The Silence

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The Silence Page 9

by Karen Lee White


  l

  Leah met Ray for a few hours on his follow-up visit to Vancouver. She had cooled herself enough to shut down any feelings of attraction, having replaced it with a cold deep anger.

  “Look, Ray, would you turn off the recorder?” He looked disappointed but did.

  He wanted her. He didn’t know how to make a move after obviously pissing her off with that statement about her body. She seemed so much more distant. There was a voice emerging. With it, a feisty yet sage expression in her eyes. That kept him from trying to initiate anything.

  She spoke with her entire being as if it were a ceremony, as he had seen the elders do. “It’s hard to be a white Indian. To be asked by Indians what my Nation is and be told by white people that I don’t look Indian. I usually say, ‘What kind of Indian don’t I look like?’ Then if you’re misguided enough, like I was, to work for government, you’re expected to speak on behalf of every Indian in Canada.

  “I worked at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre here in Vancouver. There were the random calls. White people used to phone up and say things like ‘Wow, you sound really educated.’ To which I would reply, ‘Well, yeah. Some of us are.’ They didn’t know how insulting that was. They’d try to backtrack pretty hard.

  “Others would move you by asking, ‘I found an eagle feather, what does that mean?’ Because they were so sincere, I tried to be kind to them, because it took a lot of courage for them to make the call.”

  “Our relationship with non-Natives has never been easy, has it?”

  “It puts us mixed-bloods in an interesting quandary. We’re the evidence of the troubled relationship. But there are the moniyâw, skiŋčáačəɬ, kutchen, who come with respect. They say, ‘I know you can help me with a problem I have and, if you can’t, I know you know someone who can.’ Some of our own people don’t have that reverence for Knowledge Keepers.

  “I remember one of my exes. Oh, my God! I thought if I was with another Saulteaux, I’d learn about my culture. Ha. He’d come unhinged if I mentioned the word ‘Indian’ or ‘culture.’ If I really wanted him to lose it, all I had to say was the word ‘prayer.’ It was extraordinary. How deep his internalized racism was. I called him a Redneck Redman and threatened to make him a T-shirt.”

  “That’s hilarious and tragic.” Ray was trying to figure out how to get Leah back to her place.

  “I really should have. He reminded me of my father. My father did me a favour, though, when the dead Indians started showing up, playing tricks, scaring the bejeezus outta me. My dad was a really against Indians kind of guy. I mean, to the point where he hid being Indian from us, like we were not going to find out. Well, the cosmic joke was on him. In my adolescence, I started to have these profound encounters. I had to tell somebody, so I told him.”

  “Up North, the Old are always watching and listening to the little kids, for those gifts,’ Ray said. “To see whose spirit has come back in them.”

  “Yeah, when I told my dad, he was forced to fess up that we were Native. It was either that or get me a psychiatrist – and he was far too afraid of that idea, apparently.”

  “You have such a funny way of expressing yourself.”

  “I don’t mean to; this stuff is serious. My father gave me one piece of good advice. He said to never be afraid of my gifts, and never let my fear control me. He insisted I had to learn to control my gifts, never let them control me.”

  “Some of my family have had some wild encounters. Gotta be strong to handle those.”

  “I’ve had some good teachers over the years. Like at Sundance. But that teaching from Dad was the one that set my feet on the path, got me to deal with those experiences. That advice is seriously the only good thing I got from him – besides my bad attitude. Dad was a great teacher – he taught me what not to do by doing it. Those kinds of teachings are truly the most powerful. But you have to get past the pain, the trauma to see those gifts. His advice changed my life. I would have gone on thinking I was nuts. Instead, I began working with my gifts. It was hard to know or feel or see things that people were trying desperately to hide. People sensed I could see. They often hate me, and fear me, no matter how kind I tried to be. Like my ex, Phil,” she said softly.

  Ray nodded. “I know. My sister has been through that, with people that aren’t very, uh, let’s say…healthy.”

