Kathy Little Bird Page 5

  Jonathan Forquet.

  I squeezed my eyes closed trying to remember. As a young man he’d been a hunter and trapper. Then he heard of the teachings of the prophet Handsome Lake and for him the words of Manitou and Christ blended. From this time forward he was called to officiate at longhouse rituals. And now he’d come to hold the ceremony that closed his daughter’s life.

  I WAS amazed to see the entire res assembled to honor my Mum.

  Elk Woman, in her ratty coat out at the elbows and holes in her shoes, had tied a wind-band across her forehead and seemed to command large shadowy forces, reaching from the mystical Grandmothers themselves to the shaman around whom they gathered.

  My grandfather.

  He leaned on a cane, and the hand that held it trembled. His hair was white and very fine. It fell to his shoulders. But it was the eyes that held me. They burned with a mystic charge. He stretched out a thin, almost transparent hand. “Child of my child. I am your mother’s father. Let us sit and talk a moment.”

  He crouched down where he was, and I did the same.

  He sat quietly, staring into space. Just when I thought he had forgotten about me, he began to speak.

  “Among the Cree, grandparents have a large responsibility in rearing children. I wasn’t able to be that kind of grandfather to you. But I come now from across Canada, all the way from Quebec province so you would know my face, and I yours.”

  “So we could trade shadows.” The old words were reborn in me, and I said them.

  “Ayiii!” He brought me to his breast and held me there. His breath brushed my cheek. “Elk Woman tells me you will be a singer. But first you must be a person. You must breathe, walk, love, suffer, hope—and mostly you must dream. We are a people of dreams. Your mother will be with you in dreams.”

  My grandfather might appear fragile, but his voice was strong, deep, and resonant. I felt he knew unknowable things.

  “Is my mother’s soul…somewhere?”

  He released me to look deeply into my eyes. “It is in the sun breaking through clouds. It is in the swaying of treetop nests and the call of the loon. You will find it in our music. Listen, it starts.”

  A piercing shriek. Rattles, drums, dancers whirling in the dirt, jumping, leaping, the dancers another instrument treading out rhythm. The chant was a Cree prayer, calling to the four points of the compass, calling life. A chant punctuated by persistent wailing that stole into my soul.

  Elk Woman muttered in my ear, “The people sing of a Cree child given to Mrs. Mike and the White world. She grew up to nurse the wounded, fix automobiles, fight for Canada, take care of three husbands, bring up three children, live a life, and now returns to the ancestral dream.”

  The singing died away. There was no climax; it simply ended and everybody started to eat. Children played about our feet, women breast-fed infants. Life started up again. I realized I wanted to sing Cree music. If I could get inside the rhythm I could sing the universe.

  ELK Woman shook me awake. It was dawn, and my grandfather wanted to see me. I’d slept snug and warm on wonderful soft furs, which had been heaped over me as well.

  Elk Woman poured water into a large basin. Washing was evidently important, apparently breakfast was not. We skipped that, and Elk Woman hurried me along to my grandfather’s tent. The old man preferred sleeping on the ground; a patched lean-to suited him better than a back room in a government-built house.

  He was finishing his own wash-up and greeted me with a look that claimed me, as did a single word. “Granddaughter.”

  Then, “We came for her sake, your mother’s sake—and found each other. Now we go back to our lives, but so you won’t forget, I have a present for you.” His eyes twinkled. “You want to see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t.” That was his joke, and he enjoyed it. “It’s invisible.”

  “Invisible?”

  “Yes. You can’t see it, touch it, hold it. You can’t smell it or taste it.”

  “But I can hear it?” I was beginning to enjoy this.

  “Yes, certainly. You can certainly hear it.”

  “It’s music. A song? An instrument? A flute?”

  “Nothing like that. I said you can’t hold it.”

  He let me go on guessing. Finally we were both silent. I started to make another guess, but he held up a finger.

  We waited, saying nothing. We didn’t move. We barely breathed. All was quiet.

  He lowered his hand. “That’s it.” His lips silently formed the words.

  What was it? What were we listening to?

