As Long as the Rivers Flow

by James Bartleman

  “Men are all the same,” Nora said. “I can tell you from personal experience they just want to get you in bed and when they get tired of you they drop you.”

  “You’re probably right, at least as far as Linden’s concerned,” said Martha. “He’s shallow-minded and manipulative. But the sad part is I liked him and will miss him despite everything. The next man I fall for will be different.”

  “That’s what they all say,” said Nora. And the two women burst into laughter.

  “Okay, okay,” Nora said. “Let’s drop the subject and do something really interesting. I always go to the big powwow that takes place every year at this time at the Skydome. Why not come along and keep me company?”

  10

  Reconnecting

  MARTHA’S EXPECTATIONS WERE NOT HIGH when ten days later she met Nora at the entrance to the Skydome, the covered stadium where the Toronto Blue Jays play their home games. Pow wows were not part of the cultural life of Cat Lake First Nation and most other remote fly-in reserves of Ontario’s far north, looked upon by many people as being somehow anti-Christian and the work of the devil. Despite her years in Toronto, Martha had never attended one, assuming they were put on for the entertainment and amusement of the general public.

  After paying their entrance fees, the two women joined the throngs of people heading for the bleachers. From on high, they looked down on a reviewing stand framed by banners, standards, flags and pennants. Around the reviewing stand was a carefully raked circle and around the circle were vendors selling Native crafts, music, books and clothing, and kiosks serving bannock, corn soup and other Native foods. Martha liked the carnival atmosphere and enjoyed seeing people of all ages, white and Native alike, having a good time.

  The pow wow when it started, however, was not the Hollywood-style commercial show that she expected. The master of ceremonies, an expert on Native dancing from a Blackfoot First Nation in Western Canada, began to speak from his place on the reviewing stand. “What you are about to witness,” he told the crowd, “is a celebration of Native culture by Native people for Native people. Non-Natives are welcome to participate in the intertribal dancing. Please show respect for the dancers, drummers and singers, and remember, alcohol and drugs are strictly forbidden.”

  Then in one thunderous drumbeat, one hundred and fifty drummers smashed their batons down on two dozen big drums signalling to one thousand dancers, led by war veterans and elders bearing Canadian and American flags and carrying eagle staffs, to make the ceremonial grand entry. Everyone in the bleachers rose as a demonstration of respect, as the drumming, this time accompanied by high-pitched wailing, carried on. The master of ceremonies informed the crowd that the dancers were coming from the east entrance, the direction of the rising sun, and like the sun in its daily course, would move clockwise around the circle.

  A voice sang out raising goosebumps on Martha’s skin. The words were not intelligible but she understood their meaning. They were a lament—melancholic, mournful and heavy-hearted, full of yearning for lost glories. They were a cry of defiance—fierce and raw, challenging those who had despoiled the world of the ancestors. They were a howl of the wild—wolf-like in their wails of loneliness and echo of the primeval. They were prayers to Gitche Manitou and the spirits of the departed shamans, appealing to them to return from their places of banishment to nurture their people.

  Martha was transported back almost forty years to the Treaty Day celebrations on the shore of Cat Lake. The people of her childhood were singing, chanting and crying out. The chief was pounding on a water drum and it was echoing out across the waters summoning the spirits to come join the festivities. Friends and relatives were shuffling around the inside of the tent in the direction of the sun on its daily travels. Outside, it was dark and a campfire blazed on the beach waiting for the community to arrive for an evening of storytelling.

  A chief in full ceremonial dress stepped up to the microphone, breaking the spell, and asked the dancers to align themselves in formation in front of the reviewing stand. Another, the chief of the Mississaugas of New Credit First Nation, the people on whose land the pow wow was being held, welcomed everyone to his traditional territory. An elder stepped up to the microphone, lifted an eagle feather up high and intoned a prayer to the Great Spirit.

