The Translation of Dr Apelles

by David Treuer

  Eta’s heart jumped at the first stroke of the axe. She was about to shout but she held back when she got a look at the men. They did not seem like real men—they did not dress like Indians or loggers or like men from town. Their clothes were baggy and nondescript. And they did not speak to one another or shout or sing—as most men do when they think no one is watching. They were quiet and very dirty, their features hidden in their loose-fitting clothes. Even if they hadn’t started chopping down the tree Eta was in, they would have seemed dangerous. Eta did not shout, did not alert them to her presence. Not that it would have done any good. Eta’s heart skipped with each stroke of the axe. She grabbed the bole more tightly. The men did not tire. When one stopped chopping, another immediately took his place, and the axe-stroke had the regularity (and finality) of a ticking clock. Eta felt each powerful stroke vibrate up the trunk and into her body. And she knew, communicated perhaps by the vibrations, that the men were there for her.

  She decided that she would rather die than be captured. Life was not worth living without Bimaadiz, and her dead body would give him more relief than her capture and disappearance. After all, when confronted with death we mourn the past, but when confronted with silence we mourn the present and the future as well. As resolute as she was, she began thinking not just about Bimaadiz but about her parents and her trapline, too. She couldn’t help it. We shouldn’t be too hard on the girl or scold her too much for clutching the bole tightly, pressing her face against the smooth bark, and crying.

  If this were a more magical story, Eta’s tears—copious, wrenched from her little girl’s heart as she contemplated an end to a life just begun—would rain down on the men below and would sink into their clothing, soak their upturned faces, and infect them with her sadness. They would grow heavy with sorrow, unable to continue their work. They would lean into their fellow man, and they themselves would begin to cry and lament, crippled by Eta’s sorrow, which had become their sorrow and through which they would pass, as one passes through a lodge-flap, back into the world of decency and compassion.

  But this is not that kind of story, because, unlike fairy tales and fairy-tale tears, this story and Eta’s tears are true. And they had no power except the power to express her fears and the chemical power to clean her eyes of any dust or other impurities. In all likelihood, the men chopping the tree down had never cried and never would and were barely men anymore anyway. They did not know or understand sorrow or regret. All they knew was the necessity of the work ahead of them. If a few of Eta’s tears escaped the net of leaves that separated her from the men below and did land on their faces or forearms or shoulders, they thought that, as it happens in the spring, they had shaken loose sap from the tree and neither the treesap or humansap raining from above had any effect on them.

  It did not take them long. Basswood is a forgiving wood, free of knots or twisted grain, which is why it is so sought after by carvers. In a few short moments the tree was ready. After one last blow it began to topple, slowly at first. It leaned, the men gave it a push, and it began to fall. Eta shrieked and the men heard her scream, but the tree was already on the way down. All Eta could hear was the ripping of leaves and the whip of branches—the terrible noise of approaching death.

  The tree crashed down, followed by a lazy coda of blossoms and pollen. The men walked to the crown to see what they had captured and saw—instead of a bear cub or porcupine or even a squirrel’s nest—a beautiful Indian girl nestled in the branches. She had long black hair, beautiful hands, a slim waist, and breasts whose magnificence was barely concealed by her torn dress. She lay still and looked to be dead, but they noticed that she was breathing. Alive. Unconscious. Two of the men lifted her carefully from the mess of broken branches and set her to the side of the tree and covered her with their coats. They began cutting the tree into bolts. Basswood makes terrible firewood but it will burn if the fire is hot enough. Once they were done they sat amongst the branches and leaves and smoked a pipe in silence and after that they loaded the wood on their backs with canvas straps. One man carried Eta and another carried the axes. They set off down to the lakeshore.

  A beautiful girl like the one they found in the tree would not feed the Ariel’s appetite, but she would feed the appetites of those who came to the evil boat. She would produce heat and motion of a different sort and was a far more valuable fruit of the forest than firewood. They walked up the gangplank and onto the Ariel. They stacked the wood and the man carrying Eta carried her below decks, and she disappeared with the last rays of the setting sun.

