Boy Lost in Wild Read online

  Alexi shrugged. “Your relatives are well,” he said in Ukrainian, “and they send you good wishes.”

  Baba Dudek nodded and licked her lips. Her eyes were watery and blank. When she turned to Trish and her parents, it was as if she didn’t even see them. “And you’ve already met my son and his family,” she said, still staring into space. “Taras is a vice-principal at the university and Evelyn a teacher. Of course, you have already seen their house.”

  Alexi put a cigarette in his mouth and said, “It’s a nice house.”

  “It’s a high school at the university,” Trish’s father said. “The Collegiate.”

  Baba Dudek glared at him. “That’s what I said.”

  Then she licked her lips again and ran her hand over Alexi’s head. “But let me look at you. You’re a nice-looking boy. Still have your hair. But you wouldn’t have been born when the radiation exploded all over, eh.”

  It took Trish a moment to remember what her baba was talking about—the nuclear accident at Chernobyl back in the 1980s.

  Alexi lit his cigarette and grinned for the first time since getting in the van. “We kids, we had a game,” he said, still in Ukrainian. “We would play radiation monster. You know, years after Chernobyl we had Geiger counters to test for radiation levels, so those were our magic swords…” He trailed off then, his blue eyes focused somewhere next door. “Real Indians!” he yelled in English.

  Everyone turned to see Baba Dudek’s neighbour, Irene, and her family, piling into their van. All the Traverses, young and old, were dressed in traditional Aboriginal regalia, the boys complete with headdresses.

  Trish lifted her arm to wave, but immediately felt stupid because she barely recognized any of them now. When she was small, she had sometimes played with the Traverse kids who were around her age—usually tag, or statues, or just goofing around—while her mother peered from behind the curtains in the front window. They were always there when they drove up to Baba Dudek’s and there when they left, as if they played outside forever and never even went in to drink or sleep. Their clothes usually smelled sweet, like grass and sweat and fabric softener rolled into one, and sometimes they did crazy things, like eat a bug just to see what it tasted like. Elmer, the oldest, had jumped off the roof for fun.

  Baba Dudek nodded knowingly. “They’re going to a powwow.” Then she turned to Alexi. “The Indians, they like to dance but not to work hard.”

  Trish tried to ignore her comment, hoping Alexi wouldn’t understand. But her mother threw her head back. “Mama Dudek, you know that’s not true.”

  Baba Dudek became the crazy gypsy again, wagging her crooked finger at Trish’s mother. “Irene is my friend. I can say what I want.”

  Alexi didn’t seem to hear any of it. He was completely cheered up now, jumping up and down to get a better look. “Like the movies. This is why you come to Canada, no? To see the real Indians! Do you see the feathers? Real feathers!”

  And no matter how hard Trish tried over lunch, and all the way home, to convince Alexi that the Traverses did not normally dress like that, that a powwow was a special occasion, that they were just normal people, he would only smile and shake his head. “Okay, okay,” he finally said, flashing his gold tooth and winking as if to humour her.“Maybe this is so. But, Patrooosia, I saw them for myself. They were the real Indians. They look like in the movies. For real.”

  When they got home, Trish felt so tired all she wanted was to go to her room, maybe text her friend Tonya. But Alexi was like a wind-up toy, pacing up and down the hall, sticking his head in her doorway and smiling wordlessly before he was off again. Finally he paused long enough to ask if there were “clubs, for the dancing, you know?” Something in the way he swivelled his hips made her embarrassed that she had no real idea what was available.

  “Aah, sweet little Patrooosia,” he whispered, as if they were in on this together. “You are so fine I forget you are still just a girl. I go ask your daddy. He looks like a man who can shake it, eh.”

  Much to her surprise, Trish’s father agreed to drop Alexi off downtown, with instructions to call when he was ready to come home.

  And when she finally texted Tonya, she didn’t mention Alexi at all. Instead they talked about everyday things that had nothing to do with Indians or Ukrainians.

  When Trish came down to breakfast the next morning, her parents were in a state because Alexi hadn’t called. They asked if he’d mentioned any other plans to her, and when she said no, they looked at each other, then back at her, purposefully, as if she might be lying.

