Aquariums Read online

  Aquariums

  Aquariums

  J.D. Kurtness

  Translated by Pablo Strauss

  Translation © copyright by Dundurn Press, 2022

  Published by Dundurn Press Limited under arrangement with Les editions L’instant même, Longueuil, QC, Canada. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Originally published as Aquariums, L’instant même, 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Publisher and Acquiring editor: Scott Fraser | Editor: Diane Young

  Cover designer: Laura Boyle | Cover image: istock.com/Grafissimo

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Aquariums / J.D. Kurtness ; translated by Pablo Strauss.

  Other titles: Aquariums. English

  Names: Kurtness, J. D., 1981- author. | Strauss, Pablo, translator.

  Description: Translation of: Aquariums.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210252995 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210253010 | ISBN 9781459747760 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459747777 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459747784 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8621.U785 A6813 2022 | DDC C843/.6—dc23

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

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  Contents

  1. The Right to Be Unhappy

  2. In the Beginning

  3. The Mantle of the Earth

  4. Bacchanalia

  5. Sprezzatura

  6. The Conscript

  7. The Hadal Zone

  8. Dormancy

  Acknowledgements

  Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created mankind in His own image; in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

  — Genesis 1:26–27

  1 The Right to Be Unhappy

  HE AWAKES to a sky in that shade of blue that comes just before sunrise. The fire has burned down to a pile of glowing red embers. The others are still sleeping. He casts envious glances at the ones who share beds with women, a privilege he has let slip his grasp.

  The pain of the tattoos was too much to bear. Yet the ritual ceremony got off to a good start. He was eager to see his body inscribed with his people’s stories and entreaties to the gods for protection. It was a moment he’d visualized a thousand times before. He could picture a stoic figure impassive before the pain, see the blood, hear the hoarse voices chanting sacred songs. His face would be still as stone, his gaze determined, his self-control admired by one and all. He would go down in legend.

  This flight of fancy was quashed in a matter of hours. He had been warned it would be the longest night of his life. He’d emerged from his trance, opened his eyes. The moon had only just climbed over the horizon. The very concept of dawn seemed inconceivable. His mouth had filled with saliva. Despite the heat, he was shivering violently. The chanting seemed to swell, as if his people could feel his faltering. But their voices, when they finally reached him, were muted. Their strength could scarcely scratch the surface of his weakness.

  He pictured a broth with a layer of fat on top. Left out, the soup separates. That clear broth was him, unable to absorb the strength needed to face this trial. Above all, he had no thought for the consequences of his choice. This pain left him unable to think of other things. The suffering vanquished him, eclipsing all else. He begged for it to stop.

  Despair wells up each time he remembers that he has been found wanting. His cheeks and back ache terribly. He can barely chew. He has to sleep on his stomach. At least the days are warm, as he can’t imagine laying a garment over his torso. The slightest movement calls to mind his failure: he is not yet a man, not a full-fledged member of the tribe.

  Though he is tall and broad and his penis grows hard at will, no woman would want to consort with a coward, a boy too weak to submit to the sacred ritual without flinching. He has brought shame upon his father. He’s an object of mockery to his brothers and cousins. Even small children will tease him. Everything he endured this first time around will be in vain. He’ll have to start again at the beginning. And he’ll carry the double-markings as long as he lives, a silent reminder that he thought he was ready too soon. Now a cursory glance will make plain for all to see that he is vain, impatient, a poor judge of his own capacities. The hurried ones make the worst hunters.

  His mother tries to console him. Perseverance also has its virtues. To submit to the ritual twice instead of once shows great courage. But what does she know? She’s just a woman and hasn’t had to submit to the men’s ritual. What does she know of this dull, unrelenting pain that gnaws away at you for hours on end? With a smile in the corner of her eye, she answers, “I brought you into the world.”

  He doesn’t dare admit that he fears failing again next time ’round. He must clear his mind, purify his spirit the way the shaman taught him. It’s the only way he’ll be able to push through the entire initiation rite. Pain is powerless against a strong mind. His people are known not only for physical prowess but also for their mental self-control. Long before their tattooed bodies appear on the horizon, their reputation has already terrorized the enemy. By the time they show themselves, defeat is a foregone conclusion.

  His people have remedies for every malady save death itself. Their gods are listening and guiding them. The prophecies that visit them in dreams sooner or later come to pass. Is he worthy of bearing his ancestors’ name?

  He goes outside to think. The dwelling is stifling. He dislikes listening to his brother and Ita copulating. The sounds both excite and depress him. Outside, despite the chill in the air, a few shakes of his hand make him come. When he can concentrate again, he surveys the sky for signs of what the next few hours will bring.