  All at once I knew.

  It was the world breathing. It was the pulse of the universe. It was the sound behind silence.

  To hear it you had to stop all motion, be absolutely still. Only then could you sense it, the song that goes on forever. The song that never ends.

  JELLET refrained from mentioning my absence. The boys, however, deviled me for a full account, and wanted to know if the chiefs wore war bonnets. I drew out the description into bedtime. “Cree songs are part of us,” I told them, hoping to infuse them with the pride I felt. “They’re in our blood.”

  When Jellet found out about the boys being in school, he raged as I knew he would. But there was not much he could do. His only recourse was to go on about it to the four walls. Loyalty, duty, and disobedient daughters bounced off them. Eventually he tired of it and the household settled down.

  I tried at first being a mother to the boys, but they’d rather I was their sister. Morrie was too big to take on my lap; he wanted me to run and climb and intercept balls. Jason, now that he had started school, stayed late at the playground for the sports he’d missed all his life. I didn’t see anyone until dinner.

  You feel numb at first, and that gets you through. It’s afterward, when things return to normal and you pick up the old routines, that’s when you feel the loss, the emptiness.

  Jellet never acted on my request for a girl to help in the house, but threw his dirty clothes in the hamper as always. When he had no clean shirt to wear to the pub, perhaps then he would open negotiations.

  It was a standoff. Jellet kept changing his clothes, shirt, underwear, socks, even his cap, and tossing them into the hamper, making sure I saw him—then stomped off to work.

  Jas and Morrie cheered me on. They even offered to help me do nothing. Kids can be wonderful.

  As I passed the hamper I slammed down the lid. It was time to start the stew for dinner. I cut up onions and potatoes, but was short on carrots. I substituted celery and sliced bell pepper.

  I brought it to a boil and turned down the gas. What next? Usually this was the time I did the wash, so I could keep an eye on the dinner. I peeked into the hamper. Of course I wouldn’t do his stuff, but the boys deserved clean shirts. I fished out their clothes. There were a couple of towels at the bottom. One was his, leave it. Also, his handkerchief.

  Actually, Jellet’s stuff wasn’t enough for a separate wash. I might as well do the whole thing rather than spend time sorting it out. It would save a lot of arguing and yelling. Maybe he would appreciate it and—

  Whoa! What was I doing?

  I was giving in.

  I slammed the hamper shut.

  THE upshot was, Maggie Toland, thirteen, came twice a week after school to help with the house. But I didn’t have Mum. I didn’t have her to talk to or sing to.

  How little I had known her. She had been a nurse. And she’d gone overseas to Cassino. She’d been in that battle. But she didn’t talk about it, and I didn’t know what it meant in her life. I wish I’d asked more. I’d never know her now as a woman.

  I had to see Abram. I’d die if I didn’t.

  I found him sitting on the bottom step of his porch, whittling. I sat down beside him, put my arms around him, and kissed him.

  He didn’t seem surprised, but kissed me back. At first his kissing was a bit hit-or-miss. But it improved. So did mine. We made it last a long time. I felt surrounded by h
im, absorbed into him, part of the healthy, clean young male smell of him.

  When he finally let go of me we looked at each other differently.

  I tried to look behind his eyes to get at his thoughts. “You wouldn’t think less of me if I was in love with you, would you, Abram?”

  Abram wasn’t the boy I’d met for years outside the Mennonite church; he was a man, known and yet unknowable. He kissed me in a different way, a way that made me dizzy, in a way that made me want to hold him. I ran my fingers through that thick shock of blond hair. Our breath mingled, our body warmth was shared. I felt as though I couldn’t breathe.

  Abram pulled back. I could see he was as shaken as I was. He told me I should go home now.

  I nodded. I respected him for this. On the instant I knew I’d be safe with Abram all my life long.

  Chapter Five

  IT’S odd how you can go along day after day and things stay the same, then some incident occurs, perhaps trivial, perhaps unimportant, even ridiculous, that changes your life. With me it happened over a head of lettuce, July 1963.

