The Stone Collection

by Kateri Akiwenzi-Damm

  “It was a crazy idea caused by the insidious policies of a racist government,” she told DJ. Still, she always wished love had worked out that way, and deep down she’d longed for a man who could talk to her in the language. Who would call her his sweetie and make scone for her. Who would dry fish and skin deer and make offerings for her health and safety. Who would sing lullabyes to their children in Anishnaabemowin. She wanted a man at home on the land. Grounded.

  Once she had fallen for an Irish-Norwegian environmental activist from Albany. He was thoughtful and beautiful, had the nicest ass she had ever squeezed, was wild in bed, and he cared about the land. Unfortunately, he didn’t care as much for her and although he could commit to a cause in a heartbeat he couldn’t commit to her for more than a couple of months. Funny how he taught people to love and respect Mother Earth but was a throwaway consumer of women.

  “Is that a vestige of some overprivileged colonial White guy arrogance that his oh-so-aware self doesn’t recognize it for the hypocrisy that it is?” she leadingly asked a Tlicho friend once after the breakup.

  “Well, yeah,” Simon said. “Plus he’s an immature idiot.”

  And now, kneeling before her, with his hand in an Alpha female wolf track, was the Anishnaabe man of her prayers. She wanted that same hand to reach into her. To know her ridges and hollows. To recognize her by touch.

  She could see his nostrils flare, sniffing the air around her.

  She caught her breath. She wanted him sniffing and pawing at her. Digging up her bones. Hot on her scent.

  Each breath he took hung for a moment in the air before dissipating. Like small smoke signals, she thought. Maybe it was corny, but she liked the image. People in love are sentimental fools, she scolded herself. All the while still watching his breathing.

  He smiled at her. “Would you like to feel the track?”

  “Megwetch,” she said, moving closer to him.

  Why couldn’t she have met someone like him years ago? Why now? Why him? He would have been going to his grade 8 grad when she was getting her MA at university. He would have been in diapers when she was at HER grade 8 grad. Now, here she was, longing, dying to touch him. First with her hands, just her fingertips lightly touching his face. So softly her hand would tremble in passing. Then her lips brushing his cheek before grazing his lips. Her tongue would circle his mouth before tasting the tip of his tongue. Later, her tongue would travel the entire territory of his body, mapping it with taste and touch. She would know the smell of him, the texture of the hair on the inside of his thighs, the taste of him, the size and feel of him in her mouth, resting on her tongue. She would know the friction of him, feel the wetness, reach down to the spark igniting.

  She would learn to recognize him with just one touch.

  Just one touch. That’s all it would take.

  One touch to begin the story.

  One touch to start the migration.

  One touch to seed the rainclouds.

  One touch to set off lightning storms.

  One touch to ignite the frenzy.

  One touch after months spent carefully not touching. They’d gone to great lengths to ensure they never touched each other. As if both of them knew what it would mean. If one so much as brushed past the other or if they sat beside each other and their legs touched for even a moment that small patch of skin would tingle and come alive and they’d move immediately as if they feared one of them would spontaneously combust.

  “But Officer,” she could hear herself saying, “I only just barely touched him for an instant.”

  “Winona, maybe you just like the young bucks,” DJ teased. “Fresh meat, hey?”

  It was true. His youth was a turn-on. She’d be lying if she didn’t admit that. But if it were just that she wouldn’t be taking her time like this. If it had just been about sex with a hot young body it could’ve been wham-bam over and done with long ago. But it was more than that. He was precious and beautiful to her. She loved the firmness of his body, smooth tautness of his skin, his ease and gracefulness. His strength and playfulness. His way of seeing the world. It made her feel beautiful too. Rather than feeling old, as some other younger men made her feel, being near him allowed her to both appreciate his youthful energy as well as her own hard-won maturity and calmness. Looking at him, she loved the lines that were starting to etch around her eyes and mouth when she smiled, the stories she was able to tell about her travels, her triumphs, and her losses. She loved the feeling of ripening that possessed her body. She could see how it mesmerized him in the same way that his vigour intoxicated her. She felt more vital and he seemed more serene.

