by Doug Walsh
“I remember waking up a several days’ paddle from here, in a village to the east. It looked different though. The buildings were larger and the canoes shone like colored glass. I don’t know how boats made of glass can last in these waters. So many rocks. And icebergs. A log will shatter them, no?” he said.
“Go on,” Kara said, trying to focus him.
Jean leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and stared into the fire, his eyes watering, reflecting the crackling flames, as the sloshing of the lake against the beach filled the temporary silence. “She wasn’t there.”
He answered Kara’s unspoken question in a whisper: “Claudette.”
The butterflies Kara felt earlier, alone behind a tree, returned, sent into a frenzy by the bolt of jealousy crackling through her. She couldn’t explain it, this man, a stranger, was nobody to her, yet she felt dominion over him. Kara wondered who Claudette was, how long they’d been together, and what Claudette looked like. If she was prettier. Kara gave a self-conscious glance at her chest and tugged the hem of her jacket as she pulled her shoulders back. She looked across to Jean-Benac and wondered if he saw the effect he was having on her. As if reading her mind, his lips split into a grin.
“Who’s Claudette?” Edward asked, brusquely, shimmying his seat closer to Kara’s as he spoke.
Kara cleared her throat and translated the question, hoping Edward wasn’t getting jealous.
Jean-Benac blushed as he looked from Edward to Kara, then took a deep, pitying breath. Claudette was his lover, one of the many girlfriends he had around the lake, but the only woman he hoped to marry. Until one day she made him choose between the canoe and her love. “How could I stay ashore? A voyageur’s heart belongs to the water.”
Kara gasped. Had he just referred to himself as a voyageur? There were plenty of similarities, she reminded herself, but the profession hadn’t existed for centuries. Kara considered the possibility of him being one of those history buffs who took their reenactments too far, but disregarded it. He looks lovesick.
“I went to her, to beg forgiveness, but her cabin was no longer there. Perhaps …” Jean-Benac devoured Kara with his eyes, taking in the whole of her with a slow, rising study. “She is here. Perhaps my Claudette has returned.”
“What is it? What did he say?” Edward demanded, an edge to his voice.
Kara ignored him, unwilling to lose the moment, refusing even to blink.
A hand clasped on Kara’s knee. It was Edward’s. He’d pulled his chair closer still—their knees were touching. “What did he say?”
“He had a girlfriend near here.”
“And—”
Jean-Benac reached to touch her hair, but Kara pulled her head back, suddenly feeling uncomfortable, sensing Edward’s dwindling patience. Jean-Benac offered Edward an apologetic look. He then spoke slowly, enunciating every syllable, as if willing Kara to understand him clearly. “Your hair is different. Your clothes are very strange. And you’re older, but I feel it. Here,” he said, placing his hands atop his heart. “I feel as I always did around you.”
A wave of warmth surged within her as she struggled to form a response.
But Jean gave her no time to speak. He turned abruptly to face Edward and spoke to him directly. “How did you know Kara was the one for you?”
Edward made a face, waiting for the translation.
“He wants to know how you knew I was the right one for you,” Kara said.
“I just knew. I guess you’d say it was love at first sight.” Edward spoke without hesitation, his tone devoid of passion, unlike the man across from her.
“Ah,” Jean-Benac said, smiling wide. “But sometimes we don’t only see our love with the eyes. Sometimes we see with our soul. It was the same for me. Then … and now.” He faced Edward as he spoke, but Kara knew those last two words were only for her. And she wasn’t about to offer a direct translation.
His words echoed in her mind as she admired the simple beauty of his comment, a theory that made her own feelings easier to comprehend. This man wasn’t much to look at, but there was something there, a connection that spawned a nervousness bubbling within her, an inability to look away, to breathe, or blink for fear the moment would end. She had experienced this sensation only once before, when she was first dating Edward. She remembered the anticipation before class, thrilling at the sight of him, every bit as sure he’d be there as she was terrified he wouldn’t. In truth, he was always the first to arrive, his jacket draped across the adjacent desk, reserving it for her. Yes, that was exactly how she felt now; the completeness she felt slipping into the chair beside Edward.
