by Tanya Tagaq
Helen and I are not going to go there tonight. Helen’s lips are quivering a little bit, as if she is about to say something but decides not to. She inhales a shallow breath instead. Her eyes are in a slight state of panic, simply from absorbing the intention of my visit. Yet this woman remains calm. This woman could hold the breadth of the world on her lap if she desired. The steam comes up from our tea and I watch her hands fold around the cup. Her nails are slightly yellow but very thick. Her white hair is held back in a braid. I can tell there is a vast peace within her, but the years of holding back words have eroded her spirit. This woman has seen much. She has a network of scars on the tops of her hands. When I ask how she got them, the sides of her mouth curl up almost imperceptibly but she says nothing. I can see by her expression that it is not a pleasant story, and therefore not a good time to tell it. Now is the time for good stories, for nurturance and silence.
“Can we sleep here?” I ask. The same quiet smile appears. She shuts off the lamp and we lie under the caribou-skin blankets. The kullik still burns, and the smell of seal oil permeates everything. Helen lies beside me and her soft form feels so comforting, as if she were a blanket and a mountain at the same time. Her arm rests against mine and it feels so warm and sweet. As we lie together in silence, Helen opens herself to a half sleep. In her vulnerable state, her past begins to unravel behind her, and the shift of her tectonic plates reveals a gentle and bright young woman. Her road was clear, and then all of a sudden a knotted darkness appeared ahead. I saw on her path that she had committed a murder before. Someone had hurt her little sister, so she had killed him and told everyone that he had accidentally drowned. She pushed him out of a boat and into a fish net, only to let him drown. She watched him die with total detachment. His face mere centimetres from the surface, she calmly watched him stop twitching. THIS is why she is here; this is why she can see into my children and me. Those who have taken life of their own species can truly see into the spirit world, because the spirit of the deceased stays with you unless you eat their liver. She is more than strong enough to handle what is about to happen with this birth. The man she killed is watching us, but he is benign. He loves her now, as much as she still despises him. She swats at him like a fly to get him to leave her alone. Perhaps she regrets killing him, but it’s always nice to have company. I observe her past and walk through it with her. She has always known mine. I know she hopes that my children will come out looking like her grandson. I’m going to be sorry to have to disappoint her.
If you are living in silence
With violence in your bones
Sorrow in your marrow
Blood running cold
Heal I beg you
Heal I beg you
Heal I beg you
Heal
The night sky starts to vibrate. Out through our little window the Northern Lights begin to thrum. My uterus tightens. The babies wake up and begin to wiggle excitedly. I know that the birth time is near because of the plugging of my ears and the pressure on my chest.
Helen has been sleeping, but she lets out a sigh and rolls over to face me. Her eyes are full of warmth and slumber and they connect with mine. The love from her is truly a gift. Even though I am full of fear, she puts her hand on my face and gives calmness to me. She sits up and starts to sing her pisik song, and boils some water. The lamp gets lit. The Northern Lights are growing stronger. As the Northern Lights grow, my fear shrinks.
My mouth wants to open, so I open it and let out a small string of noise. The sound started as a vibration from my children and travelled up my esophagus. I am not surprised to see a thin green string of light flow out of my mouth and float upwards. The Northern Lights notice it and grow sharper. They are coming. The green brightness eclipses the lamp and the igloo begins to fill with sharp shadows. My babies begin squirming faster and faster. They feel like a hundred fast snakes writhing in unison, and my stomach ripples like it is going to burst.
My face has grown flushed. I was expecting pain. I was expecting something other than feeling like the moon had grown fingers and used them to coax open my cervix. There was only a slight pinching inside. Suddenly my Uterus tightens and reminds me that I am the conduit from the spirit world into the physical one, and that Death wants me as much as Cold does.
