The Back of the Turtle

Mara introduces the young girl Gabriel saved as Mei-ling Chin. Mei-ling’s family and their cousins, the Huangs, were working on an old ship when a storm struck, badly damaging it. As the ship sank, Mei-ling and her family made a break for the shore in a small lifeboat, which broke apart on the Apostles. There, they encountered Gabriel, who saved their lives. They are the ones who have been living in the abandoned houses on the reserve, pilfering items from the town’s grocery stores. After their story is told, Gabriel tries to excuse himself, saying he needs to get back, but Crisp advises him that “ye are already here” (436).

Back at Domidion, Lustig tells Dorian that while the communities living on the edge of the Athabasca River are experiencing heightened mortality rates, “fortunately […] they are Native communities where the mortality rate is already higher than […] white communities” (437). Dorian wants to know how Manisha Khan found out about GreenSweep, and Lustig suggests Gabriel may have sent copies of Domidion’s internal documents to CBC himself. Dorian suggests that they round up all of Domidion’s “sins […] accidents, disasters, gross negligence” and blame them on everyone but Domidion—environmental activists, the Zebras, and so on—to muddy the waters.

After Lustig leaves, Winter has additional bad news for Dorian. She’s traced the disposal of the leftover GreenSweep, which was packed into storage barrels and stashed in Quebec. A mix-up shortly after their arrival, however, led to them being loaded onto a ship for disposal in the sea—the Anguis. Dorian simply says, “there’s not much to be done” (443).

Sonny returns to the Ocean Star motel, eager to tell his father about the tower, but no one answers when he knocks on the door. Eventually, he huddles up in front of the door and falls asleep.

On the porch of Mara’s grandmother’s home, Gabriel reflects on his mistakes. He once believed that science was about finding the answers to life’s questions, but he was wrong—too late, he discovered that profit and power are the true drivers of the industry. He resolves to carry out his suicidal plan at the Apostles the following morning. Mara joins him on the porch. She asks him to tell her the truth about why he came back to Samaritan Bay.

On the limo ride home, Dorian is excited thinking about how he’ll spin all of Domidion’s disasters as the work of the Zebras. Dorian asks his driver, Kip, to go to Toronto General Hospital. Kip proclaims that “dying wealthy is harder than dying poor” (451), because the rich can control everything but their own mortality.

At the reception desk of Toronto General, Dorian learns that the procedure Toshi has scheduled for him is an angiogram. He leaves and has Kip take him to a local five-star hotel, the Hermes.

Gabriel walks away from Mara’s house, crushed. After he told her about GreenSweep and his role in the Kali Creek disaster, she went into the house and returned to give him the elk skin drum and jacket, and to advise him that “low tide is at five” (455). Soldier joins him as he walks, and soon they spot the hazy glow from Sonny’s tower. Gabriel follows the light onto the beach. As he contemplates Sonny’s handiwork, Soldier suddenly takes off at a run and vanishes into the fog.

Crisp returns to the hot springs, where he watches the light of Sonny’s tower glittering on the beach. From the distance, he hears a sharp screeching sound that he can’t identify.

Sonny is awoken by the unidentifiable screeching in the night, as well the snoring of Soldier, who has snuck up next to him. Sonny and Soldier together beat against the door to his father’s room until it breaks down, revealing that Sonny’s father is long gone. As Sonny sits sadly on the bed, processing his father’s absence, Soldier begins pulling on Sonny’s shirt sleeve, dragging him until he stands up, then guiding him back to the beach.

Mara lies in bed, unable to sleep. She wants to talk to Gabriel again, though she’s not sure what she wants to hear. He wants her to condemn him, to sign off on his suicide, but she refuses to make it that easy for him. Mara gets up and makes her way back out into the night.

Dorian checks into the Hermes but feels bored and restless. At 4:30 AM he decides to go on a walk, strolling down the deserted luxury shopping street and contemplating death. On Bloor Street, he is approached by a transient woman who offers to read his fortune for $20. He is tempted to ask if he will be remembered after his death but can’t bring himself to do so.

Low tide arrives on the beach. Gabriel muses that while life is a circle, his own has been “something less precise, something broken” (472). He climbs back onto the Apostles and begins to play his drum but is interrupted by Mara clambering onto the rocks with him. She still has questions and urges him to reconsider his suicide. Gabriel says that he doesn’t want to save himself. As waves begin to break on the Apostles, Mara says he can save her instead.