Consumption (19 page)

“Why don’t you two let me finish up?” she asked as she rinsed plates under the tap.

“Okay,” Matthew said and picked up a couple of fresh highball glasses and a bottle of Lagavulin scotch. Balthazar followed his brother out the kitchen door to the backyard. In the night the cicadas thrummed. They drank whisky slowly and looked up at the night sky, glowing with city lights and punctured only by a handful of the brightest stars.

“In the north, on a night like this, the sky is just dazzling.”

“I’d love to see that sometime,” Matthew replied.

And then there was a long silence between them as they listened to street traffic and sirens. Matthew refilled their glasses and they drank more and they didn’t lower their eyes from the sky until they heard the patio door open and Angela sat down with them, reaching for the whisky.

They watched scattered low clouds sweep over them, glowing luminously. Balthazar began planning his escape.

“Keith, you always seem to me like the only one I know who’s thought clearly about his life,” Angela whispered into the warm, humid half-darkness.

Balthazar, for life of him, could not think of anything to say to this.

“We both work so hard, and we know none of the neighbours, and these days we hardly know Amanda. Most days, even each other,” she said, nodding in Matthew’s direction. Matthew’s head turned at her uncharacteristic display of vulnerability.

“But, you’re up there, living this strange life in the north, and then you’re down here in your apartment in the city, going to all the shows and the bookstores. God, you do exactly what you want, don’t you?”

“I don’t think any of us do, really. I think we all idealize what we don’t have. You don’t think I’d like something of what you have here?”

“Not really. And if you really do, you’ll have it one day. You get everything else you want,” Angela said.

“That’s just not true.”

“What don’t you have?”

“I wanted to be an academic field researcher. I wanted to do an ophthalmology residency, live in Boston.”

They sat there swirling their drinks. They could all hear Amanda talking on her telephone, sound carrying on the humid air.

“We’re made to be dissatisfied,” Matthew said. “Unhappy people are the only ones who achieve anything. It’s normal—it’s what pushes us forward.”

“It’s not normal. Common, maybe, but not normal, it’s not how we’re supposed to live. Always pissed off. Always resenting something.” Angela was emphatic.

“You two need a vacation,” Balthazar said.

Unlike every other place, the Arctic does not tire of the sun, even in late summer. The low bushes and impertinent little willows remain green and push themselves upward until the moment when what they are pushing up against is snow. When it’s warm, the place agitates itself without reserve; the tasks of reproduction and food storage are not so much completed as they are crammed into the short amount of time available. That sometimes enough gets done, sufficient stores to survive the winter are accumulated, is demonstrated by the improbable reappearance of greenery again ten months later.

The snow geese showed up at the end of August, on their way south from the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, coalescing like weather for the great flight to their Texas wintering grounds. The same day the geese appeared, the first of the teachers returned to town.

Johanna met Penny in the teachers’ lounge with a great grin of pleasure. She had just returned from a stint of teaching summer school in Vancouver and hadn’t been sure if Penny would be back yet. Penny had disappeared in June—slipping out of the end-of-year party in the teachers’ lounge before the liquor had even been opened.

Her hair was sunstreaked and her cheeks the colour of oiled leather, and she grinned back at Johanna. “I stayed out on the land the whole summer!”

“No way.”

“I got out to the Back River with my dogs and I set up camp and a net for char—a week later I realized I had all the fish I needed for the summer so I spent the rest of the time drying and smoking char. I came back with eight hundred pounds of dried fish. I cached it at the mouth of the Meliadine River.”

“Really?”

“It seems like a dream to me. Eight weeks, I was out there.”

“I’m not sure whether to envy you or to worry about you.”

“Envy me, please.”

“Did you see any bears?”

“No
nanuqs
that far inland, but I did see a barrenlands grizzly.”

“Really? Did your dogs protect you? I guess they did, seeing you’re here telling me about it.”

Penny dropped her voice. “I protected them. The hide is in my freezer.”

Johanna didn’t know what to say.

“I shot into the air at first and then he killed Percy, the slow white one, remember?”

Johanna dropped her voice, whispering, as the chemistry teacher approached them to say hello.
“Really?”

August 15, 1988

Dear Johanna:

  Here are the sweaters you asked me for. I hope they fit. I included some socks because I think your feet must get cold from time to time.

I went fishing with my father last week, up the Moon River, north of Etobicoke. He showed me how to cast a fly rod. I caught two bass and a rainbow trout, and enjoyed myself way more than I thought I would. I’ve found myself starting to understand what that Penny woman likes about the Arctic. Afterwards, we cleaned the fish and fried them in beer batter and ate them by the shore. I wish you and I could have done that sometime. Anyway, not to get too gooey here. I hope you are well.

Love, Doug XOX

August 21, 1988

Dear Doug:

  The end of summer has come to the Arctic. The geese are migrating home and the other teachers are migrating here from home. The classrooms have all been cleaned out nicely and we met the new teachers yesterday—I think about a third of last year’s staff left. Some we knew about, others left resignation letters in the principal’s mailbox. I was relieved to find Penny still here; she spent the whole summer out on the land, along the Back River, fishing for and drying Arctic char. She looks like she’s climbed Everest, her face is as sunburnt as any of
the old hunters. I hope she doesn’t lose any more weight though, heavens.

I am perplexed by the degree to which I admire her. I wish I had been that confident when I was her age; I wish I were that confident now. It gives her a kind of self-sufficiency that I see as a real strength. You’ve pointed out that that can be a two-edged sword, and you are right about that, being too self-sufficient can look a lot like lonely. I don’t see that happening to Penny, though. I see her as living more richly than anyone else I know.

At the same time I suspect I am getting a little caught up in all this. What she does—living out on the land for weeks at a time—is not for most people, probably not for me, and is, anyway, only a difficult thing. We all do difficult things. Living with me, for instance, the last year before I left was probably very difficult.

Doug, the day after I mail this letter I’ll start looking anxiously for a reply. I spent the summer in Vancouver teaching summer school. I had an instinct that it would be better if I didn’t come back to Ontario unless I knew what I wanted to say to you. And I didn’t. Don’t. But I do like hearing from you.

Thank you for the lovely sweaters, and yes indeed, my feet do get cold up here, thank you for the socks very much. Thank you as well for your patience. If you ever see a good hunting knife, could you send it to me? Penny took me out
tuktu
, sorry, caribou hunting and I admired how deft she was with hers. One more respect in which I fantasize about being her.

All my love
,

Johanna

  
September 1, 1988

Dear Johanna:

Apparently the Finnish knives are supposed to be the best, and at Central Knife and Cutlery they suggested this one. It has a groove in it that lets the blood run out. Which paints quite a mental picture, if you ask me.

It might be the end of summer there but here it is still very hot. Do you remember that fan you made me go out and buy in the middle of the night three years ago when we couldn’t sleep? I sleep beside it every night these days. Some things come in so handy, huh?

If you sent me a picture of your friend Penny I could do my best to dress up like her if that would help you decide to come home.

XOX

Doug

Near Coats Island, south of Coral Harbour off the coast of Hudson Bay, are offshore treeless islets, rocks, really, the colour of brick, upon which walruses rest and sun themselves. The
iviaq
see very poorly, but their sense of smell is almost extrasensory. Emo turned the Peterhead miles from the island so he and his grandson could approach from downwind. It was the very end of summer and the animals were obscenely fat, great rippling waves of flesh sloshing with each movement. Pauloosie studied them as they approached, and studying turned to staring and then simply transfixion.
Iviaq
weren’t often seen as far south as Rankin. The local seals were more typically a hundred or two hundred pounds. These behemoths were like nothing he had seen up close.