The Search for Joyful (2 page)

Connie had her own fantasy life. Very early, about age six, she planned her wedding, “down to the last detail.” A gown of billowing satin, a veil, orange blossoms—she pictured it all against a background of wedding guests. The fact that the nuptials were years in the future, and that no groom loomed on the horizon, bothered her not at all. He would appear, along with a tiered wedding cake, when it was time.

Stories. I loved stories. And stories became my passport.

I sat on a bench in the playground and began my inventions. My audience was a boy with a sprained ankle, who couldn't participate in football practice. The first tale owed a large debt to Jack London's
White Fang.
As I got into it, more and more children came to hear. My great triumph was when Elk Girl joined the group to listen to the saga of Gray Wolf.

Gray Wolf went from adventure to adventure. White Wolf was his mate and everyone knows wolves mate for life. The story continued for months, and then something impelled me to bring disaster on poor Gray Wolf. In fighting free of a trapper's snare he was shot and blinded.

I drew a deep breath wondering how he could survive in the wild. But only for a moment. It was clear to me that White Wolf came to his aid, inviting Gray Wolf to lay his muzzle against her flank and gallop through the forest with her. From then on he ran at her side. She was his eyes.

Elk Girl came up to me later in the week and put a bushy animal tail in my lap. “The spirit of the wolf liked your story. He will be your guardian.”

I took the wolf tail home and examined it further. It was gray with a ring of white and one of a darker fur, a symbol of good luck, which through mysterious Indian magic would keep evil at bay.

 
PACKING FOR MONTREAL, I had put in my old talisman at the last moment. I was glad I had. As the silver and blue Canadian Pacific rushed on, I wondered if I would be the only First Nation person to enroll at Charity Hospital. The only First Nation person to answer the call for army nurses.

The only First Nation person.

I had faced that situation when Connie and Georges began dating. They always double-dated. Even for twins they were close. I watched them whisper together, finish each other's sentences, and laugh at private jokes. They invented a secret cryptographic code—the Twins' Code—that Georges boasted no one could break. Another signal between them was the word
tomahawk.
Whenever either mentioned the word, it meant, “This is boring. Let's get out of here.” The problem was working a word like
tomahawk
into ordinary conversation.

I took it all in. I watched as they were caught up in a social life, and realized this would not happen for me. I was already in high school and no white boy asked me out. Although Randy Harrison tried to kiss me when he caught me alone behind the gym.

I took to staring into my looking glass and brooding. Was I pretty, I wondered, studying my prominent cheekbones. My eyes were large and set well apart. My lashes, long and straight. My teeth white and straight, and my mouth full, even when I laughed. My nose? What can be said about noses? Mine wasn't big, it wasn't small. It was just a nose. Did these features add up to a pretty face? I decided to ask Mama Kathy.

“Mama,” I said that evening as I took down the dishtowel, “do you think I'm at all pretty?”

“Pretty?” She seemed startled. But I could see she was considering the question. “You've always been a sturdy girl. And thank goodness your health is excellent.”

“Yes, yes, but am I pretty?”

“There's a look of Oh-Be-Joyful about you, but I see your father too. You have his strength.”

I smiled. It was hopeless.

When Connie came in, I told her I wanted a sister walk. Connie, because she was older, saw how hard it was for me to get things out, so years ago she had instituted sister walks. A sister walk is of course only for sisters. No one else can come along, because that's when you tell whatever is on your mind.

“Connie,” I said when we were halfway to the pond where a colony of ducks and a pair of white egrets had made their home, “I want to know, it's important to me: Do you think I'm pretty?”

“Of course you're pretty.”

That was a big-sister reply and it didn't satisfy me. “What do the girls at school say about me?”

“They think you're exotic.”

“Exotic? That isn't pretty.”

“You have a Metis French grandfather, and that strain shows. I'd guess you were Indian, but I wouldn't be sure. Let's ask Georges.”

