To Sweep the Light Read online

  There were these two people, a boy and a girl. He was from the eastern part of the country and she was from the west, and they lived thousands of miles apart on the coasts of two oceans that stretched flat and blue toward faraway continents the boy and the girl liked to pretend they could see. And though the boy and the girl didn’t know each other, on the same day one June they left their homes on opposite sides of the country to head way, way north to the same little town just outside the Arctic Circle, roughly the apex of a triangle formed by the places they were from and where, eventually, they would meet.

  Neither the boy nor the girl really knew why they were heading up there, to the top of the world. Both had lately been drifting through their lives with that anxious, aimless wonder particular to youth, and they just felt pulled in an inexplicable way. While their hometowns felt constrained and static, the north offered a wide arid expanse full of possibilities, a gigantic sky where the sun burned as ceaselessly as a promise. And maybe, amid all that light, they might find something, or at least figure out what they were looking for.

  ~

  The town was very small: in the time it took to make a cup of tea a person could walk from the south end, down by the river, along the main street, past the pub and tailor and hardware store, right up to the sheer cliff face that bordered the northern side. It was a place known for history and beauty, a place where locals stopped one another on the street and inquired after family members by name. All the residents agreed they were lucky to live there; it was a little oasis from the chaos and frenzy of the rest of the world—especially in winter.

  In summer busloads of visitors invaded with their cameras and guidebooks. Since the fishing and mining industries had collapsed, tourism had emerged as the town’s major source of income, so the locals were hospitable; some even dressed up in period costume and led guided walks along the streets. Still, having one’s home deemed quaint enough to photograph reduced private lives to scenery, and to the arrivals and departures of each oblivious new group, resentment simmered among the locals. By September, when the vacation season drew to a close, the town had the exhausted, emptied-out feeling of a house after the last party-guest has left a little too close to dawn.

  Along with the tourists, young people, like the boy and the girl, arrived in June to work jobs in the restaurants and hotels. These seasonal workers stayed in a campground outside the town limits, their tents dotted throughout the woods. Out of proximity and isolation and a need for such things, they formed a community of their own, with its attendant dramas and politics. By September, everyone had grown into one big, feral family and expressed great remorse at having to return to the real world.

  As with the tourists, things were pretty much the same, every year.

  ~

  The boy’s and the girl’s flights touched down within an hour of each other. What looked like day was in fact the middle of the night, and the boy and the girl stepped onto the airport runway with similar wariness and awe of the midnight sun. They were taken by shuttle to the campground, on opposite sides of which they erected the tents that would be their homes for the summer.

  For the next three months they went to sleep and woke to the same bright sky. As the summer progressed, the north failed to open up either of their lives as they’d hoped. At their jobs (his at a restaurant, hers at a hotel) other seasonal workers gushed about having the time of their lives. Many even wanted to return in the winter, enticed by the prospect that one’s breath could freeze mid-air and tinkle to the ground as ice, and the day would look like night.

  This all sounded hollow to the boy and the girl. He would go out with his co-workers and try to drink his way into sharing their enthusiasm, but invariably end up gloomy and sick. She, meanwhile, went on long, solitary walks to experience the romance of the north, but returned to her tent bewildered by all that space and light. Neither could sleep through the white nights and they spent their days at work in a sludgy daze, feeling outside everything: outside the community, like sick kids trapped indoors while their classmates played in the sun, and outside themselves, as bystanders to their own lives.

  Yet, despite this shared alienation, and considering they lived only a few hundred yards apart, collected their drinking water from the same tap, shopped at the same greengrocer, washed their clothes at the same laundrette and even visited the same pharmacist for the same allergy (pollen), and despite many mutual acquaintances, months went by and somehow, improbably—even miraculously—the boy and the girl never crossed paths. That is, until their last night in town.

  ~

  In late-August the night sky began to deepen at its edges and the sun started lowering closer to the horizon; the week prior to everything shutting down for autumn, darkness descended, briefly, before the sky lightened into day. As the calendar crept toward equinox, each subsequent evening stayed dark a little longer. The appearance of a full moon confirmed it: summer was over. While the prospect of returning home seemed to subdue and sadden everyone else, the boy and the girl were only relieved—and yet, a gentle ache suggested that something up here remained unfinished.

  They began the final day of the season the same way: a brief, disoriented panic upon waking, as if they’d flung open a door to the edge of a chasm. It took a moment for this chasm to seal with facts: it was the end of the summer in the land of the midnight sun, and soon the boy would return to his life out east and the girl would return to hers out west, as far apart as two people could be in the wide, vast country where they lived.

  That night, all the seasonal workers met at the pub. The place was full and rowdy; everyone was there. Despite themselves the boy and the girl went, surrounded by people who, for the past three months, had never quite become friends. They listened to these people boast of archetypal northern exploits—climbing a mountain, shooting a rifle, cooking some wild and woolly animal over a fire. Neither the boy nor the girl had tried any of these things; maybe this was why their summers felt unresolved and incomplete?

