The Middle of Everywhere (5 page)

“Don't let Tarksalik die,” I whisper. It isn't exactly a prayer, but kind of. I don't press my palms together or go down on my knees, but if I thought that would help, I'd do it. Still, I hope somebody—somewhere—is listening.

I don't hear Dad get up, so I'm startled when I see his reflection behind mine in the mirror. We have the same brown curly hair, only I've got more of it. I wonder if thirty years from now, I'll be going bald at the top too. I hope not.

Dad rubs his forehead. I can tell he's only half-awake. “How was the talk?”

“Pretty cool.” I figure that's what he wants to hear.

“Everything's pretty cool in George River. In fact, it's minus forty-two tonight.”

I try to laugh. Dad must be feeling better if he's been back on the weather website. “How's Tarksalik?” I ask.

Dad stretches his arms out behind him and sighs. “I can't tell for sure. But I'm going to the store for a box of diapers. In case…you know…”

I put the dental floss back on the shelf next to Dad's shaving cream. “No,” I say, “I'll go.”

I've only been back in Dad's apartment for five minutes and already I can't wait to leave. At least, I tell myself when I open the front door and a gust of minus forty-two degree wind practically knocks me over, I'm doing something and not just sitting around, feeling lousy.

George River only has two stores: the Co-op, which is owned by the Inuit community, and the Northern, which used to be part of the Hudson's Bay Company. The Co-op closes at six, but the Northern stays open later. Luckily, it's only a few doors over from Dad's. January nights in Montreal can get pretty cold, but they're balmy compared to what the cold feels like up here. It isn't just the temperature; it's the dry air and maybe, too, the feeling that I'm hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away from a real city. I pull up the collar of my jacket so it covers my chin.

A snowmobile roars by, followed by two others. I wonder where they're all off to at this time of night. One of the drivers waves in my direction, and I wave back.

A fourth snowmobile stops to let me cross the street. The driver looks like he's in his twenties. A girl his age is sitting behind him, her hands clasped around his waist. “Where you headed?” I ask them.

“Over to the dump,” the guy says.

“No place,” his girlfriend adds.

I guess driving round in circles beats hanging out at home, watching tv or listening to their grandparents tell legends.

There aren't too many places in George River for teenagers to hang out, especially at night. I'm not surprised to see a couple of guys smoking in the narrow hallway leading into the Northern. They stop talking when I squeeze past them. I can feel them watching me, checking out my ski jacket and ski gloves, so different from their fur-trimmed parkas and caribou-skin mittens. I get the same feeling I had at the community center. I'm the only white guy here too. I wonder if Dad feels the same way when he goes out or whether he's stopped noticing.

One of the guys burps, and I smell beer. Definitely beer. Dad says some Inuit don't hold their alcohol too well. Of course, it was white people who brought alcohol to the North in the first place. I guess it's one more problem we're responsible for.

“Who's he?” I hear one of the guys whisper as I step inside the store.

Word must spread quickly in a town of only 700 people, because someone else answers. “His dad's a teacher at the school. You know that guy Bill?”

I consider saying “Hi,” but I decide that'd be too awkward. Instead I lift my hand and wave it behind my head as I pass them.

“Have a good night,” one of the guys calls out.

That takes me by surprise. In Montreal, some guy my age who I didn't know would never wish me a good night. More likely, he'd ignore me, or maybe say something rude. I slow down for a second. “You too,” I tell the guy.

It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the fluorescent lighting inside the Northern. “Hey, Noah,” a voice calls from behind the cash register. I look up and see Geraldine. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that in a town as small as this one, I'd actually know someone. Still, it's nice to hear her call my name. It makes me feel like I'm part of something.

Geraldine's resting her elbows on the counter. “You work here?” I ask her.

“What does it look like?”

“It looks like you work here.”

Geraldine grins. Her black hair gleams under the harsh lights. “Every day after school and all day Saturday.”

“Cool,” I say, mainly because I can't think of what else to say, and I really don't want to ask her what aisle diapers are in.

