Calvin (9 page)

Me: People might think I hurt you.

Susie: That's a myth. People with mental illness don't hurt any more people than anybody else.

Me: Well, anyway, I promise I'll never hurt you.

Susie: You bet you won't.

Me: Even if you're an alien eating my eyeballs.

Susie: I'm off eyeballs these days. Do you have to say crazy stuff like that?

Me: You know what makes me crazy, Susie? Being crazy, that's what. Try staying sane when everyone treats you like you're insane.

Susie: Okay, Calvin. But you know what? You can't say, youcan'texpectanythingfrommeI'mbroken! And turn around the next minute and say, ohwoeismeeverybodytreatsmelikeI'mbroken! Which one is it? I can treat you the way I really feel, or I can treat you careful.

Me: Real. Just be real.

 

We woke up early, feeling good. Noah was gone and the fire was out.

For a minute, Bill, I wondered if Noah had been real. But then there was this cabin and all his stuff around, and when I looked in the pan there were a couple of dried-up beans. He had to be real because if he was, then Susie was, too, and she had really called me her boyfriend, even if she meant friendboy.

If Noah wasn't real, all bets were off.

Me: Was Noah real?

Susie: Yes, he was.

Me: Then where is he?

Susie: He probably went to see his wife.

Me: Without saying goodbye?

Susie: It's more romantic that way.

Me: How'd he leave?

Susie: Maybe he had a snowmobile.

Me: Are you real?

Susie (lacing her boots): I'm real.

Me: If you weren't real, you could still say you were.

Susie: Yeah, I guess I could.

Me: You're not helping.

Susie: If I wasn't real, I would pretend to care.

Me: Just say I'm real nine times and I'll believe it.

Susie: If I wasn't real, you could make me do that. Since I am, no.

Me: Good point. But with an imaginative instrument like mine, I'm good at creating figments who are resistant to my commands.

Hobbes: I'm no figment.

Me: Figment.

Hobbes: Humans are doofuses.

*   *   *

We decided Noah wouldn't mind if we made some oatmeal, but we couldn't find any oatmeal. I could have sworn I'd seen some on the shelf the night before. Susie found some canned applesauce. I noticed after we ate it that it had an expiration date about three months old. After breakfast we put on our parkas, packed the sled, and headed off the reef.

The sun was sitting on the flat horizon like a big yellow bowling ball.

Susie: Better check the compass.

Me: Yup—there we go.
C
for Cleveland. Okay, Sooz, Noah said his cabin was twenty-two kilometers from the Canadian shore, which means we were going just under four kilometers an hour. Realistically, that's the best we can do. So. By dark, we have to have covered forty-four kilometers. That means we can be there by lunchtime tomorrow. That's a little later than I told Bill, but hopefully he'll wait.

The lake was this huge lung that breathed. As we walked, I could feel it taut under my boots, a membrane, a diaphragm of ice offended by boots. I looked back once, but I couldn't see Noah's reef anymore.

We made two long parallel gouges in the snow. Between our footprints were the neat straight lines made by the sled runners, and just to the right of my tracks were Hobbes's tracks. It seemed wrong somehow, like leaving footprints on the moon that would never disappear.

The good news was that it was a bit warmer than the day before. Still, the air was white with ice crystals. They didn't fall like snow. They hung suspended, so light they couldn't fall, each one reflecting the snowball sun, all frozen flames. Air like that was hard to breathe. You had to melt it as it went down, you had to extract the H
2
from the O.

By mid-morning we were two blasts of heat and color in the whole white cold world. Hobbes was growling a lot, and when the sled started feeling like I was pulling a duffel bag full of lead, I knew he was taking a ride again. By noon, I realized that keeping the same pace all day was going to be impossible.

*   *   *

Calvin the arctic explorer surveys the horizon. It is the same, always the same—flat, white, and without landmarks other than the kind that melt. His beautiful assistant is silent at his side, waiting for her leader to give her orders that she will follow blindly, knowing that a clear line of authority is vital to their survival.

Susie (tromping like she wanted to punch through the ice): This really is the stupidest idea of all the stupid ideas you've ever had, and that's saying a lot. How far do you think we've gone?

