In my dream, I felt pleased that Sedna had gotten her revenge (even if innocent villagers had lost their homes), and I looked about, Inge, wondering if you agreed with me and were also pleased by Sedna’s actions; but you weren’t anywhere to be seen. I slid the box of books back under the sofa and got up to stretch my legs. These books are full of stolen stories, I thought, and that’s why they’re hidden under the sofa. (I’m not quite sure what I meant, in my dream, by the word “stolen.” Here, in Frobisher Bay, I feel like an intruder, not quite a thief but almost. I’m sorry that I went into your room without asking, all those years ago. I’ve just read a very disturbing book—a short one, the right length for me—that I bought here. But I’ll tell you about that another time.)
I wanted to leave, to escape the room with its sofa and its books filled with stolen stories. What was I waiting for? I opened the window and stuck out my head; the fog had been replaced by wind. I was waiting for the wind to die down. Once the sea quieted, I would be taken by boat up the fjord to begin my long walk into the interior (in my dream I seemed to know I was going on a hike).
I waited. Again, I looked out the window. Snow was falling. For three days it snowed ceaselessly. I grew tired of crackers and coffee. I left the room. I walked out of Pangnirtung (tomorrow I’ll see how the real Pangnirtung compares with my dream of it!) and climbed a nearby hill.
Behind the hill, I walked farther. The snow continued to fall. Two quickly disappearing sets of boot prints were headed out across the land. I followed as best I could, and soon I saw a young couple trudging through the blowing drifts.
This story, Inge, the last in my dream, I’ve no recollection of reading but I’m just as sure it’s not my invention. Is “alliok” a word you know?
The woman trudging through the snow was pregnant. She stopped and crouched down. Against the edge of a snowbank, she gave birth to twins. She and her husband spoke together. She hadn’t eaten in days and her breasts had dried up. “You cannot feed our infants,” said her husband. “They must stay here.” The woman and her husband dug a hole in the snow, placed the twins in the hole, and continued on their way. I followed. For a long time they trudged through the deep drifts. I did as they did, straining to overhear the few words they exchanged. They hoped to reach, quite soon, a camp where they might be given some food. I looked over my shoulder and saw the twins emerging from their hole, as one creature. The creature had short legs and arms, a wide mouth filled with sharp teeth.
An alliok—the word came to me, Inge (from one of your tapes?). An alliok had entered the twins. The creature bounded through the snow until it caught up with its parents; then it jumped into the air. The alliok landed on the heads of its parents and stomped until the man and woman lay dead. I turned quickly away from the horrible scene. I plodded on through the deepening snow. As I approached a group of houses that I felt must be Pangnirtung, bright headlights and the roar of a snowmobile rushed toward me out of the whiteness.
What do you make of all this, Inge?
Last summer, on yet another trip back to Germany, I wasted several days in Tettnang, unpleasantly hot days under a searing July sun, asking questions, hoping to uncover some piece of information perhaps overlooked on my last visit.17 Exhausted by the weather and jet lag, I imagined that Heinrich might suddenly appear on Kirchstrasse or in the garden beside the Schloss. Nothing. I got in my rented car and drove off.
In Friedrichshafen, I stopped for gas and noticed a small furniture store on the opposite side of the road. As it was Sunday, I nearly didn’t cross over, quite certain the store would not be open. There was a sudden lull, however, in the flow of cars and trucks. I crossed the road. I turned the handle of the shop door and stepped inside. Immediately the owner tried to interest me in a lamp. It was made of brass, in the shape of a donkey’s head. I told him I did not want a lamp. A box of papers caught my eye. The papers were not for sale. FORSTER METZGEREI—Forster Butcher’s Shop—in bold blue letters was printed on the box, and in smaller red letters: KIRCHSTRASSE 1, 88069 TETTNANG. I offered to buy the lamp if the owner would throw in the box of papers. He agreed. Several minutes later, seated in my parked car, I let out a yelp of joy. Heinrich’s letter to Inge. The long letter that he sent her from Iqaluit—there it was.
How do I define pleasure? The search for, and wondrous discovery of, each new artifact? Decipher, elaborate, speculate, turn upside down, reconsider, arrange, classify. Am I leading an irresponsible life, given how little time is left? Storms decimate one coast after another, while inland, tornados and earthquakes devastate. But what if my research leads successfully to Heinrich? My archive now includes the letter he sent to Inge from Baffin Island, several of the sporadically legible notebooks that he kept during his long hike, and much else. That these documents, however fragmentary, have survived is remarkable. That I’ve acquired them further astonishes me. Were someone else to delve into my archive, they might tell Heinrich’s story differently than I do, what they’d want from Heinrich would be different. What I want from Heinrich is immense. Something immense is required and time is short.
13 That he explored those very rooms where I spent so many hours in the company of my father makes me smile. I picture Heinrich peering through the glass of the huge case that encloses the mammoth tusks, and I feel that we have already met and that surely we will meet again.
14 Only last year did I succeed in purchasing a copy of this out-of-print academic work. Possibly, by traveling to Chicago, I could have consulted a copy earlier, had the University of Chicago granted me access to one of their libraries, one with a copy in its collection; but the expense of yet another trip felt unjustifiable and the prospect of more travel made me anxious.
