Mr. Jones

by Margaret Sweatman

  The financial adviser looked nervous. He was a broadminded man, but he didn’t like the breezy way Suzanne said, “My husband’s child.” In his heart, he knew that she and the husband were deviant; maybe they weren’t even married. They sure had some weird art.

  Kimura might have been indiscreet in letting Suzanne know about Aoi’s child, but she was quite sure that the information wouldn’t go any further. Nobody else in Ottawa would know, as long he didn’t tell, and Suzanne believed that he wouldn’t. There was a bond between the two men that she envied a little.

  Emmett had first met Kimura in Japan, she knew that. The encounter must have mattered to Emmett because later, here in Ottawa, he’d purposefully looked Kimura up. She didn’t think there were any other men with whom Emmett was close, though he always spoke of Herbert Norman with reverence that was compounded by their shared difficulties with the RCMP. When Emmett liked a man — as she knew he’d liked John — he was intensely loyal.

  After her rage at Kimura had subsided, their tussle in the art gallery on that winter afternoon strengthened her friendship with him — or it did from Suzanne’s perspective; she felt she’d revealed something of herself to him. She had never before fought physically with a man. Combat can be like sex, she thought, intimately instructive. She apologized to Kimura, “Sorry I hit you.” He didn’t say, “That’s okay, I deserved it.” But he behaved with greater gallantry thereafter. “You have a bit of red in your hair,” he observed. There developed a tender quality between Kimura and Suzanne, a shy afterglow.

  Suzanne didn’t have any close women friends. Unless you could count Ethel Masters, who kept talking about Tommy Douglas. She’d made some inroads at the tennis club, until at the end of a doubles match she’d wiped the sweat from her throat and said, “I don’t want to bother showering now; I’m going right to my studio anyway.”

  She could tell by the looks on the ladies’ faces: they didn’t like the word studio.

  She’d built a certain reputation as “a woman photographer” and had installed a very good darkroom in the basement, but she also rented a studio in Vanier for the staged photos that increasingly compelled her. Her life seemed fixed; her status a product of her money, her family. Privately she felt fraudulent, and she was getting bored.

  She lived with Emmett more graciously than she would have if they had to rely on his civil servant’s salary; her money kept them nearly at the same status she’d enjoyed growing up, which seemed natural to her. As for Emmett, he didn’t really think about money, as excess or as a deficiency. He accepted the house, the good food and liquor as if, by not looking directly at the wealth that she’d brought to the marriage, it could be neutralized. His mind was elsewhere. He talked about the future, how he needed to have “an impact.” “On what?” she wanted to know.

  He badly wanted a posting abroad. He was so irritable when he returned from trade junkets to the Caribbean. He wanted to go back to Japan, to Tokyo; he said there should be something with the International Control Commission that had been set up after the defeat of France in Vietnam; he told her he could contribute to a settlement in Indochina. When he raised the subject of Japan in the presence of Kimura, Kimura was quiet; Suzanne guessed it was because of Emmett’s indiscretion, his Japanese son.

  Emmett wanted her and Lennie to go with him, he wanted them all to go and live in Tokyo. This would put him in proximity to Aoi and his son, James. He’d really have it all, if he had a posting in Japan.

  Despite her jealousy — shameful, it was shameful, her jealousy — Suzanne began to believe that she wanted to go. She was thirty-six years old. If she didn’t get away from home, she’d get old here. “I must be crazy,” she told him. “It’s like I want to meet your other wife.”

  “She’s not my wife,” he said, touching Suzanne’s hair. But he was distracted, thoughtful, as if he truly had another life, if not another wife. She liked that he was, in some ways, a mystery to her.

