‘Mary-Ann picked them,’ said Akesuk. It sounded like an invitation for him to make himself at home.
‘Thank you, but I…I think it would be better if I stayed at the hotel.’
He expected his uncle to be hurt, but Akesuk regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Would you like a drink?’ he said.
‘I don’t drink.’
‘Nor do I. We usually have fruit juice with our meal. Would that suit?’
‘Yes, please.’
Akesuk poured two glasses, and they took their drinks to the balcony. His uncle lit a cigarette. Mary-Ann had announced that the dinner wouldn’t be ready for at least another quarter of an hour.
‘I’m not allowed to smoke in the house,’ said Akesuk. ‘That’s what happens when you marry. I’d smoked in the house all my life. But I guess it’s better this way. Smoking isn’t good for you, but it’s hard to give up…’ He laughed and drew the smoke into his lungs with obvious pleasure. ‘Let me guess. You don’t smoke, boy, do you?’
‘No.’
‘And you don’t drink. That’s good.’
For a while they gazed out at the mountain ridge with its gullies of snow. Wisps of cloud shimmered high above, while ivory gulls soared in the sky then swooped down.
‘How did he die?’ Anawak asked.
‘Dropped dead,’ said Akesuk. ‘We were on the land. He saw a hare and started to chase it. He just collapsed.’
‘You brought him back?’
‘His body.’
‘Did he drink himself to death?’ Even Anawak was shocked by the bitterness in his voice. Akesuk gazed past him towards the mountains and wreathed himself in smoke.
‘He had a heart-attack. That’s what the doctor said in Iqaluit. He didn’t do enough exercise and he smoked too much. He hadn’t touched a drop in ten years.’
The caribou stew was delicious. It tasted of his childhood. Seal soup, on the other hand, had never appealed to him, but he took a large helping. Mary-Ann watched in satisfaction. Anawak did his best to revive his Inuktitut, but the result was embarrassing: he kept stumbling over the words, so they talked mainly in English, discussing the events of the past few weeks, the rampaging whales, the catastrophe in Europe, and all the other news that had penetrated as far as Nunavut. Akesuk assumed the role of interpreter. He tried to steer the conversation to Anawak’s father, but Anawak refused to be drawn. The burial would take place in the late afternoon at the little Anglican cemetery. The dead were buried quickly at this time of year, but in winter they were stored in a hut near the graveyard until the ground was soft enough to dig. The bodies kept for a surprisingly long time in the natural chill of the Arctic, but the hut had to be guarded with a gun. The lands of Nunavut were wild: wolves and polar bears had no qualms about eating humans, dead or alive, especially when they were hungry.
After their meal Anawak decamped to the Polar Lodge. Akesuk didn’t try to persuade him to stay. He fetched the flowers from the little bedroom and put them on the table. ‘You can always change your mind,’ he said.
Two hours remained until the funeral. Anawak didn’t leave his room, just lay on the bed and tried to sleep. He didn’t know what else to do. Of course, there were plenty of things he could have done. He could have found someone to take him to Mallikjuaq, or maybe walked there himself - Tellik Inlet was still frozen and would have carried his weight. Or he could have asked Akesuk. No doubt he would have been delighted to drag him around half of Cape Dorset and introduce him to everyone personally. In Inuit settlements everyone was family, either by blood or marriage, and a tour of Cape Dorset, the capital of Inuit art, would be like wandering round a vast exhibition. But to be shown round by Akesuk would have been too much like the return of the prodigal son, and he didn’t want anyone thinking that this was a homecoming. He was determined to maintain a safe distance. Allowing this world to get close to him would reopen old wounds. So instead he lay motionless on his bed, boring holes in the ceiling, until he finally dozed off.
His alarm clock roused him from his slumber.
