The Swarm (72 page)

‘Good God, you can barely keep upright,' Akesuk said, full of sympathy. The mourners turned.

‘I'm OK, thanks, Iji.'

He could see what the others were thinking - and they couldn't have been more wrong. They assumed that it was part of the ritual of bereavement. There was nothing unusual about collapsing at the grave of a loved one - even if you were an Inuk and too proud to let anything break your will.

Except maybe alcohol and drugs.

Anawak felt nauseous.

He turned and strode across the graveyard. When he reached the church and felt the road beneath his feet, he felt an urge to run; but he didn't. Heart pounding, he paced up and down. He wouldn't have known where to run to. None of the roads was marked for him.

 

He had an early dinner at the Polar Lodge. Mary-Ann had prepared a meal for them, but Anawak had told his uncle that he wanted to be on his own. The old man had nodded briefly and dropped him at the hotel. There had been a sadness in his eyes that wasn't inspired by the thought of his nephew in silent communion with his father, as Anawak had led him to believe.

Hours went by, and Anawak lay on one of the twin beds in his room, staring at the TV. How could he survive another day in Cape Dorset without the memories overwhelming him? He'd booked the room for two nights because he'd assumed there'd be a will and other paperwork to deal with, but Akesuk had taken care of that already. There was no need for him to stay.

He decided to cancel the second night. He was bound to be able to get a flight to Iqaluit and, with a bit of luck, there'd be a spare seat on the plane to Montréal. From there he didn't care how long he had to wait for his connection. There was plenty to see in Montréal, and it was far enough from this hellhole at the end of the earth…

 

Anawak was dreaming. He was in a plane, circling Vancouver, waiting for permission to land, but the control tower wouldn't let them. The pilot turned to him.

‘They're not going to let us land. Vancouver and Tofino are out of the question.'

‘Why?' yelped Anawak.

‘We've made our enquiries. You don't live anywhere near here. We've got no record of a Leon Anawak. Ground Control says I have to take you home. Where do you want me to go?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You must know where your home is.'

‘Down there.'

‘Fine.'

The plane dipped, then banked around again. The city lights came into view, but only a scattering, too few for Vancouver. This wasn't Vancouver. There were ice floes drifting on dark water, and a marble mountain range beyond the town.

They were landing in Cape Dorset.

Suddenly he was in his childhood home, and there was a celebration - his birthday. Some of the local kids had been invited, and his father suggested a race in the snow. He gave Anawak an enormous package tied clumsily together. It was his only present, and it was precious, he said. ‘You'll find everything in there that you'll need in life,' he explained. ‘But you must carry it with you while we're running.'

Anawak tried to balance the enormous parcel on his head, steadying it with both hands. They went outside, and as the white snow glistened in
the darkness, a voice whispered to him that he had to win the race or the others would kill him. At night they were wolves and would rip him to pieces. He had to reach the water first, had to run before they caught him.

Anawak began to weep. He cursed his birthday, because he knew that soon he would grow up, and he didn't want to grow up and be torn to pieces. Digging his fingers into the parcel, he started to run. The snow was deep and he sank into it. It reached his hips, scarcely allowing him to move. He glanced back but no one was running with him. He was on his own. Only his parents' house was visible behind him, with the door closed and the lights out. A cold moon shone down from above, and suddenly it was deathly still.

Anawak wondered whether he should return to the house, but everyone seemed to have left. It looked eerie and forbidding. There was no one to be seen in the frozen moonlit night, and not a sound. He remembered the wolves, waiting to eat him alive. Were they in the house? Had the party ended in a bloodbath? It didn't seem possible. In a mysterious way Cape Dorset and the house seemed to defy the laws of nature. This was where they had gathered for his birthday; but now it was a distant future or an even more distant past. Or maybe time had stood still and he was looking at a frozen universe hostile to life.

Fear won out. He turned away from the house and trudged towards the water. The wharf belonging to the real Cape Dorset had vanished, and the ice led directly to the sea. His parcel was getting smaller all the time, so small that he could carry it in one hand, and in a few steps he was at the edge.

