Blue Ravens: Historical Novel

by Gerald Vizenor

  Patch played and sang only during vaudeville performances. Our work schedule was the same except we worked a few more hours when a new show arrived at the theater. We carried huge trunks for actors, unloaded stage property, assisted in the construction of stage sets, and two or three times a week we raised and lowered the curtain. We never complained, but the pay as stagehands was only a dollar and sixty cents for each performance, and a small bonus for moving the trunks.

  Only a few of the stagehands were members of a union, but we were never asked to attend or join anything. The union had decided to picket the Wonderland Theatre but for some obscure reason not the Orpheum Theatre. I was told the union was more active in the new movie theaters, and that most movie projectionists were members of the Motion Picture Machine Operators Union. The movies had become more popular than some stage productions, and this was worrisome to the producers of expensive vaudeville circuit shows. The Orpheum Theatre reacted to the new interests and started each stage performance with short movies to satisfy the new audiences. The Kinograms were newsreels and very popular.

  Aloysius opened the curtain for several productions that winter. We worked the same hours, but as stagehands we were not always together. A recent program included visual news of the world, a freakish minstrel comedy show, dancers, impersonators, blue or sexy women, and short theatrical scenes such as Jennings and Mack in “The Camouflage Taxi.” The circuit stage production of “Who Is She” was about a lawyer and his wife in New York City. Buster Santos and Jacque Hays acted in “The Girl with the Funny Figure.” Buster was an unusual name for a woman. Bert Ford and Pauline Price presented “Birds of a Feather,” a pantomimic fantasy of the forest. Kennedy and Rooney, Bailey and Cowan, and Harry Jolson, an operatic blackface comedian, were very popular vaudeville circuit performers.

  Jacob Schwartz continued to hire us two or three hours a week to move, sort, and stack scrap metal that had been delivered to the yard. We moved scrap metal in the morning, and were stagehands at the theater in the afternoon and evening. Jacob became a loyal friend, and sometimes his wife arrived with a prepared lunch. Sara treated us like members of the family.

  Jacob was always scrupulous, ethical, and he paid for our time to the penny. We told him many stories about our uncle, the trader, our experiences as scouts in the war, and about the federal agent on the reservation. He told us stories about his family in Berlin before the First World War, and about the cruelty and folly of the German Empire. Aloysius gave him one of his recent blue ravens painted at the library.

  The Minneapolis School of Arts had moved about a mile south of the city. We headed out one cold morning and walked to the new school. Aloysius wondered why the word “fine” in the original name of the school had been deleted in the move. We decided that the arts were not necessarily fine.

  Yamada Baske was in his studio talking with two art students about watercolor landscapes, the visual sense of artistic touch and experience, and the impressions of color, light, and style. Aloysius was captivated by the discussion that morning at the Minneapolis School of Arts. Yamada turned, smiled, and then he recognized my brother.

  The spacious studio was a marvelous sanctuary in gentle light, and the sweet scent of watercolor paint was soothing. I might have become a painter encircled in that lovely aesthetic space, inspired by natural motion, and devoted to the impressions of landscapes.

  I might have become a painter instead of a creative writer, the conversion of an image or a visual scene, an original impression conveyed with color and brush, rather than the tease and trace of memories in the chance of words. My words and tease of presence were created with a sense of color, tone, touch, style, and a choice of literary brushes. Yet, words and stories must be imagined without colonies of studios, curators, or museums.

  Yamada Baske had invited my brother to visit the studio once a week in the early morning to talk about his blue raven watercolors. Aloysius was encouraged by the invitation, and after each discussion with the artist he returned to the hotel with a new energy to paint, and in a few weeks time the blue ravens were more impressionistic, and with hues and traces of other colors.

  Aloysius painted the contours of blue ravens in the scrap yard, and the heavy metal objects became abstract impressions in various muted hues. The wings of the blue ravens were spread widely over the outline of material artifacts, and with a faint speck and shimmer of color. The soft curves of abstract scrap metal would not consent to a name or representation. My brother was inspired once again to portray blue ravens in a new style. The abstract outlines were comparable to the hints and hues of natural motion, and the brush cruises of sumi-e and artistic calligraphy by the

  Japanese.

  Aloysius painted blue ravens at the theater, on the streets, and at the hotel. His new and original style was spirited, as usual, and his portrayals were feisty and impressionistic. Every day he painted magnificent blue ravens with a natural aesthetic sway. Three months later my brother had painted scenes in more than a dozen new books of art paper. The arrival of spring, the slight turn of colors, and early blooms, inspired a new sense of presence and solace.

  Patch was summoned by the resident theater director and told that his mother had died at home. He received the terrible news at the end of the afternoon programs. That night at the conclusion of the evening performance he sang La Marseillaise to the spirit of his mother with incredible emotive power. The audience was moved to tears by the tone and temper of his voice. The natural grace of spring had turned cold and desolate with the death of his mother.

  Aloysius notified the director and the stagehands that we would attend a funeral and be absent for a few days. We bought tickets and prepared to leave by train the next morning. Patch was distant that night, and he softly sang, almost in whispers, the old dream songs we remembered from our time together that summer at the Ogema Station.

