The Silence

by Karen Lee White

  Friday

  I can’t stay away from reading the diary. Or writing in this journal. In truth, both terrify me! Up late today. A robin said, “Your life, now.” I opened the deck door to allow the morning air in. Now she says, “Beauty, beauty, beauty, beauty.” The repeating bird insisting “Pray, pray, pray, pray.” A crow: “Found, found.” A raven! Very distant. “Go, go, go, go, and go.” Where, grandfather? “Home.” A crow: “Now, now, now.” The insistent bird, “Sing, sing, sing, and sing…beautifully” the insistent bird is still advising me to pray. The geese spoke of love, to one another across the water. Echoing back and forth. The insistent one is saying, “Be, be, be” over and over. There is so much. It is a soft, gentle morning. Today my heart is floating in tears. I will allow my heart to be an ancient, ocean-going war canoe – readying for a journey. Salish people must wait for the weather to travel. We have patience in this. So, must I. “Excitement,” thrills a young robin “See? See? Secret! Secret! See? See secret! See?” The insistent bird continues, “Pray and sing,” over and over.

  l

  A cold gale blows through Vancouver. The fragrance of dead fallen leaves, diesel. The constant shush of tires on the wet. The roar and rattle of a busy construction site.

  “Auntie! Auntie!” Leah stops, turns, confused. A rumpled, unwashed young Cree man, an innocent face hardened by a burden of suffering, holding something out to her. The diary.

  “Auntie. The truth is inside you. But you need this. You need it.” Leah can’t speak. He nodded once, chin up – the way all Indians do. Wearing a genuine, open Indian grin, he held out the wet diary.

  “You dropped it, Auntie. Don’t give up. You’ll remember. You’re strong. You’ll find your power, Auntie…be who you are.”

  And he is gone.

  l

  Sunday

  The insistent bird tells me, “Speak, speak, speak, speak, speak, speak.” Yet another soft gentle day. The water rippled but peaceful. The trees barely move. The swan was by, east to west, quickly, which is not usual. What, my dear bird, is it that I am supposed to speak? To whom? “To your friend, there,” says the young robin in his cheerful voice. He repeats. What friend? The homeless man? I will learn to speak the truth.

  But this truth, that comes with fear, will not reveal itself to me!

  l

  Leah flashed her pass at the security guard. Why was there heavy security at the Ministry? Every floor locked down. What were they expecting, terrorists?

  The first day she had walked into Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs – or “Treaties ‘R’ Us” as she jokingly called it – she had looked in vain for Native faces. It was a heart-sinking feeling, but one she learned to live with. Most Native folks moved on quickly. Why, Leah wondered, was she still there? The constant demands from the Minister’s office were like dealing with a constantly sick, snotty-nosed, whiny kindergarten kid. She felt like 1-800-Dial-an-Indian. The time she had fifteen minutes to inform the Minister how to act in a smudging ceremony. Or how to pronounce a Salish word that was about a sentence long, filled with little glottal-stop sevens. Her response had been, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  l

  Monday

  Clearest blue sky. I don’t understand the frantic gull. The water is almost perfectly calm. The trees are unmoving.

  “Take, take,” other gulls holler; “View, view, view.” The gull has calmed now that I got the message. His friends echo. They speak quickly and consistently, like small barking dogs.

  “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” says the insistent bird.

  Yesterday there were ravens. I could not understand those voices – but they are tricksters, so may not have wanted me to.

  Finally, the seagulls have slowed their barking. I need rest, restoration. Clarity. Now it is important for me to figure out what it is that I need. A sit by quiet water, or the fragrance of old-growth forest? “Health, health,” a gull yelps over and over.

  I miss the robin – especially the joyous sound of the little one. And my insistent bird didn’t stick around this morning. The water is perfectly still, now. I am not.

  l

  Leah closed the door to her office, looked at the photos on her desk. The half-smile of Gramma Maisey. Haywire; and Uncle Angus, her late father, and her great-grandmother with her usual sweet, tired smile.

  The first email was from the Minister’s office, requesting a rush response for the usual inane information. Another request to submit her time card. Shit. She had missed the deadline. Again. She looked to the sky beyond her window. The skeletal leaf-bare trees. She longed to see buds. Signs of Spring.

  l

  Wednesday

  I hear a lone goose, but it’s hard to understand. “Look, look, look, look.” Water, trees, sky, all calm. The neighbour ladies stripped my garden. Placed bits of driftwood and pots in a beautiful way. “Girl Power,” they said. They wanted to help because they know Phil left, and they thought I needed a lift, so they surprised me. I didn’t tell them they had disrupted my planting of rare exotic bulbs. What they did is incredibly touching and lovely, though I liked the wild charm of my garden. Their love is far more beautiful! The unity of women lightens our hearts, eases our way. We forget the quiet, gentle strength we own. Our love, compassion, as delicate as a spider thread, can hold like steel cable. Drill deep like diamond. We grow a power even we do not understand.

