Algoma

by Dani Couture

  “No you don’t,” Cen said, blocking her way.

  “Yes?” the officer asked, twirling a blue pen with his right hand, although his eyes conveyed a profound boredom.

  Algoma began to arrange the things on his desk, something she did when she was nervous.

  He grabbed the snow globe from her hand. “Yes?” he asked again, drawing out the word.

  “Someone is missing,” she said.

  “Tell him who,” Cen pushed.

  “My husband.”

  After an hour, Algoma had provided the sergeant with all the information he needed—physical description, clothing, routines—and made him promise he would follow up on it.

  “We’ll do everything we can,” he said, sounding unsure.

  The Belanger sisters gone, he looked at the photo of Gaetan that Algoma had given him, with the promise that he would return it. The photo showed the missing man standing in two feet of snow. Peculiarly, he was holding a length of green hose in one hand and a rake in the other. It looked like he was gardening in the middle of January. The officer shook his head. Gaetan’s face was too obscured by his parka hood to be of any real help. If the man was still missing in a couple of days, the officer would call the wife up and ask for a better photo, but he was fairly certain he wouldn’t have to.

  ______________

  7:34 a.m. -16°C. Wind W, calm.

  Birdbath buried under snow.

  Gaetan woke up early the morning of the twins’ fifth birthday. He looked over at Algoma who remained fast asleep beside him, her mouth slack, her hair a bird’s nest. She always slept on the half of the bed closest to the window because she said it was colder. She liked the draft on her bare feet, which poked out from beneath the comforter.

  The work clothes Gaetan had taken off only four hours before lay in a heap on the floor. He pulled them back on, a yeasty smell of spilt beer with a top note of cigarette smoke and stale drug store cologne greeted him. It was like he’d never left.

  Outside, he held his steaming mug of instant coffee to his lips and took a sip. The coffee was cheap and bitter, but he could already feel the caffeinated rush coursing through his veins. He looked up and could see the topmost part of the gas station’s bright yellow and green sign through the trees. With the exception of the opening to the woods behind the house, the hedges were so thick that no one could easily enter or leave the yard, although last summer the boys had found a weak spot in the branches and had burrowed a tunnel to the neighbour’s yard. Even the square of white lattice the neighbour had tucked into the branches to block the hole couldn’t keep the boys out or away from his above-ground pool. The last time they’d jumped in, fully clothed and muddy, he’d threatened to empty the pool and fill it with cement with them in it if they ever came back.

  Half the backyard was taken up by Algoma’s garden. Even though the growing season was relatively short, Algoma made the most of it and managed to grow an assortment of vegetables. The radishes were Gaetan’s favourite, salted within an inch of their lives. The boys were partial to pulling carrots out of the ground, but not to eating them. The food Algoma grew dominated their summer and fall meals.

  From the beginning of his adult life, despite the incongruous world around him—the electronics and gadgetry—Gaetan had vowed that his future family would be able to provide for themselves, as he had been taught, and his father and grandfather had been taught. Algoma gardened while he took Leo and Ferd out into field and forest to harvest animals for their dinner table. Why should they rely on the pale and fatty meats of the grocery store when they could have fresh hare and lean venison? Just because it was easier to cruise through a grocery store with a silver cart, did not mean his family would do it. Not in my world, he repeatedly told anyone who would listen.

  Gaetan’s grandfather had hunted or fished every day of his life until he succumbed to a stroke when he was just fifty-three years old, poorly constructed hearts being also part of their heritage. Gaetan was not ready, nor did he think he ever would be, to modernize his life. He could handle the questions, and even the criticisms from his wife’s family and friends over his hunting, and how he taught his children at an early age to handle firearms properly. “Better they know than not,” he’d argued. “No more dangerous than riding a bike or driving a car.”

  In the middle of winter, the garden did not produce, it was just another place for snow to accumulate. It had been a year of impressive snow storms; there were no signs of the pumpkins from last fall. Algoma had grown so many, they hadn’t been able eat them all and the neighbours had only taken so many for their Halloween exploits, so the rest had been left to rot. “Mulch,” Algoma had defended.

