Ishmael Reed - Flight to Canada

“She’s not Japanese, she’s Indian.”

But by this time Quaw Quaw had leaped out of the car and was heading toward the guard, her face contorted in anger, like a mask he had once seen.

The guard dropped his pencil and stepped back. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you the girl who walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope? Quaw Quaw Tralaralara.”

When they heard that, the passengers of the other cars stopped honking and rushed out of their cars with matchbox covers, napkins, candy-bar wrappers, pads, driver’s licenses and anything they could find to get Quaw Quaw’s autograph. For someone who talked about how she “disdained” commercialism and how her Columbia professors had taught her to “deplore” the “star system,” she seemed to be enjoying it. Well, at least to Quickskill she seemed to be enjoying it. Only one of Quaw Quaw’s fans recognized him, and then only to ask him for a piece of paper to write Quaw Quaw’s name on.

Later they were driving toward the Eagle Hotel when Quaw Quaw said, “Weren’t they wonderful? Did you see how they swarmed about me? They love me, Raven! They love me!” She stretched her arms. “I’m out in the open now. Only me and an audience. Put in the open where dance should be. Where it’s always been.”

“Yeah, out in the open, all right. You seemed to lick it up. All of that open. Them loving you. I thought you were so abstract. A ‘pure’ artist you always said. Not a ‘star.’ That’s what you always said. Anyway, don’t you think walking on a tightrope across the Falls was a cheap stunt? Now all of the dancers in New York will be coming up here walking across the damned Falls. Making this … this supreme wonder into a sideshow. Long articles in the magazine sections of small-town newspapers. You belong to that pirate. You’re just like him. Only he’s honest with his. You’re an ambitious mountain climber. Only this time it’s the mountain of success.”

“How corny, ‘the mountain of success.’ And you’re a poet you think. And you use lines like ‘the mountain of success.’ You ought to study the ‘masters’ and then you won’t be so given to using lines like the mountain of success. You … you …”

“Go on and say it. Barbarian. That’s what you want to say, isn’t it? Pocahontas, that’s what you are. Turn in your own father for a pirate …”

“That’s not the way the story goes. Not only are you stupid, Raven, you’re inaccurate. Raven. Your name ought to be turkey. That’s what you are, a turkey. Drowned because he’s too stupid to bend his head from the raining sky. You turkey.”

“Don’t call me a turkey.”

“You fucking shithead turkey, turkey! Turkey! Turkey!” She started screaming. He removed one hand from the steering wheel and was about to slap her when he saw their commotion had gotten some traveling spectators. She and her Blondin thing were going too far.

“Look, when we go back to the Eagle, why don’t you return to your neo-Feudalistic life with your husband and sit around with his decadent pro-Gothic friends dining on caviar and discussing Chopin, Soho and birds like that, and eating mandarin fish and light-jeweled pigeon.” She had folded her arms and was sulking. “And another thing. Whenever someone confuses you with some other race, why don’t you tell them you don’t care about race and that you don’t have time to fool around with such subjects as race; and that you don’t identify with any group. Ha. Tell them you don’t identify with any group.”

He looked at her. She was staring straight ahead. She stared vacantly like that until they reached the Eagle Hotel.

When he checked in there was a note for him from Uncle Robin. The next morning he received another note. Her note. In the middle of the night, while he was sleeping, she had left the hotel.

“… AND TO MOE, MY white house slave, I leave my checkerboard and my checkers because, you see, we found it was a sport he enjoys. We found out that it was Moe who was taking my wine and distributing it at these singles parties he had for the white slaves. I knew about these parties because I had Nebraska Tracers to bug the motel rooms and install two-way mirrors where these free-wheeling affairs were held. He’s an expense-account rogue, too.”

Moe’s collar must have become tight because he started fidgeting with it. Some soft chuckling could be heard from those who had gathered for the reading of Swille’s will — the household staff and his relatives, two brothers and a sister, Anne, who were dressed, dignified, in millionaire-black. Uncle Robin sat next to Aunt Judy. He was gazing at the ceiling. His arms were folded. He was whistling very softly to himself.

“Otherwise, Moe has served me long and hard, and so in order to soften this insult I leave him Blue Cross, Blue Shield, old-age pension, paid vacations, Christmas and New Year’s off, an annual ticket to the circus, coffee breaks, a scholarship for two of his children, a year’s supply of Scotch tape, two hunting dogs, and a partridge in a pear tree …”

Then the Judge paused. What could be wrong? He must have stared at the document for a full minute. He peered at it over his glasses. He removed his glasses and blinked his eyes. He put them on again. He scratched his head. His mouth opened wide. He began to stutter and rattle the paper in his trembling hands.

“And to Uncle Robin, I leave this Castle, these hills and everything behind the gates of the Swille Virginia estate.”

Much commotion. The Judge called for silence. Moe slumped in his chair, the checkers dropping from their box, falling red and black to the floor. He stooped to gather them. Mammy Barracuda stood and shook her fist in Robin’s direction. Cato the Graffado pleaded with her to sit down. “We might not get nothing, Mammy.” She sat down.

The Judge turned to Robin. “Robin, I’ve known you a long time. You’ve gotten the trust of the Planters. We all admire you about these parts.”

“I deem it a pleasure to be so fortunate that God would ordain that I, a humble African, would be so privileged as to have a home in Virginia like this one. Why, your Honor, it’s like paradise down here. The sun just kinda lazily dropping in the evening sky. The lugubrious, voluptuous tropical afternoons make me swoon, Judge. Make me swoon.”

“Very poetical, Robin. Very poetical,” the Judge said. “Then you won’t take offense if I ask you a delicate question?”

“What’s that, Judge?”

“Science says … well, according to science, Robin, the Negro doesn’t … well, your brain — it’s about the size of a mouse’s. This is a vast undertaking. Are you sure you can handle it? Juggling figures. Filling out forms.”

“I’ve watched Massa Swille all these many years, your Honor. Watching such a great genius — a one-in-a-million genius like Massa Swille — is like going to Harvard and Yale at the same time and Princeton on weekends. My brains has grown, Judge. My brains has grown watching Massa Swille all these years.”

Then turning to Swille’s relatives, Robin stood, tearfully. “I’m going to run it just like my Massa run it,” he said, clasping his hands and gazing toward the ceiling. “If the Good Lord would let me live without my Massa — Oh, what I going to do without him? But if the Lord ’low me to continue—”

Cato muttered, “Allow, allow,” putting his hand to his forehead and slowly bringing it down over his face in embarrassment.

“If I can just go on, I’m going to try to make Massa Swille up in hebbin proud of me.”

Ms. Anne Swille rose. “Oh, Judge, don’t be mean to Robin. Let him have it. My brother would have wanted it this way. It’s in the will.”

Donald Swille, the banker, rose too. “Yes, Judge. Uncle Robin is quite capable of managing this land. My brother always spoke highly of his abilities. I’m sure he can manage it. My brother often said he didn’t know what he’d do without Robin. That Robin treated him as though he were a god. This is the least the Family can do for Robin’s long service,” Donald Swille said, resting his hand on Robin’s shoulder. Robin, his head in his hands, was being comforted by Aunt Judy.