Blue Bear Woman

by Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau

  Clarence comes over more often to talk to Maman. He’s worried about his fiancée, who’s distraught over the prospect of a bomb. She believes that white men will destroy earth. She often cries. Maman tries to put her young friend’s mind at ease. She tells him, “You do know that her parents are cousins. It’s not a good thing to fall in love and have children together when our fathers and mothers are almost brothers and sisters. It makes for fragile children and … it’s not an Eenou custom.”

  Over the weeks, I see Clarence’s light slowly dim. I hate Angélique.

  In late September, shortly before the hustle and bustle of departure for the hunting and trapping grounds, we visit our cousins in Pointe-Aux-Vents. Two police cars parked on the shoulder of the road in front of the trail leading to the camp alarm Maman, who urges us to hurry. No one comes to greet us as they usually do. Tents are empty. However, all the canoes are out on the water close to shore. Men stand using long poles to rake the riverbed. Women and children look on from the riverbank. The Wabanaki family members sit slumped on the ground, mute with sorrow, spent.

  Koukoum Ka Wapka Oot walks over to my mother and whispers in her ear, “It’s Angélique … she’s been missing since yesterday evening. We searched everywhere late into the night.”

  “And Clarence?” The question erupts from both my mother’s lips and my own.

  Koukoum wipes away a tear with her sleeve. “Poor boy, he got hold of some strong liquor and I don’t know where he’s hiding. He paid a cabdriver to buy that damn skoude nabou for him! That firewater.…”

  Eventually, Angélique’s body rose to the surface. Her round belly attested to an early pregnancy. Too lovestruck, Clarence hadn’t wanted to spend a year away from Angélique. The pregnancy forced her parents to bless their union as quickly as possible. Alas, the young woman’s fragile mental state led her to end her days rather than continue to face her horrific fears and the choices of an adult life.

  Clarence’s light was extinguished. His handsome face folded in on its bitterness, his eyes reddened by each drunken binge.

  Billy came to his rescue and dropped in on us one day with his stepson. He no longer laughed or teased me. My father came home from work. Seeing Billy and Clarence, he flew into a jealous rage and chased them out of our life. Yet they were the only ones who never asked my mother to buy liquor for them or pushed her to drink. My father dug a hole of solitude for us not unlike his nuclear shelter.

  Still worried, Billy nevertheless returned to Waswanipi, leaving Clarence at the Pointe-Aux-Vents camp. A few days later in the dark of night, the train engineer didn’t have time to brake when he caught sight too late of a body lying across the tracks. The firewagon cut Clarence in three. An empty bottle of St-George wine was found not far from his corpse.

  13

  MISTENAPEO

  AUGUST 2004

  THE OLD MAN in tinted glasses is no longer sitting in front of the store. Shirley tells her husband that Mistenapeo must be down by the river or at the inn since one of his granddaughters dropped by to take him for a walk. His daily exercise. I feel equal measures of urgency and restraint. Curiosity and a fear of the unknown and the invisible roil together in the pit of my stomach, making me feel slightly nauseous.

  Stanley spots the Elder sitting on a bench behind the inn facing the Rupert River. My cousin heads in his direction. Daniel and I stand at a respectful distance, waiting to see what’s to come. The two men exchange a few words, then Stanley returns.

  “Humbert would like to meet you alone,” he says, then turning to Daniel, “I’ll treat you to a coffee if you like.…”

  I clutch my husband’s arm. Seeing my gesture, Stanley gives me a gentle pat on the back. “Don’t be afraid, cousin! Have faith, Mistenapeo is a wise man.”

  I slowly make my way over to him, fearful, full of doubt and apprehension. It’s as though he’s watching me from behind the shield of his glasses. A great kindness emanates from his features, lit by a reassuring smile. In a low, rasping voice, he invites me to sit next to him. Then, with his carved cane, he points at something above the river. “Tshegon’ma t’wapten’nedeh?”

  Eagles! How ever did he see them? I screw up my courage and ask him to show me his eyes. “N’kati wab’maouch’a ti stichuck’ch…?”