  “Yeah, those dead Indians who visit me, they have a sense of humour. Play tricks, say the funniest things in my dreams. I’ve been told I laugh a lot in my sleep. I often wake myself up laughing. But these days, I kinda wish they would all go on some kind of vacation, a spirit cruise.”

  Ray was grinning widely. “You should write a screenplay.”

  “I need a break from them. They follow me. I mean, everywhere.”

  l

  September 29, 1993

  We walked all the way to the junction yesterday and stopped in where Uncle Angus lives with Gramma. I sat in her room and held her hand for two hours, and we didn’t say anything. There was no need. She is tiny!

  Haywire and Uncle drank a couple of pots of tea. I loved sitting with Gramma Maisey! She is the gentlest woman. She has a new house that Indian Affairs built. It’s pretty nice. Nobody has much furniture, just a kitchen table and a couple of chairs, and beds. Her stove is a real beauty. It’s big enough to heat the house and cook on. I wish we lived this close to water! They have a stream running by, just at the bottom of the little slope the house is on. The house is surrounded by pine trees, and it’s lovely and quiet here. Not right on the road like Doris’s place.

  We also met Uncle Timmy. His place is really old. He was married to Joyce. He’s from Old Crow, so he talks differently. I love his accent!

  He dresses like its 1950. He’s got the old high-waisted, pleated baggy pants, a huge bill on his cap, and the kind of plaid shirt that men wore, buttoned all the way up. I love to listen to how he talks.

  The third place we visited was Auntie Laylie’s. She is Doris and Angus’s sister. Wow. I wish she was Haywire’s mom! She’s sweet, kind, and has soft gentle eyes and a sad smile. She has a LOT of kids!! It was lovely to meet them all and be around kids again. They have a log cabin with two rooms, a kitchen and one huge bedroom. But again, how do they all share one bedroom?

  Same thing, just a table and chairs and beds. They have a stove like Gramma’s in the kitchen, a real beauty that can cook and heat, too. They dry meat on a string above the stove. There are a bunch of strings where there were a dozen drying mitts and boot liners.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Leah seemed unaware of the path she was on, but Ray felt he knew the direction. He was longing for the voice to emerge that he found so erotic. The one he loved to hear. He was patient, but he was running out of days.

  Leah was free-talking. Aware that Ray wanted her. Not caring. She didn’t want him, not anymore. Not without a future. Now, she only needed to feel heard.

  Ray interjected at times. Later her words haunted him. He regretted being sexual with her.

  “My family created a portal that brought the spirits of agony and sorrow into the house each night. There was an awful dance of destruction until dawn.”

  Ray nodded. He could feel the truth of this in Leah’s cadence, punctuated with what sounded very much like unwritten song lyrics.

  “Listening to you is like listening to a traditional language. Poetic.”

  “I feel like my Mom, like water. Mom just is. She has flowing, quiet strength. Easy to see as a doormat. If you think strength has to be aggressive. Mom is more like a willow.

  “Mom forgave every terrible word and act, right as it was happening.

  “Dad was not who he wanted to be. In truth, he was a gifted poetic soul. And then there were times when he was so sweet-spirited. He would tell me a story of his father with so much love and longing that I swore I could see the world through my grandfather’s eyes, feel how it was for my father to be in his presence. He could make my soul dance – and then raze it to the ground. Mom all
owed his storms to move her like driftwood, letting the storm render her into art as it carried her.

  “Mom has always been a willow – they grow only in or near water. They’re humble. Fragile, compared to other trees. But willows bend, and bend, and bend some more, and not break. I learned from Mom to bend like a willow.

  “From Dad I learned to be like water. I flow from all my ancestral directions into myself. I learned this because he couldn’t do it. In fact, resisted, with all his storm-filled being.

  “I can imagine the water of my different ancestral selves. Seeking across dry ground from east, west, north, and south. Carrying the powdered earth from the directions with it. The water is the tears of joy, of sorrow, of the Old Ones. The silt is the genes. The tears and cells come, flow together, unite into one within me.”

  “Another song!” Ray said. It was as if she didn’t hear him.

