The Translation of Dr Apelles

by David Treuer

  He will walk the rest of the way home, and he will ride the elevator up to his apartment. He’ll eat a light dinner, and much later he will see Campaspe, but only after night has finally fallen.

  It will be such a relief to hold her breasts, her nipples peeking out between his fingers, her legs clenched around his waist, and to see her head thrown back as though she were trying to escape her pleasure as it crawls from her belly up her breasts and to her face, a pleasure, he thinks as he walks, that he is surprised and proud to be able to give. It has been so many years since Annette, and so many years with Mai, that he had been afraid he would not be able to give real pleasure. Then again, his contact with his Mais, with things most others found indelicate and even frightening, had forced him to control his own fear, to eradicate it. This made sex, new sex, and the excitement and nervousness that goes with it less tinged with danger. And with someone as beautiful as Campaspe, with a body that beautiful, that quick to the touch, and that fluent in its own pleasure, who would not become good at pleasing it no matter the cost?

  When the time came and they would be done for the evening and she lay in his arms, it was clear that he had brought a little of the day’s dusk with him. He was lost in thought.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “What? Oh.” He was startled by the question. He had forgotten she was there.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking about that girl I collected worms with the summer when I was twelve.”

  “Did you fool around with her?”

  “Yes. But there was something else.”

  “Was she nice to you? Was she mean?”

  “She was determined. We played doctor and she studied her patient very hard.”

  “What did her parents do?”

  “Her father was a doctor.”

  “What was she to you?”

  “What? I don’t know. I was only twelve.”

  They went to sleep. Much earlier in the night Dr Apelles stood by the window as these thoughts and others continued. He said something and then turned around.

  When they went to bed they both pretended to fall asleep. Each in their own world.

  Dr Apelles still thought of that girl all those years ago. She had clutched his penis so hard and her arm moved ceaselessly and it must have gotten tired. She must have gotten tired, but she pursed her lips and tilted her head and kept at it, not satisfied until the stain came out and still not satisfied even then.

  Campaspe was a woman and the girl was a girl. Campaspe knew her own pleasure and the girl did not know hers. But there was a likeness. This is what he had been thinking. When he fell asleep it would come to him, what made him stop at the restaurant but not go in. It would come to him what made him hesitate to speak to Zola or Elizabeth, what made him stalk his past like a hunter circling something mortal and wounded. And why the whole of his adult and very modern world was so strange, so strangely out of his language. The white people haunted him just as he haunted his own past. They excursed into the sanctity of his own self. It was that way for all Indians. Indians were the past that everyone else visited as a way to check on the development of something deep and long dormant.

  That girl. She was looking for something after all and tried to call it up, carried on the wake of his come: something unique, something different, something from outside herself that she could control in herself. She was looking to interrupt the dreary gray flow of life. She was looking for the one thing. The one thing. The one thing that could tell her she was unique, that her life was unlike any other, that she was more than a ghost, too. It was sad and also very wise.

  No wonder he felt the need to protect himself and his own personal treasure.

  Campaspe’s curiosity and dissatisfaction with him and his explanations of himself and his translation are just like that. She hopes to get from him something that is unique. And she is coming up with nothing.

  So, as he lay in bed and realized he was there all alone, he was not surprised when he thought he heard his briefcase in the kitchen open and close. The chair squeaked. There was the rustling of paper. And he knew that his translation was being read. He decided to do nothing. He coughed and the rustling of paper stopped and a little while later it began again. Campaspe was reading his translation. He coughed again, and the pages stopped rustling. He heard the bathroom door open and close. And then he heard the fridge door open. Campaspe was pouring herself something to drink—a smoke screen. It was then that he knew, since she did not feel safe without possessing some part of him and since she would not feel safe reading the translation in his apartment, that she would, someday soon, take the whole manuscript.