Rays of moonlight shimmered on the dark waves and the drifting slabs of ice. The sky was studded with stars. Someone was calling his name. The faint voice was coming from a snowdrift, and Anawak moved forward until he was close enough to see. Two bodies, dusted with snow, lay side by side. His parents. They were staring at the sky with empty eyes.

I'm a grown-up now, he thought. It's time to open the parcel.

He examined it on the palm of his hand.

It was tiny. He began to unwrap it, but there was nothing inside, only paper. He tore away the crinkled sheets, discarding layer after layer, until the parcel was gone and so were the fallen bodies of his parents, leaving him alone on the edge of the ice, with the dark waves beyond.

A mighty hump parted the water and sank down.

Anawak turned his head slowly. He saw a small, shabby house, a shack made of corrugated iron. The door was open.

His home.

No, he thought. No! Tears came to his eyes. This wasn't right. This couldn't be his life. It wasn't where he belonged. It couldn't end like this.

He crouched in the snow and stared at the hut, weeping uncontrollably, in the grip of a nameless misery. His sobs almost burst his chest, echoing in the sky, filling the world with lamentation, a world in which no one existed but him.

No. No!

Then the light.

 

Anawak sat upright in bed. The display on his alarm clock read 2:30 a.m. His tongue was sticking to his palate so he got up and went to the minibar. He reached for a Coke, opened it and drank. Then, clutching the can, he went to the window, opened the curtains and looked out.

The hotel was on a hill overlooking Kinngait and parts of the neighbouring hamlets. It was a clear and cloudless night and a nocturnal half-light steeped the houses, tundra, snowfields and sea in an improbable shade of reddish-gold. It was never truly dark at this time of year: the contours just softened and the colours mellowed.

All of a sudden he saw its beauty. He looked in wonder at the sky, then let his eyes roam over the mountains and the bay. The frozen seascape of Tellik Inlet shimmered like molten silver, while Mallikjuaq Island rose up from the water like a slumbering whale.

What now?

He remembered how he had felt at the Station with Shoemaker and Delaware, his sense of alienation, from Davie's, Tofino, and everything around him. How he had seemed to be missing some inner space to protect him from the world. Something decisive had been on the horizon, of that he had been certain. He had waited, elated and fearful, as though an extraordinary change would sweep over him.

Instead his father had died.

Was that it, then? The event that would change everything? His return to the Arctic to bury his father?

He had far greater challenges to deal with. Right now he was facing one of the greatest that mankind had ever seen. Just him and a few other
people. Yet it had nothing to do with his life. His life had a different framework, in which tsunamis, climate disasters and plagues had no place. His father's death had pushed his own life into the foreground and now Anawak felt, in Nunavut, a chance to reclaim it.

After a while he got dressed, pulled a fur-lined hat down over his ears and walked into the moonlit night. He had the streets to himself. He roamed the town until a wave of tiredness engulfed him, then returned to the warmth of the hotel room, and was asleep before his head had hit the pillow.

 

The next morning he called Akesuk. ‘How about breakfast?' he asked.

His uncle seemed surprised. ‘We've just sat down here. I thought you'd be busy.'

‘OK. No problem.'

‘Hold on - we've only just started. Why don't you come over? There's scrambled eggs and bacon.'

‘Great.'

The plateful with which Mary-Ann presented him was so large that Anawak felt full before he started, but he still dug in. A smile spread across her face, and he wondered what Akesuk had told her. He must have found a good reason for Anawak to have turned down their offer of supper last night. She didn't seem in the least offended.

It felt odd to grasp the hand that Akesuk and his wife had extended to him. It pulled him back into the family. Anawak wondered whether it was a good thing. The magic of the moonlit night had vanished now and he was far from making peace with Nunavut.

After breakfast Mary-Ann cleared the table and went shopping. Akesuk twiddled with the dials on his transistor radio, listened for a while and said, ‘IBC is forecasting mild weather for the next few days. You can't rely on it entirely, of course, but even if it's only half true, it'll be good enough for us to go out on the land.'

