Celine

by Peter Heller

  Celine and Pete were reluctant to leave their new hermit-crab home and they decided to camp for a week in Polson, at the southern end of Flathead Lake, and then move down along the Swan River. It was the best time of year. Frost at night and warm, sunny days, when the yellows and oranges of the aspen and cottonwoods did something to the blue of the sky behind them that an artist might never mimic. They took long walks along the lake and the river, and they read, and drank tea in the evening at the side dinette, while the sounds of water came through the screen.

  On October 7, Hank flew up to Helena and they drove to meet him. He was between assignments and relished a few days in the mountains in early October. He would help them drive home. He offered to put them on a flight and take the truck back himself, but they seemed reluctant to leave the camper they called Bennie, which amused him. Hank thought he could use a trip away from home in any event. They picked him up at the little airport late on a Thursday morning, and Celine found it amazing that even with a broken marriage and the uncertain future of a freelancer he was cheerful. He was a big strong kid, an ardent fisherman and canoeist, and Celine noticed that under his loose flannel shirt he’d put on some weight, probably beer weight. Well.

  Gabriela flew in a few hours later. They met her in the outer concourse that boasted a mammoth grizzly posing full height and growling. Now that they’d found Lamont, the bear was a little less potent, thank God. Gabriela’s hair was back in a ponytail as on the first night, she wore a fitted down jacket, and her cheeks were flushed. Her smile when she saw them was instantaneous and bright. Celine was struck again by the fresh contained energy of the girl. And by how easily, after an introduction in which they both seemed shy, she and Hank fell into conversation—excited but relaxed—almost like two old friends. Well, they were both artists in precarious vocations, and they both loved what they did and reveled in the outdoors. He asked about her son and she said, “Oh God, Nick wants to be a writer! He is a born storyteller. Do you think you can dissuade him? Tell him about all those awful jobs you had? Your mom told me about them, you know.”

  Celine thought Hank’s laugh was easier than she’d heard in a long time. “I don’t know,” he said. “I secretly think pizza delivery and short-story writing are the way to go. Go figure.” He slipped Gabriela’s carry-on from her hand just the way Bruce Willis had taken Celine’s that time. Hmm. Celine thought life was ever more surprising, and never less strange. Who knew anything?

  They decided to take an easy walk along the Missouri, which had a split-rock canyon downstream and meadows of tall auburn grass and cut banks that caught the last sunlight. They walked slowly on the wide dirt path. The evening was not cold. Pete and Celine held hands, let the younger ones lead. At dusk they all climbed into the truck and returned to town and ate steaks at Nagoya. The conversation never flagged. Gabriela and Hank asked repeatedly about the case, the succession of events, but Celine and Pete were reticent. Hank could see that they were experiencing the faintest postpartum letdown, the depression, maybe, that mixes with the euphoria after finding their man, or woman. So mostly the kids talked, about where they lived, their jobs and failed marriages, and mostly Pete and Celine listened closely and held hands.

  Gabriela would rent a car the next day and drive up to Glacier, to the cabin under the mountains. Several times over dinner, at natural breaks in the conversation—with the serving of a course, the clearing of plates—Celine noticed Gabriela staring, abstracted, at the tablecloth, or into the middle distance of the dining room, and she knew that the girl was thinking about her father, preparing herself somehow for their meeting. She couldn’t imagine. Or she could, and it constricted her chest. Once she couldn’t help herself—she reached across and touched Gabriela’s hand, and Gabriela startled and met her eyes and they shared a look only the two could share, and that’s when Celine knew the case was truly closed.

  They reserved three adjacent rooms at the Trout Creek Hotel, ground floor with parking spaces in front, but Pete popped the top: He and Celine would sleep in Bennie. Hank couldn’t get over it. They wouldn’t think of sleeping in the stuffy room. Hank watched his little mother step down out of the camper to survey a night full of stars before sleep. She had taught him almost everything he knew about moving through the world with some semblance of grace, and he tried to live it and bumbled often and tried again. She had taught him courage in the landscapes of the imagination, and to find the joy in things when he was afraid. But she brought him pain, too. She wouldn’t share with him the one story he cared about more than any other.

  He had a sister somewhere. Whose heart pumped with his mother’s blood, and some of his own. He imagined that his sister would have an affinity for the vulnerable and the lost that surprised the people around her. She probably had a quizzical humor, and a delight in things that were mysterious and didn’t quite fit. He wanted to know her. He wanted to make her a package at Christmas, to call her out of the blue and say, “Hey, it’s your bro, what’s up?” But his mother had stonewalled. Years and years. He had felt the intensity of her pain and had tried to respect her wishes, and backed off. But here they were, under a river of stars in Montana, and Celine had just given Gabriela her father. Gabriela was about to embark on a new life and Hank could sense the excitement, and the strength she would find there.

  Celine caught sight of him and turned. “Hank! Come look at Orion with me. We don’t see the stars much in the city. I’ll miss this terribly. Honestly, I could live in Bennie for the rest of my life.”

  “Whoa! I said you could borrow him.”

  “I wonder if the shell would get too tight?”

  “Probably.”

  “Probably.”

  Hank hugged his mother good night. He squeezed her and whispered in her ear, “Mom, I know I have a sister. I don’t blame you, or anyone.”

  She stiffened, breathed. She stepped back from the hug and held him at arm’s length. She said, “Bobby told you.”

  He nodded.

  “How they took her away before I could even smell her hair, put my lips in her ear, tell her what I wanted to tell her. The promises I had to make. I had things to say to her.” She pursed her lips, breathed.

  Hank found his voice. “Her name was Isabel, right?”