  Chapter Nine

  Emmett knew something of what it had been like in 1945 when the Japanese were forced to pull out of Vietnam, so he wrote some background material that Bill Masters forwarded to the minister, who then circulated it to his advisers. It was unusual for the top brass to read what was considered academic stuff about a current complexity, and External Affairs was mostly distracted by the crisis in Suez, but this time Jones’s quirky information proved valuable when the minister and his entourage travelled to Saigon. Jones’s was just the right kind of “soft” material so useful at receptions and dinners when a diplomat could casually draw analogies between the Viet Minh guerrilla movement after the withdrawal by the occupying Japanese forces back in 1945 and the tactics of the current communist insurgency.

  Tokyo was going to happen, Emmett was convinced. He was filled with energy and began to stay at the office till nearly midnight. The higher-ups knew he’d be a useful member of the Canadian team on the International Control Commission, the ICC; he was too valuable to overlook.

  In April 1957, he was trying to put through the arrangements with External to make the move. This was more complicated than it had been seven years before when he didn’t have a family; the ICC had a policy of rejecting married men. There was some difficulty over his salary, but Bill was strong-arming Finance on his behalf. When he got a message that Bill Masters wanted to see him right away, he figured it was about the contract.

  It was six in the evening and the East Block was mostly abandoned. He went to Bill’s office and found Bill seated, typically, at his redwood desk in his old leather chair. Bill looked up at him with watery eyes. His thick, fleshy throat convulsed as he tried to speak. Emmett could smell the rye. He asked Bill what was wrong.

  “Herbert Norman is dead,” Bill said.

  Emmett slowly answered, “I see.”

  Bill swung the words harshly: “He killed himself.”

  “No, he didn’t. That must be wrong.”

  “He was on the Suez business.”

  Emmett knew that. Herbert had been released from a diplomatic holding tank after three years in New Zealand. Pearson had him appointed ambassador to Egypt because he needed his help with the dangerous situation at Suez. “What happened?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “He was killed?”

  “I told you already. He killed himself.”

  “I don’t believe it. That’s wrong information. Herbert’s not the kind of man to kill himself.”

  “Well, that’s what happened,” Bill said angrily, as if his own credibility was in question. “He killed himself in Cairo.” Bill put his head in his hands. “The Senate subcommittee was after him again, down in Washington. They just wouldn’t let him alone. He was overtired, Mike Pearson said he was exhausted with all the work, getting the UN peacekeepers into Egypt. And he just — cracked.” Bill wiped his eyes. “I don’t know why it hits me so hard. Seeing a man hunted till he does something crazy.” Bill looked pleadingly at Emmett. “He grew up in Japan, just like you. Is that why he did it?” Then, “Want a drink, Emmett?”

  Emmett left Bill’s office. He went to the washroom at the end of the hall and splashed water on his face, then took the stairs and went into his secretary’s office to search for a cable, for a confirmation of what Bill had told him, but there was nothing. He left the building and went to the tavern on Elgin and had a few drinks. Then he drove home.

  It was raining. Cold splats of rain on his windshield, nearly sleet, his view of the street approaching the driveway to his house obscured by rain thick as oil paint. From a block away, he thought he saw a familiar car backing out of his driveway and driving off.

  He got soaked just getting to his front door. From the darkened entrance he could see down the hall to where light fell from the kitchen. There was the rich smell of the bourguignon Suzanne liked to make. He thought of his mother. When he was a very little boy, she had been his best friend. He wanted to go to her and put his head in her lap. She would put her hand on his forehead to feel for fever. Her
benediction, You’re hot, darling, why don’t you go put your head down?

  He went eagerly to the kitchen. Suzanne was at the sink filled with a big bunch of carrots, their lacy green tops, the bright orange; she was looking out the window above the sink. It was raining so hard the sound was orchestral. Her hands were on the edge of the counter, one foot was bent backward, the pale leather sole of her shoe.

  He approached and touched her arm. She cried out and jumped away, putting her hand over her heart. “My god, Emmett, you scared me.” In her initial fear, she’d looked grotesque. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.

  “Herbert Norman is dead.”

