The middle of everywhere, p.1
The Middle of Everywhere, page 1
THE
MIDDLE
OF
EVERYWHERE
MONIQUE POLAK
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
Text copyright © 2009 Monique Polak
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Polak, Monique
The middle of everywhere / written by Monique Polak.
ISBN 978-1-55469-090-9
I. Title.
PS8631.O43M54 2009 jC813’.6 C2009-903349-6
First published in the United States, 2009
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009929363
Summary: Noah spends a school term in George River, in Quebec’s Far North,
trying to understand the Inuit culture, which he finds both threatening and puzzling.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Design by Teresa Bubela
Cover artwork by Getty Images
Author photo by Monique Dykstra
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
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VICTORIA, BC CANADA
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ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
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Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.
12 11 10 09 • 4 3 2 1
For Sapina and Joe
CONTENTS
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
GLOSSARY OF INUKTITUT TERMS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ONE
I bet I’m the only jogger in the history of George River. People up here don’t jog or work out in a gym; they get exercise doing stuff like hunting seals or running from polar bears.
But it’s my first full day in town and a run might help. It’s pretty depressing being up here in the middle of nowhere, two plane rides away from Montreal. There’s nothing to see except snow and more snow.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” Dad said this morning when he opened the curtains. “Just have a look at that view, will ya? It’s like waking up to a painting, is what it is.”
What it also is is friggin’ cold. I know, because Dad’s obsessed with checking his computer for the weather report. “Are you sure you can handle this kind of cold?” he asked when he saw me lacing up my shoes. “I was online just now and it’s minus twenty-eight Celsius, minus thirty-eight with the windchill factor.” Dad whistled. Cold weather impresses him. “Your body’s not acclimatized yet, Noah.”
“I can handle it. And I can take Tarksalik. That way you won’t have to walk her.”
Dad liked that idea. It meant he had time for another coffee before his first class. And, who knows, maybe the temperature would drop another degree. That’d really get Dad’s day off to a good start.
I’ve already run from Dad’s apartment, past the airport to the dump where the road ends, and now I’m headed back. It’s so quiet up here, it’s creepy. All I can hear is the sound of my running shoes hitting the snow-covered road. I check my watch. A half-hour run should do me. Tomorrow, I’ll add five minutes. One thing’s for sure: working out sure beats sitting around, looking out the window at the snow and hanging out with the weatherman.
I hear the pickup truck before I see it.
It’s coming from behind me, rumbling up the hill.
Tarksalik is about forty feet ahead of me, running by the side of the road. I can tell she’s got sled-dog blood in her from the way she runs: head high, legs taut.
The sun has just come up, and when it lands on Tarksalik, it looks like she’s shining too. For the first time since I found out I’d be spending this term in Nunavik, in northern Quebec, getting reacquainted with my dad, I don’t feel one hundred percent miserable. Right now, as I let the fresh cold air fill my lungs, I’d say I’m down to about eighty-five percent miserable.
Maybe, I think as I watch Tarksalik run, this visit won’t turn out to be a total disaster. Maybe there’s more to life than Montreal.
On our way out to the dump, Tarksalik ran up into the tundra to sniff around the low bushes that grow there. George River is right at the tree line, so there aren’t any real trees to speak of, just low bushes, spruce mostly. But now Tarksalik is back by the side of the road. Every so often, she turns to make sure I’m still there. Considering we only met yesterday, she’s already pretty attached to me. That’s dogs for you; always ready to make a new friend. Human beings, at least the ones I’ve met, are more complicated.
The truck’s rumble comes closer. My body tenses. I could shout “Stay!” at Tarksalik, but I’m worried that the sound of my voice might make her turn around and run straight into the truck’s path. Tarksalik isn’t afraid of trucks or cars. Yesterday Dad gave her hell for chasing an suv. Up here, dogs don’t learn to fear vehicles the way city dogs do. There are hardly any cars or trucks in the frozen North. And that’s because there’s no place to go. There’s only one road in town, and it goes round in a circle for about four kilometers.
Dad says he likes living where there’s only one small road that doesn’t really go anywhere. “Life’s less complicated. And the air—there’s nothing like it,” he says. But I’d trade the fresh air for a highway that’d get me out of here.
In winter, people in George River mostly use snowmobiles to get around. Just about everything gets shipped here from down south. Most stuff comes by plane, but bigger items, like cars, only get shipped in summer when Ungava Bay thaws. A carton of milk costs five bucks in George River, so you can imagine what a car would go for.
I’m thinking what an awful thing it’ll be if Tarksalik gets hit by this truck. How bad I’ll feel for offering to take her out with me in the first place. And what a lousy start it’ll be for my stay in George River. But Tarsalik’s not going to get hit. No way. I mean, what are the chances?
All of that is going through my head when the red pickup truck speeds up and drives past me. The driver waves at me. He has straight jet black hair, and he’s sucking on a cigarette.
