How did she do it? If I were in her condition, twisted into a permanent U like my titanium bike lock, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the grit to engage in conversation with a stranger the way she was doing. I’d take those bed controls in my teeth if that was the only way I could manage it, set them to the eject setting, and let that bed fling me against the wall with enough g-force to whack the life right out of me. I wasn’t brave like she was.
“If you’d like, next time I come I can bring pictures of some of the really special pieces. Give you a sense of what’s there.” Her enthusiasm over my fur trade fixation seemed so genuine, no sign of the glazed-over eyes I was accustomed to facing when I started to unreel. It turned me into putty in her hands. If she’d asked me to hoist her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and cart her down to the museum for a personal tour, I’d probably have scoped out the room for a burlap bag. Morrie’s actions all made sense to me now. This little sprig of a woman who hardly made a dent in the mattress was not a person you’d want to let down.
Morrie cut things short. “And now I’m going to take him up to see some of the special pieces in my collection like I promised when I invited him here, and we’ll let you nap.”
“Oh, don’t go yet. Benjamin and I haven’t had chance enough to talk. A new gentleman-caller for me is always an occasion.”
“What,” Morrie said in what I took to be a running shtick of theirs, “you’re looking for a replacement?”
“Right, I’m thinking of turning you in for two thirty-five year olds.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to dream about the possibilities, dollface. In the meantime we’re heading upstairs.” They kissed each other goodbye. And I’m not talking the pro forma peck that my staid grandparents delivered when a photographer at a wedding or Bat Mitzvah bludgeoned them into rustling up a display of affection for the album. This was a serious smackeroo of the type that soldiers endowed on their sweethearts before heading off to the front to crush the Nazis. And the leave-taking still hadn’t spun itself out. “Bon voyage,” she called after him. It seemed like an over-the-top farewell for a trip that would take him up a single stairwell. It’s not like we were off to Kazakhstan. I looked to him with the question in my eyes once we’d left the studio.
“She always wishes me bon voyage when I’m going off to my fur trade room. She knows that once I close the door on myself in there I might as well be in another world.”
I guess I’d seen too many old movies. I expected Morrie’s refuge to be on a par with the wood-panelled studies of ex-safari hunters. You know, zebra-skin carpets and elephant-foot umbrella stands. But of the North. He’d have Hudson’s Bay blankets thrown artfully over a couch, a fur press retrofitted into a magazine rack, crossed snowshoes mounted on the wall instead of tusks, and a deep, cracked leather club chair to sink into so he could pore over the last unsold remnants of his library.
I couldn’t have been further off base. What I had in front of me was a workshop. The type you’d usually see set up in a basement or garage. The tools were neatly hung up along the walls on pegboards according to their size, the profile of each one outlined in black marker to guide it back to its proper home after use. A bit OCD it struck me at first, but what did I know? Probably Norm Abram would approve. They seemed to be woodworking tools mostly, sanders, chisels, saws, clamps. And all of the elbow-grease variety, no power gizmos that I could spot, no pneumatic anything. The only visible electrical cord ran off the Mr. Coffee. This was a purist’s workshop, a workshop that made a statement.
The smell was delicious after Lena’s studio. I’m a dick, I know. Her room was filled with bouquets working flat out to send up their perfumes, but as maskers they didn’t quite get the job done. The underlying sick-scents still managed to wiggle their way into the air. Morrie’s room, though, smelled pure and fine, woodsy through and through, sawdust, wax, and cedar planks.
It looked like he was deep into some project. And not just another dinky bird call. This was major. He had a tarp thrown over some beached-whale bulk in the middle of the room. It took over almost all the available floor space. Luckily Morrie was trim across the gut. If his belt line were any thicker, he’d hardly be able to work his way around the thing, whatever the hell it was. I was dying for a peek and he knew it so he whipped off the covering like he was a game-show host pulling back the curtain on my grand prize Audi. Then he stood back like a proud papa and let me take it in.
