Arctic Smoke
Page 24
“Go.” Lor reached to grab Al’s shoulder. “We finish it together.”
He squeezed hard. But in his heart he despaired.
PART SEVEN
And Now, the Weird
Evil comes in many forms and seems to reinvent itself time and again.
—Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 2014
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Bushes At the End of the Giants’ Bridge
Seri roared across the tundra with renewed vigour, raced over the ice road at dangerous speeds. She stopped only for fuel, paying with her Visa. Time later to sort out expenses. Right now, got to move.
Rooke was not helping with the info-crunching. He spent hours leaning into the dash, squinting through his stolen spectacles. They began to stop at the side of the road to sleep, take stock, reorient. While Rooke snoozed, Seri sat with her notebook to make sense of the data, but all she crunched were contradictions and questions. The more she dug for answers, the fewer there were. She stabbed the pen at the page. The more she slept, the sleepier she became. Why had Rooke picked her, again?
Sometimes, enchanted with velocity, she fell into micro-fits of slumber, then awoke in a panic. Once, at Camsell Bend, she bobbed in a half-doze, then started fully awake, instantly aware of Rooke’s lips, how full they were. He reached to brush her shoulder. “They’ve run north. It’s an admission of their guilt.”
She opened the window a crack, then zipped it back up. She had missed some vital sign along this road, she knew it. Too sleepy: this landscape made you forget.
Of course she prayed. She read her Bible. But the more she prayed, the more distant God seemed. The more she read, the more her Bible tumbled out of order. So she renewed her vigour, wrenched up her concentration. Again, the Bible’s sense seemed inverse to her efforts, even at early morning. If she set her watch alarm, it went off at the wrong time. If she left it, it began to beep at seven-thirty precisely.
The next two nights she drove through, flexing her endurance. She could hardly see clearly out of herself any more. She knew what was happening. Augustine called it the phantasticus: a secret part of each person that roamed the world in spectral form, while the true self dreamed its experiences. Somewhere in Lethbridge—probably in that clearing—her own spirit had shaken loose, and her true body was far south, probably in the hotel, dreaming all of this mess. One more problem, then: to reunite body and soul.
No. She punched the wheel, honking the horn. Wake up. Enough was enough.
“Ted. Let’s review our evidence.”
He sneezed.
“Do you know where to report?” she said. “Surely you have important info in that briefcase?”
“But of the briefcase of knowledge you shall not open.”
“Yes. Eve. Funny.”
Rooke began to hum, a sleek and twisting melody. The car pointed straight north, as if it shared his single-mindedness. Then Seri remembered in detail how the CSIS Act strictly limited the types of activities they could investigate, strictly controlled the type of information they could collect. But were they still in CSIS? Were they still in Canada?
“We have to stop and get some sleep before we go nuts with exhaustion. We’ll have fresh eyes in the morning.”
“Fresh eyes.” He squinted through the lenses.
The delay was unfortunate, but there was little choice. She stopped at a hunter’s lodge on the Raven’s Throat River. A single white VW Rabbit was parked outside, licence plate IML8IML8.
“A lodge with no name.” Rooke tapped his teeth. “How enchanting.”
Seri felt a wash of loneliness. Not her own: some empathy with this quiet lodge, cracked by years of estrangement. She gathered herself. How absurd. The lodge tilted slightly north—a trick of the light? No, it really was.
“I’ll pay,” Seri said.
“Foundation cracking,” Rooke answered. “Rest assured.”
† † †
Supper, first. Rooke sat in the lounge, sipping ice water and nipping white unbuttered toast. Three bearded men sat at different tables, each reading a section of some dated newspaper, each with a pot of stew. Seri found the silence unholy—no slurps or chewing noises, no paper rustling. The server, a great bear with the nametag Grimwater, floated about and took orders in a soft monotone, communicating mainly through a subtle lexicon of shrugs. All the steps were too steep. And the place was unnaturally bright.
Seri ate salmon, pretended to read a pamphlet stained with Rooke’s ice water. Something about an underground river running backward beneath the lodge, shifting the foundations. Her mind wandered. She nodded.