  The light snow was wispy that morning as the train moved slowly out of the city and stopped at the same familiar small towns. The gray and white houses were shrouded in a late spring storm, and stories of the heart were renounced with a cold shudder. The snow was wet and heavy to the north, and every platform on the route became a white lonesome memory. The bright sturdy tulips and daffodils stood above the snow. Patch sat at the front of the passenger car and stared out the window. The slant of heavy snow moved with the train.

  Harriet had slowly died in an accident at the family cabin near the hospital. We learned later that she was splitting wood for the fire that cold morning, and the double-bit ax glanced on a log and struck her ankle. The sharp blade cut a critical artery. She bound the injured leg to stop the bleeding, and then started to walk toward the White Earth Hospital.

  The mongrels ran ahead and barked to alert the nurses. Harriet fainted in sight of the hospital, and died from a loss of blood. She left bloody footprints in the snow. Several hours later a hunter heard the hoarse barks of the loyal mongrels and discovered the frozen body.

  Patch had played military taps on the platform at each station only eight months earlier. Harriet was on the platform when we returned at

  the end of the war and she rushed toward the train to touch her only son. She squeezed his cheeks, both arms, and pulled his ears to be sure he was the whole boy that she had sent away to war in France. She learned only that afternoon that her son had become a celebrated military bugler and singer. Motherly pride that afternoon was an understatement, and the ordinary words of praise, care, and affection could never describe her mighty love.

  Patch was teased by students at the government school for the love and devotion of his mother. She made his clothes, cut his thick black hair, and had fashioned a smart uniform with bright buttons for his volunteer service as an assistant station agent. So much love and absolute affection could never be held back at a train station.

  The Ogema Station was a miserable place that afternoon as the train arrived in the heavy snow. John Leecy drove down to meet us and provided transportation. He had scheduled
a native wake in a private room at the hotel because the small family cabin was buried in heavy snow. Messy had prepared food for a reception in the dining room after the funeral.

  Father Aloysius, Margaret, our mother, the mission sisters, and the station agent and his wife arranged for a special funeral service at Saint Benedict’s Mission. Patch was silent at the wake, and at the burial he sang native dreams songs, and later he played mournful taps for his mother. The heavy snow covered the coffin, the priest, the sisters, and others at the burial site. Only the trumpet shined that day at the cemetery.

  Patch avoided the reception and retreated to grieve for his mother at the cabin. He was the family woodcutter, and blamed himself for the accident because he had not split enough wood for the winter, but his mother had encouraged him to audition at the Orpheum Theatre. Coincidence seldom rode in the shadow of misery, but that was exactly the situation three days later as we prepared to return to work in Minneapolis.

  The Soo Line Railroad instructed the Ogema Station agent to announce that Patch Zhimaaganish was hired as an assistant conductor on the passenger train route between Minneapolis and Winnipeg, Canada. Patch was grateful, of course, but he broke down in tears because his mother was not alive at the moment he became an actual conductor in uniform. Our friend started work on the very train that we boarded to return to Minneapolis.

  Aloysius painted three blue ravens at a gravesite in heavy snow. The portrayals were intricate impressionistic crystals of snow and blue wings, and the trumpet was a trace of rouge. He painted the abstract outline of blue wings around the snowflakes.

  The train arrived late but we had time to report to the afternoon performance at the theater. We were summoned to the office of the resident manager and told that we must pay the salaries of the substitute stagehands that had worked in our absence. We protested, of course, but the rules had been established for many years. Not only were we required to pay our salaries for substitutes, but we also paid the three days of cover salary for Patch.

  The management was cruel to dock our money over the sudden departure to attend a funeral. The theater, in a sense, docked salaries for the dead and buried. We were instantly converted to support union representation that would protect the ordinary rights of workers. Naturally, we were prepared to strike or to quit, but we could not have found another job as interesting as the theater. So, we worked more than three days each to cover the actual salaries of the substitute stagehands.

  Patch learned about the cover salaries and paid us the same amount. He could not have been happier as an assistant conductor, but we only saw him once or twice a month when he stayed over in Minneapolis.

  Several months later our mother wrote and included a letter from Nathan Crémieux. Aloysius read the letter once, turned and smiled, and then read the letter a second time out loud. Most of the original blue ravens that he had painted during the war were sold at the Galerie Crémieux in Paris. The raven money, a total equivalent of more than three hundred dollars, had been deposited for my brother in a separate account at the gallery.

  Aloysius was inspired by the sale of his watercolors, and that spring he painted magical blue ravens with traces of other colors, impressionistic hues with the usual faint touch and curve of rouge, and the outline of scenes in nature and the city. The reverse images of snowflakes, leaves, and wild daffodils were original and created a sense of natural motion.

  May was warm, the willow and maple leaves were almost mature, and the blue lilacs were radiant in the parks and churchyards of the city. The theater productions changed with the weather and by the week. The dancers were similar, the impersonators were mundane, but the vaudeville comedians were great performers.

