Louise Erdrich - Love Medicine

Or so I thought.

That night I left Lulu right after she fell back in the pillows. I got in my truck and drove to the lake. I parked alone. I turned the lights off. And then, because even in the stillest of hours, by the side of the water, I was not still, I took off my clothes and walked naked to the shore.

I swam until I felt a clean tug in my soul to go home an forget about Lulu. I told myself I had seen her for’ the last time that night. I gave her up and dived down to the bottom of the lake where it was cold, dark, still, like the pit bottom of a grave. Perhaps I should have stayed there and never fought. Perhaps I should have taken a breath.

But I didn’t. The water bounced me up. I had to get back in the thick of my life.

The next day, I was glad of my conclusion to leave Lulu forever.

The area redevelopment went through. I was glad, because if I hadn’t betrayed Lulu before, I had to do it now, over the very Now= land she lived on. It was not hers. Even though she planted petunias and put the birdbath beneath her window, she didn’t own the land, because the Lamartines had squatted there. That land had always belonged to the tribe, I was sorry to find, for now the tribal council had decided that Lulu’s land was the one perfect place to locate a factory.

Oh, I argued. I did as much as I could. But government money was dangling before their noses. In the end, as tribal chairman, I was presented with a typed letter I should sign that would formally give notice that Lulu was kicked off the land.

My hand descended like in a dream. I wrote my name on the dotted line.

The secretary licked it in an envelope and then someone delivered it to Lulu’s door. I tried to let things go, but I was trapped behind the wheel. Whether I liked it or not I was steering something out of control.

That night, I tried to visit Lulu’s window out of turn. It was not the sixth night of the week, but I know she expected me. I know because she turned me away.

And that is where the suffering and burning set in to me with fierceness beyond myself No sooner had I given her up than I wanted Lulu back.

It is a hot night in August. I am sitting in the pool of lamplight at my kitchen table. It is night six, but I am home with Marie and the children. They are all around me, breathing deep or mum being in a dream. Aurelia and Zelda are hunched in the roll-cot beside the stove.

Zelda moans in the dim light and says

“Oh, quick!” Her legs move and twitch like she is chasing something.

Her head is full of crossed black pins.

I have my brown cowhide briefcase beside me, open, spilling neat-packed folders and brochures and notes. I take out a blue lined tablet and a pencil that has never been sharpened. I shave the pencil to a point with my pocketknife. Then I clean the knife and close it up and wonder if I’m really going to write what some part of my mind has decided.

I lick my thumb. The pencil strokes. August 7, 1957. My hand moves to the left. Dear Marie. I skip down two lines as I was taught in the government school. I am leaving you. I press so hard the lead snaps on the pencil.

Zelda sits bolt upright, sniffing the air. She was always a restless sleeper. She would walk through the house as a little girl, to come and visit her parents. Often I would wake to find her standing at the end of our bed, holding the post with both hands as if it was dragging her someplace.

Now, almost full-grown, Zelda frowns at something in her dream and then slowly sinks back beneath her covers and disappears but for one smudge of forehead. I give up. I take the pencil in my hand and begin to write.

Dear Marie, Can’t see going on with this when every day I’m going down even worse. Sure I loved you once, but all this time I am seeing Wu also. Now she pressured me and the day has come I must get up and go. I apologize. I found true love with her. I don’t have a choice.

But that doesn’t mean Nector Kashpaw will ever forget his own.

After I write this letter, I fold it up very quickly and lay it in the briefcase. Then I tear off a fresh piece of paper and begin another.

Dear Lulu, You wanted me for so long. Well you’ve got me now! Here I am for the taking, girl, all one hundred percent yours. This is my official proposal put down in writing.

Yours till hell freezes over, Nector iL And then, because maybe I don’t mean it, maybe I just need to get it off my mind, I lock the letters in the briefcase, blow out the lamp, and make my way around sleeping children to Marie. I hang my shirt and pants on the bedpost and slip in next to her.

She always sleeps on her side, back toward me, curved around the baby, which is next to the wall so it won’t tumble off. She sleeps like this ever since I rolled over on one of them. I fit around her and crook my arm at her waist.

She smells of milk and wood ash and sun-dried cloth. Marie has never used a bottle of perfume. Her hands are big, nicked from sharp knives, roughed by bleach. Her back is hard as a plank. Still she warms me.

I feel like pleading with her but I don’t know what for. I lay behind her, listening to her breath sigh in and out, and the ache gets worse.

It fills my throat like a lump of raw metal. I want to clutch her and never let go, to cry to her and tell her what I’ve done.

I make a sound between my teeth and she moves, still in her dream.

She pulls my arm down tighter, mumbles into her pillow.

I take a breath with her breath. I take another. And then my body becomes her body. We are breathing as one, and I am failing gently into sleep still not knowing what will happen.

I sleep like I’ve been clubbed, all night, very hard. When I wake she has already gone into town with Zelda. They were up early, canning apples. The jars are stacked upside down at one end of the table, reddish gold, pretty with the sun shining through them. I brew my morning coffee and chew the cold galette she has left for me. I am still wondering what I am going to do. It seems as though, all my life up till now, I have not had to make a decision. I just did what came along, went wherever I was taken, accepted when I was called on. I never said no. But now it is one or the other, and my mind can’t stretch far enough to understand this.

I go outside and for a long time I occupy myself chopping wood. The children know how to take care of themselves. I pitch and strain at the wood, splitting with a wedge and laying hard into the ax, as if, when the pile gets big enough, it will tell me what to do.

As I am working I suddenly think of Lulu. I get a clear mental picture of her sitting on the lap of her brother-in-law. I see Beverly’s big hand reach out and wrap around her shoulder. Lulu’s head tips to the side, and her eyes gleam like a bird’s. He is nodding at her. Then his mouth is falling onto hers.

I throw the ax. The two lovebirds propel me into the house. I am like a wild man clutching through my briefcase. I find the letter to Marie and I take it out, read it once, then anchor it on the table with the jar of sugar. I cram the letter to Lulu in my pocket, and then I go.

All I can see, as I gallop down the steps and off into the woods, is Lulu’s small red tongue moving across her teeth. My mind quivers, but I cannot stop myself from seeing more. I see his big face nuzzle underneath her chin. I see her hands fly up to clutch his head. She rolls her body expertly beneath his, and then I am crashing through the brush, swatting leaves, almost too blind to see the old deer path that twists through the woods.

I creep up on her house, as though I will catch them together, even though I have heard he is back in the Cities. I crouch behind some bushes up the hill, expecting her dogs to scent me any moment. I watch.

Her house is fresh painted, yellow with black trim, cheerful as a bee.