In Fond Remembrance of Me

by Howard Norman

  We got to the truck. George climbed into the truck and started the engine and waited. “I’ve decided to become a bird of … the sea … and cliffs.”

  Helen slid in next to George. “You know,” I said, “I think I’m going to walk back.”

  “Want the rifle?” George said.

  “No thanks.”

  “Well you’ll be okay—no worry,” George said. “But go on, take the rifle. Leave it out front your door at the motel, eh?”

  I took the rifle in hand. “See you at supper,” I said to Helen.

  “At least take the binoculars,” Helen said, handing them to me. “See what you can see.”

  No rhyme or reason to it, but along the railroad tracks I took a single potshot at a lone raven; it was a halfhearted shot, I missed widely, the raven scattered off as if riding on the echo. Out over the river.

  How was it possible to even imagine I would ever meet someone for whom A Field Guide to the Birds (Peterson, Golden, others) of this or that part of the world, would provide a bevy of possibilities for reincarnation? Yet that is precisely how Helen began to use her field guides. She may have been doing this for some time before we met, I never found out. Paging through the guides, taking notes, circling certain illustrations, underlining behavioral descriptions, moving her finger along passages and data, “my future as a bird at my very fingertips,” she wryly stated.

  “How are you ever going to narrow down your possibilities?” I asked, perhaps two or three weeks after the subject of reincarnation had been broached.

  “I already have,” she said. “Look. Let’s get something straight, as Americans like to say. Reincarnation’s not a desperate way of thinking. My brain’s not gone all haywire. Kawabata, I think it was, or some other Japanese writer who killed himself, called suicide ‘a bold act of imagination.’ I don’t agree with that necessarily. That’s not what I’m considering anyway, am I? No, I’m not. I’m going to stay alive until I die, and not by my own hand, so let’s get that straight. But maybe reincarnation’s a bold act of imagination, too. If you want it to be. My mother thought that when you die your soul—which she couldn’t describe, and I asked her a hundred times what it looked like when I was a child—went up to heaven. I asked her what heaven looked like, too. She couldn’t say.

  “At least if I choose a place, a geography—and I have, by the way. If I choose a geography, then at least I can answer the question of what the so-called afterlife’s going to look like, can’t I?”

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  “There’s no ‘suppose’ to it.”

  I felt in her room at that moment that if I did not credit her researches and thinking on this matter, I would be banished; there was definitely an unprecedented tension; I felt lacking in the proper resources to debate or dismiss anything. The impassioned plea to comprehend a self-generated theory of reincarnation, then subscribe wholly to it, was not being made to me by Helen (no need for that), but by Helen to herself. To witness this was disquieting.

  I was tiptoeing, but moved forward. “So, Helen, what choices have you narrowed down to, if I may ask? Not one of those ugly shearwaters, or puffins, I hope.”

  “See, right there! See how you’re judging in advance from a human perspective?”

  “What other perspective can I judge from?”

  “You can’t find shearwaters particularly attractive, or maybe not interesting, so you think being one would make for a terrible life.”

  “Okay, I understand. Let’s move on. I’m sorry I said that. In fact, I take back everything I’ve ever said.”

  “Probably a good idea, but impossible.”

  “Okay, I know it’s a bird that lives by the sea, and maybe nests up in cliffs.”

  “I said as much, didn’t I? Just now my choices are too personal. No offense, Howard Norman. You just need time to think about all of this. You may never understand it, who knows? I have got it down to two or three—and I can say, they all live in my very favorite place I’ve studied birds.”

  “Where’s that? You’ve never told me.”

  “Newfoundland—the Canadian Maritimes. Canada on the Atlantic Ocean—”

  “Thanks for telling me that much. It means a lot to me.”

  “Whether it does or not—”

  “Me? If I was going to choose for myself, I’d become a kingfisher.”

  “I appreciate that you’ve given it some thought.”

