“No, no. I’m good.”
And then the silence that Pierre had become accustomed to in the few days since he’d met Beaton. He’d noticed the little travel trailer and the half-ton near the end of the wharf but hadn’t realized someone lived there until he saw a light on his first night in the harbour. Later, because he was having trouble sleeping, he’d been sitting near the stern studying the stars when he heard a footstep crunching on the wharf above him. It was Beaton standing there in the dark, hand raised, the glow of a cigarette faintly illuminating his face.
Beaton was a large man, once clearly muscular but now overweight and flabby. For twenty-two years he’d been a soldier. This much he had disclosed when they’d exchanged brief introductions. He still had the soldier haircut, the soldier gaze. Pierre had asked him where he’d done his soldiering but the response was unrevealing. “All over the place.”
Pierre inquired whether Beaton knew a local hard-rock miner named Sandy MacIsaac.
“Can’t say it rings a bell,” he replied, after giving it some thought. “But I’ve mostly been away from here since I was about nineteen. MacIsaac’s a pretty common name.” Another, longer pause.
“So you were with the whales,” he said, looking directly at Pierre and smiling.
“You should come out with me. Maybe the day after tomorrow. I don’t think this weather is going to last.”
“You’re still going to be around?”
“A few more days, it seems.”
“It’ll be hard to leave the peace and quiet, I imagine.”
“I suppose. ”
“I could never hack Toronto.”
“You lived there?”
“Petawawa was close enough.”
“You’re sure I can’t get you something.”
“That’s okay.” He stood. “There were people here today.”
“Oh?”
“In a cop car. In suits. Two of them. The car was unmarked but I could tell by the hubcaps. And you could see the flashers in the back window. They were looking at your spot.”
“My spot.”
“Where you tie up. And they were checking out your car.”
“Strange,” Pierre said. “Did you talk to them?”
“They asked me if the guy belonging to the car was still around. I told them I had no idea. Which wasn’t a lie. You could have gone anywhere, right?”
“You didn’t get a card or anything?”
“No. I don’t talk to those people unless I have to.”
“I understand,” Pierre said. “Sit down. I’ll make some tea.”
“No. I have to be somewhere.”
“By the way,” Pierre asked. “Do you get the local paper?”
“The Oran?”
“I think that’s what it’s called.”
“I have one in the trailer. I’ll drop it off.”
After Beaton left, Pierre tried to write some more but he couldn’t get the call from Ethan off his mind. Sandy MacIsaac resurfacing and a big league business reporter from here. Margaret Rankin. They’d probably grown up together, this Margaret and Sandy. Goddammit. And a cop car? He had a fairly good idea what that was about, but why wouldn’t they just have phoned to set up a proper meeting? They had his number. “Sit tight,” they’d instructed. He was definitely sitting tight. Why skulk around?
He checked his watch. It was 4:00 a.m. He considered getting out of his bunk, putting on his rain gear and braving the weather to retie the boat. It was chafing against the wharf, lightly but enough to wake him. He listened carefully. No damage being done. The rattle of the anchor chain that he’d left unsecured. The rain was loud against the roof. Not going out in that, he thought.
He let his mind drift back to where he’d left off the writing.
He picked up the pen.
14. January 10, 1976
For two days he made his way along the seacoast, keeping to the shoreline, foraging for food. He travelled cautiously with frequent stops when it was daylight, avoiding everyone. He would trust nobody until he reached Sa’diyat, twelve miles away, stronghold of the warlord, Camille Chamoun, the former president; protected by his private army. He would be safe there, and soon join his mother and his sister in Damour.
But the Chamoun enclave in Sa’diyat was silent and now he cowered in a citrus grove below Damour. Billows of smoke floating away from the hillside above him, frequent flashes, followed by the roar of slamming mortar, rockets crashing, the crackle of automatic rifle fire. He sank to his knees in the sandy soil.
