The Waterproof Bible

by KAUFMAN, Andrew

  “Mavbe vou could velph me?” she asked.

  The man did not immediately respond, which made Aby very nervous. Her gills opened and closed slightly and she wiggled her fingers, stretching the webbing between them. Aby was unaware that she was doing this until the Síðri looked at his hands. Self-conscious, Aby put hers behind her back.

  Finally, after what seemed like a very long time, he spoke. “I think I know you,” he said.

  “I von’t fink sooh.”

  “Yeah, I do. You almost crashed into a limousine I was in.”

  “Fat was vou?” He looked very different.

  “I was in the back.”

  “Neye am so soohrry aboot vat,” Aby said. “Please vait here?”

  The man continued to squat, and Aby took his lack of movement as agreement. Still impressed with her improving ability to walk, Aby returned to the car and thrust her head into the back seat. She knew she’d hidden the keys somewhere safe, but she suddenly couldn’t remember where that was. After pushing her hand down the crack in the seat behind the seat belts, then searching in the pocket in the driver’s side door, she found them underneath the back floor mats. Holding them firmly, Aby returned to the man, who had remained at the back of the car.

  “Cav vou please make saue fese get back tau her?” Aby asked. She held out her hand. At first it seemed like the man would deny her request. Then, slowly, he reached out his hand. Careful to make her movements slow and predictable, so as not to spook him, she handed over the keys.

  “I will,” he said. He stared at the keys.

  “Verv impaurtant.”

  “It’s unbelievable,” the man said.

  His answer satisfied Aby, as she assumed he’d meant it in the Aquatic sense of the word. Returning the keys was a weight off her shoulders and filled her with satisfaction and renewed energy. “Dou vou phow vow to get to Morris?” she asked him.

  “Where?

  “Vit’s verv close. Morris?”

  “Sorry. I’m not from around here.”

  “Auh. Auvay. Feranks, then.”

  “No problem.”

  “It’s sau drv here.”

  “I find that too,” he said.

  Aby nodded. The man returned the gesture. She felt that this brief interaction had somehow been significant, of even greater significance than returning the keys. Perhaps he was an Almennt, a word that has no English translation, but that describes God’s brief appearance in the world in exactly the form the seer needs to see.

  Aby looked back at the man to see if this was true, but he just continued to stand there, looking dumbfounded, and she concluded that he wasn’t an Almennt. She got back inside the white Honda Civic, rolled up the window and started the engine. The gills in her neck opened and she took a very deep breath, then mistakenly put the car into reverse. Still feeling like something had been left unsaid, Aby gave a small, embarrassed wave, then pulled onto the street. She was less than two hours away from Morris, but first she’d have to find her way out of Winnipeg using nothing but allt, or, in English, trial and error.

  19

  The Richardsons

  Kenneth Richardson had begun rainmaking in 1978, at the age of twenty-two. He’d had no one to teach him but had stumbled onto a process of filling small cloth bags with silver iodide and attaching the bags to a flock of starlings he tamed and trained himself. The birds, sixty or seventy at a time, would fly into a cloud. The silver iodide would fall out through tiny holes he’d cut in the cloth. The cloud would be seeded, and rain would begin to fall roughly five minutes later. Kenneth was never sure how it worked. He just knew it did.

  After becoming quite successful as a rainmaker, Kenneth got married in 1980 and had a son, whom they named Anderson, the following year. When Anderson turned fourteen, Kenneth’s business became Richardson & Son, and they took the rainmaking world by storm. Seven wonderful years passed. They were the best there ever was, turning water-starved fields into bumper crops, saving livestock and livelihoods.

  But then, in 2002, Anderson had an idea. He put seven car batteries in a circle, attached copper wire to the positive and negative poles, and raised the wires until they met at a point five feet in the air. Next, he built a kite, which he flew on a copper wire. When the kite was in the clouds, Anderson attached the batteries. An electric current climbed up the copper string and into the clouds. There was a flash, then thunder, and then rain began to fall.

