Robert McGill - Once We Had a Country

She doesn’t see that much of Fletcher, either. He stays up long hours reading books with titles like Tender Fruit Husbandry and preparing financial reports for Morgan Sugar. Late one night, looking over his shoulder at the kitchen table, she sees a blank form for the migrant labour programme.

“Still going to apply?” she asks, and he says he isn’t sure. After all, they have people now, right?

“Not a very reliable bunch,” she replies, surprised at her own sourness. It occurs to her how much she wants this whole venture to succeed. “What about getting locals?”

“I’ve talked with some of them in town. People around here don’t think much of what we’re doing. To them we’re cowards for leaving the States, or we’re imperialists taking over their country.”

“Maybe send in the form just in case,” she says.

“Maybe.” He looks at her with beseeching eyes. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

In bed, he sleeps peacefully, like a baby, and it’s Maggie who’s insomnious. Why should she be offended by all the comers-and-goers? Maybe it would be better if her friends, not Fletcher’s, were the mainstays. But she doesn’t really have any friends. Through college she had classmates and roommates, acquaintances who came and went with the changing of majors and dormitories. Then, as she slogged through teaching, there was simply Fletcher.

Now half their nights are taken up by meetings in the living room to discuss the future. Sarah and Jim from New Jersey suggest a meditation circle, while Dimitri expounds on the need for study groups. Fletcher responds that it’s a farm, not a seminary, and what they need are dedicated work hours. Maggie sits smoking one cigarette after another, fearing she might be called upon to speak. Other times she makes herself unassailable by bringing the camera. As the others discuss their hopes and ideas, she records the play of light through a wine bottle or a baby asleep in its mother’s arms.

One night after the meeting has ended, she finds Fletcher by himself at the kitchen table, writing something on a piece of foolscap he’s too embarrassed to show her. The next morning she wakes up to discover he’s stapled it to the porch door.

1. We are all human beings.

2. Technology is not an end in itself.

3. True happiness requires company.

4. We must not mortgage the future of Spaceship Earth.

It goes on in the same vein, most of the lines recognizable from the previous evening’s discussion. That afternoon she finds Brid by the door, eyeing the page skeptically.

“‘ We are all human beings ’?” Brid reads. “What else could we be—wombats?”

“I think he means we each deserve dignity and respect,” replies Maggie. “Anyhow, he included the one about the planet’s future. That was your idea.”

Brid glowers at her. “You’re just smug because he used ‘ God is not an American .’ Which, as I pointed out last night, is Judeo-Christian propaganda. It makes it sound like God exists in the first place.”

“Like I explained,” Maggie begins, careful in choosing her words, “it doesn’t have to be a Christian God. Most people agree there could be some higher power—” But she can tell Brid isn’t listening, so she tries another tack. “Brid, are you okay? How are things with Wale?”

“Why, hasn’t he told you?” says Brid. The bitterness in her voice makes Maggie pause.

“We haven’t talked for a while.” She thinks of their interview and his coolness toward her since. There’s been little more than strange looks from him in passing and half smiles that could be leers. “I don’t think Wale gets close to anyone,” she says. Realizing how that might sound, she quickly adds, “Except you, of course.”

“Yeah, well, next time you see him, remind him of that.” A certain resignation has entered her voice.

“I know things have been chaotic,” Maggie says. “There isn’t as much time for being alone together. But this is what we wanted, right? People working as a community.”

“To be honest, I liked it better when it was just us and Wale.” Brid returns her attention to the piece of paper on the door. Without another word, she rips the sheet from its nail.

Involuntarily, Maggie’s hands curl into fists. But she doesn’t mention the incident to Fletcher, and at dinner, when he asks if anyone knows what happened to the page, she and Brid only exchange a long glance.

At the end of the day, drained of all energy, Maggie watches television on the couch with half a dozen others in the living room. A body passes before the screen, and she realizes it’s Brid coming to sit down next to her. There’s meaning in this, she suspects, but she’s too tired to grasp it, she’s almost asleep, and a few minutes later she discovers she’s no longer watching television, she’s just dreaming of it. When she wakes up, an old Bette Davis movie is playing and Brid’s head is heavy against her shoulder. Maggie can hear her breathing; she can feel the hitch at the end of each exhalation that summons another ream of air.

In the morning, when she enters the kitchen, she finds Brid feeding Pauline breakfast. No one speaks until Fletcher comes in looking cheerful.

“Did you hear?” he says. “They’ve picked Sargent Shriver to replace Eagleton.”

“Who?” says Brid, sounding annoyed.

“You know Sargent Shriver. The guy who founded the Peace Corps.”

“He’s married to a Kennedy,” adds Maggie. She could also add that he went to Yale with Fletcher’s father.

“Oh, that guy,” says Brid. “Sorry, but I’m officially not giving a shit about the election. No longer my country, no longer my problem.”

“Well, I think he’s fantastic,” replies Fletcher. “God knows the Democrats needed some good news.”

“They’re still dead in the water,” says Brid.

“Not everyone’s as cynical as you—” Fletcher begins, but Maggie can’t stand to hear any more.

“Why don’t you two cool it?” she says. Brid and Fletcher turn to stare at her.

“What, we can’t argue about politics now?” says Brid.

“You’re not arguing about politics.” Maggie takes her coffee mug in hand and starts for the door. “I don’t know what you’re up to.”

With everyone settled into work, pouring concrete for the drive shed and scything long grass where they intend to plant more trees, Maggie feels obliged to join them. Whole days go by without a cartridge being loaded. Where does the watching Maggie go? Sometimes, when she’s in the middle of watering the garden or emptying ashtrays, she has a sudden sense of being observed and turns to find precisely no one there, just the shadow of another self taking her in. The few occasions she does remove the camera from its bag, she’s unsettled by the comfort it brings. Eventually she stops resisting and spends her days with her eye against the viewfinder.

By experimenting, she learns the art of cinematography fifty feet of film at a time. She figures out how to bounce light so as to soften it on skin. She learns that everything becomes cool blue if you take the UV filter off the camera outdoors, and if you leave it on inside, it casts the room in an orange glow. She starts to open and close f-stops, making reality seem more real by stealing light or occluding it. For interior shots during the day, a supplemental lamp makes things clearer, but she prefers scenes illuminated by a single source because the shadows look more natural. In the afternoons she waits for the soft, slanted sunlight that comes through north-facing windows.

Then she discovers the time-lapse function. At a single frame a minute, the clouds race over the orchard, shadows wheel, and dawn changes to dusk in thirty seconds. It’s the way the cherry trees themselves must look at things, abiding while the world hurries. Her films gain angles, too. She shoots from her knees, through windows, experiments with slow motion, and becomes fascinated by the ability to zoom. For a while all her shots move from detail to sprawl or sprawl to detail.