  Gaetan tossed his now cold coffee into the snow where it left a deep brown stain and placed his mug on top of one of the higher snow drifts. He hoped he would be able to find it later, but just in case gave it a two-finger salute goodbye. “You’ve served me well.”

  After digging his way into the shed, he collected the tools he needed—a large shovel, a trowel, a cultivator, two sheets of cardboard, and the garden hose—to build his sons’ birthday present.

  The night before, he’d instructed Algoma to keep the children away from the backyard and the windows that faced it for the day, if she could. He looked at his watch. Eight o’clock. He heard a window rattle and looked up. The blind in the kitchen had been drawn. They were awake. He had to work faster.

  Chilled, Gaetan worked all morning to rearrange the snow in the backyard. With his shovel, he moved small mountains of snow, leaving some areas with only a few inches of ground cover, while others were host to piles several feet deep. He moulded and edged the piles with the trowel, erasing his mistakes with the rusty prongs of the cultivator. By mid-afternoon, he had finished construction. He screwed in the garden hose and turned on the water to coat sections with a thin layer of ice.

  After a dinner of deer roast and baked winter squash dripping with butter and brown sugar, and before the vanilla birthday cake with cream cheese icing was introduced, Gaetan turned to Ferd and Leo who were still shovelling forkfuls of food into their mouths. “Your present is outside. Put on your jackets, let’s go.”

  The boys stood at the edge of the backyard, Algoma and Gaetan standing behind them. The boys’ eyes tried to adjust to the darkness. Leo desperately looked for the square silhouette of a present. “What did you get us? I can’t see it,” he said.

  Ferd rubbed his mitts together. “I’m cold. Can you bring it inside?”

  Algoma nudged Gaetan with her shoulder. “Turn on the light.”

  He reached inside the door and flicked the switch. The backyard was instantly saturated in sparkling blue light. Before dinner, Gaetan had switched the outdoor white light bulbs for two blue ones he’d picked up the week before.

  The boys gasped.

  Algoma yelped. “I love it!”

  Gaetan beamed, near ready to collapse from fatigue or lack of drink.

  The entire backyard was washed in a celestial light that reflected and refracted off the layer of ice that covered every inch of the backyard. As their eyes readjusted to the bright lights, a small blue planet of snow and ice was revealed to them.

  Ferd was the first to step forward into the glow, his red wool mitt coming to rest on the back of a snow chair. The entire backyard was sculpted into snow slides, forts, benches, and animals. An English garden made out of snow. And all of it covered in layers of ice. Leo followed his brother into the yard. Like a tightrope walker trying to keep his balance, he walked with both arms outstretched until he reached the bottom of the steps of the snow slide. He ascended the five stairs slowly and carefully and then launched himself headfirst down the smooth sheet of ice.

  “I have cardboard sleds, too,” Gaetan said. He held up two flattened Jim Beam boxes, one in each hand, Leo’s name written in blue marker on the left one, Ferd’s on t
he right.

  Long into the evening and well past their bedtime, the boys tramped and bellied across their hedge-bound ice floe like a pair of dark, bright-eyed seals. Their squeals and yelps, kicks and slips echoed off their father’s ice architecture. Their laughter and screams muffled only by the slow moving clouds drifting beneath the black sea of a December sky.

  ______________

  2:01 p.m. -22°C. Wind N, strong.

  Single pane windows rattling in their frames.

  Ferd looked out the classroom window at the frozen playground. He daydreamed about showering, the spray of hot water and the clouds of steam. The classroom was cold and sitting next to the window made it even worse. The only time he felt truly warm in the winter months was in the shower, the steaming hot water insulating his body against the cold. But it was always over too quickly, his mother or father banging on the washroom door in an attempt to hurry him up, yelling that they weren’t millionaires, that he was emptying lakes, that there would be nothing left for anyone ever again.

