The Game of Silence

by Louise Erdrich

  He nudged her. Omakayas almost slugged him in return, but controlled herself. She’d had enough of him to last her whole life! She opened her eyes a fraction, then her eyes went wide in shock. Somehow, Pinch had got hold of her beloved doll, and he was making it teeter on the cliff of his knees. Omakayas bit her lip so hard it hurt. Pinch walked her doll to the edge of his knees, then teasingly back. If only Mama was here! If only she would return! Nokomis concentrated on her work so hard it was impossible to distract her.

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  Omakayas pretended to shut her eyes again, but cleverly watched until just the right moment to snatch back her doll. She sighed as though she was falling asleep and then, with a flash, she grabbed. Taken by surprise, Pinch couldn’t react quickly enough to hold on, and Omakayas triumphantly clutched her doll. She stuck it down the neck of her dress. There! Safe! Inside, she laughed, but she didn’t make a single sound, not a chirp, not so much as a mouse’s squeak.

  She was going to win the game of silence, she just knew it. Pinch was now poking little twigs into the fire in the center fire pit, watching them burn. Omakayas tried not to notice him, but his head was so big and fuzzy. Pinch’s hair sprang out with its own energy. Crafty eyes in his tough, round face calculated his sister’s endurance. He was surely cooking up some mischief. Sure enough, Pinch drew the burning wand from the fire and laid it innocently next to her ankle—as though she didn’t know that it would scorch her if she moved the slightest inch! And make her cry out, first, and instantly lose the game! She kicked it back at him.

  “Gego, Pinch,” she nearly warned, but bit her lip.

  “Eah, eah, eah,” he mouthed the taunt, making an impossibly irritating face that almost broke Omakayas’s discipline.

  Luckily, just at the second that Omakayas decided to forfeit the game and to smash her little brother over the head with the big tin soup ladle, the visitors arrived.

  “They are here,” said their grandmother. “You can quit the game until after we eat.”

  “Aaaagh!” Omakayas exploded with such a wild sound of rage that Nokomis jumped. Pinch retreated, unnerved by how sorely he’d tested his sister. Omakayas breathed out in relief. These visitors were her friends and cousins—Twilight, Little Bee, and Two Strike Girl. They had brought the boy she called, in her mind, the Angry One. Her cousins were her favorite friends, the ones she counted on. Twilight was much like her name, quiet and thoughtful. Little Bee was funny and bold. Two Strike was tough and she could do anything a boy could do, usually better. Since her mother had died, she was wilder than ever. Even her father had not been able to handle Two Strike, and had left her with Auntie Muskrat. But Auntie Muskrat had had no success in taming Two Strike. Sometimes she was so fierce that she outdid everyone—it was a challenge to play with her. The girls had learned to sew and bead together, gathered berries, and helped their mothers clean fish. They also learned early on how to tan hides, a task that Omakayas despised. And now too, her sister, Angeline, was home. Omakayas grinned with satisfaction. Pinch was delightfully outnumbered by girls and would pout, creeping to Mama’s side when she arrived, and turning into a baby, hoping to be pampered with tidbits of meat and maple sugar.

  Now everyone—the children and their parents—squeezed into the lodge. They had made the lodge extra big that summer, for visitors. For the first time, it was packed entirely full, but there was enough room for everyone. Even the Angry One found a space to sit. He glared from a little spot against the wall. Together, they ate rich venison soup from the shallow birchbark makakoon they’d brought along with them. Two other men squeezed in, important men. Old Tallow entered, huge and rangy and smelling of wolf. She settled herself while outside her ferocious dogs stood guard, unmoving and alert even in the pelting rain. Each of Old Tallow’s feet seemed to take up as much space as a small child, but Omakayas didn’t mind. Warily, but completely, she loved the fierce old woman.

  Each visitor brought a gift for the pile that the children who won the game of silence would choose from that night. For it was an important night. With the raggedy ones came serious doings. Difficult questions and impossible news. Great attention was needed. The grown-ups needed to council, think, absorb the facts, without having to shush small children. The children could tell how important the meeting was from the degree to which their silence was required. The pile of treats was the best ever.