  8. Bimaadiz had waited at Eta’s lean-to, but she hadn’t arrived. He had made himself busy—replaced old boughs on the roof, raked out the trash and wood chips inside, scrubbed out the lard pails so they could be used again. He became impatient and angry; he couldn’t imagine what would keep Eta. Soon his thoughts turned ugly. He thought she had found something more interesting to do. More to the point, she might have found someone more interesting to spend her time with. How quickly jealousy, the dirtiest of emotions, scrubs the mind of good thoughts. Who could it be? What could she be doing? He distracted himself by inventing heavier chores: righting the wood pile, splitting kindling, cutting brush. None of the work helped. Still he thought bad thoughts, and hoped they could not summon Eta. Still Eta did not come: the injustice of his feelings could summon her before the magistrate of his heart. Finally, late in the afternoon he left in disgust and began to search for her in the deep woods. He hoped he would find her and surprise her with whomever it was she had chosen over him. He wanted to find her in an awkward situation.

  Tracking humans is so much easier than tracking animals. The branches are broken higher up, and the dry leaves on the ground are shredded more because the footprint is so much bigger. When he found where her trail began, not far from Agencytown, it was easy enough to follow. He could see where she had walked quickly, sure of her goal, and where she meandered and stopped to rest. He even saw the places where she had stopped to drink from her skinbag. There her weight had shifted to one foot, as she tilted the water-filled bladder to her mouth. She had even spilled some water on the leaves underfoot, though it was drying quickly. Bimaadiz smiled despite himself when he saw where her hand had stripped the seeds from a dead stalk of wild oats left from the year before. He noticed at one point she had hesitated and taken a few steps in one direction, only to turn back. In this part of the forest there were only two directions she would have gone: into the marsh where the strawberries were sure to be ripe, or toward the lake where the moist stands of basswood stood, laden with blossoms for the picking. He was more at ease now; hers were the only tracks and so she had been alone unless she had planned in advance to meet someone out there. With each step Bimaadiz grew more excited at the prospect of finding her and seeing her; he was anxious to continue his study of her body, her lips, her arms. He had already forgotten his own anger and jealousy.

  Bimaadiz entered the clearing just after the sun had set, but there was plenty of light by which to see. He stopped and his heart stopped, too, if only for a second, because it began beating again violently. His ears burned, his hands shook. He saw the downed trees, and, among the branches, her gathering basket, crushed and on its side, spilling the white linden blossoms out. He saw the tracks. He saw the waddles of tobacco juice on the spade-shaped leaves, the axe marks on the trunks. All of the tracks led down to the lake. Bimaadiz ran after them and arrived on the shore in time to see the Ariel being poled out to deeper water and to see the great paddlewheel slowly begin to churn, and at the very last, to see the bow lantern being unshuttered as the evil boat made for deeper water.

  9. Bimaadiz stared at the retreating boat, guided by its single red eye until it disappeared. He wanted to die. He could not go back to Agencytown. What kind of man was he? His friend had been abducted and for him to go running to his parents or to hers would be cowardly, and so he stayed, and since there was nothing to do except feel, he
sat down and felt. And he felt that he wanted to die. No woman who was swallowed by the Ariel ever climbed back out, and so what could his or her parents do anyway?

  He walked away from shore, and since it was cold he crawled in the leafy crown of the tree that had been Eta’s last shelter. He crawled and wriggled among the branches and pulled down more on top of himself. It was an uncomfortable nest. The sticks and branches poked him in the back and sides and no matter how small he made himself he could not find a position that freed him from his discomfort. It was just as well, he thought. I do not deserve comfort when Eta will be a captive and a slave for the rest of her life. The smell of the linden blossoms reminded him of her afresh. Oh Eta, he groaned, here are all the blossoms you could ever want but you are not here to pick them!

  It was too much for him to bear and he cried huge, gaping tears. Such weeping is exhausting after all, and so Bimaadiz eventually fell asleep.

  While he slept he had a dream. He never told anyone, not even Eta, about what he dreamt. And so, one wonders, how do we know? And while that is impossible to answer without destroying the dream itself, it is important that we do know what he dreamt if we are to understand what happened next. So for better or worse, known or unknown, told or untold, Bimaadiz dreamt.

