The Devil's Making (53 page)

There had been a reunion between Aemilia and the little boy William. His character had, to my eyes, the same mixture of the happy-go-lucky and the stoical which was evident in Wiladzap. The Joneses had treated him well but he had always sensed there was something special between him and his ‘auntie' Aemilia. And since he had grown up, in spite of being well protected, with some idea of shame at his own Indianness, he was pleased to find he had a big chief like Wiladzap for a father. All this made Aemilia look happy and light as a girl.

Aemilia when at Tsalaks had been adopted by a woman of the Raven clan, as a necessary formality since Wiladzap could not marry an Eagle like himself. This adoption would have to be confirmed among the band before they left Victoria. Luckily there was a Raven woman among them who remembered Aemilia's adoption and could attest to it. Then there was the difficulty that William, although Wiladzap's son, derived no status from this: all inherited status came from the mother. (New status could be won later). But Aemilia had no particular ‘names'.

This question of names I did not understand well, since I found most Tsimshian words difficult to pronounce. But it was explained to me that familiar names were not the important ones. Wiladzap, for example, meant ‘lucky in hunting' – as the telegraph from Fort Simpson had said. Hence Wiladzap's remark to the prisoner that he was ‘lucky'. Lukswaas, I was touched to hear, meant ‘a sudden shower of rain on a sunny day'. But Lukswaas, as her mother's daughter, had several hereditary names of great renown. She decided, with a shrewd generosity which resolved Aemilia's status completely, that she would gift Aemilia her names. Wiladzap, therefore, would gain status by association, and William's status was assured. In return for this, all Lukswaas would receive, I thought ruefully, was the humble name of Hobbes …

*   *   *

The conversations among all four of us, perhaps partly because they were so difficult using two and three languages and therefore words were chosen and explained carefully, were like windows into our minds – so different, but we liked what we saw through those windows. We once had a long discussion starting from Darwin's remark, which I quoted, that the difference between the savage and the civilised person is ‘the difference between a wild and a tame animal.' We agreed that within both the Tsimshian and the English societies there was a range between wild and tame people. And that each could turn upside-down, as it were, and become the other. The most tame people could go wild, and vice versa. Furthermore, the idea of the civilised and the savage could be used in such a reversal of behaviour. Wiladzap was fascinated by how Beaumont, although he only knew him from my and Aemilia's description, who was the incarnation of the ‘King George', when he carried out the killing of McCrory did it in imitation (and a bad imitation at that) of a savage. And I proposed, as a counter-example, that when the famous Chief Freezy decapitated his wife on the beach opposite Victoria, he was actually imitating the ways of the white man: instead of killing his wife in a fury, he carried out a staged execution, just as the English did in public hangings. He thought he was being civilised.

So far as we could see, each civilisation had its refinement and its barbarity. Wiladzap admitted that among the Tsimshian murders were frequent and treacherous. But at least they were always, in the long run, paid for. He was disgusted at the Christian doctrine of hellfire, which he knew of from the missionaries, the ‘Metakatla men', and which I could explain in more detail. But eventually the conversation turned to the idea of whether in fact animals and humans were different at all. The Tsimshian identified with the virtues of the eagle and the salmon, they incorporated these animal virtues into themselves. Wiladzap said that in a trance he could hear animals speak to him. But Lukswaas pointed out that what the animals said was about the life of animals, not the life of people. The eagle would point out something in distant sight or vision. The salmon would speak from its experience of travelling the seas. But she did not think the feelings she had for me were those of an animal. Animals could not deliberately change what they did, as she was doing in learning to dress like an Englishwoman and to cook on a stove. Then Aemilia broke in passionately: ‘Darwin thinks that because we have evolved like animals we
are
animals. But show me the animal that has experienced repentance and remorse!'

After these words had been translated and clarified, we all fell silent. I thought of my own remorse at having made love to Lukswaas thinking she was Wiladzap's wife. Perhaps Aemilia was repenting having left Wiladzap for so long. Or Wiladzap repenting not having come to seek her earlier. I do not know what Lukswaas, the most innocent of us all, had to repent or feel remorseful about. But I found myself wondering if she felt remorseful at abandoning her own people, at not going further with them on their voyage.

