The Shaman's Daughter

by Christoffer Petersen

  “Iiji?”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “A little one.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  I thought of the dentists again, and Kuno’s comment about Maratse not being very talkative. It was worse than that. It was like pulling teeth. I glanced around the workshop, eyeing the drills, as I wondered what it would take to get Maratse to talk.

  “Tuumarsi can help us,” he said with a sigh.

  “But the problem? Is it going to be a problem?”

  Maratse shrugged and said, “Imaqa.”

  “Why, David?”

  “Because the last time Qilingatsaq saw Tuumarsi…” Kuutak tapped Maratse’s chest for him to finish the sentence.

  “I shot him,” Maratse said. “Twice.”

  Part 11

  Kuutak perched on the luggage rack of the snowmobile, holding his legs straight and gripping the sides as he shouted directions at Maratse. I pressed my forehead against Maratse’s back, hiding from the wind, as he took a snowy side road off the main street, curving down the hill to the sea. Further north, the sun had returned with a vengeance, circling the low mountains and frozen seas for twenty-four hours. In Ilulissat, while it was light and bright all night, the sun still dipped below the horizon, albeit for a shorter period each night. The early evening sun lit the village-sized icebergs in the frozen waters along the coast and I caught my breath, enjoying the sight for just a second, before thinking of Luui, and wondering what kind of reception and help we could expect from Tuumarsi Lyberth.

  Maratse parked, curving the skis of the snowmobile into a low drift of snow outside a row of apartments. Kuutak leaped off the back with a look of glee on his face, and I wondered just how worried I should be.

  “David,” I asked.

  “Iiji?”

  “How many times did you shoot Tuumarsi?”

  “Two times,” Kuutak said, holding his fingers in a V as he led the way to the basement apartment.

  “It was a long time ago,” Maratse said.

  Kuutak stopped at the front door, tapping his fingers against the side of his head, as he said, “Aap, but Tuumarsi never forgets.” He knocked on the door and opened it.

  I followed Kuutak inside, curious that Maratse was hesitant to follow. Even in the short time I had known him, he had given the impression that he was fearless, an opinion supported and perhaps even exaggerated by Constable Kuno Schmidt. And yet, as we kicked off our shoes and shuffled into Tuumarsi’s living room, fearless Constable Maratse hesitated.

  I understood why a second later.

  “Out! Get him out, Kuutak!”

  I squinted into the gloom of Tuumarsi’s living room, curious that such a small man had such powerful lungs. His cheeks were wrinkled with topographic age lines, and his skin was drawn tightly over his small hands as he gripped the arms of his chair. But Tuumarsi’s eyes blazed as he stared through Kuutak, ignoring me, and focusing all his energy on Maratse.

  “He needs your help,” Kuutak said, gesturing with open palms at Maratse.

  “He shot me,” Tuumarsi said. He lifted his shirt and pointed at a puckered white scar on his side, just below his ribs. “Twice.”

  “I was ten years old, Tuumarsi.”

  “You could have killed me.” Tuumarsi turned in his chair, dipping his chin towards his scar. “The other bullet…”

  “Nicked your hip.” Maratse nodded. “And I’m sorry…”

  Tuumarsi let go of his shirt and pointed at Maratse, directing him to the hall where he could, “Wait. No closer. Just to be safe.”

  “He’s unarmed, Tuumarsi,” Kuutak said.

  “Still dangerous.”

  Tuumarsi switched his attention to me as I stifled a giggle. I could just imagine a younger Tuumarsi on the ice, indignant at being shot by a boy with a small calibre rifle. Perhaps they had been hunting seals. Maybe Tuumarsi had been the one to teach Maratse how to hunt. A third option crept into my mind and I pictured Tuumarsi as the innocent victim of an enthusiastic boy out hunting with his father or grandfather. I didn’t know which, and neither did we have the time.

  “We need your help, Tuumarsi,” I said. He watched me with his small brown eyes, as I took the drawing from Maratse and handed it to him. “This was made by a small girl. She is missing. We think this is a key to finding her, but we need to know more about this spirit…”

  “mo,” Tuumarsi said, as he took the drawing from my hand. He leaned to one side, checking Maratse was doing as he was told, before looking at me. “He did that?”

