by David Vann
Beginning of Skilak Glacier, folks, the pilot said. This feeds into Skilak Lake. We’ll follow it up into the mountains.
The pilot skimmed lower over the ice, the helicopter a tiny thing in a vast expanse of white, the glacier a wide chute with steep rock on both sides.
Wow, Monique said.
The glacier a thing of pressure, crevassed and bent. It looked alive to Jim, and he wondered why he’d never come up in a helicopter before. This was gorgeous. Rhoda should see this, too. She’d grown up basically at the foot of the glacier, but it was around the corner a bit, not quite visible from the lake, and even if she’d seen it on hikes, he was sure she hadn’t seen it like this.
I want to land on it, Monique said.
The pilot had a headset, too, but he didn’t respond.
Is that okay? Jim asked. Can we land on it?
Well, the pilot said. Yeah. I guess we could. You’ll have to stay close, though. No wandering off.
That’s fine, Jim said.
The pilot continued toward the head of the glacier, then slowed his airspeed, came in lower, looked around for a safe spot. The crevasses up close were much bigger than Jim had imagined. Everything immense, the distances farther, the rock walls higher. And no sign of other humans.
They came down slowly onto a smooth area of snow, away from any crevasse. Snow whipped up in a cloud around them, the rails touched down in a jolt, and the pilot eased off on the rotors, finally cut the engine. The air cleared again. Bright sunshine.
Monique was the first to step out. She had always wanted to walk on a glacier. A brand-new world, she said over her shoulder. She could hear Jim hop down behind her. She would have preferred the moment alone.
Pretty amazing, Jim said.
So quiet, she said. Let’s not talk. Let’s just experience this.
Okay, he said.
Monique set off toward a crevasse, a ridge of blue light. It was like a beacon, translucent. Most were hollows, cuts, but this one had been raised up under pressure, and as she walked toward it, she realized the distances here were deceiving. Much farther away and larger than she had thought.
I love this, she said. An expanding universe, right here.
I thought we weren’t talking, Jim said.
That rule’s only for you. So you don’t spoil my moment.
She walked on, her boots sinking through the soft top layer of snow and hitting hard ice. She knew there could be falls here, covered, invisible crevasses, but it all felt so safe anyway. She sat down backward into the snow, did a snow angel, looked up into the bright blue. This rocks, she said.
Hm, Jim said.
Poor Jim. You can talk now.
That’s all right, he said. It’s a nice spot. I can’t believe I’ve never come out here before.
Mm, Monique said. I love this. She closed her eyes and felt the cold seeping in through her jeans and even through her jacket. Refreshing and clear. I could almost take a nap, she said.
But after a few more minutes, her head was getting cold, so she got up and they walked back to the helicopter.
They buckled in, put on their headsets. Take us to the heavens, sir, Monique told the pilot.
Aye-aye, ma’am, he said, and the rotors whirred up and they rose into an even greater expanse of white, the Harding Icefield, extending maybe a hundred miles. Cushiony, pillowy, with dark peaks protruding. They crossed the range and could see ocean extending outward before them.
Gulf of Alaska, the pilot said. We’ll be passing over Mount Marathon up ahead, dropping down over Seward. Resurrection Bay. We’ll continue on to Prince William Sound and come back this way to Seward for lunch, if that works for you folks.
Sounds great, Jim said. Thanks.
They dropped below the snow line, green mountains falling into Resurrection Bay. A deep, deep blue. Monique kept looking out her side window, but she also put her hand on Jim’s leg and moved it up to his crotch. Not much at first, but then she could feel him getting hard. She rubbed lightly, and could feel he was getting bunched up, bent over in a U shape in his underwear. This was kind of funny, so she kept her hand on it, helped keep it in that shape. She could feel him shifting around, uncomfortable. Then she laughed.
Sorry, she said. He looked a bit hurt, but she couldn’t stop laughing. Sorry about that. And she pulled him closer for a kiss, but it was impossible with the helmets. She couldn’t reach his lips, and this made her laugh harder. Sorry, she said. Later, I promise. Then she looked out her side window again.