“Ted. I’m going to get some sleep.”
He stared up, eyeskin tightly pouched.
Halfway up the steep stairs to her room she saw the picture. A large man, squatting beneath a snowy tree, gripping a rifle. He had a pair of antlers fastened to his head in some crude hunter’s joke. Eyes concealed behind dark glasses, beard stained red.
In her room, she stretched and cracked her notebook for a final look, but plunged into sleep roiled with dreams. Much later—or was it minutes?—she woke in the dark, still clothed. Where was she? She stood. The notebook dropped to the floor.
She’d been driving in her dream. They’d picked up a mad hitchhiker who looked like Rasputin, a preacher man who said they could not pass further until they accepted the grace of God. Then they were chased by RCMP, but outran him at the train tracks, where the train derailed behind. She looked back: a circus train, twisted, smoking. Disoriented clowns, angry elephants, dead midgets.
Stop. Ridiculous.
She reached for the notebook, snapped on the light. Except the RCMP. That part almost seemed as if it had actually happened.
Clenching her teeth, she opened the notebook, clicked the pen. She’d been lax and disorganized. She’d missed the signs along the road. Time to redouble her efforts.
She scratched and scribbled, crossed off and crumpled. She stabbed the pen to the page. Finally she grabbed the room phone. The Security Intelligence Review Committee had access to all information under the service’s control, including expense accounts. That would be a way in—check the expense account of Rooke’s special branch. But there was no answer, no voicemail. What time was it? She called the deputy director’s office, was referred down to the assistant director of human resources, and somehow ended up talking to a career portfolio manager who was no help at all. The phone buzzed like she was calling from the moon. When she asked about Rooke’s special branch, the manager simply hung up. She called her old office, but the number was rerouted to an RCMP detachment, and the man who answered had never heard of Rooke. All she got, finally, was a low-level clerk who told her that CSIS was no longer tracking subversives.
Seri hung up, noticed how tightly her toes clutched the fabric. She put down the notebook and drew a card from her wallet, then phoned Calgary.
“Hell-o.” The line hummed, but the voice at the other end was brisk. Her old friend, Anselm Kanashiro.
“Anselm,” Seri said. “I need a big favour. Information.”
A long pause. “Serendipity?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “How deeply into the layers of the intelligence community do you think you can penetrate?”
“Serendipity Hamm.” Another long pause. “Well, it’s good to hear from you again.”
“Yes, yes. Anselm?” She felt a prickle in her toes.
“Before we get the information, can you tell me exactly where you are?” A tapping deep in the static.
“Why?” She remembered the RCMP dream. “I’m actually in a bit of a rush.”
“Well-o. I understand that. But.” He stretched a long breath. “Just a bit of an update, Serendipity. Is all I need.”
“First answer my question.”
“We’ll get to it, soon as—”
She slammed down the phone. Dear God, were they chasing her? Was Anselm trying to track her now?
She clutched her hair, took a deep breath. Who were they, Seri? Who were the
y? Special Intelligence Projects? This was paranoia and exhaustion. She stood, tiptoed out to the stairs’ edge, looked down. Rooke was still at his table, staring at three empty glasses, finger trolling ice in a fourth. Bearlike Grimwater floated from table to table, wiping spills.
She turned and hastened to Rooke’s room.
She stared at his briefcase. Room hot, mouth dry. Hurry. Open it, Seri. Would a prophet do this? What was the sign? Surely God wouldn’t give her this opportunity if he didn’t mean her to take it. On the other hand, Granny Casey had taught her that the right action never depended on the situation. Wrong is wrong, she once said, don’t ever use bad for good. But then Granny Finnegan said, “Didn’t Prince Rilian kill the witch in The Silver Chair?”
