The Back of the Turtle

by Thomas King

  “So,” said Crisp, “what think ye of your handiwork?”

  71

  COMING HOME HAD DEFINITELY BEEN THE EASY PART. Packing up her stuff, throwing everything into the back of a pickup, driving to the reserve, and unloading the lot.

  Easy peasy.

  Now what?

  Here she was, in a shell of a house without a stove or a refrigerator. At least she had remembered to bring a roll of toilet paper. For all the good it would do her. Neither the toilet nor the sink had water.

  Lovely.

  What had she been thinking? This Gabriel had volunteered to bring her food. She could have sent him to the Co-op to get some essentials, things that wouldn’t spoil right away. Bananas, apples, dry cereal, bread, butter, jam, cheese. Even milk would last one night, probably two.

  All she had had to do was ask.

  But no. Cut off her nose to spite her face. Pride. One of life’s lessons, her mother had told her. Some people learn it, and some don’t.

  PROGRESS had been slow. In her second year, Mara had a painting accepted in a student exhibition. She had donated another to a charity auction for cancer research, had watched as the bidding stopped at half the value she had set on the piece. There was an honourable mention in a juried event, five paintings in a group show, and an unexpected grant from the Ontario Arts Council.

  Business at the deli recovered. Ange was able to give her as much work as she could handle, and, when the workshops finished in May, she was able to fly home.

  “Rose ain’t doing so good,” Mara’s mother told her.

  “She don’t talk much,” her grandmother said, “and Lilly’s got to feed her.”

  “A stroke?”

  “Probably should talk to Lilly.”

  “Day comes you have to feed me, just dump me in the woods.”

  “Not going to dump you in the woods, Granny.”

  “You’ll be in Paris,” said her grandmother. “You won’t even know it happened.”

  Mara had spent most of the time with Lilly, walking the reserve, visiting the town, wandering the beach.

  “They’re not sure what’s wrong with her,” Lilly had told her. “So they’re not doing anything.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “Guess we’ll find out.”

  In the end, the trip home had been somewhat unnerving. The reserve had been smaller than she remembered, the town slow and boring. Even more disturbing, Mara’s mother and grandmother had seemed distant.

  “So, how you been?”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re not sick or anything?”

  “No.”

  “Bet that Toronto don’t have a view of the ocean.”

  “It’s not on the ocean.”

  “Don’t know if I could live someplace where you couldn’t see the ocean.”

  Lilly hadn’t smiled much, and there had been none of the laughter that had been so much a part of their lives.

  “How come you came home?”

  “To see you.”

  “Nothing much to see. I’m still the same.”

  “So am I.”

  “You still going to go to Paris?”

  “One of these days. What about you?”

  “I got Mum,” Lilly had told her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Maybe this was what happened as you got older, but more than once during the visit, Mara found herself wondering if she should have stayed in Toronto.

  MARA found a piece of paper and a pen and began a list of things to do. Sure, the house looked desperate right now, but all it needed were a few adjustments. She’d get Crisp to help her with the electricity and the propane tank. The septic should still be working. The Co-op could order a stove and refrigerator. Two weeks to get everything in. Three tops.

  Mara paced out her old room. Six feet by eight feet. It had seemed larger. Her bed had been under the window, her dresser against the wall. There had been a small bookcase and a smaller desk with a lamp.

  And that had been it. That was all she had needed. Perhaps it was all she had ever needed.

  Mara walked through every room several times, making a list. Besides the obvious, she’d have to find a table, several chairs, and a sofa of some sort. Dishes, glasses, silverware, a kettle for boiling water, a broom, a mop.

  A bed.

  She’d definitely need a bed.

  And a wood stove.

  Her grandmother had had a cast iron stove in the living room that had kept the house warm. The stove was gone, of course, but the hole in the ceiling, along with the trim collar and part of the stovepipe, was still there.

  HER first solo show was at a small second-floor gallery on Dundas West that doubled as a yoga studio. Mara had stood nervously in the far corner of the long room, with a glass of wine, trying to look intriguing in the way artists were supposed to look intriguing, watching the people dutifully file past her paintings. It had been a good turnout, but consisted mostly of fellow students, their partners, and anyone they had been able to drag along on the promise of hard cheese and cheap wine.

  Halfway through the evening, an older couple had arrived. The woman looked to be in her seventies. She was short with steel-grey hair and a soft face. Her companion was taller, thinner, had a cane, and staggered slightly when he walked.

  After they had made one circuit of the room, the woman came over to where Mara was standing.

  “Are you the artist?”

  “I am,” Mara had said.

  “I’m interested in your paintings.”

  “She likes the blue one,” said the man. “It’ll match the sofa at the cottage.”

  “Don’t mind him,” said the woman. “He thinks he’s funny.”

  “I am funny,” said the man with a grin. “Everyone says I’m funny.”

  “I’m going to buy those two,” said the woman, pointing to the far wall. “I hope you intend to be famous.”

  That night, Mara had rushed back to her apartment to call her mother and Lilly, to tell them about the show, about the woman and her husband, about being able to put red dots next to each painting.