  He takes off his glasses and reveals eyes blank under a thick cloud of cataracts. They remind me of my father’s eyes, turned a uniform grey by the same disease. Under his cap, Mistenapeo’s straight hair falls to the nape of his neck, black and abundant. Even at an advanced age, unless they have some European ancestor, certain Crees’ hair never turns white.

  Gradually, calm returns to me. I feel both light and heavy at once. Mistenapeo breaks the silence with a teasing laugh, “I had trouble convincing you to come to me … had to appeal to the spirit of all the caribou in the land.”

  Caught off balance, my ears start ringing. “T’schi na he?”

  My astonishment sparks his laughter, a thundering waterfall. Seeing his amusement, I too laugh. The atmosphere lightens, more conducive now to an exchange around the remarkable universe of the invisible. My rational mind strives to understand. Questions jostle in my brain, but I know enough to let Humbert proceed at his own pace. As though reading my mind, the old man speaks in his slow way, “A long time ago, when I was young, your great-uncle George and I were friends. The best of friends. His decision to marry a girl from Waswanipi separated us physically, but he always remained in my heart. He was a brother to me.… Before contact with the white world, our people often had the power to see visions. The descent into workaday values and alcohol abuse deadened that ability for most Eenouch. Add their religions to the mix.…”

  An awkward pause.

  “When you were here last week, your dream tapped into a message sent to me by George’s spirit. He put me in touch with you, but your Sherlock Holmes’ mentality kept you from interpreting the dream properly.”

  I can’t help but laugh at myself and at the idea that this man knows the Conan Doyle character. I share my thought with him.

  “I loved watching Holmes’ and his friend Dr. Watson’s investigations on TV back when I could still see.” This time, he speaks in English. I laugh even louder. If Daniel is watching from the inn, I wonder what he’s thinking. I have trouble keeping my laughter in check, but Humbert doesn’t seem offended, in fact he piles it on.

  After he’s cracked several more jokes, I ask a few questions that have been puzzling me. How did he manage to speak to me in a dream? Why me? What can I do for Uncle George?

  Serious now, Mistenapeo answers. For as long as he can remember, he has practised shamanism, often repudiated by the pastors and priests who have followers among the Cree. His spirit travels to places simple mortals cannot reach. If George’s spirit is calling to me, it’s possible that I have “signed a spiritual contract” with him and that the time has come to honour it. Humbert says his friend’s spirit can’t leave the sphere of emotions, infused as it is with the horrendous fear that surrounded his death. His spirit stagnates waiting for an opening to the Light.

  I’m in total science fiction territory. Another question, this one a bit more impatient, “But given your powers, can’t you do that?”

  Humbert Mistenapeo gropes for my hand, finds it, and gives a gentle squeeze. “N’Danch, ka tchi kchi doden.…” My girl, you too can….

  He says all shamans must test their gifts. That they are few and far between. That survivors like him will soon die and need to pass on their knowledge before the great departure. That humans both living and dead need help.

  I’m dazed. It all seems more than a little complicated .

  Humbert senses my resistance. “You’re free,” he tells me, “totally free to choose your path. No one can make you. The gift you possess belongs to no one, not even you. It belongs to the Great Mystery.”

  His words, like a warm shower to my soul, dilu
te the weight that has kept me glued to the ground and I feel propelled far away. From my vantage point, a huge flaming eagle circles earth. I’m barely breathing. A thousand drums sound in and around me. Then I see millions of caribou under whose hooves my heart trembles. My heart is Earth itself.

  14

  ANNA

  NOVEMBER 2002

  WE’RE LEAVING the church. Rain has fallen on the fresh snow. Today, we’ll bury Sibi’s body. In the church square, three Indigenous women, strangers, yet whose faces look familiar, hold their hands out to me. The eldest speaks in English, “I’m Anna, your mother’s cousin and George’s daughter. My sisters Sally and Sarah.…”

  On this day of deep suffering, their presence brings a gentle moment of respite. I hug them in turn. Anna takes my hand and tells me she used to babysit Jimmy and me the summer she spent with us before I was one. Her gaze is one of great affection. She looks like my mother and Koukoum Louisa. Now I recognize the girl we wondered about in the pictures Papa received five years ago from an old German photographer. It was in a photo album commenting on the life and traditions of the Cree living in the Pointe-Aux-Vents camp. For me, it was an unanticipated gift. Professional photographs showing my parents, Jimmy, grandmother Louisa, and me. And Anna. Snapshots of day-to-day life in the camp.

