Crossing Over

by Paul Clayton

  As they made their way to his cubicle, Raza turned and said, “We’ve gotten a lot of snow, huh?”

  Mike nodded.

  “And now this cold. Awful.”

  “I know,” said Mike. “I had to run the heater most of last night. I have to get in some propane. Do you know where I can buy some?”

  Raza shook his head. “They’ve been blowing the refineries up. That’s what I hear.” He stepped behind his desk. Mike sat in one of the chairs.

  “Well,” said Raza, sitting, “let’s get down to business.” He leaned forward, folding his hands and interlacing his fingers. “I looked over your paperwork and our data department did as well. Everything looks legit.”

  Mike nodded.

  “So, I can get your applications in … probably by the end of the week.”

  “What happens then?”

  Raza leaned back in his chair. “Well, then the big wait begins.”

  “Big wait?”

  “All those people you see out there when you’re coming in for your interviews? They’ve been waiting, some of them, for more than five months.”

  “Jesus,” said Mike, frowning. “That’s not encouraging.”

  “Sorry to have to tell you that, Mister McNerney, but it’s best that you know the reality of the situation.” Raza glanced right and left. “You see, the system is completely overwhelmed. There are just too many applicants to process in a timely fashion.”

  Mike’s head filled with all the ramifications of it—the cold, the long wait, their money slowly running out. “God,” he said, “that’s awful, awful.”

  Raza leaned back and rubbed his hands together as he looked at Mike sadly. He pursed his lips and leaned forward, his voice softening, “If I could get my superior to sign off on you and your family’s application at this office, today, instead of it being sent to Ottawa and sitting there for months, I could probably get the paperwork you would need to cross ready in … two to four weeks.”

  “How is that possible?” said Mike. “I mean, how do we make that happen?”

  Raza leaned forward and lowered his voice, “Well, it’s possible, but only if you pay extra.”

  Mike saw the suggestion of a smile on Raza’s lips. A bribe! Of course. And it wasn’t for Raza’s superior either, he’d be willing to bet.

  “How much?”

  “Two thousand, five hundred American.”

  Mike flinched. That would leave them with only about five hundred dollars. He kept his anger and disgust in check, but only barely. “I don’t know if I could get that much money together.”

  Raza nodded sadly.

  Mike felt the seconds tick by. “I’ll have to talk to my wife. Can you give us some time to respond to this?”

  Raza closed the manila folder containing Mike’s paperwork. “Sure, Mister McNerney, but not more than a week. When you come back, tell the receptionist that you would like to speak with me.”

  Mike got to his feet. “Okay.”

  Raza lowered his head to shuffle some papers on his desk.

  Mike walked out.

  In the nighttime quiet of the camper, Mike waited till he was sure Elly was asleep before he told Marie everything that had happened.

  “We only have about three thousand,” said Marie. “That would break us. I knew there was something awful about him.”

  “Well, you were right. He’s a crook. But I’d bet that everybody else who works in there is too.”

  “We should talk to the Frenchman.”

  “What? Who the hell is the Frenchman?”

  “Anne Marie, a lady who sells used clothes up by the Border Office, told me about him. He’s some French guy who sneaks people across the border. For a price, of course.”

  “C’mon, Marie. Do you really mean to turn our money and lives over to some criminal that’s going to sneak us across the border? Do you know how dangerous that is? Think of Elly, if not yourself.”

  “What else we can do?”

  Mike listened again for Elly’s steady breathing. He thought he heard a soft voice outside. Probably the people in the next camp. “Well, we could just start the whole process again and insist on a different agent.”

  “Oh my God, Mike. And add another three or four months to our stay here? We’re about to go crazy now as it …”

  “Shh.” Mike raised his hand in caution. “I heard something.”

  The sound of metal sliding off the fiberglass of the camper shell was unmistakable.

  “What the hell?” said Mike. He slipped down from the sleeping shelf, opened the door, and went out. Icy air assaulted him. He saw the dim outline of two people running, disappearing into the haze of blowing snow. His bare feet stung from the frozen ground and he turned back to the camper. The folding chairs and camp table were gone.

  Marie’s face appeared at the door. “What happened?”

  “Well, we don’t have camp chairs and a camp table anymore.”

  “They took them?”

  “Yeah, while we were talking.” Mike felt a sudden paroxysm of rage. “I’m gonna get dressed and go see if I can catch them.”

  “No, Hon,” said Marie. “Don’t. We can look tomorrow. And we can tell the authorities too.”

  Elly’s head appeared in the dimness of the door. “What happened? It’s cold.”

  “Get back in bed, Honey,” said Marie. “It’s nothing. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

  After Mike secured the camper door from the inside, he climbed up onto the sleeping shelf with Marie. He lay on his back, not saying anything. Marie put a hand on his chest. “Hon,” she whispered, “are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Okay. I still want to look into the possibility of us paying somebody to take us across.”

  Mike took her hand. “All right. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Let’s try and get some sleep.”