During the night there had been a lull in the bombardment. As the dawn approached, the hill above the grove was quiet. On the hillside he could see light flickering. Maybe lamplight, maybe cooking fires. He was stiff and sore and hungry. The density of darkness in the grove around him was reassuring but at the same time unsettling, a primitive darkness, moist and heavy with the musk of compost and damp soil. His eyes were fixed on where the homes and churches were supposed to be. Damour. He’d convinced himself that they were safe there, even after this. His grandfather’s house was like a fortress, thick stone walls, seemingly as old as the hills themselves.
He’d slept somehow until the silence woke him. He had no idea what time it was. He heard a vehicle moving quickly, sound increasing to a crescendo not far from him, then diminishing. And then the sound of another vehicle approaching, slowing down, stopping. A faint blush marked where the sky began. He tried to calculate where the truck was, tried to guess who might be in it.
By the time he reached the highway it was illuminated by blue-grey light. No sign of life in either direction. He crouched in the ditch, straining to spot movement in the village sprawled against the hills in front of him. Then he saw the Range Rover pulled off into a gully, barely visible but for the unmanned .50-calibre machine gun on the roof. No sign of anyone. The silence and the stillness of a grave. Then somewhere—and maybe he imagined it—the squalling of an infant. In his mind there was only one infant, his sister’s child. He stood and dashed across the road, bent low.
Then he heard the clatter of boots behind him, felt hands roughly grabbing, overpowering him, a blow that split his consciousness. Flashing light in screaming darkness. The pavement rushing up to meet his face, the taste of blood and asphalt. Hands dragging him backward, off the road, through weeds and nettles. He thought of dogs, large, wild, hungry.
A boot flattened his ear, crushing his flashing skull. The taste of sand. The metallic clacking of rifles being readied. Through one eye he could see the Sacred Heart of Jesus on a rifle stock. Someone’s hands were in his pockets.
“Papers. Where are your papers?”
He struggled to speak, but no words came.
The boot lifted, paused, came down hard, heel first.
Returning consciousness, barrel of the Kalashnikov with the Sacred Heart hovering above his face, cold muzzle pressed against his forehead. His eyes were glazed. Twisted mouths were moving furiously, silently, he heard only a rushing roar. Saw the fingers of the gunman caress the fire selector. The barely perceptible motion of a stranger’s hand obliterating an entire lifetime. He imagined the bullet readied in the breech. Fingers shoved the selector down all the way to semi-automatic—a single shot for him. A coup de grâce. He squeezed his eyes shut, then felt a hand grabbing roughly at his throat. The cutting pressure around his neck from the small gold chain he has worn since boyhood.
He opened his eyes. A bearded man crouched beside him, examining the little crucifix—a First Communion gift from Miriam. The man grasped his chin between a filthy thumb and forefinger, turned his face this way, that way. Lips moving, still silent. The gunman stood and reached down a helping hand, and gently pulled Pierre upwards until he was sitting. It was still too soon for standing. Sound returned in hollow murmurs and the gangsters gathered around, no longer hostile, just curious. One of them handed him a plastic bottle full of water. They laughed as he retched.
He studied the looming Mabou hills and above their dark profile, th
e glow of dawn. And he was amazed at how he’d awaited death that morning more than thirty years before, face to face with the wall-eyed boy who had saved him with a single word. Run. And the feeling he remembered as he ran was sorrow. Often, he’d imagined such a moment in the safety of home or school or on the open sea. Violent death was Lebanon’s communal narrative. Heroes. Victims. Martyrs. Massacres. He had never thought of sorrow as the dominant emotion in a final, violent crisis. He’d imagined a paralyzing terror. But, in the reality, unexpected as such moments almost always are, he’d only felt a kind of bitter sadness. He thought of Cyril, three years older than he was on that day.
Yes. He is old enough to know the truth.
He set the pen down, went below, stretched out on his bunk, hands behind his head. Staring at the low cabin ceiling, he imagined lying in a coffin. At home, when such insomnia descended, he would retrieve a small bag of marijuana from the bedside table drawer. It always helped. But he had no pot here. Lois had told him, as he was leaving, “I think you have enough on your plate without an airport bust for dope.”
