Between Two Worlds (3 page)

Her nose wrinkled.

Marie and Bag of Bones stood facing each other. She was taller, though he was a few winters older, about eleven. “Qaorlutoq,” she said, “is that you?”

“It’s me!” He grinned.

Qaorlutoq tried some English he’d learned on Peary’s ships. “Marie, you tall. You plenty bad now.”

“Bad?” Marie laughed.

“He means that you are plenty
big
,” I said.

Three summers earlier when she’d visited our land, Marie loved that bony orphan boy as much as I loved her. We were her two closest friends.

Mitti Peary moved toward us through the crowd. You could always see her coming. She was much taller than our people, including the men; we didn’t even reach her shoulders. Why hadn’t she recognized me? Before I could talk to her, she took Marie by the hand and whisked her away. “Don’t let anyone grab at you!”

Marie looked at me, eyes wide. I could tell she wanted to stay with us. But her mother took her down to the beach, where a sailor rowed them back to the ship. I watched as Marie, green and pink, glided away from me. Would I see her again?

Angulluk came up to me, Captain Bartlett with him.

“Please tell your people that we’re leaving soon,” said the captain. “We’ll go across the sound, to Ellesmere Land, to find Lieutenant Peary.”

I translated proudly. “Husband, the ship is going to
Umimmaat Nuna
, Musk Ox Land. They want to see Peary.”

Angulluk talked excitedly to his friends. It impressed them that the white men had a way of crossing a wide
body of water without waiting for it to freeze over. Our men used their kayaks only for short trips. I’d already guessed their plan of asking the captain for a ride to Musk Ox Land.

“There’s good hunting on that shore,” one said. “Fat musk oxen. Herds of them.” All summer we’d eaten mostly birds, and we hungered for larger game. And, as always, we planned for winter. We needed meat.

Angulluk knew a few words of English. “People go ship hunting,” he said to Captain Bartlett, who stared at him blankly.

“Woman! Tell the
qallunaaq
to take us with him.”

“Our people want to come to Ellesmere Land with you,” I said to the captain.

He stroked his curly beard again and paused before answering. “I only have room for ten.”

I relayed the message to Angulluk, though I was fairly sure he’d understood. The men responded with much talking and gesturing. A few roared at each other; I stepped back in case there was a fight. Many more wanted to go than the ship could take.

“Quiet!” Captain Bartlett raised his hand. He pointed at me first. “You. Stay there.” Then he began to divide us into two groups.

“Don’t be so proud, woman!” said Angulluk. Our hunters always liked to show that they were the ones in charge. Even so, I could tell he was pleased. If I went on
the ship, Angulluk would have to accompany me. The captain wouldn’t separate couples.

I silently guessed whom the captain would choose and I was right. He singled out the young, unmarried hunters who’d worked for Peary. And Ally, the only other woman. The white men all knew her and liked her, and Piugaattoq, her husband. He’d often hunted for them. Finally, the captain picked Qaorlutoq. Like a loyal dog, Bag of Bones nestled himself in the captain’s side. The white men felt sorry for him. They didn’t realize that orphan boys, left to care for themselves, often became our people’s best and bravest hunters.

It took us several trips from our igloo to the beach to pack. Angulluk and I assembled everything we owned in his kayak: our tent and furs, our winter clothes, our sled, chunks of seal blubber, my cooking pot, my two large seal-oil lamps, and Angulluk’s harpoon, rifle, axe, and three knives, including his snow knife. I carefully wrapped my smaller, very precious items in skins. I’d keep these with me in my carrying bag: my four needles and other sewing things, and my
ulu
, which my mother had given me when I was about six winters old. My father had fashioned its curved blade using a saw from Peary. The
ulu
was so sharp it could cut through bone. I also slipped my small wooden chest of keepsakes into my birdskin carrying bag; these treasures I always kept hidden in furs, under the sleeping platform, near my sewing things, which my husband never touched.

Angulluk harnessed our eight sled dogs in a group. “I’ll meet you at the shore. There’s something important I have to do,” I told him.

He grew serious. “All right. Come back soon.” He knew exactly where I was going.

I couldn’t resist lingering in our empty igloo and taking my secret box from my carrying bag. I kept my chest of treasures away from prying eyes. It had been many seasons since I’d shown these treasures to anyone.

With its glossy brown wood and shiny yellow handle, the box was in itself a wonder. In our treeless land, anything made of wood was very precious. I opened the lid of the small, polished chest and lifted out a china cup with blue flowers on it. I put each item back in the box before taking out the next. Pinecones and acorns. A bloodred feather. Shiny gold buttons. Fragments of silk, lace, and velvet that I stroked and held against my cheek. A comb. A pink silk ribbon that had been Marie’s. How surprising it was to see her again today! Her hair was much longer now, but she still wore the same kind of ribbon.

For every treasure, I had a memory, a piece of my story that no one else could understand. How could a cardboard box, flattened and faded, with pictures of strange animals on it, make any sense to someone in our land? Years ago the box had held biscuits shaped like animals.

I placed the flattened box on top of other treasures
and picked up a photograph of myself as a child. In it I was wearing a stiff, tight dress and an ironed pinafore. How itchy that dress had been! I’d hated the way it kept my arms bound to me. Another image, one that had been printed in a book, showed me as a baby tucked into the pouch of my mother’s seal furs, safe and warm on her back. She was scowling. Was she angry at having her picture taken? Or was she simply frowning because the sunlight was hitting her eyes?