  Today at this pow wow and each time we gather together, we form a circle, from infants to youth, from adults to grandparents. We are mindful that the circle represents life and the circle never ends. Gitche Manitou is master of the circle and his power runs through all things, even here in Canada’s biggest city. We thank him for the light of Grandfather Sun, the illumination of Grandfather Moon and for the animals, the fishes and insects and for the spirits in the wind.

  After lighting a smudge of sweetgrass in a bowl, the elder drew the sacred smoke toward her with the feather to purify her body, and blessed the dancers, drummers and members of the public. There was a moment of silence and Martha and Nora joined the crowd pouring out of the bleachers to join the dancers on the floor. Soon five thousand people, First Nation, Métis, Inuit and white, were travelling around the floor in time with the beat.

  All of a sudden, the drumming and dancing stopped and the master of ceremonies announced that an eagle feather had fallen to the ground from an eagle staff. Everyone waited patiently, aware that the eagle feather represented a fallen warrior and could not be touched until a special ceremony was performed. Four war veterans drew near and addressed to it a special song of respect. They bent over and touched it in turn, symbolically communicating with the spirit of the dead warrior before the oldest veteran picked it up in his left hand, the hand closest to his heart, and handed it to the owner.

  That was the cue for the drummers once again to smash their batons against the drums with hammer blows and to join their voices together in a celebration of pride, affirming that Natives were the equal of the people from other continents who had come onto their lands over the centuries. The dancing picked up where it had left off. Jingle dancers circled, hopping from foot to foot; others, wearing masks adorned with eagle feathers and animal horns, whooped, crouched and leaped into the air. Some moved like grass blown by the wind and waved their shawls to represent butterflies flitting from flower to flower. Men, women and children inched ahead, holding their bodies erect, turning in circles and twirling hoops around their waists, necks and arms.

  Martha shuffled forward in a world of her own, her feet close to the ground, feeling the pull of Mother Earth. She was no longer in the tent at Cat Lake and no longer at the Skydome. She no longer knew who she was, where she had come from and where she was going. She forgot her happy years on the land as a child, the abuse at the Indian residential school, the men who had treated her badly and her deep and painful yearning for the children she had not seen in years.

  Hypnotized by the repetitive beating of the big drums, the cries and chanting of the singers, the swaying of the dancers and the contagious energy of the crowd, she hoped the dance would never end. She was as lost in the magic of the pow wow as Spider had been in the music of the punks that first night she spent in Toronto so many years ago.

  When Martha left the Skydome that night with Nora, she was quietly jubilant, feeling connected to her aboriginal roots with an intensity and sense of belonging that she had not experienced since she was a girl. But before she could become further involved in the Native life of the city, she received a telephone call from Joshua, the friend who had helped her when she was in distress so many years before. Joshua had retired from his position as a teacher in Thunder Bay and had returned home with his wife to be a respected elder and chief of Cat Lake First Nation. He now had bad news to tell her. Her mother, Nokomis, had died and he wanted to express his condolences.

  Martha burst into tears and hung up. After regaining her composure, she called him back apologizing for cutting him off. Joshua told her he completely understood her distress, for he too had loved her mother and already missed her. He told her there were
practical matters to deal with. The funeral would be in three days. Could she make it back in time?

  And what did Martha want to do about Raven? She was now living at his house, but a long-term solution was needed. Martha could send for her daughter and raise her in the big city. He recommended, however, that she return home and be a mother to her there in familiar surroundings. If she wanted a job, he could always use another bookkeeper at the band office.

  “Of course, I’ll come home,” Martha told him. “I can’t make it back in time for the funeral since it’ll take a month or so to wind up things here, but I’ll be there by the end of January for sure. Could I ask you as an old friend to look after the funeral arrangements and take care of Raven until I return?”

  “You can count on me, Martha,” he said. “I’ll stay in touch and work out the details on the phone. Don’t forget, a job in the band office will be waiting for you when you get home.”

