My Sister the Moon

by Sue Harrison

  Again the quivering came into Kiin’s spirit. A man who did not honor his uncle—how would he treat his wives?

  And as though she read Kiin’s thoughts, Woman of the Sky said, “You should have chosen Ice Hunter.”

  “Yes,” echoed Kiin’s spirit, “Woman of the Sky told you that Ice Hunter was strong enough to be your husband. You should have chosen him.”

  But then Kiin thought, What mother does not see her son as being stronger, wiser, greater than he truly is? I have chosen. I will not fill my mind with thoughts of what could have been.

  “I could not choose him,” Kiin said, but did not look into Woman of the Sky’s eyes as she spoke. “He is a good man. I could not take the chance I would curse him.”

  Woman of the Sky nodded. There was sadness in her eyes, but no anger. She turned and spoke for a time to Lemming Tail. Kiin saw a sullenness in Lemming Tail’s face, the look that Qakan wore when he was forced to do something he did not want to do. Finally the Raven spoke, interrupting Woman of the Sky, but the old woman continued to speak to Lemming Tail, as though the Raven’s words were nothing more than the wind. Even when she finished speaking to his wife, Woman of the Sky did not answer the Raven, but instead said to Kiin, “If you need me I will come, or my sister.”

  She left the ulaq and the Raven spoke to Lemming Tail, his words hard.

  She said something to the Raven, anger in her voice, and the Raven slapped her. He took Yellow-hair’s basket and left the ulaq, left Kiin alone with Lemming Tail.

  Then some spirit seemed to whisper to Kiin: “So, you have two small fox furs, your suk, the necklace that Samiq made, the carving from Chagak and a whale tooth shell. No woman’s knife, no needles or scraping tools, no pounding stone, no chunks of sinew or sealskins.”

  “But I have two babies,” Kiin answered, speaking out loud. And her words were brave, her voice strong, without stuttering.

  When Kiin spoke, Lemming Tail raised her eyebrows, then she began to laugh. Kiin did not like her laughter. It was too much like Qakan’s laughter, like the laughter her father used when he ridiculed her. But then Kiin’s spirit whispered, “You have traveled from one end of the earth to the other, a journey most hunters never make; you have danced with Walrus men, and are loved by a man who is now a Whale Hunter. What is a little laughter?”

  Lemming Tail reached out and touched Kiin’s suk, then she fingered Samiq’s necklace, but Kiin pushed the woman’s hands away. Again the woman laughed, and the laugh, high and screeching, made Kiin’s skin pull up in tiny shivering bumps. But then Kiin, too, began to laugh. She laughed as she looked at the filth on the floor, at the tumbled pile of baskets heaped in a corner, the torn walrus hide curtain that hung over the food cache, and in rudeness, she pointed. In rudeness, she laughed.

  Lemming Tail’s lips curled, and she hissed angry words. Then she dug into a pile of half-finished baskets, threw one to Kiin.

  Kiin took the basket to a place near the oil lamp; she waited, sure Lemming Tail would give her grass for weaving and a water skin, but Lemming Tail went over to the sleeping platform and lay down, curling herself under the furs with her back toward Kiin.

  For a time Kiin watched and waited, but finally she put the basket down and began to straighten the room. Hides had not been kept dry, and floor mats had begun to mold. The whole ulaq carried their smell. She wished for Kayugh’s clean, well-kept ulaq. Even her father’s ulaq was clean, the floors padded with heather and new mats, bones collected and thrown out or saved for carving.

  When Kiin had picked up the bones and food scraps on the floor and replaced the worst mats with several she found in a pile beside the food cache, she gathered the debris and carried it outside, far from the ulas to a place where the wind would carry the smell away from the village.

  Fireweed, tall and glowing, grew at the edge of the village. Kiin twisted the tough stems until they broke and she had six pink flower heads in her hands. They were old, beginning to go to fluff, but the blossoms were still sweet, perhaps something that would help the stink of her husband’s ulaq.

  She returned to the ulaq, again politely refused the food Grass Ear’s wives offered her, smiling at them this time. Their hair, though cut bluntly to shoulder length, was dark and shining, and they were so much alike in looks, with long narrow faces, slanted eyes and wide mouths that Kiin knew they must be sisters.

