The Republic of Nothing

by Lesley Choyce

  “Me too,” I said, not really wanting to continue the conversation. I stuck my hands in my pocket and looked down at the ground. Gwen’s father had changed immensely over his years here. He had lost what I remember of the flashy, fast-talking way he had when he arrived. He’d slowed down, become part of the island life. As I started to walk on, I pulled some more of the rock dust out of my pocket and began to sift it out onto the road. I decided to stop worrying about the men in the truck. They were gone. They probably wouldn’t come back, there was nothing to it. Then I stopped in my tracks. I went back to Gwen’s father and showed him the dust that was left in my hand. “Any idea what kind of rock this comes from?” I asked.

  Tennessee adopted the look of scientific curiosity that periodically overcame him when some minor quirk of nature caught his fancy. He held my hand up to the light and looked at it. “Stay here,” he said and ran back into his house. A minute later the returned with an instrument I had not seen him toy with for years. It was his old Geiger counter. He flicked it on, set a dial and held the probe out to my hand. The instrument began to make a wild frenetic clicking noise.

  “What are you doing with uranium in your pockets?” he asked.

  38

  Tennessee Ernie Phillips set down his Geiger counter. “Would you mind not throwing any more of that stuff around right here,” he said. He pointed to his well, only a few yards away. “I’ve already sucked up enough radiation to shorten my life by ten years and I don’t want to lose another day.”

  I put the handful of dust back into my pocket. I didn’t know what else to do with it. What the hell was going on, anyway? Tennessee read the expression on my face. “Look, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s not going to kill you. Not right away, anyway. But that seems like some fairly potent stuff for these parts. Of all the rotten luck.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean, if somebody is going to start ripping it out of the ground here, they’ll tear up acres of land, leave piles of residue, contaminate the water, and basically make the island unliveable.”

  My blood began to boil. “They can’t do that!” I insisted.

  “I’ve seen it done. Pick a state: Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado. Very ugly, very deadly and there wasn’t a law on the books to stop ‘em.”

  I was glaring at him now. He had to be lying. What was his problem anyway?

  “I’ll tell you why. Because they take the uranium, refine it, and I mean they process tons of it to make a few ounces of the good stuff, and then they use it to make nuclear bombs.”

  “But this is Canada, not the U.S. They wouldn’t do that here.”

  “Go ask the people in Saskatchewan,” he said.

  I didn’t now anybody in Saskatchewan, but it suddenly clicked that Gwen’s father wasn’t bullshitting me.

  “Oh, they’ll say it’s for nuclear power plants and some of it is, but even nuclear power plants aren’t ready to be run by human beings for another hundred years because we can’t make the bloody things safe. They were just another bad idea that we couldn’t resist. In the end, most of it will go to make more weapons. At last count we can blow up the world eight times over. They’re working on nine.”

  But right then, I didn’t care a damn about the world. “What about the island? I don’t see how any outsiders can come in here and just take over.”

  “Mineral rights. They buy mineral rights. And if what you said was true about it being Crown land, they can do whatever they want about it. In fact, they can tunnel down under your land and mine if they want. We only own the topsoil and some of those damn rocks sticking up into the air. Government owns the right to sell anything that’s under it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But my father’s in the government, remember. He wouldn’t do that.”

  Tennessee threw his hands up in the air. “Go talk to him. just don’t get me involved. If the Atomic Energy Commission of the U.S. finds out I’m here and decides I’m causing them trouble again, who knows what they’ll do. But I’ll tell you this, Ian, and I know you love this place, if you let ‘em start digging here — even if it’s just a pit the size of a backyard swimming pool — you might as well get the hell off the island because it’s not going to be fit or safe to live here. No matter what the government or the mining company tell you.”

  I stumbled off down the road. No way would my father allow something like this to happen. Why would anybody do this? For money, of course, but somebody locally must have initiated it. Somebody who knew this place. Who would do that and why?

