The Archaeologists

by Hal Niedzviecki

  There is sparse applause.

  Now, the mediator says, casting his brightening smile over the crowd. Are there any questions?

  A pause. The audience has been momentarily lulled, pacified by statistics, dim lighting, and the professional even tenor of the imported host. On stage the councilman, the planning woman, and the moderator sit comfortably at a table staring out and over. June squirms, feels like a bug pierced for collection. It’s not real, she thinks. Nothing seems quite real anymore. The hole, the hole she dug with her bare, blistered hands, that’s where reality lies. Facts on the ground, June thinks. The truth, waiting to be found.

  BULLSHIT! someone shouts from the back of the room. The bubble of passive silence is burst. The crowd rumbles to life, some calling out, some muttering. Hands gesticulate in the air. June feels lost, bewildered. Who are these people and why do they—how do they—care? Words swirl as citizens yell their questions: property values, air quality, taxes, pollution, traffic, and what about our goddamn property values?

  What’s the value of their property? June stares at her fingers. She needs to go home. Her work is there. He’s there. Waiting. He’s waiting for her. She’s been at it all day, digging and loosening, gently pulling yellowed bones out of the ground. Parts of a man, slowly cleaved from the dirt. And the rest, still down below, waiting. Waiting for her.

  Five more minutes, June thinks. Then she’ll tell Norm she has to go. She’s feeling sick.

  One at a time, please! the moderator says. I know we’re all excited about having our opinions heard and recognized. But that can only happen if we all—

  The moderator points to a baby boomer in a white dress shirt and bright Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny vs. Martians tie.

  Yes, you there, sir, please go ahead.

  Looney Tunes has the Ben and Jerry’s vibe, big money off a granola image masking upscale predatory business sense.

  I can’t tell you how important this issue is to me and my wife and our three wonderful children. We live right next to the river and that’s part of the reason that I—that we—bought here. To lose the river would be a significant quality of life calamity. It would make me seriously consider relocating to a community that better reflects my family’s values.

  There are murmurs of agreement in the crowd. Planning lady quiets them with a long complicated answer about how a new riverside path and park will not only benefit the community, it will create more useable community space than had previously been available.

  But, Looney Tunes points out, there will be a road. We’ll be cut off. We’re losing the river!

  No one’s talking about losing the river, the councillor pronounces congenially.

  Oh get real, the man retorts.

  June glances at Norm. He has his hand up in the air. He’s looking straight ahead, eyes glittering with insistent conviction. God, June thinks. He’s one of them. What’s he got to say? Who are these people? These are her neighbours? Her community? She doesn’t recognize anyone. Why would she? Her legs burn, muscles urging a return to the squat and crouch of the narrow pit.

  Looney Tunes is replaced by an older guy in a tan blazer, face ruddy red. He says he’s a practical man; he’s losing too much money paying staff to just sit around twiddling their thumbs in traffic. This used to be a great place to do business, he says. But now he doesn’t know. We need the road, he tells the crowd. How do you think we keep your stores so full of—

  USELESS CRAP! comes an angry cry from the back.

  Norm doesn’t even twitch. Arm stiff in the air, pink slightly stubby fingers stretched skin tight.

  People, please, it’s great that you are so responsive and passionate about this issue. But, people, please, if we could try not to call out of turn so that we can all have a chance to be recognized. The moderator grins over a crescendo of chorus complaints. Please! The councillor looks on with benevolent concern. Watson makes a notation in her laptop. People! I know that you all want to contribute to the discussion! But we have to—

  A woman pushes her way through, marches to the front of the stage. Oh my god, June thinks. She has to resist covering her eyes with her hands and peering at the sight through her fingers. Beaded buckskin vest, dark feathers in her curly red hair, some kind of animal tooth necklace lying feral yellow against lily-white skin. June feels personally offended, like the real thing being confronted by its Halloween dress-up fake.

