The Essential W. P. Kinsella

by W. P. Kinsella

  Aunt Lichta turned out to be the only member of the family I kept in close touch with, other than my parents. I visited her whenever business took me to Ottawa. My parents produced no brothers or sisters for me. Aunt Rose and the timid Stefanichan had several children, as did Jerry and Kitty in Winnipeg.

  One of Rose’s daughters dropped in on us a few years ago. She was a dark, sullen girl of nineteen, named Lily, who had decided to call herself Desiree and become an actress. She was disappointed that, as a writer, I didn’t know any movie stars, more disappointed that I didn’t know anyone who could get her into local TV or radio. She departed after a few days. Aunt Lichta says she became a hairdresser and married a boy who was training to be an auto body repairman.

  About a year before she died, I received a letter from Aunt Lichta, her beautiful handwriting suddenly spidery and uneven, asking that I be certain to call on her the next time I was in Ottawa.

  “Do you remember the portrait that used to hang in the hallway at the farm?” Aunt Lichta asked me.

  “The one your first husband had been painted out of?”

  “You remember.”

  “That was what made it memorable.”

  “I’ve kept up the tradition,” Aunt Lichta said.

  “Having people painted out when they . . .”

  “Die. Or lose contact like your Uncle Wald. Drobney was a very strong personality. You have no idea. Even now I don’t recall him as Papa or Father, but as Drobney.”

  “Baba was no slouch herself when it came to a strong personality. She was the one who made me a writer. Remember her stories, ‘Knocks at the door a stranger’?”

  “The messages of childhood are strongest,” said Aunt Lichta. “They are engraved,” and she touched her head, her hair still the purest of whites, but cottony now, not healthy-looking.

  “My children think I’m crazy,” she went on. She had two sons with her second husband, one a corporation lawyer, the other in the diplomatic service in Finland. “But they weren’t there . . .”

  “And I was?”

  Aunt Lichta smiled. She stood up slowly from the antique settee in her living room.

  “No one knew about what I was doing until after your mother passed away two years ago. After she was gone I had her removed. Clyde handles my finances now and he had a fit when he got the bill. I had to confess.”

  Aunt Lichta kept the portrait in an expensive leather carrying case. It was a shock to see it again. It was smaller than in my memory, but still large. The furniture was dominating now, the settee, the red-velvet insect-legged chair where my mother had posed. A youthful Aunt Lichta was the only human figure left in the portrait.

  “Take it with you, and finish the job when I’m gone,” Aunt Lichta said.

  I promised I would. “Childhood messages,” I said, kissing her frail cheek.

  I have the privilege of doing most of my writing in a sunny, corner office overlooking the Pacific Ocean. There are a number of oil paintings on the walls of my office, all realistic, I have little patience with abstract art. Most of my paintings are by the famous Cree artist, Allen Sapp. One wall is dominated by a winter scene of a grave-side service. I am attracted to Sapp’s landscapes because they portray a harsh and desolate rural world similar to the farm where I grew up.

  Now, among the landscapes is an interior scene, a studio, a blue love seat in the foreground, a rose-colored chair with insect legs to the left. The room is finished in dark panelling, several gas lamps burn in the background. There are old-fashioned oil paintings on the wall of the studio.

  A few months after she died, I had Aunt Lichta painted out of the picture. I also had the portrait X-rayed to confirm something I had long suspected. The artist in Vancouver who did the work charged enough that he didn’t feel the need to ask questions, after I assured him the artist’s name was a coincidence, that he was a relative of mine and certainly not one of the now world-famous Group of Seven.

  The picture of the empty studio is quite astonishing. Visitors often remark on it because it is the only one of my paintings that doesn’t have at least one human figure in it. When I stare at it, Drobney’s words, “Everything should be as it is,” echo over a half century of my life.

  Sitting, writing, at my large oak table, watching the fog-colored waves of the Pacific, I feel happy and secure. I am delighted that my family are gathered in the room while I work, not just in memory, not hidden the way dead people usually are, but available if I choose to make them so. Baba, Drobney my coal-eyed Gypsy grandfather, my parents young and beautiful, and all the rest should I choose to resurrect them, even Percy the remittance man, who I feel more sympathy for as I grow older. The Drobneys were not an easy family to marry into.