  With great reluctance, Martha began her preparations to depart. She would at last be reunited with her daughter but was worried that after so many years of separation, they would be strangers to each other. She was also dismayed at having to give up the job she had become so attached to over the years, the comfortable apartment she had called home for so long and the friends she had made in Toronto.

  To make matters worse, the sensational stories constantly being carried in the press on the hardships being suffered by the people on Ontario’s northern reserves made her wonder whether she would have the strength to pick up her life where she had left it.

  “Children at Pikangikum First Nation Burn Down School”; “Four Dead in Youth Suicide Pact at Webeque First Nation”; “House Fire Kills Family of Six at North Spirit Lake First Nation”; “Two Thousand at Kashechewan First Nation Evacuated Due to Flooding”; “United Nations Condemns Canadian Government for Neglect of Native Children”; “Government Slashes Expenditures for Native People”; “Water Supplies in Remote Native Communities in Ontario Polluted”; “Literacy Levels Among Native Children in Northern Ontario a National Disgrace”; “One in Five Native Children on Reserves across Canada in Care.”

  Even though Martha had long ago lost hope of finding Spider, she deeply regretted having to leave Toronto as ignorant about his fate as she had been when she arrived in the provincial capital. Until one day when she passed a tall, emaciated dark-skinned person of uncertain age panhandling for change at the Yonge Street entrance to the Eaton Centre. Martha had often seen him at this spot as she made her way to work but had always taken him to be just another jittery, prematurely ageing alcoholic on his last legs begging for money to buy booze.

  Later that morning, however, as she sat at her desk during a lull in her work, her thoughts, as they often did at such moments, turned to Spider and the memory of the derelict came to her. He looked Native; he even looked like Russell. Could there have been a web-shaped birthmark on his forehead? She should have paid more attention to him. Maybe it was Spider. It was a long shot but she was not about to take any chances. She hurried back, but he was gone.

  The next morning, however, he was there at his usual spot.

  “Any spare change, lady? I’m hungry and need something to eat.”

  Martha pulled out a toonie and dropped it into his hand, trying not to be obvious as she stared at his forehead. The birthmark was there under a layer of grime. Afraid she might scare him away if she was to blurt out her discovery, Martha invited him to have breakfast with her at a nearby Tim Hortons.

  “Their coffee’s good and they serve a great breakfast sandwich.”

  “Okay, why not. As long as you’re paying.”

  A short while later sitting at a booth drinking coffee, Martha took a closer look at her unsuspecting son as he ate his breakfast. His eyes were dull, his clothes were torn and dirty, he smelled strongly of wet garbage and skunky beer, his hair hung down over his face in discoloured strands, and his lips and eyebrows were pierced with rings. She had found her son but he was a wino on the streets! She had to fight to keep from crying.

  Spider grew uneasy as the strange woman stared relentlessly at him.

  “Why don’t you take a picture while you’re at it?” he said. “Never seen an Injun before?”

  “I didn’t intend to be rude,” said Martha. “It’s just that I’m Indian too, from a reserve way up north and always feel bad when I see one of our people down on their luck. What’s your story?”

  “I’ve no idea where I come from and couldn’t care less,” was Spider’s answer. “My mother gave me up for adoption when I was a baby. Probably too ugly to keep. No complaints though. You wouldn’t have another toonie, would you?”

  Martha looked at him carefully and said, “I bet your mother really misses you.”

  “Yeah, I guess. How about that toonie?”

  Martha handed him his coin. “When I was only seventeen,” she continued, “my boyfriend and I had a baby boy who was taken away and put up for adoption. He’d be about your age now if he was still alive. He had a birthmark in the form of a spider’s web on his forehead just like yours, and we called him Spider.”

  Spider looked at Martha, not believing for a minute she could be his mother, even though she had guessed his nickname. Perhaps he could play along and mooch more than just a toonie or two from her. She was, after all, well-dressed and probably had a good job.

  “Well, what do you know! Maybe I’m your long lost son. Hi, Mom! What took you so long to find me!”

