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Authors: Howard Norman

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BOOK: In Fond Remembrance of Me
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How was it possible to even imagine I would ever meet someone for whom
A Field Guide to the Birds
(Peterson, Golden, others) of this or that part of the world, would provide a bevy of possibilities for reincarnation? Yet that is precisely how Helen began to use her field guides. She may have been doing this for some time before we met, I never found out. Paging through the guides, taking notes, circling certain illustrations, underlining behavioral descriptions, moving her finger along passages and data, “my future as a bird at my very fingertips,” she wryly stated.
“How are you ever going to narrow down your possibilities?” I asked, perhaps two or three weeks after the subject of reincarnation had been broached.
“I already have,” she said. “Look. Let's get something straight, as Americans like to say. Reincarnation's not a desperate way of thinking. My brain's not gone all haywire. Kawabata,
I think it was, or some other Japanese writer who killed himself, called suicide ‘a bold act of imagination.' I don't agree with that necessarily. That's not what I'm considering anyway, am I? No, I'm not. I'm going to stay alive until I die, and not by my own hand, so let's get that straight. But maybe reincarnation's a bold act of imagination, too. If you want it to be. My mother thought that when you die your soul—which she couldn't describe, and I asked her a hundred times what it looked like when I was a child—went up to heaven. I asked her what heaven looked like, too. She couldn't say.
“At least if I choose a place, a geography—and I have, by the way. If I choose a geography, then at least I can answer the question of what the so-called afterlife's going to look like, can't I?”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“There's no ‘suppose' to it.”
I felt in her room at that moment that if I did not credit her researches and thinking on this matter, I would be banished; there was definitely an unprecedented tension; I felt lacking in the proper resources to debate or dismiss anything. The impassioned plea to comprehend a self-generated theory of reincarnation, then subscribe wholly to it, was not being made to me by Helen (no need for that), but by Helen to herself. To witness this was disquieting.
I was tiptoeing, but moved forward. “So, Helen, what choices have you narrowed down to, if I may ask? Not one of those ugly shearwaters, or puffins, I hope.”
“See, right there! See how you're judging in advance from a human perspective?”
“What other perspective can I judge from?”
“
You
can't find shearwaters particularly attractive, or maybe not interesting, so you think being one would make for a terrible life.”
“Okay, I understand. Let's move on. I'm sorry I said that. In fact, I take back everything I've ever said.”
“Probably a good idea, but impossible.”
“Okay, I know it's a bird that lives by the sea, and maybe nests up in cliffs.”
“I said as much, didn't I? Just now my choices are too personal. No offense, Howard Norman. You just need time to think about all of this. You may never understand it, who knows? I have got it down to two or three—and I can say, they all live in my very favorite place I've studied birds.”
“Where's that? You've never told me.”
“Newfoundland—the Canadian Maritimes. Canada on the Atlantic Ocean—”
“Thanks for telling me that much. It means a lot to me.”
“Whether it does or not—”
“Me? If I was going to choose for myself, I'd become a kingfisher.”
“I appreciate that you've given it some thought.”
“I don't have a set opinion about reincarnation, all I'm saying is, if I could become something it'd be a kingfisher.”
“You like that bird far more than I do, in this life, I mean,” Helen said, chuckling at her own aesthetic judgment. “Kingfishers seem—what's the phrase? Nuts in the head.”
“Don't let looks deceive you.”
This made Helen laugh. “I'll let whatever I want deceive me, thank you very much.”
 
 
One thing I learned early on was that when Helen dropped by my motel room and said, “Let's talk about—” introducing a subject, it meant she'd already pondered it for quite some time. “Obsessing is a kind of sustenance,” she said, which I didn't understand at first, but came to realize, meant, in part, that “obsessing” about something by definition replaced obsessing about cancer. Reincarnation served that purpose.
In my own journal I had registered snippets and summaries, and the whole of conversations I'd had with Helen about reincarnation on the following dates: October 8, October 11, October 12, October 17, October 19, October 23, October 24, October 26, October 29, October 30, and November 1, which is the day we took the train to Winnipeg.
Yet specifically I recall the evening of October 29. Helen sat on my bed, unfolded a map of Canada, and pointed to an area she had circled. “Right there,” she said. I turned off my fairly useless transistor radio. She had sectioned off part of Newfoundland. “I've marked the spot where I want my ashes scattered.”
“Helen, come on, let's just go to your room and listen to the shortwave or something, all right?”
“You should be happy for me, Howard Norman. I've come to a final decision.”
“Newfoundland, okay, but what kind of bird?”
“Cape Freels. I was there twice. The seabirds are … plentiful.”
“Your medications are making you hallucinate again, I see.
“Ha-ha, very funny. I am quite capable of laughing at myself, but not at this moment.”
“Okay, I see where you've marked. Cape Freels. And—?”
“I'm keeping which bird to myself. Please understand.”
“Of course. Of course I do.”
Helen began to sob, a kind of wracking sob borne up from deep in her chest; she pressed her forehead against the window overlooking the river. “I feel
exactly
how Akutagawa said it, ‘a most unhappy happiness.'”
“Happy that you've come to a decision; unhappy you've had to?”
“That's too simple, but honestly, I'd like to not talk about it.”
“Let's go over and listen to the shortwave.”
“All right.” She started out the door without turning to look at me. “How many actual real decisions do we make, in a life? I mean, we all the time say ‘yes' or ‘no' to all sorts of things, naturally. But Life and Death things, how many? How many?”
 
