Mr. Jones

by Margaret Sweatman

  The alumina deal in Jamaica would have a real effect on the American military power, Emmett figured that much was true. He continued to muse over Bill’s little coda, a stopover in Cuba on the way home. Batista still managed to reign over his peasants by means of the mafia, Standard Oil, and American arms, but he’d barely avoided a revolution. It was a strange place to send a man so recently under suspicion of being a communist, and he decided that he was being played. “I’d like to meet Hemingway,” he said, watching Bill’s face.

  Bill, at his desk, his great rosewood lily pad, looked gratified, as if he’d swallowed a fly. “Attaboy,” he said. “Cigars,” he added, “cigars and rum.”

  Emmett helped lever a deal for Can-BauX Alumina to buy a thousand acres of mountainous land, the ferns and palm and the leaves of giant Miranda trees at two thousand feet above sea level, inland from the Caribbean Sea near Royal Flat, Parish of Manchester, Jamaica. With the Can-BauX men, he walked the low mountains, red dust on his shoes and on the pant legs of his new white suit. Beyond the green glade rose green hills, and beyond the hills rose cool ridges of green mountain. A creek glistened behind shacks built on stilts. In the rainy season, the creek would flood with run-off from the mountains.

  One day, with his help, the red dust that bound root with rock would be extracted from the stripped soil, loaded onto trucks on red roads running down to the sea, where it would be loaded onto ships and taken away to make American weapons to kill farmers and villagers, Emmett thought, with the inevitable defeat of the French, in Vietnam.

  He worked on the “win-win deal” of commodity export out of Jamaica. (By virtue of Canadian know-how, impeccable Canadian integrity, and clean Canadian money, thousands of Jamaicans will find employment — and be saved from communism — Can-BauX told the Royal Bank, who told the Canadian government, who told Mr. Jones to make it good.)

  He finished the deal and flew to Cuba, where he did a little gambling, demonstrating to embassy staff that he was a regular guy, though he declined the teenaged prostitute delivered to his hotel room by an unknown benefactor. At the embassy, he asked polite questions about the stability of the Batista regime, aware that anyone he was speaking to could be reporting on him to Gembey in Ottawa. He drank with the urbane diplomats and was noncommittal when they told him candidly that the regime was too corrupt not to fail. He was careful when he went out on his own, mostly avoiding situations where he might be perceived as seeking information beyond the interests of a tourist. The sensation of being observed was very strong.

  Now that Gembey had betrayed him and sent his file to the US, Mr. Jones didn’t really belong to a country. He believed that as a civil servant he was employed by a company of merchants trading salt cod for sugar; he was at the service of the “Canadian honest brokers” making millions selling alumina to US arms manufacturers. Once, recklessly, he asked a Cuban cab driver, “What does that sign mean?” It was graffiti. Emmett knew what it said — it said, Viva El 26 Julio. What he was really asking was, what does that mean to you?

  The cab driver shrivelled under his cotton shirt and mumbled, “No sé.”

  The 26th of July Movement was Fidel Castro’s movement, a revolt spreading from a prison cell on the Isle of Pines to the streets of Havana. Emmett got out of the cab and walked like a stick man toward his hotel, where he put on his pyjamas, brushed his teeth, and climbed between the cool sheets. When the prostitute knocked on his door a couple of hours later, he gave her some money and sent her away.

  On his return to Ottawa, External Affairs and Trade and Commerce reported contentment with Jones’s work in the commerce end of things. Bill Masters seemed truly happy with the cigars and poured them both a rum and Coke, Bill flushed, delighted and talkative. Emmett told Bill that if he met Hemingway next time, he’d try to go out fishing with him, implying that he’d be glad to be sent back. He commended himself for concealing his anger so well. He used the secobarbital to sleep. There was no place in the land of the golden mean where he could express his humiliation and his unease.

  Chapter Seven

  Suzanne’s prints, on white cotton rag paper, were “beautiful,” the newspaper said. She had a successful show that made her starved for more time in her darkroom. She hired a nanny for Lenore a few days a week, went down to her basement darkroom and stayed there pretty well all day, coming up to make dinner and going back down again after putting Lennie to bed. She told Emmett that she hadn’t felt so much like herself since before Lennie was born. She was desperate for that moment when the forms of light rose to the surface in the developing solution.

