Don't I Know You? (29 page)

Karl Ove didn't reply. The last log in the fire collapsed with a
whump
, like an old dog settling down for the night.

“Anyway,” I said, “that's the end of chapter one. To be continued tomorrow night.”

Leonard propped his branch against a tree, like a pool cue. “I think I'll hit the sack now. Today was a great gift, everyone. Sleep tight.”

“Good night, Leonard,” we all said.

He swept the beam of his powerful flashlight across the path as he made his way to his tent.

“I'm not tired yet,” said Shell. “Stay up with us, Rose.”

Taylor pulled a pair of socks on her hands to keep them warm.

“Isn't there supposed to be a moon?”

Karl Ove was a dark shape outside the firelight, drawing on his cigarette until the tip glowed red. Over by his tent Leonard poked the silvery column of his light out across the surface of the lake.

“I have another story,” Karl Ove said, moving in closer. But I put a hand on his sleeve.

“Shh! Look out there.”

Leonard's light had found a low, dark object on the water, rocking. A canoe, it appeared, but with something in it that rose above the line of the gunwales.

“Yoo-hoo,” called out brave Taylor. “We're over here!”

“It's just drifting, there's no one in it,” said Karl Ove.

“It's Tom Thomson,” Shell whispered.

Leonard came back to the fire, his sleeping bag draped around his shoulders.

“There appears to be a boat making its way towards us,” he said softly, “with something, or someone, in it.”

I went down to the water's edge with my light, pushing aside a superstitious thought that I had conjured up this floating coffin with my story.

Karl Ove came down and put his arm around me.

“Don't worry,” he said. “It's probably just my dad again.”

I punched his shoulder. Everyone giggled nervously.

The canoe was dark green, and appeared to be carrying a small tree in the bow; we could make out two raised arms, or forked branches. Our flashlights were all trained on the cargo like klieg lights at a movie premiere. Then I let out my breath.

“I think those are antlers,” I said. “Deer antlers.”

I went and dug out the coil of nylon rope we had packed, in case the canoes capsized. After a few throws the yellow rope snagged on the antlers. It took four of us to pull the boat up onto the lip of the shore.

Lying in it was half the carcass of a deer, skinned, butchered, and dressed. The deer's ribs had the same graceful curve as the ribs of the canoe. The antlers had been hacked off and stuffed into the V of the bow as a sort of grim hood ornament. A long rope trailed from the stern.

No one wanted to go closer.

“A hunter must have been getting ready to go home, then decided to wait till morning,” I said. “Or maybe he was too drunk, and tied the canoe up carelessly.”

“But all that blood,” said Shell. “With the bears. Maybe he was … interrupted.”

“I hope he was,” said Karl Ove. His eyes glistened with tears.

“What a beauty he must have been,” murmured Leonard. The antlers had eight points, although the left branch was smaller and oddly twisted.

“He's a buck, at least three years old, and one hind leg was injured,” declared Karl Ove.

“How do you know that?”

“When I was driving through Maine to write about America, I stopped at a bar and had a few beers with a hunter. He told me everything about antlers. The velvet that covers them in spring also feeds them. They grow fast, up to a half inch a day. And if the deer injures a hind leg, that can cause the antlers on the opposite side of the body to grow in strange ways, like this one.”

Amazing. The deer's body was telling its own story.

Leonard put his hands together over his heart and bowed to the animal. Taylor kept the cap on her camera. Small waves at the shore's edge lifted the stern of the green canoe and banged it against the rocks. The smell of salty blood was strong.

“Karl and I will take him across the lake,” I said.

“We'll get the food pack up in a tree,” said Shell.

I untangled the rope from the antlers so we could use it to tow the boat behind us. Karl Ove flipped our canoe upright, then tilted it gently into the water. The opposite shore was an inky, unseen horizon a half a kilometer away and we began paddling toward it. Whenever my hand touched the surface of the lake, the water felt surprisingly warm, almost swimmable. It was hard to keep the tow rope taut; the deer canoe kept lurching sideways, as if trying to escape. Karl Ove looked behind us to make sure the campfire was still burning. We needed a point of reference on this moonless night.

Shell's low murmur and Taylor's laughter carried clearly across the water, and then dropped away until there was nothing but the sound of our paddles, dipping in, lifting out. Behind us the canoe lunged forward, then tugged at us, like a dog not used to the leash. I was enjoying our companionable silence when Karl Ove spoke.

“Death is always ruining things,” he said with a sort of laugh. “Don't you think?”

“I don't know, I feel strangely at home out here in the blackness, dragging a body towards a shore we can't see. Something about it seems familiar.”

