Читать книгу Under Nushagak Bluff - Mia Heavener - Страница 12

“Ampi. Come now, Ellen. You’re too slow,” Anne Girl said, and she walked down the beach to check on the smoked fish. She turned around to see Ellen dragging her feet in the gravel and occasionally picking up rocks as she walked. She would roll the rock in her hand before tossing it ahead of her. Anne Girl clicked her tongue and wondered if this girl would be like her father. No doubt Ellen was on her way to resembling him, with long arms and a sense of idleness no one should have. Yes, Ellen was John right down to her toes. “Clumsy,” Marulia would say.

The thought brought a smile upon her face as images of her mother seemed to appear like lingering morning dreams when she was on the beach. Once her blood began to move and take in the salty air, her mother’s words always came to mind. She pictured all the times they picked fish in the skiff and how after her mom became weak, she would bend like a sharp angle over the cork line until her nose practically touched the wooden corks as if she were smelling them. Somehow it seemed that the dead woman wouldn’t leave her alone. And now as she looked out toward the bay, toward the deceivingly calm water, Anne Girl wondered what these images were supposed to mean. After all this time, she was beginning to believe that maybe she had forgotten to burn something. She stopped and waited for Ellen to catch up.

“Mama, I am walking fast. Why you running?” Ellen answered when she finally approached her mother. “Always running here and there.”

Ruffling Ellen’s hair, Anne Girl conceded. “Ha, you haven’t seen me running. Now the little people. They run so fast that we can’t see them. But if you ever see one, then you’ll be taken away to where they live forever.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ll be angry that you saw them and might give away their secrets.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yeah. That’s why the Sams’ kid disappeared, before you were born though. But they go the church all the time, thinking he’ll come back from the little people. He won’t though.”

Nancy and Gil Sam became religious when their son disappeared one summer while hunting caribou. Parents told their children that it was a carayak or maybe even a little person that took him away, even after they found his partially eaten body in a bear cache. But of all the villagers in Nushagak, the Sams were the most faithful. Some said that Frederik promised that their son would make it to Heaven if they prayed hard enough. Others clicked their tongues and muttered, “Akleng, they must hurt still yet.”

A thin trail of smoke filtered through the door crack and air vent as they approached the smokehouse, and Anne Girl chastised herself for forgetting to plug the door seam with a cloth. The smokehouse was old, blackened by years of smoking and the occasional flood that rusted the tin walls. When her mother died, Anne Girl had thought about asking John to build one closer to their home, but somehow she could not give this one up. She liked the idea of smoking her fish in the same black walls where her mother had smoked her own strips. Anywhere else, and the fish would likely overheat and cook instead.

“Stand back now and don’t breathe in the smoke. Go get some driftwood to get this fire back started—small, dry pieces.”

Ellen shrugged at the thought of gathering wood. “Let’s look for the little people,” Ellen said. Her eyes were good, she knew. One time in the fall she saw a ptarmigan on the tundra when even her mom couldn’t see its brown stripes.

“Enough now of the little people. I’m gonna need some leaves too—dry ones!”

Anne Girl ducked through the door and was immediately greeted by warm, dry air smelling of sweet alder trees. Most of the smoke had cleared, and she knelt low on the ground until the rest of the smoke had moved out. It was a chore, checking the fish every few hours and making sure that the fire wasn’t burning or cooking the strips, but Anne Girl loved the rhythm. She pulled off the fire pit lid to find that she hadn’t made it in time. The smoke had promised a fire, but there was nothing but dying embers.

“Usuuq. Get me some of those pieces leaning against the building over there. Small ones. That’s a girl.”

Ellen brought two pieces of wood and crouched next to the opening. “Smoke’s gone. I’m coming in now.”

“Not yet. Give me some more, some with leaves on them. You need to keep gathering wood,” Anne Girl answered. She stood up and inspected the fish. It was still too early. The flesh of the fish was still bright pink. Not until the meat was dark red and dripping with grease would they be ready.

She had hoped that they would be ready in time for next week’s potlatch, which the village was holding at the community hall. All were invited, including those from the cannery, and all were expected to attend and bring their favorite meal. There would be pateq bones, caribou stew, seal oil, strips, akutaq, and Spam from those who could afford canned food. Anne Girl thought that maybe she would bring some fish strips. Hers weren’t too salty, just right. Otherwise, John would want to fly to Dillingham and get canned soup that made her stomach swell larger than a sea otter. Anne Girl pinched a piece of the meat and felt its moist flesh between her finger tips. She should have made the strips thinner, she thought. These ones are too soft and still pink.