  I cannot stop crying for something I have lost. I wish I knew what.

  l

  To: raymondtull@cbcnorth.ca

  From: leah.growingthunder@shaw.ca

  Subject: Request for Interview, CBC “North Musicians: Where Are They Now?” Project

  Hi Raymond,

  I looked at your most recent list of questions and think it may be best if we do a phone interview. It is going to end up being a very slow process otherwise! I’ll try my best to answer the questions you sent. I’m available after 6:30 any night. I look very much forward to speaking with you.

  Leah

  l

  Friday

  The rain is insistent today, determined, steady. The geese speak below, in the distance. I hope they speak of love.

  The weather has rendered the world outside into an old oil painting. The softness of trees all around the water. Off, distant, the mountain stands guard somewhere through the mist. The mountains keep calling to me in dreams. Standing, watching, like sentient living beings. They know. Why do I not? In dreams every night, and just before I wake, I cry for something I have lost.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Thirsty, she got a glass of water. When the phone rang, she spilled water on her lap.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Leah, Ray. I think I would’ve recognized your voice anywhere. I’ve been listening to archived CBC North recordings. It’s beautiful. Leah, you have a gorgeous voice, and your songwriting is breathtaking!”

  “Thanks, Raymond.”

  “Ray.”

  “Okay, Ray. Call me Genius.” (Leah heard delight in his voice. And his laugh felt like a reward she had earned).

  “When you left for the Yukon, did you leave Vancouver behind?”

  “It was a terrible situation that I needed to put behind me. I think when we have a sad life, it makes us good artists.”

  “Why did you stop performing?”

  “Next question.” (Something uncoiled in her belly).

  “So, about sad beginnings and good artists?”

  “There’s a gift in every bad thing.”

  “How so?”

  “Like a ring of fire – those trials of life. You have to get through it. You can run around in that ring of fire screaming about how much it hurts. Or, you can look for the gift that’s hidden in the fire, grab it, and run out to the other side as fast as you can.”

  “Does that show up in your lyrics?”

  “Listen to ‘Fire Within.’ The gifts are profound understandings of self, zendagi.”

  “Zendagi?”

  “Sorry. It’s Pe
rsian for ‘life’ – the conceptual meaning would be a paragraph in English.”

  “What other songs allude to this gift?”

  “‘Dance Away’ is more about relationships, letting go. Same with ‘Me and No One in the Rain,’ and ‘Fire and Ice.’”

  “You must miss music, songwriting, performing?”

  “It was like abandoning a child, but the chasm between you and the child seems insurmountable, because you can’t forgive yourself.”

  “Sounds very painful.”

  “Not in the least. (He snorts). “Next question.” (The uncoiled something slow-crawled in her belly) No, not the intrusion of fog enshrouded memories. Why had she left Haywire, the North?

  “Would you consider a reunion festival here?”

  “I…don’t know.” (The slow-crawler was coiling and recoiling).

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” (The slow-crawler; she jumped).

  “Ever thought of getting help?”

  Leah seethed. He heard her say through gritted teeth.

  “Next question.”

  “Am I standing on a nerve again?”

  “Yes, with your size fifteen hunting boot.”

  “Sorry. ‘Fire Within’ is hypnotic.”

  “Repeat, call and answer. It’s a technique.”

  “Listen, Raymond – I have to go.” (The slow-crawler had recoiled).

  “Okay, Leah. Call again in a week?”

  “Fine; but I really have to go.”

  Leah sat looking at her cell. Each silence between her words was a universe. She wanted to know and understand this silence that existed between her words.

  l

  THE SAME ROAD

  The secret in your eyes you’ve never told

  Sometimes I see it and it shines like gold

  We both know you and I have always walked the same road

  You gave the gift of all your dreams

  You taught me how to laugh, how strange it seems

  That you’d cry now

  I’ve held your dreams safe, come take them now

  l

  Leah listens, eyes closed, to her song. As though this voice is not hers. Her singing from long ago. Chills roll up and down her. The voice caresses places deep in the chasms of her silences. Places within her that she has forgotten. It washes over her like cleansing water in a sacred purification rite.

  l

  The winds of hell have grounded you

  And mad dogs have surrounded you

  Lost from home

  And still you’ve grown

  Standing all alone, all alone

  Like birds in the dust we all are blind in heart

  And the yellow winds of fate can tear our wings apart

  Still we can fly

  Up through the rain to the sky

  The wild falcon’s path we must fly

  Don’t you look behind

  Your dreams are going to pass you by

  The secret in your eyes you’ve never told

  Sometimes I see it, it shines like gold

  We both know

  You and I will always walk the same road

  l

  Conjuring within the subtle nuances of her voice. The song and old friends. She calls to her own spirit now. Calls her spirit home to herself. Yearning. The promise of new beginnings. She submits, again and again, to this calling. Still, she cannot answer.

  l

  Leah watched Ray as he stood looking at the spectacular view from her living room. His CBC broadcaster voice did not match his appearance. She looked at his beautiful high cheekbones, and deep brown skin. The eyes that shone. The thick, long black hair. His candid look, typical of a Northern man. Something deep in her opened to him.