They skimmed low over the coast now, waves crashing white against black rock, evergreen forest grown thick down to the edge. A few wide gray pebbly beaches, driftwood. Spectacular, all of it. And no houses along the shore. This was what most amazed Monique, coming from D.C. It really was a frontier.
I don’t want to go back to Soldotna, Monique said. I want to stay out here. Let’s get a hotel in Seward, something with a hot tub.
Jim wasn’t sure what to make of this. He looked over at Monique, but she was gazing out her side window, turned away from him. He didn’t know how he’d explain to Rhoda, but maybe he could say he had to take a trip to meet that potential partner for the practice. That would probably work. And a hotel, the two of them, spending the night, didn’t sound bad. Monique might still just yank him around, but there was a chance.
Is that all right? he asked the pilot, finally. Could we stop in Seward and get picked up tomorrow?
Yeah, I don’t see why not, the pilot said. There’ll be an extra fee, of course.
Gary worked alone through the morning, loading more logs. For a small cabin, it seemed like a hell of a lot of wood. But he had done the math himself.
Underway, finally, crossing the lake on a sunny afternoon, light breeze, perfect weather. Bits of spray from hitting the small waves head-on. He stood at the stern, the throttle arm up, and he liked being here, liked doing this. The air crisp and clear.
As the island came close, he swerved in an arc and drove toward shore. Fell forward onto the logs when the boat hit submerged rocks but caught himself with his hands.
He turned off the engine, climbed forward, and began unloading from over the gate, dragging one log at a time, sloshing through the water. It was not difficult, the work a pleasure.
Gary had always liked physical work, building something, a contrast to the academic life. He liked Vonnegut’s idea—really Max Frisch’s idea—that we should be called Homo faber rather than Homo sapiens. We live to build. It’s what defines us. This was true, he thought. Imagining something, turning it around in your head, walking through it over and over in dreams, then making it happen in the real world. Nothing more satisfying than that.
Gary dragged the logs ashore until all were lying in rows and small stacks. He tromped through low thickets to the building site, carrying a shovel. He was keeping this simple. He’d just clear some ground here in a rectangle, even it out, and bury the first logs partway into the dirt. No other foundation, because it wasn’t necessary. The point was to build a cabin the way it used to be done. No cement pad, no permits. The cabin itself an expression of a man, a form of his own mind.
He looked at the lake, checking the view, checking perspective, shifting a few feet this way and that to make sure he had it right, then he dove the shovel into what would be the center. Breaking ground, he said. Finally. After about thirty years. How the hell does that happen?
Then he walked three paces to the side, made another mark, and walked three paces to the other side. A cabin six paces wide, and he’d make it four paces deep. No measuring tape. Just walk it out. With the sides marked, he made corners.
Okay, he said, standing in the middle again. His left shoulder ached, bursitis from years ago that acted up whenever he worked. He hiked over to a spruce tree and braced his hand against that to give his shoulder a good stretch. Then he stretched the other arm and shoulder, and stretched his legs a bit, too. He was starting this project so late in the season, he didn’t have time for injuries. Al
l had to go smoothly. It was mid-August already. He had meant to start in late May.
He hiked back to the cabin site and cleared all the dead wood, throwing branches and also a few stones. Then he dug in with the shovel. Dark earth, rich and airy, but so many runners and roots he could never get a shovelful. A rake might have been more helpful. Something to rip all this stuff out. He had good gloves, so he kneeled down and raked with his fingers, pulled and yanked and found all of it far more resilient than expected. Tough little buggers, he said.
He stood and tried the shovel again, used it to chop. That seemed to work. So he chopped along the outside of his cabin, the entire boundary, the mosquitoes hounding him now, all over his face and neck, slowing the work with all the swatting he had to do.
He dropped to his knees and pulled at the growth he had chopped free, but some of it was still anchored, so he was chopping and digging again with the shovel, the entire area a thick mat of growth, really, and he began to wonder whether he should have just used this as the floor and built on top. Why was dirt better? This entire area was going to become a mud pit when it rained.