  Anderson recreated his experiment for his father, expecting approval. He did not get it. Kenneth found the use of electricity crass. The kite was lazy and undisciplined. They fought, and from that day forward they never spoke again. Through written correspondence, they divided the country: Kenneth took jobs in the western states and Anderson in the east. Canada had never been discussed, never even considered. When they got the calls to come to Morris, each man assumed the territory was his.

  It was because of this rivalry that, the morning after they’d checked in, Kenneth and Anderson Richardson left the Prairie Embassy Hotel in different cars. They drove into downtown Morris and began searching for very different, yet very specific items. It did not take Kenneth long to discover Snyder’s Photography Studio, where he purchased the entire stock of silver iodide. Anderson’s search began and ended at Nixon’s Auto Wreckers, where he bought five used car batteries. Both men then drove back to the hotel and carried their purchases up to the roof.

  Just before noon on August 25th, Kenneth and Anderson occupied different corners on the roof of the Prairie Embassy Hotel. Anderson took the northeast corner and began placing more car batteries than he’d ever used before in a circle. Kenneth, in the southwest corner, carefully added as much powder to each of his pouches as he dared. Then they sat on the roof, waiting for the perfect cloud to appear.

  20

  234.7 metres above sea level

  Aberystwyth’s foot continued to depress the left pedal as the white Honda Civic idled at the top of the laneway. Her gills widened. She breathed, lifted her foot and then pressed too hard on the gas. The white Honda Civic began fishtailing in the gravel. Aby oversteered and the car began travelling sideways. Returning her foot to the brake, Aby turned her head to the right and watched through the passenger window as the Prairie Embassy Hotel quickly approached. Her grip on the steering wheel became tighter. The car stopped of its own accord, two feet from the porch.

  Dust curled in the driver’s side window and settled on Aby’s fingers, which continued holding the steering wheel. Her knuckles were the only part of her that was pale. The rest of her had become an iridescent dark forest green. The brake remained pressed against the all-weather floor mats, and the engine continued to run. Aby stayed in this position for several minutes, until her right leg began to tremble. Relaxing her grip on the steering wheel, Aby lifted her foot from the pedal. The gills in her neck flapped open and she took a deep breath. The dust made her cough. Reaching up, Aby traced the length of the crack in the windshield with her index finger and stopped where the crack did, half an inch from the top left corner. Aby had won. Her gills pulled in and pushed out an especially large volume of air. Beating the crack filled her with a gust of optimism, although this was tempered when the dust made her cough a second time.

  She shifted in the driver’s seat so that she could see all five storeys of the Prairie Embassy Hotel below the crack. Aby feared the building was abandoned, although all Síðri buildings looked unoccupied to her. It was certainly much smaller than she’d expected. The wood looked flimsy. She didn’t like its faded yellow colour, and she didn’t like that it had held her mother for so many years.

  Aby shut off the motor but remained inside the car, keeping her finger on the far end of the crack. When her hand started cramping, Aby stretched her fingers in front of her face and massaged the webbing between them. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Moments later, she became convinced that she was being watched. Opening her eyes, she saw her mother staring through the driver’s side window. Aby smil
ed, but her smile was not returned.

  Margaret did not blink, and her face revealed no emotion of any kind. “I’m not going back,” Margaret said.

  Aby rolled down her window.

  “I’m not going back,” Margaret repeated.

  “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Are you still Aquatic?”

  “Let’s not start there,” Aby said, but Margaret had already turned and was walking away from the car.

  Aby opened the car door. She had some difficulty getting out of the driver’s seat, but bolstered by her recent success with walking and running, she didn’t fear the uneven ground. She put all her weight on her left foot, and then, hoping to at least appear casual, she took a step. She did not fall. She took another, then another. When she looked up to see her mother’s reaction, an apple struck her firmly on the chest.

