The Incomparable Atuk (10 page)

Moose rolled over on the floor and began to whine. The others surged forward.

‘Wait,’ Ignak said. ‘Do you want his trinkets, his imperialist baubles, or do you want equal shares?’

Nobody knew what to say.

‘Ask him why he locks us in here?’ Ignak said.

‘I don’t lock you in here.
I keep them out
. Have you any idea what goes on outside? Rape. Murder. Robbery.’

‘He lies,’ Ignak said.

‘Ok,’ Atuk said, ‘I’ll tell you what. Ti-Lucy, bring me a box of papers with the Queen’s pictures.’

Atuk emptied the box on the floor, fifty dollar bills scattering everywhere. ‘Take,’ he shouted. ‘Help yourself.’

Nobody dared.

‘Can you eat those papers?’ Atuk asked. ‘No. Can
you make of them electric trains? Frozen fish? Magic boxes? No, no, no. I happen to collect them. It’s my weakness. With some people it’s bookmatches and with me it’s—’

‘They are used for trading,’ Ignak insisted. ‘They are very valuable.’

Atuk burst out laughing. ‘He’s for the flip-factory. Here, Choy, take one. Would you give me a sack of potatoes for this? Look at the picture.’

The fifty-dollar bill was passed from hand to hand.

‘Atuk’s right. She’s not very pretty.’

‘Hardly worth a sack of potatoes.’

‘I would be willing to offer more,’ Mush-Mush said, ‘for Miss September of the
Playboy.’

‘How about Miss March?’

Suddenly Moose stepped forward. ‘Maybe you are right about the outside, Atuk, and you are truly brave to venture there.’

‘He lies,’ Ignak shouted.

‘But inside we never have girls.’

‘We are lonely.’

‘We want boom-boom.’

‘That’s right,’ Mush-Mush said, ‘for it is never the same with your sister.’

Ti-Lucy flushed. Big Annie began to crawl under a bed.

‘Oh, you filthy swine,’ Atuk said. ‘You pigs! Primitives! I ought to whip the lot of you.’

‘You see,’ Ignak said, ‘he has turned against us.’

‘You want chicks,’ Atuk said. ‘I’ll get you chicks.’

‘Yowie!’

‘Atta boy!’

‘Don’t be swayed. He tricks you.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like a broken record, Ignak. Besides, you boys may want girls, but we all know what Ignak craves.’

The boys began to giggle. Choy stepped forward. ‘But I would like one too,’ he said.

‘You filthy things, that’s not allowed here.’

‘I’m not asking for myself,’ Ignak said. ‘Only for Choy’s sake.’

‘Sure, darling. You bet.’

The boys began to whoop it up. Mush-Mush wet a finger and stroked his eyebrow. Moose tried to sit on Ignak’s lap, but he was given a shove.

‘You are being swayed by cheap promises,’ Ignak said. ‘He lies through his teeth.’ Then he fled the room.

‘Now back to work,’ Atuk said, ‘the lot of you.’

‘Will you make us another magic box?’

‘You get the lead out of your ass,’ Atuk said, starting up the stairs, ‘and turn in some work I can use and I’ll get you another box.’

The phone rang. Rang again. Ti-Lucy took it. ‘It’s a Mr Twentyman,’ she said. ‘He wishes to speak to you urgently.’

Jean-Paul McEwen, the most fearless columnist in Toronto, leaned back in her swivel chair and wondered what she could possibly expose today. The squalor of restaurant kitchens was out and she had already broken a store window and done thirty days to tell the truth about prison conditions. Not enough time had elapsed since her last advertising exposé column (the claims, the facts) for her to do another. Maybe she ought to try living on an old age pensioner’s allowance for a month. Naw; she was too old for that kind of job.

Jean-Paul McEwen looked at her watch. She was waiting for her field operators to report on her racial prejudice survey. It had been one hell of a dull week, actually. Nobody had socked her on the jaw. McEwen studied the work charts on her wall glumly. She was behind with her minutorials (sixty second opinion capsules broadcast every hour on Station CFTK) and she hadn’t one good idea in mind for her weekly television show.

Son-of-a-bitch.

