The Spirit Keeper (7 page)

Taken aback by her complete mangling of the meaning of my words, I could only stare, open-mouthed, whilst she translated for the other women.

After a time, one of the women asked Tomi something, which she translated as an inquiry as to whether or not I was a dreamer like Syawa. From the way they all smiled, I assumed they were laughing at my companion’s idiosyncrasy, mocking him for being an idler the way my mother did, and I was determined to defend him against such malicious gossip. “Well, yes,” I said defiantly, speaking slowly so as not to be misunderstood this time. “I’ve always been one to dream a day away, if at all possible.” If the women were going to mock my friend, I reckoned they might as well make fun of me, too.

But instead of jeering as I expected, the women seemed almost frightened, as if I’d just told them I’d been known, on occasion, to leap into the air and fly. At last Tomi worked up enough courage to make sure she understood me. “So you, too, are a seer?” she whispered, her head bowed respectfully.

I did not at first appreciate the extent of the misunderstanding, but o’er the course of a lengthy conversation, I finally realized Syawa’s gestures to me had not indicated he was a “dreamer” in the sense of “idler,” but that he was, in fact “one who sees things others do not,” a visionary, or what Christians might call a Prophet. My assumptions up to this point had been entirely wrong. Far from seeing Syawa as a grinning fool, the ladies of this tribe were clearly in awe of him, viewing him the way my people might view an inspired minister of God. By suggesting I was just like him, I had not been defending his reputation at all, but inadvertently elevating my own.

I was shocked, confused, embarrassed. All this time I had regarded my companion as peculiar, a little “off,” and in many ways inferior to the average man. I felt I was doing him a favor by extending my friendship, believing that, because he was so strange, he had been forced to wander hundreds of miles to find a woman whose standards were low enough to accept him. But in that dark women’s lodge, I learnt Syawa was actually held in the highest esteem by his countrymen and that, because of his supernatural powers, he was revered by everyone he met. I also learnt that as the subject of his Vision, I inspired not only awe, but also a good deal of fear.

By nightfall I was exhausted, but sleep was long in coming. I lay there thinking about how my family had scorned me for tossing my life away on a worthless runt, whilst the Indians all thought there must be something terribly special about me to cause someone of Syawa’s high status to undertake such a treacherous Journey on my behalf. The problem was,
everyone
was wrong. Syawa was not a worthless runt, but neither was there anything so special about me. More disturbing for me, however, was the realization of how very wrong I, myself, had been. I had totally misjudged Syawa and, based on that erroneous judgment, I had gone on to make a decision that completely altered the course of my life.

This realization begged the question: what else was I wrong about?

One additional issue of grave concern reared its ugly head in my thoughts. Whilst I had, apparently, been totally wrong about Syawa, he had also been very, very,
very
wrong about me. He did not know it yet, but he had made a horrible mistake. I was no mystical creature, no Vision, no one e’en remotely worthy of a Sacred Journey. I was nothing, no one, and sooner or later Syawa was bound to discover how dead wrong he had been.

Then what would happen to me?

~7~

I
SPENT MY TIME
in the women’s lodge as productively as possible, asking my translator all the questions I wisht I could ask Syawa. Unfortunately, Tomi knew naught of Syawa’s people, except that they lived far away and that the journey before me would be far more rigorous than the journey thus far had been. Indeed, Tomi expressed extreme admiration for my courage in being willing to undertake such an adventure, citing this as further proof of the “special powers” that drew Syawa to me.

I tried to explain that if I was undaunted by the challenges before me, it was only because I did not know what they were, and thus the quality she so admired was not courage but ignorance. She did not understand. Nor did she understand that the main reason I was not intimidated by the journey to come was that the journey I had accomplisht thus far was so much more than she could imagine. She knew of English settlements, of course, but when I tried to tell her about Philadelphia and Boston and the vastness of the Atlantic and my ancestral home in Ireland, she could comprehend naught of what I meant.