  I explained the situation to my mother and Casey. I took off my pants with the uranium in the pockets and threw them in the wood stove and burned them. My mother told me to go take a shower. When I came out, she and Casey had changed their clothes. “We’re going to talk to your father. I already called him to let him know we’re coming.”

  My mother was not the sort of woman who needed long explanations about things like this. Observed fact coupled with intuitive understanding. “I think there is a way out of this,” she said to the windshield of my Chevy as we drove west down Highway Seven. “I think this is some sort of test. It’s important that we are strong enough to pass it.”

  “I hate tests,” Casey said. “They always make me nervous. Sometimes I forget how to spell properly.”

  “Don’t worry, Casey,” Dorothy said, “there will be no spelling involved here.”

  We were seated in the Bluenose Restaurant. I was beginning to think that my father spent a lot of time in this place. We were all looking pretty uncomfortable except for him. He ignored the food and bit away at his thumbnail until it was down to the quick as I explained to him about the men in the truck and what Ernie had told me.

  He snapped a finger and thumb in the air loud enough to stop all the conversation around us. A waiter came. “Could we have a phone over here?” he asked.

  Mere seconds passed before the waiter returned with a phone. He plugged it into a jack near the wall by our table. My father dialled, got an answer. “Herb, I need you to check this out for me pronto, if you can, good buddy. Mineral rights for Whalebone Island in my riding — any activity in the last six months. Can you get on it and get right back? I’m at the Bluenose.” He hung up. “You know this really worries me. In more ways than you can believe. First, it means that somebody’s screwing around my island without me knowing about it. That suggests they’re up to something no good. Otherwise, I’d be in on it.”

  My mother glared at him. “What are you talking about? This is not just your problem. It’s not a political thing. It’s our problem, our family and everyone else on the island. We’re talking about our home here, not your stupid politics.” It was the first time my mother had ever exploded that way. Casey looked frightened. I don’t think she had ever really heard Dorothy talk to our father this way. They were not fighters and these days they spent so little time together that they could not afford to fight.

  The waiter came to take the phone away, but my father waved him off.

  “I’m afraid that I’ve learned there’s a political dimension to everything that happens in this province. And right now, it’s this way,” Everett McQuade, the politician, said. “The party’s in deep shit.” My old man would never use the phrase ‘deep shit’ unless he really meant it.

  “How deep?” my mother asked angrily.

  “As deep as it can get.” He leaned across and whispered. “First off, there’s going to be an election later this year as you know. It’s already been announced.”

  I knew about it and was still praying it might be the end to my father’s career in the Halifax legislature. I wanted him to lose because I wanted him back home.

  “But the real problem is,” my father continued, “there’s going to be a scandal — an RCMP investigation into Colin’s business affairs. It’s very messy. Colin’s going to step down soon, before the election and, if possible, before the shit hits the fan.”

  “So what does this have to do with our i
sland?” my mother demanded, much too loudly for my father’s liking.

  “Just wait.” My father looked away from Dorothy and out the window. Then he looked behind him as if he was worried someone was listening. “When Colin steps down, he’s making me premier. In a matter of days I’ll be premier of Nova Scotia. And I’ve got to get the house in order and shipshape for election time so 7 can be reelected.”

  “Why do you have to do it?” I asked.

  “Because I’ve done a few good things for people since I got here, but now I’ll be able to do a whole lot more. The party needs me too. They say the TV camera loves me. They’ve done secret polls. I’m very popular. The free fish business — it never got stale.” My father was beaming. “And I’m going to turn the god damn province around.” I’d never seen him so puffed up. I was pissed off. Maybe I wasn’t thinking. How could we lose if he was premier? Certainly he’d be able to save the island. The phone rang. Everybody looked at our table. My father picked it up quickly. “Yeah. Herb?”

  I guess my father had learned a few tricks during his stint at the legislature because his face was poker straight. He heard the news, said a simple, “Yep,” and hung up.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Well, somebody took out the mineral rights and is going to do exploratory drilling for uranium in a big way.”

