Please provide all necessary assistance to Wolf with his marriage plans, including making representations to Colombia to expedite paperwork and closing embassy day of wedding. Staff are to attend ceremony and to give wedding presents. Extend my personal best wishes to the happy couple and in due course facilitate return of Wolf and his bride to Canada.
The Undersecretary of State for External Affairs,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Ambassador Leroux had to read the message three times to understand what the undersecretary was saying. It must be a practical joke from one of those idiots in the Department, he thought, and asked for the telegram to be sent again. Unfortunately for the ambassador, the instructions remained unchanged. To Oscar’s delight, the ambassador called at his apartment with a bouquet of flowers and some good news.
“I may have been a little hasty and said a few things in the heat of the moment I didn’t really mean when you announced your plans to marry Rosa. Now, after careful reflection and consultations with the Department, I have come to give you my personal blessing and — this is very important, Oscar — to provide my formal approval, in my capacity as Her Majesty’s Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary to the Republic of Colombia, for your marriage.”
Although Oscar in his moments of sobriety was not actually in that much of a rush to get married, and Rosa, not speaking any language known in Bogota, had no idea what was going on, the marriage was held within the month at the seminary of the Saints of the Holy Apostles, a Canadian order of priests in Bogota. The Colombian authorities were at first amused when the Canadian embassy applied by diplomatic note for a marriage licence. They thought the Canadians were not being serious and were making a joke at their expense; an unusual joke perhaps, but a joke nevertheless; these gringos sometimes had a strange sense of humour. But when they sent a note denying the request, the ambassador called on the foreign minister to make representations, and the undersecretary called in the Colombian ambassador in Ottawa and did the same thing.
“Just think of the symbolic value,” they told the Colombians. “Such a marriage would symbolize the union between the Indians of Canada and Colombia and provide a new foundation for relations between our two countries.”
And so, although Rosa had no birth certificate and no one, including herself, knew her age, the Colombian government directed the Ministry of the Interior to overlook the rules and issue a marriage licence to the betrothed and an exit permit to Rosa. Indians, after all, were just Indians and the Colombians really didn’t care what happened to her.
The entire Canadian embassy staff, including a smirking Pilar, attended the wedding. Although invited, most diplomatic representatives stayed away because the dean of the diplomatic corps, a former dictator who had enjoyed imprisoning and torturing his opponents when he was leader of his country, had let his colleagues know he thought such a marriage would undermine the high ethical standards diplomats occupied in the social structure of Latin American society. A dozen or more members of the foreign ministry accepted their invitations, but did not come. The Canadian priest who performed the service was puzzled when Rosa didn’t seem to understand when he asked her at the appropriate part of the ceremony if she took Oscar to be her lawful wedded husband. In the end, it all worked out and Oscar and Rosa flew to Ottawa with their wedding presents in time to celebrate Thanksgiving together as the leaves turned colour in the Gatineau Hills, and they began their new lives as man and wife.
4
The two years Oscar would spend in Ottawa before being posted abroad again would not be happy ones. While the senior officers were prepared to overlook his conduct in Colombia, the other ranks were not as forgiving. Their view was that Oscar had used his Indian identity for personal advantage, and not knowing that his odd behaviour had been triggered by the collapse of his relationship with Claire, they thought his passion for human rights had affected his judgement. When Oscar reported for duty, his staffing officer congratulated him coldly on his marriage and exiled him to Information Division in the basement of the East Block to draft letters for the signature of the minister to schoolchildren who wanted information on life overseas for their school projects but who were too lazy to do their own research.
His marriage, Oscar soon discovered, while not an absolute failure, did not live up to his hopes. For one thing, it turned out that Rosa was not pregnant.
“It’s just amoebas and parasites she’s picked up from drinking the water back where she comes from,” the doctor said after conducting a few tests. “That’s why her stomach is so swollen. In a few weeks or months, after taking a few pills, she should be back to normal.”
And so she was, to the distress of the newly married couple. Since Rosa, despite much effort, made no progress in learning to speak English, they passed their time in their respective solitudes, made worse by Oscar’s drinking and Rosa’s deepening homesickness. Rosa spent her days looking out the window, and Oscar, to avoid the painful atmosphere at home, began to stay at his desk after hours reading books borrowed from the library and quietly sipping aguardiente from the stock he had brought back from Colombia.
Then one morning in the spring of 1956, Luigi sent Oscar a telegram saying a death squad had killed Rosa’s parents in a raid on their encampment, and that the members of her extended family had fled into exile across the Orinoco River into Venezuela. Oscar immediately sent a telegram to Luigi saying he intended to return with Rosa to Colombia and search for her family. But that same afternoon, Luigi replied, telling him not to come. The remnants of her family, Luigi wrote, were so well hidden in the jungle that no one would ever find them.