The last items, small ivory seals and an ivory
nanoq
, an ice bear, were carved by my father. Above all, these were the most precious to me.

Years earlier, I’d felt so lucky when Mitti Peary chose me to sail to America with her. Mitti was what I called her because I couldn’t pronounce
Missus
. I was about ten winters old and had never traveled more than a moon’s journey by dogsled away from our village. “Eqariusaq,” Mitti Peary said in her language. “Wouldn’t you like to travel aboard a big ship? Wouldn’t you like to see my land?” She needed me to help care for her baby, she said. The ship was called the
Hope
. Her husband wouldn’t be coming on this journey. She’d bring me back to my parents after one year.

“Yes, Mitti Peary!” I replied. I could understand much of what she said from hearing the Pearys talk with my parents. My family lived in a rock igloo next door to their tar-papered shack, so my parents could sew furs and hunt for them. When Mitti Peary permitted my mother to enter
the house, I followed. She was always surprising us. Unlike our women, she had a rifle, and once she’d shot an attacking walrus from a rowboat.

None of our people had ever gone to America, and my parents and I didn’t understand what we had agreed to. I only knew I wanted to be with Mitti Peary, a lady so important and courageous that even without her husband, she could come and go as she pleased.

That day, I climbed aboard the ship with my birdskin bag, went into the main cabin, and sat with Marie, holding her. I went onto the deck for air with Mitti Peary and looked out at a wide bay separating me from my family. Beyond the railing, the ship dropped down like the face of a cliff. There came a rumbling and the boards under my feet began to shake. Clouds of black, oily smoke filled the air; my eyes burned. Suddenly, the ocean was moving and the ship began to roll. My village became smaller and the people standing on the beach appeared tiny, like the toy figures my father carved. When I could no longer see either the rock igloos or the people, a terror filled me and tightened into a great pain in my heart. I screamed and cried.

Frantic, I tugged on Mitti Peary’s coat sleeve. I pleaded with her in my language. “Take me back! I want to go home!”

“It’s all right, Eqariusaq,” Mitti Peary said, stroking my hands. “We’ll take care of you.”

The coast disappeared. I could see the far, wide horizon, blue and full of white clouds, but when I looked down, there was only dark water.

I pointed over the wide ocean and yelled, “I want my mother and father!”

Mitti Peary held my hand, took me inside her small dark room, and sat me beside her on the bunk. She held Marie. “The ship can’t turn. There’s no going back until next summer. Please don’t cry!”

I bit my lip and held back tears. Marie gave me a huge smile. Mitti Peary passed her to me and I cradled her, pressing her soft cheek to mine.

I couldn’t go home! Mitti Peary was in charge of me now and I’d have to do what she wanted. But there was something else I understood. Though I dreaded the year to come, I knew I’d have Marie, who was like a baby sister to me. Marie was
my
baby now. Mine.

I filled my days on the
Hope
with Marie, dressing her, cleaning up after her, and flushing with pride when she pulled herself upright and took her first wobbling steps. I held her tiny hands and I talked to her in my language. She repeated words back to me from my own land. She couldn’t say my name; instead it came out
“Eeek-lee,” “Bill-eee,”
and finally,
“Bill-ee-bah.”
She had gifted me with that name. Marie recognized me, talked to me, clapped for me. Sometimes I was so happy in her presence, I almost forgot my sorrow.

My parents’ burial chamber stood on a hill among the other graves near the village. My older sister and older brother and I had built this long, low mound of stones after we’d learned of our parents’ deaths. It was a rock house meant for three because an orphan girl named Aviaq, a few years younger than I, had accompanied my mother and father to America and died with them there. Though the chamber did not contain any of their bodies, it would welcome their spirits. This is where my feet took me now. I needed to say good-bye to my parents, for all water crossings are dangerous, and there was always the chance I wouldn’t return from Musk Ox Land.

Greetings, Anaana and Ataata
, I said in my thoughts. While waiting for them to respond, I peered through spaces in the rocks into the chamber. Good, the rifle, the two
uluit
, lamps, harpoon, and other objects placed in the grave had not been disturbed by animals. Outside lay my father’s kayak, which my brother had dragged to the rock house.

Aviaq’s spirit no longer hovered in this place, and I missed the beautiful girl with the blue-black hair. Still, I was happy that her spirit now lived in a toddler who’d been given her name.

“
Hello
, Panik,” said my father.

“You are looking well.”
My mother smiled.

“Thank you, Anaana.”
I sensed my parents’ spirit forms seated on the ground with their backs supported by the rock house. My father’s pure white ghost dog stood beside him. It held its pointy ears erect, and its tail was bushy and tightly curled.

The kayak made a good resting place for me as I told my parents of my upcoming journey. It was mostly by feeling that I knew my parents were there. My father had been short, stocky, and strong from years of hunting. Now, in shimmering form, a sense of his strength remained. He held a whittling knife and a piece of walrus tusk in his lap; in life he’d enjoyed carving. My mother, tiny but vigorous and energetic even as a spirit, kept herself busy by cleaning a ghostly sealskin. With the
ulu
my sister had left for her in the grave, she skillfully cut through the layers of fat and rolled them away without slitting the skin.

“Angulluk the Fat One is still playing tricks,”
I said to them.
“After the
qallunaat
take us across the sound, he’ll find a way to get himself more ammunition. If he was better with his harpoon, we wouldn’t need so many bullets.”