“I have a present for you,” he whispered, reaching for the knapsack. He rolled up on his elbow.
“I have everything I need right here,” she said.
“Close your eyes.”
She stared curiously at him.
“Do it,” he repeated.
“Okay, okay.”
His cool hand fumbled with the zipper of her jeans until they were open in a V. Finally, she thought. She could think of nothing better than being at the brink, dilated, ready to spill over.
He rolled back her shirt, exposing her belly to the air. She felt a rush of goose bumps as his tongue, dry and scaly, circled her navel. He drooled saliva onto her skin and mixed it with a paste that felt like crushed sea urchins in glacial melt water.
“What IS that?!” she shrieked.
He shushed her and insisted she keep her eyes closed. “This is serious,” he said. “I want you to imagine a baby in there.”
It was more erotic than any fantasy she could imagine. She let her body go limp and followed his instruction the way she followed his commands in bed—without question. She pictured a nebulous spirit, a kind of benevolent raven working to release the flood of her loins.
Joanasi ordered her to shut off her thoughts and to be hungry the way an animal is hungry. “You have to want it,” he said.
She pictured squatting over the rocky tundra, her belly carrying the weight of the moon, an immense tidal wave rolling through her, gathering momentum, pushing against her uterine walls. She thought of intense pain and then respite and the flooding heat of a baby’s head against her blue-veined breasts, a boy, Joanasi’s boy. Joanasi continued talking her through it, but she wasn’t listening to him anymore. She was in a world of her own imagining, the shaman arriving to place a miniature ivory carving of a whale inside the infant’s mouth, good luck for his life as a hunter. When she opened her eyes, the warm light of the sun had dried the mystical paste on her belly.
“For you and me,” he said, scraping the desiccated remains into his cupped palm. He dug a small hole where the earth was soft and poured it in, covering it over with moss.
The air was pressing down on her. Bloated with desire, Yasmeen could hardly sit up. She would have done anything for him, without the slightest reservation, if it made him happy. If it were the old days when the Inuit had more than one woman, she would have shared him around. She would have joyfully watched him put his seed into another if it meant populating the tribe with more of him. “I need you,” she said, guiding his hand all the way inside her. “I need you to stop talking and do it to me.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Joanasi crammed every kind of loving he could imagine into their final week together. He wanted to make doubly sure that by the time she got on the plane, they had a baby growing inside her. His light-filled smile returned and he acquired a spring in his step. He put a stop to the excesses, dropped down to three cigarettes a day, stayed sober and was better on the radio than he had ever been. There were no empty promises, no resolutions to do better. There wasn’t a need for them. Once he put his mind to it, his volatile behaviour became a thing of the past. He was even cordial to Elliot.
She pitched out the wall calendar, each day an unhappy reminder that their time was running out. She rid her mind of all previous misunderstandings, the fights, the toll that the fire and Paulussie’s senseless death had taken on their relationship. They concentrated on getting the feeling back again. They made love two and three times a day in whatever part of the house they were in when the urge struck, kitchen, bathroom, leaning against a wall. Before they knew it, it was her last night in Saqijuvik.
Sam offered to host the farewell bash. She decorated her place with streamers and the leftover paper lanterns from Elliot’s Christmas party and strung up a large poster wishing everyone a Happy Summer. With the extended hours of daylight and the night sky as bright as a coin, she had to tape black garbage bags to her windows to create a party atmosphere and ensure privacy.
Iris looked more buoyant than Yasmeen had seen her all year. Golf sweater tied around her neck, she managed the potluck dishes as they arrived, inventive casseroles and salads and desserts people had thrown together to use up the last ingredients in their fridges and pantries. She transferred cans of beer into the fridge, filled bowls with pretzels and chips. Her demeanor spoke volumes. “I’m so glad it’s over,” she said.
Yasmeen was certain Iris’s floors were already swept, her luggage tagged and waiting by the door. What a waste of a year in someone’s life, she thought. She poked her head into the fridge for a couple of beers, swinging the door shut with her hip. “Sorry you feel that way.”