As he stepped out of the Polar Lodge, the sun was already sinking on the horizon, but the sky was still bright. Across the frozen inlet, he saw Mallikjuaq, only a stone’s throw across the ice. The lodge was on the north-east periphery of Cape Dorset, and the cemetery was on the other side of town. Anawak looked at his watch. Plenty of time. He’d arranged to meet Akesuk and drive to the church in the truck. Next to the Lodge, on the street leading down to the sea, was the Polar Supply Store. On closer inspection Anawak realised that the shop also offered a delivery service, vehicle hire and car repairs. The building seemed familiar, but the sign was new, and when Anawak walked in he didn’t recognise the men behind the counter. They weren’t local. The shop was cosy and cluttered on the inside, and sold practically everything from dried caribou sausages to fur-lined boots. Towards the back there were stacks of prints and numerous sculptures. It wasn’t his world.
He went back out and wandered down the street towards town. An old man was sitting in front of his house on a wooden pallet, working on a sculpture of a loon. A little further down the road a woman was carving a falcon in white marble. They greeted him, and Anawak continued on his way, feeling their eyes on his back. The news of his arrival must have spread like wildfire. There wasn’t any need for anyone to introduce him: they all knew that the son of Manumee Anawak had arrived in Cape Dorset to bury his father. No doubt he’d already set tongues wagging by staying at the Lodge instead of at his uncle’s house.
Akesuk was waiting for him. It was only a few hundred metres to the Anglican church, but they drove. A crowd had gathered outside.
Anawak asked if the people were there because of his father.
Akesuk was astonished. ‘Of course. Why else would they come?’
‘I didn’t know that he had…that he had so many friends.’
‘These are the people he lived with. What does it matter if they were his friends? When a man dies, they all go with him on the final stage of the journey.’
The burial was short and unsentimental. Anawak had been obliged to shake hands with everyone before the ceremony. People whom he’d never set eyes on embraced him. The priest read from the Bible and said a prayer, then the body was lowered into a shallow hole, just deep enough to accommodate the coffin. A layer of blue plastic was placed on top, and the men dropped stones into the grave. The cross was askew in the hard ground, like all the other crosses in the graveyard. Akesuk pressed a small wooden box with a glass lid into Anawak’s hands. Inside were some faded artificial flowers, a packet of cigarettes and a metal-capped bear’s tooth. His uncle gave him a little shove, and Anawak walked obediently to the grave and set the box beside the cross.
Akesuk had asked whether he’d wanted to see his father one last time, but Anawak had declined. While the priest was still speaking, he tried to picture the man inside the coffin. It was hard to believe that anyone was in there at all. Suddenly he realised that the dead man would never do anything wrong again: his father was gone for ever. Guilt and innocence stopped mattering. Whatever he’d done or failed to do in his lifetime became meaningless now that his plain coffin was surrounded by cold earth. For Anawak it had long since ceased to matter anyway. The old man had been dead to him for so many years that the burial seemed an overdue formality.
He’d stopped trying to make himself feel anything. All he wanted was to leave. To go home. Where was home?
As the congregation began to sing, he experienced a sense of isolation. He was shivering, but it had nothing to do with the cold. He had thought of home and meant Vancouver or Tofino, but now he saw that it wasn’t true.
Anawak was staring into a black hole. His field of vision narrowed, and the world spun. Darkness swept over him, as powerful and inevitable as a wave. He was like an animal in a trap, forced to watch as the dark rushed towards him.
‘Leon.’
Panic coursed through him.
‘Leon!’
Akesuk had grabbed his arm.
Anawak stared in confusion at the wrinkled face and grey moustache.
‘Is everything OK, boy?’
‘No problem,’ he murmured.
‘Good God, you can barely keep upright,’ Akesuk said, full of sympathy. The mourners turned.
‘I’m OK, thanks, Iji.’
He could see what the others were thinking - and they couldn’t have been more wrong. They assumed that it was part of the ritual of bereavement. There was nothing unusual about collapsing at the grave of a loved one - even if you were an Inuk and too proud to let anything break your will.
