Five Little Indians

by Michelle Good

  “Hey baby, you all alone?”

  Clara looked up to see the owner of the voice. A tall white guy, bearded, blond hair down to his ass. “If it weren’t for the beard, I would swear you were a girl with all that hair. Bugger off.”

  “Aw, no need for that. Just trying to be friendly. Can I buy you a beer?”

  Impatient now, she glared at him. “Do I look friendly to you? You must be new here.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder, once again offering to buy her a beer.

  Clara shrugged his hand away. “Back off, man.”

  “Man, what’s your problem?” Anger rose in his voice as he flopped down at her table. “I heard all you Indian chicks were easy.”

  Clara leapt from her chair, flew across the round bar table and wrapped her hands around his neck. They tumbled to the floor, Clara pressing her thumbs into his windpipe. They rolled around the floor as the man desperately tried to pry her hands free from his neck. The room was silent to Clara as she straddled him and started bashing his head on the floor. His terrified eyes looked up at her, his mouth forming words, but she heard only a faint, pulsating buzz in her ears. His eyes were rolling into the back of his head when they dragged her off him, the bouncers hauling her to the door, her feet off the ground, kicking at them and the air. They pushed on through the swinging doors and threw her on the pavement. She jumped up and went for the biggest bouncer, wildly punching at his thick frame. He grabbed her by the shoulder, swung and slapped her across the face so hard she collapsed onto the wet pavement. Cars crawled by with their windows rolled down for the show. People on the street gave her a wide berth.

  “Stay the fuck outta here. You’re banned for a month.” The bouncers straightened their clothes and headed back into the bar.

  Sound slowly returned to her as her face burned, the imprint of the bouncer’s hand pulsing with rage. She slowly got to her feet, slapping away a soggy cigarette butt that had stuck to her jeans. She looked up just as a city cop loomed down at her. She turned her back to him.

  “Nothing to see here. I’m leaving. See?” She took a few steps away. “See?”

  The cop moved toward her. “I know you. Troublemaker.” He put his hand on his baton. “Move along now. If I see you here again tonight, you’ll spend the night in the tank.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Clara walked away from him. Her legs moved as though independent of her will and she let them take her back in the direction of the Manitou. The crowds thinned once she got away from East Hastings. Once there, she leaned against a lamppost, watching the hookers come and go, hurrying back toward Hastings hoping they had enough time for another trick. The johns left bedraggled and shameful, looking this way and that, hoping for no witnesses. Clara walked a little farther to the bus stop bench and sat, the aches and pains of the night’s brawl starting to set in.

  She lost count of the number of buses she waved along as she sat watching the Manitou sign, its red glow deepening and thinning as it made its lazy orbit. The fluorescent light of the office blazed as the night clerk flipped through magazines and drank bottle after bottle of cola from the machine. At 3 a.m., the clerk locked the front door. Any late night guests would have to ring the buzzer. He turned all the lights out except the one illuminating the door; of course, the big neon sign blazed red all night. With one last look out the window, the clerk left the lobby and retreated to what Clara knew was a small bedroom in the back. Harlan had tried to drag her in there more than once. The night clerk would sleep there, hoping for no interruptions.

  Clara watched the comings and goings of the hookers and their johns for a while longer. Her swaying foot hit up against the cement footing of the bench as the idea took shape. What would piss Harlan off more than not having any chambermaids to work? She scanned the ground in front of her, stood and circled the bench, looking until she found a rock the size of a softball. She picked it up and sat back down on the bench, passing it back and forth from one hand to the other, thinking about how her mother had always called rocks the stone people.

  She sat until there’d been no movement at the Manitou for a while and then waited a little longer. The rock felt warm in her hand as she sat in the drizzling rain, her clothes now completely soaked through, her hair straggly and wet. Finally she rose, stiff from sitting so long, and looked around carefully. The place was deserted, the hookers sleeping off another rough night. She slowly stepped off the curb and walked toward the office, then turned back and sat on the bench again, her heart pounding. Her mind turned once more to the Mission School, but this time she thought of Lily.

