Between Two Worlds (27 page)

“Good! I’m glad you’re considering my offer.”

I felt myself beginning to smile.

Angulluk threw up his hands in anger. Then he let out a big sigh.

At icy dawn the next day, through a sudden generous urge that surprised me as much as it did him, I gave Angulluk one more chance to keep me as a wife. We were on board the
Windward
, sailing from Musk Ox Land. The tide was full, and I could hear only the barest whistle of wind coming over the sea. We stood at the bow as the rising sun shone white through a layer of mist.

For the first time, I regretted all the years Angulluk and I had called each other ugly and stupid when neither of us meant it. I took a breath, then said, “Angulluk, my husband. We’ve lived through another winter, the cold and dark, and more than one blizzard. It’s time for us to enjoy the sunlight and good hunting in Itta.
Together
. But you must promise me that you will never trade me to a white man again.”

“Shut up, woman! I will do as I please.”

“But—” I hesitated. “Listen. You knew from the first that you shouldn’t have traded me to an outsider.”

Angulluk stood upright with a new harpoon tipped with a carved walrus tusk. He’d made the harpoon’s long,
heavy shaft from wood he’d received the first time he traded me to Duncan.

How could I talk to him without insulting him?

“This time, when you said no to Peary, you passed up an opportunity for
qallunaat
bounty. I’m proud of you for that. But I need to know, so we can start over, as if we’d just married: will you promise never to trade me to a white man again?”

“Tassa!”
he barked. “Eqariusaq, stop your lying games. I know you love Duncan.”

“True, but it is your fault for sending me to him in the first place. Besides, he’ll soon go back to his own land.”

Angulluk winced as if he had salt water in his eyes. He was holding back tears.

He was a stupid fool for not agreeing to my simple request.

“Listen,” I said. “I mean it. No trades with
qallunaat
. Promise me now. Or I will leave you. Make up your mind.”

“Go.” There was no mistaking the firmness in his voice.

He would let me go so easily?

After a moment, I straightened and put my hand on his shoulder. “Then we are family no more.” As was the custom, I said the words three times. Then, “After the voyage, we will separate.”

He turned, leaving me at the rail. He walked toward the center of the ship and the pen of snarling, barking dogs.
“Tassa!”
he yelled toward the pack.
“Tassa!”

I walked along the deck from one side of the ship to the other, past sailors and hunters, past kayaks and huge stacks of furs, tents, cooking pots, and other things. The last of the morning mist lifted and the sun shone brightly. It was a day of brisk, clear weather. The ship sailed past shimmering blocks of ice.

I still loved Angulluk, and he still loved me. Against all reason, my husband had given up on our marriage just when he’d become a good enough hunter to walk away from the white man’s demands.

Go ahead, you fool!
I thought.
Return to Itta with a kayak full of the goods I earned for you. You lost me because you couldn’t say a few simple words
.

I sighed. In Itta, he’d show everyone how good a hunter he’d become. It wasn’t just his use of the white man’s weapons; it was his effort. He wasn’t so lazy anymore. He’d take his place in the community.

I could only go forward now. I could accept Peary’s offer.

At least I’d still have Ally as a friend. Bag of Bones had chosen to stay on with Peary; he’d already said so. I’d allowed them to become close to me, and perhaps I’d grow close to the women I’d find to sew for Peary.

Most important: I could live without the fear of being traded to another white man. I could sew in exchange for goods and food. I even had my fox traps, which Tooth Girl was baiting for me while I was away. A short time before
I’d set out on the
Windward
, I’d checked my cliff trap to find a big male fox there, half white and half brown, its thick fur changing according to the season, skull crushed under the trap’s fallen stone.

How to mark the change and show that I no longer belonged to any man? I took my knife from my bag. Quickly, before anyone could see, I shook my long hair from its topknot and cut it at my shoulders. I threw the hair into the ocean and watched it sliding into the ship’s wake.

I stood at the rail, until Marie came on deck. “What have you done to your hair?”

I tried to smile. Perhaps she noticed my mood, because she pressed my hand in hers.

“Look!” she said, pointing upward. Duncan rode above us in the forward crow’s nest, easy to recognize with his mass of red locks peeking from under his cap. Marie called out until he looked down quickly and waved to us. He raised his telescope and went back to scanning the ocean ahead.

The cold feeling in my chest grew lighter.

Two days later, to my great joy, the bird cliffs came into view.

The
Windward
and the
Erik
dropped anchor in deep waters away from the rocky shoals. I helped Angulluk
load his dogs into a rowboat. He wanted to be among the first ashore. “It is over with us. I will now find a new wife.”

“You will find an old, ugly, and toothless one,” I teased. We knew that young women would listen to his stories and some would look at him with big eyes at every word. If he continued to hunt as well as he had in Musk Ox Land, people would surely stop calling him the Fat One. And as for me, when I decided to remarry, I’d have an easy time because I was so good at sewing.

I’d expected Angulluk would taunt me for cutting my hair. Oddly, he said nothing.

I would miss his cheerful nature and his company. His tales of the hunts, and sewing for him. Our coupling. But I would never be traded for bullets again.

“I’ll stay on the ship tonight,” I said. “Tomorrow I’ll come to land.”

“Agreed,” he said, taking my well wishes, my parting gift. I’d leave him alone to tell stories of his hunts and boast his path into a new life. As eager as I was to set foot on Itta’s beach and see my sister, I would wait.

