I nodded. I’d never been anywhere. Toronto was the farthest from home I’d ever gone. Jim looked at me with interest, while Annie was busy watching the road, which was paved but rough.
“Oh honey, you’re going to love it,” Jim said.
“Jim was born there,” said Annie. “He thinks nothing’s got scratch on Dawson. You could be in New York City, and he’d be standing there saying, ‘What’s the big deal?’”
“In gold rush days, they called it the Paris of the North. You know that, Aileen?”
I didn’t.
“So why are you coming here?” Jim asked. “You looking for work?”
“No,” I said. I hesitated. I didn’t like how friendly he was, how he was leaning to look me right in the face, even though I kept my eyes fixed on the road. I didn’t like his hand on the seat-back behind me. I said, “I’m not looking for work.”
“Oh,” said Jim. “Aileen’s got secrets.” He said my name like Eileen.
“Plenty of people in Dawson have secrets. Jim, you ought to be used to people not liking to be asked too many questions,” Annie said, but she took her eyes off the road to give me a deep, hard look.
“It’s bright out,” I said. “This is what they call the midnight sun?”
“Oh this is nothing,” said Jim. “Just you wait. Right now, back south, you’d be seeing the sun start to drop, right? In another hour or two, it’d be gone. But you watch. By the time we drop you off in five hours, it’ll still be so bright you could do your needlework outside.”
“Where are we dropping you off anyway?” Annie asked. “You said you got a sister or something here? She expecting you?”
“No,” I said. “She doesn’t know I’m coming.”
Annie gave me another look. She said, “Most folks let someone know when they’re coming to stay.”
“I don’t actually know where she lives. We haven’t talked in a long time.”
“I got a sister like that,” said Jim. “She got out so fast we hardly knew her. Like she was just waiting to go since my mother birthed her. She moved to Arizona, of all places. I haven’t talked to her in years. Don’t need to either. I got no love in me for that country, or the people there.” He reached behind him and pulled out a can of beer, which he cracked open. I looked back to see a two-four. He offered me his can, and I shook my head.
“Well, if you’re drinking, I’m smoking and that’s that,” Annie said. She lit up a cigarette, and Jim wheeled down his window. She said, “Jim doesn’t like me smoking, but it’s none of his damn business.”
“I never had a cigarette in my life,” said Jim. “My mother smokes, my sisters smoke, my brother smokes. But I hate the shit.”
“He just likes sitting there like a bastard judging people.”
“You smoke?” Jim asked me, and I shook my head again. He said, “Me, I’ve got to protect my singing voice. You sing?”
“No,” I said.
“Jim, don’t you start. Half the time, he sings the whole way. Not normal singing either. Opera shit. If there’s something worse than being stuck in a cab with someone singing in Italian, I don’t know what it is.”
“I love Verdi,” said Jim. “But Wagner’s my favourite. You like him?”
“I don’t really know opera,” I said.
“Some folks don’t like him because they say he was a Nazi. I don’t go in for that. I’ve got no problem with Jews. I’ve got no problem with anybody. Except Americans. And the French. You French?”
“No,” I said.
“Just as well. We get a lot of French up here. But I figure, I don’t got to like the guy, I just like his music. Right?”
“I guess so,” I said.
Jim tossed the can in the back and opened another.
“You keep drinking at that pace, Jim,” said Annie, “and I’m going to have to toss you out by Carmacks.”
But he did keep drinking, and Annie kept driving, and I looked out longingly at the scattered houses of Carmacks as we passed by without anyone tossing anyone out of anything.
Because there was Stephan, there was always Stephan. And because not one day was I ever sure that if I were to leave, he’d still be there when I came back.
It was around midnight that we passed the Dawson airport.
“We gotta take Aileen up to the Dome,” said Jim. “Come on, Annie. It’s the first time she’s seen Dawson.”
“Jim, I’m warning you. I’m tired as hell and I’ve got no patience. We’re not going anywhere but home.”
“Come on, Aileen. Tell her. The first time you see Dawson you gotta see it from the Dome.”
“What’s the Dome,” I said.
“It’s the big hill by Dawson. You can see the rivers and the city from there. It’s just a view. Nothing special,” Annie said, lighting a new cigarette with the still-burning end of the one before.
“Annie, you’d tell God and his angels they’re nothing special. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. Woman, you take us up the Dome.”
“Don’t you call me Woman.”
“Woman, I’ll call you whatever I want if you don’t take us up the Dome. Aileen wants to see the Dome.”
“I don’t really care,” I said.
“You think your shit smells real sweet, don’t you,” said Annie. She’d put away a few cans during the last few hours of the drive, and her face had taken on a suspicious look. “Care about precious little from the look of you. Jim wants to show you his town. We gave you a ride all this way, and he wants to show you his hometown. Show some manners.”
She turned a hard right, and the truck began to edge its way around an enormous hill. She had animal eyes. Glittering animal eyes. She said, “Don’t know that I should really have this rig on this road. Give me another beer, Jim.”
Jim passed her one and reached across my lap to pat her knee. “You’re my girl,” he said.
“Shut your mouth, you drunk.”