  The days passed at school, one like the other, distinguished only by who was caught stealing food or who otherwise met with Sister’s wrath. One morning, as thin sunlight poured through the dorm window, Clara lay still, not wanting to leave the warmth of her bed, the dorm too drafty and the linoleum floors too cold for bare feet. She turned to the bed on her left, where Lily had the grey woollen blanket pulled around her head, her face almost completely hidden but for her dark-circled eyes.

  “How many days, Clara?”

  “Seven. Just six more sleeps. The teacher told me. Three days before Christmas, we go home.”

  Lily sat up on the side of her bed, tucking her knees under her, the blanket now wrapped around her like a tent. “How do we get home?”

  “I don’t know. My mom never told me. Maybe we will go in the truck again.” Clara shivered.

  “We better get up and make our beds before Sister gets here.” Lily slipped off her bed, hugging herself for warmth as her feet hit the floor.

  “I’ll help you.” Clara jumped out of bed and helped Lily pull the blankets tight over her cot. Lily in turn helped Clara.

  The girls were reaching for their clothes when Sister slipped into the dorm, her whistle in hand, looking left and right for a sleeping girl.

  “On your knees, girls. I want to hear your morning prayer.” Clara and Lily knelt, their girlish voices rendered dull by their monotone recitation of the Our Father. Clara opened her eyes halfway through the prayer when her friend started coughing again. Sister swooped in and pulled Lily to her feet.

  “How many times have I told you to contain yourself during prayer?”

  “I’m sorry, Sister, I can’t help it.”

  “Well, you could at least try. Extra chores for you today. After breakfast, report to Mr. Walker in the barn. You can clean the goat enclosure today.”

  “But Sister, she is sick and it’s so cold out there.” Clara stepped closer to her friend.

  “Then you can help her, since you’re so smart. Now get dressed and ready for chapel or there will be no breakfast for you. Let’s go, girls.” She clapped her hands. “Last one in line will help Clara and Lily with the goats today.” The girls scrambled to form the lineup, and Lily got there last. Sister laughed. “You can’t even help yourself, can you? Tuck in your blouse.” Lily dutifully tucked in her blouse, following close behind Clara as the girls filed to the chapel.

  After school, Clara and Lily bundled up as best they could, their legs bare but for their darned and re-darned cotton leotards. Clara set out running across the windy expanse toward the barn but had to slow down for Lily, who barely managed a quick walk. Heads down against the wind, they watched for Mr. Walker, the farmhand. He let it be known to anyone who would listen that he didn’t care a whit about God or Queen so long as someone was there to help him with the unending chores at the school. He was neither harsh nor kind, just insistent that chores be done correctly.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, girls. You have to stop pissing off Sister. Now I have to watch out for you. Go over there to the back wall. You’ll find the pitchforks. The goats are in the last two box stalls. I’ll move ’em and you clean ’em out.”

  Not five minutes into the job, Lily collapsed on the stall floor, unable to stop coughing. Clara knelt beside her and patted her back. “You’ll be okay, Lily, just take a deep breath.” Mr. Walker heard the commotion and poked
his head over the stall to see Clara wiping her friend’s mouth with her sleeve. The pink bubbles formed around Lily’s mouth faster than Clara could wipe them. He rushed into the stall.

  “Step away, girl.” He bent and scooped Lily up in his arms and turned to leave the barn. He looked over his shoulder at Clara. “Stay here and get that work done. I’ll be back soon.”

  Clara shovelled as hard as she cried, praying that Lily would be okay.

  That night in the dorm, the lights out, the full moon shining through the window, Clara carried on with her epic prayer for Lily. She looked first to the empty bed beside her and then to the sky.

  “Dear Jesus, I know you see everything and must have a lot to do. Did you see Lily fall today? She’s so sick, with blood in her mouth. She is like that little sparrow, Jesus, like the one you saw. Please, Jesus, take care of Lily. Make her better with your hands that can make people better. I will even stay here and not go home for Christmas if you make her better, Jesus. Amen.”