  At some point past eleven o’clock, out the window of the pub, the boy noticed the sun, lowering sluggishly. Around him the conversation had become sentimental; there was talk of how much people would miss one another, and the boy didn’t feel like lying to people he would do nothing but forget. He was more interested in the sun. He wanted to have one final look before night fell; maybe it was what had disoriented him all summer.

  The boy pushed through the crowd, out the pub’s doors and onto the street. Standing there was the girl. He looked at her and she looked at him. She smiled—though not at or for him, exactly, but more as though she’d just told herself some little joke. And the boy smiled back, a goofy smile of astonishment: here was a person he’d never seen before—in a place, he’d been led to believe, where everyone knew everyone else.

  Hi, said the boy.

  The girl nodded and said, Hello.

  They introduced and explained themselves to each other, and laughed at what seemed the miracle of never having met. A conversation tumbled out of that laughter. Yet what was being said seemed to be happening around but not between them. Their words just floated up into the air and faded—like smoke, or the steam of hot breath on a cold day. What was really happening was in their eyes: the way they looked at each other felt as urgent as a lit match. Then the words ran out, and all the boy could do was stare at the girl, and all she could do was stare at him. Into the silence burbled voices from the bar. The boy said, Do you want to get out of here, go for a walk or something?

  As the sun lowered and the light deepened and the shadows of their bodies lengthened at their feet, the boy and the girl wandered the streets of town. Time seemed to stretch with the shadows as they chatt
ed and walked. To comment on the coming night, the boy recited a couple lines from a poem he said he liked. The girl laughed. That’s not how it goes, she said. He was confused. Some are born to sweet delight, she told him. Oh, he said, looking dejected, feeling pretentious. Though, to be honest, said the girl, I like your version better.

  In the twilight they made their way down to the river, and sat on its banks watching the current sweep stray tree branches downstream. The boy asked the girl why she had come up here. I guess, she said, after some thought, that people do this sort of thing to find themselves. Right, said the boy, but what does that mean? The girl’s smile faded. I don’t know, she said, finally, with a twinge of sadness in her voice. And then she took the boy’s hand and, shivering and pressing close, asked if he’d like a cup of tea.

  ~

  At midnight the sun sunk below the horizon, and something like night collapsed over the town. Inside the girl’s tent she and the boy sat face to face in the dark, two dim people-shaped lumps sipping tea. Beyond the tent the woods existed as vague and distant sounds: the creaking of swaying branches, the swish and whisper of leaves. And then it started to rain.

  The air turned icy and damp, so the girl suggested they get inside her sleeping bag. They trembled at first, but the girl wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulders, and he wedged a knee between her thighs, and they wiggled their hips toward each other, until they were as close as two people could get—faces almost touching, breathing each other’s breath. As raindrops pattered on the tent their voices began to thicken and slur, and later neither would remember who spoke last before they fell asleep.

  Gradually the sky lightened again, and the boy and the girl slept what was either a deep or delicate sleep. It was hard to tell, because they both dreamed of being in each other’s arms. The boy would wake from a dream about being held by the girl, only to find she was holding him; the girl would drift into sleep only to dream about sleeping. It was as though nothing existed but their bodies, either in the real world or in their minds, and sleep and wakefulness were hot and cold taps pouring water into the same, warm bath.

  By morning it had stopped raining. The boy and the girl lay blinking in the daylight that streamed into the tent. Morning, said the boy. Hello, said the girl. We should go, said the boy. Yes, said the girl. But they stayed like that, clutching each other, for a while. Finally they released and sat up and looked at each other long and hard, wondering what else there was to say. Before parting they traded phone numbers. Call me, said the boy, and the girl said, I will.

  ~

  On separate planes heading to opposite sides of the country, the boy and the girl gazed out the windows and thought of each other. The boy had liked the quizzical way the girl had first looked at him, almost sidelong, trying to figure him out. The girl had thought the boy was funny and cute, and warm, and open, and she loved the exuberance with which he talked about the things he valued and cherished; she wanted to be one of those things. Yet when she spoke he listened so intently it felt that nothing could possibly exist, anywhere, beyond them. The boy had liked how long it took the girl to speak, as though every word had to convey precisely what she meant and felt; he appreciated her slow, careful way, and her huge, melancholy eyes which always seemed just a little misty.

  As their flights were landing the boy and the girl thought about sleeping in each other’s arms: what had been real and what had been dreamed? Heading through the airport, they began to worry that the whole thing had been imagined. It seemed impossible that two people would cross paths, spend a single night together, and through the simple crush of their bodies make each other feel so unalone.

  But there were phone numbers tucked into their wallets, material proof. And so the boy and the girl raced home to call each other. Opening the doors of their apartments—his on the east coast, hers on the west—something smelled strange. It took a moment for the boy and the girl to recognize it: the odour of their own lives, which after three months away they’d forgotten.