  “I’m not sure reconciliation with non-Indigenous people is possible, because colonization isn’t over. We’re still ‘Indians’ under the Indian Act. The only people in the country who have ‘registration’ cards. What about those who don’t fit the guidelines? Their label is ‘non-status.’ Called something because of what they’re not! And I will be non-status until I make a decision about registering Non-Indian one minute, Indian the next. I’m so conflicted.

  “It’s bizarre, how others define us. I have enough trouble with defining my own identity. I could get a status card, but I don’t. Why get ‘benefits’ for being Native. Benefits. What an oxymoron!”

  Ray had never really thought about it. His Nation had settled land claims. The North was a different world: If you were “part” Native, you were Native. If you were connected by blood to a Nation, that was your identity. He stared at his hands around the paper cup, and at the table below; caught himself staring through it. He was listening that intently. He noticed a Native carving underneath the glass. He looked up again, smiled at Leah as she silently looked off at nothing in the distance. She looked tired.

  He still wanted her, badly. His groin ached. He didn’t want to ask only to hear “No.”

  l

  Coyote catches the scent of smoke, dog, humans. Instinct conflicts with a new hunger. Curious, fearless, he skulks closer. The odour of human tickles his nostrils, makes him turn away, sneeze. The smell of dog is unbearably alluring. He has encountered these scents before out in the flats, out around the lake. He isn’t hungry but has learned to kill for the killing. To prevent that terrible eating-away feeling in his belly, he has learned to take life well before he is hungry.

  He creeps in closer, closer. Soundless.

  Unaware of danger, the dog does not hear him, sleeps. One leap to the neck. Resignation in its eyes, the dog gives himself. He knows it’s time, does not resist. Coyote tastes succulent blood as he wills the life out of the animal. He shakes it, as though it were already lifeless.

  Coyote drags the much larger animal into the cover of the bush. The dog’s heart takes one last leap, ceases to beat.

  He feeds until his belly is too full to eat anymore, then leaves it to trot away to find a safe spot to nap.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  October 30, 1993

  The snow has come. It was like waiting for my moon time to begin. The sky felt heavy for days, the land was ready, waiting. Huge flakes began to fall at dusk and, over the course of about four days, the earth has been hidden by a thick layer of white.

  I felt like a child, waking to a silent, snow-covered world. It was the silence I heard first, before getting up to look out the window.

  One perfect layer, “all the same deep” as Haywire says, everywhere. No drifts, as it fell in uncannily still air. No bitter wind. I walked out in it and stood. Catching ice flakes on my tongue. Formed a perfect snowball. Threw it at the kitchen window. Well, it was supposed to hit below it, but my aim isn’t all that good. Doris did not look pleased. Of course, I giggled furiously and had to gain control before going back in.

  This early morning, the sky brassy blue, the world filled with sun sparkles. Suddenly everything felt lighter. I went out back and saw each branch of each tree and bush covered in a thick crystal layer of fluff. Winter has transformed the land into another world. It is glittering, brilliant. And it is warmer.

  One thing that’s weird is that the snow has made me insatiably thirsty.

  I was frying potatoes for breakfast when Angus came. When I offered coffee, he said, “Why, Shore.” It was the only time he smiled. His brow was furrowed. He said Timmy had started drinking. He showed up at Gramma’s house. Haywire said to me to get ready, they’re all about to fall like dominoes. I didn’t know what he meant.

  My sweetheart looked so sad. Then mad, I could tell; his jaw tightened. I didn’t ask. Haywire asked Uncle how to set up the traps. Both Angus and Haywire cheered right up as he told us what to do. Step one, go get the traps from the back room down at the lake. Step two, walk and pace out the line, and camo (disguise) the traps, leave bait in them. It’s happening!

  This afternoon after lunch with Uncle, we took the path that runs across the road from Doris’s place down to Little Annie. We walked through the bush for about a half-hour, jumped a creek, and came out down by the lake. The path down is my new favourite place! That, the creek, and coming out at the lake.

  We broke trail, and Haywire said it would make walking easier, even if it snows again. Haywire said to be quiet, because there are grizzlies and wolverines all around there. I looked above the forest, and saw their land is surrounded by mountains. They seem to be resting Old Ones who sit, absolutely content to simply be. I want to climb them all, to know them. To see this land from their perspective. To see how they see us.

