North of Boston (29 page)

“That can't be very satisfying.”

“It isn't. Let me assure you.” She strides to the door. “I'll be right back. This won't take long.”

I tell her I'll be in the room at the end of the hall. “One more thing, Margot. Food.”

She returns in about twenty minutes with some bread slices wrapped in a napkin. I was hoping for something more, but I'm not in a position to complain. I start tearing the bread with my teeth as she tosses the sweater and a wad of cash on the bed. Her eyes are gleaming with a sharper light than I've seen in them before. “I told Bob that I needed everything in his wallet to pay the nice ladies at the craft fair who refused to take plastic, that I'd promised to leave money for them at the inn.”

I count almost three hundred dollars. I put on the sweater and my jeans. I ask Margot what's happening downstairs.

“Everybody's talking about what happened. They caught the guy, Troy, who stole the bike. Well, they didn't catch him, actually. They said he was driving crazy, going way too fast. A tire blew and he skidded off the road, rolled down a gully. The bike landed on top of him somehow.”

“And . . . ?”

“And he died. When they got there, they said he was dead.”

“Who said that?”

“The guys you talked about. Brock and Dennis. They were on the other bikes.”

“Of course.” It's convenient that Brock and Dennis were the only people who saw the accident and can describe Troy's sudden death.

“Captain Lou is really upset. He's crying, actually. He says Troy never listened to him. Apparently, he was in a lot of trouble with drugs.”

“Yeah, that's what I heard. Poor Captain Lou.”

“It's sad, isn't it? That he should feel responsible. He's really a very kindhearted man. But it's not like you can fix someone else's problems.” Margot sighs, sits on the bed. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don't know. How far is the highway from here?” I want to get out of Makkovik as fast as I can and meet Parnell somewhere safer than this.

“No idea. Wait. There are maps downstairs.”

She leaves and comes back shortly with the rudimentary black-and-white map, about the size of a placemat, that the innkeepers provide for their guests. I sit on the bed to look at it. It shows the important buildings of Makkovik—police station, store, health clinic (doctor available once a month), and the airport about a half mile west of the inn. The coast up to Nain is jagged with narrow inlets and peninsulas.

“This is crazy,” I say. “Where's the highway?”

Margot sits down and looks over my shoulder. “I don't think there is one. Or, look, there's one. But it only goes from Happy Valley west.”

“There have to be some roads that just aren't marked.”

“I don't know. In winter, they'd all be impassable anyway. People get around on snowmobiles up here. Where do you want to go?”

I'm staring at a town on the map, halfway between Makkovik and Nain. Hopedale. It takes a minute for the name to register, then memories flood back. Hopedale is where my mother and I spent a month every summer, picking flowers and making fragrances. Where, if nothing's changed, the house we rented from the architect stands empty from September through May.

“Go downstairs, Margot, and ask the innkeeper if you wanted to get to Hopedale from here how you would do it.”

She catches the urgency in my voice and hops up. At the door she pauses and looks back at me with a solemn expression. “Pirio, I'm helping you because I can see from what they did to you that you have to get out of here. I could never forgive myself if you were hurt again or, God forbid, killed. But I don't want Bob to get in trouble either. I mean, I know what he's doing isn't strictly legal, but he tells me there are a lot of whales out there, and it doesn't matter that much in the long run. He's not a bad person; he's just . . . well, adventurous. You know, men used to hunt whales all the time, and they didn't die out. You would see that for yourself when we got there. There are still a lot of them around. Plenty, in fact.”

For a few seconds we just look at each other.

“I love Bob, you know. Even if I do things I shouldn't. I'm just bored. I don't mean anything by it.”

“I won't tell, Margot, and I'll never forget that you helped me.”

When she comes back, she's flustered. “I have to hurry. They're all leaving now, and Jorn is still after me. Like I'm not supposed to have noticed that he dumped me the minute he heard the motorcycles. I told Bob I have a headache and was lying down. He doesn't expect me to eat anyway. So I went out back and asked the innkeeper how to get to Hopedale like it was just a typical tourist question. He's a really nice guy named Yoskolo. He said if I didn't want to take a boat, I could fly. I asked him to look up the flight times, and he said there's one leaving tomorrow morning at 8:55 a.m.”

