The Cartographer of No Man's Land: A Novel (49 page)

Simon stuffed a towel in the broken window, locked the door, and came down the steps, then gripped George’s hand and swung up on Peg. He leaned back against George’s bare chest. George put his strong, tanned arms around him and shook the reins, his shirttails fluttering in the wind. “There’s my girl, Peg,” George said softly.

W
HEN HE MADE
it home alone on Peg, Simon sensed something going on even before he walked down from the barn to the house. Zeb’s truck in the yard. The Fredas’ door wide open. Voices in the kitchen. And there at the kitchen table was someone who looked just like his father, staring at a slice of Ida’s bread on a plate as she buttered it, staring at it as if he’d never seen such a thing.

This man looked up slowly and knocked the bread and the plate to the floor as he stood, as he lurched around the table to pull Simon against him.

A
LONE AT LAST—
the Fredas and Zeb long gone, his father still up at his house, Simon Peter helping Ida—Angus sat on the bed. He looked down at the rim of salt on his kilt a few inches above the knee, then went to the bureau and pulled out a pair of old trousers. He laid them on the bed and pictured himself pulling them on one-handed, the potential defeat of the buttons on the fly. Five. He counted them.

The
Lauralee’
s compass, like a severed head in a sack, was on the bed next to the trousers. He pulled it out and traced the crack in the glass. “Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill.” Those were the words his father said on welcoming Angus home—or had he said, “home from the kill?” It didn’t matter. “Requiem,” by Stevenson. Angus knew the verse, and knew the opening line. “Under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie . . .”

He’d taken the compass with him, intending to give it to his father when he finally walked up to his house. How frail the old man had looked there in the study, just where he’d left him. Still in his white shirt and dark wool vest. Except this time in the wing chair, head back, mouth open, sound asleep. Angus paced quietly about and sat down behind the desk. It was strewn with news clippings and letters and old ledger books. There was a check made out to the Union of Democratic Control—the UDC. Angus had heard of it—a stop-the-war organization in Britain filled with intellectuals who had never been on the field, as far as he knew, and social agitators and labor unions. The check was for $
500
, about what it might cost to build a new boat or maybe a house.

Angus stood abruptly. The desk chair slammed back. His father jerked awake and blinked uncomprehendingly, then his mouth fell open again. “I’ll be damned,” he whispered. “Am I dreaming?” He got to his feet, hand tentatively holding the chair. “Home is the sailor . . .” he said and the rest. They stared at each other until finally Angus came around the desk and they exchanged a rough embrace.

There was no small talk. His father went directly to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle of whisky. “Single malt. From Scotland. Been keeping it for this day,” he said, searching for the crystal tumblers and pouring it out. But once poured, he simply stared at Angus and sat back down. When they finally spoke, it was about the
Lauralee
. They agreed to believe it was lightning, the hand of God. Agreed it was fitting. Angus tried to give him the compass, but he wouldn’t accept it. She was as much yours as mine. She wouldn’t have made it under another skipper, he said, glancing at Angus’s wounded arm. Wouldn’t have made it anyway, Angus said, stating outright what he’d been afraid to admit for so long.

His father’s eyes remained on the sling. Angus instinctively crossed his left arm over it. “The monstrous atrocities you’ve seen. Participated in. I can’t imagine,” his father said flatly.

Participated in
. Angus let that sink in. Waited for more. But his father was not about to turn the conversation to Angus, not directly. To the war, yes—the insanity, the unending horror of it. His own efforts and the UDC. The necessity of a negotiated peace this instant. He grew agitated, walked over and jabbed at papers on his desk. “This man Sassoon, a Military Cross to his credit, a lieutenant like you, has refused to continue. Did you know that?”

Angus indicated he did, hoping to cut the conversation short, but his father kept right on. “His letter to his commanding officer was read aloud in the British House of Commons.” He whipped a sheet of newsprint from the stack. Fumbling with his spectacles, he leaned over and ran his finger down the page. “Said, and I quote, that England is now engaged in a war not of ‘defense and liberation’ but of ‘aggression and conquest.’ Said he was acting on behalf of all soldiers.” He looked up at Angus. “There’s courage for you. Begged Parliament for a negotiated peace. And what was the response? Sent him off to the looney bin to shut him up.” Spittle had collected in the corner of his mouth.

“They’re called war hospitals,” Angus said evenly. “Craiglockhart. It’s a British war hospital. And Sassoon does
not
speak for me. I speak for myself.”

His father ripped off his glasses. “What do you mean? Of course he does. I’m on your side. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“And what side is that? The one where men died for nothing? Now we just stop the war and hand them France and whatever else they want?”

“Exactly! End this bloody war. Prevent this—look at you. You want more men to come back like . . .” He pressed his thumb and fingers against his eyes.

