Nancy Huston - Black Dance

Yes, British landlords were bleeding the country dry, but frustrated celibate priests tirelessly incited their overworked and undernourished parishioners to indulge in constant copulation so as to go forth and multiply. They painted hair-raising verbal pictures of what awaited married couples in Hell if ever it occurred to them to slough off on their conjugal duty and stop churning out kids: fallow wombs ripped open, lazy penises transpierced with pitchforks, unborn babes flung into cauldrons of boiling oil for all eternity. . Don’t forget, Milo — horror movies hadn’t yet been invented and neither had TV; people back then weren’t accustomed to digesting war footage with their evening meal. These images of Hell were very real to them. They stuck in their brains, tormenting their consciences by day and giving them bad dreams by night.

The Irish multiplied like rabbits and died like flies. Their country couldn’t feed them! They were packed half dead onto boats; droves of them died on the boats and got flipped into the sea; other droves made it to Sydney, New York, or Toronto and died there of starvation; those who made it to La Grosse Île, just upriver from Quebec City, turned out to be good at dying of cholera. This they did at the rate of five thousand a year for so many years that the island came to be known as Île de la Quarantaine. But still the Irish kept going forth and multiplying, hoping against hope that the next life might be better than this one, sure an’ nothing could be worse.

Oh, the poor Irish, Milo! An undereducated, gullible people, forever kowtowing to teachers and preachers, kings and popes, following their orders, fearing what they were told to fear, praying to the God they were told to pray to, abdicating their wills, allowing themselves to be downtrodden, endlessly cooperating in their own destruction. How I longed to help them! To write a book that would turn their resignation into some unprecedented form of intelligence! But now Ireland had spewed me up in turn. I was persona non grata in my own country, disowned by both the pro-British establishment and the nationalist independence movement.

So why did I never write that book, you ask? Well, my boy, little did I know it at the time, but I had come out of the frying pan into the fire. In Quebec as in Ireland, priests threatened married folk with hellfire if they did anything to avoid reproducing. In Quebec as in Ireland, women routinely gave birth to twelve, fifteen, or even twenty children, praying that half the swarm might stumble their way to maturity and that a precious one might enter the church. Oh, I hated those preachers with a vengeance, Milo, but I loved your grandmother. Being pious, Marie-Jeanne wouldn’t hear of abstinence or birth control; the minute each babe had finished suckling, she would come panting to me for more seed. Her thirteenth delivery killed her at age forty, and sorely do I miss her still. .

TERRIFIC, MILO — THAT’S a brilliant way of filming the ocean crossing. For once you’re thinking budget. No need to charter a ship or hire seven hundred actors to play the wounded, wild-eyed returning Canadian soldiers; the whole thing can be shot on set, in the studio. Brilliant. You deserve a kiss.

• • • • •

Awinita, July 1951

SOUND TRACK: IN the background, far away at first, the beating of Indian ceremonial drums. Ta, ta-da DA, ta, ta-da DA. .

THROB-throb-throb-throb;

Is this throbbing a sound

Or an ache in the air?

Pervasive as light,

Measured and inevitable,

It seems to float from no distance,

But to live in the listening world—

Throb-throb-throb-throb-throbbing

The sound of Powassan’s drum.

Remember you read that poem out loud to me once, Milo, as we flew from New York to Bahia? Its author, Duncan Campbell Scott, was not only a great poet, but arguably the most ruthless throttler of native culture in Canadian history. In the 1920s, even as, in Salvador, Police Chief Pedro de Azevedo Gordilho was busy repressing capoeira, candomblé and sambistas , Scott ran all over Canada persecuting Indians and forbidding their festivals. Ta, ta-da DA, ta, ta-da DA, ta, ta-da DA . . White folks have always lived in terror of that sound. It’s the sound of their own bodies, their own desires, which they throttled centuries ago to become conquerors. . Sorry.

TA, TA-DA, DA , ta, ta-da DA. .In the foreground, so close as to seem to be coming from inside our very brain: zippers, belt buckles, the swish of pants being removed, a man breathing heavily, a man swearing under his breath, another man, another, another and, between pants, swearwords in English and in French, you little cunt, little slut, little slut bitch, belt buckle clinking, these sounds gradually fading and the drumbeats coming closer, ta, ta-da DA, ta, ta-da DA. . zipper unzipping, a shout. You like it, don’t you? You like my big fat cock bangin’ into your savage little Indian pussy, don’t you? Come on, tell me you like it, you little whore. You like it, don’t you, eh, you fuckin’ little slut? Hey, little Indian, hey, baby, drumbeats getting louder, I’m gonna come, lemme come in your mouth, baby, can I come on your face, lemme come in your ass, baby, drumbeats now drowning the words out, yes yes yes YES oh my God, oh mon Dieu, oh oui oh oui ouh ouh, oui, OUI, the belt buckles, panting, pants, swish of pants and clink of buckle and zip of zipper ultimately rendered inaudible by the extremely loud drumbeats.

Awinita’s face (our face) reflected in a pond. We’re still only nineteen, but our expression is grave. As we stare at ourselves in the water’s still surface, our face sprouts long brown hair and laughs at us. Our body shrinks and we turn into some small, round, furry animal, maybe an ockqutchaun (woodchuck). Quivering, we bound away .

Awinita is fast asleep on Declan’s chest in the cruddy little bedroom above the bar. Half sitting up in bed, smoking a cigarette, Declan looks drunk and in an evil mood.

“Nita,” he says (but she’s breathing from the depths of sleep). “Nita!” he repeats, stubbing out his cigarette and jerking her to wakefulness.

“What?”

“What’s the matter with you?”

She doesn’t answer. Wouldn’t know where to start.

“Ever since the baby was born, it’s as if you don’t wanna make out with me anymore. Come on, whassup?”

“It’s only been a coupla weeks, Deck. I’m tired, dat’s all.”

“We used to have such good times in bed, baby. Come on. . Make an effort, honey. . Make me happy.”

“I’m tired, Deck.”

“You make your johns happy all night long, no problem there, no I’m tired there! Just suddenly when it’s my turn, the tap runs dry.”

“Later, sweetie.”

“Don’t you later-sweetie me. You know we gotta clear outta the room by noon, and I’m not allowed in your place up on the Plateau. I don’t like this, baby. I’m not gettin’ any and it pisses me off. I’m a normal guy with normal needs and you’re my gal, remember? Maybe you get your kicks elsewhere, but I sure as hell don’t. .”

“Lemme sleep, man. You should get some shut-eye, too. You had too much to drink.”

Turning her back on him, she pulls the sheet up over her shoulder. He rips it away.

“Don’t you tell me what to do, bitch. You’re not my mother.” He moves onto her.

“Hang on, Deck. . you wearin’ a safe?”

Large animals — oxen? — writhing in agony. Their bulky bodies heave, they bellow.

Awinita in the apartment on the Plateau Mont-Royal, chatting with her roommates. One of them — Deena, a young Mohawk Indian from the south of the province, also a bleached blonde — always gives her beauty tips.