The silver flash of a pike cleaves the river water. I eat my lunch leaning back against a tree stump. Words jockey for position while I concentrate and wait, my red notebook on my thigh. Lying in the sun, Mouski flicks his ears to shoo away the flies buzzing around him. The poem flows like water in a river set free from winter’s grip. My next collection will be a reflection on Pointe-Aux-Vents and lost love.
On my return early that afternoon, Makwa has installed his tools on the porch next to my father’s old outboard motor. Catching sight of my nephew Antoine, Mouski twirls in mid-air with joy. Of all our dogs, he’s the only one to have mastered this trick. My brother laughs out loud. “Have I gotta good story for you about that dog of yours,” he says. “Comin’ home from work last night, I stopped off at the tavern. Ti-Jos Cossette was there. I told him about Mouski, how he’s real smart and funny, all that stuff. Liar that he is, I couldn’t help wonderin’ what he’d come out with to one-up me. Wouldn’t ya’ know.…”
Makwa laughs for a few seconds. “He says he used to have a dog that hunted for him. Ran off every morning to bring ’im back a hare, a partridge, a muskrat, all that stuff. One morning, he came back with a beaver. A beaver so big he hadda stick fence posts in it and roll over it with his tractor to get at its fat!”
My brother André-Makwa belongs to a liars club that gets together at chance encounters in the Hunter’s Tavern. Losers treat the winner to a beer. Jos Cossette is the club’s uncontested champion, what sets him apart being the fact he believes his stories and doesn’t think twice about pounding on the table to make his point. “Holy hell, you callin’ me a liar?”
Our laughter stops when Maikan’s jeep pulls up, greeted by the dog’s barking. He has his wife Léa and their grandson Darryl with him. Albert-Maikan and Édouard chose Cree partners, while my other three brothers fell for the charms of my blonde blue-eyed sisters-in-law. The day before, Édouard had already agreed to accompany me to Nemaska, now it’s Albert’s turn to confirm his participation.
27
EN ROUTE FOR MISTISSINI
SEPTEMBER 2004
AFTER A FEW DAYS’ REST, I leave early this morning without Mouski. My father has offered to look after him until my return. Maikan has brought copies of the pictures I’d promised to our second cousin Anna at Sibi’s funeral. I wanted to surprise her when we reached Waswanipi, but yesterday my brother told me she was expecting me for lunch. The surprise will have to wait for another time.
I already miss my dog. His presence, so alive and attentive. In some way, he’s taken over from Daniel, providing emotional security. Before Daniel, I lived in a chalet on the edge of the forest and only Mouski shared my life. In the summer, a porcupine would come to gnaw on the porch every morning as I ate my breakfast outside, basking in the rising sun. A skunk lived underneath, indifferent to our presence. After one painful, smelly experience, Mouski left it alone. The skunk liked to remind him walking by, its tail held conspicuously high. There could have been no better guard against potential burglars. A red fox liked to chow down on mice or deer mice a few metres from where we sat, not too close after all, to ensure it could beat a quick retreat to the forest if need be. I suspected that my dog had a bond of friendship with the fox and worried about the potential of his contracting rabies. So we showed up regularly at the vet’s for every vaccination appointment. One day, I found the fox lying by the road, hit by one of the neighbours who drive at breakneck speed. I gathered up its body and buried it in its native forest across from my chalet.
Lost in thought, I cross the bridge to Rapides-des-Cendres, my birthplace. I park along the river where an old sawmill used to be. Back then, the Algonquin camped on these shores. They gave me the name Ashigon Ikwesis, Bridge Girl. The midwife who helped Maman was Algonquin, as was my godmother. They have always maintained an unshakeable bond with me. Over the years, I’ve received talismans from one, beaded moose-hide clothing from the other. Those treasures burned with all our other keepsakes during one memorable bender when Maman, drunk and half-asleep, started a fire with a lit cigarette. Fortunately, she was alone. She spent four months in intensive care, her body naked and raw. Not even that was enough to convince her to stop drinking though. Papa harboured that hope during the year of her convalescence. His love grew and he took gentle care of Maman. She’d even been expecting at the time, but she had a miscarriage. Maman had two main traits: resistance to pain and loyalty to her demons, despite Papa’s and our love.