“Thank you, Margot.” I'll take my chances in this room tonight and leave quietly as soon as it's light.

“Good luck, Pirio. Take care of yourself.” Then she's gone.

I step to the window. No moon has risen, but the myriad stars are close and glittery. Low on the horizon, a wide emerald band slowly swirls and undulates. In its eerie glow, I feel as if I'm standing at the edge of the known world.

What is it about death that makes us look to the sky? I imagine Troy out there, riding the spreading, bucking waves of the northern lights, and hope it's better than a fix.

T
he plane is a De Havilland Twin Otter with large windows for observation and thinly cushioned seats for nineteen passengers. This morning there are only five. Myself, an Inuit mother and child, a white man with an air of scientific detachment, and an elderly woman with greasy, unkempt hair. No one talks. A young Inuit stewardess takes our tickets while the captain can be seen through the open door of the cockpit, flipping switches, doing preflight checks. I was awake all last night—first listening to a few guests settle into rooms at the front of the inn; then, when everything was quiet, watching out the window for the early sunrise to provide enough light for me to get out of there. Once we're in the air, I try to sleep but fail. Exhausted, I stare out the window at the craggy brown terrain, unbroken by roads, and the sunlight gleaming off the silver wing. Hopedale appears on schedule: the runway a black slash gouged into a rocky hill, the town no more than a sprinkling of low buildings on the edge of a vast sparkling bay.

I walk down the hill into town, past a school and tired playground, and a two-story red inn with a tin roof. Around a bend in the road, I spy the store where my mother and I shopped years ago. It looks exactly the same. I know that just beyond it is the one-room town library, where I'm hoping I can get access to phone and Internet.

It's an airy, yellow-painted room with potted plants on the windowsills. A large corkboard propped on an easel is studded with community announcements. There are no patrons at the tables on this Thursday morning, and when I approach the main desk, a young man looks up from a computer. He asks how he can help me—he seems to intuit that I'm not looking for a botany book or novel—and after some discussion he offers me the use of the phone at his elbow to make a few calls.

The first call is to Thomasina's landline. It rings and rings. Doesn't anyone answer their home phone anymore? I leave a message in which I urge—no, order—her to take Noah out of school immediately, go to my father's house, and stay there until I tell her it's safe to leave.
Jeffrey will know you're coming
,
I say. I call her cell and repeat the message. Before I left, I told her about Max and the voyage I was going on, so she'll know better than to second-guess.

Next call goes to Jeffrey, who, thank God, picks up immediately. I don't go into the specifics: I'm conscious of the young librarian, who can't help hearing everything I'm saying. But after a few questions Jeffrey realizes that the situation is serious, says he'll keep trying to get in touch with Thomasina, and will go with her to get Noah out of school.

“Will you explain to Milosa and Maureen?” I ask.

“You better do it.”

I decide to bypass Milosa and go straight to Maureen. She and Jeffrey take care of the house guests anyway, and for the time being I'd like to avoid Milosa's impatient, probing questions. When I get Maureen on the phone, I make it short and sweet: my friend and her son are coming; they'll be staying for a few days in the guest room; her hospitality to them will be much appreciated.

“Of course. We're always happy to help.” She volunteers that there's been no perceptible change in my father, and I feel guilty for not having asked.

The last phone call will be the hardest. I can feel my throat clotting with what appears now to have become my primary emotion: fear. Fear of the bad guys; fear for Noah, Thomasina, and my father; fear of drowning; fear of love. I pick up the old-fashioned receiver one last time, but my finger stops in midair, hovers over the numeric keypad. I can't call him. I don't know his number. It was programmed into my iPhone, not committed to memory. I'm half insanely frustrated, half relieved.

“Internet,” I say to the young man. “May I?”

