Idea in Stone

by Hamish Macdonald

  “Stefan,” said Delonia, taking his hands and sitting down with him on his bed, “I have to say that you don’t know what you’re talking about. And that makes me sad.”

  “Oh, right, because if only I knew true love I would join you and all those people on a hillside singing happy love songs, right?”

  Delonia smiled and touched Stefan’s arm. She closed her eyes, then opened them, looking at the centre of Stefan’s chest. She pointed a single finger there and tapped him hard. “Unfold,” she said, addressing the spot.

  Stefan rolled his eyes.

  It wasn’t precisely fair, he knew, but he still felt the anger of exposure from her intrusion, so he pulled out the big guns: “There’s a bunch of birthday cards here for you,” he said, handing her the mail he’d grabbed on the way downstairs. “I think one of them is from Grandpa.” He watched her face fall as he gave her the envelopes.

  She looked at them, feigning nonchalance, but pulled out the one yellow envelope with her father’s large, scrawled writing on its front and stared at it. Without a word, she left the room. His gambit had the intended result, and he hated himself for using it.

  Stefan didn’t even know what the rift was between his mother and her father, but it was something he’d seen her levelled by again and again. The effect didn’t lessen with time.

  Stefan looked at the tiny newsprint slips on his bedside table arranged into the word ‘Edinburgh’. (They’d stopped appearing since Monday when he’d formed them into that name.) He was happy his mother hadn’t disturbed them or asked about them. She was the last person he’d want to talk to about all this.

  Just as Delonia’s father was the last person she would want to speak to.

  Stefan felt a sudden compulsion to visit the man.

  ~

  Stefan drove through the streets of the reservation, self-conscious of the car’s tiny size and sporty lines in the midst of all the pickup trucks and muscle cars. The bungalows all had muddy yards, some with dogs tied up in them. Driving here had taken two days, but last night’s quiet evening on his own in a roadside motel had a rejuvenating effect on him. Stefan liked being on the move, and enjoyed the idea that no one knew where he was. Shifting his recording schedule had been easy, too. The only disconcerting thing was this destination.

  Of all the parts of his makeup Stefan was uncomfortable about, this one—the “Indian” connection—was the most awkward. His opinions about the First Nations, the Indians, the Native Canadians, or whatever he was supposed to call them, whatever some fraction of him was supposed to be, were all received ones. His mother benefited from the association, as it added something exotic and quintessentially Canadian to her image. But the truth was that she left home in her teens to pursue her career and left behind everything about this world. She was only one-quarter Métis to begin with, hardly much of a claim. Stefan’s connection was even more tenuous.

  He’d heard too many one-sided, self-assured conversations about free tuition, gun running, tax exemption, cigarette smuggling, land claims, casinos, and suicide to want to have anything to do with it. It certainly had nothing to do with him.

  Yet here he was, Stefan J. Mackechnie, pulling up to the house of Thomas Jackrabbit, source of Stefan’s never-divulged middle name. The one-story house stood next to the school where Thomas taught until his retirement.

  Stefan pulled up the parking brake and got out of the car. An old German Shepherd made its way to him, its back haunches lowered by degenerated hips. It sniffed at him, then nuzzled its head familiarly under Stefan’s hand. Surely it didn’t remember him, he thought. They’d only visited twice, and those visits were a long time ago. Perhaps dogs don’t forget these things. His grandfather, though, was another matter, peering out between the living room curtains suspiciously. Stefan waved, but his grandfather clearly didn’t know who he was.

  Stefan went to the front door and rang the bell, an awkward formality, given that they both knew the other was there.

  “Yes?” asked Thomas, opening the inner door but not the screen door.

  “Hello,” said Stefan.

  Clearly Stefan wasn’t a government person, wearing such casual clothes and driving such a sporty car. But he was big city, certainly not from any of the towns nearby. Thomas was at a loss.

  “Grandpa, it’s me.”

  The man looked him up and down. Thomas’s mouth formed the name: Robert? The surprise passed to Stefan: he hadn’t considered that he might look like his father.

