The Back of the Turtle

by Thomas King

  “Serves ‘em right,” her grandmother would say. “They’ve always been a pain in the butt.”

  The orange chair had sat in the corner of the room for as long as Mara could remember, and now it was the only thing that remained.

  MARA’S mother had rescued a five-pound Tenderflake lard pail from the community-centre garbage, and Mara’s grandmother had stuck a piece of tape on the side with the word “Paris” printed in capital letters. Whenever they could, the two women would throw change into the pail. They called the container the “bank,” and the rule was that once money was deposited, it could not be withdrawn.

  Mara found part-time jobs waiting tables at the Tin Turtle and stocking shelves at the Co-op. You couldn’t see how much money was in the lard pail, but that didn’t keep Mara and Lilly from guessing.

  “Got to be at least a couple of hundred by now.”

  “More than that.”

  The pail had sat on the bookshelf gathering dust and collecting cash. Every so often, when her mother and grandmother were off playing bingo, Mara would take it down and shake it gently, just to listen to the coins shuffle against the paper money.

  The day after she graduated from high school, Mara opened the yellow and blue container and spread the money out on the table, so she and Lilly could count it. Then they counted it again.

  “Okay,” Lilly had said, finally breaking the silence. “Now what are you going to do?”

  MARA went to the kitchen window. The fog was swirling in off the headlands, smouldering between the houses like smoke, and, for just a moment, she thought she saw something. A figure moving quickly in the greyness.

  Mara waited.

  It had been a girl. Mara was almost sure of that. But the longer she looked into the fog, the more she began to doubt that she had seen anything except shifting shadows.

  She zipped the jacket up to her neck and went outside. Crisp said he had seen smoke. Maybe he had. Mara had always expected that there would be problems with squatters, but so far the grisly stories that had attached themselves to the reserve had kept everyone away.

  Except the looters, of course.

  But those ghouls had already picked the place clean. Mara searched the fog for a sound, for a smell.

  Squatters?

  The rage was sudden and unexpected. She had been calm one moment, and now she was furious. The stripping of the homes had been bad enough. She had been helpless to do anything about that. But she’d be damned if she was going to allow the land to be stolen as well.

  After the spill, the government had forced the surviving families off the reserve. For their own safety, the officials had said. And for their own safety, the families had been relocated to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, to communities as far away from Samaritan Bay as possible.

  But the reserve was still band land. The families would return. Over time, they would find their way home. Mara was sure of this. And when they did, their homes weren’t going to be occupied by a bunch of cowboys trying to rustle free real estate.

  Not if Mara could stop it.

  She’d come back when the fog lifted and search the houses. Maybe she’d bring Soldier and Gabriel with her. The dog looked fierce enough. And, if that didn’t work, she’d get Gabriel to take off his clothes.

  Again.

  That would scare anyone out of Dodge.

  The fog had thickened. Someone else might have gotten lost, but Mara’s feet knew the path. Even in the dark, she could travel the land on the rhythms of the ground and find her way there and back.

  The bus was still parked in front of the fence. Here, the fog began to disperse and the air was warmer. She unzipped her jacket and started jogging down the trail, setting an easy pace. And when she arrived on the beach, she was once again in sunshine.

  26

  THERE WERE STRANGE RUMOURS AFOOT IN SAMARITAN BAY. As Crisp wandered through town on his way back to the springs, each business he stopped at told much the same story. Things were missing.

  Webb’s Bakery was missing bread. Carol Miller’s secondhand clothing store was short shirts and pants. Terry Collins over at the Co-op market told Crisp that someone had removed flour and bottled water from a storage room.

  “Doors open onto the alley, so it wouldn’t be hard to do,” said Terry. “But who the hell steals bottled water?”

  Peter Canakis, who owned the old dry-goods emporium just down from the church, reported that at least three blankets had vanished.

  “Not even nice ones,” Canakis told Crisp. “Me, I wouldn’t steal blankets like that.”

