He puts on the headphones, turns a handle, twists dials and finally speaks into the mouthpiece. “Got him,” he says. “Exercise stand down.” There’s a blast of sound from the other end. “That’s what I bloody well said!” More squawks, then, “Over and out.”
He tucks the parts back in the box, adjusts the straps and glares at me. “Well, I’ve covered for you this time.” He stalks off.
“But Ron, I don’t understand! I was just out for a walk….”
“Walk my eye!” He’s stopped, lost his way in the reeds. I come up beside him.
“Really! I wanted some exercise, I…”
“Save it for someone who doesn’t know you,” he says. “You’re just lucky it was me, out here. Haven’t you any idea what’s going on? There’s a war, Sandy. We’re on high alert. There are soldiers with field glasses manning those guns you see up there”—he points to the canvas-covered battery on the castle’s roof—“we’re watching for saboteurs…and you decide to go for a stroll in the bushes!”
“I wasn’t in the bushes.”
“All the way to the wall.” He eyes me up and down. “I may not be the brightest penny in the lot, Sandy, and I know you’ve had some bad breaks, but God help you if you make a run for it now.”
“I wasn’t!”
“You could get shot, Sandy! Nobody’s playing at soldiers anymore. It’s the real thing! What were you doing, son”—he kicks at the bulrushes—“looking for Moses?”
“In a way. There’s a poem, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree,’ by W.B. Yeats. I was walking and thinking about it and I saw this and I thought…”
“Just stow it, Sandy.” He takes a deep breath. The sky has paled; it’s colder. “We’d better get back for lunch. I don’t want to see you out here again.”
“I’ve packed my lunch. It’s at the farmhouse.”
“You’ll eat with us today and you’ll work in Deceased Property this afternoon.”
We start walking. Ron tests the radio a few more times. We pass the rabbitry, a boarded-up and slouching sad reminder of our former lives. I stop him there. “Ron, what are you going to say about me?”
He smoothes the damp hair from his forehead. It has thinned and greyed. I should ask him about his daughter and the rest of his family. He’s a person, with feelings, like me. His life can’t have been easy, whatever his failings. “I’ll say you were working with me today. It was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”
“Will they go for it?”
“Once, maybe. Not more than that, so you’d better watch it.”
After lunch (heavy with potatoes and cabbage) in the cafeteria, I ask Ron’s permission to stroll through the gardens before going to work. “Ten minutes, Sandy,” he says. I nod agreement and hit the paved paths. You can see, at once, in the lawns and flower beds that line them, the lack of Bob’s thoughtful designs. Whereas Bob worked to a concept, the new gardeners, whoever they are, plant to a system: a clump of hydrangea here, a set of spring bulbs there, shrubs in regular stepped order, shortest to tallest. There’s no flow, no heart to it. Bob’s colourful insertion of vegetables among the flowers in order to maximize the efficacy of good soil and fertilizer, and without sacrificing beauty, have been abandoned. Instead great patches of herbaceous border have been stripped and turned over to kale and turnips—neither of which is doing well. Both turnip tops and kale shoots are yellow and mouldy. “There’s no need for ugliness,” Bob used to say, whether of gardens or of his beloved motorcycles; “to achieve it takes hard work.” It’s true. Beauty takes effort, but not nearly as much.
Pete Cooper appears from the farm borders (what was he doing there?), crosses the lawn, skirts the fountain, and takes the steps two at a time, heading for Dr. Frank’s office: I’ve not seen him since my meeting with the Board. A scant minute later he emerges at a run, rounds a corner of the institution and beats it in a beeline for the attendants’ housing. Dr. Frank steps out and down the stairs after him, but he pauses at the bottom, looks around without seeing me beneath the cypresses, seems to think better of something, and retreats.
These are puzzles, but they are not my puzzles.
Ron Signet materializes from the main entrance a few moments later, and also looks around. He sees me, however, and waves me away.