  June was warmer and rainy, and my brother painted blue ravens reflected in black pools of rainwater, and perched on the wet sidewalks with the trace shimmers of plum and apple blossoms. His blue raven portrayals were impressionistic points, curves, contours, and soft traces of color.

  My brother was awakened late that summer with a vision and hurried at dawn to the Stone Arch Bridge. He was silent that early morning, carried a large book of new art paper, and with an incredible passion painted brilliant scenes of the river, the granite arches of the bridge, and lightened with blue the murky warehouses. He created a storm of water, hues of mighty waves, and the solemn spectacle of sturdy blue ravens in the mist near Saint Anthony Falls. The Great Northern Railroad had built the Stone Arch Bridge over the Mississippi River.

  The blue ravens were in the arch of stones, windows, haze, and shapes of buildings, and the wings of warehouses on the river. The abstract blue ravens were present in the granite of the bridge, and in the natural motion of curves, contours, blue roman beaks, claws, and mighty eyes, an artistic grace of totemic stature. My brother had awakened with a great vision that would forever change the world of native art.

  Aloysius had created a new series of blue ravens that were transformations of the material world. The abstract images of the blue ravens emerged from the stone, the rush of water, and were possessed in the currents and waves on the Mississippi River.

  The blue ravens were enormous in his earlier portrayals, the blue wings contained the entire scene, but the new abstract and impressionistic blue ravens emerged, were revealed, and came out of material and nature. The blue ravens were the transformations of stone, water, and machines, an incredible totemic animism.

  I wrote, my brother painted, and it rained that warm summer morning. We took cover under a canopy at Gateway Park, and my brother continued painting, painting, painting. He was moved by a vision and completed more than twenty original and magnificent blue raven scenes in the next few days.

  Every slant of rain that morning, and the tick and turn of leaves ran down the canopy and gathered in the river. I convened there and wrote to the river, to the mighty river, and recounted native scenes and stories of the river from the source at Lake Itasca to the storm and earthy rush over Saint Anthony Falls. The gichiziibi, the Great River, had run forever in native memories and stories, a natural sense of presence.

  I reminded my brother that we had to leave for the afternoon performance at the Orpheum Theatre. The stage crew was expected to arrive in the early afternoon to move trunks, and once or twice a week to construct new stage sets.

  Aloysius declared that he was at a funeral forever and would not return to work as a stagehand. Naturally, he would rather paint than talk or carry trunks for arrogant actors. My brother convinced me that we no longer needed to work at the theater. So, he suggested that we telephone the resident manager and explain that we would be away for several years because of a substitute family funeral on the reservation. We would attend a funeral forever to avoid another day as stagehands.

  We actually returned to the theater that late summer afternoon, but three months later in the autumn we delivered our rehearsed and ironic declaration that we were leaving to attend the funeral of a native mongrel healer. Ghost Moth had died and we decided to return and honor one of the great healers and detectors of disease at the hospital on the White Earth Reservation.

  › 21 ‹

  MONA LISA

  — — — — — — — 1921 — — — — — — —

  John Leecy was concerned, of course, but not surprised that we had quit our jobs as theater stagehands, and then decided to become expatriate native artists, a painter and a writer, in Paris. He respected our ambitions, and he actually assumed that we would have returned much earlier to France. My published stories about our experiences were persuasive, and even more inviting was the exhibition and sale of blue ravens at the Galerie

  Crémieux.

  Most natives were not recognized as citizens, not even veterans, so we decided to apply for passports. We avoided the federal agent, of course, and traveled by train to the Federal Office Building and Custom House in Minneapolis. Father Aloysius prepared copies of our birth and baptismal records. We used as our home address the Waverly Hotel. The postal service was not reliable, and w
e worried that the federal agent might open our package from the Division of Passport Control. Pickel delivered the passports to Patch at the train station in Minneapolis.

  Aloysius bought several books of fine art paper in preparation for our departure. The cost of an ocean liner ticket was about three weeks of our salary at the Orpheum Theatre. We had expected the cost to be much more expensive. The meals and wine were included in the price of the tickets.

  The France departed from New York that late December and docked about seven days later in the port of Le Havre, France. The majestic, spacious, and luxurious four-funnel ocean liner had been commissioned nine years earlier, and during the war transported soldiers to France, and then at the end of the war returned the wounded to New York.

  John Clement Beaulieu, our cousin, served with an army engineer company and was transported to war on the France. The refurbished liner accommodated some two thousand passengers, more than the entire population of the White Earth Reservation.

  Aloysius painted in the Salon Ravel in the morning and on the enclosed and warmer starboard deck in the afternoon, and at night we dined with hundreds of other tourist-class passengers. Stories of actual and imagined adventures were practiced and interrelated, and many tourist recitations were restyled overnight.

  I sauntered on the decks in the morning, watched the mighty surge of waves creased by the bow, and in the afternoon marked the seethe of the ocean at the stern of the ship. The steady hum of the steam engines moved through my body night and day. The pages of my notebook were heavy from the ocean spray. My visual notes, scenes, descriptions of characters, and outlines of stories were mostly about the crew and passengers. I imagined and merged the unique characteristics of more than thirty tourists, and created conversations between the characters.