A half hour passed and McEwen still sat inertly at her desk. Another hour went by without a word written or a dime earned. Worse. While she sat there, like an idiot, other columnists were getting ahead, her house was depreciating, and her peak
years were passing. The rat-race. She could do a column on how glad she was to be a Canadian and out of the US-style rat-race. Naw. Old hat. McEwen felt wretched because she was not a woman to waste time. A quarrel with her mother ended up as a thought-piece on parenthood and the letters she got about the column made for a humorous minutorial on Letters I Get. Everywhere Jean-Paul McEwen went she took her tape recorder. You never knew who might say something useful or where you might come up with a honey of an idea. Even McEwen’s vacations were not a costly waste. The funny things that happened to her were worth at least three columns. She published the bedtime stories she made up for her nieces as a book. But today McEwen was stuck.

Stuck?

Jean-Paul McEwen was sitting on a bomb, the biggest story of her career, and she couldn’t do anything about it. McEwen was in love.

Years ago when Jean-Paul McEwen, actually born Polly McEwen, decided to become a reporter, she resolved to take a man’s name – for nobody in Canada would take a woman columnist seriously – and to sacrifice all personal pleasures or commitments to her pursuit of the truth. No marriage, no family. Modelling herself on Lincoln Steffens, the girl had, as a matter of fact, done much to expose the shame of at least one city; and not one of her enemies could accuse her of bribe-taking
or favouritism. But now, now there was Jane.

What happened was that one day one of Jean-Paul McEwen’s many, breathless operatives reported that following hard on the new trend toward teenage nightclubs, an enterprising Bulgarian had come up with the idea of call-girls for the under twenty set. These girls would be available at cut rates to the twixt teen ‘n twenty crowd only during the twilight hours, that is to say, before the adult rush hour. It was not a profitable enterprise
per se
. But like the supermarket sales leader that is sold at cost or, still better, the Junior Bank Account, it was hoped that it help the youngsters acquire a taste that in later, higher income years, they would find hard to give up. Put more succinctly, it appeared that even whoremongers were betting on Canada’s future.

Anyway Jean-Paul McEwen, disguised as a student, went out to investigate – and fell in love.

Worse news. To judge from Jane’s behaviour, the scheme was even more horrific than Jean-Paul had suspected.

—Have you read Howard Fast? Do you admire the singing of Paul Robeson?

It was not only bodily corruption the Bulgarian’s girls were bent on, they had been trained to seduce the minds of Young Canada as well.

Yet though McEwen already had sufficient data with which to impale Jane in the court of public opinion the truth was she had still to write a word
and, to put it bluntly, close her case by taking Jane to bed. But how could she? Goddam it. You struggled, you worked, you won prizes and, you dared to hope, acceptance, but in the end it was still a man’s world. We have been appeased, we have been mollified, but no more. They gave us the vote, equal pay in
some
industries, liberating appliances for the home, seats in government, and then they stop short. For some jobs it was still Men Only.

Son-of-a-bitch.

McEwen had to face an even more unpleasant truth. Even if I could, would I? No. I’m in love. I adore her.

Enough, she thought. There’s work to be done.

McEwen lit up a Schimmelpenninck, opened the bottom drawer of her desk, and pulled out her list of Just-So Ideas, when the first of her field operators burst into the room.

Selby ripped off his false Jimmy Durante-type nose and removed his flashy tie. ‘No go,’ he said, disheartened. ‘I did just as you asked. I walked up to the reservation desk. I told them my name was Hymie Bercovitch. I insisted on a room overlooking the lake, and what do you know? OK, sir, the guy says.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ McEwen said, ‘you didn’t remember to pick your nose.’

‘I did everything you rehearsed with me. I bargained until I was blue in the face, and guess what?
They knocked twenty bucks off the price of my reservation, that’s what.’

‘Do you realize that I’m now stuck with two reservations at that hotel? One under the name of Smith and the other under Bercovitch?’

‘But I tried everything I could to get them to insult me, Jean-Paul. I guess your information was wrong or it’s a lousy season and they’ll take anybody. The guy at the desk even said to me, “Some of my best friends are Jews.” ‘

‘But that’s an anti-Semitic remark,’ McEwen said. ‘Did you hit him?’

‘Gee, I’m sorry, Jean-Paul. I thought he was being nice.’

The next to report was Bell, still in blackface. His forehead was bandaged. ‘They wouldn’t serve you,’ McEwen said happily. ‘There was an incident.’

‘Wouldn’t serve me? Hell, I’ve only been able to afford the Roof Garden five times before in my life and each time I got a table by the kitchen door. This time nothing but ringside. I’ve never had such service in my life!’ Bell banged his broad-brimmed fedora angrily against the desk. ‘Last week the ambassador from Ghana was there and left everybody enormous tips.’

‘But you were in a fight. What happened?’