  Ferd had resolved that when he was older and richer he would build a shower stall that had two shower heads, one at either end of the bathtub. He would never be cold again. But until then, he would have to rotate in the tub like a chicken on a spit.

  “Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all things on earth,” the teacher said, not looking at any student in particular. Twenty-eight faces stared blankly back at her. None of them knew how someone so young could be so boring. Ms. Prevost pointed to a poster taped to the blackboard that showed the various states of water.

  “Did you know that water has three states?” she asked. Every question she posed sounded like a sigh. She tapped on each state with her finger as she called them out: “Liquid, solid, gaseous.” She turned to the class. “Repeat after me.”

  “Liquid. Solid. Gaseous,” they said in unison.

  Only Ferd smiled. Finally, something useful, he thought. There was little he could do with division or history, but this, this was useful.

  During recess, while the other students were playing life and death games of tether-ball and engaged in epic snowball fights, Ferd easily slipped past the recess monitor’s relaxed watch and ran across the street. He hopped the chain-link fence and landed behind the Save-a-Dime Laundromat. He took a deep breath, it smelled like summer, a warm mix of detergent and dryer sheets. After a quick search, he found what he was looking for. The dryer vent.

  Ferd stood in front of the vent, pulled off his mitts, and put his hands directly into the warm steam. Beneath the vent was a half moon of asphalt that was barren of snow, the heat of several dozen loads a day kept the area summer warm year round. Ferd pulled off his backpack and pulled out a small notepad and a pen. He wrote quickly and folded the note four times. After rummaging through his pockets he found the penguin-shaped paperclip he’d stolen from his teacher’s desk. Using the paperclip, he attached the note to the inside of the cracked plastic of the vent cover and stood back. He dreamed of his words floating up into the atmosphere, dispersing into the air.

  Water is essential for all life.

  Leo was like a fish now, all silver scales and slick motion, moving with the currents over rock bed and submerged tree trunk. He had found the lowest possible place to hide, dive.

  Maybe their father had gone looking for him.

  Through the kitchen window, Algoma looked at the backyard. What snow was there was not handcrafted into a winter playground. Gaetan had found the energy for two boys, but not for one. She drew the blind and bent over the sink. Another wave of nausea bubbled up inside her. She clutched her stomach and vomited onto the unwashed breakfast dishes. Worry, she thought, did strange things to the body.

  Finally alone in the house after having convinced her sisters that she needed to rest, it felt like her body was emptying itself. Glad for their presence, but even more grateful for the silence after they had left, she no longer had to spend her time trying to reassure them that she was fine. That Gaetan was coming home. The reason for all the mystery that would be explained once he walked through the door. She’d had to force Ferd to go to school in the morning. He had wanted to stay home with her again, to try to convince her to drive through the streets looking for Gaetan, but she’d refused him.

  “What if someone at school has seen him, or knows something,” she’d said, dangling hope in front of him. He’d taken the bait.

  Algoma put on her jacket and boots and went outside. She stood still and let the cold air seep into the cracks in her winter clothing, the openings at her wrists and neck. The cold felt good on her hot skin. She wanted to sit on her sliding swing, but the platform was snowed in, the rails frozen. Undeterred, she went into the shed and selected a tool.

  Algoma knelt on the ground, and used her hands to dig away the snow and her pointed trowel to chip away at the ice. Soon, the swing was able to grind its way along the tracks. She put her trowel down and stepped onto the platform. The two benches were covered in a foot of snow, which she pushed off with her hands before sitting down. She shifted her body weight back and forth until the swing moved with her, the remaining chunks of ice crushed underneath.

  Being on the swing was like sitting in a cradle, soothing to the point that she was close to falling asleep despite the cold. Her eyes fluttered, almost closing, as she allowed herself to drift off, to daydream of better times. However, in the middle of the yard, a slice of shine caught her eye. A small patch of ice in the snow that reflected the winter sun. She knew it was another note, this one pressed between a layer of snow and ice. She looked at the side of the house. The garden hose was out. At least Ferd had rolled it back up. She stood up and walked over to the note. Using the heel of her boot, she broke the ice and then tossed the shards away. At least she wouldn’t have to dry out this one.

