by June Hutton
Two-Gun Cohen, Esq.
His words fought for my full attention. The things I could buy with that money! I could pay off much of the loan. Pay for supplies. Most importantly, pay Vincent. That would improve things between us.
While I considered, his focus had drifted toward the window.
This whole place, he said, looks like a battlefield.
You enlisted?
Indeed. I was a sergeant in the Canadian Railway Troops.
My brothers were with the expeditionary forces. All four of them.
That made me think of Will, and I shifted my focus.
But, earlier you claimed—insisted—that this place was no different than Manhattan or London. Why a battlefield, now?
I hadn’t yet seen the other side, he explained.
Where we were shooting, I said, nodding. But this side as well, the place where you surprised me by popping out of that hole. The trees nothing but black limbs. Odd, isn’t it, an orchard on either side of the mountain?
Then he said the most extraordinary thing.
It looks to me that those are coal leavings, dug out of the mine and dumped into the orchard. That’s the black mountain, he explained. It covers everything in the middle and spoils much of what remained, creating two orchards at the same time that it killed them both.
I should have guessed that. It all made sense. More of a hill than a mountain, and filthy, but I assumed the town exaggerated its size to inflate its own sense of self, and that the filthy surface was nothing more than the coal dust that covered everything else, here.
We finished our drinks.
I was glad, now, that I had asked him to accompany me to the opera. He knew about mines, true. But he had also seen action, as had my dear brothers, and his money was pleasantly heavy in my bag.
*
The bank was about to close when I arrived, but my bag of money convinced them to stay open a few minutes longer. I kept a few bills for myself, as well as some for Vincent’s wages. On my way back to the shop, both load and spirits lightened by the deposit, my eyes were drawn once more to the glowing opera tents, and I stopped in.
You are just in time for an impromptu rehearsal, Ben said. Have a seat.
And he shoved over to give me room on the clothes trunk.
The tent flaps had been pinned back to form a stage. We were seated just outside the tent, next to a fire that crackled. Again, a memory of smoke and heat and flame, though in this setting even the strike of a match would have ignited the sulfuric vision of that day in my schoolhouse back home. The players before me, half-nude as they struggled in and of costume, rounded out the recollection, and that drink, still warm in my guts, became a perfect lubricant for musing: working late, attempting to finish some ponderous marking, surprised at the heavy heat. A snapping sound that at first I did not connect to flames, until I smelled smoke. I bolted out the back door to see that the schoolhouse steps had been set on fire and there, just beyond the flames, a group of men and women in a state of rapture, arms upraised, voices rising, naked. Freedomites. Large and lumpy, rail thin and sinewy, their flesh licked orange.
I don’t know why they chose my schoolhouse. It wasn’t on Doukhobor land, and usually they targeted their own: retribution for those who had drifted from tradition. Perhaps it was because I taught a couple of students whose families had left the community. Or maybe my schoolhouse was conveniently in their path. Briefly, I was spellbound, and then I raced back inside.
This was one protest that never made the newspaper, because no one else knew of it. The bucket of water intended to scrub the desks easily extinguished the flames. Next, at least half of the tin of paint meant for whitewashing the walls went onto the steps, wet as they were. I worked furiously, determined to cover up their actions. For John, for what he had once meant to me, for what my father would have said. This was the very thing people in town complained about: Those Dukes! Yet I had never witnessed anything so strangely beautiful, a passion that transcended our sense of decorum and decency. They had a purpose, a conviction, and they didn’t care what we thought. They wanted us to stop forcing our style of education upon their children, whose futures required knowledge of farming methods, not literature. And there I’d been, daydreaming about hot summers and time off at last from a tiresome year of teaching, a year that had lacked all sense of passion.
I handed in my notice the next day.
The players before me were clothed, now. I had lost track of what was going on.
What do you think? Ben asked, turning on the trunk to look at me.
Caught off-guard, I improvised.
Such passion, I said. Beautiful.
With great satisfaction he slapped me on the knee with one of my own newssheets.
*
The shop was silent the next morning when I came downstairs, the press, still. I passed the sink quickly, not bothering with the calendar. I was well aware it was the 26th and that we had three days to complete work on the first edition before we printed up all the pages. Vincent should be here.
I called out his name and indeed found him, straightening his collar in the metal mirror. I must have hurried right past him on my way to the press.
Why are you dressed up? I asked. Aren’t we going to run the inside pages?
We. I meant him.
No time, now, Vincent said. He’s here.
I swivelled around. Who? Morris?
No, he said. There was an edge to his voice, but he explained, Our leader. Everyone’s going to see him, to hear his speech.
The awkwardness of the last few days vanished as I contemplated this great event.
Take me with you!
He shook his head. He’s here to ask for support. Last month he had to escape to Shanghai, again. From the warlords.
I grabbed his arm. I remembered him speaking of warlords.
I should go, too, I said, don’t you see? I’ve read his book. Now I want to hear him with my own ears.
His gaze locked onto my hand on his arm, and I pulled it back.
I’ll only print what you agree to have printed. I’ll check with you this time.
