by Sheena Kamal
I spend most of the ninety-minute journey in a bathroom stall with my bottle of vodka, which is as good as any way to take a ferry. It is a harrowing journey, even when ferry operators are not busy mooning at each other on the bridge, missing important turns and crashing ships into small islands. This has happened only once in the province’s history, that I know of, but it’s one time too many for my comfort. I take solace in the knowledge that the island I’m headed toward is at least large enough to be seen from a distance.
Two women enter the bathroom while I’m closeted in my stall, laughing about something or the other. I watch through the narrow space between the door and its frame as they take colored pencils to their eyes and lips, and brush their lashes with an inky wand. They don’t seem concerned about the possibilities of disaster and for a moment I wish I was with them, laughing it up while the engines could be failing at this very moment. But then I take a swig from my bottle and my calm is restored. When the man’s voice announces over the loudspeaker that we’re nearing our destination, I pull on my hood and head for the deck.
It’s as bad as I thought.
The wind and rain beat at my exposed skin as I wait around the offloading area. Others line up, pressing their bodies closer and closer in hopes to be among the first to leave, but, as always, I prefer to keep my distance. As the ferry pulls into the terminal, I breathe a sigh of relief. Vancouver Island is famous for its landscapes, especially the wild, rugged beauty of the rain forest and coastline. It’s understandable; people from all around the world come here to surf, whale watch, and hike during the summer and storm watch in the winter. They should come while they can. It might not be here for long. Once every few hundred years or so, a large earthquake grips the western coast with tremors massive enough to rend through the earth here and cause a tsunami. No one knows when the next one is going to happen, but some scientists say it’s going to be soon. Real estate agents say we’ve got some time.
Whatever it is, for now the island is still intact and open for business. There is tourism to be promoted and mining to be done.
I’ve been thinking a lot about mining. Because something Bernard Lam said has been bothering me.
2
People take more than they give; that’s just the nature of the human beast. On the island, they’ve been taking since the first ships sailed over from Europe. Along with entire cultural heritages, languages, and childhood innocence, on Vancouver Island they have also diversified their portfolios and grabbed up what they could in coal and copper. On the northeastern tip of the island there’s a copper mine that was excavated so deeply that it was once the lowest point on earth. When I first read that fact it gave me pause. The irony was not lost on me. The lowest point on earth, created by man.
It would be funny . . . except it’s not. It’s true.
There’s limited bus service through the Island Highway but I manage to catch one when I leave the ferry terminal. Only a handful of people are taking the bus today, so I have plenty of room to stretch out in the back. I sleep for about an hour but it’s a restless sleep because I keep hearing Dao’s voice in my ear. Get rid of her, he says, over and over. But this time, in this dream, he’s not talking about me. He’s talking about Bonnie. And I wonder if Everett or Lynn can sense whether or not she’s alive, if they can feel her out there somewhere. Because I can’t. I’ve never been able to sense her. I’ve never wanted to until now.
When the bus pulls over at my stop, I feel like I’ve been run over by it instead of riding in it for several hours. I get off just outside the Comox Valley and start to walk. It will be dark soon, but I want to see this before the light goes. It occurs to me that I might be wasting my time, that I should just continue straight on to where I will inevitably be heading, but something is missing here, other than the girl, and I just can’t figure out what it is.
A narrow private road leads to the proposed Lowell Metals site. Though no mine has been built here so far, evidence of survey work is apparent, with notices posted along the road. As I walk, I wonder what I’m hoping to find here but find myself unable to turn away. A light drizzle falls, but it’s not unpleasant. I continue down the road for about thirty minutes, the forest pushing in on me from both sides, and cross over a ridge where the road opens up to a large, cleared lot. There’s a pickup truck parked to one end of it with Neil Young playing softly through the cracked windows. The lot is empty but for me and the truck. The door opens and a woman steps out. She’s wearing jeans and a rain jacket unzipped over a plaid shirt. Her long black hair has streaks of gray in it and her eyes are as deep set as my own.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“Do you work for the mining company that’s doing survey work here?”
She laughs. “Where you been, girl? There ain’t no more work being done out here. The company withdrew their application last year.” It takes me a moment to understand what she’s said and she takes pity on me in my state of confusion. “What exactly are you looking for? If you just tell me what it is, maybe I can help you. ”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I thought . . . I’m looking into a man whose company wants to mine here. I just wanted to see the place.”
“You with Greenpeace or something? Coal Watch?”
“No,” I say. “I’m just looking for information.”
“Information about what?”
And something about her face, which is kind and open, unlocks the floodgates inside me. It’s no longer about trust or lack thereof. It’s about finding Bonnie. I’ve taken so many chances in this search that what’s another? “Information about a girl that’s gone missing,” I say. “I’m following . . . a trail. Leads to the man that owns this company and I can’t find anything on him anywhere else.”
Her expression softens. “Oh, honey. My nephew went missing two years ago. My brother, well, he hasn’t been the same since. Hurts, don’t it?”
