The warm somnolent atmosphere closed around him, his eyes slowly drifted shut and his grip on the suitcase loosened. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, they pounced. Hands, pushing him down, holding him down. His face was wetâthey were forcing him under the water. It was the suitcase, he realized, clinging to it desperately. It was the suitcase they were after.
“Help! help!” he shouted, but the sound was muffled by the water. Hands were everywhere: big, spongy, powerful hands, holding him down, forcing his head under the water.
Fight back, fight back, he screamed at himself, but it was already too late. A giant soft weight was crushing him down, holding him under the water. He couldn't breathe. Fight, fight, his mind was yelling, but his pinioned arms wouldn't move. Drifting toward blackness, he tried pleading for help, but only succeeded in making a trail of bubbles.
“You're unconscious,” said his mind as the hands thrust him deeper under the water. Down, down, down, he felt himself being pushed. “I'm a police officer,” he managed to shout. But they laughed at him, and he heard the sound gurgling through the water.
He still had the suitcase, his arms strapped around it, dragging it down into the lake with him. Hands were grappling to take it from him. Let go of the suitcase, his mind was telling him. It's the suitcase they want.
He wouldn't let go. He couldn't let go. Melanie's file was in the suitcase. They musn't get her file, he shrieked. And suddenly she was there, little naked Melanie, descending into the water alongside him. He let go the suitcase and reached out, desperate to save her, but the big pudgy hands held him back, kept her just beyond his reach. Then he looked into her eyes, saw the grey vacant eyes of a panhandler and realized he was too late, she was already dead.
Suddenly he was awake, panting breathlessly; a hand was prodding him and he grabbed the suitcase in alarm.
“Don't worry, it's OK.” The voice was warm, calming.
His eyes flickered open and he blinked furiously, trying to focus on his attacker. Sweat was pouring out of neck, his perspiration-drenched shirt clung coldly to his back, and his hands shook from the force of crushing the suitcase to his chest. Realization was swift. It had been a nightmare. He relaxed with an audible sigh and could have laughed in relief.
“Would you like sandwiches or soup?” the chubby-faced woman enquired soothingly. “You can have both if you want.”
He had hardly expected room service and shook his head as he tried to control his breathing. “I'm not really on the street,” he said, offended that she would think he was.
“Keep believing that,” she said sympathetically. “It'll help you to get back on your feet. Here take this.” Thrusting a neatly wrapped package of sandwiches in his hands she went to a van at the curbside and returned with a steaming cup of soup. “Now would you like a sleeping bag or a blanket?”
“You don't understand⦔ he started, taking the proffered soup.
She shushed him with a little hand wave. “It's OK. I know you need time to adjust, but we'll be here for you.” She glanced at the remnants of humanity strewn around the edges of the piazza. “These boys are OK. They'll take care of you, and we come round every night.”
Bliss gave up. “Thank you,” was all he could think of saying.
“That's better. Now let me get you that sleeping bag.”
She was gone and back before he could stop her. “There we are,” she said, crinkly-eyed, handing him the brand new sleeping bag still in its original wrapping.
“I couldn't⦔ he started, but he took it when he realized by the look on her face that she would be hurt if he didn't. She smiled with satisfaction; another lost soul had been brought into her fold.
Fear and the haunting nightmare of Melanie's drowning kept him awake until the earth's rotation switched on the sun again. Then, gradually, the huddled night denizens gathered their meagre belongings and, wraith-like, drifted away from the piazza. Clanging delivery trucks, rumbling subway trains, clattering garbage collectors, and the smell of fresh coffee woke the city to another bustling day.
Another day, and a thousand miles, later Bliss awoke in his new sleeping bag, but on an entirely different planet. A land with a bluer sky, a brighter sun, and so many brilliant stars in the night's sky that, although exhausted, he had lain awake on the grassy lakeshore for more than an hour repeating, “I can't believe it,” over and over, like a dumbstruck lottery winner.
