Our Animal Hearts

by Dania Tomlinson

  In the midst of all the excitement, Ted Carson, captain of the Rosamond, sighted the lake monster. He had been transporting fruit when a long, green ridge crested, perpendicular to the other waves. Despite the clear sky, the water spiralled and caused the lakeboat to wobble terribly. The lake became so turbulent that Ted Carson and the carter had to grab on to beams and railings to keep themselves upright. Boxes of fruit turned over and apples, pears, and peaches rolled through the cabins. Then, just as quick as it had begun, the lake became as calm as before. There was no evidence in the sky of the storm they had suffered. The carter hadn’t seen the creature himself but supported Ted Carson’s every word, as did Viktor and the group of men he was drinking with on the cliffs. One of these men was Ronald Nickel. Ronald saw the monster’s horse head rise up out of the water. He and Viktor arranged a mob to go hunt the lake monster. Most of these men were the war’s wounded and injured. They gathered in the Pearl and sang drunken songs that echoed through Winteridge:

  I’m looking for the Ogo-pogo, the funny little Ogo-pogo.

  His mother was an earwig, his father was a whale.

  Ogopogo was the name they gave the demon to tame it. For each of these broken men the monster meant something else. Something they might defeat. An enemy they might finally kill.

  * * *

  I was in the kitchen steaming jars for preserves when Viktor stumbled onto my porch. We hadn’t spoken for weeks. “I’ll kill it,” he said. “I’ll do it for you.” He was drunk and leaned against the doorframe to steady himself. “We have them all on our side. Everyone believes you now.”

  “You can’t kill a spirit.”

  “It’s a beast,” Viktor said.

  “And would you hang a mouse for thievery?” This was something Llewelyna had said once, and the words were bitter in my mouth.

  Viktor stepped off the porch and began to walk away. “It’s my Moby Dick,” he called to the sky and laughed. I had no time to tell him what happened in the end of the novel, that if he wanted to play the one-legged Ahab then he should finish the book and see how the captain fared.

  The next morning the men went out on the Rosamond to hunt the lake monster, which, like Moby Dick, was only ever a vessel they poured their individual evils into. There was a crowd on the shore to see them off. I stayed back in the trees. The men howled their Ogopogo song, armed with spears and axes. It was an odd group. Some were missing arms and legs, others eyes and ears. Each and every one was disfigured in some way by the war. Viktor looked for me in the crowd on the shore but I did not want to be seen.

  A large net and several hooks were rigged onto the once elegant Rosamond. I remembered the tinkling china and the chandeliers the night Llewelyna offered the lake monster the dove. The siren on the bow was of indeterminate shape now. She could be a woman, a man, a fish, a seal. Only the divots of her eyes were recognizable.

  For seven days the men travelled up and down the lake hunting Naitaka, the lake monster, half spirit, half beast. They returned rank with booze and fish. Again a crowd gathered on the wharf as the men carried a long, grey carcass between them. They laid the stinking thing on the shore. The ageless monster that haunted our lake was startlingly small, at about six feet long. It had smooth skin with prehistoric-looking parallel spines up its back and long whiskers on either side of its snout. Its wide blank eyes were those of a fish. I recognized this creature from the picture my father had pinned up in his study after Jacob was bitten: a sturgeon.

  Women covered their mouths at the smell of the dead fish and children kicked and poked at it. There was a slice in the side of the creature where blue and pink insides spilled out. This sturgeon might have been seventy-five years old. The only way the men could have caught this deep-water swimmer was if it had risen to the surface to spawn. Henry had once told me that sturgeons are an ancient species that can live for over one hundred years. They feed on the bottom of the lake, and since the bottom of our lake did not exist, I believed that sturgeon, like the lake monster, could pass from our world to another. The damming of rivers endangered the sacred places sturgeons came to spawn in. Henry said that since so many developments had sprouted up along the rivers and the shore of the lake, the sturgeon rarely surfaced to spawn and their numbers were dwindling.

