Annie Muktuk and Other Stories

by Norma Dunning

  She was amazed at old she looked. How had it happened? When did that lady get old? Mirrors were something she avoided. In her mind she was still the bright young lady who had arrived into Montreal with wonderment and curiosity. Her first big city. She had made it to the big time. A real city in those days with the first automobile she had ever ridden in. She had known about cars, seen them when she was in other parts of Quebec. She had just never been inside of one.

  “My hair,” she moaned—needed more colour didn’t it, she thought as she moved in closer to the mirror. Look at those white roots laying on top of her head like a small layer of early spring snow. The time of year the snow fell in thick soggy layers, laying in lines on top of the tundra. Now it sat in the middle of her scalp. In truth, her body had become one big crease. Her face was lined with lines, zipping off in different angles and directions, reminding her that she wasn’t a young girl anymore. She sighed and turned from the mirror, thinking again of how round her body had become and how she hated it. Aging was not something to be fought with, but she thought maybe she could manage it better. What if she got really fat and the white people stopped coming out to see her?

  Seeing her—how she loved the sense of being on display. Being the focus point, all those round eyes looking at her. No matter what she said they thought it was wise and smart and treated her words like a verse from the psalms. Words that were taken as fact and stored into their heads as a way to understand Inuit. Words filled with awe and wisdom. This act of being on display was something she had polished. She could shine and shine when asked about, “the old life.” In truth, her “old life” was not very traditional at all, but the white audiences didn’t know that. One thing about white audiences is no matter how much time had gone past, no matter what decade the earth was in, they had a fascination for Eskimos and she played up on their fascination.

  If there was one thing she understood, it was how to put on a show. Always be sure to display the coy, shy smile. Answer questions in simple English. Never use words more than five letters long. Keep your sentences very short. Always appear to not completely understand the question and veer the audience off in a different direction when forced to answer anything difficult. It was like snaring a rabbit, something she did with her grandmother as a little girl.

  Place the round wire on the path of the rabbit. White person follows rabbit path—they would never make their own way. Be sure the wire is at the right height. White person steps in. BAM! Got him, be sure the wire pulls hard on his ankle and leaves him swaying in one place. There. Got him. Done. Repeat the question asked by white man. Say something funny. White man is trapped in the auditorium. Bead of sweat on his upper lip. Glistening. Look in the opposite direction. Smile. Applause begins like a smattering of rocks on the ground. The sound of applause grows. The sound of applause—nothing made her feel more alive. The sound of applause, the clapping of white hands giving her their approval. It was better than food, better than water. It was better than breathing. She had been born to perform and she did. All of her life was about being on a stage and watching those white mouths saying, “ooo” and “aaahhh.” She loved being the Road Show Eskimo. There was nothing better.

  Lipstick, the orange coloured one—where is it? Again her crooked fingers searching the dresser top. Why she had never gotten a shorter tallboy she didn’t know. Standing on her tiny toes she reached as high as she could to find the black tube. This orange lipstick was the colour that made her brown, wrinkled skin stand out. Important to put on orange lipstick. She had learned she could get away with tracing her mouth outside of the lines. It made her look vulnerable. White women would look at her with sympathy. Lipstick cemented to the outside of the lines, like a picture in a colouring book, made people think you had made a mistake. She knew they thought she was too old to see her lips anymore but if she just went out of the edges by a teeny-weeny bit, the crowd would have pity on her.

  “That poor old Eskimo, look at how she can’t get her lipstick on properly, poor thing,” she could hear them whispering to each other. Sympathy was an important part of every show.

  She had been doing this for years and years. Standing on a stage with her amauti that had aged and wrinkled along with her. She stopped dyeing her hair black once she turned seventy. Now it was a soft brown. A colour that was nowhere in her family history. All black heads and black eyes. Oh the eyes, of course she had to put on some eyeliner. Where was her pencil? Bathroom cabinet. All these things she should put into one case but never did. Her road show was scattered all over her apartment.