  “Why would he tell me anything?” she asked.

  They didn’t hear from him until the police brought him home in the middle of the afternoon. He’d tried to shoplift a game console from the Wal-Mart. Trish’s father talked quietly with the young female police officer in the kitchen while Alexi stood in the front hall. His white Calvin Klein T-shirt was dirty now with what looked like mustard, and his blue eyes seemed completely absorbed by his shoes. After fifteen minutes, the police officer left. She brushed passed Alexi and held up a finger. “You get one break here. So stay out of trouble.”

  Then her father looked at him with the same strange face he’d had when they pulled up to Baba Dudek’s, his cheeks red and strained. “I’m sorry, Alexi. Trish is fifteen. We can’t have the police here. You’ll have to leave.”

  Alexi didn’t say anything, just went straight to the spare bedroom to get his broken suitcase.

  Before he left, he stopped in Trish’s room to say goodbye. “I’m off to Chicago to see my businessman.”

  Trish looked up from her magazine. Just like the time she’d first seen him, all she could do was nod like an idiot.

  Alexi stood in the doorway silently, his suitcase at his feet, like he was hoping she’d start talking and he wouldn’t have to leave. Then he reached for the iPad on her desk. He turned it over as if he was inspecting it for defects. “This is yours, yes?”

  She nodded some more.

  He fixed his sharp blue eyes on her as if he was going to share some profound secret. “You know, when I was small boy, nobody in my country could even play the CDs. The stores, they were empty. Now, the shelves are full, but you must be a thief to buy. There is no money. You see?”

  Trish didn’t know what was the matter with her, but all she could do was nod.

  Part of her couldn’t help thinking Alexi wanted her to give him the iPad, as a farewell from Canada present or something. And she felt as if he was trying to make her feel sorry for him, to manipulate her. Because maybe he was a liar, maybe there was no businessman from Chicago at all.

  And another part of her suddenly hated her parents, madly and passionately, more than she’d ever hated the stupid things Baba Dudek said. There they were, the big, proud Ukrainian-Canadians, actually kind of relieved that he was leaving their nice, clean spare room. They were hypocrites, complaining about the “challenge” of Asian students taking over the Collegiate even though foreign tuitions paid for their cushy pensions.

  They took things for granted. They took her for granted. Like how could her mom barge into her room in the morning like she was five? And why did they always assume she would just come along with them? What if she’d had plans yesterday? She hadn’t really, but what if she had?

  Trish kept nodding. Alexi carefully placed the iPad back on the desk.

  “It was pleasure to meet you, Patrooosia.”

  It took every ounce of energy for Trish to find her voice. For some reason she could not name, she felt ashamed.

  “You too, Al,” she said.

  And then he flashed his gold tooth and was gone.

  The next morning, she woke up before her alarm. She was crying a little, but felt very calm, her breathing slow and even. There, in the soft light of seven o’clock, it was as if there was something only her sleepy brain could see, could somehow understand, but it was too late, because Alexi was never coming back.

  In the dream, it had been raining earbuds,
and she and Alexi were running to escape them. The next thing she knew, they were sitting on her baba’s rotting old coffin. They were both soaking wet and then his head was in Trish’s lap and she was stroking his slicked-back hair. Very quietly, she whispered a song that she did not recognize, as if she was a mother humming a lullaby even though she was fifteen-and-a-half and he was maybe twenty-two. Somewhere in the background, Baba Dudek was watching them and crying softly. Never in her life had Trish seen her baba cry. It made her look so old, but like a little girl, too. On and on Trish whispered, until Alexi closed his eyes and smiled the way he had when he saw his real Indians.

  Her iPad alarm went off, blasting the familiar chorus of the latest number one. She was already a little sick of it. Tonya’s voice rang in her ears: “Track starts tomorrow, bright and early. Watch your back this year. I’ve been cross-training.”

  Trish didn’t just hit snooze; she switched things to off. She played the dream over and over in her mind, whispering the lullaby, comforting Alexi and her baba until she fell back to sleep.

