Annie Muktuk and Other Stories

by Norma Dunning

  Published by

  The University of Alberta Press

  Ring House 2

  Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1

  www.uap.ualberta.ca

  Copyright © 2017 Norma Dunning

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Dunning, Norma, author

  Annie Muktuk and other stories / Norma Dunning.

  (Robert Kroetsch series)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978–1–77212–297–8 (softcover).—ISBN 978–1–77212–345–6 (PDF). — ISBN 978–1–77212–343–2 (EPUB). — ISBN 978–1–77212–344–9 (Kindle)

  I. Title. II. Series: Robert Kroetsch series

  PS8607.U5539A86 2017 C813’.6

  C2017–902061–7

  C2017–902062–5

  First edition, first printing, 2017.

  First electronic edition, 2017.

  Digital conversion by Transforma Pvt. Ltd.

  Copyediting by Kimmy Beach.

  Proofreading by Maya Fowler-Sutherland.

  Cover deisgn by Alan Brownoff.

  A volume in the Robert Kroetsch Series.

  Cover image: Annie Pootoogook, A Portrait, Cape Dorset 2006. Coloured pencil & ink, 20 × 26 in. Used by permission.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written consent. Contact the University of Alberta Press for further details.

  The University of Alberta Press supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with the copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing University of Alberta Press to continue to publish books for every reader.

  The University of Alberta Press gratefully acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund.

  This book is dedicated to my ancestors, past, present and future. These are your words written from my heart. I love you.

  Contents

  Kabloona Red

  Elipsee

  The Road Show Eskimo

  Kakoot

  Annie Muktuk

  Manisatuq

  Qunutuittuq

  Itsigivaa

  Iniqtuiguti

  Inurqituq

  Tutsiapaa

  Nakuusiaq

  Qaninngilivuq

  Samagiik

  Husky

  My Sisters and I

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Kabloona Red

  KA-B-LOONA-READ. Kalona Red. Kelowna Red—that’s it! Better stop drinking the wine before noon. It’s so wonderful to feel that beautiful red liquid glide down my throat. It’s like going home, all warm and wonderful. Is there really anything better than sitting at home, tanked in your very own kitchen? Husband is off up North, doing his bit for God, the Queen, and his country. The Queen—remember when she flew into Churchill? What a day—what excitement there was. We all curled up our hair, shaved our legs, donned our big parkas, and headed off to the airport. Excited to see royalty step off a small plane and wave at us all. Who cared that she stuck around for only a half an hour—she showed up didn’t she? What a party we had at the Legion that night—all that old-time fiddle music, all the Elders and the young people. We danced the northern lights away. It was glorious. Just a bunch of starry-eyed Eskimos.

  Eskimo, now that’s a word. White word. White word for white people to wrap around their pink tongues. Esquimaux. Spell it any way you want and it still comes out the same, skid row and all. I should light up another cig here. A rollie, make your own. Always make your own. The North teaches you that. Make your everything. Food, clothes, fun—much fun. Inhale. Exhale. Drag on that homemade-no-filter cig. Get the tobacco stuck between your teeth and absolutely never floss. “Ha,” I mutter to the empty kitchen. Ah, the North.

  I met him there. A tall strapping country boy from the south. I loved him from the minute we looked at each other. Me, a little Inuk and him the farm boy fresh from the war. He looked magnificent in his blue uniform. I would have done anything for him and I did. We drank and danced and laughed. I felt important. I felt white. Look at me, look at me with this white guy. He gave my world meaning.

  We married and I got a new name. I could throw out my old name and no one would ever have to know. They would never have to know about my sisters or my mothers or my father. I could start fresh and new. I could invent a new me. I couldn’t get rid of that skin colour though. That was a drawback. Always long sleeves and pants. Wear a dress with dark nylons, sleep in rollers every night of your life and run red lipstick around your mouth first thing every morning, noon and night. People could assume what they wanted. I didn’t have to give any details. I would be only his wife. That’s all they ever had to know.

  We got married ’cause I was pregnant. Oh let’s have some more of that Kel Red—let that gallon jug glug-glug into my glass. Bring it to my lips, let it slide down the old pipes. Ah, that’s good. Yeah, there was one thing that I was good at—learned it at school too. Young girls surrounded by all those priests and brothers and nuns. Father Mercredi was the first. Puts me in the punishment room and leaves me there, alone, like solitary. Shows up after dinner dishes have been scraped, spit on and polished. Kitchen crew is gone and there we are. He tells me to not scream, puts his sweaty palm over my mouth. Yanks down the heavy underwear—the woollen armour of the little girls.

  Pushes my back up against a wall and rips into my body like a serpent. I close my eyes and tears drool down my face, snot drips from my nose. My heart pounds hard against that cold cement wall. He wiggles this way and that like a snowshoe hare stuck in a snare. The pain splits beads of panic off my forehead. He’s finished. Tucks his thing back under his black robe, slowly peels his hand off my mouth. Mutters to me in French to “ferme ta gueule—shush, don’t talk about this.” And he’s gone. I hear his footsteps down the hallway. I slide down to the cement floor and sob softly. I hurt. I bleed. I don’t know who to tell.

