"Will you help me?" He drafted Marthalik to be his introductory emissary to the women in the other tents. It would be dizzying to attempt a direct age-sex census of so many children running back and forth outside. From the thawing tundra pranced little boys holding up lemmings they had caught to be boiled and eaten. Little girls squatted among boulders scraping off gray-green lichen the missing caribou also used for food. As the hillside emerged from the thawing snow, swarms of children were gathering everything edible. To begin his census, Dr. West visited the mothers in their tents.
As if he were King Charles on a royal visit, the excitedly jabbering women in the tent were rearranging old seal bones, sticks and other important furnishings. Finally, he asked this giggling mother how many of the twenty names she had given him really were her children. The mother hung her head in silent embarrassment.
Marthalik whispered delicately in his ear. "She is being modest. She has had many more babies than her fingers and toes. But the others have married and gone away, and she is ashamed because she has forgotten their names. She was an old woman when this person was born, so she must have had babies as many as three times her fingers and toes."
But the mother appeared to be in her twenties.
Dr. West scowled at Marthalik. She was teasing him again? Her smile faded. She insisted these women never had twins. But he knew the physiological child-producing limit for the human female was less than thirty full term babies. All of these children could not have come from this one mother. He turned to Marthalik to ask why she was putting him on. But Marthalik was walking away. He realized his disbelieving scowl had hurt her feelings. He wanted to rise and hurry after her.
Instead he tried to interrogate this mother as to the ages of her children. He became baffled trying to write their ages opposite their names. For at least eight names, she kept murmuring: "First summer."
"Which ones are seeing their second summer?" he sighed in defeat.
"That winter was too hungry for my babies." Staring down at her fingers, she managed to name only four living children in their second summer, who he presumed were -- all two years old?
"These four," she said, "are seeing their second summer. The others are gone to Grandfather Bear," she sighed. "This person used their names again this winter. This time they are alive because the whale fed us."
Dr. West stood up. Wearily he hoped when he'd interviewed enough mothers, the true age-sex census pattern for the camp would become more clear and this woman's confusion about which were her children would be explained. In anthropology courses he'd learned that some primitive peoples have ingenious adoption procedures. "Are many men and women who are your relatives -- away hunting on the ice now? They have left their children with you?"
As if he had hurt her feelings, the mother sniffed and turned away.
Retreating to the gravel beach he saw Marthalik sitting alone on the skeleton of the whale.
She lowered her head as he approached. He hoped her feelings weren't still ruffled because he'd scowled at her. He looked down at her bowed head. She looked up at him. Suddenly, they both smiled.
Dr. West's foot poked the whale's rib. "You ate this whale?" he laughed.
She giggled. "The mosquito shot it very fast."
"You mean the Sanctuary Guards' helicopter shot it with a machine gun -- ?"
"Eh?"
"I think some of the Guards tried to help you." Dr. West knew modern technological aid to these Eskimos was a violation of the whole Sanctuary concept and of the Director's orders. Even from their copter the Guards must have seen there would be mass starvation last winter, and they had risked their jobs, killing the whale.
"Is it permitted for this person to ask a question?" Marthalik was watching his face. "Out there -- are they people like us?"
"Didn't Edwardluk tell you? Doesn't your father know?"
"My father says everything has always been like this. He says for me to be happy and babies will come. He says not to believe Peterluk."
"Old men remember the way things used to be."
"But old Peterluk says many men came out of a whale," she protested, ducking her head and shoulders under the arched jawbone. "Would not men drown inside a whale?"
"Perhaps this was an iron whale built by the whitemen."
"Even old Eevvaalik says Peterluk lies, and she is his wife. Eevvaalik say only one man could come out of a whale and his name was Jonah. Every time Peterluk tells his lies, there are more whitemen. He says the whitemen must have killed all the caribou. Is this so?"
"This person does not know," Dr. West replied, "but will find out. Truly, most whitemen would want to help you -- with more food."
These Eskimos seem so well adjusted now, Dr. West thought, if only they had an emergency food supply they might be happier without any other whitemen's help. Perhaps Hans Suxbey, Director of the Cultural Sanctuary, was right when he wrote: A people are happiest when their whole culture is like a single sunflower with the petals of their religion, songs, sexual customs, artifacts and economy all consistently growing from the flower's single center. Through their distinct history the ancient Eskimo~ achieved a beautifully unified culture.
But during the last century the introduction from the Outside of such conflicting cultural petals as whitemen's technology and several religions had caused the flower of Eskimo culture to disintegrate.
Dr. West knew his own presence here already was disturbing this unstable cultural group. What he reported to the Outside, Dr. West thought as he looked down at Marthalik, eventually might result in the disintegration of this small new Eskimo culture. Unless he were careful, he might destroy the essential meaning within her life.
"The whale is a good place to sit," she said, and he sat down beside her.
