The Terror

The six men in front looked at one another. Finally, Irving’s interlouctor to this point said, “Kamatik? ”

Irving nodded happily even though he had no idea if they had really begun communicating. For all he knew, the man had just asked him if he wanted to be harpooned. Nonetheless, the junior lieutenant could not stop grinning. Most of the Esquimaux men – with the exception of the boy, the old man who was still beating the dog, and the bareheaded older man with the pouch and belt – were grinning back.

“Do you speak English by any chance?” asked Irving, realizing that he was a bit tardy with the question.

The Esquimaux men stared and grinned and scowled and remained silent.

Irving repeated the query in his schoolboy French and atrocious German.

The Esquimaux continued to smile and scowl and stare.

Irving crouched and squatted and the six men closest to him squatted. They did not sit on the freezing gravel, even if a larger rock or boulder was near. After so many months up here in the cold, Irving understood. He still wanted to know someone’s name.

“Irving,” he said, touching his chest again. He pointed at the closest man.

“Inuk,” said the man, touching his chest. He tugged off his mitten with a flash of white teeth and held up his right hand. It was missing the two smaller fingers. “Tikerqat.” He grinned again.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Inuk,” said Irving. “Or Mr. Tikerqat. Very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He decided that any real communication would have to be through sign language and pointed back the way he had come, toward the northwest. “I have many friends,” he said confidently, as if saying this would make him safer with these savage people. “Two large ships. Two… ships.”

Most of the Esquimaux looked the way Irving pointed. Mr. Inuk was frowning slightly. “Nanuq,” the man said softly, and then seemed to correct himself with a shake of his head. “Tornarssuk.” The others looked away or lowered their heads at this last word, almost, it seemed, as if in reverence or fear. But the lieutenant was sure that it was not at the thought of two ships or a group of white men.

Irving licked his bleeding lips. Better to begin trading with these people than to engage in a long conversation. Moving slowly, so as not to startle any of them, he reached into his leather shoulder valise to see if there was any food or bauble he could give them as a gift.

Nothing. He had eaten the only salted pork and old biscuit he’d brought for his day’s rations. Something shiny and interesting then…

There were only his ragged sweaters, two stinking extra socks, and a disposable rag he had brought along for his alfresco privy purposes. At that moment Irving bitterly regretted giving his prized Oriental silk handkerchief to Lady Silence – wherever the wench was. She had slipped away from Terror Camp their second day there and not been seen again since. He knew that these natives would have loved the red-and-green silk handkerchief.

Then his cold fingers touched the curved brass of his telescope.

Irving’s heart leapt and then wrenched itself with pain. The telescope was perhaps his most prized possession, the last thing his uncle had given him before that good man had died suddenly of heart trouble.

Smiling wanly at the waiting Esquimaux, he slowly pulled the instrument from his bag. He could see the brown-faced men tightening their grips on their spears and harpoons.

Ten minutes later Irving had the entire family or clan or tribe of Esquimaux close around him like schoolchildren grouped around an especially beloved teacher. Everyone, even the suspicious, squinty-eyed older man with the headband, pouch, and belt, had taken a turn looking through the glass. Even the two females had their turn – Irving allowed Mr. Inuk Tikerqat, his new fellow ambassador, to hand the brass instrument to the giggling young woman and the old woman. The ancient man who had been holding down the sled came over for a look and a shouted exclamation with the women chanting along:

ai yei yai ya na

ye he ye ye yi yan e ya qana

ai ye yi yat yana

The group enjoyed looking at one another through the glass, staggering back in shock and laughter when huge faces loomed. Then the men, quickly learning how to focus the glass, zoomed in on distant rocks, clouds, and ridgelines. When Irving showed them that they could reverse the glass and make things and each other tiny, the men’s laughs and exclamations echoed in the small valley.

He used his hands and body language – finally refusing to take the telescope back and pressing it into Mr. Inuk Tikerqat’s hands – to let them know that it was a present.

The laughter stopped and they stared at him with serious faces. For a minute Irving wondered if he had violated some taboo, offended them somehow, but then he had a strong hunch that he had presented them with a problem in protocol; he had given them a wonderful gift and they’d brought nothing in return.

Inuk Tikerqat conferred with the other hunters and then turned to Irving and began making unmistakable pantomimes, lifting his hand to his mouth, then rubbing his belly.

For a terrible second Irving thought his interlocutor was asking for food – of which Irving had none – but when he tried to convey this fact, the Esquimaux shook his head and repeated the gestures. Irving suddenly realized that they were asking him if he was hungry.

Eyes filling with tears from a gust of wind or sheer relief, Irving repeated the gestures and nodded enthusiastically. Inuk Tikerqat grabbed him by his slop’s frozen shoulder and led him back to the sled. What had been their word for this? thought Irving. “Kamatik?” he said aloud, remembering it at last.

