Grandpère (9 page)

That night at supper I ask her if she has an email address. “No, Mom could never afford to keep a computer. We had one when Dad — I mean Robert — lived with us, but he took it with him when he left. We had one twice after that, but she took the first one to the pawn shop, and the next one got stolen. No one would email me anyway.”

“Don’t you have friends?” I ask, and am instantly aware that I’ve asked a somewhat rude question. But it doesn’t faze Angel. “Carly is my friend. She helped me run away. She had her own money and she gave it to me to get here. That was her money I paid the taxi with. We used her name on the bus ticket. She’s as good a friend as anyone could want. Carly and I know we can’t talk to each other for a while. We made a pact.”

She smiles at me and says if she hasn’t learned anything in thirteen years, she’s been wasting her time.

I am overcome. My scalp prickles, and I feel kind of dizzy. Grandpère must
feel the same, for he starts to sing,
Ah, ah, ah, ah, eee
. He chants this very
slowly, for a while, his voice going high and squeaky on the Es, and then I start
singing with him too. Angel looks back and forth between us, and then she joins in.
We’re all grinning at each other while we’re chanting, and my whole body is prickling.
We end it on a long note,
Eeeeeee
. Then we all crack up, clapping and stomping
and laughing.

“If everyone measured their age by learnings, some old people would be pretty young,” Grandpère observes. I agree with him. I can think of a few people who would still be in their infancy.

The next week Grandpère turns one of his walking sticks that he’s carving into an arrow. He cuts off the loop at the top and says he is going to carve that one into a pistol. Sure enough, when you hold it up by the stem, it is shaped just like a pistol.

The arrow that he’s making must be entirely ceremonial, for the amount of carving he puts onto the shaft would make it fly pretty badly. It is beautiful at one end, the one with the point, and the faces all point toward the tip. On the other end all the faces point toward the feathers, and they are ugly. One looks like the devil, complete with little horns. He asks me to saw a nock on the end so he can put in some feathers. I do it and ask what kind of feathers he wants. Rooster feathers, he tells me, tail feathers.

I always save feathers — I have pretty ones sitting around in vases — and rooster feathers are easy to locate. Grandpère splits the feathers lengthwise and pushes them into the cross. Then he puts the arrow into a pillow case, wraps it up and starts carving on the twisted end that he’s cut off to make his pistol. He chants a little song as he works.

Angel offers to tend the chickens. She still holds her nose every time she goes into the henhouse but she likes to get the eggs now. When she comes back into the house, she has a puzzled look on her face. “Grandma, I think the chickens have been smoking pot. I can smell it really strong in their house.”

I look at her, and she is entirely serious. The thought of the chickens trying to roll a joint with their beaks sends me into gales of laughter. I think I know what she’s smelling; a pack rat must have moved into the chickens’ house. Every winter when the snow gets deep in the woods, some of these wood rats abandon their bush homes and try to move into warmer, dryer places. The chickens will kill any mice that move in, but the rats are too big for them. The dogs will kill them if they get the chance, though they never eat them. Instead they roll on them, getting the pungent smell on their hides. It is like dog perfume for them. I have been around country growers who pass off the smell of their cash crops by saying it must be rats. I explain the smell to Angel and tell her we’ll put a trap under the house to catch the rat.

We go out into the shop and get down a number four wolf trap. I show her how to set the trap. These traps are illegal now for trappers. Meant for a leg hold, they’re cruel for a large animal. If its leg gets trapped in the steel jaws, it might die of starvation or chew off its captured limb if the trapper takes a long time before checking his traps. For pack rats the traps are ideal, though, for the trap usually catches the rat’s body and kills it quickly.

We cover the bait trip with tinfoil before setting the trap. These rats like shiny things, which they save in their nests. I have found whole socket sets stored in their nests. They make nests with bark and grasses and bits of odd things in a great pile. The rats are as industrious as they are filthy, leaving a trail of turds wherever they go and peeing on everything they encounter. They reek with the same smell as skunkweed.

The set trap we place in a short length of tin stovepipe, as the rats can’t resist running through tunnels. We slide the whole thing under the henhouse, anchoring the end of the chain attached to the trap to a nail sticking out of the wall. I tell Angel that tomorrow morning a fat rat should be in the trap. She looks dubious.

Chapter Six

Faith calls me in the afternoon and asks if Angel would be willing to press charges against the man who raped her. She says it will be easier to get custody if it can be proven that she is at risk living with her mother. I say I will ask. She tells me Darcy and she are going to come on the weekend.

After supper I bring up the subject.

“Angel, the man who hurt you, do you know who he is?”

“Yes. He went out with my mom after Robert left, but I hate him and I never want to see him again.”

“If you will say what happened to you, we can get the papers that let you stay here.”

“Will I have to see him?”

“I don’t think so, dear. I think that you just have to tell a judge or a child worker.”

“I don’t want to. I just want to forget about it.”

I actually don’t know the process that gives custody of a minor to someone other than a parent. I tell her not to worry, even though I’m a little worried myself; if there’s any way to get legal custody without telling about the rape, we’ll do it that way.

