Authors: Melanie Mcgrath
This
is what she and Sammy were doing that day but, of course, within a short while
of reaching the lake they were both so drunk they forgot all about the fish,
and didn't notice the low clouds and the breeze coming in from the north that
signalled a blizzard. The first snow was already beginning to fall when Edie
felt a tug on her arm and, starting awake, looked up to see Joe standing above
her.
Later,
she and Sammy had laughed off the event because they couldn't bear the idea
that they owed their lives to a ten-year-old boy.
She
was standing in the warm stream of sunlight, playing the memory back in her
mind when an idea cut in. Suddenly it seemed very clear what she needed to do
next. She dried herself off, dressed and went round to Sammy's house. He was in
his usual position on the sofa, watching a rerun of
The Wire.
She
noticed that the Bible was face out on the shelf.
'I'm
going to Greenland,' she said.
'You're
going
where
? Why?'
'Those
two Russians, the duck hunters, they came in from Greenland on a Greenlandic
plane. I think they might know why Joe died.' She considered telling Sammy
about the astroblemes and about Zemmer Energy then decided against it. There
were some people who couldn't take too much reality. Her ex-husband was one of
them.
Sammy
shook his head and tutted disapprovingly.
'Only
one person knows why my son died,' he said. 'You want to find out, you have to
ask Joe's spirit.'
'You
think I haven't?'
'Then
maybe he doesn't want us to know.'
'No,
Sammy, I think you're wrong. I think he wants us to find out for ourselves.'
'Nuuk
in
Greenland
?'
Edie
gave a thumbs-up to the Inuk man at the airport information counter to let him
know she'd got through, then she turned her attention back to Derek Palliser.
'Did
those lemmings tunnel through your brain?' she asked.
'What
the
hell
are you doing in Nuuk?' He seemed genuinely dumbfounded. 'Edie,
do I need to worry?'
'About
me?' She snorted. 'Of course not.'
'Why
didn't you mention this before?'
'Because
I knew you'd interfere,' she said.
The
Inuk man began making hang-up gestures.
'But
we had a deal,' Derek said.
'Didn't
someone tell you yet? People break deals all the time.'
He
sighed. 'At some point I'm going to have to get involved.' She heard a rustle
of papers. 'You know how it is, nothing stays secret for long around here.'
'You'd
be surprised.'
Another
silence. 'I guess you're not going to tell me what that means.'
'Uh
nuh. Not yet anyway.'
She'd
decided not to mention her new theory until she had something more to go on.
Her plan was to find the plane and through that the two Russian hunters who
came looking for rocks on Craig.
'Anything
happens, there's a letter.'
She
described where he could find the key to her old booze cupboard, empty now but
for an envelope containing the pages she'd found in the ice cave plus four more
written in her own scruffy hand.
'Promise
me you'll find out what happened to Joe.'
'Edie,
we've been through this. You know what happened.'
'I
mean,
why.
I want that to be a promise, Derek, not a deal.'
There
was a pause, but this time it felt full and potent, like the silence between
lovers.
'I promise,'
he said, finally; then, in a lighter tone, 'How's Nuuk?'
All
she'd seen of the town so far, aside from the airport terminal, was on the
approach from the air.
'Awful,'
she said. 'Too many roads, not nearly enough ice.'
The
man at the info booth began signalling to her again. Derek was still laughing
when she cut him off.
'Sorry,
we're not supposed to make international calls,' the man at the info booth
said.
He
had a disc-shaped face with a mouth that looked as though it had got stuck in a
permanent turndown. When she'd first spoken to him in Inuktitut, he hadn't
understood her. They were speaking in English now, but even then she found it
hard to pick her way through his accent. It had unsettled her to discover that
not all Inuit spoke the same version of the language.
'I
haven't finished,' she said.
The
man looked up. His eyes narrowed then he swivelled round, following a sudden
commotion. Four uniformed men rushed by, making for the terminal door. The Inuk
watched them go.
'Trouble?'
'Protestors.'
'Oh.'
The idea seemed strange. Anyone had anything to protest about in Autisaq, they
walked into the Town Hall and spoke directly to the mayor.
'Some
politician is flying in from Denmark this afternoon to open a new sports
centre. Not everyone likes foreigners, I guess.'
He
turned back to his desk, distracted now.
'About
that something else?' she said. 'A charter plane.'
The
man leaned back and shook his head. 'I don't have anything to do with that
side.' He seemed relieved that he wasn't going to be able to help her. 'I'm
just terminal operations.'
The
sound of jeering issued from outside. The man made busy. Edie pulled out the
piece of paper on which she'd scribbled the registration of the green plane and
pushed it across the desk towards him.
'All
I want to know, the name of the charter company operating this plane?'
The
Inuk glanced at it, then looked up at Edie, wary.
'You
one of them, a protestor?'
A wry
smile came over Edie's face. 'Only on my home turf.' Remembering the Inuk
pilot, she added, 'I'm thinking of chartering a plane, and a friend told me
that the fella who flies this . . .' nodding at the piece of paper,'. . . is
one of us.'