“No,” I said, suddenly shy, “forget it.”

I got an after-school job at the drugstore. I was stationed behind the soda fountain, where I mixed frothy sarsaparillas and chocolate shakes.

I was mixing and scooping and waiting tables while China was wracked by civil war. I barely recognized the names Mao and Chiang Kai-shek. When the Japanese set up a puppet government in Manchukuo, I was serving Coca-Colas and rainbow ice cream cones.

Two women sat down at the soda fountain and fanned themselves. Saying “I really shouldn't,” they ordered double malts. A little kid, scarcely as high as the counter, undid a dime tied into a corner of his handkerchief. A couple of girls from my own grade, in circular swing skirts wearing lipstick, came in. I hardly recognized them out of our school uniform. How hard we tried to pin our middy blouses in a sexy way, emphasizing slim waists and hinting at something on top as well. When the Sisters spotted the new fashion, it was immediately abolished.

Now my classmates were young ladies, meeting boys here. Was I also a young lady?

Elk Girl came in. She had dropped out of school. I hadn't seen her in almost a year. She put money on the counter before uttering a word.

“I'll have a banana split with everything on it,” she said as though we had parted that morning.

“How've you been, Elk Girl?” I asked as I sliced a banana, added three scoops of different ice creams and three sauces, sprinkled on nuts, and finished with a dollop of whipped cream and a maraschino cherry.

She followed these preparations with an eagle eye, then put her question to me. “Have you ever eaten one?”

“No,” I admitted.

“That's what I thought. You fix 'em, but you don't eat 'em.”

I felt uncomfortable. How did she know that, since the Depression, banana splits were considered too expensive around our house?

With great deliberation Elk Girl took out a pack of Old Golds and offered me one.

“No, I don't smoke.” I was horrified that she did.

She contemplated me with the look that had disconcerted me since I was seven. “You should smoke, you know. Smoke is holy. Bet you didn't know that.”

“Who says it's holy?”

“The Creator.” She laughed at my expression. “Can't go higher than that.” With concentration she blew a smoke ring in my direction.

I brushed it away.

“Won't your white mama let you smoke?”

I pretended to be busy counting out paper napkins and filling containers.

“Oh-Be-Joyful understood smoke.”

This pronouncement shook me. What did she know about my mother?

“I live with a power woman. Sarah is very very old. She is a wind shifter and she knew Mamanowatum.”

“Who's that?”

“Your mother, Oh-Be-Joyful. Mamanowatum is the way it's said in Cree. Sarah, the woman I live with, knew her, she knew Jonathan, she knew about you being born . . . and she knew what would happen.”

“How? By divination? By magic?”

Elk Girl said complacently, “She looks into smoke and it shows her things.”

“What things?” I couldn't help asking.

“Herself.”

I frowned over the answer.

“You have to know yourself first, before you can know anything else; that just stands to reason. By the way, how do you get on with your pawakam?”

“My what?”

“Your wolf tail.”

“I still have it, if that's what you mean.”

She seemed pleased with this answer. “You make a good split.” She carried her sundae to one of the tables and proceeded to eat with obvious relish, making sure to get every bit.

“There ought to be a law,” one of the girls from school whispered in a voice meant to carry, “no ice cream for You-know-who above the fiftieth parallel.”

This raised a laugh from her friends, but Elk Girl did not choose to hear. She had not come for ice cream. I knew enough about magic from my brother to know that. Georges was fascinated by things that appeared to be one thing and were in fact quite different. “The science of misdirection,” he called it. Elk Girl had come because of the pawakam.

ELK GIRL WAS my only link with my Indian self. My only link to Oh-Be-Joyful's Daughter. She seemed to know a lot about me. I knew nothing about her, not even where she lived, except it was with a wind shifter called Sarah. Elk Girl had always been aloof, distant, and unknowable, like my Indian heritage. I decided to make her a friendship bracelet. I'd made one for Connie's birthday. It involved a lot of rummaging—tiny glass beads, seed pearls from a pair of outworn gloves, covered buttons from a torn jacket, segments of a broken watch band, strung together. I was still thinking about the possibilities of a second bracelet as I walked home from school. I wondered if I could find enough items.