  And, finally, if I decide to, I may reveal the secret of Drobney’s raised hand, for the demise of Percy was not the first alteration to the painting. The X-ray revealed that under Drobney’s hand was a large orange cat. Nistru, named for a river in Rumania.

  They are all there, sturdy and smiling, in case I need them.

  The Lightning Birds

  That summer it was impossible to get a job. Things was so bad I end up working on a farm for a guy named Wilf Blindman. He got a big farm down to the south end of the reserve and I bet he is the richest Indian in the area, in money anyway.

  I don’t like to work on a farm. I been taking courses at the Tech School in Wetaskiwin on how to fix tractors, but I never even sniffed a job doing what I been trained for. Working for Wilf Blindman I get to cut clover with a team of horses and a mower, and after it’s cut I get to make coils of hay in the field with a shiny-tonged pitch fork.

  It is pretty lonely work. Wilf is the kind of guy who says “Yep,” or “Nope,” after you ask him a question. And if he strains himself and says, “Looks like rain,” that amount of conversation likely to last him for two or three days. I miss my girlfriend, Sadie One-wound, and my friends, Frank Fencepost and Rufus Firstrider. Wilf ’s farm is too far off the beaten track to walk anywhere of an evening, and usually I’m too tired anyway. Wilf only let me off on Sundays, and then on the condition, “You don’t have none of your useless friends hang around steal everything that ain’t nailed down.”

  Wilf may be an Indian, but he think like a white man. I guess you have to do that to be successful. Wilf left his bank book sitting out on the table one evening and I seen he got enough money in the Bank of Montreal in Wetaskiwin to last somebody like me a couple of lifetimes. He could afford farm equipment if he wanted. But then horses work for food and I practically do too. Coal oil lamps and a wood stove is cheaper than electricity. Maybe Wilf ain’t got the wrong approach after all.

  About two weeks after I got there, while I’m eating supper with Wilf, canned Campbell’s Soup, with bread and margarine—Wilf sure don’t waste any money on food, for either him or me—Wilf say to me, “Kid’s comin’ to visit.”

  “What kid?”

  “Brother’s kid. Girl. His wife’s dead.” That about broke Wilf’s record for speaking words in a row.

  Next morning Wilf open up the door to a small bedroom off the kitchen.

  “Clean it up,” he says.

  Take me most of the day. There is a single bed, an old dresser with a mirror so yellow and spotted it like staring into rippling water. The room is filled with junk. Boxes might have come from an auction, some full of old magazines, other got dead flashlights, parts from vacuum cleaners, cracked dishes. There is harness strewn around, some coyote hides in the corner. Whole place ain’t been dusted in my lifetime.

  Wilf is a tall, ungainly man with a slight stoop. He have bushy eyebrows, and a square, clean-shaven face, look like polished oak. He shave every morning with a shaving mug and a straight razor, after he pump a washbasin full of cold water from the cistern under his house.

  His house is tall and unpainted, gaunt windows stare across the prairie. Coming down the road toward Wilf Blindman’s place, if I didn’t know someone lived there I’d think the house been vacant f
or years.

  The child that arriving must have something to do with a letter Wilf got the second day I was working for him. The mailman, one of the Dodginghorse boys, is probably a cousin of Wilf ’s if you was to check back far enough. Instead of leaving the mail in the mailbox at the end of what must be a quarter-mile driveway, he drive his Canada Post car right to Wilf ’s door, give letters to him in person if he’s there, otherwise put them under a rock that sit on the front porch.

  Wilf sat at the kitchen table what covered in a gray oilcloth, got black squiggles all over it, fit right in with the darkness of the whole place, and read the letter by the wavery light of a gas lamp, again and again. Wilf could afford light, but I think he enjoys living a dark life like a mole.

  There was a good old Alberta thunder and lightning storm raging outside, lightning zippering across the sky, now and then frying a tree somewhere not far away, thunder rattling the window panes. Didn’t look like Wilf was one to make quick decisions. Look to me like he is as stolid and silent as the land he farms.

  “What do you know about Wilf Blindman?” I ask Etta our medicine lady the next Sunday when I'm back at Hobbema.