Kara was lost in her thoughts, theories rising to a point and disappearing, like the flames of the campfire. But one idea stuck with her: Maybe what people called love at first sight had nothing to do with the eyes, but an explosion of joy caused by their soul finding its mate.
Kara stared through the campfire haze at Jean-Benac as her mind dove back in time to her crush on Edward. The hand on her knee clamped down, pinching her. Yanked from her daydream, she turned. Her husband glared at her, his chest puffed out, nostrils flared. Edward rarely showed a trace of jealousy, but she liked it. She patted his hand and nodded.
“Tu dois partir,” Kara said, telling Jean he should go.
Edward and Kara put down their plates and rose with their guest. To Kara’s surprise, Jean wrapped an arm around Edward and leaned in to talk to him. “It’s okay, monsieur. I am happy for you. Take good care of my Claudette. Perhaps I will find myself another woman in Grand Portage. A younger one,” he shouted, clapping Edward on the back.
Kara fictionalized his words for Edward’s benefit, amused by Jean-Benac’s verve. He stepped to her, jolting the hairs of her neck. She needed him gone, now, knowing her feelings were so inexplicably wrong, but wishing them to continue forever.
“Your soul is as beautiful as ever.” He whispered in her ear ever-so-faintly as he kissed her cheek. Kara blinked the mist from her eyes and watched him leave, recognizing the couplet he sang on his walk back to the canoe.
“Now I wish those red roses were on their vine today, while I and my beloved still went our old sweet way.”
Chapter 14
Wednesday, May 6 — Rossport, Ontario, Canada
The canoe was gone come morning. Edward noticed its absence upon rising, happy to enjoy his breakfast of instant oatmeal and black coffee without interruption.
The sky reflected in the still waters of the lake, where small icebergs rafted about like coasters adrift on a glass coffee table. The conditions were perfect for paddling, he thought, recalling Jean-Benac’s journey to Grand Portage. But he didn’t like the looks of the clouds to the west. They had better get going.
Edward watched his mirror closely throughout the morning, on guard for trucks overtaking them on the too-narrow roadway. The Trans-Canada Highway was no place to ride a bicycle, at least not in Ontario. But they had no choice. With a near-impenetrable wall of pine flanking them, the route proved simultaneously stressful and monotonous. Worse still, the puffs of gray he watched grow large in his mirror soon darkened and opened.
Seeking a break from the rain, Edward and Kara stopped at a tiny resort community to warm up over a hot lunch. There, the waitress served up news that snow was burying the uplands to the east. And more was due overnight.
Outside the café, Edward spotted a phalanx of small cabins aligned near the beach. A sign said the property was closed for the season, but the lights in the main house were on. Edward and Kara crossed their fingers and rang the bell. Lucky for them, a retired widower had purchased the property last fall and, in his younger days, had cycled across Canada—and still remembered the generosity of the strangers he met along the way.
“I can open up one of the cabins for you. There’s no heat, but the water’s on. You’ll have to use your own bedding, though. I’m not quite ready for vacationers yet.”
“Thank you so much,” Kara said. “We really appreciate it.”
> “Happy to help. Come up to the house once you’re cleaned up. You can probably use a drink.”
By the time Kara and Edward unloaded their bikes and changed, the storm had intensified. Rain pelted the cabin’s tin roof while the lake seethed with whitecaps. Thirsty and wanting company, they sprinted for the main house as the wind swirled around them, whipping their rain pants and inflating their jackets like balloons.
Inside, decades-old travel brochures sat piled atop dusty furniture. The home more closely resembled an antique thrift shop than a rural lakefront home. Nevertheless, it was dry, and their host, Robert, was happy to dig up some cold beers for them. Edward joined Kara at the window, where she stood staring at the churning lake.
“Don’t be mad, but I can’t help worrying about Jean.” Kara said. “You think he’s okay?”
Edward bit the insides of his cheeks and took a deep breath. “He’s fine.”
