Chapter One

The onion and the two-hundred dollar kitchen knife changed my luck. This was before I learned the safest way to slice an onion is to cut it in half and lay the two pieces flat side down so they don’t slip.

I was into the rhythm of the chopping when the onion slithered across the chopping-board. My left hand followed it while the right continued its movement. It happened in slow motion, as these things do when the insight into an impending catastrophe speeds up the brain neurons so everything goes slower, but your physical reactions don’t work at such a heightened pace.

It was an early evening in June. Images of the long journey to this place clogged my mind.

The knife sliced off the tip of my middle finger, which plopped among the rings of onion. The pile reddened into a messy blob. My scream, formed into the word ‘shit’ emerged the moment before the pain hit, before the mutilation seeped into my brain.

My first thought was Monique would help. She’d know what to do. My wife would make it go away.

But Monique was dead.

She couldn’t help with this emergency any more than I’d been able to help her.

The knife clattered into the sink. I turned on the faucet, grabbed the fingertip out of the mess of onions and stuck it and the end of my finger under the cold water.  The raw stub felt as though it would explode. Pain filled every nerve. Blood flowed freely. Every drop in my body would drain from that throbbing finger. Get to a hospital. They’d sew it back on. Quicker the better. A doctor could save it. Where is the nearest place? Must be Moncton, twenty minutes away. Call 911. No, get someone to drive. Get help now.

I opened the refrigerator door, grabbed the ice container from the freezer compartment and stuck my finger in among the ice-cubes along with the loose end. One advantage of living in a camper van is everything is right there.

Stumbling from the side door, carrying the tiny cargo, I made it to the nearest trailer showing any sign of life.

This is how I met Vic and Elise. My shouts brought the couple to the trailer door. The incoherent panic-infused message burbling from a stranger brought two ministering angels from their summer home. The couple seated me on a sofa before I could explain the urgent need to get to a hospital. But the moment I sat it felt as though Vic and Elise were taking care of everything; as though Monique were there with me.

It was the first conversation with my neighbours apart from an exchange of waves a few times when arriving or leaving in their car. Even before telling me their names, these two showed I could trust them with my pulsating finger and its sliced-off tip.

“Let’s have a look,” said Vic.

My saviour took the whitening tip and inspected it, squinting as he held it up.

“Looks clean. Good clean cut. Must have been a good knife.”

“It was new.”

Vic’s voice was resonant. The accent sounded eastern European. He turned to his wife. “Get the comfrey, Elise; let’s make a poultice.” He nodded at me. “We’ll have this back and healing before you know it.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“No. Better. Doctors aren’t the only healers in this world.”

“Don’t you think it would be better to get to the hospital and have someone sew it back on or something?”

“Can if you like. It would mean waiting around for three or four hours. Even so I doubt the staff there would be able to fix it. We’ll have it done before a doctor would have time to take a look.”

It took less than thirty minutes, including the time it took Elise to mix the greenish-brown paste onto a strip of surgical tape, for Vic to refit the end of my finger with the care and precision of a surgeon, and for them both to bind it together. It still hurt like hell, but the throbbing subsided, and my finger almost felt as though it were in one piece again.

It was the turning point. It hardly seemed like it, but it’s when my life began again. Not that life was all bad until Monique, and being out of work. Before the finger episode, nothing was planned. I’d never felt in control of life. Not as a kid, or growing up and getting a job. Marriage didn’t change things. Life lurched on without me. There were a few difficulties. Good times and not so good. One horrendous one. Things nobody would ever know about. Everything was in a straight line. A to Z. Birth to death. If everything carried on the same path, I was on J or K.

Two years ago, someone grabbed hold of the Scrabble bag and threw the letters into the air. They crashed to the ground just like Monique plummeting from the icy ledge, my scream echoing hers into the distance.

I hit rock bottom about two years later.

* * * *

Before my hosts would let me go, Vic and Elise insisted on bringing out the food. In my camper was a partially made spaghetti Bolognese, which is what Elise cooked. The three of us ate it in their luxurious trailer, together with a bottle of Chianti. After the meal, Elise volunteered to go across to my camper van to clear up the mess in the galley, and it was all I could do to prevent the intrusion.

Vic came from Hungary to Canada over thirty years ago. Elise was from the region, having been born and raised in northern New Brunswick; the Acadian part. Vic landed up in Moncton, where they met, married, and lived. The couple spent the last ten summers in this campground. It was an easy commute to work in Moncton, and it meant the pair could sit by the ocean every day, sipping wine, reading.

Vic was about fifty-five, by the look of him; Elise maybe fifty, meaning they were ten years younger than my parents would be.

I spent a lot of time with my new friends throughout the first summer in Shediac. To my utter amazement, the finger knitted together. The nail took a beating, turned black and fell off. New growth formed. Apart from some numbness right at the tip, the finger was as good as before the knife sliced the end off.

“The body’s such a great natural healer,” said Vic.

When I asked what he’d used to help it heal Vic explained the story of the comfrey plant.

“The Mi’kmaq called it knit-bone. Speaks for itself, doesn’t it? The natives knew a thing or two about natural healing. Elise and I use it a lot. Why not come over to our healing centre one day?”