Uncle would never have consented to that, but I was determined to see this famous man under whatever conditions Vincent required. It meant him taking me to Lousetown, but no one there would object to seeing us together.
I waited for him to answer. I knew that Two-Gun would eventually introduce me to the leader. I had his money now. So this would not change our deal. All I wanted today was a glimpse, an opportunity to hear the man, to further familiarize myself with his beliefs and with his followers. If I listened now, I could ask informed questions, later. I could dig deeper.
I said some of this in a rush, and then I added, I saw someone, a dark figure in a long coat.
Again, I hoped this would improve my chances of going.
Where? he asked.
One of the alleys just off Zero. A couple of times, actually.
I expected him to refuse me, but as I’d hoped, my luck had risen with this information.
You can’t go like that.
If he had let me slip from his grasp before, he was reaching out again, and I, left dangling all this time, was scrambling up once more, grabbing hold with all my might as I rushed to the back of the room near the sink to step out of my coveralls. This time it was not a disaster that was bringing us together but a political event, an extraordinary one, and I was ready for it.
With a quick snap I straightened the coveralls and hung them on a hook. The cotton summer dress I had worn underneath was plain—and yes, blue flowers over a background of blue polka dots, which gave it a grayish look, but with a white collar, which I would point out to Morris if he were here—still, it was a good enough dress for a meeting. I stepped out, ready to leave.
Vincent said, I have another idea.
I reached up and touched where he looked, at the s
ilver pin I used to hold my wild hair in place, my one feminine indulgence in the work shop. I could have pulled it out, but then my brown frizz would have come tumbling down and I’d look even more the part of what, I realized now, must have concerned him most: a woman, and a white one.
*
We hurried along the narrow streets between the shacks. This was a different route from any I’d taken before. The paths even narrower. More twisted. Dark as night, reek of urine, damp and cold in the deepest shadow of the crowded buildings. He slid a bolt and a door opened.
There were many reasons why a woman shouldn’t be here. A man’s room, an employee at that, and, as much as this woman might tell herself it didn’t matter, a Chinese. And yet, this was Lousetown. Even the taxi drivers wouldn’t come here. There would be no one from town to point a finger or ask, no one to stop me from stepping inside.
The space was so tiny I was ashamed of all my complaints about the bachelor room above the press, the tub sitting in the middle of the room, the missing sink. Here, there was just a narrow bed, a wooden pole suspended above the head of the bed, hung with shirts, trousers, jackets. A tiny window, cut in half by a curtained wall, let in a blade of grey light. On the other side of the curtain was an identical space, he said, on the other side of it, another, and then another. For now, unoccupied. The residents must be on their way to the meeting.
He pulled items from the pole, handed them to me, then stepped behind the curtain.
I pulled my dress over my head, rolled it into a ball and left it on the bed. The trousers were too tight in the hips, too large in the waist. But the jacket was long and hid the ill fit, while its looseness over the baggy shirt helped to flatten my chest. In his old clothes, I was wrapped in the odour that was him. Soap. Tobacco. A faint trace of solvent. And—? His skin. I breathed in deeply, then looked down at my footwear, a simple pair of heels that matched the dress. I had slipped into them before we left, a moment of vanity.
Shoes? I whispered.
He emerged, smiling slowly at my appearance. A pair of beaten boots from under his bed matched my look. They were too large, and he gave me an extra pair of thick socks.
Now your hair, he said, and put an old black hat over it.
We continued to talk in whispers, should anyone return.
It was my pop’s, he said. For special occasions, Chinese ones.
And he grinned.
In the mirror, a bowler hat with a false queue dangling from the back, and my own hair that glowed beneath the brim.
Let’s shave it.
His fingers grazed my to show me.
I shook my head.
Not much, he promised. Not like mine. A roll at the back, he said, like the French.
His fingers traced through the air a route along my jaw line to the nape of my neck.
I liked that. I pictured a French roll, the sides low enough to hide the shaved temples. And I felt his fingertips along my jaw, then pulling my hair into a knot, even though he was rummaging in a drawer, then sharpening a long razor on a strop nailed to the corner of the bureau. I watched, intent on the details that must be part of his daily routine, as though I were there with him first thing in the morning. A mug with cake of soap still damp from his shave, the same brush he must have used, whipping the soap to a foam.
He told me, Outside, keep your face down. This might help.
He pressed his thumbs against my cheeks, rubbed them with the coal dust that collects on every surface in this town, readily available for my unusual make-up.
I sat on the edge of the bed and then he came around and sat behind me, unpinning my hair, running his comb through the strands, leaving the scent of his hair tonic. He held the mug with one hand, brush in the other, and dabbed along my temples.
Hold still, he said.
I didn’t know why he agreed to do this. I didn’t care why. The long razor scratched and strands fell into my lap. He breathed evenly, his hands steady. I closed my eyes and wished I could stay here, never mind the famous man and his big speech. Right here, this was the story.
*
We darted through cramped alleys and skirted along fences until we reached a clearing already filled with men, all Chinese. Head bent, I followed Vincent to the very back where I could watch and not be seen.