Seri’s hand hovered over the briefcase. Nails so ragged, really letting herself go up here in the north. Before Seri’s seventh birthday, Granny Casey had washed Seri’s hair and trimmed her nails so neatly, and forbidden her to go into the backyard or even look out the back door until the weekend party. But Seri had looked one day after school, too curious to wait, and saw that Mum and Grandpa Hamm and the Grans were building her a miniature Giants’ Bridge, just like in The Silver Chair, best birthday present ever. Then, at the party, she had wound up in the bushes at the end of the Giants’ Bridge with Greg, bad little Greg, years before he became the youth pastor, and he had leaned over and kissed her right on the lips, mouth sticky with icing from the cake that was baked in the shape of a rabbit. And she had suddenly thought of her cousin Ricky, and how they had watched from Ricky’s treehouse as the lady undressed in the window and rubbed cream all over her breasts, and Ricky got so excited, and Seri got caught up in it, though she wasn’t sure why. And suddenly it seemed like she was kissing Ricky at the end of the Giants’ Bridge, not Greg, and she screamed and fled the bushes. Later Grandpa Hamm asked her if she had been in the bushes with Greg, and she said no, and saw the angel-food rabbit missing his legs, and felt so guilty for telling the lie and for kissing Greg and for spying with Ricky and most of all for peeking at the birthday present, and she began to cry, and her birthday was ruined, and for a moment spring became the season of lost hopes.
She blinked, hand still poised above the case.
Jonah would run. She did not want to be Jonah. Not that kind of prophet. Not her dad.
She took a deep breath and cracked the briefcase.
It was mainly empty, containing nothing more than five books and a large, folded piece of paper. She gingerly turned over the books. Bible, Tao Te Ching, the Upinashads, something old called The Book of Ozahism, something ancient called Die Alchemie. She opened the Bible, found it full of holes. Chapters and entire pages were neatly snipped out. She opened each book in turn, found each cut up in the same way, as if someone was literally clipping and eating the words.
Replacing the books, she removed the paper and unfolded it across the bed. It was a collage, about four feet wide each direction, spangled with scribblings, clippings, runes, and pictures, each dated with Rooke’s tidy script. The collage was clearly divided into stages, almost a map. The top left corner was from ten years ago in October—Rooke’s handwriting, most of it charred and slashed as if someone had attacked the words with a knife and lighter. Seri looked closely at the remaining fragments—our quest will renew us . . . north, to Lethbridge, to test our punk spirits against suburban banalities . . . .
Then an entry dated December 27. A splotch of green and blue powder podged to the paper. A fragment of feather, also iridescent. A cascade of doodles and icons—fire, skulls, crows roosting on the horns of a crescent moon. What juvenile madness.
Seri looked further, to January—newspaper clippings from December, news from the Lethbridge Herald, a story about a Christmas Eve cabaret gone wrong. Seems the drummer in the band lost control of himself and trashed the stage, burning a Canadian flag in the process. Then he disappeared. Police were baffled. The local Christian community blamed drugs and punks. A Piikani leader blamed the chinook winds, said the snow-eater was also a mind-eater for those who were too contemptuous to understand other cultures, let alone absorb the spirit of the plains landscape.
One of the clippings was from a year later, a guest column by some kid from the university, who in retrospect marvelled at the community’s response to this small affair, when, after all, there were more pressing crimes committed every day. The kid seemed especially upset that everyone continued to talk about this drummer, this damned punk Franklin, who had never been found, and held some power by virtue of his absence.
Franklin. Theodore Franklin Rooke. Seri smiled grimly, stroked the briefcase nametag. She was beguiled by this new image of Rooke as a punk drummer.
She looked to the next entry. August, a year later. This one looked like a ransom note, words and letters cut from various sources and pasted together in sentences. All hopes and faiths are ridiculous. . . .
September. Rooke’s scribblings, getting messier, more childish—and what magpie whispered in my ear? . . . real hope by stealing the false hopes of others—almost illegible.
It was the last entry for nine years. But then Rooke had renewed his writing, weeks ago, just before Christmas Eve. Seri looked up. That must have been what he was doing when he disappeared in Lethbridge. She scanned again the bottom of the collage. More scribblings, cramped and leaning to the left—kill hope. . . .