  Thinking about Campaspe and how she would steal his manuscript, he also still thought about the girl. He closed his eyes and he saw, after the girl was done, how they were embarrassed to find their clothes on again and the pitchfork and bucket in their hands as they were when they first went to the woods. “Come on,” he said. They found a spot under some oaks and sank the fork into the thatch and lifted it clear. As Campaspe reads the translation in the next room, he can see so clearly how the worms—exposed, naked, glistening—quickly sank themselves back into the earth. They dropped to their knees and fought with their hands, trying to catch however they could those disappeared things already resting at some deeper level.

  ~ Book IV ~

  1. Finally, it was summer. The early, rainy spring months had passed and Eta and her mother had gone to their canoe camp where they were building a birch-bark canoe. Bimaadiz’s family did not have a canoe camp of their own, and since Eta was so far away it was a dreary time for him, filled only with rain and mosquitoes. The mosquitoes bit and drilled and made Bimaadiz’s skin itch. His separation from Eta created an altogether different itch that no amount of scratching could alleviate.

  There was nothing for him to hunt. The meat, if he had gone hunting, would have been poor. The hides, even young ones, would have been covered with ticks: ugly raw things of no use to anyone. Bimaadiz tried his best to keep himself busy and reminded himself that Eta wouldn’t be building canoes forever. He helped out around his parents’ house and even considered working at the mill, just for something to do. But it was clear that Bimaadiz was a danger to himself. He was absentminded and distracted. He would almost certainly have hurt himself eventually. So he did not end up working at the mill.

  He took to walking the woods aimlessly, swimming through the brush, getting wet, muddy, and bug-bitten in the swamps. He returned home in the evenings with nothing to show for the day’s effort but exhaustion. His mind was on Eta and nothing else and he couldn’t bear the thought that he wouldn’t see her until berrying time, at least a month away. Bimaadiz was so upset and out of sorts he became jealous of the creatures of the forest. He was jealous of every species—whether they flew or ran or slithered—because they were allowed to go wherever they wanted. The weather and the season did not prevent them from going about their business or from seeing what it was they wanted to see. The bears scavenged for food and slept and tumbled in the weeds and traveled wherever they pleased. The wolves stuck together, hunting and sleeping and playing and no one told them they could not travel and play together. But it was the birds who excited most of Bimaadiz’s envy. They flew wherever they wanted. They ate the most delicious berries and seeds, never in danger of being hungry. And they were welcome visitors, brightening every camp. The worst part was that the people encouraged their chirping and cooing and took pleasure in their presence and their courtship. They were free to woo and tease one another, even urged to sing and trill and to generally excite the attention of their beloveds. Not so for me, thought Bimaadiz. I can’t tell anyone how I feel about Eta. They would just laugh at me or scowl and say I was acting inappropriately. I have to hide my feelings. I can’t fly to her, be at her side in minutes, no time at all! A long dirty walk with mosquitoes is what separat
es me from Eta. And if I were allowed to go to her, what then? I couldn’t kiss her with her mother there. I couldn’t tease her or hold her hand. I can’t woo her, play my flute the way she likes. I am not a bird, no one would encourage me to sing—a pleasure for others—it would only be a source of embarrassment for them and for me. I am only a stupid boy who wouldn’t even know what to do if Eta were mine.

  Bimaadiz did contemplate hiking out to Eta and her mother’s camp, but balked when he imagined what Eta’s mother, Mary, might say when he arrived:

  “I’ve come to say hello.”

  “Well? You’ve said it.”

  “I was wondering how the canoe was coming along.”

  “You can see for yourself that we’re half done.”

  “Have you found enough birch bark?”

  “Can’t you see the pile of it there soaking?”

  All of the excuses he dreamt up felt thin, easily torn. Mary would know right away that he was there only to see Eta. She would prevent the two of them from spending any time together. It all seemed so hopeless. Bimaadiz felt, as sweethearts often do, that he would die of longing. And if he didn’t, then he could easily imagine any number of obstacles and events that, in the meantime, could insert themselves between the terrible now and the wonderful future in which Eta would be his forever and ever.

