Читать книгу The God Game - Jeffrey Round - Страница 11

Queen’s Park

Queen Victoria is just one of more than a dozen famous people residing in effigy at Queen’s Park in the heart of Toronto. She shares the space with monarchs alive and dead, Canada’s first prime minister, the Fathers of Confederation, the leader of the Upper Canada Rebellion, a token poet, and even Jesus Christ himself. But it’s her park, nonetheless.

It’s here that the Ontario legislature has resided and where the province’s laws have been debated, refuted, enacted, and challenged since the country’s inception. The legislature’s ceremonial mace, an ornamented staff of wood and metal representing the ruling monarch’s authority, was stolen by the Americans in the War of 1812, a series of cross-border skirmishes that gained them no ground but inflamed nationalist identity on either side of the Great Lakes. For their part, the British got a second go at the Colony That Got Away three decades earlier. As for the Americans, they acquired a national anthem and the above-mentioned mace, until Franklin Roosevelt ordered its return in 1934. Their only real victory, the much-lauded Battle of New Orleans, came some two weeks after the signing of the peace treaty between the two nations, news of which apparently had not reached them soon enough.

There are always winners and losers in times of conflict, as Dan was well aware, and while both the British and Americans claimed — incorrectly, as it turned out — to have won the war, the only clear losers were the aboriginal peoples, betrayed by their allies on both sides while sustaining heavy casualties and further loss of land before being shunted off to reservations. In the ensuing years, native land claims were just one of many contentious issues presided over at Queen’s Park. It seemed to Dan that not much had changed in the intervening centuries.

While Canada’s history was less bloody than most, of late Dan felt his fellow Canadians had developed a smug attitude toward politics. So it had come as a shock to them when the folks at Toronto’s city hall were forced to deal with a crack-smoking mayor who befriended gang members and became the subject of police investigations, raging and rampaging at foes and allies alike, his infantile behaviour making headlines around the globe. Torontonians suddenly woke to the reality that even they could look like buffoons if their leaders were not cut from a finer cloth.

While politics at Queen’s Park tended to be of a subtler nature, it was not without scandal. Making his way up the steps of the legislature, Dan thought of Simon Bradley’s allegations about the opposition critic who may or may not have committed suicide, about Peter Hansen’s missing husband who gambled away large amounts of money, and the rumours of a master manipulator who could make and unmake the reputations of political aspirants. Verifiable or not, it was juicy stuff.

Dan checked his watch. He was early.

Inside the doors was a modest collection of paintings by Robert Bateman, one of Canada’s acclaimed nature artists. Fur and feathers. Nothing radical to shock the visitors. Farther along, behind glass, were collections of aboriginal art: tusk, bone, and soapstone looking pristine and sterile out of their natural environment, a testament to the acquisitive nature of power.

At the front desk, Dan leaned in to inquire when the next tour of chambers began. The receptionist beamed a glossy smile at him, apparently thrilled to be working in the hallowed halls of government.

“You’re in luck! It starts in five minutes,” she announced.

Beside her, a woman many years her senior who looked as though she’d had her fill of governmental regulations, frowned. “Council’s already in session today, so you won’t be going into the gallery,” she snapped, more than happy to spoil his visit.

Dan joined a group of schoolgirls and tourists and they were soon on their way. The guide, an earnest young woman of budding theatrical leanings, indicated a series of stern portraits on the surrounding walls just beyond the lobby.

“Here we have the House Speakers. The Speaker is chosen by anonymous ballot,” she announced with gravity, as though describing a Masonic initiation rite. “Generally, he comes from the ruling party, but there have been rare exceptions. Whoever becomes Speaker must agree to drop his party allegiances and act impartially at all times.”

Dan smiled to himself, thinking it would be like putting an alcoholic in a bar and telling him not to drink while everyone else was knocking back their fill.

“Historically, the Speaker represented the throne,” their guide continued. “This proved disadvantageous when at least seven Speakers were put to death for bringing news displeasing to the king. The Speaker no longer represents the ruling monarch, but instead represents the interests of the House.”

