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Does God wave back?

by Hans Hansen


It's snowing. The birch outside the window scratching its long branches against the pane make me think of Fairbanks, AK. That was in the 40's. The inland passage led me eventually to Skagway from Seattle. I rattled my way into Canada in an old stepside Ford before catching up with America again on the far side of the Yukon. The AK Highway. The way, the truth, as life itself stretched out to infinity the same crumbly way your thought process starts to erode when you get to be my age. One afternoon years ago I was coming home from work on the freeway and I happened to see a bumper-sticker that said "I drove the Alaskan highway and survived to tell the tale." These days that's merely decor. Back when the memories started that actually said something...

I left Long Beach for the logging camps. Long Beach then was a sort of desperate place for the likes of me. Never engaged enough to really care but not lazy enough to let it all slide either. I figured a trip to the great white north might be the push that became a shove. Turns out, it was probably the best plan I ever hatched for myself. In Fairbanks I made friends with another kid from the harbor cities, San Pedro in fact. He was on permanent shore leave from a freighter that had contracted to deliver road construction equipment to the US Army in Prince Rupert, BC. His name was Jim and he lived on a lake way out in the bush. I decided to stay there for a couple of weeks before looking for work.

I've never caught so much fish in my life. Every morning we'd pile ourselves, the fishing poles, and a small tin bucket of coffee with our tin mugs tied to the side into a wooden rowboat that Jim had built. We'd shove off onto the dark water and silently sit there and wait for the first light of dawn with the strong essence of burnt coffee filling all our senses. Those mornings are unlike any I have seen since. The light there doesn't come sneaking around the corner like it does in Southern California. Instead it's as though a lid has been torn off, light stabbing at you from every direction. That's what it seemed like. That's what my memory is like anyway.

The trout were big, all the keepers somewhere between two and three pounds. In the evening under the glow of the kerosene lamps I learned about smoking and curing fish for the winter. We would sit outside the cabin with a roaring fire going in order to make coals for the smokehouse and it also helped keep the bugs at bay. When we were done cleaning the fish they were strung up on willow branches and the coals put in the smokehouse pit. Then we put fresh cut boughs of Juniper on the coals and left it all to smolder until the next evening when they came down and were salted and laid in little pine boxes that Jim had made just for this task. You might say that a trout from California has the same skin as a trout from Alaska but I learned then that what's inside is where the made differences in life are observed. I do think a lot about the trout in Alaska. It was while we salted and hammered the little boxes shut that I could hear the big Doug fir scratching against the wall outside. Just like the birch outside our bedroom window now.

I should have taken down that tree a long time ago, or found somebody to do it for me. But it's becoming more difficult to find the time to get things done even though the days just get longer and longer. Even worse, probably the worst thing about getting old is the thinking. Everything, even the most mundane, must be turned over in my mind and examined before any action really takes place.
Up at the lake in Alaska I didn't really think. I just was. A man of the moment. An animal in it's prime habitat. A bear perhaps. All senses concentrating on the water, concentrating on the moment the paw must strike the salmon out of its wet existence. Oblivious of the turning of the rest of the world. Completely forgetful about the wrath of the third reich being metered out to thousands. Some of them equally unknowing until the end was suddenly upon them just like the salmon.

On Saturdays we'd go to Fairbanks for the dance at the town hall. That was where I met Siri. I thought about that too here the other day. After that first dance I guess my hand never really truly left hers. Siri was born in Alaska to Norwegian immigrants and she was a girl that I never would have asked to dance. A woman like her would have normally transformed me into a pillar of salt. With its hands in its pockets. She had short black hair (much shorter than any other woman I had ever met) and she wore pants (a girl in long pants!). She also wore a long sleeve white shirt that was tucked at the elbows and waist lumberjack style. Despite almost appearing as a boy I had great difficulty in keeping my eyes to myself. You see, her dimples seemed to never smooth out. Laughter lived in her eyes and never left.

When I asked her what was with the costume she said it was easier to be left alone in Fairbanks if she appeared as a boy. There were simply too many men in town for her comfort. With the war and all you would think that the ratio had evened out a bit and I said as much but just got a shrug as reply.
Later on I wondered why she went to the dance if she wanted to be left alone as a woman. But that was Miss Siri Sandhals for you. Quite contrary and not the ordinary. Apparently she had her feet on the ground and her head out of the clouds but that didn't mean they were entirely in the same place. Well, that's the way it was before anyway. This girl, or rather this woman was what got me going. All fired up from a few pulls on a bottle and a week of good fishing I asked her out on the floor one fine Saturday night in June of 1943. It has been over 65 years since I laid down beside her for the first time.

Her head lies still on the pillow next to me now. She doesn't dye her hair anymore and now it's white all the way down to the roots. Even though it is much longer than the first time I saw her it is also thinner. Here and there I can make out her scalp and the sight makes me sad and somewhat ill. Not because she isn't beautiful anymore because she truly is. But because of all the memories that well up behind my eyes like rushing water on a dry flood plain. I lay my hand upon hers on top of the blanket. I must not wake her up, in fact I wish I could get some sleep myself soon. Today was spent putting up the christmas tree and tomorrow the kids will be here. After all these years they're still "the kids". Maggie is 66 now and Julian is 63. All the grandchildren will be here too, I'm sure my granddaughters will want to lend their old grandpa a hand with the decorations before descending upon the kitchen to join in the preparation of our christmas dinner.