  Clara curled up in her bed. She thought of Lily lying in the white bed in the nurse’s room. She closed her eyes, the faint smell of goat rising from her as she drifted off to sleep.

  The next morning, Clara chose her seat in chapel carefully, close to the door. At the first “let us pray” and the scuffling sound of the children moving into a kneeling position, Clara slipped out the side door. Careful to avoid the offices of the priests and the classrooms with teachers preparing for their day, she slipped into the nurse’s room. The white bed was spotless, neat and empty. Sister Philomena with her white nurse’s habit came to Clara.

  “Do you need a plaster?”

  “Where is Lily?”

  “She’s gone, child.”

  “Gone where? Did her mom come and get her? Why didn’t she say goodbye?”

  “No, child, she is gone to Jesus.”

  Light-headed, Clara looked at Sister. “Jesus is here?”

  “Well, in a way, I suppose.” Sister Philomena reached out and took Clara’s hands in hers. “She died last night, dear. She is with the Lord.”

  Lily’s pale little face seemed to hover in the air in front of Clara, soaking and shivering on that bench, and once again the rage rose up in her. She leapt from the bench and ran across the parking lot, the rock raised high above her head. With a scream, she threw the rock through the lobby window of the Manitou, and then raced away into the night. She could hear the wailing of the alarm bell as she ran. Who the hell would think it had an alarm!

  She’d run a couple of blocks when she heard the first siren. She slowed to a walk. Just a late night party. Just heading home. Manitou? Nope, I wasn’t there. She practised calm replies to imagined interrogations. She made her way back to East Hastings, feeling conspicuous in the thinned-out crowds. She heard the car creeping behind her, and for once she hoped it was just some creep looking for a lay. She looked at the storefront to her right and saw the reflection of the police cruiser creeping behind her then stopping. She walked on, speeding up just a little.

  “You!” the cop called after her. “Hold up.”

  Clara stopped and turned. “What?”

  “Yeah, I thought it was you. What did I tell you earlier?”

  Clara glared at him. “Just my luck. Look, I’m just heading home. I’m not making trouble.”

  “Up against the wall. I warned you.”

  Shaking her head, resigned, Clara put her hands against the brick. The cop cuffed her and put her in the back of the cruiser. Once in the driver’s seat, he looked at her in the rear-view mirror. “You didn’t have something to do with that mess at the Manitou, did you?”

  Clara looked out the window. “What mess?”

  “Yeah, woman across the street saw an Indian girl running away from there.”

  “All Indian girls should run away from there.”

  They drove the short distance to the police station in silence. The cop escorted her to the drunk tank, its current residents thankfully all asleep. “Next time I tell you I don’t want to see you, I mean I don’t want to see you.”

  The cell door clanked closed behind her and she stepped around the others, looking for some space to sit. She pulled the collar of her shirt up over her nose and mouth, nauseated by the stench. Like a small miracle, the only place left to sit was by the tiny slit that passed as a window on the outside world. An old woman with long grey braids sat there, looking out at the street below. Clara sat next to her and nodded a greeting. She wondered why such a beautiful old woman would be in a place like this. As though reading her mind, the woman turned to her.

  “Look,” she said, pointing out the window with a gnarled brown finger.

  Clara looked and shook her head. “What?”

  “That little birch tree. Even here they shine.”

  Clara looked again. A little birch, no taller than Clara herself, stood alone in a small square of dirt carved out of the pavement for it. The rain had stopped and the clouds parted for the muted sunlight of dawn. Clara watched as the leaves of the little tree captured the light, shining silvery and soft. The old woman looked at her with eyes as black as night and placed her hand over Clara’s.

  “The power of Creation is everywhere. In the tree, in you, in all of them.” She gestured to the others. “Never forget.” The old lady settled back into the variegated shadows of the cell, her deeply wrinkled hands folded in her lap. Clara gazed at the little birch, blocking out the restless sounds of the cell.

