporter travelling with the politician.

A U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officer at the John F. Kennedy airport grilled
Winnipeg Herald
reporter Mahatma Grafton about whether he was involved with communists. Mr. Grafton, who was last seen being led into a closed room, failed to retrieve his luggage or to make his connecting flight to Canada.

Ironically, Mr. Grafton has written in the past about the communist mayor’s delicate relationship with U.S. border officials. And only yesterday, Mr. Grafton’s newspaper quoted an immigration source who predicted that the mayor would not be allowed to enter the United States on his return trip from Africa to Winnipeg.

Asked about the incident, the mayor said…

Don Betts answered the phone.

“Let me talk to Van Wuyss,” Mahatma said.

“Mahatma!” Betts said. “What’s going on? Where are you?”

The managing editor picked up the phone. “Van Wuyss here. Hat! Is that you?”

Mahatma said the U.S. authorities were making him fly to a third country. He needed
The Herald
to buy him a seat on the next British Airways flight to London and a seat aboard Air Canada the next day from London to Toronto.

“Do they have you in a cell?” Van Wuyss asked.

“No, but they are watching me closely. I can’t stay on the phone long. Could you get me on those flights? The payment will show up in the airlines’ computers here at JFK. Then they’ll give me the tickets and let me out of here.”

“We’ll get to it immediately,” Van Wuyss said. “But wait a second.” He read another note from Betts, who had snapped a recording device onto the telephone. “Why did they stop you? What reasons have they given?”

“They’re not telling me anything. And they’re making me get off the phone now. Bye.”

Betts wrote a story for the newspaper’s second edition. It ran as the flare on page one.

U.S. immigration authorities detained a
Winnipeg Herald
reporter at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York this morning and refused to let him make a connecting flight to Canada.

Returning from Africa to Winnipeg with Mayor John Novak, reporter Mahatma Grafton…

Mahatma boarded a flight to London three hours after arriving at JFK. He booked himself into a hotel for the night and called his father.

“If any reporters contact you, tell them I’m arriving at 3:00 p.m. tomorrow and that I’ll have a statement to make.”

“Don Betts already called,” Ben said.

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him I wasn’t inclined to help someone who had been messing up my son’s writing.”

Arriving at the Winnipeg International Airport at 2:45, Harry Carson spotted Melvyn Hill. He waded through the crowd to shake the man’s hand. “Well well, if it isn’t His Honour, himself,” Harry said, in a friendly tone. He clapped Melvyn on the back.

“His Honour no longer,” Melvyn said, grinning. “They made me retire.”

Harry smiled. “Well, in my mind, you’ll always be ‘the judge.’”

Melvyn asked, “So what are you doing here?”

“I have something to tell young Mahatma Grafton. And you?”

“My days are free now. I just felt like seeing the lad.”

“Lookit, there’s Ben!”

Ben Grafton approached the duo. The three men carried on boisterously, waiting for Mahatma to arrive.

Ben asked Melvyn, “So they made you retire, did they?”

“I wish I could have stayed on. But what can you do? They let me go. But I’m okay. I have a pension. And my house is paid off. You know what? I may even take a long, fancy, first-class train trip.”

“Halifax to Vancouver,” Harry whistled, “feet up the whole way.”