  Etta don’t waste any words either.

  “Got his heart broke twenty years ago. Lives like a hermit. Don’t want anyone to forget he got his heart broke. Better at feeling sorry for himself than anybody I know. Probably gone bushed from living out there alone for so long.”

  “How’d he get his heart broke?”

  “Same as anybody else. He loved a girl; she married somebody else. Only difference everybody else sulk around for a week or two, or a month or two, then get on with their lives. Wilf still sulking.”

  “Must have loved her a lot?”

  “Hmmmph!” says Etta. “He enjoy being a victim. Made a career out of it. Listen, unless you being held hostage, or got a terminal illness, what you got in life is pretty much what you want.”

  I’m gonna try to remember that.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Kitchen floor at Wilf ’s is so dirty people wipe their feet when they get outside.”

  But I changed all that. I sluiced out the kitchen, washed down the walls. I took the bedding off the bed and the curtains off the windows in what I think of as the guest room. There is no kind of washing machine on the place so I get permission to drive Wilf ’s truck to the laundromat in Wetaskiwin, and reluctantly, a ten-dollar bill to change into quarters.

  The blankets and sheets wash up okay, but the curtains, which was made from what look like yellow lace, break up in a thousand pieces in the wash, look like I been laundering Kleenex.

  I price some curtains at Field’s Department Store.

  Back at the farm, Wilf stare at me like I’m trying to rob him. But I remembered to toss a double-handful of what was left of the curtains into the truck box.

  “Look like mush I could feed the chickens,” Wilf says and almost smile. He pull out a sweaty-looking roll of twenties and peel off money for curtains.

  I would have liked to suggest a toy or a doll or something bright for a little girl. Everything around Wilf ’s farm is in black and white. But, I figured I inconvenienced Wilf enough already. I get bright blue curtains, with pink kittens running all across them. Bet the bedroom is in shock to have so much color in it at one time.

  “Hello, I’m Jennifer Chickadee,” the little girl says, soon as she step down out of the mouth of the north-going bus.

  She is thin with gangly arms and legs, at the age where she’s growing new front teeth; she is about as ugly as she’s ever gonna be, and that’s still pretty. Her hair is in a long braid, tied with a blue ribbon; her skin is the soft, light color of buckskin. Her nose is straight, her eyes hazel, and in spite of her missing teeth she have a very beautiful mouth. In five years she’s gonna drive a lot of boys crazy.

  “Hi, I’m Silas,” I say.

  If I hadn’t been there I don’t know what Wilf would have done. He stand back about twenty feet from the front of the bus, look like he got the worries of the world on his shoulders.

  The bus driver hand me Jennifer’s suitcase from underneath the bus. We walk back toward Wilf.

  “Hello, I’m Jennifer Chickadee,” she say to him.

  “Hyuh,” says Wilf, don’t make to hug her or even shake her hand.

  “You look just like my father,” the little girl says.

  Wilf grunt again and turn to walk toward the truck and parking lot, leaving me with Jennifer.

  I ain’t gettin’ paid enough for this, I think.

  I do have a young sister, Delores.

  “You like Barbie dolls?” I ask after she climb up on the seat between me and Wilf.

  That get her started. She tell me all about her dolls, and if her suitcase wasn’t in the truck box she would have showed me the one she brought with her.

  What I’m wondering is if she’s Wilf’s brother’s child, how come she’s named Chickadee and not Blindman?

  Wilf sit behind the wheel like he’s frozen, concentrate on shifting the gears, glance quick at Jennifer a few times, but never say even one word.

  “Brother changed his name,” Etta say to me. “Decided he didn’t want to be Indian no more. Al Lindman used to be Alphonse Blindman. Hear he’s a big car dealer in Calgary.”

  “How come her name’s Chickadee?”

  “Why don’t you ask her? In case you ain’t figured it out, was her mother broke Wilf Blindman’s heart. Her mother was Sylvia Born With Long Hair. She was Wilf’s girlfriend. Wilf’s old man, Seymour Blind-man, when he knew he was going to die, called both boys together, said there wasn’t enough farm for both of them. Wilf wanted to stay on the farm, so he did. Alphonse took the money from a little life insurance policy, worth way less than the farm, and head off to Calgary.

