Tongues of Fire

by Peter Abrahams

  When Rehv reached the end of the portage he saw the pack and Paul’s jeans, sneakers, and sweatshirt lying on a rock. The boy was swimming in the lake. It was a small, round, slate-colored lake, with a V-shaped island where the boy had said it would be.

  “Don’t go out too far,” Rehv called to him. His voice scared a large brown bird out of a treetop, but Paul didn’t seem to hear it. He went on swimming with fluid strokes out into the lake. “Don’t go out too far.” The brown bird circled high above. Rehv lowered the canoe, letting the bow rest on the water, and started for the other pack.

  By the time he returned, the sun was low in the sky. The lake had darkened to the color of charcoal; a long thin cone of reddish gold stretched across the water, narrowing to a point at the far side. The canoe, pack, jeans, sneakers, sweatshirt were where they had been, but he didn’t see the boy.

  “Paul. Paul.” He shouted the boy’s name. The lake shouted it back. “Paul.” Rehv dropped the pack, stripped off his clothes, and ran into the water.

  He swam. He swam as fast as he could until he thought he had reached the area where he had last seen the boy. He took a deep breath and dove toward the bottom.

  The lake was much deeper than he had expected. It grew colder and darker as he went down. Tall slimy plants that he could barely see rose up from the bottom, cutting off the remaining light and winding around his body. He fought past them, swimming with jerky, breath-wasting movements, until his hands touched the bed of the lake.

  Opening his eyes wide he strained to see: He saw nothing but swaying shadows. He pulled himself along the bottom, reaching out with his free hand to feel. He felt smooth rocks and oily weeds and rotting tree trunks. He stayed there, running his hands over the lake bed until he could hold his breath no longer. Then, his breath growing inside him like a balloon, he swam up frantically; not to save his life, but to draw another breath and dive again. The balloon burst, up from his lungs, through his throat, out of his mouth. He broke through, into the air. Gasping, he sucked it inside. He felt faint and far away; he saw only blackness, with flashes of red gold.

  Slowly the faintness left him, his breathing became more even, his normal vision returned. He was taking a few deep breaths for another dive when he noticed the plume of blue smoke rising from the V-shaped island across the water.

  Rehv swam back toward the shore, his body numb from the cold, numb everywhere except the lower back. As he swam he heard a distant screaming. He listened. It wasn’t distant at all. He remembered it from long ago. He swam. How much farther? “Sergeant Levy. Still swimming?” His head struck the bow of the canoe.

  Rehv dressed, set the packs in the canoe, and paddled out to the V-shaped island. As he approached he saw a few canoes drawn up on a pebbly beach. Some people were sitting around a campfire. One of them was darker than the others.

  He made a few sweeping strokes to bring the stern around and glided up to the beach sideways. A tall silver-haired man came forward to help him out of the canoe.

  “Quite a swimmer, your lad,” he said, grasping Rehv’s hand to steady him. “Still, no matter how good, no one should go swimming alone. Eh?” He gave Rehv’s hand a little squeeze for emphasis.

  Rehv looked across the beach at the campfire. Sitting around it eating hot dogs and potato chips were five or six boys and another silver-haired man, shorter and rounder than the first. And Paul, wrapped in a sleeping bag and drinking something steaming from a cup. Rehv walked over to the fire and stood in front of him.

  “Did you bring my clothes?” the boy said.

  For the first time Rehv wanted to hit him. He stood there, waiting for the desire to pass through him. He tried to think of the right thing to say to the boy. All he could think of was “Shit.”

  The boys stopped eating hot dogs and potato chips and looked up. The tall silver-haired man said, “Pardon my French.”

  “I’m a good swimmer.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Of course it is,” the boy said. And, lowering his voice, he added in Arabic, “You’re the one who says I’m special. If I’m special you have to trust me.”

  “Don’t,” Rehv said in English, but it was too late: All eyes were on them.

  “How about a hot dog, Mr.—”

  “Reeve.”