Angulluk disappeared into the noise and chaos of hunters and barking dogs being lowered in their crowded boats over the side of the ship. After crewmen rowed the hunters away, I went to find Duncan. He was washing the deck with buckets of seawater, and already sharp, cool winds were helping to rid the ship of dog smells. He put down a bucket and we stood together.

“I want to stay in your bed tonight,” I said. “One last time.”

His face turned red. I smiled.

He loved me, even after I cut my hair. We would not touch for a few more hours, yet our intimacy had already begun.

The night was one of our most deeply felt times. We talked very little.

“Soon I’ll return to America,” Duncan said softly. “I’ll miss you.”

I held him to me.

The bells striking on board went by quickly. I slept wonderfully. In the morning, Duncan rowed me to shore.

The sun shone on the blue water where the biggest masses of ice had not yet broken up. Black and white auks crying
piuli, piuli
crowded the floes. My heart leapt with happiness. With my face to the breeze, I said, “The auks are welcoming me back to Itta.”

A flock of the tiny black birds took flight. They soared above us. Shiny black-and-green eider ducks dove around us. It was summer. I was home!

I pointed to the high red crags, and said, “The cliffs are singing.” How I loved sliding through the water in the boat with Duncan, tracing the birds’ flight and hearing their calls.

“
Millions
of birds are here!” Duncan said. “The heights
are
singing.”

My Duncan was smart for a
qallunaaq
. Once we got to
shore, he understood that I needed to be alone. In the next days, I was going to visit my sister, Nuljalik.

“I’ll see you again before you leave for America,” I said. “I’ll want to say good-bye to you and Marie.”

“We’ll have plenty of time for that.” Before the
Windward
and the
Erik
set sail together across the ocean, there would be the shorter voyages of the walrus hunt and taking Peary’s expedition team, including me, to Musk Ox Land. It overwhelmed me to think about the events of the next few moons; somehow I would live through them, and our final parting.

That morning, Marie had told me, “I’ll miss you, but I’ll be back next summer, Billy Bah! Dad says I can visit you and Cin again when the
Windward
returns to pick him up.” Peary had promised Marie that in one year, he’d return to America—temporarily or permanently, I did not know. But Cin would remain with Angulluk.

Now I walked up the beach toward the village. Peary, Mitti Peary, and Mauripaulak stood outside Peary’s caboose, talking. When the time came, I’d say good-bye to Mitti Peary, but today I’d keep my attention on my own people.

How wonderful to see purple flowers growing all around the rock igloos and summer tents. Though it was a time of valuable sunlight for hunting and climbing, I’d hoped some villagers would be nearby. But the men were gone after seals. The young women, children, and elders were gathering eggs and netting birds.

In the half circle of tents, I found the ruined foundation of the skin-covered dwelling where I’d once lived with Angulluk. Angulluk had loved staying in that tent, our first. We felt free there. We’d spent some of our happiest nights with the cool breeze blowing in on us.

I walked quickly by the place where my parents had lived. When I came to Nuljalik’s tent, I didn’t expect to find anyone, but I still said a traditional greeting: “It is I, Eqariusaq, come back to visit you at last!”

Nuljalik was there, breast-feeding two tiny babies, each with a full head of black hair.
Two babies!

“Eqariusaq! I heard that you were here!” We touched noses side to side. Lines under her wide-set eyes showed me that she was very tired. But her face glowed with a new mother’s happiness and beauty.

“Twins! Let me see.” As I took off my sealskin parka, she held them up to me. “So lovely,” I managed to say, through my surprise.

“Eight days ago. A boy and a girl.”

“Our
anaana
and
ataata
!” I clapped my hands together. “I am happy!”

“Eqariusaq, I’ve been waiting for you to come so we can name the babies,” Nuljalik said.

So Nuljalik remembered the conversation we’d had a year ago. Of course, I knew that she would.

“An old woman I’d met in Musk Ox Land had a vision,” I told my sister, “so I knew our parents would be reborn. Still, I did not expect this. Twins!”

“I didn’t, either,” she said, laughing.

Nuljalik gave me the babies, one for each arm. They were light and very warm. As they looked up at me, I felt my heavy regret lift. “I will help you raise these children.” That was what I would do when I returned from completing Peary’s work.

“Eqariusaq, I want you to name them,” she said. “Do it now.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until your husband is here?” ’

My sister grinned. “I talked to Uutaaq about it, and he agrees that you and I should do it together. Go ahead.”

“All right.” But I hesitated. Would I say the wrong words?

Warily, I looked at the two wrinkled babies. Their mouths were open. The girl child yawned, and I smiled. Their eyes were black like seals’ eyes. So alert!

I closed my eyes and my mind drifted to the rock grave, and I sensed my spirit parents sitting outside of it. They seemed to gaze longingly out at the hills flecked with snow, and the ocean beyond it. They wanted to join the living again, even though they’d need to first go through a dark, cold tunnel of forgetfulness. The big white dog sat up on his tail. He, too, sensed that a change was coming.

I greeted them in my thoughts.
“Anaana and Ataata, I’ve come at last, my dear ones. It’s time.”

“Yes, Panik,”
they answered.

The images of my parents looking at me, smiling, made me ache.
“I miss you,”
I whispered.