Consumption (37 page)

“I want to ask him some questions.”

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

“Just ask him if he’ll see me.”

“Okay.”

Okpatayauk had shrugged.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Bridgeford had asked. “You know you don’t have to.”

Another shrug. “I’ll talk to her.”

When she appeared at the police station, Bridgeford stopped her at the door and asked her to take off her parka and
kamiks
. He hung
these carefully on his coathook and studied her for bulges. “Victoria, I’ll be just over here. I’m afraid I can’t allow you much privacy.”

“I don’t care.”

She sat down on the chair Bridgeford had pulled up for her. Okpatayauk looked at her evenly. She studied him. He hadn’t killed her husband. She could tell.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

Shrug.

“You have to tell me why you’re doing this, because it affects me.”

“How?”

“It means the real killer won’t get caught, and it means I have to go through a trial I know is for nothing.”

“It’s not for nothing.”

“I’m not really very interested in your political agenda.”

“I am responsible for your husband’s death. I’m saying that. And I will go to jail.”

“You aren’t taking responsibility for his murder—you’re taking credit for it. Even though you’re lying.”

Contempt spread across her face. He turned away from her. She sat there, looking at his averted eyes. Finally Bridgeford had to tell her to leave.

Pauloosie rode his sled to the top of a rise southwest of Baker Lake and studied the horizon. He was disappointed that he could not see the beacon from the Baker Lake Airport. It was late in the day and he thought he might see lights; it had been months now since he had talked to another person.

He descended the rise with his dogs and as he did so he decided it was time to make shelter. There was good wind-packed snow here and an iglu would not take him long. He had found the
tuktu
scarce in recent weeks, but coming south he had seen a herd of muskoxen, which were rarely seen this far west. Their strategy when threatened
remains geared to the wolf: the adult males line up in a circle facing outward while the calves and females huddle in the centre. It is an effective strategy when threatened by gnashing teeth. For the 30–06, however, it is rather less effective. Pauloosie took down a bull with a heart shot. It was enough meat for many days, for him and his dogs. Already they looked stronger. He chopped off slabs of frozen meat with his axe, threw it to them, and then he made an iglu. He boiled water for tea and settled inside as it grew dark.

When he heard movement, his first thought was that he had been foolish to come so close to a settlement, that he had been spotted and these were now the police. He looked at his rifle, listening. He had not heard an engine, and until he did he could not be certain it wasn’t a barrenlands grizzly. Then his dogs rose as one to cry, and when they did so they launched themselves at the air the way they would have if they had smelled a bear. But it was other dogs they were greeting. Pauloosie removed the round from the rifle’s chamber and let the firing pin click down on air. He slid the weapon back in its case and watched the entrance of his iglu.

When the hood of a parka inserted itself, Pauloosie sat up. A hand reached up and pulled the hood down and it was Simionie, or a version of what had been Simionie, thinner and windburnt, and smiling widely.
“Kahnaweepie?”
he asked Pauloosie.

“Kahnawingietoona,”
Pauloosie replied. “Would you like tea?”

“Yes, please.”

“When did you leave town?” Pauloosie squinted at Simionie in the dim light—judging from his weight loss it had been some time.

“The day after you did.”

“How come?”

“I figured it was pretty clear they were gonna charge someone as soon as they could for killing your dad. I thought I was the obvious one.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t care if you had.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“I guess that means that you didn’t either, eh?”

“Nope.”

“So who do you think did?”

“No idea.”

“You really wouldn’t have cared if I had killed your dad?”

“No, I would have. I just wanted you to tell me.”

“You’re like them RCMP, huh? Tricky.”

“Yeah,” Pauloosie said, laughing and pouring the tea. “They taught me some things.”

“See anyone else out here from Rankin Inlet?”

“Yeah, the schoolteacher, the one with the dogs.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“Who told you that?”

“I forget.”

“Okay.”

They stopped talking then, each lapsing into his own reflections. They drank the last of the tea and then Pauloosie invited Simionie to spend the night. Simionie thanked him and turned onto his side. There was barely enough room for both of them to lie down. Their legs and shoulders and hips touched each other.

