White Heat (25 page)

    She
said: 'Thanks for letting me know.' A pause. 'Why Craig though? This time of
year, eider hunting's lousy there.'

    He
shrugged. 'That's where they wanted to go.'

    Funny
how popular the place had got with
qalunaat
all of a sudden.

    The
following morning, as she was walking to the store, a green Twin Otter flew
overhead: the
qalunaat
tourists Sammy spoke about. The Otter's livery
didn't belong to any of the charter companies operating out of Iqaluit or
Resolute Bay. She wondered if someone new had set up and hoped they wouldn't
kill off Martie's business.

    Later,
while she was teaching, she spotted the Inuk pilot out of the window, strolling
along the path towards the store with two tall
qalunaat,
one of whom was
skinny, like Taylor, the other with such light blond hair it looked like a
clump of cotton grass growing on his head.

    The
plane came by again a couple of days later and took the tourists back down
south. During the school lunch break Edie walked over to Sammy's to see how the
trip had gone - she'd missed him, it was no fun drinking alone - but he'd
already dumped his bags inside the house and gone out, so she left a note,
inviting him for supper. She noticed he'd turned his Bible face inwards. That
only ever meant one thing: he was drinking heavily again and didn't want God to
see. Her heart went out to him then. What kind of god did he think he was being
loyal to? One who would condemn a man who had lost his son from trying to find
comfort where he could?

    In
her short absence from the school, someone had been in and put up posters in
the corridors announcing Simeonie Inukpuk's candidacy for re-election as mayor.
No one had ever held an election campaign like this. It was troubling and
bizarre. Inuit didn't do business that way, pitting one candidate against
another. Sure, there was a vote, but everyone knew the real decision emerged
slowly from discussions in the community. Nothing got decided until a consensus
had been reached which everybody could live with. Besides, if there was any
money to spare, the last thing it should be spent on was election posters.

    She
made her way back to class, set an assignment, put Pauloosie in charge, marched
directly to the head's office and swung open the door without knocking. John
Tisdale looked up from his desk and raised his hands in surrender.

    'Don't
shoot!'

    She
didn't smile. His face fell. He knew exactly why she was there.

    'Look,
Edie, it's not my fault, it's just the way Simeonie wants things done from now
on.'

    Edie
let out a snort: 'What Simeonie
wants
is for someone to do him the
courtesy of letting him know what an asshole he's being.'

    'He
does?' Tisdale screwed up his face.

    She turned
on her heels and shut the door, a little too firmly. The posters had been stuck
on with some kind of putty and came off easily, particularly once she got the
class involved. When all the posters were down, she handed one to each of her
pupils and explained what they were going to do and why they were going to do
it. Protest, she called it. Civil disobedience.

    Ten
minutes later, twelve children were waiting outside the mayor's office with
excited, expectant looks on their faces. At the secretarial desk, Sheila Silliq
ummed and tutted.

    'I
know you have your own way of doing things, Edie, but I wish you'd left my two
out of this.'

    'It's
what's known as a class action,' Edie said. She patted the two Silliq children
on the head to reassure them. 'You should be proud.'

    Simeonie
Inukpuk poked his head around the door and raised his eyes to heaven.

    'You
got five minutes.' He held up one hand.

    As
Edie ushered the class towards the mayor's office, he palmed a stop sign. 'Uh
nuh,' he said, pointing a finger at Edie. 'Just you.'

    He
closed the door behind her and took up his position behind the desk without
inviting her to sit.

    'You're
a disgrace, using the kids to fight your battles.'

    'Me?'
she said. His hypocrisy was breathtaking. 'This isn't about Craig, if that's
what you think, it's about using the school to play politics.'

    'I
don't care what it's "about". You're point-scoring.' He shook his
head in a gesture of condescending disapproval that made her want to jump on
his skull and tear out his hair. 'You always were a hothead, Edie Kiglatuk, and
for some reason you've decided to become a troublemaker too.'

    For a
moment they stood facing one another off.

    'Ai,
brother-in-law,' she said, hoping that reminding him of their family connection
might soften him a little. 'Election posters? This is Autisaq, Nunavut, not
Atlanta, Georgia.'

    Sheila's
head appeared behind the door. Someone was on the phone from London, England.

    Simeonie
settled himself into his chair and adopted an expression of grand detachment.

    'It's
a lady selling the diary of one of those old explorer fellows.' Simeonie, who
had been hoping for something more substantial, just shook his head and waved
the call away.

    'I'll
talk to her,' Edie said. It was as good a way as any to call time on her
audience with the mayor.

    She
picked up the phone on Sheila's desk and introduced herself. The woman on the
other line had an accent, but Edie couldn't tell what it was. She explained she
was a researcher at Sotheby's auction house. They were selling the diary of Sir
James Fairfax's penultimate voyage and the researcher was after what she
referred to as 'the native perspective'; an anecdote about the old times,
maybe.

    'If
Fairfax had spent more time hunting and fishing like the locals and less time
writing a diary, his explorer's career might have gone on longer,' Edie said.
She felt vaguely pleased with herself. 'How's that for the "native
perspective"?'

    The
woman coughed politely. Edie could tell from her voice she was young and
probably not all that certain of herself.

    'I'm
sorry,' she said. 'I haven't really read the whole thing. It only came to us
very recently and the owner . . .'

