The Governor of the Northern Province (23 page)

Only now, what to make of a black man already here in the capital city when he had presumed to be the only one, to be the lone coffee bean in the flour bin capable of brewing something up among all the blandness? Was this skate sharpener someone who'd beaten him to it? How was he to respond? Tribute? Alliance? Appeal for advice? Bottle to the face? Skate to the neck?

Bokarie's every previous encounter since coming to Canada suddenly seemed so effortless. There was the quick pull at the heartstrings by nodding with shame and pain at the cable-cobbled stories they gave him, his letting them console away any need to say who and what he really was by showing just a little extra meekness and grinning here and showy inferiority and incapacity there. To pacify and empower and overpower.

This was a method he'd plied with much success back in his old town and more so since moving to a studio apartment even higher above the earth in the capital. To lull everyone he met into continuing to take him for what they wanted him to be, from Jennifer down. Because he needed this time, this space, to figure out what magic he'd need to make things work to his advantage in Ottawa. Because beyond the statues of dead British people and the outrage that American politicians inspired and the fawning that American businessmen brought out in the natives whenever they swooped into town, Ottawa wasn't really that much like the capital city back home in Atwenty. Not that he knew very much of that place anyway, only reports on the transistor and the one visit, when he met the General, who had judged his brimstone and bottle-work talent enough to lead the cleanup effort in the Upriver region and then gave him all those fine promises along the route, of a victorious return to the capital. As governor, no less. But why was he still going on about all of that when there was so much waiting for him here and now? Probably because he was watching a black man sharpen a blade and the bastard at his business kept sending him back there. He stepped outside the hut for a moment, bracing his nose against the constant shock of Canadian winter and then taking short breaths to calm down, and tried to recall his recent progress. Recollect what he could get if he played this right.

He had accepted that he wasn't going to be a governor here. He wasn't even sure they had such things in Canada. But this was no defeat, since Bokarie had quickly decided upon reaching Ottawa that he had no interest in ever jumping into that bucket of crabs Jennifer had joined in going to Parliament. There was just no appreciation for fine speech making in the national politics. He had sat in on a couple of sessions and even been a stage prop for Jennifer's first speech. Which, admittedly, he had enjoyed, looming above an adoring crowd for a few moments, waving and smiling down at them. Only there was no style in any of it, the applause was cheaply won and then he was forgotten and the circus went on at maximum tilt. Just Mr. Speaker this and Mr. Speaker that and point of parliamentary procedure this and would the respectable that, and all the while the rest of them screeching and howling and gesturing and jumping up and down like three hundred minor primates in permanent heat and hunger.

Sharing his confusion about how Parliament heard or did anything with the office manager for another MP, Bokarie had been told in tones earnest and teacherly that even if it looked and sounded like nursery school chaos, Canadian politics was about passionately constructive dialogue and mutual accountability. Unlike less advanced places—and here a finger distinctly pointed south—politics wasn't all rabble-rousing and back-stabbing and throat-cutting and thundering invocations from the Bible to make everything all right. Bokarie nodded and felt a little tempted by the latter description, but not enough to try getting across that border. Instead, he decided to be done with working his audiences into raging and rampaging and ready fear and undying adoration for now. If he ever wanted a fix, he could coach youth soccer.

Giving up on his path to such glory was no cause for despair. An alternative had presented itself and he had worked up a way of describing it that made it acceptable to him. He had heard many intriguing things in staff cafeterias and office supply depots about where the real power resided in Ottawa. It was in something called a bureaucrat. It sounded like an ideal set-up. The bureaucrat ruled a region already subdued and his alone, with any number of seconds and thirds and fourths and so on beneath him. And having met some of these young men and women, young and blond and bland and taking weekend courses in French and PowerPoint to get ahead, Bokarie could tell that he wouldn't have to promise any DVDs or local virgins for
their
loyalty. Nor would he have any betrayals on his hands. These types were simply too content with what they called making a difference to be tempted to a takedown.