  Mike went over to Jake and Carlene’s place at mid-day. He’d promised Jake some help reorganizing the things in his truck. As Mike entered their camp site, Carlene looked up from where she was washing clothes in a plastic pail, purple rubber gloves up to her elbows.

  “Hello, Mike,” she said, “how’s Marie and Elly?”

  “They’re okay, maybe a little frightened.”

  Carlene’s look turned concerned. “What happened?”

  “We were robbed last night, burglarized.”

  Jake came out of the tent. “I thought I heard some shouting last night. It woke me, but then I heard nothing further and went back to sleep.”

  Mike nodded and went on with his story. “They got our camp table and chairs.”

  “Too bad,” said Jake.

  “Jake,” said Carlene, “maybe you could fix them up with a couple pieces.”

  “Sure,” said Jake, “we can find them something.”

  “I’ll pay you,” said Mike.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Jake. He pulled a little .22 caliber automatic pistol from his pants pocket. “You should have one of these.”

  “I do, but Marie is real nervous about it, so I don’t often carry it. I have a little safe in the camper. Anyway, they cut our stuff loose, yanked it down, and ran off with it. I wanted to chase them but Marie wouldn’t have it.”

  Jake nodded. “We got some stuff you can have. Want some coffee?”

  “Nah. Already had mine. We can get to work if you want.”

  They walked over to the work table Jake had set up on saw horses. “I can use you at our place in Canada when you come over,” said Jake.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. You don’t have any other offers, right?”

  “No. We’re just focused on crossing over. Figured we’d find something to do once we got there.”

  “My back’s getting worse. I could use your help moving and carryi
ng things, and refinishing. And with your background in accounting … yeah. What do you think, Carlene?”

  Carlene was wringing some clothes out by hand. She turned her head. “Yeah. I think that’s a good idea. Maybe they could stay in Anne’s place out back.”

  Jake looked at Mike. “Her sister has a house a block from ours, with a little carriage house out back.”

  Mike frowned thoughtfully. “Wow. That would be a great help to us.”

  “C’mon,” said Jake, “let’s get a few more pieces down from the truck.”

  Mike was getting ready to go up to the border office to speak with Raza when Marie and Elly came into the camper. Elly carried what looked like an Indian basket, crudely woven, the size of large pot. It had a thin red velvet pillow fitted into its center. Elly set it on her bed.

  “What’s that?” Mike wanted to know.

  “What do you think?”

  Mike smiled. “A culturally-authentic pillow for an Indian princess?”

  “C’mon, Dad.”

  Mike laughed. “I don’t know, sweetheart. Tell me.”

  “It’s a cat bed. Or a small dog.”

  “Oh, I see it now.”

  Marie looked over. “Carlene showed us how to make them. We’re gonna make them and sell them at Carlene and Jake’s store when we cross over.”

  “Wow,” said Mike. “That’s a good idea. It looks nice, and all the materials you need, except for the pillow, are all around here.”

  Marie nodded. “Carlene makes the pillows. She has all kinds of fabric and an old treadle-powered Singer sewing machine in their tent.”

  “Wow, I’m impressed,” said Mike. He looked at Marie. “I have to get going. I’m meeting with Raza in a half hour.”

  Marie looked at him hopefully. “Okay.”

  Mike walked up the road to the border office with twenty five hundred dollars in his pants pockets. Fists jammed down on the bills, his head low, eyes alert and wary, his boots crunched on the crusty snow. Once inside the building, he nodded to the receptionist and she picked up the phone. A few moments later Mike followed Raza back to his cubicle. Raza slid his big bulk into his chair and folded his hands benignly. “So, you have talked it over with your wife?”

  “Yes. It will really set us back, but we’ll pay. We don’t want to stay here any longer. This place is getting crowded and ugly.”

  Raza’s look grew somber. “Yes, and that is what I have to talk to you about. Things are changing quickly. Do you know how many people have arrived here in just this last week?”

  “No,” said Mike, trying to control his growing annoyance. What was Raza leading up to now?

  “One hundred and forty-five,” said Raza, his face growing more concerned. “Twenty five hundred dollars is no longer enough. There are people here willing to pay twice that.”

  Mike couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice. “But you said twenty five!”

  “Please, Mister McNerney.” Raza looked out of the opening of the cubicle. “Not so loud.”

  Mike felt his face flushing. “All we have is the camper, but I don’t know how much we’d get for it at this point. I don’t even know if we could sell it.”

  Raza shook his head, the handsome smile back upon his face. “The camper is not all you have, Mister McNerney.”

  Mike glared at him. “What are you talking about? I already told you. We don’t have anything else.”

  The smile disappeared from Raza’s face to be replaced by a look of triumph. “You have the girl.”

  Mike couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Of course I do, she’s my daughter. What the hell are you talking about?”

  Raza leaned closer, his voice quiet and reasonable, “Mister McNerney, come on. I live over five hundred miles away in Toronto. I haven’t seen my wife in six months. I haven’t been with a woman in all that time, certainly not the dirty whores who are trying to buy their way across. But your daughter … she is a virgin, right?”

  Mike said nothing as his eyes bore into Raza’s.