Jim shut it in a big smile, and beamed at us both and at the road all the way to the top. We jackknifed into the parking lot, where two other cars were stopped, empty. Jim stumbled a little unsteadily from the truck door and offered me a dirty hand. I clambered out Annie’s door instead.
We were at the edge of a hill that plunged down into the sprawl of a town at the base, where two rivers met.
“The brown river’s the Klondike and the clear one’s the Yukon. You can see them still separated there, between the dirty half and the clean half,” said Jim.
“I thought it was a city,” I said.
“Used to be,” said Jim. “In gold rush days, it was booming. Now I don’t suppose there’s much more than a couple thousand of us left, even in summer.
“Check it out.” He pointed. “That’s Annie’s place, way up there in the corner, and I’m just down the road a ways. Best bar in town’s The Pit, you can just about see it down there. They’ll still be drinking hard there. We should hit it for a couple more drinks. Annie, I can give you a spin on the dance floor.”
“Piss off,” said Annie, opening another can.
“Come on, Annie. Annie’s a beautiful dancer, aren’t you, hon.” Jim grabbed her from behind and put his arms around her. Annie fought him, her face nasty and pinched.
“I said piss off, you fool.”
I wondered if I should intervene. Jim had his arms around Annie as lovingly as if she had asked for it. And suddenly, her face softened into a thrill of a smile.
“Come on, Annie,” said Jim. He hummed something that sounded more like country than opera, and the two of them danced like that on the hill. I felt uncomfortable and trudged down the hill a little way. I had fifty dollars on me and a credit card. My bank card. I hadn’t worked out money with Stephan before he left. I had no idea if he was still drawing on my account or adding to it. I wished I could hike from here down to the town and get a hotel without needing to say anything else to these people. I looked back and they were still dancing. He had a deep smile on his face, pressed against A
nnie’s hair and the side of her face. She’d taken her hat off, or it had fallen off. She was so tiny, he was bent in two over her, but he looked like there was no other way to dance. He moved like a different kind of man. Like a gentle man. Like a man who would ask permission to use someone’s bathroom.
“I’m going to go down now,” I said. “I’ve got to find a hotel room. Can I just follow this road down?”
Annie turned to me, her face still smiling like she was a little girl at Christmastime. “You do what you want, honey. But it’s a long road down and no hotels to be had this time of night. Be careful of the bears.”
“You’re not walking down,” said Jim, letting go of Annie. “We’ll drive you. You can crash with me tonight. I got lots of space.”
“The hell you do,” said Annie. “She’s staying at my place. You got a tent?”
“No,” I said. “Just that suitcase, that’s all I brought.”
“You’ll have to get one tomorrow if you don’t find your sister. You can crash on my couch tonight. Let’s get out of here.”
We drove into town, in the strange blue light of near dark that never quite became dark. When we dropped Jim off, Annie got out of the truck and hugged him for a long time. He opened his arms to me, but I stayed in the truck.
“You have a nice visit,” said Jim. “I bet that sister of yours’ll be real glad to see you. It was nice to meet you and I hope to have the pleasure again.”
“You’re such a cornball when you’ve been drinking,” said Annie.
“Hey, Aileen, you know I’ve got a boat. I could take you out on the water—you like fishing?”
“No,” I said. Annie looked at the ground and Jim turned sad, blurry eyes to me. “I don’t really want to go fishing,” I said.
“Okey-dokey,” said Jim. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, Annie.”
“You take care of yourself,” she said.
Because until Stephan left me, I had always been just this side of being alone. But never all the way. Until he left, I never had a whole week of nights in the dark remembering how three years of my life long ago had been lived in the dark and how there had always been another out in that darkness, a hand waiting if I reached mine out …
We drove to Annie’s house in quiet. It was a small, white woodframe house. Annie piled a blanket and a pillow on a couch. “There you go,” she said. “There’s coffee by the fridge, but I’ll ask you not to wake me in the morning.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for the ride and letting me stay here. I don’t know what I would have done.”
Annie had the hard, shining eyes of someone who’s had too much to drink, but her voice was sober. “You got a mean streak in you, don’t you,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t have treated Jim like that. He’s a good man. There’s no cause for treating people that way.”
Before I could say anything, she turned around and switched off the light. “Good to meet you, Aileen,” she said, and headed up the stairs.
I stretched out on the couch, leaving the blanket on a chair beside me. The night was warm. I closed my eyes, but already the blue light was getting brighter and whiter, filling the room. I lay awake for hours in the quiet of someone else’s house.
Mara
THREE
AND THAT WAS HOW I would answer him when he asked. Again and again he asked me to tell him the story of what happened, and again and again it was the same story I told. Until my answer became his.
But there were the things he never asked. He worried one question like the ocean worries a stone until all that was left of the question was the answer I gave, which got harder and surer as the question itself dissolved. Eventually I could have said to him, “You are the story I am telling you,” because that was what he was and all he was and he was the only thing that was, that I had ever had for my own. “Tell me what happened to you,” he said, since he was only a child, and long after he knew every word I would answer. And he meant, “Tell me why you can’t see,” and so I told him what answered that, but what he came to mean later, and only I knew it then, was, “Tell me what the difference is between what happened to you and what you are.” And what he didn’t know to ask was what I never told him. How a story, like an answer, is a net made out of holes, and it’s in the holes that he should have gone looking.