  Life on Ice

  Five Facts

  1. Icelanders were the first European visitors to what is now Canada. The first European born in Canada was probably an Icelander, too.

  2. Due to their unique colour and expressive faces, belugas are one of the most common whales to be held captive in aquariums around the world.

  3. In Reykjavik, Iceland, there is an Elf School which boasts a full curriculum devoted to the study of elves and “hidden people.”

  4. Icelanders are known for going to the movies more often than any other nation.

  5. Churchill is a coastal town that does not benefit from a maritime moderation of winter temperature. The shallow Hudson Bay freezes in fall and prevailing winds from the North Pole jet across the ice and chill it to a -27C average.

  * * *

  No one tells me beforehand about Gordon’s Chinese exchange students. My mother just sends me a plane ticket, says I can stay at his place in Winnipeg for the school year.

  “Churchill is no place for a young woman. You need a change of scenery,” says the Queen of Cliché. “A change is as good as a rest.”

  Neither of us mentions that I could stay with her if she didn’t live in a one-bedroom loft with nice views of the river.

  “I’m well rested,” I say.

  “You know what I mean. You’ll meet new people, take different courses—photography, psychology, American poetry…” She trails off, probably already bored with the conversation.

  My godfather Gordon has known me my whole life and laughs at his own jokes, like when he introduces himself as my god-fairy. He says humour puts people at ease about the whole homo thing, and he may be right, but he thinks he’s funnier than he is. He has a big old house that some famous artist grew up in and spends “the bloody winter” in Arizona, so I guess it should be no great surprise he decided to take in boarders.

  “This is Hi Ho, Hee Haw, and Kaploo-ee,” he says when I arrive. Not really, but that’s what I hear because I’m surprised and I’m still getting used to the claustrophobic trees.

  Gordon’s neighbourhood is nothing but three-storey houses built for more kids than people have these days and massive elms that roof in the streets. Where I come from, trees grow stunted, like they started smoking too young, and pre-fab buildings squat naked and exposed, next to nothing but ancient rock and Arctic shoreline. One time, an American tourist got off the train, squinted into the useless sun and exclaimed, “Oh my! It’s a trailer park amongst the bears!”

  Of course, I wasn’t actually there, never heard her myself, so who knows.

  “They’re just a bit older than you,” Gordon says, gesturing grandly towards the boarders like a game-show hostess. “You’ll be at the Collegiate in a few weeks and they’ll be a stone’s throw away at the university.”

  I haven’t actually stayed at Gordon’s since I was a kid and recovering from a case of strep gone wrong. It’s like he still thinks I’m six. You kids are almost the same age and you both like ice cream. Isn’t that fun?

  I wonder how much anyone has told him. If he’s talked to my father, he’s probably heard I’m going through some “adolescent thing.” My mother would’ve told him she’s worried about my mental health. Either way, he must be aware of my recent “truancy,” as the school called it. Truant doesn’t sound like the right word for skipping the last two months of school. It sounds too positive, as if it should describe someone antsy for the truth.

  Mr. Smythe, my science teacher/guidance counsellor, would’ve told him that the good-cop approach generally works best in these kinds of situations. “We’re not actually angry with you,” he’d assured me a few weeks ago. “We’re more concerned than anything else. You’re on track for university, Jazz. Don’t you want to graduate with your friends next year?”

  He’d sighed, like I was making a difficult job more difficult. “We need you to talk to us.”

  There were teensy black dots on his front teeth, up near the gums. He’d probably eaten lunch at Gypsy’s, had the honey-and-poppyseed slice. “Has something happened, Jazz?”

  Quit saying my name like that, I wanted to say. Go brush your teeth. I’m just a graduation statistic to you.

  No. Yes. I don’t know.

  My mother is probably feeling secretly vindicated, had always half-suspected it was only a matter of time before I cracked. They used to say the Inuit managed scarce food supplies by abandoning their old and infirm on ice floes, leaving them to fend for themselves until the inevitable occurred. Maybe that’s what my mother had in mind all those years ago, leaving anxious Jasmine with her lazy father and moving on to hardier members of the tribe.