  The anecdote surrounding the album sounds truly far-fetched. The photographer, passing through our village, was looking for someone to put him in contact with Indigenous peoples. He was sent to see my father, who agreed to act as his interpreter and middleman. In the course of their conversations, they discovered that they’d been on the same front in Germany during the final assault on the city of Berlin by Allied forces. At the very same time, one on either side of the barricades, each shooting at the enemy. The German boy, seventeen, was part of the youth Waffen-SS sent under enemy fire as a last resort. The adults assigned to other fronts were losing the war.

  Lost in my own thoughts, my own suffering, I forget to mention the album to Anna. Daniel urges me to tell her.

  Looking up, I see my father propped up by my sisters Margaret and Élizabeth. He wears the mask of an old man defeated by sorrow. During a drunken binge fourteen years earlier, a man thrust a knife into Jimmy’s chest, severing his aorta. Witnesses say that the man, jealous, meant to stab his wife, but my brother used his body as a shield to protect her. As the accidental victim of the man’s murderous rage, had this been a way for Jimmy to put an end to his wretched existence?

  Nine months later, it was Maman’s turn to die, her liver ravaged by alcohol. The same firewater that has, without mercy, swept Sibi into its waters today. Alcohol’s pull began for Maman after Koukoum Louisa’s death and Jimmy’s departure for residential school. She was able to keep her drinking somewhat under control for a few years, but after Sibi’s birth, on school days, Maman would walk out of the house, abandoning the little ones once we’d left for school. The family suffered the aftershock of our mother’s foundering because, under alcohol’s sway, Maman became cruel, monstruous. Tyrannous.…

  I can’t seem to cry. A lump as hard as rock blocks my throat. My voice like the trickle of a dried-out creek. My family and our guests make their way to their cars. We’ve provided for a funeral reception in a community hall. They are all there. Philou, trudging and grumbling like an angry bear. Demsy, despondent, eyes red from tears, lack of sleep, and alcohol. Maikan, impenetrable, held up by his partner. Makwa, grown so tall and thin, weeps uncontrollably between his wife and son. Then Édouard, my youngest brother, whose silent sorrow can be seen in his misty gaze. Élizabeth and Margaret accompany Papa to keep their minds occupied.

  Anna and I continue our conversation over dinner. Among her memories of the family that she shares with me, I’m especially struck by the noble quality of my mother’s being. Upon her death, other members of the extended clan also expressed the same respect for her. They’ve transferred to me, the eldest, the affection they had for her. Anna gives me her address and makes me promise to visit her in Waswanipi. “You have lots of family there. You’ll be welcome, especially since you haven’t lost your Cree. And don’t forget the pictures you told me about!”

  Thomas, Sibi’s son, walks toward us. He looks at me with his mother’s doe eyes. Thomas leans over and gives me a hug. He exudes a natural grace and serenity. He reminds me of Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince, a tall version with dark hair and a black velvet gaze. He assures me that he is all right. His paternal grandparents offer their condolences. While crying and sniffling into their handkerchiefs. So much sorrow left in Sibi’s wake.

  A week after the funeral, I have yet to shed tears. I deaden my mind with sleep. If I could, I’d sleep till the end of my time on earth. Free of anger, my consciousness extinguished. After seven days, Sibi comes to me in a dream, surrounded by a golden light. I’m buoyed with happiness, my sister so real, I can breathe in her fragrance. All my love goes out to her, I tell her how unbearable her absence is for me. She listens and smiles. She returns the following night. This time she speaks, tells me she will be gone for a while because an arduous task awaits her.

  The next day as with the day before, I walk in joy. My sorrow has vanished now that she visits me in my sleep. Sibi does not return.

  After several nights spent waiting, I sink into the void she dug with her grave. Nostalgia for the memory of Sibi is all that floats on the wings of my nights. Ever since, I think of her. Every day. And of my own death. Prepare for it, apply the finishing touches in the profundity of the inescapable.