She didn’t see Ellen sneak through the door and walk to the back of the small hut. She had brought in a stick and batted at the strips hanging above her head. Fish oil sprayed in tiny droplets around them as the strips swung violently from the poles.

“Oh, the girl has ears but can’t hear,” Anne Girl said when she saw Ellen in the corner. “You know what happens to girls who don’t hear?”

Ellen stopped and looked at her mother, her mouth open, her eyes wide. “What?” she demanded. “I got all the wood. Go see.”

Anne Girl resumed her work. She gathered the dry leaves and the small twigs and placed them carefully in the fire pit as if every twig had its rightful place to burn. She looked up and saw that Ellen had dropped the stick and was crouched across from her, waiting impatiently for the story.

“Little girls who have ears but don’t listen lose their ears. I remember when this old man and woman had two little girls in that village over that way.” Anne pointed toward the rising hills across the bay. “The woman was once young and beautiful with long black hair that she braided just like yours. But she was old and slow when she had these girls. They wore qaspeqs, pretty ones that their Mama made for them. Their qaspeqs were bright red and orange, made from fabric from up town. Their Mama told them not to play in the mud flats, because she saw how the tide changes its mind quickly. How the current becomes strong on its own. She told them that if they were good, she would make each girl another qaspeq. But the girls didn’t listen.” Anne Girl paused and then continued, speaking low and adding her own thoughts to the story that her mother had once told her. She added the part about the qaspeqs, because she knew Ellen loved playing in her qaspeq and wanted another one. “They come home and their qaspeqs were full of shit mud. All the people in that village knew they played in the mud flats and were surprised to see them come walking back with mud in their ears and around their hair. Their Mama told them again not to play in the mud flats. Their Papa too. But when the tide rolled out, the girls walked out in the mud flats, and threw mud balls at each other. They even went mud slicking, just how you like to do. And then the tide changed and water took them under. The village knew what happened. And so did their old parents. But they found their ears floating nearby. And a seagull swooped down and ate them.”

Anne Girl lit the fire and motioned for Ellen to follow her out. “The strips will be done in a week or so, just in time for the potlatch.”

“The seagull didn’t eat the eyes first? Don’t they like eyeballs?”

“Not this time. This time, they liked ears. See what happens when you don’t use your ears. Come, we got to get water. Your Papa’s going to be flying in soon. I feel it in my gut.” Anne Girl grabbed Ellen’s hand.

They began walking toward their house, and the outline of the cannery and the stilt-legged homes, bony and sharp, came into view. Anne Girl could see the cannery men milling around the buildings like ants, getting ready for the fishing season. She was pleased that she had put up most of the fish for the winter already. Next they would go duck hunting. She figured that if the season was good, they would make a little extra so John wouldn’t have to fly so much in the winter. She worried that one of these days he would try flying with ice on his wings. Anne Girl and Ellen hiked up the beach as a single-engine plane curved right and landed bumpily on the dirt road near the cannery. Anne Girl knew instantly it was John and that he had once again missed the runway.

The Nelson family arrived at the potlatch with a bag of strips and a jar of seal oil just as the elders were beginning to make their way to the long table of food. The hall, a circular room with benches along the walls, buzzed with conversation. There was a pregnant hum in the air, the anticipation that something good was about to happen. People were standing and sitting, talking about fishing and about the weather, wondering if anyone had spotted the herd of caribou way past the bluff. This wasn’t the potlatch of the old days. Nearly everyone in the village was there, including the Killweathers and some of the cannery men as well as the cannery superintendent. People from the surrounding villages of Igushik and Ekuk also arrived with their children in tow. Although everyone from all over the bay was busy putting up fish for the winter, they didn’t mind taking a little time to eat and share while food was plenty.

From across the room, Alicia waved frantically toward Anne Girl and pointed to an empty space next to her. Anne Girl turned to John and said, “You watch Ellen. I’ll be over there. Let’s stay long this time.”

“We can stay as long as you like,” John said. “As long as you like.”

Alicia moved over to make room on the narrow bench for Anne Girl. “Sit your butt down right here. Lots a good food, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s going to be dancing once this meeting gets over with. Unless they start drumming. We should go up to my place after, huh? Amos needs a good drink before he stores himself in that boat. You know what this meeting is all about?”

