by Joan Crate
Two beds away, one of the girls was shaking. She looked like she was choking, and she sounded like it too. The choking spread to Rose Marie, and she tried to close her mouth to stop the sounds, but they burst out anyway. She pressed her lips together and clamped her hand over them. She didn’t want to cry in front of all these kids and that tall nun. Way at the front of the room, a light hung from a wire over the only door, just one way to escape. Oh, she wanted Mama and Papa, and while gurgles leaked from her mouth, she prayed, Mama and Papa, come get me.
“I didn’t hear everyone,” Sister Cilla said. “We’re going to say the prayer over until everyone knows it. Then we will kneel by our beds and pray properly from start to finish.”
Rose Marie’s knees, elbows, and fingers felt itchy-tingly. She bent her legs, straightened them, bounced on her toes, and swung her
head and not-enough hair from one side to the other. The room jarred back and forth like the Indian agent’s mud-coloured car had jarred the sky and ground that morning. She felt dizzy-sick, and the small amount of slimy chicken stew she had swallowed was turning hard and hot in her tummy.
The door smacked open with a bang and Sister Margaret lumbered through, turning to the big girls behind her. “Halt.” She dragged a chair over and lowered herself. “Come on,” she ordered, waving the girls in with an arm packed like sausage in its black sleeve.
Sister Cilla waited for the too-many girls. Rose Marie knew what Papa thought about so many people stuck together, like in the towns, that one called Black Apple near them and the one named Hilltop near her aunties’ Reserve. People packed in without enough space for their spirits to move. The air tightened in that big room that wasn’t big enough. Like a snare around her chest. As she tried to breathe, her fingers came undone and started curling around nothing.
“Stand still,” Sister Cilla yelled.
Run! Rose Marie’s brain said. She had tried to run away when the men came to take her, but Papa had stood in her way. Now she darted towards the door that led to the hall that led to the stairs that led to the big front door that opened on the whole wide world.
“Stop!” Sister Cilla shouted. “Stop this instant, Rose Marie!”
A breeze blew cold on her neck where her hair used to fall. She would not stop!
Sister Cilla called, “Sister! Sister Margaret!”
“Great heavens!” Sister Margaret gasped, heaving herself up and lumbering towards Rose Marie.
The girl turned, racing down another row of beds, flying past the older girls fishing nightdresses from cupboards and then back towards the door. Oh, and there was Sister Cilla loping on her long-bone legs, skirt flapping like a crow.
Sister Cilla dove. Rose Marie pulled back. Sister crashed into the door, slamming it shut with a crunch-bone sound.
Back up the centre aisle she raced, Sister Cilla limping behind. All the girls were watching her, their faces blurring by. Sister Cilla’s long arm shot out and grabbed air. Rose Marie dove under a bed. Sliding on her belly, she could smell lye soap on her skin. And fear.
Girls got down on all fours to watch. Some jumped on their beds and bounced, the springs screeching. Rose Marie was back on her feet, running. A big girl hooted. Wind blowing inside her head made her eyes dizzy.
“Go, go, go!” girls shrieked. They laughed and clapped their hands.
Grasping a bedpost, Rose Marie swung around a corner. Sister Cilla!
“Stop,” Sister ordered.
She spun towards the door, but Sister Margaret had planted herself in front of it. Rose Marie scurried under another bed, crab-scrambling, goose-pimply cold and sweating hot.
“Stop,” Sister Cilla repeated, her cheeks flushing.
The girls on the beds swallowed their giggles. Rose Marie skittered out the other side.
“Stop!” both sisters shouted together. The girls stopped bouncing. The room, except for the drumbeat of her bare feet, grew quiet.
“Rose Marie!” Sister Cilla yelled, so loud the high-up windows shook. That’s when she saw how small those windows were, how impossible the banged-shut door was to get through with Sister Margaret parked right in front. She’d never reach the hall or the staircase leading down to the next one. She would never get to the big wooden door that led to the road and the Reserve and her home. Trapped.
Sister Cilla strode from the side aisle to join Sister Margaret. The two sisters stood between her and the door. Cold clawed its way up her legs, numbing inch by inch. A-pis-tot-oki, na-tot-sich-pi, she prayed.
