The Shaman's Daughter

by Christoffer Petersen

  “Looking for what?”

  “Maratse,” Gaba said. Even through the mist of breath in front of my face, and the glitter of early sun catching the ice crystals in the air between us, I could still see him roll his eyes. And then another snap of his fingers, and the spell was broken.

  Training was over.

  He didn’t say it, but he could easily have done, and I shifted gears, assumed the role of lookout, and watched as Gaba arranged two lines of police officers and paramedics on either side of the tunnel entrance, ebbing and heaving with ice-choked water at the whim of the sea.

  They showed us bodies once, during a lecture at the academy, pictures of two male tourists who had been surprised when an ice dam broke on land, flushing them into the fjord in a torrent of water laced with silt, rocks, and ice. The men died. They looked like they had been stuffed into an industrial washing machine with a barrow full of cobblestones, then set to spin at high speed. If the lecturer hadn’t told us, I would have struggled to believe the men were white Europeans – humans, even.

  “Get ready.”

  I turned to look at Gaba as he snapped his fingers at the men down by the water. They lifted a cargo net over the water, the kind slung beneath helicopters when transporting oversized goods. One end – weighted at the corners – dipped in the water, catching the ice as the sea swelled.

  Gaba shouted at the officer he had positioned at the rocky entrance to the cave. “On three,” he said, with another snap of his fingers at me, followed by two stiff fingers he stabbed at the water.

  I turned back to the water, listened to the count, felt my heart beat to the same rhythm, then fixed my gaze on the water, waiting for Maratse.

  The pull of the icebergs sucked the sea out of the tunnel along with a small dark shape…

  “Dog,” shouted one of the men, as he lunged into the water to grab Stripe by the collar. He tossed it into the snow, further up the rocks, then took his position at the net.

  “There,” I shouted, arm straight, fingers stabbing at another dark shape – larger, constable-sized – as Maratse sluiced out of the tunnel. I gasped as he caught a blow to the head on a lump of ice bigger than Stripe, then again as he dipped under the surface of the water.

  “Eyes on,” Gaba shouted. “Don’t lose him, don’t you lose him…”

  I took a step forward.

  “Stand still, Petra. Eyes on!”

  I searched the water, looking for the dark shape of Maratse’s body, his jacket, ignoring the memory of the bloated and battered tourists they fished out of the fjord.

  “Grab the dog,” Gaba shouted, as Stripe raced back to the water. “Grab it, damn it!”

  Stripe twisted around the man who had fished him out of the sea, then slid between the legs of a paramedic. The man slipped and cursed, just as Stripe leaped into the water.

  “There,” I shouted, and again, “In front of the dog.”

  Stripe slowed, spinning as the sea returned, surging into the tunnel. I saw a pale hand emerge from the water, saw it grip Stripe’s collar, and then Maratse’s face as he surfaced, kicking weakly at the ice, riding the surge back to the rocky coast, and fumbling his arm into the net.

  I left my post, ignored Gaba’s shouts and curses as I slipped and slid my way down the bank of snow, sliding off the side of the cave as the men pulled Maratse out of the water.

  He shook as they hauled him to his feet, teeth machine-chattering as he accepted a blanket. Maratse stumbled up the slope with a police officer on both sides and Stripe shivering in front of him.

  “David,” I said as I reached him. I took his hand, caught my breath when I discovered how stiff and lifeless it was, and then he smiled. Words tumbled out of his mouth, punctuated with streams of seawater.

  “Some kind of trouble…” he said, flashing another salty smile my way as the two officers walked him to the helicopter.

  Part 19

  The hospital in Ilulissat, built on a slight rise above the ice fjord, had a view to rival the best hotels in the world. The police cleared the driveway to the main entrance of journalists and curious onlookers, ensuring emergency vehicles had access, along with a taxi with a certain shaman riding in the back. I watched the taxi pull up to the door from a window on the first floor, as I balanced a fresh cup of coffee between newly splinted fingers. They had given me something for the pain, and my first thought, once I realised the drugs had kicked in, was that I wanted more, or at the very least, a small supply to smuggle back to Nuuk.