  “Yeah, he was my dad. We visited you years ago. I’m Stefan.”

  Thomas’s face brightened. “Stefan! Come on in!” He opened both doors wide and put an arm around Stefan, leading him into the living room. The air smelled tired, rebreathed many times over. The space was a mix of eras—a battered, soft, and shapeless old orange couch sat next to a lamp with a handmade shade like a stretched scrapbook; then, opposite them, a giant television and a video game console. Thomas saw Stefan looking at this incredulously. “Oh, that. No, I’m no good at all those games. I keep getting my ass kicked. They’re for the kids.”

  “Kids?” asked Stefan.

  “Sit,” said Thomas. He walked with some difficulty, like an overstuffed pillow on spindly legs. His grey and black hair was neatly pulled back. His face was weathered and wrinkled, the kind of face, Stefan thought with some discomfort, you usually see in a casket. But the expression was all comfort and ease here at home. “Not my kids. My kids are all grown. I mean the children who come by after school. I teach them some extra French, and I try to cover things I think they should know but don’t get in the standard curriculum. In exchange, I get to learn from them about new things in the world I wouldn’t hear about otherwise, and I let them use that video thing. I tell them to show respect for their elders, but they’re forever blowing my head off.”

  Stefan laughed. He liked the man.

  “Would you like anything?” asked Thomas. “I’ve got any kind of fruit juice you could imagine. I don’t keep liquor or beer, and pop is terrible for the kids. Won’t give it to them. Makes them wrangy as all hell and then I can’t deal with them.”

  “An orange juice would be good.”

  “What? Nothing more interesting, like pineapple or mango or passionfruit?”

  “Oh. Okay, then,” said Stefan with a smirk, “I’ll take pineapple.”

  Thomas came back from the kitchen a few minutes later with tall glasses filled with ice and juice. Thomas’s was some other kind, something reddish-purple. “So,” said Thomas, lowering himself with difficulty into a favourite old chair, looking straight at Stefan with a piercing intensity, “what’re you doing here?”

  Stefan looked at the floor. “I’m not sure. I was hoping you might help me.”

  “What do you need? I don’t have much. I thought your mother was doing pretty well for herself.”

  “No, not that kind of help. It’s more like advice I’m looking for.”

  “Ah, I see,” said the man, his face collapsing around a frown.

  “What?” asked Stefan.

  “So you figured you’d go talk to an old Indian, right?”

  “No, it’s not that—” Stefan’s stomach wobbled and his face burned. “I wasn’t consciously thinking that, anyway.”

  “That I’m old,” said Thomas, “doesn’t necessarily mean I know anything. It just means I’m likely to be opinionated. And being from the First Nations, that doesn’t make me wise. Give me a break. We don’t have any more of a claim on wisdom than anyone else. I mean, look around this reservation. You don’t think these people are just as lost? The trucks, the gadgets—just shiny objects for crows.”

  Stefan nodded and covered one of his new sneakers with the other.

  “I am, however,” he said, sitting forward in his chair, “a teacher. It’s in my bones. So maybe you’re in luck. The question stands: what are you doing here?”

  Stefan wasn’t sure how much to tell him. “Well, you know my father’s dead, right?”

  �
�I heard about it at the time. On the news.”

  “Mom didn’t—? I’m sorry, Grandpa. I’m sorry we haven’t been in touch. I don’t know why. What is it between you and her?”

  “Son, if she hasn’t told you, it’s not my place to. She’s my baby, you know, and I’ll never give up. Do you know if she talks to her brothers at all?”

  “No. She never mentions them.”

  “At least she’s got you,” said Thomas.

  “Yeah,” said Stefan, “see, that’s the thing. She drives me crazy. There’s this woman living—well, things at home all are strange and claustrophobic, and everywhere else I go there’s my mother looming over me because everyone knows who she is or thinks they do, and I think I’m going to quit my job soon because I’m wondering about going off somewhere, leaving.” He stopped to breathe, and looked at his grandfather. “The thing is, I think my dad has something to do with it.”

  “Oh,” said Thomas, sitting back.

