Up Ghost River

by Edmund Metatawabin

  “It slipped out over school lunch,” Joan said, and looked at me apologetically.

  “Does this mean she’ll be an Indian?” Ma asked.

  “Yeah. Status card and everything,” I replied.

  “What’s my Indian name?” Joan asked.

  “Green Eyes,” Pa said.

  “Really?”

  “He’s messing around,” I replied.

  “I like Green Eyes,” she said.

  “And she showed me her ring,” Ma said. “Lucky this isn’t a Give Away ceremony, Ed. You show up with a chocolate wrapper, and everyone would think you’re too cheap.” At the Give Away ceremonies, Crees were famously generous with their gifts to the person being honoured.

  “We’ll get something better at Christmas,” I said.

  “You could borrow mine.”

  “Thanks, Ma. I think Joan wants her own.”

  “We’re proud of you, Ed,” Ma said. “As soon as I heard, I went straight over and told Father Daneau.” Father Daneau was new to Fort Albany, and he and Father Lavois were working alongside each other as the community priests.

  “Ah, Ma. I wish you hadn’t done that. We weren’t planning to get married at the church.” I was angry, but like Pa, I masked my real feelings.

  “What are you talking about? You’re Catholic. Joan is Catholic. You’re having it in the church.”

  The last time I was in church was a few months earlier. I hadn’t wanted to go—hadn’t gone since St. Anne’s—but Ma kept on at me. We fought about it and she seemed to retreat, at least for a while. Then something in her hardened, and she decided that I was near eternal damnation, and my soul was corrupt, the usual garbage.

  Good luck saying no to Ma. If you’ve ever tried to argue with someone who has raised ten kids and was carrying river water home before she could run, you know that you might as well argue with a moose. I blame the priests—we natives tried to let everyone have his or her own opinion, let a man have his freedom, mind and land, but Ma had grown more Catholic.

  The service was uneventful until the Eucharist. I didn’t pay much attention until after the girls had received Communion. A group of younger boys knelt before the priest. They shut their eyes and opened their mouths. Their tongues lolled expectantly. My hands started to shake. I felt faint, said “excuse me” to Ma, and went out for a smoke.

  Damned if they’d get me kneeling before the Holy Father. I was angrier now that I was alone. I was not going to hold my tongue out like a dog.

  “What happened, Ed?” Ma came out of the building when the service was over.

  “Needed to pee.”

  “You were shaking.”

  “I had to pee bad.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Just leave it, Ma.”

  “Ed. I’m worried about you.”

  “I said leave it.”

  Ma and I argued about the wedding location over the next few weeks. To be honest, it felt like trying to change the Canada goose migration route—lots of pointless, honking noise, and you followed them around and around before they took notice and fired at you with putrid green and white.

  If you’re hunting, you can’t just march right up to your prey. They’d hear, or at least smell you. I decided to approach the discussion by staying downwind. That meant coming at the problem from an angle, so I worked on Joan. “Let’s not have our wedding at the church,” I said one night when I was visiting her. I hadn’t yet explained why—I was planning on telling her after the wedding and the birth, when things were more settled. No need to worry her when she was pregnant.

  “Where do you want to have it?” Joan asked.

  I shrugged. “What about in the open air? We could have a tent.” There wasn’t much free space in Fort Albany.

  “What if it rains? And how will we afford a giant tent?”

  “We can save up.”

  “It seems like a needless expense.”

  “Joan, you’re always telling me that you think the Catholic Church has a lot to answer for.”

  “It does. But this is our wedding.”

  Ma found out about my suggestion to Joan and didn’t stay upwind. She went right to her target, straight as an arrow.

  Our wedding took place at Holy Angels Catholic Church, a stone’s throw from St. Anne’s.