  “Of course she is,” Raza went on, “you and your wife have protected her well. But some man will take her. You already know that. You cannot protect her forever. I would be very gentle with her, and it would only be for one night. Then I will stamp your papers and you can all cross over.”

  Raza leaned back in his chair.

  Mike got to his feet. “Is that it? Are you through?”

  “Yes,” said Raza.

  Mike’s face was strained as he walked out. He felt like turning tables over, shouting, throwing punches. As he walked back down the road he was stricken by the mess the encampment had become. Trash littered the spaces between the vehicles. The people looked rougher than he remembered when they’d first arrived. It was a bad situation and getting worse. When he came up to their camper, Marie was outside raking up the leaves and scraps of paper that had blown onto their campsite. “Where’s Elly?” he said.

  “She’s laying down inside.”

  He nodded.

  Marie paused in her raking. “So, what happened?”

  Mike shook his head. “The price has gone up.”

  “Dear God! How much?”

  “Doubled.”

  Marie turned away from him and began raking angrily. “Well, there has to be something we can do.”

  Mike said nothing.

  She stopped and glared at him. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “What can I say? We gotta sit down and talk about it. We’ll figure something out.”

  Marie leaned the rake against the camper and went inside. Mike followed her. She was putting her hat on. Elly slept in her bed curled up with her coat on.

  “Where you going?” he said.

  “Anne Marie, the used clothing lady’s place. She said the Frenchman is going to be at her camp today. I want to go find out how much it would cost, and other things.”

  Mike shook his head angrily. “You just won’t give up on that, will you?”

  Marie shushed him, looking over at Elly. Her face was determined as she turned back to him. “I’m going to find out more about it, that’s all.”

  “Shit,” he whispered, “I told you it was dangerous.”

  Marie said nothing. She pulled her gloves on.

  “Okay,” said Mike quietly. “Have it your way. Let’s go.”

  Marie pointed to Elly. “We better take her over to Carlene to watch for a little bit.”

  The light was pale, with a bluish tinge, as Mike and Marie walked past the different rigs, catching the occasional whiff of wood smoke, cigarette or pipe smoke, hearing a voice here and there. It started snowing when they came to Anne’s camp. Used clothing for sale hung from lines all around her site. A woman and man sat before her fire.

  Anne smiled a greeting as they came up. She waved to the man sitting before the fire and he stood and came over.

  He was a head shorter than Mike, and small of build, perhaps five years younger. He did not seem threatening.

  The man extended his hand, “Bonsoir.”

  Mike shook his hand. “Good evening.”

  “This is Julien Bergalt,” said Anne.

  Julien bowed slightly as he took Marie’s hand. “Good to see you. I will help you.”

  A man and woman entered Anne’s site and began looking over the clothes hanging on the lines. Anne went to them and Mike said to Julien, “So, how many people have you helped to cross over?”

  Julien nodded effusively. “Beaucoup ... many.”

  “Well, what’s many?”

  “Eighteen, no, twenty. Twenty people.”

  “What does it cost?” said Marie.

  “Is it just you two?”

  “No,” said Mike. “We have a daughter. Three.”

  A look of concern etched into Julien’s thin face as he conside
red this. “Twenty five,” he said.

  Mike laughed. “Well, that’s the end of this conversation. We don’t have that much money.” He looked at Marie. “We should just go.”

  “Non,” said Julien. “Un moment, sil vous plait. Avez vous …”

  “We don’t speak French,” said Mike.

  “Uh … have you a car?”

  “We have a truck-camper,” said Mike.

  Julien nodded. “Bon. We could, ah, make a deal, you see?”

  Mike shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. We’re going to need our truck when we cross over.”

  “No, monsieur, you do not understand. We cannot take the truck over, to cross over. We must go part of the way over on … on the water.”

  “But I thought it was just a walk straight north,” said Mike.

  “No. No. There are many police that way. We must, you know, walk part of the way, and then get on a boat and go around. You must leave your truck on this side.”

  “Well, let’s talk about it some more,” said Mike.

  Marie took Mike’s arm. “Hon, I want to go and check on Elly. I’ll talk to you when you get back.”

  Marie turned to Julien, “Goodbye. I must go.”

  Julien looked surprised. “Oh, that is too bad.” He and Mike watched Marie walk off.

  Mike turned back to Julien. “All right. Well, I guess we have to discuss how much you’ll give me for the truck and camper.”

  Julien took his hand and shook it vigorously. “Yes, yes. We will talk. First, let us have some coffee, yes?”

  When Mike got back to the camper he found Marie standing outside crying.

  “Where’s Elly?” he said in alarm.

  “She’s all right. She’s napping again.”

  “What’s the matter? What happened?”

  “It’s Carlene and Jake. They’re leaving in two days.”

  “Jees! I’m sorry to see them go.”

  Marie sniffled. “Yeah. Elly’s really taken with Carlene. Especially her baking.”

  They laughed, sweetly sad.

  “On the positive side,” said Marie, “They gave me all their contact information. They said we could work for them and stay in a little house until we get on our feet.”