Wake The Stone Man
Page 19
There were flowers from Anna, Kiiko and Toivo, and some cards from people she’d worked with in British Colombia. She asked me to read the cards and letters to her, and I could see Nakina had made an impact in their lives when she was out west. She had made a good life there.
Sometimes when Nakina slept I’d stretch out in the chair and look out the window at the Stone Man. I thought about all the years we had lost.
***
“Water. I need water.” Nakina was awake and seemed agitated.
I got a fresh jug of ice water and moistened Nakina’s lips.
“I saw the northern lights,” she said, “when I lived in the mountains. They were beautiful.”
“I could see them out at my place in Kamanistiquia,” I said.
“Your house. I like it.”
“I’ve moved back out there. I’m living there now.”
“Alone?”
“I have a friend. He stays with me sometimes.”
“Is he nice?”
“Very nice. He’s very…” I thought about how to describe Lars. “Kind. He’s very kind and gentle.”
I hoped she would say more, but she drifted off to sleep.
She was asleep when I arrived the next morning and there was an oxygen mask over her face. The room was still. A nurse came to the door and asked to see me at the nursing station.
“She slipped into a coma last night,” the nurse said. “She’s not in any pain. She may stay like this for a few days. She might regain consciousness. It’s hard to say.”
“What can I do?”
“Sit with her. Talk to her. She may still be able to hear you, know you’re there.”
I went back into the room and sat on the chair beside Nakina. Her body was there and I could see her chest rising and falling. But she was far away. I tried to talk to her but I didn’t know what to say. Maybe it had all been said.
I stayed silently beside her, holding her hand, watching her chest rise and fall until her breathing stilled and she was gone.
***
The day after the cremation I drove out to Kamanistiquia with Nakina’s ashes in an urn on the seat beside me. There was no funeral. She didn’t want that. No ceremony, no one there except me and Mitch standing together on the cement floor at the back of the crematorium. As the door to the furnace opened and the pine box holding her body moved forward Mitch’s arm rose suddenly in an arched swooping gesture like a bird taking flight and as her body was fed into the flames I felt Nakina’s soul rise and take flight. Free.
At the house I placed the silver urn on the kitchen table and poured myself a glass of wine. I looked up at the painting Celeste had done. Summer — the pure joy of a child. I looked at the painting of Nakina out in the boat with Dad — Dad’s curly hair blowing back in the wind and his hand on the throttle of the engine. Nakina with the wind whipping her hair across her face and that silly grin on her face. That grin. I looked at the tiny black shoe from the rubble of the residential school. A reminder of all the children who had been lost.
I got out the box with the photocopies from the residential school, lit the Coleman lamp and began to sort through the copies of the ledgers. There were no copies for 1958. The last I had were from 1943. I turned the dial on the lamp to raise the wick so I could see. The writing was very faint. So many names — Lillian Sabourine, Hubert Moses, Gilbert Sabourine, Rose Jackpine — entries in a journal that might be the only proof these children existed, the only link left between these children and the families they had been taken from. They came from all across Northern Ontario — Perrault Falls, Red Lake, Armstrong, Sandy Lake. I wondered where they were now. I wondered how many had found their way home. How many families were broken forever?
When Nakina was taken from her family the thread of her life story was broken. Who was her mother? Her father? Did she have brothers or sisters? If she had a sister was she tough and smart like Nakina? Did they work the trap lines? What did her grandmother look like? Were they funny? Were they serious? Were they religious — what did they believe?
I remembered how Nakina would sit at the kitchen table asking Mom a million questions about our family. She was searching my family for stories because the thread to hers was broken.
I had a small piece of Nakina’s story. All I could do for now was hold it safe. I’d hold it safe until I could find more. I had a date. There were more records in the library archives. There might be a way to trace back to her family.
There were things I knew — that she was my friend and my sister and she was smart and funny and could be a real pain in the ass too. The fun we had at Loon Lake and how we used to read Leonard Cohen and write his poems on the board at school and how she wore pink lipstick and loved the Beatles. I’d remember that her Anishinaabe name was Waawaashkeshi. I’d remember the hard stuff too, about the residential school and abuse. The rape. What they did to her. That was her story too. I’d keep it safe.
I put the papers back in the box and walked across the kitchen. The screen door creaked when it opened. I walked behind the house out into the moonlit field.
I had my painting of Nakina at the Lorna Doone and the photos she took at Rocky Lake and the photo of us together in the rowboat at Loon Lake. I had a piece of her life and I would hold it safe. And I would keep looking for answers. Maybe someday I could get on a train heading north and take her home.
Nakina was right. You can always get home. The tracks run both ways.
author note
I grew up in Thunder Bay, in the shadow of the Sleeping Giant. In writing this novel I took elements of Thunder Bay combined with several other towns in Northern Ontario to create the fictional community of Fort McKay. Although I left Northern Ontario in my late teens, the fierce beauty of Lake Superior’s north shore continues to haunt me.
Like Molly, I was a young girl who stood silently outside the fence of the residential school looking in. Over time I asked questions and came to learn that what I was witnessing represented one of the darkest chapters of Canadian history.
For over a century over 150,000 Aboriginal children were removed from their families and sent to residential schools. The result of the physical and emotional abuse suffered by so many continues to impact future generations. In 2008 Prime Minister Harper apologized on behalf of the Canadian government and asked the “forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.” Through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada the survivors of the residential school system have been given voice and a national journey of healing has begun.
acknowledgements
I would like to extend my deep gratitude to the visionaries who created the Beacon Award for Social Justice Literature. Thank you for your belief in the power of fiction to inspire and change the world. To the distinguished jury members who gave of their time and provided invaluable feedback, my humble thanks.
To Bev Rach for her confidence in the book, Chris Benjamin for giving me a stronger voice, Brenda Conroy for polishing my words and the whole fabulous Roseway team, my heartfelt thanks.
This is a novel about friendship and love. For bringing that into my life I am deeply grateful to my beloved family, and my beloved family of friends.
book club notes
1. As the novel opens Molly sees Nakina attempting to escape from the residential school. Why do you think Nakina was trying to escape when she did not know where home was, and punishment was certain if she were caught?
2. When Molly is out on the lake in her father’s boat she looks back at the city and sees the invisible lines of class and race that separate the town. Do you think similar invisible lines of social distinction exist in your community?
3. The Sleeping Giant, or Stone Man plays a central role in the novel both as geographical landscape and mythological being. In legend the Sleeping Giant watched over and protected the Ojibwe
people until he was turned to stone. What do you think is the significance of the title Wake the Stone Man?
4. Molly is witness to Nakina’s attack but stays silent. Why do you think she didn’t or couldn’t tell the truth of what she saw?
5. Finding family is a major theme in the novel, central to both Molly and Nakina’s journey. Do you think, in the end, they found family?
6. A strong friendship is forged between Molly and Nakina when they are in their teens. How do you think this bond endured through tragedy and years of separation?
7. Wake the Stone Man is set in the 1970s at a time when much of the truth of the horrific abuse in residential schools was hidden or denied. Since 2008 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has held hearings across Canada, giving voice to the survivors of the residential school system. Do you think the work of the TRC in bringing the truth to light will help the journey towards healing?
The Beacon Award
for Social Justice Literature
The Beacon Award for Social Justice Literature is a prize for an unpublished novel. Its purpose is to stimulate the creation, publication and dissemination of new works of fiction designed to ignite readers’ passion for and understanding of social justice. The Beacon Award is appreciative of all its individual supporters and also thanks Hignell Book Printing and Michael Nuschke and Richard Nickerson of Assante Capital Management for their generous support.
Visit beaconaward.ca for more information