Only slightly smaller, it was the mate which had been feeding with the harpooned “fish” earlier in the morning. The sight thrilled me no end as the line was rapidly running out again, with the two sulphurs, side by side, headed for the wide expanses of the Pacific.
It really looked for the moment as if the female had created an impelling desire in its harpooned mate to break away.
THE VICTORIA BRITISH COLONIST
“What did he say?” asks Fan.
“I told you,” I answer.
“What did he say, Robert Lam? I want to know.”
I am taking the Rose through Quatsino Narrows. It is like being at the bottom of a long, narrow well. The sides are sheer, and the rushing waters, the product of the tide waters of Holberg Inlet and Rupert Inlet, run black and fast. There is no sound other than the gush of ocean through this bottleneck and the Rose’s engine, of course. I am gazing straight ahead, concentrating.
“Come on, Robert Lam,” she implores me, putting her hand on my arm.
“Careful, Fan,” I say. “If you jerk the wheel we could be in trouble. I’m taking a chance as it is going through here on the tide. It’s a fast stream, maybe as much as seven knots.”
She takes her hand away and says nothing, but her face keeps asking the question.
“I couldn’t wait to get out of there, Fan, to tell you the truth,” I say to her. “Not even another hour. If you’d seen what I’d seen….” I make a face to illustrate my disgust. “The smell of it! Boiling blubber and digesting bones!” The memory—or more than a memory, for if I sniff, I can still catch the odour of cooking whale in the air—almost makes me retch.
“And the doctor?” she persists.
“If you must know,” I answer as we leave the narrows and prepare to negotiate the islands in Quatsino Sound, “he said there was nothing wrong with me.”
“Oh!” she says. “Then what does he think happened to you back there? It was very dangerous, and you were seriously ill, whatever it was.”
“I agree. I don’t know what he thought, Fan. He didn’t want to speculate. He did his tests and said it wasn’t a stroke and asked me if I was under any strain.
“I told him no, not more than I was used to in my work, and that I was on holiday. He shrugged and gave me some pills, which neither of us expected would do any good.”
I fish for these now in my pocket, tear open the small envelope in which they are sealed, and hurl them out the open window of the pilothouse. “He was dead drunk, Fan, as a matter of fact. I don’t think he liked being what he was, a company doctor in a whaling town. I gathered he had seen a better life. He spent last night sitting on the dock. He didn’t move for hours, and when I walked down from the hotel where I’d gone for dinner to ask him if he was all right, he pointed west with his thumb. ‘Japan,’ he said. ‘It’s our nearest neighbour, and look what we’ve done to it. They deserved to lose the war, all right, but not like that. Who wants to bring children into a world that’s capable of infinite murder?’ ”
“I suppose he meant the atom bomb,” Fan says.
“I suppose,” I agree.
We have met up with a tender called the Western Express. She has a whale, which has been pumped full of air, in tow, and has been waiting for us to clear the narrows. She is on her way to the processing plant at Coal Harbour.
We wave at each other as we pass. It seems to take hours to run clear of the carcass, a finback, I think, from its length and smooth black top. Its belly, which I catch a glimpse of as the whale rolls with our wake, is pleated and white.
Fan and I are silent for a considerable length of time. Although I am not feeling any better, I am not feeling any worse. From time to time my hands and arms tingle with pin pricks, but I feel in no great danger of blacking out. Perhaps the doctor was right, perhaps strain is at fault. I admit there is some wear in travelling with a ghost.
We pass Hecate Cove, then the low wooded shores of Drake Island. At East Point Fan comes out of her reverie to say, “There was an Indian village here once. Can’t you feel it?”
“No,” I say, “I don’t feel anything.” But I peer around, as she wishes me to. There is forest dark as a cave and a few moss-encrusted totems. Shafts of sunlight filter through and light up the softened angles of the wooden emblems: ravens, thunderbirds, bears, eagles. It is hard to make them out at this distance.
I know, from having visited similar sites on other parts of the island, that the hollowed-out backs of some of these poles will be filled with bones.
