The Swarm

by Frank Schätzing

  Then he switched into English. 'Leon, my child. What a handsome young scientist you are.'

  Anawak let him finish embracing him, and thumped Akesuk halfheartedly on the back. 'Uncle Iji. How are you?'

  'Oh, as well as can be expected, considering the occasion. Did you have a good flight? You must have been travelling for days – all those places you must have been just to get here…'

  'I had to change planes a few times.'

  'Toronto? Montreal?' Akesuk let go of him and beamed. Like many of the Inuit, he had gaps in his top teeth. 'Montreal. You travel a lot, don't you? What a joy. You'll have to tell me all about it. You'll stay with us, now, won't you? We've got everything ready for you. Is that all your luggage?'

  'Er, Uncle Iji-'

  'Iji – you're too old for "uncle" now.'

  'I booked a hotel.'

  Akesuk took a step back. 'Which one?'

  'The Polar Lodge.'

  There was fleeting disappointment on the old man's face, but then he beamed. 'We can cancel it. I know the manager. No problem.'

  'I don't want to put you to any trouble,' said Anawak. I only came to bury my father in the ice, he thought, and then to get the hell out of here.

  'It's no trouble,' said Akesuk. 'You're my nephew. How long are you staying?'

  'Two nights. I thought that would be enough, right?'

  Akesuk frowned. He took Anawak's arm and pulled him through the airport. 'We'll talk about that later. Aren't you hungry?'

  'Very.'

  'Excellent. Mary-Ann's made caribou stew and a seal soup with rice. A real feast. When was the last time you had seal soup, hmm?'

  Anawak allowed himself to be whisked away. A line of vehicles was parked outside the airport and Akesuk headed purposefully towards a truck.

  'Throw your rucksack in the back. Do you remember Mary-Ann? Of course you don't. You'd already left by the time she moved out here from Salluit. We got married. I hated being alone. She's younger than me – which isn't a bad thing, I might tell you. Are you married? Goodness me, there's so much to talk about after all these years.'

  Anawak shuffled around on the passenger seat. Akesuk seemed determined to talk him into submission. He tried to remember if the old man had always been so chatty. Then it occurred to him that his uncle might be feeling as nervous as he was. One retreated into silence; the other talked.

  They trundled along the high street. The hills cut right through Cape Dorset, dividing it into hamlets. In addition to the main hamlet of Kinngait, there was Itjurittuq in the north-east, Kuugalaaq in the west and Muliujaq in the south. Kuugalaaq had been their home. Akesuk, his mother's brother, had lived in Kinngait.

  Anawak wondered whether he still lived there.

  They seemed to be driving through the entire town and his uncle commented on almost every building. Suddenly it dawned on Anawak that Akesuk was giving him a tour. 'Uncle Iji, I know all these places,' he protested.

  'Rubbish! You've been away for nineteen years. All kinds of things have changed. Do you remember that supermarket?'

  'No.'

  'You see? It wasn't there back then. It's new. There's an even bigger one now. We always used to go to the Polar Supply Store – you can't have forgotten that, surely. That's our new school. Well, I guess it's been there a while now, but it's new to you. See that, on the right? The Tiktaliktaq community hall. You wouldn't believe all the important people who've come here to hear the throat singing and drum dancing. Bill Clinton, Jacques Chirac, Helmut Kohl. Kohl was a giant- he made us look like dwarfs. Now when was that? Let me see…'

  And so it went on. They drove past the Anglican church and the cemetery where his father was to be buried. Anawak saw an Inuk woman crouching outside her house, working on a sculpture. The enormous stone bird reminded him of Nootka art. A two-storey blue-grey building with a futuristic lobby turned out to be the hamlet office. Nunavut's decentralised administration meant that any decent-sized community had its own council office. Anawak resigned himself to his fate, not least because he realised that the Cape Dorset of his childhood was nothing-like the place before him.