  As Crisp walked the streets, he was saddened by the empty storefronts. It seemed as though every month someone else would leave. Souto’s doughnuts, Vigneux’s hardware, Tupholme’s used books and DVDs, Antaeus’s beauty salon, Virone’s furniture, and Cort’s pet supplies. Except for the Ocean Star Motel, the hotels and motels and B & Bs had closed their doors long ago. The businesses that were still hanging on were doing so in the hope that, eventually, the town would come back from the dead. Crisp was sure it would.

  He just didn’t know when.

  It would depend on the turtles. Crisp was sure of this. If the turtles returned, so would the people.

  No one had been able to explain why the turtles had decided to nest so far north in the first place. Crisp knew that they normally frequented nesting beaches in places like Florida, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and Mexico. A number of the scientists who had studied the phenomenon of the Samaritan Bay turtles had concluded that the unusually warm currents, the temperature of the sand, the slope of the beach, and the deep water just off shore duplicated the necessary conditions for a breeding habitat.

  Crisp liked to think that a turtle had landed on the beach in a storm, liked what she saw, and told her friends.

  “It’s not bad,” Crisp imagined her telling the other females. “Warm sand, deep water, lots of jellyfish and squid just off shore. And ye don’t have to put up with the commute.”

  Whatever the reasons, the turtles had come. And they had stayed.

  Until The Ruin.

  After The Ruin, the turtles had not returned. No eggs hatched. No baby turtles burst through the sand and raced for the open ocean. Now, the only sign that the turtles had ever been to the bay were the bleached skeletons that piled up on shore after each storm.

  And Crisp had seen nothing on his morning swim out to the horizon and back to suggest that anything had changed. He had looked hard and long between breaths and strokes, and all he had found were shadows and empty water.

  He stopped in front of the Shamrock Pharmacy and cupped his hands against the glass. Crisp could see the empty display cabinets and the rows of shelves that used to be home to Aspirin, shampoo, Band-Aids, toothpaste, tampons, greeting cards, chewing gum, and breath mints. Ed Lueders had stayed well after The Ruin, had kept the store open as a community service, but there had been family problems.

  “I’d like to stay,” Ed told Crisp, “but our girl out in Manitoba isn’t doing all that well, and the wife wants to go back and be with the grandkids.”

  Crisp had helped Ed close the store.

  “I’d give it to anyone who was fit to run it,” Ed had said. “But there isn’t anyone left who knows cough drops from condoms.”

  The closing of the pharmacy had been a blow. Even Crisp had felt the loss. He wasn’t sure what people who needed prescription drugs were going to do. Move, he guessed. Move to another town. To another town that wasn’t dead.

  As he looked into the empty store, he wondered if the bread and the clothes, the flour and the water, and the blankets had actually been stolen. Maybe, in the end, they had just given up. Maybe, like the rest of the town, the staples had packed their bags and hit the road.

  Crisp didn’t think this was the case. You could always count on bread and blankets, he reasoned. It were people what let you down.

  The walk back was pleasant, and Crisp took his time, checking each storefront, saying hello to any survivors that could be
found. When he got back to the springs, he’d check to see if anything was missing. He didn’t think there’d be. There wasn’t much to steal.

  The only items of any value at Beatrice Hot Springs were the warm water and the steam.

  27

  AS SONNY LIFTS THE LID ON THE TRUNK, HE HOPES THAT IT will contain items that are on Dad’s list of approved acquisitions.

  Hope, hope, hope.

  As Sonny opens the trunk, he closes his eyes and thinks of England. This is not something that Dad has mandated. This is rented-movie advice, so it’s almost as good. Close your eyes, the woman in the movie had said. Close your eyes and think of England.

  Sonny doesn’t know what this is supposed to mean. If Tupholme’s were still open, he’d go there and ask. But the store is closed and empty, and now the only movies Sonny gets to watch are the ones on television, the ones with the exciting commercials and the starving children for sale.