‘You've got a trip planned?'

‘We're leaving tomorrow. The two of us could do something today, though, if you like. Are you sticking to your plans - or were you thinking of flying back early?'

The old fox had guessed.

Anawak stirred his coffee. ‘Last night I was on the point of leaving.'

‘I guessed as much,' Akesuk said drily. ‘And now?'

‘I don't know. I thought maybe I'd take a trip to Mallikjuaq or Inuksuk Point - I don't feel comfortable in Cape Dorset. I don't mean to offend you, Iji, but good memories are hard to come by with a…well, with a…'

‘With a father like yours,' his uncle said. He stroked his moustache. ‘What astonishes me is that you're here at all. It's been nineteen years since any of us heard from you and now I'm the only one left. I got in touch with you because I thought you ought to know, but I never believed we'd see you here again. Why did you come?'

‘Who knows? It wasn't as though anything was drawing me back. Maybe Vancouver wanted to get rid of me for a while.'

‘Nonsense.'

‘Well, it had nothing to do with my father, if that's what you're thinking. I'm not going to shed any tears over him.' He knew it sounded harsh, but it was too bad. ‘I can't do that, Iji.'

‘You're too hard on him.'

‘He led a bad life.'

Akesuk gave him a long look. ‘Yes, he did, but there weren't many options back then.' He drained the dregs of his coffee. Then he was smiling. ‘Here's a suggestion. We'll start our trip today. Mary-Ann and I were planning to go somewhere different for a change - north-west to Pond Inlet. You could come too.'

Anawak stared at him. ‘It's out of the question,' he said. ‘You'll be out there for weeks. I can't possibly be away for that long - even if I wanted to.'

‘I'm not suggesting you stay the whole time. We'll all set out together, and after a few days you can fly back on your own. You're a grown man - you don't need me to hold your hand. You can get on a plane by yourself, can't you?'

‘But that'll be far too much trouble, Iji, I—'

‘I'm fed up of hearing about trouble. Why should it be any trouble for you to come too? There's a group of us meeting in Pond Inlet. All the arrangements have been made, and I'm sure we'll find room for your civilised behind.' He winked at him. ‘But don't go thinking it'll be an easy ride. You'll be given your share of bear duty like the rest of us.'

Anawak pondered his uncle's invitation. It had caught him off-guard. He'd prepared himself for one more day, not three or four.

But Li had made clear that he should stay for as long as he needed to.

Pond Inlet. Three more days.

‘Why are you so keen for me to come?' he asked.

Akesuk laughed.

‘Why do you think?' he said. ‘I'm going to take you home.'

 

On the land
. Those three words encapsulated the Inuit philosophy of life. Going out on the land meant escaping from the settlements and spending the summer camped in tents on the beaches or on the floeedge, fishing, and hunting walrus, seal or narwhal, which the Inuit were permitted to kill for their own consumption. They would take everything they needed for life beyond the reaches of civilisation, loading clothes, equipment and hunting tools on to ATVs, sledges or boats. The territory they were venturing into was untamed: a vast expanse of land that people had roamed for thousands of years.

Time was of no importance on the land, where the routines and patterns of cities and settlements ceased to exist. Distances weren't measured in kilometres or miles but in days. Two days to this place, and half a day to that. It was no help to know that it was fifty kilometres to your destination, if the route was filled with obstacles like pack ice or crevasses. Nature had no respect for human plans. The next second could be fraught with imponderables, so people lived for the present. The land followed its own rhythm, and the Inuit submitted to it. Thousands of years as nomads had taught them that that was the way to gain mastery. Through the first half of the twentieth century they had continued to roam the land freely, and decades later the nomadic lifestyle still suited them better than being confined to one place by a house.

Some things had changed though, as Anawak was increasingly aware. They seemed to have accepted that the world expected them to take regular jobs and become part of industrial society, and in return they'd been granted the acceptance denied to them when Anawak was a child. The world was returning part of what it had taken, and giving them a new outlook, in which ancient traditions took their place alongside a western lifestyle.