by Peter Geye
First, the crack. From nowhere and like gunshot, which it might as well have been. Folks in town heard it carried in by the wind. I heard it even inside the apothecary. Your father was hurled onto the landfast ice, his father in the opposite direction. Odd landed on his gut, looked up, and saw the ice breaking before him as though exploded from beneath. He clambered to his knees just in time to duck a swell. After wiping the water from his face, he turned back to Harry. Already the ice stood jagged between them. Like a stone fence or a range of mountains in miniature.
Odd surveyed the lake as it was opening up all around him, ice floes colliding and cleaving with an urgency he could not believe. In all his years he’d never seen anything remotely like it. Neither had your father, of course. At that age, he hadn’t seen much that Odd had not seen right alongside him.
On one great swell and then another, the block of ice that Odd was on floated out toward open water that thirty seconds before had been frozen solid. When a third wave broke, his ice block was halved and he had to scramble to stay out of the water. He held his balance and glanced down at his feet, one of his boots now missing. On a still-intact sheet of ice, water spewed through the fishing hole he had augured just a couple hours earlier.
Your father gazed up at the sky above his father and saw clouds dashing across the dull blue as fast as the lake ice was coming apart. He watched his father fall to his knees and then stand again to look back at him. Harry had a rope in his hand and was throwing it hopelessly into the wind. He was bawling, but his father never could’ve heard him.
Odd was floored once more and once more stood. He watched your father hurrying toward shore.
The floe yawed again and Odd was dropped a final time. He removed his mittens and clawed at the ice until his fingers bled, but there was nothing to seize hold of. The water was growing even bigger, and some cruel, ungodly force was pushing him farther out even as all the powers of nature ought to have been bringing him in.
—
The townsfolk were quick to act. Nils Bargaard and two of his sons pushed their skiff across the harbor ice and met Harry before he made the breakwater. By the time they were in open water, Mr. Veilleux was lowering the town tender from its launch. Two other boats were searching before I took an accounting of all that was happening. Once tallied, I went upstairs to give Rebekah the news.
But she hadn’t budged from the window except to raise her chin. I went to stand beside her. If she noticed me, there was no sign of it. I watched as the boats plied the water, searching. I saw your father brace himself in the bow of the Bargaard boat. Even from so far away I could see his frantic eyes. Or perhaps I was only imagining them. He searched and hollered and cursed God.
There was much desperate searching that day. Only the old men stayed ashore. As did the Aas clan, who leaned against the cable on the breakwater to watch as the boats crisscrossed open water and the snow began in earnest. They kept cruising for hours, until, one at a time, they came in. By noon—the lake mellowing, the snow falling harder by the quarter hour—the only vessel left on the water was the one that had gone out first. Nils steered the outboard, his sons praying and searching from either side of the boat. And your father? Harry stood on the forward thwart whispering, “Papa, Papa, Papa.”
—
It was dark when those four pushed the Bargaard skiff back across the harbor ice. I was locking the front door when I saw them coming. They put the boat ashore and walked up the Lighthouse Road and came straight to me. Mr. Bargaard in front, then your father flanked by the two Bargaard boys. The younger boy carried a single boot.
I unlocked and opened the door and stepped aside as they walked in. Mr. Bargaard said not a word, only brushed some snow from your father’s coat and held his shoulders for a long moment, stunned silent by his downturned eyes. Then the Bargaards turned to go. The younger boy left the boot on the floor next to your father.
This is when I first met him. Your father was sixteen years old. So was I.
He looked up at me after I’d returned from closing the door. “Would it be too much,” he said, “to ask for a cup of coffee?”
I nodded and went up to the kitchen on the third floor. Rebekah was no longer at the window. I don’t know where she was just then. I put the water on. I diced a potato and put it in a frying pan with a spoonful of bacon fat from a jar I kept in the icebox. I made a roast-beef sandwich and cut a pickle in half and waited for the water to boil. When it did, I poured it over the grounds and stirred the potato until it was done frying. I sprinkled salt and pepper over the skillet, then poured a coffee cup full and set it on a tray with the sandwich and pickle and scooped the potato onto the plate and carried it downstairs. All that time, I’d been crying for the boy I now thought of as an orphan waiting for his coffee downstairs.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs I saw Rebekah standing off to the side. I couldn’t tell if your father had noticed her. She followed me as I crossed the floor and placed the tray on the window seat.