  There was nothing he could do, and so he did what sweethearts everywhere will do when prevented from exercising their desires: he punished his rivals. That is, he began killing birds.

  2. Bimaadiz wasn’t so cruel and heartless as to kill them for no reason. He was a special boy, as handsome at heart as he was to the eye. There were elders—healers and doctors—who needed special birds for their ceremonies and there were women—quillworkers and beaders—who needed feathers for their designs. It just so happened that Bimaadiz’s jealousy and frustration coincided with their needs. So, like an old-fashioned Indian, he strung a bow (the Winchester would only have made a mess of things) and gathered some blunt-tipped arrows and stalked the woods looking for the colorful birds of summer.

  He found many near the village—redwing blackbirds aplenty, and finches, too. They were small, quick creatures that flushed easily. It would have been easier to net them. Bimaadiz took many shots only to have the brush or cattails turn his shafts. He spent many hours looking for his arrows; they blended well with the cattail stalks and underbrush, and when fired low, they pushed their way under the matted grass. It took a good eye to find them and the whole enterprise helped take Bimaadiz’s mind off Eta.

  Bit by bit, day after long day, he collected a fair number of birds—finches, warblers, blackbirds, and the like. The elders to whom he gave the little creatures were glad to get them. They were too old to get them for themselves, and no one cared much anymore about such things, so the elders were cheered by Bimaadiz’s efforts.

  Mindlessly, he took down those little birds—unstrung them from the sky—and put them in his bandolier bag and toted them back to the village. He could spend all day hunting, could kill twenty or thirty, but they weighed next to nothing. They weighed so little in death, having lost the presence of life, and they lay in his bag like patches of colored cloth.

  Bimaadiz drew down on a porcupine one day. He had surprised it on the trail and, hurriedly, as fast as it could waddle, it veered off to the side and climbed a tree. It stopped six feet up and clung to the trunk, blinking sleepily, trying to focus on Bimaadiz, but it could not. It looked like a child just woken from sleep trying to remember where it was, and for once, Bimaadiz didn’t have the heart to kill something though he knew porcupine flesh was a delicacy that the elders didn’t often get a chance to taste.

  Every day he hunted the birds he had to walk farther and farther from the village to find them. There were fewer birds now—thanks to his expertise and to the advancing season.

  The deep woods, filled with brooding pine, were a poor place to find birds. There was so little for them to eat there and few places for them to build their nests. And so Bimaadiz sought out the lowlands and the stands of hardwoods that grew to the south. He became obsessed with finding rarer birds. He was no longer satisfied with the beautiful but common jays and whiskeyjacks, blackbirds and boreal chickadees. Bimaadiz wanted more exotic quarry and so deeper he went.

  One day he was hunting among scattered oaks and birches. It truly felt like summer now. The insects were out—mosquitoes and deerflies—dreamily orbiting his head, when he caught some movement in the treetops. Just a flash. He turned, searching the leaves for the bird he knew was there. A patch of sky detached itself, dipped, and landed in another tree. Bimaadiz was keen to it and his pulse quickened. It was an indigo bunting—rare to be sure. It was highly sought after and was considered a powerful semblance.

  Bimaadiz drew, but before his arrow came to rest, the bunting flew. Ten yards. Twenty. And landed again in a different tree. Bimaadiz kept the arrow nocked and advanced on the bunting, trying not to trip or to make too much noise. He was good at moving like this, and when he was in range he knelt to steady his aim. But the bird flew again and landed just on the edge of sight. If Bimaadiz didn’t know better he would have said that the indigo bunting had been hunted before, or that it knew its feathers were valuable. Again, Bimaadiz kept the deadly arrow nocked and wove his way slowly through the trees. He knew if he was patient enough that he would eventually get a shot, or if not, it was no loss. The bunting had landed in an ironwood tree twenty feet off the ground. Bimaadiz counted this as luck because ironwood have fewer branches—it would be a much easier shot, his arrow would fly straight, and the bird would be knocked off its branch, and he could carry it home.

