by Emma Hooper
I’m tired today, Finn, said Mrs. Callaghan. Only airs and laments today. So Finn played slower, longer tunes and sometimes Mrs. Callaghan told him things to change and sometimes she just listened, eyes closed.
After he finished “The Ballad of the Newfoundland Black Bear,” through which she had sat frozen-still, Mrs. Callaghan opened her eyes and said, The flags. The flags and the floats, those are yours, yes?
Yes.
And the traps and lights?
Yes.
I thought so, I thought so. I saw you out there, in your small boat. The lights look wonderful from up here, you know, at night. Thirty-one deep green pools. If I were a codfish I would dive down there. Jump straight off this rock.
But you’re not.
No, I’m not.
They sat there for a few minutes more. Mrs. Callaghan closed her eyes again, and Finn wasn’t sure whether to play more or pack up and go. Finally, when he was quite sure she was sleeping, hopefully sleeping, he latched his accordion and stood, took it off and went to get Cora’s sweater.
Wait, said Mrs. Callaghan. She opened her eyes.
Finn jumped, turned. I thought you were sleeping, he said.
I wasn’t sleeping, I was remembering.
Oh, said Finn. OK. Sorry. Anyway, I can just go—
No, said Mrs. Callaghan. You should put your accordion back on and close your eyes.
Me too? Why? said Finn.
It’s important, said Mrs. Callaghan.
But why? said Finn. If my eyes are closed I can’t see my fingers.
It doesn’t count if you can see your fingers.
Why not?
Shh. Close them and play me a low C.
So he did. He picked his accordion back up and put it back on and closed his eyes and felt with his finger until he found the divot button. C.
Just C? he said
Just C, she said.
So he did, and the shaking bass of it and the pulling open of the bellows against his chest felt like . . . something. Not music, but something. He exhaled.
Good, said Mrs. Callaghan. Now you can open your eyes.
Finn did. Mrs. Callaghan was right in front of him. Her eyes were still closed. That was easy, right? she said.
Yes, said Finn.
Right, now play a song that way. Close your eyes again and play a whole song.
Without opening them once?
Without opening them once.
So Finn closed his eyes again and played a song, a whole song, without opening them. He could hear Mrs. Callaghan breathing in the rests. When he finished she sighed and said, Yes, exactly. Then she asked if he’d like a drink before rowing back home again.
Grape Kool-Aid, said Finn, taking the accordion back off again, putting it back in its case, pulling the worn black garbage bag back over the case. Please. Thanks.
She brought it out in mugs, slowly, shakily, one red with small dogs all over it, one orange with PALS written big and white across the front. Finn took PALS. Mrs. Callaghan took the red dogs and, as she carefully, one-handedly, lowered herself back down onto the sofa, said, The thing is, Finn, when you can’t see you can hear. You can hear more; you can hear as strong as seeing. Or, even stronger.
Finn balanced his mug on top of his now-waterproofed accordion and sat down on the floor beside it, cross-legged. That’s why I played with closed eyes?
That’s why. And that’s why the sailors and explorers, the ones that came here, that ran and hid and stayed, that’s why they sang.
They sang?
Yes.
Because they were blind?
No. Well, maybe some of them were, maybe a couple, but mostly no. Mrs. Callaghan took a drink of Kool-Aid, her lips soft-purple with it. No, she continued, it’s because they were homesick. Even though they wanted to be here, needed to be here in this new place, they were still homesick; it couldn’t be helped.
I don’t—
They didn’t have cameras then, so they didn’t have photos of home, of where they were from. And most sailors and explorers were rubbish at painting, that’s why they were sailors and explorers, not painters, so the only, the best, way for them to remember home was through singing, through the songs and tunes they knew from home. When they were homesick, when they needed to remember where they were from, they could sing to see, to remember. They could close their eyes to block out where they were, and sing and remember where they used to be.
Even if they were hiding? Even if they were trying to be sneaky and quiet to escape their captains, like you said?
Even then, especially then. They’d be most homesick then.
But wouldn’t they get caught? Wouldn’t the captains hear the singing and follow it to the caves or your house or wherever and catch them? . . . Unless no one could hear because of the wind?
Oh no, they’d hear. They’d hear. The wind would push the singing out to them and they’d hear and they’d sing along. After all, they were homesick too.
They wouldn’t go try and catch them?
No. No, they never would. Of course they never would.
But why? Why not?
Because singing together makes you allies. Automatically. Always. Even if you’re enemies, normally, or far apart, or both. So they would hear and would sing or hum or play fiddle or accordion or guitar and all remember together. Every new voice would make a bigger, better picture of home, filling in some gaps, bits they might forget alone. So, no, they wouldn’t go catch them, they’d sing along, all together, sing and sing until morning.
And then?
And then they’d go back to whatever they were doing, hiding or searching.
Back to eyes open.
Yes, back to eyes open.
Finn blinked. Eyes closed, then open. He looked around the room. Fireplace, sofa, Mrs. Callaghan, mugs, accordions, music books. Mrs. Callaghan? he asked. Would they sing the same songs we play?