Tagak decided to order a new suit from the Northern Store catalogue. Every other manager at the mine wore expensive suits to important meetings. He had never owned one in his life, and was too embarrassed to discuss this with his wife. The catalogue described the relevant dimensions it required. He had measured himself, naked in the bathroom, with a tape measure he had brought home from work for the purpose. The metal tape measure had difficulty gauging the circumference of his neck, so he used his belt then laid it flat and measured that. The belt was not quite large enough for his
chest so he switched to a length of tooth floss. Then he measured his belly, and needed a much longer length of floss, and his hips, just as was marked on the figure in the book. His inseam. His outseam.

At the end, Robertson had worn suits at work. Tagak had noticed how the frayed and ancient sports jackets had given way to crisper clothes when the mine began to turn a profit. He had watched, too, as the way the other men spoke to him changed. He was not sure what was the cause and what was the consequence, but he wanted to be treated with regard too. The suit would cost him as much as a new rifle.

He looked at the floss he had used and thought it was a pity to waste it but threw it out anyway. There’s frugal and then there’s silly. He shook his head. He was thinking more like a Kablunauk every day. Soon, he’d be flying to Winnipeg just to watch a hockey game.

Emo asked Winnie whether Victoria had enough deer meat. He was sitting across from her at their kitchen table. He wore a spotted white T-shirt and blue jeans many sizes too large for him. He was losing weight quickly. On the plate in front of him were strips of bacon Winnie had fried, which he had not eaten. She looked at him, and away from her needlepoint. “Yes, she’s fine of course.”

“That husband of hers is no hunter.”

“He’s dead.”

Emo looked surprised. “How did he die?”

“A
nanuq
ate him.”

“He was out on the land?”

“It came into town and caught him just as he was taking a leak out back.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“You have to be careful with those things.”

“Yep”

“Anyone catch the bear?”

“You did.”

“Did I?”

“Yep.”

“What was the hide worth?”

“A hundred bucks.”

“Did you sell it for just a hundred bucks, a good
nanuq
hide?” he asked, starting to rise from his chair. “No, you did.”

He put his head in his hands. “Why did I do that?”

“I dunno.”

Victoria sat on Marie’s bed. It was morning and she said she felt sick. She had eaten nothing the day before and did not want any breakfast. Her ribs stuck out against her pyjamas even more prominently than Victoria’s had when she had been sick. She held a cloth to her daughter’s forehead, but Marie pushed it away, saying it was cold. She coughed dryly.

“Honey, you can’t lose any more weight,” Victoria whispered.

“I know, Mom.”

“I don’t think I was ever as thin as this.”

“Why can’t they figure out what’s wrong with me?”

“I’ll get Dr. Balthazar to send you to a specialist.”

“Okay.”

Victoria ran her hands over Marie’s forehead, sweeping her hair aside. She leaned over to kiss her and was struck by how papery her daughter’s skin had become, how fine her hair, how white her nails. She studied the bruise on the side of her daughter’s neck.

“The idea isn’t actually to
bruise
each other, Marie.”

“I know, Mom. It’s just for fun. Everyone laughs about them later.”

“Really?”

“You take it too seriously.”

“I really want you to eat some soup now, okay?”

“I’m really not hungry Mom,” she said and rolled away. “Honey, how come you’re never hungry?”

“I’m just not.”

“When I was sick, I remember being hungry, I could never put on any weight but I was hungry all the time.”

“Well. I’m not.” “I know.”

“Do you think I’m dying, Mom?”

“Shhhh, don’t talk like that.”

Victoria and Marie sat in Dr. Balthazar’s office. He had draped his parka over the back of his chair and held a mug of tea in both hands. “The thing is, Victoria, we’ve done more than twenty sputum cultures for TB and they’ve all been negative. There’s no doubt she had it when she was small, but we knew about that then. We know the organism was sensitive to the antibiotics and we know she took a full course.”

“So maybe it was killed then, but she could have caught it from someone else again, at school, maybe. Is that possible?”

“Absolutely.”

Victoria leaned forward. “So, she could have
puvaluq…”

“Her sputum would be positive if she did, though.”

“Maybe we’re just not doing the right test.”

“I can send her to Winnipeg to see a paediatric respirologist, if you like.”

“What would he do?”

“Have a look down inside her lungs with a bronchoscope.”

“Does that hurt?”

“No. They do it under sedation.”

“We can’t just do nothing.”

“While she’s there, I’d like her to see a psychiatrist.”

“Why?”

Balthazar looked at Marie, feeling clumsy at having started this conversation with the girl present. “I wonder if she isn’t depressed.”