  When she came back into the Raven’s room, she noticed that Lemming Tail was breathing the long, quiet breaths of one who slept, so Kiin worked quickly to scatter the fireweed she had picked, then began to straighten the basket corner, sorting baskets according to size and shape, piling them so they could be used. Three were full of something that had once perhaps been food and were good for nothing now but to be thrown away. These she stacked beside the dividing curtain and continued to work until she had another pile of refuse: molded skins, old baskets, a water bladder full of holes. Again she gathered the load and took it outside, again she returned to the ulaq to find Lemming Tail asleep.

  Kiin wished she could go through the food storage cache as well, but as second wife, she had no right, and so finally returned to the basket Lemming Tail had given her. Kiin had found a bundle of ryegrass laying against the ulaq wall. She took a clay-lined basket that she hoped would be water-tight and poured it full of water from a walrus bladder that hung on one wall. The water was tepid and had a brackish smell, but she dipped her hands into it and ran her wet fingers over several blades of grass.

  A song began like a thin thread in her mind, words that spoke of the sea, of the ice and the blue men that lived in the ice. She sang as she split grass into fine strands with her thumbnail and twisted it into a coil.

  But as she sang, worried thoughts, like wisps of smoke, curled into Kiin’s words. The Raven was her husband now. He would expect her in his bed that night.

  “You have had men you did not want in your sleeping place before,” her spirit whispered. “At least the Raven is your husband. Do not forget that you are as strong as he is.”

  But Kiin knew her spirit spoke only to comfort her and was not telling the truth. The Raven was strong, strong enough to own two wives, to trade for another. Strong enough to stand against the curse that Kiin carried.

  She worked until some prodding of her spirit made her look at the sleeping platform. Lemming Tail was sitting up, her ears covered with her hands. But singing was one thing Kiin knew she did well, so she allowed herself to smile at Lemming Tail, allowed herself to smile in the way a woman smiles at a bothersome child.

  There was a noise on the other side of the curtain and suddenly, so suddenly that even Lemming Tail looked startled, the curtain was drawn back, and Kiin saw that many women, perhaps all the women of the village stood in the Raven’s ulaq.

  Kiin stopped singing and put down her basket. She stood, and when she stood, Woman of the Sky came forward and said to her, “They come bringing gifts to Raven’s new wife.”

  Then each woman came, first Woman of the Sky, then Woman of the Sun. They each brought a basket of herbs and laid them before her, then Woman of the Sun took a place beside Kiin and as each woman came, Woman of the Sun leaned forward to whisper in Kiin’s ear, saying names and telling Kiin the Walrus People words for each object as the women brought everything a wife needs: needles, awls, rolls of babiche and chunks of sinew for sewing; sleeping mats and furs; grinding and cooking stones; baskets and containers for oil; storage containers for meat; fish gorges and a digging stick.

  The women laughed and joked, and only Lemming Tail and Yellow-hair seemed sullen. Kiin was included in the laughter because Woman of the Sun or Woman of the Sky explained what the others said, so that soon Kiin learned many words in the Walrus language.

  And once when one of Grass Ear’s wives said how fortunate Kiin was to be wife to Raven, Woman of the Sun, after telling Kiin what the woman had said, eased Kiin’s fears by whispering, “No one will dare treat you like a slave. And you will even have many months before Raven will
take you to his bed. No Walrus man will enter a woman who is pregnant. She would curse his hunting.”

  So Kiin pulled these words close inside her chest and found herself smiling more easily, laughing more quickly.

  Yellow-hair, on her turn to give a gift, held closed hands out to Kiin and when Kiin cupped her own hands under Yellow-hair’s, Yellow-hair opened her fingers to show she would give nothing. Even then, Kiin laughed, laughed so hard that the other women, standing with faces red at Yellow-hair’s rudeness, began to laugh as well until Yellow-hair, blushing, pushed her way through the women and sat down, knees drawn up to her chin, on the sleeping platform. Then Kiin saw Lemming Tail go quickly to a basket in the corner of the ulaq, and when she gave Kiin a gift, it was a crooked knife, something quite beautiful, the blade a thin slice of chert inserted in the side of a caribou rib, and Woman of the Sun told Kiin that the rib had been given in trade from the Caribou People, who lived far to the east where ice marked the edge of the world.

