The Deed (10 page)

Jason smiled. “I have that effect on a lot of women.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, with a devastating smirk. “So tell me about your boss getting fired. Were you surprised?”

“No, you don’t have to do that,” said Jason, methodically carving the pineapple ring into trapezoids. “I’m just saying I need more background, if we’re going to be…partners. How’d you find out about all this?”

The previous night, after her bombshell, Amanda had confirmed Jason’s intimation that she was indeed a member of the Manahatas, the tribe that had supposedly sold the land to Peter Minuit and the Dutch settlers. The tribe, she claimed, had dwindled down to fewer than a hundred full-blooded members, and was now so small it was not officially recognized by the federal government. With no land of their own, the Manahatas had long occupied a corner of the Lenape reservation on the south side of Long Island, half an hour east of the city, and there maintained a fierce independence from the outside world and even from the Lenape. Amanda had detailed how she’d finally located Jason, in a newspaper article about his parents’ accident (which she proceeded to reproduce in folded photocopy, occasioning in Jason an almost uncontrollable wave of nausea), but not how she’d become aware of the deed in the first place.

Amanda laid a package of Saltines beside her soup and came down hard on it with the heel of her hand, banging the table and making him jump. “I’ve heard the story, in various forms, since I was little,” she replied, picking up the packet and rolling it between her fingers, crumbling the contents. “My people have an unbroken connection to a preliterate past, a rich oral tradition.” Tearing one corner, she poured the crumbs neatly into her soup. “So in our culture, legends have the force of truth.”

Jason chewed in silence, amused by the perhaps inevitable return of Amanda’s passionate, didactic tone from the night before.
She might be crazy,
he mused,
but she is not lying.

“Some of our oldest stories contain elements of Peter Minuit’s infamous island sale,” Amanda continued. “Boats carrying white men from across the sea, men bearing gifts and cutting down trees, that sort of thing. In a few, though, there’s this one figure, a benevolent, almost godlike man. He’s a white man, but he marries a Manahata and lives among the natives, teaching them the healing arts, protecting them. In our stories, he was sent to us by Manahata himself.”

“Wait, wait,” said Jason. “Who’s Manahata? I thought
you
were the Manahata.”

“Manahata is the god of my tribe,” replied Amanda, “the spirit of our people incarnate. He also has a geographical dimension: Because we identify ourselves with the island, he is the god of the island as well, its protector. That’s why we all share one name—the island, the people, the god. He coexists with the life of my tribe and with the life force of the island. And yet he is independent of all earthly connections; he comes and goes, waxes and wanes like the seasons.”

“But you can try him on his cell phone,” Jason replied, unable to stop himself.

“Anyway,” she continued, “according to the legend, this benevolent white man is eventually called back from the living world, to serve Manahata in the spirit realm. But before he goes, he gives the tribe a gift. The gift is a promise, a promise from Manahata himself, and the promise is this: No matter what misfortunes befall the tribe in the unseeable future, the island is theirs forever.” She paused, focusing momentarily on scooping up a reluctant piece of lettuce. “The legend resonates with us, because it affirms the core of our religion—that the people, the place, and the spirit are inseparable at the heart.”

“Your tribe’s extended relocation must be quite a test of faith,” Jason opined.

She shrugged. “You’re not mocking me, I hope.”

“Absolutely not,” said Jason sincerely. “But how do you make the leap from this myth, this children’s story, if you don’t mind my saying so, to the existence of an actual paper deed?”

“I’m getting there,” she promised. “But you’re right; for most of the Manahata today, this is a simple foundation myth. Some bitter wishful thinking, perhaps.”

“Sure,” Jason agreed. “Your tribe traded away the ancestral land, so you soothe the pain of that through myths that imply that the situation is temporary, that it’s all part of some grand, unknowable holy plan.”

“Well, that’s a bit glib,” said Amanda.

“It’s almost Catholic,” Jason decided.

“As I said,” Amanda continued, “I’ve been hearing this story, and others like it, for as long as I can remember. But as I grew older, I came to realize that my mother, who is the sachem, sort of the spiritual leader of our tribe, is quite thoroughly—unnervingly, really—convinced of the story’s literal truth.”

Jason nodded warily.

“It’s uncharacteristic; she’s quite a skeptic. I became convinced that she
knew
something.” Amanda paused to sip her Orangina. “Some concrete secret the rest of the tribe wasn’t in on. But she categorically refused to answer any questions, just kept clamming up, which only convinced me further that I was right about
what
she was hiding.”

“This is starting to get tenuous,” Jason argued.

“No, hold on, hold on,” Amanda insisted. “I was in college by this time, and I had access to libraries and research facilities. I was very busy with pre-law, obviously, but I stole whatever time I could to pore over histories of the time period, dig through old diaries, ships’ logs and the like, and to study bits and pieces of tribal legends. And putting all the evidence together, I managed to piece together a rough picture of what must have happened—the story I summarized for you last night.”

“Sounds like quite an independent project,” he replied neutrally.

“The quest began to take on a distinct symbolic meaning for me,” she confessed. “It became sort of a solo rite of passage. I even convinced myself that this was the big test, that I was
supposed
to figure out what my mother knew, independently, in order to take my place in the line of succession and become the next sachem after her. When I presented my case to my mother, and showed her my evidence, she
confirmed
it.” She paused, staring at him intently. “Jason, she told me I was
right.
”

Jason was suddenly intrigued. “Really?” he said. “About the deed and everything?”

“Well, not in so many words,” Amanda admitted. Putting down her fork, she started tallying points on her hand. “She told me that our fate was indeed linked with that of Pieter Haansvoort and his descendants. She confirmed what I had intuited, that some sort of secret information is passed down from sachem to sachem. And she also said the
legend,
the promise that the land would one day be returned to us, was rooted in truth, and that there existed a realistic mechanism for achieving that end, when the time was right.”