You have enough on your plate. Yes. An understatement. Controversy. Scandal. Health. And the fat man and the history he’d all but forgotten.
Ari Roloff was the name the fat man used. But there was another name in another lifetime. A name from Greek mythology. Charon. A coin for Charon. A coin for the ferryman who transports souls across the river separating life from death. He rose from his bunk, fumbled through the thin light of the emerging day, into the main cabin. Peered out through a window. The tide was high and he could see beyond the long, rain-washed expanse of wharf a faint light inside the travel trailer. The light seemed to flicker in the gusts. He was briefly tempted to knock on the door. The lashing rain and hurtling wind were daunting. But the real distance between them was the primal isolation of strangers in a temporary place.
Light. He switched on a lamp. Returned to his journal. It was time now. It would not be easy. He felt the return of an aching sadness. Above the thrashing wind he could hear the rattle of oarlocks, the plash of oars, the approach of Charon’s ferryboat.
15.
He was leaning up against the wheel, staring out. The rain was streaking sideways on the windshield, obscuring vision, but he could see the white spray rising over the breakwater, silently disintegrating, disappearing, then rising again, more furious with each surge. He turned the ignition key, heard the rumble of the engine, felt the gentle tremble. Reached up, activated a windshield wiper. Then he saw a man standing near the end of the breakwater, hunched forward in resignation or defiance. It was impossible to tell.
Pierre didn’t bother with the rain pants. Just rubber boots and slicker. To reach the breakwater he had to fight the wind and rain down the length of the wharf, past Beaton’s trailer. He struggled onward, along a storage shed that briefly offered shelter on the lee side. On the breakwater he had to clamber over boulders the size of cars. No longer able to walk upright, he was practically crawling, bashing knees and shins. How did he get out there? How the hell will we get back?
Then Beaton turned toward him, raised cautionary hands. No, no, don’t…Then he was moving tentatively toward Pierre, arms spread wide like a tightrope walker. Within reach he extended a hand and Pierre grasped it and they stood there neither knowing who was saving whom. Beaton was now laughing and shouting: Brilliant!
Pierre shouted back: You’re insane.
I know, I know, but isn’t this fantastic!
Now the man was quiet, shivering and dripping, clutching the mug of coffee in both hands, looking lost. Pierre had taken charge when the footing was secure, seized his elbow and propelled him past the little trailer. He offered no resistance. Beaton climbed down to the boat without a word. Entered the cab and sat. Pierre was thinking, is he drunk? But nobody with impaired balance could have made it to the end of the breakwater in that wind, survived there for however long and then made it back.
He’d filled a kettle. Boiled water. Prepared coffee in a French Press. “You take milk?”
“No. Black. You mind if I smoke?”
“Smoke away.”
Beaton’s hands were trembling as he unwrapped a package of cigarettes from a bread bag. The smokes were dry but the little book of matches was soggy. “Hang on,” Pierre said. Held out the propane ignitor, flicked a flame.
Beaton inhaled deeply, exhaled, a kind of sigh. “I didn’t mean to drag you out there. I was okay, you know.”
“I couldn’t tell from here. I wasn’t sure that you could get back.”
“Ah,” Beaton said. “You didn’t have to worry. I’m used to the rocks. I think there’s some mountain goat in me. That’s what they used to say. In basic training. Obstacles courses were my bag. You’d never know, looking at me now.” He laughed, studying the floor. “I was in good shape once. I used to be a runner.”
“I could never get into running,” Pierre said.
“They used to have local races in the summer. Five miles. I never won any of them but was always in the top five or so.”
He puffed on the cigarette, sipped the coffee. Then he looked at Pierre, eyes appealing: “You wouldn’t happen to have anything stronger?”
Pierre produced the bottle of Scotch from a supply cupboard. Poured for both of them.
“A fella lets himself go,” Beaton said. “It just sneaks up on you. You look like you’re in pretty good shape.”
“For now,” Pierre said.
“So what do you do to stay fit?”