  They knew how to look after you in Ilulissat.

  I heard Blixt before I saw her, heard the stomp of her feet barely absorbed by the linoleum in the corridor. I put my coffee down and walked out of my room to meet her.

  “Stand aside,” she said as I stopped in front of her, blocking her path to Luui’s room.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “No?” Blixt snorted, then settled her glasses before fixing me with what might be called a professional stare. “So,” she said, after a moment of scrutiny. “You’re the one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know how much…”

  “Trouble I’ve caused?” I bit my lip and then nodded. “Yes.”

  “You’re supposed to be on sick leave, temporarily off duty.”

  “This is my duty,” I said.

  “What is?”

  “Clearing up your mess.”

  I wasn’t sure just where my assertiveness was coming from, or who I was channelling, but it felt good, it felt right.

  Perhaps it was the drugs – good drugs.

  Blixt pulled her phone from her pocket, swiped her thumb across the screen, and said, “I’ll take this up with your…”

  “Supervisor?” I enjoyed finishing her sentences, and I think it showed. I plucked her phone from her hand, balanced it between my splints, speaking as I tapped a number into her contacts. “Sergeant Kiiu Duneq is my supervisor. That’s his number,” I said, returning her phone.

  “You’re quite the assertive one, aren’t you,” she said.

  “It’s the drugs,” I said.

  “And when they wear off, Constable? What then? Will you be so witty, so disrespectful then, I wonder?”

  “That depends on your plans,” I said.

  “Plans?”

  “For Luui, Tuukula, and Alma.”

  “That’s hardly your business. I’m under no obligation to talk to you, or anyone who isn’t…”

  “Family,” Tuukula said as he walked along the corridor. “Oldest daughter,” he said, slipping around Blixt to take my hands, gently. He lifted his heels, pressed his forehead against mine, and whispered, “Qujanaq.”

  “Yes…” I said, struggling to find more words, suddenly aware of the strength of this man’s love, and how deeply he gave it. “Luui is…”

  “Sleeping,” Tuukula said. “They told me in reception. I’m going to get Alma.” He nodded at the window. “She won’t come if the press is here. I said we would come together. I will get her, but…” Tuukula took a long breath. “I just needed to see her, alone. You understand?”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  Tuukula kissed my cheek, then stepped back. He winked at Blixt, said something about talking to her later, then left us alone in the corridor.

  “He’s your father?” Blixt said, as Tuukula slipped into Luui’s room.

  “If he says so,” I said. “I never knew my parents. He could be. And that would make us…” I tried one of Atii’s smiles, the kind where she presses the tip of her tongue into her teeth, tilts her head to one side, and says something witty. I settled on just the one word, “Family.”

  “We’ll see,” Blixt said. She pocketed her phone and turned on her heel.

  As showdowns go, it could have been more dramatic, but I had had my fill of drama for what I hoped would be a very long time.

  I was tempted to look in on Tuukula and Luui, especially when I heard her soft laugh. Wherever she had been, however she had got there, she was back now,
and in that moment it was enough.

  I let them catch up and wandered idly down the corridor, smiling at the nurses, nodding that I was all right, and resisting the urge to ask for more pills, until I reached an open door.

  I stopped outside, knew who I would see in the room, but wondered if he was awake, if I had the strength to talk to him. The nurses said his entire body was bruised, but they promised it was no worse than that, that he needed his rest, but…

  “If it hadn’t been for the dog…”

  I took a breath, swallowed, and then a tiny step forward, stepping into the doorway and leaning on the frame, smiling at the sound of soft snores punctuated with a wheezy rattle.

  “A gift from the sea,” the nurses called it.

  I felt something tug at my fingers and I looked down, smiling as Luui slipped her hand into mine, picking at the creases of the bandage wraps as she looked at Maratse in his hospital bed.

