Sea of Tranquility (6 page)

Sylvie baked fresh bread and cookies for the tourists and set up a table by the docks. People paid her well for her creations — the bread, the cakes, the little cinnamon cookies, the homemade ginger snaps. She loved the children the most and gave them freebies when their parents weren't looking. Sylvie was glad other people came to share the whales with her, glad they came to share the beauty of her island.

The only glitch was that the new wave of tourism brought a little too much attention to Phonse's Junkyard, his shoot ‘em up theme park. The travel office in Chicago received some complaints from folks who had returned to Des Moines or Poughkeepsie and told of an environmental time bomb clicking away in Moses' otherwise picturesque island. They'd seen the wrecked cars, the oil laden-pond, and heard the
carwong
of bullets hitting things. Only a matter of time, they said, before toxins would leach into the soil and out into the sea or until the rifle-bearing maniacs would start using whales for target practice.

“We'd like to see if you can bring government pressure on closing that place down,” Chicago told Moses. “You need to protect your investment up there. Eco-tourists don't want to hear elephant rifles pumping lead into washing machines. They don't want to see junk cars rusting away in the sun. These people want nature in its purest state. If they wanted junkyards, we'd send them to New Jersey. If they wanted gun fights, we'd send them to Detroit or Washington D. C. They don't want that. They want nature. They want
the real thing
.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Moses said, and he felt a new cramp forming in his arm this time, the one he steered the boat with. That night, after sending the kids over to stay at Sylvie's for the night, after making love for the second time to Viddy, he discussed the problem with her.

“I can't tell Phonse to close down his place. It's his life. He's not hurting anyone.”

Lying in bed with his wife, Moses felt a huge responsibility settle upon him like someone lowering a steel-hulled ship on his chest. Phonse had been his friend since childhood. Phonse had been there to throw a coat around him after he'd retrieved Calvin Whittle from Scummer's Pond. Moses thought his heart was going to cramp up, and Viddy massaged his chest with her hand as if on cue. “The island has to come first,” she said. “You have to do what's good for the island.”

Right then, Moses didn't think that helped at all. What he thought she was saying was that he should listen to Chicago. He knew that if he wanted to get the government involved, he could have Phonse closed down in the blink of an eye. Phonse's salvage yard broke just about every environmental and safety regulation and statute in existence. And, in truth, to clean up Phonse's hell-hole would be cleaning up the island. But it was all wrong.

Sleep came to him like a dull, senseless rain — cold, with pellets of ice collecting on the back porch of his brain.

In the morning, however, he had an idea. He talked to Phonse about fine-tuning his operation and opening the gun range to some of the eco-tourists.

“I'm always open to new ideas,” Phonse said. “Innovation has been the key to my success. Acadians were always open to new ideas. We come over here and the Mi'kmaq tell my people to eat this root. We eat it. Prevents scurvy and tastes almost good. They tell us how to hunt the animals, we hunt 'em. We survive good because we always adapt. Now we don't have to hunt the animals no more. And that's a good thing, too.”

“You understand the nature of eco-tourism?” Moses asked. He was never comfortable with that large, floppy, uncomfortable word the people in Chicago used when they spoke to him. But somehow he had heard himself say it out loud to his friend.

“I understand it if you understand it, I guess.”

“Good enough. I just wanted to make sure you were with me on this.”

Phonse probably didn't have the foggiest notion as to what was going on, but yes, he was in. Phonse was always in on a new idea, ready to adapt just like his ancestors.

At first Chicago thought the idea was outlandish.“A theme park showing the ravages of cars and industry and neglect?”

“Yes. And tourists can, if they wish to pay extra, take up firearms and shoot at symbols of environmental offense. Cars. TVs. Absolutely no hunting, though, of course. No shooting at anything living. Only manufactured things worthy of an ecotourist's anger.”

“Shouldn't that stuff all be recycled?”

“This
is
a form of recycling. And I've already convinced the owner to use only non-lead bullets. Simple iron pellets or bullets will work. Won't harm the ecosystem. Put a little iron back in the soil is all.”

