I said the word “refugee” aloud.
In my pocket I found the deposit slip I’d been given at the credit union with the exact time of my transaction: “12 July 2012: 10:35:04.” That had to be close to the moment the landslide began. Why hadn’t I felt it in my bones? How could I have been oblivious to a personal and community-wide blow of such magnitude?
Uli arrived from Argenta just as Jillian was leaving. I waved goodbye to Jillian then threw my arms around him. “Did you hear what happened?” He shook his head.
“Everything’s gone!” And I told him what I knew.
“That explains it,” Uli said as we went inside. “Driving in I passed hordes of emergency vehicles with sirens blaring and lights flashing, racing up the lake. I had no idea where they were going or what it was all about.”
I cried for the first time as he told me, “I knew I had to see you today. I had this weird, powerful voice inside telling me I must come.” I looked at him and nodded. Uli and I have often had such inexplicable psychic connections, with one of us knowing instantly when the other one needs help. He went to the kitchen, got out the bread and found cheese in the fridge. “You have to eat something.”
I had no appetite but chewed obediently. He held my hand. I looked at the clock. I couldn’t understand anything. I swallowed. I chewed. It was such a comfort having Uli right there beside me. I’d left home at nine a.m. and now they said my home didn’t exist anymore. I kept looking at the clock. It was now two p.m.
“Should we go and visit Ann?” Uli had brought flowers from his garden for our friend Ann MacNab, who was terminally ill and had recently moved into palliative care at the Victorian Hospital of Kaslo.
“Yes, you know something? I’d really like to do that.” I hadn’t seen Ann in several years but had heard how ill she now was. I stood up and went to change out of my work clothes. My hands were shaking and icy cold, despite the hot day, as I stripped and put on the ugly checked dress I’d worn that morning. I hated it, wanted to rip it to shreds, but I had nothing else to wear. I threw cold water on my face, got into Uli’s green Jeep and we drove the half kilometre up the hill to the hospital.
Ann’s room looked beautiful, filled with flowers and artwork, books and classical music CDs. Distracted for a moment, I gazed around with pleasure. I hadn’t seen this room for five years. The idea of converting the old operating theatre into a new, purpose-designed palliative care room arose while I was hospice coordinator; we had raised funds and contributed ideas for its design and furnishing. Comfortable and inviting, it was like a normal room, with a hide-a-bed, armchairs, a stereo music system, a TV and a fully equipped kitchen area with a fridge and a microwave oven. Ann said she loved the feel of the room, its restfulness, the sunshine-yellow walls and blue trim, the paintings by local artist Pauline McGeorge and the bird feeder outside the window, rocking with activity under the ginkgo tree.
Ann was in the last stage of her long and illuminating life, serene and accepting, with an inner calm that surrounded her like an aura. A highly intelligent woman with three master’s degrees—in Canadian literature, English literature and librarianship—she spoke with eloquence, wit and good humour. She looked frail and thin but was still very much herself. Taking both my hands in hers she gently held my gaze. “I am so sorry you have lost your home. It was a beautiful place. I knew it well, as you know. I used to visit Ruth there.” This was no time for small talk. Everything we said felt significant, though in my dazed state I could remember almost nothing of our conversation afterwards. But in that moment it soothed me. Ann, who was dying, gave me a valuable gift that afternoon.
I said I would visit her again.
Back at the house the shadows were lengthening, and the lawn-mowing remained unfinished. I spoke to Christopher on the phone and we talked about Ozzie. Might he still be alive? Was he trapped? Injured? It was agonizing not to know. Christopher planned to leave Eugene and drive through the night. The drive would take him around sixteen hours, allowing for a couple of breaks and brief naps.
At about five that afternoon, our long-time friends Bill Wells and Greg Utzig came by, just back from Johnson’s Landing with photos and the first detailed eyewitness account. Bill had owned property in Johnson’s Landing for many years; Greg and Donna still had a summer cabin along the shore from our place. Bill and Greg are soil scientists, intimately familiar with the mountainside above Johnson’s Landing.
Bill told me, “We’d read Loran’s emails and talked about them. His account of Gar Creek’s behaviour rang alarm bells for both of us. The signs he was describing indicated something potentially very dangerous. That’s why we went up there today.” Greg drove from his home in Nelson and picked Bill up in Kaslo, about half an hour later than planned. “I was going to go straight down to your place first,” Greg told me, “to return a tool I’d borrowed from Christopher. If we’d been on time, and been down there at your place…”
The mountain slid fifteen minutes before they arrived. They found the road cut off, and tree debris everywhere. “We were worried about your safety so the first thing we did was get down there and explore around your house,” Greg said. “We found Renata sitting on the beach, very shaken, and she said you weren’t home. We were so relieved.” Greg explained that the landslide had slowed down, running out of material and momentum, by the time it hit the side of our house, folding it diagonally, and collapsing it. The slide had actually ground to a halt a few metres farther on, right at the shoreline.
I shook my head in amazement. “Good grief! If only it could have stopped a bit sooner.”
They’d paddled Greg’s canoe far enough out into the lake to see the whole hillside and sat there, aghast, gazing at the scene in front of them. Bill told me over a cup of tea how bewildered he’d been to see that the slide had jumped out of the creek and spread over the bench of land to the south. He’d noticed something else that troubled him, too: “Where’s the water? Gar Creek’s stopped flowing down in the slide path. We sat there for an hour but there was still no water and I’m worried about that. The question is, when is the creek going to start running again?” I tried to understand Bill’s concern, but then Greg got out his camera and Uli and I were instantly taken by the images on the tiny screen.
Greg’s photos showed how gently the house had shifted, not even dislodging the geraniums from the deck. Everything had collapsed but it was still recognizably our home. Windows had blown out, walls had flipped over and bits of furniture were visible inside. Greg showed me an atmospheric photo taken through a hole into the kitchen, where the roof now rested on the dining table. I felt a sudden burst of hope that Ozzie might still be alive. He could have found refuge in some nook or cranny, or crawled out through a broken window. I clutched at my vision, euphoric from the sudden surge of adrenalin.
Greg made me promise not to go climbing inside the house. He stressed the risk of further slides and I agreed to be sensible, but I’d already hatched a plan to go and search for Ozzie the next morning.
After Greg and Bill left, and while Uli cooked supper, I contacted several friends in Kaslo for help. I needed someone with a motorboat to take me to Johnson’s Landing first thing in the morning. My friend Osa Thatcher crossed the front yard and I ran out to her, babbling about my idea. In typical Osa can-do fashion she volunteered to organize a boat and go with me.
Osa Thatcher and Paul Hunter are our oldest friends from the Landing. Christopher spent nine years helping to build their house. But in March 2007, Paul suffered a spinal cord injury, and he was now in a wheelchair, unable to live full-time in the Landing. They bought a house in Kaslo, just a block away from ours.
Other people were horrified when they heard about my planned boat trip and begged us not to go, but I was hell-bent and determined. Here was something practical and tangible I could do. I was going to hold my darling Ozzie again, and nuzzle my nose in his fur. None of the other losses would matter if he was safe.
Osa confirmed the details of our trip when she returned around eight p.m. with her friend Carole Summer, who brought me homeopathic remedies for grief, fear, shock and trauma. They said the