  “I don’t have a set opinion about reincarnation, all I’m saying is, if I could become something it’d be a kingfisher.”

  “You like that bird far more than I do, in this life, I mean,” Helen said, chuckling at her own aesthetic judgment. “Kingfishers seem—what’s the phrase? Nuts in the head.”

  “Don’t let looks deceive you.”

  This made Helen laugh. “I’ll let whatever I want deceive me, thank you very much.”

  One thing I learned early on was that when Helen dropped by my motel room and said, “Let’s talk about—” introducing a subject, it meant she’d already pondered it for quite some time. “Obsessing is a kind of sustenance,” she said, which I didn’t understand at first, but came to realize, meant, in part, that “obsessing” about something by definition replaced obsessing about cancer. Reincarnation served that purpose.

  In my own journal I had registered snippets and summaries, and the whole of conversations I’d had with Helen about reincarnation on the following dates: October 8, October 11, October 12, October 17, October 19, October 23, October 24, October 26, October 29, October 30, and November 1, which is the day we took the train to Winnipeg.

  Yet specifically I recall the evening of October 29. Helen sat on my bed, unfolded a map of Canada, and pointed to an area she had circled. “Right there,” she said. I turned off my fairly useless transistor radio. She had sectioned off part of Newfoundland. “I’ve marked the spot where I want my ashes scattered.”

  “Helen, come on, let’s just go to your room and listen to the shortwave or something, all right?”

  “You should be happy for me, Howard Norman. I’ve come to a final decision.”

  “Newfoundland, okay, but what kind of bird?”

  “Cape Freels. I was there twice. The seabirds are … plentiful.”

  “Your medications are making you hallucinate again, I see.

  “Ha-ha, very funny. I am quite capable of laughing at myself, but not at this moment.”

  “Okay, I see where you’ve marked. Cape Freels. And—?”

  “I’m keeping which bird to myself. Please understand.”

  “Of course. Of course I do.”

  Helen began to sob, a kind of wracking sob borne up from deep in her chest; she pressed her forehead against the window overlooking the river. “I feel exactly how Akutagawa said it, ‘a most unhappy happiness.’”

  “Happy that you’ve come to a decision; unhappy you’ve had to?”

  “That’s too simple, but honestly, I’d like to not talk about it.”

  “Let’s go over and listen to the shortwave.”

  “All right.” She started out the door without turning to look at me. “How many actual real decisions do we make, in a life? I mean, we all the time say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to all sorts of things, naturally. But Life and Death things, how many? How many?”

  GOOD-BYE, GOOD-BYE

  On their way to seal-hunting grounds, some hunters saw a big wooden boat stuck in the ice. They took dog sleds over to it. One hunter threw his spear into the boat. The spear stuck in a plank of wood. “Let’s pull out this plank and see if it’s good for a fire,” he said.

  “Go away! Get out! Go away!”—they heard a voice call down.

  They looked up and saw a man standing on the deck of the boat. He was standing there with three other people.

  “Hey-hey! Your boat is stuck in ice!” a hunter said. “You’ll be here all winter now!”

  “Get us out,” this man said.

  “Nobody can get this boat loose,” the hunter said. “
What is your name?”

  “Noah.”

  “Who are the others?”

  “My wife, my daughter, my son.”

  “What’s this boat called?”

  “An ark.”

  “On our way back from hunting seals, we’ll stop by again. Then you and your family can come back to our village and spend the winter. Just give us a few planks of wood to start a fire with.”

  “No,” said Noah. Just then a big animal walked into view on the ark. It had a large head and curved tusks—it was shivering in the cold.

  “It’s a woolly mammoth,” a hunter said, “except it’s not shaggy-haired and the tusks are different and it’s shivering. Woolly mammoths don’t shiver in the cold!”

  “What’s that big animal?” another hunter said.

  “It’s an elephant,” Noah said.

