Of Shapes & Shadows June 2005   Click to view Table of Contents Click to view photo gallery Click to view cover story

Fiction

Drawing Fire
By Brian Reynolds

 
Nina sits cross-legged on the chilly floor in front of the wood stove staring through its glass door into the fire. A large spiral-bound sketchbook lies open on her lap, a charcoal pencil in her hand. She concentrates. She tries to rid the scene of colour. One by one, she crosses off the yellows, crimsons, carmines, cobalts, ambers. One by one, she tries to see just shapes of black and white. Tries to freeze each dancing flame. Tries to see just lines before they blend into each other, dancing jitterbug and tango, doing cartwheels and twirling ribbons faster than her mind can comprehend. Suddenly she throws the sketchbook at the couch and stands.

"Damn! This is dumb!"

Her husband looks up from his stack of grade six compositions. "What's dumb, Nina?"

"Nothing. I was trying to draw. I didn't mean to bother you."

"Draw the dog."

"I always draw the dog." She slips the pencil into the wire coil as she picks up the book and squares it on the coffee table. "Maybe I'll just read. Have you got much more to do?"

"Too much. I could take a break."

"No. Finish up. You'll be at it all night if you stop now." She stands behind him at the dining room table, runs her fingers through her short auburn curls, then massages his shoulders and his neck.

"Mm. That feels good. I won't be long. I promise."

"I'll take Jackson for a walk. Would you like that, boy?"

"It must be minus forty. Bundle up."

"It's been minus forty for a week. Maybe the thermometer is frozen."

She kisses the top of his head and pulls on a pair of Stanfield's, then snow pants before her heavy coat and gauntlet mitts. Her slight frame becomes bulky. Under the padding, she's no longer twenty-something, slim and leggy. She becomes roughly the same age and size and shape as everyone else in Otter Creek in winter.

Outside the teacherage, Jackson pulls at the leash. Frost pinches Nina's nostrils and squeezes a tear from each eye. Wood smoke chokes her; the cold is a blanket that cools the hot air and holds the fine ash close to the earth. She presses the hood of her parka tight, zipping it completely closed with her other hand. Snug inside its cave, she tips her head up. The small circle of night sky framed in wolverine is filled with more stars than she could have imagined five months ago. How the hell do you capture that? How do you draw the cold or the night? How do explain it's not a surface spattered with white dots, but something three dimensional? Something in motion. Something shimmering and alive.

Nina and Timothy Parks and Jackson, an aging, black part-Irish Setter, had arrived in Otter Creek five months before, two hundred miles by air north of Muskoshee, the railhead, itself two hundred additional miles north of the closest provincial highway. Tim, to teach at the six room reserve school. Nina, to pursue her career in art. To "translate the north's subtle beauty into hues and pigments." That was dealer-babble from the owner of Toronto's prestigious Auk Gallery. That was a laugh.

Translation. The minute that the ponderous DC-3 touched down on the gravel runway last September, lifted, bounced, lifted and skidded to a halt, Nina knew the job would be too big for any canvas. The horizon was, for three hundred sixty degrees, as even and as flat as an ocean. An uninterrupted panorama of distant spruce. How do you translate that? Not the land or endless sky, not the people or the way they live. Nothing seems to translate at all.

Nina lets the dog pull her down the silent, snow-packed main street past house after house, peeling white or peeling brown or peeling green. In every other way, each one is identical in size and shape. Every one a disgrace. Drafty. Three bedrooms off an open kitchen-living room that would invariably have some kind of central wood stove -- most of them homemade, fashioned from a forty-five gallon oil drum. No running water. No basement. All of them filled with people who spoke a different language and acted differently. Put that into pigment, Mr. Yorkville dealer.

Like trying to paint an Otter Creek sunset, one that would explode from the treeline up, past the zenith, half way to the opposite horizon. Colours reflecting off clouds bouncing back and forth until Nina simply folded down the watercolour tin and walked away from her easel. Dizzy from the effort. Yes, it all is beautiful. Sometimes sad, sometimes happy, but always too beautiful for words. More to the point, too beautiful for paint.

