Читать книгу Under Nushagak Bluff - Mia Heavener - Страница 11

Changes come and we aren’t prepared for them, such as this tide. Normally, I know when the tide switches, unless the moon is tilting the wrong way. Then the tides move sideways and not even the best fishermen in this bay can outwit them. So I told you the war would come. And it did. Right when no one was expecting it, the Japs landed on Attu and Kiska islands. Up here, in Bristol Bay, it didn’t matter so much. The village women say there was an order to cover all the windows from here to Bethel, but not everyone listened. Your Nan didn’t listen to anyone.

Anne Girl lay in a silent sweat, struggling to give birth. She sucked on a dishrag and gave only the faintest groans. She didn’t want Alicia to tell everyone that she screamed too loudly. Only kass’aqs were loud and attracted attention when in pain. Feeling her bones rip from the sockets, the flesh convulsing around her groin, she gave one last push, dimly saw Alicia pull a sheet over the window, and passed out.

Years later, Anne Girl told Ellen that she had been too lazy to make her way out, that she was a stubborn one headed for trouble.

Ellen, lighter skinned but with round cheeks like her mother, always had a reply. “And why didn’t you help me?”

Anne Girl pulled the girl close, so that she could braid her hair. “I did, but you didn’t listen.” She tugged hard on the long hair, and Ellen winced. “You never listen. You wanted to stay forever where it was warm, so that you could be lazy.”

“Then you should have been nicer to me,” Ellen answered.

Still holding Ellen’s braid, Anne Girl angled toward the window and saw John heave himself out of his plane. “Look at him,” Anne Girl huffed. “Always wiping like it’s going keep him in the air. We’re going to starve because of that thing.”

He pulled out a rag from his jacket and began to wipe the propeller in slow circles until the sliver metal gleamed in the afternoon. It was a ritual that he never failed to miss, shining his plane and checking the wings and rudder for damage. Anne Girl wondered if he did that just for show, so that all the people at the cannery would know that he was the pilot in the village. Her pilot, anyway.

She yanked on Ellen’s hair. “Now you moved again, and I have to start over. Can’t you keep still for a minute?” She began to loosen the knot, yet not her grip, so Ellen had to stand with her head tilted backwards. “Look, you’re nearly eleven and you can’t braid your own hair. We should probably shave it.”

“Shave your own head.” Ellen turned to her mom, her eyes bright. “Let’s both cut our hair!”

“Enough now,” Anne Girl said and pulled on Ellen’s shoulder.

Anne Girl listened for John’s steps in the front porch and his typical rattle of the door knob and felt a smile play on her lips. He’s home, she thought, and took in a long, slow breath. Yes, he’s finally home.

“Papa, did you bring me anything from Dillin-ham?” Ellen tried to run to him, but Anne Girl held on tight to the braid and pulled her back.

“Usuuq, I’m not done yet.” She pulled the ponytail again and Ellen yelped.

“Mama! Stop.”

“Just a minute now.” Anne Girl looked at John and surveyed him with black eyes that were just as sharp as they had ever been. “You fly good then?”

When John was learning to fly, he was full of promises about flying to Seattle and around the territory. Everyone could fly in those days, John included. And it sounded good to be married to a pilot then. Even Alicia was envious, saying that she wished Amos would do more than fish and hunt. But the war changed it all. The stories coming from Dutch Harbor were enough for her to want to tie down the plane herself, and getting a pilot’s license was easier than ever. She didn’t even bother to hide her delight when John returned after being dismissed from the recruiter’s office. She giggled and couldn’t wait to tell Alicia that flat feet kept him from flying for the war. She had always known something was wrong with how he walked, and those big officials proved her right.

But she knew John wanted to fly, could feel it at night when his left leg twitched and shook the bed. And when he secured a minor contract with the Postal Service and some mining camps in north, Anne Girl bit her lower lip until she tasted blood. Didn’t they know he flies like he boats, with one eye closed and muttering the whole time? Although the villages were close enough to make several trips in a day, they were just far enough apart for him to die in the middle of nowhere if he crashed.

Very few villages had decent airfields until the end of the war. Pilots created their own runways, and sometimes a sandbar was the best thing in sight. And Anne Girl had a feeling that if John needed to make an emergency landing, he would miss his mark, the same way he crashed his boat into her life. When he started his first run, she had stood near the runway and watched every take-off and landing, every dip into the wind, and she knew that sometimes he turned too sharply before landing. Sometimes she stood and stared until she couldn’t tell the difference between the swooping seagulls and the wings of his aircraft.

“Yeah, yeah,” John nodded. “The flight from Togiak to Dillingham was a bit bumpy, but we made it alright. The ceiling was low around Togiak and it seemed like I kept getting sucked in the clouds.” John motioned with his hands, and he talked until Anne Girl got up from the table and went to the kitchen.

“So what have you two been up to?” John reached out and pulled Ellen onto his lap. “You’ve been helping Mama?”

Ellen frowned and began to unravel the braid.

“Don’t take it out! Assiipaa. Look now,” Anne Girl threw up her hands. “You ruined it. Well, when that rat’s nest gets caught in the brush, we’re cutting it. Yep. Right there.”

“You know, all the girls at the Sunday school wear their hair really pretty,” John said.

Anne Girl shot him a warning look. “We talked about this already, uh. She’s not going to that missionary’s place on Sunday too. School is enough.”

“You mean our neighbors?” John pointed out the window. His voice was even and calm.

“Yeah, yeah. Our neighbors, your neighbors. You just want to go listen to the radio with Frederik. No one cut off your feet. You can go anytime.” Anne Girl put the kettle on the stove. She wiped her hands on her shirt and stared thoughtfully at John’s backside. His back was a washer board, straight and uneven. She could see the bumpy knobs of his spine as he bent down to hug Ellen.

“At least you aren’t dead this time,” she muttered.

“I bet you I won’t be dead next time too,” John answered. “If I am, I won’t ask about Sunday School . . . maybe.”

She could feel the grin in his voice. It was contagious, and Anne Girl tried to hold onto her anger like it was her last berry. He always did that, made her momentarily forget why she was mad.

“How long you going to be here before you have to fly out again?” she asked.

John kissed Ellen on the forehead and whispered in her ear. “I brought you something from Dillingham. Go play outside for a while, and you can have it tonight after dinner.”

Ellen glanced at her mom to see if she heard before running out the door. But Anne Girl was elbow deep in the kitchen. She was loud as she took out pots and pans from the shelves and banged them against the counter.

“When you flying again?” Anne Girl repeated. She needed to know how much time she had until her nights became long again. Their separations tugged on her and made sleep impossible. Even Ali cia had asked if she was well and needed a maqi to cleanse herself. She never wanted to be the kind of woman who waited for her man to return to her, but it seemed that’s all that John left her to do. And while he could pick up where they left off, Anne Girl had to quell the anger that had risen in his absence.

“How long would you like for me to be here? I can be here forever.”

Anne Girl knocked a pot of water onto the floor and stared at him. The water pooled toward the direction of the door. “John, how long?”

“A couple of days if the weather holds up,” John said, as he picked up the pot and reached for a towel.

“Good, I’m gonna need some wood for the smokehouse. You can get some when you’re not doing nothing.”

“Come here, you. Don’t get yourself all worked up about it. I’ll get all the wood you need.”

Although Anne Girl tried to dodge him, John pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. “All the wood you need and more.”

Anne Girl let herself relax and buried her nose in his chest. She inhaled and could practically taste the mixture of engine oil and sweat coated on his shirt. She inhaled again and again until she realized she was shuddering.