  “Mannheim/Atlanta?” I asked. “American, right?”

  “Well, you got the name right. They’re a mining outfit owned half by the West Germans, half by some American investors.”

  “You have to stop them.”

  “So far, what they’re doing is legal. Everything is in order. I couldn’t possibly interfere. It would look like a conflict of interest and jeopardize my role in the party.” My father’s eyes shifted uneasily now. He sipped at the cold coffee in front of him. I’d seen that look before. Where was it? Nixon, of course, on TV. My own father had become Richard Nixon.

  “They can’t buy the land from the government but they have already bought the mineral rights for a hundred years. They now have the legal right to go in and start an open pit mine. Hey, you want somebody to blame, don’t blame me. You know who helped them set up the deal?”

  “Who?” my mother asked.

  “Bud Tillish. Bud wants to get back in his old office so he’s starting to make promises. Jobs, new fish plants owned and operated by the Japanese — that son of a bitch is trying to make deals with my contacts. And mining jobs. Guess he did a little leg work of his own and found this turkey from Atlanta who’s got a contract to provide as much uranium as he can get his hands on for a new weapons-grade uranium enrichment plant in South Carolina. Son of a bitch.”

  “You have to stop him,” Dorothy said. “It’ll ruin the island, ruin our lives, ruin our family. Not just us but Hants, and Bernie and Ben and all of us.”

  My father looked up at her when she said Ben’s name. He was still jealous.

  “I don’t know if I can,” he said. But my father saw the scorn in my mother’s eyes, heard his own voice echo like a hollow noise inside her mind. He ran his fingers through his neatly trimmed hair, that rich red hair that was once so wild and unruly. “Look, I’ll try, but I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. A lot at stake here and a lot to worry about — the party, the election. I’ll see what I can do, though. I hate that bastard Tillish messing around down there. Just give me a few days.”

  The phone rang again. My father picked it up. “Oh, hi Herb. What is it?”

  This time my old man’s poker face didn’t work. He didn’t say a word but listened and hung up the phone.

  “What is it?” mother asked. She could see it was bad news and was reaching her hand out across the table to take her husband’s. It had been bad news, very bad. “What is it?” she asked again.

  My father let his hand slip into hers, he stared at the dregs in his coffee cup. “The shit just hit the fan,” he said. My mother pulled back her hand, her eyes turned to blue ice. My father accidentally knocked the chair over backwards as he went to stand up. “I’ve got to go now. Not a word to anybody about any of this, okay?” he said. He threw a twenty down on the table. “Enjoy the rest of your meal,” he said. “Order some dessert for the kids.” But his mind was clearly not on the family, not even on the island.

  My father was leaving the restaurant and walking down to the Legislature to take over as premier of the province as Colin bowed out in disgrace. My father would have to overcome the gossip, the slander and the scandal and bring his beloved party back from the grave in a few short months before summer was over. I was thinking about how he had bailed out his son from the Boston jail, how it had all been so easy. He had made a few calls. My old man was now a very powerful politician, and I didn’t give a damn. I was wondering just then who I hated more, my father for his new priorities or Bud Tillish for selling out Whalebone Island.

  On the drive home, I contemplated burning Bud Tillish’s house to the ground. That might get back at both of them at once. Bud would be without a roof over his head and my old man would have an arsonist for a son and have one hell of a time getting reelected. Casey was asleep in the back seat by the time we passed Chezzetcook. She was dreaming, twisting and turning as the images of God knows what ran through her head. My mother reached back and patted her in a soothing, motherly way as if Casey was still a little baby. Dorothy began to regain some of her calm. She closed her eyes as we drove through the dark countryside around Musquodoboit Harbour and composed herself. Then, without even opening her eyes, she said, “Stop over there,” and she pointed to the left. I pulled the car off the road by a pond and turned off the engine. “I want to show you something,” she said.