“What’s so special about a graveyard, Fan?” I ask. And shiver as, at my words, a gust of wind makes the Rose heel over. I push the throttle forward a notch to speed us by.
But not before I remember what I’ve been trying to forget: the whale I had seen on the slipway at Coal Harbour, the men wearing spiked boots and carrying knives shaped like hockey sticks swarming all over her. They were flensers, cutting the fat from the body and peeling it off.
It was a cow, I was assured by the doctor, who had taken me there to look. This particular whale, a humpback, had grown a leg on one side instead of a fin.
“You see them like that sometimes,” the doctor had said. “They are more like us than we care to think.”
I didn’t want to think. I wanted to head on down the coast and resume my story. I wanted to live. And let live.
“Too bad about that doctor,” Fan says.
“Yes,” I say, “but it’s none of our business.”
“I meant that he couldn’t help you.”
“I know what you meant, Fan,” I say closing the subject.
“I meant,” she tells me anyway, “that we don’t seem to do too well on land.”
—
Land. Mother Earth. Terra firma. Mother.
My mother in shock on learning Robert Haack’s true position in the city. That is, as traitor, informer, carrier of tales for the Association, and now blacklisted by them. An announcement to that effect had been published in the British Colonist as well as posted throughout the town. No one could have missed it. It was enough to cast doubt on all relationships. It was enough to crucify love.
My mother, going about her business, but with head down, thinking. How could he have done it? How had he taken her in? And weighing it up: on this side treachery, on the other all the help he had given, what he had said, how he had been.
Could they have helped him, she wondered. Had they ignored the symptoms? Had it been her fault?
Back and forth the questions went, repeating themselves, until she was sick of them. If only she could talk to him, find out the truth; for she was in no doubt that there was more to it than she knew.
But where was Haack to be found? He was not in the Metropolitan, for Mrs. Lush, when she’d learned he could not pay his rent (the Association’s subscription having suddenly been cut off), had thrown him out. He was not in the bars, for Sing Yuen, on India’s behalf, had looked through all of them, although it was unlikely, she’d had to admit, that Haack would show his face in public: for who would drink with him, let alone speak to him? Not the workingmen nor any of their friends, not the Chinese who now knew he’d been a workingman, nor any but a few gentle souls who wondered why a man couldn’t do what he liked, especially here, in the New World, but who had families to think of, businesses to run. In short, who wouldn’t have cut him dead, but who would certainly avoid him.
Where was Robert Haack? And why would he hide from his friends who wanted to help him? Who only wanted him to explain? Friends like India and Sing Yuen, kind men like Lum Kee, skeptical but good-hearted acquaintances like my stepmother, Lam Fan, who were prepared to be reasonable but who had hurt feelings?
—
A man who thinks that he is alone is alone. It does not matter who his friends are if he cannot believe in them. He is shunned by his former companions, hunted in earnest by those he owes money to. The world turns within its shroud of cloud. The sun, the moon, and stars have lost their meaning. The futility of hi
s life takes hold of him, and even his dog grows worried and licks at his face to enliven him.
Robert Haack, who had made a nest for himself in the rubble of the Johnson Street ravine, huddled around a slipstream of smoke, ignorant of the manner in which he was discussed, of those who longed to see him, feeling only his failure, regretting what he had done, having no way to make amends. Suffering.
He did not move except to gather fuel or make tea or scrounge a few scraps from the rear of restaurant kitchens for his dog. He grew thin. Chilblains blistered his hands and feet; rain, snow, sleet, and hail fell on his hat brim and rolled down his face. He sneezed. He coughed. His boots reposed in mud. In short, just as he had foreseen, he had crossed the line of chance into the packing-case-house life. Although he did not even have a packing case with which to house himself, for it was too much effort to look.
Poor Robert Haack. Who had come to the end of his rope; and who wound it around his neck himself. Who could not stop himself from thinking about what he should have done. Who did not know that even the worst of woundings is temporary, that the world forgets us long before we acquit ourselves; that nothing lasts, not even disgrace: it is only injured pride.