  I’m very disturbed! the woman repeats over and over again, her voice a methodical monotone cutting through the hubbub. I’m very disturbed. I’m very disturbed. She keeps saying it, over and over again, her words getting louder as the crowd’s buzzing slowly starts to focus on her repetitive mantra: I’m-very-disturbed. I’m-very-disturbed.

  Please, the moderator shouts, making quiet-down motions. Please!

  The crowd finally quiets.

  The woman fills the momentary lull, speaking loudly and earnestly: Hello, she all but bellows. My name is Susan. Susan Proudfeather. I grew up here in Wississauga. And I’m very disturbed by what I’m hearing tonight! I’m VERY disturbed. These are precious sacred lands! Before us settlers came, these riverbanks were home to the Wississaugan people! Their ancestors are buried here! To build a road over them would be a sin! There are ancient remains everywhere in these neighbourhoods! In your backyards! Is that what we want, remains to be dug up like a bunch of old garbage for the sake of some road? The Wississaugan people have a saying: That which you do always returns to you. Is that what we want? To one day have our own bones just dug up and dumped to make room for some road? I’m very disturbed! I’m very disturbed!

  June presses sore fingernails into the metal edges of the chair’s frame. She looks over at the reporter. He’s scribbling furiously.

  All this digging up the sacred dead is wrong! We should be turning the riverbank into an international memorial to the first peoples! Has there been any discussion with the Wississaugan people? This is a matter of federal law. We can’t just forget about whatever part of the past is no longer convenient for us. We have to teach our children to remember!

  The government? Jesus. Jesus Christ.

  Resisting the urge to bury her face in her hands, June sees that Norm hasn’t moved, eyes headlight ahead, arm ramrod ready to defend his home from bone diggers and road warriors alike. Not in my goddam swampy, ugly, cold, extremely expensive backyard.

  She can’t get any lower in her seat.

  The audience reserves its applause. They don’t know what to make of this woman who is clearly not one of them. What is she saying? Whose side is she on?

  June notices that she seems to have acolytes—several scruffy-looking college kids handing out some kind of flier. Amidst all this activity there’s a deepening silence, the crowd watching I’m-Very-Disturbed and her helpers move through the room.

  June’s sweating. She’s barely breathing. Her fingers methodically claw at the metal frame of her seat. Her rib cage presses in on her.

  The moderator glances at the planning lady who seems bewildered, confronted for the first time that evening with a question that hadn’t even been considered. The councillor smiles at everyone congenially, dismissively. The moderator half shrugs and quickly searches the audience for a normal counterpoint to the crazy red-haired lady. He points at Norm. Yes, you there, sir. Please, stand up, yes, you, go ahead, sir. Please.

  Norm lumbers to his feet. June stares into the dark gap between the chair and the floor, her burning legs disappearing.

  I live on Lower Grove Street, Norm begins, and I don’t know anything about ancient burial grounds or anything like that.

  Oh god—

  But I will say that the community is clearly distraught about this plan. Now, I’m a dentist who just set up his practice a year ago, and I moved specifically to Wississauga for its quality of life and its ability to provide lovely secluded neighbourhoods and all the comforts of a growing modern city. And I have to say that what the council is planning is really very misguided. It makes me feel like
we aren’t really being consulted at all. I only got the letter a few days ago, which hardly gives me the time to respond in a meaningful way. I’d like to ask that the City consider delaying the decision until we’ve all had more time to study the needs of the community and come up with a compromise that works for everyone.

  Norm sits down. The moderator looks at the councillor, an expectant grin on his face. Compromise is his favourite word.

  Councillor McLennan smiles too. Yes, thank you, he says smoothly, I think we all agree that no one wants to find themselves in a situation that seems to have been unnecessarily expedited. And I’m sure that we can arrange to—

  LIAR!

  Let me finish please, McLennan says, his voice still amiable but his cheeks showing a tinge of red.

  Moderator: Now people! Please do show Councillor McLennan the courtesy your community is known for. I’m sure that you wouldn’t want to—

  ASSHOLE!

  Let the councillor speak, someone else yells.

  Let me speak, another voice blurts.