  “I know, I know. You’re the first person I’ve told.” He described the letter he wrote to his father and the things that had happened since.

  Stefan watched as Thomas scratched his head, then sipped his juice, looking out the front window. Thomas took everything he’d said in stride, and that made Stefan feel better. After a few minutes, Thomas looked back at Stefan. “You should settle down in that job you have. Are you married?” Stefan shook his head ‘no’. “You should get married.” Stefan laughed. Thomas continued. “What? You think I’m kidding? I’m serious. If you do this, then all these disturbances will go away.” Thomas leaned forward. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  Stefan opened his mouth. He shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he finally managed.

  “You need to get away from other people for a while,” said Thomas, “in order to find out for yourself what you should do. Go out on your own somewhere where you can be alone, and test it out, see if it feels right. Do you remember the second time you visited and we all went camping? I think that’s what you should do. It’s the cliché Indian sort of thing you wanted me tell you to do, so—who knows?—there’s probably something to it.”

  “But Grandpa, it’s November.”

  “I’ve got lots of old gear in the garage I can lend you, and the weather’s still mild. You’ll be fine. And when you come back, all this nonsense will be out of your head and you can get back to your life.”

  “Yeah,” said Stefan. “Good idea. Thanks.”

  ~

  Stefan shopped at the general store where he’d arranged to pick up a canoe. He couldn’t help himself once he started buying things. He bought snacks and sweets, bread, a dozen eggs, tinned kiddie spaghetti, and—the ultimate indulgence—a whole package of bacon to eat all by himself. The canoe fit very badly on the roof of his car, the front hanging like a giant beak, dangerously obscuring his vision. The wind moved it slightly as he drove, and Stefan worried that it might scrape the paint, despite the foam wedges the shop-keeper put between the canoe and the roof when lashing it there.

  Reaching the lake, Stefan wrestled the canoe off the roof, doing everything he could to make sure the two didn’t come into contact. He danced with it over his head for a moment before tipping backwards, then threw it to keep from falling down. It landed with a sound like a drum and gritted against the powdery gravel landing that led to the lake. Stefan winced. How much does a canoe cost? he wondered.

  Stefan took the supplies from the car and locked it, looking around for a moment before deciding that it was unlikely anyone would pass within ten miles of here before he got back.

  When am I coming back? He hadn’t told anyone. I should have told someone.

  He loaded the mound of goods into the canoe and covered them with an oily old tarpaulin. Then he pushed the boat—with great difficulty—toward the put-in point. He clenched his teeth at the grinding sound of the fibreglass against the ground. The boat moved easily once it reached the water, then threatened to float away before he could get in. He jumped into the back of the canoe, making it dip dangerously. Stefan crawled up to and over the flat seat, tucked his legs under as he sat, then picked up the paddle.

  He paddled slowly. It was coming back to him from camp all those years ago, the proper way to move the paddle, dipping and turning. After a while, he felt a blister forming where his thumb rubbed against the varnished wood, and put on his grandfather’s large gloves.

  He clunked the paddle against the canoe, and corrected by adjusting his weight on the flat seat, refolding his legs. The canoe wobbled and Stefan froze. He had too much gear, he knew it.

  The landscape conformed to the map of the lakes he’d been given at the store, and he found the spot they’d circled for him, the one matching his request for someplace where he wouldn’t be disturbed by other people.

  Portage, the most dreaded French word of his childhood, came back to him when he reached his destination island. He’d had a vague sense of why it was a bad idea to bring so much food and gear, and now he remembered: he had to carry it all over land to get to his campsite. Three trips got everything to a halfway point, where the ground was uneven, rocky, and covered in undergrowth. But, strangely for an island, there was a picnic table there. Perfect, thought Stefan, I’m staying here.

  ~

  “Ow,” said Stefan, looking at his thumb. The blister burst in the time it took him to make kindling out of leafy twigs and branches using an impractical folding saw (after sending an axe-head deep into the bushes, where he couldn’t find it). He lay the kindling down, then built a classic log cabin from the firewood he’d brought in an orange mesh bag. He surrounded it all with rocks. His Cub Scout leader would have been proud.