  Such were his thoughts. They ran so far ahead of the event that in his mind he had already killed the creature and plucked its feathers in the cool comfort of his parents’ shack.

  But the bird flew again! Bimaadiz didn’t even have a chance to draw back the bow all the way. He cursed and shook his head. He felt cheated—as though by thinking so far ahead, by imagining his success so completely, instead of plucking the actual bird he had plucked his chances and destroyed them. He felt tired and put out. He had come so far and still his bag was empty, no matter how much he imagined it full. He could not stop now.

  Time passed and the sun was dragged along with it and with Bimaadiz lagging behind both, he was pulled farther and farther from the village. Sometimes the bunting landed close by. And sometimes it disappeared from sight, at which point Bimaadiz paused and considered where it might have gone. He always found it, or saw it, but it always flew before he could make a shot.

  The sun moved. So did the bunting. So did Bimaadiz. Each followed the path laid out for him—always heading to some final place. The sun was nearing its western home while Bimaadiz and the bunting had left the village far behind and were now far to the south. The soil had changed from sand to clay and the trees reflected this change in the hidden wealth of the land. Instead of pines and poplar, Bimaadiz wove his way among maples and birch. Mighty elms rose straight-trunked from the lowlands and white oak crowned the hills. It was beautiful country, but Bimaadiz barely noticed it.

  The sun, doing its best not to sink, lingered on the horizon, sending its last rays in between the trees. Free-floating pollen, caught in the light, cast a yellow glow over the whole scene. And finally, perhaps tired from the chase or blessed with an understanding of what is required of buntings in stories such as this one, the bird perched on a hazel wand and stayed there. Bimaadiz was a few scant yards away. He stopped and crouched behind an ash, drew his bow, and fired. The arrow flew straight. Its blunt tip struck and killed the bunting. It fell to the forest floor. It would fly through the branches of its forest home no more. But it would fly, henceforth pinned to the hair of some fair Indian back at the village.

  Bimaadiz whooped. He was pleased. His slow chase had finished with a good result. He gently picked up the thing and after plucking a
single tail feather and placing it in the crook of a tree along with a whole twist of tobacco, he wrapped the bunting in a piece of calico and placed it in the bottom of his bandolier bag.

  Now he put down his bow and urinated. He stretched. And then he took his bearings. He had no idea where he was. He knew he was far to the south of the village. And it was almost dark. Bimaadiz would not be able to walk back unless he walked half the night. Without good trails he would be stumbling about in the dark. But there was no need. He could camp where he was. It was a warm summer night and if he built a good smudge and wrapped himself just so in his blanket, the mosquitoes would not snack on him too much. Having decided to spend the night he began looking for a suitable place to build a quick shelter. As he searched he saw signs of human activity—felled trees, trampled brush. Some of the smaller birches had been stripped of their outer bark as high as he could reach.

  Bimaadiz became anxious, thinking immediately of all that had happened during the previous year—the enemy raid across the river during which he had been captured and also the sinking of the Ariel. No one knew what to expect, and the young men of the village had been gearing up for a war that everyone thought would come soon, possibly that season. There was talk that the Governor and the Agent were trying to arrange a treaty council at the village in the fall, which, even if there were no agreement, would postpone the fighting for another year.

  Whoever was working the woods could be working to evil ends. It could be the work of the enemy. Suddenly Bimaadiz’s mind was bent to these fearful thoughts when he—his senses now tuned to his fear—smelled smoke in the air. Or, perhaps the drop in temperature had forced the smoke down to ground level and so it had been there all along but he hadn’t smelled it. It wouldn’t do to pitch his own camp anywhere near this other one without first seeing who it was. If they were friendly, they might be offended he had not introduced himself and shared their food and company. And if they were enemies, it would be best to know and walk back to the village as quietly as he could. He regretted whooping earlier. If these strangers were in camp they might have heard him.