  There, just stand a bit higher up. Damn, twirl the black pencil tip out of the container. Now, the usual question of how long and thick should these lines be? Let’s see. The orange lipstick is crooked to the right side, so I’ll put crooked lines to the left side of my eyelids. Scratching the pencil over her eyes and just a little to the edge, she grinned, thinking, “My face looks as though it has gone south!” It had. Decades ago. This was a face that had not had the northern winds rub against it for more than six decades. White people forgot that part. Their lack of memory is what kept her road show going.

  Looking into the mirror she knew she would be all right today. It was only university students that she would talk to. She could say anything to a student and they would think she was brilliant. Once she had said, “If you go teach in the North, you’ll never want to leave.” Inside herself she had chuckled and chuckled. This crowd was too young to know she had left as a teenager and never looked back. Only went back once. Never thought to do it again. Period. Because he had come into her life with those blue, blue eyes and had taught her how to do this.

  She would often find herself thinking that she had loved him once. This blue-eyed smart man. This white man who had come north to research marine life. She had laughed at him when he came into her community. She could speak English and translate to the others in her group. He had said he was there to study mollusks. Siutiruq in her language—snails. No one ate snails! She had told him that if he was looking for wrinkles to visit her anaanatsiaq. He didn’t understand. She had dug in some mud along the shoreline and held one close to his blue eyes.

  “See the wrinkles on their shell—like Grandma’s face!” she had exclaimed. He grinned with all those perfect white teeth. She had reached up into his mouth and ran her finger along his front teeth. He was startled but let her finish. “Nice,” she had said. From that moment on they were inseparable. She was with him every moment of every day. He stayed in a tent along the bay that summer and soon she had moved in with him. In the fall she moved south with him when she was sixteen years old. Grandma had turned her back to her and so did the rest of her family. Her northern life ended when he had put his penis into her. She knew that. She didn’t mind.

  Maybe I should put some lines on my face like Grandma had, she thought. Back to the bathroom cabinet—the blue eyeliner. She stood in front of her bedroom full-length mirror again, pointing the blue pencil towards her chin. One straight line down the middle. Pressing hard onto the pencil she drew one line from her skinny lower orange lip to the edge of her jaw. It looked good. I wonder how many people will think this is a tattoo? Grandma had had tattoos all over her face. An Eskimo equivalent of CoverGirl makeup—something to make you look younger. She grinned to herself. Fooling the whites—now that’s fun. From a distance they won’t know if it’s real or not. She glanced over at the clock. Better hurry. Old Blue Eyes would be here to take her to her road show.

  They had never married but that didn’t stop the babies from coming. She had only taken her children home once to grandmother. She had taught them to say a few of the Inuktitut words children their age would speak. They had said them when they were around grandmother and grandmother was impressed. It was the only time grandmother had touched her again. Putting their noses close to one another. A sign of approval. A sign of trying to find the lost love of family. She had stayed for two nights and returned to Montreal. Blue Eyes was off in jolly old England
visiting his family. He would never have taken his brood of black-haired, black-eyed babies and a woman like her. That was OK with her. Most of the time.

  Blue Eyes always had other women in his life. Women flocked to him. She liked knowing that other women wanted him. She liked knowing that he was handsome. What she didn’t like is that he slept with all of them. Especially the Japanese. She could never figure out why the Japanese women held his attention. Didn’t she look Japanese? She had asked him once what the difference was between her and the Japanese woman who called him from an ocean away and late at night. He had said, “Class” and reminded her that she had never had it. Japanese women had poise and read books. She had taken out a library card and started to read from the children’s book section. She loved reading about the Bobbsey Twins and the little girl named Anne who lived on an island like she had. Blue Eyes had told her to read bigger books. She never did. Books were supposed to take you away from your real life and these ones did. She had told him the books helped her to understand white people better. Blue Eyes had laughed and nodded. Day school had taught her only the small words and the small pleasures of young children inside of books that sometimes had pictures.