Gary lay back in the dirt and closed his eyes. The smell of the earth, wood rot, skunk cabbage. Buzzing of mosquitoes in his ears. He was wearing repellent, but they were undeterred as usual. He opened his eyes, and the sky was spinning. His pulse going in his temples, his head feeling a little dizzy.
Thirty years ago, this place had been new. And he’d been younger, the dream still fresh, still reachable. The air clearer, mountains cut more sharply against the sky, the forest more alive. Something like that. Some animated sense of the world that dissipates over time. We’re given a gift but it’s a fragile one, impermanent. Now this place was closer to an idea, hollowed out, lacking substance. Reduced to mosquitoes and a tired old body and ordinary air. He was supposed to live out here, but he was supposed to have done it back then.
Irene thought he was just being bitter, some character flaw. She couldn’t see the shape of the world, the shape of a life. She didn’t understand the enormous differences. He should have gone for someone smarter, but instead he went for someone safe. And his life made smaller because of that.
But he needed to focus. I need to think this out, he said aloud, and he tried to think clearly. He was making a mud pit. The logs set into it would form dams, a kind of pool for gathering water. He was making a cistern, not a cabin. But then his thoughts were wandering to his lunch, to Irene and her headache, to Rhoda and whether she or Mark might ever come out here to help. Meandering, slipping, unable to focus. A once-clear mind reduced.
Okay, he said. A platform, I need a platform. And he could see this was true. A wooden platform, a floor, raised up about six inches off the ground, leveled out. Then he’d build his walls around this.
So he stood up and decided to go for a hike. It was too late today to get materials for the platform, so he might as well explore the island a little.
He tromped up to the birch trees at the back of his property and continued on until he found a path. Much easier to follow this, a game trail, the ground more level. Birch and spruce all through here, no view of the water, and he came upon an empty cabin. A log cabin, like what he had imagined, their logs much bigger than his, about a foot thick. He wondered where they had found those. He came up close to examine, tried to figure out how they got the logs to fit so well. Something in the gaps, but he couldn’t tell what it was. Covered in moss now and cobwebs. He peered in a small window and could see a white basin, a dark wood-burning stove. He walked around back, a big cabin, two other rooms, and peered in more windows, tried to see the floor. Looked like boards. Then he knelt down all around the edges, tried to find a clue for how the walls met the floor, but there were no gaps in the walls, nothing to see.
Well, he said, and stood back up. This will be good for a reference. And he wondered why anyone would build here. No water view, just an outpost in the trees. No wonder it was empty. He could do better than this.
Irene waited alone all day, lying in bed, looking at the boards of the ceiling. Her husband out on that island, her children working, the Vicodin making her nauseated and weak, clammy. The room too bright in the sun, but she didn’t have the energy to get up and close the curtains. No one cared what happened to her here. She might as well die.
Self-pity, she said aloud. Not a pretty thing. And this felt too close to the years after her mother was gone, after her father was gone. Moving from one distant family member to the next, shuffled around in Canada and then California, unwanted, too often alone.
She popped another Vicodin, the pain mounting to a breaking point again, and she didn’t feel anything at first, but after fifteen or twenty minutes, she could feel the cold, prickly slide into nausea and oblivion, a welcome relief. Her head went away, or her awareness of it, and she was left pooling in the rest of her body. She’d gone heavy, sinking deep into the mattress.
Almost like diving when she closed her eyes, the surface far away above. An ocean with a heartbeat, slow waves of pressure, water compacting but no edge to it. No contact with the surface. The world of air a world of myth only, storms and lightning and sun. The only reality the density of the water, the coolness of it, the pressure and weight of it.
Irene awoke hours later. The pain returned, sharp and jagged, slicing through her head.
Gary, she called out, and this time she heard a response. A rustling in the kitchen, and he opened the bedroom door.
How are you feeling? he asked.