The store carries mostly dry goods like cereal, soup and pasta, frozen foods and soft drinks. There's a whole aisle of Coke bottles, but only half an aisle of fresh fruits and vegetables. Some of them look like they've been sitting around since the Paleolithic era. I notice broccoli that has gone yellowish brown at the tips and carrots with fuzzy white spots. Gross.

“It's not a good day for produce,” Geraldine calls from the front of the store. “Fruits and vegetables get flown in tomorrow. You better wait till then if you want to make a salad.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I call back.

Because grocery prices are so high in Nunavik, Dad e-mailed me a two-page shopping list of stuff he wanted me to bring up: ten dozen Montreal bagels, hamburger meat and boneless chicken thighs, oranges, apples and grapefruits, toothpaste and shampoo. And eight cases of beer.

I find the diapers in the last aisle. “They're for Tarksalik,” I tell Geraldine when I get to the cash.

“Uh-huh,” she says as she rings up the diapers. From the sounds of it, you'd think Geraldine was used to people buying diapers for their dogs.

“She's not doing too well,” I say. Geraldine hasn't asked about Tarksalik, but I feel like I need to talk to somebody about everything that's happened, and right now she's my only option.

“Uh-huh,” Geraldine says again.

I have a feeling I'm not going to get a lot of sympathy from her. Maybe she also thinks we should have shot Tarksalik to put her out of her misery. “See you tomorrow,” I say, tucking the bag of diapers under my arm and zipping up my coat.

Geraldine touches my elbow. “Did you go to the talk at the community center?” she asks.

“Uh-huh.” I'm starting to sound like an Inuk.

“I wish I could've gone, but I had to work,” Geraldine says. “I'm saving up to buy my nephew something nice for his birthday.”

“You've got a nephew?”

“Uh-huh. Jeremiah. He lives with us. So what did you think of our community center?”

“I liked it.” It's not a very cool thing to say to a pretty girl, but I can't think of anything else. And now it's as if I can't stop talking. “You get a great view of the river from those windows. Your school's nice too. Every school I ever went to in Montreal was, like, a hundred years old. You guys are lucky to have a new school. Usually I like old buildings, but not when it comes to schools.”

I expect Geraldine to say “uh-huh” again, but this time she doesn't. “Did you hear what happened to our old school?” she asks, dropping her voice.

“Nope. What happened?”

“It got destroyed. In an avalanche. New Year's Eve 1999. We were having a New Year's Eve celebration there. Nine people died.” Geraldine looks right at me. “Including my little cousin. He was only two. We tried and tried, but we couldn't pull him out from under the snow. My sister named her boy after him.” Geraldine takes a deep breath. I can tell she's not used to saying so much all at once.

I shiver, and it isn't because of the cold air that blows in when another customer enters the store. “I'm sorry,” I tell her. “I had no idea. And I'm sorry about your cousin. That must have been awful.”

If I can't forget what happened to Tarksalik, how does Geraldine forget trying to pull her little cousin out from under the snow? I wish I could ask her how she does it. How she manages to keep going to school and working at the Northern even after all that.

Geraldine reaches for a bottle of spray cleaner. She sprays the counter and then dries it with a sheet of paper towel before she looks back up at me. The air around us smells like ammonia. “Accidents are part of life,” she says. “Death too.”

SIX

D
ad isn't getting much sleep. I know, because I'm awake too, lying in bed and replaying the accident over and over again in my head. It doesn't help that I can still hear kids
vrooming
by in their snowmobiles. Dad shuffles to the living room, talking in a low voice to Tarksalik. “It's okay, girl. I know it hurts. Sure it hurts.”

I must doze off at some point, because the smell of coffee and the
blub-blub
sound of the percolator wake me up. I stumble out of bed. Mathilde is at Dad's door. She brings the cold air from outside with her into the apartment. She rubs her hands together to warm them up. Her fingers are red and chapped-looking.

“I know I'm early,” she says, “but I've got to be at the clinic by seven thirty and I wanted to have a look at our girl first.” She pets Tarksalik behind the ears. “How are you,
ma belle
?” she asks the dog, looking into her eyes as if she's expecting an answer.