  Wham-wham.

  What if he had heard the woman wrong? What if she hadn’t said “England.” Close your eyes and think of … what? What else could you think of? What rhymes with “eyes”? Sonny runs up and down the alphabet.

  “Lies”? No. But “guys” would work. So would “pies.”

  “Thighs.”

  Wham-wham, hammer-hammer.

  Okay, all done. No more rhyming.

  Sonny takes everything out of the trunk and arranges it on the table. There are several books with strange writing. There are tools, some of which Sonny recognizes. There are bottles of leaves and powders. And there are photographs. Photographs in a plastic bag.

  No gold. No frankincense. No myrrh.

  Sonny enjoys photographs. He’s always wanted a photograph of himself with Dad. The two of them. Together.

  Wham-wham.

  The photographs in the trunk are of a family of six. They aren’t smiling, but they look happy, and as Sonny holds a picture up to the light, he recognizes one of the girls. It’s the same girl he had seen in town.

  The Indian girl in the alley.

  Now Sonny understands. This is an Indian trunk. The markings on the trunk are Indian markings. Indian drum. Indian trunk. Yes, Sonny tells himself, now it all makes sense. The Indian girl has lost her drum and her trunk. That’s why she’s wandering about town. Trying to find her misplaced items.

  That’s what happened to the jacket the old guy was wearing.

  Okay, okay. How many times has Dad said, Let us not grow weary of doing good. And what could be doing good any better than returning the trunk to the girl? Dad has been very clear about the restoration of sheep and coins, and Sonny is sure that trunks are covered as well.

  Sonny puts everything back into the trunk. He is especially careful with the photographs, which look old and fragile. Sonny shuts the lid and locks it with the iron pin. He wishes that he hadn’t given the drum to the Indian woman in the yellow house, but perhaps she and the girl are related.

  Sonny hoists the trunk on his shoulder and heads off to do the first truly good deed that he’s done in a very long time.

  “Fries.”

  That’s what the woman was trying to say. Close your eyes and think of fries.

  28

  WHEN GABRIEL WOKE AND LOOKED OVER THE RIM OF THE hole, the tide was still trying to push waves up the beach. But there was little danger that they would reach him. At least not today.

  Maybe tomorrow.

  The sand in the hole was warm. Gabriel tried to shift his weight and discovered that he couldn’t feel his legs. Not a serious issue since he had no particular reason to stand up. He had nowhere to go. He might spend the night if he felt like it.

  He heard the footfalls and the voice at the same time.

  “Not something you see every day.”

  Gabriel turned his head to the sound and found he was looking at running shoes. Vivid blue shoes with sharp red lines and yellow laces.

  Mara squatted down next to the hole. “Are you trying to kill yourself, again?”

  “It’s comfortable. The sand is warm.”

  “The hot springs run underground throughout the area.”

  “But I don’t think I can stand up.”

  “Would you like some assistance?”

  Gabriel’s legs weren’t simply asleep. They were dead. He had lost all feeling from the waist down.

  Mara grabbed his hands and leaned back. “You’re going to have to help.”

  “I am helping.”

  “You’re going to have to help more.”

  In the end, Gabriel had to brace his shoulders against the sides of the hole and wedge himself out with his elbows. He remembered watching a gymnast do a similar routine on the parallel bars.

  The guy had won a bronze medal.

  Gabriel rolled over on the sand and waited for his legs to come back to life.

  “That was an impressive imitation of a crippled seal.”

  The blood was finding its way home. The sensation was electric. Gabriel clamped his teeth together and tried to keep from screaming.

  “Okay,” said Mara, “what were you doing in that hole?”

  “Are you hungry?” asked Gabriel. “I’m really hungry.”

  DURING his second year at Stanford, Gabriel found himself in a required class on the ethics of science. The professor, Dr. Eugene Harden, was a tall, skinny man, with a storm of white hair and a baritone voice that filled the lecture hall like summer thunder. His clothes were too large for his frame, and they rattled as he stalked the floor between the board and the lectern. More than anything, Harden reminded Gabriel of a scarecrow on loan from a cornfield.