I need another Vicodin. I’m really scared. The pain is something else.
I think you should wait a while if you can. You’re not supposed to have more than four of those per day, according to Rhoda. And the doctor didn’t think you needed them.
The pain is too much, Gary.
Maybe some hot food. Maybe some food and water and that will help a bit. What would you like?
Irene couldn’t breathe. She turned on her side, and that only made the pain and breathing worse. I can try, she said. I just want this to end.
I’ve been thawing out some venison. I’ll cook that up with mashed potatoes. You need to eat more.
Okay, she said, closing her eyes again, and heard him close the door. She tried to breathe away the pain, let it go away on each exhale. Tried not to panic for air. But her ears were ringing, a high buzz, the frequency of the pain, and it would not be ignored. She could think of nothing else. She took another Vicodin. It didn’t matter what Gary or anyone else thought.
The wait for relief was longer than before, fifteen minutes an extraordinary length of time, and then she faded away for some easier length and Gary opened the door again.
Ready, he said. How you doing?
I had to take another pill.
Irene.
You don’t know. You have no idea what this is like. If someone had told me, I wouldn’t have believed them.
Well I have dinner ready.
Irene sat up slowly at the edge of the bed, feeling dizzy. My slippers and robe. Can you help me with those?
Do you really need help?
Yes I do.
Okay. He helped her and they were sitting soon enough at the table, a fire going. Breaded venison steaks, from a kill last fall in Kodiak. High up on the flank of a mountain, and her arrow had punctured both lungs. Irene hunched over her food, cut a small piece of meat, and it tasted delicious. She was starving. But she also felt on the verge of throwing up. The meal would be an odd walk of that line.
Thanks, Gary, she said.
I’m sorry, he said. I’m really sorry for taking us out in that storm. And I’ll do whatever I can to help you get better. But I’m worried about the painkillers. You could get hooked on those. You may already be hooked.
That’s not what I’m worried about. What I’m worried about is that the painkillers may not be enough. Even now, they’re not cutting all the way through the pain. And what if that gets worse? What do I do then?
I think you’re panicking.<
br />
Damn right.
* * *
Jim and Monique checked into a suite in the nicest hotel in Seward. Fake carved ivory on side tables, bad watercolors of fishing boats. A giant and inviting bed, though, which was where Jim’s gaze went. Jacuzzi tub, also, big enough for two.
Let’s have lunch, Monique said. And then a boat tour.
Okay, Jim said, trying to keep the sadness and longing out of his voice. They were out the door and walking along the wharf.
Other tourists here today also, the sidewalks full. An Alaskan ferry had pulled up. So Jim waited in line at one of the tour companies while Monique went into the shops. A nice day, and Monique, gorgeous and long and thin, was turning every head, and Jim thought he should have felt happy. But he felt used, pissed off, and guilty. Get over it, he mumbled to himself. You’re in this far already. He certainly didn’t want to miss the payoff.
He had never taken Rhoda on a vacation like this, even for a day or two. They hadn’t gone anywhere.
Jim made it to the front of the line, finally, two tickets for a three-hour tour of Resurrection Bay and Kenai Fjords National Park. A three-hour tour, he sang quietly, from the Gilligan’s Island theme, but the woman had heard this about a million times, so no response.
Jim found Monique marveling at black velvet posters of bears and bald eagles. These are amazing, she said. This has to be as low as art goes. I have to have one.
Okay, Jim said, and bought a four-foot velvet poster of a brown bear catching a salmon.
This is a cultural archive you’re preserving, Monique said. Nothing less. She took his arm, laughing at Alaska and tourists, and they walked toward lunch.
Just the touch of her on his arm got Jim hard. He realized he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anyone else. Even high school and junior high crushes hadn’t felt this urgent, and he was forty-one. He hadn’t thought he was capable of feeling this anymore. Sex with Rhoda every few days was as much as he could usually muster. He wondered again at Monique’s age. He was guessing early twenties, but he didn’t know. She seemed a lot younger than Rhoda, who was thirty.