She opened the envelope and pulled free a picture, slightly out of focus, shot against the sandstone of the Lethbridge post office. A bearded man, framed by two tall and slender companions. The one with prematurely greying hair was obviously a younger Rooke. A clean-shaven Rooke. The other one, the one with the silvery ponytail, was the man from the recent Christmas Eve cabaret. His eyes were burned out.
Seri stuffed the picture back in the envelope. She threw the envelope on top of the books and grabbed the collage, which spilled some of its blue-green powder. Brushing it from her knee as if it were hot ashes, she snapped shut the briefcase, locking it quickly. Granny Casey was right. Never mess with wrong actions, look what you might get.
But what other choice was there? No jurisdiction, no mandate, no budget, no plan. Notebook nonsense, Bible nonsense. SIP after them, RCMP on board, get her in for questioning. She was running. She was Jonah.
No, Seri, no.
Maybe Rooke was some kind of special agent, only acting crazy, watching and waiting for her to incriminate herself. But for what crime? Lord, Seri, keep the faith. This was God’s test. Find a way.
She returned to her room and called Vancouver.
“Appleskin! I’m so glad you called.”
Seri’s shoulders unbunched a notch. “Gran, I need your help.” She spoke quickly, tumbling out all her doubts.
Gran chuckled at the other end. “I don’t often do this, Pumpkin.”
Seri knew. “A Bible verse.”
More laughter. “God alone is my rock, my fortress. I shall never be shaken.”
“Old Testament or New?”
“Old, King David. I think I misquoted. And don’t forget your Augustine, who battled skepticism with all his heart.”
“Yes.” Seri’s stomach unclenched. Yes. Gran’s voice was the thread to the real world, thin but strong, the voice of clarity and certitude.
“Potato, Mr. Scott and I are on our way to Europe in a week.” Gran giggled. “Kind of a sinful surprise.”
All of a sudden Seri felt so alone. “Europe?”
“Yes, darling. A honeymoon without the wedding. Granny Casey would have been so disappointed.”
Seri flipped her notebook cover back and forth. “Europe’s pretty far.”
Gran laughed. “So’s the Arctic.”
“Oh, Gran. It is.” Seri closed the notebook, traced her name on the cover. “Hope you have fun. I guess this is goodbye till then.”
“Not goodbye,” Gran chided. “See you soon. And keep calling. I’ll give you a Bible verse whenever you need one.”
Seri smiled. “See you soon.”
She paused on the middle stair. There he was, still at the table, cleaning his glasses with ice water. His hair was mostly white, patched with black. A wiry beard had almost swallowed his once neat goatee. As Seri stepped down, she passed again the hanging photo of the horned hunter, who, for all she knew, winked behind his own dark glasses, or stared mercilessly, or had no eyes at all. Then she realized why the lodge’s light was so unnatural. There were no shadows here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Hotel Agartha
“Ted, we still on course for Foggy Island?”
“I see it.” He peered through his reading glasses. “Keep north, a day’s drive at most.”
“When does your bogus music festival pretend to begin?”
“Three days hence.”
“We’ll be early, waiting for them.”
“Perfect,” he said.
“A trap. Spiders.”
“Perfect.”
Seri nodded. They were partners now, set by the purity and simplicity of their goal. No junk remained, no hesitation. Speed north. Catch flies. Catch punks. This landscape cut everything to its cleanest corners.
Yet the land seemed to sicken as the day rolled by, like Narnia under the White Witch. Small thickets smouldered, still afire, trees bent and broken as if by unnatural wind or striding giants. Ravens lifted croaking to the air, heavy wings bedraggled. Stalled vehicles at the roadside, overturned SkiDoos, some burnt to husks.
Seri’s thoughts wandered to images of Rooke the punk drummer—fingers clenching drumsticks, clean-shaven face warped with concentration. Now he was full-bearded as Moses, face going crooked as his forehead pulled one direction and his jaw another.
“Ted. Something’s wrong here, unwholesome.”
He knocked his teeth with a spoon stolen from the hunter’s lodge, turned to stare right through her. Seri noticed for the first time that his eyes, magnified by lenses, were the colour of pine needles.