“But look at it out there.”
“He probably made camp as soon as the storm came up. He might have taken some chances if he was in a kayak, with a spray skirt, but alone in a canoe—”
“You two know someone canoeing today?” Robert asked, handing them each a bottle of Molson.
“Thanks. Yeah, we ran into a guy last night in Nipigon. Said he was canoeing to Grand Portage.”
Robert scrunched up his face, as if he was trying to remember some forgotten detail. “Nipigon, you say?”
“Yep. Said his name was Jean-Benac,” Edward said it with the air of an aristocrat, “He only spoke French—”
“I translated for us,” Kara interrupted. “He joined us for dinner.”
“A red canoe, by chance?” Robert asked, his demeanor stiffening.
Edward and Kara nodded.
“And about this tall?” he said, holding his hand up.
“That’s the guy. Sounds like you know him.”
“Know him? That bastard stole my canoe! He showed up here back in February, naked and hollering, trying to break into one of the cabins. I was gonna call the police, but then I saw how cold and scared he was. February’s no time to be running around in your birthday suit. Got him a blanket and brought him inside. First time I tried using the translation app on my phone, but Google could barely make sense of his accent.”
Edward was about to speak, but forgot what he was going to say, knocked into silence upon hearing that Jean-Benac arrived naked, in February, just like the Blackfoot.
“They used to speak French here,” Kara said, flatly, turning back to the roiling lake.
Robert gave Kara a puzzled look, then said to Edward. “So he’s headed to Grand Portage? Guess I’ll have to drive down there and get my boat back. Ordered ten of them last month. Brand new. Kevlar. You should have seen him. I swear he acted like they descended from outer space.”
Edward could tell Kara was chewing on a question, and he had a hunch what it was.
“Anyway, I let him help out through the winter. He earned his keep splitting firewood and shoveling snow and the like. Strange guy. Acted like everything was new to him. I mean, forget the smart phone, plenty of people up here hadn’t seen one of those before, but the television, the lights, the refrigerator. At first I thought he was just pulling my leg, but nobody could keep up that kind of charade for a full month. Nah, I think it was genuine. Like he was frozen in time and just woke up,” he said, laughing.
The remark about him being frozen made Edward recall the blue glow he was so sure he had seen, but Kara cut off his line of thinking.
“Did he mention a woman named Claudette?” she asked, turning abruptly from the window.
Robert tilted his head and tapped his fingers against the beer bottle while he thought. “Come to think of it, he did. I didn’t understand much of what he said, but I do recall him yelling for someone named Claudette the night I found him. He sounded apologetic. Desperate, even.”
“He told us he woke up in a small town to the east where there used to be a few cabins.”
“I don’t know what to say. All the houses here are at least sixty years old, some more than a hundred.”
Edward listened attentively, storing away the information, not quite sure what to believe. Or how far to let his imagination run. But he was curious. “Any chance there are some older structures nearby. Maybe in the woods?”
“I hadn’t walked every inch of the property yet—the snow came pretty early this year—but I did spot what might be an old foundation in the woods out past the cabins. Used it for my leaf pile last fall.”
“Come on,” Kara said, zipping her rain jacket and flipping up the hood.
“Now? Kara, it’s pouring out.”
“Just come with me. I need to see it.”
Edward rolled his eyes and handed Robert his drink.
“You two go ahead. I’ll light a fire in the stove. I reckon you’ll need the warmth when you get back,” Robert said.
Outside, Edward jogged to keep pace with Kara as she strode across the grass behind the row of cabins lining the beach. He glanced at the barn as he passed and counted nine canoes identical to the one Jean-Benac had stolen.
Kara hesitated at the edge of the trees, leaning forward to keep the rain off her face.
“What are you looking for?”
She didn’t answer. Not at first. He watched her advance into the woods, stepping over fallen branches, brushing past the sopping wet undergrowth without notice. “There,” she pointed.
Dozens of rocks, chunks of granite the size of cinder blocks, were scattered about. Moss-covered and weathered, they had no doubt shifted with time, but their rectangular arrangement was clear. “Must be a hundred years old,” Edward said.