Angus had no feeling for a moment. Then it came to him just how afraid his father was. Better to stand behind the shield of righteous anger, to think of death and sacrifice as abstractions, as without purpose, than to imagine those deaths, one by one, or see the crippled son in front of him. “I have come back,” Angus said firmly. He took a step backward, and, eyes on his father, leaned down, picked up the compass, and left.

I
T WAS NOT
long
afterwards that Simon came home. “Don’t speak,” Angus had said. “Don’t say a word. Let me just hold you.” He felt the surprising muscularity of the boy’s arms, felt him sink against his paralyzed arm, and held him far too long. When he did let him go, there was Publicover in the freckles and blond hair, the cheery grin. He pressed his eyes and sat back heavily in his chair. Simon stared at Angus’s medal. Avoided his arm. Told him about Mr. Heist and how he was innocent. Said he’d told Mr. Heist that his father would get him out of prison. Rattled on. Thankfully, did not ask about the war. They talked about the
Lauralee
, and Angus said it must have been a horror to watch her burn. Simon grew quiet, and Angus assured him they’d get on without her and that all they’d do was think of the good times and what a brave old girl she was. Ida set out tea and more bread and some chowder. Simon shoveled it in, talked some more, filled in every empty space. Told Angus he’d worked at Mader’s all summer. Told him all about a boat once called
Repulse Bay,
now unnamed, at Smith and Rhuland’s. Spoke with surprising technical detail about her lines. Grinned some more. Flicked a look at his arm again. Grew serious. Mentioned Vimy. Said, You showed ’em, Dad.

Ida pulled out some meat tarts and said it may as well be supper because Hettie would be late getting home. She was over to Gold River to check on the new foreman at the sawmill. Ridiculous her riding all over the place. Duncan had agreed to get a truck, and Zeb was going to teach Hettie to drive. Drive a
truck
, mind, she said. Right on up to Dawson lumber camp, next thing you know. She checked Angus for his reaction. Seeing none, she said, “She’s your father’s eyes and ears and more. But maybe she always has been, because the men she deals with don’t seem to mind her being a woman, far as I can tell, as long as her money’s good. Of course, it’s all Duncan’s.”

“As long as there’s money left,” Angus said.

Ida nodded. She knew what he meant. “Puts his money where his mouth is, I’ll give you that.”

I
T WAS NEARLY SUNSET
, a blush of pink overhead deepening to red, by the time Hettie came up the hill on Rooster, Ebbin’s old hat hanging down her back by its leather ties. Immobilized on the porch, Angus watched as if witness to a passing dream. Rooster nodding with each slow step, Hettie’s heavy boots in the stirrups, the drape of her rough brown skirt, the tousled short hair, her face sunburnt and purposeful. She didn’t see him as she rode up.

In the barn he said her name. She was closing the stall door. She went rigid and slowly turned to him. “Hettie. I’m sorry,” he said. He walked over to her. She touched his lips with trembling fingers. They sank down on the straw with Rooster breathing over them and held each other until she pulled back and wiped her downcast eyes. He picked bits of straw from her short locks. She touched his arm, a touch he did not feel. He shook his head. They sat back against the stall door, side by side, and the enormity of all they had not written to each other hung between them.

“I found him,” he said. Said it compulsively, without thinking, but glad of it. He wanted to tell her, wanted his guilt to overwhelm him, be purged from him. Wanted to make sense of it with the only person who could understand, the only other person who knew Ebbin the way he did. The great weight of knowing pressed down on him.

“Found his body?” she whispered. “The army said . . . I thought, I thought—”

“No,” he said, before she could finish. “You don’t understand, I found him.” But she refused to hear it. Said she could not bear to hear his name. That she had buried him. And had found life without him—

He stared at her dumbly as the words “
found life without him
” registered. The tremble of her upturned chin, the anxious confusion in her eyes—all this he took in and weighed against his selfish need, his reckless words.

“No. I meant . . . I found out about him. That he was . . . heroic in the end. At the end.”

“Oh,” she said, and sank back against the stall.

He waited to see if she wanted more—if there was even a shred of a possibility that she’d open the door. But she kept it firmly closed. “What does it matter? The war took him, hero or not,” she sighed. She stared straight ahead. “For a long time, a very long time, I couldn’t accept it. But finally . . . the day my father brought this to me, I knew he was gone.” She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pressed Ebbin’s tag into Angus’s hand. “You need to bury him, too,” she said. Then she picked up Ebbin’s hat and stood, holding the leather brim with both hands. “Remember this hat? Remember that story of his? How he won it off a ‘mad Australian’? How he made us laugh? That’s how I want to think of him. Not as a corpse, not as a soldier blown to bits, his body mangled—I don’t care what he did over there, nor how he died. Please. Just let me keep him as he was so I can keep going.”