Etta and Otto and Russell and James (2 page)

U
ntil recently, Russell’s parents had lived in the city, in Saskatoon, and, until recently, Russell had lived there too, with them. But five weeks ago the banks announced that everything was absolutely broken, right there in the paper, for anyone who hadn’t noticed yet for themselves, and three weeks ago, Russell’s father, who owned a shop right in the middle of downtown, an everything shop with wrenches and lemon candy and bolts of printed cotton in rows, had turned a bit white, then a bit dizzy, then had to sit down, then had to lie down, and then, after sweating and sweating and Russell getting so much cold water from the kitchen, carried in the biggest bronze pitcher, hefting it up the stairs, hugging it to himself, so cold with the water inside, and bringing it to the bedroom where his father was lying, at first alone, and then, soon, with the doctor standing by, and then, not too long after, with the doctor and the priest standing by, while Russell’s mother cooked for everyone and dealt with
all this goddamn paperwork
until, two weeks ago, while Russell was carrying a twelfth bronze pitcher from the kitchen, so cold against his stomach and chest, almost burning cold, Russell’s father gave up and died. His mother sighed and put on her black dress, the one with the stiff lace collar, before closing up the shop for good, and going to work as a typist in Regina.

Russell rode part of the way with her on the train. He’d never been on a train before. The skinny-skinny cows zipped past so quickly. Russell wanted to lean out the window and open his eyes as wide as he could so that all the air hit them and dried them out, forever. But the windows didn’t open. So, instead, Russell traced his finger up and
down his mother’s collar, following the twisting path of the lace, and let his eyes be wet. Almost exactly halfway between Saskatoon and Regina, the train stopped and Russell got off and his mother did not. You’ll like the farm, she said. Farms are better.

Okay, said Russell.

They’re better, she said.

Okay, said Russell.

And I’ll see you soon, you know, she said.

Yes, said Russell. Okay.

Russell’s aunt and uncle were waiting on the platform. They had made a small sign from the side of a milk crate.
WELLCOME HOME RUSSEL!
it said. Despite trying, they had had no children of their own.

T
hat same year, the year Etta was six, it did not rain, not once. This was odd, this was bad, but what was worse was that it did not snow either. In January she could walk out of town through the tall grass and everything would look like summer, no frost, no powder, but, if you touched them, or a bird tried to land on them, the grass-stalks would crumble, frozen and brittle. Alma had taken Etta out for a walk, to where the creek was, when there was a creek. They were looking at fish skeletons, all of them strung out along the dry bed, the whitest things. If a beetle or worm had bored through any of the bones they would take them home and use them to make necklaces. The skulls, of course, already had holes in them, but Etta’s sister didn’t like to use these for jewelry.

They can come back alive when they touch your skin, she said. And start talking. Leave those.

Okay, said Etta. But when Alma wasn’t looking she stuffed smaller skulls into her mittens, on the top sides of her hands so she could still bend her fingers.

Are your ears cold? said Alma.

A bit, said Etta. Even though they weren’t cold at all. She was holding her mitten-hands to her ears to see if she could hear them, the fish skulls. To see if being against the skin of her fingers was enough to wake them up, to make them talk. The wind was loud that day, but if Etta pressed her skin against the bone against the wool hard enough, there was something. There were whispers.

What language do fish speak?

Alma was brushing dust from a beautiful rib, almost transparent; she did not look up. Probably French, she said. Like Grandma.

Etta pressed her mittens to her ears and whispered, Should I be a nun?

The wind blew and the insides of her mittens said,
Non, non, non.

3

E
tta sang as she walked. She never forgot the words.

We sit and gaze across the plains

and wonder why it never rains

and Gabriel blows his trumpet sound

he says, “The rain she’s gone around.”

She walked away from the roads, through the early fields. She knew the farmers wouldn’t like it, but on the road every truck would want to stop and say hello and where are you off to and what are you up to, so she walked through the fields, trying not to crush any growth too badly. It was broad and mostly empty here, save occasional cattle, so she sang as loud as she liked.

