Through Black Spruce (24 page)

“What did you say?” she squeals, stamping her feet.

“My name is Annie Bird, and I come from James Bay in the Arctic Lowlands of Ontario.”

“Girlfriend! That is such a crazy fucking language. More please.”

I begin speaking Cree in earnest now, the words at first awkward and chosen poorly, telling Soleil that her hair is green, she has small tits, that she’s too skinny and needs to eat more moose meat. Oohs and aahs come from Soleil, and then from the ones around her. I know to stop my talking before she bores.

“Girl, you’re beautiful,” Soleil says. “You rock. Just like your sister.” She kisses my cheek and hugs me in a weak arm grasp. The crowd pulls in toward her again, and I’m given my escape as they tighten around Soleil in a hungry throb.

Inside, away from the crush of the rooftop, I walk by white couches draped in socialites. Beautiful flowers everywhere, and tall, green grasses in vases, lights above that look bright but shine on the people below so that they glow. God, I will wet myself if I don’t find the bathroom. I see two women come out from a hidden door in the wall and I rush there.

I lock the door, shivers down my back as I sit and pee and think. The fear that keeps trying to edge into me comes again, and so I stand and try to flush it down the toilet. The image in the mirror shocks me. That’s me. The thick silver choker lies around my neck like I am some kind of goddess, my skin brown as a nut against my lavender dress. Damn! Let this night go on forever. But then I think of Daniel the biker crawling back up the pipe and out of the toilet.

Outside is warm on my exposed skin, and the crowd is bigger. Time is just an idea. Deep night. I know it. And it feels, as I stand outside in the air again, that this might go on forever if I only allow it. I can walk among them, these strange people. They look at me, and they see something in me that makes them want to smile or just stare or talk amongst themselves behind hands. I’m not afraid anymore. I walk among them like I am equal. A hint in my eyes that, maybe, I’m better.

I see her, now, in the black of the night behind her, black skin glistening in the darkness, her shaved head glistening. I walk toward her, skirting couples talking and sipping on glasses. The smiling waiter with the champagne cuts across and stops for me to take another from his tray.

I am to her before I see him in the circle, speaking with her. It’s too late for me to turn away. I’m carried into them. Kenya smiles, her teeth white against the rest of her. Daniel, he, too, smiles. Grey mouth. Dirty.

Kenya hugs me, her long arms wrapping around my body easily, the arms pushing me back. “You look good, sister.”

“You’re still beautiful,” I say, the words foolish, but Kenya takes it in stride.

“Aren’t you sweet.”

“You know him,” I say, lifting my chin to Daniel. No time to waste, and I have him now in a place I can force him to defend.

Kenya glances his way, looks back, and smiles, the bad taste in her mouth. “Danny boy, he knows everyone. Don’t you, Danny?”

He smiles at me. Winks.

“He knows my sister,” I say. “He’s looking for her, too.”

Kenya raises her empty glass. “Darling?” She looks to Daniel. “Do you mind getting me another?”

He smiles again, looks like he might say something, then walks away.

“Daniel is the friend you think you feel sorry for,” Kenya says, “then you let him close. And once you allow that, he never leaves.” She frowns. She’s about to say something more, but she doesn’t.

“Tell me,” I say.

She leans closer to me and whispers into my ear. “He’s connected, Annie. He makes connections in their world. Soleil finds it sexy and frightening to know any of them, and so she lets them come. Bad move. They’re a plague. Once you open your door to them, they’ve already moved in.”

Daniel returns with a glass for Kenya and hands me another. “Tell me your name again,” he says.

“I don’t understand you. I’m from France,” I say to him, kissing Kenya on the cheek and walking away, feeling part foolish, part happy. This night, I know now, this night won’t last forever.

“Postcards!” the woman calls, making her way through the crowd. “Send your loved ones a postcard! Courtesy of Soleil! Let your loved ones know you are fine and you are partying!”

I grab her arm, stop her. “If I wrote one to someone, how would it get there?”

“By post, silly!” She smiles like a robot.

“But if I write one now, and give it back to you, will it get where it’s going?”

“Just make sure to clearly address it, and it will arrive, courtesy of Soleil!”