But hurt pride is self-increasing. It infects the core of being. We worry at it like a dog with a flea, until in self-absorption we consume ourselves, and what is left is only what we cannot stomach: it is the cannibalism of self-pity.
(“Ho, ho, ho!” says Fan as we clear Kains Island and turn south to pass Restless Bight and so leave the southern boundary of Quatsino Sound. “What is this? Has something touched a nerve? Does Robert Lam feel sorry for himself?”
“Shut up, Fan,” I say to her rudely.)
Robert Louis Haack, down on his luck, although one day he would be my mother’s husband and give his name to me, with no one to help him; with Yong Sam wanting his money back; with only the dog for company. Who did what his mother warned him not to, which was to talk to a stranger when he should have resisted. For the man who bought him breakfast was Jimmy Carroll. Smiling Jimmy Carroll, as he was called, a well-known smuggler.
“I think we should talk about dogs,” says my stepmother unexpectedly. I have set my sights on Cape Cook, the cape of storms on the tip of the Brooks Peninsula, whose mountains rise like a black wall before us. I am watching the sky for the cap on the cape, a thickening cloud belt that could herald treacherous weather. For when the cap is present, strong winds are on their way from the west-northwest. And there is no place to shelter.
“For Pete’s sake, Fan,” I say, “get on with it. Robert Haack is at a turning point, and you want to talk about dogs.”
“It is not any dog,” she says. “It is a particular dog.”
“What dog, Fan?” I ask patiently, but with a sigh.
“The dog Charlie,” she answers. “Robert Haack’s dog. The one who has stayed with him all along. The loyal dog who does his best to keep Robert Haack from trouble.”
“Oh, that dog, Fan,” I say sarcastically. “Dog in the manger, in the blanket, hair of the dog, dog’s body, dog’s collar. That dog!”
“You never had a dog, did you, Robert Lam?” she asks accusingly.
“You wouldn’t let me have one when I was a boy! You wouldn’t have one on the farm! You said it would chase the cows! And how could I have taken a dog to sea?” I don’t know why I’m so defensive about it; it seems that she has rattled me.
“Some are good dogs,” she says noncommittally, “and others are bad dogs. It all depends.”
“Go to the dogs, Fan, let the dog have his day, love me, love my dog!”
We look at each other, both of us on the verge of anger. But suddenly it all seems ridiculous and we turn away from each other to compose ourselves. We are passing the oddly manicured field called Lawn Point.
“Robert Haack had a dog,” Fan says persistently, trying to sum up without starting another argument. “He was called Charlie. He was a good dog sometimes, and sometimes bad, like Robert Haack himself.”
And so Robert Haack, accompanied by his dog, Charlie, sat down to a meal of pancakes and pork hash and eggs with Smiling Jimmy Carroll. Who had worked on the Pacific boats as long as anyone could remember and who had captained the Idaho, which had been seized with a cargo of opium some five years previously. Forty-four thousand dollars’ worth of the drug, on its way from Victoria to Portland, Oregon, detoured via the captain’s cannery on Prince of Wales Island, labelled as furs; and Jimmy would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for a disgruntled seaman named Hansen who had lost his job and who betrayed him. All this was common knowledge, as was the episode in which Jimmy had been found, but not charged with, for nothing could be proven, shipping opium by rail to Chicago where, as compared to the ten dollars it fetched per pound in Victoria, it could be sold for twenty-five dollars. Five hundred pounds of opium in two packages.
All this Haack thought over as he chewed his food, drank his coffee, and warmed his feet on Charlie’s back—Charlie who lay recovering his strength beneath the restaurant table.
“It used to be,” said Jimmy warmly, leaning back in his chair and lighting a cigar, “that a man could make his way in this world by his wits.” He shook his head sadly. “Not so any more, my friend. They want you to follow the rules. They want you to conform.” Jimmy gazed at the lighted end of his cigar as if seeking explanation. Not finding it, he raised his eyes to Robert Haack’s face. But Haack was examining the pile of pancakes still to be tackled.
“Yes,” Jimmy went on reflectively, “once upon a time a man who was willing to take a chance could make money in this country.”