She stopped for food in the rest-stop café in Holdfast. They had changed the tables and chairs since she was last there, with Alma.
Less color, cleaner. Nobody noticed her come into town, and nobody noticed her leave, except for the waitress and the boy at the till.

After eating three cabbage rolls, two pieces of white bread with butter, and one slice of rhubarb pie and paying for them, Etta left with ten sachets of ketchup and eight of green relish tucked into her coat pocket. Relish was vegetable and sugar and ketchup was fruit and sugar and either could see you through if you needed them to.

I
t was just starting to get dark when, little by little, the crops began to thin and the ground began to turn sandy and then to sand completely. And then, just as the sun sat down below the stretching orange of the horizon, Etta stopped walking; having made her way right up to a lake, right up to the water, just far enough away from the push of the waves to stay dry. She knew, of course, that she would encounter obstacles of smaller water before she was through to Halifax. She’d heard Ontario was full of them. But she didn’t expect anything quite so soon. She sat down on the sand, a few meters from the wet edge. It felt good to sit. She wondered about swimming. How much energy it took; how far a person could go without needing to stop. She leaned back onto the beach and listened to the waves, a new kind of sound. Etta closed her eyes.

O
h my god I bet it’s somebody dead.

No!

Maybe.

Well, are you going to check?

Come with me.

Of course.

I love you.

I love you. And, look, not dead. Breathing.

I hear sometimes they do that, after death.

What, bodies? Breathe?

Yeah.

No.

Maybe.

No.

Etta woke at their footsteps, shuddering through the sand toward her, but she kept her eyes closed to listen as the couple approached. She breathed shallow. In sleep, her legs had burrowed down in the sand, and much of her torso too. The weight against her was comforting. She could feel it cracking and then coming back together as she breathed in and out. If I open my eyes they will ask me who I am, she thought. But if I don’t open my eyes, they’ll think I’m dead. Probably call the police. She pulled at her thoughts, tried to stretch open her mind, still with her eyes closed. Sand. The feeling of sand. Tiredness in her hips. Night. Voices. Light wind. A sister with black hair. A house in the city. Writing paper. Paper.

The couple were still talking, distracted. Keeping her eyes closed, Etta reached through to her coat pocket to get to the paper, fumbling through restaurant packets, triggering sand cascades. Not subtle, not unnoticeable. And there it was. Folded. She took it out. Unfolded it. They must have realized, now, that I’m not dead. They must be waiting. Or afraid. She opened her eyes. As it was dark, she had to hold the paper quite close to her face.

You:

it said.

Etta Gloria Kinnick of Deerdale farm. 83 years old in August.

Etta Gloria Kinnick, she whispered, to herself. Okay. Right, okay.

I’m not dead, she said, to the two young people standing beside her, staring. I’m Etta Gloria Kinnick. A person can’t keep breathing after death.

Oh god! I mean, good! I mean hello, said the boy.

See? Told you, said the girl.

Are you okay? said the boy.

Yes, yes, I’m fine.

Oh, okay, good.

. . .

. . .

Do you need help getting home?

I’m not going home. So, no. No, thank you.

Are you homeless?

George!

Well, she just doesn’t look homeless, is all.

I’m not homeless. I’m just not going home.

Where are you going?

East.

But that means across Last Mountain Lake.

Or around it.

But it’s really long, right?

I don’t know. Maybe.

It is. We have a map in our cabin. It is.

. . .

. . .

Hey, can we help you up?

Molly and George, the kids who found Etta, had come from a
party; they had excused themselves quietly, separately, seven minutes apart, and then had met, a hundred meters further down the beach, behind the Lamberts’ fishing shed. They were on their way back to the party, half an hour or so later, when they found Etta. And now that they had found her, and established she was not dead, and helped her to stand up and brush the sand off her legs and back, they were heading back there, to the party, both smelling of dry yellow perch nets, with indentations of gill lines across their backs and stomachs.

Hey, you know what? said Molly.

What? said George.

What? said Etta.

You should come with us. Back to the party. Come with us.

Yeah? said George.

Yeah? said Etta.

Yeah! said Molly, already taking Etta’s hands, already moving forward down the beach toward the noise and the light.

