The Orenda Joseph Boyden (30 page)

She stands from her crouch, her breasts bare in the hot sun. I avert my eyes. “I felt shame that night,” she says. “I shouldn’t feel shame in front of my family.”

I’m confused. “Shame?” I ask. “What makes you feel shame?”

She turns back to her work. The women around her act as if I’m not there at all. For long, uncomfortable minutes I stand useless, not knowing what else to do, but then a desperate idea comes to me. I think of the supplies meant to get us through next winter.

I straighten my back. “I will hold a great feast,” I announce to Delilah and her sisters. “A feast of many kettles.” These Huron can’t refuse such generosity, which they consider the greatest of traits. “This feast will spare nothing,” I declare. “All of my stores will be used.” With that I walk away, excited at the prospect of putting my life back into Your hands, but a little fearful of the reaction I know will come from Gabriel and Isaac when I share the news.

—

“WHAT WERE YOU
thinking?” Gabriel asks.

I’ve already prepared my answer. “You know, dear Brother Gabriel, they will never refuse a chance to gorge themselves. We’ll win back their hearts through their stomachs.”

We stand in front of the little tabernacle we painstakingly built by hand from small sheets of copper and scraps of wood. The cross atop it is stout and gilded.

“Well, that’s the most short-sighted thing I’ve ever heard you say,” he spits.

I’m tempted to remind him that I’m his superior, that his admonition’s unacceptable. Instead, I allow him to go on, to vent his frustration and tire himself.

“And what are we to do,” he continues, “when winter is upon us and we have no supplies?”

“We were promised,” I counter, “that Bird and his party will bring more when they return.”

“Ha! Just as we were the last three years running. It’s as if our
brothers
,” Gabriel says, baring his white teeth at the word, “have decided we no longer exist. But there’s no need to revisit that concern, is there?”

I reach a hand out to him. “Trust in Him, and He will give you all that you need and more. Don’t forget the most fundamental of our lessons, dear Brother.”

Gabriel shrugs in defeat. “You are the superior here,” he says. “I will find Père Isaac and help him with collecting the firewood.”

I follow him. “I will help you,” I say.

He walks quickly as if to lose me, but my stride is far longer. Gabriel, though not tall, is lean and hungry, and his fire is something to behold. In our haste we’ve left our hats behind, and the sun beats down on our heads. The rain has disappeared the last days, and I await the tension another week of its absence will bring.

Once we are beyond the stockades, the same feeling of vulnerability, the same feeling that someone or something watches from the shadows of the trees, is almost unbearable until I am forced to swallow
it down. We head toward our designated wood-gathering lot. The Huron, I’ve noted, though so generous in every other respect, protect their woodlots. Sweating even in the shade of the forest, I understand why. The work of supplying fuel for cooking and for heat throughout the year is of such magnitude that it would make the sturdiest French peasant blanch.

Isaac doesn’t hear us coming, and he cries out when Gabriel touches his shoulder. “Please, Brother, warn me of your approach,” he says to Gabriel, trying to catch his breath. I’ve considered sending Isaac back to New France, fearing for his mental and physical health. Even now I see that his last hours’ toil, trying to collect dry brush and branches and snapping and gathering them into bundles with his mangled hands, is pathetic. But I know if I were to ask if he’d like to go home he’d refuse. After the Iroquois captured and tortured him, after they told him to never return to this country again, God whispered loudly enough into his ear. You’ve come back to this land of your own volition, sweet Isaac, and it’s here where you’ll fish for souls the rest of your days.

“We are to offer a feast, Isaac,” Gabriel says glumly, “so don’t stop collecting the firewood. We’ll need much of it, probably more than we’d burn on the coldest winter week.”

Gabriel glances at me, but I smile at how Isaac’s face lights up. “A feast!” he says. “Yes, this is just what we should do for the dear people.” He claps the nubs of his hands together. “What shall we prepare?”

“Everything,” Gabriel mutters.

I cut in. “It’s time to play to their, how shall I put it, their weaknesses,” I say. “Their willingness to squander all they have just to impress the others is something we can exploit.” I choose my words carefully. “Yes, their spirit of generosity parallels Christ’s. We’ve all witnessed that. But we must question for what reason, to what end, they hope their generosity might benefit themselves.”