  Of a man. Ancient, with the benefit of centuries of wisdom. He stood in the dark looking at the broken shape of the night sky with what looked like stars sprayed out before him. Without turning he spoke to Bimaadiz, and his words sounded from inside Bimaadiz’s head.

  He said, “I’ve been watching you for a long time now, Bimaadiz. And I can tell you that you needn’t cry because your Eta will not die on the Ariel.”

  Bimaadiz no longer felt like crying.

  “Eta will not die on the Ariel and, in fact, she will never die and neither will you. Though I am sure you don’t believe me, it is true: you will live forever.”

  “I don’t believe you. No one lives forever.”

  “Most don’t. But some do. I don’t blame you—you cannot see what I can see,” said the man. “But I have looked after you for some time now. I have been in charge of your future and Eta’s and I will make sure that she will return safe and sound. And I will do so even though you have never made me an offering. You haven’t even so much as dropped tobacco for me or charred some meat in the fire so I can taste the smoke from where I sit at a distance.”

  The way the man said “sit at a distance” made Bimaadiz shudder. The man’s words suggested an immense power, beyond Bimaadiz’s reckoning. He knew that this man had the power to wipe him out as easily as one’s thumb cleared the soot from the mantle glass of a lantern.

  “I will,” said Bimaadiz. “If you help me get Eta back, I’ll always make offerings for you. I will give you the choice meats. And tobacco. I will give you the beaver’s forearm, for sure the tastiest part.”

  “Go to sleep now, Bimaadiz. In the meantime I will rescue your beloved. Shortly after you awake you will be reunited with her.” With those words Bimaadiz dreamt no more.

  10. Eta lay in the belly of the boat. She felt the boat shudder as the bow was turned into the waves. The rhythmical churning of the paddlewheel sounded dully to the aft. Her head hurt where it had struck a branch when the tree hit the ground. Her whole body ached. She patted herself—her arms and legs, her stomach and neck—to make sure she wasn’t injured. She wasn’t. She sighed and was grateful that at least her clothes had not been ripped off or taken away, not that she knew what was going to happen to her on that terrible boat, but because she was an innocent girl and no one except her mother (so she thought) had seen her naked.

  There was no light by which to see, and the motion of the boat and the sound of the paddlewheel further disconcerted her. It took awhile for Eta to quiet the beating of her heart and to stop herself from turning her head frantically back and forth. The small sound of her dress collar rubbing against her neck made it hard for her to hear. She suddenly thought that if she still had her puukko she might be able to escape. She checked but either she had dropped it or it had been taken away by her captors when she was unconscious. She did not cry, if only because she was too intent on listening for the sound of people moving elsewhere on the boat.

  Then, casting for sound, Eta heard something moving in the room with her. There was the soft sound of clothing or fur brushing against metal. Then silence. Eta held still. She could see nothing. Then she heard the unmistakable sound of bone, someone’s shin perhaps, stubbing against something harder. It was the same sound her dogs made when they hit their heads against a deadfall out in the forest. Ahhh, the forest. Her dogs. And Bimaadiz. The thought that she might not ever see any of them again was a sorry thought and almost enough to make her cry. And then, as though bringing her thoughts farther out into the woods, she heard the sound of a hoof or a claw stomp on the wooden hull.

  Eta shrank back against the boards and tried to burrow into the rags and tattered cloth that made up the crude pallet on which she sat. Something was out there, just a few feet away from her, and she didn’t know what it was—human or animal—or if it was caged or chained. Perhaps it was Mishi-bizhiw himself making ready for his meal.

  She listened for breathing, and there it was: the quiet breath, a rattle of spit or snot. Eta knew better than to be scared of any of the creatures of the forest. But then again, when threatened or cornered, even the gentlest animal, even a muskrat, could become a fearsome fighter. She needed to know what it was that was so near her in the dark in order to know what to do. She spoke—but there was no response. She called out: Hello? There was no answer, not even a change in the creature’s breathing. It must be an animal. Eta thought perhaps it would respond to animal calls.