  That first day, Harden had gone directly to the board and had written “BRUNO.”

  “Class dismissed,” he announced when he had finished. “Come back when you know more than you do now.”

  And he gathered up his jacket and his briefcase and left.

  The class had sat there for a while, thinking that this was one of those jokes professors liked to play on unsuspecting students. Gabriel was sure the man would burst through the door at any moment and continue with the class.

  But Harden hadn’t reappeared. And after twenty minutes of sitting and fidgeting nervously, the class broke into parts and slipped away.

  That night, Gabriel had stayed in the library until it closed.

  GABRIEL stood on Mara’s porch and tried to decide between the wicker sofa and the wicker chair.

  “Try the chair,” Mara shouted from the kitchen. “It should be more comfortable than your hole.”

  The wind was off the water, soft and warm. Not warm perhaps, but not cold. He sat back and tried to relax, but he found himself wanting to take out his marker and write “Aral Sea” on the railing.

  “You want coffee.”

  “Sure.”

  His pants were damp. He had brushed the sand off as best he could, but he knew that the finer particles were still embedded in the cloth. When he got up, he’d try to remember to clean the cushion.

  “I’ve got coffee. And muffins.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  “I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “I wasn’t expecting to be company.”

  Mara put the mug on the small table.

  “This is a nice house.”

  “It’s temporary,” said Mara, curling up on the sofa. “Until I can move back to the reserve.”

  “The reserve.”

  Mara swirled cream into her cup. “I may move back tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Why not? You see anyone stopping me?”

  Gabriel took a bite of the muffin. It was dry and crusty at the edges with a peculiar taste that reminded him of old clothes left too long in a hamper. He wondered if a quick turn in a microwave with some butter would help.

  “Delicious,” he said.

  “My mother and grandmother were the cooks,” said Mara. “My job was to eat.”

  Gabriel could see an easel through the living room window. “So, you’re an art
ist?”

  “No,” said Mara. “I’m a nurse.”

  “A nurse?”

  “Family joke.”

  The muffin had been sitting in a refrigerator for a while. Gabriel could make out the lingering trace of onion along with something else, something mouldy.

  Mara cupped her coffee in her hands and leaned forward. “So,” she said, “what is it exactly that you do.”

  Gabriel put the muffin on the plate and licked his fingers. “Worlds,” he said. “I destroy worlds.”

  THE second day the class met, Harden strode into the room and wrote “BRUNO” on the board once again. Then he pulled out the class list.

  “Hume, D.”

  “Here,” said a student in the back row.

  “‘Here’ is not the answer,” boomed Harden. “Locke, J.”

  “Not sure what you want,” said a young woman a few rows in front of Gabriel.

  “That’s painfully evident,” said Harden. “Quinn, G.”

  Gabriel took a deep breath and held it for a moment.

  “Well?”

  “Giordano Bruno,” Gabriel had begun. “He was an Italian monk who was sentenced to death and burned at the stake in 1600.”

  “Why?”

  “He believed in science.”

  “Do you believe in science, Mr. Quinn?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s reassuring,” said Harden, and he wrote “Katheryn Kousoulas” on the board. “Next week,” he said, “Mr. Quinn will lead the discussion.”

  MARA put her lips to the rim of the cup and blew across the coffee. “And they pay you for that?”

  “They did.”

  Mara stretched out on the porch sofa, assuming the pose she had seen in any number of preposterously romantic paintings.

  A Modern Olympia.

  Nude Looking over Her Right Shoulder.

  Female Nude Reclining on a Divan.

  Nude Woman Reclining.

  She even slipped a cushion under her side so that one hip was thrust into the air. Like a muffin.

  Cézanne, Modigliani, Delacroix, Van Gogh. The masters and their muffins.