He stands up, gestures for me to come around the desk, pulls out the chair. I take a seat on the still-warm vinyl. Parnell's e-mail is easy to remember: [email protected].

I explain where I am, ask him to meet me with a zoom lens and tripod. Also a Kodak PlaySport. And my passport, which I left in my top desk drawer, assuming I wouldn't need it, but do now—presuming (hoping) I'll be going back to Boston. He has to come right away. I tell him I'll e-mail my super, ask him to let Parnell into my apartment, and will leave a note for him at the general store here with directions to where I'm staying. I hesitate while signing off. Should I say
Love
or
Thanks
or
Best wishes
? I settle on my initial, and make it lowercase:
p.
Then I call the super, whose number is listed, and he says he will let Parnell in. Tomorrow I'll return to the library to get Parnell's reply.

I thank the young man and walk back to the general store. The same bell jingles when I open the same battered door; the same odors assault me—dust and peanuts, cigarette smoke, astringent cleaning products doctored with fake meadow smells, and stale, fan-circulated air. No one's behind the counter, where an old gentleman is waiting patiently. I pass aisles of junk food, processed food, candy, cases of soda. Refrigerated units on the far wall hold beer, cheap wine, more soda. The origins of most Western diseases are efficiently packed together on these shelves. At the end of the far aisle, in the very back corner, it's possible to put your hands on milk, eggs, wilted heads of iceberg lettuce, and bruised bananas. On my way back to the counter, I grab some toiletries.

Now a middle-aged woman in a pink Gap sweatshirt is behind the cash register, ringing up the old man's canned peaches and instant coffee.

“Just get in?” the woman asks as the old man leaves and I put my items on the counter.

“Yeah. Just now.”

“Fly?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Not tourist season anymore, but it's still a pretty time of year. Soon the bay will freeze all the way across, and the snow will pile up. It's pretty then, too. Everything quiet and white. Staying long?”

“A few days.”

“Over at the inn, I guess.”

“No, I'm headed out to a rental north of town, on the bay.” I remember the road there very well—its dust and ruts and the way the architect's house looked when we came around the last corner and saw it outlined against the sea.

“By yourself?”

“Yeah. Just me.”

“Oh.” She nods as if this is a strange but oft-observed habit of the Caucasian visitor. “You must be writing a book. Had a guy here last winter, stayed three months in a rental by himself. Turns out, he was writing a book. A fiction story, he said. Real nice guy. Said he never drove a snowmobile until he came up here, and now it was his preferred mode of transportation.
Preferred,
he said. I got a laugh out of that.” As her fingers have been punching buttons, her black eyes have been taking me in, assessing my unwashed hair, hand-knit sweater. No jacket, no purse. My face. “You had some trouble, huh?”

“Yeah. Gotta get away for a bit. Clear my head.”

“Uh-huh.” She nods wisely. “You take your time now. It's safe around here. A woman doesn't have to do anything she don't want. Freedom's the best thing.”

“Somebody's going to come here asking about me in the next few days. He's my friend; his name's Parnell. You'll know it's him because he's got a bad arm. If anyone else asks about me—which I'm not expecting—you don't have to say.”

She smiles, showing dimples and short teeth. “I'm glad you have a friend coming. As for any others, I don't know a thing. I'm Sukie, by the way. Either me or my daughter Charlotte are usually here.”

When my purchases are packed in two brown grocery bags, she sees me hesitate.

“I walked from the airport,” I say.

She smoothly comes to my rescue by saying that Charlotte will drive me if I want. I accept the offer, and ten minutes later Charlotte and I are jostling along the rutted road in an old jeep with spent shock absorbers, out to the architect's house. Her son, Nicky, seven years old, is in the backseat, standing on the wheel well with his arms around his mother's headrest, and his delicate face peering curiously at me. His quiet patience seems entirely natural, a result of either his Inuit temperament or the gentler lifestyle of this part of the world. He makes me miss Noah, who I think would like it here.