  She watched as he walked about and picked up a delicately woven basket next to her. Small enough to sit in his palm, perfectly woven, with a lid that fit over top. He opened it. The coloured designs woven in had faded on the outside but were still bright inside. Dark green birds all around, red and black stripes underneath. On the lid, a circle in red, outlined in yellow and black like a sun. Around that swam five green geese. She’d always found it exquisite, whimsical.

  Ray looked up when she said, “My grandmother made that. It’s all I have of her.”

  He carefully replaced it on the small table.

  “I wish I’d known her, but we were kept away.” She heard the tone of her own voice. It sounded as if she was about to cry. “Come on, the food is ready. Dinner’s Northern-style.”

  Ray took his first bite, closed his eyes.

  “Where did you learn how to cook moose steaks so tender and delicious?”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Returning, she handed him a black frame with an old black-and-white photograph.

  “Uncle Angus.” The old face, with the wide almost toothless smile, poised on a pushed over wringer washer. Hitching up his jacket at the back as the photo was snapped. She loved this photo of Uncle’s open face. The face of a man who had nothing to hide. It looked as though he had just said something funny, had just laughed.

  “What a wonderful smile.”

  “He was the real love of my life, the only man who loved me for who I was, with no expectations. He just seemed to enjoy me being around. I miss him.”

  “He’s gone?”

  “Not long ago. I’ll never really get over it.” Her voice was shaking. He wanted to remove the grief that seemed to have cloaked her. She felt tears choking her throat. He grabbed his glass of water and held it up.“Cheers to the ancestors who invented bannock.”

  She looked at him and her throat opened a little as she laughed. She gave him that, he was trying.

  “Cheers – you really are a Crow.”

  His smile was slow, sensuous. She wanted to kiss that smile right off him.

  She said, “I’m Wolf, can you tell?” It was a test. They could not be together unless they were opposite clans.

  His eyes lit up. Good. He was interested.

  He was looking out the window. She could only focus on his lips and how they would feel. His tongue touching hers. Why was she thinking like this when she’d wanted to cry just a moment ago?

  Her expression was one of invitation. Her full lips open, he could see that her breath was coming fast. Her head tipped back ever so slightly. He crossed to her and she watched him come. He reached out and grasped gently a handful of hair, pulling her face to his. She did not resist. They joined lips for slow, lingering kisses, no sound but their breath.

  She gripped his bottom; he laughed quietly, his “yes.” She popped his shirt buttons, they ding-ding-dinged all over the kitchen.

  “Tomorrow we will buy you all snap-front shirts. Ten; that is, if I let you out of this house.”

  With a ripping of fabric, she tossed her dress aside. She had been wearing almost nothing underneath. Ray buried his face in her neck and inhaled her scent. Tasting one, then the other breast, tongue hot on her nipples. She moved backward to lean on the counter. He tore his jeans off. He lifted her to the countertop. She wanted, needed him inside, parted her legs wide. He plunged into her. She cried out, clinging to him. He pounded, and she felt him pulsing inside her just as she crested her wave.

  He said, breathless, “Wait.”

  She was so filled with desire she could not wait. She kissed him deeply. She hopped down, turned to the counter with her bottom to him and pulled him to her. Her moans voice filled the room.

  He was engorged, and she was deliberate as she turned, lowered to her knees and used her tongue, hands, breath on him. He shuddered as she then slowly, gently pushed him to the floor. She was on top of him, and he was ready, wanting. They were skin on skin. Leah cried out as he entered her. She bucked and writhed under him. She was tight, wet. It took everything in him to hold back.

  She slipped out from under him, was on all fours, and looking back at him. He entered her. The angle of her insides against his penis made her moan out loud. She shifted her hips aga
in, again. He grasped her breasts and she called out his name. She rolled on her back, pulled him to her, and raised her legs in the air. She held her breasts. His mouth and tongue hot on her nipples. He sucked the sweetness of her. They rolled as she climbed on him, and like a dancer, slow moved, rocking her pelvis so she could feel everything inside of her. She slowly lay down on him. Carefully turned until she was facing to the side, then away from him. It was unbearably sweet, moving so slowly, deliberately. He caressed her all over as she turned. He closed his eyes, while she revelled in the sensation of him deep within her – other-worldly; a deep erotic meditation.

  They rested, slept. Without a word, he felt her move and opened his eyes. She climbed and straddled him until he was deep inside her. Deliberately, Leah felt him fill her the way she needed him to, rode him in a way that made his head touch every wall of her insides. She lunged herself back and forth on him. She felt a sudden sweet pang and she cried, loud and long with intense, sweet pleasure. Finally, she lowered herself to him, still holding him within her. They rested and spoke softly, sometimes silent. After a time, she began again. He hardened when she slowly swivelled her body sideways. She was taking him deep and slow, deep and slow. She leaned back, moaning. Then, furious, and fast, she brought herself home with a yowl. When she fell back he brought her cold water. She drank and then poured water from her mouth to his chest, bringing an ache to his groin. Then she took him in her cool mouth, bringing him to hardness again.