The Back of the Turtle (6 page)

BY THE TIME SONNY GETS BACK TO THE MOTEL, IT IS LATE
afternoon, and now he is very hungry. The Ocean Star Motel is famous for its fish. Poached fish, baked fish, fish fingers, fish and chips, fish chowder, fish balls.

Fish, fish, fish, fish.

Sonny doesn’t like fish. Fish tastes like the ocean. Fish has thousands of little bones in it. Fish has slimy scales. Sonny likes toasted cheese sandwiches.

Sonny goes into the motel café. He sits at the table with the best view and studies the menu.

Toasted cheese sandwich for Sonny, Sonny shouts to the kitchen.

Sonny takes the drum out of his salvage bag. The skin is drier and the sound is deeper now, full of muscle and authority. Sonny taps out Dad’s favourite Native song, the one from the old Hamm’s beer commercial.

“From the land of sky-blue waters …”

Sonny puts the drum down, goes to the wait station, and gets himself a glass of ice water, along with a knife and fork wrapped up in a white napkin. He arranges these in their proper order on the table, just the way Dad has shown him.

The kitchen is deserted. Sonny goes to the cupboards and opens all the doors.

Empty.

He goes to the refrigerator and opens the door.

Nothing.

Wham-wham.

Toasted cheese sandwich for Sonny, Sonny shouts into the empty refrigerator. With mustard.

There are marks on the shelves of the refrigerator where food used to be. There are crumbs in one of the crisper drawers and green stains in another where something has rotted away.

Sonny gets a plate from the sink, rinses it off, and goes outside to the EverFresh vending machine with its individual compartments and clear plastic doors. Sonny puts his money in the coin slot, and when the machine makes its
jingle-jingle
sound, he opens the door and takes out an egg salad sandwich. He puts in more money, opens a second door, and takes out a small bunch of grapes. More money, a third door, and a piece of pound cake. Then he carries everything back to the table with the good view.

Sonny’s supper.

The egg salad is tasty, but the bread is somewhat stale and hard at the edges, and, as Sonny debates sending it back or reducing the tip, he realizes that he may have a problem. There are any number of musical instruments of which Dad approves, instruments that Dad has deemed to be appropriate accompaniment for joyful singing and dancing. Trumpets are a great favourite, as are kinnors, nebels, pipes, and cymbals.

But no drums.

Dad has never mentioned drums. Drums do not appear anywhere on Dad’s list of approved melodic devices.

Of course.

Drums are cruder instruments favoured by cruder people with a limited understanding of salvage. Such as Indians and Africans. Sonny remembers a show he watched on the Discovery Channel, where little Asian men beat out perplexing rhythms on enormous drums the size of oxen.

Why hasn’t Sonny thought of this problem with drums?

Perhaps Dad won’t be as pleased with his beloved Sonny after all. Sonny tries to put this dilemma out of his mind, but by the time he gets to the second half of his sandwich, he has lost his appetite.

Wham-wham.

Sonny cautiously holds the drum up to the light and immediately recoils at what he sees. It’s all there. The pallid veins running through the body of the skin, the ominous checks in the wood frame, the twisted sinewy strands that hold the drum head in place. He can even feel the heat of the fire and smell the stink of the smoke on the hide.

Wham-wham, hammer-hammer.

What is he going to do with the drum he has found? Perhaps the drum is a test. Dad has always been fond of tests. Tests to gauge Sonny’s resolve. Tests to measure Sonny’s endurance. Tests to evaluate Sonny’s devotion. Maybe the drum is a test to determine Sonny’s intelligence.

That’s it. The drum is an intelligence test.

But if Dad left the drum by the trailhead to test him, then this would mean that the Indians have not returned as Sonny
had originally thought. This would mean that the reserve is still silent and deserted.

However, if Dad
didn’t
leave the drum, then it’s possible that the Indians
have
come home. And this pleases Sonny a great deal, because he has never done well with tests.

When Sonny was much younger, Dad had taken him for ice cream and told him he could have whatever he wanted.

Use your best judgment, Dad told him. Use your best judgment.

Sonny spent a great deal of time looking at all the tubs of ice cream. Chocolate, strawberry, rocky road, peach, raspberry, root beer, praline, butterscotch, cherry jubilee.

Forty-two flavours!

Whatever you want, Dad told him. Use your best judgment.

And on that day, Sonny had made the wrong decision. He did not use his best judgment. He had been tempted by all the colours, seduced by all the flavours. He had been tested and found wanting. That afternoon, Sonny went back to his room, crawled into the closet, and cried. He was sick for days after.