"Let's warm up and get a treat, Jackson." Nina's voice is muffled in the parka, but the dog shivers and wags his silky tail. "Let's see if Antoine has the coffee on."

Antoine's is a curious mix of house and corner store. He's put up wooden shelves around a living room that's been expanded by knocking out one bedroom wall. There are cases of pop and chips on the floor. Everything from chainsaws to beaver traps to canned corn and tins of Klik in quantities of three or four each sit on mostly empty shelves.

His front door is nailed shut to improve the insulation so Nina, like all his customers, troops around to the back, then must march right through his kitchen on the way into the "store." Nina has learned that in Otter Creek knocking on doors is a sign of unfriendliness. She pushes through the cluttered porch, stamping snow off her boots to warn Antoine that he has a guest or customer or both.

She unzips the parka first. Then she tells Jackson to "Lie down" and "Stay" just inside the kitchen door. It's a compromise -- as so many things have been since they arrived. She and Antoine have talked it through. Dogs don't belong inside a house. They scare the kids especially. It gives the store a bad name in the village. On the other hand, this dog is extraordinary to the Cree in that it understands English and does what it's told. On the other hand, the kitchen isn't the store, not quite. On the other hand, Antoine is over sixty and, as an elder, whatever he does must be respected.

"Wah che yay." Nina greets him, wasting her only Cree expression at the start of the conversation. He stands by the stove warming his hands. "Brr. It's cold in here."

Antoine smiles and points to the ceiling above the stove. "Fire."

Nina looks through a crude hole in the ceiling surrounding the stove pipe, into the night sky. She can see the moon. "What happened?"

"Chimney catch on fire."

"Oh my god, Antoine. Are you okay? Did you call 911?" Nina wonders where the fire department might be; she realizes she's never seen it.

Antoine laughs. "No 911 here. No engine. No water pressure. No men. No good anyway. Fire here is too fast. Most times it only takes an hour to burn a house completely down -- just ashes left." He laughs.

"What do you mean 'chimney fire'? Damn, it is cold in here. How are you going to make it through the night?"

"I'll be fine. Just make it small fire now. Creosote. The black stuff builds up in the pipes. If it catches fire, the pipe gets red hot, starts the wood around it burning. I noticed it in time. Only thing I could do was grab a chain saw off the shelf, put in gas, get up on a new stepladder, and cut around the pipe. Lucky thing I have a store close by, right?" He laughs again. "You want some coffee, Miz Parks?"

"Sure, Antoine. I'll have a coffee. And I'll take a Coke for Tim."

"You bring me another painting. Okay? The pilot, he paid forty. Now you're rich. Twenty dollars credit. He wants more."

"Sure, Antoine." How do you explain that a piece of tent cloth with some splashes of paint on it might be worth a few thousand in Toronto? Well, a thousand after the Auk gets paid. How you explain that even though you can't draw a single cartoon character from memory, that people in the south still think that you're an artist? How do you convince someone that art is something besides a tourist trinket? That shapes are never outlines at all -- just the interplay of shadow and contour? Maybe understanding that is easier than understanding how an old man cuts a hole in his own roof when it's forty below zero.

A few minutes later a half dozen ruddy-cheeked, ten year-old hockey players come into the room demanding chips and candy bars and sodas. While they push each other and pantomime slap shots and blocks from their street game, Nina and Jackson slip back into the crisp night air and go home. How do you translate home?

###

It's March. The winter has ceased being a novelty. Skating and skiing and broomball and ice fishing have all been presented as gifts to Nina by friendly students from Tim's class who think that the woman-who-has-a-dog-instead-of-a-child must lack entertainment. To them, a twenty-five year-old es-kwao is a spinster instead of a woman-with-a-career, but they would nevertheless like her to like winter even half as much as they seem to like it.

