The Exile Book of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama

by Daniel David Moses

  MISTER WOLF

  I was sent to prison on a bus. Sent to rot behind cold bars for a crime I did not commit. They came to my grandmother’s house and they took me to their prison.

  TOURIST stands, takes MISTER WOLF by the hand and leads him downstage centre where a red spot comes up. TOURIST returns to his chair and continues to paint.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  The soldiers took the older children and dragged them toward the hole. They were screaming and begging for their lives but the soldiers shot them, each one with a bullet to the head. They tossed their lifeless bodies into the hole. The hole began to fill with blood.

  MISTER WOLF

  I couldn’t stand it in there, with those steel bars keeping me away from my home, keeping me away from my grandmother.

  BROTHER RAVEN

  I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t stay with a family that did not want me. They never loved me. They never saw me as one of their own. But they were getting extra money from the government so they had to keep me. They had to keep me. They kept me in a little room beside the kitchen. They gave me bits of food but nothing a real raven needs to grow strong. I was getting to be a real nice bird before they got their hands on me. Look at me now, all skin and bones. You can’t fly right if you’re nothing but skin and bones, I tried to tell them, but they kept me in that little room until I decided that I had had enough.

  SISTER COYOTE

  They kept me in that school, they kept me until I decided that I had had enough. I had had enough of being beaten and kicked around. I am a Coyote, I would scream at them but they would laugh and kick me some more. I am Coyote! But they would say that I was a child of God and that he would be my saviour. I am Coyote! And I wasn’t going to be kicked around anymore.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  My child began to cry. It was as if this child could feel the death around her. She began to cry louder than the sound of the soldiers as they yelled in victory. A soldier spotted me as I tried to run deeper into the forest.

  TOURIST stands, goes to WOODEN WOMAN, takes her by the hand and sits her down back on the bench in her usual spot. TOURIST sits back down in his chair and continues to paint.

  SISTER COYOTE

  My last night on earth was in my tiny bed. I was trying to dream of my family back home. The fat priest came into my room and he pulled off my little dress and he placed his fat cold body on top of me and he hurt me real bad, all the time telling me that I was his gift from the Lord and that I should never tell anyone. He raped me, and then he smacked me across the face and told me to never tell anyone or else God would punish me.

  BROTHER RAVEN

  My last night on earth was spent in my tiny room just beside the kitchen. The father of the family came into my room and told me that I had made a mess and that he would therefore have to punish me for this. I tried to tell him that I wasn’t the one who made the mess but he came at me anyway. He took off his thick black belt and he tore off my little pants and he smacked me until I was bleeding and screaming for him to stop. He told me to never tell the government men about what he did to me or else I would never see my mother alive again.

  MISTER WOLF

  My last night on earth was spent in a dark cell. I hadn’t eaten in days and they were telling me that they were going to keep me there until I was dead. They came into my cell and they beat me with pipes until I could no longer walk. They told me I would never see my mother again.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  The soldiers couldn’t see me but they could hear my child crying. “Hush, little girl. Go to sleep. Hush, now.” But she wouldn’t stop crying. I took my hand and I placed it over her mouth but you could still hear her crying and the soldiers were getting closer and closer.

  SISTER COYOTE lies down and begins to pile dead leaves on top of her body.

  SISTER COYOTE

  The fat priest let the piece of rope that he used for a belt in my tiny room. I placed the rope around my neck and tied it too the beam that went across my room.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  The soldiers began to shoot in the direction that I was hiding.

  A loud gunshot is heard.

  SISTER COYOTE

  I jumped and I became the Coyote.

  BROTHER RAVEN lies down and begins to pile leaves on top of himself.

  BROTHER RAVEN

  The father of the family that never loved me left his thick black belt in my tiny room that was beside the kitchen. I placed the belt around my neck and placed the belt around the beam that cut across my tiny room.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  They were shooting right at me, one of the bullets ripped into a tree that was right near my head.

  Another loud gunshot is heard.

  BROTHER RAVEN

  I jumped and I became the Raven.

  MISTER WOLF lies down and begins to pile leaves on top of himself.

  MISTER WOLF

  They placed the noose around my neck. The priest said some words to me that I couldn’t understand. He didn’t even look me in the eyes. He turned away and they let me fall.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  Another bullet hit me in the arm and I screamed real loud and my child began to scream. Another bullet hit the tree.

  Another loud gunshot is heard.

  MISTER WOLF

  I jumped and I became the Wolf.

  The TOURIST stands, goes to each pile of leaves and administers the last rites. As he does this each red spot fades.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  They were coming to kill me and take my hair. My child wouldn’t stop screaming so I took some dead leaves and I gently pushed them into her mouth.

  WOODEN WOMAN bends down and takes dead leaves and places them into the mouth of her child. TOURIST finishes the last rites and exits taking his painting and chair with him.

  There, now, my child. You can sleep now. The soldiers can’t hear you anymore. Sleep, my child. Sleep and dream of days unlike this one. Dream of days spent playing and enjoying this earth that was given to us by the creator. Sleep and dream, my child.