  “Emmett,” she said, watching his face. This was what she did when she had to discover what things meant to the men she loved. “Are you all right?”

  “Bill says he killed himself.”

  “Yes. I know.” She gestured toward the front of the house. “Kim was here. You just missed him.”

  “Kimura? I saw his car. Why didn’t he wait?” She was studying him, gauging his distress. He pressed her, “He told you Herbert’s dead? How did he know?”

  She shrugged, “I guess he must’ve heard it on the radio.”

  “The radio?”

  “How else?”

  “What did he say?”

  “He wondered if you’re going to be okay.” She touched his wet hair. “He dropped in out of the blue. When you weren’t here, he left. He said he was going to look for you at your office. Are you okay?”

  He shivered. The sun was going down and the house was cold. He went upstairs to change out of his wet clothes.

  Suzanne appeared at the doorway to their bedroom. Into the hallway behind her shone lamplight from Lennie’s room, where Lennie was lying on her stomach on the floor, colouring with crayons. Emmett hadn’t even noticed her there. Suzanne felt irritated with him, contagion from the depression that emanated from him, a bad radiation.

  She knew that Herbert Norman was a man whom Emmett had admired. From his Tokyo days. She associated the name with Aoi, knowing that this wasn’t a rational association. Herbert Norman was from that portion of Emmett’s past that made him unknowable to her. His private life, the portion of him that compelled her. “Why don’t you lie down awhile? I’ll feed Lennie, and you and I can have dinner later.”

  He sat on the bed in his socks and underwear, his hands dangling between his knees. Long face. Self-pity around the mouth. She could tell that he’d been drinking. Fury burned its way into her veins, the sort of chemical anger that would take hours to extinguish, and she knew she wouldn’t sleep tonight and certainly wouldn’t sleep with Emmett.

  But she made one more try, went to sit beside him on their bed and put her hand on his back. “He killed himself in Cairo,” she said.

  That’s what Bill had said. People liked to say that. He killed himself in Cairo. “That’s a stupid thing to say. He fucking well didn’t kill himself.”

  She took her hand away. He had no right to speak to her like that; she never interfered with his precious memories of Tokyo. “How did he die then?”

  “Sounds like you know more than me.”

  She stood up. “Kim said he jumped. Out of a window or — off a building or something.” Then she felt an access of generosity. “Oh darling, I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m going to lie down.” He got under the covers and put his arm over his eyes.

  Suzanne closed the door behind her.

  But he came downstairs soon after, went into the living room, and she heard him pour himself a drink and dial the phone.

  Lennie came down and stood in the hallway, looking at her father reproachfully, with a child’s antenna, sensing him out, as if he emitted a poison, some kind of evil.

  He made phone calls. Suzanne heard that much while she fed Lennie at the kitchen table. Afterward she bathed Lennie and got her into her pyjamas. All the while, Emmett sat in the living room, on the phone or making notes on a notepad on the arm of his chair, his legs crossed, wearing navy blue trousers and a pinstriped shirt as if dressed for the office, except for the tie. Suzanne disliked his note-taking, the self-importance, the indulgence of a crisis.

  She read to Lennie and left her in bed while she went to take a hot bath, dreading any further conversation with Emmett and knowing that any release from the anger in her blood was out of the question; she’d need to drink it off.

  She wasn’t being fair to him, not at all. Warmed from the bath, in her silk bathrobe, barefoot, she took a bottle of wine and two glasses into the living room. “Did you learn more?”

  He shrugged, looking helpless. “Kimura says he heard about it from friends in Tokyo.”

  “Herbert Norman had been troubled for some time,” she offered tentatively.

  Emmett removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His face now looked featureless without them. “They were going to investigate again. Why would they go after him like that?”

  “Who?”

  “Same as me. Same as me.”

  “The RCMP?”

  “They wouldn’t leave him alone.”

  She asked again, “The RCMP?”