  The people on the streets of ByWard Market were strangers, yet she believed she loved them. She laughed when she told Emmett about her new obsession with photographing strangers, and he saw that she was happy. He knew about this obsessive quality in Suzanne’s character; it was how he’d first known her, in her compulsive fascination with John Norfield. Here is something, photography, Emmett thought, that will finally replace John. He believed she needed something to be obsessive about, to get her out of her own head, to focus her energies. A house, a child, a husband, this was not enough for her. He ordered expensive Hahnemühle paper as a gift, had it mailed by special order, beautiful cotton rag paper.

  She rapidly built up a series of portraits of strangers at the market, people in the streets. The prints were good. She slid them into a portfolio, took them to the little gallery downtown, and arranged the show. Emmett liked that she was driven, that she was exceeding herself. She tried to demonstrate that she was a devoted wife and mother; he believed that this role wasn’t enough to keep her. And he wanted to keep her.

  On a freezing winter Sunday, she went out alone to meet the gallery owner to talk about a catalogue. The gallery was closed, and when the meeting was over at the end of an hour, Suzanne stayed behind for a while, telling Hughie, the gallery owner, that she wanted to “think.” Hughie gave Suzanne an “Oh the mystic artist” look and showed her how to close the door so it would lock behind her.

  At four o’clock, the place wore a pleasant evening gloom. Suzanne’s silver halide portraits glowed and pulsed in their swank frames. She hadn’t had a chance to be alone with them since the opening nearly a week ago, when she’d worn her black sheath and a string of pearls. She’d had plenty of white wine on that occasion, had gone home and made lustful love with Emmett, wakening miraculously without a hangover and with her head full of nothing. This nothingness had, over three days, filled her to overflowing.

  The series wasn’t a documentary, wasn’t telling a story. The show was not, as some people said it was, the work of a dilettante playing at social justice. They were photographs, they didn’t do anything. She named her subjects as they wished to be named: “Jack McLeod,” “William from Lake Mistassini,” “Dolorous King.” She didn’t think about the people themselves very much; how could she possibly pretend to know them? Sunlight struck their complicated faces, revealed them in their aloneness.

  She’d returned to the market several times, carrying her prints, but she’d found only a few of her subjects. One man, a very poor man, when she delivered his photograph into his hand, had politely handed it back. Only three people from the market came to see the show — not the opening, but later, Hughie had told her.

  The show received a pleasant review in the newspaper and the prints were already selling. But there wasn’t much to say about beautiful photographs of street people taken by a pretty blond woman. The photos were superbly chromatic and classical. Her show’s signature portrait was of a reflection in a hat shop window: Suzanne’s blond face partially obscured by the camera, and beside her, the watery reflection of a ruined old woman, her head wrapped in a babushka against the cold.

  Suzanne was lonely over the exhibit, partly because of what was hidden: an argument with Emmett at the opening. Emmett had begun the evening with blandishments that became excessive while he drank until he suddenly turned on her and said he hated her self-portrait with the old woman.

/>   “You hate it?” she asked, stung. “Actual hate?”

  “Am I supposed to like all your work? I’m not allowed to have an opinion?”

  “What don’t you like about it?”

  His lips curled as if he felt revolted. She wondered if he couldn’t stand to see her present herself. He’d been gung-ho about her getting back to photography, but he probably hadn’t thought it through and now here was his backlash. He said, “It’s egotistical.”

  “Shut up,” she said quickly and snatched another glass of white wine from the passing waitress. It was one of her favourite prints. She liked the way the glass window distorted her face so she merged with the face of the old woman. “It’s the opposite of egotistical.”

  He looked coldly around the room. “Your slum photo period.”

  She thought, he’s got the same tight resentment against art as the women at the tennis club, he’s just a narrow-minded bureaucrat. In a low voice she said, “You know nothing about what I do, and you know shit-all about slums.”

