Between Two Worlds (28 page)

“And we miss you also, Daughter.”

“I’m sending you forth, to go into Nuljalik’s babies,”
I said softly.
“There you will be cared for and greatly loved. You will now let go of your memories and take with you only courage, strength, and your deep affection for your family.”
Opening my eyes, I looked down at the girl child in my arms. My voice was clear. “I name you Atangana.” I turned my head to the boy child. “I name you Nuktaq.”

My parents’ spirits floated above me, then moved down through my fingers. My hands trembled.

The room spun and grew warm. Feeling dizzy, I held the babies tighter. Nuljalik grabbed hold of my shoulders. Somewhere, the white dog barked, broke free of his harness, and bounded away from the empty rock grave.

The sound of a baby’s gentle cry roused me from the spirit world. Through nearly closed eyelids, I watched as Nuljalik, smiling radiantly, took the twins from me.

“They are named!” she said.

Nuljalik fed the babies from her breasts and talked to them. “Atangana. Nuktaq.” She said their names over and over, until she wrapped them for sleeping. I rested, too, deeply and peacefully, and awoke to find my sister and the babies beside me on a bed of furs.

My sister stretched her arms and legs. Together we sat on the edge of the platform, as if we were young girls again, and talked as the babies slept.

She stroked my hair. “But why did you cut it?”

I smiled, not answering.

Again she touched me. “You still don’t have your
own
children. How sad!”

“I’ve come to accept it.” We talked about Bag of Bones. “I told Qaorlutoq I’d sew him clothes from now on, so he won’t wear those dreadful old furs. It’s hard to believe, but the little pest has become like a son to me.”

My sister laughed. “He’s a cheerful boy. I like him, too.”

“So it seems I have a son, but I no longer have a husband,” I added.

“I know,” she said. “Last night, Angulluk told everyone he left you. He said, ‘Eqariusaq is the laziest wife a man could ever have. And she’s fat and ugly.’ ”

“I separated from
him
.” I didn’t hide my annoyance. I didn’t mind exaggeration, but lies were different.

We both knew the remarks were ridiculous. “You are beautiful and talented. He’s
anaq
, like dog droppings.”

I was tempted to say
He’s as ugly as a dead fish with its eyes popping out
but stopped myself. There was no need to keep insulting Angulluk.

I gave her a gift of a sewing needle from Peary.

We talked and gossiped for a long while about all the people we knew. Finally, I told her of my opportunity to be in charge, across the sound, of making clothes for Peary’s new trek.

“I heard. Peary came to the feast last night. He offered wonderful trades of guns, wood, and needles.”

“So you know about it,” I said, surprised.

News spreads quickly, and my sister had seen the ship
Erik
several weeks earlier. She knew both ships would sail for America before the ice set in, leaving Peary and his crew, hunters, and women to sew for them.

“Stay,” Nuljalik pleaded. “You’ve only just arrived. Don’t leave me again.”

“Would you and your family want to come with me?” I asked. “It will only be for a year. The hunting is good on that shore.”

She stared at me with watery eyes. “If you go, I will miss you greatly.” She added, “My life is here and
not
with Peary.” She still believed that Peary was to blame for the death of our mother and father. I decided she must never know about the figures in the museum.

“Peary will pay me well. I could make both of our lives easier,” I said. “You know that.”

My sister sighed. “We’ve had a hard winter with so much snow,” she said. “Some of the villagers had to kill their dogs. We were all hungry until the birds began to fly back. You’ll easily find women to sew. Their men will want more of Peary’s guns and trade goods.”

“If they come, they’ll have both the musk oxen
and
the guns.”

Nuljalik’s eyes grew playful. “Those men will be so eager to get on that ship, they’ll run like chasing a fox. All our single men will want you for a wife. You’re going to have to beat them away. Are you ready for a new husband? Can you think of anyone you’d want to live with? Hold close?”

“I don’t know,” I said. We laughed. I didn’t want to ruin our talk and our fun by telling her about Duncan. I knew she wouldn’t approve. That conversation would wait for another day.

After a while, the babies were fed, and then my sister and I shared a delicious soup she had made with duck eggs and salty seaweed. She untied a large sealskin bag, half
filled with auks. “I caught almost two hundred! I’ve been feeding them to the family and the dogs, and making the skins into children’s undershirts.”

“What a bag!” I admired how well my sister had pulled the insides from the seal and finished the bag without cutting the belly. My mother had passed on her skills.

Our talk turned to the feast that evening. The gathering would mark the homecoming of those of us who’d gone off on Peary’s ship. And now, with the naming of the babies, there would be even more cause for a celebration. What could I give to the boiling pot? Joyfully, I remembered auks I’d caught the year before. I’d built a tower of stones and hung them by their bills. They’d be ripe by now. Any eggs inside the auks would be black and tart.

