Louise Erdrich - The Painted Drum

What pain there had been in bearing the baby, Anaquot had welcomed. It had eclipsed her heart’s agonized dissatisfactions. Now, as she tried to get her bearings in the situation, she remembered that she’d been near death when she’d bled after the birth and it hadn’t mattered to her. That’s how deep she’d sunk into this. That thought strengthened her. Her heart surged when she realized she’d soon see her lover and her hands traced the rim of a tin tea mug before she set her lips to it. Had his own lips touched there too? Drinking tea that morning? Was this a kind of kiss?

“Aaniin izhinikaazoyan?” she asked the woman in a pleasant voice. By any measure of hospitality, the woman should have offered her name first, but perhaps in the intrigue of seeing such a young baby she had forgotten. Even now, the woman didn’t answer, as though she hadn’t heard or was distracted by a child’s request at the same time. She bustled, took some bannock from a cloth that had kept it warm; she gave Anaquot the bread, a bit of clear grease to dip it into, and also a small bowl of stew. Then the woman hastened to the corner to set out some blankets and make a place for Anaquot to rest with the baby. As she did this, Anaquot felt a prickling sensation along the side of her face, then at her back right between her shoulder blades, and she knew the girl child was staring at her. She turned around of course and sure enough those eyes opaque as mud slid away. Anaquot gave herself a little shake and tried not to feel the crawl of hatred that came so clearly from the girl.

“I don’t need to take the girl’s sleeping place,” said Anaquot. “I don’t need to use her blankets. I have my own.”

“Save your blankets,” said the girl’s mother.

And a voice, a little whisper, echoed her, out of the air.

Save yourself .

The voice was just a thread of sound.

“Awegonen?” said Anaquot, looking around for the source.

The woman helped her from the chair and brought her to the corner. As Anaquot sank back into the blankets, covered herself, and began in that secret darkness to nurse her baby, she realized that she was tired, swimmingly exhausted, and the baby was still so little that the cold made it dangerously drowsy. She held it inside her shirt to warm it with her own skin, and the baby gradually relaxed. But as Anaquot drifted deeper toward unawareness, she experienced a sharp stab of lucidity. In that clear moment, she realized that she was more than tired. She was lost. The story had her by the throat. Frightened, she curled around her child as though to protect it, but sleep hurled them both to darkness and scattered them across the ice.

Her sleep was so profound that she forgot where she was and also who she was. She forgot she had a baby or was in love. She forgot her old life, her daughter, the son and husband she had left behind, and the uncle. All she could remember was the face of the woman who had greeted her at the door of this house. So she smiled when by lamplight that face appeared before her, strong and brown, the straight eyebrows concerned and her teeth gleaming in a smile. Yes, marveled Anaquot, those teeth were very white, and then she sank into a deeper obliteration and did not wake until dawn, when the people in the cabin all around her began to stir.

Although awake, she was so uncertain of her surroundings that she didn’t open her eyes, but stayed hidden in the blankets with her baby pressed to her, nursing again; had it nursed all night? The hungry rhythm of its pull comforted her, made all of this seem real again. She had the distinct sensation that, outside of the blankets that covered her completely, a huge leave-taking was occurring. Many people were stumbling out, saying their good-byes in low voices so as not to wake her. Perhaps her lover had returned, she thought, with an entire hunting party. Perhaps they all had spent the night upon the floor, each curled in blankets they now carried off over their shoulders or rolled and strapped to their backs. Listening, she could see each in her mind’s eye as he or she departed, and when the cabin was quiet she smiled. Her lover, she thought, had sent them all away! Soon, he would come to her. She would feel the weight of his hand on the blanket. He would slip underneath the heavy wool, the quilt, and he would curl behind her. He would bury his face in the hair flung across her shoulder. She took a deep breath. The baby stirred. Nothing happened. Slowly, she drew the blanket down, away from her face, and looked out. He wasn’t there, but that same woman was. She sat in a pool of light from the window quietly sewing beads onto a swatch of velvet.

“Giwii minikwen anibishaabo ina?” The woman asked, without turning, whether Anaquot would like to drink some tea.

Anaquot crept from the blankets, still aching and tired as though she’d kept walking all night. She left the baby in the blankets and at once felt strangely light. It had been a day and a night and a morning that the baby had been in her arms. Along with her things, she had a big stack of cattail down to use when she needed to change the stuffing in its bag. Now she changed the fluff she’d pinned against the child in a scrap of bashkwegin. She put the baby back into the blanket, and burned the soiled down in the stove, which was fancy iron from the trader’s store and which filled Anaquot with pride for the wealth of her lover’s family. Then she poured herself a cup of tea. As she drank from the same tin cup she’d used the night before, she imagined the cup belonging to her lover. She looked around for the bag and saw that her things were neatly stacked beside the blankets she’d slept in. Her own baby’s carefully beaded tikinagaan, which she’d carried with her because it was too cold to put the baby in it as they traveled, was propped against the wall. She had tied her clothing and small possessions in the skirt of her summer dress and carried the round bundle by the knot. She also had a hand drum with a white line painted across it, and a beater she had made herself with a handle of red-barked alder. She kept the drum and beater in a handwoven drawstring sack. The drum was the most precious thing she owned, and she was glad to see it among the other things, because there was something missing. She was sure of it. But her head ached and she couldn’t think of just exactly what.

Anaquot carried her tea back to the blankets. Although the woman had smiled at her, she hadn’t invited Anaquot to sit with her in the light of the window. As Anaquot sipped the tea, she suddenly remembered what was missing. Her daughter had brought her skirt bundle of possessions, too. Where was it? As soon as she thought of the girl, she heard a slight rustle behind her and she put down her cup of tea in order to investigate. But she saw nothing. Across the floor, the little boy who had just begun to walk was sitting in the circle of warmth by the stove, playing with a pile of pinecone dolls. Perhaps one of them had rolled into her bedding, thought Anaquot. The older boy and girl were nowhere in sight. She put her hand down and retrieved the cup, took another sip, and rocked her baby. She watched the light move across the shoulders of the other woman as she beaded the velvet. As she worked, the woman sang. Her voice was husky, sweet, pleasing. The song had a melancholy lilt. Anaquot soon found that she was drifting, her thoughts were disconnecting, her entire body was loosening. The last thing she saw was the woman, close now and blocking out the light. She saw the woman bending over her, and then Anaquot felt the woman ease the baby from the loose basket of her arms.

Anaquot was not without her own resources. In spite of her changeable nature and her weakness when it came to love, she possessed an unusual toughness of mind when it came to protecting herself. In addition, she was to find, someone had come to help her. A being had walked beside her, making tracks only she could see. Now she could feel herself plunging through sleep as into a dark lake. As she fought to swim back to the surface, someone helped pull her up. As though treading water, desperate, she managed to stay just a breath above oblivion. She opened her eyes a slit, though her eyelids seemed made of stone, and she saw the shape of the woman move across the tamped-earth floor with the baby in her arms. And then she heard the woman’s song, which now had words.