He paused for Haack’s response, and Haack, sensing that to be quiet, although his mouth was full of food, would not be diplomatic, said as thoughtfully as he could manage in the circumstances, “I know what you mean.”
“Take the Cariboo, or California before that,” said Jimmy, stabbing out compass points with a hand on which a diamond ring glittered. “Why, if a man didn’t find gold there, what did it matter? He could still make a living with his muscles, digging in a mine or packing supplies. He could get into business for himself.
“And did it take money to set up shop?” he asked ruminatively. “Why, no! A man’s word was his bond. You could trust a man back then.”
“Sure you could,” Robert agreed as Jimmy caught his eye. He was holding out his coffee cup for a refill. Charlie, supine on the floorboards, lifted his head to sniff at Jimmy’s trousers.
“What’s put an end to it,” Jimmy Carroll said, hooking his thumbs into braces that tracked the contours of his stomach, “is the law. It interferes with a man’s rights. What’s it matter how a man gets his money so long as he gets it, doesn’t harm anybody, and looks after himself?
“All the law has done,” Jimmy concluded, not without bitterness, “is to hang some damn fine men.”
At this Robert wiped his mouth reflectively with his napkin. “I believe you have had some experience of the wrong side of the law yourself, Mr. Carroll,” he said.
“Why, yes, sir,” said Smiling Jimmy unabashedly. “It’s nothing I’m ashamed of, except that it’s made me grow old. You miss out on life, locked up in jail. It’s not good for a man’s health, or his soul. I’d die before I’d allow myself to be locked up again, Mr. Haack. But you’d be knowing what that’s like yourself, or so I’ve been told.” He winked.
Robert, about to resume his breakfast, paused and held up his knife for emphasis. “Whoever told you that’s a two-faced liar,” he said strongly. “I’m not saying I’ve never been in trouble,” he continued for the sake of honesty, “but I was no more than a boy back then and I had nothing to do with the wrongdoing. Even the judge said so.”
“Is that a fact, Mr. Haack?” said Jimmy Carroll, as though he could, if he would, say more.
“That’s so,” said Robert firmly, closing the topic.
Both men examined the tablecloth in front of them.
“Well,” said Jimmy, “I’d be
tter get to the point. You’re a good man, Robert—if I may call you that. I respect a man who stands up for himself. You’re a hard worker, I’m told, and smart, but I know you’ve had bad luck. Let’s call it an accident. From the sound of things it wasn’t your fault, but that’s your business, and I won’t go into it. In any case it seems to me you could do with some work, am I right?”
Despite his resolve (so far kept) to keep his distance, Robert looked up with dawning hope.
“A job?”
“Now, don’t get excited,” said Jimmy, holding up his hand, “it’s not so much a worker as information I want, and I can’t pay much.”
Haack’s smile faded. “Yes?” he said guardedly, for we know what happened during his last career as informant.
“They say you have a friend, a lady named India Thackery,” began Jimmy. Robert flushed, and Charlie growled.
“Don’t say another word, Mr. Carroll, whatever it’s about. I won’t have the name of a lady spoken in public.”
“Now, now, don’t get me wrong,” said Jimmy calmingly as Robert stood. “Please sit down a minute and hear me out.” Robert sat.
“It’s nothing to do with your friend,” he said softly. “It’s just that she works at the Tai June factory. I suppose she’s talked about it with you.”
“What if she has,” said Robert. “I wouldn’t betray a confidence.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” said Jimmy. “I wouldn’t ask you to. I’d only want you to use your eyes. Like I said, it’s information I need, and you’re the man on the spot. Next time you’re down there to pick her up, just make a few notes about what comes in by way of shipments, and what goes out. There’s no harm in that, is there?”
Robert considered. “Maybe not,” he said after some thought. “But I’m afraid you’re too late. I don’t see the lady any more, and I wouldn’t want to be found hanging around that factory by anyone who’d tell her I’d been there.”
Jimmy looked disappointed. “You don’t say,” he said sadly. He touched Haack consolingly on the arm. “Don’t worry about that blacklist, young man. It won’t last long. People forget.” Haack looked down bleakly.
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