“Wait for me, then,” I say. “Don’t leave.” I select one of the postcards, one that looks like it comes from the 1940s, the blocky Empire State Building with rays of light shooting from it.

Dear Mum
,

I’m doing fine. Doing good. Having a wonderful time here. Sorry to be out of touch, but I’m OK. Will write again soon
.

I hesitate before signing it.

Love, Suzanne

27
THERE YOU ARE

In this place where I walk a few feet, a few miles, a few days, sometimes stopping to look around me for signs of others, in this place where I am no longer hungry or thirsty for the rye or a cold Canadian, I come to some important realizations. Always simple, these realizations, but they’re important nonetheless. I’ve tried to peer through the gauze that separates me from the living world so that I may see you, so that I can look upon the faces of my two sweet but stubborn nieces once more, but there’s nothing I can do here to help you, I’m afraid. I’ll just keep whispering my story to you in the hopes you will hear even the echo of it and that it somehow feeds you just a little, that my words help you where they can.

I knew after goose hunting with old Koosis on the island that he and his family had come for a reason, had found me there for some purpose. Nothing I could prove, but something I knew in my bones. I stayed at my camp the next few days after our time together, working my blinds and killing many geese. I stayed in my blinds for long hours, got enough to know that I’d eat for a while. But then I thought of the work it would take to prepare them for winter and compared it against what I knew winter would bring, so I worked even harder at the cleaning and the plucking, as if I were a long-dead relation, and stocked my pantry for the bad months.

Those few days passed in the long hours of work, and I lost track. I woke with a start before dawn one morning, my breath white in the air, the little wood stove I’d just begun using almost dead, and realized that the family on the shore had very well left already. I got up and stuffed some extra clothes and food into my bag. The morning came sharp and still with cold. I pulled my heavy coat from my winter pack but decided despite the morning freeze it’d be too warm in the afternoon. The frost on the ground lay thick as snow. Winter was coming quick. Digging further under my winter clothes, I found the Mauser in its blanket and pulled out the bundle, then dug through the clothes for its clip and a small box of shells Gregor had found for me on one of his trips down south.

I walked along the shore of my lake, ice at its edges. I’d left geese out in the open and worried about foxes and wolves. But the idea of seeing the family one more time pushed me forward. My trail was so much easier to walk on, the muddy patches partially frozen. My leg didn’t bother me much today. I made good time to their camp and was relieved enough that I stopped and rolled a cigarette when I spotted the smoke from their stove sharp and white in the lightening air of morning.

Koosis sat by his partially loaded freighter canoe. He’d chosen a good day to travel on the bay. It promised to be a calm one. He’d have enough worries on a calm day anyways with the wicked currents that form between here and the mainland. Shallow most of the way across for such huge water. So many have drowned between here and there when the wind whips up and causes the waves. We sat silent for a while and he smoked my offered cigarette.

“Good day you chose to travel,” I said.

He nodded.

“You’ll be travelling low on the water with your load. Get in trouble, throw the geese first, then the women.”

He laughed.

“I brought you something,” I said. I handed him my father’s rifle, wrapped in its blanket. “It’s a special gift.”

He took it, untied the knots of rope, and unwrapped the blanket. The thin scope of my father’s rifle captured the light of morning.

Moshum
turned the rifle in his hands, admiring it. “Old,” he said in English. “Ever old. Does it still work?”

I nodded.

“I won’t find rounds for this one anywhere,” he said.

I pulled out the Mauser’s clip and box of shells. “It still shoots straight. More something to talk about than to use, though.”

The old man looked at me. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and peered over at me. I could smell his pleasure. He put his right eye to the scope and drew the rifle across the bay. He stopped suddenly as if he’d spotted something. His smile turned to a frown, and he dropped the rifle to his side.

“I can’t take it,” he said to me.

I looked at him.

“This gift, I can’t take it.” He stood and held the rifle out to me. He looked smaller than he was as the light grew behind him. Without wanting it to, my hand reached out for the gun.

“What?” I asked. Koosis didn’t answer. Instead, he busied himself with lifting packs into the freighter canoe. I didn’t know what else to do. I wrapped the rifle back in its old blanket and placed it by a boulder. I helped Koosis load his boat.

“Some gifts can’t be given,” he said after a while. “Some things don’t want to be taken away.”