The first christmas we had together was remarkable, it's etched into my mind dense and clean like windblown snow. Our wedding was in November and Siri was already big with Maggie. We made our home in meager settings at a small house on State Street and despite a chronic lack of money that house seemed to be bursting at the rafters with the spirit of the season. That christmas eve was the first time I could feel a kick, or at least movement from inside her growing belly. Sometimes I wish I knew what other men felt at that moment. When I laid my hand on that skin, tight as a drumhead, it was the same as standing out on the rocks in Hecate Strait watching the sea heave to and fro before impact, making the bedrock shake in a terrifying spray of salt and foam. A feeling of panicked wonder over this tiny unknown entity in its own salty universe.

Who was I to feel this way ? A man with an axe in a new and strange land not even familiar enough to call mine. Well, I certainly didn't let any of those heavy thoughts bring me down to earth. This was even better than the days by the lake when it seemed that the world was yours to pull in on a fishing line. That night I told Siri to hop on my back and we went for a long walk up the pass that snaked its way out of town. The aurora was strong and blue that night, we stopped and waved just like her parents would have done. Bad luck not to wave at the northern lights. When we settled in for the night later on I noticed her touch on me had changed. The passion was obvious but at first I held back, almost fleeing, as if such a thing would have been possible in that tiny bed of ours. I was in fact scared. Scared of breaking her and the glowing creation of ours inside of her.
Like a moth to the flame I was drawn back to her and I could feel something in my head melt and flow away to be replaced by her warmth. I knew that this was my moment on earth, my rebirth with her and destiny was to go forth as one from now on. Ever since that night I have been terrified of losing her. Never to another man but to circumstances that would leave me without any way to take care of her.

Jim, my fishing buddy from the early days disappeared up in Denali in 1947. That seems to be the fate of many that come to Alaska in search of themselves. Sometimes I feel as though I never quite returned from the wilderness myself. We never should have left Fairbanks, there is not a day that I don't think about it. Life hasn't been too bad for us here in Long Beach, but certainly different. There was more color, more taste, more smell when we started our life together. Alaska was where we were young, California is where we will die.

We were supposed to stay just for the summer but Mom had a stroke that left her immobilized. Two months later Dad left us in a pile-up in the fog on the interstate between Oceanside and San Diego. We couldn't leave then naturally, so we decided to stay until over christmas. Then for another year so Maggie could go to a private school in Long Beach. If one kid goes to a privileged school you certainly couldn't treat the other any different. And so we stayed. The kids had no problems fitting in and Siri has been the type to quickly adapt and thrive wherever she finds herself. As for myself, I felt the bonds to Southern California growing stronger than they had been when I left. One thing leads to another and soon you have transplanted yourself without intending to. So it goes.

Siri's hand is cold. She was always so warm before. She pretty much never stopped glowing since that first christmas in Fairbanks. Not until now that is. Throughout the years she remained somewhat of a riddle to me. There was always an essence of the first time around her. She always filled me with sound, the sound of her heart through her chest. Her breath next to me. Her cadence up the stairs as she came to bed. Even though I knew exactly what she smelled like and exactly what she tasted like I could never shake the feeling of being a shy young man when around her. A shy young man just trying to keep himself in line and not give in to the wave of emotion that she without fail evoked. Even after going from retirees to actually becoming old people (the bonafide article), she still had me mesmerized.

Now, I can't remember the last time we actually had sex but just last week she rolled over and grabbed my penis with both hands and said "Naughty boy. You're the naughtiest boy in Fairbanks." I was so surprised by the pain that I almost by pure instinct smacked her. When I finally got her grip off me and tried to talk to her, her eyes were nothing but two black pools. I hate this emptiness that lives in her now. Usually when she talked about Fairbanks she was happy, talking about her youth again. These days she sometimes doesn't recognize me, but still talks about our youth in Alaska and the man she fell in love with then. Not even realizing the subject of her story is standing right in front of her. Maybe I shouldn't be so woeful about this. I'm back in Alaska too, just about every day. Past christmas celebrations, when the children were still small were the best times we ever had as a family. In this I discovered a spiritual path for myself. It was never mentioned to anyone and I never held faith in organized religion in order to carry myself or mine. But I am a believer. The four of us together on christmas eve with the promise of magic seemed to bring forth a synergy unmatched in any church I ever set foot in.

Carefully, I'm sitting up and having a sip from the whisky tumbler that mysteriously finds its way to my nightstand every other night. The difficult nights like this where there is no sleep and I just sit here watching the moon scratch its way up from behind the trees in the yard. I dread their arrival. Dread the way that Siri will ask who these people are and what their business is here. Dread most the terrible instants were I think that she has come back to me only to disappear again under the surface of those empty pools of black water. It doesn't help any that Maggie and Julian will be lecturing me about getting her into a home. That I can't handle this situation anymore. That she is, incredible as it seems, a danger to the life and welfare of both of us. All of this is completely foreign to me and it certainly doesn't help any that they will be moving our bedroom downstairs sometime before new year.

Several times now after she has fallen asleep I have found myself standing over her with my hands around her neck, but that's about it too. After I wipe my tears off her face and hold her cheeks in my hands for a moment I always go sit back down on my side of the bed. Despite the little bit of dutch courage in the tumbler I can't find the strength to carry her over to the other side. My soul simply isn't deep enough to hold all the grief I now feel and instead it spills. It makes me weaker than old age ever could. I have tried, but will never, ever, be strong enough for that.
Eventually I drift off and I'm dreaming of Alaska. I'm with the natives now and they are doing a blanket toss. Instead of an indian scout looking for seals and walrus I'm the one bouncing high up in the air. What could I possibly be looking for up here ? In my dream I close my eyes and fold my hands and then it comes to me. Closer and closer to the heavens, I ask for my christmas present. Mr. Jesus, please take us both away tonight. That's all I want for christmas. It's all I ever wanted really.