you. It’s all been pretty routine up to now.”
“Spoken like a white, middle-class person.”
In the improvised studio, Clara poured a couple of whiskies, and Sam tried to reassure her.
“Paul had the apartment searched because his sidekick asked him to. This Eddie bloke, who seems okay, was in charge of it. They would have had to do it anyway, and Paul trusts Eddie to keep things straight. He was trying to protect you, in fact.”
“I wish he’d phoned me up. The police seem to think that the law doesn’t matter if they’re dealing with Native people. I don’t know where the hell Daniel’s gone, but I’ll bet he’s on his way back to Ottawa. That’s just the wrong move, as you know.”
“Well, Paul will take the rap for his exit. That’s the second skip-out of the day. He’s not going to be happy at all … Where would Daniel go?”
“Who knows? Maybe to the Gatineau. Maybe even farther west.”
“Didn’t he leave a message, a note or something?”
Clara got up and finished her whiskey, then poured herself another glass. She looked about ten years older than she had that morning. Or was it just the contrast with the breezy and confident Annie?
She walked over to the big work table at the end of the improvised studio and fumbled amid the bottles and brushes. “This was all I could find,” she told him.
She handed Sam a wrinkled scrap of paper. On it he read a single word: Weesakayjac.
Sam looked up at her. “You obviously know what that means.”
“I have a vague notion, but I’m not going to tell you. And I’d like it back, please. I don’t want this mentioned, not even to Paul.”
“You make the rules hard for me,” Sam told her. He sensed her distance from him and her lingering anger. “But I won’t tell Paul, just yet — although later I may have to.”
He handed her back the piece of paper. Clara poured herself another whiskey. “Want one?” she asked, but he shook his head.
“I have to go to dinner with Paul and Ginette. I need to be able to think straight. You really believe Daniel’s gone to Ottawa?”
“I’m not sure of anything. But just so you know the score, Sam, and don’t think Daniel’s some kind of paranoid with a martyr complex, let me tell you a few things about his background.”
She sat down across from him, holding the whiskey on her right knee, gazing at him with eyes that had suddenly taken on a glassy intensity.
“You should know that he grew up in the Sandy Lake region of Ontario during just about the worst time in its history. The Native groups there had been undermined by the growth of white society, and despite a lot of glossing over and good intentions on the part of the bureaucrats in Ottawa, there was poverty, disease, a plague of drunkenness, and in general a loss of morale as the old way of life disappeared.”
“The old story,” Sam said gloomily.
“Exactly … Daniel’s uncle was a powerful chief, but his father was an artist, a painter, who was attacked spiritually by some of the shamans for what he revealed in his paintings. Later, when Daniel was only ten, his father was murdered in a barroom brawl in Kenora. His mother died soon after and he was sent to one of the residential schools. I don’t have to tell you what that involved. In his early teens he ran away and was helped by his uncle’s relatives to resettle, but he was never part of the old community. He worked in the mines, and somehow learned to paint, but his alcoholism nearly killed him. Then one day he had a vision in the woods near Ghost Point, and he began to find some solace in the old beliefs, gave up booze for dope, and started selling some of his work in North Bay, Sudbury, and even Toronto. When I met him a couple of years ago he was doing pretty well as an artist, but he was a very lonely guy. We’ve had some good creative times together.”
Sam stood up and walked over to the work table. A jug lamp gave off a low, enigmatic light. It seemed impossible that the confusion of paint tubes, brushes, manikin heads, labels, trays, and Coke bottles — the junk of a life and culture intrinsically alien to the artist — could be turned into a vision of order, a critique of what was worst in the world around him. And yet the alchemy seemed to have worked, and, unless Clara was deceiving herself — which was unlikely — it was working at the personal level, too.
“Daniel’s had a few clashes with the authorities, I take it,” Sam said. “That can’t have been reassuring.”
Clara made a face and shoved her half-empty whiskey glass away. “Look, Sam, Dudley George was murdered in Ipperwash in 1995. So far as I know, he was unarmed and part of a peaceful Native protest. That’s 1995, not 1895! That kind of stuff should be ancient history. But somebody got nervous and a tragedy resulted. Most Native people, especially those who make it in white society, are wary of the police and the authorities. It’s not paranoia; it’s just common sense, based on bitter experience.”
“You think the Quebec police want to pin something on Daniel?”
“I don’t know. In some ways I think he feels safer here than in Ontario. But the lakes north of Ottawa, the Gatineau region, have become a second home for Daniel. That’s probably where we’ll go — if he hasn’t taken off already.”
Sam glanced at his watch. “Look, Clara, I’ve got to go out with Paul and Ginette. Don’t do anything rash. Don’t make any complaint just yet, even if you’re tempted to. Just find Daniel for me, if you can. I need to talk to him. If he’s in Ontario, that might work out very well, since I have to head back to Ottawa tomorrow or the next day. I think we can help Daniel. I’m sure we can.”
“I hope you’re right.” She smiled. “And that’s why I retained you. That’s what they say, isn’t it — retained.”
“I suppose so. And by the way, I’m ready for a small down payment.”
He walked across the where she stood, reached out and drew her to him. He kissed her and she took his kiss politely, tenderly, and without much passion, exactly as he had given it.
“I’m lucky in my friends,” he said.
“I hope so,” Clara said, “and I hope we are, too, Daniel and I.” She reached for the whiskey, took a sip, then cradled it in her hand as she led him down the hall to the door.
“I’ll think about Weesakayjac,” he shouted back, as he tramped heavily down the stairs.
Six
Sam settled down in his seat, then craned round to take in the bright, bustling spaces of the concert hall. The Salle Louis-Fréchette was new to him, and he found it an appealing place, sixties modern, attractive in its sleek lines, but not eccentric. He loved such halls (there were several in Canada, from roughly the same era) and he enjoyed these moments before a concert, when the audience stirred and chattered, rustled programs, and waved to each other, while newcomers searched for their seats and various members of the orchestra fooled around with their instruments onstage.
“Usual well-heeled but relaxed bunch,” he observed to Paul. “And I see some political and TV faces I recognize.”
“I caught a glimpse of my boss five or