“I don't know,” Chicago said.“This all sounds pretty radical.”

“Think of it as cutting edge. Our timing will be perfect.” And he was right. The plan turned out to be a hit. Viddy helped design the new brochure. Phonse fine-tuned his junkyard tourist attraction. Pacifists and eco-freaks turned out to love pump-action rifles and guns with infrared scopes. Oickle's Pond brought satisfactory remarks of haughty disgust and financial donations to clean it up once and for all. Locals sat side by side with tourists from Pennsylvania, all wearing ear protection, and together they laid waste to products of the industrial world. Phonse brought in a car crusher on a barge once a month. It smashed up a considerable amount of the metal goods shot to hell and shipped off the steel for proper recycling. He was paid a good fee for the scrap and it allowed room for new targets to arrive by boat from wherever — Blandford, Shelburne, Dartmouth, or Lunenburg.

Chicago was somewhat shocked and appalled to learn that eco-tourists loved to shoot at things. As a result of word-of-mouth reports, eco-tourism to Ragged Island increased by twenty percent. The premiere package tour included two days of whale-watching at the Trough, a day of eco-revenge at Phonse's salvage yard, and, for an extra fee, you could operate the car crusher on recycling day, which was the third Wednesday of every month.

Sylvie, alone in the late afternoon, collecting her thoughts. Oh, what a great collection of thoughts. They would fill up some big old South Shore barn, those thoughts, memories. Goes a ways back and then some. But the blackflies in the afternoon, that made her think of her husband, her first husband. David Young.

It had been March when he'd been away. Two days of warmth all of a sudden, three maybe if you counted that surprising burst of warm wind that came in the middle of the night like
a lost Arabian horse running wild with hot breath through the sky. The blackflies came out like it was July, pestered islanders right through the brief freak warm spell, then died right off. It had been the entire great summer swarm of insects — annoying little blood-sucking bastards that some hated much more than mosquitoes. Died off and never returned that whole summer.
The blackflies
: that's what made Sylvie think of husband number one.

Both seventeen when they married. It had all started with the high rubber boots in the old schoolhouse.

“What on God's green earth is that smell?” the old teacher asked. She was a wonderful teacher, that Missus Lantz. But, watch out for yourself when things went wrong and she took after that pointer stick she kept sheathed in the rolled-up map of North America.

“It's the boots, Jesus,” David said and ran to retrieve them, his and Sylvie's. High rubber boots set tight side by side like lovers, too close to the scalding black metal of the wood stove, old knot-ty spruce logs ablaze inside warding off winter in favour of education. David had set his own boots there alongside of Sylvie's. He was always doing nice things for her.“Wants your feet to be warm and dry,” he had said. Such a gentleman for a boy.

They were melting. Oh, my God, what a stench. Everyone grabbing their noses and pinching. The little ones taking the opportunity to howl and screech. Missus Lantz opening the door to winter and inviting the old gentleman in. “Everybody out,” she finally said. “Can't teach with this!” Melting boots meant freedom.

“Whose bloody Wellingtons?” she asked as David scrimped low across the room to grab the boots and haul them out.

“Sorry, ma'am,” he said. “My fault.” David grabbed the steaming boots and heaved them out into the snow. The little ones ran from where they landed as if the devil had been thrown to catch them at play.

Sylvie remembered going out to look at her own boots and saw that one of them had melted itself onto one of David's. Lying there in the snow, the two black boots stuck together, the smell still something you could not quite pinch out of your nostrils.

“I was hoping to get them nice and warm for you. And dry inside, you know?”

Sylvie felt weak and shy. Not like her at all.

“I'll buy you a new pair when my dad takes me in the boat to Mutton Hill Harbour this week.”

“It was an accident.”

“I know,” David said, smiling now. “Everything's an accident. That's what my grandfather told me the day he died. I'm named for him, you see, and he was named for his grandfather.”

“What do you mean, it's all an accident.”

“Everything good and everything bad. All an accident. This snow coming down. Missus Lantz back there trying to air the school out. The melting boots. The fact we live on an island like this. All an accident.”