  There was a bag of marbles, some of actual glass, not just clay. A pair of narrow makazinan that Omakayas thought just might fit her. One doll, elaborately dressed in a tiny set of britches and a leather coat. A sharp knife. A deer knuckle game. Two duck’s bills of maple sugar tied together with split jack-pine root. Six red ribbons. A little roll of flowered cloth. Eight tiny bells. One small bow, and six arrows tipped with real brass points cut from a trade kettle. The arrows were fletched with the sharp black and yellow feathers of a bird that the island where they lived was named for—the golden-breasted woodpecker. Old Tallow must have brought them. What treasures! The children examined them breathlessly, each picking out one particular prize they meant to win.

  Little Bee, of course, wanted the doll. Two Strike Girl, the bow and arrows. Pinch coveted the knife, but he was torn by greed for the maple sugar and the need for marbles to replace those he’d lost. The Angry One did not deign to move from his spot or look at the gifts. No doubt he’d have no problem winning the game! As for Twilight, quiet and serene, she had no trouble playing the game and she would be content with anything. Omakayas wanted the ribbons, the bells, and the marbles, too, but she settled on the makazinan because she had watched her grandmother make them so carefully. They were fancy, with velvet ankle cuffs, the tops beaded with flowers and little white sparkling vines. Worth her silence!

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  Now the grown-ups were ready to start talking. Nokomis sang the song of the game of silence four times, nearly catching Pinch at the end. Then she turned away from them too, absorbed in the talk.

  Omakayas looked longingly at Twilight, and her cousin made a sad and frustrated face. With her favorite cousin so close and her annoying brother so near, it was difficult to play. If only they could talk! At first, the girls communicated by mouthing words and moving their eyes, but the temptation to laugh was too great. They turned away from each other unwillingly. Omakayas listened to the rain, a solid drumming and hissing. Then she listened to the fire crackling and sighing. She watched the beautiful and changing glow of the coals. At some point, Omakayas couldn’t tell exactly when, her attention was caught by something her father said. And then she noticed that her cousin Twilight was also listening to the grownups’ conversation. Soon, they all couldn’t help but listen. They leaned forward, straining to hear every sound, almost forgetting to breathe.

  That night, for the first time, everybody got their prizes. Nobody lost the game of silence. For that night they knew the threat of a much bigger loss. They would all fear to lose something huge, something so important that they never even knew that they had it in the first place. Who questions the earth, the ground beneath your feet? They had always accepted it—always here, always solid.

  That something was home.

  Omakayas’s father, Mikwam, touched his heart and spoke with a troubled frown.

  “We do not use the black marks of the chimookomanag,” he said, “because we keep the record here.”

  The chimookomanag were the white people. The black marks that Mikwam spoke of were the writing that Angeline learned day by day at the mission school in the town of LaPointe. The writing was very strange to Omakayas. Black marks that captured sounds. Tracks across paper or slate boards or birchbark that stood for words spoken. How did the odd scratching connect to the sounds? All a mysterious business, and one that her father, anyway, did not trust.

  The Ojibwe relied on memory. They repeated stories, songs, the words to promises and treaties. Everyone memorized all that was important. Although people scratched elaborate signs on birchbark and rolled them into scrolls, they relied on memory
to go with the marks. Memory was Ojibwe writing. Things were not forgotten that way. Something about the black marks had gone wrong, Omakayas knew that. The black marks promised one thing, but the chimookomanag wanted to break that promise.

  “We signed a paper that said they could take the trees. We signed a paper that said they could take the copper from the earth,” said the old chief Bizhiki, disturbed, “we didn’t say they could take the earth.”

  “Who can take the earth?”

  Fishtail spoke, gesturing with his strong and eloquent hands. He was a young man, he expressed his opinions well. The whole family liked Fishtail, but Angeline liked him the best of all. She watched him shyly from beneath her long eyelashes. “I’ll tell you,” he answered himself, turning just a little toward Angeline as though she gave off a warming glow, “when the chimookomanag open up the earth they believe they own it just like a kettle, just like this deerskin, just like this knife!”