Breasts heaving, Sister Margaret stomped towards her, raised one sausage arm, and smacked her face. Rose Marie flew to the floor.
Later, her nosebleed stanched, her face stinging nettles, she knelt by her bed and prayed with the other first-year girls:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to please, please, please take!
5
Stealing Anne
FROM HER VERY first night at St. Mark’s, Rose Marie was bothered by the shadows in the dormitory. Dark pools ran into each other and clumped together, forming shapes. Oh, they were just shadows made by the only light left on at night, that one bulb dangling in the entrance; they had to be. “Please make them just shadows,” she muttered while the other first-year girls recited their bedtime prayer. Stuck in this school, crowded by kids, nuns, pointers, desks, and rules, she was alone, so terribly lonely. “Parents,” she whispered to herself in her bed, “N’iiko-si,” then “Na Nik-sist,” Mama, and “Na Ki-na-nin,” Papa, just to hear the names that bloomed familiar smells, touch and warmth, such safety. Growing less familiar every day, here in the school, where she didn’t feel safe at all.
Sootaki, named Anne by big fat Sister Margaret and her big fat Bible, slept one row up. That first night, after Rose Marie had run through the dormitory, after Sister Margaret had smacked her across the face and Sister Cilla had shoved toilet paper up her nose to stop the bleeding—after all that, when she was back standing beside her metal bed, Sister Cilla ordered, “Girls, pay attention and stand up straight.”
Lifting her chin, she felt blood trickle down her throat, but she managed to stop crying. As Sister Cilla moved towards her, she stiffened. But Sister wasn’t coming for her. Instead she stopped at the row in front and looked at Sootaki, who was making signs to an older cousin up front.
“Anne,” she said. “Stand up straight, arms at your sides.”
Sootaki—now Anne—immediately did as she was told.
“You must pay attention, Anne. We’re about to say our prayers.”
Sootaki, Rose Marie could see, had already become “Anne.”
The following morning, all the first-year girls were herded into Sister Joan’s classroom and told to sit at hard wooden desks. That’s when Sootaki’s name was changed again.
Sister Joan, striding back and forth in front of the class, skirts chewing, showed the girls how to sit properly with their hands clasped in front of them. “Like this,” she said, holding her arms out and fitting the fingers of one hand through the fingers of the other. Up and down the rows Sister Joan strode, making sure each set of hands was properly clasped. “Feet flat on the floor.” She jabbed at crossed knees.
Rose Marie had to scrunch forward on her seat to get her feet to reach the floor. Her nose still hurt from Sister Margaret’s slap, and it felt big as a puffball and all prickly.
“Very good. Now I will explain roll call,” Sister Joan announced. “When I say your name, you will put up your hand like this.” She raised her arm above her head. “Once I’ve spotted you, you will say dis-tinct-ly, ‘Present, Sister Joan.’ Is that clear, class?”
Everyone was quiet, and Sister Joan folded her lips, making them disappear. “When I ask the class a question, you will answer in unison, ‘Yes, Sister Joan.’ Is that clear?”
Some of the girls, Rose Marie included, began to answer, “Yes, Sister Joan,” but o
thers sat still as gophers at the side of a road, and the ones answering, not sure they should be, stopped, voices tripping backwards to silence.
Sister Joan made a huffing sound. “Answer me. Is that clear, class?”
Some girls stared at the shorn nape of the student in front; some looked down at their desks, their folded hands, their feet flat on the floor; some shuffled, but no one answered.
“Class,” Sister Joan bellowed, “I told you, when I ask a question, you will answer—” Her lips disappeared again. “Fine, fine,” she said, spit flying. “Let’s concentrate on roll call, shall we? When I call your name, you will raise your hand and answer, ‘Present, Sister Joan.’ Then you will put your arm down and fold your hands once more on your desk.” Sister Joan, eyes bulging, folded her hands in front of her again, for everyone to see. “Martha!” she barked.
No one answered.
“Martha!” Sister Joan’s voice was louder, her face blotching red. “Is there a Martha in this room? Where is Martha?”