  I had trouble dressing. I felt sweaty and jumpy, and didn’t want anyone to see me, at least not right away. I kept thinking about the night before, when I had my first meeting with Joan’s parents, Lloyd and Patricia Barnes. It hadn’t gone according to plan. Sure, the meal at my parents’ house with my nine brothers and sisters had seemed nice enough—Patty said she loved the huckleberry jam that Ma had made—but I still couldn’t tell if her parents liked me. I asked Joan about it after the meal.

  “No, you’re wrong,” she said. “They liked you.”

  “Did they say anything?”

  “Not much, no,” she said.

  “And they didn’t mind that you’re marrying an Indian?”

  “Well. They were surprised. It was all a surprise, Ed. But they like you now.”

  I stared at her. I sensed that there was more to it than that, especially given Alex’s reaction. He had accused me of marrying out—of betraying my race by choosing someone white, and whiter than white, a blonde. I had told him that this was bigger than politics, and then I had stopped fighting about it and gone silent. It was a relief that someone would choose me after what had happened. That I could still have sex. All the pieces could come apart if I didn’t stay with it.

  Keep focused. That’s what I had to do now. The buttons on my shirt wouldn’t go into the damned holes. And my shoes—goddammit, why were laces so slippery? Late and sweaty, I finished up and hurried to the church. I walked around the building and opened the side door a crack, peering at the expectant faces. Where’s Ma? Is Joan here? Is Mike coming? Oh God, that’s him. Oh no, it’s not. Is he here? Maybe he’d gotten word of my wedding and had flown in from Montreal. My hands shook. I clenched them and counted silently. Open close. One. Open close. Two. My throat tightened. The fear spread downwards, as if there were a hot boulder pressing onto my chest. Breathing troubles. My mind filled with a dense flurry of voices. The floor and ceiling uneven, and swerving to meet each other. Too much was happening in that church. I backed away.

  The sky was cloudy and grey, the ground covered in melting ice and snow. The church was a few yards from the spruce forest. I made my way there, the wet and cold seeping through my leather shoes. The muskeg was uneven and slippery, and I walked carefully so I didn’t trip.

  It was quiet in the forest. I stood next to the spruce trees or, as we call them, the Standing Ones. I felt their cold bark and breathed them in. They were the roots of life. Standing tall and providing food and shelter. Breathing, steadily and silently. I watched and listened to their silence. The icy air cut through the voices in my head, and when I looked up through the jagged branches I saw a faint sliver of light.

  I glanced at my wrist. My watch wasn’t there: I had forgotten it. How long had I been away? Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? I hurried back the way I came.

  I thought I’d slip in through the side door. I stood outside and listened through the wood. I could hear the sound of competing voices. A few deep breaths, the door ajar, and a sea of faces. Some people were still sitting, but many were standing and talking urgently. I saw my pa at the other end of the church and began to walk over. As people noticed me, they fell silent and stared.

  Midway, I saw Ma and Alex walking toward me from the back of the church. I switched direction and began to walk toward them. I could hear my footsteps on the wooden floor.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Why are your pants wet?”

  “What happened to your shoes?”

  “Alex went to look for you.”

  “We were waiting. Everyone was waiting.”

  They stared at me with their worried eyes. Each anxious face made me feel worse.

 
“Please,” I said. “Where is Joan? I want to see Joan.”

  “No, Ed,” Ma said. “It’s bad luck.”

  “Please,” I said, and pushed past her.

  She was in the vestry, sitting in a chair, looking down. A loose strand of hair had escaped her veil and hung in her eyes. She was rubbing her thumbs together frantically like she was trying to remove a spot from her skin.

  “I thought you walked out on me,” she said, and as she looked up, I saw her mascara was smudged.

  “I went to see the Standing Ones.”

  “The what?”

  “The trees. I needed their wisdom.”

  “On your wedding day?”

  “I wanted to make sure everything was right.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand you.”

  “I’m sorry. I needed things to be right.”

  “Couldn’t you have gone before?”

  “I didn’t realize it would take so long.”