“That’s incredible,” said Jason, meaning it literally. “You gonna finish that?” he added, pointing his fork at her salad. It was a joke, he was nearly finished; she, having done all the talking, had taken only a few bites.

But Amanda paid no heed. “I was ecstatic,” she went on. “It was like finding buried treasure. But when I tried to press her for details about the deed itself, she refused to speak any more of it. My guess is that she’d been handed a mandate from the sachems before her to do nothing until Pieter’s line resurfaced.”

“Mm-hmm,” murmured Jason nonchalantly.

“That was four years ago,” she continued, “and I made it my personal mission to resurrect that line, if it still existed. In the meantime, of course, I graduated from college and enrolled in law school, and basically moved on with my life. I never quite let go of it—it’s no accident I ended up here in the city. But it was definitely a dream deferred. Every six months or so, I’d get the bug again, and check the Internet or sift through a Lexis-Nexis search, still trying to find a match. Finally, six months ago, I was varying the spelling of Haansvoort in one of my searches and stumbled on the news report about…your parents,” she said, injecting a brief sympathetic pause.

Jason nodded, maintaining his composure, and Amanda continued. “It’s not proof, of course; we’ll need complete documentation of every twig on the tree if this claim’s going to have a chance of standing up in court. But when I called you, and you confirmed the spelling change in your name, I knew I had my man.”

“And here I am,” said Jason, belching surreptitiously into his napkin, disguising it with a cough. “Did you tell Mom yet?”

Amanda nodded. “I called her this morning. She was very excited—said she wants to meet you as soon as possible.”

He shook his head, smiling. “Sorry, I never agree to meet a girl’s mother until at least the third date.”

She laughed. “Well, this isn’t exactly a
date…
” Suddenly, a look of concern swept over her face. “Jason, I hope I haven’t been…giving you the wrong impression.”

“No, no, of course not,” he replied quickly.

“I mean, you seem like a good guy and all,” she affirmed. “It’s just that…that’s not why I’m here.”

“I flirt with all women,” he told her. “It’s just my way, I guess. Nuns, hookers—you name it.”
Now shut up, please.

“Are you sure?” she said, smiling.

“Yes, you idiot,” Jason confirmed, searching for the magic word that would get her to stop rubbing his nose in it. He was starting to hate this salad bar after all. Now that he’d been spurned officially and unmistakably, honor demanded that he redefine Amanda in his mind, either as a worthy opponent awaiting a persistent conqueror, or as a frigid bitch he was no longer interested in. He wasn’t sure which way he was leaning, yet—the wound was still too fresh.

“But, Amanda, here’s my question,” he began, to change the subject. “Why wouldn’t your mother just
tell
you? ‘Hey, baby. Our tribe could recover Manhattan, but first we have to find this long-lost heir to the throne’? Why all the mumbo jumbo?” Jason was aware of a new unpleasantness in his attitude—the bitterness talking—but at the moment he didn’t feel much like a team player.

Amanda shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “She’s very superstitious and traditional; maybe she thinks she’ll somehow screw up the magic if she doesn’t follow the rules.”

“But you get my point,” Jason continued. “It’s hard to see how she’s acting with the best interests of the tribe at heart. Also, if the Manahata have always had this deed, why didn’t they reclaim their land fifty years ago? A hundred?
Two
hundred? Why did it take so long for your people to call my people?”

This time, though, she was shaking her head before he’d finished. “Because it wasn’t
safe,
Jason. I’m sure you’re aware that
your
people, as you put it, haven’t always been famous for straight dealing with Native Americans. The deed produced at the wrong time would have simply been seized and destroyed. End of story.” She paused, as if trying to marshal her own rising emotion. “It wasn’t until very, very recently that aboriginal sovereignty began to be upheld in court. I believe the sachems were warned right from the beginning not to let on to the deed’s existence until it could be safely proved. That’s the whole reason it was hidden in the first place.”

“They waited too long,” Jason argued. “If this deed
ever
had any legal value, that time is long past. Amanda, you’re talking about trying to overturn centuries of land transactions in one of the largest population centers on planet earth. Perry Mason wouldn’t touch this case with a fifty-foot pole.”

“For a one percent contingency fee he would,” she asserted.

“Nope,” said Jason, shaking his head. “I see you and me in small-claims court with Al Sharpton and C. Vernon Mason.”

Things were degenerating fast, he realized, as he and Amanda shared an icy moment of intimate antagonism. “You’re just being perverse,” she reproached, picking at her food.

“I’m being rational.”

“Okay, look,” she replied, making a deal. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Just do this for me—come out to the reservation and hear what my mother has to say. I’ve got a car, and it’s only—”

“No,”
interrupted Jason, amazed. “Absolutely
not.
Am I speaking Swahili, or something?”

Amanda was visibly crushed. “Why
not?
”

“Because I have a
life,
” he replied too stridently. “Are you aware that I’m probably losing my
job,
here?” He paused when she jerked her head away in frustration.

“Look,” he continued, “I’m not saying I’m not interested. I honestly am. For the sheer genealogical interest, if nothing else. I just don’t have the time to dive into some extended paper chase at this exact moment in my fucked-up life.”

“Jason,” she said, turning back toward him, “I know that quite probably nothing will come of this. Really, I know that. But just to have the chance, however remote! How can you hesitate? This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“You can’t expect me to just set my life aside and race off to Long Island because
you
feel some misguided sense of urgency,” he replied. “This is what’s known in the vernacular as a pipe dream.”