  Sister Mary comes in to release me from the room. She sees the blood dripping down to my white socks. She puts her hand around my mouth too and quickly walks me to the bathroom. I try between whimpers to tell her it was Father Mercredi. She tells me to be quiet. To stay still. She leaves and comes back with a white cotton pad. She tells me that I will have this happen to me every month. I try to tell her, “NO!” She gets stern and says, “Oui, ma chère.” She hands me the pad and mimes for me to place it into my bloody underwear “between da hegs.” That memory makes me giggle now. I might have been nine years old. Every month—my foot.

  Time for another quick shot here. The kitchen clock is reminding me of that place. Time was everything there. Yep, I had them all. All the Fathers. First Mercredi, then Father Jeudi, Father Vendredi, Samedi, and Dimanche and let’s not forget the rest of the good old boys—Lundi and Mardi. I never really knew their names. I gave them the names of the days of the week. It all depended on what day they showed up. That went on for six years. Every night.

  It was like word got around that place and I was sent to that room every day after school. Eventually I did have to start using that bale of cotton between my legs every month but that didn’t stop them. Nah, those old Pères, they weren’t about to fuss over something like that. But I learned one thing. I learned to pretend to
like it. They learned that they didn’t have to put their hand around my mouth anymore. I would breathe hard like a throat song, I would wiggle and I would moan softly into their ears. While they were pumping I was praying. Praying for them to burn. Praying for them to die. Praying to get myself the hell out of hell.

  I figured out another thing too. Oh, let’s just light a cig. I learned to get good grades. Not just any kind of good grades. I learned that if I became the smartest person in the province for French class I could get moved ahead in my school. I could be like a prisoner released on good behaviour. Marks mattered and I got them. I finished high school a month before my sixteenth birthday. I led the province in French marks. I had become en-française-ized. They made a spectacle of me. They couldn’t hide me anymore. They couldn’t keep me in the punishment room now. The Bishop even knew about me and came to school one day to shake my hand. While he was congratulating me on this big accomplishment, I prayed for him to burn like the others. I smiled my you-go-to-hell smile and then I winked at him. I was set free.

  Oh, the jug is getting empty. Shit, I shoulda bought more of this stuff. I only get to do this when he isn’t around. Otherwise I have to be the white wife. The white wife with the white picket fence, white washed and white dried. Ah, Eskimo—what a nice white word.

  Too young to be legally on my own I was fostered out to a French family. I had been in that place so long that I couldn’t remember my mothers’ faces. My sisters had been taken away from me years before. I had no idea where anyone was anymore. It didn’t matter. Most days it didn’t matter. I got to be in a real home, in a real house with a real older couple who took care of me like I was some sort of Inuit princess. I had my own room with my own books and a dresser with a nice round mirror. I loved it.

  I worked at their restaurant and I started to learn that life was not all bad. I learned to cook good and then I met him. He courted me like I mattered. Wouldn’t kiss me on the first date. I changed that. We had a pile of kids. Lots of them. Wall to wall. We moved further north. Camped. Hunted. Fished. Went whaling and berry picking. We took that bundle of brats with us everywhere. Ah, it’s a good life now.

  You never really get over things. You just move on. Move on to laughter. Move on to being alive. Move on to growing old. And when he’s not here, then you can really remember and you can have a sip of Kelowna Red and smoke all the cigs you want. After all, it’s the Inuit way.

  Elipsee

  IT STARTED OUT as something we would do once we had put the kids to bed. Pull out the little bag of fluffy green heads, the pretend lettuce, and wrap a nice, white piece of paper around it. Suck it in hard and let it rest in our lungs. We thought we were better than the rest of the people in the community. No Johnny Walker or Captain Morgan in our lives. We were better. White shit booze has rooted its way into the lives of our family and friends. We didn’t drink.

  We smoke. Tons and tons of weed. We didn’t DT ourselves into the bathroom each morning. No puking up rivers of soft brown, no shitting of baby yellow. We smoked only after saying nighty-night to the babies.

  Our babies, our beautiful Inuk babies. We made sure there was not one ounce of white in them. We could trace our families back to 1920—better than what most people on the settlement could. With all the proper government documents. We were better than the rest.

  Elipsee, she’s my wife. Been with her since we were in Federal Government School. Her black hair has gotten a bit of white in it. She still gave me babies, though, in her forties and pushing out little brownies like ju-jubes in a candy store. I’ve known her always. Hers was the first kiss I ever got. Hers was the first breast I ever touched. Hers was the first crotch I ever cupped into my hands. She is my everything.

  She’s dying now. I can’t imagine waking up and not having her next to me. Breast cancer.

  It’s got her good and she’s coughing out more oxygen than she’s taking in. She’s still my Elipsee. My homemade girl from our settlement.

  The white community health nurse comes in and visits with us. They still think we don’t know what’s what and how to take care of ourselves. As soon as that blonde bitch leaves, Elipsee looks at me and says the same thing, “Go get the angakkug. She knows what to do.”

