Viator

Arlene Dauphinée’s face was not a face that instantly drew men’s notice. Unlike the hot color of a sign advertising a restaurant along a highway or the brightness of a lure dragged across the surface of a lake, it wasn’t suited to serve as an initial attractor, to inspire certain hungers; at least she did not employ it as such. She wore no make-up, no jewelry. All her expressions, especially her smiles, were slow to develop, as if she didn’t wish to reveal anything about herself, as if, in fact, she wished to deflect attention by minimizing her reactions, and when Wilander had first seen her, his eyes had skated away from her face, lingered on her red hair, clasped in a barrette behind her neck, the pale shade of red that often (as with her) accompanies freckly, milky skin; and then he had taken an inventory of her body, her slack, soft breasts, her slender waist and long legs, and it was not until their second meeting that he was struck by the astonishing composure seated in her face, emblematic neither of passivity nor of any quality that might imply resignation, but an active principle, a potent, ringing composure that signaled the type of person she was, a woman who hadn’t been stranded in Kaliaska, stuck with the trading post because, say, her husband had died and left her in charge (she had never married), but had chosen this solitude nine years ago, this unsightly scar of a town on the edge of a thousand nowheres, because she wanted to live in a place where things were uncomplicated and self-sufficiency was a useful virtue, not—as was the case in much of the civilized world—a vestigial function, as useless as the stubby tail that briefly manifests on the human foetus; and once he had been made aware of this quality, he found it impossible not to see the unadvertised beauty of her face, the strong mouth and olivine eyes and lines of character that sketched a femininity considerably more alluring than that of the flashier, showier women with whom he had frequently become infatuated. She seemed a woman who might be someone’s fate, who might be waiting patiently to perform in that capacity, and though he hoped she might be his fate, he was plagued by insecurity and prone to believe that what he felt was a foolish preoccupation, a form of desperation, or else a dream he was having about a subject that she was merely an emblem of—yet as they sat that evening in Polar Bear Pizza (which occupied half a house on the outskirts of town, the other half given over to a coin laundry), sharing a large double pepperoni at a picnic-style table covered by a checkered plastic cloth, beneath a painted wall menu with all the prices effaced that heralded, among other items, Our Stupefying Super Spicy Stromboli Sandwich, it may have been that her companionship shored up his self-doubt, for he suddenly felt that his business failures, the drinking and drugs and the vampire people with whom he had associated while he drank and drugged, the stages of the slow collapse that had led to homelessness…those things were behind him and he was ready to build on the wreckage, to address those problems that might arise with maturity and confidence.

—Living with such unbalanced people, she said, and paused to sprinkle parmesan over a slice. It must remind you of the shelters.

—They’re not all unbalanced, he said. Arnsparger’s okay. A little obsessive, maybe. And I’ve haven’t talked to Mortensen yet…though judging by the way he avoids me, I assume he’s not quite right.

—You’ve been here a month and you haven’t spoken to him?

—Oh, we’ve spoken, but at a distance. We’ve said hello and waved. I’ve tried to catch him in his cabin, but he’s never there. All I know about is that his beard and hair are gray, and he’s thin. He did leave me a note a few days ago. Slipped it under my door. A note concerning you…obliquely, anyway.

—What could he possibly say about me? We haven’t exchanged a hundred words.

—He seems to have a definite opinion of you.

—That’s strange. Even when he was alone on the ship, he never talked to me. He’d come to the post, drop his list on the counter, and wait outside in the cold until I filled it. What did the note say?

—He said, Don’t you think it’s time you paid less attention to the Queen of Kaliaska and took your duties aboard Viator more seriously?

Arlene smiled. It’s amusing to think of Kaliaska having a queen. Well, I’ve been called worse. But what’s he talking about? What duties?

—I have no idea. Both Halmus and Arnsparger have told me they don’t believe there is a job. They think Lunde sent us here for his own purposes. And yet they go about their days as if they’re on deadline.

—Lunde?

—Jochanan Lunde. He runs the Manpower office in Fairbanks. He’s the one who handed us the job. A nice old fellow. He treated me with great kindness. He treated all of us that way, apparently. Arnsparger said he originally thought the job was an act of charity. Lunde was giving us a place where we could rest and get strong.