  Waving her arms to remain upright, Aby looked in the direction the apple had come from and saw her mother standing on the porch of the Prairie Embassy Hotel. There was a second apple in her hand and a basket of them at her feet. “I will not go back!” Margaret yelled. She aimed, and threw.

  Aby ducked the second apple, but the third hit her squarely on her forehead, knocking her off balance. The fourth apple grazed Aby’s nose as she fell backwards. As she tried to get to her feet, apples struck her shoulders, and others landed inches from her head. On her hands and knees, Aby craled to the white Honda Civic. Apples hit the hood of the car, producing metallic thuds. Two apples struck the windshield as she got in and closed the door. Sitting behind the wheel, Aby watched an apple strike the exact centre of the windshield, causing the crack to reach the top left corner.

  PART SIX

  The Impostors

  Lewis II

  21

  The clumsy hand of God

  Lewis stood up and then sat back down on the bench. Quickly, without giving himself time to lose his nerve, he stood up again and walked across the street. He took his hands out of his pockets, opened the door of Ear Candy Records and stepped inside. The brown carpet needed vacuuming. A thin man wearing a green T-shirt and black jeans stood behind the counter, reading a magazine. He had the same hairstyle Lewis had had before his haircut in Winnipeg.

  Lewis stood in front of the New Releases section, searching for a CD. It wasn’t there. He walked to the bins and flipped through the I’s from first to last. It wasn’t there, either. Putting his hands back in his pockets, Lewis reluctantly walked to the front counter, where the clerk continued reading.

  “Um,” Lewis said. “There’s a record I can’t seem to find.”

  “Yeah?” the clerk said. He put his index finger on the place where he’d been reading and scratched his scruffy beard.

  “The Impostors?”

  The clerk looked at Lewis. Lewis watched for signs of recognition, but none appeared: a haircut and a change of clothes had been all he’d needed as a disguise. This made Lewis feel both very safe and very sad.

  The clerk gave a tiny, dismissive laugh, then lifted his finger and returned to his magazine. “Try the mall,” he said, flipping the page.

  “Excuse me?”

  “We don’t have it.”

  “You sound proud.”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  The clerk looked up, closed his magazine and folded his hands on top of it. He leaned slightly forward. “Because it’s not really music,” he said. “It’s product.”

  “It’s in the top five!”

  “Exactly.”

  “All over the world.”

  “Hey, listen. I don’t want to come off as a snob,” the clerk said, raising his hands open-palmed in the air. “You can listen to whatever you want. But I mean, that band’s a one-hit wonder, and it’s already over. If you want some pop music, that’s fine, that’s great, but why don’t you try some Abba? Or the Beach Boys? Maybe the Cars? Greatest hits, anyway. Really, I can show you some great stuff.”

  “Can you show a little more respect?”

  “Hey, wait, I mean—”

  “You know she’s dead?”

  “Yeah, I heard that. Weird, eh?”

  “You should be sorry,” Lewis yelled. “You should be very, very sorry!”

  Lewis was suddenly unable to stop yelling. Every part of his body seemed to be yelling. His fists were yelling, his ears were yelling. His feet yelled at the floor as he walked across it, pushed the door open and left.

  Lewis would never have met his wife if he hadn’t let his sister cut his hair during Christmas break of grade twelve. As with most siblings, Lewis’s relationship with his sister had involved a strange mixture of envy, hostility and loyalty. But when Joanne moved to Vancouver to take a job cutting hair at a friend’s salon, Lewis was surprised to discover that he missed her. He was even more surprised to learn that Joanne missed him too. When she came home for the holidays, they stayed up together, drinking rum and eggnog and watching the Christmas specials they’d formerly squabbled in front of. Nostalgia seeped into everything, and on Christmas Eve, after their parents had gone to bed, Joanne asked if she could cut his hair.