A girl third seat from the front raised a shaky arm.
“Martha?” Sister Joan demanded.
Martha nodded.
“You will raise your hand and say, ‘Present, Sister Joan,’ ” she croaked, her face a stain.
“Present, Sister Joan,” Martha whispered.
Things went better after that, and Rose Marie relaxed a little. While Sister Joan called out names, she let her bottom slide back on the seat a little so only her toes touched the floor.
“Anne,” Sister Joan called.
Just as Sootaki, sitting right beside Rose Marie, raised her hand, another voice rang out, loud and clear. “Present, Sister Joan.”
Rose Marie followed the direction of Sootaki’s eyes and looked at Anataki in the far row, saw her lower her hand, fold it into her other hand, and stare at her desk.
Sootaki leaned forward and glared at Anataki, trying to catch her eye, but Anataki wouldn’t look up.
Sister kept calling out names, her head lifting and falling.
“Ruth,” Sister Joan called. “Ruth?”
There was still no answer, and Sister Joan glared. “For goodness’ sake, is Ruth here?”
Beside Rose Marie, Sootaki slowly raised her hand. “I’m not—” she began, but Sister Joan cut in.
“ ‘Present, Sister Joan.’ That’s what you say! You raise your hand as soon as your name is called, and you answer smartly, ‘Present, Sister Joan.’ We don’t have all day, Ruth.”
* * *
That evening in the dormitory, when the first-, second-, and third-year girls were standing in line for the bathroom, the older girls returned to the dormitory from kitchen and laundry duties. Sootaki’s older cousin Bertha marched up to Anataki and shoved her to the floor.
“Smarten up, Ruth!” she hissed, kicking her. “You’re Ruth, not Anne.”
Anataki got back up and looked around, her expression stupid as the chickens that pecked the ground in front of Brother Abraham’s barn.
“What’s going on here?” Sister Margaret called as she lumbered into the room. “You,” she said to Anataki as Bertha slipped away. “Don’t just stand there. What’s your name?”
“Anne,” Anataki answered softly.
“Well, move up, Anne. We don’t have all night.”
Sootaki, leaving the bathroom, frowned when she heard the name “Anne.” She went straight to her cousins clumped at Bertha’s bed, and the four girls turned to glare at Anataki. But Anataki didn’t seem to notice.
Following right behind Anataki in line, Rose Marie was itchy-tingly. Anataki had picked the wrong girl, she thought. With her big cousins, oh, Sootaki was the wrong one to steal a name from.
* * *
The next day as students lined up for lunch in the cafeteria, Bertha cut in, pushing Anataki out of line. “Tell the sisters,” she ordered, “you’re Ruth, not Anne.”
After lunch, when the first-year girls filed back to Sister Joan’s class, Sootaki whispered to Anataki, “You tell Sister Joan you’re Ruth or my big relatives and me gonna beat you up.”
Rose Marie watched. No emotion showed on Anataki’s face. Nothing at all.
That night as Anataki walked out of a toilet stall, Bertha, standing at the sink, threw down her toothbrush and punched her in the face.
Anataki staggered back, hitting a stall door, her expression switching from shock to anger. And then her face went blank as the bathroom wall. She turned and walked away. She didn’t tell Sister Margaret or Sister Cilla about taking the wrong name. Nor about being punched either.
The fourth evening after four morning roll calls when Anataki had answered “Present, Sister Joan” so fast Sootaki hadn’t had time to open her mouth, Sootaki slow-walked up to Sister Margaret, her three cousins waving her on.
“Sister Margaret,” she stammered, pointing at Anataki, “that girl over there took my name.”
“What?” Sister Margaret demanded. Looking over at Anataki, she couldn’t suppress a yawn.
Bertha blustered up. “My cousin’s the one you named Anne, Sister Margaret. That girl over there was named Ruth, but now she’s pretending to be Anne.” Bertha’s two sisters, coming up moving beside her, nodded vigorously, and Sootaki said, “Really truly, Sister Margaret.”
Sister Margaret came over to Anataki, who was sitting on her bed pulling off her stockings. “You. I hear you’re not going by the name I gave you.”