“You have to go back to school in the fall, and we can’t register you without the world finding out where you are. The only reason you’re safe here now is that no one knows you’re here.”

She understands this, and we talk about her going back to school. She says she did well in school till this last year when her Mom started doing so many drugs. She starts crying again, and I worry that talking about this is going to set her back. I hug her for a while, then change the subject and say, “Let’s hear a story from Grandpère about the old days.”

He nods, and we go sit in the living room.

The fire is going nicely in the stove and I open the door and put the screen in front of the blaze. All of us like to watch the fire. I get my pad and pen and sit beside Grandpère. I think it’s time I wrote down some more of his stories.

Angel sits on the floor a few feet in front of us, and Grandpère begins. “There are two mighty forces in this world. You can call them God and the Devil, but your Grandmère Clementine, she called them Gitchi Manitou and Matchi Manitou. She said Gitchi Manitou was good. It was this being who brought the fish up the rivers, brought the summer back each year and looked after the well-being of the people.

“Matchi Manitou was not good. All the bad things that happened were the fault of this one. All Clementine’s family left things in the bush to try to be the friend of him. That way she could make sure he didn’t bring his bad ways to our house. Sometimes she would throw good stuff in the stove and say ‘Matchi-Manitou, take this bad away.’

“When I was young, the elders would talk about that time before the black robes, before the priests of God. My mother did not like them to tell us about the old times, and she told us not to talk about the old times. She told us God was our father now. She was always excited about priest days.”

Grandpère is quiet for a minute and seems lost in thought.

“What were priest days?” Angel asks.

“In those days the priests travelled around. When they would come, we would know for weeks ahead of time where they were coming to. Everyone would go to the priest days. The priests would perform ceremonies for the people’s weddings, the births of new children and the funerals for the ones who passed on. Sometimes the only time you would meet all your relatives was then.

“It was a big celebration when the priests came. All year long my mother would talk about the priest days. Whatever the priests said, she believed. She was very afraid of the devil. She told us the devil could hear us thinking.

“She told the elders to quit telling those stories, that God could hear them and the devil would get us all.

“We didn’t have a sweat lodge ceremony like they do on the reserve now, not like the one you went to,” he tells me.

I think back to the sweat I went to. Rose had phoned and asked if I would like to go to a sweat with her. I was surprised to be asked and had gone mostly out of curiosity.

“You went to one? That is so cool. Tell me what happened,” Angel asks.

“We’re supposed to be writing down Grandpère’s memories, not mine!” I laugh.

“No, Anzel, I can’t tell the girl about that. I think it was only in the fifties when that kind of thing was allowed again. Potlatch and everything, it was all against the law long before I was born. You tell her about the sweat.”

I smile at him. We talked about the sweat for days after I went. He wanted to know every little detail. I wonder if I’ll remember all the teachings they gave us that day.

“Well,” I begin, “it was late in the fall. I remember the drive up there with Rose. The leaves were all turned colour, and it was a beautiful day. We were told beforehand to bring a dress or long pajamas to wear inside. When we got there, we went and changed in a shed in the yard. A huge fire was blazing in the backyard, heating up the rocks. They were red-hot. There were stones in a path from the fire to the little conical mound that was the sweat lodge, which was all covered up with blankets and had a blue tarp over the top. They explained to us that the lodge was like a womb of the mother earth, and the fire was tied to the lodge by the rocks like an umbilical cord. We were told to walk clockwise around the fire to enter the lodge.

“We went into the sweat, both men and women. The first round was the welcoming round. The hosts were modern medicine people who told us about some personal challenges in their lives and how they overcame them. They talked about a more holistic view of health and how the spirit has to be healed at the same time as the body. They talked about how the ancestors were always there to be relied on for advice. They told us the rocks they brought in signified the wisdom of the ancestors, and when they brought them in, we should acknowledge their presence. The significance of the building was explained as a circle to denote the circle of life, with nine rows of saplings, one for each month the child is carried in the womb of the mother. They are bound together by four horizontal rows that signify the four ages of humans. The rows of twigs leave a round opening at the centre peak. This circle is crossed by tied twigs oriented in the four directions. Hanging from the centre is a large eagle feather.

“The four ages of humans start with infancy, from the time you are born till about twelve or thirteen. That is the time of being looked after. Childhood begins then, and that is the time you learn to care for others and be responsible for yourself and others. Childhood lasts different times for different people. The next stage is adulthood, which you are in for the longest period. Adulthood leads finally to being an elder. The elders are the ones who have learned to turn knowledge to wisdom. Adults and children have to look after infants and elders.

“They passed the pipe around. It was huge, just like the peace pipes in old movies. You could either puff some of the tobacco in it or just touch it to your shoulders when it came by. It got passed around three times, always clockwise.

“They told us about the four sacred elements — earth, air, fire and water — that were all there with us in the earth we were sitting on, the air we were breathing, the fire in the hot rocks and the water sprinkled on the rocks.