"Because you are strong," she said, "this person hopes you will see the bones on the hill."
He assumed she meant caribou bones. "Are there still enough seals? Do the hunters say -- " he asked, "will there be enough seals this winter?"
He was watching a distant hunter on the shore ice dragging in a small seal. Running happily out were the children. When he turned his head, he caught Marthalik smiling at him. Her hand rose. Instinctively, Dr. West took her hand. She blushed, ducking her head.
"There will be enough seals," she murmured, "because Grandfather Bear will come for us from the sky. This person hopes you to rise, too." She had a warm hand as she stood up.
Smiling to himself, Dr. West stood up holding her hand. These Eskimos still were trying to integrate a hundred years of Christian teachings with a million years of animism. Is this Grandfather Bear anything more than the Christian concept of a Second Coming? Was she telling him that The Day of Judgment was close at hand?
As he walked up the hill with her, Dr. West thought he should reconsider before turning in any report to those overeager ethnologists and anthropologists at McGill University. Eskimos aren't faceless dolls to be played with for academic advancement. He knew the McGill enemies of Hans Suxbey hoped his report could be used in Parliament to break open the Sanctuary. Those eager anthropologists would invade with more gum-chewing grad students than there are Eskimos. He shortened his uphill strides, realizing Marthalik had been trotting to keep up with him.
The hill still was shrouded with snow, but dark boulders were emerging.
"Many bones here," she said, and her hand sought his again.
Among the dislodged rock piles, scattered as if by the powerful digging efforts of a huge carnivore, he blinked at splintered rib bones, small femurs, crushed skulls. "My god! Hundreds of children."
"This person can remember three winters ago when she was small and hungry. Under the snow we found rabbit droppings and chewed them." Surprisingly, she laughed. "This winter we had the whale."
if so many children died, Dr. West thought quickly, how is it there are such hordes of children in the camp? Such an overwhelming proportion of children had to put an exhausting winter burden on the few adult hunters. This child glut
appeared even worse than in parts of South America, where half the population was under fifteen years of age. This Eskimo population must be multiplying even faster than South America's, he thought. Down there in the barrios of South America, the attitude toward family planning lagged far behind the Vatican's. Up here in the Sanctuary there was neither whitemen's contraceptives nor traditional Eskimo infanticide. Each winter there will be more children starving, more women starving --
As he squeezed Marthalik's hand, he knew he was going to attempt whatever help was necessary to shield them from starvation this winter. You will not starve , he thought strongly.
"This person will not starve?" She was staring up at him, openmouthed with surprise.
Dr. West blinked. "You heard me?"
"This -- this person does not know -- what she heard. In her head -- "
"I thought too loudly," Dr. West laughed in reassurance, inwardly startled because this hadn't happened to him since Harvard Med School when he used to do beer-party tricks. He'd spooked one tall kid named Tom Randolph so badly Tom transferred to the Psychology Department and still pestered Dr. West every few years, even offering free beer, but Dr. Tom Randolph's receptor tests with him had become increasingly inconclusive. Thought I'd lost the old feeling , Dr. West thought. Marthalik, Marthalik, can you hear me?
"Soon the fish will come out of the sea," she was saying, looking far down the hill at the river where women were arranging lines of boulders in the estuary shallows for a fishtrap.
Marthalik, you are so pretty. Now he was thinking so hard at her he wasn't breathing, and his eyes blurred. Marthalik -- so pretty.
Swaying, grinning, he thought this should be one message which must reach into any woman if any message could, but Marthalik was chattering about seal meat. He wasn't contacting her now. He'd never been able to break through to Phyliss. Marthalik, look at me!
But she was looking down at the camp. "Tonight this person will hand you the best pieces of seal as if -- "
"As if what?" he laughed, challenging her.
Shyly she ducked her head. Walking down the hill she stopped. She struggled to pick up a boulder. "This person needs it!" She looked up at him helplessly.
He picked up the boulder she'd been unable to lift. He thought it weighed perhaps twenty pounds, less than a fourth as much as his pack she'd carried, and he grinned down at her. She was looking away as if afraid to look at him while they walked down the hill. He guessed she was teasing him again, but he'd never been able to read anyone's mind. He had enough trouble reading his own. "This boulder has a pretty dimple like your cheek."
She giggled. But when he bent as if to put the boulder down, quickly she seized his hand. "Please!" Her face flushed as if with embarrassment.
"This boulder is as heavy as you are," he joked.
She said nothing as they walked down the hill together.
Toward them children ran giggling and scampering around him, staring up at him and tittering. Loudly shouting people flowed out of the tents, smiling up at Dr. West, whose face was beginning to feel hot. Edwardluk rushed out of the tent at him with such speed that Dr. West thought for a moment he was being attacked and almost dropped the boulder. But Edwardluk yanked it out of his hands. Surrounded by laughter, Dr. West retreated after Edwardluk into the comparative privacy of the tent, but everyone was crowding in. Marthalik's mother placed the dimpled boulder beside the lamp.