Anataki raised her eyes as far as Sister Margaret’s breasts, lowered them, and murmured, “Name? Name Anne, Sister Margaret.”
“Didn’t I give you the name Ruth?” Sister’s voice was loud enough to reach everyone, especially Sootaki and her three cousins giggling into their hands.
“Name?” Anataki repeated, her eyes reaching Sister Margaret’s chins before falling to the floor. “Anne, Sister Margaret.”
Sister Margaret glared. Anataki’s jaw was swollen on one side, and Sister must have noticed this, must have wondered if maybe there had been a fight. A four-against-one fight.
Sister reached over and patted Anataki’s head. “You’re not from the Reserve, are you? You’re from the country. No speak good English?” she asked loudly. “Never mind. I’ll tell that other one.” And she made her way over to Sootaki, standing with her cousins.
“You’re Ruth,” Sister Margaret told Sootaki firmly. “The other girl is Anne.”
The four girls started clamouring, but Sister Margaret raised a thick hand. “That’s all there is to it! Now get on with you, you little beggars.”
She motioned to Sister Cilla, who was helping the little ones put on their nightdresses, and when Cilla hurried over, told her, “I need to straighten you out about this name business. That one there’s Anne. The one with the cousins is Ruth.”
Waving off Sister Cilla’s “But I think you’re mistaken—” Sister Margaret fixed her with a steely gaze. “I believe I’m the senior supervisor here,” she said, then hollered over to Anataki, “No more trouble, Anne.”
“—ataki,” the little girl whispered.
Rose Marie, a few feet away, heard her finish her name, her old name, the Blackfoot name she had decided, secretly, to keep. She looked into Anataki’s face and saw a coyote dart behind her eyes. A coyote chasing a chicken. Quick. Then the chicken look was on her face again, dull and stupid.
She thought maybe she liked that girl, that Anataki.
6
Girls, So Many of Them
NO POINT IN denying it, Mother Grace was having difficulties. Perhaps it was the ridiculous allowance with which she was expected to run the school. Since the Second World War had begun, going on five years now, the already inadequate residential school budget had been cut to the bone. Oui, and subsequently, a shortage of supplies and the necessary rationing of coal. Conditions conspired against her. Unusually brisk weather blew in from the Rockies. The cold aggravated her rheumatism, and the dwindling light affected her mood. Night fell sooner each evening, stayed later each morning, and darkness settl
ed grain by grain like sand in her joints.
It was possible the children’s behaviour really was worse this year, as some of the sisters complained, their smiles less frequent, their anger and melancholy more pervasive. Heavens, the despondency she saw in those little brown children whose skin never seemed quite clean. Not to mention the moodiness of the sisters themselves, their pinched faces and barbed quips.
Whatever caused it, by the third week just two days into the new school year, Mother Grace was more unsure of herself than ever, second-guessing every decision enacted in the past and hesitant about making new ones. Her self-doubt chewed holes in morning prayer, the celebration of Mass, the orders she gave, and, worst of all, her conviction. Mon Dieu, hiding the photos of Sister Mary of Bethany and Father Damien had not removed them from her thoughts. They haunted her still, their unexpected deaths, their futile lives.
She couldn’t confide in any of the sisters. That was partly due to the alliance Sisters Joan and Margaret seemed to have forged against her. Sister Bernadette was generally loyal and good-natured, but she was also uncomplicated—unable, perhaps, to fully comprehend Mother Grace’s concerns. Sister Lucy was getting a little hard of hearing, and Mother Grace was not inclined to raise her voice in this school of a thousand ears. Sister Cilla, a delightful young woman in many ways, was inexperienced. And, of course, in her position it was inappropriate to speak of personal matters to the sisters. She couldn’t bring herself to approach any of them. Nor old Father David, growing more remote by the day.
Among the mortal, there was only Father Patrick, dear Patrick, her true confessor and closest friend. And, as always, he was a hundred miles away, in the Badlands. She snatched a few sheets of stationery and her favourite fountain pen from her desk drawer.
Dear Patrick,
I pray that God continues to hold you to His loving bosom. I myself am troubled and wish for nothing more than your warm presence.