  ~

  The girl was first to get through. The boy shouted: I was just about to call you!

  The conversation raced back to the night before, as though together, through words, they could not just reconstruct their meeting but return to it.

  I dreamed I was holding you, said the girl.

  Me too, said the boy, all night. I couldn’t tell what was happening and what I was dreaming. I’d think I’d woken up but I’d really just fallen back asleep. And then when I did wake up it felt so good that I was sure I was dreaming, or it was so much like my dream I assumed I’d dreamt I’d woken up and this was just a new dream!

  Yes, exactly.

  It was the same for you?

  Yes.

  And we didn’t even have sex!

  No, said the girl, laughing. No, we didn’t. We didn’t even kiss.

  ~

  Over the next few weeks, the boy and the girl began to speak nightly. The rest of their lives was reduced to vacant space between phone calls. All they could think about was each other.

  Often they would talk so long, and so late, that they would fall asleep on opposite ends of the line and wake in the morning to bleating dial tones and empty beds, the space beside them swollen with absence. Their days were spent in anticipation of speaking again. And, always, they returned to the hazy, dreamy night they’d spent together—a miracle, they called it.

  I can’t believe you exist, said the boy. It’s like I created you!

  I know, said the girl. That night, everything felt so perfect.

  Yet they avoided their explicit feelings for each other, partly because they were hard to define—not love, exactly, not yet—and partly because distance made words seem inadequate. Since neither ever articulated anything concrete, the boy began to wonder if the girl might be humouring him, while the girl thought the boy could just be flighty and impetuous by nature; perhaps she was just another passing entertainment.

  Then, one night, emboldened by beer, the boy was even looser and more vibrant than normal. The girl sensed, from the moment he called her, that he was waiting to reveal something. During a lapse in conversation, he offered a protracted, So…

  A pause. The girl waited breathlessly.

  And then, in a rush, here it came: We talked about going up north to find something, he said. Well I think you were what I was looking for. On the other side of the country, the girl wriggled her toes with joy. But she felt shy and only said, You’re funny, and at this the boy felt a prickle of vulnerability—it was the wrong thing to say, too obvious and confessional—before the girl rescued him: Maybe I’ve been thinking the same thing?

  ~

  Another month passed. Nothing in either the boy’s or the girl’s life felt satisfying except talking to each other. At social outings they sat off on their own, removed and distant, thinking about each other thousands of miles away. The boy played sports but felt lonely. The girl painted a picture but it gave her no joy.

  This began to put pressure on each conversation to probe forward, to coax the other person into revealing more of him or herself. No longer was merely rehashing the night they’d met enough; it made them both impatient and tense. But there was only so much to be done with words. They started falling into silences that didn’t feel comfortable, but static and empty.

  One night, amid one of these silences, the boy said: You’re like a ghost. You only exist in my thoughts.

  What? I existed before you met me.

  But I don’t know that, he said.

  Well, said the girl, what if we hadn’t met?

  There was something barbed in her voice. He asked if he’d upset her.

  We barely know each other, she said.

  We’re practically strangers, said the boy.

  Yes, said the girl.

  Isn’t that what’s fun about us? said the boy—though this us sounded hollow and fo
rced. About our story, I mean, he added.

  But the conversation had gone stilted, and ended abruptly with excuses of early mornings. The next day it nagged at them both; they felt eager to speak, to fix whatever had broken. But that night they kept talking over top of each other, which would provoke sullen bouts of quiet and deep, melancholy sighs. The girl told a meandering story about her job; when she asked if he was listening, the boy admitted that he’d nodded off. He was tired, could they talk tomorrow? And they hung up feeling abandoned—the boy way out east, and the girl way out west.

  Everything had been fine; suddenly it wasn’t. What had happened? Now calling each other felt like a risk—but when the phone didn’t ring it was even worse. Two nights later, drunk, the boy called the girl. She wasn’t home, so he left a sloppy, rambling message. He didn’t hear back for three days, and by the fourth day, when she finally called, his anxiety had churned into suspicion, shame, and fear. His heart plunged and swam at the sound of her voice, and he resented both her and himself for it.

  She, meanwhile, seemed distant: she spoke aimlessly about how busy she was at work. That she didn’t mention his message seemed insulting; when she finally asked him how he was, he responded with airy disinterest.

  Something’s wrong, the girl said.

  Nothing’s wrong.

  Not with you, with me too. What’s happening?

  I don’t know, said the boy—then, in a rush: We need to see each other.

  The girl was quiet. It’s true, she said. You’re barely a real person anymore.

  That’s the problem, he said. You’re just a voice.

  So it is like we made each other up.

  Okay, said the boy. Let’s meet.

  ~

  Way up north in that little tourist town autumn passed in a dusty moment, and the first snowfall came, and melted, and another one came, and stayed, and the temperature dropped and the days got shorter and shorter, and one morning the sun didn’t come up. Just like that it was winter, and toward this winter the boy flew from the east and the girl flew from the west.