It was a birchbark canoe. Old style. Maybe half-way done. I ran my hand lightly across it. It was calling out to be touched. “This is one handsome boat. Made the traditional way?” To my know-nothing eyes, it looked like a scratch canoe, constructed of roughhewn materials Mother Nature had served up fresh.
“Nah. It’s from a kit. The voyageur model. Much as I’d love to make one from the ground up, how am I in a position to go out and dig up spruce roots or climb to the top of a birch tree and shave off the rind? No, this is imitation, but good quality. Epoxy instead of pine pitch, rope instead of roots.”
“You’d never know.”
“Nice of you to say so, but it’s obvious if you look close. Everything’s too perfectly milled. It all lines up exactly right. But according to the manufacturer’s run-down it should be able to walk the walk.” He jerked his thumb towards a set of plans he had tacked up on the wall. “They say that fully loaded it can carry as much as four tons of goods. Just like its ancestors.”
“That should do you all right.”
“I know. It’s overkill. But at the time I wanted top of the line. Big as life.”
“You’re lucky you have enough room to put it together up here. If it were my house we’d have to knock down some walls to fit it in.”
“Space I’ve got plenty of.”
“It’s amazing. Really. I had no idea you were an artist.”
“Let’s not exaggerate. I just follow the instructions. That is except when it comes to the look. That’s where I grant myself some leeway. What I do, see, is I rough things up as I go along, to try to make it look original.” He gave me a little demo with a length of chain that he whipped against the outside of the canoe like he was a plantation overseer, pocking up the finish with authentic-style nicks and scratches. “I have some other little tricks I’ve developed. Not that it’s necessary, but I like it to look well-used, not straight out of the box.
“The kit cost me a fortune, but I was part-way through building it when times got tough, so what could I do? I plug away at it little by little. It relaxes me. And it’s not like I have other choices of how to pass my spare time. I can hardly put my feet up in the living room and watch TV, can I?” It was the first tinge of sourness I’d heard come out of him. I didn’t know the guy all that well, but Morrie seemed to keep his issues, and granted they were many and varied, pretty well bottled up. Join the club.
“I could use a second set of hands,” he added quickly to get us off the negative. “If you’re willing that is.”
“Suits me.” I was more than happy to sign on as his apprentice. “But just so you know what you’re getting yourself into, my father used to send me down to the basement for a crescent wrench, and I’d come back up with a plunger. He’d only risk using me as a helper when my brother wasn’t around to do things right.”
“I’ll take my chances,” he said. “Stick with me. Maybe you’ll pick up something.”
7
At long distances I sucked. But ask me to sprint and I was Usain Bolt. I didn’t have the oxygen-tank lungs of a marathoner like Morrie did. He always came out on top when he pointed at a distant buoy and we’d shoot out across the water for it. That guy never ran out of wind. I took the early lead every time, but once he’d inch out there ahead of me Sunday driver style, looking for all the world like he was advancing in slo-mo, somehow I’d never manage to catch up.
We’d gotten into the habit of going out for a crack-of-dawn kayak workout on Sundays. We invited the other guys to join us, but they weren’t too crazy about t
he idea of cranking themselves into gear at sunrise just for the pleasure of paddling themselves into exhaustion. Thanks but no thanks. They’d show up at the usual time. So I took advantage of the freebie master classes Morrie was offering one-on-one. After a couple of intro sessions, it got so I couldn’t get enough water time to suit me. Those endorphins snuck up on me out of nowhere and goosed my metabolism till someone who didn’t know any better could watch me paddle and almost take me for a jock.
We were way out from shore, bobbing on the water, resting up after our practice when out of nowhere Morrie started to chant. “Acabris, Acabras, Acabram.”
“Pardon?”
“Acabris, Acabras, Acabram,” he repeated.
“Well, fee fi fo fum to you.”
He sat quietly in his kayak, looking up at the clouds, unimpressed by my comeback.