  “We’ll throw some spears up to you,” a hunter said. “You kill the elephant, we’ll cut it up and haul it back to the village. Everyone will have enough to eat. Then you and your family can stay through the winter.”

  “No,” said Noah. “I have to keep all the animals on my boat. Until we get back home.”

  “Noah,” a man said, “you’re stuck in the ice. The winter is long.”

  “Father, let’s go to the village,” said the daughter. “Husband, let’s go to the village,” said the wife. “Father, let’s go to the village,” said the son.

  “No—no—no,” said Noah.

  “Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, good-bye,” said the hunters. They set out across the ice. But soon a raven landed near them. “Turn around—look,” said the raven. The raven flew off.

  The hunters turned around. They saw Noah’s wife, son, and daughter just behind. “They’ve got the wrong clothes,” said a hunter. “They’re already shivering.”

  The hunters let Noah’s family catch up and then gave them warm clothes. Now they traveled with the hunters. They were out on the ice for many days and during this time holes were chiseled through the ice, seals were caught, and many fish were caught. “How do you like living with us?” a hunter asked.

  “It’s good,” said Noah’s wife. “It’s good,” said the daughter. “It’s good,” said the son.

  The hunters tied seals to their sleds, they got the dogs running well, and everyone went back to the ark. They stood next to it. One hunter shouted up, “Hey—Noah—look! Look! Here’s your family! They enjoy living with us! Come to our village, you can spend the winter. Just pry off a few planks of wood and throw them down. Push a few animals down, too. That’s all we ask—some planks, some animals on the ice.”

  “Come back up,” Noah said to his family.

  “No—good-bye,” said Noah’s wife.

  Noah then threw down some handfuls of animal shit. It landed on the ice. It steamed there. The hunters looked at it. They had not seen such shapes before, not quite. One hunter said to Noah’s wife, “Tell us how the animals on the ark taste.”

  “We don’t eat them,” she said.

  “You travel with them. You live on a boat with them. But you don’t eat them.”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Well,” a hunter said, “we’re getting these seals back to our village.”

  “Father, pry off a few planks of wood and come back with us,” Noah’s son said. With this, Noah flung down some hunks of animal shit. They steamed on the ice.

  The hunters and Noah’s family set out. When they got to the village, a big meal was prepared. Everyone ate seal and fish. Now Noah’s family was living there.

  “How do you like living here?” an old woman asked Noah’s daughter.

  “It’s a good thing,” she said.

  “All right,” the old woman said, “why don’t you get married. I have someone for you.“

  “All right,” Noah’s daughter said. She was introduced to a young man and they got married. “How about my brother?” Noah’s daughter asked.

  “All right,” the old woman said. Noah’s son was introduced to a young woman and they got married. “How about my mother?” Noah’s son asked.

  “Do you think Noah will leave the ark?” the old woman said.

  “No,” he said.

  With this, the old woman introduced Noah’s wife to a good hunter and they got married. Every few days, Noah’s son and daughter left food scraps out near the ark. They looked out from the village. Ravens landed near the food. When the ravens scattered off, they knew that Noah got the food. They said, “He’s not starving.”

  One day a raven landed in the village. It said to Noah’s wife, son, and daughter, “Many animals left the ark. They wandered out across the ice. They’re gone.”

  The next day the raven said, “Many colorful birds flew out from the ark out into the distance. They’re gone.”

  The next day the raven said, “More animals are gone.”

  The next day, Noah’s daughter said to the raven, “Tell my father that I got married. Say that my brother got married, too. Say that my mother married a good hunter in this village.” The raven flew off with this news.

  When the raven landed in the village again, Noah’s daughter said, “What did my father say?”

  “Good-bye,” the raven said. “Good-bye. Good-bye.”

  Winter was long and there were many days nobody had food to eat. Then there would be luck in hunting and fishing. At such times food scraps were left near the ark. Finally, there came the ice-break-up. The ark was set free floating again. Noah’s son and his wife, Noah’s daughter and her husband, paddled out to the ark in kayaks. “Father, look—!” said the daughter—“look at my husband. Look at your son’s wife. Look at us!”