A brief early-dawn shower had scented the air with the fresh ozone fragrance of rainwater on dry ground. He sniffed deeply and was intoxicated by the freshness. As fresh as a dry white wine with a touch of effervescence, he thought â a blanc de blancs, a Moussec perhaps, or one of the very dry lesser champagnes Sarah had been so fond of. He sniffed again and let out a long satisfied, “Aah.” How different from the sticky, thick, Sauternes-like air of the city. On a whim, he delved into his jacket pocket, pulled out his remaining stock of cigarettes, and, in a calculated act of self-defiance, crushed
the packet and slung it under a nearby cranberry bush.
He washed in the cool clear lake, defecated guiltily among a clump of small trees, and, a little before nine o'clock, made his way to the airline's office, a small clinker-built wooden hut with barely a memory of paint. Like an abandoned public toilet, it perched uneasily on the end of a short pier jutting out into the mist. The pier rocked with each of Bliss's footfalls and the old float plane, bobbing lightly on its buoyant torpedoes, lightly bumped against the tire fenders. He knocked gingerly on the hut door.
“Come in,” shouted a woman and he entered to find the twentysomething office girl, with blond pony-tail sprouting from a faded Island Air baseball cap, in an animated discussion on a telephone that looked as old as the hut.
She waved him to the only other seat in the tiny structure, a folding canvas picnic chair, and whipped her hand over the mouthpiece. “Yup?”
“I've got a ticket to Bear Lake.”
“I can be there tomorrow Bill,” she called into the phone. “Not today, you haven't,” she said to Bliss, holding both conversations at the same time.
He held the ticket out and started to rise toward her.
“OK, Bill, tomorrow it is then.”
The phone rang again the moment she put it down.
“There must be a mistake,” she said dismissively, picking up the phone and announcing, “Island Air,” into the mouthpiece in the same breath.
“There's no mistake, I've paid,” said Bliss sticking the ticket right in front of her face.
“Bob, yeah, I need fifty litres of gas for Rowan's Point.” She scrutinized the ticket and waved it away. “This isn't valid until we've been paid by the agent.”
“That isn't my problem,” said Bliss.
The look on her face told him it was his problem, and her dual conversations melded into one, leaving him to figure out which part was meant for him. “Yeah fifty litres. You'll have to pay me if you want to go today. Not fifteen, fifty. And Peter needs some engine oil up at Stacy's.”
He stabbed a finger indignantly at the âamount paid' figure on the ticket. “I've already paid.”
“You'll have to pay again,” she replied with equal resolution.
He argued. She was adamant. He was frustrated. She was unapologetic. They had, she claimed, been ripped off too many times by backstreet city travel agents who booked the flights but never sent the cheques, knowing it would be too expensive, and too troublesome, for a small outfit like hers to sue.
He had travelled half-way around the world, he pleaded. She partially relented and agreed to accept half the fare, saying she would sort the matter out by the time he returned.
“That sounds reasonable,” he said, holding out almost all of his remaining money.
When was he coming back, she wanted to know.
“Tomorrow or the day after at the latest, I thought.”
Pent up laughter blew out her cheeks until she could hold it no longer and she blurted, “I'll call you back,” into the phone. Bliss tried to hold onto the cash but she snatched it playfully. “No refunds,” she cried through the laughter. Then she straightened her face and offered him the money back. “You don't have to go if you don't want to.” He didn't know what had made her laugh. “We only fly to Bear Lake every two weeks,” she explained, noticing his confused expression.
His confusion turned to dismay. “Maybe I should speak to the pilot,” he suggested.
She sat rock still. “Yes?”
“You're the pilot?” he said with a surprised lilt. She seemed, he thought, a trifle too happy-go-lucky to be trusted with his life. “What about the owner?”
The look on her face was a picture, thought Bliss as she pointed a finger at herself. “Alice,” she said, “Owner, operator and mechanicâplus I make the coffee in our luxury cafeteria.”
“You have a cafet⦔ he began, before realizing that she was joking; that she was referring to the 6-cup percolator on a small shelf in the corner. “I can't win can I?” he continued, thinking it was not only policemen who were getting younger. “Two weeks,” he said vaguely.
