From tree to tree he limps, elusive, white, a rumour. In search of his own kind.
Here’s a human footprint, in the sand. Then another one. They aren’t sharp-edged, because the sand here is dry, but there’s no mistaking them. And now here’s a whole trail of them, leading down to the sea. Several different sizes. Where the sand turns damp he can see them better. What were these people doing? Swimming, fishing? Washing themselves?
They were wearing shoes, or sandals. Here’s where they took them off, here’s where they put them on again. He stamps his own good foot into the wet sand, beside the biggest footprint: a signature of a kind. As soon as he lifts his foot away the imprint fills with water.
He can smell the smoke, he can hear the voices now. Sneaking he goes, as if walking through an empty house in which there might yet be people. What if they should see him? A hairy naked maniac wearing nothing but a baseball cap and carrying a spraygun. What would they do? Scream and run? Attack? Open their arms to him with joy and brotherly love?
He peers out through the screen of leaves: there are only three of them, sitting around their fire. They’ve got a spraygun of their own, a CorpSeCorps daily special, but it’s lying on the ground. They’re thin, battered-looking. Two men, one brown, one white, a tea-coloured woman, the men in tropical khakis, standard issue but filthy, the woman in the remains of a uniform of some kind—nurse, guard? Must have been pretty once, before she lost all that weight; now she’s stringy, her hair parched, broomstraw. All three of them look wasted.
They’re roasting something—meat of some kind. A rakunk? Yes, there’s the tail, over there on the ground. They must have shot it. The poor creature.
Snowman hasn’t smelled roast meat for so long. Is that why his eyes are watering?
He’s shivering now. He’s feverish again.
What next? Advance with a strip of bedsheet tied to a stick, waving a white flag? I come in peace. But he doesn’t have his bedsheet with him.
Or, I can show you much treasure. But no, he has nothing to trade with them, nor they with him. Nothing except themselves. They could listen to him, they could hear his tale, he could hear theirs. They at least would understand something of what he’s been through.
Or, Get the hell off my turf before I blow you off, as in some old-style Western film. Hands up. Back away. Leave that spraygun. That wouldn’t be the end of it though. There are three of them and only one of him. They’d do what he’d do in their place: they’d go away, but they’d lurk, they’d spy. They’d sneak up on him in the dark, conk him on the head with a rock. He’d never know when they might come.
He could finish it now, before they see him, while he still has the strength. While he can still stand up. His foot’s like a shoeful of liquid fire. But they haven’t done anything bad, not to him. Should he kill them in cold blood? Is he able to? And if he starts killing them and then stops, one of them will kill him first. Naturally.
“What do you want me to do?” he whispers to the empty air.
It’s hard to know.
Oh Jimmy, you were so funny.
Don’t let me down.
From habit he lifts his watch; it shows him its blank face.
Zero hour, Snowman thinks. Time to go.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to the Society of Authors (England), as the literary representative of the estate of Virginia Woolf, for permission to quote from To the Lighthouse; to Anne Carson for permission to quote from The Beauty of the Husband; and to John Calder Publications and Grove Atlantic for permission to quote eight words from Samuel Beckett’s novel, Mercier and Camier. A full list of the other quotations used or paraphrased on the fridge magnets in this book may be found at oryxandcrake.com. “Winter Wonderland,” alluded to in Part 9, is by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith, and is copyrighted by Warner Bros.
The name “Amanda Payne” was graciously supplied by its auction-winning owner, thereby raising much-needed funds for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (U.K.). Alex the parrot is a participant in the animal-intelligence work of Dr. Irene Pepperberg, and is the protagonist of many books, documentaries, and Web sites. He has given his name to the Alex Foundation. Thank you also to Tuco the parrot, who lives with Sharon Doobenen and Brian Brett, and to Ricki the parrot, who lives with Ruth Atwood and Ralph Siferd.
Deep background was inadvertently supplied by many magazines and newspapers and non-fiction science writers encountered over the years. A full list of these is available at oryxandcrake.com. Thanks also to Dr. Dave Mossop and Grace Mossop, and to Norman and Barbara Barichello, of Whitehorse, in the Yukon, Canada; to Max Davidson and team, of Davidson’s Arnheimland Safaris, Australia; to my brother, neurophysiologist Dr. Harold Atwood (thank you for the study of sex hormones in unborn mice, and other arcana); to Lic. Gilberto Silva and Lic. Orlando Garrido, dedicated biologists, of Cuba; to Matthew Swan and team, of Adventure Canada, on one of whose Arctic voyages a portion of this book was written; to the boys at the lab, 1939—45; and to Philip and Sue Gregory of Cassowary House, Queensland, Australia, from whose balcony, in March 2002, the author observed that rare bird, the Red-necked Crake.
My gratitude as well to astute early readers Sarah Cooper, Matthew Poulikakis, Jess Atwood Gibson, Ron Bernstein, Maya Mavjee, Louise Dennys, Steve Rubin, Arnulf Conradi, and Rosalie Abella; to my agents, Phoebe Larmore, Vivienne Schuster, and Diana Mackay; to my editors, Ellen Seligman of McClelland & Stewart (Canada), Nan Talese of Doubleday (U.S.A.), and Liz Calder of Bloomsbury (U.K.); and to my dauntless copyeditor, Heather Sangster. Also to my hardworking assistant, Jennifer Osti, and to Surya Bhattacharya, the keeper of the ominous Brown Box of research clippings. Also to Arthur Gelgoot, Michael Bradley, and Pat Williams; and to Eileen Allen, Melinda Dabaay, and Rose Tornato. And finally, to Graeme Gibson, my partner of thirty years, dedicated nature-watcher, and enthusiastic participant in the Pelee Island Bird Race of Ontario, Canada, who understands the obsessiveness of the writer.