Anne Girl frowned. “You forget, I don’t hear nothing over that way but the cannery talking, so don’t ask me.”

“Yeah, we never see you this way anymore. I’ve missed you. You need to come more and maqi with me sometime. We’ll have good hot ones.”

“I’ll bring the girl too.” Anne Girl nodded and looked at Ellen playing across the room as if she was seeing daughter for the first time after a long separation. Sometimes Ellen was an afterthought, something she had to remind herself to check as if she was checking on the smokehouse. But the girl was always there, under her feet, never allowing Anne Girl to forget.

Alicia pointed to Frederik and John talking on the other side of the room. “How are your neighbors? Still noisy? Too bad Nora never had any more kids,” Alicia said and laughed. She leaned forward and peered at Frederik. “Is that a Bible he’s giving John? Probably one of them Yup’ik ones. Nancy loves them, even though she can’t read any of them words. She thinks she can read.”

Ann Girl scoffed. She didn’t have much to say about the Killweathers and their Bibles. Although Anne Girl had managed this far without saying more than a few words to either Nora or Frederik, it seemed as if they took up residence in her kitchen. Nearly every time John returned from up town or from flying, he talked about the bits of news that he thought Frederik would like to hear. And sometimes he stopped at Frederik’s first. That burned Anne Girl more than anything, because she knew they both had their ears to Frederik’s radio. If she saw his plane tied down near the runway without any sight of him, she refused to cook and sometimes dumped out all the drinking water before he arrived home. For all she cared, he could talk about all the news he wanted on his way to the well.

Once, shortly after she heard his plane land, she looked out of the window to see it sitting empty on the edge of the runway. There was no sign of John walking in his buttoned-up jacket toward her. She had sniffed the air and tried to find a hint of his sweat and raw engine smell. Nothing. Something then inside of her shattered, like dry wood popping in a fire, and she had marched out to his plane, loosened the rocks holding the wheels in place and climbed into the cockpit. She started pressing buttons, shifting rudders, anything to get the motor started. She was going to drive that piece of metal into the drink. From the corner of her vision, she saw John running toward her, pulling at his unbuttoned pants. He opened the cockpit door and slammed it against the wing frame. The entire plane shook with his anger.

“The hell you doing!” He was shaking all over, gripping the door until the tendons in his forearm looked as if they would snap. “Don’t mess with anything. I’m already low on oil. You could break something. Jesus!”

“Going for ride, you want to come?” She smiled at him.

John’s jaw was tight, and he bit his lower lip as he had tried to calm himself. “No, no. You said you don’t ever want to get near this thing. Get out.”

She looked at his pants and realized her mistake, but it pleased her to see him get riled. She didn’t want to stop now. How far could she push him? How far would he let her? “Were you in the outhouse? Let’s go for a ride now. You know how you always want to take me up in the plane. Let’s do it now. I’m ready. I’m ready for Seattle.”

“Jesus, Anne,” John said. “Just get out. Just get out now.”

He had reached into the cockpit and pulled her out with a strength that she didn’t know he possessed. His fingers dug into her waist and thighs, and her shins hit the rim of the door as he dragged her out. She wondered where this man, this strength, had been all this time. He was always so gentle and tender, even in bed, that she had begun to think he didn’t have anything else to give. He set her down on her knees next to the plane wheel, and then twisted the lock on the door.

“I didn’t think I would ever have to lock it from you, Anne. The village kids, yes, but not you.”

He had left her there on the ground and headed back toward the outhouse. She kneeled there, resting her head against her knees until Ellen had sat down next to her and said that the fish head soup was boiling.

The sounds of the meeting and Alicia’s elbow brought Anne Girl back to the hall. She always wondered if John had wanted to hit her then. The thought kind of pleased her, because then maybe he would act more alive and possessive. Then she could hit him back for always leaving her. Even if she wasn’t successful, she tried to remain calm or indifferent when he went over to Frederik’s for a game of chess or for the news. She at least tried. It was the least she could do for him, she had decided.

“You letting Ellen go to the Bible camp this summer?”

“Nah.”

“You should. That Nora’s a good teacher, real quiet, you know. Not like some. Ellen will just be in the way for fishing. I’m letting my June go. Phil’s going fishing with Amos. And I won’t be able to watch her all the time. It’ll be good for them to learn a little something.”

“A little nothing is what,” Anne Girl said, and she took a bite from her strips. She worried that Nora in her womanly ways would soften Ellen so that the girl would never learn to fish and hunt and take care of herself. Her hands would become soft and her fingers tender. And then they would be useless. Anne Girl couldn’t let that happen.