15 Had the young anarchist who worked at the hostel in Toronto not been on duty that afternoon, over two years ago, when I turned up asking about Heinrich; had she not, a few days earlier, slipped several of Heinrich’s notebooks into a drawer when the police came looking for information about him; had she, the young anarchist, not decided to entrust me with his notebooks, would they have been recycled or become landfill by now? I don’t know why she gave them to me. I am exceedingly grateful to her.
16 The Inuktitut word for “camera.”
17 So often my parents urged me to visit them in Munich and I delayed, reluctant. Now that they are gone, Heinrich lures me there regularly.
PART THREE
Auyuittuq
Land That Never Melts
1
The Longer I Wander
July 6, 1980
I thought of Inge. I woke in the morning and immediately thought of her. She did not want to come to this place.
I stood looking down at the quiet arm of the sea where slabs of bright ice were drifting. The air felt crisp and clear. Mosquitoes gathered on my arm and crowded around my head, one flew into my open mouth, then the breeze lifted the rest of them away.
Last night, I pitched my tent on a wooden platform in the campground behind the town. Night never came. Instead, teenagers came, loud, on three-wheeled machines. They brought old packing crates. Outside my tent, they left their machines and continued on foot, lugging the awkward crates along the narrow path that winds between clumps of heather, overlooking the turbulence of a river. “Are you going to make a fire?” I asked. “Yes,” they nodded.
The river raced and frothed, down through the settlement and into the sea. The bungalows sat, as if by accident, along the broad, unpaved roads. How would Inge respond to this place? Heinrich wondered. Pale dust from the road had settled on the snowmobiles that waited for winter, in the grass between the houses. It was a place of accidents. The same dust coated the crushed pop cans, plastic bags, torn clothes, battered strollers, discarded toys, scraps of metal and old carpet lying in ditches, under back stairs, in babbling brooks of clear glacial water. Footpaths led out onto the land.
The startling cotton grass. Heinrich couldn’t take his eyes off its whiteness. As for the ice down on the shore, it wasn’t white
but turquoise—enormous pieces of it, sculpted by the sea, then stranded at low tide. The ice lured him down onto the mud and rocks, and when he got close enough the slabs of ice became eight and ten feet tall. Every hollow glowed turquoise. Heinrich peered into the narrowest slits and these were filled with an altogether different light, with a blue intensity he’d only ever come upon in the tiny alpine flowers called gentians, and in the lapis lazuli earrings worn by his mother. He wandered, slipping on the mud, regaining his balance among the slowly melting giant forms carved in shades of blue.
In his notebook, he wrote:
July 6, 1980
The park warden stands very straight, his hands behind his back. He is comfortable observing me. Several minutes pass before he decides to speak:
“Before you go off into the park, there are a few things you should know.”
I wait. I would like to know all he is willing to tell me. This room, where he’s brought me to sign the necessary forms, is full of maps and records. I was counting on Jeremy to be my guide. Now I must count on this man, the warden. I can do nothing without his help and consent. He is arranging for a fisherman to take me by boat up the fjord so that I can begin my walk. But he is not yet ready to tell me what to expect in the park.
“I was born on the land, brought here as a boy. They made us come here, to Pangnirtung, so it would be easier to teach us, and to offer us medical treatments.”
He watches me, to see what I think of his explanation. The amusement in his eyes suggests he is willing to offer me a different explanation, if I like; that there is no single story, and which story I choose to believe does not matter to him. He continues his tale.
The smile in his eyes acts like a paper cut; at first I feel nothing. My discomfort in his presence is the only measure I have of what I imagine he has lost. He uses silence to make his incisions. I am standing before a surgeon. He says that in the park I can expect winds traveling at over one hundred kilometers per hour, or no wind at all. There will be blowing sand, or perhaps blowing snow. I will not see a polar bear, but if I do, I must avoid it. Right now, the bears are busy, along the coast, hunting for seal. In the valley there is very little for them to eat—arctic hare, arctic fox. If I do see a bear, I must not attract the bear’s attention, but once the bear notices me, and approaches, which could happen, I must make as loud a noise as possible. Guns are not allowed in the park. I am to be ready, on the rocks behind the visitors’ center, in an hour’s time. I hold out my hand and we shake hands, though I’m not sure why. It is possible we will never see each other again. A man named Joavee, the warden explains, will come in his boat and take me up the fjord to the mouth of the valley.
Once more Heinrich rummaged through the contents of his backpack, removing anything that he could do without, determined to carry as little as possible. He was glad his mother could not see how lightly he was packing. That he was discarding so much might have frightened her, and this pleased him. He felt free of her. Of Inge’s approval he could be certain; spareness delighted Inge. On a long hike, what mattered was not to be weighed down. He had the weight of twelve days’ worth of food, his tent, and other essentials. She would forgive him for leaving behind her gift, A Pocket Guide to Arctic Plants.
For the ride up the fjord, he extracted his down jacket, pulled it on, and was happy to have done so. The moment they separated from the shore, the air became bitterly cold, the boat navigating between drifting slabs of ice. On the mountain slopes grew dark patches of green, wild sorrel. “That,” said Joavee, pointing. “That plant is very good to eat.”
