The Maestro

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  “It was an accident.”

  “Sounds good enough to me. Mind you, there may be insurance claims. I don’t know what kind of thing Gow worked out. I just gave him the go-ahead. We didn’t sign any papers or anything. He wanted some kinda tenant contract. If he was going to build this cabin, he wanted guarantees that he could stay there. I just had to laugh at that. ‘What guarantee have any of us got,’ I told him. I think he liked that.”

  Japheth smiled at the memory. “Still, he’d have been happier if we’d done business in a more business-like manner. But I turned him down flat. He had my word that he was welcome there. Welcome to build himself a shelter. Come whenever he pleased. But nothing on paper. And I’m not sure if a company would insure a building when there was no signed agreement. That’s just a guess, mind you.”

  Burl considered this matter as best he could. He tried to imagine a criminal investigation, going to jail. If he had to, he would tell the authorities what had happened. But Japheth Starlight, now that he knew about the fire, seemed almost nonchalant about the whole thing.

  “How did you and Gow meet?” said Burl.

  Japheth dug out his pipe again. From the same pocket he produced a metal tool with which he reamed out the bowl, emptying the spent tobacco into the ashtray built into the arm of the seat. “I met him on a train,” he said. “The Northland to Moosonee a few years back. He’d never been above the tree line. He was like a kid; he could hardly contain his glee. We had us some fine conversations.”

  Japheth, lost in memories, was tamping down a new wad of tobacco in his pipe. “I had a feeling he’d like it at Ghost Lake. I said to him, ‘There, if anywhere, is a place a man could get his bearings.’ You see, when I met him on the Northland, I thought, this is a man who needs to find his bearings. I told ‘im that, too. Yessir.”

  “Well, he sure found it nice,” said Burl.

  “He did, did he?” Japheth was lighting his pipe now. He seemed to glow with pride.

  “He loved it there,” said Burl. “Being alone.”

  “Yes, he talked about that. Solitude. He talked about it the way a man who doesn’t have much of it might talk. Me, I got solitude comin’ out my ears.”

  Burl had to smile. Japheth seemed glad to see this. “Out my ears,” he repeated. He started scratching at the straggly hair on his neck. There was something else on his mind.

  “This fire. How bad was it?”

  Burl took a deep breath. “The whole cabin. To the ground.”

  Japheth nodded as if maybe he’d seen a camp burn down in his day. “But it was just the cabin?”

  “Yes,” said Burl.

  “No forest fire?”

  “No, sir.”

  Japheth seemed relieved. “I have a modest little camp of my own,” he said.

  “Up on the rise,” said Burl. “I saw it.” “How was it?”

  “It was in apple-pie order,” said Burl, happy to have something good to report.

  “Apple-pie order.” Japheth liked the sound of that. “Son, I’ve scratched and picked at just about every square acre of rock in this whole beloved province, and there ain’t a nicer spot than that little piece of heaven. Not one. Not nowhere.”

  The train was blowing its horn like mad. Burl looked out the window to see where they were, but they were still speeding through nowhere. He had no idea how long it would be before they arrived in Presqueville.

  Japheth cleared his throat. He was leaning forward, pipe in one hand, a box of matches in the other. He cocked an eyebrow at Burl.

  “Let me tell you, Burl,” said Japheth. “I find places you can dig up and pluck out a peck of gold or a truckload of copper or any of a number of valuable things like that old Mother Earth parked here and there in her great big bountiful body. But, you see, I also needed a place not to dig up, if you get my meaning. A place where nothing happened. So when I met your Mr. Gow on that Northland and saw the pickle he was in and the happiness he was capable of, I told him—go ahead, be my guest. Build yourself a tidy little place. Write yourself a symphony, paint a picture. Whatever. See, Burl, I wanted some artist there who’d mine some of that beauty, if you know what I mean.”

  Burl looked out the window at the bush draped in white, lit by a fattening moon. What Japheth said had made him happy and then suddenly glum. “It looks pretty bad,” he said.

  Japheth had got his pipe going. He dropped his matches back in his pocket. “Well, that is too bad about the camp.” He made it sound as if Burl had said they broke a window or two, scorched the counter.

  “It’s burnt to a crisp,” said Burl, louder and more clearly.

  Japheth nodded vigorously. He understood, but he seemed only marginally concerned. He frowned a bit as he worked through something.

  The train thundered over a level crossing. The first they had come to. The highway up to Timmins. Outside the warning bells clanged, and the lights on the gates flashed, though there were no cars on this stretch of highway. It would not be long to Pharaoh. And then, another few minutes and they would be in Presqueville.

  Japheth Starlight gazed out the window. Burl caught his eye in the reflection on the glass. He looked hard back at Burl’s reflection, as though he were not a boy but a hunk of granite that might contain some valuable metal, and he was judging whether it was worth the effort to dig. Whether there was enough inside. “You’re having some trouble with this, aren’t ya?”

  Now Burl felt sure he was going to cry again, like when he’d picked up the burnt title page of the Revelation. If he started, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

  “That place was the only time I was ever happy,” he said. “Now it’s wrecked.”

  “Nonsense,” said Japheth. “This fire of yours mutilated a man’s leg, and that’s no joke. But he looks like a tough bugger. He’ll pull through. And this fire of yours destroyed Mr. Gow’s property, right? But he’s dead.”