Mostly, yes.
So we’re learning homesick songs?
All songs are homesick songs, Finn.
Even the happy ones?
Especially the happy ones.
• • •
Before he left, sweater on, accordion on his back, Mrs. Callaghan said, Any fish yet, Finn?
Not yet.
OK. Well. Don’t forget St. Patrick.
And the snakes?
And the long sound, the low sound.
Finn balled his fists around the ends of his sleeves, of Cora’s sweater sleeves, squeezed his hands into them. Mrs. Callaghan?
Yes?
Do you think something like that could work in opposite? Like, instead of driving all of something away, that you could call something back like that, with a long sound, a low sound?
I don’t know. Maybe you could.
Maybe we could.
Maybe we could.
Finally, finally, Martha got off-shift. Her first one since coming back, a night shift. The early north Alberta sun was already up as she walked back to her room, to bed. Her arms and legs and head and eyes were heavy for sleep, but the air and sky were light. The light here, she thought, was so clear. Was a whole different kind of light.
There was a note from John on her floor, slipped under her door. She didn’t have a chance to unfold it before the phone rang. Who would call, she thought, who would call at this hour? But then she remembered, this hour wasn’t any hour. Was just regular morning, she was the one backward, on the wrong side of time.
Hello? she said. She lay down on her bed to answer, on her back, facing the white temporary ceiling; she leaned into the phone like a pillow.
Martha, said the voice on the other end. Said Aidan, Martha. He sounded sick, sounded small.
Aidan?
Six months is too long, Martha. It’s too, too long. His voice stopped in a dry, empty cough.
She waited for him.
All Connors are cheats, he said. All of us.
Martha’s heart beat up through her chest, her neck, her mouth, the backs o
f her eyes. All of us, he said.
Oh, Aidan, she said.
All, he said.
No, Aidan, no, she said. Not just Connors. Not just you. All of us, all of us.
They both held the line, not hanging up, not saying anything. On her end he could hear the call of men, the growl and purr of machinery. On his end she could hear the wind and the waves and the wind and the waves and nothing else. They listened together, they breathed together.
I’m going to come home early, said Martha. I’m going to call the last week off sick and come home and you’ll be home and Finn will be home and I’ll be home and we’ll pack up. We’ll pack up, all together. And then, we’ll all come here, and we’ll all look for Cora together and we’ll find her and all be here, all of us.
All of us, said Aidan.
All of us, said Martha.
• • •
Before falling asleep, Martha pulled the cradle of the phone over to her, dragging the cords out from the wall, up over the small plywood desk, onto the bed. She hung the receiver up and pulled the whole thing close, up against her chest, curling her body toward it.
Finn rowed straight back to the Italy! house. He went to the window and pushed his accordion through, then climbed in himself. He got Can You Hear What I Hear? Animals and ESP and turned to page eighty-six:
Fish, too, have a number of nonstandard extrasensory abilities. Enhanced use of sonar is just one example of this. In general, fish-hearing, as such, is most receptive to what we’d consider low-sounding pitches, or, beyond, to infrasonic sound. They can then use this to communicate with one another across often great expanses of seascape. Messages can vary from Danger!, to Is Anyone Looking for Love Tonight?, to All Is Well and Safe Here.
Finn read it again. Took a pencil and underlined fish-hearing, communicate, great expanses of seascape and All Is Well and Safe Here. Underlined them again, and then again, and again.
When Martha woke again it was midafternoon, Alberta-time. She put the phone back and picked up John’s note:
I’m off at 6 p.m. Come eat with me?
The sun was strong and direct through her window. She put one hand over her eyes, pulled the curtains closed.
Finn went through all the international houses looking for instruments, but apart from a recorder in Thailand! and some sleigh bells in Namibia! there weren’t any. He knew the Kellys had played guitar and the Brophys pipes and fiddle and the Sullivans accordion, like him, but they were gone, all gone. People had left their cars and clothes and quilts, but they’d taken their instruments, all of them.
Instead, Finn found a letter in Russia!
Finnigan Connor
Sullivans’ House
Big Running
Nfld
Canada
The writing was all shapes and backward and beautifully impossible. He went to the library boat. The Russian–English dictionary was gone so he took out Ukrainian instead, the closest-looking language he could find. He also took out The Intermediate Undergraduate’s Guide to Acoustical Physics: Theory and Practice. He repeated Mrs. Callaghan’s phrase to himself on his walk home. Maybe I could. Maybe we could.
John was already seated, already had his pasta and bun and salad and water. He was wearing corduroys and a buttoned shirt. He had dressed up. He waved when he saw Martha enter the cafeteria, then stood and waved again.
I’m sorry, he said. I didn’t know if you would come. I would have waited, but I didn’t know.
It was fifteen minutes past six.
I’m sorry, said Martha. Let’s go outside, let’s eat outside.
But you don’t have any food.
I’m not hungry yet. Let’s go outside, still.