Such a goofy look on a young man's face.

“And you think that's a good thing, do you? You don't think God has a plan for us?” Sylvie had been told by neighbour women over and over, neighbour women out trimming cabbages or drying cod on wooden slats in the sun or collecting summer savoury from their gardens, the words had been oft repeated.“'Tis all part of God's great plan.”

“God was the one responsible for making everything accidental. It's a big game for him, I guess. Wondering what accidental thing will happen next.”

Sylvie knew that this boy liked to talk strangely at times, but his words made her head and heart feel light, like a pair of swooping herons, she was so out of kilter. Her with burning boots turning to deep religion and philosophy in the schoolyard snow.

Somebody was throwing a snowball straight at David's head, but it missed. A second was thrown. That lout Inglis, always bad intent. Another thrown and missed. David pretended not to see, but Sylvie stuck her tongue out at Coors Inglis. Another snowball, this time thrown harder and with worse aspirations, at Sylvie. David turned, put himself in the way, took it hard on the cheek. Looked over at Inglis, gave him a look but did not go after him.

“Sylvie, don't ever cut your hair.”

“My hair? I wasn't going to cut it.”

“Great. You have wonderful hair.”

“It's only brown.”

“Brown hair is the prettiest.”

Sylvie had known the boy had feelings for her but those feelings had always been in check. Her own emotions had always been in check, too, the way it was supposed to be. Why did this absurd little compliment make her feel so powerfully changed? “I won't cut it,” she said. “I'll let it grow long like summer vines.”

“Thank you,” he said, and now, for the first time, he touched the cold wet spot on his cheek where the snowball had connected with his face. Sylvie could not stop herself from touching the spot as well. Her eyes went woozy and she had to take a deep breath, then pulled her hand away quickly as she saw Missus Lantz come out to ring a bell, calling everyone back in.

“My grandfather wasn't a hundred percent right about the accidents, Sylvie.”

“Oh, how's that?'

“You. You were no accident. You were meant to be.”

That was the last year of school for both of them. They could have gone to the mainland for an extra year or even two if they
liked, but they did not. Nor did any of the other students from the island school, for the mainland was considered to be a sorry, inferior place. Sixteen gave way to seventeen for Sylvie and for David. The year was 1934. Far away on the mainland of Canada, the Dionne family in Quebec had quintuplets, five girls and they all lived. In Germany, a new leader, a
führer
, was sworn in. This man named Hitler would order the construction of concentration camps in Germany for Jews and Gypsies. Off the coast of Nova Scotia the fishing was good, but the prices were less than they should be.

In June of 1934, young David Young married Sylvie Down. Sylvie liked him more than any other boy on the island but she did not know if it was what she truly wanted to do. Her mother said
she
liked David and so did her father. That was not advice or parental pressure. Sylvie's father spoke thus:“Comes from a good family. Good stock. Father's a reputable man. Respectable family. Can't see the harm.” Understatement was Sylvie's father's way.

“Women will have more opportunities in your lifetime, you know,” her mother said. Something she picked up at the Women's Improvement Association meetings and in the newsletter that came once a month.“We want what's best for you.”

“Can't do much better than David,” her father had said, but there was still not a quarter ounce of pressure in his voice.

Sylvie felt herself to be the water in the North Brook — clear fluid, pure, slipping down with the pull of gravity towards the waiting sea. It was not an unpleasant feeling at all. She believed there was little control within her to change anything about this elemental force. Sure as the water drawn down the stream, she would marry, she would become the sea, and then what?

The day she said yes to her David Young, she asked him to go with her to sit on the rocks out by the Trough and be with her there all day. David said he would be honoured. Alone on a day in early June, blackflies held imperceptibly at bay by the cool
presence of the open sea, they sat arm in arm. Only one whale appeared. It came up once from the deepest part of the channel, surfaced, spouted, let the sun perform for one silver moment upon its dark, wet back, dove deep again, and fanned its tail in a salute or goodbye.