For hours that evening, Oscar tried to tell Rosa that her parents were dead but she gave no sign she understood. He then obtained a copy of a National Geographic magazine with colour photos documenting the lives of South American Indians. One of the photos was a burial scene with mourning members of a family gathered around a body. Oscar shook Rosa by the shoulder to obtain her attention, showed her the picture of the downcast men, women, and children around the corpse, pointed to her and pretended he was crying. Rosa looked at him, not understanding. Oscar drew her attention to the photograph again, and pretended to cry again. He then took one of her hands and rubbed her eyes with it, and Rosa began to cry. But her tears did not provoke catharsis and she stopped eating. Afraid she was intent on starving herself to death, Oscar prepared meals of rice, beans, and fried bananas — her favourite foods — but they no longer interested her. Oscar did not know what to do and neither did the doctors.
“She’s grieving and misses her family,” they said. “Take her back to her people for a visit.” But when Oscar said her family was either dead or hiding in the Venezuelan jungle, the doctors said they couldn’t do anything for her. It was by then summer, and in desperation Oscar took her to the Indian Camp hoping she would feel more at home among his people. Friends and relatives gathered around, telling Oscar he should have brought Rosa to see them when they first arrived from Colombia. The old people said Rosa looked like Louisa before she passed away, and everyone said she was a younger version of Stella.
“You married your mother and grandmother,” someone said, but Oscar did not join in the laughter. “My wife is grieving for her dead family, and if she doesn’t start eating, she’ll die.”
“Take her to see the Manido of the Lake,” an old woman said, “and when you come back we’ll have a feast prepared.”
Although he didn’t believe it would do any good, Oscar borrowed a canoe and paddled down the river and out onto Lake Muskoka. Pulling up beside the blind statue, he threw some tobacco on the water, raised his hands in the air, and uttered a prayer.
“Oh Great Manido of the Lake,” he intoned. “I have been away for many years and have returned home with a Native woman from another land who is sad because her family is dead. Use your powers to make her well, Oh Great Manido, and I’ll come more often to see you.”
Rosa, who had watched Oscar throw the toba
cco on the water and say his prayer, smiled for the first time since she arrived in Canada, and on their return to the Indian Camp, she broke her fast and ate the fried fish, bannock, and wild blueberries the women had prepared for her. But when it came time to return to Ottawa, Rosa went into the shack, took a chair at the table in front of the window looking out over Port Carling Bay, and refused to budge.
“The weekend’s over,” Oscar said. “Our suitcase is packed and in the car. We’ve got to go.”
Although Rosa did not respond, Oscar was sure she understood the message and he tried again.
“I’m due back in the office tomorrow morning, and if I’m not at my desk I’ll lose a day’s pay.”
When Rosa ignored his appeal and gazed obstinately out the window at the bay, Oscar sought the help of the people at the Indian Camp, who spoke to her to no avail. He then enlisted the help of Clem, who went inside and spent an hour with her.
“She’s making her home here at the Indian Camp and she doesn’t care whether you stay or go,” he said when he came out of the shack.
“But what about my job? My career? I’m a diplomat. I’m Canada’s first Native diplomat. I have a responsibility to fight for oppressed people everywhere. I can’t let them down! I can’t spend the rest of my life at the Indian Camp when the world needs me!”
“That’s for you to decide,” Clem said. “But if you choose your career over Rosa, your mother and I will look after her for you.”
“I don’t want to argue with you, Clem,” Oscar said, “and I can’t stay here waiting for Rosa to change her mind. Maybe spending some time here would be good for her. After all, she’s come back to life since she arrived. I’ll send you the money, and I’d appreciate it if you could keep her supplied with rice, beans, cooking oil, and bananas, as well as the occasional fresh fish and look in on her from time to time to be sure she’ll be all right.”
“I’ll do that,” Clem said. “And I’ll ask your mother to give me a hand in delivering a few cords of dry split hardwood to the shack in the early fall so your wife can cook her meals and keep warm when the weather turns cold.”
PART 4
1958 to 1962
Chapter 9
AUSTRALIA AND ITS ABORIGINAL PEOPLES
1
The marriage is over, Oscar thought as he drove back to Ottawa through the heavy summer traffic. She doesn’t want to live with me anymore. She’d rather live in a shack at the Indian Camp instead of in an apartment in Ottawa with an indoor toilet and hot and cold running water, or in a foreign capital in a comfortable staff quarter with a servant to do the cleaning and duty-free booze and electronics. The marriage was a mistake in the first place. I was on the rebound from Claire and drinking heavily when I met her and didn’t know what I was doing.
The next day, Oscar called on his staffing officer and said he wanted to leave on posting as soon as possible. “I’ve been stuck in a dead-end job for two years and it’s time I was out in the field again. I’ll go anywhere.”
“But what about Rosa? You can’t go on a posting with a sick wife.”
“She’s fully recovered, and she’s decided to remain in Canada close to my mother who’s going to keep her company.”
“Well, okay, Oscar, if you’re sure about that. We’ve got an opening for a first secretary in Canberra. I’ll send a telegram to the high commissioner to see if he’ll take you. It’ll be a hard sell given your record in Colombia.”