“Let's rest a moment.”

Karl Ove lit two cigarettes and handed me one.

“You're bad for me,” I said, inhaling. “This is my last.”

We drifted as a current of air pushed us in the right direction. I lay back with my head on the V of the stern. Above us wheeled a skyful of stars, little corpses of ancient light.

“It was not my place to say those things about your work, Rose,” he said. “I meant them as encouragement but I went about it stupidly.”

“That's all right. I shouldn't have accused you of hurting people.”

“I have, though. It weighs on me.”

“I only took you on because I feel I know you, from reading your books. And that you know me. Even though we're still strangers.”

“I long to be known like that—not famous, but understood, with all my sins intact. When I am out in the world I feel obscured by a thousand small lies.” He tossed his cigarette into the lake. “And that is why I torture myself with this business of writing.”

“So will you put our poor slaughtered deer in your story?”

“Oh no, no one would believe it. Too novelistic.” He did a figure eight with his paddle to correct the slow spin of our bow. He was perfectly at home on the water now.

“And you?” he asked. “What will you do next?”

“I'm free as a bird,” I said, realizing with a jolt that this was true. “So I plan to act accordingly. I'll take some time to rethink my novel.” I blew smoke his way. “Make it less mysterious.”

“Will you write about this? About us?”

“I might. If that's all right.”

“Some of your own blood has to be on the page or it's just an exercise.”

“But there's no need for a bloodbath,” I said, which made him laugh.

We resumed paddling. The other shore was close now, a silhouette blotting out the stars at the bottom of the sky. The two of us surged forward. I felt boundlessly capable in that moment, equipped to tackle the shapelessness of my future. Although I didn't know what lay in store, the important thing was to keep moving toward it, even in darkness.

With some effort we hauled the boat onto a point where it would be visible if the hunters came looking for it the next day. The metal keel made an awful sound as it scraped across the granite. I retrieved the tow rope, coiling it neatly, and we lost no time stepping back into the red canoe. And then we were on the water, weightless.

“Hello,” came Leonard's voice from across the lake, “here we are.”

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I enjoyed putting odd characters together in these stories. An admirer of the reclusive painter Agnes Martin as well as the legendary Jimi Hendrix, I saw no reason not to imagine them as a clandestine couple in love. I have also grown up steeped in the music of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan. Our son still plays their music. Why wouldn't I write about them as characters in my life, who accompanied all my changes?

So my first and deepest thanks are to the artists I've tried to invoke, for everything they've given us.

Stars began to creep into my writing long before this book took shape, and I think I know why. My husband, Brian Johnson, spent twenty-eight years as the film critic and senior entertainment writer for
Maclean's
magazine. During that time he interviewed every star in the firmament. He'd come home from work and we'd talk about Madonna or Mick Jagger or Al Pacino. Whether they were funny or shy or difficult. The famous became part of our household in a way. Certainly part of our relationship.

During the long incubation of this project, I received support and encouragement from many readers and editors: Layne Coleman, Anne Mackenzie, John Bemrose, Megan Williams, Bernadette MacDonald, Beret Borsos, Susan Swan, Katherine Ashenburg, Andrew Wainwright, J. M. Kearns, Casey Johnson, Jill Frayne. I'm especially indebted to Ken Alexander for publishing an early version of “Bob Dylan Goes Tubing” in
The Walrus
magazine. “Don't I Know You?” appeared on hazlitt.com as “Bigger Than Money” and
Brick
magazine published an early attempt to capture Karl Ove Knausgaard's passionate and singular voice. Scott Young's wonderful book about his son,
Neil and Me
, inspired and informed the story “The Rehearsal.”

I owe the book's existence to Samantha Haywood at Transatlantic Literary Agency. She saw where the book was headed well before I did, and gave editorial guidance at every stage. We were sunny partners in this enterprise. She also put the manuscript in the best possible hands, and I'm indebted to Amy Einhorn for her enthusiasm, collaborative spirit, and editorial vision. It's been nothing but a pleasure to work with Amy, her associate Caroline Bleeke, and the entire staff at Flatiron Books.

And finally—I live with a writer. Very handy. My love and gratitude to Brian Johnson for tactful feedback, unwavering optimism, and keen attention to
le mot ju
s
te
.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marni Jackson
has won numerous National Magazine Awards for her journalism, humor, and social commentary. Her non-fiction books have challenged popular thinking on subjects as diverse as the culture of motherhood and the treatment of pain. She has published in
Rolling Stone
,
London Sunday Times
, and every major Canadian magazine.
Don't I Know You?
is her first work of fiction.

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