  I’d been marketing and was on my way home with a loaded shopping bag. A car backfired and suddenly I was conscious of ordinary time jamming together. A horse that had been tied into traces reared, pawing the air. It broke loose and plunged down the street. Rolling bloodshot eyes, frothing mouth, laid-back ears, nostrils that snorted and flared as he dashed at me.

  I pressed into a doorway. The animal’s breath scorched my face as it charged past. I stayed as I was, unable to move, hardly daring to believe I had escaped being trampled.

  In a numb state I watched as the horse was coralled by its owner and led docilely back to the wagon, where it was properly hitched into the team. I managed a few deep breaths. I was even able to assess the situation. My grocery bag had split its seams; canned goods and vegetables strewed the street. A large lettuce was rolling toward the drain and I dived for it.

  So did someone else, the person who owned the horse. We reached for it, trying to stop its progress, and nearly bumped heads. The owner of the horse stood up, lettuce in hand. “Sorry. So terribly sorry. Are you all right? Shaken up, I suppose? Anyone would be. Oh, here is your lettuce, and don’t worry, I’ll retrieve the rest of your purchases.”

  I let him pick up celery, parsnips, lard, and a loaf of bread. There was nothing to be done about a smashed bottle of vinegar.

  He was standing in front of me, arms full. “I have a flour sack in the wagon. I’ll just put these things in it.”

  I followed him to the wagon. He was still talking. “I hope you’ll forgive me for frightening you to death. Although actually, I find it hard to forgive myself.”

  I thought he was being a bit dramatic. “It’s all right. It was an accident. No harm done.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Miss, eh…?”

  “My name is Kathy.”

  He removed his cap, revealing a mop of curly carrot-red hair. “Jack Sullivan at your service.”

  I had to smile at the grand manner he assumed.

  “I know I’m presuming on a very short acquaintance, but as proof of your forgiveness, would you perhaps have a soda with me?”

  “A soda?” That was a rare treat indeed.

  We didn’t sit at the counter, but at one of the small round marble-topped tables. The chairs were wire-backed with cushions of red and white stripes. Sitting across from him, I had an opportunity to size up Jack Sullivan. He wasn’t in overalls like the Mennonite boys and men, or the farmers. That set him apart. That and the red hair. His sleeves were rolled up and there was a sprinkling of light red fuzz on his arms. He was freckled and his eyes a sort of dancing green with laughing lights in them.

  He described himself as an entrepreneur, travelling between Canada and the States, selling the ponies he raised here for American dollars across the border.

  “I’ve never been in the States.” Then I found myself saying, “But I’m planning on going.”

  “You’ll like it. Americans are free and easy, not formal and tied in knots. And the cities—big-time, glittering, exciting. You’d fit right in.”

  “I would?”

  “A girl with your looks? I’ll say. It doesn’t seem right to waste it on the cows. When are you thinking of going?”

  “Well, I’d like to go soon.”

  He peered at me intently, and his eyes were not all one color, but many. His face too was never in repose for long at a time. Ideas, thoughts, schemes chased across it. Smiling broadly, he said, “Just remember, I’ve room for one more in my wagon.”

  I laughed too. And that was the end of it. At least I thought that was the end of it.

  Jack talked about the Big Apple and Chi. I didn’t realize at first they were New York and Chicago. You had to know them pretty well to call them by their nicknames. The Loop, that was downtown Chicago, right on Lake Michigan, with a zoo and fancy hotels, and apartments with doormen, and glamorous restaurants.

  In the next breath—Broadway. “They have human signs walking up and down the street.”

  “No,” I said in amazement.

  “I kid you not. Those old Bowery bums are paid maybe fifty cents to walk around advertising Coca-Cola and Philip Morris.”

  “But that’s awful. It takes a person’s dignity away to be a signboard.”

  “It means a bowl of soup, a cup of coffee, or more likely a spot of gin.”

  Of all the places he’d seen, Broadway made the biggest impression. The names of stars were outlined in bulbs that flashed on at night and lit up the world of entertainment. Cabs came and went, disgorging theater parties. “Talk about handsome couples. But most of those sophisticated women couldn’t hold a candle to you.”