“Hey,” I shout, pointing at the dog. But it’s too late. The truck zooms ahead.
Tarksalik doesn’t stay. Alerted by the sound of the truck’s engine, she turns toward the road. Then, just like that, she runs out into the road, heading right for the truck. Her tail is wagging, like she expects something really good to happen.
Don’t, I think. Please don’t. Please. No.
But she does.
I hear a thud as Tarksalik’s body makes contact with metal, followed by a terrible yelp. What happens next feels like it’s in slow motion. Tarksalik’s body flies into the air—it must go up five feet—and lands on the middle of the road. A dark pool forms in the snow around her. Blood. Sled-dog blood.
No matter how long I live, I know I’ll never be able to wipe that moment from my mind.
“Tarksalik!” I cry out, choking on her name.
I’m sure the driver will stop. He must have felt Tarksalik’s body when it hit the truck. He must have heard her yelping. If she’s alive, he’ll know what to do, where to take her for help.
But the bastard just keeps driving, leaving Tarksalik and me out there in the cold, a good two kilometers from town. I shake my fist in the air as the red pickup truck disappears behind a hill of snow. As far as I can tell, the heartless asshole doesn’t even bother to look in his rearview mirror.
I’ve never run as fast as I do to reach Tarksalik. Please, God, let her be okay.
She is lying in a pool of blood, but I can’t tell for sure where the blood is coming from. Maybe her mouth; maybe her rump. Her blue eyes are open, but there’s a gray film over them, and her breath sounds raspy. When I reach down to touch her muzzle, she bites my hand. Her teeth tear through my fleece running mitts, breaking the skin underneath. Now I’m bleeding too.
I pull my hand away. If it hurts, I don’t notice.
I know if I try to move Tarksalik, she’ll bite me again. That means I’ve got to leave her in the middle of the road and hope no more cars or trucks come along.
I know I have to get help. Fast.
“Tarksalik,” I say, looking her in the eye and trying not to cry, “I’m going to get Dad. You’re going to be okay. I promise. I’ll get a doctor.”
I don’t notice anything on my run back into town. The air must be sharp
All I know is how I feel and what I’m thinking. My heart is sagging in my chest, weighing me down, but I have to keep running, moving one leg forward after the other. What if Tarksalik doesn’t make it? What if—the thought makes me groan—some other car comes by and finishes what the truck started?
I have to get Dad. I have to get a doctor. I run faster than I’ve ever run. My throat and lungs burn from the cold. My knee joints ache.
That’s when it occurs to me: there are no doctors in Kangiqsualujjuaq, which is the name of Dad’s town, though everyone up here just calls it George River or sometimes even just George.
I heard Dad and a couple of the other teachers talking about it last night. The closest doctor is in Kuujjuaq, a half-hour plane ride away, ten hours by snowmobile. George River doesn’t even have an X-ray machine.
What kind of godforsaken place have I come to, anyway?
TWO
I pound on the door of Dad’s apartment. I have the key, but my fingers are too frozen to fish it out of my pocket. “It’s Tarksalik!” I shout. “She got hit by a truck.”
Dad opens the door. He’s holding his toothbrush. His face is as white as the snowdrifts by the porch. “Is she dead? Where is she?”
“She’s not dead. But she’s bleeding bad. She wouldn’t let me touch her. She’s on the road—on the way out to the airport.” I’m panting so much I can hardly breathe.
Dad throws on his parka. I smell coffee. “Go across the street to Steve’s,” Dad says, pressing his palm down on my shoulder. “Tell him we need him to help us get her.”
Steve is Dad’s closest friend up here. He’s the principal at the school where Dad teaches. Steve’s from Ontario, but his wife Rhoda is Inuit. She runs the daycare program at the school. They live with their five-year-old son Etua and their daughter Celia, who’s nine, in a prefabricated house like Dad’s, only theirs isn’t divided into two apartments the way Dad’s is.
Etua answers the door. “Hey,” he says, grinning up at me, “I got my Spiderman pj’s on.”
The house smells like pancakes. Steve is standing by the stove. He’s still wearing his bathrobe. Rhoda is in the hallway, braiding Celia’s hair. “Steve!” I call out. “Tarksalik got hit by a truck. We need you to help us get her. She’s out on the middle of the road. On the way to the airport.”
It is only afterward, after we’ve gone back for Tarksalik (who has managed somehow to drag herself to the side of the road) and I am crouched over her on the qamutik (a sled on two skis attached to Steve’s snowmobile), that I realize Dad and Steve didn’t panic. Not one bit. The two of them just sprang into action. They used a blanket to hoist Tarksalik onto the qamutik, then covered her with another blanket. A blue and black plaid blanket with blue fringes. It’s weird the stuff you notice when you’re in the middle of something awful.