There were many bureaucrats in Ottawa, he had discovered from further inquiries, amazed once again at how much there was to be had here, how impossible and unnecessary it would be for any one person to try to hoard it all, which explained the easy peace that held among them. Apparently there wasn't much speech making involved in the position, though he wasn't as disappointed by this as he might have been. By all accounts one's mouth was always too full to talk. That was more than acceptable to him, after he'd finally determined he would never find a refined-enough hearing for his words. And anyway it was time he grew past the clever limber boy on the orphanage wall doing his fancy words and fine moves for a few passing whores. After all, the General and the President rarely said much from their respective thrones, and they sported barrel chests and cannonball bellies much like the bureaucrats he'd seen around Ottawa, a juxtaposition suggesting that this was the universal stuff and stuffing of Great Men. And finally, most gloriously, Bokarie had discovered that bureaucrats outlived popes and elephants. There were no revolutions or alliances to worry over, no betrayals and broken promises, just a working group to expand via new initiatives, committees to strike, breakout sessions to generate, and revision and renewal and revitalization when in doubt. The words weren't worthy of Job, Bokarie allowed, but the life was certainly easier.

It was just a matter of biding his time until the opportunity for such an elevation came about, and he was willing to do this by greeting schoolchildren from the riding on behalf of Miss Thickson as they made their field trips to Ottawa for ice-skating, among other duties.

But now there was this dark complication to his plans, who had just switched off his machine and called Bokarie back into the hut, where he was holding the blades ready for him. They gleamed and Bokarie wondered how it would feel to have such contraptions tied to his feet while he did a little dance. He readied to ask the oh so innocent worried question about cutting through ice with knife boots. This would bring the native to a pitying smile and tender explanation, which would in turn let him maintain the space apart for himself that he'd come to enjoy while his various homegrown respondents jerked and danced around to his words and slinks, all the while thinking they were in control. Only he didn't think he was the one in command this time. Because Bokarie wasn't sure what it meant for this black man standing across from him to be homegrown.

The man hadn't even given him anything much of the Look when he first turned around to find Bokarie waiting for him, blades in hand. As if he didn't care about the where and the what and the how and the why of an African standing in a skate-sharpening hut beside the Rideau Canal. And Bokarie was a little offended by this, but more than that, nervous. Because the real difficulty with this briny-tongued black man was that he didn't fit the terms Bokarie had devised for playing with the new and the old.

II.

“Thank you for these. And here is your payment. But before I go, may I ask you a question?” he ventured, accepting the heavy boots and holding the sharp bottoms away from him, his voice tinny and empty because he still didn't know what the filling should be this time.

“You just did, chief!”

Well played. He wondered what it meant that this man was calling him chief. Simple sarcasm, like when the doughy teenagers back home used it on him at his old job? But now
that
was back home, he was thinking from there? Things were confusing, breaking down, his gyring ascent turning to tailspin. Truths needed to be established, identities determined, understandings reached.

“Yes, that was a question. Now let me ask you another. Where are you from?”

“You're assuming I'm not from around here, aren't ya?”

“Yes.”

“From what, my accent?”

“Yes, and other things.”

“Like what? Or no, wait, let me ask you a question. Are
you
from around here?”

“No. Can't you tell that?”

“Sure. From your accent and from other things. So where are you from, then?”

“A land far away from here.”

“That sounds nice. Hey, me too, chief!”

“Please, why did you just call me chief?”

“Because that's what we call people back where I'm from.”

“Which is where?”

“Back east.”

“How far back east?”

“About as far back east as it gets!”

“So yes, you mean—you mean Africa?”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, no! I mean Antigonish! But then again, in a sense, yes, aren't we all, when you go back far enough and think deep enough about it, from Africa?”

“Yes, indeed, we are all from Africa in the end. You are very wise.”

Ah, a philosopher. Bokarie liked this. He could dismiss it with gratitude and admiration. He'd had
everything's out of Africa
conversations a few times since coming to Ottawa, usually with natty students from the university who approached him in coffee shops to tell of their multiple readings of
Things Fall Apart
.