I glance at Gabriel, whose sour demeanour softens as what I say begins to sink in.

Isaac simply appears confused. “Look,” he says, still excited. “I’ve found a wonderful ingredient for the feast.” He bends to pick up his wide hat, filled to the brim with mushrooms that he must have been picking all day. “I’ve not had these since we left beloved France,” he says. “Won’t they make a wonderful addition?”

Of course,” I say, distracted. “You’ve done very well, Brother Isaac.” I turn back to Gabriel. “We haven’t left our homes, our families, the simple comforts of our former lives that now seem kingly in order to enjoy the scorn and torture and yes, the misguided generosity, of these sauvages. We’ve travelled so far at great peril to our physical and spiritual selves to bring these lambs into the fold.” I stop then, searching for more. But I think it might be enough. We will hold a feast, and the people will come, and we will begin once more to guide them toward their salvation.

—

RUMOUR HAS IT
that the juggler Gosling will attend, and this is fine. I’ve got a few of my own tricks planned, if need be, to counter her tonight if she decides to show off. As I look around our residence, I too late realize it might not be big enough. Already, long before the sun has set, dozens of Huron have arrived in full regalia, their faces painted in red and blue and yellow ochre, the men’s hair fierce and shining with oil, the women’s long and plaited, all of them wearing their finest deer skins decorated with beadwork. There’s no denying, Lord, that they’re a beautiful people, the most beautiful people I’ve ever laid eyes on. The men alone would put our greatest athletes to shame, and the women are as supple and ample and alluring as any of the European royalty. If only they understood and repudiated the darkness of their ways. But this is my mission, isn’t it, to turn them toward the light?

As promised, we have opened our stores completely, and I’ve given direction that nothing is to be saved. Isaac has taken it upon himself to bake loaves of bread in our small stone oven and already has a group of
fascinated wretches standing around him, watching intently. Children and dogs run around without care, rolling in the dirt with one another. If there is one thing I will never grow accustomed to, it’s the sauvages’ inability to chastise their children. In all my years here I’ve never seen an adult even raise a hand in anger toward a child. Indeed, this should be one of the first behaviours we must try to modify. This will not happen, dear Lord, until converts are won, yes? Tell me, give me a sign, that one day this will be the case.

Rather than turn glum at my own party, I walk over to the women who help us prepare the feast. There’s no chance that Gabriel and Isaac and I could have done this on our own. The house is nearly too unbearably hot with the fires they’ve started, and the smoke is atrocious, but at least it keeps the mosquitoes away. And even I must admit that the smells emanating from the kettles are quite glorious. As I look into one that Delilah stirs, I can’t begin to guess what might be in the dark roux of it. I’ve become used to their way of apparently not caring what meats they mix in their pots, and have eaten soups that contain bear and beaver, fish and fowl. Beyond that corn paste, ottet, which tastes like glue and is their staple on long trips, I’ve been strongly impressed by their kettle feasts. One thing I can promise You, dear Lord, is that by the end of the night, every kettle will be scraped bare, leaving little for even the dogs that will inevitably lick the pots clean.

I’d like to ask Delilah about the feeling of shame she’d admitted to a few days ago, but she’s bent to her work and doesn’t look up.

Isaac approaches, carrying a birchbark pail filled with the mushrooms he picked. “Here, Delilah,” he says, offering it to her. “For your kettle.”

Delilah turns to him, a smile lighting her face. His simplicity never fails to win these people over. She takes the pail and glances inside. “Either you joke with me,” she says, “or you’re ignorant of these.”

Isaac looks as confused as I must. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks.

“These fungi will kill a person within a short while of eating them,” she says. “Where did you find them?”

“Growing in our woodlot,” he says.

“I wonder if that is simply chance,” Delilah says, handing the bucket back to him. “You will show me where tomorrow. But for now, get rid of these. Don’t be lazy and burn them in the longhouse fire, either,” she adds. “The fumes will make you vomit for days. Build a fire outside of the gates and away from us. Burn them there, but be careful not to inhale the smoke.”