  When Martha’s eyes filled with tears and she began to sob, Spider had second thoughts.

  “Look, lady, I’m Indian but I’m not your son. I’m just a bum on the streets on the lookout for spare change to buy some booze. Do you know where I live? Under the overpass at the bottom of Spadina where it hits the Gardiner. Would any son of yours live in a place like that?

  “Now leave me alone if you know what’s good for you. I don’t need no mother and I’m poison.”

  He got up and left, but not before taking the twenty-dollar bill Martha thrust at him.

  Spider was not at the entrance to the Eaton Centre when Martha went looking for him the next morning, and she took a cab to the underpass where he said he lived, determined to bring him home with her. It was raining, and a raw, wet wind off Lake Ontario was scattering torn sheets of old newspapers, plastic bags, empty shoe polish boxes and discarded toilet paper around the concrete abutments. There was no one to be seen and Martha at first thought no one lived there. But then she noticed the little shacks thrown together from pieces of discarded lumber, the piles of clothing, blankets and sleeping bags, the sleeping platforms built high up among the girders and a smouldering, rusted, fire-blackened barrel.

  Martha went to the shacks, hammering on the doors, one after the other, calling out Spider’s name, half expecting to meet the street person she had run into the night of her arrival in Toronto.

  In some places, there was no reply and she assumed the occupants were already out on the streets doing their thing, begging for money, buying booze and socializing with their friends. In others, her efforts were greeted by sleepy voices calling out: “Who’s there?” “Leave me alone, will you.” “Let me sleep.”

  Finally someone told her to check out a pile of old clothes close to the burn barrel. There she found her son, in a sleeping bag buried under a pile of rags.

  “It’s me, Spider,” she said, shaking him. “I’m really your mother. It’s true. I want to help you. Let’s go for breakfast and talk.”

  Spider was curled up and asleep. When he did not respond, Martha shook him until he moaned and slowly opened his eyes and stared with bloodshot eyes at the frantic woman hovering above him.

  “Spider, it’s me. It’s your mother. Remember we had breakfast together yesterday. We need to talk.”

  Spider, however, had a crushing headache and was furious that anyone would dare violate his privacy when he needed peace and quiet to sleep off his drunk of the previous night.

  “Screw off, lady. Can’t
you see I’m sick? This mother stuff is no longer funny. Go away and let me sleep.”

  Martha left to buy a mickey of whisky and returned. She sat beside her sleeping son until the afternoon, when he woke up.

  “Not you again! Go find someone else to mother! You’re becoming a real pain in the ass!”

  When Martha showed him the mickey, Spider seized it and took a big slug.

  “That sure was good. Now it’s your turn, Mom,” he said, holding the bottle out to her with a smile. “As they say, a family that drinks together stays together.”

  When Martha declined, Spider became angry.

  “What’s the matter? You too good to drink with me? Piss off why don’t you and leave me alone!”

  Martha took the bottle and drank.

  “Now that’s more like it. You can be Mom again. I’m hungry. What are you going to feed your son for dinner?”

  “Why don’t you come home with me? You don’t think I’m your mother but that’s all right. I’ve got a spare bedroom, and I’ll give you good meals as well as something to drink if that will help you. Just don’t expect me to drink with you.”

  “Now that’s the first time anyone’s ever made me an offer like that. I’ll come and call you Mom if that makes you happy, as long as you keep me in booze.”

  Martha hailed a cab and brought Spider back to her apartment. Once inside, Martha showed him his room and told him to make himself at home.

  “There’s the bathroom,” she said, “complete with a fresh towel, razor, toothbrush and a change of clothing. I don’t imagine you’ve had too many chances to get cleaned up under the Gardiner.”

  Spider stayed in the bathroom for over an hour and when he came out, he looked ten years younger. He had removed the rings from his lips and eyebrows, his hair was washed and tied behind his head in a neat ponytail, his scraggly beard was gone and he had put on the new clothes Martha had laid out for him.