He
picked up the paper and inspected it, before giving her a pinched look, as
though he didn't quite believe her but had decided not to care.
'Looks
like Johannes Moller's outfit.' He plugged something into his screen and flipped
his finger down a list. 'Yup. He's a Dane but he's got an Inuk pilot works for
him, Hans, I think it is.'
'You
don't know where I'd find him?'
The
Inuk shrugged. 'You could try Bar Rat in town. Lot of bush pilots hang out
there.'
By
Autisaq standards, Nuuk seemed like a vast urban sprawl. Until now, Edie had
never been anywhere larger than Iqaluit. Was there an address?
The
info guy shrugged again. He'd been co-operative enough. 'Like I said . . .' he
began.
'. .
.you're just terminal operations.'
While
they'd been talking, another batch of uniformed police had arrived and taken up
stations by the entrance to keep the protestors out. Edie brushed by them and
out onto the pavement. It occurred to her then that she should have asked the
Inuk for the name of a cheap guesthouse, but when she turned to go back inside,
a uniformed arm barred her way.
'Only
passengers with valid tickets,' the policeman said in English.
Edie
tried arguing but the man wouldn't budge.
She crossed
over the road alongside the terminal near to where protestors were penned in
behind a series of crash barriers. A few were waving placards on which Edie
could only make out the Greenlandic words for 'Greenland' and 'Greenlanders'.
Native people by and large. They didn't look terribly threatening.
A
sign on the other side of the barriers advertised buses to the town centre.
There was nothing for it but to make her way through the crowd. A policeman
opened the barrier to give her access. She moved through, using her elbows to
force open a corridor, and finally came out on the other side near the bus
stop. Who'd have thought that human crowds could be noisier than gulls and
smellier than a seal colony?
She
was trying to fathom out a printed timetable attached to the stop, when a young
Greenlandic woman in a pink fleece leaned towards her and said something in the
native language.
'I'm
a foreigner,' explained Edie.
The
young woman laughed and immediately said in English, 'Not foreign, Inuk.' She
introduced herself as Qila Rasmussen. She worked at the airport cleaning and
was coming off an early shift. 'First time in Kangerlussuaq?' she asked, using
the country's Greenlandic name.
Edie
nodded. A bus drew close and was caught momentarily in the crowd. Edie, who
knew nothing about Greenlandic politics, said, 'Why do they care so much?'
For
an instant, her new friend looked taken aback and she thought she might have
offended her.
'We're
sick of foreigners interfering in our country.' The young woman lowered her
voice. 'I'd be there with them but I have four kids to think about and I need
my job.'
The
bus pulled up, and Qila stood aside to let Edie get on. She spoke to the bus
driver in Danish and helped Edie pick out the correct money for a ticket. They
walked down the aisle, Edie selected a seat and Qila tucked in beside her and
the bus moved off, shaking and roaring. The only vehicle Edie had ever
encountered of similar size was the Autisaq sewage truck, but this bus was
louder and rattled along at enough speed to be alarming. She looked out of the
window and bit her lip.
They
passed by mountains, less craggy than those on Ellesmere but, despite the heat,
still snow-coated, bisected by a metal line on which hung what looked like
drying racks.
'Do
you like skiing?'
Edie
turned her head away from the window and gave Qila a blank look.
'The
ski lift.' Qila pointed at the metal line.
'We
don't have all that much snow where I'm from.' She felt safe enough with this woman.
'It's more rock and ice.' Then she thought of Joe, skiing his way back from
Craig Island, half delirious.
They
passed beside a long, low building the shape of a door wedge and above it on a
mountain slope, a cross.
'You
a believer?' Qila asked, suddenly.
Edie
looked out of the window to the cross then away across the willow. 'I believe
in all sorts of things.'
'We're
Christians here,' Qila said quietly. 'Except for a few
qalunaat
who
don't believe in anything.'
The
road busied between two crags, then fell gradually towards the town. They
passed a sign reading 'H. J. Rinksvej' which looked like the name of the road.
In Autisaq, everyone called the streets Street One and Street Two, but no one
could agree on which was which.
Buildings
began to appear, spread out across low rocks. They trundled on up and soon they
could see the whole of Nuuk. Though she knew it was small by southern
standards, to Edie's eyes, the town seemed impossibly crowded.
They
passed a boxy white building set into the rock and surrounded by carpets of
Arctic willow.
Qila
said: 'The Hans Egede church. Some people think he was kind of a hero. Have you
heard of him?'
Edie
shook her head.
'A
missionary. He came looking for Viking settlements and got us instead.' She
laughed a bitter laugh. 'Still, he was a good man, took the time to learn our
language, translated the Bible.'
The
bus driver hooted at someone outside, who returned the greeting with a wave.
Qila
said: '"Our father, who is in heaven, give us this day our daily harbour
seal." That was Egede. We're just about to pass his house.'