Dear Otto,

I am on a boat. Just a small one, a cheap inflatable one, which is good, because I’m not sure how or if I’ll be able to get it back to its owners, the younger twin sisters of a boy I met last night around a fire on the west beach of Last Mountain Lake. We were at a party. One girl said I was like her grandmother, now dead. I told her I’m nobody’s grandmother and I’m not dead, and she said that made it perfect.

I am using a paddle we found on the beach. We don’t know whose it is. I guess the twins never wanted to go far enough to need a paddle.

When I’m across I’ll put the paddle in the dinghy and push them back onto the lake, with a note that says: Boat: property of the McFarlan twins. Paddle: owner unknown. I have already written it, on a napkin. I have other, real paper, (like this) but I don’t want to use it up too fast.

As well as the boat and paddle, the kids also gave me two beers and half a forty of rye. Good in case I get cold, they said. They really were nice kids. Some of them were in love.

Remember to wear a hat and eat the spinach when it comes up.

Your,

Etta.

Otto got the letter five days after Etta had dated it. He was cleaning the oven, following handwritten instructions on a yellowed recipe card—

NEEDED:

Baking soda and water.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Apply, wait, remove.

—when the letter arrived with the morning mail. Etta had been gone for one week. The first day he had tried going out into his fields, as usual, but couldn’t stop looking back, toward the house. Like Russell, with his deer.

The rest of the week Otto worked in the close garden plot or in the house. His stomach hurt whenever he got further away than that. He turned the garden soil and raked it out, then did the same the next day. Lining up the indents of the rake exactly, row to row. He would not plant anything, spinach or carrots or radishes, in the rows until Etta had reached Manitoba.

O
n his family farm, as a boy, Otto’s before-dinner chore was checking the chicken wire. After dinner, he looked for rocks. Again he used his fist. If a rock was smaller than his fist, he left it. If it was bigger than his fist, he put it in a flour sack that he dragged behind him until it was almost but not quite too heavy to drag. Then he would take it to the edge of their land, to the ditch that separated it from the Palmers’, and dump the rocks there. This was Rocksvalley, and on Sundays, when they didn’t have to do chores, Otto and his brothers and sisters and, now, Russell, played Treacherous Journey there. If a rock was very big, too big for him to lift himself, he had to call out or run and get Harriet (4) and Walter (5), whose job was to drown the gophers who would otherwise dig and dig and dig their way through all the farm’s soil. Harriet and Walter would also be working in the fields, and had stronger arms that could lift bigger rocks. Most of the time, though, Otto could lift what he found. Especially now that Russell came with him. He was only five months younger than Otto, so Otto’s mother had taken to calling him Russell (7-and-a-half). She told him, you’re welcome to eat here, Russell (7-and-a-half), I certainly don’t mind; I bet it’s lonely over there all alone; but, if you’re here, you’ll do your share of chores too. Right?

Okay, said Russell. He sounded afraid. This made Otto happy, even if it meant Russell tagged along with him now, getting in his way.

Don’t your aunt and uncle have work for you on their farm? said Otto, his eyes scanning back and forth across the ground in front of
him like a scythe, a system he had invented for finding all the rocks. Russell was walking a few steps behind, in case he missed any. This was Russell’s sixth day of helping.

No. They don’t believe in child-working, said Russell, someone could get hurt.

Hm. How’re you going to learn to do the farm yourself then, later?

I don’t know if I’m gonna. Besides, I go to school, said Russell. Because they were walking the way they were, one in front of the other, they had to say everything half-shouting. The wind blew crop dust up onto their tongues and the roofs of their mouths. Otto had taught Russell how to spit to clear it out, every ten minutes or so.

We go to school too, said Otto. Except in summer, like now, and harvest and Christmas and Easter. We can count up and down to ten. Even Winnie can. But that’s not going to teach you how to keep away a fox from eating all your chickens so nobody gets eggs at breakfast or in cake.

Well, said Russell, we don’t have cake much. He kicked a too-small rock. And I like school, he said.

