Through Black Spruce (25 page)

The town mourned for me, but I was so wrecked I didn’t know it. I didn’t know the time, what hour, what day. The hospital stitched me up and sent me home with sedatives. I took them with bottles of rye when my parents left me alone long enough. It took a week before I was ready for the funeral of my three.

That morning, despite my mother telling me not to, I showed up to the funeral parlour early. Not much of a parlour at all. An old home near the church, the basement used for preparing the dead. In the days since the death of my two boys and my wife, I could no longer see their faces no matter how hard I tried. I’d left to fly out early enough in the morning that the boys still slept in their beds. I kissed her, my Helen, on the forehead, and she muttered
see you tonight
in her sleep. Still dark in the house. Only shadows on their faces. And this was what I was left with. Shadows on faces.

I went to the parlour a few hours before the funeral and asked the undertaker to see my family. He told me it was not a good thing, that I would regret it. I grew angrier each time I asked and he said no. But it was my family. I pushed past and down to the basement. The caskets, two small and a larger one beside it, sat there in the fluorescent light. They were sealed. I stood by them, by you, my family, and felt your presence for the first time since you were alive. But something was missing. Something gone that can’t ever come back.

For the first time I felt what finality means.

I began to shake, not wanting to believe what lay inside. A horrible joke was being played on me. I could stop the world and turn it back to the morning before I left. You were not dead, just angry at me, and had taken our boys down to Timmins because you found out. You talked all the others into playing along. You wanted to teach me a lesson.

I went to your casket first. My hands moved without me asking them to. I watched them. Watched them push up on the lid that wouldn’t give. The hands searched for a lock. I pushed up harder and the top gave to it. The stink of talcum and of burnt wood. The hands lifted up so that my eyes saw what they did. Not you. Not you, my darling. I dropped the lid. Not you in there.

I went to the other two caskets, wanting to prove again that this wasn’t you. Again the shock of what I saw, again the disbelief that my beautiful ones could ever come to look like this. I crawled from that basement, headed for the river so that I could drown myself, but the mortician, he called my mother and father. They were waiting for me outside.

I would begin packing up my camp and leave no sign that I was here. It would take two days. I’d have to prepare my plane again, drain the oil and heat it on the stove, and hand start the prop since the battery was long dead. I’d collect all of the food that I had left and finish plucking the geese. I knew a place inland from Fort Albany, an old meeting place near the big Albany River on a smaller one that was once a trading post for the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Cree but that no one really knew about anymore. I could find shelter there, and hopefully a moose or two. They were now ending their rut and travelling inland, but maybe I’d spot a straggler.

Breaking out of the bush, I saw the ice on the edges of my lake was melting in the sunshine. A nice afternoon waited. I’d eat some goose and fight the drinking of another bottle of rye. I’d gone through half my case. Still worse, I was well past halfway through my tobacco. It was time to tighten the belt. Winter was coming, and it would be hard.

Three hundred yards or so from my camp, I heard the tearing of fabric, the smashing of glass. Fuck. People? Something big. Something with uncaring hands. I began to run toward it then stopped. Christ. More smashing. Too big to be wolves. Something big. Black bear? I dropped my pack and untied the blanket from around my father’s rifle, found the clip and the rounds in my jacket pocket, struggled to slip five shells into the clip and smack it into the belly.

Running now, then slowing as I came closer, I dropped and crawled through the last of the bush. The crack of wood splintering, and then the huff and snot-filled draw of breath, forced me to stand. A bear. A huge white one. A polar bear. She’d chewed through my
askihkan
roof and had collapsed the whole thing. My goose rack was no longer, just shreds of bone and broken boughs on the ground.

I slipped the bolt of my rifle back, then forward, lifted it to my shoulder, and aimed through the scope. The glass lens was fogged. Goddamn it. I’d been careless in my keeping of it out here. I raised the rifle above the bear. Maybe the noise would scare it off. I pulled the trigger, hoping it still worked. The rifle barked when I fired it into the air. I swear I heard the rifle sigh. The bear took no notice.

I slid the bolt back and ejected the old cartridge, then slipped another into the barrel. This time, as the bear began ripping through my packs of winter clothes, I took aim just behind the shoulder, the white mass of it filling the misty eyepiece. I tensed my finger on the trigger and stared into a winter kaleidoscope.

