The child’s mother had no time to spend deciphering his tongue. She’d arrived the year before, pregnant, her husband picked up in one of the Cleansings, perhaps; at any rate he’d gone out one day and never come home. She didn’t look for him. It was better not to ask. In the town they assigned her to the old man and paid her to look after him. She was given the garage next door, cleaned out, serviceable enough. When the child came she named her Lina.
–Lina! the old man said, and drew a shaky picture of a flower with wide petals, which she understood to be a plant known by that name on the island he came from.
The island itself was unnameable, for the name, like so much else, had gone.
Two people came from the university to record the old man. Smetherin, they called the Speech, though no one in the town had heard that name. Even the old man, said to be one of the last few fluent speakers, mixed his words with English, and parts of the grammar had gone forever. Still, it was important to collect what was left.
But what was the point? Lina’s mother thought. Like collecting the bones of some ancient animal. Sad, to be sure, but in the midst of all the other sadnesses, not terribly important. The old man would die soon, and there would be an end of it.
Smetherin. Also Smeathrin, Smederin, Smedren. Currently found only on two or three of the Outer Islands. Fluent speakers worldwide: fewer than 12. With no formal orthography, it is not being passed on to a new generation and no extant oral histories remain. Classified as an erratic as it has been little studied or attested. Believed to be composed of old Greenlandic verb forms and Old Norse nouns, with Latin terms a later addition when the islands were Christianized in the tenth century. A counting rhyme remains: smetch, vetch, taddle, treddle, cinqueme, sisset, soryvet, oitch. The numeric system is based on a unit of 8, with numbers repeated for higher figures.
–Soryvet, oitch, the old man said, and then louder –Soryvet! Oitch!
How was she supposed to know what he meant?
–Soryvet, the little girl said. –Pee-pee. Now how had she learned that? The old man motioned. Sure enough, he wanted the chamber pot, and an oitch followed the soryvet into the bowl. –Oitch! Lina shrieked, delighted. –Oitch!
–No, the mother said firmly. –Pee-pee. Poo-poo. But the child covered her face with her fingers and peeked out. –Soryvet! Oitch!
The mother thought perhaps she should look for another job. But they were nearly impossible to find, and this one came with accommodation, however modest. She began leaving Lina with the woman down the street who had two youngsters of her own, paying her in the pies and bread she baked at the old man’s house.
–Soryvet! the three children shrieked, playing together. –Oitch!
The woman down the street said she didn’t know what her children were learning, but she didn’t like it, and perhaps it would be better if Lina didn’t come after all.
The mother tried tying Lina to the leg of the table while she worked in the kitchen, but the child cried and howled and the old man, upstairs, banged on the floor with his cane. There was an old dog crate in the back yard, crusted with droppings, that the mother cleaned out and lined with a blanket. Sat in the crate with a toy, Lina was quiet, at least for a while, though sooner or later the howling started again.
–Would a dog help? asked the farmer’s boy who came by with the milk. An old farm dog with misted eyes joined them, useless now for guarding sheep. The dog and Lina curled up in the crate together, murmuring, tangled in sleep. The mother was freed to work for hours.
When summer came the old man insisted on a chisel and a hammer and a wooden stool with an embroidered cover. He sat outside by the low wall and tapped at a brick. A D appeared and then an H. The final word seemed to be unpronounceable in any language. DHLPT. Perhaps it was code for something. Or perhaps the old man was finally losing his mind.
The embroidered cover had been made by his wife, whose name the mother could never quite catch. Her dresses, frosted with dust, still hung upstairs; a hairbrush with painted flowers still sat on a night table. One of the dresses, rose red with panels of real velvet, came from some other existence. Once or twice, late at night, the mother opened the closet at the far end of the hall and slipped it on. On the dance floor of a palace somewhere, she spun round the room to the music of an orchestra, her fingertips resting on the arm of a captain in full dress uniform.
The summer, like all summers now, was hot, unbearable. She tried to persuade the old man to go inside. He often sat staring into the distance, his chisel forgotten. She herself placed a chair on the shaded porch, where she could keep an eye on both the old man and Lina. The child staggered up and down the verandah, barricaded by the dog, who growled when she tried for the stairs. Sometimes she lay on top of the dog and sucked her thumb.
–You! Lina’s mother!
It was the woman from down the street. She couldn’t pronounce Lina’s mother’s name and hadn’t bothered to learn it.
–I need a pie for a guest tonight. How much?
The mother had baked a pie early that morning while it was still cool, filled with the wild berries that grew along the lanes.
–Ten, she said, though she’d been dreaming of fresh pie and clotted cream all day.
–Ten! the other woman said. –How about five?
–Eight, said the mother.
They settled on seven. –Soryvet, the mother said under her breath.
–Oitch, Lina said unexpectedly as the woman hurried off with the glowing dish.
The mother understood that Lina was telling her not to accept a penny less than the pie was worth.