R
ussell, in essence, became one of the Vogel children. He worked with them, ate with them, skipped school with them, and grew with them. Some of the younger children forgot or barely knew that he wasn’t their brother, although he usually left at five o’clock in the evening to go home to his aunt and uncle’s for dinner and prayers and bed. There was always a hot water bottle ready in his bed, even though water was scarce and his aunt had to rewarm it, out and then back into the bottle night after night. Apart from this, Russell was a Vogel. Which is why it was so shocking to the rest of them when they
learned that he had never been on a tractor.

It’s okay to not have driven one. We can’t drive till we’re ten for the girls, or twelve for the boys.

No, not just driving. He’s never even
been on
one.

Never?

Never.

This was Otto and Walter. They were taking a break from their chores, going to get water from the house for themselves and for Russell and Harriet, whom they had left in the field looking for rocks and gopher holes, respectively. It was hot. Just past Dominion Day and dusty and dry and hot. Walter wore a hat too big for him. Otto always forgot his, so he wasn’t wearing one. The sun was burning, again, the strip of skin where his hair parted. Later he would have to pick the peeling bits of it from his hair, and he’d hate it and go and find his hat and put it on the post of his bed to never forget again, but he would forget again. Much later this bit of skin would just stay red May through September, even when his hair was white and thin. Neighbors would use it as a sort of long-range calendar, planting spinach when it would first appear, covering up their tomatoes when it started to fade.

Poor Russell, said Walter.

I know, said Otto. Though, actually, he was glad.

Harriet!

What about her?

She’s old enough! She’s old enough to drive, right?

Yeah . . . but I don’t suppose we should. There aren’t any tractor chores right now. And you haven’t found all the gophers.

We’ll never find all the gophers. And you’ll never find all the rocks.

We might. We’re trying.

You won’t. Let’s get the water, take it to Harriet and Russell, then get Harriet to get the tractor, and then get Russell up on it. Let’s do it! We can do it quick. Fifteen minutes, only, once along the side of the field, then back to rocks, and gophers. Yeah?

Maybe, said Otto.

O
kay, said Harriet. Driving’s easy. No problem.

Okay? said Otto. Are you sure?

Yeah, why not? It won’t take fifteen minutes.

See? said Walter.

What do
you
think, said Otto, turning to Russell, who, thus far, had said nothing.

Okay, he said.

There was only room for two of them up on the tractor. Well, only room for one, really, just one molded metal seat, painted green, molded for legs much bigger than Harriet’s, but there was a bit of space behind it where someone could stand and hold on to the driver’s shoulders. If you were very small, you could also sit on the driver’s lap, squeezed in before the steering wheel. Most of the Vogels had done it this way for their first time, on their mother’s lap, or father’s or Marie’s, but Russell was too big and Harriet too small, so Russell would be standing. Walter and Otto would be watching, on the ground.

At first they cheered and shouted as Harriet steered away from them and down, along the side of the field. Then they stood and watched the back of the tractor for a minute or so. Then they could hardly see anything at all, so they turned back to gophers and rocks, walking slowly along the field in the sunken path of the tractor tracks.

Two large stones and one drowned gopher later, they thought
they saw Amos—whose job it was, at this time of year, to pick wild Saskatoon berries into two big buckets, and whose fingers were always deep purple from it—running toward them, waving his berry-colored hands up over his head. They didn’t realize it was Harriet until Otto saw the braids trailing out from under her hat. Her hands were more red than purple now, from up close. Her breath was like a machine’s.

A coyote, she said. He was startled. It wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t mine. A coyote, she said.

She grabbed Otto’s hand, and he grabbed Walter’s. They ran together, back down the ridges made by the tractor tires.

O
tto had seen plenty of dying things. Plenty. He had seen gophers, drowned, from when Harriet and Walter drowned them out, or shot, from when they didn’t drown and instead ran up and away from the water, right to Harriet’s gun. They were shot in the head, usually, and killed straightaway, except when they moved unpredictably and got shot in the side or leg, and would keep moving for a bit, keep trying at life, until Harriet could get in a good second shot to stop them hurting.

And he’d seen chickens, of course, half-left from foxes, and broken wild birds, from the windows or from cats.