• • •
They sat on a bench outside the cafeteria block. All around was noise and work and movement.
Your hand, said John.
Martha looked down at it, didn’t unclench. I’m sorry, she said again. John, I’m so sorry.
Sophie ran and ran and ran. She could run for hours when she wanted, could run for days. She stopped and ate tart, early berries. She drank water from the flask she always had on her, a curved silver hip flask she tucked in her high socks. She ran. She ran until she was back where she had started on the one circular island road, then picked up and started again.
There was a different camp where they needed a new site-welder. A camp where John could get work, fifty miles northwest. More forest, more oil, more work, he said. It’s all the same, here or there or there or there. It’s all the same.
What’s it called? asked Martha.
Will you visit, or call, or write?
No.
Deep Wood, he said. It’s called Deep Wood.
I could go, she said. I could go instead.
No, he said. I will. I’ll go. I want to.
The second time Sophie came around the island, back to the start, she found Aidan there, out standing by the road. She slowed for him, stopped. Breathing hard, hands on her knees.
Not again, Sophie, he said. OK? Not again.
I know, she said. She straightened up. I know. Took a big breath like she was about to jump into water and started again, running.
Dear Finn,
Russian or Ukrainian, that bit was easy, was always the same,
I think I’ll be ready, have come soon. Soon.
Love,
Cora sister
John unpacked and showered and read through the Deep Wood Welcome Pack and Safety Guidelines and still had three hours until he was due to start his first shift at the new camp, so he left. He made his way north and west and north and west and north, away from the noise and light, until he came to the camp boundary and woods beyond. He kept walking, over the fence, into the trees, over logs and roots and brush, pushing through branches that slapped back after him, no paths here, away from the site. He was still in his good clothes; his corduroys and the good shirt he had worn to meet his new bosses now had burrs sticking along their edges and little streaks of moisture and dark from branches and sap and dirt. He kept walking and the trees thickened and their shade spread until all signs of the site, all sound and light and vibration, were gone. John turned one way, and then another and another until he was sure, totally sure, that he had no idea how to get back. Good, he said to no one. Good. He found a big rock and sat on it and stared out through the trees and trees and thought, I could stay here, I could just stay here.
I loved my love
sang Cora, through the light, through the trees.
But my love is no more
She was almost at the furthest northwest point of their northwestern site.
Nor have I wings
She kicked a rock in front of her, Giannina chased it. Giancarlo didn’t,
With which to fly
instead he stopped. Barked once. Pulled the lead the wrong way, into the trees, off-site. Cora and Giannina stopped too. Bear, whispered Cora. They turned and followed where Giancarlo was leading, over the fence, into the forest, over logs and roots and brush, no paths here, away from the site.
John heard something, heard the brush of movement. Bear, he thought. But he didn’t go; he didn’t move.
Giancarlo led and Giannina and Cora followed. Burrs on their fur and on her clothes. Branches and sap and dirt.
The bear was getting closer, John could hear it. Could hear animal breathing. He turned his head and willed it on, looked for it in the space between trees. If he made a sound now he could scare it and it could run away. But if he waited until it was closer, was right in front of him, the bear might startle, it might attack. That would be OK, John thought. That would be good. He turned and waited, silent as the trees, the shadow, the stone.
And then he saw it. Saw her. Martha. Walking toward him. He stood up. Brushed the dirt from the front of his trousers. Martha. Martha with dogs to find him. Martha, Martha, Martha. She stepped from the shadow of a spruce into the light and, suddenly, wasn’t Martha anymore. She was just a girl. Smalle
r than Martha, with shorter hair and less time on her face, less certainty in her step. Not Martha, just a girl. Cora, he said, this time out loud. Cora Connor.
Giannina barked, Giancarlo pulled forward and Cora turned toward the voice, toward her name, her real name. She hadn’t heard it in months. Cora, she repeated. The man was sitting on a rock in a shirt buttoned all the way up. An ironed shirt, thought Cora, in the middle of the forest.
Sorry, he said, if I startled you, I mean. I mean, I’m John.
John? said Cora.
I knew your mom, said John.
Cora’s chest tightened. She made sure the dogs were between them, between her and this man. And . . . she sent you here to find me? Here in the middle of nothing?
No. I work here. I live here. At Deep Wood. Now I do, anyway. And, and I was just out walking.
In that shirt?
Yes, said John. He moved over on the rock a little, careful of the lichen. Want to sit down? he said.
No, said Cora.
Please? said John.
I can talk standing up, said Cora. I can talk from here.
They’re terrified, Cora. They have no idea where you are.
I’m fine.
They don’t know that.
They should know that.
You should tell them. At least that.
And if I don’t, you will?
I will. I have to, Cora.
Because you’re a grown-up.
You are too now.
They’ll make me come back.
Maybe.
They’ll trace my call, they’ll come and get me.
Maybe.
Cora’s shoulders lifted and then dropped. I’ve got a plan, John. I’m moving forward, I’ve got a plan.