  Shut up!—a reply directed at no one that everyone takes personally.

  I’d really like to respond to the gentleman’s question, McLennan says loudly. For the first time he seems genuinely annoyed.

  Don’t you tell me to shut up, one man yells at another above the general murmur. In the middle of the auditorium, a fight breaks out, a shoving match, really. The throng gapes and necks are craned for a better look.

  McLennan says something to the others on the stage. Planning lady closes her laptop. The moderator speaks quickly over the crowd’s angry buzz. His smile sweats. We think it’s best if—given the circumstances—thank you for coming everyone please do take the time to fill out the questionnaires we’ve made available on the way out. And please drive home safely! On behalf of the Wississauga Wallet Valley Department of Regional Development I want to thank you each and everyone of you for your—

  McLennan exits stage left followed by a tight-lipped Watson. Main lights are switched on. The Faith in Our Future banner dims. June shoots up, scans for a view of the reporter, but he’s disappeared into the throng. Norm is talking loudly to her about the meeting. It’s crazy. They aren’t listening to a single thing we’re saying.

  Norm, I’m—I’m not—feeling—

  June, are you okay?

  She’s gone white.

  I’m—very—disturbed.

  The air is thick with the scent of bodies and lies.

  Norm. Get me…out of here.

  The garage door slides open. Norm drives in, puts the car in park. He looks over at his wife.

  June? He gently pats her knee. June? We’re here.

  She stares out the side window. She doesn’t want to get out of the car.

  Are you okay, June?

  I’m—I—she puts her hand on her belly. It’s a…woman thing.

  Oh. Okay.

  I’ll just, maybe…go and…get some fresh air.

  June? He takes her arm. A woman’s—like you mean your getting your—?

  Norm—

  Because I just thought, I was hoping you—I thought you might be—

  She pulls away, jumps out of the car and slams the door shut. June marches through the house into the backyard.

  SUSAN

  Thursday, April 17

  WASN’T THAT AMAZING? Jared is saying. Wasn’t that just…so freakin’ cool? The four others in the room—also college kids from Jared’s local branch plant university—all nod and agree and talk among each other about how cool and awesome and freakin’ it was. Susan considers Jared, sitting erect in her father’s favourite armchair. He has not-quite shoulder length straight black hair. He’s wearing scuffed leather boots and a jean jacket. His eyes are hazel, bright with the thrill of having been out in the world, having actually done something. He reminds her of young Susan, fifteen years ago.

  She was a believer then, an acolyte even. Protests, lectures, info sessions, unconferences. By sophomore year she had joined every club on campus remotely related to social justice: Agents of Change, Equity and Accessibility, Feminist Action, Global Alliance, Students for Divestment, Students for Peace, Students for Justice, Students for a Free Tibet. She made coffee, put up posters, sent out the monthly newsletter. She met people who, like her, seemed to actually and genuinely care. It was the first time since she started sprouting breasts that Susan had felt like she could take off her armour of cynicism. There were people like her in the world. And that meant that maybe, just maybe, she could allow herself to consider the possibility that things could get better.

  It wasn’t long before she found herself in the inner circle, eagerly accepting invitations to join the planning committee for post-event Chinatown dinners feting guest speakers on water privatization, on the plight of the Palestinians, on sex workers’ rights, on Indigenous struggle. After dinner it was over to lattés at Café Baldwin, the President of Free Nepal in a heated back-and-forth with the Treasurer of Students for a Sustainable Campus, free-ranging debate covering everything from clowns at protests to the possibility of real revolution in their era. And as things wound down, the inevitable pulled-aside hushed invite to come back to some senior leader’s room or apartment for a tête-à-tête, green tea in chipped mugs, cheap rye whiskey spilled into smudged tumblers. After the act, Susan would smooth over the awkwardness by asking the endless list of questions constantly formulating in her mind, queries that would be answered grandiloquently and at length. No one was ever too naked or too tired to elucidate some finer point of strategy or philosophy—Trotsky, Bakunin, Goldman, the Shining Path, the FLG, all new to her. It was fascinating and thrilling to be introduced to so much so fast so intimately.