  I have. Over and over and over again. Nothing has worked. We’d stopped eating caribou for a month. We stopped sleeping in the same bed. We stopped kissing. We stopped holding hands on full moons. We have to try this one last thing.

  We have to go back onto the land for the full summer. I don’t know if Elipsee will make it. We aren’t taking the babies. It will be just her and I and the spirits who she will ask for healing. The harder her pain becomes the more dope we smoke. It’s eased her a little and at least it isn’t booze. There is a lingering stench, a reminder of her illness. The scent of cancer.

  Today we are packing. Taking bundles of wood, matches, dope, more wood, matches, dope, tin cans of anything, blankets, a tent, dope, a kerosene lamp, shotgun, dope, more blankets. It’s endless. We’ve borrowed the ATV belonging to my ataata. We’re modern Eskimos—we drive Hondas out onto those barren lands. If this time away is what heals her then it will all be worth it.

  My name is Josephee. Elipsee calls me Jo. When she says my name I make sense to me. When she says my name I know who and what and why I am. I am not happy to go out onto the land. I like our routine at home. The routine of our tan-coloured babies, Jake and Luke—our twins. Our onlys. They are what keep us centred in this community. They define for both of us the word “joy.”

  Elipsee says to me, “Jo, the angakkug says to go out towards Nueltin Lake. To stay for the month of July at least. We will find healing there.”

  I can’t refuse her. I never can. What Elipsee wants from Jo, Elipsee gets. She should, she was my first everything.

  Today we pack. Pack and pack. The boys run in circles around the Honda. They don’t understand that they aren’t coming. Three-year-olds don’t understand many things and we have never slept a night away from each other. Elipsee might not do so well but I’ll be strong for her. It’s June 29th. We are heading north, more north than either of us have ever been. This is our one last sure cure. It is our last chance to make Elipsee well.

  Papa has left cans of gas in the back of his old sledge. The sledge he used in the pre-Honda hunting days. The days when dogs were your horse-power and got you where you were going. He has even left the runners for the sledge inside, tucked up against a wall.

  “Geez, old man,” I tell him, “we’re only going for the summer.” He grins, his pupils sparkle and he shrugs. I laugh and slap his left shoulder. The old man, he’s getting skinny these days. No more the broad-shouldered hunter, his spine is starting to wrinkle like his face. He grins one more time, shrugs and scratches at the top of his head.

  Taking a breath he says to me, “Boy, there was a time when I would take your mom out onto the land. Those were high times boy. High times.”

  He winks, shoves his shoulder into mine and laughs. There is something about the thought of your parents fucking that makes a kid shut up. No matter how old I get, I still never want to see that image in my head.

  I grin back and tell him to shut his mouth. Tell him I’ll say a prayer out there on the land to the spirits for him. He grabs tight to my wrist and gives a whiff sniff as he places his cheek next to my ear. His way of saying “I love you.”

  Yesterday was the day I brought the ATV and sledge home. Elipsee was so happy. She was going to be healed, the spirits will cleanse her breasts. The gleam from her eyes spreads all the way down to her toenails.

  Often I look at her and try to imagine what cancer looks like when it grows inside of you. I wonder what it does when I’m on top of her, pounding away like when we were teenagers. Does cancer get excited, bounce around in breasts? Does it have an orgasm? Who knows? These are the thoughts that take me away from the reality of what our lives have become. These are the thoughts that make me angry for having a disease take over our lives. These are the th
oughts that bring me to tears when Elipsee is not in the room. I will do anything for her. I’ll even try to get up to Nueltin Lake.

  Wind snapping at our eyelids. Blackflies gathering into the crevices of our faces. Travel in the North is never easy. Bouncing, getting bit at and birds circling around us like vultures, only they’re not. Elipsee laughs at all of it, grinning and encouraging me.

  “Come on, Jo! Let’s go! Oldtime!”

  Words that spin her into giggles as she lays in the back of the sledge Papa lent us. I’ve made her a bed of skins. Caribou hides stacked up like pancakes at a Denny’s I took her to once in Winnipeg.

  We were just a pair of Northern kids out in the big city on a field trip. We didn’t know how to order food at a restaurant—hell we had never been in one before. Waitress had yellow hair and green eyes and neither of us had ever seen that before.

  “Is she Sedna?” Elipsee had whispered into my ear. We had sat together on one side of the booth.

  “There’s a name on her shirt—it says ‘Edna,’ Elipsee.” I had whispered back.

  The blonde lady gives us menus. We are both thankful for the pictures. Government school had taught us how to read some of the English words but we had never had to try to understand a menu before.

  Elipsee is confused and asks what all this stuff really is. We are used to grey porridge and small glasses of milk for breakfast. I was trying to impress her and went into an elaborate explanation of what pancakes are. I explain the flat discs to being something like the bannock that the Northern Crees and Chips make. Elipsee frowns—a definite no. She doesn’t want anything that an Indian has ever eaten.

  The pale-haired lady stands at our table and asks what we would like to drink.

  “Tea!” I said it way too loud but I wanted Elipsee to think I was an experienced city guy, afraid of nothing.

  “What kind?” asks Edna who has begun to study her nails, they are bright red. She is chewing something that looks like sap in her mouth.