  The other men laughed, and the women put their hands to their faces, but it was a bitter laughter because everyone knew what he said was true. Here is what had happened. The ogimaa or the president of all of the chimookomanag had sent a message to the leaders of the Ojibwe. That message was simple. They must leave their homes. The ogimaa said that the government now owned the ground they lived on. It was needed for white settlers. He had issued a removal order. He had decided that land payments would be given out in a new place in the west.

  But the western land was the home of the Bwaanag. The raggedy ones had tried to live there and look what had happened.

  “There was a time when we had no quarrel with the Bwaanag,” said Deydey. “They lived in their part of the world and we in ours. We even traded with them. But as the chimookamanag push us, so we push the Bwaanag. We are caught between two packs of wolves.”

  “We can’t go to the west,” cried Albert LaPautre. LaPautre was comical, chubby, and sometimes cowardly. “Our enemies will kill us with knives,” he cried. “They will shoot our brains out, club us in the kidneys, raise our scalps, burn us, cut us into little pieces—”

  “Saaah!” Nokomis silenced him. “You’re scaring yourself!”

  The children were riveted, staring in horror, each imagining some dreadful death. Pinch’s eyes were the biggest, round as two moons. Although he acted tough and always shouted fiercely when playing at imaginary battles, he was still a little boy. Now he crept closer to Yellow Kettle and bent his frowzy head to lean against her. Omakayas saw that he had taken a corner of Mama’s skirt between his fingers, and he clung to it for reassurance.

  “Still, we must be brave,” said LaPautre. “The chimookomanag owe us payment for the land they took. I intend to collect.” He folded his arms over his round pumpkin of a stomach and tried to look determined and fearless.

  “Here is what I think,” said a man named Cloud, “we have done something to offend. One or two of our hothearted brothers must have killed a chimookoman!”

  “Eya’, geget,” said Mikwam slowly, “that is possible.”

  Old Tallow reared herself up in the light. She wore her hat with the feather even in the lodge. Now she spoke in the abrupt snarl of a person used to giving, not ever taking, orders.

  “Perhaps we have broken our promise to be peaceful and treat them kindly! Send runners out. Send out michitweg. Find what our foolish brothers have done. Then we can punish the wrongdoers and stay here. Right here.”

  Beneath her words, there was a desperation that Omakayas had never heard before in Old Tallow’s tough growl. The powerful woman was attached to her cabin, to her hunting territory, to the level patch of sand and the canopy where she and Omakayas’s father constructed expertly balanced and seamless jeemaanan of the perfect bark found on this island. Old Tallow had never traveled far from her home in her life, and she was unwilling to start now.

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  Another friend of Mikwam, the wise leader Buffalo, agreed that it was a good idea to find out who was responsible for the chimookomanag change of heart. “Who will go?” he asked.

  Cloud answered that he would scout to the south. A swift young man said he would travel to the east. Fishtail said that he would travel to the west and yet another man accepted the responsibility of the north. They would meet at a place called Sandy Lake and then return to the island in one year. It was no surprise that Fishtail would leave, for two winters ago he had lost his beloved wife.

  “After all, I have nothing…,” he began, by way of explaining his willingness to go on this dangerous mission. He was going to say that he had no reason to stay on the island. But suddenly he stopped. His brow creased and he turned his head just a fraction, gazing with a surprised tenderness at the lovely, scarred face of Angeline. There was a long beat of silence between Angeline and Fishtail, though they were not playing the children’s game.

  Perhaps, Omakayas thought later, when she understood the messages between the two that night, Fishtail might have stayed that year if only Angeline had made some gesture. But Angeline was too shy and uncertain to look at him. By the time she was able to meet his glance, he had committed himself to go on the dangerous journey into the land of the Bwaanag. Albert would take other men, too, and investigate the promise of payments far off, near a place called Sandy Lake.

  “I’ll go too!”

  Two Strike Girl jumped to her feet with a loud cry, then clapped her hand over her mouth. But she was forgiven her outburst by the men, by the kind leader Buffalo, and by Mikwam and by Omakayas’s grandmother.