    Edie
interrupted.'... Bill Fairfax?'

    'Mr
Fairfax, yes. You know him?' She sounded taken aback.

    Edie
explained how she and Fairfax had met. The woman listened, then, lowering her
voice, she said, 'He needs a quick sale.' She coughed again. 'We were hoping
someone your end might be able to fill in a bit of the story. The diary isn't
quite complete. When Mr Fairfax found it among his great-aunt's things, there
seemed to be three pages missing. Our paper expert says the pages were excised
not long ago but the great-aunt's dead so there's no knowing exactly when or
why If we could get hold . . .'

    
Three
pages?
Edie's brain cranked up a gear.

    The
girl continued. 'My boss said Inuits never forget anything.' A moment's
hesitation. 'Actually, he said Eskimos, only I know you don't call yourselves
that any more.'

    Edie
felt her pulse hum, her neurones zapping.

    'Tell
you what,' she said, 'why don't you Xerox a couple of pages of the diary just
before the missing part and fax them over, jog our memories?'

    'Really?'
The girl brightened. 'That's brilliant.'

    'Just
send them right on over. I'll be standing by the fax machine.' She lowered her
voice. 'Oh, and by the way, it's Inuit, not Inuits.'

    As
she waited for the fax to stammer through the feeder, Edie considered calling
Fairfax, then thought better of it. She didn't know enough right now to be able
to ask the right questions.

    The
first page slid into the keeper. Edie picked it up. The writing did look
remarkably similar to the pages she'd recovered from the ice cave: long swirled
upstrokes with cross lines thick at one end and thin at the other, like a
musk-ox tail, the whole leaning to the east as though it had struggled against
a prevailing wind.

    The
phone rang and Sheila picked it up.

    'It's
that woman. She wants to speak to you.'

    Edie
scooped up the pages and made her way to the door.

    'I
just left.'

    Back
home, she sat on the sofa with the pages she'd taken from the ice cave and a
large glass of Canadian Mist. Though the paper was so damaged by frost and
weather that the writing was almost illegible, she could immediately see by the
shapes that it was a match for the diary. Edie made herself a brew, poured
another slug of Mist in the mug and sat down to examine the pages more closely.
Whatever was written there was important enough for someone - Fairfax himself,
she presumed - to have brought it all the way up to Autisaq. And for Andy
Taylor to have hidden it in an ice crevice. But why?

    In
the soft light by the sofa she could decipher virtually nothing. An idea came
to her. She went to the laundry room where she kept her hunting equipment,
picked up the telescopic sight, pulled on her waterproofs, kamiks, dog-skin hat
and the pair of expensive snow goggles a
qalunaat
had given her as a tip
and opened the door to the outer snow porch. Outside, the sun flared and in the
distance to the south, a journey of two or three sleeps, the cliffs of
Taluritut shone like baby teeth. The air was exceptionally dry and clear: a
good day for discovering things.

    She
went over to the drying shed where she kept her sealskins, squatted down
against the far side where she could not be seen from the Town Hall, the store
or the school, pulled the paper from her pocket and unfolded it onto her lap.
Then she drew out the telescopic lens and held it up to the paper. Though it
was still hard to make out whole words, faint impressions of ink on the page
began to resolve themselves. She returned to the sight, this time beginning, as
a hunter would, at the centre and gradually circling around until she came to
what she thought might be a 'g' or a 'q'. Going very slowly so as not to lose
her place, she moved the sight slightly to the left and saw a ghostly but very
definite 'u'. All that remained of the letter to the left of the smudge was a
tiny, hovering point, the remnant, perhaps, of an T, 'lug' or 'luq'. She nudged
the sight ever so slightly to the left once more and saw what must once have
been an 'i', the line clearly broken, in contrast to what sat to its left, an T
for sure, and beside that another 'i'. The first letter was larger, a V, with a
smear beside it.
Vililuq.
A word that meant nothing either in Inuktitut
or English.

    Returning
to the paper, she tried to separate the first page from the second and in the process
tore it slightly. Even without the tear, though, it was hopeless. The last and
final page had remained separate, protected from damp by the presence of the
two above it. There was only one paragraph on this page and, below it, a line
drawing, or perhaps a map. It looked like no part of any land she knew, but
then, she didn't really read
qalunaat
maps. Of the writing, she could
make out only a few words in English, 'waited', 'told', 'dogs' and a single,
small phrase: 'which I exchanged for a penknife'.

    The
pages described a trade of some sort. What had Sir James Fairfax received in
return for his penknife, she wondered? She cast her eye along the paragraph.
Dogs? That would make sense. She turned her attentions to the slip of paper to
which the pages were attached. The handwriting on this was quite different from
the rest. It looked newer and had been written in ballpoint pen, by Andy Taylor
himself, she supposed. A single word. 'Salt'.

    Edie
went back inside the house. She realized she was a little drunk. Nothing made
any sense. She needed to take better care of herself. Something to eat would
help. She was delving about in the cupboards when Sammy appeared and sat
himself down on the sofa. She thought about asking him to leave, then decided against
it. The standoff with Simeonie made her feel in need of company.

    'I
got rye,' he said. She brought two glasses over, tossed back her glass and
waited for the alcohol to hit her belly. Nothing felt warmer than whisky.

    'Here's
to
qalunaat,
' Sammy said. 'Those people pay.'