28
PICK UP, MUM

When I take the elevator up today, I peek into
Moshum
and
Kookum
’s room, and I see that his bed is empty. The old woman is awake, I think. She moans out like she’s lost him. Sylvina walks by in her scrubs and says hello to me. Eva’s still off till tomorrow. I’m not used to being here in broad daylight. The deep freeze has finally broken, and the grey clouds that announce a coming snow throw a pallor through the hospital’s windows.

“Where’s the old man?” I ask Sylvina. I brace myself for the worst.

“Downstairs having a tea.” Sylvina smiles. “He’s a strong one, him. He told me today he’s looking forward to his grandson taking him out goose hunting later next month.”

I ask about the old
kookum
in her bed, moaning. It’s clear her prognosis isn’t good.

“Ever a sweetheart, her,” Sylvina says. “Her diabetes is killing her. She’s showing signs of dementia, too.” She looks at me.

“What?”

“It’s weird, but the other day she said she knows your uncle, that she saw him on an island.”

“Really?” I ask.

“It must be crazy talk. But there’s positive news. Your uncle’s been showing some signs, I think.”

I grab her arm. “What? Tell me.”

She looks nervous. “Dr. Lam was checking his vitals. His pulse is holding okay, and his retinal activity is more active than it’s been since he arrived.”

“You’re not messing with me?” I ask. “You mean it?”

She nods.

So, you’re fighting, are you? I sit beside the bed, facing the door so I can see if anyone comes in. Maybe, just maybe, some of my words are getting through to you.

Here’s a question. Do you ever think of your father? I remember him, but Suzanne was too young. Me, I haven’t thought about him in a long time. And I’m not sure if this is a good thing, if it’s normal or not. I remember when he took us out goose hunting. You often came along. I remember his fake leg, how he took it off and lay it beside him each night when we crawled onto our beds of fresh-cut spruce. I’d watch in the lantern light as
Moshum
rolled up his pants, exposing that wooden leg he wore. He undid the boot and pulled it off, and I wondered why he bothered. I watched as he undid the buckles on the leather straps that held his leg to the meat of his thigh, then placed the leg neatly beside the bed where he slept. I dreamed sometimes of that leg in the middle of the night, of it coming to life and hopping about the tent as you all slept, doing a little jig just for me.

And I don’t know if it was the best time, but I began thinking of him a lot when I was in New York, often when I was high and drunk. One Sunday morning, the late-autumn sun coming up and me warm in my designer peacoat, I remember smoking a cigarette on the balcony, Butterfoot waiting for me in the bedroom that I claimed at Soleil’s spare apartment. Time really does fly. It flies like a goose in Moose Factory. It flies like a pigeon in New York.

I remember realizing I was missing the autumn goose hunt back home. Very soon, I remember thinking, the snow will fall there. I’d thought of Grandfather that night, that early morning, which made me think of Mushkegowuk. Butterfoot was spinning at the party the night before and I imagined
Moshum
’s weathered face. I wanted him to smile down at me to let me know it’s all okay when I closed my eyes and danced. But he wouldn’t know what to make of this. This place where I’ve found myself, the people I’m surrounded by, this pulsating, dirty, loud city. The hub of the universe. He was from a different time and country.
Moshum
had experiences I can’t even begin to imagine, and I don’t know if even those experiences would prepare him for this, for where I am. It’s strange to think that our grandparents, our parents, weren’t always old, that they had lovers and drank too much and did horrible things to one another. We children aren’t able to imagine the real and the complete lives of our elders. We can’t imagine they were anything at all like us. But when it came to me and Suzanne, the two of us, we understood what the other had experienced.

Soleil arranges for a go-see for me. I don’t know what I’m doing or what to expect. I dress simply, as Violet recommends, and wear my makeup conservatively. “Look young and fresh!”Violet says.

A white woman in her forties, maybe, tight-faced and wearing glasses that look far too big on her thin face, sits me down and asks me questions as she flips through my portfolio. No, I have no previous work experience in the industry. My favourite designer? I have no idea but blurt Tommy Hilfiger. The woman looks pleased. She has me try on different clothes and makes me walk up and down the office as she stares. She has her assistant snap Polaroids of me standing in front of a white sheet.

“You’ll need serious work on your walk,” she says. “But I’m not too concerned about that now as we’re hiring for print. I’d recommend you losing five pounds soon, but do it in a healthy way.” It sounds like she’s being forced to say this last part. “We’ll call,” she says. I leave wondering why the hell I’ve bothered.

Soleil clearly has some pull with these people. I’m shocked when they actually do call, not to tell me to find another line of work and to make fun of me but to say they wish to offer me a short-term contract with a new clothing line.

