The Incomparable Atuk (6 page)

‘I’m not seeing him again, Paw. All right? Good enough?’

‘All I want to warn you is that if Rory—’

‘What if I told you he and Rory were very close. Partners, in fact.’

‘Business is one thing, personal life another. Now where are you going?’

‘To have lunch with a girl friend.’

When Atuk had been a rough but impressionable Baffin Bay boy the Old One – described in a prize-winning National Film Board short as ‘wise and leathery, his neck laced by many winds, the face bitten by decades of frost, and his eyes accustomed to the hungers of the long night’—had taken him on his lap and told him, ‘For an Eskimo boy to make his mark in this world, Atuk, he must be brighter, better, and faster than other boys.’ Far from forgetting, Atuk had modelled his life on this precept. So that morning he rose as usual at 6.30 a.m., ate a three-day-old crust of bread dipped in whale oil, washed it down with an ice-cold Pepsi and, even though thoughts of Goldie made for a delightful ache in his groin, set right down to work.

A tour of the basement factory, before the others had risen, satisfied him that production was slowing down again. His relatives, indolent to the bone, were in constant need of a whip-hand over them, otherwise they abandoned their work benches each
morning to snooze. The demands for sculpture from London, Paris, New York, and even Tokyo, far exceeded his family’s basement production, but bringing down more relatives from Baffin Bay was no answer. Only the laziest were left. Another consideration was that the indoctrination period was too wearying. ‘Atuk, I am frightened. It is winter. Yet every twelve hours there is the miracle of light. Are the Gods angry?’ Neither would he put up once more with ignorant nieces breaking up cigars to spice the stew or with gluttonous, ever-thirsty uncles boiling his tooled leather belts in the soup and pouring anti-freeze into the punch bowl. No. There was another answer. Moulds. Machinery. Mass production. He would have to look around for a plant. The family could be moved by night as usual and nobody need know what was being produced inside. Rory could be counted on to work out the camouflage and other details.

The newspapers arrived.

UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES LEAP UPWARDS
, Atuk read in the
Gazette
, but turning the page he felt gratified to see that the Liberal Party, aroused, promised a Canadian flag once they returned to office. At the bottom of the page he read that there was a further development in the
DEW LINE DISAPPEARANCE
case. The story, off the front pages for months, had to do with an American army intelligence colonel who had disappeared while on a tour of inspection of the Arctic defence lines. A
kidnapping by Russian agents was suspected. But after seven weeks of investigation the RCMP had failed to come up with a single clue and now, it appeared, the FBI had been called in on, the
Gazette
pointed out, a co-operative basis. Not so, Atuk read in a front-page article by Harry Snipes. ‘Indeed, what we are seeing is yet another instance of Uncle Sam the Brinkman riding roughshod over our own national interests.’ In the
Gazette
, Atuk saw that Rabbi Glenn Seigal had announced that he had been able to secure Jerry Lewis to give readings from the Book of Esther at the up-and-coming Israeli Bond drive. Atuk snorted and turned to the financial pages. His investments, considering the present state of affairs in Canada, were not doing too badly. He also found the coverage of his reading for
group sixty-one
entirely satisfactory. Jean-Paul McEwen, in her column in the
Standard
, was especially complimentary – or was she writing tongue-in-cheek? Is she poking fun at me? Atuk paused, he pondered. No, he thought, I’m just being touchy. A thin-skinned Eskimo. He made a note for Miss Stainsby to send McEwen a bottle of perfume. Perfume? McEwen? No; better a case of Scotch.

Upstairs, the Old One began to stir. Atuk sniffed nervously. He had no desire to cross with him this morning.

There was, of course, plenty of mail.

Bruno of Ottawa wished to photograph him. Good, Atuk thought, and he jotted down a note on
top of the letter for Miss Stainsby. Harry Snipes wanted to see him about a possible television series. Atuk was interested, he went for the idea, but he marked the letter ‘request more details’, for he was not going to get involved in another of those coproduction deals, pilot films, percentages, work now and maybe, get paid later. Elsewhere, the president of Educational Folk Toys, Inc., was enthusiastic about the Esky-Doll but he wanted to get together to discuss royalties, possible promos, and the Eskybilly disc tie-up, before he went into production. Well, Rory could handle that one too. A lady in Regina had sent Atuk a pair of knitted socks. They looked dreadful. Flashy. Negroid, he thought. Atuk held them over the wastepaper basket and then had second thoughts. Treated properly this was just the kind of heart-warming story that would make a big splash in the western papers. ‘Develop,’ Atuk wrote on top of the lady’s letter, ‘Hickville-wise.’