  As though no time had passed, Clara found herself back, way back when she was little, walking home from church with her mom. It was a hot, dusty Sunday late in August. Clara walked along the rutted wagon path that ran through the heart of the reserve, creating a direct route home from church. Her favourite part of this road, not much more than a trail, was the few hundred feet that wound through a grove of mature silver birch. She ran her hand over the silky tops of the prairie grasses as she approached the thicket, her Sunday school lessons fresh and at the forefront of her mind. Her mother walked ahead, close enough for Clara to feel safe, far enough for her to feel free. At six, she was old enough to join the rest of the kids at Sunday school in the basement of the church while her mother attended Mass. One of the teenaged daughters of the church ladies read to the children from the oversized blue book of Bible stories, the cover pressed against her chest, the passionate illustrations facing out for the children to see. Clara was amazed each time the fishes fed everyone, railed against the injustice of Barabbas being set free while Jesus was not. She imagined herself in the powder-blue veil that covered Mary’s head and shoulders as she rode her mule through Bethlehem. She quietly sang “Jesus Loves Me” without the words, la la la la la la la, as the grasshoppers chirped and the wind sent itself rustling through the trees.

  Ahead, she saw her mom, Seraphina, veer off the pathway toward their house, the hip-high prairie grasses, as though gracious, bowing in her wake. Clara felt a burst of pride thinking about how all the church ladies gravitated to Seraphina for chit-chat after the service, how they always sought out what she had to say about births and deaths, namings and ceremonial giveaways.

  Clara stood for a moment, transfixed by the sunlight reflecting off the shimmering silver-green leaves, and felt the earth’s summer heat rising through her feet, seeping into her bones. She stood motionless, thinking she heard something—a tinkling, like tiny bells sounding in the wind. She carried on but heard it again, this time with a whispering sound, almost words, like a quiet chanting rising on the breeze.

  “Mom!” She ran to catch up with her, then walked backwards facing her mother. “Did you hear it too?”

  “I didn’t hear anything, Clara.” Her mother turned and stood, holding her daughter’s hand, the child’s face turned to the sky over the thicket.

  “Listen, Mom, listen!”

  Smiling and slightly shaking her head at her always-surprising child, her mother squeezed Clara’s little hand. “Sorry, honey, I don’t hear a thing.”

  “Mom! I thin
k the angels are playing in the trees!”

  Her mother smiled and turned back toward the house, Clara’s fingers slipping from hers. “Let’s get moving, girl. Your auntie and cousins will be at the house pretty soon.”

  “Don’t you believe me?” Clara looked up at her mom with disappointment.

  “Maybe it was not for others to hear. Your grandma used to say the little people played in that thicket. Maybe they were making music just for you.”

  Clara, confident again, ran ahead of her mom, her braids bouncing against her back.

  “Pick some rhubarb!” her mother called after her. “I’ll make a pie.”

  Clara veered off toward the garden.

  Clara remembered eating that rhubarb pie, playing with her cousins and finally falling asleep in her mother’s bed for what would be the last time. She remembered all the children gathered at the church the next morning, the cattle truck waiting, the priest and the RCMP standing by as the children, Clara too, were loaded into the truck. She remembered the first time she saw Sister Mary. It was long past dark when the children marched up from the dock to the Mission. Sister’s black robes were invisible in the night as she stood on the steps looking like a disembodied head in her blazing white cornette. Clara remembered her battle with Sister as she cut her long braids, doused her in green powder and took her clothes away, replacing them with a used brown shift.

  Her heart pounding, Clara rose from her reverie and turned to speak to the old woman, but the bench was empty. The hairs on the back of her neck stood stiff and her face flushed hot as she looked around the crowded cell for the woman. But she was nowhere. Clara turned her attention once again to the little birch, trying to calm herself.

  When the time came for the guard to empty the cell of the previous night’s captives, Clara made a point of walking next to him. “Um, excuse me. Do you know what happened to that old lady?”

  “What old lady?”

  “The one with the braids and the long skirt. She was Indian, like me.”

  “No one like that in last night. You sobered up? Must be the DTs.”