“Well, I didn’t always. I really loved my time in Chimo. But this place ….” She shook her head. “This place is something else.”
“Oh, come on, Iris. Can’t you at least pretend to enjoy your last day?”
Iris removed her glasses and looked Yasmeen in the eye. “I just don’t believe in the work we’re doing anymore. To be frank, I think we’re failing miserably.”
Yasmeen shrugged. “Well, I don’t agree. I can list a ton of locals who’ve done well here.”
Iris put her glasses back on. “Yes, that’s what I told myself my first couple of years. But I was wrong. Why not save yourself the trouble and benefit from my experience?”
Bailey darted into the kitchen, frightened away by the loud music and dancing in the living room. Yasmeen shoved past Iris with her beer bottles, bending down to comfort the dog. “I don’t think I want to have this conversation with you.”
“You’re a smart girl, look around you.”
“I suppose you’re talking about Tommy and Joanasi?” She gave Bailey an affectionate pat and stood up.
“Well, am I wrong?”
Yasmeen refused to engage. Iris was too cynical, a bitter old maid who drank soft drinks and wore cushioned orthopedic shoes with little breathing holes in the sides, someone who’d forgotten what it was to dream and love somebody. She felt sorry for her.
It didn’t seem to matter to Iris whether or not Yasmeen was listening. She continued with her lecture anyway. “We coop them up in desks and make them pass exams in subjects that are completely irrelevant, meanwhile they can’t build igloos anymore.” She stared into the bottom of her glass. “One day you’ll see it. I’m sure.” The light in her eye changed abruptly. She forced her mouth into an awkward smile.
Yasmeen spun around and saw that Joanasi was standing there.
“Aippaq, I missed you.” He took the beer bottles from her hands and stood them on the counter. He cupped her chin and tilted her face up toward his.
“Nalligivagit,” she murmured in a syrupy voice, pressing her hips against him. She rolled her tongue into his mouth and moaned with delicious excess, relishing Iris’s discomfort, the defeated setting down of her glass, the unlatching of the door to flee as far from them as she could.
•
A week earlier there had been another party, a surprise for Yasmeen. Joanasi kept telling her not to blow off her last sewing circle but she insisted she’d rather spend the whole day in bed with him trying to make their baby. He kept at her. “No, go, it’s important, I’m sure little Joanasi is already in there.” He patted her belly. Afterwards, she understood what all the fuss was about.
She made a point of arriving early since Annie was hosting and with all that had gone on in the village since the fire and the funeral and all her effort trying to patch things up with Joanasi, she hadn’t been much of a friend to her. Yasmeen called and asked if they could get together over coffee, before the others showed up.
Annie was glad to see her. Her wounds were healing nicely, though she was experiencing excruciating headaches.
Yasmeen hugged her and asked how she was doing besides all that. Annie told her she was looking forward to her boyfriend getting released from prison in a year or so.
Her son missed him terribly and was starting to act out. She made a sideways movement with her head indicating that both her kids were in the back room sleeping so they could have a real visit without any interruptions.
“Coffee?”
“Sure,” said Yasmeen.
“How’s our Joanasi?”
Yasmeen smiled with her whole body. “Good … very good.”
“Well, that’s a good news.”
Yasmeen watched her pour boiling water over the instant coffee crystals in their cups. She wanted to ask how Annie forgave her boyfriend so quickly but held back, hoping she would come forward on her own. She didn’t. They talked about little things instead, the new wool at the Co-op, the latest donation of fresh meat to the community freezer, whose boats were getting ready to leave for the summer. Annie showed Yasmeen a pair of beaded earrings she had made and offered them to her at a good price.