Shamed and repentant. Lactose intolerant.

Wham-wham.

Sonny looks at the drum. It’s the colour of French vanilla. This time Sonny
will
use his best judgment. This time he
will
make the right decision. This time he will
not
spend any part of eternity in his closet.

Wham.

Sonny taps the hammer on the table, and the strikes make the plate and the silverware and the glass jump about. The sound of the hammer hitting the table helps Sonny concentrate. The feel of the hammer in his hand helps Sonny think.

Wham-wham, hammer-hammer. Wham-wham, hammer-hammer.

The vibration runs up his arm into his shoulder and then into his neck. Each time he hits the table, the vibrations rise a little higher until he can feel his brain begin to quiver.

Any time now, the solution will come.

MARA SAT ON THE VERANDA IN THE SUN, ENJOYING THE
late-afternoon warmth. The coffee was cold, but she had no intention of coming out from under the quilt. In the old days, her mother or her grandmother would have brought her a fresh cup as well as a cookie, would have tucked the blanket in around her.

They had fought, of course, the three women. Generational battles over jurisdiction and control. Sometimes, the older women would skirmish between themselves over something as simple as a recipe, or go to war to settle the details of a long-forgotten dispute. Mostly, though, they would double-team her.

The worst times were when she started dating boys from the town. She’d bring them home to the reserve, and the two older women would descend on the hapless youths like hawks hunting rabbits. Mara would have to sit on the sofa, embarrassed and angry, as her mother and then her grandmother would explain just how fierce the People were and what a poor sense of humour the clans had when it came to inappropriate behaviour.

At fifteen, with Lilly’s encouragement, Mara had taken the offensive. Over dinner one evening, she announced that she was old enough to make her own decisions, and that she didn’t
need her mother’s advice or her grandmother’s approval, for that matter.

“Mara’s thinking about having sex,” her mother told her grandmother.

“With whom?” her grandmother had wanted to know.

Mara realized her mistake immediately. “No one,” she had said.

“I’ve always wanted a great-granddaughter.”

“I’m not having sex.”

“She’s thinking about having sex,” her mother had corrected.

“We could name the baby after your great aunt, Thelma.”

“I’m not thinking of having sex.”

“If you need any technical guidance,” her mother had said, “all you have to do is ask.”

The two women had giggled back and forth for a while, and then collapsed into raucous laughter, cackling and screeching like a conspiracy of ravens.

Mara couldn’t remember if her grandmother had actually used the word “penis.” Mercifully, there were parts of her adolescence that she did not remember with complete clarity.

But how she missed them. She would give anything to hear her mother tell her, once again, that she didn’t want her only child to date fast boys, Indian or white, and for her grandmother to chime in that, if Mara was fast herself, she shouldn’t be dating at all.

MARA
slid a hand out from under the quilt. A soft wind was coming in off the ocean, but the sea was flat and tranquil, the
line between sky and water almost invisible. The day was mostly over, and she hadn’t done a thing.

Wake up.

Walk on the beach.

Sit and stare at the world.

Breakfast was most often a piece of toast and some cheese. Lunch was yogurt with banana. Dinner was peanut butter on a spoon. Mara flinched as she ran through the meals and what they might suggest.

Depression, of course.

So why was she so sanguine with such a diagnosis? Because there was no one left who cared. That was it. Not even her.

Through the window, she could see the canvas on the easel. She had started the portrait as a way to climb back into life. Each morning she had tried to gather the energy to work on the painting, and each morning she had failed.

Not miserably.

Simple failure.

How could she be so vulnerable? She had friends. Somewhere. But when her mother and grandmother died, her world had taken a tumble, cracked apart, much like that egg on the wall. And there seemed no putting it back together again.

Mara wondered about the man on the beach. He didn’t seem to be in any better condition, but he was trying to do something about it. Suicide wasn’t a choice she would have embraced, but at least it was a choice. She hadn’t even gotten to the point of choosing.

On the plus side, this Gabriel had someone. This Gabriel had a dog.

Curious.

Tomorrow she’d go to the reserve. It might be therapeutic to stand on her grandmother’s porch one more time, walk through the townsite, and remember the families who had died on that day and in the days that followed.

Not that memories would save her. She already knew that. She knew that there was nothing left to see. The abandoned houses, the empty trailers, the deserted community centre, the solitary water tower. Without the people, none of these places had any meaning.

