Louise Erdrich - The Painted Drum

Morris knew that he had fallen hard in love with Ira while they were back there in the cab of the truck. Did she know that her voice was lovely? So precise and yet hesitant? Could she even imagine how the give of her lips and the soft, hot little cave of her mouth, behind her lips and teeth, affected Morris? His fall was so dramatic and sudden that he’d actually trembled when she said her name in his room. They had taken him off morphine and he hadn’t cared. That’s how distracted he was. He thought of everything about her, everything he’d learned. The power and determination as she trudged through the snow, her devotion and her failure, her dignity which had not yet allowed her to ask to move in with him, though he hoped that she would ask. He had to know her. He had to understand the simplicity and even placement of the beads in her beadwork. It took patience and years of practice to bead that well. Yet she was impulsive, too. She made tiny mistakes, one here, one there. Some mistakes had bigger outcomes than they deserved. He felt so much pity for Ira that he wanted to take some of her trouble on. He missed her. He felt the print of her body against his when he’d dragged her across the seat. The aching print. There was the knowledge that his eyes were all fucked up and would not get better and he was addicted to painkillers. Not an ideal father figure. But there were positives. He did get a disability check and Bernard had come to talk to him about the songs belonging to the drum. His father had left those drum songs to him—taken the scrolls into the earth, but taught some of the songs to Morris first. The old man who had spoken to the wolves had both named him and taught him a few more songs. Then Bernard had taken over. Those songs had helped Morris, even kept him sane. He was sane now. He wanted her. He wanted to get his shit together and be clean. He wanted to construct a life that she could tolerate.

“Thank you for bringing my next wife,” he said to his brother on the phone. “I love her and can never thank you enough.”

“I got no claim on her,” said his brother, who was very surprised.

“You sure as hell don’t,” said Morris.

“She’s got kids,” said John.

“Don’t I know it. And don’t give me any of that shit about getting herself laid for food. I want to know something. Why I saw men die for oil in this country where a woman has to sell herself for bread and peanut butter.”

“Macaroni too,” said John.

“The hell with you. I want to know why I lost my eyes for that. It should not be.”

“Okay now,” said John, “don’t go off on that track.”

“I’m going to have her,” said Morris.

“You’re not ordering a Happy Meal,” said John. “She’s no Happy at all that I could tell. But then again, she can talk straight at you.”

“I’m going to do more,” said Morris.

“And what is that?”

“I’m going to help her raise her kids. I’m going to give her all my money. I’m going to teach them everything I know.”

“Well, good luck to you then, brother.”

Morris hung up the phone, quiet with ecstasy. In his mind Ira drove the truck and they put the kids in the jump seats right behind. Tipi canvas and poles and their suitcases of regalia corded down in the truck bed. Him on the passenger’s side. They were going to the big arbor powwows in Montana where the drum entered you straight up from the earth. Yes, it will be a beautiful, new life, thought Morris. I’m just going to lay here and pile on the details. I’ll play my own tape in my head. Let’s see, first I’ll buy her a soft fleecy tight-fitting sweater through which I will feel her breasts with my hands. And food, we’ll have food. Maybe all kinds of waffles in a restaurant. Juneberries. We’ll pick from a roadside bush. The only thing is, I’ve seen her face for the last time, maybe. Probably. This made Morris weep. His eyes felt deliciously soothed, but the tears stung his raw cheeks.

Bernard checked the gauges on the boilers and went down his twenty-item checklist. He made sure his crew was keeping the emergency room entrance free and clear of drifting snow. He helped clean a hospital room, using proper infection-control procedures. He ordered lightbulbs and did a small repair on the intercom system. Then he sat down in his office, drank a cup of strong tea, and thought he’d go up next and check on the drum. What had happened surprised him, but at the same time he had expected something like it. Ever since his children had grown up and moved to Fargo and his wife had followed, he had wondered why he couldn’t make himself move away to be near them. Though they visited often, he missed out on his grandchildren growing up. And he missed out on living with his wife, although it seemed like they got along better now. Still, he hadn’t known why he stayed on the old allotment except that the city was too loud, too fast and cramped for space. There were only sidewalks to walk on, no paths. Perhaps, he thought, someone needed to keep up the old house. There was his hospital job, but he could have quit that. He was over retirement age anyway.

No, the reason he stayed had not come clear until it was piercingly apparent. He’d stayed for the drum. He had the most intimate knowledge of it, knew the sequence of all the songs, could bring together those who possessed those songs he’d forgotten. He alone could fit the scraps together. And he had, as best he could, in these past few months. His waiting was over now and he and Morris would sing the healing songs, softly enough, after the doctors did their rounds. Seraphine would come. He thought of Seraphine and of the strange thing about her scar.

Seraphine had been raised in a traditional way by her grandparents and she spoke little English. But then her grandparents died and Seraphine was sent to boarding school. Bernard recalled that life well, for he had been there, too, in his own day. Sometimes all of the children in the rows of beds cried at night and it was the saddest sound Bernard had ever heard. It was forbidden to speak what the teachers called Indian; sometimes those words seemed to inflame a special wrath from the teachers and the matrons who took care of the children. One day, Seraphine forgot or rebelled and began to speak her own language and would not stop. The matron was showing girls how to mend cushioned chairs. In her hand there was a thick needle for sewing together upholstery. She turned and struck Seraphine. The needle ripped across the girl’s face, and although the doctor who sewed the wound together was sensitive and careful, the scar of speaking her language remained across her lips all of her life.

Bernard thought about Seraphine as a little girl and about the wolves who had talked to Ira’s father and about the curved bones in the drum. He thought about Shawnee and her stark little heart-shaped face. And about those women who had brought the drum here from the east. Everything now fit. The little girl had come home and she had saved a girl, a relative, a sister. Bernard promised the drum that he would teach Shawnee everything he could, before she went away. She and her brother and sister would not be with him long, not if Morris had anything to say about it. But then, who knew? Who could tell what Ira was thinking?

Ira was staring at Apitchi. She couldn’t sleep. She had got up to watch him. It was impossible to tell whether he was better or worse or just the same. His arm seemed even thinner than a few hours ago, and as she stroked it she felt his slim bones and tried not to let her throat shut with fear. You’ll be all right, you’ll be all right , she prayed. She closed her eyes and tried to send her spirit out of her body into his body, she tried to make her spirit fight everything that hurt him, she tried to make him well. She opened her eyes, tears fell on her hands, and she thought, Any moment I’ll start raving at the mouth. I’ll start making those God bargains people do. I’ll scream my fucking head off and I’ll beat myself up. But she did nothing, only sat there for a long time more, holding his arm.