Afterlands (20 page)

The warning bell does rattle, once, but only Kruger stirs. He has been awake, picturing and trying to taste his mother’s dense buttery marzipan cakes, always served with scalding black coffee, to cut the fat. He dozed off once. Tukulito was bringing him a white porcelain side plate with the cake slice on it, swimming in a syrup of blood. It looked wonderful, and somehow in devouring the cake, he realized, he would be making love to her. He sits up.
You boys!
Somebody is yelling outside in the wind.
Roust now! Boys … ?
It’s Ebierbing, not daring to crawl in as he did long ago—the night Hans went missing.
My Punnie lost now! Please help, come out, any boys of you!

Kruger scrutinizes Anthing in the dimness, hoping to catch his unguarded first expression as Ebierbing’s words hit home. Anthing has been asleep on his front. As he lifts his curly head and peers around turtle-wise, his creased face looks dull and slack. Kruger thinks, If you had something to do with this, you’re a dead man, whatever it takes.

Wait for me! he calls in a cracked voice. He leans over the snowy no-man’s land that borders him, to shake Herron, but everyone except Meyer is already awake. Hans is unpopular, Punnie is not. The starved men begin to rouse themselves, even the trussed Jackson, but Anthing, sitting up, says, I make the orders. This could be a trick. Why would the child be outside at night, in a storm? It could be Tyson and the natives waiting to shoot us as we come out.

Well, I’m going, Kruger says, pulling on his boots. Why not let Herron come, and Jackson as well? He can hardly boil and eat you while he’s out there with me.

Jackson’s bewildered eyes dart about, German words whistling above him like bullets.

You will all remain in here.

The devil I will. Kruger kneels and crawls toward the wolfskin. As he pushes into the tunnel he half expects the grim
click
as Anthing aims his six-shooter at his ass,
fourth time will finish the job
. Instead he hears: Let him go. Let Herron go too. You others, you stay where you are. Prepare your rifles.

Outside Ebierbing and Kruger lean together. They have to be almost nose to nose to see and hear each other. Ebierbing’s face betrays no emotion but his voice is a half-octave too high. Herron joins them. His face is tight and scared. It seems Punnie crawled out of the iglu a little while ago and the lieutenant woke up and saw her going out, then went after her, calling Ebierbing and Tukulito to wake, too. When he got outside he couldn’t see her. Ebierbing, Hans and the lieutenant have been searching since then; Tukulito has to stay with Tobias.

Whatever would she have gone outside for, Kruger asks, the floor of his stomach caving.

We dunno. Tukulito think, maybe Punnie is, is, how is the word … of Toby.

Worried? asks Herron. Jealous?

That! Angry, too, so she run off.

Ebierbing ropes the three of them together, himself in the middle, and they spread out, groping through the whiteout with five paces between them, some slack in the rope, calling into the wind, or with it. Ebierbing says the lieutenant has attached a long leash to himself and is searching around their iglu, Hans around his own. On his end of the line Kruger feels almost warm, his cheeks and ears and nape blazing. It isn’t Anthing who killed the child. She must have waited till after dark to be sure nobody would see her looking, and now the gale has buried the P.

Something grips his arm. He turns, blood thudding in his chin. Tyson leans at the end of his leash, his pistol in his belt. His cap, eyebrows, beard, and the muskox hide over his shoulders are plastered with snow.

I begin to fear the worst, he shouts, pushing his face up to Kruger’s.

That the child is dead, Kruger murmurs.

No! That your compatriots have seized and eaten her.

Small icicles off his nose and beard tremble. Kruger takes a step back. Tyson strains against his leash, hanging onto Kruger’s arm.

Lieutenant—how long since she went out?

The natives and I were coming in there to look for her, had none of you emerged to help. But then again—yes—perhaps you two are but decoys! In his quick-blinking eyes the same fever as in Meyer’s and Jamka’s, a hunger that trusts nobody. Yes—perhaps she
is
still inside your—

Lieutenant! How long ago?

What? Not so long. A half-hour.