  “What?” I shook my head as Tuumarsi gestured at my face and my fingers. “No.”

  He caught my eye, then nodded, once, before looking at the drawing.

  “The long arms,” he said, “protect the shaman when he is in the spirit world. When enemies come, mo grabs them by the ankles.” Tuumarsi closed his fist, shaking it. “He holds them tight. Won’t let go until the shaman is safely returned.”

  “When is that?” I asked.

  “A shaman can visit the spirit world for four days. After that…” Tuumarsi shrugged as he handed me Luui’s drawing. “Not good.”

  “You’re talking about a man,” Maratse said, risking Tuumarsi’s wrath as he stepped into the living room.

  “Aap.” Tuumarsi glared at him, but he didn’t shout.

  “We’re looking for a girl.”

  “Girl or woman?”

  “Luui is five,” I said, adding, “She’s a shaman’s daughter.”

  Tuumarsi shrugged. “Girls are clever.” He leaned around me to stare at Maratse, saying, “They don’t shoot their ata’s friends.”

  “Iiji,” Maratse said. “I’m sorry, Tuumarsi. But…” He nodded at the drawing.

  Tuumarsi turned to me, pointed at mo, and said, “He will look after a female shaman for five days, no more. After that, the shaman is on her own.”

  Luui had been missing for nearly four days.

  “And where might that be?” I asked.

  “By the ice, in a cave, somewhere safe.”

  Nothing about ice and caves sounded safe, but I thanked Tuumarsi as Maratse tugged on his boots and called for me to do the same.

  “Qujanaq,” he said, catching Tuumarsi’s eye before we hurried out of the basement.

  Part 12

  “What about Kuutak?” I said, as I slid my leg over the seat. Maratse started the motor, pressing me back on the seat with one hand as he turned a tight circle in the snow.

  “They will chat, drink lots of coffee, and Tuumarsi will remind Kuutak what a terrible child I was.” Maratse slowed for traffic at the end of the street and then accelerated up the main road.

  I leaned into his back, holding on, and holding my breath as we drove through a cloud of thick exhaust from a delivery van.

  “Were you?” I asked, as Maratse overtook the van as it slowed on the hill.

  “Imaqa,” Maratse said, hunching his shoulders.

  The van stuttered beside us as the driver shifted gear, stomped on the accelerator, and sped up to draw level with us. Maratse glanced at the driver, then peeled away to one side, twisting into another tight circle, and speeding back down the hill as a police car approached from the opposite direction. I held my breath, wondering if we were evading the law, or just avoiding an accident.

  “David?”

  “I forgot something,” he said, pulling away from the police patrol car as he drove back to Alma’s apartment. Maratse parked in another snow drift, leaving me on the snowmobile with the motor running. He ran to the front entrance and inside the building as the police car crunched to a stop in the snow behind me.

  I wasn’t ready to be arrested for speeding, or dangerous driving, and almost laughed at what I might do to avoid it. The Danish police constable left the motor running and got out of the car, just as I turned in my seat.

  “You’re in a hurry,” he said, as he approached.

  “Yes.”

  I glanced at the apartment building, waiting for Maratse to r
eturn, hoping that the constable would recognise him before I had to reveal who I was. I imagined Sergeant Duneq had put the word out, that if I was found anywhere near Ilulissat, or if I interfered in the slightest with the search for Luui Angakkuarneq, then I should be detained, arrested – locked up, at the very least. I considered my options, then remembered what Atii had said, that I could always use my feminine guile.

  In one of those unexpected and far from helpful distractions, I wondered why it was called feminine guile? Did men have guile and was that masculine? Was guile gender related, and if it was…

  “Excuse me?” the constable said, waving his hand in front of my face. “Are you all right?”

  “Distracted,” I said, as I focused.

  “Because of your injuries?”

  “Injuries?”

  “You’ve been in an accident, perhaps.”

  “No,” I said.

  We both turned as Maratse burst out of the apartment building and jogged down the path towards us. He nodded at the constable, then thrust one of Luui’s t-shirts into my hand.

