THE NATURE OF LEARNING — an extract

Maria was mildly surprised to find herself crammed in the back seat of Georgia's car as it sped its way east towards the mountains. She had meant to be responsible that weekend and study for her Russian test. She had failed college once already, after all.

      'What are you doing this weekend?' Georgia's voice had boomed into Maria's ear through the speaker phone. She had been sitting in her room, the goldfish new owner guide open on her lap. She had been so arrogant to think that something as little as goldfish wouldn't need much care and attention. Of course, they needed it. They deserved it. She thought of the little goldfish with the one black spot, like an angry eyebrow. But what if Maria killed it? What if she wasn't a good enough fish mother?

      'Hellooooo?' Georgia yodelled into the phone.

      'Sorry… uh, probably optional Russian on Saturday.' Her stomach dropped even more. What if Chris was there again? He had taken her by surprise, showing up out of the blue. Now he was all she could think about. All her mistakes playing like a scratched record in her head.

      'Nope, you work too hard. I got the cabin for the weekend; all the girls are going.'

      Maria knew she should be glad that she had agreed to the trip. What was the alternative? Sitting at home, struggling through the quagmire that was the Russian language. Drowning in the flood that was her guilt. She remembered exactly how he had looked on their first meeting, so many years ago. He had smirked at her pronunciation of zsdrasvete, hello. Maria dug her fingernails into her thigh. Be in the here and now. Outside the car window, evergreen trees flashed past, identical and individual. She pressed closer to the glass as Georgia's little sister, Sammy, readjusted herself in the middle seat.

      'My ass is killing me,' Sammy groaned. 'When are we getting there?'

      'Are we there yet? Are we there yet?' Georgia trilled from the driver's seat. Sammy whacked her older sister playfully on the shoulder.

      'We're, what, forty minutes away?' Lina craned around Sammy and snatched at the bag of potato chips.

      'Yeah, that's about right.' Georgia looked in the rear-view mirror and winked at Maria. Rachelle's tight curly hair fanned out over the passenger seat headrest. She was asleep, snoring softly, head tilted back, rocking with the motion of the car.

      Maria couldn't sleep. The music Georgia played, some sort of indie rock, swept her away into a state of semi-consciousness but always her inner voice piped up just at the point of rest. You are stupid, you are nothing. But, Maria protested, they wouldn't have invited you, they wouldn't be hanging out with you if that was the case. You are good at lying, at pretending to a goodness you cannot achieve, you fool them. Maria parried each blow. It was growing harder to lift the shield. Maria closed her eyes. Focus on them, focus on the others. 

      She could feel Sammy's thigh pressed against hers. Aware of minute movements as she fidgeted. Maria leaned her head on Sammy's shoulder, mute and reaching out. How could she explain what she was feeling when she had never been able to find the words? Sammy held out the bag of M&Ms, shaking them to the music. Maria dug in, felt the candy slide through her fingers like pearls. Thirty minutes into the car ride she had unbuttoned her shorts and her belly flowed over. She should not be eating these.

      They were well into the foothills now. The Cascades rose up around their little metal car, steep slopes blanketed in firs and laced with tendrils of waterfalls. The road grew narrower, twisting in more sinuous curves.

      'I recognize this.' Sammy reached across Maria and hit the window button and the glass slid down. Cool, mountain air flooded in. 'That OK, Maria?'

      'Yes, definitely.' She smiled at Sammy. Eyes closed, the wind lifted the hair around her head like a halo.

