tonight, with a caribou roast. Maybe a can of corn.
When Dr. Balthazar appeared in town, it took weeks before there was a general consensus about what he was doing there. With his heavy-footed step and bearded face, he was more like a prospector than the wire-framed and crewcut federal government doctors they were used to. He was American and clearly young. The assumption among the Bay Boys was that he was a draft dodger. There was sufficient residual diffidence lingering from the influences of both the old Inuit culture and the old British one that no one interrogated him on the point.
Previously, the closest doctor worked at the Church-run hospital in Chesterfield Inlet. The position had been filled by a succession of odd-tempered men drawn by the isolation and potential for ego indulgence. Joseph Moody, the last such man, had left Chesterfield Inlet in 1969 . He had performed general surgery, including Caesarean sections and major abdominal operations, and had strutted through his tenure like Douglas MacArthur wading ashore at Inchon. Inevitably, there had been a book,
Arctic Doctor
, detailing his triumphs.
Balthazar was a different sort of man, deferential and malleable. The nurses at the clinic in Rankin Inlet accepted him quickly and the storied conflicts from Moody’s day were not re-enacted here. The nurses were grateful for that, which is not the same thing as saying they were confident in his ability.
Victoria lay in the treatment room, gasping and terrified, as an Irish nurse, with glinting hair and sardonic manner, examined her. This was a business nobody had prepared Victoria for. The Irish woman’s lips pursed as she appreciated the width and thinness of Victoria’s dilated cervix. When she was finished, she sat down on a stool at the head of Victoria’s bed and addressed her chin. “My dear, you are going to have your baby in the next hour or two. We will deliver you here. There isn’t time to ship you out—you’d likely have your baby in the airplane if we did that.” Then she picked up the telephone to inform the new doctor of her decision.
Balthazar was only just in the door, toque and beard covered in snowflakes, when Victoria felt the urge to push, and she did, and within twenty minutes—Balthazar matching her pant-for-breathless-pant, exhorting her until he was hoarse—her little
irnuq
had crept into the world. What a bushy-haired little wonder he was, his bright black eyes wide open, more serene even than Victoria, who felt exhaustion and pleasure ripple over her like a summer line squall. Twelve hours after that, the nurse sent Victoria and Pauloosie home and they fell asleep together in her parents’ aromatic chipboard house.
Balthazar had confided to Victoria afterwards that he hadn’t much experience in obstetrics. The laconic Irish nurse reckoned that it would have been more worrying if he had delivered many babies and still had become so agitated at what had been a pretty effortless affair. “Effortless,” Victoria had repeated to herself, and wondered what room the Irishwoman had been in. A kind of half-guilty affection bloomed between her and the young doctor.
But Victoria was grateful that neither the Irishwoman nor Balthazar had made her feel ashamed of herself that evening in the nurses’ station, the way she had felt throughout the pregnancy, especially after telling Robertson. When her mother and father were presented with the fact of their grandson, they softened as well, and her mother did not again mention Père Bernard and having to meet his eyes.
A baby changes everything. The moment Pauloosie was in the world, wearing Robertson’s surname, his father became a part of the community. Robertson was the father of an Inuk boy now and possessed a stake in the place that he had not before. And in his doting on the child, the way he walked through town wearing an
amoutie
, his son’s wee head poking up from the back of his hood, it was clear he was also making a
When Dr. Balthazar appeared in town, it took weeks before there was a general consensus about what he was doing there. With his heavy-footed step and bearded face, he was more like a prospector than the wire-framed and crewcut federal government doctors they were used to. He was American and clearly young. The assumption among the Bay Boys was that he was a draft dodger. There was sufficient residual diffidence lingering from the influences of both the old Inuit culture and the old British one that no one interrogated him on the point.
Previously, the closest doctor worked at the Church-run hospital in Chesterfield Inlet. The position had been filled by a succession of odd-tempered men drawn by the isolation and potential for ego indulgence. Joseph Moody, the last such man, had left Chesterfield Inlet in 1969 . He had performed general surgery, including Caesarean sections and major abdominal operations, and had strutted through his tenure like Douglas MacArthur wading ashore at Inchon. Inevitably, there had been a book,
Arctic Doctor
, detailing his triumphs.
Balthazar was a different sort of man, deferential and malleable. The nurses at the clinic in Rankin Inlet accepted him quickly and the storied conflicts from Moody’s day were not re-enacted here. The nurses were grateful for that, which is not the same thing as saying they were confident in his ability.
Victoria lay in the treatment room, gasping and terrified, as an Irish nurse, with glinting hair and sardonic manner, examined her. This was a business nobody had prepared Victoria for. The Irish woman’s lips pursed as she appreciated the width and thinness of Victoria’s dilated cervix. When she was finished, she sat down on a stool at the head of Victoria’s bed and addressed her chin. “My dear, you are going to have your baby in the next hour or two. We will deliver you here. There isn’t time to ship you out—you’d likely have your baby in the airplane if we did that.” Then she picked up the telephone to inform the new doctor of her decision.
Balthazar was only just in the door, toque and beard covered in snowflakes, when Victoria felt the urge to push, and she did, and within twenty minutes—Balthazar matching her pant-for-breathless-pant, exhorting her until he was hoarse—her little
irnuq
had crept into the world. What a bushy-haired little wonder he was, his bright black eyes wide open, more serene even than Victoria, who felt exhaustion and pleasure ripple over her like a summer line squall. Twelve hours after that, the nurse sent Victoria and Pauloosie home and they fell asleep together in her parents’ aromatic chipboard house.
Balthazar had confided to Victoria afterwards that he hadn’t much experience in obstetrics. The laconic Irish nurse reckoned that it would have been more worrying if he had delivered many babies and still had become so agitated at what had been a pretty effortless affair. “Effortless,” Victoria had repeated to herself, and wondered what room the Irishwoman had been in. A kind of half-guilty affection bloomed between her and the young doctor.
But Victoria was grateful that neither the Irishwoman nor Balthazar had made her feel ashamed of herself that evening in the nurses’ station, the way she had felt throughout the pregnancy, especially after telling Robertson. When her mother and father were presented with the fact of their grandson, they softened as well, and her mother did not again mention Père Bernard and having to meet his eyes.
A baby changes everything. The moment Pauloosie was in the world, wearing Robertson’s surname, his father became a part of the community. Robertson was the father of an Inuk boy now and possessed a stake in the place that he had not before. And in his doting on the child, the way he walked through town wearing an
amoutie
, his son’s wee head poking up from the back of his hood, it was clear he was also making a
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