  “Mr. Reeve. Glad to know you.” Their right hands grasped each other again. “Starling. Scoutmaster. First troop of Kitchener-Waterloo. My brother, Cromwell. Everyone calls him Crommie. And Davey, Bobby, Wally, Billy, the other Bobby, and Ned. Here. Take a load off your feet. Mustard or ketchup?”

  “Thank you, but—”

  “Go on. You’ll be doing us a favor. We’ve got three boxes of food left, and the plane’s coming to get us in the morning.”

  They sat around the campfire eating hot dogs, potato chips, peanut butter, roasted marshmallows, chocolate bars, canned ham, and slices of cheese that looked and tasted like yellow wax. Very slowly light faded from the sky, trailing dusk westward over the lakes, the prairies, the mountains, the sea. They moved closer to the fire. So did the mosquitoes.

  “Your son tells me you’ve got a place over on Lac du Loup,” Starling said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never been down that way. You like it?”

  “Very much.”

  “What’s it mean, anyway, Lac du Loup?” Crommie said.

  “Lake something or other,” his brother replied.

  “I know that.”

  “Lake of the Wolf,” Rehv said.

  “Are there any wolves?” one of the boys asked.

  “Big ones,” Paul said.

  “How big?”

  “Wolves won’t bother you if you don’t bother them, Bobby,” Starling said. He jabbed a marshmallow with a pointed stick and held it close to a tongue of flame. “Any other folks around your way?” he said to Rehv.

  “No.”

  “You just come up for the summers?”

  “That kind of thing.”

  The tongue of flame reached out for the marshmallow and set it on fire. “Yikes,” Starling said. He blew the fire out, waved the marshmallow in the air to cool it, and popped it in his mouth. “Where do you live the rest of the time?” he said around it. “If I’m not being nosy.”

  “Toronto.”

  “Really? I taught high school there, many years ago.”

  “Not that long ago, Ralph,” Crommie said.

  “What grade’s your son in?” Starling asked.

  “Going into tenth.”

  A mosquito landed on the end of Starling’s nose. The firelight threw its long-legged shadow across one side of his face. “What school does he go to?”

  “We haven’t decided yet. He’s changing schools this year.”

  Starling jabbed another marshmallow. “Where was he last year?”

  Without looking, Rehv knew that Paul’s dark eyes were watching him. “Prince of Wales.”

  Starling smacked his palm against his nose. “The little devil.” He held his palm in front of the fire and looked at the squashed brown body lying in a drop of blood. “He got me right on the nose.”

  After dinner they sang. Starling beat time with the pointed stick. Rehv knew none of the songs. He got up and walked along the beach. Betelgeuse was redder than he had ever seen it.

  My paddle’s keen and bright

  Flashing with silver

  Follow the wild goose flight

  Dip dip and swing.

  Dip dip and swing, my boys

  Dip dip and swing.

  Paul had not known any of the songs either. Still, Rehv heard him singing the words along with the others. He noticed how well Paul sang, and tried to recall hearing him sing in the past. He couldn’t.

  Dip dip and swing, my boys

  Dip dip and swing.

  Later the singing died away. Rehv returned to the fire and saw that they were all watching a large portable television set. Rehv thought of them carrying it over the portages. On the screen were four men in busi
ness suits, sitting around a horseshoe-shaped table. In the background, to prove that it wasn’t radio, were winking lights in the shape of a maple leaf. Rehv sat down.

  “The boys need their TV,” Starling said, shaking his head. “Even up here.”

  The four men in business suits were trying to define Canadian culture. It was hard work, and they never smiled.

  “Can’t you get any American stations?” one of the boys asked.

  “We’re not on the cable, Davey,” Starling said. “This is all there is.”

  The boys got up and went to their tent. “You too, Paul,” Rehv said. Paul walked off down the beach toward the two-man tent they shared. The four men in business suits ran out of time before they found an answer, but the program was part of a series, so they would have another chance the next week; and if not them, four other men in different suits. Rehv rose. “Good night.”

  “Sleep tight,” said Starling, turning away from the television for a moment. “We never miss the news.”