  “Yes! You know that. Kimura told you.”

  He seemed to be angry that Kimura had told her first, as if the news should all belong to Emmett.

  Kimura had told her that Herbert Norman was suspected of being a traitor to the country. And possibly a homosexual. Homosexual behaviour made him an easy mark for blackmail. The Russians would use that. With the Suez being such a powder keg, it was the kind of information that could derail the negotiations, set off some real trouble. Kimura had drawn a portrait of a man pushed to the limit, who saw a way out, who jumped.

  “I don’t believe it,” Emmett said. He was picturing the man, the leap, the lonely decision to fall.

  “Did he have children?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “That’s good.”

  This struck him anew: it was beyond despair when it was good that one didn’t have any children. “He was pushed,” he said.

  “Oh! How terrible. How do they — who did?”

  “Everyone.”

  “Oh.”

  After some time, chilly, listening for Lennie, she began, “Emmett? Tell me. Was he?”

  “A communist?”

  “A homosexual.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just that — it would make it that much harder for a man.”

  “No, Suzanne. He was not a homosexual. He was not a traitor. We are the traitors.”

  “Speak for yourself.” She got up. Her feet were freezing. Her heart was hard against him. “I’m going to bed.”

  He sat on alone awhile and then went back to the tavern on Elgin Street.

  Chapter Ten

  Harold Gembey spoke to Emmett about his friendship with Herbert Norman during the time when they’d both been posted to Tokyo. Emmett had already told Gembey everything worth saying, and in the retelling, he couldn’t help feeling false.

  “Were you two at all — intimate?” Gembey focused on his own hands while he spoke, then glanced up quickly, almost generous in leaving his real question unspoken.

  Emmett pretended not to understand. “We had a very fine professional relationship,” he said. Gembey looked relieved.

  The newspapers were filled with news, speculation, and righteous indignation over Herbert Norman. The liberal commentary was outraged over his “persecution” and blamed the Americans for his suicide. It became common knowledge that at the time of his death, Herbert Norman was facing his third investigation by the RCMP, instigated by a US Security committee.

  But people wondered: if Herbert Norman was innocent, why should he fear an investigation? If the man wasn’t a communist, did he possess other, unsavoury qualities? He was married, sure, but he had no children. The reporters began to dig deeper.

  Then the Ottawa Citizen ran a photo of Herbert Norman, a handsome headshot of Herbert smoking a pipe, and beside it, a photograph
of Emmett Jones getting into an Alpha Romeo from his parking spot near Parliament Hill. This photograph looked furtive if only because Emmett was ducking his head as he stooped to get into the low-slung car. Its proximity to the photograph of Herbert Norman paired them intimately.

  The story beneath the photographs was polite and nearly accurate: Emmett Jones was identified as a civil servant who had shared a posting with Herbert Norman in Tokyo in 1950; it stated that Herbert Norman had suddenly been recalled from that posting because his name had been raised before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigating disloyalty in government offices.

  The journalists got excited about the story.

  Within two days, it was revealed that Emmett Jones had also been recalled by Ottawa on suspicion of disloyalty.

  The newspapers dutifully reported the additional information that Emmett Jones, like Herbert Norman, had been fully cleared. The minister made a statement expressing his grief over Herbert Norman’s death and his furious disgust with the unwarranted attacks on the integrity of Canadian civil servants.

  Everyone was talking about Emmett Jones. Conversations stopped when Emmett entered a room. External Affairs gave him a leave of absence he hadn’t asked for. Suzanne couldn’t go to the grocery store without raising a flutter of gossip around her.

  Not everyone shunned them; there was a contingent of men and their wives who paused at receptions to wish them well. But certainly nothing more was said about the elusive contract with the International Control Commission that would take him back to Asia. People’s suspicions of him had a palpable sexual quality. Jones’s wife and daughter, his knowledge, his work, his entire life, seemed like a failed disguise.