  Stefan dropped one match after another on the pile, and blew and blew on the smouldering brush. He took in a deep breath to give the rubbish a big blast of air, but instead got a lungful of smoke. He stood, coughing, and went to his supplies, digging until he found a small rectangular can. He walked calmly back to the log cabin, unscrewed the cap, and poured out half the contents. He screwed the top back on, put it behind him, and lit a match. He dropped the match into the stone circle and a column of fire, Biblical in proportion, flew up toward the treetops overhead. Very shortly after, Stefan was cooking his supper.

  Stefan noticed that the cans of spaghetti were five years past their best before date, but, hungry from the work of getting to the island, heated them anyway at the edge of the fire, and fried all the bacon in a pan. He mixed the bacon and spaghetti into a pot, making a carbonara slop of his own invention, which he enjoyed more than any meal he could remember. His mother would be horrified at his meat-eating, and he liked that, as if somehow being not-like-her made him something of his own.

  He made his way to the lakeshore to watch the sunset, a vast canopy of sherbet colours—red and orange up to yellow that glittered with the faintest of early stars. He loved the smell of smoke in his heavy clothes with sharp pine always in the background. The sun went down quickly, making black silhouettes of the tree-covered islands around his. The darkness as he walked back to his camp through the trees surprised him. It was dark. He wasn’t accustomed to that, living in the city, where blinds and curtains never really did the trick.

  The fire burned down to embers. He used his fork to scrape the bacon fat from the pan into the ashes, where it sizzled and briefly lit. He enjoyed the smell, thinking defiantly of his hippie mother. How could you not enjoy that smell?

  That smell.

  Bears.

  It came back to him now, the constant insistence of his Cub leaders and his grandfather to dispose of food scraps properly so bears wouldn’t be attracted to the campsite. Stefan poured water on the fire, creating a great, bacon-scented cloud of steam. He looked around, wondering if there was anything nearby to smell this. He poured on water until the ashes were cool mush, then scooped that into a garbage bag with his hands.

  Hang it up.

  Yes, that was the proper thing to do, he remembered: hang your
food from a tree, away from the campsite, out of reach. Stefan piled all his food onto the tarpaulin along with the bag of bacon-ash-mud. He wiped his hands on his clothes to stop them from being so slippery, tied a thin yellow nylon rope through the grommets in the tarpaulin, then knotted a thick cotton rope to the gathered neck. He picked all this up and walked what he figured was a reasonable distance from his campsite.

  He looked at the trees above. The branches were so far away. He looked at the big bundle in his arms, then back at the trees. He spotted a pair of jutting branches—perhaps not regulation bear-height. Something moved in the bushes behind him. This will do, he thought. He turned his back to the tree, squatted, and hurled the bundle up as hard as he could, closing his eyes.

  He heard a crackle above, and nothing more. He looked up and saw his tarpaulin safely wedged in the tree. Stefan smiled at his efforts, and grabbed for the cotton rope that dangled down. He yanked on it to see if it was secure. It was. In fact, the bundle was stuck. Stefan stood under the tree and pulled hard on the rope. It pulled taut, then snapped free, dropping him to the ground.

  Stefan stared at the tarpaulin bag overhead. Its neck opened. Bacon-ash-mud splashed down on him.

  Something moved through the growth behind him. Stefan flipped over to look, then jumped up and ran in the other direction, flailing his arms in front of himself to clear a path. After several minutes, Stefan rested, crouched panting on the ground, looking to see if the thing was gone. He realised then that he was lost.

  After a time—he couldn’t tell how long out here—he found his way back to the camp, changing directions whenever he imagined he heard something close-by. He didn’t care how dirty he was, all he wanted was to crawl into his sleeping bag and be unconscious until this night was over. But first he had to put up the tent.

  He struggled to get the tangled ropes from the long-unused tent bag, then pulled out the wrinkled, oily, elephant skin of a tent. It smelled like his grandfather had been using it as a drop-cloth. Stefan fished for the pegs at the bottom of the bag. Something moved behind him, and he jumped up with a metal peg in each hand.