Could it be that my dear old father had been right? Did all humans have a conscience after all? Then I thought of Beaumont, ‘that Devil George', and I could see no signs of conscience. I doubted if McCrory had had a conscience either. There was a paradox: Beaumont was in a way the most ‘tame' of the lot of us. And I suddenly realised that McCrory was tame too: his life was spent and his money earned in taming the wild, forbidden impulses of others. Suddenly I loved all four of us, sitting on the porch at Orchard Farm, for our innocent wildness – the wildness that had led Wiladzap to pursue Aemilia to the ends of his known earth, that was leading Aemilia to throw over the civilisation her family so fussily cultivated, that had led Luskwaas and me impulsively into each others' arms.

Does conscience go with wildness, not tameness?

*   *   *

Wiladzap was eager to leave, partly because of an innate restlessness, partly, Aemilia confided in me, because the band were fretting at having stayed so long in a place where they could no longer trade. Wiladzap's release had been accompanied by much less public attention than his arrest. The fact that McCrory had been slain by a Marine officer in a fit of ‘melancholia', a code-word for anything from dementia to alcoholic frenzy, was rather shameful. It was as if popular indignation was an end in itself: if it could not be provoked, as it so easily could against Indians because of an underlying terror, then the murder was less interesting.

The Tsimshian knew nothing about this, but they did feel they were still unwelcome. Wiladzap decided that rather than return home at once they would go South into Puget Sound, in Washington Territory, where years ago bands of Tsimshian had traded. Now the prosperous towns of Port Townsend and Tacoma might provide a chance for them to recoup their losses, sell their otter skins at a good price, and go home with a profit in hand. The band would come to Cormorant Point for a few days on their way back North. The parting now would not be so complete or so painful.

On the morning of the day the Tsimshian left, there were two simple ceremonies. First Pemberton, with Mrs Pemberton, came to the Farm and conducted a brief marriage of Wiladzap and Aemilia, to legitimize their union with their son William in English eyes. Then he married me and Lukswaas. This was clearly to the relief of Mrs Pemberton, who wept.

Then at Cormorant Point, now a bare clearing with a small fire burning in the centre, there was a brief ceremony in which the adoption of Aemilia as a Raven was confirmed, and in which Lukswaas, in a speech which seemed to me quite fiery, like that of an orator, gifted her names to Aemilia. Lukswaas was dressed like an Englishwoman, although she had followed Aemilia's example of wearing Tsimshian earrings and bracelets. She seemed almost delicate, she was so fine in feature and movement, but she had an authority as she spoke which I had never seen in a woman.

Aemilia had dressed as a Tsimshian, in a magnificent chilcat blanket Wiladzap had given her, its blue, black and silver designs so fresh that they shone, with bare legs and moccasins, and her hair in braids. With her pale skin she looked like a visiting Goddess.

Little William was dressed in a chilcat and leggings, made at the last minute by one of the women. He was clearly nervous, but made up for this by holding himself very erect, like his father. He had said goodbye to the Joneses at the farm, and shed a tear or two – but he would see them again, and his fear was obviously mixed with excitement and pride.

Wiladzap and I had exchanged gifts: an otter-fur coat and a first-class Bowie knife for me; a pistol and ammunition and a pair of riding boots for Wiladzap. Aemilia was taking various personal items, and Lukswaas was retaining some of hers.

The Pembertons had also come to the Cormorant Point ceremony. There were general farewells, accompanied by hand clasps and embraces. Aemilia had tears in her eyes, although perhaps of joy more than sadness. Wan cried deeply at leaving Lukswaas. I shook hands with Waaks and the gloomy Tsamti, and embraced Wiladzap like a brother. We looked long into each other's eyes and I saw such an unexpected sadness in Wiladzap's that I almost cried. Lukswaas showed no signs of grief, but she had become, after her speech, lustreless and stony-faced.

Lukswaas and I and the Pembertons stood on the bluff overlooking the beach, as the men, some totally naked, others wearing leggings, held the canoe, already heavily loaded with chests, baskets and other gear, parallel to the shore in the shallow water. The women and children and finally Aemilia and Wiladzap climbed in. Once in the canoe, Wiladzap stripped off his chilcat, and some of the women, who would also paddle, stripped to the waist. Many of them had used sticks from the last fire to smear black patches on their faces. The canoe itself had a weather-beaten mask painted on planks on both sides of its high prow. It was a barbarous sight – such as Captain Cook had seen over a hundred years before when the first white men had come to the Northwest.