A wise career choice, Dan thought as they trooped upward, gathering briefly before a large panel window on the second floor. Behind the glass, images flickered on playback monitors, spotlighting members of the legislature in another room. A garrulous blonde had the floor. She spoke animatedly, her face contorted with the urgency of her message, though her words remained unheard on this side of the wall.

“What you are seeing is the current debate in the assembly,” their guide informed them. “We’re not allowed to enter while council is in session, however …” Here she stepped smartly up to a switch on the wall. What had been silent images, mimes in motion, suddenly came through first in English, then in French, as she flicked the switch up and down. “We’re bilingual!” she exclaimed, as proudly as if she’d invented the switch herself.

The group broke into hesitant applause. Their guide led them on till they stood gazing up at another series of dour-faced portraits. Time-ravaged, colour-muted, the founding fathers of the legislature looked to a man as proper as an English parson, as though not one of them had so much as contemplated a dirty deed in his life. In the late nineteenth century, Dan knew, symbolist painters had begun eradicating human figures from their landscapes as they sought to depict a mystical vision of life. Humankind struck from paradise. Portraitists should do the same with politicians, he mused.

Among the subjects, a single woman stood out from the group, as though to belie the myth that Canada’s founders had been only men and moose. This, the guide informed them, was Laura Secord. While Paul Revere had been warning of the impending approach of the British south of the border, a lowly Canadian cowherd had risked her life to warn of marauding Americans to the north as they spread their war of aggression.

“But I don’t understand,” spluttered a white-haired senior who had earlier declared himself a visitor from New York. “Why is the war considered an act of American aggression?”

The guide answered calmly. “Because the U.S. declared war on Canada.”

“But that was because the British burned Washington!” the man huffed.

“It’s true the British burned Washington, sir,” the guide said. “But that was in retaliation after the Americans burned our parliament buildings.” She smiled, gleeful at her small rebellion. In her mind, it was tit for tat. Aggression made easy.

“That’s not what I was taught in school!” the man protested, stupefied by this seditious refutation of sacred truths.

And that, Dan thought, is the nature of politics.

Mindful of the pitfalls of history, the guide shepherded her flock down the hall. Dan lingered to admire the portrait of the daring Secord, waiting till the guide’s voice passed out of hearing. Alone, he glanced over to the assembly chambers. The door was unguarded. He slipped into the gallery during a pause in the proceedings and took a seat.

Pillars reached up grandly, forming arches on all sides. From below they resembled oversized molars whose roots extended down to form a giant mouth. Which, in essence, was what the assembly was, Dan thought. A giant mouth that never stopped talking.

The gallery’s partitions had been decorated by a gifted carver. Bats, wolves, and foxes gambolled about, a sly nod to the true nature of the political animal. While unwary visitors expecting an air of decorum might have been surprised by the gruff voices emanating from the floor, Dan was well aware that political discussions were not infrequently conducted like hockey games, one of the nation’s favoured pastimes after drinking beer and complaining about the weather. Violence and vitriol were common, the participants treating each other like the bitterest of enemies until the need for compromise arose and something like détente occurred. It was as hypocritical and dishonourable an occupation as any to be found among human affairs, so who could resist?

Dan kept his eye on the House Speaker, the same one whose antecedents had been historically prone to execution. Forced to give up party interests, he came dressed for the part in a black-and-white harlequinesque veneer of neutrality. A fitting ensemble for the house dealer. Look at me, ladies and gentlemen of the assembly: nothing in my hands, nothing up my sleeves. Nothing but impartiality here! The symbolic mace was always at his side. No House business could occur without it. Perhaps the Americans had thought they’d successfully stalled the government for the hundred and twenty-two years it was absent. Fortunately, there was a spare.

The Speaker recognized Alec Henderson, minister of educational reforms, Peter Hansen’s boss. The minister waited for the room to settle before introducing his bill: the new proposed sex-education curriculum, a subject cutting right to the heart of the bigoted and intolerant. In its initial stages, with the potential for controversy spread across its pages, the bill’s contents were as likely to offend one group as another, while the minorities it was designed to protect — progressive folk, women, and that subversive LGBT crowd fomenting change and rocking the foundations of civilization in their pursuit of equality — had been cast as villains in the drama. Nothing new in the annals of politics.

