Once We Had a Country

by Robert Mcgill

  “I promise,” Gordon murmurs. “I promise, Xang, I won’t let go.”

  It’s getting darker. Xang whimpers a little, falls into sleep. Eventually the puddle at Gordon’s feet overflows its edges, and a trickle of pinkish water starts making its way toward the river.

  Monday morning, Maggie awakens at sunrise and goes straight to the kitchen for coffee. It’s the second day of October, and there are only twelve hours until Fletcher arrives. At nine she’s tempted to call the doctor’s office, but already she has made herself a nuisance there, and they’ve said they’ll contact her when they know. What else to do? In the orchard she finds George Ray mending the wire fence that keeps out deer, and she asks him if he has any jobs for her. He shakes his head but suggests they eat lunch together when it’s time. This is a surprise. They almost never have lunch together, and all week they’ve maintained their distance from each other. Perhaps he’s trying to distract her from the waiting, or maybe he’s realized it will be their last chance to share a meal on their own.

  After she hears the mailman’s truck turn in the drive, she walks out to the box. There’s a letter there, the address written in a hand she doesn’t recognize, the stamp from Laos. Opening the envelope, she finds two sheets folded inside, coffee-stained and rumpled as though stuffed in a pocket for some time before they were mailed. The handwriting on them is cramped so as to get everything in.

  Dear Maggie,

  Yesterday I finally reached the mission. Traveling takes longer here now that Air America is pulling out. The mission’s a charming little place, with tents and fish ponds and a big fucking crater in the yard. The people aren’t much into talking, at least not to me or my loyal interpreter (sweet guy, one-armed, probably Pathet Lao), but I can be persuasive when I want to be.

  That morning in the grocery store when you told me about not hearing from your dad, I got worried, so I called a friend in Laos, and it turned out I was right to be. Sorry for cutting out like I did, but I figured the sooner I got over here, the better.

  See, there’s this guy I know named Sal. I mentioned him in that film of yours. Used to be in Special Forces with me—now he’s a drug runner. When the army caught up with me in Thailand, they accused me of being in his gang. They were wrong, but as luck would have it I’d just seen him in Laos.

  You might remember me saying I met your dad at Long Chieng in May. What I didn’t tell you is that I was there because of Sal. He and his buddies were running a good racket in Laos, stealing opium from farmers and selling to the CIA. After I went AWOL I bumped into him. He and I were on a bender in Long Chieng when we met your dad and his buddy Yia Pao.

  I have to admit, right from the start I had a bad feeling. Your dad said where they were headed and Sal got this look in his eye. But we were pretty drunk and I figured nothing would come of it. Forgot about the whole thing until that morning in Virgil at the grocery store when you said your dad hadn’t been in touch. Then I got a hell of a jolt. I should have known. Sal doesn’t believe in coincidences, and he doesn’t let chances go to waste. He probably spent the whole summer wondering how he could make use of those two guys.

  When I called my friend in Laos, he didn’t know anything about your dad or Yia Pao, but he knew Sal had a deal going down with a bagman at some refugee camp. Plan was for the CIA plane to drop off the money, then for Sal to pick it up the next day. The CIA doesn’t like dealing directly with the banditos, because it looks bad to the natives. Apparently when Sal turned up, though, the bagman said the money hadn’t come in. So Sal checks with the CIA, and of course they said the bagman’s story was bullshit. They didn’t ask Sal what he’d done about the bagman. That isn’t how things work over here.

  I’m pretty sure your old man wasn’t wrapped up in it. The priest at the mission figures it was just Yia Pao. But he says that after Sal and his boys turned up, they took your dad along with Yia Pao and his baby.

  Sal’s not stupid enough to go killing Americans. I bet he’s thinking he can cover his losses by getting a ransom for your father.

  Anyhow, I’m sorry for breaking the news like this. There’s no phone here. Also, I don’t want you jumping on a plane or getting the State Department involved to fuck things up. I can handle it, Maggie, I swear. By the time you get this, everything will be sorted out. Hell, maybe your dad is there beside you. He can tell you how good old Wale saved his ass. I’ll find him, I promise.