I knew we hadn't gone far enough.

Calvin the arctic explorer realizes mutiny is in the ranks. He thinks of ways to distract the ranks.

Me: Are you bored?

Susie: No. Tired. Mad. Not bored.

Me: I would like it if my life were a bit more boring.

Susie: Stick with me.

We were both sucking in some pretty serious oxygen by now, and it was harder to talk, but she walked faster when I could get her going on some rant or other.

Me: Sooz, do you ever think about life?

Susie: Of course I think about life. Especially when I'm dying.

Me: What do you think the good life would look like?

Susie: I don't know. Not having hypothermia in the middle of a massive frozen lake?

Me:

Susie: Okay, I'll play. I mean—I guess get an education, a good job, get married, buy a house, have a kid or two, travel. I guess.

She said it quiet, like she couldn't believe she was saying it.

Me: I thought maybe you wanted to be, like, a great writer or something.

Susie: How did you remember that?

Me: I remember everything about you.

Susie: Don't tell anyone. I never tell anyone.

Me: Not even the boys you dated?

Susie: No. And stop making it sound like I dated hundreds of boys.

Me: Dozens?

Susie: Three.

Me: Three? In one year?

Susie: Could we stop talking about this now?

Me: Only if you admit that being a writer would be your good life.

Susie: Okay. Maybe. I mean, it would, but that's not the most important thing.

Me: Sounds like it could be important.

Susie: Do you know who Marcel Schwob is?

Me: No. Poor guy.

Susie: Why poor?

Me: Well, his name …

Susie: He was a great writer—great. Nobody reads him anymore. How about Isaac Babel? Edward Everett Hale? Theodor Fontane?

Me:

Susie: All great writers who nobody really reads anymore. Defunct. Extinct. Forgotten.

Me:

Susie: There are lots of them. Most of them. That's what happens. A few become part of the canon, and they get read because teachers make you read them. But nobody really cares about the people who wrote the books. I think I'd rather invest my time in the ones who will care, like family and friends. I mean, think of it this way, that's what Bill is doing. He got famous, but he realized what was important. He doesn't even like all the fame and whatnot. He doesn't want anybody in his business. If he died I bet nobody would know.

Me: Don't say that! Of course we would know!

Susie: Bill got fired from his first job. That did something to him. He stopped looking for a job and thought about what he really wanted to do. Sometimes our disappointments can be the best thing that ever happens to us.

Hobbes: Tigers don't do disappointment.

Me: What are you saying? I hope you're not trying to tell me that there's anything good about this whole schizophrenia thing.

Susie: It will make you more compassionate toward the suffering of others.

Me: Ack! Tell me you aren't going to use the platitude torture on me …

Susie: What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

Me: You're doing it! You're evil!

Susie: Everything happens for a reason.

Me: Stop. I'll do anything you say if you'll stop.

Susie: Keep a stiff upper lip. Good things happen to those who wait. You'll thank me someday …

Hobbes: I'd eat her if she weren't so cute.

Me: Hobbes says he would eat you if you weren't so cute.

Susie:

Me: Thank you.

Susie: This is making you really sad. This schizophrenia thing.

Me: Yeah.

We kept walking.

 

We walked for a long time without saying anything. I was afraid Susie would vanish any second, but I wasn't making the lake up, or how tired I was. I knew I wasn't making up how badly we needed to keep up our pace if we weren't going to run out of food and water. I could have out-walked her, but I wasn't about to leave behind a delusion like Susie.

I tried to trick her into going a little faster by increasing my pace just a bit, not so as she would notice.

Susie: You sped up just enough so you thought I wouldn't notice.

Me: You noticed.

Susie: I notice everything.

Me: So you can't speed up?

Susie: Oh, I could. Sure I could. But I'm just enjoying myself so much out in this arctic waste, why would I want it to be over fast? Let's just take our time and enjoy things, you know?

Being good at detecting subtle sarcasm, I slowed down to match her pace. I kept talking to keep my mind off the sounds of my boots and my breath and my blistering feet. I talked about how much money we could get if we got a really good picture of South Bay Bessie.