Because I lived farther out than most of the kids I generally walked home alone. I turned at the sound of my name.

“Kathy!” It was Phil Dunway on his bike. Phil Dunway was the boy at school that I liked. I'd liked him since fifth grade when he stood up for me on the playground. He was a senior now, and after graduation I wouldn't see him again.

Phil caught up to me, got off and walked his bicycle. “Kathy,” he said again, “I'm going your way.”

I was surprised at his friendliness. At school we didn't speak. “Fine,” I said. Neither of us could think of anything further to say, then we spoke at once. I laughed and took a breath. “Are you visiting someone?” I asked, because he'd never taken this route before.

“No.” There was a short pause. “I just thought maybe you wouldn't mind.”

Was he saying that he took this path deliberately to walk me home? My heart raced with excitement. He liked me. Phil Dunway, the cutest boy in school, liked me.

The pause between us lengthened, and I searched for something interesting to say, but could only come up with, “Lucky you, you'll be graduating in a couple of months.”

“Yeah.” He smiled but had nothing to add.

“So, do you have something lined up? A summer job?”

“My dad wants me to go into the contracting business with him, but things are pretty slow just now.”

“You ought to think about being a Mountie. If I was a man that's what I'd be.”

“I'm glad you're not.”

“What? A Mountie?”

“A man.” And he took one hand from the handle of his bike and laid it over mine. The wheel immediately turned, bringing us to an abrupt halt. “Can we maybe sit down somewhere and talk? If you don't have to get home, that is.”

“No, I don't have to be home.”

There was shade not far off, and we sat with our backs against the large oak. Phil took my hand again. “This is better,” he said.

I let my hand stay in his.

“I never see you with any of the fellows at school.” He threw this out tentatively.

“No. I'm not going with any of them.”

“That's what I was hoping because . . .” He leaned over and kissed me. He did it very deliberately as though he had been nerving himself to it. Then he did it once more and this time I cooperated.

It felt heady. His touch awakened me to new knowledge of myself. In Phil Dunway's arms I sensed what it was to be a woman. His fingers lightly followed the outline of my cheek, my throat, and, dropping lower, my breasts.

I drew back frightened that I had allowed so much, afraid I would allow more. “I have to go.”

“Can I see you again tomorrow?” he asked, getting to his feet. “Right here? Can this be our place?”

I hesitated. I wanted to, but . . .

“I'll be here,” he said persuasively, “right after school. Will you?”

Words choked in my throat, but I nodded.

I thought of Phil all night, analyzed every intonation, action, and gesture. In English class I went over it all again. In mathematics I got totally lost, thinking not of square roots but of the soft, waving texture of his hair, remembering my fingers in it.

While I was still debating whether or not to meet him, I found myself there. Phil was leaning against the old oak and at sight of me his face lighted and he came forward. Without a word we put our arms about each other. This time there was no fumbling, his mouth was deliciously open and his hands sure. He continued where he had left off. He slid his hands under my shirt. I rallied from dreamy acquiescence determined to say no.

He didn't ask, just opened my shirt and stared. “I never saw a girl before,” he said.

I got to my feet, pulling my shirt around me. “You shouldn't have done that, Phil.”

“I'm not sorry, Kathy. I should be. And I apologize. Don't go away sore.” He caught up to me. “How'd you like to go to the senior prom?”

That stopped me. I'd never been to a school dance or any other kind. No one had ever asked me. The senior prom. I'd fantasized about it forever, Cinderella at the ball.

“Well?” Phil asked. “What do you say?”

I forgot I hadn't answered him. I nodded before I could get the yes out.

“Can I have another look, then?”