  “She told you that?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s right. Isabel. What I called her. She would be—is—ten years older than you. I wanted to promise her that I would find her. One day, I would. I did promise. As the nurse swept her out the door. It’s something I live with.”

  Hank hesitated. He closed his eyes and he could smell the cold water in the creek. “Will you keep looking?”

  “I am looking every day. I never stop.”

  Acknowledgments

  Many dear friends and family contributed generously to the making of this book. To my first reader, Kim Yan, I am so grateful. Your insight, humor, and literary sensitivity are a great boon. Lisa Jones and Helen Thorpe were constant companions and indispensable, as always. Thank you. And thanks to Donna Gershten for your energy and careful readings. And to Mark Lough. Ted Steinway, Nathan Fischer, Jay Heinrichs, Rebecca Rowe, and John Heller helped all along as they are wont to do. As did Pete Beveridge, Leslie Heller-Manuel, Callie French, and David Grinspoon. Carlton Cuse gave me another creative jolt, which he’s been doing since we were fifteen. Jay Mead and Edie Farwell shared their excitement and knowledge. So did Sally and Robert Hardy, Margaret Keith/Sagal, and JP Manuel-Heller. Ana Goncalves saved me at a critical moment. Thanks again to Jason Hicks and Jason Elliott for their expertise. And to Bethany Gassman, Laura Sainz, Lamar Sims, William Pero, and Thor Arnold, who know the territory. And to the docs, Melissa Brannon and Mitchell Gershten. Thanks to my buddies and first cousins Ted McElhinny and Nick Goodman. I’m glad we were there together.

  I am grateful to Myriam Anderson and Céline Leroy for their discernment and passion. Your love of the work means the world to me.

  To David Halpern, my agent, I raise
another glass. This book, like all the others, would not have happened without your keen input, enthusiasm, edits, tact, encouragement, and humor. Skol.

  And to my editor, Jenny Jackson, well. There are, for once, few words. Time and again I have depended on your intelligence and your grace and I am grateful beyond telling.

  Thank you all. What a pleasure and a privilege.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Peter Heller is the best-selling author of The Painter and The Dog Stars. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in both fiction and poetry. An award-winning adventure writer and a longtime contributor to NPR, Heller is a contributing editor at Outside magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure, and a contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek. He is also the author of several nonfiction books, including Kook, The Whale Warriors, and Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

  An Alfred A. Knopf Reading Guide

  Celine by Peter Heller

  The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s discussion of Celine, a suspenseful and heartrending story of one woman’s quest to heal broken families—including her own—through her work as a private investigator.

  Discussion Questions

  1. What tone does the opening scene of the book set for the rest of the story, in both establishing the atmosphere and its main themes and characters?

  2. How did the interweaving of Celine’s backstory with that of Paul’s and his family’s create tension and momentum as you read?

  3. Discuss the different, and even opposite, sides of Celine’s and Pete’s personalities—their hard-edged, more masculine sides and their softer, artistic, and sensitive sides. How do their careers allow both of those sides to prosper, and what does their unique relationship suggest about what they love about each other?

  4. How does the couple balance out each other’s strengths and weaknesses to make for an effective partnership at home and in work? Does either of them seem more dominant in either space?

  5. How does Celine’s complicated experience with motherhood motivate her work as a private investigator? Did you feel that that blurring of professional and personal lines enhanced or hindered her relationship with her clients—especially with Gabriela?

  6. Celine imagines that for Gabriela home is a “space within the relative safety of her own skin.” Celine may share this sensibility to some degree. Which of her actions, tendencies, and memories in the book are most reflective of this very private and self-protective mindset?

  7. How does an urban versus a rural setting bring out different sides of different characters, especially Celine’s? Can you track a progression of what kinds of places they settle in depending on their moods and mindsets, or is their mood more affected by where they are at any given time?

  8. What service does Celine offer her clients on a more psychological level, beyond her unearthing of the facts of certain mysteries in their lives? Do you think she absorbs their secrets and suffering, and, if so, how does that motivate her to continue to the next case, even at the age of sixty-eight?

  9. How does Hank take up the work of emotional excavation and investigation on his mother, perhaps work she’s unable to do herself? What does this suggest about our abilities to confront our own pasts with clear eyes?

  10. What do all of the characters’ secrets, revealed to us gradually throughout the book, have in common? How do the characters differ in the steps they have to take to discover their own truths?

  11. Although Celine’s role as a mother is a paramount focus of the book, what did you also take away from reading about the complicated role of fathers in their children’s lives? Do you think that Celine or Hank has more in common with Gabriela in this sense?

  12. When Celine considers Paul’s circumstances for disappearing and leaving Gabriela, she displays a great deal of compassion—something that’s key to why she’s a good investigator. How do you think she’s been able to channel that in spite of all that she experienced as a child?

  13. The book makes the case that the world feels different after the 9/11 attacks, and also uses the grandeur of nature to indicate the smallness of humanity. Did you feel at the end of the book that ultimately humanity’s preservation was worth the effort despite these perspectives? What do those scales of comparison illustrate about how we understand our own power in the universe? Which characters are most accepting of that balance in the novel?

  14. What sacrifices does Celine make for her clients, especially for Paul in regard to his involvement in the Chilean coup? Do you think they’re grateful for what she does?

  15. Think about your own family and how you have dealt, individually and collectively, with secrets and difficult times. How would things have been different for your family if the losses Paul and Gabriela faced transpired for you? Could you empathize with either or both of them?

  Suggested Reading

  Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

  Nickolas Butler, Shotgun Lovesongs

  Catherine Lacey, Nobody Is Ever Missing

  Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

  Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You

  Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

  Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

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