The Governor of the Northern Province (11 page)

The real reason had remained a hard little pit inside of him since then. Ever since he'd killed the local warlord Foday by dancing over to him and elbowing him through the teeth with a CLICK-SMACK! while he drank and rutted on Marigold, and then gutted his prone body with the broken end of the bottle. The men around Bokarie in Uncle's beer bar had made it both easy and necessary for him to conceal the truth of why he'd done it. But now on this gazebo he had nothing but time enough and space to look in on it and then get solidly shut of that past.

Because going after Foday wasn't brave and daring and quick-thinking and all so wonderfully set to music, as the General's man Charles had announced to the bar after Bokarie had finished him off with a final few swipes and shoves with the jagged bottle neck. This account had been conducive to his subsequent rise, since it demonstrated Charles's immediate interest in him as a new recruit to the General's Campaign and also smudged away what trace loyalties the dead warlord's former guards had to their former leader, who hadn't come to his aid in time out of the slouch and sloth endemic to any clump of drugged-out teenagers. Before they were able to shrug themselves into compensatory action, because maybe they should do something since
the boss man, he dead
, Charles had already reformed them into devotees and enthusiasts of Bokarie and his rhythmic mania, and so they became his second catch of action-ready admirers, after the crowds he spoke and danced and won over from on top of the orphanage walls.

But still, Bokarie's going against Foday wasn't so bold and courageous and valiant, or any of the other curlicues and blandishments that Charles had further devised when he later presented him to the General at the National Restitution Campaign headquarters in the capital city. Nor was it out of allegiance to his outraged blood men, as they boasted to others afterwards, though he knew they had been standing outside the bar while Foday chased and knocked Marigold around the dance floor and then started his pelvic pounding at her, and that they could probably see what was being done to their poor wailing patch. And it wasn't even in hopes of saving his own woman from a similar bent-at-the-waist boring. Because he hadn't even thought of that as a possibility, didn't even notice Foday sip away at his beer and expansively address his companion and his guards while making windmill motions with his arms and thrusting away on Marigold. He had only noticed when his woman, who had been watching all this from behind his shoulder as they kept dancing, finally turned in to him hard and he thought this meant she wanted a swivel so he obliged and then saw it—her. The woman was no longer struggling but had gone resigned to her fate, bagged up in the bunches of her upturned dress, cowl-like around the neck and head, at most hoping this one would at least be a quick finisher.

In time, of course, as Bokarie readied a band of butchers to take the Upriver for the General and the People, the fable of how he did away with the wicked warlord Foday became an important recruitment tool, involving all the elements others offered on his behalf. And to be sure, he eventually cited them himself as explanation enough for dancing over and shoving the beer bottle through the other man's teeth with that CLICK-SMACK! and then mashing up his throat with its cracked crown neck. Though if pressed on the matter, Bokarie would showily confess that none of the high and fine reasons the others cited for his killing Foday mattered in the end. That in truth he had been looking for a way out of the beer bar, a means of making his name heard and felt and feared, and a man with one hand on his beer and another on some hindquarters and the rest of him drunk and all stuffed inside of some mareflesh, well, that was just an easy target for a dancer who could cut like a knife.

But that wasn't it, really, at all.

Now, in Canada, feeling protected by the peacock plumage he showed off as everyone's favourite new refugee, Bokarie went past these easy claims for going against Foday—past the sheer glory and power of it, past salvaging his blood men's property, past protecting his own piece of fur. It was none of this, at core, beneath the many casings it was given, he was given. It wasn't about what had to be done about Foday, or even about what Bokarie wanted to do for himself.

But Marigold. For Marigold. For some mediocre-looking whore who never did much for him before or after, but was, for the four minutes of that song, so wrongly done by, so needlessly ruined, that Bokarie had wanted, had needed, to act. It was when he saw her go limp and pliant while Foday rampaged through her body, treating it like a bottle opener and beer coaster and champagne bucket. At her acceptance, at her just having to endure this. Bokarie had done it to give a moment of decency to a life otherwise meagre, gutter-clad, fated by geography and anatomy to be never more than bow-legged, viral and miscarrying.

