Free The Twelfth Imam by Joel C.Rosenberg

and set up the cabins. Meanwhile, he asked David and Marseille to go gather as much firewood as they could. Internally, David resisted. He hadn’t come on this trip to be treated like a kid. But he felt better when he saw his brothers’ faces, just visible in the final traces of the sunset—why should David get time alone with the girl?
    Marseille’s reaction brought him back to reality. “Out there?” she asked. “With the bears?”
    “Don’t listen to Old Man McKenzie,” Dr. Shirazi laughed. “He’s not even Canadian. He’s from Poughkeepsie.”
    “Poughkeepsie?”
    “He got hooked on drugs and dodged the draft in the Vietnam War. Moved up here to get away from Nixon and get free health care. I met him when he desperately needed triple bypass surgery faster than the system up here could get him scheduled. Nice guy, but one taco short of a combo platter, if you know what I mean.”
    David looked at Marseille as Marseille stared at his father.
    “What does that have to do with bears?” she asked.
    David grinned at the perplexed look on her face. “Nothing,” he said, handing her a small flashlight and shaking his head. “That’s just the way my dad answers a question. Come on. Let’s go.”
    David headed into the woods, a more powerful flashlight in his hands. Marseille clearly didn’t want to be left behind. She zipped up her North Face fleece jacket and caught up to him quickly.
    “So my dad tells me you read and write Farsi fluently,” she said.
    “Yeah.”
    “And German.”
    No reply.
    “And you’re working on Arabic.”
    Still no reply.
    “Of course,” she said, glancing at him as they walked, “you might want to work on your English a bit.”
    “Very funny.”
    “I’m just saying . . .”
    “Yes, I speak all those languages.”
    “What are you, a genius?” she asked.
    “No.”
    “That’s what my dad says.”
    “How would your dad know? He hasn’t seen me in six years.”
    “He says you were almost fluent in all those then.”
    David said nothing. They walked quietly for several minutes.
    “So where in the world are we, anyway?” Marseille finally asked, trying again to break the ice.
    “You really can’t stand silence, can you?” David replied.
    “Shut up,” she laughed, punching him in the arm, “and answer my question.”
    David feigned pain but finally answered. “The Gouin Reservoir.”
    “The what?”
    “The Gouin Reservoir—or in French, Réservoir Gouin .”
    “ Ooh la la , I’m impressed,” she said. “Parlez-vous français, aussi?”
    David shook his head. “Je ne remember much pas.”
    Marseille laughed. “ Je le doute. Anyway, that’s too bad.”
    “Why?”
    “’Cause we’re in Quebec, and they speak French up here.”
    “So you do know where we are.”
    “I can read the ticket stub. But Le Réservoir Gouin —what the heck is that?”
    “You really want to know?”
    “I’d just like to hear you put two or three sentences together in English . . . you know, just to know that you can!”
    “Fine,” David said. “It’s a collection of hundreds of small lakes containing innumerable islands and peninsulas with highly irregular shapes, located in the central portion of the Canadian province of Quebec, roughly equidistant from Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City. Its shoreline stretches over 5,600 kilometers, excluding islands. The reservoir was created in 1918 at the upper reaches of the Saint Maurice River and is named after Jean-Lomer Gouin, who was premier of Quebec at the time. Construction was done by the Shawinigan Water and Power Company to facilitate hydroelectric development by controlling the flow of water for the stations downstream.”
    Marseille had stopped walking and was staring at David. “How do you know all that?”
    “I read a lot.”
    “What did you do, memorize an encyclopedia article or something?”
    David shrugged and quickly changed the subject. “Hey, over there, grab those old branches and I’ll grab