“At least.” Kara stepped around the ruins of the foundation, moving slowly, as if the ground was sacred.
He watched her go, following the orange of her jacket through the fog of his breath. She moved with a purpose, sweeping the ground back and forth, like a beachcomber with a metal detector. The scent of fire caught his attention. Behind him, a wisp of smoke spiraled out of the chimney.
Kara let out a startled scream, her voice wavering in the dampness of the forest.
“Kara?” Edward sprinted toward her, snatching a tree branch from the ground as he ran, fearing she’d startled a bobcat or, worse, a bear. He scanned the woods for obstacles and threats, seeing nothing. Nor did he hear a single noise beside the rapid footfalls of his shoes on the sodden ground and the panting of Kara’s breathing.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked as he closed on her.
She was trembling in place, her gaze locked on the ground, her hands tented over her mouth and nose.
Edward followed her stare to a lichen-stained tombstone leaning upon a boulder. The inscription, softened with age, but still legible read:
Voice le Corpse de
CLAUDETTE
Fille de Pierre Leblanc
Noyé le 1er octobre 1739
28 Ans
Chapter 15
Sunday, May 24 — Montreal, Quebec, Canada
For two weeks, their journey was marked with Inuksuit, rock cairns shaped like prehistoric men, guiding them across the vastness of Ontario, threading a path between the wilds of the lake’s northern shore and the cities to the south. To Edward, the days blurred together in a dripping mass of cold and rain, the monotony of the rolling hills broken only by the sight of a moose, the stench of roadkill.
Edward passed the time reflecting on his weekly phone calls to Tom. They were brief, as the older man maintained an air of the permanently distracted. Nevertheless, the Thursday check-ins gave Edward a purpose, a small taste of the accountability he thrived on—and craved. He didn’t know if it was even possible to cycle around the world in six months, but he was determined to try. And so he continued to dig deeper each day, pedaling further than before, hoping Kara wouldn’t object. Or think it suspicious.
Peak-a-boo views of Lake Superior provided daily reminders of Jean-Benac. For the second time in as man
y months they encountered someone who seemed of a different era, naked anachronisms along their path. Coincidence? Edward hoped so. But what about the tombstone? Edward wasn’t sure what Jean-Benac told Kara about Claudette—he suspected there was much she failed to translate that night around the campfire—but whatever it was, the sight of the grave seemed to strike her to the marrow, chilling her spirit. Edward shivered at the memory.
Days later, at an overlook above a cobbled beach fringed with lingering snow, she asked him how easily a canoe could be capsized.
“Thinking about Jean?” Edward said, careful of his tone.
She took a deep breath. “I keep imagining him tossing about in that storm, struggling to stay afloat.”
The comment reminded him of a dream he had at the cabin, steps from the grave marker. He was alone in heavy seas, aboard a canoe, as helpless as an untethered buoy. The wind and rain lashed his face as he clutched the gunwales with both hands, bracing himself, fighting to stay alive. Then everything went dark. He awoke from the dream with a jolt, shivering uncontrollably, gasping for air.
“I’m sure he’s okay,” he said, repeating the words he used that night by the window, believing them even less.
Spring greeted them a thousand miles east of their brush with Claudette’s grave, on a trail halfway between Ottawa and Montreal. Seemingly overnight, everything changed. The musty smell of forever-damp wool gave way to the floral essence of lilac-covered riverbanks and fences draped in honeysuckle. Narrow highway shoulders were replaced by the crushed gravel of Quebec’s network of bicycle trails. Even the insects were a welcome change after so many days spent trying to outpace the last vestiges of winter.
They stopped to camp at a trailside picnic area, on the eve of their arrival in Montreal. Edward sipped a beer while looking over a map when Kara stepped from the tent, barefoot in a flowing, ankle-length skirt and sports bra, her hair falling loose along her shoulders. She spread her arms to the evening sun and sighed with delight, as if every molecule of stress she’d ever known was confined to the winter clothing they’d no longer need.