Free Surfacing by Margaret Atwood Page B

and he can use his own rod.
    “Lie down, Anna,” he says, “I’m gonna use my own rod.”
    Anna says “Oh Christ, you have to do that about everything, don’t you?”
    He chuckles at her and reels and the line comes in, the water slipping off it; the pale gleam of the spoon wavers up out of the lake. When it skips over the surface towards us I can see the worm is gone. On one hook is a shred of worm skin; I used to wonder how the lures with their crude African-idol eyes could deceive the fish, but perhaps they’ve learned.
    We’re opposite the cliff, grey slab of rock straight as a monument, overhanging slightly, ledge like a step halfway up, brown rock-lichen growing in the fissures. I put a lead sinker and a different spoon and a fresh worm on David’s line and toss it over; the worm drops, pink, pink-brown, till it disappears in the shadow of the cliff. The dark torpedo shapes of the fish are seeing it, sniffing at it, prodding it with their noses. I believe in them the way other people believe in God: I can’t see them but I know they are there.
    “Keep right still,” I say to Anna, who’s beginning to shift uncomfortably. They can hear.
    Light fading, silence; back in the forest, liquid spiral thrush voice, they call at sunset. David’s arm moves up and down.
    When nothing happens I tell him to reel in; the worm is gone again. I take out the little frog, the ultimate solution, and hook it on securely while it squeaks. Other people always did that for me.
    “God you’re cold-blooded,” Anna says. The frog goes down through the water, kicking like a man swimming.
    Everyone concentrates, even Anna: they sense this is my last trick. I stare into the water, it was always a kind of meditation. My brother fished by technique, he outguessed them, but I fished by prayer, listening.
    Our father who art in heaven
Please let the fish be caught.
    Later when I knew that wouldn’t work, just
Please be caught
, invocation or hypnosis. He got more fish but I could pretend mine were willing, they had chosen to die and forgiven me in advance.
    I begin to think the frog has failed. But it’s still magic, the rod bends like a diviner’s and Anna shrieks with surprise.
    I say “Keep the line tight,” but David is oblivious, he’s reeling like a mixmaster and saying “Wow, wow” to himself and it’s up to the surface, it jumps clear and hangs in the air like a framed photo over a bar only moving. It dives and pulls, the line slackens, it’s doubling back trying to shake loose; but when it jumps again David jerks the rod with his whole body and it sails across and flops into the canoe, a dumb move, he could’ve lost it, on top of Anna and she lurches, screaming “Get it off me! Get it off me!” and we almost tip. Joe says “Holy shit” and grabs at the side, I bend the other way, counterbalancing, David is snatching at it. It slithers over the canoe ribs, flippering and snapping.
    “Here,” I say, “hit it back of the eyes.” I reach him the sheathed knife, I’d rather not kill it myself.
    David swipes at it, misses; Anna cover her eyes and says “Ugh. Ugh.” It flops towards me and I step down on it with my foot and grab the knife and whack it quickly with the knife handle, crushing the skull, and it trembles stiffly all over, that’s done it.
    “What is it?” David asks, amazed by what he’s caught but proud too. They are all laughing, joyful with victory and relief, like the newsreels of parades at the end of the war, and that makes me glad. Their voices bounce off the cliff.
    “Walleye,” I say, “Pickerel. We’ll have it for breakfast.”
    It’s a good size. I pick it up, fingers hooked under the gills and holding firmly, they can bite and jerk loose even when they’re dead. I put it on the bracken fronds and rinse my hand and the knife. One of its eyes is bulging out and I feel a little sick, it’s because I’ve killed something, made it dead; but I know that’s irrational, killing