  Lewis didn’t see how he could say no. Joanne tied a towel around his neck as he sat on a chair in the kitchen. She did not ask how he wanted his hair to be cut, she simply started. Bits of hair fell between the towel and his skin, and because of this Lewis would associate an itchy neck with transformation for the rest of his life.

  She would not let him see the work in progress. Finally, with a great flourish, she removed the towel. Lewis ran upstairs. He locked the bathroom door. He closed his eyes. He moved in front of the mirror, took a very deep breath and, very slowly, opened his eyes. Joanne had cut his hair in a style Lewis would never have selected for himself. It was fashionable and hip. It was everything he wasn’t and everything he wanted to be. He ran downstairs and told her, without the irony that seasoned so many of their conversations, that it was the best Christmas present he’d ever had. Which was good, as it was the only one Joanne had for him.

  The following Monday, the hostility Lewis received from the boys at school was more than compensated for by the attention he got from the girls. Donna Walter, who had previously ignored him completely even though her locker was right next to his, spent the time between third and fourth period talking to him. When the bell rang, she didn’t move, so Lewis didn’t either. The hallway filled with students. Donna continued to look at him. He continued to lean against his locker. The hallway emptied, and the bell for fourth period rang.

  “Don’t you have class?” she asked.

  “Sheet-Metal Welding.”

  Donna took two steps backwards, turned and walked away. Lewis waited and was rewarded when Donna looked over her shoulder four steps later, smiling. Lewis returned her smile, briefly, then began walking to Sheet-Metal Welding. Compared with his first successful flirtation, being five minutes late for shop class didn’t seem like a big deal. The only downside was that, by the time he arrived, everyone already had a partner and the only empty seat was next to Lisa Reynolds.

  Lisa Reynolds was unpopular. Her hair was black, shoulder-length and lank at a time when everyone else’s was short, shiny and blond. She wore T-shirts for bands that only fathers had heard of. She seemed to smile all the time, and her teeth had gaps and were crooked. She didn’t carry books, binders or a pencil case, but any time a teacher asked her a question she knew the answer, and this, above all else, made her uncool. But even worse than any of those transgressions was that Lisa Reynolds took shop. In a school of close to a thousand students, she was the only girl who did so.

  Lewis sat down beside her. Lisa waited for him to introduce himself. She waited in vain. No words passed between them. The end of the period was nearing when Lisa said the only thing that could possibly have made Lewis give her his full attention. She was not flattering him. She was not being manipulative. She simply said exactly what was on her mind, as was her habit.

  “We should start a band,” she said. “You cou
ld be the lead singer.”

  Throughout the rest of the semester, very little sheet-metal welding got done. Lewis and Lisa used fourth period to fabricate their band instead. They didn’t buy instruments or take music lessons. Instead, they concentrated on what the band’s name would be and what they would look like onstage. From January 7 to January 10 they both liked the name The Stranger Things. The Stranger Things was envisioned as a large band, with an all-male horn section wearing identical brown tuxedos with baby blue ruffled shirts. There would be female backup singers dressed in tight knee-length skirts and white silk blouses. They’d play soul music, but there would also be two synthesizer players with new-wave haircuts to give the band a contemporary edge.

  Then Lisa spent a Sunday afternoon skimming her sister Rebecca’s Greek Mythology textbook, and the band’s name was changed to Myth of Sisyphus. In this band, Lisa would stand mid-stage in a blue spotlight, singing nonsensical lyrics. Three cello players dressed in formal wear would play to her right. Lewis would wander across the stage, playing different musical instruments, such as guitar, banjo, xylophone and toy piano.

  The following week they became Unwashed Teen Punk Band, soon shortened to Teen Punk Band. This marked a significant and irreversible evolution. As a punk band, they would not require musical talent—they had invented a band they could actually form. Although the name changed daily, the band remained a punk band for the next several weeks. By the middle of February, they were on the verge of buying guitars when Lisa admitted that she didn’t really want to be in a punk band. Lewis conceded that he had no desire to be in one either. Neither really felt that angry.