Louise Erdrich - The Antelope Wife

“Mama,” the twins say, and her voice on the phone suddenly hurts them. They want to curl next to her and be little babies again. Their bodies feel too big, electric, like powerful bear bodies enclosing tiny mouse souls.

They begin to cry and Frank darts a glance at them, then stares at his feet and frowns. The girls picture everything at Grandmas’. On the wall of their room up north, there hangs a bundle of sage and Grandma Noodin’s singing drum. On the opposite wall, Cally taped up a poster of dogs, photos of Jimi Hendrix and the Indigo Girls, a second grade boyfriend Deanna had but doesn’t have anymore, bears, and Indigenous, their favorite band, another of a rainbow and buffalo trudging underneath. Ever since they were little, they have slept with a worn bear and a new brown dog with wiry blondish hair and a red felt tongue. And their real dog, too, curled at their feet sometimes, if Mama didn’t catch them. Though she lets him sleep with them ever since he rescued them. Now they start crying worse than ever because they realize they left him behind.

The twins never liked dolls. They made good scores in math. They are so lonesome for their dog that they lose track of Mama’s voice and hand the telephone back to Frank. He begins to talk in a wistful bantering tone and the girls wander off in their thoughts until he hangs up and says, excited, “I think she’s coming back here. Coming down here. What you girls did was wrong… oh so wrong… but so right. You didn’t mean to anyway. I’ll never punish you. What kind of doughnuts do you like?”

And they are extremely confused as they eat a chocolate custard bun and a powdered doughnut and drink a glass of skim milk, which Cecille keeps in her refrigerator to make up for all the doughnuts. They are confused because they miss their father. And yet they like Frank. And they certainly like the unhealthy pastries that he lets them eat although just one, because of how the grandmas left to escape his cookies, which spiked their blood sugar. He knows about that. He sits and talks to them and tells them that he is going to put them to work. To work! They could not be more thrilled.

Sweetheart’s Visit

The next morning they start right in and learn the cash register, the prices, how to handle the pastries with a plastic glove or wax-paper tissue. Of course Frank does the real work. There are child labor laws, he says. I’ll pay you under the table.

Now, that is an exciting thought! An exchange of money beneath a table. Grown-ups have strange customs. Even so, they sell doughnuts. Also maple long johns, hot pies, raised braids, and crullers. Things go fine until Sweetheart Calico.

They are behind the display case with a spray bottle of lemon glass-cleaner when they get this tickly, hairy, sifty feeling they are being watched. The store is empty, that dead hour just after lunchtime. The air is quiet though the growl of motors on the street barges and recedes. A few passersby glance in, neutral, no interest in the display of breads or cakes or even the scent of fried dough that Frank has purposely vented where it will attract the casual customer. Deanna hears the scratch of nails on paint, twirls. Nobody. Cally turns back to rubbing the glass and then there is the tap, tap, tap of heels. The girls drop their polishing rags and spring to the door leading back to the ovens. They’re supposed to stay behind the counter, but there are tiny noises and a staticky feeling at the napes of their necks. Nobody is there, and they are about to turn back to arranging cookies when a light touch at Deanna’s shoulder spins her into the antelope gaze.

Sweetheart Calico.

She doesn’t speak. Her lean face is clear, smooth, pale milk-caramel, sweet as a hen’s egg; her tea-brown eyes are wistful, sad. Her hair is a powerful wing sweeping down her slim back. She has slender, jutting hips, long legs. On her feet black stiletto heels like shiny fork prongs. Perfectly honed features. The girls smile at her and open their mouths to talk. A mistake. For then she smiles back at them.

When she opens her mouth, her eyes go black. Her grin is jagged, a tooth broken and as sharp as a nail. Her smile is fixed, frightful. Her gaze scrapes over them. The scariest thing of all is this: they can sense she is glad they are here, but not in a good way. Excited. She wants them near and as they stand quiet before her they feel it all — her hating need and eager sly wishing washes toward Cally and Deanna like an oily black wave. She wants them in her part of the world, Gakaabikaang.

She wants to steal them again! They have come to believe as their mother says, that they were kidnapped by Sweetheart Calico. It has all gone vague except for their dog who brought them home. It all goes vague now. Then the wave recedes. She is gone as suddenly as she appeared.

Frank walks in, whistling, a tray of crullers on his shoulder.

Their hands are clumsy as they rub the display glass, smearing it. They are not the same afterward, nor will they ever be until they understand the design. They don’t know how to take this, don’t know what to make of it, have never known and do not now want to know a person like Sweetheart Calico. For she alters the shape of things around her and she changes the shape of things to come. She upsets the girls, then enlightens them both with her truthless stare. She scatters everyone’s wits.

SWEETHEART CALICO STILL lives secretly in Rozin’s house, which Frank is renovating. She does not break in, really, just melts through the walls and takes showers, endless showers for as long as she wants. She uses up so much hot water that Frank thinks there is a leak in the water heater. He is even thinking of getting a new water heater. Which would be a hassle. He would have to ask Booch Jr. to help him move the old one out. He never even suspects. She doesn’t leave her cloven tracks, now, she is too clever. Nobody is there at night so nobody knows. She hums in her sleep. Sometimes Frank notices the smell of prairie sage, but he thinks that is a wonderful smell and it reminds him of the old days of his youth when he wandered to the place where sky meets earth.

Frank would not be surprised to see Sweetheart Calico in the shop, even though he doesn’t know she lives in Rozin’s house. Only Cecille knows that he felt sorry for this woman adrift, and hired her to work. Although work is not exactly what she does. If she is around, Sweetheart is sitting in the corner, down in the yard, poking through things in the basement, doing the shop chores somehow not quite right — sweeping with her broom between drags on her cigarette, but then forgetting to pick up the piles of dust. Washing pans but not rinsing them, so next day the maple long johns taste faintly of soap. Dusting the blackboard and the pictures of muffins onto the floor. Leaving them there. Washing the bathroom mirrors with toilet paper so the little papery bits are stuck all over. She takes hours in the bakery bathroom putting makeup on and hours taking it off. She lotions her face. Sits on the top of the toilet, at peace. Often, just before she leaves, she tries to get Frank or Cecille to go with her. Tries to pull them out the door. Frank and Cecille never go, though her face is desperate. They are pretty sure she walks and walks, sometimes for days, going places nobody knows. Returning with a silent, baffled, pitiful look on her face.

She likes to sit in the back of the bakery kitchen, listening to the radio and watching the telephone to see if it will ring. The next day she is there when the girls’ mother calls.

“I’m on my way.”

“Okay, Mama.”

Frank takes the phone, turns his back on them all as he speaks to Rozin.

Meantime, Sweetheart sits in the corner smiling her shark-tooth smile and smoking a Marlboro. She blinks her hexing eyes slowly and openly stares.