      Maria could never forget the smell of the mountains. Green and living. A stream appeared below them, threading its way around mossy rocks. As Georgia took the curves a little too fast, Maria watched the stream disappear and reappear, over and over again. The trees fell away; a rocky, almost lunar landscape cut though by a flowing slurry river appeared. Behind it all was Mount Rainier, more massive and imposing than it ever seemed from Seattle. Her mouth fell open a little. The beauty of it. Men saw this and felt the need to pit their strength against it, to climb to the top and penetrate the crust of snow with their flag of ownership. Because it was there. As if the mountain existed for that purpose. Maria tried to imagine the bones of the mountain, the roots of it spreading out and down and up, forming the Cascade Mountain range. It reached so far, in physical space and in time; it was so old. When Maria saw its snowy peak, the sheer immensity impressed upon her the futility, the fragility, the meagreness of her own life. You're making it all about you again, whispered the voice in her head. Maria felt like crying. The mountain fell away from view.

      'We're getting close,' Georgia informed them.

      'Great, I gotta pee so bad,' Sammy informed everyone else.

      Soon the little mountain town materialized. A grocery store, a gas station, a ski and snowboard outfitters, a derelict motel, and a few log homes. Just as soon as they were in it, they were out of it again, so small as to be part of the landscape. Georgia turned off the highway and they trundled down a dirt road. Cabins appeared through the trees. Maria kept her eyes peeled for elk, elegant long legs graceful with their tremendous bulk.

      Georgia pulled the car in front of a small A-frame cabin with a green tin roof, built to withstand the snow fall. The girls piled out, Georgia unlocking the door while Maria, Lina and Rachelle, groggy from her nap, unloaded the bags. Sammy made a beeline for the toilet. Maria looked around at the tree trunks, some straight as arrows, some curving towards the light, growing off long-dead stumps, fodder for the next generation. Sunlight filtered through the canopy overhead. Maria crunched over a carpet of pine needles, felt the tendrils of ferns brush along her calves as she hefted her pack, full of clothes, toiletries, and Russian, towards the door. Ferns always made Maria think of the prehistoric; she used to imagine dinosaurs lumbering through the massive trees. Birdsong filled her ears.

      The interior of the cabin smelled of wood and must. It was decorated with earthy tones. Everything was small and cleverly situated to utilize the space. Georgia's grandparents had built the cabin many years ago and signs of the subsequent generations were everywhere; in the family pictures on the wall, the cautiously updated appliances, the television. But there was no internet access and no cell phone signal. A blue plastic landline with a curly-Q cord completed the impression of isolation.

      In the loft, the allocation of beds began. Georgia and Sammy were shunted together by default of being sisters.

      'She always steals all the blankets.' Sammy heaved a martyred sigh.

      'Rachelle, you should get a bed to yourself,' Maria said, thinking of baby Wendy. 'Get a proper night's sleep.'

      'It doesn't matter,' Rachelle shrugged. 'I sleep like the dead now when I get the chance.'

      'Are you sure? We can be snuggle buddies, huh Maria?' Lina wrapped her arms around Maria who felt a surge of happiness. 

      'Did someone say snuggle buddies?' Georgia looked up from her duffle bag and then jumped forward, tackling Lina and Maria onto the bed with furious, unencumbered, riotous laughter. Maria was breathless from laughing as she twisted in Lina and Georgia's crushing embraces. The weight and heat of two more bodies landed as Rachelle and Sammy joined the fray. Maria imagined the entire woods filling with their laughter.

      After a time, they subsided into a gentle pile, legs and arms intertwined, breath coming slowly and evenly. Maria felt caught in a web, one she did not want to readily extricate herself from. A love for her friends, like sisters, glowed within her. Georgia eventually sighed.

      'Better call Ben and let him know we arrived safely.'

      There was a murmur of assent as the girls moved, each ready to call their person to tell them of their safe arrival. Maria was cold now, the loft seemed much darker than it had before. She could hear them downstairs, each waiting for the phone. She heard every conversation end with 'I love you' and a promise to talk soon. Maria remained motionless on the bed. Her eyes filled with tears. This was your fault, the voice whispered, you could be calling Chris right now.