  PART II

  THE JOURNEY WITHIN

  One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.

  —Khalil Gibran

  15

  THE COUSIN

  AUGUST 2004

  JOHNNY HUMBERT MISTENAPEO runs a gentle hand down my backbone. The contact brings me back to my body, my breathing steadies. I inhale the damp air deep into my lungs.

  “A firebird and some caribou…” My voice, tenuous, quavers.

  Mistenapeo’s resonates, “Wings and hooves, above and below, fire and earth. The Great Spirit and Mother Earth.… Support will be there for you!”

  I feel well around this man, serene plenitude flowing into me. An all-encompassing silence.

  He adds, “You’ll have to let your consciousness expand in the White Cave.… But first you must meet Malcolm Kanatawet in Mistissini.”

  Koukoum Ka Wapka Oot told us about the Hare’s Cave north of Mistissini. Over the last millenia, our Cree ancestors made their tools, arrowheads, and spearheads deep in the heart of the Colline Blanche where the sacred cave is found with its walls of quartz of unequalled resistance and purity. Through Maman and Koukoum, I knew that the ancients used the cave for their ceremonies.

  “Noumoushoum,” I say, “Who is Malcolm?”

  “Malcolm will help you locate George’s remains.”

  Mistenapeo says nothing for a good while to let those terrible words sink into my consciousness. Then he resumes, “His nickname is Caribou Man, Atikh Nabeh. He has developed the ability to track moose and caribou based on the signs that appear on their antlers and horns when thrown into a wood fire. He still thinks and walks like a young man. He’ll surprise you. Be careful, he likes pretty women! By the way, are you pretty?”

  The old man loves to tease! Speaking of caribou men, I’m reminded of my quest to find caribou-hide moccasins that led me, like a trail, from one community to another, a quest I’d forgotten in all the agitation I’ve experienced since our arrival in Waskaganish early this morning.

  I realize that Mistenapeo is entrusting me to Malcolm to lead me where he cannot follow. Having only known him for a few short hours, I’m taken aback by the wave of sorrow that engulfs me. This man, this stranger, has met me in a place unknown to all my loved ones, a place where I quake with the intensity at the heart of solitude. In the heart of my very essence. Aware of my emotion, the Elder places his hand on my sh
oulder. He says nothing. Makes no attempt to reassure me. He knows.

  “Tell me, Noumoushoum, I have one last question. If my great-uncle’s spirit is what needs freeing, why find his remains?”

  Gently, he says, “To bring peace to his family members. So they can be freed of grief.”

  Morning is drawing to a close. By the sun’s position, I know it must be noon. I’m starving. I ask Humbert to share a meal at the inn with Stanley, his wife, and us. He accepts. As he leans on his lovely cane, I lead him, my arm beneath his.

  Thrilled to be with us, Mistenapeo relegates the man of power to a back seat and becomes the fun-loving prankster who put me at ease this morning. He tells stories of his first encounters with white people. We can all see he’s testing Daniel’s facility with a comeback. His retorts please the grandfather, whose booming laugh echoes throughout the restaurant. Curious, other customers glance at our table.

  I notice one couple staring at me outright. The man gives a timid smile. The woman, her back to me, doesn’t dare turn around again. I focus on the contents of my plate. Shirley talks to me about her children, three girls and a boy. The eldest, a girl, is ten. Surprised to learn that a number of our children are in their thirties, and that we’re grandparents several times over, Stanley exclaims at our youthful appearance.

  Mistenapeo ad libs, “Sex, children! Sex keeps a body young!” Turning to me, “So you’re a koukoum! That’s good. Koukoums make the best women of power.” His laughter rings out once more.

  Our transition to a public setting creates a distance between the two of us. It may be deliberate on his part, but it does feel like he’s taking up a lot of space. His jokes draw attention to us. Yet he isn’t deaf—the two of us spoke softly down by the river. He’s at home here, of course, but I’m embarrassed by the gaze of others. A hunch tells me this man has me figured out. He knows that a huge display of ego displeases me no end. I suppose his actions are designed to loosen the ties of my affection for him.