Too quickly, they reached the valley at the end of the fjord. He’d been enjoying the ride, the landscape sailing past while he sat and now and then turned his head, the wind tearing unsuccessfully at his hat and scarf.
Heinrich jumped onto the beach, and his backpack was handed out. Though this moment is not described in those pages of his notebooks that I possess I can picture it exactly, and have the impression I’ve seen it in a photograph. Once or twice, I’ve even gone meticulously through my archive, intent on locating a snapshot of the moment Heinrich’s journey truly began—a snapshot I feel ought to be there.
He waved goodbye to Joavee, who was eager to head off, away from the shallow river mouth while the tide remained high. There was nothing for Heinrich to do now but to walk. He followed the Weasel River.
Some considerable time later, the light in the sky became delicate, felt more distant, and shadows glided up the face of the mountains on what had to be the east side of the river. He had no compass. The proximity of the magnetic North meant that no compass could function reliably.
Heinrich consulted his watch, which confirmed that evening had arrived, and he set up camp and cooked his meal.
Several hours passed, according to his watch, and there remained an abundance of fragile light. Nonetheless, he crawled into his tent and lay down. He wanted to stay outside longer, to try to convince himself that his surroundings were real, that the staggering beauty of the valley was not imaginary, but whenever he sat still mosquitoes closed in and he was too tired to evade them; his lower back, his knees and feet felt too weary for him to keep moving.
Because it felt odd to stretch out in his sleeping bag when it wasn’t yet dark and would not become truly dark for at least another month, not until winter began its rapid return, he rolled up one of his shirts and used this to cover his eyes.
Shortly afterward, or perhaps many hours later, he woke and remembered that he was alone. He crawled out of his tent to check the weather, felt his watch in his pocket, retrieved it, and looked at it. It was morning. He made tea. Doing so warmed and occupied him. The immediacy and simplicity of the task alleviated his anxiety. Stiff but rested, he cut some bread and sprinkled it with sugar. There were no visible clouds in the sky. No storm was approaching. The river flowed beside him and his solitude pleased him.
Some peanut butter and a thick slice of sausage completed Heinrich’s breakfast. His excellent appetite confirmed that he’d been working hard the previous day, and this gave him satisfaction. He felt that he’d covered a fair distance since being dropped off, especially given the tricky terrain under his feet and the substantial weight on his back.
Confident, eager to move farther up the valley, to discover what lay hidden beyond the next bend, he washed his spoon, cup, and knife in the smooth-skinned river. The tug of the river’s concealed current told him how small he was.
He took out his camera and attempted to photograph his awe. Immediately he felt certain he’d failed, and he buried his camera deep in his pack, but he could not take his eyes off the river, nor could he stop thinking. An idea came to him. Again, he extracted his camera. He positioned the small apparatus, looked through the lens, and his idea failed. He’d brought only two extra rolls of film and he chastised himself. Another angle proposed itself.
Minutes, maybe two minutes later, when he looked through the lens he saw and caught the river’s secretive strength, then he put the camera away quickly between layers of clothing and food. He took down his tent, strapped it to his pack, which he swung up and onto his back. Within an hour, any separation between him and the act of walking disappeared. He felt he’d always been walking and would forever continue to do so.
Sometime later he glanced at his watch and saw that over two hours had passed since he’d broken camp. Around midday he rested and ate his lunch beside the river. He hungered to photograph the mountains but did not want to use up his film too quickly.
His days unfolded smoothly. The good weather held. He did not want rain, but its prolonged absence worried him. He might be asked to pay a high price for such extended good luck. But who was there to demand that he pay? Perhaps he would not have to pay, and his luck would simply continue.
When he needed or wanted to rest, he sat on a hummock of moss, other times on a boulder, on sand, on gravel, but always he sat beside the river, as it was always beside him.
In his journal he wrote, “Wou
ld Inge hate it here?”
Day after day the river flowed, and the valley slowly climbed, twisting with the river. When the protruding tongue of a glacier or the trembling of a small flower stopped him, then he wished that Inge or even Jeremy Burton were standing next to him on the path, that one of them might also look up and see the ice compressed into the shape of a whale’s tail, or peer down at the yellow petals of the arctic poppy, so finely cupping the warmth of the sun; but his were the only eyes, and he could not know if others would have seen what he saw. His true desire was for someone to feel exactly as he did, so perhaps it was best that the others were absent, leaving him free to imagine the precise quality of their delight.
The eyes of the animals were watching him, the fox and hares. They took great care not to reveal themselves. He guessed at their existence. When they’d left marks in the sand or mud, he crouched beside these proofs. When they’d left no marks, he imagined their presence.
The mountains thrust straight up on either side of the river. But because he had nothing against which to measure them he could only guess at their immensity; he could not fully perceive what he stood in the midst of. Later, however, he spotted an emergency shelter on the opposite bank, a tiny orange hut, crouched at the base of the rock face, and in that moment he understood that hugeness surrounded him.
The Search for Heinrich Schlögel Page 8