  Thought I was doing the right thing by going to the farm. Thought I could be a proper father and put this part of the world behind me. You can’t just move on, though, can you? You drag your shit with you like a parachute till it snags and you have to start sawing at the cords. I have my knife out now, Maggie. I’m hacking with all I’ve got.

  Sorry for going on like this. There’s been too much time to think this week. Hardly anyone here speaks English, and the opium’s cheap. You spend a lot of the day in your own skull.

  I keep dreaming about you, and it’s always the same dream. On the phone you said you didn’t want to hear about it, but it’s not dirty like you were probably thinking. In the dream we’re out in the garden behind the farmhouse again, only it’s full of fruit and vines. Then Brid comes looking for us like she really did that day, but this time we run into the orchard and hide from her. It’s a nice dream. The last few nights I’ve fallen asleep hoping I’ll have it again.

  A couple more hours at the mission and then I’m going upriver. I know I told you not to come, but I wish you were here. Yeah, that’s right, I want you in this hellhole with me. I’d trade your comfort and well-being for a bit of company. Wouldn’t even hesitate. I told you I’m a bastard. Have you figured that out yet? You understand now the kinds of people there are in the world? Real nice folks who’ll break your arm before they say hello. Assholes who can’t even look in the mirror.

  Wale

  After that there’s a postscript, but it’s been scribbled out, hard enough to poke through the paper.

  She checks the envelope again. The postmark is too blurred to discern the date. It must have taken the letter at least a couple of weeks to get here, yet in all that time there was no news about her father from anyone. If what Wale says is true, surely someone must have found out something by now. She has to call Gran and let her know what Wale has written.

  Once more she reads the thing. He was probably high when he wrote it. Maybe he’s not even in Laos anymore but in Bangkok or Hong Kong—or Buffalo, for all she knows, sitting in a bar and having a good laugh.

  As her outrage grows, she realizes she’s angry not just with Wale but with her father. Didn’t she tell him it wasn’t safe? All along she said that, yet he talked like the only protection he needed was her, like if she didn’t go with him, any worrying she did would be her fault. Now look where it has gotten him.

  As she walks back up the driveway and steps onto the porch, the phone starts to ring. It’s Wale, she thinks. It’s the doctor’s office. It’s her father calling to say he’s all right. Rushing through the house, she snatches the receiver just at the dying of the bell and finds it isn’t any of them. It’s Fletcher. Maggie looks at the clock and frowns.

  “Where are you?” she asks.

  “Still in Boston.”

  “What happened? You should be through Albany by now—”

  “Something’s come up. We’re having problems with the Brookline voters list.”

  If he’s joking, she doesn’t see the humour in it. “I thought you were done with the campaign.”

  “I want to be, but I was assigned this thing a while back. I feel like I should get it finished.” He speaks as if everything he says is reasonable and has to be accepted.

  “Fletcher, that’s crazy. Let someone else do it. I need you up here.” Then she hears a woman’s voice at the other end of the line. “Who’s that talking?”

  “Nobody. Just someone at the campaign office.”

  “Fletcher, what’s going on? You’re waiting to hear about the baby, aren’t you?”
r />   “No, of course not.” But he goes silent.

  “Fletcher, my dad’s been kidnapped. You hear me? Some drug dealer has taken my father.” Saying it aloud sends her into a panic, and she tries to control her breathing as she waits for his reaction. He doesn’t speak, though. There’s just the woman talking again in the background, then Fletcher replying to her, their voices muffled as if he has covered the receiver with his hand. Still, Maggie can hear his tone, supportive and slightly exasperated at once. She recognizes it well enough. All month on the phone he’s used the same one with her. “Sorry,” he says, his voice returning to full clarity. “Things at the campaign office are a bit hectic. I’ll call you back after lunch, okay?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” she cries.

  “Look, I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I love you, baby,” he says. A moment later there’s the click of him hanging up.

