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.While Apak secured it to a post, Tootega looked around.His arrival had not gone unnoticed.Everywhere, people were watching.He waved at Peter Amitak, who was standing by his boat with a young child whom Tootega did not recognize.He called out a greeting.Peter Amitak waved.The child stared as though it had seen a great spirit."What's the matter with them?" Tootega asked Apak."Why don't they speak?""You have been away a long time," Apak replied.But Tootega sensed there was more to their distance than unrenewed acquaintance.They seemed wary of his presence here.Frightened, perhaps.He stepped inside the house and was glad of its warmth.The oily scent of seal meat and drying arctic char turned his belly and made it speak.247Apak laughed and clapped his brother's shoulder."What has become of your hunting skills that you should make your innards complain so, brother?" He clapped his hands and called out, "Nauja!"A door opened and a young woman came to greet them."My wife will feed you," Apak said, grinning."You --?" Tootega gaped at them both in amazement.The last time he had seen the little "seagull," Nauja, she had still been his baby cousin.The brothers laughed and hugged and Nauja, though pleased to see them in happy spirits, bade them be quiet for their grandfather's sake."Is he sleeping?" asked Tootega, blowing air at the door to the old man's room.A voice weathered by age and cold croaked out, "Why does my grandson not come to greet me?"Nauja tilted her head.Tootega went in, bowing his head.The old man, famed throughout the north as a healer and shaman, commanded great respect within the community and248even more esteem at home.He gave a thin cry of joy to see his firstborn grandson and called out to Nauja, Mattak! Mattak! meaning she should bring them whale meat to chew.Tootega crossed the floor, surprised to find a woolen rug under his feet.It dismayed him every time he came to this house to see his grandfather a little more absorbed by southern culture.This room, with its wardrobes and lampshades and remote-controlled television, was a painful affliction of the disease called progress.Tootega could readily remember a time when this proud and happy man, now lying in a bed that had drawers in the mattress and propped up loosely on a cluster of pillows, would have been surrounded by furs and harpoons and a seal oil lamp, with blood and blubber stains under his feet.On the wall above the bed, slightly tilted at an angle, was a framed embroidered picture saying "Home, Sweet Home" in the Inuit language.To see it made Tootega want to empty his gut.He reached out and took his grandfather's hand, reeling himself into a firm embrace."Your arm is strong," he said, though it clearly was not.But it249brought a dentured smile to the wrinkled face.His grandfather's name, Taliriktug, meant "strong arm." With a fragile cough, he waved his visitor into a chair, clouding the space between them with smoke.He put a flimsy cigarette into an ashtray.There were burn holes in the patterned pink eiderdown.How many more, Tootega wondered, in the old man's withering lungs?Apak, resting himself against the windowsill, said, "Have they released you from the base?"Tootega shook his head."Then you have heard what has happened here? Is that what brought you?"Tootega raised his shoulders in confusion.He was about to speak when his grandfather took a rattling breath, looked up to the ceiling, and gave a short wail."My grandson has the scent of bears about him."Tootega cracked his knuckles and stared down between his knees."Is this true?" asked Apak."Only --""Let him speak," the old shaman commanded."He has fled across the ice to tell us what he knows." His250eyes closed and he began to rock back and forth, singing and begging the souls of the dead not to allow any bad thing in.Apak raised a thin black eyebrow at his brother."Taliriktug looks into my soul," said Tootega, making a fist at his mouth as he spoke."I have been with Nanuk.I have seen.strange things."The old man softly moaned.Apak said quietly, "Tell us your tale.""I was releasing a bear on the tundra," said Tootega."It woke before it should have, threatening a young kabluna, a girl.I was in the helicopter, answering the radio.When I saw what was happening I took up my rifle and shot at Nanuk's ears to make him run.But he stood, bravely.Then others came."Apak crossed his arms."He was walking with cubs?"Tootega shook his head, angry that his brother should think such a thing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]