  Rehv entered the tent and zipped himself into his sleeping bag. “Paul?” he said quietly. He heard the boy’s deep regular breathing. Rehv lay beside him, trying to fall asleep, his mind full of thought about the boy he had made special. An owl hooted in the darkness.

  During the night Rehv awoke, needing to urinate. He went outside. The moon had risen. He saw the two tents on the beach, the big one for the boys, the small one for Starling and his brother. He thought he heard people talking, and very softly walked closer. He heard Starling say, “It sounded like German to me. And his father still has an accent. Not much, but it’s there.”

  Crommie said, “I’m trying to sleep.” One of them sighed. Then the other. Rehv went back to his sleeping bag.

  Just after dawn a red seaplane flew in low and skimmed onto the lake. It came across the water to the V-shaped island, sending little waves onto the pebbly shore. The scouts and their leaders paddled over to it and lashed their canoes to the tops of the pontoons. Rehv and Paul stood on the beach, beside their tent. They watched the seaplane roar over the surface of the water, rise, clear the trees on the far side of the lake, and disappear to the south. Rehv turned to his son, remembering the way he had sung with the others around the fire.

  “They were so boring,” the boy said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “What does the Koran say about interest?”

  “What did Ibn Khaldun think about nomads and civilization?”

  “Who milks Baggara cattle, men or women?”

  “How did Gordon die?”

  After a few more days of this, and little whirlpools, and loons calling their sad unanswered calls across the water, Rehv and the boy paddled back to Lac du Loup, entering by a narrow stream at the northern end. The cabin, sheltered from the wind by dense spruce trees, stood on the southern side of a long point that almost cut the lake in two. When they came around the point they saw the red seaplane moored to the dock.

  On the dock sat a man and a woman. The man was chewing gum and reading a magazine. The woman was pulling files out of a big briefcase and sorting them into two piles, one on each knee. Neither of them heard the canoe. When they were quite close Rehv let his paddle shaft scrape the gunwale. The man and the woman looked up.

  “Oh good,” the woman said. “We’d almost given up.” The man went back to his magazine. Rehv could see the name: Aviation Now! On the cover was a photograph of a man beaming in a cockpit.

  They tied up, unloaded the packs, and climbed onto the dock. The woman rose, putting the files back into her briefcase. She was stocky, with thick dark hair stretched tightly to her head by an elastic at the back; the huge round lenses of her glasses gave her the telepathic look that beings from outer space have in the movies.

  “I’m Mrs. Hume,” the woman said. “From Social Services, northern section. This is Wes. He’s the pilot.” Wes nodded and cracked his gum. Rehv moved a little closer to the boy.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re Mr. Reeve, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this is your son, Paul?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  “Here.”

  “It’s not the kind of thing we like to discuss in front of the children.”

  “What kind of thing is it?”

  She looked at him carefully. Behind the lenses the sockets of her eyes were small and very shallow, almost flat with her face; the eyes inside them were small too. Ice floated to the surface of those little eyes; her voice turned cold.

  “It’s against policy to have these discussions in front of the children. Ministry policy.”

  “Go up to the cabin, Paul,” Rehv said. He didn’t want the woman in there, where the walls were covered with pictures of Kordofan and Darfur and most of the books were in Arabic. Paul slung one of the packs over his shoulder and walked off the dock.

  “A fine-looking boy,” Mrs. Hume said.

  “What is it you want?”

  “First of all, Mr. Reeve, we like to get to know all the permanent residents. We stopped at the general store on Frog Lake and they said you’d been here for years. We’d had no idea.”

  “It’s not a secret.”

  “Maybe not, Mr. Reeve, but the fact is there’s no Prince of Wales High School in Toronto.” The great lenses loomed at him. Wes glanced up from his magazine.

  “Meaning what?” Rehv asked quietly.

  “Meaning I’ve come to find out what arrangements are being made for your son’s education.”

  “I’m teaching him myself.”