  “What’s his name?” she asked.

  “David.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  “Later, then.”

  “Yes,” I said, as I scooped Luui into my arms. “When he wakes.”

  I turned to carry Luui out of Maratse’s room, but she stopped me with a soft hand on my cheek.

  “We have to go,” I whispered. “He needs to be alone.”

  “He’s not alone,” she said. “Look.”

  The blinds were drawn but for a single slat snagged on the window handle. A triangle of light crept through the crack, split by a partition in the blind, separating the light into two…

  “Arms,” Luui said. Her eyes shone as she wrinkled her nose. “We can leave him now. mo is here.”

  “Yes,” I said, curious about where to begin. If I was to understand where Luui had been, how she had gotten there, and what she did inside an ice cave, alone for four days… Not alone. I corrected myself. mo was there.

  “Pretty lady,” she said, curling her fingers into my hair. “Thinking too hard.”

  “Always.”

  Luui wriggled, and I set her down. “Don’t think,” she said, taking my hand. “Just believe.”

  “In what?”

  “Magic,” she said, with a poof of splayed fingers.

  The End

  Bonus Short Story

  RAM

  When I get mail, which isn’t often, I do one of two things with it. If it’s a white envelope from the bank or the utility company, I open it straight away. Don’t even give myself time to think. I do take a breath as I tug the letter out of the envelope, then I scan for the inevitable reprimand, caution, or surcharge – something I might have missed or overlooked – before tucking it back into the envelope on my way up the stairs to my apartment. I’ve learned to just open the damn letter, as Atii would say. She taught me to assume the worst when it came to white envelopes, especially the ones with logos on them – like the ones from the housing association. I spend half my wage on rent every month. I sometimes think they should deliver their bills by hand, but then I would have to look them in the face, and, well… I just don’t want to do that. The other kind of mail is always something I have ordered, and when it arrives, I carry it like treasure to my apartment, put it on the kitchen table – the white envelopes go on the counter, out of sight – and then circle around it with my coffee, as if I’m saving the best ‘til last. I used to do the same with the presents I got each Christmas at the children’s home – often only two. I would save the biggest, or heaviest, maybe even the prettiest ‘til last.

  The mail I received on Wednesday was neither.

  It was a brown envelope – the rough kind with fibres, like it was recycled. My name and address were printed in dark blue ink. There was no return sender on the back of the envelope, nor was there any postage.

  It had been delivered by hand.

  I picked it up once to sniff it – nose wrinkling at the scent of something sweet, not quite candy, but definitely not perfume. It reminded me of liquorice, but burnt.

  I left the envelope on the table and went to work.

  Wednesdays in Nuuk were often quiet. I developed a routine, lingering in the main open office – not quite sitting at the missing persons desk, but hovering nearby, just in case – until I was due to hit the streets, or the commissioner called for help with a text he wanted me to fix. I did my office lingering in the mornings when I had the day shift, and just before the night shift came on when I worked Wednesday evenings. The Wednesday I received the letter was one of my day shifts, and I thought about it in-between jobs, briefly, and not at all when the call came to visit Mitti Mathiassen.

  Mitti was a regular. Atii called her a regular pain in the ass, but that’s where we were different. I had more patience for the likes of Mitti, and if Atii and I were together, we made a deal.

  “I’ll talk to Mitti,” I said, “if you buy…”

  “Deal.”

  “I wasn’t finished.”

  “Lunch. Dinner. Whatever,” Atii said, with a glance up at Mitti’s apartment. “I’m buying. I don’t care. Just as long as I can stay in the car.”

  “You can’t stay in the car, Atii.”

  “In the corridor, then. Just don’t make me come inside.”

  “She’s lonely.”

  “She’s nuts, P, and you know it.”

  “Right.” I opened the passenger door and climbed out of the patrol car. Atii followed with a sigh.

  “So,” she said, as we walked across the gritty road. “What will it be this time?”

