The Search for Joyful (20 page)

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning.”

“So this is married life?”

“Don't forget. There's a war to get through first.”

He dismissed the war with an impatient shrug.

Our stop seemed to me the middle of nowhere. We freshened up in a filling station and for breakfast had Cheez-its and candy bars.

It was his country we were in, and he pointed out rivers and streams, crest lines and valleys. “I've hunted partridge through this area from the time I was thirteen, and I recognize it just as you would recognize furniture from your house. . . . An old bureau with a chip in the third drawer, that would be where the old elm has fallen. Or a scuffed leather armchair, that's the hill to your right, where there's evidence of landslide.”

“Would you want to live near here, once we've set up housekeeping?”

He seemed surprised at the suggestion. “I'm at home anywhere. It all belongs to me, remember?—and to you,” he added generously.

Grabbing my hand, he twirled me round and round until we couldn't stand any longer but fell into the grass. We didn't try to disentangle ourselves, but lay with the sound of a cricket in our heads and the sun on our bodies.

I loved his body. It was athletic, supple. He lay against me, relaxed, content it seemed with the tip of my ear. But a second later that wasn't enough for him, he made demands that swept us into other patterns. We met on the other side of our bodies.

Crazy Dancer laid the flat of his hands against my shoulders to push himself away. “We must save this magic for our wedding.”

“Just remember that,” I said.

We proceeded to the village, a poverty-stricken place with rows of subsidized houses, all small, ugly, and the same. I stole a look at Crazy Dancer. Standing at the edge of these hovels he hugged himself. The proprietary smile on his face told me he was the richest man I knew.

Children appeared from nowhere. We were surrounded by them, noisy, laughing, shrieking kids who shouted his name and pulled on him to get his attention.

“Johnny,” he said, recognizing one and hoisting him to his shoulders. And then, “Charlie, you've grown a foot.” Charlie was caught up in his arms. A third hooted with pleasure and tugged at his pant leg. Crazy Dancer was considerably slowed in his approach and went forward like a walking bush of birds.

The houses came awake, heads appeared at windows, doors opened. An Indian woman came up to me, and her smile reminded me of someone. Of course—Crazy Dancer.

“The prodigal son has returned,” she said in fluent English with a trace of French accent. “And brought me his bride.”

He was repeating my name to his mother and to neighbors who gathered around. “Oh-Be-Joyful's Daughter.” He said it with pride.

For the first time in my life I had the feeling of wholehearted acceptance, as though I too had come home. I realized of course that the special fondness with which Crazy Dancer was regarded had been extended to me. His choice, his woman, would have been loved no matter who she was.

His mother, Anne Morning Light, like mothers everywhere, insisted that we eat. There were several hasty conferences at the door, and small packages of food passed in. With so many contributions we did not simply eat, we feasted. Morning Light watched with obvious pleasure as we devoured cakes of maize with maple syrup, sausages, and potatoes. Quietly, people slipped into the room and took places where they too could enjoy our enjoyment.

As we ate, Crazy Dancer extolled my many accomplishments to his mother. And what did he mention? Not that I was a fully qualified nurse. Not that I would receive a second lieutenant's commission in the Canadian army. Not that I stood at the top of my class. The thing he was proudest of was the skill he had taught me. “Oh-Be-Joyful's Daughter is a whiz with cars. She knows engines like the back of her hand.” And on and on, reflecting the times I'd given the right snap to the wrench in changing a tire while he sat on the curb giving directions, or jimmying the door with a coat hanger while he laughingly dangled the keys out of reach.

I don't think Morning Light knew exactly what to make of this unexpected talent. She smiled and began telling us of the wedding ceremony that would be carried out this very day. There were to be readings from the Gaiwiio, the “good words,” followed by draughts of strawberry juice, for it was in the month when strawberries ripen that Handsome Lake was sent his visions.

