Water Spider

He laughed at what passed for tragedy in his new country. Last week, the body of a little girl was found pressed against a sewer grate. She had been catching water spiders on a creek swollen by the spring thaw. A floating barrette alerted a man walking his dog.

Little Caitlin. In the newspapers at the convenience store where he currently worked, and on the televisions at the laundromat where he attempted to wash his new clothes, and during the elevator chatter at the apartment where he now lived, so high above the earth — Little Caitlin. She was everywhere, as was talk of public safety committees and the need for a protective barrier around the creek for when it rose too high. Bokarie would attend the memorial service planned for that Sunday, intent upon fitting in but also a little curious. His manager told him that hundreds were expected, perhaps even a thousand. Each had been asked to wear something pink. That was Caitlin’s colour. If the petition circulating was successful, the town crest would gain a sash, in loving memory.

His old country occupied a corner of the Friday newspaper’s front page. Sopping with sweat, Bokarie carried in the stack at the start of his morning shift. It was April northwest of Ottawa but he remained suspicious of Canadian sunlight. Because his back and shoulder muscles were still atrophied from scar tissue (an unexpected help during his asylum hearing), he stooped over and twined his arms around the bundle to pick it up. He shimmied through the door hunched over. Pressed against the topmost paper, his wet cheek smeared across a thumbnail picture of his old leader, the General. Peeling away the damp smudge, he saw the dark sunglasses and the counterfeit medals and the smart beret that, he had been taught, displayed the elegant monstrosity of blood-and-coin patriotism. The General was smiling. He might have been on his way to prison for crimes against the people or to the palace for finally disposing of the President. Bokarie did not turn to page A20 to find out, just as he switched the radio dial to music whenever he heard “According to UN monitors, the situation in central Africa today became....”

This was the gift of immigration. The past, even if it never in fact became past, remained over there. He was happier this way, safer, over here. He understood that the General, whether as convict or president, had to blame him for what were now known as the Upriver Massacres, even if they happened under his orders, because Bokarie had escaped. interpol, the RCMP, the FBI — they might have been searching for him already, depending on what deals had been struck. He dragged cinder blocks against his apartment door each night.

He was not angry with the General for his betrayal, or for trying to have him killed, or even for the men he bribed to do it. This was the way in their country.

The scorpion got across the river on a turtle’s back and stung him just before the shore. A fish swallowed the scorpion. If the fish didn’t choke on the stinger, if the fish wasn’t speared, if the fish swam hard enough, sometimes it reached clearer waters. Then a bird would swoop down.

A woman walked into his store just as he finished stacking the papers. Her eyes, he thought, were like this country. Big and empty. She had a kerchief tied around a sweep of straw-coloured hair. Buttons sprayed with slogans and symbols fanned out across her wide skirt. She wore the indignantly pink T-shirt that he saw often these days on the bus and at the supermarket. She was holding a pink box shaped like a dollhouse. Her lips pursed. She was about to make a speech. He knew this. He had made speeches in his old country. Oh such speeches.

“There will always be growing pains when a great nation is reborn! If a few sandals fall into the fire, or a little woman — blood mixes into the ashes, what great loss is this? My brothers, it is no loss. My own mother, my own woman, my own child — they have fled, have starved, have been killed in the first wars of the new history, after the British and the French and the Germans left us to fight among ourselves for the right to tend our own fires. Meanwhile, the tribes upriver have guns and electricity and water and maize. They have as many goats in their fields as we have vultures above our huts. Do you wonder why? They worship the swine that squeals in the capital city, our self-appointed president-for-life, who sells our wives and daughters to Nike Red Cross US of A, who protects the upriver villagers and fills their troughs because they are all of that snub-nosed, mongrel tribe.

“There is one man who can put an end to this. The General. And he has told me that only the eldest and purest people of our beloved homeland can help him cleanse what has been soiled. This is why he has asked us to reclaim our ancient lands as part of his national restitution campaign. This is why we must crush the chirping locusts that sing of the President’s greatness and slaughter the dancing baboons that step to his orders. This is why we will at last greet rosy morning from the moist earth that your fathers’ fathers left to you. Brothers! For our sons, for our General, for our nation!”

Bokarie remembered his speeches while adding cherry syrup to the slush machine. In his new country, he picked out scratch cards for old ladies. They treated him with pity and fear and kindness and curiosity. They gave him zoological stares. He answered their question each time with a different country. This was for practical reasons, though it was also a satisfying entertainment. Yes, I am from Haiti. Indeed, I was in Rwanda. Madam, you can tell that I lived in Sierra Leone. In truth, I did flee the Congo. He confirmed their vaguely Christian, blandly Canadian sympathies. The civil war was even worse than what is shown on televisions here. The earthquakes swallowed my home and family. When the Americans came in their tanks looking for more oil, we had to flee from their boasts of freedom.