The berg groaned, dipped, then torqued its new face toward me until I saw myself, naked and motionless in my aquamarine cage, frozen-open eyes staring out at the hissing salt spray. My body tilted side to side with the berg as it wobbled like a giant children’s toy in a tub, until the ocean seethed beneath it and spun it away.
nine
Scribbling notes in my journal at dawn the next morning, I paused to gaze out my lone window at a carpet of drift ice that clogged the bay, the silence so complete I thought for a second I’d lost my hearing. Coughed to prove to myself I hadn’t. Something white on the floor caught my eye. A sheet of notebook paper had been slipped under my door. In Wyatt’s sideways scrawl: “Had to get an early start. Nora and Raj at the Dome. Jeanne with me. Good luck with the kid. See you at dinner.”
I wandered to the living room, nearly tripping over a pile of blankets and pillows at the front door, which turned out to be the girl hibernating. For two nights she’d refused to sleep anywhere but curled up next to it, as if trying to breathe whatever glacial air made its way to her. I sipped my coffee and gnawed at a piece of toast, determination crystallizing. We—this girl and I—were going to have a breakthrough today. It was day nine. Already the ten hours of daylight we enjoyed the day I arrived had slipped to just under seven and was dropping fast.
I bent down and said in my sweetest voice, “Good morning, time to get up.” No movement. “Hello,” I said to the clump of blankets. “I’ve got fish here. Meat. Whatever you want.”
She poked her head out—expression comically cranky—evicted her blankets, and got to her feet, my unknowable girl in her fraying sweater-dress, most of the knitted reindeer stretched out beyond recognition. She flew down the hallway and returned with her special coffee can, now half-full, handing it to me with zero embarrassment. After emptying the contents, I found her sitting cross-legged on Wyatt’s desk, chewing on a piece of raw halibut. She’d obviously figured out the refrigerator. I cleared a space next to her on the desk and spread out the picture books, coloring books, toys, paper, markers.
“So, let’s try this again.” I pointed to myself. “My name is Val. Can you say Val?” I patted my breastbone. “Val.”
Nothing.
I pointed at her. “You are…”
She snatched the remaining morsel from its paper wrapper as if I might steal it from her and crammed it in her mouth. That’s when I saw her molars; they were almost completely worn down. My breath caught in my throat. From what I’d read, starting girls early in the tradition of chewing caribou hides to soften them enough to cut and sew for clothes was archaic, a custom no longer practiced except perhaps in isolated villages.
She swallowed the last piece and turned toward the picture window.
“Today, we’re going to learn the names of things.”
She reached up to the pane, squeaking clear a little circle with her finger. I clicked on my recorder I kept in my shirt pocket. She drew another circle, each time saying what might have been a number. Two rows of eight rings, the third row only seven, the last of which she rubbed out hard. Again and again she performed this ritual. Is it the act of counting that’s important, the circles themselves, the rubbing out of the last one, or all of it? Beyond her small hand, the sun rested on the horizon, swept with dove-gray streaks in the purplish light.
I noisily dumped out the markers and crayons, flipped open the picture books, cleared my throat. “Okay, you need to look at me, honey. You need to look over here.” As gently as I could, I took hold of her narrow shoulders and turned her toward me.
She tore out of my grip, punching down with her fishy hands, scattering the books and toys to the floor. Let loose a high-pitched shriek and pounded on the desk.
A flame of fury and frustration shot through me, so strong it frightened me. I paced the chaotic space, picking my way among the anarchy. Why won’t she just try? What is wrong with me that she won’t respond at all?
I went to the front door, banged on it once. “Is this what you want? You want to go outside? Say it: outside. Or you’re not going anywhere.”
Her eyes widened. She slid her legs off the desk and let them dangle there. Though the sight of her grimy little calves and feet aggrieved me, I never grew tired of looking at her: this child who had lived a life worlds apart from mine. Her expressive face, capable of conveying humor, sarcasm, pain, delight, fear, and maybe even love, her miles-long words and sentences, her bursts of laughter, even her fits of tears were as much a wonder to me as her refusal to learn confounded me.