  “You embarrassed me.”

  “I know. Can you forgive me?”

  “Everyone was waiting.”

  “I know. Please, Joan.”

  “How can I trust you?”

  “I just felt nervous, that’s all.”

  “Why are you so nervous? Are you afraid of making the commitment?”

  “No, that’s not it! There’s a lot going on.”

  “What’s going on? The only thing that’s happening is our wedding.”

  “I panicked.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ed, is there something that you’re not telling me?”

  “No … I … I’m scared I guess.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “Let’s not have any secrets from each other. I’m scared too, you know.”

  “You are?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why are you scared?”

  “Because this is a big commitment.”

  I wanted to hold her in my arms. “Please forgive me, Joan.”

  She shook her head and was silent for a while. Then she stood and we went into the church together.

  THIRTEEN

  It was against the St. Anne’s regulations for me to live with Joan, especially now that it was obvious we had broken the laws on fraternizing. Joan was officially an Indian, at least in the eyes of the law, which meant that she had to live in native housing.

  We moved in with my parents. It was packed. Monday to Saturday, it was Joan, Ma, Pa, Marcel (five), Danny (four) and me in our two-bedroom house. On Sundays, Mary-Louise, Chris, Leo, Jane, Denise and Mike came home too. And on holidays, well, forget it. It was all thirteen of us packed into that tiny house. I was used to it growing up, but Joan found it hard, almost inhumane.

  I tried to please her by bringing home lots of fresh rabbit and fish. That’s what my pa had done for my ma when they were out in the bush and she was pregnant.

  “Where were you?” Joan asked. I had decided to wake up early on Sunday morning and go fishing.

  “Thought I’d catch our lunch at the Albany. Here, I brought you something.” I held up a walleye we could share for supper.

  “Ed. Didn’t you think of bringing me with you?”

  “You were busy.”

  “Looking after your brothers and sisters.”

  “Joan, they can take care of themselves.”

  “No, they can’t. Danny is four. Marcel is five. Mike is six. They are way too young.”

  “Well get Denise, Jane or Leo to look after them.”

  “They need an adult.” All wemistikoshiw lived in constant fear that their children might harm themselves. We tried to let them learn by example, and they did their best to watch over their every move.

  “Joan. They are Cree children. They can run free.”

  “This isn’t the bush, you know.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well they aren’t growing up on the land anymore. They could get run over by an ATV. Or stick their fingers in an electrical socket. Or burn themselves on the stove.”

  “They are used to all of that stuff.”

  “Ed. They spend their childhood inside. They don’t grow up making their own toys and building their own fires. Life is different now. They need to be watched constantly.”

  “Joan. I have nine brothers and sisters. There’s no way we can watch them all at every moment of the day.”

  “Well, it would be easier if you weren’t off fishing by yourself.” I sighed. I had wanted to help, but it had blown up in my face. I was so frustrated. I needed a drink.

  “Fine,” I said.

  That night, I went to the living room chest where Pa normally kept his homebrew. I wanted to down the lot, but of course I couldn’t. And Pa would know if I diluted it too much. Then he’d get angry and shout, and cooped up inside, that felt like blows raining on my head.

  Why was Joan so hard on me? Didn’t she see I was trying my best? I had tried to do what was right, and now she was mad. I was just trying to please her. I’d thought she was different than the rest. No such luck.

  “What are you doing?” Marcel was sleeping on a mat by the homebrew chest and had woken up.

  “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

  “That’s Papa’s,” he said, pointing to the bucket of homebrew I had in my hand.

  “I know.”

  “That’s not allowed.”

  “I know. Go back to sleep.”

  My daughter was born early. That’s why things got hairy. If she had been on time, we would have bought our plane tickets and flown out to Moosonee and been hanging about in the hospital by the time Joan went into labour. No one on the reserve had a phone, except for Father Daneau, so I hurried to the airport, a wooden hut a five-minute walk away.