My water breaks and flows out of me in a great river, bright green sparkling liquid. The liquid flows upwards and evaporates the ice window, allowing the string from my mouth to finally attach to the Northern Lights outside. The Northern Lights come down into the igloo and cover my body like a blanket. This experience is the exact opposite of the last one; a gentle warmth and love pours forth. The lights are softer this time. The Northern Lights wrap behind my head to help me be comfortable and roll down my belly to placate the babies.
The babies become calm and have decided now is the time to come and meet their Maker. The Northern Lights enter my mouth and my vagina while closing my anus and colon to make more room. My uterus hardens and forces and pushes. The Northern Lights have robbed my mouth of sound and my vagina of constriction.
I cannot see over my belly but I hear Helen scream as my son Savik slips out of me. Wet and warm. Painless. Not just painless, but pleasant. The Northern Lights are pleasuring me during birth! Naja comes out next, free and sweet. I sit up to look at my children and see why Helen is screaming. Both my children are each almost three feet long and not much thicker than their umbilicus. They did not want to hurt their mother, so they changed form at the direction of the Northern Lights. My heart bursts with love. They are covered in green slime and pulsating, but they are the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Savik is much larger than Naja. Both of them emit a sound at the exact same time that cracks the sky open and sounds just like electricity. A flash of lightning comes out of their mouths and joins the Northern Lights in a snap so loud Helen stops screaming. Each of their umbilical cords breaks free from their bodies and shoots into each of Helen’s eyes. She freezes and remains motionless, mouth hanging open. The umbilicus is bloodied and so are her eyes, but I have a premonition that it will work out just fine.
I feel the umbilicus search her mind for the memory of their birth. The cords suck the memory out of her consciousness and replace it with a more plausible birthing memory. It takes a few minutes for this to happen. Helen is eerily still and silent. Meanwhile my children have fleshed out into normal-looking newborns and the Northern Lights drift out and off into the sky, leaving us in darkness. The umbilical cords return to my children, and by the time Helen opens her eyes they have attached back onto the babies’ bellybuttons. Cold has put the ice window back. Helen moves quickly to place my children onto my chest, and both of them begin to suckle from my breasts. Helen looks dazed but intact. We laugh; she wipes the sweat from my brow. The circle of life is complete as the milk flows out of me. Astounding green milk.
There is a celebration when we bring the babies home. People come over and bring food. Auntie brings fresh muqtak and uujuq. There is baked char, fried char, frozen char, and dried char. The caribou is roasted with blueberries and qungaliq juice. Another auntie made a potato salad and pumpkin pie. The soup is boiling and the bannock frying. Everyone is eating and laughing and cooking. My mother instantly fell in love with the babies, but my father remains distant.
Savik is very fat with a thick bunch of black hair and sharp features. His eyes are the darkest black and his skin is like teak. When he stares into your eyes, you can feel the sharpness of his thoughts. He is a natural protector. Naja is considerably smaller with no hair. No eyebrows, no fuzz. Even her eyelashes are stunted. Her features are softer than her brother’s, her nose rounder, her skin is darker and her eyes are a very dark green instead of black. She is an abyss. It is so easy to fall into her. She is sweet. Always cooing. Savik is silent. The Knowing in his eyes is alarming. He makes sound only when you keep him from Naja for too long, then he releases a piercing cry until he is reunited with her. Naja is social and soft. She rarely cries for her br
other but gets agitated when Savik is calling her to him. She obeys him. I can see it. He is also her servant.
Savik has a natural electromagnetism around him. People seem to become transfixed by him. Almost hypnotized. He is pointed, brooding. When anyone holds him they begin to feel uncomfortable after a few minutes. They begin to churn and need a way to get rid of all the energy. I have noticed that people can only hold him for so long before starting to say disparaging things about other people. If they hold him even longer they might cry in mourning or in grief. Savik eats up the agony, and seems to grow stronger when he bears witnesses to suffering. It’s a relief for people to release their troubles, but troubles must emerge when they are ready to. Forcing out that agony leaves an open wound, it leaves people depleted. I notice that those who spend too much time with him grow ill and radiate a grey pallor.