      Not true, Maria raised a feeble resistance. Chris didn't make her feel safe. She couldn't hear the other end of the conversations, but she knew they responded in kind. She had told Chris she loved him, many times. Always, it was the blank end of the conversation, the dead signal, her failure to reach him. He wouldn't want her to call anyway.

      'Maria?' Lina called up the stairs. 'Want to call your dad?'

      Maria felt Lina's word like a kick in the gut. She was a child in need of checking in. She worked to compose herself before speaking.

      'No, he's out at the lake with Greg.' With his person. Everyone had a person. Maria clenched her teeth together until she felt pain in her jaw.

      The girls continued to murmur to each other. Maria forced herself to move, readied herself to go downstairs, be with her friends. In the loft bathroom, she splashed her face with cold water. The overhead light cast grotesque shadows, making her look haggard and witch-like. Did it still look like she had been crying? She screwed on a smile. Beer, pizza, and a movie, the girls had decided. Maria tried to enjoy the distraction. Squashed in the corner of the couch, Maria's muscles began to cramp from trying to be perfectly still. Rachelle had fallen asleep on her shoulder.

      'Is that what having a baby does to you?' Sammy said, but very quietly and with a smile.

      That night, a moth flew in through the open window, lured in by the false light of Maria's lamp. She set her Russian textbook down and watched the moth. It whirred around the bulb, going in circles, frantic. When it landed, Maria admired its soft body and fragile wings, covered in a sort of fur, in shades of brown and grey, the colours of wood. It gently lifted its wings up like it was taking a breath. Eye spots stared back at her. Then it began to fly again, spinning.

      'Is that a moth?' Rachelle had come out of the bathroom. 'God, it's massive.' 

      'I'll get it.'

      Maria went downstairs for a glass. She pulled one out, looked around for a piece of paper. She remembered she still had the goldfish guide in her backpack. She grabbed it, holding the glass in one hand and the pamphlet in the other, waiting for the poor little thing to land. Rachelle had gotten into bed; she sat plumped against the pillows, adjusting her headscarf. Lina, Georgia, and Sammy were all asleep.

      'Maybe we should turn out the light,' Rachelle offered. 'Would that help?'

      'Yeah, they use the moon to navigate,' Maria said by way of explanation. She had read that somewhere, a nature book, one of her dad's maybe. She remembered they flew in circles, always keeping the moon to one side, like a reference, a guide. 'The artificial lights confuse them.'

      'Poor things,' Rachelle murmured, watching Maria as she placed the glass carefully against the wall, trapping the moth inside. The moth fluttered, panicked, hurling itself against the glass with a soft tink. Maria slid the goldfish guide underneath the glass. The sleek goldfish stared up at her, giving away nothing. The moth had landed on the side of the glass, somehow clinging on to the impossibly smooth sides with its furry little feet. Maria held it up, looking at it one more time. It really was beautiful. 

      She held the glass out the window. The moth stayed put. Maybe it was too scared to move. Behind her, she heard a squeak of bedsprings as Rachelle turned out the light. Blackness descended, the type of dark only found away from the cities, away from light pollution. The moon, heavy in the sky, glowed more brightly, once again the supreme light. Maria waited until finally the moth crept forward, cautious. Eyes adjusted, Maria watched as the moth launched itself out into the air. It plummeted ever so slightly before fluttering upwards. Maria closed the window. She felt sad, knowing the moth would, in all likelihood, find another false moon.

*

Evergreen trees, trunks straight as pillars, fanned out all around her, filling the air with the fragrance of their incense, of pine and fir. Sunlight poured through the canopy, dappling the forest floor with drops like butter. The quiet was immense. Maria stood in a cathedral of trees.