  Taking a brush to her thinning hair, she had to decide what to do. The lipstick went right, the black eyeliner left, a simple part down the centre. She did that. Maybe I should wear the beaded barrette, she thought. Back to the dresser, back on her tiny toes, her right hand groping for the small beaded pin. It’s got to be here. There it is. Snap it on the right side. She angled her face upwards. All the wrinkles dangled from her left cheek, fluttering like sheets on a breezy clothesline. Don’t do that in front of the crowd, she reminded herself. Hurry, hurry, Blue Eyes will be here.

  Today she would speak about The Book. He had written it almost forty years ago. Put her name on it. All about her life when she came south. What she thought of life below the sixtieth parallel. He had made her famous. For a short time. Fame is short. She had read and re-read the book over and over again. It wasn’t fun to read like The Bobbsey Twins was. Blue Eyes would quiz her on it before every road show performance. He would remind her that this book was his best work. His bestseller and she would not get anything wrong.

  Together they had made some money on it. She had learned how to be the Road Show Eskimo. She liked that he would come to watch her speak. Sat in the front row and if she got stuck he had invented the signals to get her to the proper answer. Tap to the right cheek—answer in Inuktitut. Tap to the left cheek—glance away, turn back and smile the full smile. Touching the nose, create a coughing fit and ask for a glass of water. Touching the nose meant Blue Eyes was stuck too. He carried a copy of The Book to every road show. Had flipped over page edges with notes on them. If he couldn’t find the answer quickly, he would touch his right eye. That meant to shrug as big as she could, and say, “I don’t know everything.” This statement usually had the audience say “ahh” and she would add that she hadn’t gone to high school or university like they had.

  Then the book died away and there were no more calls to perform. Good thing those white professors had knocked on her apartment door a couple years ago. She had suffered through lean times. The kids grown. Blue Eyes in his own apartment. Her alone and alone and alone.

  Those white professors made some trouble though. Asking for all sorts of things. Pictures of her life before Blue Eyes. Pictures of her life with Blue Eyes. Pictures of her life now. The now was the hard part. They didn’t need to know that she didn’t live with Blue Eyes. They didn’t need to know he had married a Japanese woman and kept a family with her. His legitimate son. The legal boy with the same blue eyes as his dad. She had finally kicked him out of her life after the boy’s birth. Afterwards, it became harder to find road show work.

  She had complained to a lawyer. The lawyer made sure Blue Eyes paid her something. Blue Eyes had insisted that she make a personal appearance at his apartment door to get her stipend. Once a month she tapped at his apartment door. Once a month his Japanese wife opened the door with a scowl. Once a month she hollered for him in her language, “Kuru!” Once a month he came to the door with a cheque written in swirling ink. He said the same thing every month in his British accent. “This covers the rent for your flat, a load of groceries for one, and enough to put one bit of petrol into your tank.” She would smile her small smile. He would nod and close the door.

  The white professors were snoopy, but she had been making some of her own money again. She didn’t have to give this money to Blue Eyes like she had in the early days of the show. She still went to his red apartment door, to that penthouse suite and collected what was owed to her. She had been working the show solo until one of the white professor women opened her big fat mouth, calling him to confirm information from the original manuscript. He had come scurrying back like a mouse chasing a block of cheese.

  She had to perform for him today. He had said he didn’t need the money anymore but he didn’t want her to mess up in front of the university crowd. His old research grounds. His old university. She liked having him back with her for the road show. Sitting front row centre, looking at her in the spotlight. Sometimes the Japanese wife sat next to him like a stranger. That felt even better—now they both had to look at her. The ring! Don’t forget the ring. She had bought a gold band years ago, wearing it only at road show events he attended.