“They brought in the hot rocks one by one. The first one went in the centre, then the next four went in the four directions. They got sprinkled with a nice-smelling herb when they came in. Then they closed the door, and it got incredibly hot in there. At first you could see the dull red glow of the rocks, and then when they sprinkled the water on, it was so humid that the sweat just poured out and so dark that you couldn’t see the hands in front of your face. The people who held the sweat started singing, and Rose and I were singing too, even though we’d never heard that song before. It repeated itself four times.

“Then they opened the door, and the cold air rushing in felt nice. There were four rounds of putting more rocks in; they brought in seven each time after that. Between rounds they would give us more teachings. After one round they passed a bowl of fresh berries, and after the next some rat root, which some people call sweet flag or calamus. It was a really wonderful experience. The message of healing was strong, and their belief that people are able to heal both the earth and themselves left us both feeling refreshed.”

When I stop talking, Angel says, “I didn’t know they still had sweat lodges. It sure would be sweet to do that. Maybe someday I can go to one.”

I can see that Grandpère is far away, so I ask him if there‘s more about the priest days he wants to tell us.

“No. In the long run, the priests didn’t do us much good. My father didn’t believe in the priests like my mother did. Now the priests can just be forgotten,” he declares, and on that note we all retire for the evening.

In the morning we have indeed caught the pack rat. I pick up the trap by the chain and take it to show Grandpère and Angel. Disgusted by the limp body hanging from the trap, she makes a “yuck” face and backs away. I take the rat out of the trap and throw it far into the woods, hoping the dogs won’t find it. But of course they do and pack it back into the yard like a treasure. When they’re finished playing with it, I steal it back, put it in a garbage bag and stow it in the shop. If Darcy brings the pickup on the weekend, I will get him to take a garbage run for me; there’s getting to be quite a pile in the shop.

I reset the trap in case there’s more than one rat out there. When I get back into the house, Grandpère asks if the trail up to the top of the hill is good enough to take the bike up. I tell him I don’t know, but I’ll give it a try. The bike starts well, and I see if I can make it up the trail. It’s fun to drive the bike in the snow — it slides around goofily — and it goes right up to the top with no trouble.

The morning fog has burnt off, and the sun has some heat in it. Yesterday’s wind has knocked all the snow off the trees, and the world looks clean and sparkly. The lookout is down to bare rock, and I spend a few minutes admiring the winter view. The poplars are bare, but their bark is turning that green colour that holds the promise of new leaves. The fields are patches of clean white, and the contrast of the dark evergreens makes it look like a postcard from a winter wonderland. I take the bike up and down the hill a couple more times to pack in the trail.

I come in the house and tell them how beautiful it looks, and Grandpère says, “Let’s all go up to the lookout.” Sounds like a good idea to me.

We have a quick lunch and put our outside clothes on. Angel wears a pair of my old snow pants with her new coat and hat. Grandpère puts on his old patched coveralls, and we all pile onto the bike. He has a pillowcase full of stuff that he straps onto the front of the bike. I raise a questioning eyebrow at him, but he pretends he doesn’t see it. It takes only a couple of minutes to climb the hill with all of us on the bike.

When we get up there, Grandpère unloads his pillowcase. He has paper and kindling in it to start a fire.

“Good idea,” I tell him. Angel and I go break off dry branches from the trees close by and feed them to his fire.

“This is a fire for you, Angel,” Grandpère says.

He sits her down in front of the fire, and takes his carved arrow out of the pillowcase. He holds it up in front of him and points it in the four directions, asks their guidance and blessing. Then, chanting the same little tune he sang while he was carving it, he sticks it point down in the ground in front of her. “Close your eyes, and think of all the good things and the bad things in your life. Each time you think of a good thing, you send it down to the point, and every time you think of a bad thing, you send it to the nock. When you are done, you cross your arms.

“You, Anzel, you help me sing.”

Angel looks at him skeptically but does as he asks. He sits across from her and motions me to stand behind her. He starts chanting his same little song, and I sing along with him. She is silent and unmoving except for once when she flings out an arm and points straight at the arrow; I think she points to the bad end. After a while she crosses her arms. Without losing his chant, Grandpère laboriously gets to his feet and picks up the arrow.

“This arrow carries Angel’s good and bad things.” He breaks the arrow in half and tells her to hold out her hands. He gives her the halves, the good end in her right hand and the evil one in her left. “The bad things need to be gone. Take the bad things and give them to the fire so they will trouble you no more.”

She looks at the two pieces, then reaches out and shoves the ugly end in the fire. We all watch silently while the arrow burns. It doesn’t burn like the tree branches — the flame is iridescent and swirly as though the fire is reluctant to burn it — but soon it is nothing but a red coal that suddenly crumples to nothing in the heart of the fire.

“These things will trouble you no more, my granddaughter,” he says. “Let’s go. The end of that arrow that you still hold will draw good things into your life from this day on. It is part of your good medicine.”

Angel looks from the arrow point in her hand to his face and back again. She stares at the fire for another moment, then takes off her new hat and throws it in the fire. “For Matchi Manitou,” she says.