“What did you see through the scope?” I asked him. He didn’t look at me. “Tell me, what did you see?”

“Just the visions of an old man. A crazy old man with a crazier wife waiting for him up the bank.”

“So I’m not crazy?” I said.

He stopped his work and stared out at the water. “No. Not crazy. A lot of pain in you. Like a fester.” He still wouldn’t look at me. “You know,” he said, “the old ones told a story when I was growing up. I don’t know if it is true.”

“Tell it to me anyways,” I said.

“The old ones said your father had a best friend who died in the first war.”

“I know that story,” I said.

“The old ones say that before your father’s best friend left for the war, he got a young woman, a Netmaker woman, pregnant.”

I could feel Ahepik the spider crawling up my spine. “Is that true?” I asked.

“It’s a story I heard,” he said.“The story I know is that the boy who was born was raised a Netmaker, not a Whiskyjack.”

The possibilities raced through my head. If this was true, my father’s best friend’s son grew up to have sons who had sons who were now the ones who wanted to see our family dead or gone from here. Funny how that worked. Two best friends, and their grandchildren wishing the other dead.

“My wife, she knows this secret, too,” old Koosis said, his eyes still on the horizon. “But my wife, she can’t keep secrets anymore. She doesn’t mean harm. Her mind has weakened, and she will speak about seeing you.”

I sat on the bow of his boat and rolled another cigarette. I thought hard about what he’d just admitted to me. I needed to keep my hands busy. He’d just told me he knew why I was here. That I was no longer safe in my hiding when he and his wife returned home. The old man was smart.

Why, I don’t really know, but I decided that it was time to finally confess what I had done. That I was a murderer now. Maybe a release lay in this. “I did do something back in Moosonee,” I began. “And that is why I am here now on this island.” I kept my fingers rolling the cigarette. He listened. “I flew my plane here after I did something in Moosonee. I did something I can’t ever take back.” I looked to him. He was listening. “I crashed my plane, me. I crashed it three times and promised myself after the third I’d never fly again.”

The words came out of my mouth now like sparrows, taking direction where I couldn’t control. “It’s a long story, I think.” I looked up at him quick as I lit my cigarette. He watched the bay, waiting. I wanted to tell him the story straight but couldn’t see it in a straight line. Stories never are. “The second time I crashed my plane was in your community. Attawapiskat.”

He nodded. “I remember, me.”

“I was flying in a young mother and her two kids. It was a bad thunderstorm. I got around it but crashed on the landing.” I was telling him a story now that I didn’t even mean to. Fucking stories. Twisted things that come out no matter how we want them.

“A few months after, I took a flight I didn’t need to do. Up to Attawapiskat. Pop-and-chip run. My wife, she didn’t want me to go. My two boys, both were sick. She was exhausted. I was doing work on the house. Frost heaves had damaged the foundation. I didn’t know the electrical box was about to short. I didn’t finish the work, flew up to Attawapiskat instead. I was exhausted, too.” Why was I telling him this story? This wasn’t the one, was it? “But I took the flight.”

I looked over at Koosis. He was listening. I’d tell him, then. Tell him something I’d never told anyone. Chief Joe. Gregor. Lisette. “I took the flight. That young woman from your community? She had called me on the sly. Wanted to see me again. See me when I wasn’t just flying. She wanted me …” I reached for my tobacco pouch, rolled another cigarette even though I didn’t want one. “So I took that flight that I didn’t need to. And guess what?” I looked at Koosis. He sat still on the stern, listening.

“We both wanted something, I think. Neither of us found it, I don’t think.”

I could hear the two young children’s voices, still full of sleep, waking in the tent. I had to be quick. Finish this story best I could. “I turned around and flew back home, left later than I should, dusk coming on. Worst time for flying. I flew in over Moosonee, flew over my home like always to let her know I was back safe and sound.”

The sound of choking. A cough. It was me. “Everything was fine. My wife, she never suspected anything. Me, I got busy with flights and didn’t get back to working on the foundation. I never thought to check on that box. Who would?”

This was not the story I wanted to tell. “I thought about going back to visit that woman from your community for the next couple of weeks. But I fought it. I kept myself busy as I could. I logged more flight hours in those weeks after than I ever had in my life. I thought that what I did might be erased somehow if I kept myself busy. It would just go away.” I stopped. I was crying now.