We were so hangdog tired, staring at our boots, we almost ran into a snow goon.

There were dozens of them, standing in perfect military lines, row after row of killer snow goons, facing away from us.

Hobbes growled low.

Me (whispering): You can't kill them.

Susie: What are they?

Me: Snow goons. If you kill them, they multiply.

Susie: Orvil never said anything about this. It's some kind of ice formation. They're glowing!

Me: Psycho-killer snow beings who delight in holding you in their stick arms until your blood freezes …

Susie (turning to me): Calvin, they're not alive. They don't have arms. They're just … strange …

Hobbes: They're lethal.

Spaceman Spiff had crashed on a cold planet, and before him strange sculptures of ice rose from the surface, fluorescent. They were the work of a brutal intelligence, an alien hardened by his existence on such an arctic and unforgiving world. It was a comment on the futility of existence …

Maybe the loneliest feeling in the world, Bill, is the feeling you get when you see something no one else can see, or hear something no one else can hear, or believe something no one else can believe. Maybe that's the worst thing about what I have, that alone feeling, knowing that I can't make anyone really understand about Hobbes.

Me: I'm telling you, they're snow goons.

Susie: Okay. Okay, Calvin. You're scared. What do you want me to do?

She was whispering now, too.

Me: We have to walk around them.

Susie: True.

Me: Quietly, so they don't hear us.

Susie: Okay.

Me: Quietly.

Susie: Okay.

Me: We can't kill them.

We walked around the first one, and I saw it close. It was a glowing pillar reaching straight up into the air out of the ice, like a giant inverted icicle. Some were as high as a two-story building, transparent and gleaming in the sun, as if the lake had bared her teeth.

Me: They're just ice formations.

Susie: I know.

Me: How does the lake do it? Make the ice formations?

Susie stared at the one closest to us like it was Michelangelo's
David
.

Susie: And I wonder how they glow like that. It's scary and pretty at the same time.

Just then a thin thread of liquid water spurted straight up on my left. It started to freeze on the way down.

Hobbes: The lake is spitting at us.

Me: The water must be under pressure there. When the water finds a small hole or crack, it spurts up and makes these things.

Susie: Amazing.

Me: Yeah. And they just keep getting bigger and bigger, until—

Susie: Are they dangerous? I mean, do they weaken the ice? Orvil said something about cracks in the ice …

Me: Not as dangerous as snow goons.

Susie: No. Not as.

We both stared at the pillars.

Me: Do you think anybody knows about this besides us?

Susie: Nobody knows.

Me: We know a secret about the lake.

Susie: Yeah.

Me: Don't ever tell anyone.

Susie: I won't.

Me: Besides, maybe we're dreaming this.

Susie: Maybe I'm dreaming you.

Me: And I'm dreaming you.

Susie: That would make me your dream woman.

Me: Nah. I would have dreamed up a supermodel or something—ow!

Can punches be meaningful, Bill? I didn't mind that punch. I grinned and then she grinned and for a second I felt like we'd crossed a line. I stopped grinning and put my hand on her head. Right on the top of her head, and then my hand slipped to her cheek. She stopped grinning and looked down at the ice.

Susie: Don't—don't you kiss me.

Me: Who said I wanted to kiss you?

*   *   *

We walked around the snow goons which were just ice formations.

The snow goons which were just ice formations weren't the danger, Bill.

I was. I was the danger.

I had to protect her from me.

But it was already too late for that. I'd brought her along with me, and it was getting on in the day, and our feet and legs had gone way beyond what feet and legs had evolved to do. I knew we weren't making time like we should, especially not now that we were having to go out of our way to get around the snow goons which were just ice formations.

We kept walking.

 

It was half past four when we had to stop to rest and eat dinner because we were starving. Susie sat on the sled. We both knew we were eating the last of our gorp and beef jerky. We had two bottles of water left, some raisins, and two small tubes of peanut butter. That had to be breakfast the next day, our last meal on the ice. I didn't say anything to Susie, but I was guessing we weren't going to be having lunch in the U.S. of A.