The Back of the Turtle Read Online Free PDF

and his lips curled away from yellowing teeth.
    “And now, at the meridian of the world, on this seal-piss and foggy-dog of a day, here stands another Gabriel, rigged for battle and havoc. It surely takes my breath away.”
    “I’m not that Gabriel.”
    “Yet here ye are,” said Nicholas, grabbing Gabriel firmly by the shoulders. “Here ye are.”
    “GABRIEL,” said Mara, pausing on each syllable. “Like the left-handed twin?”
    The dog came shuffling back, dragging Gabriel’s pants with him. They were colder than the shirt and full of sand.
    “Why do you want to kill yourself?”
    Putting the clothes on was a mistake. The chill sank into his bones, and the sand rubbed at his skin with every movement. The sun was weak, the wind off the ocean fresh and brittle.
    The dog leaned up against Mara’s leg and began testing her ankle with his tongue.
    “Sold,” Gabriel told the dog, “no licking.”
    Mara smiled. “His name is … Sold?”
    The dog whined and looked up at her, his face bright with expectation.
    Gabriel rubbed the dog’s neck and fingered the weather-worn collar. “The tag is corroded,” he said. ‘Sold’ is all you can make out.”
    “So, he’s not yours?”
    Gabriel could feel his clothes tightening around him. “He likes to follow me.”
    “You need to find him another name,” said Mara.
    Gabriel wanted to ask Mara about the sea people. Had she seen them? Had they washed ashore with his clothes? Had she found his jacket? If he had to live, he’d like the jacket back.
    And the drum as well, for that matter.
    Mara kneeled down beside the dog and looked into his eyes. “Sold … Solder … Soldering … Soldier … how about … Soldier?”
    The dog began humming happily and came to his hind legs.
    “See,” said Mara, “he likes that name.”
    “Sure.” Gabriel shrugged. “If that’s what he wants.”
    The dog rolled over in the sand and farted.
    “Are you alone?” said Mara. “Is that the reason?”
    “Everyone is alone,” said Gabriel.
    Mara wrapped her arms around herself and turned her back to the wind. “Are you going to try to kill yourself tomorrow?”
    Gabriel looked out across the sand, watched the water rise and fall as though the ocean were breathing.
    “If I were going to kill myself,” said Mara, “I’d do it when the sun was shining.”
    BY the time Gabriel got back to the trailer, Soldier was already splayed out on the deck. The woman on the beach had been somewhat disconcerting. She hadn’t been put off by his abruptness or his lack of clothes or his suicidal intentions. If anything, she had seemed … disappointed.
    Gabriel took out a black marker and wrote “SS
Mont-Blanc
” on the edge of the deck. Next to it, he wrote “SS
Imo.
”
    “1917,” he told the dog. “Over two thousand people killed. Nine thousand injured. The pressure wave bent iron rails and demolished buildings.”
    The dog struggled to his feet, hobbled over to the chair, and put his head in Gabriel’s lap. Wisps of high fog began floating through the trees. Gabriel understood the hydraulics. Warmer inland weather sucked the moist air from the ocean in across the land, and the differences in temperature caused condensation to form.
    “Okay,” he said to the dog, “you pick one.”
    Soldier sat up and grumbled.
    “West Anniston creek?” Gabriel took the marker out again. “Yes,” he said, “that’s a good one. That’s certainly one of my favourites.”
    But the dog had lost interest in the game. He limped away and lay against the door of the trailer.
    Gabriel stayed on the deck and tried to remember how many people had died in the Benxihu Colliery disaster in China, while below on the beach, the fog moved back across the waves and turned the world the colour of soft lead.

5
    DORIAN SAT IN HIS OFFICE SPEED-READING A JAPANESE study that measured toxicity in furniture, and wondered, once again, if his health issues might be related to the bed that he and Olivia had