Somebody was coming down the steps. Atuk sniffed tentatively. Yes, damn it, it’s the Old One. I can’t face his reproaches this morning, he thought. If he feels so badly why in the hell doesn’t he return to the Bay? Atuk grabbed a pencil, some paper, and slipped into the toilet. ‘Atuk to Stainsby,’ he wrote, ‘poem, esk. style, broad, rights, CBC Anthology, pay, min. $100. Pub. rights, McAllister’s Fort., min. pay, ditto.’

A pounding on the door.

‘Who in the hell is it?’

‘Me. Ti-Lucy. Let me in.
Quick
, brother.’

‘Goddam it, I’m working.’

‘But if we use the sink you are angry with us.’

‘All right. OK.’ Atuk held the door open for her. ‘You people. Christ!’

‘Will we be allowed the great magic tonight, brother?’

‘You heard what I told the boys last night. Only if there’s an upswing in production. Only if. You tell them that. And would you mind shutting the door after you, please.’

Rory, as he anticipated, phoned at ten sharp.

‘Well you certainly fouled things up last night,’ Rory said, ‘didn’t you?’

‘How come? Did you read McEwen this morning? She thinks I’m great.’

‘Don’t be so sure. Why didn’t you come to my place?’

‘I was ill. Too much excitement. Too much drink.’

‘Bone and McEwen sat here waiting around until three in the morning. I nearly went out of my mind.
Do you want to start out by making enemies of two of the most influential figures in the country?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Haven’t you heard of the telephone?’

‘I passed out. Honestly, Rory.’

‘Just thank your lucky stars for Bette. She appeased them. She charmed them. She told them that she’s been helping you for quite a while now.’

‘Did she say how?’

‘No. Listen here, Atuk, you put me on the spot like last night once more and—’

‘Never again, Rory. I swear. And don’t worry about Bone. I’ll send him a note.’

Bette phoned next.

‘I passed out,’ Atuk said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Are you coming to my place tonight?’

‘Sure.’

Atuk worked until noon and then got into his coat.

‘I had thought,’ the Old One said, blocking his path, ‘that you were going to break bread with me today.’

‘Sorry. I’ve got an important engagement.’ Atuk took down the bar, he unbolted the door, and opened the locks one by one. ‘Now don’t look at me like that. This is strictly business.’

Bone. Seymour Bone.

If Bette Dolan swam into the heart of a nation with one mighty effort then Seymour Bone, another national figure, had to plan, connive, claw, insult, lust and rage for years before he was recognized. Dominion-wide.

Out of the west he came on flat broad feet in 1945, the rebellious, ambitious, acme-ridden son of a successful Presbyterian salesman. Out of the west to conquer Toronto; the cruel capital. A fat ungainly redheaded boy, Bone had abandoned his native plain because his ideas, his style of life, were considered too wildly bohemian by the people there. Bone openly read Samuel Butler, he advocated drinking on Sundays, quoted George Bernard Shaw, and subscribed to journals such as
John
O’
London’s
. In a Rotary-sponsored debate, actually to do with the United Nations, he came out flatly for premarital relations. But at the University of Toronto, Bone, to his dismay, discovered that his ideas were not considered very, very shocking. He fitted in nowhere. The intellectuals put him down for a backward, if amusing bumpkin, and the others found him a bore. Lonely, broken-hearted, he began to eat prodigiously, mostly bananas, and felt himself an utter failure until he was taken in hand by Ruthy
Rosenthal. Ruthy, outspoken daughter of a Toronto pants manufacturer, was even more rebellious than Bone.

At the age of twelve, already an unbeliever, she said to her grandfather, ‘And whom, may I ask, did Cain marry?’

‘Communist bitch.’

Persecuted for her ideas, Ruthy was driven to further extremes of rebellion. She began to eat bacon. She refused to attend her grandmother’s funeral. ‘As I am already an atheist,’ she said, ‘it would be hypocrisy for me.’

‘But she’s your
bubba
, when you were a little
cacker
who wiped you?’

‘I won’t be swayed by false sentiment.’

Ruthy thought it was endearing of Seymour Bone, on first meeting, to think he could shock her by lending her his copy of
Jurgen
. It was in a plain brown wrapper.