  Still, her family would tease her when she brought him home. No doubt.

  “So, Win,” they’d ask, “how old was he when you were starting high school?”

  They’d ask if he had training wheels on his Harley. If she had to cut his meat for him or if his mom let him use real knives like a big boy. They’d call her Demi and him Ashton. They’d yell out things when they drove by like “where’s your Binogeeze-Man?” Or they’d do things like buy him a Happy Meal and tell her they arranged for Meals-on-Wheels for her.

  Her brother Elwin would put a crib in their room. In the morning they’d ask if the “baby” kept her up all night and her brothers would wink at each other and laugh.

  Everyone in the whole community would know five minutes after they arrived and would get in on the teasing.

  She wouldn’t care. She’d laugh too. It was funny after all these years to find him at all let alone in such beautiful wrapping. Maybe the timing was a bit off, but hey, the universe works in mysterious ways, and all that mattered to her was that those years of searching, then those years of despairing and giving up the search, had somehow finally led to this. This man. This man kneeling beside her, reaching into the earth.

  As he kneeled there, showing her how to touch the wolf track, she noticed the skin on the knuckles of his hand, the sparkle of stars in his eyes. She wanted to throw herself on him, rip their gear off, and roll with him in the snow and mud until they had to run, their hearts pounding as they shivered and danced in the cold April air. She wanted to take his hand and run until they couldn’t run anymore, then their bodies, spent, gasping for breath, would collapse to the earth and they would rise later, blinking into the sun like newly formed beings. Ready to greet a new day, together. And every time they made love they would reenact this scene, and know there was no place else to run. Nothing to hide. New beginnings stretched before them, like sun reaching across the horizon.

  She kneeled beside him. Reached out her hand.

  Just one touch, she thought.

  Just one.

  THE DREAMING AND THE WAKING

  TODAY IS SATURDAY. I’VE SPENT THE DAY HERE IN THE HOSPITAL in Wigawaykee’s room. It’s a boring place most of the time. When it’s not it can be frightening. Beeps sounding. Nurses and doctors running. People weeping. Crying out in pain or in grief. And your own heart starts racing like you’ve woken from a nightmare. Except the nightmare starts after you wake.

  “Yeah, I know,” my mother says. “He saved you. And we can never repay him for that. But my girl, you gotta move on. You got your whole life ahead. He wouldn’t want you spending it like this. Alone. No man. No babies.”

  The light is too bright. This hospital room is always too bright. Too shiny. It makes me nauseated.

  The walls are a faint peach colour. The sheets and blankets are bleached white. The bed is metal. The window blinds are white. The curtains are white. There are prints of peach-toned flowers in chrome frames on peach walls. Peach-coloured chairs with chrome legs stand ready for visitors. Sturdy veneer bedside tables with chrome legs and handles perch on either side of the bed.

  I hate peach.

  Chrome’s okay. Only because when you look at it you can see all sorts of distorted images of yourself. I like that. It passes the time during these long days and nights.

  I’ve been sitting here all day. On this pe
ach chair. Beside this metal bed. Where Wigawaykee lies. Still and silent.

  I’d like to be able to say to my mom that no matter what I will continue to do this. That I will be here by his side for as long as it takes. That I have the love and the patience to stand by him. But, despite what my mom says, I’m not sure I do have either the faith or the patience.

  I’d like to say I do. I’d like to believe that he will survive this. That one day his eyes will open. That he will see me sitting here beside his hospital bed. That somehow the pain and anger and frustration and fear will have been erased from his spirit. That the walls will have crumbled. The masks fallen free and vanished. That I will truly have forgiven him for that moment that sent us both crashing into lives we never would’ve imagined. That he’ll smile.

  I’ve always been won over by that smile of his. If he wanted to I’m sure he could seduce the stars down from the sky and make them dance for him with that smile.