  Lights begin to fade. Offstage we hear beautiful sounds: a coyote barking, a raven cawing, and a wolf howling. Blackout.

  Scene 6

  Daytime. WOODEN MAN and WOODEN WOMAN are sitting in their spots on the bench. There are the three piles of dead leaves still on the stage but now each one has a white cross at the head of it. There is also a small pile of dead leaves right in front of the bench and it also has a small white cross. Offstage we hear: “Get out of here, you stinking tourist.” TOURIST enters now dressed in a bright Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts. He sets up his camera and tripod and sits between the Indians. As timer beeps, nothing happens. TOURIST stands and checks his camera and resets it and sits back down. As timer beeps, nothing happens again. TOURIST angrily gathers camera and tripod and exits.

  WOODEN MAN

  It sure is quiet here without the children.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  Weather’s changing. Autumn’s almost over.

  WOODEN MAN

  Are you warm enough?

  WOODEN WOMAN

  Yes. Are you?

  WOODEN MAN

  Sure. Not much wind on this side.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  Are you hungry? I’ve got an apple left.

  WOODEN MAN

  No, my belly’s full.

  Offstage we hear the faint sound of children playing and singing.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  I didn’t mean to kill her.

  WOODEN MAN

  I know.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  She wouldn’t stop crying. Everything I did made her cry louder.

  WOODEN MAN

  I know. It’s okay. We just have to live on, together.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  I just wanted her to be quiet for a moment so I could think straight. I never wanted her to die like that.

  WOODEN MAN moves close to her and puts his arms around her.

  WOODEN MAN

  We still
have each other. We still have our memories.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  I put leaves into her mouth so she would be silent just for a moment. She stopped crying when I did that. I was able to breathe for a moment and rest and try and get strong, but she wouldn’t wake up when I was taking the leaves out of her mouth. She just stayed there all quiet and so beautiful.

  WOODEN MAN

  Rest now. She is with the spirits of the forest. They will take care of her now.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  I loved her so much. I would do anything to bring her back, you know that, don’t you?

  WOODEN MAN

  Yes, I do. Rest now. She is with the spirits. Can you hear them playing?

  Sound of children get louder and louder.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  Little child with her little red heart. She would’ve grown up to be a wonderful daughter. Her little red heart and those brown eyes that looked up at you forever.

  WOODEN MAN takes her by the chin and kisses her softly on the lips as sounds of children get louder.

  WOODEN MAN

  I love you more than anything on this earth. I will never leave you alone again. Let’s just sit here a while longer and go home. The weather’s changing and soon the snow will come.

  WOODEN WOMAN

  I am at peace here. I can see her, you know. I can see her as a little girl playing with other children, I can see her playing catch with her brothers, I can see her as she plays marbles and gets dirty, I can see her as she becomes a woman, I can see her as she becomes a spirit, a beautiful spirit upon this earth.

  WOODEN MAN

  Rest now. We will come back tomorrow and see what spirits come to visit us. Go to sleep, my love. Sleep and dream of days like this. Days filled with wonderful and alive spirits that play and sing forever…

  Sounds of children build and build, and then slowly fade as lights begin to fade to black.

  The end.

  Alootook Ipellie

  After Brigitte Bardot

  My family and I were expecting to spend a quiet spring just minding our own business hunting and gathering seals, doing some fishing at a nearby river, and going after ptarmigans and waterfowl that were once again arriving from the south. It was a ritualistic relocation we had religiously followed for decades. As arrival of spring goes, this particular one was not much different from all the past ones since we were feeling emotionally and spiritually upbeat with the coming of warm weather. Our optimism was never higher until it was abruptly interrupted by a mass of people gathered around our favourite seal hunting camp when we arrived there.

  I parked my dog team a few hundred yards from the crowd and went over to find out what the commotion was about. It was easy to recognize the video cameramen, still photographers and reporters among the crowd. They were jostling for position in search of catching the 15-second video clip, the perfect photo image or some quotable words. There must have been at least sixty media hounds, twenty dog teams and assorted other hangerson milling around this blonde woman lying on the ice, hugging a white-coated baby harp seal pup. I couldn’t believe my eyes! What was the big deal?

  “Who is she? Why the fuss over the baby seal?” I asked a man who was also observing the theatrics on the sea ice.

  “She’s the famously beautiful French actress, Brigitte Bardot. She’s here to save the baby seals from the senseless slaughter they receive every spring from seal clubbers.”

  “I don’t understand. What does she have against us? We’re just simple Inuit trying to make ends meet by hunting and selling sealskins. It’s our only bread and butter. Why is she targeting us?”

  “I’m not exactly sure, but it may have something to do with her being an animal freak and feeling the need to identify herself as the saviour of all animal species on earth. Who knows, maybe it’s just a publicity stunt. She hasn’t exactly been seen on the silver screen lately.”

  “I’m wondering how she ever ended up fighting for the rights of baby harp seals. France has never even seen a single seal in it entire history – just curious.”

