The Other Side of the Bridge (37 page)

When he got close, though, there didn’t seem to be anyone in the kitchen. Ian moved around, trying to see into the corners of the room. He wasn’t taking much care to be quiet so he got a serious fright when he suddenly saw the glow of a cigarette outside the back door. Jake must be standing on the doorstep. In fact, now that he knew he was there, Ian could make out his shape.

Jake didn’t move, though. The dogs were wandering around—they came up behind Ian waving their tails—so maybe he assumed the noise was them. The cigarette glowed and died a few times and then Ian saw him drop it onto the doorstep, grind it out with his shoe, and brush it over the edge. A moment later Jake turned around and went in.

He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to go to bed. In the kitchen he lit another cigarette and sat down in an armchair by the fire. It looked as if he could be there awhile. Ian fidgeted. He was about to give up and go home when Laura appeared.

She didn’t come into the kitchen, just stood in the doorway. She was wearing a dressing gown tied tightly around her waist and was holding it closed at the neck with one hand. Jake smiled at her and said something. She shook her head. She said something—something urgent, it seemed to Ian, because she leaned forward as she spoke.

Jake tipped his head to one side and made some reply. He looked quite relaxed; whatever Laura had said didn’t worry him. She shook her head again, still clutching the neck of her dressing gown. She was upset about something, Ian was sure of it. Then Jake stood up. He stubbed out his cigarette in a saucer on the table, taking his time over it, mashing the butt into the saucer several times, and then started to cross the kitchen toward her, smiling, as if to reassure her. Laura turned abruptly and left the room.

For a moment Jake stood where he was, looking at the empty doorway. Then he went back to the chair and sat down. He fished out another cigarette, lit it, and started smoking, his head resting against the back of the chair.

Ian realized he had been holding his breath. He didn’t know what to make of it. Laura’s posture, the way she left so fast when Jake came toward her—it was as if she was really upset with him, or even afraid of him. Though that seemed ridiculous.

He walked back through the woods to his bike, mulling it over. It made him uneasy. It made him wonder what Jake was playing at. Why, exactly, he was here.

They’d been fishing for a couple of hours when Pete suddenly said, “Oh, nearly forgot.” He reached under his seat and hauled out a small shoe box from among the clutter of fishing tackle and beer bottles. The box was the flimsy sort they put moccasins in to sell to tourists at the trading post. It was soggy along the bottom from lying in bilge water and looked in danger of disintegrating. Ian wedged the handle of his fishing rod into a hole in the
Queen Mary
’s floorboards, took the box, one hand underneath it to stop it from falling apart, and opened it. Inside, crouched down among some dead grass and a little pebbled heap of dung was a very small gray rabbit.

“Wow!” Ian said. “Is he ever cute! Where’d you find him?”

“Near the trapline.”

“He’s tiny! Are you sure he’s old enough to leave his mother?”

Pete stuck a minnow on his hook and dropped it overboard. “We ate her last night, man, so it’s kind of an academic question.”

“Oh,” Ian said. He stroked the rabbit gently behind the ears. Its fur was so soft he could scarcely feel it. The rabbit quivered and flattened itself against the floor of the box. “Poor thing,” he said. “This isn’t a big enough box, either.”

“What are you talking about?” Pete said. “It’s a perfect fit.”

“He doesn’t even have room to turn around,” Ian said. “I thought you guys were supposed to have this special thing with animals. A respectful relationship. Like, asking their forgiveness before shooting them, that sort of thing.”

Pete gave him a look. He reached out and took the box, one hand still holding the jig over the side of the boat. He put his head down to the box and said, “Hey, wabbit, forgive me, man. I’m sorry I had to eat your mum and stuff you in a shoe box.”

He handed the box back to Ian. “There you go. He feels better about everything now.” He bobbed the jig up and down in the water.

Back at home Ian went up to the attic and rummaged around in the clutter. There wasn’t anything perfect but he found a box that would do. It was nearly as flimsy as the shoe box and the sides weren’t as tall as he would have liked, but the rabbit didn’t look like much of an escape artist and at least it would have room to roam around a bit. He took the box outside, put a saucer of water at one end, covered the bottom with a thick layer of grass and leaves, and decanted the rabbit into it. It looked even smaller in there. It flattened itself down and closed its eyes as if it were praying for a speedy end. He was sorry he’d asked for it. March would love it, if it lasted long enough to give it to him, but he’d probably cuddle it to death within a couple of hours. Killed by love. Well, maybe it was better than being eaten.

He decided to delay giving it to March for a few days, though. He’d let it have a little peace before its next adventure; it would be a shame for both the boy and the rabbit if it died on the spot. He would put the box around the back of the house where it would get the morning sun but wouldn’t bake in the afternoon. In the meantime, he’d get some chicken wire and work out how to make a run for it. It would need to be a big one, with a hutch the rabbit could hide in. March could help him make it.