I took him up on the invitation two weeks later.

* * * *

The Victor Ferenc Natural Healing & Coaching Centre was located in a converted house on Botsford Street in Moncton. The entrance lobby was big enough for two people at a pinch; or one large person lined as it was with shelves displaying an array of books, pamphlets and, behind glass, medicinal bottles containing capsules of varying colours and shapes.

A connecting door led to the reception office. Elise sat behind a desk, facing a computer screen, speaking on the phone. She smiled and waved, inclined her head toward the row of vacant chairs lined up along the sidewall.

I declined the offer and paced over to the opposite wall to look at the pictures and certificates hanging there. The paintings were abstracts; originals by the same artist. A closer inspection of the signature revealed Vic’s name in the corner. The certificates all bore the name of Victor Ferenc and came from several Canadian institutes to do with health. Stuff like homeopathy and massage therapy, ‘Healing Touch,’ and another called ‘Inner Balancing.’

Elise spoke in French on the phone and looked up when the call was finished.

“Victor won’t be long. He’s with a client, but they must be almost done.”

Apparently, Vic was Victor at work.

“How’s the finger?” Elise asked the same question at every possible opportunity.

The finger went on display. An opaque tape still encased it, and I changed it every two days according to Vic’s instructions.

“Great. Who’d imagine it would stay on? I keep waiting for it to drop off whenever it’s time to remove the dressing.”

“Victor always says trust the body to heal itself. So learn to trust. At the Ferenc Centre, we use nothing other than natural remedies and the body’s own abilities. It’s up to you to do the rest.”

A door opened to the right of the reception desk and out stepped a woman in her thirties, one hand resting on her ballooning belly. Vic, who wore a white cotton coat, unbuttoned to reveal his usual casual attire of golf shirt and jeans followed the woman. Vic’s hand rested on her shoulder.

“Thank you, Doctor Ferenc,” The woman turned to him. “You’ve been such a help.”

“Why not thank me by coming back in six weeks with two lovely little babies.” Vic patted propelled his client forward, giving me a grin wide enough for his eyes to crinkle. “Hello my friend, come in.”

Vic’s office was austere, businesslike. A massage table jutted out into the middle of the room, while another, which looked like an examination table, nestled against the wall. A solid-looking desk sat diagonally across from one corner, its surface bare except for one crystalline piece of rock. Apart from the swivel chair behind his desk, two easy chairs angled against each other. Vic indicated one, took off his white coat and hung it on a hook behind the desk. I sat, legs crossed waiting for him to sit in the other easy chair.

“I thought you said you’re not a doctor.”

“Ah, yes,” said Vic. “My doctorate is in psychology, so I’m not a medical doctor. Many of the clients who come here like to call me doctor. It seems to make people feel better.” Vic chuckled in a recognizable way; a rumble starting deep from inside the chest and emerging in a husky, guttural way I could only imagine was Hungarian.

“And the white coat?” I was entering into an interrogation. Not a good start.

Another chuckle. “Part of the same image. People come here to feel better and I offer what they need. The white coat goes on when people express a physical concern, or in certain cases a psychological one. It brings the clients greater confidence and comfort. A white coat indicates a professional. When I’m needed more as a counsellor, or as a life coach, it stays on the peg. If it’s a coaching or consulting appointment with a business executive or professional, I’ll wear a suit. None of it makes any difference to the work we do together, but the impression clients have of me from the start contributes to their level of trust. Now; tell me about yourself.”

We spent an hour talking. To be more accurate, Vic talked for about fifteen minutes. I talked for the rest of the time. Three minutes would normally be long for me to speak. It was exhausting. By the time it was time to leave, my head felt so crammed full I felt the need to ward off any more thoughts threatening to bust it open. A few minutes later while climbing into the camper enough of the detritus swirling around must have seeped away, because a flash of inspiration hit as the motor roared into life.

It was tough to resist the temptation to flick through the pamphlet while driving. The highway to Shediac from Moncton isn’t a long stretch, but it was busy with a steady stream of holiday traffic and I didn’t want another ticket. Amazing luck only to have picked one up all the way across Canada. One was enough. This camper vehicle was home now, and it couldn’t remain stationary. Weaving off the highway into Shediac the traffic slowed as it crept across the intersection. Most of the vehicles were loaded with families eager to view the biggest lobster in the world, Shediac’s main claim to fame. If I wanted my town to be known for something, it wouldn’t be a sculpture of a giant lobster. The locals must know something.  From the campsite, I could see automobiles and tour buses pull into the parking lot all day long disgorging tourists. All the visitors did was snap quick photos and pile back into the vehicle to hurtle onwards to the next destination on the itinerary.

Making a left into the campground, I nestled the van back into its spot. Lucky to rent a space there. The site was full, but someone cancelled just as my van turned up. The owners slotted me in as long as I agreed to rent for the season. It suited me. There was nowhere else to go, and it gave me ten weeks to decide what to do with the next phase of my life.

Before settling in to read the information on Vic’s work and the training course, an image of a future burst into my mind like a movie trailer. I saw for the first time how to make a name for myself. My mouth felt odd. It formed itself into a smile. Would I have laughed or cried if a fortune-teller said how my name would be on everybody’s lips?

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