  Viktor stood behind the ancient fish and smiled, awaiting my approval. When, after a while, I didn’t respond, he stepped forward and stabbed his crutch into the blue tubes that hung from the carcass. The guts popped and squirted. The crowd laughed and the children squealed with delight. I took a step forward and slapped Viktor across the face. Thrown off balance, he fell. He landed on his back, atop his crutch, and held his cheek.

  “You should be ashamed,” I said between my teeth. I didn’t recognize the rage that filled me as my own.

  * * *

  Yuri came home on a clear day in early December. The sturgeon was still rotting on the shore. Ants and maggots had made their homes between its bones. Every now and then a breeze caught the stench and carried it to where we gathered on the wharf. Viktor kept back behind the crowd.

  The moment the Rosamond turned the last bend of land, Yuri’s eyes found me on the wharf. He was one of the first soldiers off the boat. His face, although a little thinner, had maintained its boyishness, but his body had changed dramatically. He stood straight with broad shoulders and thick arms. He was taller than Viktor now, who slumped over his crutch and pulled his shoulders forward as if to protect a hollow chest.

  Yuri pulled me into him. “Iris,” he whispered. “Oh God, Iris, I’ve been waiting so long for this moment.” He pushed back to look at my face. I tried to return his excitement but my eyes fell from his; they were too bright.

  The three of us walked together to the house. Yuri held my hand and Viktor hobbled beside us.

  “Did you get my letters?” Yuri asked.

  I caught Viktor’s eyes. “None for a while,” I said. “I was worried. I thought something had happened.”

  “I wrote to you as often as I could, I promise.”

  “I believe you, Yuri.” I smiled up at him and hated myself for it.

  “Call me George,” Yuri said.

  “George?” I asked.

  “Everyone calls me George now. George Wilson.”

  Viktor did not delay in telling Yuri about Taras’s death and Mary still held prisoner. Within the hour, Yuri had set off on the next boat for Vernon. Viktor had tried to go along with him, but Yuri forced him to stay, declaring that Viktor’s one leg would only slow him down. Viktor tipped back his bottle and shrugged as if he didn’t care either way.

  It was while Yuri was gone that I told Viktor I was pregnant. I had known for a month or so, but with Viktor’s denial of me, and then my anger at him, it had never seemed like the right time. Now, with Yuri back, reality came hurtling forward.

  Viktor paced awkwardly around the Wasiks’ tiny kitchen. “What have we done, oh God, oh God,” he kept saying. I sat at the table and fiddled with the frayed embroidery on the tablecloth. The house smelled like vinegar. “You must marry. You’ll marry immediately,” Viktor said, not looking at me. “As soon as Mother gets back.”

  “Marry who?”

  “Yuri.”

  “Don’t you mean George?” Viktor ignored me. “I won’t,” I said simply.

  “When he gets back you’ll tell him you’re ready. You’ll marry as soon as possible. We need some cheer around here, anyways.”

  “I said no. I won’t marry him. I hardly know who he is anymore.”

  Finally Viktor raised his face to mine. “You must. I can’t be a father. Look at me.” He spread out his arms so I could admire his narrow chest and scruffy clothes. His beard was patchy around his cheeks. I wanted to tell him right then, “You already are a father.” But my deceit and my loyalty to Azami were one and the same and impossible to expose.

  “I’ve told you already, Viktor. I love you and only you.”

  Viktor stood in the middle of his kitchen, arms still extended fr
om each side as if about to take flight. “Me?”

  “Yes.” I stood up now.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I took a few tentative steps towards him.

  “But Yuri’s my brother. It’s all wrong.”

  “We’ll run away. We’ll leave tomorrow. Catch the first lakeboat. I have money saved.” I stood in front of him now. Viktor dropped his crutch and fell to his knee. He looked up at me and ran his hands up the backs of my legs. There were tears at the insides of his eyes. He pressed an ear to my stomach.

  “It’s a girl,” I said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “I’ll be a father,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll teach her to play the kobza. I’ll teach her the old songs.” He lifted his ear from my stomach and looked up at me. I massaged the back of his head. His hair was waxy and in need of washing.