      She bent down and retied her hiking boots. Waving ferns surrounded the visitor's centre and moss blurred the outline of the roof. Maria walked around to the back, wondering how much longer the girls would be in the bathroom. A giant cross section of a Douglas Fir tree stood before her, a dead monument to the living. She stood next to it. It was taller than she was. She leaned her cheek against the rough surface and spread her arms out as wide as she could; still, she couldn't grasp the entirety of it. Stepping back, she tried to count the rings but the sheer number of them, so close together, overwhelmed her. Hadn't she read that tree rings were no longer considered to be the best way to identify a tree's age? She ran a hand over the surface again; it was uneven in some places, from the double-handed axe blade which had cut it, she presumed. Her mind tried to fill in the blanks of this tree, its height and root system.

      She had read that the rings were more indicative of the health of the tree at any given year, whether it had been a year of plenty or hardship; markings of past trauma, hidden away in the cellulose. A plaque informed her the Douglas Fir had been over five hundred years old when it was cut down by loggers. What would it look like now if men hadn't cut it down? She heard laughter and turned to see the girls walking to meet her. They were all dressed in their hiker's best. They were all easy, not a care in the world.

      The closer they got to the beginning of the trail, the more Maria felt something other than despair. She lengthened her stride until she was leading the group. The dirt path sloped gently up, and Maria inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with life-giving breath, expelling the bad which the trees took for themselves; inhaling the good, in their own way. The forest stretched out before and behind, all around them, ferns and huckleberry bushes and saplings soaking up what light they could, at the feet of giants. She felt the workings of her muscles as she stepped over rocks, leapt across a small stream which crossed the path.

      'Maria,' Rachelle called. 'How do you say "forest" in Russian?'

      Maria groped for the word. After a few moments, she said with triumph, 'Les.'

      'How do you say "'salamander"?' Sammy asked.

      'I have no idea.' Maria made a mental note to look it up when she got back to the cabin. She should know that one. What if it was on next week's test? She wondered if she would recognize any root words within it. Would she know it when she saw it? Doubtful.

      'Well, I found one,' Sammy called, and Maria looked around to see her crouched by the side of the path, long legs bent upwards like a spider. 'Come look.'

      Leaning over Sammy's shoulder, Maria saw a tiny little wisp of a salamander sitting on a patch of moss. It was perfect.

      'How did you see that?' Lina asked in wonder.

      'I just looked.' Sammy glanced up and smiled. 

      The salamander didn't seem to mind the attention. It sat there, breathing deeply, its mouth opening and closing, and then suddenly it darted away into the underbrush and was gone. 

      'Excuse me,' a strange voice made Maria jump. A man was striding towards them, eyes on the ground, calves bulging, the growth of his pack making him appear bigger than he was. 'Attempting to beat my record.'

      Maria moved aside, trying not to step off the path and onto the moss, where the salamander had been sitting. He powered past them, leaving the unappealing scents of sweat and cologne in his aftermath. Georgia grimaced. They moved on, moving within the trees, careful to stay on the path, respecting that this part of the forest was for them, that what they saw beyond was not for their consumption. 

      The path grew more difficult. It climbed steadily higher, there were more rocks to trip over.  Maria's mind hummed. She thought of her phone, left prone on the bedside table, useless. Her Russian book sat next to it, closed and impenetrable. She thought of the hike she had taken with Chris. She had worn these same boots. She had woken up early, dotted concealer on her acne, brushed an eyebrow pencil to fill out her unappealing brows. All this was to appear natural. Of course, she had sweated everything off. Wiping her face with her shirt, the collar came away with beige smut. She wasn't wearing makeup today, but she was sweating just as much.

      The girls didn't talk a lot as they walked. There wasn't much need for speech here, in the hush of the trees. Once, a trick of the light made her think she saw a T-Rex. They crossed a small bridge over a creek. The water was crisp and clear, pine needles swirling past in the currents, the rocks below the rushing surface turning to molten glass, smoothed away by the pressure. The hike had been weeks before the end. He had powered ahead, leaving her in his dust; she thought how he would've rather gone by himself. She had called to him to wait for her. It was her fault she was too slow. Just out of reach.