But I was awake this past hour. The others were asleep. Your suspicions are un—

You admit you were awake! Pilfering again for Meyer, no doubt—

The rope tightens round Kruger’s waist, then yanks him backward. Tyson hangs on.

Kruger! comes Ebierbing’s voice, what you find?

I am not the thief, Lieutenant.

Don’t lie to me! You’ve been courting the child’s mother for months! Now I understand. This was the actual scheme. To gain her trust and use her like a whore, then seize her child!

Kruger tries to spit at Tyson’s feet. His mouth is too dry. Tyson clenches the fur of Kruger’s hood on both sides and jerks his face nearer. Kruger grabs Tyson’s mantle and they totter together, pathetic wrestlers. The rope tugs Kruger hard. He reels back into the snow, Tyson toppling beside him. Kruger grabs Tyson’s forearms to ensure he can’t get at his pistol. Shouts are whirling in the frenzied air and white figures loom over them: Ebierbing, carrying Punnie who clings to him like an albino monkey, Herron hobbling behind, bent almost double against the gale. The child’s face is pressed to her father’s shoulder, her body pulsing with sobs under the caked little parka. Says she out looking for food! Ebierbing shouts, and his voice throbs and surges. Food in the snow, for Tobias! More food maybe make him better, he go back to his mother, hah!

Kruger lets go of Tyson and rolls onto his back with a sobbing laugh, then tears. Herron kneels, setting a mitten on his shoulder.

Food lying about in the snow, Kru! Now wouldn’t that be grand!

The slight wavering of the qulliq’s glow on the iglu’s dome makes a miniature of the northern lights. Tukulito and Ebierbing are awake, Punnie and Tobias nested between them. The boy’s breathing is quick and shallow. On Tukulito’s other side, pressed close, the lieutenant lies straight and stiff as a cadaver, grinding his teeth. Before sleep he informed them that they are now at the approximate latitude of Cumberland Sound, their old home, perhaps a hundred miles to the west.

This they already knew.

Ebierbing reaches over the children and gently knuckles Tukulito’s cheek, an uncharacteristic gesture. His fingers are oddlycold and dry.

Isumakaqaqpiit?
Tukulito asks.

Saluktualugavit
, he says. You’ve grown so thin.

Ahaluna!

After some moments Ebierbing continues in Inuktitut: He always sleeps the hardest before dawn. When he stops his teeth-grinding. We can set out then.

She says, I thought I’d trimmed it better.

What?

The wick.

I say that we can get home, maybe, across the ice now. This floe is wearing away and will soon be gone.

Oh, mother! Tyson moans in a stifled voice, the soilings! Yet you’d purged him …

Tukulito ignores Tyson and says, When the ice goes, there’s always the boat.

You know that the men mean to take it.

I don’t think they’ll really try.

How can you know that? It’s impossible to know anything about the Qallunaat!

Qallunaat wear their feelings on their face, she says, and draw them in the air with their hands.

But moments later they wear new feelings. If they take that boat, we’re all lost.

No, not again! says Tyson. His entrails are a serpent!

She says, Father Hall would never want us to leave the others like that.

But he
loved
Punnie, says Ebierbing with some force, although he lies still. If Father Hall could see the way the men look at her and the other children, maybe he would want us to leave. We almost lost her last night. And where did she get that biscuit she was hiding? She didn’t “find it in the snow.” I’m afraid they’re trying to lure the children to them. Maybe fattening them up.

After a few moments she says, Maybe it’s Mr Kruger. I think he’s a good man, maybe he saves some of his food for the children.

Maybe to use as bait. I don’t trust any of them.

She falls silent. He is forced to go on: And now Hans says he won’t hunt. The men may kill him soon. They’ll never let an Inuk lie around in his iglu, same as they do, and eat up the stores—whatever they haven’t stolen yet—without working. They’ll kill him and his family and you know the rest of it. Our turn will come after, if we don’t go. Wife, we’ve done our best.

If we leave, they all die, she says. You’re the hunter here. And Punnie—

One hunter isn’t enough.