  “Well, by what was stated in the press release before all this happened, a self-proclaimed Swiss ‘philanthropist’ named Franz Weber sponsored this little tryst. He’s also a bit of an animal freak. Rumour has it, there were supposed to be six hundred reporters who were to take this trip but there weren’t enough dog teams in the world to take all of them here. Can you imagine six hundred reporters coming here on... ummm... two hundred dog teams? It would have been quite the scene.”

  “Have these French gone mad? Haven’t they any notion of our lifestyle here?”

  “I guess Brigitte had never heard of you guys until she was lured to come here. I’m sure there are a lot of mad French out there. And some are madder than others. I suppose one could observe that she is the maddest of them all.”

  “I’d say she is. Did you notice something odd about that baby seal she’s hugging?”

  “Of course. It’s stuffed.”

  “Some people! Some guts!”

  “She certainly has the guts, but no discernible mind.”

  “Have you heard the latest blonde joke?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “How many blondes does it take to change a light bulb?”

  “Dunno.”

  “One million. The first 999,999 blondes are such airheads, they haven’t a clue how screws work.”

  The photo-op was soon over. Brigitte Bardot put the stuffed seal into a gym bag and headed for the sledge she had taken to get here. All twenty dog teams sped away, led by Brigitte Bardot’s team. It was at this point I promise myself I would never go see any of her B-movies ever again.

  My family and I set up camp and were happy to be rid of the sixty reporters, twenty dog teams, Brigitte Bardot, et al. I was looking forward to hunting and gathering seals for their valuable skins, which we had come to depend on to make a little money to augment some lean times.

  The spring and summer seal hunt was unusually bountiful. I kept thinking Brigitte Bardot may have brought us good luck by her now-infamous foray into our hunting and gathering culture.

  When autumn came, I made my seasonal trip to the trading post to cash in my sealskins.

  When I arrived with a sled-load of sealskins at the post, I was shocked to find out from the manager that the sealskin market had collapsed. The European Economic Community Parliament had voted to ban the entry of all seal products destined for Europe. The trading post wasn’t buying another dead skin from the likes of me or my fellow hunters. What a shock! What were my family and I to do without the much-needed extra cash?

  I stood there in front of the manager, stunned, my mouth agape, at a loss for words!

  “Here, take a look at this.” The manager handed me a newspaper clipping.

  Bardot Succeeds in Ending Seal Hunt in Canada’s Far North, the headline screamed at my face. There she was, illustrating the story, hugging that damn stuffed seal!

  “The bitch! How could she do this to us?!”

  “Politics. The desire to be seen to be doing something without any relevance to either science or ecology. And for that matter, to the well-being of Inuit. There’s a quotation in that story which I find quite amusing. She refers to the baby pup seals as ‘little balls of wool.’ Can you believe that?”

  “I’m not the least surprised. What am I going to do with a sled-load of sealskins now?”

  “Feed ’em to the dogs, I suppose.”

  I thought for a moment. I came up with a grand scheme to find out Brigitte Bardot’s address and send the sled-load of sealskins. The manager agreed to help me send them off to her. If nothing else, that ought to rile her a bit.

  I went on to finish the newspaper story. Someone in the article was quoted as saying, “Until her arrival, the seal hunt story was all blood and death. But now it was blood and death and sex. No more potent combination could be put together.”

  The truth hurts bad in the guts.

  If I had realized Brigitte Ba
rdot was going to destroy the seal industry, I would have taken her for a long ride in my dog team that day and told her about the realities of our lives as hunters and gatherers. But I am not sure she would have comprehended what I would have told her. As a flesh eater, I probably would have riled her enough that she might have spat in my face. What can one say about radical animal-rights activists? They have dormant mindsets that can only see through the eyes of the animal beings.

  When I returned to my camp later that day, I had a remarkable vision of a slightly senile Brigitte Bardot, an older and still unrepentant rebel, walking along a French street with an Inuk companion. I was amused to see that her upper body had turned into a harp seal!

  This was actually a transformation she was to endure for a lifetime. She would completely turn into a harp seal when her human life was over. She had willed herself to be reincarnated as a harp seal! And, in true Christian tradition, she was wearing a cross around her neck.

  Her Inuk companion seemed perfectly content to be with the aging Brigitte Bardot. He was about to get a rude surprise. A baby harp seal pup snuck up behind the two of them. He clubbed the Inuk’s skull open! The blood and brain tissue spewed out on the street! Brigitte screamed her lungs out. She tried in vain to put the brain tissue, which was just a pile of mush, back into her companion’s skull. In a flash, the baby harp seal pup waddled behind a building and disappeared.

  Later that day, I found out the truth of this horrendous act of violence. The ghosts of all baby harp seal pups that were ever clubbed to death over the years were now avenging atrocities done to them by humankind. The irony is this was not happening anywhere else on Earth except in France.

  It was now blood and death and sex.

  Thomas King

  Coyote and the Enemy Aliens

  You know, everyone likes a good story. Yes, that’s true. My friend Napioa comes by my place. My good place. My good place by the river. Sometimes that Napioa comes by my good place and says, Tell us a good story. So I do. Sometimes I tell those good stories from the Indian time. And sometimes I tell those good stories from the European time. Grown-up stories. Baby stories.