“I made you something to eat,” I said, wiping my tears with a handkerchief I kept tucked in my dress sleeve.
Your father looked up at the tray of food and picked up the mug and took a sip of it and then unfolded the napkin and tucked it into his shirt collar. “Thank you.”
I turned to watch as Rebekah stepped forward, her chin upheld. Now your father looked at her. She nudged me aside and bent down to lift the wet boot. She stared at it for a long time and then said to him, “Who are you?”
The snow had melted off your father’s coat and pooled on the bench and floor beneath him.
“Who are you?” Rebekah asked again.
This time, when your father didn’t answer, she turned to me and said, “See to it this mess is cleaned up before you retire for the evening.” Then she walked back to the staircase and went up.
—
This town has always been good at having secrets, and terrible at keeping them. As I sat behind the counter watching your father finish the last potatoes, I realized I’d been wrong while I stood over the stove just half an hour before. He was no orphan. He was eating supper in his mother’s parlor. How easily lies pass as truth. How easily we overlook what is obvious and plain to see.
What I didn’t fail to see that evening, what has been the one sure thing in my long life, was that your father’s grief in that hour—though I felt it as surely as if it were my own—would not be the saddest part of this day. Not for me.
I watched him wipe his mouth with the napkin, lay it on the tray, and lower his head. I crossed the room again and gathered the tray and brought it up to the kitchen. Rebekah was back at the window, looking out into the starless, moonless night. What did she see in that darkness? Odd, no doubt. But what else?
Did she see her son crossing under the streetlights? Did she see him ducking into the alleyway past the Traveler’s Hotel? That’s surely what he did, your father. For when I went back downstairs he was gone. Only the puddle of melted snow remained.
Here’s what I knew right then: As long as your father was alive and still living here, I would be, too. And however long it might be, I would wait. I would wait for him as Rebekah had. The only difference was that I would not go crazy while doing it.
And I didn’t. I was also right about that. These stories that we live and die by, I’ve learned this much about them: They never do begin and they certainly never end. They live on in the minds of old ladies and locked in antique safes, in portraits on a wall and in renovated boats sitting on a lawn. Somewhere, deep in the Quetico, there’s one pile of ash and another of bones. They, too, are just stories.
Why have we told them? You to me and now me to you? We’ve told them because we need proof of love, and that’s what they are. More than anything, they are exactly that.
Acknowledgments
My father first took me to the country described in this book when I was a boy. For this and so many other reasons, my love and thanks.
The lyrics to the chanson
s that appear sporadically throughout were found in Grace Lee Nute’s splendid The Voyageur. Her book was indispensable, as was John Jeremiah Bigsby’s The Shoe and Canoe. Thanks to Amy Greene, Laura Jean Baker, Tom Maltman, Emily Mandel, Jarret Middleton, Chris Cander, and Lance Weller, who all read earlier drafts of this book. And to Bill Souder, ballistics expert. Matt Batt, brother, you’re such a fair reader and bosom pal, thank you over and over again.
Thanks also to Steven Wallace, Jason Gobble, and Joseph Boyden. Heartfelt thanks to Greg Michalson. And to Pamela Klinger-Horn, patron saint of mine. And to Ben Percy, counsel and confidant. Laura Langlie, flowers for you. Thanks to Ruthie Reisner, for walking this dunderhead through the woods.
Gary Fisketjon, the next one’s on me. Thanks for making this novel better, word by word. Thanks also for bringing to the world so many of my favorite books over the years.
Finn, Cormac, and Eisa, thanks for making every day matter.
Dana, thank you for all you’ve given me, and for your unfailing support over the years.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Geye was born and raised in Minneapolis, where he continues to live. His previous novels are Safe from the Sea and The Lighthouse Road.
An Alfred A. Knopf Reading Group Guide
Wintering by Peter Geye
The introduction, author biography, discussion questions, and suggested reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of Wintering, the captivating new novel by Peter Geye.