“Do you mind telling me what we’re talking about?” I asked him.
“It’s from the Chasse-Galerie.”
“The what?”
“The folk tale. Do you mean to tell me that in all your reading and research about the voyageurs you never came across the story of the Chasse-Galerie? Say it ain’t so.”
My brain must have been fried from all the exercise. Otherwise it would have come back to me sooner. “You mean the story about the canoe?” I couldn’t dredge up all the details. “It’s haunted or something?”
“So these guys are making camp on the Gatineau River,” Morrie began. “It’s winter. New Year’s Eve in fact and they’ve all knocked back a few. Late at night this one guy, Baptiste, shakes awake his friend Joe and puts a proposition to him. ‘Want to go home to Lavaltrie tonight? We’ll celebrate réveillon, get a little New Year’s smooch from our girls, and be back in time for breakfast.’
“ ‘Are you nuts?’ Joe says to him. ‘Lavaltrie’s three hundred miles away. It would take us months to get there through the bush. And can I remind you it’s winter?’
“ ‘I’m not talking about slogging there on foot,’ Baptiste tells him. ‘We’ll travel by canoe, there and back in six hours tops.’ So by now the cobwebs have cleared a bit from Joe’s brain and he’s clued in to what his pal is suggesting, that they fly home in their birchbark canoe, navigating through the sky under the devil’s protection.
“ ‘No way José,’ Joe answers, ‘I’m not risking my immortal soul for a quickie trip back home, a slice of tourtière, and a kiss. Count me out. I’ll celebrate here with everybody else.’
“But Baptiste badgers him. See he needs an even number in the canoe, and so far he’s only been able to brainwash six others into signing on. With himself that makes seven. ‘Don’t be so yellow-bellied,’ he says. ‘I’ve done it five times before and the devil hasn’t bagged me yet. All you have to do is obey a couple of simple rules. That’s it. First, whatever you do, you don’t pronounce the name of le bon dieu during the trip. How hard is that? And second, you don’t touch any crosses on the steeples that we pass. If you can just manage those two things, then the devil will whiz us home through the air and bring us safely back here in plenty of time. So what do you say man, are you in?’ At the sight of the others waiting to take off, Joe knuckles under and joins the crowd. They all get in the canoe and Baptiste recites the incantation that will get the show on the road. ‘Acabris, Acabras, Acabram! Fais-nous voyager par-dessus les montagnes!’
“Bam, next thing they know they’re up in the air paddling like hell through the sky, singing at the top of their lungs, making for Lavaltrie, the full moon lighting their way. They slalom around the steeples and don’t nick a single one the whole way. In just under two hours they spot the spires of their destination from the sky and bring the canoe in for a landing in a snowbank, soft as you please. They find out where the New Year’s celebration is being held in the village and head that direction, but before Baptiste lets his crew loose on the house party he issues them a stern warning. ‘No liquor must pass your lips while you’re in there,’ he says. ‘You need to keep your wits about you. Understood?’ The guys all swear to stick to the fruit punch and they go in and have a high old time.
“When four a.m. chimes, the pre-arranged time to start heading back, all the crew members quietly slip out of the house, all that is except for Baptiste, who, as it happens, is drunk as a skunk. They have to drag him out kicking and screaming. Now this is a problem, as you might imagine, since he’s the one who’s meant to steer the canoe. And beside that, how can they count on him, in his condition, not to blurt out the name of the lord and damn them all to hell? Well, the clock is ticking and it’s not like they have much choice in the matter, so they plunk him down in his spot at the stern and hope for the best.
“‘Acabris, Acabras, Acabram! Fais-nous voyager par-dessus les montagnes! Take us over the mountains.’ The canoe shoots up into the air and they paddle for their very souls. The moon isn’t nearly as bright as it was when they set out, and the pickled Baptiste is seeing double. He steers like a wildman, avoiding steeples by a hair, giving his crew a collective coronary. His luck runs out over Montreal when he drives them smack into the side of the mountain. They pick themselves up out of the snow and assess the damage. No one’s hurt and the canoe’s still in one piece. They’ll be able to finish the trip. But before they set off again the fellas get into a quick huddle and decide that they can’t stick with Baptiste as their pilot. He’s too big of a risk. They tie him up and gag him and dump him into the bottom of the canoe.