" -- as pretty as her navel," she was saying in the uproar, while Eskimos laughed and Dr. West blinked. He thought he'd learned quite a few Eskimo customs, and this was not one of them. But he wasn't 100% stupid.
Marthalik was beaming with happiness. Sitting behind him at the evening meal she handed him the best pieces of seal meat as she had predicted she would. As if she must make sure the meat was good enough for him, sometimes she would take a quick bite, chewing thoughtfully, then handing the chunk to him. Others she rejected, searching for a better piece for him.
With a full stomach, warm and comfortable beside her, Dr. West's pleasure began as a chuckle at himself and grew into a mighty laugh worthy of a hunter. Beside him Edwardluk's laugh rose from his belly. "You are a strong man. Eating even more than this person again."
With increasing frequency during the evening Edwardluk shook Dr. West's hand. "Grandfather Bear will be pleased." Plainly Edwardluk was more pleased every minute.
In the crowded tent, hot with bodies, children scampered out of their parkas. Uproariously, hunters told ribald stories. Dr. West noticed one unobtrusive little boy speculatively rubbing his finger round and round in the dent in the boulder. Edwardluk's laughter exploded at him, and the boy fled. "That small boy can't even harpoon a baby seal."
Edwardluk tried to dance, with barely room for his feet to come down. Guests clapped their hands and swayed. Marthalik snuggled against Dr. West. In the mounting heat, visiting Eskimos were taking off their parkas. But this evening, although her forehead glowed with perspiration, Marthalik did not take off hers. Whenever he turned his face toward her she quickly looked down at his other hand resting on her boot leg. Her ear seemed red. Her cheek was flushed.
"Everyone must rest," Edwardluk shouted through the uproar, and the adults laughed, except Dr. West who was looking at Marthalik, whose averted face was red with -- embarrassment? She wasn't smiling now.
He squeezed her hand. She smiled a little.
Loudly the guests began to depart. Several girls glanced back at Dr. West, giggling as they ducked out of the tent. As the lamp's floating wick flickered and dimmed, and children dropped into sleep, and Edwardluk's wife slid out of her parka and under the caribou skins, Dr. West removed his hand from Marthalik's waist. With the caution of the experienced and overly responsible bachelor, Dr. West already was trying to foresee the future for himself and Marthalik. In only six days he would be gone. If the bush pilot returns, would I leave these people now?
Gently he opened the fingers of her hand, sliding his finger across her spreading fingers. "Marthalik, Marthalik, little one, in five days, six days, this person will be gone. The whitemen's bird -- "
Her hand closed around his finger. Turning up her face, her eyes wide, she whispered: "You have told me. But this person thinks -- this person hopes -- no one leaves this land."
He smiled at that. She smiled up at him, and his finger touched the huge dimple in her cheek. Her huge eyes closed, and she turned her face against his chest. Against his ribs he felt the quick beating of her heart. He touched the smooth rim of her ear. As if startled, her body jerked. She moaned, which startled him.
With all these unpredictable people here, what if she -- ? He too vividly remembered one distant night as a college freshman he'd parked with some indecisive girl who unexpectedly screamed: "Help!" He'd fled out of his own Mustang.
Against the tent wall gleamed Edwardluk's ivory-barbed harpoon. Elaborately asleep under the caribou skins, Edwardluk and his wife apparently didn't even need to breathe. Their heads were turned away in the other direction, and they seemed to have fallen asleep as suddenly as if hit on the head. But a little boy was sitting up, grinning at Dr. West. Dr. West scowled threateningly at him, and the little devil's grin widened.
Abruptly Dr. West tried to decide against any involvement with Marthalik -- tonight. He started removing his hand from her waist inside her parka. But his rising hand under her breast insisted she must be a mature young woman who -- With excitement he felt the touch of her fingers upon the back of his hand, pressing his hand upon her. Within her parka, he realized she had withdrawn her arm through her wide sleeve as she leaned back. His fingers gently made love to her firming nipple, and she sighed. As his lips touched her ear, he saw far beyond but in compressed perspective that naked little devil still sitting there grinning.
With irrational fury Dr. West wished this budding little fiend would explode in hellish flames. More rationally he dragged Marthalik out of sight into the privacy of his sleeping bag. Her quickened breathing against his throat became as unev
en as his thudding heartbeats. His hand smoothing up the cushioned warmth of her back muscles, she slid her parka up over her head. Her trembling hand touched his, guiding his fingers down over the ripples of her ribs to softening warmth, pressing his hand on the huge dimple of her navel, and she shivered.
The Eskimo Invasion Page 4
