Chapter 10 #2
“You’re not wrong,” Everard said to his boots.
“But then you’ve only seen it badly done, stuff made to sell.
The lowest denominator of satire stoops to such things.
Satire’s meant to do the very opposite: to contradict, criticise the general societal viewpoint, which, yes, I think it not wrong to say, does include a deal of racialism.
” Then it all came out, like confession.
There was nothing more to hide. “I admit mine weren’t popular; if you’ve seen one in circulation, I’ll be surprised.
I wrote them mostly against the war—both of them—but as I wasn’t much interested in poking fun at ‘old Boney’”—the sailor’s name for Napoleon—“they weren’t favorites.
I made them anti-capitalist, but I couldn’t sell anything too radical, too guillotine-y.
Obviously. So, I made some centered around mad John B—His Majesty.
Those did sell: to Yankee presses. A few secessionist Canadians, too. ”
Vitaliy, still with hands behind his back, had relaxed slightly. More than that, he had matched his steps with Everard’s, walked so close their shoulders nearly brushed.
“Anyway,” Everard went on, “it was only a hobby, so I wasn’t beholden to take commissions I didn’t agree with.”
Vitaliy nodded once, and said mildly, “How fortunate.”
Everard had the distinct impression he was still being Judged, and so shut his mouth, coffee’s effects upon him be damned. They were both silent for the remainder of the walk, until soon they came to Maud’s ivy brick, and Vitaliy murmured, “A moment?”
Assuming the coffee was affecting the man in a different way, Everard paused and turned away, sheltered from the sun in the alleyway adjoining Maud’s.
Here, a pleasing coolness reflected from the greenery, and a warm breeze off Lake Ontario swooped round the building’s corner, whisking away the smell of city street.
But instead of relieving himself, Vitaliy walked across the dirt and mud and stone and begged something from a sassafras tea vendor on the corner. He exchanged a ha’penny for whatever it was; Everard hoped not sassafras tea.
Vitaliy returned, his right hand cupped protectively against the wind around something, which he then put to his mouth.
A cigarillo, tobacco-brown: its end glowing red-orange, its smoke sweet-smelling.
Not tobacco inside, then, but hemp, cannabis.
It’d been a lit coal that he’d requested from the tea vendor.
With smoke trailing from perfect lips, Vitaliy asked, “Do you mind it? I don’t want to smoke in the room.”
“Not at all,” Everard said quickly, realising he was staring. He cleared his throat. “The wind’s clearing it, in any case. Where on earth did you…” Smuggler. Pirate. “… Never mind. Really, you’d think you were straight off a Frenchie.” Napoleon’s troops were famous for their enjoyment of hashish.
Vitaliy chuckled, eyelids lowering. “Did you make that into caricature, too?” He politely held out the tied cigarillo.
Everard declined with a wave. He’d had enough plant-based stimulation for the day. “I did not. Is cannabis another commodity of yours?” he returned lightly.
“No,” Vitaliy replied, equally lightly. He offered nothing further.
They stood there companionably as he smoked.
Both of them were ignored by the few passersby—likely since they had no hats.
And a thousand dollars on Vitaliy’s head or no, Everard was glad of the excuse to linger.
He crossed his arms and, in the hollow of his elbow, spun the gold band with his thumb, over and over and over.
How strange it was. To be offered such a thing, and for it to signify apparently almost nothing, except perhaps that Vitaliy didn’t mind the thought of Everard being his ever-present company.
He certainly didn’t seem to mind it now.
At last, Vitaliy inhaled deep, and pushed the lit end out on a brick. He looked up, pupils wider, black and compelling in the midday sun, and Everard startled.
“Well,” he laughed. “I’m glad you asked me what you did before you became intoxicated.”
Vitaliy smiled, a little more lazily than before. “Ah, no. It would not have changed anything. This is mild stuff.”
“Everyone has their vice, I suppose.”
Vitaliy made the noncommittal noise again. “Eh, as a vice it would not be worth it—it makes the sea glare murder, on a fair day.”
Everard nodded like he knew.
“It isn’t the opium, at least,” he said reasonably. “Or tobacco.”
“No.” Vitaliy regarded the last bit of cigarillo between his fingers, and flicked it into the street. There it would be smashed beneath a carriage wheel or four, with all the other leaves and detritus, and be returned to the earth. “Never those.”
Everard expected the man to turn round to Maud’s parlour entryway, but Vitaliy kept steady eyes on him.
“I have an idea,” he said, after several heartbeats but very few blinks. Everard felt watched closely, as though the enlarged pupils helped Vitaliy in this, like a cat’s eyes in the dark. “Dependent on how you respond to my offer. And… how well you do get on with the other hand.”
“Er… an idea?”
“Do you still draw satires?”