  Burl nodded disconsolately.

  “So let me get this straight. The bush didn’t catch on fire. And the lake didn’t get burned up. Am I right?”

  Burl frowned, as if he was being made fun of.

  “Great,” said Japheth, looking pleased. He was counting off on his fingers the things that had not happened. “And this fire of yours didn’t burn a great big open pit, did it? No. So what was lost was something that had been taken in there. Nothing of the place itself was destroyed. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I guess so,” said Burl.

  “Well, then,” said Japheth, leaning back in his chair.

  “What’re you so upset about?”

  Burl closed his eyes, too tired to argue.

  “Oh, horseballs, kid. I’m not a fool. But let me rest your mind easy on something. Whatever the authorities have to say, Japheth Starlight isn’t gonna grouse about it. I’m not much on material possessions. I like to know where my next meal is coming from. And I like a clean set of sheets to slide between once in a while after I’ve been out in the bush a long bit. I like a pipe and a beer with a friend and a tot of rye to warm up my innards when the north wind is having one of its bad days and wants everyone to know about it. I’m going to head on down to Sudbury tonight and have me a fine little holiday for a few days. Visit some friends.

  “I think it’s sad to see people crying over things. Now maybe you’ve lost something I don’t know about. But I wouldn’t cry about a camp. The place is still there.”

  It was then that Burl broke down. There had never been time. There had always been the next day to consider. There had been no room for grief in his life, though grief always seemed to be circling around just outside his door. He seemed to spend most of his energy keeping it at bay. He couldn’t do that now.

  He cried for Laura gone so long. He cried for the Maestro. He cried for his father. He cried for his mother.

  There was just too much of it all of a sudden. His barricades caved in. Grief kicked a hole in his carefully laid dam and there was a lake’s worth of tears ready to spill out.r />
  At some point a handkerchief was thrust into his hand. He felt his blankets rearranged on his shoulders and a hand rubbing his back. He struggled to gain possession of himself.

  The circle of faces was there again. The prospector. The soup man. Gabe, the conductor. Burl sniffed and wiped his nose, his eyes.

  “A lot of people get like that when they talk to japheth too long,” said Gabe. The trio laughed a bit.

  The train slowed down and pulled into Pharaoh. No one got off or on.

  The train pulled out and a few people started getting packed up to get out at Presqueville. Japheth sat quietly. The others had left.

  “I’m sorry,” said Burl, when he caught the man’s eye.

  “For cryin’?”

  “No. For what happened up at Ghost Lake.”

  “Well, now, I’d sure like it if the mess got cleaned up a bit. Nature’ll do it, of course, but she’ll take her own sweet time. But you could do it lickety-split once the summer comes.”

  “I can go back?”

  Japheth hooted and tapped his pipe stem against the side of his head. “You are thick-headed, boy. Sure you can go back. Anytime. In fact, you have to. I’m ordering you to. You’ve gotta clean up that mess back there. You made the mess—you clean it up. That’s the way you become master of your own destiny, the way I see it.

  “And who knows when I might decide to drop around,” said Japheth. “Take a bit of a holiday in my apple-pie camp.”

  “I’ll clean it up,” said Burl.

  “Good. Rake over the coals. Give old Mother Nature a bit of a hand.”

  The summer, thought Burl. As soon as it was warm. He would go again in the summer. And this time he had been invited.

  He would write to Bea and tell her about the fate of the camp. If she was still interested in flying people there she would have to contact the owner, Japheth Starlight of Chapleau. Burl owed her that much, he decided. He wondered if he would ask her for what she owed him. He decided he didn’t want it, not now.

  And Reggie? He would tell her what had happened. He’d send her the money she’d given him when he could. What else could he do? Would he send her the letter? He’d have to think about that. There was nothing left of the Revelation. Well, almost nothing. There were the few chords the Maestro had taught him, but the world would never get to hear Nathaniel Orlando Gow’s oratorio. The Shadow had won in the end. If only the Maestro had found Ghost Lake earlier. If only Cal…

  No. He wasn’t going to waste his time thinking about what might have happened. He would clean up the mess. That was all he could do.

  He would write to his mother. But he couldn’t go up to Dryden, no more than he could move in with Cal and Tanya. He would plan to visit sometime. If she wanted him to.

  There was nothing left to deal with but Cal. Cal and the memory he dragged around with him of Laura. But that was not a burden Burl could shoulder right now. Later, maybe.

  “There she is,” said Japheth Starlight. He was looking down the track to where the lights of Presqueville beamed like a few cold stars. “Is this your stop, Burl?”

  A phone number flashed in Burl’s head. A number he had seen written out in careful letters on an orange, a banana, the wrapper of a chocolate bar, a label stuck to a bag full of sandwiches, even scratched onto the top of a can of pop.

  “Yes,” he said. “This is my stop.” And then he stood up on his shaky feet and put aside his blankets. The soup man hopped up and handed Burl his shirt and Gow’s old coat from the storage rack above the seat and helped Burl into them. Burl shook his hand. He shook Japheth Starlight’s hand. Then he headed down the car to make sure his father was looked after okay.

  It was only then that Burl noticed that someone had found him a real pair of shoes. They seemed quite new, and they fit him well.