  She got as far as picking up the phone before she realized that she didn’t know what she would say, how she would describe this new life, what difference any of this would make in the world from which she had come. That world, the world of the reserve, was concerned with the river at dawn and a neighbour who could only stare out windows while her daughter sat with her, patiently, waiting for the morning sun.

  In the end, she set the phone by the pillow and curled up on the bed. Maybe her grandmother had been right. Maybe she should have been a nurse.

  MARA had forgotten about the stove. It had been a lovely thing, and for reasons she could not explain, this was the keenest loss. Of all the material things that had no real value beyond memory, this was the keenest loss.

  Mara lay on the floor and pulled a blanket over her shoulders. So, here she was. Home. After all this time, she was home.

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Mara had just decided on a good cry when she realized she was not alone. Standing in the doorway, frozen in the light, was a young woman with long black hair and almond eyes.

  72

  DORIAN WORKED HIS WAY THROUGH A FINAL DRAFT OF Domidion’s annual report, and when he was blind from reading enthusiastic income projections and staring at multicoloured pie charts, he called Toshi’s office. The receptionist put him on hold, and he had to suffer through a violin version of the Beatles’ “In My Life.” That gave way to an instrumental with pan pipes, followed by someone, other than Leo Sayer, singing “When I Need You.”

  Then the woman was back. “Mr. Asher.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dr. Toshi has arranged for a bed at Toronto General. Do you know where that is?”

  Dorian tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “A bed?”

  “Dr. Toshi would like you to check in to the hospital this evening before eight. Is that a problem?”


  “I wish to speak with Dr. Toshi.”

  “The tests require that you fast,” said the woman, jogging right along. “No food or water after nine tonight.”

  “Dr. Toshi?”

  “You’ll be in the hospital overnight, so you might want to bring some toiletries and any clothes you feel you’ll need.”

  “And Dr. Toshi?”

  “If all goes well, you’ll be released by noon,” said the woman, keeping the same steady pace. “We’ll call and arrange an appointment when we have the test results.”

  SO, Toshi wanted to put him in a hospital. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Dorian wasn’t about to spend an hour in a hospital, let alone overnight.

  At least not without an explanation.

  What was it the man didn’t understand?

  If Toshi thought it might be cancer, then he should say so. If he suspected something such as Parkinson’s or some variation of Hodgkin’s, then Dorian had a right to know. Instead, Dorian had been reduced to listening to Marathon Woman and her robotic instructions.

  Asian reticence.

  It was only cute in movies.

  Of course, one obvious answer was stress. The tremors, the sweating, the dizziness, the loss of concentration, the vivid metaphors. All stress. Dorian had raised this possibility with Toshi on a number of occasions.

  “What about stress?”

  “A contributing factor to a great many health problems.”

  “So, it could be stress.”

  “We’ll know more when we get the test results.”

  This was Toshi’s mantra. Test results. Dorian wasn’t sure how many more tests there could possibly be. Dorian had already endured MRIs, CAT scans, X-rays, a muscle biopsy, a colonoscopy, and tests for ALS, CVD, and HIV, for West Nile, tuberculosis, Lyme disease, and diabetes. Every time he went to see Toshi, there was another round of tests waiting for him.

  Stress.

  Toshi was probably reluctant to say stress, because that was akin to admitting that he knew no more about the patient’s condition than did the patient.

  Stress.

  Dorian was sure that he didn’t need any more blood tests. He certainly didn’t require an overnight stay in a hospital or another assault on his orifices. It was common knowledge that the body was very efficient at healing itself.

  If it was left alone.

  Dorian leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and tried to think of nothing.

  Meditation.

  That might just be the answer. Dorian remembered a movie where people sat around with their eyes closed and their legs crossed. They had sat there with their arms hanging freely from their sides, the tips of their thumbs and third fingers touching.

  Had they been humming?

  Yes, they had.

  Eyes closed. Arms at your side. Thumb to finger. Hum.

  Eyes closed. Arms at your side. Thumb to finger. Hum.

  “Sir?”

  Dorian opened one eye. Winter was standing in the doorway. She had a thick, dark green manila folder in her hand.

  “I was meditating.”

  “Excellent activity for reducing stress.”

  “Was I humming?”

  “Yes,” said Winter, “you were.”

  Dorian looked at the folder. “Good news would be appreciated.”

  “Security found this at Dr. Quinn’s house.”

  Someone had written across the face of the file in large block letters, “The Woman Who Fell from the Sky.”

  “I believe Dr. Thicke mentioned such a file.”

  “He did.”

  “Internal Domidion documents,” said Winter, placing the folder on Dorian’s desk. “They appear to have originated from our archives.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Copies of site reports, risk assessments, confidential memos, requisition records. All of them classified. Along with a series of newspaper articles.”

  “Copies?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Winter. “All the documents in the folder are copies.”

  “The originals?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “And the newspaper articles?”

  “Local coverage of the Kali Creek mishap,” said Winter. “Photographs, eyewitness accounts, obituaries.”

  Olivia was probably playing tennis at this moment. Dorian pictured her standing on a clay court under the Florida sun, tossing balls into the air. Ridiculous. No one could spend that amount of time hitting a stupid yellow ball over a stupid green net and call it a life.