The sudden rush of blood as I remember my mother leaves me shaken. I find myself in an altered state, the river’s turbulent waters call out to me. I jump to my feet, run up the hill, and throw myself into the car. I choose a country music CD to lighten my mood and sing along at the top of my lungs to chase away the memory of grief. I’m alive! Death can wait, whatever the pain of fourth-degree burns. Next stop, Waswanipi!
My cousin greets me on her doorstep. She’s radiant, her beauty accentuated by a red blouse enlivened with a pattern of white flowers. She motions for me to enter first. I’m surprised to find a dozen people seated around her large dining room table. I recognize her sisters Sarah and Sally. They introduce me to their spouses, children, and grandchildren. Anna has been living alone since her husband’s death. They look at me, intimidated. My second cousin says, “We heard about your husband.…”
They lower their eyes. “Tante mag etout’teinn?” Anna asks about the purpose of my journey to lessen their unease.
“Nistoum n’wimitsoun’!” I tell her. I want to eat first!
My touch of humour having broken the ice, everyone takes a bowl from the kitchen counter and dips a ladle into a pot of thick soup. I gorge on bannock as fragrant as my mother’s. Between mouthfuls, I answer their questions about my family, my children. Suddenly, I remember the album left out in the car and excuse myself. The women have already begun to clear the table by the time I get back so I ask Anna to return to her seat then place the picture of her sitting behind Jimmy in a canoe—she’s smiling at the camera. She must be about ten. The others crowd around to look at the images with her. Warm laughter rings out, then silence. Anne spreads the pictures out, making the occasional almost inaudible comment. “Noutah,” she says, touched by the image of a group made up of my grandmother, my mother, her cousins, her mother, and her father, George.
Her brothers-in-law have to go back to work, one to the band council, another to a new-home building site. They shake my hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you!” Behind them, the teens and youngs adults jostle, eager for a lift.
By three, I’m on the road to Mistissini. My thoughts turn to my second cousins. The three sisters, who’d been filled in by their nephew Stanley, peered at me, curious about the strange mission I was about to embark on, however unwillingly. Sally summarized our words and my doubts. “If you find our father’s remains, it will do me good to know where he is … and to complete his skeleton in the cemetery next to Maman’s.”
Last night I was on the phone with my childhood friend Clarisse who works for Cree Health Services in Mistissini. She’s part of a team that develops programs for clients struggling with illnesses linked to diets too rich in fat and sugar. As a teen, I often sought refuge at Clarisse’s home where I’d spend weekends talking, laughing, crying. We slept together on the old mattress in her tiny room. We braided each other’s hair that danced down our backs, hers light brown, mine almost black. Her parents let us cross Tiblemont Lake by canoe. We brought a snack with us that we tore into after our swim. Her father, like mine, believed that children learn better on their own. During my separation from my first partner, she welcomed me into her big country home where she lived alone with her first son. We led a calm existence there with our children and friends, who’d drop by in the evening and share in our Scrabble games, our gourmet meals. I moved out when she met a new lover whose child she was expecting. Clarisse’s love affairs, like my own, don’t last.
In Chibougamau, I buy groce
ries to have something to contribute to the meal. I also buy some local cider and wine. I don’t know whether or not alcohol is banned on the reserve as in Chisasibi or Waskaganish. The bottles disappear into my backpack.
28
CLARISSE
SEPTEMBER 2004
CLARISSE LIVES in a big two-storey house provided by the community to non-Indigenous employees. She’s waiting for me, the table set for a banquet. We cry in each other’s arms. Clarisse was overseas in northern Europe when Daniel died. Two years earlier, weeping at Sibi’s funeral, she said to me, “What can I do to comfort you over all this, dear Victoria?” She laughs through her tears, happy to have me here. She’s grieving for her mother who died early this year. Both of us are bruised and shaken by life.