“ ‘Acabris, Acabras, Acabram! Fais-nous voyager par-dessus les montagnes!’ Up again. For the last time. Joe takes over the steering. He sets their route by the Ottawa River below, and then veers off towards their camp guided by the north star. Everything’s going according to Hoyle until they’re a few miles short of their destination. That’s when Baptiste bolts up in the middle of the canoe. He’s wriggled out of his gag and bonds. Swearing a blue streak, he holds his paddle out from his body and starts to swing it around and around. Joe ducks down like everybody else, to keep from getting his skull bashed in, and in that second of lost concentration, he lets the boat dip and they crash into the crown of the mother of all pine trees. The boat flips over and they all fall out, bumping and crashing their way to the ground against the branches that never seem to end.
“Next morning, Joe wakes up in his own bunk, bruised and scraped some, but none the worse for wear. Same for the others who shared his midnight adventure. Turns out that their stay-behind camarades from camp found all of them in a snow bank at the foot of a great pine tree, out cold. They dragged them back in to sleep off what they figured was an overdose of last night’s rum that the camp boss let flow.
“Joe doesn’t breathe a word. Keeps his close shave to himself. But years later on New Year’s Eve, at a different camp, he treats everyone around the fire to the story of his true and complete adventures as they unfolded on that night. And he repeats it every year after that, the old man doing a public service for the young bucks who might be tempted. ‘If someone comes up to you,’ he cautions them, ‘and offers you a journey like mine that’s too good to be true, remember what I told you this night. Beware of the devil.’ ”
So ended Storytime with Morrie. He turned his kayak around and started a slow piddle-paddle back to where we’d meet up with the guys. I caught up with him after a few strokes and then stuck my bow out ahead of him to block his way. “So you’re telling me this why exactly?”
“You know why.”
I knew why all right. I just found the whole subject, now that we’d finally looped back to it after all this time, downright scary. I’d stashed it in the long-term parking area of my memory, but now he was nudging me to pull it out into traffic.
“You’re thinking,” I said, coming out with it slowly, “that it wasn’t some freaky kind of shared delusion that first day we went out kayaking together, when we heard that voyageur song floating on the wind. That our ears weren’t just playing tricks on us. You’re thinking that they were really there.” That’s actually what I tho
ught too, but I couldn’t admit it out loud just yet. I needed Morrie to take the first steps and then drag me by the hair towards the conclusion I was fighting against. “That’s crazy.”
“We know what we heard,” he said.
“So you believe in this kind of woo-woo stuff, Roswell and all that?”
“Nope, never did. A lifelong cynic.”
“Same here.”
We mulled it all over for a while in our separate heads.
“You know,” I said finally, “technically, those guys in your story, they travelled through space not time.”
“What, you’re niggling with me about the details? The point is, those voyageurs we heard came to us. Somehow. I’m not saying the Chasse-Galerie is the literal truth. I’m saying more that it suggests a truth. That things in the world are kind of, I don’t know, porous. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d hear myself saying something like this, but I believe that on that day, if Renaud hadn’t blundered in and messed things up for us, we would have met up with them.”
“With a fur-trading crew.”
“Yep.”
“From way back when.”
“Uh huh. That’s what I think. A hundred percent.”
If Morrie believed we’d had a close encounter of the third kind, then maybe I could finally let myself believe it too. My own version of what happened that day varied from his in some of the particulars. The way I remembered it, we were the ones who’d travelled through time to meet with the voyageurs on their own turf. But like he said, why quibble about the details?
My True and Complete Adventures as a Wannabe Voyageur Page 8