Demurely attired, Henderson stepped up to give the galley a view of the Sensible Moderate Advocating Change. Am I not a reasonable man? he seemed to ask, clutching his vest at the arm pits, the very vision of normality despite the load of treason he carried in his folder.

He addressed the room in his real voice, his true voice, its inflections ringing with virtue and justice. Though perhaps it was just one of the many voices he was said to possess — who could tell? Meanwhile, he was still that same politician who never stopped ticking off the potential votes of everyone he met, like a real estate agent who can’t help evaluating the worth of every house he enters. Naturally, there was always the next election to consider. Sell your soul for a good price, but always include a buy-back clause. You can screw the voters today, but never forget they still need to love you tomorrow.

A basso-continuo murmuring could be heard from the galleries, where a sour and unpleasant lot had gathered to hear him speak, pushing their own interests in the guise of public concern.

“What if we don’t want this filth foisted on our children?” demanded a woman who looked as though she’d given up a round of afternoon cosmos to be there.

Henderson’s smile was gracious, expressing his sincerest sympathy and understanding. It should have been — he’d practised it enough. “No one will be forced to take this course. Your child can simply opt out of the scheduled period.”

“And then they’ll be picked on and bullied by the other kids for not taking it!” someone else shouted.

The Speaker clacked his gavel, eyeing the insurrection. “The minister of educational reforms has the floor,” he reminded them, though they were all well aware of the fact.

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker,” Henderson said, managing to sound as though he had never at any time transgressed those very same rules of conduct himself.

Dan was impressed as the minister stared his critics down. His shrug could have been an apology or a dismissal. “Although I understand your concerns, the fact is you can’t have it both ways. If you don’t want your child to take the course, it shouldn’t prevent someone else’s child from having the option to attend.”

Cries of assent came from his side of the scrum. While he had the room’s attention, he would ride the wave of public opinion. He was the man with the silver tongue and the populist views. A man of the people. That night, his party would parade him through the streets, held aloft on their shoulders. In another age, dissenters might have carried him straight to the gallows. Views that made you a reformer a century ago might have been those of today’s knee-jerk reactionary. Meanwhile the crowd railed, their voices pressing in from all quarters, replete with the echoes of history: Free the slaves? Unheard of! Women’s suffrage? Madness! Same-sex marriage? The end of civilization! What further lawlessness and insanity will be thrust upon us tomorrow by this reckless government?

“Yes,” Henderson assured a questioner, “the bill is intended to be fair and unbiased. It’s based on an in-depth survey of more than four thousand parents whose children are in the current school system.”

“And just who,” someone demanded, “were these four thousand parents and how were they chosen?”

Another shrug. “They were chosen at random with a lottery-style method of selection,” came the minister’s long-suffering reply.

It was a reply evincing fairness enough to satisfy the harshest critic. But the voices of dissent were everywhere. A funereal-looking man with a cravat spoke up. “My constituents expect me to stand up against this sort of immorality. I need to give them the representation they asked for with their vote. Why else do we elect officials but to speak in our name?”

Henderson turned to the robed harlequin. “Exactly my point, Mr. Speaker. The people have elected us to speak for them and that is precisely what we are doing!”

The crowd was in an uproar: This is against our religious teachings! … We don’t want these things discussed in our schools … Yeah, well, my taxes pay for your kid to go to school and I don’t want them learning hatred and prejudice … Then why don’t you start your own school? It was a textbook lesson on intolerance brought over lock, stock, and barrel from the Old Country. Never mind that they’d all been killing each other for centuries in the Old Country. If they had their way, that tradition would continue, too.

“I will have order in the House!” the Speaker cried at last, glaring out over the room even if deep down he didn’t give a damn if they tore each other’s eyes out, bored as he was with this farce of decorum and manners flouted by contrary schoolchildren.

Dan checked his watch. It was time for his meeting with an old friend.