“Ee! ” cried Mr. Tikerqat approvingly. Kicking the growling dogs aside, he swept back a thick fur atop the sled. Stack upon stack of frozen and fresh meat and fish were piled atop the kamatik.

His host was pointing toward different delicacies. Pointing at the fish, Inuk Tikerqat said, “Eqaluk,” in the slow, patient tones an adult uses with a child. Toward slabs of seal meat and blubber, “Nat-suk.” Toward larger and more solidly frozen slabs of a darker meat, “Oo ming-mite.”

Irving nodded. He was embarrassed that his mouth had suddenly filled with saliva. Not sure if he was just supposed to admire the cache of food or choose from it, he pointed diffidently at the seal meat.

“Ee! ” Mr. Tikerqat said again. He lifted a strip of soft meat and blubber, reached under his short parka, pulled a very sharp bone knife from his waistband, and cut a strip for Irving and another for himself. He handed the lieutenant his piece before cutting into his own.

The old woman standing nearby made a sort of wailing sound. “Kaaktunga! ” she cried. And when none of the men paid any attention to her, she shouted again, “Kaaktunga! ”

He made a face toward Irving, the kind one man makes to another when a woman demands something in their presence, and said, “Orssunguvoq! ” But he cut the old woman a strip of seal blubber and tossed it to her as one would to a dog.

The toothless old crone laughed and began gumming the blubber.

Immediately the group gathered around the sled, men with their knives out, and everyone began cutting and eating.

“Aipalingiagpoq,” said Mr. Tikerqat, pointing to the old woman and laughing. The other hunters, old man, and boy – everyone except the older man with the headband and pouch – joined in the laughter.

Irving smiled broadly, although he had no idea what the joke was.

The older man in the headband pointed to Irving and said, “Qavac… suingne! Kangunartuliorpoq! ”

The lieutenant did not need a translator to know that whatever the man had said, it had not been laudatory or kind. Mr. Tikerqat and several of the other hunters just shook their heads while eating.

Everyone, even the young woman, was using his or her knife the way Lady Silence had in her snow-house more than two months earlier – cutting the skin, meat, and blubber toward their mouths so the sharp blades came within a hairsbreadth of their greasy lips and tongues.

Irving cut his the same way – as best he could – but his knife was duller and he made a clumsy mess of it. But he did not cut his nose as he had the first time with Silence. The group ate in a companionable silence interrupted only by polite belches and the occasional fart. The men occasionally drank from some sort of pouch or skin, but Irving had already taken out the bottle he kept close to his body so the water would not freeze.

“Kee-nah-oo-veet? ” Inuk Tikerqat said suddenly. He pounded his chest. “Tikerqat.” Again the young man removed his mitten and showed his two remaining fingers.

“Irving,” said the lieutenant, again tapping his own chest.

“Eh-vunq,” repeated the Esquimaux.

Irving smiled over the blubber. He pointed at his new friend. “Inuk Tikerqat, ee? ”

The Esquimaux shook his head. “Ah-ka.” The man made a wide sweep with his arms and hands, encompassing all the other Esquimaux as well as himself. “Inuk,” he said firmly. Holding up his mutilated hand and waggling his two remaining fingers while hiding his thumb, he said again, “Tikerqat.”

Irving interpreted all this to mean that “Inuk” was not the man’s name but a description of all ten Esquimaux there – perhaps their tribal name or racial name or clan name. He guessed “Tikerqat” to be not a last name now but the entirety of his interlocutor’s name, and probably one meaning “Two Fingers.”

“Tikerqat,” said Irving, trying to pronounce it properly while still cutting and chewing blubber for himself. The fact that the meat and greasy fat were old, smelly, and raw meant almost nothing. It was as if his body craved this fat above all other things. “Tikerqat,” he said again.

There followed, in the midst of the squatting, cutting, and chewing, a general introduction. Tikerqat began both the introductions and the explanations by acting things out to explain the meaning of the name – if the names had a meaning – but then the other men picked up on it and acted out their own names. The moment had the feeling of a joyous child’s game.

“Taliriktug,” said Tikerqat slowly, pushing forward the barrel-chested young man next to him. Two Fingers grabbed his companion’s upper arm and squeezed it, making ah-yeh-I noises, then flexing his own muscle and comparing it to the other man’s thicker biceps.

“Taliriktug,” repeated Irving, wondering if it meant “Big Muscle” or “Strong Arm” or something similar.

The next man, a shorter one, was named Tuluqag. Tikerqat tugged the man’s parka hood back, pointed to his black hair, and made flapping