Smetherin speakers are believed to have devised at least two secret languages, and possibly more. One was for communicating with their sled dogs, though only the odd word has survived: tattni, what does the night smell of, and rifpulli, your ears are as soft as a hare’s. Others, however, claim that tattni and rifpulli were simply directional words for the lead dog, and that certain tall tales were presented as truth. Another secret language was used by the women to share knowledge forbidden to men. Menstruation, for example, was referred to, in rough translation, as the moon strokes your belly, milking blood. It was taboo for men or boys to use this word or even to know of its existence. There are early, possibly suspect, reports of a murder on the island of Bryebekka because of the use of this word by a young man who attempted to practise magic with it.
That summer, the longest anyone had known, the mother made pies every morning and sold them — at the price her daughter had stipulated — every afternoon. The oitch notes, as she thought of them, accumulated in her apron pockets and in a locked metal box in the garage where she and Lina slept. The old man still sat with his chisel, tapping out another word at the corner where two walls met. Roiveliin. It took him two weeks.
–What does it mean? the mother asked, bringing him a glass of beer.
He spoke the word out loud, once, twice. Lina, bringing up the rear with the dog, repeated it perfectly. The old man turned and stared at her, face lit up. –She understands, he said, and pointed a shaking finger. –A dab thelset, she is, and no mattling about it!
The word had several meanings, apparently. Darkness, for one, and a certain type of rain, a sort of dry mist, that fell only on the island the old man came from. And it was also the name of some sort of sweet cake made with raisins and other things the old man lacked the English words for.
–Roiveliin, he said again that evening when the child’s mother gave him a piece of the pie she’d saved out for the three of them.
–Pie, she said. –Wild berry pie.
–Roiveliin, the old man repeated, and then: –Sposina. And after a pause –My wife, said in very clear English. And then he wept.
There was enough money now, as the autumn mists swept over the town, to leave. But where would she go? To look for her husband? She lacked that kind of courage. Was this, then, home? It wasn’t what she’d intended all those years ago, scratching out her lessons on a chalk slate, dreaming of the future. What k
ind of home was made up of an old man, partly senile and no relation to her, and a child whose father had disappeared? And the dog, of course. Also old, also likely senile.
Sometimes she watched them, dog and child, how they might have been made from one skin. If the child cried, the dog always knew what she wanted. When the mailwoman came with the letters, or the farmer’s boy with the milk crates, the dog stood up on unsteady legs and tottered forward, baring his teeth. I am a guard dog, still, despite appearances, he seemed to be saying. I guard a child. I place my life between you and her.
One morning, when the mother rose, the old man was not in his bed. She searched the house and at last hurried outside, raincoat flung on. The mist, thick as cold porridge, made her gasp. There, down by the garden wall, a dark hunched shape.
She ran across the grass, slipping and almost falling, and grabbed the old man by the shoulder. –Are you mad? she shouted, and shook him, hard. He turned slowly, his chisel dripping in his hand.
–Claistered and clackhammered, he said. –Time is thottering away, you see. Claisters us all, does time. I didn’t see it soon enough.
He wouldn’t move, so she ran back inside and pulled a blanket off his bed. She found an old tarp and asked her neighbour, a lean man with sharp edges, to help her set it up over the old man.
–He’ll be dead by evening, the neighbour said, as if it was her fault.
–He won’t go inside. Do you want to help carry him?
But the old man put up such a struggle, shouting and flailing his arms — not to mention Lina’s howling and the dog’s barking — that finally they gave up.
It would be on her own head, she thought as the neighbour stumped off. When she was younger there would have been friends to help, or the police, or an ambulance. But now there were none of those things. She ran back inside and stripped off her wet clothes and took Lina into the tub with her.
When dark fell the door was flung open, startling her. The old man stood there, dripping but satisfied. –Aranbollock, he said in a firm clear voice. –That was today. Aranbollock.
She took his arm, fed him supper, and put him to bed. –Aranbollock, he repeated sleepily. –Returned to me yesterday, all on its own, fancy that. Aranbollock.
She would have to leave, she told herself, washing the dishes. She couldn’t be expected to put up with this. If the old man got ill, she wasn’t a nurse, she hadn’t those skills. Nor — a grim thought — was she an undertaker.
–Oitch, Lina mumbled next door in her sleep.
–Oitch, said the dog, or something that sounded very much like oitch. He lifted his head and looked at the child and put his head down on his paws again.
There were three more words: cloyben, wyfoggren, miliash.
They came a week apart, each time on a Wednesday. Those were the mornings she found the old man outside at dawn, hunched on his stool, chipping away. Rain or sun, sleet or fog, he worked into the evening, tapping steadily. There was no more sitting and gazing into the distance.
Of course he couldn’t go on this way, not indefinitely.
When it was sunny, the child and the dog went out into the garden and played chase. Or tried to; the dog was game but tired quickly. Afterwards Lina moved to the old man and leaned against his knee. He never pushed her away, just patted her head and kept working. Leaves fell, gold and russet and brown, crumpled like burnt paper. The year was sifting slowly into ash. The mother dried berries or made soup or sat and sewed new clothes for Lina. She knitted gloves for herself and even tore up an old coat to make a jacket for the dog.
