Part 20 (1/2)

”Is everything okay here?” the waitress says. She looks a little worried. ”Sorry, we didn't have any hash browns. The cook made you country home fries-I hope that's okay.”

Country home fries. You get what you ask for, and I've been asking for the wrong thing all along.

WHAT was important,” writes Ryszard Kapuciski, ”was not the destination, the goal, the end, but the almost mystical and transcendent act of crossing the border.” We are on the I-81, just south of the Canadian frontier, and I'm beginning to feel like Kapu sci nski. For the last little while we've been following Merilyn's yellow highlighter through Onondaga, Cortland, and Oswego Counties, all of which were incorporated in 1792 under the name Mexico. Now it applies only to a small town squeezed between the interstate and Lake Ontario, close to an even smaller hamlet called Texas. It seems we're destined to relive the entire trip in our last thirty minutes in America.

”Want to go to Mexico?” I ask Merilyn.

”No, thanks,” she says cozily. ”Let's just get home.”

As we near the border, I wait for my chest to tighten and my bowels to loosen, but so far I feel good. At least we're not crossing at Cornwall, where a few years ago we had some difficulty with a few undeclared bottles of wine. The swaggering youth at customs and immigration who pulled us over held us there for an hour, telling us he could confiscate our car if he wanted to, and then he let us go. Since then I've decided to declare everything, down to the last chocolate bar, the merest sliver of soap. I've kept every receipt we've been given, and last night I took them all out, added them up, and stapled them together. They're safely in the glove box with our pa.s.sports. We're well under the allowable limit. We could even stop at the duty-free and pick up a few more items.

”Want to get some perfume?” I ask. ”Or a scarf?”

Merilyn looks at me in alarm. Normally I try to talk her out of buying anything at these places. ”Declare everything, have nothing” has been my motto. But now I think no border guard will believe we've been in the States for nearly two months and have nothing but a few books and two bottles of Virginia wine to show for it. In any case, I'm not worried. Really. I'm not wearing two pairs of pants. I checked.

”All right,” Merilyn says. ”And you can get some Scotch.”

When I put the Scotch in the trunk, I see the cardboard carton holding Merilyn's novel resting on top of a bag of books, and I take off the lid and read the first page-guiltily, since she still hasn't told me I can read it. It's good. I read the next page, standing bent over with my head in the trunk. It's good, too.

”What are you doing back there?” Merilyn calls.

”Just organizing a bit,” I say, closing the carton. When I'm back in the car I turn to her. ”You know, when we get home, the first thing I'd like to do is sit down by the fire with a gla.s.s of this Scotch and read your novel. Would that be all right, do you think?”

To my consternation, Merilyn's eyes tear up. ”Of course it would be all right, you goose. I've been dying for you to ask.”

”Really?” I say, nonplussed. ”I've been waiting for you to ask me to read it.”

We sit in the parking lot for a while, patting each other's hands. Then I start the car and we drive the last two miles to the border.

MY heart leaps at Wayne's suggestion, not because I want him to read the novel, which of course I do, but because it thrills me, it opens me up, to know that what I am, what I do, is of interest to him.

It's what we want from our friends, from our neighbours, too: a conversation that flows both ways. As we near the line that keeps Canada distinct from the United States, it occurs to me that the two countries have not been very good friends. Sure, we help each other out in times of crisis, but mostly, we're the kind of neighbours who look the other way rather than walk across the lawn for a chat.

”I've been thinking about all the people we've met, and you know what?”

”What?”

”I can't remember anyone who asked us about Canada. They asked where we'd been in their country, how we liked it, and where we were going. They were full of suggestions about things we should see in the United States, but not one person asked anything about our country. Isn't that strange?”

”Maybe Diana Athill had it right. In Stet, she says that Americans just aren't interested in Canada. We're not on their radar.”

”But wouldn't you think that when they're discussing how to improve their health care system, people might be curious about what it's like to have universal health care? We told those snowplow drivers and that store clerk we were used to Canadian snow: wouldn't it be natural to ask where we were from, how much snow we get?”

”Americans don't seem all that interested in anything but themselves.”

I scowl. In general, I hate generalizations, but this one seems true. We've met wonderful, kind, generous people on our travels in America, as we do everywhere. In many ways, people are all the same, no matter what flag flies overhead. But the landscape, the history, and the culture people are raised within can't help but affect their values, the way they think. Not all Canadians are self-effacing and community-minded, but as a culture we generally hold that the group is at least as important as the individual. If every person within a society is not looked after, then society itself fails, and the individuals will, too. Similarly, not all Americans are self-interested bullies, but as a culture, they have a history of aggression, of being blind or hostile to the values and beliefs of others. Maybe it's because they lack curiosity about what lies beyond their borders. For all the interest Americans have in Canada, we might as well be that vast blankness marked on ancient maps as Terra Incognita. They don't seem to care if there be dragons there. They a.s.sume there aren't. And maybe they're right: it's just mild-mannered Canada.

I look over my shoulder at the retreating nation of America and think: It's the U.S., but it's not us.

”How can you be friends with somebody who doesn't ever ask how you are, or who you are?” I say, more to myself than to Wayne.

”Men do that all the time.”

It's true. Men aren't curious in the same way women are. What does it mean to be curious? When we stop for lunch, I find a place with Wi-Fi and spend some time looking up the word, though I'm fairly certain I already know what it means. Curiosity, as defined by the British sources, is the desire to know and learn. That's exactly how I understand it-an honourable trait, one that leads to enlightenment. But when I check the modern American dictionary sites, I find something completely different. Curiosity, to Americans, ”implies a desire to know what is not properly one's concern.” The same example is cited more than once: ”curious about a neighbor's habits.”