I nod. More than she knows. My right ankle may never be the same.
“How long ago was this?”
“A few weeks.”
“I can tell you’re not from around here and neither is your girl, else I would have heard something about it. I work with the community, we organize to keep special interests in the region in check, but we hear things.”
“What can you tell me about Lowell Metals?”
She shrugs. “Nothing. No one mining operation is much different from the other, honey, that I can say. They send their people with the trucks and the equipment to look at the land and then they send their reps to talk to us. Can’t think of anything that stands out with Lowell, not with what you’re looking for.” She pauses for a moment. “I don’t know how it would be related, but there is something about this situation that don’t make sense here. This project failed two assessments. Lowell never managed to get any community engagement. People weren’t willing to sell out on this one. But they were going to try a third time. Rep came through here to drum up some meetings on how they were going to do better. Then . . . it just disappeared. Notice was given that they were dropping it and that’s that. All that time and money, and not one word of explanation.”
“Somebody had a change of heart.”
She looks at me, considering. “Must have been somebody powerful to get them to give up out of the blue like that. After two tries and committing to a third?”
“Did any of the . . . mining officials, the money people, ever buy property in the area?”
“No, why would they? No one wants to live near a mine.”
I turn away from her and peer over the ridge to the valley below. This is what I had to know before moving on. To cover my bases.
“Beautiful, ain’t it?” she says, coming up behind me. “I’ve lived here my whole life and it still takes my breath away. See that river over there?” She points to a stream of water running over a bed of rocks, edged in by the forest around it. “Salmon spawn there and flow downstream. Our ecosystem is dependent on these spawning beds. It feeds
the region around it, in more ways than one. The nutrients from those fish fertilize the forest. You ever been down Ukie–Tofino way?”
I shake my head. Ucluelet and Tofino are on the west coast of the island, famous for its scenery.
“Well, you should go. The Pacific Rim National Park is down there. They got lakes and the ocean. The trails, too, keep everyone busy. People not from around the island always end up there one way or the other. If you’re looking for somebody, but you don’t know where to start . . . well, I’d go there.”
I’ve been thinking the same thing. “Thanks,” I say, turning to go.
“Well, hang on a minute,” she says with a frown creasing her forehead. “You can’t tell me a story like that and expect me to let you walk back. I can give you a ride to the highway, then you’ll be able to hitch your way down. Don’t worry, people do it all the time and besides”—she pauses, looking me up and down—“I got a feeling you can take care of yourself.”
It’s late afternoon. The days are still short and even though the weather is mild, there’s no denying that we are still in the midst of a coastal winter. So I take the ride because I know that it will be dark soon and there’s nothing more to do here. No more stalling. Bernard Lam talked about a property on the island, and if the Zhangs were looking back then, maybe they found a house that Lam didn’t know about.
She pulls over the pickup and holds out her hand. “I’m Trish,” she says, shaking mine firmly in her grasp.
“Nora.”
She hesitates and seems to go through some sort of internal battle. It takes me a minute, but I see what’s happening. What’s in front of me right now. A private woman’s struggle to open herself up to someone else. “Look,” she says finally. “It’s going to be dark soon. You’ve got a long ride ahead of you, and that’s if you find somebody going your way this time of day. The roads are good, but they ain’t that good. Come stay with me. I won’t take no for an answer.”
I reach for the door handle. A single woman’s personal space is a sacred thing. “No.”
She laughs and pulls the truck back onto the road while I stare at her, astounded. “You think you’re stubborn? You should try me sometime . . . but, hey, you just did, didn’t you?”
My initial sense of panic subsides as she drives along, playing her folk music, with no idea how close she is to a tire iron to the back of the head. I don’t quite know what to say, so the drive is mostly quiet. We go into the town proper and pass a few cars along the way, but not many. Soon enough, she turns onto a residential street and pulls into a gravel driveway, which leads to a small bungalow and neat yard. Dusk has fallen.
“It’s not much,” she says as she turns off the ignition, “but it’s home. You hungry?”
“Yes.” I can’t remember the last time I ate a meal that didn’t come out of a candy wrapper, but now that she’s mentioned it, my stomach starts to rumble.
I follow her inside as she flips on the lights and leads me through a narrow hallway and into the kitchen. The room is small but clean. There is not much counter space, but she’s the only one here so there’s no clutter. She turns on the oven and pulls out a pan from the fridge with marinated salmon in it. I sit at her table and watch as she bakes the salmon and fixes a salad to go along with it.
She takes out two plates and sets the table. “Bathroom is the first door on your right over there, if you want to wash up before dinner.”
Though it’s phrased otherwise, this is not an option. In the bathroom, I scrub my hands clean, wash my face, and tie back my hair. The timer goes off in the kitchen and when I get back out, Trish is sitting at the table with the salmon and salad at the center of it and two glasses of water at our place settings. I know she keeps liquor around, because I glimpsed a few bottles when she opened her cupboard, but either she’s not interested in sharing or she suspects that I’ll drink more than I should.