  “Intruders,” I said.

  “The neighbour’s kids climbing onto her balcony.”

  I stopped at the door, giving Atii my best and most generous smile as I opened it, letting her go first. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of urine at the bottom of the stairs, grabbed me by the jacket, and pushed me ahead of her.

  “It’ll be something like a cousin who emptied her bank account,” Atii said, prodding me forward, onward, and upward.

  “That’ll be a new one.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “No?” I said, frowning as we reached Mitti’s door.

  “The last person who emptied her account was her sister.”

  “She doesn’t have a sister.”

  Atii gave a short, sharp jerk of her hands, as if to say exactly. I knocked on Mitti’s door.

  “Police,” I said, when she called out, telling us to leave.

  “Let’s go,” Atii whispered.

  I shook my head, resisted waving my finger at her, and then stepped back as Mitti opened the door.

  “What do you want?” she said, tugging a dirty dressing gown tightly across her chest.

  “You called us, Mitti,” I said.

  “What about?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Atii whispered.

  I gave her a nudge, and she wandered to the end of the hall, leaving Mitti and I alone.

  “Mitti,” I said. “You called the police. Do you remember?”

  Mitti was younger than she looked, with thick, black hair that could do with a wash, and a smudge of something on her cheek that could have been chocolate.

  “It’s about the postman,” she said, nodding as she remembered. “He brought me a letter.”

  “Okay.” I glanced at Atii, caught her rolling her eyes, and then bit my lip, biting back a laugh as Mitti continued.

  “But there was no stamp on it.”

  That caught my attention. Just as Atii was ready to leave, or charge Mitti with obstructing police work, I dipped my head to one side and asked Mitti if I could see it.

  “P?” Atii said through gritted teeth. “What are you doing?”

  “Give me a minute,” I said, as I stepped inside Mitti’s apartment.

  I followed Mitti along the short hall, past plastic bags of old clothes, overflowing bins, and empty bottles pressed against the skirting boards. She showed me into the living room, and I gagged before I could stop myself. If the drunks, the dogs, and the
cats in the housing block ever tired of pissing in the stairwell… Well…

  “There it is,” Mitti said, pointing at a brown envelope on the coffee table between her threadbare couch and the broken television.

  I picked my way around the trash on the floor, curled a loose strand of my hair behind my ear, and bent over the coffee table for a closer look at the envelope.

  It was exactly the same as the one on my kitchen table. Same handwritten address. Same handwriting.

  “You haven’t opened it,” I said, turning to Mitti.

  “I didn’t think I should.”

  Atii appeared in the doorway, wearing her best confused look, before cupping her hand over her mouth and nose. She stared at me with her big brown eyes, wide – as wide as they could go, pleading for us to leave. But I was curious.

  “We have the same letter,” I said.

  Atii frowned. “What?”

  “Mitti got the same letter I did.” I pointed at the envelope on Mitti’s coffee table. “Same envelope, ink, and everything.”

  “Who is it from?” Mitti asked.

  I opened my mouth, started to speak, then settled for a shrug of my shoulders instead. “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t open it,” Atii said, letting her hand fall to her sides. “Mitti…” Atii stepped into the room, reached for my jacket, and tugged me towards the door. “It’s been a pleasure, as always. We’re going to have social services look in on you. Don’t know when,” she said, as Mitti started to speak. “But soon. Promise.” Atii guided me through the front door and into the corridor. “You might want to clean up some, before they come,” she said to Mitti, before marching me to the stairs.

  The sun broke through the clouds as we exited the building, lighting the dark sky with a glitter on the horizon. Atii took a big breath, and I joined her. We purged our lungs of rotten food and urine, turning our heads to catch the brine off the sea as we walked back to the patrol car.

  “Tell me everything,” she said, as we got in.

  I waited until Atii started the car, and then said, “I got a letter this morning, no postage, handwritten. It was a rough envelope, just like…”