  As we waited for the water to boil, Viktor and I made love on the floor of the kitchen, fearless of onlookers despite the wide, gaping windows. We filled the tin tub and took turns washing each other’s hair, as we had in the beginning. We made plans to leave for the coast, a place so foreign to me it could have been Rome, or Egypt, or the Never Never Land. Viktor had a well-connected friend in Vancouver he had met in the war. After a while we sat facing each other in the tub and watched shadows puddle the kitchen floor.

  “It’s funny how things turn out.” My words were brimming with secret meaning. I wanted desperately to give Viktor a child he could claim as his own. I reached out my hand. I wanted to touch Viktor’s face but I couldn’t quite reach. I slid closer and wrapped my legs around his waist. “I never expected to be as content as I am right now.” Viktor smiled in a sad, far-off way. My fingers fell from his face and settled on the white scar on his chest, where the German boy’s bayonet had pierced him. He squirmed under my touch and looked away.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just, I don’t deserve to be happy.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve done terrible things.”

  “It was war. It was—”

  “You couldn’t understand.”

  “He haunts you, doesn’t he?”

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  But I had already said too much. My entire body went rigid. I couldn’t speak. With all the stories Viktor told me, he had never said a thing about the young German soldier he killed. He had shared that only with Azami. It was a secret I had stolen.

  “Think of who, Iris?” he repeated. If I had responded faster I might have made something up, but it was all too clear. Viktor understood. He used the side of the tub to lift himself out and hobbled through the dark kitchen, bracing himself on chairs and counters until he found his crutch.

  “You read Azami’s letters.” It wasn’t a question. He stood naked in the kitchen, painted silver by a pillar of moonlight.

  “Not at first,” I said. There was no use hiding now. The water in the tub had turned cold. I hadn’t noticed until the heat of his body left mine. I told Viktor what happened with the letters, that only after I saw Azami had found someone else did I stop delivering his letters to her. Of course I still could never tell Viktor that Juro was his son. That betrayal was too immense and would only cause more difficulties for Azami.

  Viktor dressed in silence. I shivered and gathered my knees to my chest. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. All was darkness. He was standing at the counter, looking out the window above the sink. The moon was snagged in a net of stars. All was silent. What I had really wanted was an exchange of horrors. A balance of some kind. I had hoped Viktor, with all the wrongs he claimed, might forgive me in exchange for bearing witness to one of his own demons. I wanted a safe place to be honest and true, a love bigger than evil.

  I thought Viktor might need some time on his own, to process what I had told him. As I stepped out of the tub to embrace him before I left, Viktor swept his arm along the counter and dishes crashed to the ground.

  “Viktor, I—”

  “Get dressed and leave.”

  I put on my dress and slipped on my shoes.

  “You’ll marry Yuri. You’ll marry him as soon as he returns.”

  “But, Viktor…”

  “He’ll never know about this. The child will be his.”

  “I can’t. I don’t love him, and the timing…”

  He began to gather his things.

  “Where are you going?”

  He stopped. “You don’t deserve love, Iris Sparks.”

  I choked from the shock of his voice, transformed by hate.

  “I’m leaving town. You’ll marry Yuri and soon be expecting your first child. Do you understand?” His face was deformed by shadow. “You’re selfish, Iris. You destroy everything you touch.”

  “Viktor…”

  “You’ll marry Yuri this weekend. And if you aren’t married by the time I get back—I’ll kill you, I swear to God.” He spat at the floor near my feet. “I pity Yuri.”

  * * *

  The next day, when I saw Mary walk up the hill to our house, my breath escaped me. I stood at the window with a hand on my throat. Mary’s body was impossibly frail. Yuri had an arm around her shoulders, supporting her. Despite the distance, Mary found me in the window. I backed away from it slowly.