—
Deceased Property is housed, not as formerly in the lower regions of the main building, but in the disused Chinese quarters. Once this outbuilding was forbidden territory, and those who lived there and who worked the fields or in the laundry were scarcely glimpsed by the rest of us. We know why the Japanese have gone: They’re a security threat, and have all been relocated inland. I know, because Winchell told me, that most of the Chinese were sent back to China, and some of them, those few who stayed, are now working on the Alaska Highway. I don’t, however, know how they felt about it. Only Winchell spent any time with them and might be able to say.
The wooden building consists of a large open room outfitted with tables and a cook stove, and four smaller rooms lined with bunk beds. The windows are small and dirty and there is no electricity, so I light a lantern and candles by which to work. Three large boxes wait on one of the long tables for me to sort through them. Materials that clearly are to go to families of the dead have already been removed, so that what remains are articles that are unwanted or those that belong to men who have no next of kin. It’s a sad business, in its way, but I feel that I’m doing a service as I place useful items in a box to go to the poor, and the rest in the garbage. A third category—the “questionable”—is where I place anything I’m unsure of: perhaps a book that could be of interest to an inmate, or a pocket watch, somehow overlooked, and too valuable to give away. The work requires discretion and trust: It is up to me to treat these remnants of a life with respect. Naturally, it comes to mind, as I make my distributions, to wonder what became of the belongings of Alan Macaulay—was he buried in the coat his mother made for him? Was he sent cold and naked to the grave? Had he no pen or watch-chain or comb? Were these items returned to his family? But I do my best to push such thoughts away. Someday, in some way, someone will do me a similar service, and I like to think that my care and calmness in this task now will be rewarded then.
Each box contains a sheet of paper that lists the name of the deceased and the box contents. Where little property is involved, the box may contain the belongings of several men.
There’s Stephen Batt, who has left behind him a cufflink, a collar stud, a tie pin and a gold tooth. I place these items in a tackle box where I store jewellery to go to the Salvation Army.
With him is Gilbert Cruickshank who owned an alarm clock, a writing tablet, prayer book, pocket diary, steel mirror, razor, stick pin, a ring, a chequebook, a tobacco pouch filled with stale tobacco, a chemistry book and a book of poems. I add the ring and stick pin to the tackle box, place the razor and steel mirror in the poor box, and set aside the alarm clock in the questionable pile. I toss the chequebook and tobacco pouch into the garbage. I’ve left the books to one side. After some thought, I add the pocket diary and its jottings to the trash and the prayer book to the poor collection. The book of poems (by Emily Dickinson) and the chemistry book I place in “questionable” with the intention of asking Dr. Frank to place them in the library. The book of poems was a gift to Gilbert Cruickshank from his sister. I tear out the frontispiece that says so.
I work in a similar manner for some hours. Ron Signet comes to check on me several times, and the last time he brings me a cup of coffee. He watches as I make my decisions and says nothing until he’s ready to go, then it’s “Hard work, eh, Sandy?” and gives me a pat on the shoulder.
The dirt-filtered light dims, the candles burn down. With one more box to go, and a heavy spirit—(that book of poems! the piano-tuning tools! and the rosaries, and more books than I could have ever imagined!)—I retreat to one of the other rooms. The candle I carry casts a pale glow on bare boards and plank beds. I lie down on a bed near the door. I’m tired. One of the last
items I placed in the garbage was a writing pad of notes on constitutional law. The handwriting was neat, the arguments solid. What good was it? I hadn’t closely examined any photographs or letters—these were automatic garbage—but somehow their images had stuck. Mothers, sisters, brothers, parents and sweethearts; locks of hair between pages. Words. Words. Words.
I close my eyes and sleep—not for long—I can tell by the candle it has only been minutes, but when I open them, my face inches from the wall, I view Chinese characters cut into the wood beside me. They are faintly done and visible only at this angle and in this uncertain light. I can’t read them, of course, but they appear to me to be names. I get up and lift the candle: Now that I know how and where to look, it’s the same everywhere. The walls are alive with writing.