Nina has filled an entire sketchbook with what appears to be nothing to the students who visit in the evenings. Snow. Watercolours with the faintest hints of blue and yellow that attempt to show moguls and valleys, that try to distinguish between granular and powder and cotton flakes. That try to show how drifts form in layers and ridges and how white sifts over white like someone kicking sand on a beach. Nina suspects that the book is indeed blank, that the beauty in the snow is all inside her mind where it is trapped forever.

Jackson has to stay at home today. She can't take him to the store, not the Hudson's Bay Store. She would have to leave him outside at the mercy of the village dogs, who've become so aggressive at this time of year that the Band now pays a man to shoot strays on sight.

The store is at the far end of Otter Creek and she takes a packsack so she can carry their groceries back to the teacherage. As she is going in, Antoine is coming out.

"Wah-che-ay, Miz Parks."

"Wah-che-ay. How's it going, Antoine? How's the roof?"

"Roof fixed. How's the art business? You make another picture for the pilot?"

"I'm working on it. Next week, okay?"

"Next week is good." Then he leans close to her to confide something. "My grandson is back from Muskoshee. He didn't like the school there. We'll have a little... Big celebration." His grin is broad. "You come by if you want. Bring Tim. We party."

"I'll ask him, Antoine. It's kind of hard since he's a teacher. Having parties. You know."

"Secret then." He puts his finger to his smiling lips.

Nina has stayed away from local parties in the past and she'll avoid this one too, in spite of Antoine's invitation. Things often get out of hand, so she's been told. Tim says that getting involved would be "awkward" for his position in the community. Still, she's curious, even tempted. She doesn't fear the Cree people. She's met no one yet who's been impolite or unfriendly. Tim gets along with the kids and parents. Except for one or two. There's always one or two, he says, no matter where your school is.

Inside the store, she fills a basket with tinned vegetables and meats, weighing each item in her hand with an eye to the long walk home. She stopped longing for an avocado or kiwi months ago. The store manager told her how impractical they are. He explained the shipping costs and local palate. She's tried eating their wild meats and bannock at community feasts. She finds goose and beaver and even moose to be so rich in fat and gamey that she sometimes has to gag. The popular dumplings, breads and potatoes are things she's eaten only in moderation since she was a teen. A steady diet of canned food is another compromise that would amuse and puzzle their southern friends and families.

Nina is standing in the long check-out line when someone pushes her from behind.

"Your husband teacher?"

She turns around. The middle-aged man is twice her size, jacket and shirt both undone. One pant leg inside his boot, the other out. She forces herself to smile politely. "Tim Parks? Yes, he is."

The man rests his hand on her shoulder and she is instantly afraid. "No good teacher. Mister fugging Pargs." The smell of whiskey is overpowering.

Nina's eyebrows lift. Her throat constricts. There is nothing to say anyway. He squeezes her shoulder a little harder, but it is only for a second.

"Mah chah!" An older woman shoves the bare chest of Nina's assailant, and he releases his grip at once. The woman continues to berate him in Cree, pushing him and scolding as he retreats toward the exit. Nina has no idea what has been said or why.

Nina sets her basket on the floor and, feigning calm, she leaves. She knows that the old woman will be on her doorstep later that afternoon, probably with a youngster in tow to put the apology into English. She will express her regret about the incident and explain that her son or cousin or nephew was "feeling sick" and "the craziness" was talking, that her grandchildren are good students and love the school and especially Mr. Parks. And all of it will be true, even if it makes no sense at all.

At lunchtime, Nina stands in front of their picture window. The late winter sun pours into the living room warming the braided rug where Jackson is sprawled. She thinks she might make another sleeping dog sketch and is considering closing the drapes to change the light when she notices, three houses away on the other side of the main street, a group of laughing men heading into Antoine's back porch. One of the men is the one from the store. The men laugh and slap each other on the back in a way men rarely do in public. The party must already be underway.

The whole episode at the store is silly, she thinks. She was silly to let it frighten her, foolish to leave her groceries. She will only have to go back there again tomorrow. Telling Tim would just upset him. She could recount what happened truthfully and she could describe the man, but the background is hazy and out of focus. And without a background things are just another mystery. She is not sure she wants to understand anyway. A snowflake set against a million other snowflakes, she thinks. She finds the Jackson sketch pad and wonders if the pilot would accept a watercolour of a dog sleeping on a rug.