  “Howah! Brave-hearted girl!” said Fishtail, smiling, and Two Strike Girl sat down again, proud of the fire in her heart, wishing that she could fight. Omakayas couldn’t help noticing that the Angry One looked at Two Strike with a combination of emotions—annoyance? admiration? Did he want to shout at Two Strike or did he want to fight alongside her? He caught Omakayas looking at him suddenly and looked down. His face was angrier than ever, but he also looked confused.

  The morning that the men left was ordinary, sunny, and calm. Yellow Kettle and Angeline packed dried meat, dried fish, a pair of leggings, and some tobacco for Fishtail. The girls walked down to the dock from which each of the jeemaanan would embark. The other men were already gone. Fishtail was the last. There he stood, patiently. It looked like he was waiting. Maybe, thought Omakayas, someone else was coming. He was staring so intently in their direction that Omakayas looked behind them. But no, he was staring at Angeline.

  The two girls approached, and then, as they arrived, Omakayas couldn’t help but notice that her sister’s hand trembled as she gave the package of traveling provisions to Fishtail. Omakayas watched him intently when he took the pack from Angeline, to see if his eyes would soften. Sure enough, she thought that she detected a certain question in his gaze.

  She kept watching him, and then realized that both he and her sister were staring right at her.

  “Geewen,” ordered Angeline in a sharp voice. “Go home.”

  Omakayas felt an instant pang of hurt and surprise. Her sister, so beautiful, hurt her feelings sometimes. Not as often now as she had before she’d suffered the sickness that scarred her cheeks, but often enough. Now was one of those times. Omakayas couldn’t hide her shame. She glanced at Fishtail to say good-bye, but then saw that his eyes warmly praised her. He smiled his thanks.

  “Meegwech, little one,” he said, then bent near to look straight into her eyes. He was not afraid, as some young men are, to be kind. At that moment, Omakayas loved him very much. “I will remember you when I’m far away in the land of the Bwaanag. Don’t be sad. I’ll return by the time the earth warms again. And now, my little sister, will you leave me alone with your big sister for a moment? I must say good-bye to her too.”

  “You can say good-bye to her right now,” said Omakayas. Stubborn, she held her ground. Fishtail smiled and shook his head so understandingly, however, that she couldn’t refuse. For a moment, before she left, he held her around the shoulders. She ran off smiling, proud that he was her friend. T
hen she slowed to a walk, and her heart thudded. Fishtail’s travels would last until next year.

  By the time the earth warms again.

  Omakayas sat at some distance and watched her sister take leave of Fishtail. Nothing special happened, they just talked. Then Fishtail got into the center of the jeemaan and lifted his paddle. With a broad, smooth movement he was launched far past the dock. Once the jeemaan was no more than a black smudge, tiny and almost invisible between the dark of the water and the trees of the far shore, Omakayas became restless. She tapped her toes in the sand, jumped up, sat down, waited, called her sister once or twice. But Angeline did not answer, nor did she move. Angeline continued to stand onshore watching the place where Fishtail had disappeared.

  After the men had left, the camps were very quiet. Sounds seemed louder. There was leftover stew in pots, and too much room in the lodges. Angeline was short of temper or too silent. Even Deydey, missing his good friend, Fishtail, brooded. Every night he sat at the fire and stared into the flames without speaking or even making anything. To see his hands idle was strange. Maybe he wished he’d gone along to share the hardships and dangers. Maybe he was planning something that required much thought. It was a relief to Omakayas to get away, even if it meant sharing work with Nokomis.

  Every morning, Omakayas and Andeg visited Grandmother’s garden and helped the plants along. Deydey had found a piece of tough root-wood, and from it he’d fashioned a perfectly balanced short digging tool for Omakayas. A gnarled handle made it easy to grip and the end, filed flat and sharpened, was good for chopping weeds. The sun beat down on Omakayas. First her hair turned hot, then her shoulders. Sweat seeped down the sides of her face and ran along her collarbone. Her eyes stung with salt and her arms ached. She was glad for Andeg’s company. As she worked, he walked beside her or hopped in flapping bounds to peck up grubs and worms and beetles that her hoe unearthed. Sometimes he flew a short way off into the woods and Omakayas heard him talking to other crows. But he always returned to her. His calls sounded like encouragement. Yah! Yah!