  We’ve known each other pretty much our whole lives. We were friends when we were kids. His dad was prone to drunken rages. He’d beat his wife and kids. Lock them in the cellar, tie them to their beds. Wigawaykee’s sister Zeegwun was only four when their dad locked her in the cellar and she got frostbite so bad she lost the ends of two of her fingers. He was a real bastard that guy. Cruel.

  “My dad was a good kid,” Wigawaykee told me once years later. “When he married my mom he was a big, good-looking guy, always making jokes and laughing. But when he got back from the war, he’d changed. He wouldn’t talk for days at a time. He was drunk every day. That’s when he started hitting Mom. By the time Zeegwun was born, Mom was scared of him.”

  At school we’d share our lunches with Wigawaykee and his sister and sometimes they’d sneak by after school or in the evening and my mom would bathe them and feed them until they couldn’t eat any more. She’d hug them and they’d smile shyly. Wigawaykee would sit on my mom’s lap and she’d hug him and tickle his neck and tell him how cute he was. He’d laugh and squirm but every time he got the chance he’d be back for more. Sometimes he’d fall asleep in her lap and my dad would carry him home, waking him at the end of their driveway so he and Zeegwun could sneak in.

  Poor boy.

  Now I look at him and I’d like to believe that he’ll awaken and that he’ll be strong and whole. But I know he was neither of those things before all of this. And yet somehow I want to believe that he’ll smile at me and the pain we carry will melt away. I want to believe that the walls of fear we built, the mountains of pain we pushed up from the centre of our hearts, the raging rivers of lies and demands and betrayals we placed between us will be overcome. I want to believe that we could truly love each other, not only in spirit, as we do now, but that we could live together with that same love in our every day.

  And so I hang on. I do what I can to help him heal. I squeeze every last bit of hope from my heart. I sit in this room staring at his face. His beautiful face that is slowly melting to bone.

  And I give him bone words. The bones of truth. I tell him ribcage stories. Sing him thighbone songs. I talk to him about the sacred burial grounds inside of us. I read bare-bones poems about forgiveness and love. I tell him over and over and over again “I am your friend, Wigawaykee. N’odaysinawn.” I sing to him “k’zaugin…k’zaugin….” I say everything he might need to hear to heal his wounded spirit. I burn sweetgrass for him. Bring him wild roses. Massage his body with healing oils. Place him in a circle of stones.

  He sleeps.

  “We need our men,” my friend Ruth says. “We can’t afford to let even one slip away.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  I do all of this because I can’t bear to let one go. Not this one.

  And I do it because I have loved him my whole life. Because he pushed me into the fire then risked everything to pull me out.

  I believe it helps him. And it helps me too.

  For a long time after that night we fell, I didn’t come to see him. I needed to find my own healing. I went home and laid my wounds upon the earth. Then one day I knew I had healed as much as I would ever heal. I decided to wear my scars proudly.

  “Scars are poems of survival written across our bodies,” I told my mother.

  “Ah, my girl,” she said and pulled me close to her. She stroked my hair. “My girl.”

  I let her hug me until she was ready to let go. “Drive me to the hospital?” I said.

  It was liberating in a strange kind of way. It made me feel strong. Bursting with life. That was the first day I brought Wigawaykee wild roses.

  “I’ll come in with you,” my mom said.

  “No,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  “He’s not the same,” she warned me.

  “I know,” I said. “But I need to do this myself.” She squeezed my hand and stood in the waiting room watching me until I turned down the corridor to his room.

  I walked into his hospital room carrying a handful of wild roses. And the moment I saw him I cried. I wept from so deep inside that all language left me. Sounds I had never made before spewed from somewhere inside me. It was like being turned inside out.