I notice how he can control his environment. He can use a glance to make someone fall down the stairs, or he can go into people’s minds and convince them to make terrible decisions. You would think these things would make me dislike him, but they don’t. They make me proud to have made such a source of power. A mother cannot control the love she has for her children. Mine is cyclonic. Savik never uses his will against mine. He is incapable of doing so. It would be like cutting himself.
Savik dislikes people, and my uncle in particular. In fact, my uncle even turns a little bit green when he is holding Savik. I wonder what it is inside of my uncle that keeps bringing him back to Savik; perhaps he carries guilt and enjoys revelling in it. It seems that Savik mostly preys upon men, but he will drain a woman that is malevolent or carries too much grief. No one notices these imperceptible things, but I can feel it. I can feel Savik calling to him people that hold a lot of negativity. He tells the pain to grow. He likes to be held by those he can hurt easily. He magnifies their ugliness and pain, just because he enjoys it. They seem inexplicably drawn to him. This kind of life thrives off dying. It is predatory. Leave it to humans to find a way to hunt themselves. This life thrives on taking from one another. This type of life is the opposite of empathy. This is destruction. This is chaos. This is so satisfying.
Naja is so small and slight. She is merely half the size of Savik, her little face barely bigger than a fist. She is bright even when she is sleeping. She is calm and soft. Her voice heals anxiety, and plants want to grow towards her. She weaves peace from thin air. She inhales trouble and exhales solutions like a filtration system. She cleans people. She sees too much. Cruel people are not comfortable with her, because their impoverished way of thinking is denounced by her countenance. I saw her healing my mother’s cold on a molecular level. She literally boosted her immune system. She feeds from my right breast, because it makes her holy milk. Savik feeds from the left; I make his iron milk. My left breast becomes much larger than my right because he eats so much more. There must be an imbalance of pain in the world.
A collective shift of consciousness
Is needed so
The sunflowers will all turn
Towards the sun
We would do anything for acceptance
Water Food Air Love
Approval
What drives a social climate?
We just do what the others do
Following
They say there is safety in numbers
Depends who is counting
They say it’s wrong
They say it’s right
Objective observation
Critical thinking
While we
Eat our puke
Off of a residential school
Dining room floor
Off of the floor of a porn set
Facial punishment all around
A collective shift of consciousness
Because sunflowers don’t turn to the moon
Salting soil
Reaping sweat
Make those children work
For their misery
A collective shift of consciousness
Is needed
Before the sunflowers burn
We spend the next few months in isolated love. All of our corners are filled with grace. The children grow and Naja seems to be catching up to her brother’s weight. He is typically rough, but all his edges become smooth when he touches his sister. They sleep as if they are in the womb, and instinctively understand that they have to act like any human until we are alone and the house is silent.
They sleep in a yin-yang position. Their bodies melt into each other. Sometimes they morph and intertwine with each other while they feed at my breasts. Little fingers wrapping around each other like new shoots. Sometimes his legs become hers, or her arms become his, and I have to send a message of caution through my milk. Someone may awaken in the house, and it takes time to untangle limb from limb. We must let no one see, but everyone knows. They know deep inside. There are others like this in the world, and everyone always knows. Nature loves to bring forth life. Nature loves women. Nature hopes to heal by creating the crest of this wave of life, but what happens when the ocean turns sour?
To feed is to love. I’m very proud of my milk. Each day the children grow stronger. The visitors have trickled down to a few here and there. Best Boy is one of them; he comes over with Helen to visit the babies. I admit that the babies begin to look like him a little, but they morph as they please. After all, Best Boy is the human male that sees them most often. It’s unsurprising that they have taken the affection into their faces. They know the world needs to see a father in their faces.
It’s imperceptible to anyone else, but I watch them absorb and mimic the movements and characteristics of those around them. Savik starts to look like my uncle on my father’s side when he spends time with them. When Best Boy holds him, I witness the molecules and atoms shift with each breath. They inhale the exhalations of those holding them. They use the scent to navigate their past, their ancestry. They inhale your scent. They gauge how much to grow, how much to talk.