’Twas so frustrating! Here I finally had the words to talk to someone, and the words absolutely failed me. Everything I told her to try to explain why there was nothing particularly special about me served only to strengthen her conviction that there was, in fact, something terribly special about me.

The one thing I did make Tomi understand, however, was that I needed help communicating. Tho’ she knew nothing of the language Syawa and Hector spoke, she was well-versed in their language of gestures, so after telling her I must learn as much of that language as I could in our time together, she signaled with her hands everything she said. In this way, o’er the course of several days, I was able to pick up a basic vocabulary of gestures.

Just before leaving the women’s lodge, I asked her privately to show me the gestures which meant “marriage,” “husband,” and “wife.” These were the words I would need in order to make my relationship with Syawa clear. As long as I was at it, I asked her to show me the gestures for “I love you.” With a warm smile, she showed me everything I needed to know.

By the time I emerged from the women’s lodge, I knew a great deal more than when I entered, but by far the most important lesson I learnt was just how ignorant I was.

For example, one particularly humiliating discovery I made in the women’s lodge was that Indians found the odor of my clothing extremely offensive. When Tomi delicately broached this subject, I blushed, recalling the way Hector crinkled his nose at me. Back home, my family members and I ne’er bathed, wearing the same clothes day after day for weeks, e’en months, ’til they were stiff with dried perspiration. The Indians, on the other hand, wore almost no clothing, which was, of course, something my people found far more offensive than a few odd odors.

Upon being told, for the second time, that I stank, I was tempted to retort that at least I was not a half-naked savage, but because I was the stranger in a strange land, I recognized I must do something to conform. Thus, when Tomi explained women ritually cleanse themselves after their monthlies, I obediently followed her to the secluded section of the riverbank reserved for such a purpose.

I was excruciatingly self-conscious about disrobing in front of the other ladies, but inasmuch as they were all naked or nigh so already, I soon stopt fretting. I remember some uncomfortable comments about how the hair in my nether regions was as red and curly as the hair on my head, but my companions were far more struck by the extreme whiteness of my skin, so unlike the coppery color of their own.

E’en before I was completely undressed, most of the women were diving into the river with the same delight my companions displayed. I tiptoed into the cold depths, reluctant to go farther than necessary. I scrubbed my face, arms, and legs before washing out my waist-long hair. I then turned my attention to my clothing, but the more I scrubbed the thin linen, the more threadbare it became. I laid my things across the budding bushes to dry, wondering how many more washings they would endure.

But then a young woman Tomi identified as her daughter offered me an armload of new clothing—a soft doeskin shift, two loincloths, a pair of buckskin leggings, and e’en some thick-soled Indian shoes. I accepted these gratefully, but as I began to don the shift, Tomi delicately pointed out that when a person is given a gift, it is customary to give a reciprocal gift in return.

I was stunned for a moment, embarrassed once again, but I really didn’t know what to do. “I have nothing to give but my old clothes,” I told Tomi. When she translated this to her daughter, the girl eagerly began snatching my damp things from the bushes. I wanted to protest, but held my tongue. No matter how hard it was to say good-bye to the style of clothing I had worn all my life, I knew it was for the best. Those things were poorly suited to the journey ahead, and Tomi’s daughter seemed delighted to have them. I only hoped she would not feel cheated once she got a good look at the thin cloth.

Amongst the belongings I had packed in preparation for running away from home were a brush and comb. I sat in the sun on the riverbank, working the knots out of my wet hair, as a crowd of girls and women gathered ’round, for my fame had drawn in every female who could think of an excuse to come gawk at me. All were dazzled by my cascading curls, and each wanted to take a turn brushing my hair. Oh, how they chattered and clucked, the way I’ve seen chickens chattering o’er a newly hatched chick! The younger girls giggled endlessly at the way they could pull a curl out straight and watch it bounce right back into a curl when they let go.

The kindness and camaraderie I felt with those women was unlike anything I had e’er experienced. In my youth my hair had more oft been a source of pain than pride, as my brothers and sisters relentlessly pulled it or mocked me about how unkempt it was. When I was very young my hair made me look always like a ragamuffin, for my mother was too busy to tend to anything as trivial as the combing of my rat’s nest and when she did make the effort, she was usually very short of both time and temper.

