Creature Discomforts

better than the foreign-alphabet speed-writing on the papers in the folders. I’d obviously cared about this hiking diary; I’d wanted to make sure I’d be able to decipher it. One of the last entries was dated September 9. It opened with a complaint: “Clear, hot day with the sky an unrelieved blue! Carriage road up Day Mountain, then trail down.” My notes went on to specify the weight each dog had carried. Rowdy had packed fifteen pounds, Kimi twelve. “Fifteen was nothing for him,” I had noted, “and Kimi could easily have taken more, but gravel on the damned carriage roads is brutal on the dogs’ feet.” So, fifteen was nothing for him? For Rowdy! And Kimi could have carried more. She could have. Big Boy: my Rowdy. The Lone Ranger: my Kimi.
    Holly, Rowdy, Kimi. Mount Desert Island, Maine. By now, I knew what day it was, too. Fastened to the refrigerator with a lobster-shaped magnet was Gabrielle Beamon’s invitation to the event for which she was picking up lobsters. The invitation had been photocopied onto cheery yellow paper. “Come to a clambake!” it read. “In honor of Malcolm Fairley and in celebration of the Pinetree Foundation for Conservation Philanthropy! Wednesday, September 13!” The invitation went on about the time, 7:00 P.M., and the place, the Main House, and the phone number for obeying the request to R.S.V.P. In the same lovely script I’d already seen in her letter to me, Gabrielle Beamon had added a note at the bottom. “Holly, do come! Bring your beautiful dogs! Gabbi.” So, as my correspondent, Ann, had written, Gabrielle—Gabbi for short —was bossy and sweet. If Malcolm was headstrong and difficult, why give a party in his honor? Because of his charm?
    The kitchen clock read 6:30.1 congratulated myself. Besides knowing who I was and where I was, in a minimal way, I knew the date and the time. I’d pass a mental status exam! An undemanding one. But a short time ago, I’d have flunked hopelessly. “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” Ah yes! Gauguin’s painting. Three questions. I now had two answers. We come from Cambridge, Massachusetts. We are an injured, vulnerable, frightened woman and her two ungodly powerful dogs. We are a trinity destabilized, for the moment, by its weak human element. As to the third question, the dogs have faith either in themselves or, God help them, in me. They do not worry about where we are going. Kimi has retrieved a fleece ball from the heap of toys in the bedroom. She lies with her belly on the cool floor, her toy globe immobile between her forepaws. The world is hers to chew and sniff. Rowdy has been rummaging in a pile of newspapers, magazines, and junk mail in a wooden basket by the fireplace. He parades around with a treasure in his mouth. It is an envelope. Intuition tells me that a certain magic word will persuade him to relinquish his plunder to me. Intuition stops just there. The magic word is in eclipse. I manage, however, to see that the envelope is addressed to Current Resident. Therefore, it is my envelope. It is mine to give to my dog. “Good boy, Rowdy,” I say, simply for the joy of speaking his name. “Good girl, Kimi.” For the same reason, of course.
    Where are we going? I am not going to a hospital, because we would not be admitted. The idea skips across my mind that I might consult a veterinarian. I decide I must be temporarily insane. Consequently, we are not going home. Massachusetts is a long way from Bar Harbor, Maine. The trip is too long to be undertaken by a mad person unwilling to put her dogs at risk. Besides, I am convinced that there is something here I must do. Must tell someone? Must, at a minimum, remember.
    I concoct a theory: As I was about to die, my whole life passed before my eyes and out of my memory. As my life returns, my lost mission and I will reunite. In the meantime, we must hunt for it: my hunting dogs and I.
     

Chapter Six
     
    SOON AFTER ROWDY, KIMI, AND I had been introduced to the other canine and human guests at Gabrielle Beamon’s clambake, I started to worry about what I mistook for a bizarre new neurological symptom caused by my recent fall. The particulars: Having been introduced to Pacer, Demi, Isaac, and twenty or so human beings, I exhibited an instantaneous case of perfect recall for everything about every dog and immediately forgot the names of all the people. I now recognize the phenomenon as spiritual rather than medical. Heaven knows that