###

Saturday morning. Five am. Tim is asleep. He's had another exhausting week at school. It's always something. This week a grade three student "vandalized" another student's artwork on a bulletin board. The budding artist turned out to be the vandal's cousin, and it looks like the Minister of Indian Affairs himself might be called upon to sort out the inter-family rivalry and the appropriate punishment for the culprit. Tim has used the word 'absurd' so many times that it has lost its meaning, so many times that she is sure Tim will take her back to the city next September whether she has translated anything or not.

She makes coffee in the kitchen, hoping the snapping of the spruce kindling and cardboard in the stove won't wake her husband. As soon as the blaze is bright enough to feed larger pieces into the firebox and turn the damper down, she'll take Jackson out to pee and then sit in front of the picture window and watch the sunrise.

This morning she'll work on clouds. Not tricks with wide stiff brushes in oil or acrylics; she'll mould the shapes in black and white with charcoal. The coffee pot groans almost as loudly as the fire as she opens the drapes to check on the progress of the sun. The cloudscape is perfect. False dawn makes it light enough so she can see the smoke rise from the chimneys, see the cold smash it back toward the ground.

"Oh, my God."

There is a light in Antoine's picture window. Bright orange fingers of flame pull at his drapes. Oh, no. She has trained her eye to see the truth in shapes and shadow; now she searches the scene for some lie to make it go away. She sees herself running across the snow in her bare feet, her nightgown flapping in the quiet breeze. She sees herself charging up the back steps just as the roof collapses, raining fire all around her. No. Antoine isn't there. There's no one in that house. She sees herself running into their bedroom, shaking Tim awake, screaming that there's a fire at Antoine's and Tim pulling on his boots. Jackson excited, chasing his tail and barking. She sees them disappear in slow motion into the jaws of the fire to be chewed up and swallowed. The flames lick at the kitchen windows and smoke pours from both porches. Oh god. He isn't there. He's off somewhere else with those men with a bottle sleeping it off. He can't be there. She knows it's too late, that there is no number to call, no one with a fireproof coat and oxygen mask and weeks of training. She sees the shadows at Antoine's windows dancing, forming new realities and dreams.

She closes the drapes and sits on the braided carpet and hugs Jackson until she hears shouts, until there are men running through her yard toward the burning house.

Then she wakes Tim with a cup of coffee in her hand and tells him there's a fire but it's too late; it's over. The walls have already fallen in and there is nothing to do but stand and watch. Nothing for anyone to do. She tells Tim, surely Antoine wasn't there. They'll see him soon, standing outside with the others moaning about all the Klik and chips that were burnt up in the fire.

The clouds are perfect. Nina watches them stretch their lazy arms across the east in neon colours.

###

Two days later, there is a knock at their front door, which is not nailed shut to keep out drafts. Something, of course, the Department would not allow in a teacherage. It's late afternoon and Tim is still at school although his students went home a half hour ago.

The young Native man at the door looks her in eye, something she thought was taboo, and asks her if he can come in. He tells her his name is Joseph and his grandfather was Antoine.

Nina offers him tea.

Joseph sits on their brown cloth chesterfield for almost five minutes without saying anything after declining the tea.

"I'm so sorry about your grandfather. We talked sometimes. Antoine was my friend."

The young man looks up into her eyes when she says "friend." "Your window faces his house. Did you see anything that morning?"

Nina feels that he has made an accusation. "It was too late. When I looked out, there were people standing around. The flames were coming out the windows and roof was caving in. It was too late, Joseph."

"I had to ask."

"We told the police already."

"Your window is right there."

Nina got up to get herself tea. "It was too late," she says from the kitchen. It was too late, she says to herself. And she knows they will not be back next year. She knows its not possible to translate any of this into words or onto paper, into charcoal shapes or shadows.