Warday

“What Russian business, and what is Alaska Territory?”

“It used to be the state of Alaska until you ceded it to us last year.”

“We gave you Alaska?”

“The treaty was signed in L.A. and Ottawa in June of 1992. We interned the Soviet naval units that had docked in Anchorage, and it was decided in Ottawa that our national security depended upon our remaining in Alaska. We paid you thirty-five million gold dollars, so you needn’t quibble.”

This did not seem like a very good price to us. “What about Prudhoe Bay? What about the Alaska Pipeline?”

“It ends in Vancouver. Now, if I may, I’d like to attempt my lunch. What sort of grain do you suppose this false hamburger is made of?”

“Soy.”

“I’d say oatmeal, from the taste of the thing. The meat is indistinguishable from the bread. Oh, waiter!” The waiter came over.

“Bring me a half-bottle of Beaujolais, please.”

“We have Coca-Cola, sir.”

“Bottled?”

“Fountain, sir.”

“Sad it’s not bottled. I really don’t want to get the damned Uncle Sam Jump yet again.”

I recalled laughing to Mexican friends about the Aztec Two-Step. If they were as hurt and embarrassed as I felt, they concealed it well.

“What do Canadians think about the U.S. now?” Jim asked.

“About the U.S. as a country? Very little, because it isn’t one. We deal with half a dozen separate governments down here. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio are one country we deal with a lot. It has four governors and on the whole is fairly disunited, but we deal with it. We also deal with the South, which has its de facto capital in Atlanta. There are other states, of course, but if you get Georgia on your side, they go along. We have a great amount of business with New England, of course. The Bostonians and the Vermonters are the two most vociferous lots. Then the states of Washington and Oregon are an independent entity. They have a joint legislature but two governors, so that can be complicated. California is the easiest. Governor Campbell is the beginning and end of power there.”

“What sort of dealing do you do?”

“Canada in general, or just us bankers?”

“You personally.”

“I do financings, mostly. We offer Commonwealth pounds, Canadian dollars, British pounds, and gold, generally in return for substantial equity ownership, which we then sell on the American Trades Exchange in London.”

“The American Trades Exchange?”

“It makes a market for persons wishing to buy and sell instruments of ownership in American plants and equipment, trademarks, patents, and proprietary secrets. For example, one can buy a complete set of plans for the Boeing 747, including all supporting documentation, wiring diagrams, and subordinate electronic equipment schematics, and the right to use them, on that exchange. The 747 plans are going for eight million dollars gold or equivalent. I know this because a Canadian company has been attempting to buy them. We are financial guarantors in part of the deal. My involvement is in establishing acceptable currency equivalencies for the gold. Excuse me.” He called the waiter. “Will you take this back and give me the soup, please? Amtrak really ought to get hold of some meat, if you want to have hamburgers on your menu.”

The waiter took back the partially eaten hamburger and returned with the soup.

“It’s not hot. I want it scalding. Boiled, do you understand?” He turned to us. “Sorry. Where were we?”

I had a question that was a little off the subject of banking, but after our experience in California, I was eager to know the answer.

“Is the Canadian border patrolled?”

He smiled. “Very, very carefully. And it isn’t because we don’t like you, mind, or don’t want you coming over, but rather for your own protection. There are Canadians, I’ll tell you frankly, who are perfectly capable of violence against you Americans. So we think the passport/visa system is really best. They’ve pretty well cleared out the refugees that came into Saskatchewan and Manitoba from the Dakotas, so that particular disturbance is over. You’ve got to understand, it was your war and our country was just incidentally thrown into chaos in the process.” He waved his soup spoon. “Let me ask you a question, and since I’ve been so frank with you, be frank with me. Before you encountered me, did you ever for even one moment think of what had happened to Canada? Of what we were going through because of you? Even that we were there? Did you?”

We had to admit the truth: we had not.

Jack Harper smiled his tight smile and went back to his soup.

INTERVIEW Terry Burford, Midwife and Witch

I’m working toward delivering a baby a day. Right now I do about three or four a week. At the moment I’ve got fifty-eight patients in the midwifery and about two hundred in my general practice. I’ve got thirty psychiatric patients divided into four groups. Also, I have my own coven, Rosewood, and I’m elder of four covens that have hived off from Rosewood. I keep office hours from seven to seven, and I always visit my patients in the home. I can’t really work on anybody unless I know them and what kind of energies there are in their home environment, and preferably at work also.

I’ll take a fee of a dime for an office examination or fifteen cents for a home visit, plus ten cents to a dollar for the various preparations I might prescribe. Rosewood does healing rituals for free. I offer a complete midwifery service, with counseling and support throughout the pregnancy, for three dollars, which includes the delivery. If the child is defective or born dead, the fee is refundable. I lose about a third of the babies and one mother out of ten. My losses are almost always due to complications resulting from radiation exposure. I do euthanasias on profoundly crippled or retarded newborns for free. Also, I do abortion counseling and perform abortions.

I have been a witch since I was ten years old. My mom was a witch, and her mom before her, all the way back, but I went to Ohio State and NYU, where I got an M.S. in clinical psychology. I am a Jungian analyst, with a strong Wiccan override. Prewar, my kind of practice would have been on the periphery of society, but things have changed so much that people are flocking to us witches now, primarily for healing and midwifery. I am a good herbalist, and I really can accomplish a lot with my medicants. And herbs can give you the kind of dramatic cure that an antibiotic can achieve—if you can get an antibiotic.

My practice as a witch is also my faith. I follow the old pre-Christian religion. We worship the Earth as a Goddess, and Her male manifestation, the Horned God. Our emphasis on ecstatic union with the planet has accounted for the postwar growth of the Wiccan movement. As most Wiccans tend to be antihierarchical, we also feel comfortable with the Destructuralists—more than one witch is also a Destructuralist.

We work from our own homegrown rituals. Many covens follow various public traditions, such as the Adlerian method started by Margot Adler in ’88, and the older Starhawk method. I am a “fam-trad” witch in that my craft comes from an old tradition in my own family. To join one of my covens requires a two-year apprenticeship. Right now we have four trainees for Rosewood—all we can take at one time—and a waiting list of sixty.

Our lives are hard and our hours are long. Twenty-hour days are not unusual. Take the day before yesterday. Here’s how it went:

3:55 A.M. My assistant, Kathy Geiger, wakes me up. Betty Cotton has come to term. Kathy has already gone to the Cottons’ house and examined Betty. She is nearly fully dilated. I grab my instrument and herb cases and we are on our way. We’ve just bought a new Chrysler vanagon, so it’s no longer necessary to go pedaling through the streets of Cleveland on a bike. For the past year, Cleveland has had a good fuel supply. Gas is twenty cents a gallon here, which is certainly higher than you’d like, but we manage.

I find Betty and her husbands managing her contractions very well. I use a modified Lamaze technique.