  “He buy himself a couple of old cars, fix them up, paint them, and sell them. Pretty soon he rent a lot on a main street, have Al’s Premium Used Cars. It was about that time he cut off his braids, dress like a white man, change his name to Al Lindman.

  “Al come back to the reserve one Christmas, take off back to Calgary after a week or so with Sylvia.

  “Like I said, Wilf been sulking ever since. Al just keep getting more and more successful. He supposed to have his fingers in a dozen or so pies, besides his Chrysler/Plymouth dealership, like insurance companies, and I hear one of his companies build highrise apartment blocks.

  “About three years ago Sylvia up and died. That’s when Wilf go from just being an old bachelor to being a hermit and a strange one at that.

  “I went out to the farm once, you know. I get Rider Stonechild to drive me there. I try to tell Wilf that feeling sorry for yourself is a pretty poor way to spend your life. But he blames Al for Sylvia dying. He thinks he didn’t treat her right. Says he’s gonna get even, whatever that might mean. The Blindman brothers was never close, but I don’t think they spoke a word in the fifteen years since Al stole Wilf ’s girl.

  “Wilf ain’t near as old as he looks. You should see Al, looks like he could be Wilf ’s son. Al ain’t a bad guy. Word around is he offered Wilf a good job, but Wilf turned him down. Then he offered Wilf an interest-free loan to develop the farm. All Wilf said was, ‘Got my own way of doin’ things.’ What I can’t figure out is why a rich man like Al Lindman send that poor little girl for Wilf to look after. You got to stick around there, Silas, make sure that she’s okay.”

  I been complaining all evening I wish I could find any kind of a job so I could get away from Wilf and his farm.

  If I ever seen a little girl dying for somebody to like her, it is Jennifer Chickadee. But Wilf is perfect at ignoring her. It is like she hasn’t arrived yet.

  One lunch time when me and Wilf comes in from the hay field, Jennifer has added wood to the fire box, heated up Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup, and made us each a bologna sandwich. She even set the kettle to boiling tea water.

  Because Wilf don’t say nothing, I go overboard praising her cooking. I stare at Wilf, my look telling him to
say something nice. All he do is wipe the sweat off his forehead with his hand, dry his hand on his overalls, give Jennifer a longer than usual glance, as if he trying to decide exactly what it is of his she’s stolen.

  I read where someone said that dealing with Indians is like trying to play catch with someone who won’t throw the ball back. Wilf won’t even catch the ball let alone throw it back.

  Another few days and I get around to talking to Jennifer. “Is Chickadee your real name?”

  “I figured if I was coming to live with a real Indian, I should have an Indian name,” is what Jennifer says. “I thought about being Blind-man like Uncle Wilf, but Chickadee is prettier. My Daddy used to say I was like one of those bouncy little black and white birds. I wish I could remember more about my mother. I was five when she died, and she is kind of like a character in a TV show I watched a long time ago. I have a picture of her, but I can’t remember her actually touching me.

  “Daddy’s told me a hundred times at least never to mention I’m Indian. He says we’re Irish, Black Irish. And I heard him tell one of his friends that Mama was from Quata-malla. I don’t understand what’s wrong with being Indian. Daddy says people won’t like us if they know we’re Indian.

  “Do people not like you, Silas? I guess people don’t like Uncle Wilf. He sure doesn’t seem to have any friends.”

  This summer there are a record number of thunder and lightning storms. Almost every night the huge black cloud billow up out of the west like black ships and the lightning crisscrosses the sky like gold chains. The wind swirls, the trees bend and the rain begins with a few plopping drops that make quarter-sized impressions in the yard dust, then the rain turns to a torrent, slams against the windows and beats the dandelions flat to the ground. Thunder shakes the whole house, and we can hear the whine of lightning and the crash and screech as it strikes. Once it hit a lone aspen out by the county road, split it almost in two. Sometimes we can’t do much work the next day because everything is so wet. There are storms in the afternoons too. Me and Wilf have to come in from the fields and we sit and watch the windows steam up. We play three-handed Snap, and Books, and Hearts. Wilf don’t act like he enjoying himself. Soon as the rain stop he pulls on his rubber boots and slogs off toward the barn.