In the end, they were little more than gravestones in a graveyard.

IT WAS AFTER ELEVEN WHEN THE LIMO PULLED UP IN FRONT
of the restaurant. The speech at the university had gone well enough. Winter had been right about a demonstration. Somewhat larger than anticipated, though not all that well organized. As Dorian watched the students mill about with their signs—”End Corporate Greed,” “Tax the Rich,” “Redistribution or Revelution,” “GMOs Have Got to Go”—he had had the inexplicable urge to push his way into the protestors and counsel them on how to organize an effective rally. Focus, he would have told them. Organize around a single theme. Send the scruffy folk to the back where the television cameras couldn’t find them, put some money into more professional-looking placards, and for God’s sake, learn to spell.

THE
restaurant was surprisingly full, but Fernando was able to find him a quiet table in a corner.

“Is Mrs. Asher joining us tonight?”

Until Fernando had asked the question, Dorian had forgotten that Olivia was in Florida. How had he not remembered that?

“No,” he said. “She’s in Orlando. With friends.”

“And will you be joining
her
?”

DORIAN
had been to Orlando once. Olivia had talked him into the trip.

“You need to relax.”

“Going to Orlando doesn’t sound relaxing.”

They had booked a suite at the Waldorf Astoria, worked their way through the better restaurants and nightclubs in the area, and had finished off several evenings with inordinately good sex.

Dorian’s libido had been missing in action. He wasn’t sure if his poor performance and general malaise were the result of the drugs he had been taking or the onset of impotency, so, without telling Olivia, he had had a word with the hotel concierge and came away with a discreet supply of blue pills that were purportedly the first choice of considerate lovers and professional athletes.

They had worked.

Or to be exact, the pills had allowed him to maintain an erection through the course of lovemaking. While Dorian’s potency and stamina had been a pleasant surprise for the both of them, he found the overall experience mixed. The drugs had kept him hard, but they had also made his penis feel like a wooden dowel he had strapped on for the occasion. And whatever was in the pills gave him a headache. It was, he supposed, a small price to pay for a resilient boner, and Olivia had been impressed.

“My God,” she said, giving it a squeeze. “Orlando certainly seems to agree with you.”

The second day, they had gone to Pura Vida Plantations to see a house that Olivia had found. It was large with vaulted ceilings, a grand staircase, marble and granite countertops, designer appliances, a movie theatre in the basement, an enormous master with separate bathrooms and his-and-her walk-in closets.

With views of the lake.

“The owner is motivated,” the real estate agent had told them.

Dorian was surprised how little $4.5 million bought. It was waterfront property, but the lake was too shallow for a dock or a boat. The kitchen had a climate-controlled wine cabinet, but there was no wine cellar. The deck was ample enough, but it was already beginning to fray at the edges, and there was no hot tub or built-in barbecue. The house did come with a three-car garage, but one of the bays was half the depth of the other two.

“The short stall is for your golf cart,” the agent told them.

More than anything, the house felt sticky and tired, as though it had just come home from a bad date.

“The Orlando area is a wonderful place to raise a family,” the agent had assured them. “All the amenities are within easy driving distance. Disney World, SeaWorld, Universal Studios, Wet ‘n Wild.”

“We don’t have children.”

The agent gave them her card along with coupons for Gatorland and Ripley’s Believe It or Not. “I can write an offer today,” she said. “This property won’t last long.”

“No tennis court,” Dorian reminded Olivia.

“These days,” said the agent, “everyone plays golf.”

In the end, Dorian concluded, once you pushed past the expensive facades, the glossy brochures, and the television ads, Orlando was nothing more than a collection of theme parks, golf courses, and malls, all floating on a humid landscape of wetlands and sinkholes.

At the airport, he had taken time to stop in the men’s room, where he dropped the coupons in the trash and washed his hands until he could no longer smell the house on his fingers.

FERNANDO
removed the second place setting. “Isn’t Disneyland in Orlando?”

“No,” said Dorian. “Disneyland is in California. Disney World is in Orlando.”

“Ah,” said Fernando.

“There’s also a Disneyland in Paris and one in Tokyo.”

“Such a clever mouse,” said Fernando. “May I start you off with something from the bar?”

There was no reason why Dorian should feel antagonistic towards another corporation. Disney was substantially smaller than Domidion, but ever since the problems with the French had been worked out, the company had been a solid producer. Dorian had followed Disney stock shares, had even considered buying a block.

What he couldn’t get past was the fact that the Disney corporation didn’t produce much of anything. They sold tickets on rides. They made movies. What kind of work was that for an adult?

