Surfacing - Margaret Atwood [19]
I finish the toast; the bacon is done too, I dish it out, pouring the fat afterwards into the fire, keeping my hand back from the spurt of flame.
After breakfast David says “What’s on the agenda?” I tell them I would like to search the trail that runs for half a mile close to the shore; my father may have gone along it to get wood. There was another trail that went back almost as far as the swamp but it was my brother’s and secret, by now it must be illegible.
He can’t have left the island, both canoes are in the toolshed and the aluminum motorboat is padlocked to a tree near the dock; the gas tanks for the motor are empty.
“Anyway,” I say, “there’s only two places he can be, on the island or in the lake.” My head contradicts me: someone could have picked him up here and taken him to the village at the other end of the lake, it would be the perfect way to vanish; maybe he wasn’t here during the winter at all.
But that’s avoiding, it’s not unusual for a man to disappear in the bush, it happens dozens of times each year. All it takes is a small mistake, going too far from the house in winter, blizzards are sudden, or twisting your leg so you can’t walk out, in spring the blackflies would finish you, they crawl inside your clothes, you’d be covered with blood and delirious in a day. I can’t accept it though, he knew too much, he was too careful.
I give David the machete, I don’t know what shape the trail will be in, we may have to brush it out; Joe carries the hatchet. Before we start I coat their wrists and ankles with bug spray, and my own also. I used to be immune to mosquitoes, I’d been bitten so much, but I’ve lost it: on my legs and body are several itchy pink bumps from last night. The sound of love in the north, a kiss, a slap.
It’s overcast, lowhanging cloud; there’s a slight wind from the southeast, it may rain later or it may miss us, the weather here comes in pockets, like oil. We go in through the neck-high grass mixed with wild raspberry canes between the garden and the lake, past the burn heap and the compost heap. I should have unearthed the garbage, to see how recent it is; there’s a pit also, where the burned tin cans are smashed flat and buried, that could be excavated. My father viewed as an archeological problem.
We’re on the trail inside the forest; the first part is fairly open, though now and then we pass gigantic stumps, level and saw-cut, remnants of the trees that were here before the district was logged out. The trees will never be allowed to grow that tall again, they’re killed as soon as they’re valuable, big trees are scarce as whales.
The forest thickens and I watch for the blazes, still visible after fourteen years; the trees they’re cut on have grown swollen edges around the wounds, scar tissue.
We begin to climb and my husband catches up with me again, making one of the brief appearances, framed memories he specializes in: crystal clear image enclosed by a blank wall. He’s writing his own initials on a fence, graceful scrolls to show me how, lettering was one of the things he taught. There are other initials on the fence but he’s making his bigger, leaving his mark. I can’t identify the date or place, it was a city, before we were married; I lean beside him, admiring the fall of winter sunlight over his cheekbone and the engraved nose, noble and sloped like a Roman coin profile; that was when everything he did was perfect. On his hand is a leather glove. He said he loved me, the magic word, it was supposed to make everything light up, I’ll never trust that word again.
My bitterness about him surprises me: I was what’s known as the offending party, the one who left, he didn’t do anything to me. He wanted a child, that’s normal, he wanted us to be married.
In the morning while we were doing the dishes I decided to ask Anna. She was wiping a plate,