While Alicia listed off the benefits of allowing Ellen to go to Bible camp, one of the most respected elders, Old Paul and his son, entered the hall. Old Paul, named after his Russian father Paulvnskii, a fur trader at Hooper Bay, was one of the oldest in the village. He was a young adult before the cannery pounded piles into the beach and declared the settlement to be a fishing village. He was so old that it was rumored he was a shaman, a good one who knew how to stretch his years from one century to the next. The old man, hunched over, leaned on his son and walked slowly toward the table of food. His thinning white hair glistened in the light like a full moon. Although most of the children didn’t pick up on the sudden tension that weighted the air, Anne Girl could feel something. And she watched Old Paul and Frederik closely.

Frederik nodded to Old Paul and took a few steps backwards. Years ago when Frederik arrived fresh from the States, it was clear to everyone in the village that he believed all would want to follow the peaceful ways of the Moravian Church. And because the Killweathers had a radio and medicine from doctors, most joined the congregation. Others, like Marulia, avoided the missionaries because it took too much energy to explain why they didn’t want to sing on Sunday. But Old Paul had walked right up to Frederik’s face and told him to leave Nushagak, that he wasn’t wanted in the bay. Half the village, including Anne Girl, saw Old Paul do it. He barely reached Frederik’s shoulders, but he stood as if Frederik was a child with a pair of glasses too large for his nose. Anne Girl had expected Frederik to reach for his Bible and quote something in tongue, but he only turned and walked back toward his side of the village as if his truth would eventually find a way into Old Paul. That’s when Old Paul began his own preaching. He told stories. It made Anne Girl laugh that Frederik still didn’t seem to know that he couldn’t touch the stories repeated during maqis and over tea, those stories that linked the young with the old.

When Old Paul sat down, there was a sense that the potlatch had finally begun. Shrieks of laughter from the children echoed in the rounded walls while the low hum of conversation renewed itself.

Although most people came for the potlatch and the dancing, few came for the important issues facing the village. The cannery superintendent had a list of grievances, ranging from children playing on the dock to the broken windows at the mess hall. He stood in the center of the hall and paced in small circles as he listed each one. But the council members listened and agreed that kids shouldn’t be on the docks. One of the members, Sweet Mary, with her rolls of flesh, stood up and said, “Parents with children on the docks will be fined.” The council then announced that Sunday Bible camp was being held by the Killweathers this summer. There were murmurs of interest and glances at Nora and Frederik as people ate. Between strips of dried fish and stew, the villagers agreed on nearly every issue at hand as they waited impatiently for the dancing and drumming to start.

The drums began their thunderous beat as soon as the door closed behind Frederik and his family. An elder, a tiny and wrinkled man, rose and walked to the center of the room. He meant to tell a story, one that would catch the beat of the drums and ride with the chanting of the singers. All ears, young and old, turned to the old man, and he began a mournful song. The children, knowing that it was time to listen, pushed each other as they crowded toward the center. Ellen was among them, clasping June’s hand and pulling her close.

A few people sitting along the wall began to sway with the beat as the elder began to dance. He tossed his arms in the air and flung them about. Anne Girl had a bottle of booze in one hand, and she held it loosely. With her eyes on the dancing elder, she rocked, gently swaying from the waist, freeing herself from the confines of the village. The vertical crease between her eyebrows relaxed as her lips curved into the gentle shape of a skiff. She felt a pair of eyes on her and looked toward the doorway to see John gazing at her as if trying to break down the scene in pieces. She knew what he was thinking. He was summing it up, understanding how separate they were, even when lying naked side by side. Anne Girl felt goose bumps rise along her neck, and she looked away. She leaned back into the drumming and tried to forget that John was probably right.

On the following Sunday, a storm blew in from the North. Unshaven fishermen stood in their rain gear at the cannery dock, shaking their heads as they watched whitecaps curl toward them. It was an off-shore wind that blew the salmon farther and deeper in the bay. Too deep for nets set off the shore. Those who had fished Bristol Bay for several seasons understood that this storm may have been the run, their food in the pocket while they perched on the dock watching it go by. Those who didn’t know the ways of the bay paced the wooden planks impatiently, not understanding that they had no choice but to watch.

Likewise, a storm that had been brewing beneath the roof of the Nelson house swooped in like a gale of wind when John told Anne Girl that they were invited to have lunch at the Killweathers’, that Nora asked if Anne Girl liked lentils. Anne Girl’s shoulders bristled.