 
 
GOOD-BYE, GOOD-BYE
 
On their way to seal-hunting grounds, some hunters saw a big wooden boat stuck in the ice. They took dog sleds over to it. One hunter threw his spear into the boat. The spear stuck in a plank of wood. “Let's pull out this plank and see if it's good for a fire,” he said.
“Go away! Get out! Go away!”—they heard a voice call down.
They looked up and saw a man standing on the deck of the boat. He was standing there with three other people.
“Hey-hey! Your boat is stuck in ice!” a hunter said. “You'll be here all winter now!”
“Get us out,” this man said.
“Nobody can get this boat loose,” the hunter said. “What is your name?”
“Noah.”
“Who are the others?”
“My wife, my daughter, my son.”
“What's this boat called?”
“An ark.”
“On our way back from hunting seals, we'll stop by again. Then you and your family can come back to our village and spend the winter. Just give us a few planks of wood to start a fire with.”
“No,” said Noah. Just then a big animal walked into view on the ark. It had a large head and curved tusks—it was shivering in the cold.
“It's a woolly mammoth,” a hunter said, “except it's not shaggy-haired and the tusks are different and it's shivering. Woolly mammoths don't shiver in the cold!”
“What's that big animal?” another hunter said.
“It's an elephant,” Noah said.
“We'll throw some spears up to you,” a hunter said. “You kill the elephant, we'll cut it up and haul it back to the village. Everyone will have enough to eat. Then you and your family can stay through the winter.”
“No,” said Noah. “I have to keep all the animals on my boat. Until we get back home.”
“Noah,” a man said, “you're stuck in the ice. The winter is long.”
“Father, let's go to the village,” said the daughter. “Husband, let's go to the village,” said the wife. “Father, let's go to the village,” said the son.
“No—no—no,” said Noah.
“Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, good-bye,” said the hunters. They set out across the ice. But soon a raven landed near them. “Turn around—look,” said the raven. The raven flew off.
The hunters turned around. They saw Noah's wife, son, and daughter just behind. “They've got the wrong clothes,” said a hunter. “They're already shivering.”
The hunters let Noah's family catch up and then gave them warm clothes. Now they traveled with the hunters. They were out on the ice for many days and during this time holes were chiseled through the ice, seals were caught, and many fish were caught. “How do you like living with us?” a hunter asked.
“It's good,” said Noah's wife. “It's good,” said the daughter. “It's good,” said the son.
The hunters tied seals to their sleds, they got the dogs running well, and everyone went back to the ark. They stood next to it. One hunter shouted up, “Hey—Noah—look! Look! Here's your family! They enjoy living with us! Come to our village, you can spend the winter. Just pry off a few planks of wood and throw them down. Push a few animals down, too. That's all we ask—some planks, some animals on the ice.”
“Come back up,” Noah said to his family.
“No—good-bye,” said Noah's wife.
Noah then threw down some handfuls of animal shit. It landed on the ice. It steamed there. The hunters looked at it. They had not seen such shapes before, not quite. One hunter said to Noah's wife, “Tell us how the animals on the ark taste.”
“We don't eat them,” she said.
“You travel with them. You live on a boat with them. But you don't eat them.”
“That's right,” she said.
“Well,” a hunter said, “we're getting these seals back to our village.”
“Father, pry off a few planks of wood and come back with us,” Noah's son said. With this, Noah flung down some hunks of animal shit. They steamed on the ice.
The hunters and Noah's family set out. When they got to the village, a big meal was prepared. Everyone ate seal and fish. Now Noah's family was living there.
“How do you like living here?” an old woman asked Noah's daughter.
“It's a good thing,” she said.
“All right,” the old woman said, “why don't you get married. I have someone for you.“
“All right,” Noah's daughter said. She was introduced to a young man and they got married. “How about my brother?” Noah's daughter asked.
“All right,” the old woman said. Noah's son was introduced to a young woman and they got married. “How about my mother?” Noah's son asked.
“Do you think Noah will leave the ark?” the old woman said.
“No,” he said.
With this, the old woman introduced Noah's wife to a good hunter and they got married. Every few days, Noah's son and daughter left food scraps out near the ark. They looked out from the village. Ravens landed near the food. When the ravens scattered off, they knew that Noah got the food. They said, “He's not starving.”
One day a raven landed in the village. It said to Noah's wife, son, and daughter, “Many animals left the ark. They wandered out across the ice. They're gone.”
The next day the raven said, “Many colorful birds flew out from the ark out into the distance. They're gone.”
BOOK: In Fond Remembrance of Me
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