I show up at the address on the given day. I take a cab so I won’t be late. I sit and stand in front of a camera. Something that I’ve hated since I can remember. So why am I doing this? Yes, part of it is that all of these successful and pretty people are telling me I have something. The biggest reason, though, is being told what I’ll be paid for sitting and trying to look like my sister. It’s more than I’ve ever made in a whole season of trapping beaver and marten.

A secret I need to share with you. When the photographer tells me I’m too stiff, that I need life in my face, in my eyes, I think of Suzanne, and I become angry. Angry for her disappearing like this, angry that I’m forced to write postcards, even a couple of short letters to our mother, pretending to be Suzanne in order to try and ease Mum’s torture. And when the photographer says
yes, now you’re finding something
, you know what I do? I pretend I am Suzanne and not myself, posing like I remember seeing her posing, staring off like I’ve seen so many photos of her doing in those magazines, stretching my arms out, raising my chin defiantly, pretending I gaze into a lover’s eyes. And you know what? It works.

I’ve landed this real job, for a real fashion designer, in the very real big city. I don’t care when I’m told I have no ass and that I walk like a giraffe but that I will do for print. I think I’ve found something like happiness, and I found it in the last place I would have ever expected. If Suzanne really is dead, then I will live for her. I’ll be her, if need be.

My Butterfoot and I have worked out an arrangement that seems to suit us well. He flies in from Montreal most weekends and does gigs, often hosted by Soleil when she’s around. Part of my agreement with myself to live for my missing sister is to enjoy some of her benefits, and both Butterfoot and Soleil are big bonuses. Huge.

When the doormen see us approaching their clubs, we are ushered past the long, gawking line and straight in, often with photographers snapping shots of us. I’ve learned to like the throbbing heart of the inside of these places, the attentive bartenders, the pulse of lights, the music that feels like it rises up from inside of me. This is an easy world to get accustomed to. A special place and life.

Weekends remain hardcore fun for forty-eight hours, packing in everything we can. During the weekdays I get calls from the agent and for a few hours, a few days a week, I pretend to be my sister when I’m in front of a photographer. The agent says L. L. Bean seems to like me a lot, and they might be interested. I’m told I’m the most Native American of any model they’ve seen. I’ll take it. The amount typed on the first paycheque I receive astounds me.

Soleil comes over to have a glass of wine. It feels like taking tea with the queen, and when I ask her how to cash it, she laughs like I’m retarded. The next day a man in a very expensive suit comes by the apartment and has me fill in some papers. He puts my cheque in a briefcase and lets me know I’ll receive a bank card in the next few days. I’m rich and young and beautiful in NYC. Now, Soleil calls me her Indian Princess, too.

Violet’s work here in the city, though, has become spotty. She’s home more than out during the weekdays and has decided to fly back and forth to Montreal and Toronto. That’s too bad. She was trying to make her big break here. Violet isn’t nearly so lively or so happy lately.

We sit and drink coffee this morning. I tell her I’m being considered for a shoot for a new jeans company.

“Never heard of them,” Violet says, looking over her coffee cup, the black of the weekend under her eyes. “Be careful with the upstarts. What they offer to pay? They promise but never do.” Violet’s been distant with me, even when we’ve taken communion together and are out at clubs. The girl’s jealous. But she’ll live. Violet waits on a cab to take her to JFK and then Montreal. She says she has work waiting for her there.

“Too bad you’re leaving,” I say. “Soleil asked us over tomorrow for cocktails.” It’s mean. I admit it. I know Violet wants to stay in the city and sun herself under Soleil’s gaze.

She looks hurt but covers it up quick. “I’ll be back the weekend after next,” she says. “Butterfoot’ll be spinning at the Lilly Pad.” She looks at me. “And I’m going to catch him at a gig in Montreal this weekend.”

The phone rings. Violet picks it up. “Cab’s here,” she says. “See ya.”

Gordon’s more withdrawn than usual. I try to take him out and buy him things, my bank card burning a hole in my Coach purse. I saw the purse in a window three blocks away from my apartment, and the brown, sweetly stitched leather made me think of the finest mukluks my grandfather ever stitched. My first purchase with my earnings, and it’s worth it. When I see Soleil later today I need to find a way to tell her I’d feel better paying some kind of rent for Gordon and me. We’ve been staying here a long time, and when I’ve even thought of talking to her about this, she seems to read my mind and calls us her Indian Princess and Protector, introduces us to the person she stands next to, someone invariably famous in one way or another.