It had taken long to come to this because, back when it had first happened, before he could explain himself to anyone or even decide if he wanted to, they were crowding him in with their reasons and praising him for it and inviting him to leave Uncle's beer bar and meet a Great Man in the capital city. Maybe become one himself. Because there was suddenly this trajectory before him, requiring only more fiery moves and fine words, which, he immediately sensed, was how he would get more of the looks and listening that he had first won from dancing and declaring along the orphanage wall.

Plus, his reputation was so quickly solidified in the eyes of others for killing Foday, what would have happened had he explained why he'd really done it? Who would have believed him anyway? And so he told no one what had made him do it, not even Marigold, whom he made sure to avoid thereafter beyond a quick dismissive nod when she came to thank him the next morning. Because by then he'd already started to form himself into a hard shell around the true how and why of his bottle break into the warlord business.

III.

Returning to the wedding in the thick air of late Canadian summer, Bokarie saw the night's first drunken fight break out in the parking lot outside the hall, between a just-joking uncle and a mouthy nephew. The brawling brought nothing back, gratefully. Besides, there was enough currency to play on and move from and lord about in this, his new place. He would stay there.

“There you are! Way up here and away from the action. But I have news to tell you. Plans have been made and you're involved, of course.” Jennifer was smiling with unprecedented teeth. As they walked back to the reception hall, she updated him on developments. Glenn was on board for the campaign and already big-skying about Jennifer's election chances and how good a dancer Bokarie was and how important his moves were going to be in the coming campaign, and soon they'd be in the capital city just like she'd promised. Provided they could get a majority of the community to Think Pink and get over the recent sudden and sad Alderman Gallagher's heart attack business, which had pushed poor drowned Little Caitlin into the background. Jennifer predicted they would have to counteract a strong widow push to the ballot box. Mrs. Faye Gallagher, according to reception hall rumours, was going to run for the federal seat in memoriam of her recently departed husband, George. The campaign, in effect, was already under way, and Jennifer needed Bokarie's advice about how the pending funeral should be approached. “Also, um, my parents want to meet you. So dinner at my house in a few days?”

Bokarie shrugged and nodded at all of this as he put on his cap once more, ready to drive Jennifer home and, on the return, drop off her new supporter before taking the Continental back to Glenn's dealership and maybe catching the last bus. Such bliss and power he had gained for his efforts. This was what his talents had brought him so far.

As he was holding the door open for her, Jennifer noticed that Bokarie was a little off. He had a bare face on, vacant even. She was about to ask him if something was wrong—but then he noticed her eyeing him and went back into his head-nodding, smile-cracking kit, which was well matched to the post-wedding shambolics around them, the usual pawing, coaxing, flailing, accusatory denouement to the town's grand doings. So she didn't take this for much, this Bokarie blankness. After all, it was only for a moment, and, for him, so out of character.

6

CASSEROLE INTERVENTIONS

I.

“I don't care what it means back where he's from. I don't! Go ahead and tell me again, Jennifer, that it's the colour of what? Of the dawn, over there in that—that little road apple's African lion safari. Sorry, Barb, I know I shouldn't say it like that, but damn it if your daughter isn't trying her dear old dad these days. Have a look at her! Carrying on like she's going to be the high and mighty Governor General by Boxing Day and she's gone and found herself a fine-talking, spear-chucking footman for her Cinderella ride to Ottawa. Again, Barb, don't make that face, we're family and if I can't speak my mind here then I don't have one to speak of. Because, you know, I've kept my conscience all this long while, but now, as a father, and as a man with a name to consider in this town, I'm doing what needs to be done. And I'm saying what needs to be said.