  I didn’t know how to handle compliments. I felt exhilarated, as though I wasn’t me, but the exotic beauty he seemed to think I was. Odd how it had apparently escaped everyone’s observation but his. I wished I had worn my best dress. But one doesn’t wear a best dress to the store. Besides, how could I have known I’d meet this attractive, well-traveled gentleman?

  It wasn’t his polish alone that intrigued me; it was an unexpected quality about him. Other people, at least the ones I knew, were dull by comparison. You more or less knew how they’d react and what they’d say. But Jack’s mind darted nimbly from subject to subject. One minute I saw the lights of Broadway and the next rubbed shoulders with crowds in the subway.

  The only time I had been in a crowd was when Abram took me to the Mennonite Easter party. There were tables set up behind the church and people greeted one another joyously with, “He is risen.” The response: “He is indeed risen.” With this accomplished they were free to inquire after absent relatives, exchange recipes, eat crumble cake, and wander toward the improvised stage where children recited poems and the fourth grade had prepared an elocution exercise.

  There was a wonderful display of painted eggs. Abram, whispering they symbolized life, bought one for me, with a blue and gold lily emblazoned on it. I felt a shiver of excitement like when we exchanged shadows. I remembered capering around the edge of his. He’d stood before mine with outflung arms reciting psalms. It was impressive.

  Of course the Mennonite Easter wasn’t to be compared with Jack Sullivan’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. “You wouldn’t believe the crowd, people jam-packed against you, you couldn’t get your hand to your face. There was some clown blowing one of those party favors at my neck and I couldn’t free my hand to brush it aside.”

  I was so fascinated by these tales of a wider world that it somewhat belatedly occurred to me how long I had sat over the sarsaparilla soda. I should have been back an hour ago. I should be in the middle of dinner preparation and here I was, listening to snatches of big-city life. “I have to be going,” I said, jumping up.

  Jack Sullivan in his turn, got to his feet. “But not like this, so fast. I have to see you again. Can it be this evening? There’s a barn dance…”

  “No, I couldn’t possibly. Perhaps anot
her time.”

  “Time,” he lamented, “is what I don’t have much of.”

  “Maybe tomorrow, for a few minutes. A short walk?”

  “I’ll be there, wherever ‘there’ is.”

  “It would be better if you didn’t come to the house. My stepfather is very strict. How about here—seven-thirty?”

  “I’ll reserve the table,” he laughed.

  We shook hands on it and his fingers didn’t want to let mine go. As soon as I was out of earshot I began to sing him. I sang his red hair. I sang the places he’d been. I even sang his eyes, disparate, with many colors. Jack Sullivan was fun to sing. A wild Irish ballad was what I devised, a cross between “The Kerry Dancing” and “Kathleen Mavourneen.”

  I’d never known anyone like Jack Sullivan. He was such an alert, alive person. I wasn’t sure if he was good-looking. His features were a tad too sharp, but he had a dimple in his chin, his eyes danced with fun, and he was brimming over with wonderful tales. And he thought I was pretty. On that splendid note I brought my song to a loud crescendo.

  One of the things I would do when I got home would be to look at my face in the mirror and try to see what Jack Sullivan saw. I’d wear my other dress tomorrow. I remembered Mum letting the hem down. And I’d brush my hair out.

  When I got home there were the dishes I’d left from lunch piled in the sink. Mum would never start a meal until her kitchen was spotless, but I worked around the mess, putting away the things from the flour sack. I cut thick slices of brown bread and cheese, put the vegetables on the stove, rinsed the lettuce and tore it into a salad. I recommenced the singing, only now it was in my head.

  The next day it seemed to me time was out of kilter, slow and draggy, then unexpectedly speeding up. It was that way with everything. I’d been singing Jack Sullivan in my head, when abruptly it changed to a song of freedom. I kept humming it, picturing myself on the road. Was that Abram by my side? The song said yes, but red curly hair and green eyes kept intruding. I decided Jack Sullivan was good-looking, and that I had exaggerated the sharpness of his features.