The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels Page A

waiting to be refilled. A narrow shelf for a wash basin, the folded square of frayed towel. On the floor next to the bed, Edible Plants, The Pleasure of Ruins, The Kon-Tiki Expedition, Bird Hazards to Aircraft, Excavations at the Njoro River Cave . On the windowsills, the usual collection of stones and driftwood, but here organized by shape or colour, kept for their resemblance to another form – the stone shaped like an animal or a bird. It has always been this way, Jean thought, the desire for a likeness, for the animate in the inanimate. The whole cabin was organized as a chef might organize a kitchen, everything in its place for ease of use. Avery was acutely aware of how deeply the room betrayed his habits.
    Jean added oil and basil to the tomatoes and threw salt into the boiling water. They ate in the sound of the rapids. From the window there was only forest and this, too, cast its spell: the very invisibility of the overpowering river. As the room grew darker, the noise of the Long Sault seemed to increase. For the first time, Jean thought about the intimacy within that sound, the continuous force of water on rock, sculpting every crevice and contour of the riverbed.
    After the meal, through which they had barely spoken, with nowhere else to go, Avery took Jean's hand and they lay down.
    – If we're getting into bed, then we'd better get dressed, said Avery, and he passed her a wool jumper and a ball of thick socks. It's very cold at night and sometimes I wear everything I have, even with the fire.
    The sight of Jean in his clothes almost broke Avery's resolve. But he remained quiet beside her.
    He could smell the woodsmoke in her hair. And she, in the wool of his sweater, could smell his body, lamp oil, earth.
    The lantern light, the fire, the river, the cold bed, Jean's small, strong, still hand under his sweater.
    To claim the sight of her. To learn and name and hold all that he sees in her face, as he, too, becomes part of her expression, a way of listening that will soon include her knowledge of him. To learn each nuance as it reveals a new past, and all that might be possible. To know in her skin the inconsistencies of age: her child hands and wrists and ears, her young woman's upper arms and legs smooth and firm; each anatomical part of us seems to attain a different maturity and, for a long time, remains so. How is it the body ages with such inconsistency? Looking at her across the table, or looking at her now, his face next to hers, his limbs along hers, the yielding of her face as she listens, of one face into another and another, always another openness, a latent openness, so love opens into love, like the slightest change of light or air on the surface of water. Lying next to her, he imagined even his thoughts could alter her face.
    After a very long time, Jean began to speak.
    – My father brought me to Aultsville for the first time after my mother died. He said he was taking me to hear the ‘talking trees,’ to lift my spirits a little … I still have no word for that depth of sadness. It is almost a different kind of sight; everything beautiful, a branding. During the whole train journey he wouldn't tell me what the talking trees were … After his day of teaching we walked out to the apple grove near the station …
    It was warm, pink, dusk. Shadows fell between the rows and soon it was not so easy to see the way. The path was woven with shadow. I remember holding on to his arm very tightly. He always rolled up his sleeves in the summer, above his elbows. I can feel his bare arm now. The wind shook the small silver leaves – that indescribable sound – and farther into the grove I heard the murmuring. I looked up and saw nothing, but of course in the dusk, the brown arms of the apple-pickers were hidden by the branches, were themselves like moving branches. They were women's voices, and the words were so ordinary. Sometimes a single word suddenly clearer than the rest – Saturday, dress,