The last three men pushed the bow outwards, entering the water up to their thighs, then climbed in over the gunwale and took their paddles. There were now ten paddles on each side. A man's voice rang out in a chant and the paddles swept down in unison. The canoe shot forward with amazing speed, and leaving a wake as straight as an arrow headed East to the other side of the long curve of Margaret Bay, eventually to turn South around Ten Mile Point and across the Straits of Juan de Fuca into Puget Sound.

It was not the way among the Tsimshian to wave or call goodbye. Lukswaas and I and the Pembertons stood silently until the canoe disappeared around a rocky point.

*   *   *

Aemilia had said Lukswaas and I could spend the next weeks at Orchard Farm, at the very least until she and Wiladzap returned on their way North. She had even suggested that if the Quattrinis did not wish to return to the farm, as seemed likely, I might wish to lease it, and work it with Lukswaas and the help of the Joneses if they wanted to stay on in their little house.

I felt happy to be alone with Lukswaas. We had come to the Tsimshian camp in the Pembertons' buggy, and now since the sun had become unpleasantly hot we were content to take our time walking back through the cool forest. I was teaching Lukswaas English, so our conversation consisted of such remarks as: ‘That is a cedar, a good tree for making planks for houses,' or ‘This path is stony'. And Lukswaas repeating them clearly. But we liked this. Lukswaas became more cheerful. We came out of the forest into the little fertile valley where I was beginning to feel at home, and walked down the road to the farmhouse. For now it was all ours. We made a simple meal, then watched the sunset from the back porch. It was unusually clear and pink, so that the distant blue hills turned an unreal green before darkness fell. The air was so clear that it became rapidly cold.

We decided to sleep inside. We had already re-arranged the rooms upstairs: we would use Aemilia's as our bedroom, but with the younger girls' double bed moved in. The room was under the eaves and had slanting ceilings. A double window faced out front over the roof of the porch. The wallpaper was old fashioned and striped. Lukswaas had liked this room best from the beginning. She was pleased to be going to sleep in it, and in a bed with fresh sheets and counterpane. We had already made sure that the straw mattress was suitably hard, for Lukswaas would have been unable to sleep if it had been soft.

We went to bed and lay side by side on our backs, with a candle burning on the bedside table, watching the flickering light on the ceiling. We had never so far lain down together and not made love. But Lukswaas seemed abstracted as never before and although she snuggled into me closely it was not an embrace. I was exhausted, emotionally as much as physically. Eventually the candle guttered and went out. Lukswaas was breathing quietly. I fell asleep.

I woke because Lukswaas had moved abruptly. She was sitting up in the bed beside me, completely still, as if listening for something. The room was very dark, and there was only a faint dark blue light through the white curtains, which were hanging motionless although the window was open. The air was cold. None of this was unusual except for something in the way Lukswaas was sitting. I had never seen her rigid like this.

‘Lukswaas,' I said quietly.

She said nothing, so I sat up beside her and put my arm around her naked body.

‘Cold,' I said.

Then she spoke to me in Chinook, saying she was afraid, she was certain that something terrible was happening. What was happening outside? She asked wildly.

I got out of bed, went over to the window and pulled the curtains aside to look out. There was no moon, but the night was extremely clear with thousands of stars, glittering and hard. There was not a breath of wind. I described this to Lukswaas and went back to bed.

She clung to me and we pulled down together under the bedclothes to get warm again. I held Lukswaas from behind – spooning as the girls at the Windsor Rooms had called it – and since I often embraced Lukswaas this way I would have been ready to do so now, but she remained still, although her skin became warmer, and unusually tense. She said again that something terrible was happening, and she began to cry. I held her gently and stroked her hair, but after a while could no longer do so, she was sobbing so violently, with loud cries as if her heart was breaking. Then she calmed down, I held her again, and although she still felt warm to the touch, she began to shiver, moaning that we would never see the others again. When I tried to reassure her she would not listen. I drifted off to sleep, then woke again. Lukswaas had stopped trembling and was lying still in my arms but I knew she was awake. Although I slept on and off, I knew she had not, and as the room began to lighten, the walls and furniture revealed in a dull grey light, she said to me once more that we would never see the others again.