  Tippy-toes, fumbling both crippled hands across the dresser top. Where is it? Panic creeping into her lungs. Nothing but dust slid from the dresser top. What had happened to it? Check the jewellery box. There was an old picture of her and him inside of the box. A day when they slid into one of those corny booths at the mall before the babies came along. A day when they both could laugh together and at once into a camera. She flipped the picture face down. Ugh, that ring!

  She ran off to the kitchen. “Maybe it’s in my purse,” she thought. The side pocket where she kept her keys. Squinting and squinting and seeing nothing. Turning the purse upside down. Candies and Kleenex spilling onto the table. Damn it! She was getting angry. This isn’t good. The ring made those white people think they were The Happy Couple. This was important for him. The retired professor with his Inuk wife. It was important to always have a good public image. It was important to her especially if the Japanese woman sat next to him. Maybe Blue Eyes would know where it was. She would call him and ask quickly. Sitting on the old wire back chair she hit the big buttons on the phone he had given her.

  One ring, two rings, three rings. Nothing. An answering machine again with his English accent, “We are not about. Please leave a message at the tone.” She slammed the receiver back into its cradle. It was his fault. It was his idea that she was to wear the ring in public. She didn’t dare let him buy it. She had headed off to Wal-Mart one afternoon and found it in the young girls’ department. Lying there, the round gold ring had called her name among all the costume rings and necklaces and bracelets. A costume ring for her Road Show Eskimo performances. It was a cheap ring. It had to be. It was the way he had always treated her. She wore it as proof. Cheap proof of their pretend life together.

  The main entrance door. Buzzer buzzing. Sweat on the palms of her hands. Confession time. She would have to tell him right away. “Come in!” she yelled as loud and happy as she could sound into the building intercom and opened the door to her small apartment. She went back to her bedroom. Sitting on the edge of her bed like a little girl about to be reprimanded. Waiting for his footsteps in the hallway. The clink of his silver cane, followed by the soft squish of his special made shoes against the worn hall rug. Clink, squish—getting closer and closer to the apartment door. She jumped from her bed and ran the short distance to the door.

  “I can’t find it!” she shouted.

  “What now?” Blue Eyes growled.

  “The ring!” she said, lifting her empty left hand. She kept her eyes to the rug. Don’t look at him she thought. She knew the soft shade of pink his cheeks always started out as before the dee
p red of his anger would hit the ceiling. She had seen him look at her like this a thousand times before.

  “Damn you!” Blue Eyes exclaimed. “It’s the most important thing for you to wear! There’s no time for us to scramble around this dump you call home. Get to the car! We’ll sort this out on our way.” Clink, squish. Clink, squish. She let him walk slowly ahead of her. Keeping her head down and watching the lines of the rug scroll past her.

  “Today is your biggest event yet,” he reminded her. “Everyone will be there, including your publisher and those two women. God, how I’ve hated what they’ve done to my life.”

  He often rambled on like this. Her walking behind, his words filling up the elevator for their short ride to the ground floor. Keep your eyes down, she reminded herself. She trailed behind him out of the building and into the waiting taxi. He did not open the door of the car for her. Something he had stopped doing decades ago. She got into the back seat and let out a scream.

  The cab driver’s head snapped towards the back. “You all right, ladies?”

  She looked to her left and there sat the Japanese wife in all her glory. Blue Eyes had made her dress in a traditional Japanese kimono. She had never been this close to his foreign wife before. They glared at one another. The Amauti and The Kimono hating the sight of each other. Blue Eyes glanced back at them and instructed the driver to take them to the auditorium, while a happy grin spread across his lips.

  “For today, you can wear this,” Blue Eyes instructed her. Without turning his head, he handed his silver wedding band to her over his left shoulder. The Kimono uttered another bad word in her language.

  “Don’t lose it and give it back as soon as you get off the stage,” Blue Eyes instructed. He was always the man of instructions. Even in bed all those decades ago. She wondered if he did the same with The Kimono.

  “But today is only students?” she asked.