One of my earliest memories is that of having my mother scream at me to keep still as she yanked a comb through my matted curls. Tho’ I could not have been more than three, she scolded me for failing to care for my hair myself. Every time the pain of her pulling grew so sharp that I squirmed, she jerked the comb to tear a handful of hair right out of my scalp. I can still see those wads of bright red hair rolling on the floor and I can still feel the intense humiliation of the torture as it went on and on. Thus I learnt early on to view my hair as a source of shame and suffering, which is why I wore it tied in a tight bun, modestly covered with a daycap.

How different things were in the warm sunshine on that riverbank, surrounded by mostly naked women whose touch was so gentle, whose admiration was so apparent.

E’en after the ladies had all taken a turn playing with my curls, the bulk of my hair was still wet, and I hesitated to tie it in a knot for fear it would remain damp for days. At the same time, I was reluctant to leave my hair loose, because that was, to me, tantamount to walking ’round half-naked. But when I remembered the women I was with not only left their hair loose but were, in fact, half-naked—well, I decided that if they could do it, I could. I walked to the village with my entourage of new friends, lifting my face to the sky, enjoying the cool breeze that pulled the warm sunshine into my curls.

But as soon as we began encountering other people, all immediately stopt whate’er they were doing to stand and stare at me. Conversations dissolved in mid-sentence, children froze in mid-skip, faces appeared in doorways, drawn by the sudden silence. I hesitated, suddenly as self-conscious as when the women first saw me naked.

Then I saw Syawa.

He and Hector were sitting on a log near a fire in a clearing, and when I came into view, he leapt to his feet to greet me, but as soon as he jumped up, he staggered backwards and nigh fell o’er the log upon which he had been sitting. He stood there, leaning awkwardly against the log, staring at me with an open mouth. E’en Hector, who had arisen with Syawa, stared at me openly for the very first time in our acquaintance, with a warmth in his eyes I had ne’er seen before.

I stopt walking, frightened by my own apparent power. I looked ’round the eerily silent village and saw the entire population staring at me. Syawa came forward at last, slowly, as if walking in his sleep, as if his feet were not quite touching the ground. In a squeaky, broken voice, he said something in his language, then, realizing I could not understand, he gestured that I was so beautiful, with the blue in my eyes like the blue of the morning sky and the fire of the sun reflecting off my hair—he said I was e’en more beautiful than when I appeared in his Vision.

I blusht and looked down, o’erwhelmed. Syawa reached out to take my hands in his, then leant his forehead against mine as I had seen him do with Hector. He mumbled a few words, which were the same ones he just gestured: “You are so beautiful.” I began to cry.

No one had e’er said such a thing to me before.

 • • •

We left that village almost immediately. I was sorry to leave my new friend, but my traveling companions were impatient to move on. Looking back on that day, I wish I had given Tomi more in exchange for all she gave me, but at the time I was too preoccupied with my own predicament. After all, now that I had learnt who Syawa truly was, I knew he must, sooner or later, figure out I was not at all what he believed me to be. I reckoned it just a matter of time before everything fell apart.

Syawa saw instantly that something had changed between us. As soon as we began hiking, he started in with his antics, trying to amuse me. I was amused, of course, but I was also terribly intimidated by his attention and quite a bit more nervous than I had been before. He asked what was wrong, and I told him ’twas nothing. I said I was just tired.

He said no more and became uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the day. As we set up our camp that evening, Hector looked from one to the other of us, puzzled by the strained silence. Eventually he said something to Syawa, who responded at length. Hector glanced at me, nodded, and walked off into the woods.

“Your words are not true,” Syawa gestured without speaking, which was unusual.

Sitting beside our campfire, I lowered my eyes and breathed rapidly. I said nothing.

He gestured again, and I looked up. “You say you are tired. You are not tired. You say nothing is wrong. Something is wrong.”