Nuljalik stayed with her babies, and I borrowed her wonderful bag and set out to the bird cliffs. A short time later, I arrived at the path that started out wide, then narrowed as it climbed and turned up the cliffs. I greeted and talked with my sister’s husband, and my niece, Konala, playing with children on a low slope, before going higher. Soon I was high enough to see the crescent shape of the village. My feet must be healing, I thought, because I was climbing pretty well.

I stopped to catch a breath. A year earlier, I’d scaled these cliffs with Angulluk. Now they didn’t seem quite so high. As on that day, the sky was blue, and clear enough
that I could see all the way across the sound to Musk Ox Land, now for me another home. A year ago, I hadn’t yet sewed clothes for Mitti Peary. I hadn’t made my way in a new land, fallen in love with Duncan, or separated from Angulluk. Now Peary himself had chosen me. But best of all, I had my freedom.

In that moment I saw the future, sailing off on the
Windward
to Musk Ox Land.

I climbed higher, past auks on their roosts, and found my rock pile where I had left some inside. When I uncovered the roof, a slightly sour smell greeted me. Perfect! Well-cured, not too strong. I put the birds in the bag.

I planned to net more the next day for my cache. A year from now, I would have a good supply.

Where was the place where Angulluk had saved me from the avalanche? I took the path higher until I saw the flat boulder jutting out, and the shelter beneath.

“Eqariusaq!” A voice came from below.

Bag of Bones climbed to meet me. He talked with half an egg in his mouth. “Look what I have.” He showed me a bag of auklings he’d hunted earlier, and eggs he’d left up there a year or two before. Like me, he had his secret caches on the cliff.

“There’s the
Windward
!” he said. We looked out at the sparkling ice floes and the yellow-striped ship in the harbor. Close to the farther shore, I could even see the
Erik
.

Leaving Bag of Bones and setting the bag aside, I continued
climbing until I reached the very top of the cliffs. I’d never gone so high before.

How I loved those cliffs, and Itta! I’d miss this beloved place, my home of homes, and yet I looked forward to the adventures ahead.

I gazed out again at the
Windward
. It seemed as if the ship were waiting for me.

Around 1883–1884
. Eqariusaq, or Eklayashoo,
*
later nicknamed Billy Bah, is born in or around Itta, or Etah,* Northwest Greenland, home to several hundred Polar Eskimos. Her parents, Atangana and Nuktaq, sew and hunt for Robert E. Peary during the times he is in the Arctic for explorations. From early childhood and continuing on into her adult years, Billy Bah’s life will be framed by Peary’s quest to be the first explorer to reach the North Pole and to claim that honor for the United States.

September 12, 1893
. Marie Ahnighito Peary, daughter of Josephine and Robert E. Peary, is born in Itta.

August 1894–summer 1895
. Eqariusaq, or Billy Bah, spends a year living in Washington, DC, with Josephine and Marie Peary.

August 1897
. Robert E. Peary, with Josephine and Marie, returns to the Arctic for a summer voyage when he takes the giant “Ahnighito” meteorite from Cape York, Greenland, to sell to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. On the trip back to New York, Peary brings with him a group of Inuit people from Itta, who will be interviewed
and examined by the museum: Billy Bah’s parents, Atangana and Nuktaq; their adopted daughter, Aviaq; and Qisuk and his son, Minik. En route to New York, an Inuit man from southern Greenland, Uisaakassak, joins the group.

February–May 1898
. Billy Bah’s parents, Aviaq, and Qisuk die of illnesses in New York.

Around May 1899
. Peary’s Inuit mistress, Aleqasina, or Allakasingwah,* also known as Ally, gives birth in or around Itta to Peary’s son, Anaukaq, nicknamed Sammy.

August 1900-August 1901 (the time of this novel)
. Josephine Peary and Marie travel from America to Itta on Peary’s ship, the
Windward
, during a time when the ship is scheduled to drop off supplies for him. When Josephine Peary discovers that her husband is not in Greenland, the ship sails west across Smith Sound to Ellesmere Land,* or, as the Polar Eskimos called it,
Umimmaat Nuna
(Musk Ox Land), now known as Ellesmere Island, in the Canadian Arctic. Seeking a way to cross the sound for better hunting, an Inuit group from Itta, including Billy Bah and her husband, Ahngoodloo,* or Angulluk, join the voyage. Near the shore of Payer Harbor, the ship becomes locked in the ice for the next eight months.

April 6, 1909
. Robert E. Peary, Matthew Henson (Mauripaulak), and four Inuit men, Egingwah,* Seegloo,* Ootah,* and Ooqueah,* reach the North Pole. Billy Bah goes down in history as Peary’s leading seamstress for the famed expedition.