‘Well, after I left there I was so depressed I went to the Plaza to knock back a couple of short ones. Well you know, I forgot I had this stuff on my face. George – you know, the coloured waiter, he’s been
serving me every day for years, well, George comes over and I say, “Get me a double scotch. But quick,” and the next thing I know he’s lifted me up by the collar and he’s shaking me. “I have to take that sort of bull from all the ofay trash here,” he says. “From you I expect please. Out, boy.” And he kicks me down the steps.’

McEwen didn’t comment.

‘When they were sitting-in down south I bought George a drink. The night Patterson took the Swede I congratulated him. I thought George loved me but he’s hated me all these years because I’m white.’ A tear welled in Bell’s eye. ‘He’s prejudiced, Jean-Paul.’

The last field operator to report was Arnold. ‘Oh, I’ve got a hot one,’ he said, immensely pleased with himself. ‘Boy, have I ever got a lulu.’

‘Yeah?’

‘What if I told you that Bette Dolan has been picking up guys in the bar at the King Edward?’

‘Simple. I’d fire you for drinking.’

‘Well it happens to be God’s truth.’

McEwen laughed in his face. ‘Ever since that girl swam the lake,’ she said, ‘and turned down all the money she could have had out of TV endorsements, I’ve had my eye on her. She’s incorruptible, Arnold. The McCoy. She
does
give most of her money away to charity. She’s a good girl.’

‘Maybe all that has changed since she got involved with the Eskimo jerk.’

‘Look, everybody’s tried to make Bette. Don’t tell me Atuk, of all unlikely people—’

‘All right.
You
go to the King Edward. She usually comes in around nine. What you do, see, is tell her you need help.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Go ahead, Jean-Paul. Try.’

But McEwen had another, more shameful rendezvous to keep. As soon as her operatives had left she changed into her other clothes. She became, so to speak, Jim.

‘Darling.’

‘Yes,’ Jock said.

‘I have the most wonderful news for you.’

‘Really?’

‘Remember the photograph you gave me? Well, I entered it in the Miss Canada contest. Jane,
you’re one of the finalists!’

‘Christ Almighty!’

‘Aren’t you pleased?’

‘What will my poor old mother say?’

‘There’s nothing immodest about it. Why, I’ll bet you she’ll be pleased. This may be your first step to stardom.’

It was just one of those days for Atuk. Dreadful. Simply dreadful. The Old One didn’t come down for breakfast again.

‘You know what he’s doing upstairs in his room?’ Ignak asked. ‘Praying for his dead son. You.’

Moose tip-toed into the dining-room, followed by Mush-Mush.

‘Which one of you stole my ascot last night?’

Actually, Atuk was pleased that at least one of the boys had enough taste to dress up for a girl.

‘But we had to have something to gag her with for she screamed so loud.’

‘Loud
ly
. Why’d she scream?’

‘Well, you see, we had to tie her to the bed.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘But you didn’t tell her there would be eight of us, brother.’

‘You go upstairs and cut that girl free this minute.’

The brothers started resentfully out of the room.

‘And you want them to run the whole country again,’ Atuk said to Ignak. ‘They’re savages.’

Ignak held up the morning paper triumphantly and watched for Atuk’s reaction to the headlines. ‘Speaking of savages,’ he said, ‘you may have some fast talking to do yourself soon.’

‘I’m not worried.’

But Atuk gulped down his coffee and drove straight to Twentyman’s office.

Bette Dolan had been to see Twentyman. She had spilled the beans. But Twentyman, to Atuk’s surprise, spoke quietly. He did not seem angry, but hurt.

‘Why,’ Twentyman asked, ‘didn’t you tell me about this – about your part in it – before?’

‘I thought it best not to.’

‘I suppose you’re ready to flee the country.’

Atuk had to admit it was true.

‘Fool!’

‘Now look here—’

Twentyman began to laugh. ‘Oh, you little fool. Just when you’ve got it made.’

Twentyman then outlined his amazing plans to Atuk.

‘But it sounds very risky to me,’ Atuk said.

‘Not at all,’ Twentyman said. ‘As long as the story proper doesn’t break too soon. That much is vital, Atuk. I must have until next Tuesday to get all the spontaneous sectors of our response properly organized.’

‘I will see that it is so, then.’

‘Jumpy?’

‘A little.’

‘What about your family?’

‘They can be counted on to keep quiet.’

‘But why take unnecessary chances? I wish you’d
send them home, Atuk. I could charter a plane for them.’