“We’re going to have a zoo,” his father said later that evening. Ian had brought him out to admire the rabbit. “I had a call from Ernie Schwartz. His bitch had a litter six weeks ago and he said we could come and choose a pup this weekend if we liked.”

“No kidding!” Ian said. “An Irish setter?”

“Yes. Ernie says it has a pedigree. I told him that was more than we had and we didn’t want to pay a fortune for it; and he said he didn’t want a fortune, he wanted me to tear up the bill for setting his daughter’s leg.”

“Oh,” Ian said. “Is that okay?”

“I’d forgotten all about the bill, so I suppose so.”

“You need a secretary as well as a nurse.”

“I just need to get myself organized.”

“Pigs might fly,” Ian said.

His father sighed.

“By the way,” Ian said. “I’ve decided what I’m going to do next year.” As he said it, he felt a kind of ache, mid-chest.

“Oh, yes?” his father said. “What have you decided?”

“I’m going to be a pilot.”

His father looked at him, then looked away. Ian had been half afraid he might laugh, like Pete, but he didn’t. He crouched down and began to examine the rabbit. “A pilot,” he said after a moment. “That’s an interesting career. Good for you.” He didn’t look up.

Ian said, “It’s what I really want to do.”

“Good,” his father said. “Excellent. Then you must do it. It sounds very good.” He moved the saucer with the water in it closer to the rabbit.

“I’ll have to go and talk to Mr. Hardy about it,” Ian said. The ache had spread outward, filling his entire chest now, tightening his throat. “I don’t know how I go about applying, like where you go to train, that sort of thing.”

“No,” his father said. “No, neither do I. Get Hardy onto it. He’ll know.” He looked up, finally, and smiled. “It sounds like an interesting career. Good for you.”

By rights he should have dreamed about his father that night, but instead, as he slipped down into sleep, Jake’s car rolled smoothly into the farmyard and the passenger door opened and Ian’s mother stepped out, her legs long and elegant in high-heeled shoes. Ian was standing by the water trough but she paid no attention to him. She picked her way through the dust of the farmyard and went into the house and sat down in the armchair Jake usually sat in. She took a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and lit one. Ian was standing by the table; he must have followed her into the house. She looked at him with a little smile and said, Tell Laura she doesn’t have to worry about Arthur. Arthur will be fine.

TWELVE

SIXTEEN DISTRICT MEN AMONG CASUALTIES
:
Community Mourns

DISTRICT MAN COLLECTS $80 ON DEAD BEARS

—
Temiskaming Speaker,
October 1944

O
ctober. The skies a pale, lifeless gray, the fields stripped bare, everything holding its breath, clenched against the coming cold. Jake’s pursuit of Laura was nicely under way and all Arthur could do was stand and watch.

“He says your father was a wonderful man,” Laura said.

They were in Otto’s barn. Arthur and the two POWs were preparing winter quarters for the pigs; it had snowed the previous night and any day now they’d have to move all the animals inside. Laura had just arrived home from school and had brought mugs of tea out for the three of them. The boys were sitting on bales of straw, warming their hands on the mugs. Arthur and Laura stood in the doorway, Laura leaning against the door, her arms wrapped tightly around her to keep out the cold. She was wearing an old coat of her father’s and had a long red scarf wound several times around her neck. It was coming on for dusk and the light was seeping out of the sky, draining the color out of everything as it went—everything, it seemed to Arthur, except the bright flame of that scarf.

Laura said, “He says you’re exactly like him. He says you’ve been wonderful since he died, the way you’ve run the farm—both farms—all by yourself. The way you’ve provided for him and your mother. He says he’s worse than useless, no help to you at all.” She smiled to show that she knew that wasn’t true, that Jake did everything he could.

Arthur looked at the ground. Sometimes he could hardly bear to be near her.

“He told me how you saved his life, Arthur,” she said. “How you risked your own life wading out into the river and then carried him home in your arms.”

Had Jake sat down and worked it out, the best way to win her over? Had he studied her, thought about who she was and how she’d been raised and decided on the best strategy? Or was it just another thing that Jake was born knowing? He and Laura walked to and from school together every day now. Half an hour each way. Five hours a week alone in her company, telling her the version of things he wanted her to hear, painting the picture he wanted her to see.

“He says you’re the one your mother depends on,” Laura said another time, her voice full of pity and admiration for Jake.

It was true, that was what was so clever about it. Arthur had known it for years without ever putting it into words. He was the one his mother depended on; Jake was the one she loved.

Sometimes when he looked at Laura he was almost paralyzed with the fear of losing her. He could hardly get his breath, sometimes. Which was strange: how could you be so terrified of losing something you didn’t have?