  “GreenSweep?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Winter. “Evidently ‘The Woman Who Fell from the Sky’ was the name that Dr. Quinn originally gave the GreenSweep project.”

  Dorian opened the file and looked at the first page. “What’s this?”

  On the inside of the folder, the word “Kousoulas” had been written in block letters and underlined.

  “I believe it’s a name,” said Winter. “Greek.”

  “Do we have any Greeks named Kousoulas working for us?”

  “No, sir,” said Winter. “We don’t.”

  Dorian ran his hand across the file. It had the feel of old felt. “So,” he said. “What do you make of all this?”

  “Dr. Quinn?”

  “Yes.”

  Winter paused as though she were waiting for the question and the answer to find each other. “Exceptional biotech mind. Anti-social tendencies. Eats lunch in front of an empty aquarium. Writes on the walls of a rented bungalow.”

  Winter ticked off each item as though she were reading a list. “Limited family life. No long-term relationships. Trauma as a young adult.”

  Dorian nodded quietly to himself. “Let’s have coffee and sandwiches sent up.”

  “Yes, sir. Coffee and sandwiches.”

  “This may take a while.”

  “Shall I have Dr. Thicke keep himself available, in case we need him?”

  “Tell me, Winter, what do you know about tennis balls?”

  “Sir?”

  Dorian lay the folder open and spread the documents out on the desk. “Tennis balls,” he repeated. “How many do you think you could hit before you got bored?”

  73

  “YOU’VE KNOWN.” GABRIEL TURNED TO CRISP. “YOU’VE known all along.”

  “Guessed,” said Crisp. “With a small certainty here and there for good measure.”

  Gabriel ran a hand along Soldier’s flank. “Nicholas Crisp,” he said, “Finder-Minder.”

  “Aye,” said Crisp. “That be me, all right.”

  “Little asked you to try to find me.”

  Crisp sat down next to Soldier. “She did, for she loved ye desperately.”

  “And my mother?”

  “She was sick by then. ‘Dementia’ is the name they gave the thing in her brain. And soon there weren’t a shim thin enough to slip between truth and fiction.”

  “I didn’t know she was sick.”

  “Lilly told me how ye didn’t come home after your father died, how they lost track of ye and ye of them. Is that what happened?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “What does it matter?”

  “No juice in half a story,” said Crisp. “No matter how hard ye squeezes.”

  Gabriel kicked at a loose rock and sent it clattering over the edge. “It was you.”

  “Blamed for much.” Crisp lowered his eyes. “And guilty of some.”

  “You sent the photograph.”

  Crisp nodded. “I only found your scent on the eve of The Ruin. After that unbearable day, there weren’t much left to offer but the image of her and the boy.”

  “I was in India.” Gabriel stood on the rim of the canyon and looked down. Below he could hear the sound of rushing water. “Kali Creek?”

  “Aye,” said Crisp. “This be the place.”

  Riel, she had named her son Riel.

  “Is there a way down?”

  Soldier scrambled to his feet, the fur at the back of his neck fanned forward.


  “No profit in seeing what can’t be changed.”

  “Is there a way down?”

  Crisp took a breath. “Aye,” he said. “There be such a thing. A trail starts just there by that dead tree. A narrow snake it is, steep and dark, full of twists and slips.

  “Where does it go?”

  “Creek follows the canyon till they both find the Smoke,” said Crisp. “Master Dog knows of such things and can show you the way.”

  Gabriel walked to the tree and put his hand on it. The trunk felt dry and hollowed out. “No,” he said, “I want to go alone.”

  Crisp nodded.

  Gabriel looked back at the truck. “The groceries are for Mara.”

  “Master Dog and I can see that they arrive in good order.”

  “She knows who I am,” said Gabriel. “You might as well tell her the rest.”

  Crisp returned to the truck, Soldier at his heels. “Mind the first drop,” he shouted back. “Ye slips there, and ye rides the shale to the bottom.”

  THE trail was wet. The ground curled and slid under his feet, and he had to grab the vines and roots and drive his heels against the rocks to keep his balance. Here the earth was dark brown and alive, but as he sank into the canyon itself, the colour shrank away and died.

  The creek was running clean and cold. He set his hand in the water, let it run past his fingers, and watched for a time, hoping to catch a glimpse of something moving below the surface. Once, he thought he saw a shadow, a fish, perhaps, or a turtle.

  Or wishful thinking.

  He hadn’t expected the bones. Almost everywhere he looked, everywhere he walked, there were bones. He hadn’t thought about that. There had been the turtle bones on the beach and bleached shells stuck to the Apostles, but these bones were different. They hadn’t been buried in the sand or crushed by the waves. They lay out on the ground where the creatures had died, one minute alive, the next minute dead, the fall of the creek drowning out the weeping.

  Gabriel moved quickly along the trail, stumbling, falling at times, his pants and shoes damp and muddied. Once he came upon a cluster of bones that might have been a family of rabbits. Another time he found what looked to be a deer and a fawn lying at the water’s edge.