  Suddenly he heard himself say, 'Let's go to the harbour, Uncle Iji.'

  Akesuk turned the wheel briskly. They sped down a steep road in the direction of the sea. Timber houses in all sizes and colours were dotted in no apparent order over the dark brown landscape. A few patches of hardy tundra grass were scattered here and there, with the occasional stretch of snow. Cape Dorset's harbour consisted of little more than a wharf and some loading cranes where, once or twice a year, the supply ship would dock with its vital cargo of goods. Not far from there you could walk across the tidal flats of Tellik Inlet at low tide to get to the neighbouring island, Mallikjuaq, the territorial park with its burial sites, and the kayak-stand, and the lake where they used to pitch camp.

  They stopped. Anawak got out, walked along the wharf and stared out across the blue polar water. Akesuk followed him a little way, then let him go on alone.

  The view of the wharf had been Anawak's last glimpse of Cape Dorset before he left – not on the plane but on the supply ship. He'd been twelve. The ship had carried him away with his new family, who were leaving the country full of hope and excitement about the new world ahead of them, while mourning the paradise in the ice that had long since been lost.

  After five minutes he walked slowly back to the truck and climbed in without a word.

  'Yes, the old harbour,' Akesuk said softly. 'Our harbour. I'll never forget it. The way you left, Leon. It broke our hearts…'

  Anawak looked at him sharply. 'Whose hearts?' he asked.

  'Well, your-'

  'My father's? Yours? The people down the street?'

  Akesuk started the engine. 'Come on,' he said. 'Let's go home.'

  AKESUK STILL LIVED in the same little house in the settlement. With its light blue walls and dark blue roof, it was attractive and well tended. The hills rose behind it, stretching for several kilometres until they reached their apex in Kinngait, the 'high mountain', whose rock was scarred with veins of snow. It looked more like a landscape of sculpted marble than a high mountain. In Anawak's memory the Kinngait range towered into the sky, but the comb of rock in the distance invited competent hikers to explore it on foot.

  Akesuk went to the back of the truck and hauled down the rucksack. Although he was slight, he didn't seem to notice the weight. He held it in one hand and opened the door with the other. 'Mary-Ann,' he called, 'he's here!'

  A puppy made its way unsteadily to the door. Akesuk stepped over it and disappeared into the house, returning seconds later with a plump woman, whose friendly face was propped on an imposing double chin. She hugged Anawak and greeted him in Inuktitut.

  'Mary-Ann can't speak English,' Akesuk said apologetically. 'I hope you haven't forgotten your language.'

  'My language is English,' said Anawak.

  'Well, yes, it is now, of course.'

  'I still understand a fair bit, though – enough to know what she's saying.'

  Mary-Ann was asking if he was hungry.

  He answered in Inuktitut, and she smiled, then picked up the dog, which was sniffing at Anawak's boots, and made signs for him to follow. There was a line of footwear in the hall. Anawak bent down automatically to remove his.

  'I see you've still got your manners,' his uncle joked. "They haven't turned you into a qallunaaq.'

  Anawak glanced down at himself, then followed Mary-Ann into the kitchen. He saw a modern electric cooker and gadgets of the kind used in any well-equipped household in Vancouver. It was worlds away from the impoverished state of his family's old home. Next to the window was a circular dining-table, then a door leading out on to the balcony. Akesuk exchanged a few words with his wife, then pushed Anawak into a cosily furnished lounge. A cluster of heavy armchairs were grouped round a stack of equipment, including a TV set, video recorder, radio and CB transmitter. The kitchen was visible through a hatch. Akesuk showed him the bathroom, then the lau
ndry and the larder at the back, the bedroom and a little room with a single bed and a vase of fresh flowers on the bedside table. Arctic poppies, saxifrage and heather.

  '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 forever. 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 wr
inkled 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 Montreal. From there he didn't care how long he had to wait for his connection. There was plenty to see in Montreal, and it was far enough from this hellhole at the end of the earth…