  Kiin smoothed her hand over the rib and thanked Lemming Tail, Kiin hoping that perhaps this gift would mark the beginning of a friendship, but as Lemming Tail turned away, Kiin saw a look of mockery pass between Lemming Tail and Yellow-hair, and so Kiin knew the gift was not a gift of the heart.

  When the women left, the Raven returned to the ulaq. Kiin was at the back of the large main room finishing the grass basket. The Raven sat down on a floor mat, leaned back against a pile of furs, and watched her through the narrow slits of his eyes. The man was so still that at times Kiin thought he was asleep, but if she reached to dip her hand into the water basket, she could see the gleam of his eyes following her, and his gaze seemed to weaken her fingers, making them shake as she worked. She tried to calm herself by repeating the new words she had learned that day, but the dread again seeped into her chest and grew so large that it pushed against her heart, making it skip and tremble.

  “Remember what Woman of the Sky told you,” her spirit whispered. “You are with child; no Walrus man will take you. The Raven will not touch you. You would curse his hunting.” But though the words had comforted Kiin that afternoon, now she doubted what Woman of the Sky had told her. Who could say what powers the Raven possessed? He was not a man who would obey the rules of his people.

  Lemming Tail watched Kiin also, but from the corners of lowered eyes and with quick glances.

  When the Raven had come back into the ulaq, Lemming Tail gave him food then removed her suk and fur leggings and oiled her legs. Kiin had tried not to show her surprise when she saw that Lemming Tail’s legs, from ankles to knees, were tattooed in a complex pattern of triangles and dots. Kiin thought the marks made Lemming Tail’s legs look black and ugly, but she could tell by the way Lemming Tail smoothed the oil carefully over the designs that the woman though they were beautiful.

  When the Raven finally rose, he pulled Lemming Tail to her feet, slid his hands over her back, then up around her neck. And Lemming Tail looked at Kiin with a taunting smile as she followed the Raven to the sleeping platform. But Kiin also smiled, trying to keep the relief from her eyes.

  The Raven said something to Kiin and pointed to a place beside him on the sleeping platform. Again, Kiin’s heart began its troubled beating, but the Raven turned his back to her and Kiin crowded herself into the farthest corner of the platform, also turning her back.

  Soon the Raven and Lemming Tail filled the ulaq with the noise of their lovemaking, and Kiin could not sleep. But then Kiin pulled a song into her mind and held it there to cover the Raven’s groanings, Lemming Tail’s sighs and callings.

  And for once Kiin was glad she did not yet understand the Walrus tongue.

  40

  “THERE WILL BE MORE CHANGES,” Fat Wife told Samiq as she handed him a shell filled with a broth of ugyuun and cod.

  But Samiq would not look at the woman. He did not want to see her smile as she told him about another of his punishments. It had been enough to spend the remainder of the summer learning with the small boys, to miss the fall hunts. Many times Samiq had decided to go back to his mother’s people, to return without the secret of the Whale Hunters’ poison, but the thought of Kayugh’s disappointment kept him with the Whale Hunters, made him decide to wait at least until the spring.

  And perhaps Kayugh would not welcome him back if he came without the skills he had been sent to learn. Then where would he belong?

  But that morning, Many Whales had given him another harpoonhead. It was not as fine as the one that had been lost with the whale, but Samiq knew the weapon was a sign that Many Whales still wanted him to hunt.

  If I am allowed to hunt, Samiq had thought, I can bear to stay here until I am skilled enough to teach the First Men. Then I will return to my people and I will see what truth Kayugh hides in his heart, and I will know whether to stay or to find another beach. And if I must find another beach, I will come to the Whale Hunters and to the First Men only in trade.

  But now Fat Wife’s words made Samiq uneasy, and he turned away from her and began drinking his broth.

  Fat Wife continued to talk, speaking of the women in the village and of the children. Then she said, “Children again in this ulaq will be a fine thing.” She chuckled and said through her laughter, “Who knows, perhaps tonight the noises in this ulaq will make Many Whales come again to my sleeping place.” She patted her thick middle and said, “There is still time for me to make another son.”

