The Shaman's Knife by Scott Young Page B

chapters covering World War I and part of World War II. Names went through my head: Robert Graves. Wilfred Owen. Siegfried Sassoon . . . And fragments. “Scarlet majors from the base . . .” (I’ve met civil servants like that. And some policemen.) There was one about a soldier being scolded for his uniform being dirty and replying, “It’s blood, sir,” and being told, “Blood’s dirt.”
    I wondered where those thoughts came from—“blood’s dirt”—and walked slowly toward the terrace of five two-story townhouses where there had been a lot of blood, some of it related to me. Maxine rented one in a row like this in Inuvik. I walked toward the unit with a brass number 2 on the door, and knocked. Immediately within there was a rush of footsteps. The door was flung open by a boy, behind him a girl a little younger, both yelling, “It’s Matteesie!”
    Then I could see Annie coming from the kitchen at the rear, bulky and broad-hipped, with long gray-black hair parted in the middle, an old-looking wool cardigan unbuttoned and hanging loose, a skirt of some heavy material, embroidered sealskin slippers on her feet.
    Without a word, she clasped me to her, a person of my own blood making me welcome.
    â€œCome in, Matteesie! Come in!” she said. I followed her back into the warm kitchen where she set out tea things and biscuits, soon pouring tea and pushing the milk jug and sugar bowl toward me. I hadn’t felt so much at home for a while.
    â€œAnd your mother, our dear
anaanak
?” she asked, using the Inuktitut term for grandmother. I told her a little of what had happened that morning and that mother still had the bad headache, but at least had been moved to Franklin House.
    From there, we spoke in Inuktitut. Nothing of what was said about the murders differed in any important detail from what my mother had said. The kids acted out the thumps and shouts, falling over one another to get the message across. Annie’s voice and expression were full of regret as she said, “I missed all that part, fell right asleep as soon as I got home. I keep thinking if I’d been not so tired, this terrible thing might not have happened.”
    Strangely enough, as we talked on and on, comfortably, I had a strong feeling that Annie was holding back something and that perhaps eventually I would hear more. I didn’t press it. I had no more than skimmed the reports made by Barker and Bouvier, when they had originally questioned Annie and her children. Rather than go over the same information twice, I thought I would read or listen to everything available. There would be lots of time to come back to her on some points.
    â€œWe have room if you wish to stay here,” Annie said. “That blizzard outside is getting worse, instead of better.”
    Very politely and reasonably, I explained, “Phone calls, official stuff, it’ll all be handier if someone is trying to reach me and I’m at the detachment or the hotel.”
    â€œWell, at least have supper, you have to eat!” My stomach was saying yes and my head was saying no, droning away less and less convincingly that I had so much to catch up on, and should get at it.
    She took out four caribou steaks, put on a frying pan with the heat on high, dropped in what seemed to be the last of her butter and leftover fried potatoes, kept turning them, moved them to the oven with bannock when they were hot, heated canned corn, dropped frozen peas into boiling water, threw the steaks into the smoking pan. It was wonderful. We kept talking as we ate. When I took my last bite of caribou I’m pretty sure I seemed wide awake. I still was intending to go . . . and then, while we were drinking tea, my eyelids went closing, closing, closed.
    She led me upstairs like a sleepwalker and showed me a turned-down single bed. I didn’t ask whose it was.
    â€œI’ll phone Bouvier,” she said, I