And once, when he was younger, only four, Otto had found the very smallest kitten, a runt, brand new and abandoned in the tall grass behind the outhouse. It was gray and pink and very tiny. He kept it secret, because they weren’t allowed to have pets just for themselves. He took the turkey roasting pan that his mother only ever used at Christmas, filled in with rags and pencil shavings to make a nice bed, and kept the kitten in it, tucked back in the high grass where he had
found her. He kept the lid on when he wasn’t around, to keep the kitten in and the foxes and dogs out. The kitten was so small that she hid easily under the rags and in the pencil shavings, and Otto would have to dig to find her each time he came with a small bit of milk or milk-soaked bread. He would hold her in one hand up to his face and tell her, You are small now, but you will be so big. You shouldn’t be scared. You will be the queen of the cats. Don’t be scared, don’t be sad. You’re gonna be great, great, great. He would stroke her with his little finger over her round wrinkled head and hope for her eyes to open. She would hold on to him with her claws that tickled more than hurt. He called her Cynthia.

But Cynthia’s eyes didn’t open. And she never ate the milk-bread and barely drank the milk. And she started moving less and sleeping more, only sleeping, and only barely holding on when Otto lifted her. He stroked her head and stroked her head and even tried, a little, to pull back the skin to open her eyes, but nothing worked. He would rock her, slowly, in his hand, and say, Cynthia, Cynthia, Cynthia, wake up, wake up, wake up, but she was sick, and he knew sick. Sick like a neighbor baby. So, one night, after using the outhouse, Otto lifted the roasting pan out of the grass, with sick Cynthia in it, and carried it carefully and quietly up to the bedroom. Amos, eight years old and wise, was awake when he came in.

Otto? he whispered. Others were sleeping all around.

Yeah?

Why do you have the turkey pan?

Don’t tell?

I won’t tell.

Come and see.

Amos got up, careful not to wake Walter, with whom he shared his bed, and they went into the hall. Otto put the roasting pan on the
floor between them. It’s my kitten, he said. Cynthia. She’s sick. He lifted off the pan’s lid. You hafta dig to find her, he said. She hides. He found her in the corner, in the shavings. He lifted her up in his right hand like he always did. She had shavings stuck to her back and head. She only sleeps, he said.

She’s bald, said Amos.

Yeah, said Otto.

They both looked at her for a few seconds. From the room behind them they could hear everyone’s sleep-breathing.

You know she’s dead, said Amos.

Yeah, said Otto. His throat was dry. He was holding his hand so, so, carefully.

Okay, said Amos. He put his hand on Otto’s shoulder and kept it there.

Okay, said Otto.

It was almost a year later, walking toward dinner after chores, when Amos said to Otto, You know Cynthia? She was a gopher, you know. Not a cat. She would have been killed anyway; she was a gopher.

Otto said nothing, just nodded.

And he had seen dead calves, the ones that came out wrong, some of them already dead, and some of them close enough that they soon died, with help or without, their eyes almost bigger than their heads, their legs spun around one another.

This was the thing Russell looked most like, on the ground, half under the tractor, legs spun around each other like licorice. Except his eyes were closed, like Cynthia’s. Otto looked at him, and then turned around and threw up.

There was a coyote, said Harriet. She ran past us and Russell got scared and let go of me and I had to turn to not run over her and
Russell slipped and it wasn’t his fault and it wasn’t mine and it wasn’t his fault and it wasn’t mine it wasn’t mine, she said.

Everyone was wearing trousers except Otto, who had on a pair of Walter’s old overalls, rolled up at the ankles. This was the biggest piece of clothing between them, so Otto took them off, and they lifted unconscious Russell up onto them, like a stretcher, still twisted, his eyes still closed, and carried him back toward the house, Harriet and Walter with one overall leg each, pulled taut, and Otto, in his shirt and underwear, in the back holding the straps and watching Russell’s closed eyes.

R
ussell didn’t die, but one of his legs did; his right leg forever twisted like a licorice lace, so that when you saw him walking across a field you always knew it was him, no matter if the sun was in your eyes. He folded down and in with every second step, the momentum following through in the direction of his bent right foot, taking all the strength of his other leg and back and stomach to pull himself true again, over and over. If you watched him walk across a big space it looked as if he was waltzing with himself.