I unpack the groceries I chose for their luxury factor—smoked salmon and imported foie gras. The menu she has planned includes caribou offered by her boss. At least, our taste for good food hasn’t changed. Despite the high suicide and alcoholism rates in Mistissini, Clarisse tells me it’s impossible to stop young people from buying liquor in Chibougamau. So its ban on the reserve has had little effect.
I tell her why I’m passing through and she gives me information on Mr. Kanatawet. “He’s one of the Elders who help us with the health program. Researchers from Laval University have benefited from his wife’s knowledge of medicinal plants. It will be a pleasure to introduce you to him. He’s probably expecting you … the other shaman has no doubt contacted him. But tell me about you. What do you have planned for the future, if I can put it that way?”
I don’t know what to tell her. Gazing off into the distance, I wonder again whether I should sell my house. Clarisse’s gentle voice brings me back.
“Last week, my boss Glenna told me I could work out of the Montreal offices or from home if I wanted. A new job. I could work via computer, wouldn’t have to meet with clients anymore but would travel around the country sometimes for training.” Her eldest son, who rents her house with his girlfriend, wants to go back to school. Clarisse doesn’t like either city life or the loneliness of country life. “If you’d like, you could move back in with me. Not that you have to … but I confess,” she says with a laugh, “that I really missed you when things with Paul went south! You could write in the garage that’s been converted into a workshop. No phone. It’s full of light and has a view of the lake. My son put in a wood stove to make it nice and cosy! My godson, an electrician, installed plugs, ceiling lights, and baseboard heating under the windows. If you moved in, I’d always have someone at home to look after the dogs and cat, that is, if you don’t end up travelling at the same time as me.”
I’m tempted by her offer. For one, it would bring me closer to my family.
Clarisse has had four love interests, the most recent dating back five years. Taken for a ride by her last lover, she now masquerades as a harpy around any suitors. As for me, Daniel came on the scene after six previous lightning-bolt love affairs. “If you fall in love again,” I tell her, “will you kick me out just like last time?”
She laughs, her golden eyes sparkling. She maintains that she no longer wants to share her space with a stranger: from now on it will be each to his or her own home and nothing but romance-filled dates. “In fact,” she adds, “who says it won’t happen to you again given your crazy heart?”
I smile and serve her seconds of roasted vegetables au gratin as she fills my glass with red wine. “If I have to wait fifty years to meet another Daniel, I’ll be a hundred years old, my girl! We’ll both be fairly wizened by then, maybe even scattered to the four winds long before that!”
We choke with laughter.
Snuggled in my sleeping bag, still a bit drunk on laughter and wine, I think of Clarisse sleeping in her room across from mine. Despite the hurts that plague me, I thank life for granting me a constant, unconditional presence such as my friend’s. Not that she’s the only one, of course, but no one else knows me as well as Clarisse, who cried with me back when I was bloodied and twelve.
29
MALCOLM AND PATRICIA
SEPTEMBER 2004
I ACCOMPANY CLARISSE for her morning exercise, a quick walk around the mercifully small village. Short of breath, I continue yesterday’s conversation. “Clarisse, do you think that grief helps us grow? Do you think we can heal from an abused childhood? Do you think we’ll ever grow up, really grow up one day? Or will we spend a whole lifetime getting there?” With a sidelong glance, I see her smiling at my seven a.m. questions. She has small, pretty teeth with a bit of a gap between the middle incisors and a dimple in each cheek that make her look like an eternal child.
“Don’t know, my girl! We pretend to in any case! We’re all just a bunch of children who’ve been hurt in one way or another and pretend to be adults. How about we save the topic till tonight? We’ll stop in at Jessie’s for breakfast, she works with me. You’ll love her! She knows the Kanatawets well, and if you want some inside scoop before meeting them, the time is now.”