  He looked victorious, her venom seemed to please him. He reared back, she realized how drunk he was, and she was aware of his physical power. “It’s funny,” she hissed at him, “it’s very funny how the Mounties never asked you about your brotherhood with the poor, if they thought you were such a big-time communist.”

  “How do you know they didn’t?”

  “Because they didn’t. You don’t give a shit about poverty.”

  He put his icy hand on her throat and tugged at her string of pearls as if he’d break it. Suzanne wasn’t quite angry enough to miss the signs, however: that he yearned for her, that he was being mean because he was scared that she might leave him for her “art.” She said, “I love you.”

  She needed to be alone; on a snowy Sunday afternoon in Ottawa, the gallery owner blushingly bid adieu and backed out into a white day, showing her how to lock the door behind her and leaving her to “think.” Suzanne heard a catfight in the alley out back, she wondered if Lenore loved Emmett more than her, she stared at the mink pelt she’d worn, discarded over a white Plexiglas table, while her “work” shone in solstice dusk. The mink is actually quite red, thought Suzanne. She decided to give the money she was making from the prints to a local charity. She ran her hand over her smooth legs in their silk stockings. Then she wondered if Hughie had any booze in the place.

  Somebody rapped loudly on the gallery window, and came and rattled at the door, finally pushing it open and stamping his feet at the entry.

  She cried out, “They’re closed!”

  “Then I am double-lucky,” said Dr. Kimura.

  “Kim! What are you doing here?”

  “There’s nothing to do in Protestant Canada on a Sunday!”

  Suzanne went to take his wet wool coat, feeling suddenly savage. Dr. Kimura would expect her to play hostess at her own show. She was sick of performing for men. She hadn’t quite metabolized the fight with Emmett at the show’s opening, her resentment still snarled in her gut.

  Kimura put his hands behind his back, the gallery patron’s pose, literally disarming. He always looked amused so she wasn’t uneasy over that. Anyway, she didn’t give a damn. He’d interrupted. Let him take his fill and get out. If he left within the quarter-hour she still had maybe forty-five minutes before she really had to check on Lenore and Emmett, damn them all.

  Kimura took his time, closely visiting each photograph. When he’d done the rounds, he startled Suzanne by coming to stand close to her knees in their silk stockings where she sat with her mink. He’d lost his bemusement or any expression at all, which made him appear angry in the way she most dreaded: masculine, as if masculinity made his anger perfect. “Why did you take these photographs?” he demanded.

  “I was just asking that of myself, Kim, when you arrived. I don’t want to be rude, but I need time to myself right now. I hope you understand?” Her hands were shaking when she reached for his coat and held it open behind him.

  Kimura let her help him into his coat. “Are you only now asking yourself this important question?”

  “Sure. Nothing complicated ever crosses my pretty little head. Now.” She made as if to walk him to the door. “I’ll see you out.”

  He wouldn’t move. “Do you not feel responsible for the harm this brings to your husband?”

  “To my husband?”

  “Do you playact the communist now? The police watch everything! Don’t kid yourself. Once the authorities are suspicious, they never let go. You know that it’s serious. You’re ashamed, you feel sorry for yourself. Then you display this — this socialism!” He waved at the street people. “Even housewives are watched. The police will come to Emmett’s door again. Only this time, it will because of his wayward wife!”

  “They’re photographs, Kim.”

  “They’re poor!” He stamped his foot. “They’re lonely and ill! You don’t know how it is for them! How dare you pretend it is only aesthetic! I am Japanese! I know where aesthetics can lead! You cannot pretend that beauty is so nice, a flower!”

  Suzanne laughed, but she was also crying. It was always like that; male anger always made her cry, even if her conscious mind despised men’s histrionics.

  Kimura didn’t soften or try to comfort her. His voice grew quieter but more guttural, more — Japanese. “A woman who cares about her husband’s reputation does not draw attention to herself.”

  She had too many things to say to this and so was silenced, choking on her indignation. Kimura was only baldly stating what everyone said behind her back. She was being pretentious, selfish. She should make Emmett’s life smooth, she should be beautiful and demure, she should serve on the Women’s Committee raising money for the symphony orchestra.