  First she mewed like a beaver, but there was no response. She scolded like an otter, though she was certain that whatever it was, it was not an otter: it would have run and twisted and jumped, making all sorts of noise. Next she tried yipping like a fox, but nothing. One by one she imitated all the animals whose voices she knew. She piped like a skunk, burped like a woodchuck, queried like an owl, pursed like a hawk, and barked like an eagle. There was no answer. Finally she huffed and growled like a wolf.

  This set up a clamor in the hold. Feet stamped and there was the sound of a great body hitting the metal grill of a cage. She did it again, and again. The sound of the wolf set up a ruckus nearby in the dark. But it did not draw out a corresponding growl from across the way, so sensing that whatever it was, it was afraid of wolves, she switched her calls to animals hunted by wolves. She huffed like a frightened deer and, finally, bellowed as best she could, like a cow moose.

  Eta was answered immediately by a corresponding bellow, higher in tone, and then another call overlapped the first and there was a great pounding of hooves and the metal bars of the cage rattled. The boat shook and more bellowing followed. Eta sat back, thinking. She had been taken captive and was being held with not one, but two, moose calves. Eta was grateful that her fellow prisoners were moose. Even though they were only calves, moose were strong, and it was said they were very wise because their heads stood above the brush, and so they could see for long distances.

  She called to them again and again, if only to comfort herself, and the calves set up a racket—stomping and bawling and knocking against their cage. Suddenly the boat stopped moving and Eta heard footsteps above, the rattle of the anchor chain, and a tremendous rumbling sound as something heavy was dragged across the deck. Eta had forgotten all about the men who had captured her, and now, she sank deeper into her blankets. Eta was afraid and alone with only two captured moose calves for saviors and company.

  11. There was more noise—banging and scraping—and then all was quiet. Eta held her breath because her breathing was too loud in her own ears for her to hear anything else, but there was nothing to hear anymore. Even the moose calves were quiet, expectant. Some time passed and then directly overhead a bow scraped across
some fiddle strings, once, twice, there was a pause, and then the fiddler began to play a jig. It was a lilting tune, off-balance but it was loud, and the fiddler played true, sure of the direction of the music. The fiddler played the same song for quite a while, letting the notes careen off the water and skip toward shore. Tucked in between the notes Eta thought she could hear far-off voices and laughter.

  And then, yes, the voices were distinct and close by. Eta then heard the sound of canoe paddles, and at the same time several canoes bumped their curved bows into the side of the Ariel. The paddlers were helped aboard, and Eta heard laughter and then the tromp of hobnailed boots directly above her head.

  A hatch opened. The lantern light, half shuttered and dyed red by the colored mantle, washed down over her upturned face. Three men bent down and reached through the hatch and grabbing what they could, lifted Eta out of the hold and onto the deck.

  She blinked and tried to get her bearings. By the time she did the men who lifted her out were gone. She stood in the middle of a cabin built mid-ship, like an enlarged pilot’s house. It was square and very large. The room was ringed with chairs, settees, and couches. Behind these various places to sit, against three of the walls, were screens, behind which Eta could glimpse pallets and low beds. An upright piano stood in front of the wall without screens and beds. It was an old battered thing, its keys as orange as beaver teeth. Next to it sat the fiddler on a low stool. He bent low over his fiddle and with the last note of the song held and then completed, he sat up straight and scanned the room as the sound from the fiddle eased out of the windows and was loosed in the night somewhere. Eta noticed that the fiddler was blind. His eyes were sewn shut. Eta was scared and looked around the room for other signs of life, other people. She didn’t see them at first, but there were other women in the room with her, six total. They were hard to see, dressed in prints and paisleys, gauzy sections of lace, and tattered ballgowns, and they draped themselves languidly over chairs and chaise lounges and blended well with the furniture. Eta had never seen women like this before, nor had she seen clothes like the ones they wore. Eta looked down at her own clothes and was embarrassed by her doeskin dress and tanned leggings. The poor, pitiful moose below deck must have looked better than she did. So she thought, but she knew nothing of the desires of men.