Marcel Theroux - Far North

EVERY DAY I BUCKLE on my guns and go out to patrol this dingy city.

Ive been doing it so long that Im shaped to it, like a hand thats been carrying buckets in the cold.

The winters are the worst, struggling up out of a haunted sleep, fumbling for my boots in the dark. Summer is better. The place feels almost drunk on the endless light, and time skids by for a week or two. We dont get much spring or fall to speak of. Up here, for ten months a year, the weather has teeth in it.

Its always quiet now. The city is emptier than heaven. But before this, there were times so bad I was almost thankful for a clean killing between consenting adults.

Yes, somewhere along the ladder of years I lost the bright-eyed best of me.

Way back, in the days of my youth, there were fat and happy times. The year ran like an orderly clock. Wed plant out from the hothouses as soon as the earth was soft enough to dig. By June, wed be sitting on the stoop podding broad ans until our shoulders ached. Then there were potatoes to dry, cabbages to bring in, meat to cure, mushrooms and berries to gather in the fall. And when the cold closed in on us, Id go hunting and ice-fishing with my pa. We cooked omul and moose-meat over driftwood fires at the lake. We rode up the winter roads to buy fur clothes and caribou from the Tungus.

We had a school. We had a library where Miss Grenadine stamped books and read to us in winter by the wood-burning stove.

I can remember walking home after class across the fryingpan in the last mild days before the freeze, and the lighted windows sparkling like amber, and ransacking the trees for buttery horse chestnuts, and Charlos laughter tinkling up through the fog, as my broken branch went thwack! thwack!, and the chestnuts pattered around us on the grass.

The old meeting-house where we worshipped still stands on the far side of the town. We used to sit there in silence, listening to the spit and crackle of the logs.

The last time I went in there was five years ago. I hadnt been inside for years, and when I was a child Id hated every stubborn minute Id been made to sit there.

It still smelled like it used to: well-seasoned timber, whitewash, pine needles. But the settles had all been broken up to be burned, and the windows were smashed. And in the corner of the room, I felt something go squish under the toe of my boot. It turned out to be someones fingers. There was no trace of the rest of him.

*

I live in the house I grew up in, with the well in the courtyard and my fathers workshop much as it was in my childhood, still taking up the low building next to the side gate.

In the best room of the house, which was kept special for Sundays, and visitors, and Christmas, stands my mothers pianola, and on it a metronome, and their wedding photograph, and a big gilded wooden M that my father made when I was born.

As my parents first child, I bore the brunt of their new religious enthusiasm, hence the name, Makepeace. Charlo was born two years later, and Anna the year after that.

Makepeace. Can you imagine the teasing I put up with at school? And my parents displeasure when I used my fists to defend myself?

But thats how I learned to love fighting.

I still run the pianola now and again, theres a box of rolls that still work, but the tunings mostly gone. I havent got a good enough ear to fix it, or a bad enough one not to care that I cant.

Its almost worth more to me as firewood. Some winters Ive looked at it longingly as I sat under a pile of blankets, teeth chattering in my head, snow piled up to the eaves, and thought to myself, damn it, take a hatchet to it Makepeace, and be warm again! But its a point of pride with me that I never have. Where will I get another pianola from? And just because I cant tune the thing and dont know anybody who can, that doesnt mean that person doesnt exist, or wont be born one day. Our generations not big on reading or tuning pianolas. But our parents and their parents had plenty to be proud of. Just look at that thing if you dont believe me: the burl on the maple veneer, and the workmanship on her brass pedals. The man who made that cared about what he was doing. He made that pianola with love. Its not for me to burn it.

The books all belonged to my folks. Charlo and my ma were the big readers. Except for that bottom shelf. I brought those back here myself.

Usually when I come across books I take them to an old armoury on Delancey. Its empty now, but theres so much steel in the outer door, youd need a keg of gunpowder to get to them without the key. As I said, I dont read them myself, but its important to put them aside for someone who will. Maybe its written in one of them how to tune a pianola.

I found them like this: I was going down Mercer Street one morning. It was deep winter. Snow everywhere, but no wind, and the breath from the mares nostrils rising up like steam from a kettle. On a windless day, the snow damps the sound, and the silence everywhere is eerie. Just that crunch of hooves, and those little sighs of breath from the animal.

All on a sudden, theres a crash, and a big armful of books flops into the snow from what must have been the last unbroken window on the entire street until that moment. The horse reared up at the sound. When I had her calm again, I looked up at the window, and what do you know, theres a little figure hang-dropping into the books. Hes bundled up in a bulky blue one-piece and fur hat. Now hes gathering up the books and fixing to leave.

I shouted out to him, Hey! What are you doing? Leave those books, damn it! Cant you find something goddamn else to burn?, along with a few other choice expressions.

Then, just as quick as he appeared, he flung down his armful of books and reached to draw a gun.

Next thing theres a pop, and the horse rears again and the whole street is more silent than before.

I dismounted easy does it with my gun drawn and smoking and go over to the body. Im still a little high from the draw, but already Im getting that heavy-hearted feeling and I know I wont sleep tonight if he dies. I feel ashamed.

Hes lying still, but breathing very shallow. His hat came off as he fell. It lies in the snow a few steps away from him, among the books. Hes much smaller than he seemed a minute earlier. It turns out hes a little Chinese boy. And instead of a gun, he was reaching for a dull Bowie knife on his hip that youd struggle to cut cheese with.

Well done, Makepeace.

He comes to slightly, grunting with the pain, and tries to push me away from him. Let me have a look at where youre hit. I can help you. Im the constable here. But his clothes are too thick for me to examine him, and its too dangerous to linger here, unarmed and dismounted, especially in daylight.

Its not going to be comfortable, but the only thing for it is to move him. Better get the books as well, so the whole escapade hasnt been fruitless. I toss them into a burlap sack. The boy weighs nothing. Its heartbreaking. What is he? Fourteen? I lift him onto the saddle and he rides in front of me, drifting in and out of consciousness until we get back.

The good news is that he&squos still breathing. His arms reach feebly for my shoulders as I help him dismount. I know the pain is not so terrible for him yet. The body makes its own opium when its been hit. But in the middle of that feeling, theres also a sensation of injustice. That youve broken something you dont know how to fix. That you wont be the same again.

The boy refused to let me near him. As much as I tried to explain that I was sorry that Id hurt him and I wanted to help, hed just slap my hand away. It was clear that we didnt have a common language. There are some tongues where you can get, say, one word in five or ten, and its enough to make some sense of one another. We had nothing.