Except maybe alcohol and drugs.
Anawak felt nauseous.
He turned and strode across the graveyard. When he reached the church and felt the road beneath his feet, he felt an urge to run; but he didn’t. Heart pounding, he paced up and down. He wouldn’t have known where to run to. None of the roads was marked for him.
He had an early dinner at the Polar Lodge. Mary-Ann had prepared a meal for them, but Anawak had told his uncle that he wanted to be on his own. The old man had nodded briefly and dropped him at the hotel. There had been a sadness in his eyes that wasn’t inspired by the thought of his nephew in silent communion with his father, as Anawak had led him to believe.
Hours went by, and Anawak lay on one of the twin beds in his room, staring at the TV. How could he survive another day in Cape Dorset without the memories overwhelming him? He’d booked the room for two nights because he’d assumed there’d be a will and other paperwork to deal with, but Akesuk had taken care of that already. There was no need for him to stay.
He decided to cancel the second night. He was bound to be able to get a flight to Iqaluit and, with a bit of luck, there’d be a spare seat on the plane to Montréal. From there he didn’t care how long he had to wait for his connection. There was plenty to see in Montréal, and it was far enough from this hellhole at the end of the earth…
Anawak was dreaming. He was in a plane, circling Vancouver, waiting for permission to land, but the control tower wouldn’t let them. The pilot turned to him.
‘They’re not going to let us land. Vancouver and Tofino are out of the question.’
‘Why?’ yelped Anawak.
‘We’ve made our enquiries. You don’t live anywhere near here. We’ve got no record of a Leon Anawak. Ground Control says I have to take you home. Where do you want me to go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You must know where your home is.’
‘Down there.’
‘Fine.’
The plane dipped, then banked around again. The city lights came into view, but only a scattering, too few for Vancouver. This wasn’t Vancouver. There were ice floes drifting on dark water, and a marble mountain range beyond the town.
They were landing in Cape Dorset.
Suddenly he was in his childhood home, and there was a celebration - his birthday. Some of the local kids had been invited, and his father suggested a race in the snow. He gave Anawak an enormous package tied clumsily together. It was his only present, and it was precious, he said. ‘You’ll find everything in there that you’ll need in life,’ he explained. ‘But you must carry it with you while we’re running.’
Anawak tried to balance the enormous parcel on his head, steadying it with both hands. They went outside, and as the white snow glistened in the darkness, a voice whispered to him that he had to win the race or the others would kill him. At night they were wolves and would rip him to pieces. He had to reach the water first, had to run before they caught him.
Anawak began to weep. He cursed his birthday, because he knew that soon he would grow up, and he didn’t want to grow up and be torn to pieces. Digging his fingers into the parcel, he started to run. The snow was deep and he sank into it. It reached his hips, scarcely allowing him to move. He glanced back but no one was running with him. He was on his own. Only his parents’ house was visible behind him, with the door closed and the lights out. A cold moon shone down from above, and suddenly it was deathly still.
Anawak wondered whether he should return to the house, but everyone seemed to have left. It looked eerie and forbidding. There was no one to be seen in the frozen moonlit night, and not a sound. He remembered the wolves, waiting to eat him alive. Were they in the house? Had the party ended in a bloodbath? It didn’t seem possible. In a mysterious way Cape Dorset and the house seemed to defy the laws of nature. This was where they had gathered for his birthday; but now it was a distant future or an even more distant past. Or maybe time had stood still and he was looking at a frozen universe hostile to life.
Fear won out. He turned away from the house and trudged towards the water. The wharf belonging to the real Cape Dorset had vanished, and the ice led directly to the sea. His parcel was getting smaller all the time, so small that he could carry it in one hand, and in a few steps he was at the edge.
Rays of moonlight shimmered on the dark waves and the drifting slabs of ice. The sky was studded with stars. Someone was calling his name. The faint voice was coming from a snowdrift, and Anawak moved forward until he was close enough to see. Two bodies, dusted with snow, lay side by side. His parents. They were staring at the sky with empty eyes.