Savik seems to favour men and Naja seems to prefer women. She has begun to look mostly like my mother’s side of the family, more fair and wide of shoulder. My mother loves her and my father has warmed up to the babies now.
Naja blooms everywhere she goes. She brings sheen to people’s hair and glow to their cheeks. I watch people calm and loosen when she is near. She gives with abandon and Savik is very protective of her, as if he sees her healing as a waste of energy, energy that could be directed towards him. Energy she could be using to build a shield to protect herself from those that would take too much. He is greedy for her. She generates healing and then feeds from the happiness. In return, Savik filters pain for her. I hope that she does not break once she knows its barbs. Shielded from agony, she grows and feeds the moon. Feasting on frustration, he tunnels into the sun.
We spend a lot of time with Helen, in her home. It’s a wonderful and warm home, always bustling with family. The scent of the roasting caribou, the sounds of the boiling seal meat, the sizzle of bannock frying in Crisco. Home sounds. Peace sounds. Safety sounds. We use a piece of cardboard on the floor as a table for feasting when there is a great raw chunk of frozen meat to be shared. A magnetic strip is bolted to the kitchen wall to hold the uluit. The sound of the uluit being sharpened always gave me a shiver. Metal on metal is a disturbing sound.
Her house is always meticulously clean and organized. Someone is always playing cards. There is a cribbage board carved from a walrus tusk. There is a walrus penis in the corner, a baleen tooth on the mantel. There are five spirits, three children, and two goldfish here today. Thimbles and needles are restless. Nobody smokes but there is an ashtray on the coffee table just in case. An old aunt with jutting shoulder blades rests in the back room with a pillowcase full of memories and the hands of her dead husband holding her head up.
The floors creak. The bathtub is stained brown from the hard water. A tile is broken in half in the corner of the bathroom. The doors are hollow. The spirits like to rest ther
e. Her great collection of photos is chronologically arranged and stored in cardboard boxes. Prized photos of loved ones are framed and arranged on the Family Wall. The CB radio is always on so that we can keep track of the travellers and hunters. Helen has plastic plants because she doesn’t like to water real ones.
She has an affinity for country music and likes to play the accordion. The kids get up and jig when she plays, her stubby fingers playfully expelling bright songs. The couches have broken springs but the kids keep on jumping anyways. No one bothers to reprimand them. The old brown floral patterning has worn away on a few of the cushions. The armrests show sad, peeking two-by-fours studded with staples. I get some pliers and dig them out. No sense having one of the kids hurting themselves.
The rug is a thick muddy orange to balance out the dark wood-printed panelling. There are ten dried ptarmigan stomachs hanging from the ceiling like Christmas ornaments. A television lurks in the corner, but no one turns it on. There is no point. This space is too peaceful to pollute with the electric jazzer. Electronics do not work well around the twins anyways. The mechanics begin to sputter and sometimes die with my children around, depending on the mood they are in. When they fight it’s best to keep them away from each other. Savik is the only person that Naja will bear ill will towards, so when it comes it is too powerful, even for him. I have not had to punish them as of yet, but I wonder how I will go about the task. Should I ask their father?
The babies have begun to move. It’s all I can do to reprimand them when they show their true colours and move too quickly or deftly. I don’t want anyone to know what they are, and to be honest most people don’t trust their eyes enough to see. Cognitive dissonance. I’m very proud of my new ones, who seem to teach me new levels of love every day. My flesh has been fulfilled. It is mostly the milk, the milk that astonishes me. I can feel my body producing the exact nutrients each child needs, but also it carries information that cannot be explained. It flows with murmured reassurances and whispered messages of encouragement for my children. I send knives and blades of protection to my children through my milk. I send the power to their white blood cells and deconstruct negativity for them. Savik grows sharp. My milk is a whetstone for his lacerating blade. He is vengeance. He is divine.