  Noah sent down a raven. The raven said, “Good-bye.”

  Noah’s daughter and her husband, and Noah’s son and his wife paddled back to the village.

  One day, a boy ran into the village shouting, “Hey—hey—hey—look!” Everyone went to look. They saw that the ark was low in the water. Then the ark sank. Soon Noah floated in holding onto some ark planks. When he washed up to shore, a few children grabbed the planks and ran off. Noah came into the village. The children set the planks on a drying rack.

  “This is my wife,” Noah’s son said. “This is my husband,” Noah’s daughter said. “This is now my husband,” Noah’s wife said. “He’s a good hunter.”

  “Push me along in the southerly direction,” Noah said.

  So some villagers did as Noah asked. They pushed him along. They gave him some food, too. They watched as Noah walked away. Other villagers paddled out onto the water to collect planks. They got quite a few.

  Part IV

  THE AFTERLIFE

  WRITE ME A LETTER

  From my journal, November 8, 1977:

  In the Halifax train station Helen wore blue jeans, a white blouse, a gray button-down sweater, white socks, black high-topped tennis shoes she had purchased this morning on Water Street. Helen is taking an evening train to Montreal and then will fly the next day to Amsterdam, London, then on to Tokyo; from there she’ll travel to Kyoto to stay with her brother and sister-in-law.

  Helen had gotten a haircut, taken a long bath in her room at the Lord Nelson Hotel, bought a few magazines for the train, had a bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich for lunch at the hotel. I joined her and we talked and drank tea until around four-thirty, when we took a taxi to the train station. She had one suitcase, her trunk, her satchel full of notebooks, ledgers, diaries, and letters. I was to pack up and send her typewriter as soon as possible to Japan. She looked quite pale; sitting on one of the long polished wooden pews in the station, she noticed me noticing and pinched her cheeks. “Coquette,” she said.

  “A word that hardly applies to you, Helen.”

  “This is the last time we’ll see each other. So, Howard Norman, good-bye. You don’t have to wait. I don’t mind sitting here alone.”

  “I mind not spending more time with you, though.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good, let’s just sit
here, then.”

  “Let’s write letters. Write me a letter, I’ll write you back.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I need to be more precise about it, I think. How about a letter per week—no, that sounds too often, no matter what. How about a letter every two weeks? You have my brother’s address, unless you’ve lost it?”

  “I have it written down.”

  “Why not let’s choose the same two days each month to post a letter?”

  “Fine.”

  “The first and the twentieth.”

  “Any reason for those?”

  “It seems right. To me, they seem right.”

  “Want to get something to drink?”

  “No thank you. I’m not in the least bit thirsty.”

  “Your train doesn’t leave for over an hour. You’ve got your ticket. Let’s just talk.”

  “I want you to understand that I disapprove in advance, should you fail to send your twice-monthly letters. I’ve got the one big disappointment, of course. I don’t want to suffer small ones, too.”

  “I can understand that, sure.”

  “The train’s in-station, you know. I could board early. You could take in a movie.”

  “If you want, Helen, I’ll take the train with you to Montreal.”

  “Completely uncalled for.”

  “I haven’t been on a train in a year or so.”

  “I’m going to sit and read my books. I’m going to work on my notes. I’ve always found trains good to work on, you see. Unless, of course, one has the bad fortune of being seated next to a snotty, crying child whose parents don’t care that—”

  “What? That you’re translating a story from Inuit into Japanese—a story about Noah’s Ark! Imagine saying that to someone on a train. Someone who says, ‘What are you working on, there, if I may ask?’”

  “Life can be quite odd, can’t it?”

  “You know what I noticed? I noticed that one thing you really loved—it always cracked you up—was the kinds of temper tantrums Noah had. In Mark’s stories. You know, how he’d come all unhinged.”