  “What’s going on, David?” the constable asked, followed by a nod in my direction. “Is she with you?”

  “Iiji.”

  Maratse climbed into the driving position, pausing as the constable walked to the front of the snowmobile, blocking our exit.

  “You’re in uniform,” he said, pointing at Maratse’s jacket. “I thought you were on vacation.”

  “I am.”

  The constable frowned. “Then you’re just wearing your jacket?”

  I bit my lip, cursing the constable’s curiosity, wondering why he wasn’t out looking for Luui, why he was holding us back, preventing us from finding her.

  “We’re…”

  Maratse cut me off with a quick twist of the accelerator.

  “Leaving,” he said, with a nod to the constable. “We have to go.”

  The constable took a step back, waving us on, before calling out for Maratse to “… be more careful.”

  Maratse waved, pulled away, then glanced over his shoulder at me. “You have the t-shirt?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “You’ll see,” he said, followed by a long silence as we sped back up the hill, curving away from the last houses on the way to the dog yard.

  Part 13

  “Alma had the TV on,” Maratse said, as we parked beside the dogs he was looking after. He talked as he worked, pulling a short screwdriver from his pocket to open the clasp around the stripy dog’s collar, freeing him from the chain. The dog bounced on its hind legs as Maratse walked it back to the snowmobile. “Someone has a drone in Oqaatsut. They were filming the police as they chased Tuukula.”

  “Gaba and the Special Response Unit,” I said, clutching my chest as I felt it tighten.

  “Iiji.” Maratse gestured for me to move back on the seat as he lifted the dog onto the snowmobile. “Hold him tight,” he said.

  “David?”

  Maratse climbed onto the snowmobile. The dog fidgeted in my lap, casting wild looks at me as Maratse moved back in his seat, pinning the dog between us.

  “Tuukula ran into a house. Gaba followed. They brought Tuukula out.”

  “Unharmed?” I said, voice crackling as I fought back a wave of emotion.

  “He’s fine. Unharmed, but in custody.” The dogs rattled their chains, whining as Maratse pulled away. “He’s distracting them. But now we have to hurry.”

  “And the dog?” I said, raising my voice and ducking my head as Maratse sped along the icy path to the ice fjord.

  “Is called Stripe.”

  Of course, he is, I thought as Stripe trembled on the seat between us.

  “Useless sledge dog,” Maratse said, slowing as he bumped the snowmobile up and over a frozen drift blocking the path. “But a good nose.”

  “Which is why you…”

  “Brought Luui’s t-shirt.” Maratse nodded.

  The path twisted through a valley of low hills. Jagged peaks of ice loomed in the distance, and the crash and boom of iceberg artillery echoed along the path towards us, louder as we sped closer to the icy coastline. The wind bit my exposed cheeks and the tips of Maratse’s thick hair pearled with ice and crystals of windblown snow. Stripe wriggled as Maratse slowed to a stop. Maratse switched the motor off, and the last buzz of the snowmobile was absorbed by the deep snow on either side of the path.

  “Caves,” Maratse said, as he clicked his tongue for Stripe to leap off the snowmobile.

  Stripe’s claws clacked on the plastic sides of the snowmobile and scratched across my thighs as he leaped into the snow. I expected him to run away, but after a furious moment of scratching rocks and marking the snow with splashes and sprinkles of dark urine, Stripe stood still and looked at Maratse.

  “Luui’s t-shirt,” Maratse said, as he climbed off the snowmobile. I handed it to him, and he clicked his tongue for Stripe to come.

  I knew very little about sledge dogs, but I had never heard of them being used as tracker dogs. The police had hash dogs, and special permits allowing them to take the dogs into the sledge dog districts, under strict instructions that police dogs should not mix with the Greenlandic sledge dog. According to the rules devised to protect the breed, even if a pure-bred Greenlandic sledge dog was taken out of the sledge dog districts, it was by law not allowed to return. Police dogs were the exception, albeit a fiercely contested one.

  Maratse pressed Luui’s t-shirt into Stripe’s nose, holding the dog’s muzzle steady with one hand as Stripe flared his nostrils, drinking deep of Luui’s five-year-old smell.

