“Thanks,” she said, nevertheless, although she was now looking into the face of the ticket seller.
It took her a few more seconds to get her bearings, not of geography but of mental attitude, before she asked, “How much please, for a ticket to Timmins, going and coming back?”
The ticket seller, like a geographer, consulted a very confusing book and said things like, “Overnight?” and “the fast train?” and the “ten-fifty-five?” and “or the nine-forty-five?” and when he had completely confused Estelle, he advised her to take the train leaving at eleven-thirty-five, “That way you can rest on the train, Miss, and arrive in Timmins early Thursday morning …” (she thought of Mrs. Macmillan). “Coach or compartment? You have to sit up in a coach all the way; in a compartment you can have your bed made up by the porter, and sleep … which one? The compartment cost only a few dollars more, and for all that comfort …” And he persuaded her to take the compartment.
Estelle paid for the tickets (she did not pay for the information) and walked down the heel-clicking, half-slippering incline to get the train. A man dressed in a black suit, and risking a smile on his corned-beef face, said, “You’re early, aren’t you?”
“Rather early than late.”
“Well, the train ain’t leaving for another eleven hours, lady. What are you gonna do meanwhile, wait till then? I don’t think passengers can board so early, or if they’ve taken out the train yet. … You could check your bags in one of the lockers, and come back at about eleven when you can board for sure, or why don’t you take a walk around the city, or a tour on a Grey Coach bus, or maybe take in a movie, or if you rather. … If I were you, I would leave your bag in the lockers and that way you don’t have to take a cab to bring you back here at eleven this evening. You’re an American Negress, aren’t you? First time in our country?”
“Thanks,” she said, and left. It was the second time she was asked if she was an American black woman: negro? coloured? Southerner? The taxi driver had asked her that. Was there something about Americans in Toronto? Did the people of Toronto like American negroes? When she told the taxicab driver she was a West Indian, he was visibly disappointed. With her new consciousness of blackness, conditioned through Bernice’s recent preoccupation with Africa and the Muslims in America, Estelle was disappointed that no one ever asked her if she was an African princess. Perhaps, she felt, to be asked, “Are you an African?” was a question a Canadian was not prepared to hear the answer to. Perhaps, it was a deep, a too-deep confrontation of an image of his fear.
“Thanks, thank you very much,” she said, always too late. For the man in the black uniform was already talking to a woman who spoke Italian and who had no one to translate her confusion for her. The train man did his best, which was bad.
Estelle walked back to the wall of lockers and selected one, and then found she couldn’t operate it. She was conscious of eyes watching her, and overcome by this, she fumbled and fumbled with the locker and its key until a man came and helped her. “I don’t know why they don’t make these things sensible,” he said. “As if they don’t really want people to use them!” And he taught her how to operate it: take out the key, insert the twenty-five-cent piece, slam the door; now, you understand? He gave her the key and helped her to locate the locker by the distance it was from the door in relation to the nearest ticket seller.
“Thanks, thanks,” she said, not too late this time.
The man said, “The way out is that way.” She was pointed to a door which took her through tombs of underground passages and people, past people in shops, past a barber shop, past people coming towards her with heavy bags, past people just coming, past shop windows with souvenirs of Canada, an artificial Niagara Falls like the one Bernice had in her apartment, and three Royal Canadian Mounties carved from wood, walking a short distance in the snow