“I play golf. That’s about it.”
Beaton chuckled. “Golf.” Shook his head. “You’d be what age?”
Pierre hesitated, remembering the bluntness of these people. “Going on forty-seven,” he said.
“You sure don’t look it,” Beaton said.
“I have a young wife,” Pierre said. “And you? How old are you.”
“Forty-one.”
“You had some years left, in the military…”
“I suppose.”
“Burned out?”
Beaton studied him for a while, puffed the cigarette, then ground it out.
“Just for the record, I don’t believe in this PTSD bullshit, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Not getting at anything,” Pierre said.
“I had it easy compared to some.”
Pierre turned to the stove, poured coffee for himself, held the pot out to Beaton. “More?”
“Nah. Do you mind?” Beaton picked up the bottle, poured. “Take this officer that I knew. There was this day in Panjwai—”
“Panjwai?”
“Afghanistan. A forward observation base…we’ve all been there one time or another. There’s this nearby hill. Big rocks and steep. You’d go up between the rocks and over them. A race to the top. You get bored, eh? Anything to kill time. At the top you had to fire one shot with the nine mil just to prove you got there, then head back down. Coming down was just as hard. Sliding on your arse as much as anything.”
“So how was your race to the top?”
“Oh, I never did it. Not me.”
Pierre nodded.
“Anyway, this day, the guys were racing up and down the hill. Captain was on his way back down. Heard a shot behind him. Then maybe a hundred shots. From automatics, eh. And there were still two guys up there.”
“Did you get them back?”
“Oh yeah. That night. We went up. The bad guys were long gone, though.”
“How’s the drink?”
“Good. We caught up with the ragheads hiding in a village. We fucked them up good.”
“You knew it was them?”
“Didn’t matter, really.”
“So this officer, who ran up the hill. He was with you in the village?”
“No, no. He was back at the Kandahar Airfield by then. See, he was the senior officer. Should have known better. So he was hauled up on charges. But they bought his excuse.”
“Which was?”
“Reconnaissanc
e.”
Pierre nodded. “It could have been.”
“Yes. And the guys backed him up. The army finally decided he had PTSD. Charges went away but they kept him on the base, which was worse than the guardhouse. Unfit for command, they said, due to trauma accumulated over a long time. He told me, ‘Don’t believe that PTSD shit, man. I just fucked up. That simple.’ ”
Pierre walked to the sliding glass door, studying the weather.
“So what did it for you?” he asked, back turned.
“What do you mean?”
“Made you give it up.”
“Just figured it was time. Gave it a lot of thought in Kandahar. I been in Cyprus, Golan Heights, Bosnia was the worst. Never felt so fuckin’ useless in my life. Doing nothing is worse than anything in a situation like that. Worse than the killing even.”
Pierre turned, nodded. “I can imagine.”
“You do queer things sometimes, just to remind yourself that you’re a soldier, what you’re trained for. I was in Somalia too. You probably heard.”
“I might have read something.”
“You’d have to know what it feels like to kill another person.”
“I hear you.”
“If you don’t mind me saying so—it’s Pierre, isn’t it?—you have a little trace of an accent yourself.”
Pierre smiled. “Look who’s talking.”
“I mean foreign.”
“I grew up in Lebanon.”
“Ah, Lebanon. Then you’d know what I’m talking about.”
“Not really.”
“It’s afterwards that it gets to you. I mean if you’re normal, you start thinking. Right?”
“But I thought you guys were all about peacekeeping.”
Angus coughed, then looked up and raised a finger to his lips. “Shhh.” He stood then and stretched. “Thanks for that.” He nodded toward the empty mug.
“Come back later,” Pierre said. “I have a couple of T-bones I have to get rid of.”
“I might do that.”
By noon the storm was diminishing. Jagged clouds raced across the sky but there were periodic flashes from the sun and the heaving sea was settling. He stepped outside and climbed up onto the wharf. The wind was fresh with the mingled sea and forest fragrance that was unique to this pristine hidden place. He felt, if only for a moment, safe.
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