The wise man said that he had an Inuk wife who was twenty years younger than he. They were ecstatic together. She was the granddaughter of one of Baffin Island's last shamans. The shaman had never said anything against his enemies, and never seemed to do anything against them, but by some coincidence they all came to horrible ends. The wise man's wife had inherited some of his power. Whenever the wise man started thinking about how he was ready for a cigarette or a cup of coffee, before he'd even said anything or started to move, his dear wife would be handing it to him. One night he was dreaming beside her and he felt her somewhere very near and when he opened his eyes he was speaking Inuktitut to her even though he didn't know that language. Another time he was dreaming of sailing and his wife shook him awake quite angrily and said: Get out of my dreams! and he said: What was I dreaming of? and she said: Sailing. . and he shivered because she was so very special and strange. Whenever he went anywhere on a trip, the phone would be ringing when he walked into the hotel; somehow she'd know that he had just arrived and would be calling to say she loved him.
I almost married an Inuk girl, too, the husband said. But she kept sniffing too much gasoline. It never would have worked.
The wise man smiled gently and said to him in the voice of truth: You made a mistake.
After that he was on assignment in Hall Beach — which is to say eight million frozen tussocks away from the wise man — and it was exactly as cold as Phnom Penh had been hot and his friend Jeremy started swearing because the pilot light had gone off; they felt the winter instantly even through the triple thick walls. They sat drinking Scotch. Jeremy said that the first time he'd been unfaithful to his Inuk wife he'd gone to a dance and picked up a Greenlandic girl, a friend of his wife's. He'd done it with her once and then she called him and so he did it with her again. Then she called him a second time, and he said he wasn't interested. Jeremy told the husband proudly that he'd never enjoyed it, had only done it for revenge against his wife; therefore he'd been extremely moral. The husband nodded and drank his Scotch.
Well, Jeremy, what was the reason you did it?
My wife, you see — I still don't like to talk about it. I'd moved in with her, aye? And we were getting married; everything looked good. Then I found this letter she'd been hiding. Something about it, just the way those hooks and symbols lay on the page, well, I didn't like the look of it. So I got it translated. And it was a love letter. It talked about all the things he did with her. And I'd been drinking with the bastard the same night! I went over to his house and he was asleep. I told him that I was going to kill him. I smashed a few things in there and whacked him a couple of times, and then he apologized, aye? But I never could quite make up with the wife. She's such a witch sometimes! That was around the time she'd started getting cold to me, you know what I mean? At night she always brought one of the kids into bed between us so she wouldn't have to do anything. That was when I started screwing around. And I've done it with ten or twenty girls now — some real young ones, too, I'll tell you! — and I am proud to tell you that I've never enjoyed it once! I'm a man of principle! But I don't know what to do about this new AIDS business. .
And how are you getting on with your wife now?
Pour you another shot?
Sure.
Well, just recently she started coming on to me again, but she's getting older and doesn't attract me quite so much, aye? And now she's having some kind of mid life crisis. Suddenly she wants to be Inuk more than ever. She insists on eating walrus meat, which she always hated before and which I hate because it's a putrid jelly. It really stinks up the house. But that doesn't matter; she has to do it. And then there's the matter of striking the kids. That's what burns me up. I think it's a good idea to discipline the kids a little. Hell, the rest of the world does it. Maybe those Inuks should realize that if everybody else does it, maybe there's a reason. Maybe they could learn something, aye? Look how fucked up all the kids are up here! But no, the wife won't have it. One time she wanted some caribou from the freezer to boil for dinner, so I said to our eldest, Cecily, I says, go and get your mother some caribou. And she had the cheek to refuse! Well, I said, if you don't do as your mother wants you'll have nothing to eat tonight. - I was defending my wife! — And my wife turned on me and said: Don't you dare threaten your children!
So you think you made a mistake to marry her?
Damned right I did! Just last night she struck me again with the hairbrush; tell me if you don't see the mark!
What about Stuart and his wife? They don't have problems, do they?
Oh, yes, Stu has problems.
Well, what about Roger and Annie? the husband said in triumph. Roger and Annie were the couple at the Bay store, the perfect ones who had told him to drop in for dinner.
Oh, but they're young yet, eh? — A grim and monitory laugh. - Only in their twenties. I'd like to uhh! her! But give her ten years, and she'll be just like my wife.
What about me?
What about you?
That Inuk girl I had that crush on -
Easy enough to get a crush, now, isn't it?
So you really think it would be a mistake to marry her?
Oh definitely, said Jeremy, pouring himself another drink, it would be a mistake.
I feel like I have a spirit inside me like a flame, his friend Ben once said. And I have to sleep with my spirit. If someone gives me something that I think is too good for me to accept, then 1 try to get up my courage to get my spirit to accept it. Because my spirit deserves the best. But my spirit isn't the only thing inside me. There are a lot of different souls.