Discussion Questions
1. What is “wintering” and why do you think the author chose this term as the title for his book? Why does Harry want his son, Gus, to go with him into the wilderness and why does he choose to embark on this journey as the winter season is approaching?
2. At the opening of the novel, Berit Lovig says that “two stories began” the day that Gus came to see her in November. She says, “One of them was new and the other as old as this land itself.” (this page) What does she mean by this? What is the story that is “as old as [the] land itself”?
3. Who reveals or narrates the two stories and who is the audience? Do you believe that they are reliable narrators? Why or why not? Does any single point of view seem to dominate the text? Explain. Does the book ultimately answer the question of why these characters wish to exchange their stories?
4. Explore the setting of the book. How does the setting mirror or otherwise help to reveal the psychological and emotional states of the characters who inhabit it? What other information does the setting allow us to access about the characters that we would perhaps not be privy to if they lived in a different place? How does “wilderness” come to work symbolically or metaphorically? What key themes does the setting help to reveal?
5. Why is Gus scared before he sets out into the wilderness with his father? What does he believe that they risk leaving behind? Why does Gus choose to go with his father rather than attend one of the colleges that has accepted him?
6. According to Berit, what is most important to the inhabitants of Gunflint? Does the rest of the novel support or disprove this view? Where in the novel can we see evidence of what means the most to Berit’s neighbors and family?
7. Gus tells Berit that “history and memory aren’t the same thing.” (this page) What does he say is the difference between the two? Do you agree with him?
8. Why does Gus go after the bear even though he knows it could kill him? What does he cite as his primary motivation or influence? Does he seem to have learned anything from this experience? Is he changed by it? If so, how?
9. What does Gus say is his religion (this page)? How does he come to find this religion and what feelings accompany it? Do any of the other characters seem to share this religion? In what ways?
10. What does the book seem to suggest about our relationship with the unknown past? How does Harry’s view of his mother or Gus’s view of his grandmother, for instance, change as secrets are revealed? What, if anything, changes for Gus and Berit as they exchange stories and expose secrets? Does the book ultimately suggest whether it is better to face the past or to accept that there are things that can’t be known?
11. How are Gus and Harry changed by their experience in the wilderness? Berit asks Gus if he believes that Harry’s time in the borderlands took his true nature away from him. How does Gus respond? Would you say that the experience altered the true nature of either of the men? Why or why not?
12. Although the novel centers on the story of Gus and Harry, Berit also reflects on her own life. How does she feel about the choices she has made? What regrets does she have? How has hearing Gus’s story affected her? What does the story make her wonder about or reconsider?
13. How does the book also create a dialogue around the idea of civilization through its exploration of wilderness? How does the story of Charlie Aas and the Aas family inform this dialogue? What does the book suggest is the true definition of civilization?
14. Consider the theme of discovery and its variations—rediscovery, self-discovery, and so on. What are the main characters in the novel hoping to discover? What discoveries do they make? What causes them to rediscover or reevaluate what they think they know about themselves and others?
15. What is the story that Berit says was the “prologue” to Harry’s life? (this page) Does learning this story from Berit change Gus’s opinion of his father? Does it change your own assessment of Harry’s character? What does this indicate about the way that we come to know other people and the judgments we make?
16. Gus and Berit tell stories to each other about Harry; both feel that they have information of which the other is unaware. What does the novel reveal about storytelling and perspective? How does their respective storytelling shape or influence the other’s perspective? What does this suggest about the tradition of storytelling?
17. Explore the novel’s theme of crossing borders. How do the characters in the novel cross boundaries or otherwise reach beyond that with which they are familiar? What inspires them to challenge these boundaries? How are they changed by their experiences of physical and/or psychological boundary crossing?
Suggested Reading
Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild
Lopez, Barry. Arctic Dreams
London, Jack. “To Build a Fire”
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road
Nute, Grace Lee. The Voyageur
Patchett, Ann. State of Wonder
Percy, Benjamin. The Wilding
Strayed, Cheryl. Wild
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Other Writings
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