  The receiver in her hand feels insubstantial. It doesn’t matter, she tells herself. He was just distracted and didn’t hear her. She doesn’t need him anyhow. Maybe she doesn’t even love him. No, that isn’t right. It’s some kind of trespass to think like that. Love might inflate and shrivel, it may be impatient or unkind, but it keeps on going, doesn’t it?

  When she calls Gran, the line’s busy. In a few minutes she’ll call again. To distract herself, she turns on the television and flops across the couch. Onscreen, a man in a suit is saying there are only five weeks until the election.

  She doesn’t want to hear about the election. She’s sick of waiting, sick of politics, sick of television telling her that everything important is elsewhere, that her only role is to stay tuned and find out what happens next. From the kitchen, she fetches a pair of scissors.

  By the time she returns to the living room, it’s as if the deed is already done, and she’s glad. In her mind the future’s no longer a maze of unexplored passages but a safe, well-lit corridor leading through the years to come: her father’s return, her baby a toddler, then growing into a little girl. But it could be a son. Why does she assume it will be a girl?

  Crouching behind the silver orb of the TV set, Maggie unplugs it and with one snip of the blades cuts the power cord in two. Immediately she feels the world dwindling. Not for her the Cold War, the hijackings, and the price of oil. Already her life is growing smooth as a stone in a river. Time flows around her. Nothing sticks.

  As she stands again, she brushes against the set and her elbow catches the clay statue of Saint Clare perched on top. Before she can do anything, the figure goes tumbling from its place. It lands face up and stares at her accusingly with its black eyes.

  “What are you looking at?” Maggie says. She snatches it up and throws it against the wall. Falling to the floor, it cracks in two, the legs neatly separating from the torso.

  For a moment it feels like a triumph. Then she thinks the statue could be the last thing her father ever gave her. No, she can’t think like that. She can’t start feeling sorry for herself or him. Probably he sent the statue less as a gift than a provocation, another way to make her feel guilty.

  Crossing the room, she bends to retrieve the pieces. When she touches the top half, she feels its cool surface on her skin, then the rough white line of the fracture.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she says. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

  As she picks it up, an object dislodges from inside. It drops through the air, takes a soft bounce on the floor, and comes to rest by the statue’s feet. At first Maggie registers only sheets of paper, greenish-grey, then the rubber band that holds them together. Finally they resolve into a thick wad of bills. She takes them in hand and thumbs through them. They all seem to be hundreds.

  The telephone’s ringing from the kitchen. Maggie looks from the cracked torso in one hand to the roll of money in the other. Setting the statue down again, she turns, still holding the bills, and hurries out of the room to answer.

  part 3

  PATRON SAINT OF TELEVISION

  8

  Her last night at Gran’s, the night before the funeral, she’s already eager to be back on the farm. The house next door calls to her dolefully, but so far she has managed to avoid it, instead only looking through the boxes carried over by the auction people and choosing a few things to take with her. She doesn’t need physical reminders of him. She isn’t like Gran, who has framed photos of him everywhere now. All week Gran has kept referring to his martyrdom, talking about it like something to celebrate, not bothering to ask Maggie a single question about her life. It makes what Gran says over dessert all the more surprising.

  “That Fletcher Morgan left you, didn’t he?”

  Apple crumble lodges in Maggie’s throat. Gran doesn’t wait for her reply.

  “It doesn’t matter. You stick it out up there. Show him what a woman can do.”

  Maggie can’t believe what she’s hearing. Out of the blue, like a blast of grace, she has finally been granted the grandmother she always wanted. In her astonishment, she blurts out her plans to purchase the farm and work the place herself. Gran shocks her again by approving.

  It doesn’t last. The next morning Gran is tetchy and caustic, back to her usual self, unable to stop talking about the miracle of her son’s death.

  At the cemetery, fallen leaves rustle around the headstones while an American flag twists and snaps against the sky. Maggie stands with Gran and a few dozen others near the open grave, keeping her chin tucked low so the brim of her hat obscures her face. While the elderly priest speaks and Gran dabs away tears with a handkerchief, Maggie sneaks glances at those around her. Finally she spots Fletcher near the back in his trench coat. His hair has been cropped, and he’s reaching up to tug at a moustache no longer there.