“Another night two weeks later, I was flying back from up the coast. Bone tired. My head tried to tell me that the light of it in the dusk was a dump fire. But I knew long before I flew over. When I flew over my home, my home was a smoking pit. I knew then, I knew as sure as anything I’ve ever known. My family was dead. Gone.”

I looked up at Koosis, and his eyes met mine for a moment. No judgment.

“I flew in over the river beside my house, people screaming voiceless over the roar of my engine, frantic, crying. I turned around and came in too fast on purpose, dropped my flaps on purpose and pointed the nose down when I saw nothing was left of my life anymore. All dead. I wrecked my plane on the river.”

I smiled through my tears now. “Me, I tried to end it.”

Cold air on my gums where my front teeth should have been. “I tried. Fucking volunteer fire department showed up just in time to pull me from my plane as it sank into the river. Not fast enough to save my wife and two boys. But fast enough to save me. I smashed my head good on the steering wheel.” The scars, the missing teeth, told my story. Why did I need to?

We sat for a long time and looked out at the bay. The tide was good for their leaving, for their getting off the mudflats. His wife emerged from the tent. I waved. She ignored us as she walked out to the bush behind. She walked stiffly with her age, and I knew she grinned that very moment at her slight to me.
“Ki shawenihtakoson,”
I said to Koosis. You are a blessed man.

“Ever lucky,” I said in English. “I lived and swore to myself I’d never fly a plane again. Funny thing, though. The community got together and raised the funds and had my plane rebuilt.”

“It’s come to some good for you, then,” Koosis said. “It’s allowed you to get up here.”

I looked at him. “Did you already know I flew myself up here?”

“Me, I’m old enough to know a lot of things, Sasquatch with Boots On.”

I looked down.

“Me,” old Koosis said. He changed to English. “All I know, all I learned is wherever you go, there you are.”

Not too helpful, old man. I looked to him for more.

“I once walked from Attawapiskat to Moosonee long ago, in winter,” he continued. That was a hundred-and-sixty-mile walk. I thought of my half-brother Antoine suddenly. Koosis would know him. “I’d got drunk, me, beat up a man so bad I thought I killed him. So I went home, packed a bag, and walked.” He smiled at the memory. “I left at night. Took me five days. I almost froze to death each night. Almost starved. But eventually I made it to Moosonee. The cops were waiting for me. I spent a week in jail, but at least I was warm. Turns out the one I beat, he lived. Didn’t press charges against me. So I walked back home.”

He asked me for a cigarette. I rolled two.

“Me. I nearly died for what I done. Nearly froze and starved. I did what I did without knowing I was doing it.” He lit the cigarette and went back to organizing his freighter.

The next couple of hours I helped them drop their tent and fold and roll it, helped them carry the small wood stove into the boat. They’d packed the boat well, left nothing of their presence on shore but a fire circle and some cut wood and feathers.

Koosis worked the tiller, and his wife sat in the bow, their two grandchildren on the seat between them. I sat on a rock beside my father’s Mauser, fighting the urge to roll another smoke, knowing my supply was lower than it should be. The children waved to me. Their grandparents sat straight-backed, peering forward, still as stone in the boat.

When they disappeared on the horizon, I walked up to their camp circle and kicked through the dead ashes. Nothing better to do. A pair of moosehide mitts, beaded and well sewn, lay on a rock where the entrance of their tent stood a couple of hours ago. Smiling, I pulled them on. Perfect. My hands glowed with the warmth. Prettiest mitts I ever saw. The beadwork was intricate. It must have taken her dozens of hours. A goose on one. On the other a polar bear head. Usually, the
kookums
make matching beadwork. But this old one. I forgave her. I’d wear them with thanks in the coming months.

I had nothing left to do but head back to my camp. The thought of being alone again crushed my chest. I picked up my pack and stuffed the mitts inside, turned to the rifle, and decided I should just leave it there in its blanket. But walking away, I knew I couldn’t. This was part of me resting on a rock, the bay ready to one day claim it. I went back and picked it up, carried it under my arm down the shore, up the creek, and eventually into the bush to my lake. I didn’t tell old Koosis what came after the fire, before the funeral. The worst of it all.