In Fond Remembrance of Me Read Free

his friends and said, “Don’t forget me.”
    How long might such a purchase take, five, ten minutes? His friends waited outside. Roughly ages thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, they smoked cigarettes, struck various postures of self-doubt and self-adoration, agitated cool, as though alternating between conformity and sudden alienation that no doubt animates teenagers most anywhere on the planet. For these Inuit young people it was, I suspect, an average night in Churchill, Manitoba, whose chamber of commerce advertises it as “The Polar Bear Capital of the World.” They had all been to a showing of Phantom Lady , a film noir starring Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, and Franchot Tone. Drenched in moodiness, rain-slicked streets, and shadowy atmosphere—a classic noir thriller—the story revolves around the attempts by a character named Carol Richman to clear her boss of a murder he did not commit. His alibi, a woman who was with him at the time of the murder and has since disappeared, falls apart when no one who saw them together will admit it. As she stalks suspects to save the man she loves, Carol faces danger at every turn. There is a bartender killed
in a street brawl, a jazz drummer strangled as he is revealing information, an insane woman, and the psychopathic friend of her boss. In other words, just about as urban and therefore opposite a milieu as possible from Churchill, Manitoba.
    Helen and I had front-row seats (two shipping crates) for the grainy print of Phantom Lady . It was shown on the cracked alabaster wall of the luggage room in the Churchill train station. There were about forty people in attendance. All the alienation and morally compromised obsession of the main characters seemed only to confirm suspicions of city life and put, as far as I could detect, the audience in good spirits. Throughout the movie, the old-fashioned crank-and-sprocket school projector had broken down only twice. That was luck. People sat on luggage of all shapes and sizes. Leaning against the back wall, Billy Umiaq and his pals were in constant banter, once in a while making a real show-off ruckus of catcalls and laughter. Everyone put up with everything. The movie ended and then it was time for a smoke.
    â€œDon’t forget me,” Billy said. The stars were out but it was not dark; September, daylight lengthening out into the night hours, a kind of crepuscular light presiding. I was standing with Helen near the store. I wanted to get back to my own typewriter. When Billy emerged he was already tapping a cigarette from the pack onto the palm of his hand. “Hey, how you been?” he said to his friends.
    The heartbreaking, indelible resonance of those two simple sentences, “Don’t forget me,” and, “Hey, how you been?” spoken scarce few minutes apart—words of departure and reunion; alas, Billy had come back from a journey safe and sound.

    â€œDon’t forget me” did not strike a cynical note but rather evoked the philosophy of precariousness. This is logical; life is precarious. That was useful knowledge. All one needed to do was to listen carefully to traditional Inuit stories to learn how suddenly life can change.
    No single story can be said to epitomize this, but many share certain basic conundrums, narrative trajectories that move from order to chaos, from joyfulness to mourning. In such stories, for example, a man says good-bye to his wife and children. The day is sunny, the air crisp, life is fine and hopeful. A person can see far into the distance. “Good-bye, husband,” he hears. “Good-bye, father.” And this man sets out on his sled. The dogs are behaving well. The man has prayed for a successful day of hunting or fishing, the ability and luck to provide for his family.
    Yet ill fate may well lie in ambush. In folktales the possibilities are endless. A ten-legged polar bear maligned or insulted long ago may choose to enact revenge on human