  The pilot had radioed ahead and an ambulance was waiting at the runway when we arrived in Moosonee. Joan was sweating and shaking and wanted to be sick all the time, but nothing came up. I told her how as a boy, I had seen a midwife or keshayyahow deliver Rita out in the bush. How the old woman had boiled red willow in a big pot and how she’d given it to Ma to drink and after she had, Ma stopped moaning so much, and how when we landed, the nurse would make Joan drink something to ease the pain. How the keshayyahow brushed Ma’s hair away from her face, just as I was doing now with Joan. How she had helped Ma to relax by breathing deeply, just as Joan was finding her own rhythm of breath.

  “I know you are going to be fine. I can feel it. In here.” I put my hand on her belly. She touched my hand.

  “What does it feel like?” she asked softly.

  “It feels like strength.”

  The doctor wheeled Joan into the birthing room. When I tried to follow he told me to wait outside to ensure patient hygiene, but by then I’d had enough of wemistikoshiw men telling me what to do. I forced myself past him into the birthing room and got myself a mask. Then I washed my hands and put on latex gloves. The doctor watched me doing this, and then shrugged and started fastening Joan’s feet into the metal stirrups.

  Joan was pushing and saying, “I can’t, I can’t,” and I said, “Yes, you can.” She squeezed my hand until my knuckles felt broken, and I told her to focus on her breath. Then the doctor said, “Almost there,” and Joan looked like her eyes might pop out of their sockets. We heard an Uh-oh, and I looked down and saw that my wife’s womb seemed to have swallowed the doctor’s whole arm. “What is it?” Joan asked and tried to see beyond the bulge of her stomach. The doctor turned to the nurse and said, “Let’s get it out quick. Get me 141 D,” and she went to the drawer and got what looked like a giant pair of blunt scissors. Joan looked like she’d just been shot. “Relax, sweetie,” the doctor said. Joan moaned in pain.

  “You are like Oh-Ma-Ma, the first pregnant woman,” I said. It was an ancient Cree legend that I’d heard from friends at St. Anne’s Residential School.

  “She … was … in … pain … too?”

  �
�Yes, the whole world was inside of her. She had to push really hard.”

  Joan grabbed hold of me with both hands, and screamed as if she wanted the Earth to open. The doctor wiggled the scissor things, and I saw the first glimpse of hair, black like mine. Then we saw half of a squished elongated face, smeared with blood. Some floppy shoulders came next. “It’s a girl!” the nurse said.

  The rest of my daughter came quickly after that, tumbling out like the Spirit Gods from Oh-Ma-Ma. Then the nurse picked up the tiny thing covered in red and white gunk with bruise marks all over her face. The baby opened her toothless mouth and screamed with a volume that was surprising for one so small. I looked at her perfect nose and tiny fingers and toes and what flashed in my mind was the vision of an eagle, hovering above our heads. With a shift in the wind, she curled and dove.

  We named her Albalina. It is a name that everyone likes as soon as you say it. I read it in a story in one of those Life magazines, about a native man who was travelling along the Amazon River with his wife, Albalina. I had promised myself that if I ever had a girl, I would name her Albalina. I thought about the strong, tanned woman negotiating one of the world’s longest rivers, living from the riches of the waters, just as I imagined Albalina would one day paddle along and feast on the bounty of the Albany.

  She had skin the colour of an Arctic fox in the summer, lighter than me, darker than her Ma. She was a strong baby who could scream like a raccoon in heat. We brought her home, and everyone came by to give us gifts. It was a wemistikoshiw custom, but one that felt natural, maybe because it was similar to our traditional gift Give Aways. Joan held Albalina, lying on our bed, and the gifts—moosehide booties and a few bibs—piled onto her legs.

  “How much longer, do you think?” Joan asked me this question every few weeks. She’s already found our living situation tight, but with a crying baby, it was near impossible.