  He heads for the boats. Since he’s awake anyway, he might as well make himself useful and go fishing. The mosquitoes don’t bother him as he makes his way down the steep path to the water. That must mean his wounds have stopped bleeding. Despite the previous days’ humiliation, he feels better. The aborted ritual left him nauseated and numb-legged. Those who complete the rite are entitled to rest, special salves that numb and fortify, tender glances from the womenfolk. He remembers the shaman’s warm, dry hand on his forehead — a single, fleeting caress. Fading into exhaustion until he fell asleep. Awaking to dishonour.

  The
path wends its way through the rocks to the bottom of the cliff, where a thin strip of grey pebbles makes a smooth boat launch. Thousands of footsteps over several hundred generations have polished a path in the rock. He wonders how many of his predecessors trod this path with heavy hearts. Could such a fate have been foreseen at birth? Had a toad entered the room where he drew his first breath? The signs are always there. It’s we humans who choose to ignore them.

  They should have tossed him over the cliff, as the southern tribes do with their deformed newborns. All these stories are good for is scaring the children. Why, then, do they now creep in to cloud his mind? He has to pull himself together, apply the shaman’s teachings, push away these harmful thoughts.

  He walks onto the beach. The water lies still, walled in by the cliffs. A perfect reflection of the landscape stretches all around him. He must take care: three false steps will be enough to lose his footing. The fjord is so deep no rope weighted with stone could ever be long enough to reach its bottom.

  Stories about a giant who sleeps in these depths are told to strike terror in the hearts of the little ones. The tiniest pebble might wake him; a single stone tossed carelessly into the water could leave the clan without fish for weeks. If yanked from his slumber, the curious giant will seek to punish the culprit. At any time, a gigantic hand could breach the surface of the water, grab a boat, and snap it in two like a tinder stick, squashing its unfortunate occupants like ripe fruit. This superstition has proven tenacious, and dropping anything heavy enough to sink is still considered a bad omen.

  Such dark thoughts rarely come, but when they do, they’re troubling. To pluck up his courage, he hurls a few rocks out into the water, using all his strength. Then he grabs canoe and oar, slides out onto the water. Of course, nothing moves. He paddles toward the mouth of the fjord, where the ocean spreads out as far as the eye can see.

  It’s going to be a beautiful day. A perfect day for fishing. The wind cuts scarcely a ripple in the water’s vast expanse. Calm finds the wounded boy again. He wonders where the gods would lead him if he chose to paddle straight out into open water and never turn back. The fresh air numbs his hands and skin swollen from recent injuries.

  When the coastline turns from green to blue — the blue of distance — he stops to ready his fishing gear. The only sounds are small waves lapping against the side of the boat and the breathing of porpoises in the distance. The sun climbs over the horizon. The boy is busy tying his knot when a loud crash tears through the air. Dry claps like thunder, then the breathing of what must be a colossal creature. For a moment he thinks it must be the giant. An irrational fear paralyzes him.

  What he sees is more extraordinary still. A fantastical creature, black as night and pink as the sole of a baby’s foot, is thrashing around in the surf just a hundred oar-strokes away. It dawns on him that what he’s watching is not one creature but two. The whale has a head shaped like a log. The powerful breathing he heard is hers. Her jaw is clamped on the trunk and the arrow-striped tail of a headless creature with long snakelike arms. He counts eight of these appendages, but who could say for sure in this tumult? The many arms clutch the sperm whale’s head with prodigious force. They even seem to be searching for the creature’s blowhole and eyes and leave large circular wounds in their wake.

  Blood pearls on the whale’s torn skin; still, it refuses to yield. The enemies spin around in the spume under the boy’s bewildered gaze. He has never seen a squid, much less a giant squid. The spectacle unfolding before his eyes has never been seen in living memory: a bloody fight to the death between two creatures from another world. As the sun climbs into a sky still graced with a pale crescent moon, the pearly pink of the squid reminds him of human flesh. The metallic scent of blood fills the air. Gulls flock by the hundreds, adding a new dimension to the din with their shrill squawks. The whale lets out a new salvo that rattles the boy’s ribcage. The squid’s trunk has been sectioned, but its tentacles flail on.

  Then it’s over. A few bobbing hunks of flesh drift toward the canoe. They are all that remains of this remarkable event. The water regains its oily sheen. The sun has not yet shed its orangey morning appearance. The boy has just one thought: No one is going to believe me.

  My first memory is a fantasy: I’m thigh-deep in a layer of flour that stretches to the horizon. It’s a pillowy world of white, dampening all sound. Solitude.

  In my fantasy, I get to roll around in this flour for all eternity. I can see my compact four-year-old body, my underwear, my fine hair, and nothing else. It’s a small heaven made for me alone, a thousand miles from that other dimension overcrowded with pious people I’ve never met, strolling along on the clouds. For a moment I swim, suspended in my desert of flour. It’s softer than silk.

  I return to this fantasy whenever I’m alone and before I fall asleep and again when I wake up. Whenever they leave me alone, basically. As soon as I get the chance, I dive right into this powdery realm of imagination. I become a worm, as tiny as a grain of rice, and tuck myself away in a bag in the back of the cupboard.