I flee back to the large room and open the door. Late sunlight slants from the direction of Kosho’s pond—I think I catch a glimpse of water. I shrug away the cobwebs and collywobbles and return to my labours.
Box three: I lift the flaps with care. What else have I missed? What else is all around me that I haven’t noticed? For one thing, a thumbnail sketch of the hammer and sickle on each flap underside. I examine them closely. Yes, so it is, the Soviet insignia in drawings in pencil.
The property of the late Leonard Clatt is in a valise containing a monumental catalogue and monument designs, and a bunch of keys and tax bills. I dispose of these as garbage. Next down are the effects of Boris Godunov. I pause. I believe I know all the Russians but I’m not familiar with this man. Who is he? I pause again. The name belongs to a character in a Pushkin drama that has been made into an opera by Mussorgsky. Does this mean something? I move aside the packing materials and find an old billfold and glasses. Below this are items wrapped closely in paper and old clothes: two pocket knives, a set of awls, a pair of shears, a telescope and a case holding calipers and compass, and another case housing nine metal files. These are forbidden materials! My hands shaking, and with a quick glance at the door, I remove the last layer of packing and unwrap the heavy cloth bundle that remains. Two revolvers lie there gleaming. They’re .45s. We used these for practice at the university cadet training. I was never good with them. I lift them out and place them beside the other objects on the floor. Then I put with them a box of ammunition that contains, when I count, seventy-four rounds. What a hoard!
I have two choices: keep them or give them up. If I give them up, the sender is bound to be discovered and I, myself, will fall under suspicion. Given the hammer and sickle drawings the sender may well be Winchell. Who else could it be? Who else would dare! But how had he placed them there? How would he know I’d be the one to find them? Indeed, how had he escaped the Lobotomy Board? Was he planning an insurrection? What should I do?
I think through the problem and quickly come to the conclusion that what I need is more time.
After dinner I play a brief game of chess with Ron Signet—it’s movie night, and Ron has other duties. Ron, a little grim around the mouth, finally lets slip that Pete Cooper’s son has been killed in an Atlantic convoy. He has no more details, but Pete, of course, is devastated and has been given time off work.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Ron,” I say. I am. “The sins of the fathers should not be visited upon their children.”
Ron gives me a bleak look. “Nor upon their friends,” he says. He coughs. “I didn’t mean that, Sandy. I didn’t know the boy, but that’s what he was, a boy. I’m sorry for him, and all the others.” Somebody wheels in the projector and Ron gets to his feet. “Well…” he says and slopes off to set up the reels.
I recall how that afternoon Pete Cooper had run as if the Devil were after him. As if he could outrun time and catch up with the son who had left him behind. I think, for once, about my own family, from whom I am estranged. Would they grieve if anything happened to me, or would they be relieved?
Back in my room, a large half moon rising above the trees, I sit at my desk and look out the window. My feet rest upon the box that I’ve turned into a footstool and that contains Winchell’s weaponry. That the weapons do belong to Winchell I’m now sure. I’d questioned Ron about where the boxes I worked with in Deceased Property came from. “Why, from the mortuary, Sandy,” he’d said, his fingers hovering over his knight. “I pick them up and bring them over. Your old friend Winchell works there.” He changes his mind and hovers over a bishop.
“How is Winchell, Ron?”
“Oh,” he says, the fingers back-pedalling to finger a pawn, “as well as can be expected.”
“How well would that be?”
“You’re still friends? Really? After what happened?” Ron advances the pawn and reluctantly lets it go.
“We had a talk. It’s all right. He was sick….”
“He must be feeling better.”
“Yes, he must be if they’ve given him a job. What is his job, Ron?”
Ron begins to look as if he’s thinking too closely about what I’m saying so I take his pawn.
“Shit, Sandy, whad’ya do that for?”