He commended and thanked them and wondered if this book people kept mentioning was part of the movie he'd heard about from other Canadians when they wanted to share their African cultural experience with him. It made sense, from the title. What else would a Coke bottle do when it fell from the sky? But still, they were simply better-educated variations on his usual marks, and this skate sharpener wasn't. He didn't even seem concerned about their being two black men here in the hut together. This nettled him. He wanted, had, to know what
he
made of this, and so Bokarie broke with precedent and didn't just nod at the deep thought and happy huff about Africa and move on to his next Canadian. He needed more out of this exchange. Seeing a grin on the black man's face, Bokarie wondered if he was getting a little of his own game here, by someone better at it, no less. No, not possible.

“Yes, you're right, we're all from Africa, this is true, and also wise by the depths of the ages. But you say you are from a place called Antigone Fish, Mr. …, Mr. …”

“It's Antigonish, and say it Annie-gone-ish if you want to sound local by the by, and anyway call me Ricky, Ricky Rhinehart. Some folks called me Zebra Muscles back when I was still boxing, even if there was no sign yet they'd gone through the St. Lawrence seaward into the salt water, but still, it worked background-wise, which is why we went with it. But that's a little Down East shop talk, sorry, and anyway I suspect you won't be doing that, calling me Zebra Muscles, and not because you're a marine biologist and stickler for the details. Am I right?”

An opening. An implication. Some awareness of something not being right. Bokarie attacked, ignorant of the damage a rope-a-dope could do.

“Why not? Why wouldn't I call you Zebra Muscles? Do you think it would make me uncomfortable to use such a term?” Bokarie was surprised at how much force he brought in saying this. There was challenge and even hurt in his voice, and a little more than he wanted, even if he was happy Rhinehart had committed the magical cardinal sin and made a reference to African wildlife as a means of understanding him. He also sensed, with little pride, that his behaviour in response was all very Canadian, just like his choosing the life of a bureaucrat over a Great Man career. Comfortable, fully funded. Very Canadian. He thought about his options. When his first inclination was to file a discrimination complaint with an ombudsperson, he shuddered and cringed at this successful adjustment to national life. Then he went defiant and wanted to recover his once-grand anger. He showily laughed and started wondering how sharp these blades were and whether he could summon a good passage from Ezekiel to bring down fury and hard cold steel on this his foe. After which he spat and stamped and readied to charge, but the man could sense this anger and squared his shoulders and beat him there too. Big shoulders.

“Okay now, calms yourself down a little there—no reason to get worked up. That was just a joke, a little icebreaker, if you understand. But if you're thinking of throwing down, I should probably tell you that 32-22-15 aren't my measurements but my fights record, if you catch my drift, unless you'd rather catch my left hook if that's how you'd like to finish this conversation. Your call. Chief.”

He could tell from the tone of the man's talking and the size behind it that smudging his foot over the plug of phlegm he'd just left on the hut floor was the right thing to do. At which point he dropped his skates and slumped down against the wall and winced at the cold comfort and the everywhere hardness of it. If this Rhinehart fellow took a swing at him now and things ended, so be it.

He'd had a good run, but he was tired of the game of it, this lifelong desire to climb up and get noticed and always stay in front of the rest. Only to find someone else ahead of him to overcome with his willingness to moult as they wanted—Father Alvaro, Uncle, the General, Hollerwatty, the immigration officers and the Haitian lady and his fellow graduates from that weekend's ADJUST ME program, the old ladies who came to him at the convenience store. Jennifer. And there were all the living and the dead—his brothers and cousin, the others at the orphanage, his ex-girl Elizabeth, the warlord Foday, that Marigold whom he'd saved, the boys he'd led into the Upriver region, the men and women and children busted through and burned up and buried shallow while his freedom fighters were moving through there, then that Liberian he befriended to choke in the belly of the tanker, Little Caitlin and the adoring crowd at that first rally, the sticky-fingered kids and their mums at his soccer clinic, the beery busty bride and her wedding guests, the Vietnamese girl and the casserole king, the probable voters in the grocery store lineups and the cheering chanting supporters at that rally the night before the election. And now all the fresh easy meat to be had in Ottawa. So many audiences, all dying for more from him, but he was done, finally, emptied out, kaput, dropped to the floor by someone too strong, too sharp to take on and win over with his windbag of tricks.