I’m a grown-up now, he thought. It’s time to open the parcel.
He examined it on the palm of his hand.
It was tiny. He began to unwrap it, but there was nothing inside, only paper. He tore away the crinkled sheets, discarding layer after layer, until the parcel was gone and so were the fallen bodies of his parents, leaving him alone on the edge of the ice, with the dark waves beyond.
A mighty hump parted the water and sank down.
Anawak turned his head slowly. He saw a small, shabby house, a shack made of corrugated iron. The door was open.
His home.
No, he thought. No! Tears came to his eyes. This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be his life. It wasn’t where he belonged. It couldn’t end like this.
He crouched in the snow and stared at the hut, weeping uncontrollably, in the grip of a nameless misery. His sobs almost burst his chest, echoing in the sky, filling the world with lamentation, a world in which no one existed but him.
No. No!
Then the light.
Anawak sat upright in bed. The display on his alarm clock read 2:30 a.m. His tongue was sticking to his palate so he got up and went to the minibar. He reached for a Coke, opened it and drank. Then, clutching the can, he went to the window, opened the curtains and looked out.
The hotel was on a hill overlooking Kinngait and parts of the neighbouring hamlets. It was a clear and cloudless night and a nocturnal half-light steeped the houses, tundra, snowfields and sea in an improbable shade of reddish-gold. It was never truly dark at this time of year: the contours just softened and the colours mellowed.
All of a sudden he saw its beauty. He looked in wonder at the sky, then let his eyes roam over the mountains and the bay. The frozen seascape of Tellik Inlet shimmered like molten silver, while Mallikjuaq Island rose up from the water like a slumbering whale.
What now?
He remembered how he had felt at the Station with Shoemaker and Delaware, his sense of alienation, from Davie’s, Tofino, and everything around him. How he had seemed to be missing some inner space to protect him from the world. Something decisive had been on the horizon, of that he had been certain. He had waited, elated and fearful, as though an extraordinary change would sweep over him.
Instead his father had died.
Was that it, then? The event that would change everything? His return to the Arctic to bury his father?
He had far greater challenges to deal with. Right now he was facing one of the greatest that mankind had ever seen. Just him and a few other people. Yet it had nothing to do with his life. His life had a different framework, in which tsunamis, climate disasters and plagues had no place. His father’s death had pushed his own life into the foreground and now Anawak felt, in Nunavut, a chance to reclaim it.
Aft
er a while he got dressed, pulled a fur-lined hat down over his ears and walked into the moonlit night. He had the streets to himself. He roamed the town until a wave of tiredness engulfed him, then returned to the warmth of the hotel room, and was asleep before his head had hit the pillow.
The next morning he called Akesuk. ‘How about breakfast?’ he asked.
His uncle seemed surprised. ‘We’ve just sat down here. I thought you’d be busy.’
‘OK. No problem.’
‘Hold on - we’ve only just started. Why don’t you come over? There’s scrambled eggs and bacon.’
‘Great.’
The plateful with which Mary-Ann presented him was so large that Anawak felt full before he started, but he still dug in. A smile spread across her face, and he wondered what Akesuk had told her. He must have found a good reason for Anawak to have turned down their offer of supper last night. She didn’t seem in the least offended.
It felt odd to grasp the hand that Akesuk and his wife had extended to him. It pulled him back into the family. Anawak wondered whether it was a good thing. The magic of the moonlit night had vanished now and he was far from making peace with Nunavut.
After breakfast Mary-Ann cleared the table and went shopping. Akesuk twiddled with the dials on his transistor radio, listened for a while and said, ‘IBC is forecasting mild weather for the next few days. You can’t rely on it entirely, of course, but even if it’s only half true, it’ll be good enough for us to go out on the land.’
‘You’ve got a trip planned?’
The Swarm: A Novel Page 63