They argued, each drawing lines in the sand until they found themselves defending what they didn’t believe. John tried to explain that he liked Frederik’s company after a long day being cramped in the air. And Anne Girl had no reason to dislike them. They had lived in the village too long to be treated like outsiders.

But the Killweather name set Anne Girl’s eyes aflame, and they argued until they had nothing left. Their heated words gave way to the sound of rain drumming on the window pane and Ellen’s voice, as she played in the back room.

Too exhausted for words anymore, Anne Girl scowled as she pulled on a pair of rubber boots and a raincoat. Shit on friendship, she thought. She felt the anger still breathing fire as it moved from her voice to her shoulders. She had meant every curse from her lips, even the Yup’ik ones that John didn’t understand. Now she would pull the net farther up the beach, because even if there were no fish, the day promised a high tide. Her mother’s ghost was probably sitting in the kitchen, laughing at her for marrying the clumsy kass’aq.

“Ampi, Ellen! Let’s go pull in that net before the anchor rolls. Like we have time to sit around and drink tea and worry about lentils.” She motioned with her arms. “Lentils.”

Ellen walked in from the bedroom, wearing the only dress she owned. On one foot was a blue stocking; on the other was black one. She ran past Anne Girl to find her coat. “No, I’m gonna go to Sunday school today. And June will be there and Matty. And we are going to eat cake like they do during the week.”

Heat rose to Anne Girl’s face. Her eyes fixed on Ellen’s socks, and her lip slightly curled as she saw that the girl had knock-knees like her father. It looked like she was going to have his sense too. “Fine, you go ahead then. Play with that June and don’t come back whining to me about being bored when Nora makes you sit with your legs crossed.” She pulled her raincoat close to her body and braced herself for the wind.

Because John couldn’t find a pair of pants that weren’t stained with engine oil, he and Ellen arrived late. With the benches full, the small chapel seemed even more compact, like one of those crates stacked against the cannery net loft. People huddled next to one another, knee to knee. There were even some fishermen who came in wearing rain gear spotted with silvery scales. Water dripped off their clothes, giving life to a small stream of water that steadily flowed toward the center of the room, where Frederik commanded their attention. He began to sing. His coarse voice was off-tune, but his eyes were closed as if every word emitted from his lips evoked the Holy Spirit.

As soon as they entered, Nora took Ellen’s hand and led her to the back room.

“I am glad you could make it this morning, Ellen,” she whispered. Her breath was warm and smelled of crackers. “We were just beginning to play a game.”

Children who Ellen knew from the village had already made a semicircle around Kristen. The room was no bigger than a closet, but its walls were plastered with sheets of children’s art and scripture lessons. Seeing the other children and the walls of pictures and Bible verses, Ellen sighed as if she had finally found a place for herself. She wanted a picture on the wall. She wondered how it was to be Kristen, wearing long dresses and leading in games that her mother made up. The only game that Anne Girl ever played was to see who could pick berries the fastest, and she never let Ellen win.

“Kristen, please show Ellen where she can sit. Perhaps next to the girls her age.”

But Ellen saw June’s black, sleek braid and pointed to her friend. “No, I’ll sit by June.” She said this with such determination and loudness that Nora paused in mid-stride and stared at her.

“Your mama here too? Mine is.” June hooked her arm through Ellen’s.

Ellen shook her head. “No, she wanted to come, but she feels sick today. Next time, she and Papa will come together.” She traced the wooden floor with her finger. “She really wanted to come too.”

As Kristen began to give instructions, the rain pelted against the roof—insistent, and demanding the attention of the churchgoers. There was a pause in both rooms, a communal appreciation before the voices continued with a new and louder fervor than before.

Farther down the beach, Anne Girl walked. Instead of going toward the bluff to check the net, she meandered in the opposite direction toward the cannery. The argument had left her tired and her mind weak. To hell with the net. She needed something more than just a net to relieve the tension in her arms. It was rumored that some of the younger cannery men sold whiskey and tobacco to each other. Maybe they would sell a little to her.

Anne Girl pulled the hood over her head and walked briskly past the chapel, not daring to look in the window. Not wanting to find a set of eyes that could see right through her. She told herself that it wasn’t a big deal, and when John cooled off they would laugh about it later. He would tell her that she was being silly, sneaking past the church as if she had something to hide. And she would agree. She was being silly.