I find the key to the house just where it always was, hanging on a nail in the shed. The cathedral ceiling and the scarred kitchen table are eerily familiar, though smaller than I recall. The whole house seems smaller, and a bit dingier. The cedar deck where my mother and I spent so many hours is empty, the chairs having been put away for the winter. Slender yellow birch leaves are mounded like wind-blown refuse in the corners.

It's chilly inside. Charlotte helps me start a fire in the woodstove; then we carry in more logs and kindling for the fireplace from the woodpile outside. There's a stack of
New Yorker
s and the
Economist
on the bookshelf next to the fireplace, along with
The Thorn Birds
and several historical romances. Nicky runs excitedly from room to room, perhaps trying to understand why a house this big and bright should go uninhabited for most of the year. When they leave, I make eggs and toast with tea. And shower, and make the bed, and lie in it, and finally sleep.

Late afternoon finds me up and eating again—pasta and salad—trying to regain my strength and some kind of emotional equilibrium for the next part of the journey. There's floating pack ice in the bay—I saw it as Charlotte and I were driving here. She said a gale's predicted. Fifty-knot winds, huge swells. Suicide for small boats. The
Galaxy
will ride it out, no problem, but it will be slowed down. I figure it will take another few days at least for the yacht to make its way up the northern Labrador coast into the Cumberland Sound. I got a nice head start traveling here by plane. But now I've got to wait for Parnell, and I can only hope he will come as fast as he can. Then we've got to get to Cape Chidley and somehow meet the challenge of crossing the Hudson Strait.

Sometimes the best way to solve thorny problems is to ignore them for a while. It's as if, when they realize they're not commanding your hysterical, anxiety-laden attention, they agree to shrink and become more reasonable. That's why I take the time to get a nice blaze going in the big stone fireplace, open up
The Thorn Birds
, and curl on the couch like a vacationing princess, letting the afternoon hours simply pass.

I'm engrossed in Meggie's troubles at Drogheda when I hear a
soft knock on the front door. I open it to an Inuit man in his midthirties. About five feet seven, strong, with a wide, deep chest. Wearing jeans and an old green parka, unzipped. His face is round and thick, but also pleasantly angular in the straight nose and high cheekbones. A relaxed smile and something almost bashful in his eyes quell my urban suspicion. Then, without quite knowing why, I feel a smile starting. I know him from somewhere, I think.

He tells me his name is Martin Naggek, that he was driving home from work, saw smoke coming from the chimney, and thought he'd stop by and see if Mr. Collins needed anything. I tell him I'm a former renter who's in the area unexpectedly and staying a couple of days with Mr. Collins's blessing. (At this point, I'm not going to sweat telling a white lie or two.) We both agree that Mr. Collins is a very nice man.

In a careful voice, Martin says, “My father was friends with a woman who used to come here in the summers. He always kept an eye on the chimney, in case she came back. Since he passed on a year ago, I've been keeping an eye on it, too. Family tradition, I guess.”

I explain to him about my mother and me, how we spent a number of Julys here more than twenty years ago. I invite him in, feeling a bit unnerved.

“My father used to collect ambergris for this woman. He'd keep it in our shed and give it to her when she came.”

“Yes, that would have been my mother. She used ambergris oil in the perfumes she made.”

Martin smiles broadly. “I remember her. You, too.” He waits. “Don't you remember me?”

Looking hard at him, I start to make out an older version of the boy I used to play with—the one with the laughing voice and shiny black hair.

“You were just a kid. I was a few years older,” he says. “My dad and I would come for dinner, and you and I would play on that deck out there and climb those trees on the other side of the inlet. There were always flowers hanging all over your kitchen, and my dad brought
pitsuk
from home.”

“I remember
pitsuk.
” Memories of salty dried fish and bright summer nights flood back. “Now I remember you! You ran faster than me, which I hated. I used to stomp my feet and throw sticks at you. Or rocks, handfuls of dirt. Whatever was handy.”

He throws his head back and laughs. “I tried to teach you to sneak up on the seals. You were so bad at it.”

“Not
so
bad.”