In High Places

Listening once more, Alan Maitland wondered: could anyone hear this and not be moved? He had been watching Tamkynhil's face. There was sympathy there, he was sure. Twice the inquiry officer had hesitated in his questioning, looking doubtful, fingering his moustache. Could it have been emotion that made him pause?

A. R. Butler no longer wore a smile. For some time now he had been looking down at his hands.

But whether sympathy would do any good was another matter.

Almost two hours had gone by. The inquiry was nearing its end.

Tamkynhil asked, 'If you were allowed to remain in Canada, what would you do?'

Eagerly – even after the long interrogation – the young stowaway answered, 'I go school first, then work.' He added:

'I work good.'

'Do you have any money?'

Proudly, Henri Duval said: 'I have seven dollar, thirty cents.'

It was the money, Alan knew, which the bus drivers had collected on Christmas Eve.

'Do you have any personal belongings?'

Once more eagerly, 'Yes, sir – many: these clothes, a radio, a clock. People send me these, and fruit. They give me everything. I thank them very much, these nice people.'

In the ensuing silence the stenographer turned a page.

Finally Tamkynhil said, 'Has anyone offered you work?'

Alan interjected, 'If I may answer that.,.'

'Yes, Mr Maitland.'

Riming through papers in his briefcase, Alan produced two. 'There have been a good many letters in the past few days.'

For a moment the smile returned to A. R. Butler. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'm sure there must have been.'

'These are two specific offers of employment,' Alan explained. 'One is from the Veterans Foundry Company, the other from Columbia Towing, who would take on Duval as a deck hand.'

'Thank you,' Tamkynhil read the letters which Alan offered, then passed them to the stenographer. 'Record the names, please.'

When the letters had been returned, the inquiry officer asked, 'Mr Maitland, do you wish to cross-examine Mr Duval?'

'No,' Alan said. Whatever might happen now, the proceedings had been as thorough as anyone could have wished.

Tamkynhil touched his moustache again, then shook his head. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then stopped. Instead he inspected the file before him and removed a printed form. While the others waited, he completed several portions of the form in ink.

Well, Alan thought – once more, here it comes.

Tamkynhil looked directly at the young stowaway. 'Mr Henri Duval,' he said, then lowered his eyes to the printed form. He read quietly, 'On the basis of the evidence adduced at this inquiry I have reached the decision that you may not come into or remain in Canada as of right, and that it has been proven that you are a member of the prohibited class described in paragraph (t) of Section 5 of the Immigration Act, in that you do not fulfil or comply with the conditions or requirements of Subsections 1, 3, and 8 of Section 18 of the Immigration Regulations.'

Pausing, Tamkynhil looked again at Henri Duval. Then reading firmly, 'I hereby order you to be detained and deported to the place whence you came to Canada, or to the country of which you are a national or citizen, or to such country as may be approved by the Minister…'

Detained and deported… paragraph (t) of Section 5… Subsections 1, 3, and 8 of Section 18. Alan Maitland thought:

we clothe our barbarisms in politeness and call them civilized. We are Pontius Pilates who delude ourselves we are a Christian country. We allow in a hundred tubercular immigrants and beat our breast in smug self-righteousness, ignoring millions more, broken by a war from which Canada grew rich. By selective immigration, denying visas, we sentence families and children to misery and sometimes death, then avert our eyes and nostrils that we shall not see or smell. We break, turn down, a single human being, rationalizing our shame. And whatever we do, for whichever hypocrisy, there is a law or regulation… paragraph (t) of Section 5… Subsections 1, 3, and 8 of Section 18.

Alan pushed back his chair and stood. He wanted to get out of this room, to taste the cold wind outside, the clean fresh air…

Henri Duval looked up, his young face troubled. He asked the single question, 'No?'

'No, Henri.' Alan shook his head slowly, then put a hand on the stowaway's shoulder under the darned blue jersey. 'I'm sorry… I guess you knocked at the wrong door.'

Part 13 The House of Commons

Chapter 1

'So you've told the Cabinet,' Brian Richardson said. 'How did they take it?' The party director rubbed a hand over his eyes to relieve their tiredness. Since the Prime Minister's return from Washington the previous day, Richardson had spent most of the intervening hours at his desk. He had left it ten minutes ago to come by taxi to Parliament Hill.

Hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his suit coat, James Howden continued to face the window where he had been looking down, from his Centre Block office, on the steady afternoon stream of arrivals and departures. In the past few minutes an ambassador had come and gone; a trio of senators, like ancient pundits, had passed beneath and out of sight; there had been a black-habited cleric, stalking hawk-faced like a shade of doom; official messengers with monogrammed dispatch cases, self-important in their brief authority; a handful of press-gallery reporters; MPs returning from lunch or a stroll, at home like members of a club; and the inevitable tourists, some standing to be photographed by friends beside sheepish, grinning Mounties.

What does it all mean, Howden thought? What does it all amount to in the end? Everything around us seems so permanent: the long procession down the years; the statuary; the storeyed buildings; our systems of government; our enlightenment, or so we choose to think. And yet it is all so temporary, and we ourselves the most fragile, temporary part. Why do we struggle, strive, achieve, when the best we can do, in time, will amount to nothing?