Love Jessie? That’s a given! Shorter than the two of us by a good head, she radiates such benevolent energy that I feel like snuggling into her arms so she can rock me. What’s come over me? When Clarisse introduces us, Jessie says she’s heard of me and is proud of the work I do that reflects positively on the Cree people. Jessie reminds me of Koukoum Louisa, making it easier for me to understand my earlier impulse. She says “Clara” instead of “Clarisse.” A colossal man with straight, dishevelled hair stands making toast. This is Richard, her husband. He shakes my hand and welcomes me in English.
“Eggs? Pancakes? Toast? Tea? Coffee?” He lists off his breakfast offerings. His wife laughs and takes over in the kitchen. She tells us he’s only good for making toast. Clarisse removes two placemats from a drawer under the table like someone who knows her way around. Richard offers me coffee in a white china cup that looks tiny in his large hand.
According to Jessie, shamans like Malcolm Kanatawet, although respected in the community, generally earn reproving looks from the Anglican and Pentecostal pastors and the Catholic priests. The war to win pagan souls is still being waged on reserves, even though the clergy no longer have the influence they used to have over the first generation of converts. In removing children from their families by force for the purpose of instructing and deculturating them, what the Church and State taught Indigenous peoples was to reflect on the abuses of colonialism. So Malcolm Kanatawet spent twelve years in a Sault Ste. Marie residential school in Ontario. During a group movie outing at the age of eighteen, he caught sight of a young Ojibwe woman. His heart thrilled. Once the film was over, he quickly threaded his way to the exit to speak to her. His stay in the federal residential school ended in June of that year and they were married a few months later. Together ever since, they took up the shamanic practice after training as a medicine man and woman. They regularly take part in First Nations’ spiritual gatherings and now teach in turn. In Mistissini, their role involves re-establishing the tradition of respect for Elders, nature, and life in general. “They’re very … very powerful,” Jessie concludes.
We make our way to the Kanatawets’. It’s almost nine and my friend doesn’t want to be late for work. Before she rings the bell, Clarisse deems it advisable to give me a warning, “Mr. Kanatawet is quite the looker! Surprisingly so, you’ll see. Women flock to his workshops, but not the guys, go figure!” She laughs at her own joke as she rings the bell.
The woman who greets us isn’t Cree. Tall with greying hair in braids, sharply chiselled features, high cheekbones, a proud hooked nose over thin lips, her appearance is in stark contrast to the usually rounder faces of my people. Her green gaze impresses me—warm, dark, and keen, it seems to see beyond my outer shell. She imprisons my hands in hers, warm and dry. Their warmth penetrates my skin like a faint electrical current, an instant breath of tranquility. I’m face to face with a true woman of power. A Métis woman. Clarisse brings me back to the
present with a quick peck on my cheek, then hurries off. We’ll see each other again outside her office for lunch. I watch as she walks off down the street.
Her voice a deep alto, Patricia Kanatawet speaks in English. “You’re Blue Bear Woman,” she says. “I’m honoured to meet you.”
I gasp. She has just referred to my totem and its colour, the blue bear that haunts my dreams and has guided me for so long. The totem that struck fear in my mother, who refused to acknowledge it despite the burning desire I had to speak of it. “No,” she said,” it’s not possible! You’re just a little girl! The totem’s too strong for a mixed blood. No, stop telling me your dreams! You have to live in the white world!” I can still hear her words in Cree that denied my nature and forced me to keep quiet.
“Your mother was frightened by your power and tried to protect you from it.”
I can hear sounds coming from the basement, then an extremely handsome man, slim and Cree, appears in the stairway leading upstairs. Dressed in an orange-and-brown plaid shirt, his jeans hug round, firm thighs. He emanates virility and a power that strikes me in the lower belly. Yet he’s no longer young, despite his barely silvered hair tied at the nape of his neck. His full lips open in a smile, his exquisite dark hands reach for my shoulders. He, too, speaks in English. “How do you do, Victoria? Humbert talked to me about you. Welcome to the Universe!”
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