They were beginning to load the cargo onto the Tasilik plane when I took my seat once again in the airport lounge. Leslie and I had spent over two hours at the detachment, most of it waiting for someone to listen to our suspicions about Angus. With Constable Curran off on another case and Corporal Reilly still onboard the salvage boat, they had to scramble to find someone else. Even Sergeant Hue wasn’t available. He’d flown to Tasilik two days earlier, so I made a mental note to track him down once I got there.
Finally a young constable, one could almost say a raw recruit, given his nervous stammering and apologetic politeness, took down our ideas. Other than to say that he’d pass the information onto the case officer, he offered no reaction to what we thought had been very able detective work, as good as any cop could do. We left feeling as if our time had been wasted and our efforts unappreciated, although we did learn that the parts for the boat had arrived, and they anticipated that it and its singular cargo would be reaching Iqaluit tomorrow.
So with a promise to ensure my father’s remains were well taken care of and a warning for me to be careful, my brother-in-law put me and my backpack into a cab to the airport, where for the last hour I’d been waiting with more philosophical expectations than yesterday. Only now were they starting to load the cargo into the small turboprop plane I presumed was the one for Tasilik. Although it looked as if the flight would be delayed yet again, I was assured that we would be boarding, once all the cargo, two days worth given yesterday’s flight cancellation, had been loaded. Unfortunately, my playmates of yesterday hadn’t return, so I was forced to amuse myself.
Through the lounge window, I caught sight of a forklift ferrying an elongated wooden box towards the conveyor belt of the plane. It didn’t take me long to realize that this box was large enough to contain a body, as in Johnnie’s body. Although I didn’t fancy riding on a plane with a corpse, I hoped it would draw out Apphia from her isolated camp, and if the gods were with me, she might even be at the airport when the plane landed.
It took another forty-five minutes for the crew to juggle loading the rest of the cargo into the plane and inviting the passengers to board. If I’d thought our small numbers would allow us to have plenty of seat space to spread out into, I was quickly proven wrong. The passenger area had been shortened to less than one third of the plane. As I took my seat at the front, with my feet pushing against the bulkhead separating us from the cargo area, I couldn’t help but think that Johnnie’s body might be on the other side.
The fifty-minute flight was uneventful, with skies clear enough to give me a full appreciation of the emptiness of this vast mountainous island. Miles and miles of endless rock, tundra and snow with only the occasional thread of a blue river cutting through the mosaic of browns, greys and white and the sporadic splatter of purple and yellow and even green. At one point we crossed a large stretch of white, which I thought could be an inland glacier, then the plane was descending towards an ice-rimmed shore and sparkling blue water. Once again I noticed the curious blue colour, similar to the turquoise of tropical waters, particularly where it mixed with the ice floes. The plane continued its descent across Cumberland Sound to the towering cliffs of the other shore.
I had a moment’s alarm as we landed. Out of my window I saw only water; out the opposite window, mountains with no sign of habitation, let alone an airport. Then we were taxiing along a gravel runway towards a diminutive single-storey wooden structure reminiscent of the Caribbean island airports I’d landed at. “Welcome to Tasilik” was emblazoned in French, English and Inuktitut across the front. I could just make out several roofs jutting above the water side of the runway, while on the other a cliff loomed.
I hoped that I would be able to readily pick out Johnnie’s sister, but the hope left me when I saw the jumble of people, most of them Inuit, crowded into the narrow lounge. I assumed they were waiting to board the plane; however, when the keening started, I realized these were the dead man’s friends and relations. With renewed hope, I scanned the tear-stained faces of the women for one who appeared the most upset.
The rising crescendos of wailing made me uneasy. I felt like a trespasser, an outsider. This was a very private and personal occasion, which didn’t include me. My immediate response was to escape once my backpack was offloaded onto the middle of the floor, along with the other passengers’ baggage. But I forced myself instead to stay and scan the mourners. My only reason for coming to Tasilik was to find Apphia, and this was my best opportunity.
Initially, all I could see was a sea of hats and black hair. In addition to the usual ball caps, several sported a distinctive style of woollen cap with a multi-coloured zigzag border and tassel. I craned my neck to peer around the heads, searching for the woman who might be Apphia. Influenced by Angus’s picture of the Inuit family, I was looking for a hint of redness in the hair. At one point I thought I saw it, but when I gained a better view, I realized this streaked hair colour was courtesy of a bottle. Besides, the woman appeared too old to be Johnnie’s younger sister.
Then the heads parted and I saw a woman, weeping, a baby peeking over her shoulder. Her hair was the exact same flaming red as mine, her skin almost as pale. My immediate reaction was to dismiss her as white, but I quickly shoved this bias aside when I realized she was wearing the traditional amauti. Moreover her facial features were more Inuit than Caucasian. I must admit the sight of her did cause me to pause. Was I looking at my father’s child, my half-sister?
I tried making my way through the keening mourners towards her. At the same time, I noticed someone else was also trying to reach her, someone I couldn’t fail to recognize with her designer cut white hair and flashing glasses.
Mary Goresky, however, wasn’t having too much success either. The more she pushed, the more the circle of women tightened around the red-haired woman like a herd of muskox fending off a dangerous predator. At one point, Mary even called out Apphia’s name, but one of the men approached her and suggested she leave the woman alone in her grief.
I took note and decided to return to where I’d been standing against an outside wall. When Mary finally took the hint and removed herself from the fray, I walked up beside her and said, “Hi. I’m surprised to see you here. You weren’t on the plane.”
She started and twisted her head in my direction. The rhinestones in her glasses sparked. “Why Meg Harris, whatever brings you to Tasilik? I thought your business was in Iqaluit.”
“I came to talk to the same woman you want to talk to.”
For a second I saw alarm behind her glasses, then she laughed, “But her friends sure don’t want me talking to her, do they? What do you want with Apphia?”
“Just following up on my quest for more information about my father. And what about you?”
“Angus asked me to check up on her and see if there is anything she needs.”
“I’m surprised Angus wouldn’t want to do that himself? I gather he’s here also.”
“Yes, we came a couple of days ago. He thought she might prefer a woman’s touch.” Her face was now a mask of self-control.
At that moment, a familiar voice rose above the noise, and I turned to see Pete Pitsiulak making his way through the crowd. Saying something in Inuktitut, he wrapped his arms around Apphia, who clung to him as if he were a lifesaver. This only served to unleash another crescendo of heart-rendering keening. One of the flight crew approached, and Johnnie’s sister, still clinging to Pete, headed out the doors to the tarmac, to where I could see the end of the coffin sticking out from the back of a green pick-up. She and Pete climbed into the truck and drove off.
I must admit I had a momentary “what if”. What if Pete had killed her brother, what would he do to her? But no one else seemed the least concerned by his offer of protection.
It also spelled the end of any probability of immediate conversation with Suula’s daughter. But Tasilik looked to be a very small town. Someone would be able to tell me where she was staying. I turned back to Mary in time to see her purple coat disappearing over the brow of the road.