  After about a week, I start calling them Ping, Ling, and Sing in my head. Real names are hardly necessary since most of our interactions involve them smiling politely and saying “e-soos me.”

  Waiting for the bathroom in the morning, Ping finally emerges: “e-soos me.” Ling comes to unload the dishwasher while I’m looking in the fridge: “e-soos me.” Sing shuts his laptop as I enter the den: “e-soos me.” The house is in flames and we’re tripping over each other to get the hell out: “e-soos me!” they all shout.

  Okay, that last one didn’t happen, but that’s probably what they’d say. Ping weighs maybe ninety pounds, a good ten of that her impossibly thick, long, glossy hair. She has thin lips and small, slightly crooked teeth but it kind of works. Ling is by no means curvy and I could probably crush her between my thighs if I had to, but she’s got a little more meat. Her hair is cut spiky and she wears baby-doll dresses with black high-tops. Sing is basically the male version of the girls: small, attractive, dressed kind of like a cartoon character. They’ve apparently come here to learn English at the university, but as far as I can tell, they spend all their time talking to each other in Chinese with the odd English brand name thrown in.

  When I have nothing to do, which is pretty much always, I imagine taking them back home for a few days. They are so compact, so conscious of space—what do the Asian multitudes make of the tundra’s awful emptiness? At one of the souvenir shacks back home they have a TV amongst the shelves of mass-produced mukluks and plastic inukshuks where they show a video of us kids going out for Halloween. It went viral for a while: there we are, barely breathing in our princess dresses or superhero tights yanked over snowsuits, our tiaras and wigs hugging woollen toques, running door-to-door in the height of bear season. The Japanese tourists always stood at the TV and giggled at the craziness of our parents circling in their ATVs, rifles at the ready in case a migrating bear on its way to the coastal ice decided to carry off a sugar-sticky little human. It really is crazy, if you think about it. Like what must the Chinese workers in all those gigantic factories think of the weird shit they have to make for us? Somebody who has no idea about Halloween actually paints those plastic skulls on stakes and funny tombstones we stick in our lawns. Some Buddhist actually sews those Christmas stockings decorated with X-rate
d elves. What must they think of us? I want to ask the cartoon exchange students but I’m afraid they’ll just grin politely, say e-soos-me, but my English still not much good.

  Ari told me about those X-rated stockings when Frida was away. They’re part of his collection of kitsch, a word he likes a lot. According to him, the factory-made stuff sold in Churchill was kitsch. The vampire books I read were kitsch. The Winnie-the-Pooh nightlight I gave to baby Elizabet was the sweetest thing because it used to be mine, but it was still kitsch.

  I try to get their voices out of my head, have tried for weeks, for months, since Ari and Frida and their little Elizabet left for good in May, but I’m a complete and utter failure.

  Frida is half in love with you, Ari says. You remind her of herself when you were her age, and no one loves Frida like Frida.

  Wear your hair down, Frida says, don’t straighten it. Leave your hair to its own devices and you’re a panther girl.

  Even fat-faced Elizabet still babbles at me. Ja, Ja, Ja. Come Ja. Come.

  I start following the comings and goings of the Chinese students probably more than is healthy. It turns out there is no exchange going on. No Winnipeg contingent will be travelling to China to learn calligraphy and Confucius.

  “Their parents are businesspeople,” Gordon says matter-of-factly, “usually with good Party connections, which is why they’re here and can pay.”

  I eat my raisin toast very, very, very slowly as they heat up their strange, fishy-smelling breakfasts. Every few days, Gordon drives them to a take-out Asian market in the West End to stock up because he’s a keener that way, always wanting to show how worldly he is, and because none of them really seems to know how to cook. Ping is obviously the only one with a clue and is in charge of boiling the sticky rice they eat with pretty much everything. Except supper, when Gordon prepares quesadillas or farmer sausage and mashed potatoes or bacon and mushroom omelets to let them experience Western cuisine. Sing speaks the best English and manages to tell us that Ling refuses to eat anything with cheese because it smells like “foot.”