“This is for our daughter's good. Now, Jennifer, listen to me. This is your dad talking, not some big-words book about Lyndon Bloody Johnson. I said nothing, right, about your setting up the soccer with the kids and the African, though I heard about it at the gas station, that his touching their kids made a few nervous but they had to be polite. And I kept my mouth shut, right, about your going to that hoity-polloi Hollerwatty wedding with him, though again, people's been talking about more than just his rhythm from what I picked up at the Legion the other night. But no matter, really, I have nothing against him. After all, what with dinner last night, your mother and I were doing our part to make him feel welcome and we even tried to get a little company going his way. Because I know it can't be easy for his type, coming here from Lord knows what hellfire and jungle and famine. Surprised at your old dad? Yes, I do know something of that stuff, and also about the hiv going around over there in Africa these days like spring lice in a schoolhouse. Your dad reads the papers every so often and even tunes in his radio to the talking stations when the mood hits him. So what I'm trying to say is this, Jennifer: knowledge isn't a Crown corporation of your very own in this house.

“What I'm saying is because, well, I want for you what you're supposed to get. Jeezum Crow! I even signed my name to your petition about that Little Kristen or Sierra Mist or whatever they call the drowned girl. And fine, I'll tell you that I was, yes, even a little proud of you when I heard from your mother that someone from the bank told her that you got up on a stage over at Centennial Park for that memorial rally and helped with crowd control or some such thing. But this, Jennifer, this is the one too many, this outfit, what you're, what”—changing targets suddenly—“your daughter's wearing right now, Barb, what she's proposing to wear to a funeral, for God's sake!”

Here Gus aimed his gravy-spackled fork at Jennifer's ensemble and then at his wife, who was rewashing dishes at the sink and watching her husband rage on his inscrutable daughter. Who, as it happened, was withstanding her father's grapeshot and bluster by calculating whether they would still be able to get good spots in the receiving line at Gallagher's wake. That is, when the barrage let up. But then Gus drained his milk and reloaded his blunderbuss.

“Jennifer, I don't care what it means in that Bokarie's old country. And to tell you the truth and to save you the breath, I'm not too concerned, either, about what it's going to do to your election chances in a few weeks, though I think in that respect you're looking for a bumper crop where you might find fallow, my dear. Because the late George Gallagher had a name in this town and you'll see that tonight at the Home—that is, after you change out of that heartburn of a dress you're wearing, mind you. And I'd bet my best bush jacket that you'll also see that his wife, Faye, who as I understand it is also running in this election, is going to get plenty of votes as the fresh widow. She's going to get those votes, in fact, just by wearing black. Do you follow what I'm saying?”

Jennifer's face crimped, sensing the rightness of her father's forecast. She started accepting the hard logic of his case against her chosen outfit. Not that he was done.

“But the upcoming election, that's another matter. We're right here, right now, Jennifer, in everyday Canada. Do you hear me? Not look-what-Immigration-dragged-in-this-time Canada, but under-the-radar, regular-people Canada, just-trying-to-get-through-to-thenext-baby-bonus-cheque-and-farm-rebate Canada. Oh, and let me remind you of it, in case you've forgotten about
that
Canada, being too busy at your summit meetings with the Secretary-General of Gary's Milk and Lotto. Just let me take a minute and remind you what Everyday Canada is all about. Because it's in you, Jennifer, to the very marrow, and there's no escaping it.

“Everyday Canada is finding a new coffee can for bacon drip; it's making Canadian Tire money part of your grocery budget; it's watching hockey on the French channel if that's what God and the rabbit ears give you. Everyday Canada's trying to convince your wife that she can't have you strip perfectly good wood panelling from your living-room walls and repaint them something called Summer friggin' Kumquat; it's finding a good someone else to settle down with and then, well, as I still hope you'll see someday, then life becomes deciding to brew an extra fresh pot after breakfast just to get a new can in time for the bacon drip and arguing paint chips to a draw and all the rest of what makes Everyday Canada what it is. Which isn't much, granted, by comparison with the stuff you pull out of those books of yours that your mother …” Here he let up a second moment, just to send a little wither and shiver his wife's way, because Gus was starting to hold her responsible for all of this since it started, in his mind, with that high school graduation gift of the encyclopedias. “But anyways this Canada has its values and its reasons and its rights and wrongs, and it'll still be here long after anything they come up with to throw at us—including, mind you, your garden-variety-store Africans.