  “Is this going to work?” I asked as Maratse released Stripe.

  “Imaqa.”

  “I didn’t think sledge dogs could track.”

  “They don’t,” Maratse said. “But it doesn’t mean they can’t.” He clicked his tongue and offered Stripe Luui’s t-shirt for a second time as the dog returned. Maratse sent him away with another click, followed by more enthusiastic whistles. “They just have to want to,” he said, with a nod for me to walk with him.

  We followed Stripe as he quartered a path, crossing it several times before dipping his head, sniffing, pissing, and then running straight ahead.

  “Come on,” Maratse said. “He won’t wait for us.”

  Part 14

  Stripe twisted along a narrow path, marking a larger and larger territory at every opportunity, until Maratse clicked, whistled, and clapped the dog into action, gentle reminders punctuated with the occasional growl as Maratse adopted some more suggestive sledge dog slang words. Stripe switched gears, took another sniff of Luui’s t-shirt, and returned to the trail.

  Focus.

  It was hard to trust a dog’s nose, even harder to resist calling for backup – more bodies, more eyes, a better chance.

  “Imaqa,” Maratse said, as I threatened to use my phone. He stopped and pressed his hands on my shoulders, turning me to look back along the path. “See our footsteps?”

  “Yes.”

  “You walked behind me, but still, we have a wide path, one step to each side of the other. Add more people, more steps.” He turned me back to look at Stripe, head down, quartering the trail ahead of us. “More people means more eyes, but still only one nose. Can you smell anything?”

  “My nose is broken, David.”

  “Iiji. And if it wasn’t? You can smell tobacco, coffee, candy, sweat – within a metre or so, not buried beneath the snow.”

  “I know this,” I said, reining in my frustration as I realised he wasn’t lecturing me, just arguing against calling for help. I also noticed that he wasn’t smoking.

  “Tuukula…”

  “Wants my focus here,” I said. “I know.”

  “Then let him do his part. We will do ours.”

  “But you’re sure,” I said, as Maratse turned to look for Stripe. “I mean, here? Is this where she is?”

  “Tuumarsi said mo likes caves. He recognised mo from Luui’s drawing.”

  “Yes?�
��

  “He didn’t question it, and he didn’t question her.”

  “She’s five years old, David. Why doesn’t anyone realise what that means?”

  “What does it mean?”

  “That she’s vulnerable. She’s weak. She needs looking after.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “You know this girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know her well?”

  “I think so.” I felt the twitch of a frown, but there was no sudden pinch of pain – the cold dulled everything to little more than a persistent ache.

  “And is she vulnerable? Is she weak?”

  No. Not that I remember.

  I wanted to add that, regardless, she was still five years old, but even with my limited exposure to children, I struggled to think of ever meeting a more determined five-year-old than Luui. I knew plenty of adults with less determination – many who were weaker, more vulnerable.

  “But she still ran away.”

  Maratse shrugged. “She planned it. That’s what you said.”

  “I…”

  I had nothing, and it didn’t matter. Stripe stopped on the trail ahead, pawing and scratching at the snow, whining until Maratse noticed, hurrying us along the path to present Stripe with Luui’s t-shirt one more time.

  “Has he found her?”

  Maratse turned around, scanning the immediate surroundings, looking down the slope to where the exposed granite rocks – glassy with thick ice – fought a losing battle with brash ice from the icebergs and the glacier – Sermeq Kujalleq – deep in the fjord. Stripe pressed against Maratse’s legs, nipped the t-shirt from his hand, and then darted down to the rocks.

  “Wait,” I said, as Maratse took off after the dog.

  I followed, slowing as I reached the thick ice lapping the black rock. The sea, chocked with lumps of jagged ice, from small football lumps to car-sized growlers, surged up and down the rock in the wake of a recent calving. The behemoths of ice deeper in the fjord – too big for the shallow waters along the coastline – rumbled, crashed, and calved, stirring the glutinous sea, pushing more ice onto the rocks. Maratse slipped, and I took his hand, wincing as he gripped my splinted fingers. I pulled him to his feet.