She concurred with a nod. “Weather permitting.”
“Shit,” he mumbled under his breath. “Oh well, I've come this far⦔
“Don't touch anything,” she mouthed as the engine roared into life fifteen minutes later, then they taxied smoothly away from the pier and tripped lightly across the lake's surface, now rippled by a gentle morning breeze.
“How long will it take us?” yelled Bliss above the drone.
“Three hours usually,” she shouted, then added jokingly, “Longer if we crash.”
“Do you crash often?”
A crooked smile was her only answer.
“It seems like you're the co-pilot today,” she had said, inviting him to sit alongside her in the rudimentary cockpit that looked to Bliss as if it was constructed with Meccano. “Don't worry,” she'd added. “I usually fly this crate on my own, the co-pilot only comes along to keep me company.”
“I can do that,” he had said, fumbling with the old canvas seat belt. “But if I'm the co-pilot does that mean I get my fare back?”
Her look was enough.
“OK, I give in,” he had laughed.
The twin propellers whisked the tiny wave-tops into spray and with a few sharp bumps they lifted into the air and swung northward. The engine's take-off roar settled into a constant throb that Bliss soon tuned out.
“What brings you here?” she asked when they were safely aloft.
He waffled, muttering about the need to travel, and the word âadventure' cropped up more than once.
“This is a fabulous place for an adventure,” she agreed, then an inquisitive frown spread across her face. “I hope you don't mind, but I've never seen an adventurer carrying a suitcase before. You do know what it's like up here?” The serious way in which she asked the question hinted that some major horrors might await him.
“Wild,” he suggested, hoping this all-encompassing evaluation might satisfy her.
“Yeah, you could say that,” she replied; a poorly disguised understatement.
He didn't respond. He had no intention of finding out. A few hours with Margaret Gordonstone and, he desperately hoped, he would be on his way back home to a face the music. Although he had no idea how he was going to get back.
Alice felt obliged to enlighten him about the potential dangers. “There's a lotta black bears,” she said ominously, then paused to gauge his response. His shrug was noncommittal, so she added, “They often kill for food.” The loud snort that followed was somehow meant to convey the creature's ferocity.
“They eat people,” Bliss shouted, but he meant it more as a statement than a question.
“Sometimes,” she nodded energetically. “But generally they kill folks to steal their food.”
Lucky I haven't got any then, he thought.
Alice pressed on, shouting, “Bull moose,” in a way that was obviously intended to strike terror. He didn't respond, so she added, “A lotta people 'bin trampled to death by moose. They're enormous.” His silence only served to encourage her. “They're the size of a cart horse, but ten times faster.”
“I'll keep away from them,” he promised.
Feeling that she had at last caught his attention, she regaled him with a zoological catalogue of dangerous creatures he might encounter including packs of wolves and coyotes, man-eating cougars, not to mention rattlesnakes and quill-shooting porcupines. “The insects are the worst,” she continued. “Black fly, deer fly, mosquitoesâ”
“Thanks for warning me,” he said, quickly cutting her off and mentally dismissing her concerns. He had no intention of roughing it or staying long enough to become a victim.
They flew on in silence over a sculpted green carpet of trees dappled with hundreds of lakes threaded on aquamarine ribbons of streams and rivers. And above them, a clear blue sky, uniformly, brilliantly blue, a pure deep blue, not the hazy, ice blue skies familiar to Bliss. An altogether deeper, richer, bluer blue. A colour, Bliss found himself thinking, that would make an excellent television commercial for comparing laundry detergents. The difference between Tide and Sunlight he thought, after umpteen washes.
An apparent trick of the light splashed a blotch of red into the green carpet below and he craned around trying to find the sun.
“What's happenin', Man?” she yelled.
He looked down again, expecting the mirage to have vanished, but found other blotches of red, like angry pimples on an otherwise perfect skin. And ahead, to the north, the forest almost seemed to burn with colour.
Alice realized what had caught his attention. “It's the fall colours.”
He gave her a questioning look.
“Don't your trees turn red in the fall?”