Isaac stares down at the mushrooms, and then up to Delilah, a strange look on his face, as if he understands something I don’t. “I won’t be long,” he tells her. “I’ll be careful but quick. I don’t want to miss the feast.”

Delilah turns her attention back to her kettle, obviously not wanting to speak anymore. I’ll leave her alone for now and try to lead her back to the fold later tonight with generous action rather than words. Maybe this could be a pathway into their hearts.

Hearing a commotion by the door, I look and see the three reprehensible boys who’ve so thoroughly terrorized me this summer walk in, looking fearsome in their dress and manner and paint. A few older women call out to them as if in a swoon, and the younger girls, including my near apostle, Snow Falls, do the same, but genuinely. Something must be done. The overt sexuality of these people is beyond embarrassing. It’s grotesque. I have the urge to tell them to leave but am reluctant to cause a scene. Besides, this feast is for one and all and I can’t be selective about which souls enter through the door.

The feast begins as they always do, with long speeches and a raining down of compliments and thanks upon the hosts’ heads. I sit with Gabriel and Isaac near the centre fire, listening intently. Gabriel’s getting better with the Huron language, and Isaac mastered it long ago. Tonight, I feel little need to translate. The speechmakers, the most important men who aren’t on the trading expedition, compare us to osprey and our hospitality to the great inland sea. Wonderful orators, they recall even
the tiniest facts about us Jesuits and our history with them. By the time they’ve finished, my years amongst the Huron have been celebrated and explained down to the most mundane detail. As always, I’m amazed, even more so by the complete lack of anger or alienation toward us tonight. Maybe I have finally found a pathway to them.

When I stand to speak in return, I see that Gosling has once again slipped in without my noticing. She sits near the three troublemakers, and it makes me wonder if she isn’t the agent behind their devilry. Her presence takes the wind out of my magnanimity, and I find myself searching for words. It’s obvious that my attempts to strike fear into them aren’t working. Maybe it’s time to take another tack. I jump in, not sure where I’ll go.

“I thank you for coming to us tonight,” I begin. “I have opened up our cache of food in the hope you will understand I wish to share with you. I’m not here to take.” I pause to try and find a stronger direction.

“We came here not to take from you but to give to you. It’s your choice whether or not to accept what we freely give. I will not go on long tonight because we are all hungry. My stores are now gone, but that they are used to nourish you makes me happy.”

I sit down, then, ashamed at my inability to take this opportunity to preach and to convert. But then, hearing their appreciation, their grunting what sounds like “Ho, ho,” I raise my head. The people stare at me as one, and only then do I realize that, maybe, this is working.

Neither Isaac nor Gabriel nor I am used to eating more than just enough to keep us from starving, but tonight we are like our sauvages, and having waited until everyone else has been fed, we gorge ourselves, partaking until our stomachs feel as if they’ll burst. All around us are in a joyful mood, and there’s none of the antagonism I’ve carried like a heavy burden for so long with just brief respite. On an evening such as this with all of us like one great family, with even Gosling smiling and laughing with the rest, I can truly see, Lord, a future for these ones that isn’t damnation.

We hosts are urged to stand once more after we’ve eaten and rested and eaten again. The guests call on us to speak, to tell them something interesting or to teach them something from where we come from. One of the three awful boys shouts out to Isaac to tell him what it was like to be tortured by the Iroquois. I fear this will send him into another fit, but it does quite the opposite. For the first time since meeting him in New France, I see him straighten his back and become solid again.

He lifts his arms in the air. “See these?” he asks, nodding at his stumps. “This happened to me when I went on my journey to meet the Neutrals not long after I came here to you.” The crowd hushes, ready for the story. “I was new to your country, and I believed in the salvation of Christ.”

I am about to stop him from doing irreparable harm to our mission, but he continues before I’m able.

“And I still do,” he says, “even though your enemy captured me and the party that accompanied me. They killed most of us with arrows and clubs near a waterfall where we couldn’t hear them approach.” His audience listens, intent. “They killed everyone but me and a young girl you’d sent with us whose family had married into the Neutral.”