Dad is busy pouring Mathilde a cup of coffee. “Milk, no sugar, coming up,” he says. I figure Mathilde must come over for coffee a lot. How else would Dad know she doesn't take sugar? I take a better look at Mathilde. She's not bad looking, a bit pudgy, but she's got nice hazel eyes, and she's obviously good with animals. Then I look over at Dad. He's handing her a mug, and for a second their hands touch. Could the two of them be having a thing? I decide it's a definite possibility. But if I'm right, why hasn't Dad told me about it? It's not like I'd mind.

Tarksalik has arranged herself so we can't see her wound. But that doesn't stop Mathilde. She gulps down some coffee, then reaches over and lifts up one of Tarksalik's hind legs. Tarksalik makes a low moaning sound. “Careful,” I say, “she bit me yesterday.”

“You didn't tell me that,” Dad calls from the kitchen, where he's gone to make toast.

Mathilde looks up at me. “Did she break the skin?”

“Nah,” I say, “not really.” I show her my hand. It's still a little sore.

Mathilde examines my hand. “She did break the skin. But it looks okay. Did you rinse it out and put on some antibiotic cream?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Be glad it wasn't a person who bit you. Germs tend to be species specific, you know. Human bites can be a lot more dangerous than dog bites.”

“I guess I had it coming,” I mutter under my breath.

Mathilde pats the outside of my hand. Then she turns back to check Tarksalik's eyes. “Her pupils don't seem to be dilated,” she says. “I don't think there's any intracranial bleeding.”

Mathilde gets up from where she's been kneeling on the floor and claps her hands like she's a kindergarten teacher letting us know playtime is over. “
Eh bien
! Tarksalik needs some exercise. Let's get this girl outside!”

Dad is juggling three plates of brown toast. His jaw drops. “Exercise?” he says. “You've got to be kidding. What this dog needs now is rest.”

Mathilde puts her hands on her hips. I can tell right away she's upset. “Who's the nurse?” she asks Dad. “Me or you?”

Dad grimaces. “It's true I'm not the nurse. But my instincts tell me Tarksalik's not ready to go outside. Not yet, anyhow.”

My instincts feel a lot like Dad's. Maybe it's genetic. Anyway, Tarksalik looks like she's been run over by a truck. Which, in her case, she has. “Don't you think maybe we should wait a while before we drag her outside?” I ask.

Mathilde glares at Dad and me. When she speaks, I can tell she's making a big effort not to lose her temper. “If you two insist on treating this dog like an invalid, she's going to stay an invalid. I spent most of my career working with orthopedic patients. I made them take a few steps the day after they had surgery on their knees or hips. They didn't always like me. Some of them swore at me. But I'll tell you something: they thanked me for it afterward. Each and every one of them.”

Dad sighs and gives Mathilde a nervous smile. “Okay, then,” he says. “I see your point.”

Dad doesn't usually give in so easily. Maybe they
are
having a thing.

I'm still not sure dragging Tarksalik outside is the best idea though.

Mathilde tries to get Tarksalik to stand, but the poor dog just collapses back on her blanket. When Tarksalik looks up at Dad and me, it's as if she's trying to say, “Would you please get that woman to quit torturing me?”

Dad must be picking up the same message, because he turns to Mathilde and says, “Maybe we could try again tomorrow.”

Mathilde ignores him. “Let's carry her outside,” she says, directing Dad and me to each take an end of the blanket. Together, the three of us carry Tarksalik down the hallway, then down the steps and into the front yard. It's not an easy job with the poor dog wobbling in the middle of the blanket.

When we finally get her settled, Tarksalik's nose twitches in the cold, but that's the only part of her body that moves. Was it only yesterday I took her out for a run?

The sun is just beginning to rise over the George River, making the sky a purply orange. “Come on, Tarksalik,” Mathilde says, tugging on the scruff of the dog's neck.

Tarksalik whimpers.

“Ouch,” Dad says, wincing as if he's the one who was run over by a truck.

I know how Dad feels. For me, the worst part is looking into Tarksalik's eyes. They still have that milky, glazed-over look they had after the accident.

Tarksalik whimpers again. Mathilde has no sympathy. She tugs even harder on Tarksalik's neck. This time, I'm the one who says ouch.