  I couldn’t think of an excuse for why Viktor might have left before seeing his mother, so I told Yuri and Mary I didn’t know where he went, that he had simply disappeared one night. Yuri admitted to his mother that he noticed Viktor had grown rather fond of whisky. He guessed Viktor had gone away because he was ashamed and didn’t want Mary to see him in such a state. He assured her he would be back.

  I prepared one of the skinny hens the coyotes left behind for dinner that evening. Mary and I exchanged cool glances across the table. She met my eyes and held them until I had to look away.

  “So when’s the wedding?” she said in a voice that flaked at the edges. I could tell by the way she looked at me that she suspected Viktor and me. Perhaps he had mentioned our relationship to her.

  “There’s no rush.” Yuri smiled. “Time is one thing we have now.”

  I set my fork down. “How about this weekend?” I said. My hands twisted together in my lap.

  Yuri choked on his food, coughed, and covered his mouth with his napkin. “This weekend?” he said when he caught his breath.

  “Why not?”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until Viktor returns? And don’t you want a fancy dress, a party, flowers, what about all that?”

  “I don’t care for any of it. I’m impatient.” I smiled in a way I hoped looked eager and sincere. Mary gave me a nod of approval while Yuri smiled down at his food.

  “All right, then.” He shrugged. “Whatever my bride desires.” He leaned forward and planted a kiss on my cheek.

  Mary and I cleaned up after dinner and I was relieved she filled the silence with a story about how she had met Taras. Her family had just recently moved to Canada from England and her father was a shopkeeper in Alberta. Taras was working on a nearby potato field. He came to the store every day to buy cigarettes. She said he brought Mary poems he wrote for her in Ukrainian. She couldn’t read them, of course. Taras couldn’t speak a word of English. But they fell in love without the aid of language. I thought of Yuri’s poems to me then, and felt sorry for making a show of his vulnerability.

  When Mary’s father found out about her romance with Taras, he disowned her. The lovers fled to Vernon, where Taras got his first job on an orchard. Although Taras had often gone on to my father about being born to the soil, Mary told me he came not from a line of labourers but of musicians.

  I turned my face from her and tried not to think of the night Viktor played me the kobza. I took a plate from the soapy water and held it out for Mary to dry. Instead of the plate, Mary took hold of my shoulders and looked at me directly. “You may think you are in love with him. But what begins as love can become a nightmare.”<
br />
  “What are you saying?”

  “Yuri is the better choice. You will learn to love him.”

  Mary’s directness took me by surprise. She walked out of the kitchen and left me standing there, the plate still dripping in my hands. I stared blankly at the now empty space she had occupied.

  As Viktor demanded, Yuri and I were married that weekend.

  The last time I had been to the church was when Llewelyna convulsed on the floor between the pews. Now, sunlight came through the stained glass in slates that painted us all blue, red, and yellow. Mr. and Mrs. Bell and Juliet Pearl and her father were the only ones to respond to our last-minute invitations. They sat on opposite sides of the aisle. Mrs. Bell did not want to be associated with Juliet, now that Juliet had become so mixed up in scandal. Of course Mrs. Bell didn’t know the stories whispered about her own shameful husband visiting the upstairs room of the Pearl in the middle of the night.

  I carried a bouquet of snowberries and wore Llewelyna’s old wedding dress. Mary pinned an opal brooch to the collar to cover a rust-coloured stain. Old Father John’s voice echoed in the small, empty church and lent it the dimensions of a cathedral. Yuri was handsome in his olive uniform. His bluebird eyes had darkened, their pupils huge. As Father John read out the verses, I lifted my head to count Jesus’ wounds and found the cross bare and painted eggshell white. Jesus’ body had been stripped from the cross. I wondered where he was buried and when he might rise again.

  That night Yuri and I made love on a quilt spread on the floor of one of the empty rooms on the third floor of the house. So many of the rooms had become closed off. The doors to Jacob’s and my parents’ rooms remained closed. The door to the spare room where Llewelyna had faded year after year was locked, one of Saint Francis’s feathers still on the bed, the window open in case he decided to return. And the room I had as a child, where Viktor had explored parts of my body I didn’t know I had, was surely off limits now.