  Samiq listened with open mouth, trying to make sense of the old woman’s words. Then Fat Wife held up the thick furred parka she was sewing, and Samiq saw it was nearly finished.

  “It was supposed to be for Many Whales,” Fat Wife said and chuckled, “but he has one as every husband should. So it is for you.”

  Samiq spilled his broth, and he gasped as the liquid splashed on his bare chest. Now he knew the reason for Fat Wife’s smiles, and he was angry that he had not been told. Many Whales treated him like a woman, always making decisions for him.

  He looked down at her round, fat head and asked, “Who is to be my wife?”

  Fat Wife smirked. She was without her side teeth and the gaps made black holes in her smile.

  “My husband tried to buy you Small Flower, but her father is afraid that you will take her away, back to the Seal Hunters. And Speckled Basket has been promised to Crooked Bird, so your wife will be Three Fish.”

  Three Fish, Samiq thought, and felt as though he had been hit, the blow knocking the wind from his lungs. Speckled Basket would have been bearable. How could he forget their time together in the grass? But Three Fish…

  Fat Wife flipped her apron like a young girl and turned, then said, “My husband says that there is no man in this village with hands large enough to hold her.” She slapped her buttocks and laughed.

  It was a joke best told by a man, and Samiq pretended he did not hear. He set his dish down. He had nothing to say to Fat Wife. What good would it do to protest? What difference would it make?

  Fat Wife’s chuckling stopped, and Samiq was surprised at her next words for she said, “Whale Killer, all women are the same in the dark.”

  Three Fish’s parents brought her to Samiq that night. Samiq made himself smile when they came. But each time he looked at Three Fish’s wide face, at her broken teeth, he felt an ache begin in his chest, and in his mind he saw Kiin, her delicate features, her gentle smile, and he remembered her hands firm but soft against his skin.

  I will please my grandfather, Samiq told himself. Then perhaps he will tell me the secrets of the whale poison and I will be able to return to my people.

  “But you will have a wife to take back with you,” an inside voice said, arguing within his chest like the Whale Hunter women argued within their ulas.

  No, she will want to stay with her people, Samiq told himself. She will not come with me, and I will be free of the Whale Hunters. But now I must do this to please my grandfather.

  And he made himself smile, made himself say words of welcome to Three Fish’s father
and to smile at Many Whales, to laugh at the jokes the two men told about the taking of women. Fat Wife sat in the corner, her back to the men as was the custom, her hands busy weaving a basket, but at each joke, Samiq saw her shoulders shake, so he knew she was listening.

  Three Fish stood behind her father. She was wearing an otter fur suk, the bottom edge banded with dangling shells and curls of colored seal esophagus. Her hair was smoothed back into the tight bun married women wore, and her face was painted with red ochre, something Samiq knew women painted on sealskins to preserve them, and he wondered what custom among the Whale Hunters said that new brides should have red faces.

  41

  SAMIQ SMOOTHED HIS HARPOON shaft with a chip of lava rock and looked across the ulaq at Many Whales. The old man’s head was bent, his eyes closed. Once Hard Rock had become chief of the Whale Hunters, Many Whales had suddenly seemed to grow old, as though he were no longer a man, but again a boy dependent on others for his food, for the necessities of each day’s living.

  Samiq thought that Many Whales had learned to trust him again, that Many Whales saw him once more as a man, but perhaps Many Whales saw him as a man only because Many Whales himself was once again boy. And still the other men of the tribe did not include him in their evening gatherings, did not ask him to tell stories of his hunts.

  “They will see you as a man when you put a son in Three Fish’s belly,” Fat Wife told Samiq. “Then they will give you a place as whale hunter.” And leaning forward she would glance over her shoulder and if Many Whales seemed to be sleeping, she would whisper, “Then they will tell you the secrets of their poison.”

  But again this morning Samiq had heard Fat Wife’s comforting words to Three Fish, “It is a good time to rest. It is a good time to rest.” And he knew that once again he had been unable to plant a child in his wife’s womb. Three Fish would be spending several nights in the hut set aside for women who were in their time of bleeding.