Kathy Little Bird by Nancy Freedman, Benedict Freedman Read Free Book Online Page B

Your mother will be with you in dreams.”
    My grandfather might appear fragile, but his voice was strong, deep, and resonant. I felt he knew unknowable things.
    “Is my mother’s soul…somewhere?”
    He released me to look deeply into my eyes. “It is in the sun breaking through clouds. It is in the swaying of treetop nests and the call of the loon. You will find it in our music. Listen, it starts.”
    A piercing shriek. Rattles, drums, dancers whirling in the dirt, jumping, leaping, the dancers another instrument treading out rhythm. The chant was a Cree prayer, calling to thefour points of the compass, calling life. A chant punctuated by persistent wailing that stole into my soul.
    Elk Woman muttered in my ear, “The people sing of a Cree child given to Mrs. Mike and the White world. She grew up to nurse the wounded, fix automobiles, fight for Canada, take care of three husbands, bring up three children, live a life, and now returns to the ancestral dream.”
    The singing died away. There was no climax; it simply ended and everybody started to eat. Children played about our feet, women breast-fed infants. Life started up again. I realized I wanted to sing Cree music. If I could get inside the rhythm I could sing the universe.

    E LK Woman shook me awake. It was dawn, and my grandfather wanted to see me. I’d slept snug and warm on wonderful soft furs, which had been heaped over me as well.
    Elk Woman poured water into a large basin. Washing was evidently important, apparently breakfast was not. We skipped that, and Elk Woman hurried me along to my grandfather’s tent. The old man preferred sleeping on the ground; a patched lean-to suited him better than a back room in a government-built house.
    He was finishing his own wash-up and greeted me with a look that claimed me, as did a single word. “Granddaughter.”
    Then, “We came for her sake, your mother’s sake—and found each other. Now we go back to our lives, but so you won’t forget, I have a present for you.” His eyes twinkled. “You want to see it?”
    “Yes.”
    “You can’t.” That was his joke, and he enjoyed it. “It’s invisible.”
    “Invisible?”
    “Yes. You can’t see it, touch it, hold it. You can’t smell it or taste it.”
    “But I can hear it?” I was beginning to enjoy this.
    “Yes, certainly. You can certainly hear it.”
    “It’s music. A song? An instrument? A flute?”
    “Nothing like that. I said you can’t hold it.”
    He let me go on guessing. Finally we were both silent. I started to make another guess, but he held up a finger.
    We waited, saying nothing. We didn’t move. We barely breathed. All was quiet.
    He lowered his hand. “That’s it.” His lips silently formed the words.
    What was it? What were we listening to?
    All at once I knew.
    It was the world breathing. It was the pulse of the universe. It was the sound behind silence.
    To hear it you had to stop all motion, be absolutely still. Only then could you sense it, the song that goes on forever. The song that never ends.

    J ELLET refrained from mentioning my absence. The boys, however, deviled me for a full account, and wanted to know if the chiefs wore war bonnets. I drew out the description into bedtime. “Cree songs are part of us,” I told them, hopingto infuse them with the pride I felt. “They’re in our blood.”
    When Jellet found out about the boys being in school, he raged as I knew he would. But there was not much he could do. His only recourse was to go on about it to the four walls. Loyalty, duty, and disobedient daughters bounced off them. Eventually he tired of it and the household settled down.
    I tried at first being a mother to the boys, but they’d rather I was their sister. Morrie was too big to take on my lap; he wanted me to run and climb and intercept balls. Jason, now that he had started school, stayed late at the playground for the sports he’d missed all his life. I didn’t see anyone until dinner.
    You feel numb at