The Opening Sky (44 page)

At the Forks now, she can feel the baby’s phantom weight warm on her chest. As they were following the riverwalk, they saw a massive catfish lying on the ground, black and rubbery, mischievous whiskers drooping from its face. The fisherman turned his head and smiled at them, showing the gaps in his teeth, and she thought of Enrique Mendez, who came from a world where you have to do hard things – complicated, dangerous, ruthless things – because you don’t have privilege to insulate you.

She closes her eyes and the smell of weeds and mud rises up around her. She can’t hear the drumming now, but if she’s very still, she can sense it in the ground. After they left her house this morning they cycled over to Maggie’s and went to Noah’s room to talk. Animals have babies, Sylvie said, sitting on the little bed where Noah used to sleep in his Astro Boy pyjamas. And they just love them and look after them. It’s all natural.

I don’t know if we can use other animals as a model for everything, Noah said. Humans have kind of taken it to a different level.

From the living room the television blared – Krzysztof’s mother was watching
Judge Judy
. Sylvie didn’t realize at first that Noah was crying. He was sitting with his elbow on his knee and his head in his hand, and then she heard the dry sounds of his weeping, and
leaned against him, one arm around his waist. They sat there for a long time. It’s not a perfect way, they said to each other. There is no perfect way.

When she finally lifts her head from the grass, she’s alone. She rolls over and props herself on her elbows. The drums have stopped and the sun is low, slicing in bands through the trees. The river seems to have vanished, having taken in all the green of the day.

Noah is down on the bank, she can see his white shirt. He’s standing still under the office towers that give the sunlight back in gold. From the tilt of his head, he seems to be listening. Then, against a screen of trembling leaves, his hands float up. As though the force of gravity is reversed – it’s levitating them. Suddenly he pivots. Once, twice, three times he addresses the air, his fingers splayed like white flight feathers. He never quite rises to his full height; he’s fighting at a crouch.

But is he fighting or is it a dance, or a prayer? Sylvie lies on her stomach and digs her fingers into the root-woven turf, watching as, over and over, he places his feet on the slippery clay of the riverbank and lunges, palms out, working to get it right. For a long time she watches, and then she scrambles to her feet and walks through the weeds towards him, feeling the clay under her bare soles, feeling it dampen and cool as she steps down the bank.

T
HE EPIGRAPH IS FROM THE POEM “RIVER EDGE:” in the collection
Torch River
by Elizabeth Philips.

The koan “No Water, No Moon” is included in
101 Zen Stories
(1919), compiled by Nyogen Senzaki.

My deep appreciation to the team at McClelland and Stewart, especially to my editor, Lara Hinchberger – I am endlessly grateful for your commitment and good judgment. Thanks to Martha Magor Webb and everyone at Anne McDermid and Associates.

Thank you to the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for financial support. I was also privileged to work on this novel in two wonderful residency programs: Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon, with the support of the Writers’ Trust of Canada, and the Winnipeg Public Library’s Writer-in-Residence program.

For their suggestions and expertise, thank you to Dr. Karen Scott at the Lake Winnipeg Research Consortium, Adelle Yanusyewski, Harry Daase, Mary Lou McGurran, and Winnipeg’s Pinhole Artist Collective.

Warmest appreciation to Anita Lahey, Maurice Mierau, Sam
Baardman, and Susan Israel, who generously put their minds to earlier versions of part or all of this novel, and a special thank-you to Sam for the title. Hazel Loewen, your insight enriched this book, as it has enriched my life for decades. Heidi Harms; my father, Ralph Thomas; Caitlin, and Bill – I am so grateful for your support and love.