Water Spider

Her lips opened. “Good morning. Will you put this on your counter? It’s a donation box for the Caitlin Fund. This is my charity certification card. It says my name is Jennifer. If you agree, this establishment will be added to a growing list of local business sponsors. I will give you one of these official ribbons. Caitlin’s family and friends will be very appreciative. We need all the help we can get to raise awareness. I’m honoured to be in charge of organizing the community’s response to this tragedy and would be honoured if you joined us.”

He responded to her slow loud words with the pidgin English he had practised with a friend in the oil tanker’s hold while heaving across the Atlantic toward this little pageant of Canada, convenience stores, and Caitlin.

“Thank you. It is much worthy cause. I know this truth. In my old country, the heavy rains bring much death to our children.”

The woman tilted her head to one side, thoughtful like a dog hearing a new sound.

“Oh you poor man. So you must know what it’s like to lose a loved one. And to come to your new country to escape such things and find them here too! Little Caitlin isn’t the only one, but with your support we can help make sure she’s the last.”

“Yes. But I must ask manager if allowed to put box here. I like much the pink ribbon. Is it okay, you give? Where I come from, pink means the colour of the dawn.” Her fingers pressed against the walls of the dollhouse, her mouth turning with impatience, forethought.

“Such eloquence! You’re probably one of those foreign intellectual types who can’t get a job when you come over so you get stuck doing this kind of stuff. Last week my taxi driver was from Bangladesh. He said he was a doctor. You should do esl at night school. It’s funded. You just need to believe in yourself. Like Little Caitlin did. How about the box?”

“I ask boss man. My ribbon?”

“Sign this petition. And come to Centennial Park this Sunday for the memorial rally. I’ll look for you there. How come you’re still wearing your parka?”

Bokarie would send his young and hungry men off to each raid with speeches given from the back of a derelict aid truck. Later he’d arrive to crunch an elder’s jaw-plate against a gutter or to shoot a lingering dog. To proclaim victory. He would inspect remnants of the burnt-out villages reinvented as cities of the new nation, dividing the charred land into lots for squadron leaders baptized as local constables. On the General’s behalf and in the name of peace, he attended muggy prayer vigils for the souls of the dead travelling to the cool gardens of the afterlife. Keeping with custom, he would wrap his copper-wire arms around the shuddering survivors in sympathy, those who had had enough time to flee into the brush or find one of the UN camps when they heard the rebel anthems sounding up the road. Husbands and mothers and wives and fathers, they had no choice but to accept his comfort, though they knew who and what Bokarie was. The terror of possibilities blunted their know-ledge of his crimes.