  Kimura said, “The suspicion surrounding your husband will linger for the rest of his life.” He shook his head. “You know his history. You, too, have a history.”

  And Suzanne thought, He knows about John Norfield. What had Emmett told him? It hadn’t occurred to her that the two men shared secrets, as women might do. She said, “There are many parts of Emmett’s life that I don’t know, I don’t share. Even after we met. His time in Japan.”

  He nodded. “He made mistakes.”

  “Maybe there’s no such thing as a mistake.”

  “That’s disgusting. Only a spoiled rich girl could say such a thing.”

  “We might have to do certain things, to prove ourselves.” Falling in love with John had not been a mistake. It had broken her. She was glad.

  “Ah,” said Kimura, “it’s too difficult to behave wisely, so why not pretend that a life of error is inevitable. It’s stupid. It’s cynical.”

  Kimura went on. “Emmett must be discreet. His wife must be discreet!” Kimura did up the buttons of his coat, grumbling, “Now things have gone beyond his control. Is that innocence?”

  Suzanne had to ask him what he meant.

  “The FBI will run with this new information.”

  “But the FBI are finished with us,” she said. “The minister wrote a letter — ” Then she asked, “What information?”

  Kimura was muttering, “The child complicates matters.”

  “What child?”

  “Why don’t you understand? You must be like water! Invisible!” he cried.

  She grabbed his lapel. “What child? Are you talking about Lenore?”

  He tried to pull from her grasp. “You have to speak with your husband.”

  She gripped his coat and wouldn’t let go. “I said,” through gritted teeth, “what child?”

  “It’s unsuitable for us to speak of this.”

  “Of course we will speak of this!”

  Kimura forcefully put Suzanne aside and headed for the door. “Don’t you dare — ” She dragged on his coat sleeve. Kimura shook her off, but she came at him again and he struck her arms away. Suzanne saw that he was horrified but guessed that it was at the lack of decorum. His coldness brought her up short. She had wanted to be certain that he wasn’t t
alking about Lenore. Now she wasn’t so sure. He was right. She had to talk to Emmett. “I’m” — she would not say sorry — “I’m staying here.” She opened the door and let him out, Kimura passing her warily, as if she were the horror.

  Chapter Eight

  1957

  Four years — a long time — after Dr. Kimura had spilled the beans, Suzanne and Emmett could speak about Aoi’s child almost naturally, wearing helpful, positive faces with tight smiles.

  Suzanne wasn’t very shocked by Emmett having had a child “out of wedlock.” What she couldn’t reconcile was the two months that had passed between Kimura’s bringing Emmett the news and Suzanne’s quite accidental discovery.

  “Would you have told me?” She wanted to know — then and forever, she’d wonder, “Would you ever have told me?”

  “I didn’t tell Kimura not to tell you,” he said, pretending that that’s what she’d asked.

  The little boy would be six years old now. Lennie would soon turn five.

  Suzanne believed that Emmett was pleased that he’d fathered a son. She didn’t like to be jealous, she wanted to be fair and aboveboard, and went through the rigmarole of telling Lennie that she had “a big brother in Japan.” Lennie wanted to meet him, she wanted to go to Japan and bring him home.

  Suzanne heard herself saying, “But he has a home.” Lennie gave her that grey-eyed look and asked how she, Suzanne, could be happy when her little boy wasn’t with her. Suzanne would say, “He isn’t my little boy; he’s Daddy’s.” And so on. “Do you love James?” (For that’s what Aoi had called her and Emmett’s son, James.) “Do you love James like you love me?”

  Emmett had begun to send money to help support James as soon as he learned of his existence. Aoi wasn’t married; maybe no one would have her now, though Emmett, remembering her unusual beauty, thought this unlikely. Suzanne encouraged him to bump it up and offered to supplement it from her own money — Emmett declined. In a show of impartiality too earnest to be true, she invited a financial adviser to their home, a Nisei recommended by Dr. Kimura for having a good understanding of Japanese banking. “My husband’s child,” she said, “my husband’s son, James, will require money for his education.”