  Haywire wants to set rabbit snares. He pointed out their tiny trails, saying that’s where to set them.

  He showed me a spot where he said one rabbit danced. I never know when he is serious, so I nodded. I looked at the prints of the back legs, and it did look like it danced. He grinned, shook his head, and whispered, when I offered coffee. “Greenhorn.” I just said, “I thought we were supposed to be quiet.”

  The old family cabin is right beside the lake. This is where Haywire and all the Aunts and Uncles grew up. It was built by Haywire’s grandfather. Why, I wonder, didn’t Gramma build her new house, here, too? Uncle keeps his traps, his boat and all that down here. The cabin is not large, it’s made of logs. I wondered how they all lived in here. In two rooms. We picked up all the small traps and a medium-sized one.

  Haywire put half in his pack and half in mine. We’re going to scout out a good place for the trapline. It can’t be today because I got up too late.

  Haywire just wants to try for small game and maybe a lynx. It took me awhile to figure out it was a lynx, because he kept saying “link.” He was mad when I corrected him; he hates being corrected. I have to remember not to do that. Mission school ended at the end of grade seven. He chose not to go to F.H. Collins Secondary School in Whitehorse. He’s obviously sensitive about it.

  Haywire has a bad temper. Really bad. Mostly when I try to tell him about Coyote. He doesn’t believe me about how the coyote looks at me, like prey. I tried to say that I was telling him because I feel nervous. But he gets annoyed by me talking about it. When I feel how deep his anger runs, I go very quiet. But I don’t understand.

  October 9, 1993

  It’s been awful. First, it was just Timmy drinking. Then Angus came down and said Laylie was asking for us. We went over, and her husband, Ronnie, was drunk. When he was distracted, she asked us to look after the kids. If she doesn’t drink with him, he will hurt her. So, we will look in on the kids and make sure they have enough food, water and wood. She says they’ll be fine other than that. Now I know why her eyes are sad.

  A day later, we heard they were at it. We heard from Uncle that Timmy came down trying to talk him into buying beer.

  The next day, Angus didn’t show up. Haywire was in a really bad mood. I knew why when we went to visit Gramma. The
whole lot of them were partying up there.

  Timmy made a move on me, and I ran out crying. I felt horrible. Haywire and I walked into the meadows on the way home and tried to find grouse. Being out there calmed us both down. I imagine this is why he knows the flats so well.

  When we got back, Doris was gone. Haywire gritted his teeth and threw his gloves on the floor. He hasn’t spoken since. His anger is a beast, skulking around this house.

  She came back two days later, and I don’t know how she got home. She has stayed drunk.

  Last night, she asked me to pull out my guitar and sing her something. I sang her Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” Man, I wish I hadn’t! ALL night, all we heard was “Your cheatin’ heart…”, then an hour later, “will make you weep…You’ll cry…” And an hour after that, “cry and try to sleep.” Oh, my God! It took her all night to drunk-sing that song. Please let this end soon!

  October 12,1993

  Each day, we check on the kids. They’ve been getting off to the bus to school okay. We made sure to take fresh meat up for them. They’re low on groceries. We’ll have to make a run to Whitehorse soon. We hauled water and helped them chop enough wood for a couple of days, and bring it in.

  I thought they could use some fun, so asked if they had any sleds to go down the hill on. They hauled out cardboard boxes and garbage bags. We giggled ridiculously sliding down the hill for a couple of hours.

  I think they were just really happy for our company. I feel so bad for them. Haywire joined in at the end, and even he started to laugh. Thank God! The anger had me tense, and I was tired of walking on eggshells.

  October 15,1993

  Well, one by one apparently, they’re all sobering up. We went up to check the kids, and found Laylie looking limp and miserable, hanging like a dress on a hanger, drinking days-old tea. (I could tell because it’s like there was an oil slick on top.) They had run out of canned milk. Ronnie was outside grumping around, calling for the kids to get wood and water in.

 

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