The women started arriving in dribs and drabs, all empty-handed, without their usual sewing satchels. Only Pasha came carrying a small cloth shoulder bag. They congregated in the kitchen until most of them arrived and then Annie clapped her hands and ushered everyone into the living room where she had cleared away the mattress to make enough room for chairs and a small coffee table. Women yattered to each other while Annie came and went from the kitchen with trays of coffee and a hodgepodge of spoons, creamers and sugar packets. The meeting seemed generally disorganized until Pasha began rummaging through her bag rather noisily, a sort of signal for everyone to stop talking. Right on cue, Joanasi walked in wearing his black leather jacket and sunglasses angled upwards on his head. All eyes turned to him. He shrugged his shoulders at Yasmeen, pretending not to know what was happening. After a prolonged, exaggerated search through her bag, Pasha pulled out an ulu and presented it to Yasmeen, and Annie started everyone off clapping. Stunned, Yasmeen hugged her and Pasha sat back down and cleared her throat to say a few words in Inuktitut, which Annie translated into halting English.
Yasmeen mouthed her thanks to Joanasi. Arms crossed, he nodded and smiled proudly. She turned her attention back to the gift, running her fingers along the smoothness of the metal blade. She marvelled at the beautifully carved handle. Eyes damp with thanks, she bowed her head at each of the women.
Later that night she and Joanasi lay on their stomachs after making love, legs intertwined. She told him how much the gift had meant to her.
“My mom likes you,” he said. “She didn’t at the beginning, but now she does.”
Yasmeen tried hard not to smile. She didn’t want to let on how secretly pleased she was that she had won them over. “What changed her mind?”
“She sees you. She sees the real you.”
“I love your mother, I love your family, I love everyone who’s related to you, even the ones I don’t know yet.”
He leaned in and kissed her with his tongue. She could have had him inside her again, but he wanted to tell her a story. “My great-grandfather gave my great-grandmother her ulu as a wedding gift. A real old fashioned one with a sharp stone blade and a carved handle made out of caribou antler.” His voice shook a little as he spoke. “When she died, they buried her with it like they used to in those days, so it didn’t get passed on. My mother was very sad about it.”
“My father used to buy my mother purses every birthday and Christmas but she never liked them.”
He furrowed his brow as though he had never heard of such a strange custom, giving people gifts they didn’t want. “Why didn’t she just tell him?”
“Well,” she said. “You had to know my father. He was in the accessories business. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t check out a store window or the newspaper ads to see what was what in the fashion world.” She saw that Joanasi still looked bewildered and realized she hadn’t really answered his question. “So, there was this purse guy he used to meet for lunch and every time, the purse guy would tell him he had a real deal for him, rock bottom prices, at those prices he was almost giving them away.”
Joanasi shrugged.
“You have to understand, my dad could never resist a bargain, sometimes he’d buy two or three at once and stash them away. One year, every woman in my family got a purse.”
“I don’t really—”
“What it means,” she said, “is that my mother could never hurt him; he was a salesman, that’s who he was. Selling accessories was at the very core of his being. She loved him for who he was, even though sometimes it was really hard, like at the end.”
Abbey Road had stopped playing and they’d been talking straight through the silence for who knew how long, maybe an hour or two. He noticed that she was sniffling and used the pads of his fingers to wipe her eyes.
“I don’t know if they ever had our kind of love.”
“Those ladies, they didn’t give you that ulu just to be nice,” he said.
•
There was no sign of the plane yet. But it was coming. She couldn’t imagine how it would be, the leaving part, knowing they’d be separated for eight long weeks. At the airstrip, they clung to each other. Yasmeen wondered how she would feel the next day and the next, waking up in her old bed, sad and alone. “Don’t go,” he begged, rheumy-eyed. “You don’t have to go. How will I live without you?”
She bonked him on the head with her glove. “Don’t be silly,” she said in her most reassuring voice. Secretly she loved that he was making a big deal of her departure. It made them special in a world that wanted everyone to feel small and ordinary.
Eyelid twitching, he lit a cigarette.
“What’s a couple of months when we have our whole lives ahead of us?” She heard the false note in her voice, thin and reedy.