When I talk to Steve later about how he and Dad didn’t freak out, Steve looks surprised. “I’ve seen some bad stuff happen up here, Noah. We had a suicide at the school three weeks ago. And last year, Tilly Watts lost her hand in a snowmobile accident. We’re out on the land, not in cars with seatbelts and airbags. When accidents happen out here, we can’t afford to panic.”
We bring Tarksalik straight to Mathilde’s house. Mathilde’s the town nurse. She works at the clinic, but because she and Dad are friends, Dad knows she has Tuesdays off.
Mathilde doesn’t panic either, even when we turn up at her door with a bleeding dog. She lays Tarksalik out on her living-room floor, and she doesn’t seem to notice when her beige carpet gets spattered with blood. Then she runs her hands along the length of the dog’s body, feeling for breaks. Tarksalik yelps again, but Mathilde doesn’t think there are any broken bones. “She’s in shock. I’m going to the clinic to get her some pain meds. These first few hours are very important,” she says.
Mathilde grabs her backpack. It’s black with hot-pink and turquoise stripes, and it looks like it might be Mexican. There I go noticing weird stuff again.
A minute later, Mathilde is out the door and on her way to the clinic. Luckily, it’s just down the road. She’ll be back soon with the pain medication.
Dad is chewing on his lower lip. He loves that dog. Until I arrived in George River yesterday, Tarksalik was his only family up here. The dog was living outside when Dad first came to town. He used to feed her scraps, but then one really cold night, she came into Dad’s apartment, and she’s lived there ever since.
Tarksalik is the Inuktitut word for spot. Dad named her that because she’s got a white spot on her forehead and because when Dad was learning to read, the dog in the reader they used at his school was named Spot. So Tarksalik’s the Inuktitut version of that dog. “It’s a bilingual play on words,” Dad explained to me. “Get it?”
Tarksalik follows Dad everywhere, even when he takes a pee. Dad says she’s the best pet he ever had. “Probably because she’s so darned grateful,” he told me.
Now Dad strokes the spot on Tarksalik’s forehead. “You’re going to be okay,” he tells her, but his voice doesn’t sound too sure.
“What can I do?” Sitting around watching Tarksalik, and watching Dad watch Tarksalik, is only making me feel worse. I need to do something.
“You’d better get to school, Noah,” Dad says. He stops stroking Tarksalik to check his watch. “You’ve got forty minutes till the bell goes.” He eyes my jacket. It’s smeared with Tarksalik’s blood. “There’s time for you to clean yourself up, change your clothes. We’re in room 218. Listen, tell the other kids I’m going to be a little late. And tell them to work on their compositions till I get there.” Dad sounds less broken up when he talks about school.
Being back at Dad’s apartment without Dad or Tarksalik for company feels weird. I stop to look at a picture of me on the living-room mantel. It must have been taken ten years ago, after Mom and Dad split up. I’m standing on one leg and my arms are spread out like wings. It looks like I’m pretending to be an airplane. Dad must have taken the picture when he got back from one of his trips and I went to meet him at the airport.
The blood on my jacket comes off with a little cold water and some scrubbing. I shower and toast myself a bagel and smear some peanut butter on it, but I can’t stop hearing the thud Tarksalik’s body made when the truck hit her or picturing Tarksalik flying up into the air or seeing the black puddle of blood.
If only I hadn’t gone for a run. If only I hadn’t offered to take Tarksalik. If only I hadn’t come up north in the first place.
There’s a No Boots rule at Dad’s school. You have to leave your boots in the front hallway. It’s a way to prevent tracking in snow. So the first thing I see when I walk into school is this long row of boots. I park mine at the far end. I’m glad there aren’t any holes in my socks.
I already met some of Dad’s students yesterday afternoon when I got off the plane from Kuujjuaq. Dad thought I might as well meet them right away, considering I was going to be in their class till June, when the school term ends.
“Not to worry,” Dad told them after we’d all shaken hands, Inuit-style. Actually, from what I can tell, the Inuit don’t shake hands, they just grab your hand and hold it, not pumping it up and down the way we do. “I’m not going to give Noah here any special treatment, even if he is my own son. Even”—Dad’s voice went up a little, which meant he was about to sing. I cringed. Dad has a really terrible singing voice—“if he is the sunshine of my life.”
“D’you get it?” Dad asked his students. “Sunshine—and he’s my son.”
To my surprise, the students cracked up. I guess they have lower standards for humor up here. They also don’t laugh the way kids do in the city. The noise Dad’s students make is more like a twitter, and they cover their mouths when they do it. Like they feel bad for laughing.
That was when I started to understand why Dad likes it so much up here. It’s not just the snow and the fresh air. No one in the civilized world could put up with his goofy jokes or his singing. Up here they thought he was funny.
Geraldine Snowflake is the first one to say anything when I walk into room 218. Geraldine’s pretty in a way I’m not used to. She’s nothing like Tammy Akerman at my school in Montreal. Tammy has blond wavy hair, and she wears tight T-shirts that drive me crazy.