Morning Light must have given some signal, for the people there sprang into action. We were taken, I by the women, he by the men, to be bathed and purified for the marriage. The ritual was explained to me. It was to be according to the longhouse religion, and again I heard the name Handsome Lake. And coupled with it, Jonathan Forquet.

“My father,” I said.

“And her namer,” Crazy Dancer added.

This produced an astounding reaction—utter silence.

Then, here and there, someone reached out a timid hand to touch some part of my clothing. I felt my own skin prick with awe. Was I really the daughter of such a venerated figure?

“In this day,” Morning Light told me, “Jonathan Forquet is our prophet. The Great Spirit has entered him. He is a holder of Gaiwiio. His mission is to keep the Six Nations People together, to interpret the calendar in the old way of Handsome Lake. He relates the myths and teachings of those times to the present, to show us how to live in a white world. We are dreamers and shamans, and we must understand this. While we fight for autonomy, for reparations, for simple recognition, we must never lose our spiritual selves.”

“I know,” I muttered, “he tells you to be joyful!”

The small brook wound not too distant from the village. There my clothes were removed, and I knelt with Anne Morning Light and several girls in the water, which they splashed over me, laughing.

I splashed back.

“But we're not getting married,” they protested.

“Then you should,” and I splashed again.

In this way I was prepared for the blanket ceremony. I thought of Connie and the armful of white roses she carried and the orange blossoms for her hair. “Something old”: the dangling earrings from off my ears. “Something new”: a lovely brooch Mama bought for her. “Something borrowed”: a garter one of the girls at the factory contributed. “Something blue”: the ribbons trailing from her bouquet.

My bridal gown was also white, the softest white deerskin imaginable.

The slow padded sound of drums shook from my head the strains of Mendelssohn's wedding march. I was led deep into the woods to a natural glen where people were assembled.

I had no one to give me away. But an Indian woman gives herself away.

The drumbeats increased. I saw the ceremony was to be danced inside a large wheel that Anne Morning Light had drawn in the dust. I stepped inside the circle. Crazy Dancer threw a feathered prayer stick that struck quivering in the ground. With a cry he leaped after it, landing beside me. There were bells on his ankles. Stars had been drawn in the dust, and the sun and the moon and many animals. Our feet danced them away. Making an act of power and an act of beauty, a blanket was laid over our shoulders. We surrendered our shadows to each other. He held mine, I held his.

Crazy Dancer carried me to a hut that had been erected close by in the glade. It was freshly built of sweet willow boughs. The floor was draped with skins, and, tossed against them, my old wolf tail.

The flap was lowered, the world left outside.

Crazy Dancer took off my white deerskin dress and held me naked on his lap. “There are parts of your body that I love more than I should.”

“Which parts?” I whispered back.

“Here”—he opened my arm—“the soft part opposite the elbow. And here”—with a finger he closed my eyes so he could put a kiss there too. “And your woman parts, which are so mysterious to me.” He explored them, telling me as he did so the difference between white and Indian lovemaking. “I've heard white guys say there are forty positions for sex. They're wrong, it's one beautiful dance, and the lovers flow from one to the next, and on and on, like this and like this . . . ,” and I thought I would swoon from the exquisite torture-pleasure that we knew, and relinquished to know again.

Church, flowers, orange blossoms, and an organ . . . they were for Connie, not for me. I had stepped inside the wheel of life.

Food and sweets and drink were brought to our door, and left outside for us.

Afterward, Crazy Dancer told me our honeymoon lasted three days and three nights. For me it was something outside time. When it was over and we were once again back in the world, I still moved like a dreamer.

Morning Light handed me a small bucket, and I went with her to cull wild rice that, she explained, grew in the shallows of lakes and ponds. “It is called spirit rice. No one plants it. It just grows.”

It was early fall but the weather was summery, and there were marsh marigolds, lupins, and I spotted pasqueflowers, all growing in profusion.