  My mother dies. I’m not surprised. I’ve had time to get used to the idea. She was sick. One day she’s there, loudly emptying the dishwasher; then she’s in the hospital, and then comes the funeral home. I know it took her four months to die. That’s what the grownups say anyway. But the mom I knew had already been gone for a long time. I’ll never again visit that room with the light-blue paint and the machines. That frail body in the centre of the bed. That naked skull, those sunken eyes surrounded by purplish circles. The acrid smell of her medication. Where is she now, the smiling woman I see holding a baby in that photo in the kitchen hallway? I overhear someone telling my father I’m already done mourning.

  I emerge from my white haze to find my father crying. We’re in the car. He’s driving; I’m strapped into my car seat in the back. I come out of my inner world and listen to the strange sounds he’s making. My woollen tights are uncomfortable, and the label on my dress scratches my neck. It’s cold in the car. It’s raining. My new shoes are covered in mud. I was careful, but I wanted to throw a handful of earth on the coffin, to be like the others. I fight off the urge to wipe my hand clean on my clothes. It stays dirty.

  We’re parked in front of our house. I wait in silence for my father to pull himself together and come help me get un-buckled. Then I’ll be able to take off my shoes, wash my hands, change my clothes, and watch TV.

  My favourite toy at five is a miniature blue-and-yellow stethoscope. It’s part of a medical kit, a set of scientific instruments that rest, each in its assigned place, inside a beige plastic case. I check the heart rate of everything: the floor, the walls, the cat, the dogs, my legs, my hands, my chest, my head. I check the ground to hear the earthworms wriggling beneath the surface. I check the trees to hear the sap flowing, but the little scratches I hear are birds walking along the upper branches. I press the stethoscope’s drum on our appliances and our doors. My favourite test subject is, of course, my father. And I have to face facts. A broken heart beats exactly like an unbroken one.

  I decide I’m going to be a veterinarian. I make bandages for my stuffed toys out of rags and fashion an IV drip with drinking straws that draw from an apple juice bottle filled with water. I care for my dolls as best I can. They cough. They give birth. They catch the flu, cancer, chicken pox, cystic fibrosis. I pat them on the back for minutes on end so they can expel their secretions. They get better.

  I start kindergarten at the same time as my neighbour. Valérie Lagueux has brown hair and is a full head taller than me. I spend a lot of time at her house after school, waiting for my dad to get home. But I don’t really like it at the Lagueux’s house. They have too much stuff. It feels as if all the furniture in the house is conspiring to target my shinbones with its sharp corners. Valérie’s mom is constantly angry, and she snaps at us. Everything we do seems to annoy her. She’s constantly asking us to go play outside so she can do the cleaning. And she never lets me take her heart
rate. Maybe she doesn’t want me to find out that she doesn’t have one?

  Mrs. Lagueux is a nurse. I imagine her ripping out IV drips, pressing down hard on patients’ bruises, shaking them, yelling at them. A scary thought occurs to me. What if all nurses are like this the second visitors leave the hospital room? What hell did my mom have to go through? I can’t ask my father, because talking about my mother makes him sad, and I hate seeing him cry.

  Valérie doesn’t seem bothered by her mother’s attitude. The same goes for her little sister. Andréanne is only sixteen months old — still a baby, really — but I don’t like her. She wears glasses that give her fish eyes, slobbers copiously, and eats dirt that collects with the uneaten bits of food on her chin and cheeks, forming little crusts. She’s got a perpetually snotty nose. She may not talk yet, but she sure screams, staring right at you, with her mouth agape. And Valérie and I are the ones who get stuck playing with her and looking after her. I think she might have a mental disability, but don’t dare ask. Thank God I’m an only child. No one gets to choose their siblings.

  Mr. Lagueux works a lot, just like my dad. I leave when he gets home. He has a Mister Potato Head moustache, black hair, and pale white skin, even in summer. He usually wears a green tie. He’s very tall and smells like perfume, more strongly than a woman even. The air in Valérie’s parents’ room is saturated with it. When I get back home, I sometimes feel like the scent has infused me as well. Mr. Lagueux also has hair plugs. Sad, lonely hairs have been sown in rows like saplings, from his forehead over the top of his skull. They gleam under the kitchen ceiling’s halogen bulbs.

  When I’m six, I ask my dad for a dog. The answer is no. No cat either. No rabbit, no parrot, no hamster. I swear up and down that I’ll take care of my own pet, but nothing makes a difference. I’m jealous of the boy whose mother comes to meet him every day after school with a black dog. When he gets off the school bus, the dog wags its tail. His mother tries to kiss him, but he pushes her away in annoyance. I must make a weird face as I watch them, because Valérie’s convinced I want to go out with him. Maybe I do. I mean, just to play with that dog. And get a closer look at this woman who caresses her son’s neck with her thumb.