  The priest makes the sign of the cross. Soon most of the mourners disperse, but a few stay behind to converse in hushed voices. Maggie doesn’t speak much, just accepts the words of others. She’s remembering how her father used to call her Opie and announce his return from work by whistling the theme song from The Andy Griffith Show. She remembers the two of them pretending to be Topo Gigio and Ed Sullivan, Maggie saying to him in a high-pitched voice, “Eddie, keesa me good night!”

  Fletcher waits until everyone but she and Gran has gone before he draws near. He gives Maggie a tentative hug.

  “You didn’t have to come,” she tells him. “I said that on the phone, right?”

  Gran glares at him, then says she’ll see Maggie at Aunt Harriet’s and starts away. Once she’s gone, they begin to walk together across the grass.

  “It was a nice funeral,” says Fletcher.

  “It should have been weeks ago,” she replies. “There was a lot of red tape getting him back.” She grimaces at her own words. Her father isn’t back. He’ll never be back. “The Church has been making a big deal about him, you know. Reporters keep turning up at Gran’s doorstep.”

  Fletcher says he heard about it on the news. He says it must be hard for Gran.

  “Oh, she’s loving every minute,” Maggie replies. “She and the bishop are thick as thieves. Today she bent over backwards to avoid introducing me to him. She doesn’t want the hippie daughter spoiling things.”

  Fletcher gives her a startled look, and she realizes she doesn’t sound like herself. She doesn’t care. He can’t expect her to be the same as always.

  “Gran blames me for his death,” she says. “She thinks he wouldn’t have been so reckless if I’d written him like he wanted.”

  “She said that?” asks Fletcher. “Don’t listen to her. She’s projecting, probably.”

  They leave the grass and start along a path of crushed stones. After a few steps, he turns and asks if she’s still going back to Canada tonight. “Long drive on your own. Maybe wait until tomorrow?”

  She shakes her head. “If I have to stay at her place one more night, I’ll go insane.”

  “You’ve been through a lot,” he says, and she wonders what he’s thinking of exactly. Then he asks, “Did you tell her ab
out the pregnancy?”

  Maggie cringes and pulls up short. “Phantom pregnancy, you mean.” She doesn’t want to talk about it. “No, I didn’t tell her. Why would I? There was nothing to tell.” A part of her still worries that he thinks she tried to trick him. She didn’t read the symptoms right, that’s all. The doctor said anyone could have made the mistake. She still hasn’t fully forgiven Lenka for mishearing what the secretary told her.

  Fletcher reaches to put his hand on her shoulder, but she shies at his touch. “You’re a strange one,” she says. “Two months in Boston refusing to come back, only visiting that once after I found out he was dead”—Fletcher starts to object, but she cuts him off—“and then, without me asking, you drive all the way here for this.”

  He keeps his eyes on the ground and doesn’t reply.

  “You know, I prayed for McGovern to lose,” she finds herself saying. “Back in October, when I still thought we might work things out. I worried that if the Democrats got in, you’d take a job in Washington. I figured if Nixon was re-elected, you’d move back to the farm.”

  Fletcher stops in the middle of the path, looking dazed. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  She doesn’t know. It was the first thing that came to mind, and the part of her that censors speech seems broken. She watches a man and woman in blue rain slickers pass by hand in hand, while a little boy wearing a baseball cap skips ahead.

  “George Ray’s going home in ten days,” she says. This morning she promised herself she wouldn’t mention him. “The second extension on his contract is up. He’d have come down for this, but migrant workers aren’t allowed to cross the border.”

  “You’re going to miss him,” says Fletcher. There’s an insinuation in his words that she chooses to ignore.

  “He’s been a big help on the farm. Most days he’s the only person I see. Sometimes there’s Father Josef and Lenka. I go to their place for dinner.” Fletcher seems surprised. “Don’t look at me like that. You think I want to hang out with priests?” Then she adds, “It’s hard having a social life when everyone’s run out on you.”