Punnie is too small and weak to make the journey, Tukulito says with decision. Our best chance for her is to stay put—here, where we know there’s food. Anyway, we can’t return the boy to his parents unhealed.

We can return him dead.

What are you saying to me?

That he might not survive the night. Or tomorrow night. You can see as much. And then we’ll
have
to set out, before the men do. When they leave, the boat will be full of the supplies, and our share as well.

She says quietly, Food could still be found somehow. You’re such a hunter … and Hans would work again if the men were gone.

Oh
stop!
Tyson hisses, he will drown in those tidings!

Enough now, Ebierbing says. Consider Punnie and sleep with my words in your ear.

And my words in yours.

What a stubborn thing you are.

Ajurnaqmat
, she says.
It can’t be helped
.

Tonight as Kruger returns to the hut Anthing intercepts him, strolling out from behind the hummock where Kruger squatted with dropped breeches a few days ago. Anthing has his hood off. He looks focused and very awake. He rams the frozen snout of the revolver up under Kruger’s chin.

Where were you?

The latrine.

It’s not in that direction. Breathe on me.

Kruger shrugs fatalistically. He exhales on Anthing’s face while the man trawls through his pockets.

I smell blood. Fresh meat. And what’s this for?

Anthing holds up the snow trowel. Kruger ponders it for a moment.

I thought I’d make some minor improvements to the latrine.

Anthing flips the trowel to the ice. And this?

For the children. Sometimes I save a little of my food. One of the biscuits is for Jackson. As you seem to be starving him now.

His race can stand a little of that, they’re bred for it. Anyway, we shall find out if that’s so.

So now you’re the Count’s laboratory assistant?

Anthing twists the snout of the Colt and Kruger makes a gargling noise as if his throat has been sliced.

You’re caught, Roland.

But the cache—Kruger stupid with cold and loathing—it’s yours! I just took and allotted supplies that you stole already!

A carnivorous grin slides across Anthing’s face, his cracked lips parting. So. This is not from the main store. Just as I thought. You’ve made a cache. Take me to this cache.

You know very well where it is.

Not at all! Please take me!

Those lewd, leering eyes—yet the heavy lids are blinking a touch fast, in agitation. He really doesn’t know where the cache is, or whose.

You’ll be confined on quarter rations until you do …

That seems a poor way to fatten me up, Matthias.

Anthing looks surprised, but then he says coolly: We’ve let you do that by yourself.

You’d be better to kill me now.

I will be killing you, you have my word. But not yet.

Evening, a few days later, Anthing crawling into the hut with a disgusted face—out searching for the cache again, no doubt. Kruger asks in a dry whisper, How is the ill child?

As ill as he was and no better. He eats nothing. Are you ready to help us?

Poor starveling, says Madsen.

In the vapid mechanical way of a boy repeating something he has heard, Anthing says, It means that the strong get slightly more.

And—and if this child should die, Major Anthing?

Think of Napoleon and the deer! suggests Meyer in a crackling voice. He lies on his side and his eyes gape, blind without his spectacles, which seem to have vanished. The revolver is gone from his pillow as well, no doubt swallowed up in Anthing’s arsenal of a bag.

The Count is awake! gibbers Jamka, the guard, cross-legged with his rifle across his lap.

Anthing studies Meyer.

Keep him well covered.

Yes, sir.

Wasser!
croaks Meyer.

Herron—water for the Count.

With a tender look, as if his nature can keep no grudge, as if loyal to anything that suffers, Herron lifts Meyer’s head and tilts the tin cup to his moustache. Meyer’s wild tresses are now more white than blond. They look brittle as a storybook hag’s. Kruger can’t watch him sipping the water. Anthing has allowed Kruger and Jackson, trussed side by side against the north wall, no water for three days. The chips of filthy snow that Kruger claws from the wall and melts in his mouth are absorbed at once by the fiery lining of his throat. Jackson makes shallow rasps, staring upward— still eyes hypnotized by hunger. His skin is sulphur-yellow. Only Herron will look at the two of them, and if sympathy were food and water they would be quenched and stuffed with his.