She spreads a napkin over her lap. “We can just dig in, Nora, since I can tell you’re about as religious as me.”
We eat in silence. Every now and then I meet someone I just can’t figure out. Trish is a prime example. Honest, but not forthcoming. She offers nothing but hospitality, not even conversation. I begin to wonder if she’s regretting inviting a stranger into her home when she sets down her fork and stares at me over steepled fingers. I hope she’s not going to offer any advice and soon enough, I realize that my energy is wasted. Some people don’t give advice and, thankfully, she’s one of them. She nods to a photograph on the wall. A man and a woman stand beside a tractor, beaming at the camera. The woman is obviously Trish and I can tell from the man’s features and bone structure that he is related to her. “That was taken about ten years ago,” she tells me. “Me and my brother, before my nephew ran away.”
“You said he went missing.”
She shrugs. “Same difference, ain’t it? He’s gone and I know in my heart that he’s never coming back.”
All of a sudden she looks old and tired. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Nora. God help me, I know what it’s like to go through something like that and most people never recover.”
“What did your brother do?”
“You mean when he found out? He looked for him for about a year, then he gave up. Last I heard, he moved to Victoria. He hasn’t been the same since. That boy was his pride and joy, just sixteen years old when he left us. It ain’t right, but that’s life.” She shakes the thought away and looks at me with bright eyes. “A lot of people who joined our fight against big companies, they don’t believe in development. They don’t think that we can move forward, but not me.”
I’m taken aback at this abrupt change in conversation.
A smile appears at the corner of her mouth. “Nothing is constant,” she tells me. The smile disappears. “Nothing stays the same. You think I don’t know that this entire region will be unrecognizable in a hundred years? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the scientists that have come here and looked at our land and the projects that have been proposed here, it’s that when you introduce something new into the environment, there’s a ripple effect. It changes everything around it. And when you introduce something radical like a human being and his desire to take what’s under the surface, then you’ve got no chance. These changes have already begun and we can’t go back.”
“So then why bother fighting them if you think they’re just going to win in the end?”
“You mean the mining companies? I don’t think they’re gonna win. I think there’s got to be a better way. If we’re going to move forward, then we move forward. Find something different than just digging for coal or copper. If we’re so smart, we can learn from our mistakes and figure something else out. Development doesn’t have to mean extraction or big industry.” She stares at the photo on the wall. “My brother used to work up in Port Hardy, the copper mine up there. He hated that damn place, but he supported the mining efforts going on over here because they make it about jobs and jobs are what feed families. But he didn’t see the bigger picture.”
“Not many people do.”
She laughs and rises from the table, gathering our dishes. “You got that right.” I move to help her clean up but she waves me away. “Go get settled in the living room and I’ll be right in with some clean sheets for you. Hope the sofa’s okay.”
It is. Far better than my usual basement cot. I thank her as she makes up my bed. “Oh, it’s no trouble at all. I don’t mind the company. Good night, Nora.” She looks at me for a long moment before disappearing down the hall. Moments later, I hear a door open and shut.
I turn off the lights and wait a couple of hours on clean sheets, with a flat pillow that has seen better days tucked underneath my head. I should sleep, but I can’t. When the house is quiet and settled, I fold up the sheets, place the pillow on top of them, and grab her keys from the hook beside the door.
I would feel bad about this if it were anyone else, but Trish is a smart lady and smart ladies are well
familiar with the consequences of making bad decisions, or else they would never have gotten that smart in the first place. She should have known better than to introduce a radical element to her home because radical elements like me are inherently unstable and can’t help but do what we do best: fuck over everything good that wanders into our path.
3
Never, under any circumstances, travel by car on the long road from Port Alberni to Tofino by night, especially in a pickup you’ve stolen and don’t completely trust. Narrow mountainous roads will threaten to send you careening over the edge into the forests or waterways below. By day, it is an incredibly scenic journey, but by night you feel as though the trees have come alive and are closing in around you, threatening to smother you in a cedar-scented nightmare. You don’t have to imagine the wolves and bears in these forests; you know that they are there and that you’ve just entered their territory. At least it rains here more than it snows, so there is that . . . but still.
I make it down in one piece and sit in a parking lot at the intersection at the bottom of the Pacific Rim Highway as the morning light filters over the tops of the trees. Turn right and about thirty minutes later, just past the national park, will be the tourist town of Tofino. There are some residents there, but they mostly come out during the summer to make a living off of the tourists. Turn left and about ten minutes down the road are the beginnings of Ucluelet, which is less well known but just as beautiful. I put a little vodka in the coffee I bought from the resort welcome center that sits at the junction and wonder, if I were a wealthy businessman who wanted to live here but valued my privacy, where would I choose? I know where Kai Zhang would probably go, but he’s not footing the bill. It’s Ray Zhang that I have to consider here.
I leave Trish’s pickup in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition and turn left.