“Maybe we don’t have to wait until August, maybe I can visit you this summer.” He looked gravely at her. “I have money.”
The idea came out of nowhere. It brought a flood of panic. Joanasi visit? There wasn’t a way in hell it could work. How would she explain her “Eskimo” lover to a mother intent on marrying her off to a Syrian boy with a promising future, a lawyer or doctor or dentist? How would Yasmeen ever have the courage to tell her about all that Joanasi gave her?
All what? her mother would want to know, shaking her head in disbelief. What could there be from a man who barely had an education? No way would Samiyah ever let him put a toe in Yasmeen’s bedroom. Maybe she’d agree to a cot in the basement, set up beside the laundry room. A decent woman with Christian values, she would never turn away anyone who arrived on her doorstep, especially a friend of her children. But she’d be a cold bitch about it while he was around, distantly polite, disgusted down deep. She’d convince the aunts he was an interesting artefact, just a girl’s frivolous whim, not to be taken seriously, and certainly not for the long haul.
The fact that Joanasi was a good provider, that he embodied the wholesome values of home and family, wouldn’t have made a difference to her mother. She would have only seen somebody unsuitable, someone from outside their social class, outside their world.
Just thinking about it infuriated Yasmeen. It was poisoning her last minutes with him. If Joanasi was willing to come, she wasn’t going to stop him. She’d just have to find them a secret oasis. “I could get us a hotel room,” she proposed enthusiastically. “A luxury suite where they turn down your bed sheets and leave foil-wrapped squares of European chocolate on the pillows. Something classy. I think after everything we’ve been through we deserve it, don’t you?”
He half-smiled as though he were trying to figure out why the scenario suddenly included a hotel when she had a good home with a family they could stay with.
“We could have bubble baths and order room service and then take a calèche ride through Old Montreal. Now, that would be romantic.” She imagined being downtown with her erotic hunter, spreading their scent, a signal to everyone that they were more than just hot in bed, they were insa
tiable. Yasmeen wanted the envy of other women, she wanted the monopoly on love. “If you visit, we’ll drive up to the mountain when the city’s all lit up at night. You’ll see how gorgeous it is.”
He slid his tongue into her mouth. “Nalligivagit.”
The airstrip hummed with energy as people hugged and shook hands and noisy four-wheelers pulled up with last- minute boxes and suitcases to load. Yasmeen looked up as the plane flashed into view, a silver bullet of light in the sky. She wiped a tear away.
Joanasi tried to lighten the mood, teaching Yasmeen a new phrase in Inuktitut, but she couldn’t concentrate. She swatted something away from her ear and Joanasi reminded her she was lucky to be missing the black flies.
The plane cast its ominous silhouette over the runway as it came in for the landing. It bumped along the mud and stones, driving gusts of wind, gradually decelerating until it got to the end of the airstrip, turned a half-circle and taxied back.
Elliot helped the pilots load up while passengers hurried to get on. Joanasi rested a hand on her belly. “Maybe, just maybe, there’s a baby in there,” he said. She wanted him to be right.
The twirling propellers coughed a swirl of dust. Everyone except Yasmeen had already boarded. Glancing up at the plane, she saw Sam’s camera lens aiming through the window. She was mouthing for Yasmeen to smile. Yasmeen ignored her and the intrusive camera. She kissed Joanasi’s soft, warm mouth, their coats flapping in the noisy wind of the plane. The co-pilot waved impatiently at her, waiting to pull up the steps. Yasmeen pried herself away but Joanasi grabbed her by the collar one last time and wrapped her in his arms. He wouldn’t let go. “Don’t,” she said, “don’t make it harder,” and she wriggled away and climbed on board without looking back.
TWENTY-FIVE
July, I don’t know what
Dear Aippaq,
This place is a ghost town when you’re not around. It’s like I don’t know anyone from here. I don’t see anyone. All I care about is you. You’re so beautiful, I can’t forget about you. I miss going to parties with you. I really miss having sex with you. Paingupagit.
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