  With the note tucked securely in her coat pocket, Algoma went to work on the yard. She moulded the grainy snow into a pitiful interpretation of Gaetan’s crowning glory. It quickly became clear that her skills were lacking. Her snow stairs were built at a dangerous tilt. Her chair was little more than a crumbling heap with a flattened top. The fort had collapsed within minutes. Even her attempts to coat her creations in ice failed—the yard pockmarked with pools of water and abandoned garden tools.

  Unlike Leo’s disappearance the year before, there were no sightings this time—real or imagined—of Gaetan. He was gone, yet when she returned to the house the few times she’d left in the past several days, she systematically checked each room for changes, things missing or moved. She could spend an hour looking at the toothbrush holder, trying to remember if the red toothbrush had been the one closest to the sink, or the blue.

  Gaetan had taken Leo’s death hard. It was he who had taught his sons to be self-reliant, how to take care of themselves in and out of the woods, in all circumstances. In the months after the drowning, Gaetan had asked Ferd to repeat what he’d witnessed over and over again until the boy was brought to tears.

  “Tell me again what happened. Slower this time.”

  Gaetan had been looking for a hole in the story, something he could slip and knot his hope through. In every retelling of Ferd’s story, what was missing was why Leo would have followed the bear in the first place—an animal three times his size. “It’s not something rational, healthy people do,” he’d argued. The bear had obviously been ill. Maybe Leo had been ill, too. Something they had not seen muddying his blood and taking him away.

  MARCH – APRIL

  8:24 p.m. 11°C. Wind S, blustery.

  Bottles lined up as carefully as soldiers.

  Gaetan searched the unfamiliar bar for a bottle of Scapa, a drink he could never have served at Club Rebar even if someone had had the money to ask for it. He found the bottle and poured a dram of liquid over ice.

  “Why don’t you tip that bottle forward a little further and I�
��ll tip you a little better,” said the man who sat across from Gaetan at the bar.

  The man was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, but they were neatly pressed and looked expensive. Thick material, nothing frayed. Gaetan noted the thick, gold chain around the man’s wrinkled neck, the dented wedding ring, and how everyone who passed by nodded at him. He filled the glass three fingers deep. The man gave him an appreciative smile, took a sip, and slipped Gaetan a crisp twenty-dollar bill. This city and its people, the occasional random extravagances, didn’t make sense to Gaetan, but he accepted them more than he did most things he understood back home.

  It was in between shift changes at the police headquarters across the street, which afforded Gaetan a break from an otherwise busy night. He leaned against the glossy mahogany bar and marvelled again at how he’d found this place—all dark wood and brass trimmings. An everyday pub with royal leanings.

  Club Rebar offered only a selection of five domestic beers, two imported, and an embarrassment of low-end rum, vodka, whisky, gin, and crème de menthe (a local favourite). The Brass Ring was stocked with no fewer than a hundred bottles of fine spirits and liqueurs. None of the patrons—most of them police, retired police, office workers from the station, and security guards—were ever forced to choose from among fewer than a half dozen brands of their favourite drinks.

  Although he’d worked at the bar for a while already, he still had trouble finding the right bottles during a rush. Old physical memory kicked in and he grabbed rum when he meant vodka.

  Gaetan found the bar the day he’d arrived in Toronto. He’d left the bus station and walked through the city until he found himself standing in front of The Brass Ring. He walked in for a drink and by the time he reached the bottom of his glass, he’d been hired. The owner had been filling in for a bartender who’d called in sick for his shift for the last time.

  “Fucking hungover is what he is,” the owner said, as he poured Gaetan his drink. Rum and coke, no ice. “That’ll be five-fifty.”