There was no answer, he supposed. There was never any answer. The party director's voice recalled him to reality.

'How did they take it?' Brian Richardson repeated. A full meeting of Cabinet had been held early that morning.

Turning from the window, Howden asked, 'Take what?'

'The Act of Union, of course. What else?'

James Howden considered before answering. The two men were in the Prime Minister's parliamentary office -'Room 307S, a smaller and more intimate chamber than the regular suite of offices in the East Block, but only an elevator ride from the House of Commons.

'It's strange that you should ask what else. As far as the Act of Union was concerned, most of the Cabinet took it remarkably well. Of course, there'll be some dissension – perhaps strong dissension – when we discuss it again.'

Brian Richardson said dryly, 'That figures, doesn't it?'

'I suppose so,' Howden took a turn around the room. 'But then again, perhaps not. It's often true that big concepts can be accepted more readily than smaller ones.'

'That's because most people have little minds.'

'Not necessarily.' There were times when Richardson's cynicism grated on Howden. 'You were the one, I think, who pointed out that we've been moving towards the Act of Union for a long time. What's more, the terms as I have now negotiated them, are extremely favourable to Canada.' The Prime Minister paused, tweaked his nose, then continued thoughtfully, 'The extraordinary thing about this morning's Cabinet was that some people were much more anxious to talk about this wretched immigration affair.'

'Isn't everybody? I suppose you saw today's papers?'

The Prime Minister nodded, then sat down, motioning Richardson to a facing chair. 'This lawyer Maitland in Vancouver seems to be giving us a good deal of trouble. What do we know about him?'

'I checked. Seems to be just a young fellow, fairly bright, with no political connexions that are known of.'

'Not now, maybe. But this kind of case is a good way to start them. Is there any way we could approach Maitland indirectly; offer him a by-election seat if he'll take things easier?'

The party director shook his head. 'Too risky. I made some inquiries and the advice I get is to stay away. If anything like that was said, Maitland would use it against us. He's that type.'

In his own young days, Howden thought, he had been that type too. 'All right,' he said. 'What else can you suggest?'

Richardson hesitated. For three days and nights, ever since Milly Freedeman had produced the fateful photostatic record of the deal between the Prime Minister and Harvey War-render, his mind had explored possibilities.

Somewhere, Brian Richardson was convinced, a counter-lever against Harvey Warrender existed. There was always a counter-lever; even blackmailers had secrets they preferred to keep, though the problem was inevitably the same: how to wrest the secret out. There were many individuals in politics -inside and outside the party – whose secrets Richardson had been told or had stumbled on over the years. And in a locked safe in his own office a slim brown book contained them all, written in a private shorthand that only he could read.

But under 'Warrender' in the private brown book there was nothing save a new entry made a day or two ago.

Yet… somehow… the counter-lever must be found; and if anyone found it, Richardson knew, it would be himself.

Over the three days and nights he had turned his memory inside out… probing recesses… recalling chance words, incidents, asides… juggling faces, places, phrases. It was a process which had worked before, but this time it had not.

Except that for the past twenty-four hours he had had a nagging sense of being close. There was something, he knew; and it was near the surface of his mind. A face, a memory, a word might trigger it. But not yet. The question was: how long?

He was tempted to reveal to Howden his knowledge about the nine-year-old agreement; to have a full and frank discussion. It might clear the air, perhaps produce a plan for countering Harvey Warrender, possibly even release whatever was locked in his own mind. But to do so would involve Milly, at this moment, in the office outside, guarding their privacy. And Milly must not be involved, now or later. The Prime Minister had asked: 'What else can you suggest?'

'There's a fairly simple remedy, chief, which I've urged before.'

Howden said sharply, 'If you mean, let the stowaway in as an immigrant, that's out of the question now. We've taken a stand and we must maintain it. To back down would be an admission of weakness.'

'If Maitland has his way, the courts may overrule you.'

'No! Not if things are handled properly. I intend to talk to Warrender about that civil servant who's in charge out there.'

'Kramer,' Richardson said. 'He's a deputy director who was sent out temporarily.'

'He may have to be recalled. An experienced man would never have allowed a special inquiry. According to the newspapers he offered it voluntarily after the habeas corpus writ had been refused.' Howden added with a flash of anger, 'Because of that stupidity, the whole issue has been reactivated.'

'Maybe you should wait till you get out there. Then you can give him hell personally. Did you look over the schedule?'

'Yes.' Howden rose from the chair he had been occupying and crossed to his paper-strewn desk near the window. Dropping into an armchair behind, he reached for an open file folder. 'Considering the short notice,' he said approvingly, 'it's a good programme you've arranged for me.'

Howden's eye ran down the list. Allowing for a House of Commons announcement about the Act of Union in ten days' time, there were five days available for a whirlwind speaking tour across the country – the 'conditioning' period they had planned. He would begin in Toronto the day after tomorrow – a joint meeting of the influential Canadian and Empire Clubs – and end, on the final day, in Quebec City and Montreal. In between would be Fort William, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, and Regina.