That evening — the evening after miliash — the old man looked up from his dinner of beans and bread. –My cloyben, he told her, will be like this. And he sketched some sort of design on the table with his finger. When she didn’t understand he grew impatient. –My cloyben! he shouted, pushing himself to his feet. He lowered himself to the floor and lay down.
–Cloyben, he said again, and sketched the shape of a box in the air around him.
Ah. Now she understood. His coffin.
The next day it was snowing hard, and for once the old man stayed inside. Every now and then he got up and paced a little, back and forth. He wouldn’t die yet, he told her. He couldn’t. He was needed — no, required. He had to continue.
–You’ve done what you can, she said. But that was a mistake.
–Have you not seen? His hand shook, pointing outside. –Dantry, there on the keystone? He’d done that one first, years ago. It had been difficult, standing on a ladder — he’d almost fallen. Tackle-torsel had followed, tapped into the window frame, months after; they always came slowly then. Then smeached, chiselled on a bottom corner of the house, just above the grass.
His wife had still been alive then, and she’d remembered words too. –I promised her, he said, still shaking. –I made a promise.
The child’s mother sat back and stared at him. In all these months it was only the second time he’d mentioned his wife.
–You loved her very much, she said tentatively.
–Loved her? Nothing to do with love. He groped in the air. –To do with protecting. Bakkinsleemin. That is what our words are. They use us for protection.
That evening they sat, the snow still falling outside, and listened, she and the child. It was difficult, getting her tongue around the words, but Lina said each one as if she already knew it. The dog listened too, giving nothing away. The dog regularly licked the words on the walls, knowing each by its feel and taste and smell. They were pale things compared to the rest of the world, but the child had touched each of them, following the old man round the garden, and that was enough.
NOTES ON THE TEXT
Fire Breathing: The words attributed to the First Nations firekeeper are taken from an interview by Yvette Brend of CBC News British Columbia with Pierre Kruger, an Elder with the Penticton Indian Band, speaking about his late mother, Annie Kruger, a traditional firekeeper on what is now called Syilx territory.
The Master of Salt: Abbot Kyril’s final prayer borrows from John the Deacon’s sixth-century Letter to Senarius.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND THANKS
I’d like to thank the editors of the following journals and anthologies in which versions of some of these stories first appeared: The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Dark Mountain 9 (UK), Image Journal (US), Tesseracts Seventeen, and Best Canadian Stories 2013.
My grateful thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, and the Arts Section of Yukon Tourism and Culture through Lotteries Yukon for financial support of this work. I’m particularly grateful to the Writers’ Trust for giving me a grant in 2018. A special thank you to my siblings, Andrew, Duncan, and Kerry, and their spouses for generosity above and beyond, as well as to Eve D'Aeth, Kari Hipwell, and Lise Friisbaastad.
I’ve been sustained throughout by writer friends, especially Sharon English — twin soul — and by the crucial work of the Dark Mountain Project in the UK.
Writing residencies at Green College, University of BC, Vancouver; the Haig-Brown House in Campbell River, BC; the Kingston Frontenac Public Library in Kingston, ON; and the Millennium Library in Winnipeg, MB, provided income and writing time. My gratitude to Mark Vessey, Sandra Parrish, Kimberly Sutherland-Mills, Danielle Pilon, and their staffs, who were invariably welcoming and supportive. To all the participants I met in workshops and one-on-one, you taught me more than you know. A big high-five to the Kingston Teen Fantasy group, who knew to their bones how essential other dimensions are.
Working with the stellar crew at Goose Lane Editions has been a revelation. A deep bow to my editor, Bethany Gibson, for her insight and tact; to Peter Norman, copy editor par excellence; and to Julie Scriver for managing to channel the entire book in her cover design.
To Erling, first reader, whose faith never wavered even when mine did, and to our boreal husky Freya (2006–19), extraordinary canine companion and teacher: my deepest gratitude for your love and belief, always.
The Yu
kon, where I lived for twenty years, has never left me. Raven, Willow Herb, and Tágà Shäw (Great River) are on every page.
Born in the UK, Patricia Robertson grew up in British Columbia and received her MA in Creative Writing from Boston University. Her first collection of short stories, City of Orphans, was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, while her second collection, The Goldfish Dancer, was hailed by the National Post as “a work of insight and mastery.” She was awarded the Aesthetica International Prize for Poetry in 2018.
Robertson’s fiction and essays have appeared in Best Canadian Stories and Best Canadian Essays and have been shortlisted for the Journey Prize, the CBC Literary Awards, the Pushcart Prize, and the National Magazine Awards. She has served as writer-in-residence at libraries and universities across Canada and currently lives in Winnipeg, located on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional territory of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
Photo: Thor Aitkenhead
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