  Wes spat his gum into the water. It sank slowly in little arcs, the way a feather falls. Mrs. Hume took a notebook from her briefcase and wrote a few words on a blank page.

  “What qualifications do you have?” she said.

  “I’m qualified.”

  Mrs. Hume snapped the notebook shut. “We need your precise qualifications, Mr. Reeve. I don’t think you understand the situation very well. Occasionally, very occasionally, we allow people in your situation to educate their children at home. But first they must meet our standards.” She reopened the notebook and wrote “standards.” “That usually involves taking a teaching course from the Department of Education. Second, they must follow a course of instruction set out by the department.” She wrote “course” underneath “standards.” “Third, they must satisfy the requirements of a teaching inspector who spends a day or two watching them in action.” She wrote “inspector” in the notebook.

  “And otherwise?”

  Mrs. Hume drew a little box around the three words. “Otherwise you will probably have to board the boy with a family at Frog Lake. Unless you move to another school district.”

  Wes pulled a package of gum from his shirt pocket and held it out. “It’s the kind that explodes in your mouth.” Neither of them wanted any. Wes unwrapped a piece and put it in his mouth. He chewed it once or twice; then his eyes went blank as though he was listening to something far away. The wrapper drifted across the water.

  “All right,” Rehv said. “What do you need to know?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Reeve.” She turned to a new page. “First we need your social insurance number, and the boy’s mother’s.”

  “His mother doesn’t live with us. They must have mentioned that at the general store.”

  It made her blush: a pinkness that began around her mouth and rose like a thermometer to her cheeks and her forehead. She hid behind her glasses until she was white again. “Your social insurance number, then,” she said, writing “#” and holding the pen poised over the page.

  “I don’t know it.”

  She looked up at him. Clouds were passing overhead, and he saw them reflected in her lenses. “Have you got your card?”

  “I haven’t seen it for years.”

  “Maybe the number’s written somewhere else. In your passport? Health insurance card?”

  “Don’t have either.”

  “What about
an old income tax form. It’s printed on those automatically.”

  Rehv shook his head.

  Mrs. Hume wrote “?” beside “#.” “Have you got a driver’s license?”

  “Where would I drive, Mrs. Hume?”

  The pink thermometer rose, but not as high as the last time. “You are a Canadian citizen, Mr. Reeve?”

  “Yes.”

  “Naturalized or born?”

  “Born,” he said. He heard no Israeli accent in his voice.

  “Where?”

  “Toronto.”

  Mrs. Hume wrote it down, and added a number of other lies he told her. Finally she closed the notebook. “There’s not much time before the fall term to get all this done,” she said.

  “Please try.”

  “That’s what we’re here for.”

  Mrs. Hume and Wes got into the red plane. Again Rehv watched it roar across the lake and begin rising off the water, foot by foot. “Crash,” he said aloud, but it cleared the trees as it had cleared them before, and Rehv knew it was the last summer on Lac du Loup. He lifted the canoe out of the water and laid it overturned by a tree. Then he picked up the pack that remained on the dock and walked up the path to the cabin, to tell Paul that they would be moving to another school district, and to lie with his back to the fire.

  Rehv lay on the couch with his eyes closed. He heard Paul close by, poking the fire. He heard sparks crackle in the air. He heard Paul, walking softly in his sneakers, go outside onto the porch, down the steps to the side of the house. Metal struck metal. Liquid gurgled out of a can. The pump motor started. The old pine floorboards vibrated, and so did the couch, very gently; it made his back feel better. Lake water ran up the pipe under the cabin, making a hollow little echo: In the morning he would wade out and clean the filter. The dock creaked. Once. Twice. He heard the high whistling sound of a fishing fly cast through the air. It fell on the water with a tiny splash. The wind began to rise in the north.

  “Wake up.” The dark eyes were watching him.

  “I was just dozing.”

  “They’re back.”

  Quickly Rehv got up and went to the window. Clouds were blowing in from the north in long dark rolls. The lake was tinged with gray, like cold skin. Across the water came the red seaplane, fighting the chop.