An old motorcycle pulled into the clearing, towing a wagon in which a man stood, waving to the crowd. I elbowed Vincent. This wasn’t so different from the new motorcycles and sidecars on the other side of town, only this driver wore no helmet or goggles and was Chinese. So was the man in the wagon. An ahhhh rippled across the crowd as the vehicle came to a stop and the elegant man in black suit and hat stepped down, his polished shoes gleaming in the dust.
From under the worn brim of the old man’s hat I scanned the crowd, the stage, looking for Two-Gun. Where was this friend of the Chinese, now? But all I saw was the famous man—spare, trimmed moustache, languid, lidded eyes, modern haircut—making his way to a quickly erected stage of boards and crates. Two aides took an elbow each and helped him up the steps.
In his suit and hat and shiny shoes he looked like an Englishman. He was as pale as one. His first line of greeting was in English and I smiled as though he had aimed it at me, My thanks to all of you for coming out today.
Then he began speaking in Chinese.
Vincent’s gaze shot around the gathering.
What’s wrong? I asked, careful to lower my voice.
Not their dialect. I don’t know, maybe they get it.
I whispered, Tell me.
He leaned in close. You remember this one, he said. The British treat nations as the silkworm farmer treats his worms; as long as they produce silk, he cares for them; when they stop, he sets them on fire, he feeds them to the fish.
It caught my breath to hear them said aloud, the very words I had read in that book.
At the sound of Vincent’s English, though, a man in front of us turned around and stared.
Vincent said something in Chinese, and the man turned back, again. I hadn’t heard him speak anything but English or French since that first time I glimpsed him in the fog with another man, digging through the cargo pile. It was unsettling, as though standing beside me was someone I had never met before. But he returned to English.
I had a notebook up one sleeve, pencil cupped inside the other. I brought my sleeves together and wrote without looking. My blind scrawl covered the whole page. I thumbed the sheet over for the next quotes.
A railroad, Vincent whispered, his words buzzing about my ears. That’s what we need to make China modern, like North America. And an army to fight the warlords.
I already knew this from what Vincent had told me before, and from what I had read, but the men around us began grumbling.
Trains are old, one said in English. Air travel is modern.
Loud Mouth Sun! someone shouted.
No Gun Sun! another cried out. Where is this army?
All shouted in English. Sun was dressed like an Englishman, and their English was full of insults. No wonder the man in front had stared at us.
Another voice called out, Where are your weapons, eh?
In answer, someone threw a stick. It sailed in the air and landed flat on the ground, short of the stage. It was followed by a hail of chopsticks, and laughter. So. They had come here prepared to heckle the leader.
Vincent shouldered his way forward. I grabbed his arm with a grubby hand, hissing, Vincent!
It’s okay, he said. I can translate.
My grip tightened as my thoughts skittered. I had meant me. Alone, in this crowd When just a few minutes ago we sat together in his room…
Look, he said, and pried my fingers loose to free himself. I have to. Sorry.
My anger was so keen it tasted like metal shavings on my tongue, and then I realized I had bitten my lip until it bled.
In the sudden silence that fell with hi
s appearance on stage, his queue swinging out as he turned to speak to the modern man, the crowd did not notice this small man in hat and false queue who slid along the wall, feeling for an escape. Others rushed forward, seeming to see only that the small man’s departure made room for more.
Up on the stage, Vincent lifted his arms. He spoke a line after each line spoken by Sun, translating, his voice growing louder, more confident with each line, again like someone I had never met before, while the famous man smiled, nodding at his new friend. I stood with my back against the wall, no exit in sight, watching my printer’s transformation.
That’s when I heard the roar of motors, several of them. First there were no motorcycles in Lousetown and now they were coming straight at us. At once the gathering broke apart and men began running. I ran with them. Too late. The thin walls of wood and tin broke apart and fell, and the motorbikes burst into the clearing, fumes turning the grey air bluish, the bikes wheeling erratically, chasing us, their tires spraying an arc of dirt and rocks into our faces, deputies leaning from the sidecars, armed with clubs, swinging. Us, dodging and darting, in and out between the bikes and the deputies and each other. Them, black and shiny in the grey-blue light.
Vincent—I needed his help. But he was gone. So was his leader. A door at the back of the stage hung open. They had escaped, leaving me to fend for myself.
The smell of fuel was in my mouth and nose, along with damp wool and dirty skin, that same odour from back home of dead ducks about to be plucked, as I was shoved, arms jabbing my ribs, heels against my shins, a red burning sting as an elbow hit my nose, a shoulder clipped my ear.
My hat. I gripped the brim with both hands, the queue over my cheek, and twisted it until it hung down the back, again. My own fingertips raked my temples to pull up my hair.
But a deputy saw and cried out, White man! Over there!
Silver had taken the leader’s place on the stage and for the moment the bark of a metal megaphone snagged the deputy’s attention. I plunged back into the crowd.
Silver boomed into the speaking horn, This is an illegal assembly! Residents of Lousetown are forbidden from gathering in public places. This is a warning! All who disregard this law will be punished.