  Abruptly, Susan gets up from her cross-legged spot on her dad’s Oriental rug and moves into the kitchen. She grabs a beer from the refrigerator, then pauses in the cold light of the fridge, opener in hand. She won’t sleep with Jared. She doesn’t regret how it was, then, but she sees it differently now. Sees the way she was taken advantage of, the way she took what advantage she could. He has a crush on her, of course. And he is cute, a gangly puppy dog, sipping one of the Coronas Susan found in her dad’s basement and waiting for her to tell him what to do next.

  What to do next? Follow the leader. What path could she take them down? She had surprised herself at the town hall meeting. The way she’d spoken, the way she’d moved and gesticulated. She wasn’t usually one for the spotlight. She had always laboured behind the scenes, an organizer, a worker bee. What surprised her was how free she’d felt marching down the aisle of the community centre, shrugging off her self-consciousness, voice rising as she approached centre stage. She thrilled to the feeling of forcing them to face her, or not so much her, but the revelation of her existence: a party with no stake in the tug-of-war, present only to remind them that they were not who they claimed they were. Who were they? Who was she? Robbers, liars, thieves. She felt their eyes on her, felt their confusion, recognized their fear. Awesome! Jared had said. Really awesome!

  She shakes her head and pries the cap off her beer. It lands on the tiled floor with a clink. What’s next? She isn’t sure. But she knows she needs to get them ready. Ready for what’s coming. Because in all the late-night sessions she’s had with various would-be world-changers, budding union leaders and burgeoning citizen-philosophers, there was one thing they never told her. Susan tips her head back and lets the cold liquid sluice through her. When you dredge up their deepest fears, they don’t just slink away. After fear, Susan’s discovered, comes rage.

  Back in her dad’s living room, she calls the group to order.

  I don’t want to replicate hierarchies, she says to the five kids sprawled over the furniture and floor. I’m not your teacher and I’m not your boss and I’m definitely not your mother. It’s important to remember that this isn’t about me, or any one of us. We’re not here to go on an ego trip. We have to do things together, as a group, as a collective.

  The others murmur their a
ssent, then wait for her to tell them what to do next. They’re just kids, Susan thinks, trying not to feel like the predatory leader of some nascent cult. Let’s go around the room, she says. I want to hear from everyone, what you think we should do next. Lila, Susan says, addressing a pale girl with long brown hair and an unformed face, let’s start with you.

  They go around the room. The ideas are typical, forgettable: a Facebook group; an online petition; an education table at the university student centre. Maybe, Jared says tentatively, his cheeks adding colour as Susan turns to him, some kind of…rally?

  A rally, Susan says. Yes. I like that. Or…not a rally, exactly. More of an…encampment.

  By the river? one of the kids suggests.

  Susan shakes her head. There’s no one down there. A rally has to be public. It has to be seen.

  Maybe, says an alt-type with a nose ring and greasy green hair, in front of city hall?

  Maybe…Susan says slowly. She knows that’s not quite right either. They need somewhere emblematic, somewhere that creates a focal point, a pressure point. Somewhere that embarrasses and reminds them. It has to start out theirs, she says out loud. But then we make it ours.

  They all nod, though they have no idea what’s she taking about.

  Well, Susan says, clapping her hands loudly as though they are kindergartners being signalled to move on to their next activity, something will come up. She knows it will. She can feel it. Isn’t that why she’s here?

  Uh…Susan blinks and there is Jared, looking at her with his big concerned eyes. Maybe, he’s saying, like, in the meantime, we could set up a website, register a domain, give it a cool name? We could put a bunch of posts around, try to recruit some more people?

  Yes, that’s a good idea. That’s what we’ll do. Susan claps again and starts organizing them, assigning them tasks, relishing in the way they immediately move to pull out their array of laptops, iPhones, and tablets. Only Lila seems indecisive. Susan fixes her with a stare. It’s late, the girl half complains. She has a class in the morning.