If Ron talks to Winchell like he talks to me, Winchell will know exactly where I am. He’ll know, too, naturally, how much looser we are in the West Wing than the East Wing where he is. It’s much less likely that a cache of arms would be discovered here than there. But where did the guns and other tools come from? I shuffle the box a few inches forward to make my feet more comfortable. I’ve padded it with straw and added stones in case anyone is interested enough to peer between the slats. Unless they actually open it up, that’s all they’ll see: straw and stones. I let my mind drift without thinking (as The Storehouse directs) of any particular direction at all. There’s “Bob” on the motorbike postcard directly in front of me. There’s the message on the back, “Wish you were here!” and the frequent thrum of a Harley engine in the background of our daily lives.
That’s it! The guns must be from Bob! Repaying a debt! Exactly how Bob passed them to Winchell I don’t know yet, nor how Winchell has got word out to him—unless, somehow, through his Communist colleagues? Maybe even through the red politician he spoke of, who isn’t, perhaps, quite as useless as Winchell made out?
It all fits, but is it correct? No matter. For whatever it is, I have the hard evidence.
I try, once again, to make a start on The Romance of Stanley Park but I’m too stirred up. Plots, characters, feelings, worries, consequences swirl but won’t sort. I give up and go to bed and close my eyes, straining to translate the constantly shifting stream of Chinese writing and coded messages and motorcycles and dead and drowned boys that assail my consciousness. I gasp and sob and stop myself with a corner of the pillow in my mouth, the pillow over my eyes, and a hand, as if it were Heather’s, between my thighs.
SEVENTEEN
June 15 and following, 1942
All my love of animals has returned over the past few weeks as I’ve become more involved in preparations for the full start-up of the new farm. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed working with them while I was living in the East Wing. It’s not just the scent and feel of animals, breathing their breath, bridging the gap between species, but of being in their presence, having to consider their well-being as much as—even more so than—my own. Of course the rabbitry is no more, and I’ve still full responsibility for Deceased Property, but now that I’ve finished the cleaning, painting and general repairs of the farmhouse, and Ron Signet, as temporary overseer, and the three assistant inmates have moved in, I’ve been given charge of “projects subsidiary.”
The way we decided was like this: a meeting with Dr. Frank, me, Ron Signet and Pete Cooper—who was officially still on bereavement leave, but who’d shown up in Dr. Frank’s office: We turned over the possibilities.
Although, at first, it looked like my work would be nothing more than managing the distribution of milk and the production of cheese at the dairy, Ron said he thought it a waste of my talents. The three new men could do it: He’d train them. After all, this was to be a modern, m
echanized dairy farm. A question of organization rather than of heavy labour. If, indeed, we were to branch out, then he thought we should use my imagination and expertise.
Dr. Frank, thin, jowls sagging, templed his fingers and leaned back in his chair. I saw him glance at the shelf where his trophies used to be. I said, “It seems to me, sir, that the way has to be forward, but without losing sight of the past.” He nodded. “You told me once that this institution had a history as a game farm. Might not an aspect of that be reconstituted?”
“Reconstituted?” I could almost hear him go through the sorry list of foods he was allowed on his diabetic diet. “Reconstituted,” I understood, didn’t have a happy ring to it. It made one think of dried egg and mock chicken.
“What I mean is that we could take advantage of existing game on the expanded land, and farm it. There’s plenty of wild pheasant, for instance.”
“What the fuck for, Sandy? Not many gentlemen out bagging pheasant these days. What the fuck planet are you from?” Pete Cooper guffawed. Ron Signet turned his head aside and coughed. Dr. Frank furrowed his brow. I understood that Pete was to be forgiven his coarseness of speech because of his recent tragic loss, but I pressed the advantage his crudeness presented.
“Yes, that’s true. Even the leisured classes have been pressed into service. I wasn’t thinking of hunting parties, but of morale building in terms of food.” He glared at me balefully. “We have pheasant and quail in abundance in the fields and woods: Perhaps with some management they could become an important source of nutrition and a welcome change.”
“A food source?” Dr. Frank said.
What It Takes to Be Human Page 23