Surfacing - Margaret Atwood [83]
But I bring with me from the distant past five nights ago the timetraveller, the primaeval one who will have to learn, shape of a goldfish now in my belly, undergoing its watery changes. Word furrows potential already in its proto-brain, untravelled paths. No god and perhaps not real, even that is uncertain; I can’t know yet, it’s too early. But I assume it: if I die it dies, if I starve it starves with me. It might be the first one, the first true human; it must be born, allowed.
I’m outside in the garden when the boat comes. It isn’t Evans; it’s Paul’s boat, thick and slow and painted white, he built it himself. Paul is at the back, beside the antique motor; in the front is Joe.
I go out through the gate and retreat behind the trees, white birches clumped beside the path, not hurrying, not running away but cautious.
The motor cuts, the nose of the boat bumps the dock. Paul stands up with an oar, pulling in; Joe gets out and ropes the boat and takes several steps towards the land.
He calls my name, then pauses, “Are you here?” Echo: here, here?
He must have been waiting in the village, the searchers must have told him they’d seen me, perhaps he was with them. He stayed behind when David and Anna went away in their car, or he drove to the city with them and then hitched back, walked back, what’s important is that he’s here, a mediator, an ambassador, offering me something: captivity in any of its forms, a new freedom?
I watch him, my love for him useless as a third eye or a possibility. If I go with him we will have to talk, wooden houses are obsolete, we can no longer live in spurious peace by avoiding each other, the way it was before, we will have to begin. For us it’s necessary, the intercession of words; and we will probably fail, sooner or later, more or less painfully. That’s normal, it’s the way it happens now and I don’t know whether it’s worth it or even if I can depend on him, he may have been sent as a trick. But he isn’t an American, I can see that now; he isn’t anything, he is only half-formed, and for that reason I can trust him.
To trust is to let go. I tense forward, towards the demands and questions, though my feet do not move yet.
He calls for me again, balancing on the dock which is neither land nor water, hands on hips, head thrown back and eyes scanning. His voice is annoyed: he won’t wait much longer. But right now he waits.
The lake is quiet, the trees surround me, asking and giving nothing.
Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939, and grew up in northern Quebec and Ontario, and later in Toronto. She has lived in a number of cities in Canada, the U.S., and Europe.
Atwood is the author of more than forty books – novels, short stories, poetry, non-fiction, and books for children. Her work is acclaimed internationally and has been published around the world. Her novels include The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, and, most recently, The Year of the Flood. She has received many prestigious awards, including the Giller Prize (Canada), the Booker Prize (U.K.), the Premio Mondello (Italy), the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature (U.S.), Le Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), and the Prince of Asturias Award (Spain).
Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson. She is a Vice President of International PEN. She and Gibson are the Joint Honorary Presidents of the Rare Bird Club within Birdlife International, and spend much time on conservation projects. For more information, please visit www.margaretatwood.ca.