Migrations(2)
I put Tasiilaq into my GPS and set off slowly on the cold road. The town will take all day to reach. I leave the Arctic Circle and head south, pondering my approach. Each of the captains I have asked has refused me. They don’t abide untrained strangers on board. Nor do they like their routines disrupted, routes shifted—sailors are superstitious folk, I have learned. Creatures of pattern. Especially now, with their way of life under threat. Just as we have been steadily killing off the animals of land and sky, the fishermen have fished the sea almost to extinction.
The thought of being aboard one of these merciless vessels with people who lay waste to the ocean makes my skin crawl, but I’m out of options, and I’m running out of time.
A field of green stretches to my right, punctured with a thousand white smudges I think at first are stalks of cotton, but it’s only the speed of the car blurring everything; in fact they are ivory wildflowers. To my left, a dark sea crashes. A world apart. I could forget the mission, try to swallow the compulsion. Find some rustic hut and hunker down. Garden and walk and watch the birds slowly vanish. The thought darts through my mind, inconstant. Sweetness would turn sour and even a sky as big as this one would soon feel a cage. I won’t be staying; even if I were capable of it, Niall would never forgive me.
* * *
I book a cheap hotel room and dump my pack on the bed. The floor is covered with ugly yellow carpet but there’s a view of the fjord lapping at the hill’s foot. Across the stretch of water rear gray mountains, cut through with veins of snow. Less snow than there once was. A warmer world. While my laptop powers on, I wash my salty face and brush my furred teeth. The shower calls, but first I need to log my activity.
I write up the tagging of the three terns and then open the tracking software with a lungful of air I’m too nervous to let out. The sight of the blinking red lights melts me with relief. I’ve had no idea if this would work, but here they are, three little birds that will fly south for the winter and, if everything goes to plan, take me with them.
Once I’m showered, scrubbed, and warmly dressed, I shove a few papers in my backpack and head out, pausing briefly at the front desk to ask the young receptionist where the best pub is. She considers me, probably deciding which age bracket of entertainment she should recommend, and then tells me to try the bar on the harbor. “There is also Klubben, but I think it will be too … fast for you.” She adds a giggle to this.
I smile, and feel ancient.
The walk through Tasiilaq is hilly and lovely. Colorful houses perch on the uneven terrain, red and blue and yellow, and such a contrast to the wintry world beyond. They’re like cheerful toys dotting the hills; everything feels smaller under the gaze of those imperious mountains. A sky is a sky is a sky, and yet here, somehow, it’s more. It’s bigger. I sit and watch the icebergs floating through the fjord awhile, and I can’t stop thinking about the tern and her heart beating inside my palm. I can still feel the thrumming pat pat pat and when I press my hand to my chest I imagine our pulses in time. What I can’t feel is my nose, so I head to the bar. I’d be willing to bet everything I own (which at this point isn’t much) on the fact that if there’s a fishing boat docked in town, its sailors will spend every one of their waking moments on the lash.
The sun is still bright despite how late in the evening it is—it won’t go down all the way this deep in the season. Along with a dozen snoozing dogs tied to pipes outside the bar, there is also an old man leaning against the wall. A local, given he isn’t wearing a jacket over his T-shirt. It makes me cold just looking at him. As I approach I spot something on the ground and stoop to pick up a wallet.
“This yours?”
Some of the dogs wake and peer at me inscrutably. The man does the same, and I realize he’s not as old as I thought, and also very drunk. “Uteqqissinnaaviuk?”
“Uh … Sorry. I just…” I hold up the wallet again.
He sees it and breaks into a smile. The warmth is startling. “English, then?”
I nod.
He takes the wallet and slips it into his pocket. “Thanks, love.” He is American, his voice a deep and distant rumble, a growing thing.
“Don’t call me love,” I say mildly as I steal a better look at him. Beneath his salt-and-pepper hair and thick black beard he is probably late forties, not the sixty he appeared at a glance. Creases line his pale eyes. He’s tall, and stooped as though he’s spent a lifetime trying not to be. There is a largeness to him. A largeness of hands and feet, shoulders and chest and nose and gut.
He sways a little.
“Do you need help getting somewhere?”
It makes him smile again. He holds the door open for me and then closes it between us.
In the little entry room, I shrug off my coat, scarf, hat, and gloves, hanging them ready for when I leave. In these snow countries there’s a ritual to the removal of warm gear. Inside the bustle of the bar there’s a woman playing lounge music on the piano, and a fireplace crackling in a central pit. Men and women are scattered at tables and on sofas under the high ceiling and heavy wooden beams, and several lads are playing pool in the corner. It’s more modern than most of the undeniably charming pubs I’ve been to since I arrived in Greenland. I order a glass of red and wander over to the high stools at the window. From here I can once more see the fjord, which makes it easier to be indoors. I’m not good at being indoors.