‘Jurgen
, Cabell. Sweetie-pie,’ she said, ‘haven’t you even heard of Henry Miller yet?’

Bone took
The Tropic of Cancer
back to his room, his eyes almost popping out of his head as he read. There are, he had to admit, gaps in my knowledge. Ruthy filled the hole with Freud,
Fanny Hill, Partisan Review
, Trotsky, Auden, and others. They became an inseparable campus couple and, the day after graduation, were married. A civil ceremony of course.

Bone married Ruthy because:

(1)This, he hoped, would prove his ultimate liberation from a provincial anti-Semitic family.

(2)Let’s face it, the girl, being a Jewess, would be forever in his debt. She could never be unfaithful. On the contrary. She would be respectful, grateful.

(3)He had come to adore Jewish cooking even more than bananas.

Ruthy married Bone because:

(1)She wished to give her family a final slap in the face.

(2)It would prove – especially to sceptical friends who predicted she would end up married to a dentist with a house in the suburbs – that she wasn’t ghetto-bound.

(3)Being a
goy
, he couldn’t be as smart as she was. She could direct and control him.

Bone, who had expected to feast nightly on herrings, knishes, cholent, pastramis and briskets, was served hard-boiled eggs or, on special occasions, sea food.

‘I’m not a chauvinist,’ Ruthy said.

Sea food made her vomit but she was battling to overcome this, like other narrowing prejudices she had inherited.

‘I admire your spirit,’ Bone said.

Ruthy, who had looked forward to sharing her bed with a bullish
goy
, a brute, a destroyer, a rape artist, instead of an inhibited good-Jewish-boy, found that Seymour was a once-a-week rabbit.

Each time this unconventional marriage was
about to break up it was saved by the couple’s conventional families. Ruthy’s father would say, ‘A mixed marriage can never work,’ and thereby drive her back into Seymour’s arms. Seymour’s mother would say, ‘If you leave her we will forgive all and take you back,’ and send him lumbering back into her arms.

And meanwhile Seymour struggled. Because he liked going to plays and sleeping in late, he decided to become a drama critic, but nobody would hire him. So Seymour Bone, investing the last of his inheritance, decided to put out a critical journal of his own written entirely by himself and Ruthy:
The Genius
. It did not do well the first year, even as a give-away to actors, writers, and producers. But the second year a miracle happened. Within one week, both
Time
and the London
Spectator
decided to do humorous columns about culture in Canada and chose Bone’s journal as a logical take-off point. Very few people in Canada realized that their struggling, no-saying critic was being ridiculed. On the contrary. Most people were impressed.

‘It doesn’t matter what we think,’ a realistic CBC producer said. ‘If the London
Spectator
feels he’s worth writing about, we ought to give him an opportunity.’

‘How come
Time
never quotes our drama critic?’ a newspaper publisher asked.

So Seymour Bone, critic, was born. He overate so much before attending his first play for the
Standard
that, though he was enjoying himself immensely, he simply had to flee before the end of the first act.

BONE STOMPS OUT
, one newspaper headline boomed over a four-column photograph of the critic seated in the second row, his face a map of suffering and distaste. C
ANADA’S RUDEST DRAMA CRITIC
, another headline ran. The story was picked up by Canadian Press and ran across the country. Bone went to the theatre constipated and woke up a national figure. But his newly-won reputation was also to ruin his pleasure for years to come. For the truth was that Bone was delighted by most plays, specially if they were full of salty jokes or good-looking girls, but he felt that if he didn’t walk out on every second one people would say he was going soft. So walk out he did, often returning in disguise the next night to surreptitiously enjoy the rest of the play.

Bone, now a national figure, was immediately offered a CBC television panel show,
Crossed Swords
. He blossomed forth as a sort of reverse Liberace. The Rudest, Most Outspoken Entertainer in Canada. He talked about his column on television and wrote about his show in his column. His column was widely read. But as Bone’s celebrity increased, even as his insults grew more shrill, he became personally unpopular. Nobody asked him to parties any more. In fact, the first party he had been asked to in nine months was the one Rory Peel gave in honour of
Atuk. When the little Eskimo freak didn’t turn up Bone was livid; he swore vengeance. All the next morning he was in a black mood, so that when Ruthy entered his study at noon, bringing him lunch, she expected another angry outburst. But Seymour was on the phone.