      Maria's breath began to come in gasps, burning like her leg muscles as they strained to carry her forward. Sammy had taken the lead. She heard Lina laughing somewhere behind her. Maria berated herself. Stay here, stay in the now. Remember, they all want you here. Maria looked up at the canopy above her, the shade was heavenly. Why couldn't she be a better friend? Rachelle was behind her, laughing at something Lina said. Maria couldn't tell them about seeing Chris again. Their faces. Maria became aware of a low humming, away in the distance.

      They passed a family coming the other way. The kids were running ahead, leaping, playing tag. The kid's shrieks were like birds calling. It somehow fit. Rachelle and Dan might take Wendy here one day. Would Maria ever have children? Didn't seem likely. Maria caught her foot on a rock and nearly went sprawling. Her heart racketed around in her chest. Rachelle caught her by the elbow and asked if she was alright. Maria nodded and turned away. They had climbed a good deal; here the slope fell steeply, and they could see more of the forest and below them, a swamp. Maria could smell something, a pungent stench, not bad exactly. Maria closed her eyes. It simply smelled alive.

      'Skunk cabbage.' Georgia inhaled deeply. 'See it over there?' She pointed down. Maria saw the clumps of skunk cabbage growing straight and thick out of the swampy ground. 

      They continued on. The humming had turned to a dull roar. The path was getting more difficult. It rose steeply up, winding more narrowly between the trees. Had it been her fault? Why hadn't she been better to him? Her breathing came hard and fast.

      It grew colder, Maria could taste the water in the air. There was an unceasing, relentless sound of thunder all around them. Maria turned a corner and there it was. The waterfall roared and surged. Maria came up to the safety railing, felt the spray of the water on her face. The pounding of hundreds of gallons of water, cascading over the cliff every second, she would have to shout to be heard. The girls came up next to her, cooing and cawing. Rachelle had her camera out. Maria tried to think of how she would describe this in class on Monday. Yah guelyata v lesu kogda yuvidella… She didn't know the word for waterfall. Voda-something? Was the ending aspect of v lesu correct? Or was it v lesy? Would it be guelyat or hodeetya? Walking, moving. She had no idea what hiking was in a Russian connotation. Maria wanted to kick herself for ever thinking she could go back, speak a new language. The railing felt soggy beneath her hands, her nails digging easily into the saturated wood. 

      Maria stared into the white foaming water, at the patterns breaking, the crashing surge swirling and different, each second eternal. Maria realized that her tears were mixing with the spray. Why had she gotten that drunk? She should have been responsible. Why couldn't she have been happy with what they had and kept silent?

      Maria rubbed her arm, healed now, no bruise. What could she have done differently? The water didn't stop, wouldn't. It couldn't have been all her fault. She gripped the railing harder, to steady herself. The girls had gone on, they were ranged across the bridge. She saw Rachelle and Georgia, Lina and Sammy. She tried to picture them, bruised, tried to see Ben or Dan or Alex, raising a hand. Her stomach clenched, anger. No, never. If someone did that to them. Lina was laughing as Georgia mussed her hair up, big and voluminous from the water. It was not acceptable. 

      She couldn't see him after it happened, when she realized he wasn't going to apologize. The text message he had sent read We need to have a brief discussion. Maria was incapable of speaking, incapable of facing it. She had tried to uncover him, find him. She had unearthed something monstrous. It couldn't be him. It wasn't. Was it her forging this in him? She took a deep breath, the rush of water in her ears. No, that wasn't true. His behaviour has nothing to do with you, say it enough it becomes true. 

      The discussion had been brief enough. A door slammed onto her arm. A flash of profound pain.

      Rachelle caught up with her as they hiked back down.

      'Are you OK, Maria?'

      Maria looked up. Rachelle's eyes were full of concern.

      'No.' Maria said it, finally. Rachelle reached a hand out, stopped her, wrapped Maria in a hug.

      'Tell me about it.'

      Maria heard the words and began to cry.