Tucking up our skirts, we waded along the edge of a small estuary. The water was still, almost mirrorlike except where we broke the surface into ripples. Anne Morning Light shook her head over Crazy Dancer's participation in the white man's war. “It comes of sending him to school. I wanted to teach him myself, reading, writing, some mathematics, and lots of history. But he wanted school, so I warned him, if they find out you're literate you'll wind up in the army someday. And that's what happened.”

“I wouldn't worry about him. Crazy Dancer does what he wants to do.”

“I sometimes think the Mohawk man is born with an extra gene for fighting. They want to get in on the fighting, no matter who's fighting or on which side. Why should we fight the Germans? They never oppressed us. The British did. The French did. And especially good old Uncle Sam. But Crazy Dancer laughs at all that. He thinks he can leapfrog over problems, put together the white man's machinery, and then they'll have to deal with him, man to man. I tell you it's a dream. It won't happen.”

“I don't know, Anne. Things change. Maybe Crazy Dancer can help them change.” And I remembered the afternoon Mandy and I had spent in the library. As I felt in the water for the clumps of rice, ripped them up, and began to fill my pail, I recalled my own indignation. I saw that Anne Morning Light's sympathies lay with those who advocated independence from the British empire for Canada, and self-rule for the Mohawk/ Iroquois nations. I wondered to what extent one chooses one's wars. Or did the wars choose you?

I don't think we had worked an hour when I noticed a canoe with an outboard motor headed straight for us. It was hardly recognizable as a canoe, its prow standing almost vertical in the water. Of course. Crazy Dancer! He came in where we were, jumped out, grabbed me, and plunked me down on the floor of the canoe.

“We haven't finished,” his mother shouted.

He laughed, pulled the cord, and we started up. I leaned out, laughing too, and waved goodbye to Morning Light.

“Was I right? Did my mother treat you to the local political scene? She's such a gentle, quiet person, you wouldn't believe how she challenges rules and anything she thinks racist and oppressive.”

“Good for her.”

“I don't know. I've had to get her out of jail twice. Once for blocking a doorway, and once for disrupting an official meeting.”

“She's fighting for the rights of her people. I admire that.”

“I don't know what happened to the way women used to be.”

It was a mock complaint, to which I replied, “It's the war.”

 
THE VILLAGE SEEMED to have changed, and in some subtle way even the noise of the children was ratcheted down. The effect was almost that of watching a shadow play. A play of the death of an old chief.

It was Crazy Dancer's mother's uncle. On the way to his cabin Crazy Dancer told me, “Sacred Arrow sent a dream. He wants me to show him the other side, put him on the path to the Grandfathers.”

I walked beside my husband, proud that I was to share in sacred ways.

We joined a dozen or more people crowded into the small house. The old man's bed had been moved into the living room to accomodate these well-wishers.

I thought he looked reasonably well for someone on his deathbed, but Anne, who had caught up with us, whispered, “His generation still believe they can choose their time of death. It's one of the few freedoms they still have.”

Sacred Arrow was glad to see Crazy Dancer and, shoving away several small children who tumbled about him, clasped him against his chest in a strong embrace. “I will tell you more about the dream I sent you,” he confided. “Three angels came to me. They carried bows and arrows in one hand and in the other huckleberry bushes, and their faces were painted red.”

I would never have recognized from this description that these beings were angels. Which led me to speculate that an angel must appear to the dreamer in a form the dreamer would recognize.

“These three angels told me,” the dying man went on matter-of-factly, “that this is a good time to make the sky journey. They told me to dream this news for you.” He patted Crazy Dancer's hand. “Thank you for coming. I am in luck to have you here.”

“Make the trip in these.” Impulsively, Crazy Dancer stripped his moccasins from his feet and fitted them onto Sacred Arrow's.

This signaled a new phase and the shaman took his place beside the old chief and began extolling his life, recalling the fine deeds he had done and bringing to the attention of the Creator his many acts of kindness and bravery. This commentary was intoned to the accompaniment of drums.