  I don’t know how long I stood there scattering wild roses at my feet. But some time later I found myself beside his hospital bed. I reached out my hand. Touched his skin. It was like parchment, thin and dry. I touched him again and could smell wild roses. I could smell the scent of him. Of us together. I could feel breath flowing from my mouth and nose. I could see butterflies dancing in my eyes. Bears rising from their winter sleep. I could hear voices singing songs I knew yet had never heard before. I cried out in a language hidden in my blood. A torrent of words broke loose and swirled about us until it seemed we would both be swept away.

  In the long hours since then I have begun to write. Keesic bought me this journal in the hospital gift shop. I began writing all of the things I could not say. All of the dreams I could not remember. All of the pain and beauty I could not contain. All of the answers to all of the questions I could not ask.

  My cousin Lorene sits with me sometimes.

  “Lately, I keep having this dream I never fully remember,” I tell her.

  She puts down her Spirit magazine and leans towards me, her head cocked to the side.

  “Wigawaykee is in the dream. We’re facing each other, standing up to our necks in water. He is on one side of a river and I am on the other. There’s blood running from our ears and mouths and flowing into the water. We call to each other. Something. I can’t quite remember. The river runs in both directions. He is pulled one way. I am pulled the other. We struggle against the current. I reach for him. He throws rocks at me. My heart is pounding. There’s something I can’t remember. Then we’re running. Our clothes are soaked. We take off our clothes. There are purple butterflies. The sound of wings overhead. We hold hands. Run until we are no longer touching ground. Our skin disappears.”

  Lorene reaches out and holds my hand. It is enough. We sit like that for a long time, watching him sleep.

  “How long are you gonna pine over him?” my mom asks me. She doesn’t know the whole story. She doesn’t read the poetry in this place.

  I shrug my shoulders. “As long as it takes.”

  “For what?” she says. “For what, my girl?”

  I shrug again. I don’t know.

  Some days I sit here on this hard chair with my feet propped on his bed. I read stories by Sherman Alexie, Patricia Grace, Gerald Vizenor, and Cherie Dimaline. Or poetry by Giles Benaway, Marilyn Dumont, Pablo Neruda, and Hone Tuwhare. I eat popcorn and sip ice water. Just because it makes me feel good. Sometimes I don’t read the stories or poems out loud. I just laugh or shake my head or make little sounds when I read something that strikes me a certain way. But often I do read out loud. Sometimes I do it for the stories more than for him. Because they need a voice to set them free in this place.

  Here, in the hospital, I began to tell him stories of my own. Stories about life back home. Who’s seeing who, who’s s
leeping with who, who’s at school, orwho’s getting married. Stories about our cousins and their antics on Saturday nights. Stories about birds and graveyards, about the way stones hold history, and about how hair holds memory.

  I didn’t mean to become a teller of stories. It just happened. I don’t know why. Sometimes I try to understand how this happened. All I know is that it has something to do with that moment he turned away.

  Today I told him this story:

  “One night a man sat in his room. His head was heavy. He sat in the dark thinking about how heavy feelings can be. He loved a woman. A woman with long dark hair and strawberry lips and eyes as expressive as poems. He loved her with his entire soul. But she did not love him. It weighed on him and he grew heavier and heavier until he could barely move.

  He had dreams that this woman he loved would kiss him. They would kiss and he would feel himself growing lighter. Together they would grow lighter and lighter until they no longer touched the earth but floated high above the tops of the trees. But on this particular night he could not sleep. He could not dream. He could only sit there as heavy as lead. His spirit was a dull grey stone. His thoughts grew dark like his room. Outside his window he heard a lone wolf howling. The sound filled every space inside him with longing and sadness. He opened his window and sat on the windowsill and heard other wolves responding to the first. He wept as he sat there listening to the wolves. And the burden of unrequited love became unbearable.

  He jumped.

  As he fell he could hear the pounding of wings. He could feel them inside his chest. It was at that moment, as he was plunging through the night sky, that he wondered if he had loved someone incapable of loving him back, because ultimately he was the one who was incapable of true love.”

  Wigawaykee didn’t react. But I felt a stirring like flocks of songbirds and ravens rising in my chest, and I knew he had heard.