Aileen
early June 1996
FOUR
I DREAMT OF OUTER SPACE. I dreamt I was a child, paddling the darkness as I swam in a vast ocean of stars.
And then my dream collided with a sun-glared living room I didn’t recognize. I peeled my face from a rough wool blanket beneath me, squeezed my eyes shut again, and thought for several moments before I remembered where I was. Dawson, I thought at last. Oh hell. Then I opened my eyes and looked around.
It was a fussy, mismatched sort of room. All the furniture had flower patterns on it—the overstuffed cotton sofa beneath me, the sectional couch that faced it, and an armchair by the door—but none of the patterns matched, and the curtains were made of white eyelet lace that did not look entirely clean. I heard a floorboard squeak above me and stood up. She had told me I was cruel.
I knew the kind of look she’d given me. She was like people back home in Halifax, where people’s friendliness was a measure of how big a fool they thought you were. They liked the look of themselves doing favours and thought you might fall for thinking that was kindness. Annie’s eyes had said what she thought of her and what she thought of me. So I found my suitcase where I’d set it down by the door and I left Annie’s house.
It was even hotter outside. The sun was so bright that, for a moment, as the door closed behind me, I couldn’t see anything at all. Then, when I squinted, I saw a street that seemed to have been peeled out of the Wild West. Elderly couples clung to each other and strolled down board sidewalks lining an unpaved road that shook brown dust into the air every time a car went past. The storefronts that faced me had signs painted in the sort of typeface usually reserved for phrases like “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” It was as if the entire town had at some point conceded that it would no longer be an actual town. Instead it had become a myth of itself: a museum harbouring its own memory of having once been a real place.
I followed the sidewalk I was on until its end, and then I got a glimpse of the river several blocks away and realized there was little more to the town than I had just walked and the distance between where I stood and the riverbank. Somehow it had looked bigger from far above.
I cut down to the next street below and saw a hotel sign. I pushed open the door underneath it and approached the desk inside, where a boy stood staring at something in his hands. He had hair combed over his eyes in stringy points and shoulders that poked through his T-shirt like sticks. “I need a room,” I told the boy.
“How many nights?” he asked, without looking at me.
“I don’t know.” I thought. “Maybe a while,” I said.
He shook his head. “No rooms,” he said, and I stepped closer till I could see he had one of those little electronic games in his hand, and it was that he was staring at.
I put down my suitcase. “Where can I get a room?”
He shrugged. “Nobody’s open before June 14. Any place open now is booked.”
“But you’re open.” I wanted to snatch the game from his hand. He had a slack, sullen face, and I knew that behind his lowered lids, his eyes would have that dull, empty look all kids’ eyes seemed to have these days. I felt my heart rate become faster till I could hear the pressure of blood in my ears and throat.
“But we’re booked.”
“Booked until when? Can I get a room tomorrow?”
He shrugged again. “Don’t know. I’m just watching the desk for Ivan. Ivan said no rooms.”
“What do I do?” I asked. He hadn’t looked at me yet and my voice sounded too high, too thin.
“Lady,” he said. “Lady, lady, lady.”
“I’m looking for my sister,” I said softly, my voice anemic,
my voice a bony hand reaching.
“So stay with her,” he said.
I didn’t mean to start crying. I never cried in public. But I did and it was then he put down his game and looked at me. At first I thought he was disgusted, embarrassed because I was old and a woman and maybe I reminded him of his mother, but he just stared at me and I stared back. He had long, dark, wet-looking eyelashes around his pale eyes, the eyes of a startled, lovely girl.
“Ivan will be back soon,” he said at last. “You wait there.” And there was no chair where he pointed, only a flight of stairs, so I nodded and wiped my face and stood by the stairs to wait for Ivan.
An hour passed while I stood by the stairs. Not one person came in or went out the front doors, and the boy didn’t raise his eyes from the game in his hands. Eventually I sat down on the bottom step, and the boy said nothing. The room was so dim that I struggled to keep my eyes open. It was warm and airless and lit only by a narrow barred window facing the street and a piano lamp on the glossy desk shielding the boy. I couldn’t tell if the wallpaper was pink or brown, but a headache had begun pounding behind my eyes, and I slowly came to feel as if the walls were the colour of the inside of my head and its pain. Finally I stood up.
“Listen, kid,” I said to the boy, “are you from this town?”
He set the game down on the desk and it made a series of tinny sounds. “No,” he said, “but Ivan is.”
“I can’t wait for Ivan,” I said. “I’ve got to find my sister. Listen, kid, I have to tell you something and you may not be ready to hear it.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I have to tell you that it is rude to play with that thing when someone is talking to you. You’ve got a job here, do you understand that? It might not seem very important to you, and it isn’t really a very important job. It’s kind of a stupid job. But when somebody is here for a reason that is important, like if somebody is here to find their sister, you’ve got to do better than this.”
In the Land of Birdfishes Page 5
