Back of it, next to their barn, is their rental quarters, our yurt, our home for the last four days. (Yurts get rented out around here so tourists can get a taste of local colour.) Two beds in a makeshift loft, where it isn’t so stinky as below plus you get more heat from the barrel stove but also more smoke. So Ivy because of her asthma sleeps on the cot below.
But mostly we stay in the main house, where I am now, writing this. Abrakam and Flaxseed seem to be more than happy with the little we can pay them, and their home is our home, sort of thing. They’re not letting on to anyone we’re here except for a few trusted neighbours of their faith, which is Baha’i, not Muslim like most around here, and they’re really not supposed to practise their religion. We explained we’re from a religious minority ourselves, Doukhobors, even though we’re not all that observant.
As we get to know our hosts better, they’re opening up, giving us clues that they’re not very sympathetic to the national government, which is a dictatorship. We’ve taken to helping them with the chores, but when they see anyone coming up the driveway (you can spot them easily, three miles down the hill) we have to hide. Abrakam says we could be in great danger, being Canadian. We’re so relieved our saviours are so protective, so wise to the ways of this strange land.
Well, we’ve finally got used to the fatty mutton and sheep’s milk and some weird kind of curd as part of our daily diet, and we have our cribbage board which I play with Abrakam in the evenings, and there’s some old Russian novels — you wouldn’t believe how the language is coming back. It’s actually quite pretty around here, the valleys and the far snowy mountains, but it’s getting really wintry, the snow sticking, and the little river down in the valley is into freeze-up.
No phone here, and I wouldn’t trust it anyway. Abrakam says he’ll try to find a safe way to mail this letter, but I told him not to take any chances. We heard some Canadians are in jail in Igorgrad, big wheels, oil company executives, and with their clout, if they’re in trouble, we’ll stay right here, thank you.
Meanwhile, I hope nobody in Ottawa does anything stupid to make matters worse. We’re about five hundred miles from the Russian border, Siberia actually, and it’s way the hell over the mountains, so we’re sticking it out until peace has been declared.
Take care. Don’t worry. Be strong.
Gobs of love,
Jill XOXOXO
13
Finally, at sundown, Savannah’s visitors left — a boisterous bunch from Vancouver Island this time, foes of fish farms — and it wasn’t until they were prepping dinner (unfarmed salmon, local) that Arthur told Savannah about DiPalma. She took it as a joke, naturally, when he asked if she’d mind being infiltrated, and continued merrily cutting up lemons. “Hey, invite him for dinner.”
“I’ll summon him from his B amp; B.” The Lovenest, Emily LeMay, prop., specializing in season in honeymooners, anyone who dares during the rest of the year.
Finally convinced he was serious, she demanded a trustworthy witness, not just Arthur, before she would consort with “a fucking CSIS agent.” Reverend Al Noggins was their choice, three times winner of the Garibaldi Upstanding Citizen Award, and he arrived almost simultaneously with DiPalma, bringing several bottles of his prize-winning fall fair wine, misunderstanding this as a social event.
For three hours, over barbecued salmon, then apple pie, they listened with incredulity to DiPalma, his words flowing out as copiously as the prize wine flowed in. He seemed unconcerned about confiding in Reverend Al — the priest might be Protestant but he was a man of the cloth, and that was enough for this God-fearing secret agent.
Savannah decided to play along with “whatever’s going on,” as she put it. But after the guests left, she expressed doubts about DiPalma that echoed those of the local member of Parliament. “I’m going to watch and wait and see.”
“I have some people checking him out. Nothing to lose.”
“I wonder.”
Though it was nearly midnight in Ottawa, Arthur chanced a call to Margaret, whose line had been tied up earlier, and got her out of bed. “He’s here.” Breathless, low, he wasn’t sure who might be listening.
“Who?”
“You know.”
“Not him.”
“Yes, on Garibaldi.”
“Arthur, you have to back off from him. This isn’t good. Damn, don’t do anything bizarre. I have an early interview. I’ll call when I can.”
Arthur felt like a resentful child, unfairly spanked. He retreated to the non-judgmental solace of his old club chair, opened a book recommended to him, Empires of the Steppes.
He was three hours into its eight hundred pages, halfway through the history of Bhashyistan, when he nodded off, and soon he was playing lead actor in the theatre of the subconscious. This time, not a sweaty nightmare of the carnage on Colonel By Drive, starring instead Ray DiPalma, sneaking up on him, or jumping from behind a door or tree, morphing from clown to evil genius to mad Hamlet, frightening Arthur with his intimate disclosures. “I love you like a father.” Weeping, clutching him.
He woke at an hour uncertain with a painful thud: Empires of the Steppes had fallen on his foot. He massaged a sore toe, then a creaky neck, then switched off the lamp and manoeuvred toward the stairs, finding his way in darkness relieved only by a glow from the kitchen.
He looked in — the fridge door was open, and Savannah, in a frozen state of unconscious indecision, in pyjama top and bikini bottoms, was staring blankly at the leftover macaroni. She’d been dieting, but the unaware self had not paid heed. Averting his eyes from her bent-over bottom, he sought to gently wake her, speaking her name. She was unresponsive.
When he sought to pry her hand from the fridge door, she jumped, looked wildly about, stepped quickly back, the fridge door swinging shut, darkness enshrouding them.
“Who are you?” she cried. “What are you doing?”
“It’s just me, Savannah.”
“Who? Arthur? Where are we?” She took some time to orient herself, even after Arthur found the light switch. She blinked, looked about, breathing heavily. “I should be in bed, I’m sorry.”
Arthur followed her there, settled her in, made hasty retreat upstairs.
“Breakfast!” Savannah hollered from downstairs. Coffee’s seductive aroma, the sizzle of bacon. No vegan she, unlike her stringy, over-healthy partner.
“Coming!” He padded off to his bathroom. Normally, he shared kitchen duties, but somehow he’d over-adjusted his inner clock to West Coast time, slept in till almost nine on this first day of December.
Wet-haired and gleaming from his shower, he found Savannah cheerily breaking eggs into a pan, listening to the CBC, no residual damage from last night. Rarely did she discuss her sleepwalking, shrugging it off as a minor life nuisance, and she didn’t mention it this morning. She greeted him with a bold hug, however, a full body press that threatened to arouse (he was ashamed to admit) an inappropriate physiological response. But she drew away in time.
“What’s on the news?” he asked.
“Bhashyistan. This thing looks like it’s subsided into a phony war, world leaders huddling, Security Council in no hurry to meet, NATO sitting on the sidelines. Nobody seems to be taking this seriously but you, me, and the Ultimate Leader. And maybe that freaky geek you saddled me with.”
Arthur got tied up in the early afternoon because Papillon, the adventurous nanny, got stuck in a fence attempting one of her miraculous escapes. When he returned to the house, a dozen locals were already in session debating strategies against the developers of Starkers Cove.