Free The Governor of the Northern Province by Randy Boyagoda

was getting fitted for a new suit. He needed one for the prominent wedding he had been invited to attend later that summer. The Father of the Bride, who had met Bokarie at the car dealership he owned, had encouraged him to find a cap as well, if possible. Bokarie and Jennifer were going to the wedding together, in a manner of speaking. Since Bokarie had an official capacity in the proceedings, Jennifer would be arriving separately. He was the Driver.
    She nodded at the announcement and stomped off, leaving him in the men’s section of the department store they had come to as their first stop in Ottawa. This was a few weeks after Jennifer had organized the well-received soccer tutorial that Bokarie had conducted for the town’s children. In addition to getting the materials necessary to attend the wedding, Jennifer made this trip so that she could give Bokarie a look at what she had earlier promised to show him, what she was now promising to share with him if he helped her get elected. And also so she could take a few pictures—Bokarie in front of the Peace Tower, Bokarie beside a diversity mural, Bokarie with a seniors’ tour group, etc.
    But before all of this, he needed a wedding suit and she needed to see about wedding gifts. So Jennifer left Bokarie in the capable hands of Vince, the Italian Canadian who was measuring him. When he finished, Vince chuckled as he noted the figures on the seamstress’s card. Twenty-eight-inch waist, 36-inch inseam, black as licorice. He crossed out the last part; the seamstress was new, a Filipino woman, and he wasn’t so sure about her yet. Instead he satisfied himself with more immediate amusement.
    â€œJust a quick cut in the back and your pants will be ready. Come by in about twenty minutes or so. Hey there, you like Twizzlers, buddy?” he asked with the xenophobic confidence of a second-generation immigrant. The newcomer didn’t seem to hear or understand. Bokarie was fingering through a fantail of neckties in search of something to match his new clothes. But he had heard the question, and was familiar with this item from his shifts at Gary’s Milk and Lotto, and had a good enough sense of what was implied. He also knew that a necktie could, in a pinch, serve as a garrotte. But he thought better of it. There were finer opportunities becoming available to him than such easy greasy revenge, so he crooked his back and did his best slinky innocent African instead. This had been working well in his new country. He looked up and smiled and nodded with vacant happiness, like a marionette being tugged around by a cat.
    The stub-fingered Calabrian’s superiority was thus reinforced, but feeling a little ex–altar boy remorse Vince decided to waive the fee for having the suit pants taken in around the waist. He gave them to the seamstress and went to the Home and Garden Department to spend his break searching for a ceramic owl. Damned squirrels were raiding the birdfeeder every night.
    Because he didn’t know where Jennifer went, and because he had to kill twenty minutes anyway, Bokarie decided to entertain himself a little. He started wandering through the aisles of the men’s section, aware that two sales associates were trailing him with open, friendly suspicion. Bokarie picked up a tie and turned on them. Close on his heels, they hopped back a little, smiling and buckling. He recalled a bit from a song he had heard on the car radio on the drive in. He continued his practice of gaining Canadians’ trust with a brand of ancient African wisdom they could easily ingest. Holding the tie up like a limp rope, he explained in his slow, stumpy English way that in his old country, “great hunters and priests killed snakes and dried their skin and painted it just like this. They hung the snakes from their necks. Cobra snake for necktie. Many brave men had these.” The associates nodded, respectfully, and pulled back their cuffs to show off