WITH
Olivia out of town, there was no point in going home. The house in Bridle Path was only a thirty-minute drive, but he’d stay in the city tonight.

Fernando was back. “The usual?”

The usual was
Poulet Rôti Croustillant,
always an excellent choice, but tonight Dorian wanted something more solid than chicken.

“This evening’s
gibier du moment,
” said Fernando, “is Wild Boar
Daube
with Mushrooms, Chestnuts, and Corsican
Nielluccio.
”

“I’ll have that.”

“And for the wine?”

AFTER
his talk, during a short question-and-answer period, Dorian had been asked if agricultural research pursued solely for profit would inevitably lead to environmental disasters. It was a question he was always asked, and he answered it as he always did.

“Everything we do, all of us,” Dorian told the audience, “is in pursuit of profit.”

This had led, predictably, to a series of animated arguments that the audience had with itself and, when that fire burned out, Dorian thanked everyone and left the stage.

“
THERE
is only one serving of crème brûlée left.”

“Could you set it aside?”

“Of course,” said Fernando. “The boar will be here shortly.”

AT
the reception afterwards, Dorian had chatted with the president and told him how excited Domidion was to be a partner in the new School of Business and Media Communications. The proposal was before the various committees, the president told Dorian, but the restructuring and the renegotiation of union contracts would take time.

“That is where the private sector has the advantage,” the president told Dorian with a smile. “You can make mistakes more quickly.”

“Yes,” Dorian countered, “but our mistakes don’t waste as much time and money.”

The wine selection was limited to a thin Chablis and a grapey Merlot. The cheese was white cheddar squares, with brightly fringed toothpicks stuck through their hearts. The red pepper spears and broccoli crowns had held the most promise.

He was standing by the vegetable arrangement when a young woman came by and asked him if had ever read John Maynard Keynes.

“The British economist?”

“Keynes said that capitalism was the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.”

“Keynes also erroneously believed that government intervention could mitigate the adverse effects of economic cycles.”

The woman wasn’t unattractive, though somewhat severe, with wide hips and no apparent appreciation for cosmetics.

“I would guess,” said the woman, “that you don’t have children.”

“Neither did Keynes.”

One of the vice-presidents performed the obligatory ceremony
of giving him several books written by faculty members, presenting him with a coffee mug that had the university’s logo imprinted on its side, and thanking him for his insightful comments.

By the time Dorian walked out to the waiting limo, the protestors had vanished, and the stars were bright in the heavens. He settled into the back seat and glanced at the three books that had been tied together with thick vanilla yarn. He checked the titles, hoping that there might be a biography on someone interesting such as Bill Gates or a history of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The first book was a novel.

“
HOW
was the boar?” said Fernando, pouring Dorian another glass of wine.

It had had a somewhat gamey taste, a wild fragrance that was smoothed out nicely by the earthy flavours of the chestnuts and mushrooms.

“Delicious.” Dorian sipped the wine and let it wash around his mouth. “Tell me, Fernando,” he said. “What are your views on the rich and the poor?”

Fernando shrugged. “There appear to be too many of both.”

DORIAN
lingered over dessert. Even Le Cinq in Paris didn’t make a better crème brûlée. As he sat at the table and watched the staff clear the restaurant, he tried to remember if the condo had a forty- or a forty-eight-inch television. Not that it mattered. Tonight he’d sit on the balcony and enjoy the view and the
quiet. He’d get a good night’s sleep and wake to the sun brightening the lake. And then he’d go back to his glass office and the work that sustained him.

FERNANDO
returned to the table, his face ringed with regret.

“A small difficulty,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Your credit card. They wish me to apprehend it and break it apart.”

“My Black AmEx?”

“With scissors.”

“They said to cut it up?”

“Yes,” said Fernando. “Someone has made a terrible mistake, of course, but I am powerless in this matter.”

Dorian sat back and rubbed his forehead gently with his fingers. “Zebras.”

“Is there another credit card we could use?”

“I’ll pay with cash.”

“I’m very sorry for the inconvenience,” said Fernando. “I hope you and Mrs. Asher will be able to join us again soon.”

“We will,” said Dorian. “Tell me, Fernando, do you read?”

“I do,” said Fernando. “Thank you for asking.”

DORIAN
waited until Fernando had disappeared into the kitchen. Then he stood, set the books at the edge of the table, slipped a hundred-dollar bill under the yarn, and walked out of the restaurant and into the night.