  With Casey still asleep in the back seat we got out and walked over to the water. She pointed deep into the night sky and traced something rectangular with her finger. “Orion will always guide you home,” she said. “See the stars in his belt.”

  “Yes,” I said. It had been a long time since she had pointed out anything to me in the night sky. We watched as a man-made satellite tracked across the girth of Orion the hunter. “Maybe we can’t stop it,” I said. “Everything is changing and maybe we will have to accept changes.”

  “Do you believe that?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to believe it,” I admitted.

  “What are we going to do?” I had never heard her use this question or this tone before. Her voice was weak and full of despair. “We’ve lost your father. We are going to lose what’s good about our island. Ian, my guides, even Diaz, don’t speak to me any more. I’m beginning to have dreams, dreams about my childhood, who I was, what happened to me. I think it’s starting to change me. Everything that was good about our lives will soon be gone.”

  I was thinking of Gwen and of finding her dead grandfather out on Shag Rock that night. I had sensed that my mother was going through changes, but she was not a talker. How could I fathom the real meaning of her life if she had never even known her origins to share with me?

  “I was on a ship,” she said. “I was in a dark room on a big ship. I could hear the engines running on and on and on and a man was hitting me in the face. I could taste blood. And it was very sweet and hot. And then someone lit a candle and I saw one face — not a man’s but a woman’s. And it was full of pain and fear.”

  I was afraid to speak.

  “And the face was the same face I see in the mirror when I get up in the morning. The pain and the terror is there. I have to compose myself. I have to find my other self, the one who is your mother, and bring her back into the mirror before I can face you children in the morning. It’s getting harder. There are new dreams every night, and I know they are not merely dreams.”

  “They’re memories, aren’t they?” I asked. We were both still looking up into the sky. A meteor shot through the vault of darkness and flared briefly into red before dying.

  “Yes, and I always wanted them. I wanted to know the truth. Now I’m going to know the truth and I don’t know if I
can live with it. The more I remember, the more I lose the skills I’ve developed with my mind.”

  There was not much I could say to her. As Orion looked down on me from his lofty perch, I held her to me and realized it was not my mother I was holding in my arms but a frightened little girl. As we looked up at the night sky, I began to tell her a story about a man with bright red hair who rowed at sunrise straight out into the sea and found a young woman adrift in a boat, bathed in beautiful golden light, and how he took her back to an island. I said that they had two kids and lived happily ever after. I promised her that I was not making any of it up.

  39

  I’m sure that I was not the first son in the human race who became disillusioned and disappointed in his own father. Nonetheless, it put the world on a terrible new tilt. Colin Michael Campbell was at the centre of a doozy of a scandal involving highway construction and dealings in the liquor commission. The party convinced my old man that he was the only one clean enough to hang onto power, so Everett McQuade suddenly found himself the official leader of the government of Nova Scotia. And I could not help but think of him as a traitor to the Republic of Nothing. The summer of 1969 was a summer of madness and revenge. My mother sat awake many nights, wanting to avoid sleep. She took to reading massive paperback novels of pirates and war loaned to her by Jack. She tried to meditate in an effort to relocate her old friend, Diaz, but Diaz had gone mute for her. I heard her sometimes in the early morning hours, alone by the wood stove with a small crackling fire, singing a song in a language I did not understand. It was beautiful and sad and when I went in to ask her where the words came from and what it meant, she told me that she didn’t know yet but that she was beginning to understand. It was an old sailor’s song and the language was Gaelic. She knew that much.

  Casey stayed close to home that summer and practised for sainthood. She did most of the housework during the day and she prepared the meals. What my mother needed was sleep, but she had forgotten how. I wondered how much she could take before she cracked. I drove into the liquor commission in Sheet Harbour and bought her a bottle of rum. At first she protested and said she would not drink. “Then I’ll drink it myself,” I said. Unlike so many of the guys my age, I had no real taste for the stuff. The world was crazy enough without going around drunk. I threw back a small glassful and it burned like acid on its way down.