Louise Erdrich - The Round House

They’re looking for a car that went down, said Zack. At least I know that much.

I knew it was Mayla’s car. From what Mom had said, I knew that her attacker had sent it to the bottom of the lake. I also knew they were looking for Mayla. I couldn’t help imagining ways that he could have weighted her body and somehow got her back into that car. I didn’t want to think of these things, but my mind kept these awful thoughts going. We watched the searchers all day, the dogs choosing the air above the water, and their people watching every move they made. It was a slow business. They moved across the water, calm, methodical, laying an invisible grid down on the lake bottom. They worked until dark, then quit and set up their own tents and mess camp right near the shore.

The next day, we were there early and got closer, in fact spectacularly close. We didn’t mean to. We left our bikes and crept toward the camp unnoticed—there was a new bustle of energy there. Some purpose had been established and we saw it when two wet-suited divers went out in one of the boats and lowered themselves into the drop-off we all knew about. There was a steep bank and where it met the shore it was well-known that the water went to an immediate depth of what we grew up thinking was a hundred feet, but turned out to be twenty. There was a cliff above it, where we lodged ourselves and watched through the day. We were hungry, thirsty, and talking about sneaking away, when a tow truck rumbled down the rutted road. It backed down as close to the water as the searchers could safely wave it. We stayed hidden in the brush and were there when the car, a maroon Chevy Nova, was winched up the bank streaming weeds and water. We expected of course to see a body, and Angus whispered to be ready—we’d get nightmares. He’d seen his drowned uncle. But there was no body in the car. We were peering through weeds, but perched directly where we had a perfect view of the car’s interior. We saw the sludgy water wash through and away. The windows were all cranked down. The doors were soon opened. Nobody, nothing, I thought at first, except there was one thing.

One thing that sent through me a shock that registered as a surface prickle and then went deeper, all that day, all evening, then that night, until I saw it again the moment I was falling asleep and started awake.

In the back window of the car there was a jumble of toys—some plastic, a mashed-up stuffed bear maybe, all were washed together so you couldn’t quite distinguish what each of them was except for a scrap of cloth, a piece of blue-and-white checked fabric that matched the outfit on the doll stuffed with money.

Mooshum was born nine months after berry-picking camp, a happy time when families got together all through the bush. I went out to pick berries with my father, Mooshum always said, and I came back with my mother. He thought it was a great joke and always celebrated his conception, not his birth, as in fact he had become convinced that he was born at Batoche during the siege in 1885, which my father privately doubted. It was true, however, that Mooshum had still been a child when his family left behind their neat cabin, their lands, their barn and sweet water well, and fled Batoche after Louis Riel was caught and sentenced to be hanged. They came down over the border, where they were not exactly welcomed with open arms. Still, they were taken in by an unusually kindhearted chief who told the U.S. government that maybe it threw away its half-breed children and gave them no land, but that the Indians would take these children into their hearts. The generous full-bloods would have a hard time of it in the years to come, while the mixed-bloods who already knew how to farm and husband animals fared better and eventually began to take over and even looked down on those who had rescued them. Yet as Mooshum went on in life he cast off his Michif ways. First to go was Catholicism, then he started speaking pure Chippewa not mixed with French, and even made himself a fancy powwow outfit to dance in although he still jigged and drank. He went, as they said in those times, back to the blanket. Not that he wore a blanket. But sometimes he threw one over his shoulder and walked out to the round house and participated in the bush ceremonies. He was great friends with all the troublemakers who caroused about as well as those who fought desperately to keep their reservation, ground that kept shifting under their feet according to government whim and Indian agent head counts and something called allotment. Many an agent gained wealth on stolen rations in those years, and many a family turned their faces to the wall and died for lack of what they were promised.

And now, said Mooshum, on the day we gathered to celebrate his birthday, there is food aplenty. Food everywhere. Fat Indians! You would never see a fat Indian back in my time.

Grandma Ignatia sat with him under the old-timey arbor that Uncle Edward and Whitey had built for Mooshum’s birthday party. They had laid fresh popple saplings onto posts to make a shady roof, and the leaves were still sweet and bright. The old ones sat in woven plastic lawn chairs and drank hot tea though the day was warm. Clemence had instructed me to sit with Mooshum, to watch him and make sure that the heat did not prostrate him. Grandma Ignatia was shaking her head at the fat Indians.

I had a fat Indian for a husband at one time, she told Mooshum. His pecker was long and big but only the head reached past his gut. And of course I didn’t like to get underneath him anyway for fear of getting smashed.

Miigwayak! Of course. What did you do? Mooshum asked.

I bounced around on top naturally. But that belly, yai! It grew big as a hill and I couldn’t see over it. I’d call out, Are you still back there? Holler to me! Like most fat Indians he did have a skinny butt. Man, those muscles in his back cheeks were powerful, too. He swung me around like a circus act. So I enjoyed him real well, those times were good.

Awee, said Mooshum. His voice was wistful.

But sadly they were not to last, said Grandma Ignatia. One time we were going hell for leather when he quit. Sometimes he did get tired out of course, being so heavy like he was, so I just keep cranking away on top. His flagpole was still up and hard as steel. But I thought he might have gone to sleep, he was so quiet. Holler to me! I said. But he never did. My, it is strange he sleeps through all of this! He must be having a grand dream, I think. So I don’t quit until it’s all over—many times over with me, eyyyy. At last I get off him. My, he’s lasting! I think. I crawl around to the other end of him. Not long, and I realize that he is not breathing. I pat his face, but no good. He is dead and gone, my sweet fat husband. I mourned for that man a solid year.

Awee, said Mooshum. A happy death. And a noble lover for you, Ignatia, as he satisfied you even from the other side. I wish to die that way, but who will give me the chance?

Does it still stand up? asked Ignatia.

Not by itself, said Mooshum.

Eyyyy, said Ignatia. After a hundred years of hard use it would be a miracle. If you only prayed more, she cackled.

Mooshum’s frail shoulders were shaking. Pray for a hard-on! That’s a good one. Maybe I should pray to Saint Joseph. He was a carpenter and worked with wood.

Them nuns never mentioned the patron saint of manaa!

Mooshum said, I will say a prayer to Saint Jude, the one who handles lost cases.

And I will pray to Saint Anthony, the one in charge of lost objects. You’re so old you probably can’t even find your own pecker in those pants Clemence put on you today.

Yes, these pants. They are good material.