Oscar found that his reputation had preceded him when he reported for work at Canada’s high commission in Canberra, Australia’s capital two hundred miles into the interior, southeast of Sydney. Robert Evans, the high commissioner, was a shy, tall, good-humoured individual with an enormous and wholly bald head. If asked, people who knew him well would probably say that he was an honest man who treated everyone, whatever their station in life, the same way. If pressed to provide more information, they would likely add that his personal priorities were his faith, his family, and the monarchy — in that order.
After his service in the Great War, the man who would become Oscar’s superior had enrolled in Knox College to train to become a Presbyterian minister, but had developed an interest in international affairs and switched to Honours History and joined the Department on graduation. In the course of his long career, he had emerged as one of Canada’s most distinguished foreign policy practitioners, working for more than a decade at Canada’s mission to the League of Nations in Geneva and for another decade as deputy undersecretary in Ottawa. He had then gone on to a succession of world capitals as a head of post. In all his years of service, he never lost his frugal Calvinist instincts. For example, he always felt vaguely uneasy at having a car and driver at his disposal and insisted on opening his own door and sitting in the front seat. When he and his wife were alone, they ate with the household staff in the family dining room. Only the most inexpensive of wines were served at official functions, and guests often left dinner parties at his house hungry. And certainly no one would have dared tell an off-colour joke in his presence.
The high commissioner was aware of the scandal Oscar had caused in Colombia, and when the Department requested his permission to send him to his mission, his first instinct was to say no. Fortunately for Oscar, Evans had come to know Reverend Huxley when they were both students at Knox College, and when he saw in Oscar’s personnel file that he had lived in Port Carling, he decided to write his old friend to seek his views.
“Oscar had a difficult childhood, lost his grandfather in a fire, and was turned away by his mother when he was only thirteen,” Reverend Huxley told him in his return letter. “My wife and I took him in and ensured he received a good high-school education and he paid us back many times over with his friendship. I am aware that he developed a drinking problem during his posting to Colombia, and for reasons of his own that I do not question, he has separated from his wife. I nevertheless believe he can still do great things with his life. I hope you give him a chance to prove himself.”
“Go right on in, the boss is expecting you,” Ruth Oxley, the secretary to the high commissioner, told Oscar when he went to introduce himself on reporting for duty in early September.
“Sit down here at my desk. We need to talk,” said Evans when Oscar poked his head around the door. “I won’t bite you.”
As Oscar sat down, Evans got up and walked over to the picture window that looked out over the high commission gardens.
“So you’re the terrible Oscar Wolf who caused so much trouble for Georges Leroux over there in Colombia,” he said, gazing out the window. “Georges and I go back a long way even though he’s a generation behind me in the Department. He’s a good man, but he never learned how to manage his staff. Lets them walk all over him. That’s one reason he never made it to the top ranks and has spent his career in Latin America where the only thing that interests the government is trade promotion. Tolerated behaviour I wouldn’t have put up with for a minute.”
Without turning around to face Oscar, High Commissioner Evans reached into his pocket and extracted a neatly folded white handkerchief, removed his glasses, and set to work vigorously polishing the lenses.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it, Oscar,” he said, continuing to look out the window. “Just think, we never get winter here. At least not winter as we know it in Ottawa. I love the Australian spring. Cool and fresh in the mornings and hot and dry in the afternoons. Beautiful rose gardens. Never a cloud in the sky. We would die for a day like this in Canada.
“Now, Oscar,” he said, turning and blinking at him through his newly cleaned glasses, “I won’t stand for the shenanigans you got up to in Bogota.”
Without waiting for an answer, Evans stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket and picked up from a side table a silver-framed photograph of Queen Elizabeth II shaking hands with him. In it, he was wearing a dark grey morning coat with tails, light grey tie, dark grey vest, and striped pants, and he was bowing, smiling and accepting the graciously proffered hand o
f Her Majesty.
“I love all the members of the royal family, past and present, Oscar,” he said. “But I have the greatest love and respect for Queen Elizabeth. I admired her work as a driver during the war and her courage when her father passed away and she had to replace him as monarch. Around that time, I was working directly for the minister and he let me go with him to attend her coronation at Westminster Abbey. And later, here in Australia, I was fortunate to meet her in person when she was on a royal tour and have my picture taken with her when she received the Commonwealth high commissioners in audience at Government House.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever met Her Majesty, Oscar,” he said, setting the photograph down gently on the table.
“No, I haven’t,” Oscar replied. “But I once met her father, King George VI.”
“You would have never forgotten the occasion if you had,” Evans said, paying no attention to what Oscar had just said. “The royal family have a soft spot in their hearts for Indians, you know.”
“It was at Buckingham Palace at the end of the war,” Oscar said, continuing his story. “There were a dozen of us, from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. We had all been awarded the military cross and there was a ceremony at Buckingham Palace where the king pinned the medals on our tunics and shook our hands. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were sad.”
The Redemption of Oscar Wolf Page 17
