As Long as the Rivers Flow (16 page)

And if he had known that Martha was at that time making her way to Toronto, he would not have cared. He loved the punks and they loved him. To Spider it was the punks, not his birth mother or his adoptive parents, who were his real family.

A
T THE ENTRANCE TO THE ALLEY
, Martha was replying in Anishinaabemowin to the offer made to her by the homeless woman.

“I’m from way up north from a reserve called Cat Lake First Nation. It’s so small you’ve probably never heard of it. I just came out on the winter road and took the bus from Pickle Lake. I don’t know anyone here.”

The woman, speaking hesitantly, replied in the same language.

“I don’t speak Anishinaabemowin no good no more. Lost most of it when I was sent away to school but I still understand okay.

“Never heard of your place,” she said, carrying on in English, “but that don’t mean nothing. My reserve is back in the bush near the Quebec border. We knew nothing about the people who lived to the west of us when I was a kid.”

Happy to have a Native person to talk to, Martha told her how she had been raised on the land as a little girl, been sent off to residential school, had returned home, had a hard time fitting in, and had two children, and how her son had been taken from her. One of the main reasons she had come to the city was to find her son.

“He has a big birthmark in the shape of a spider’s web on his forehead, and would be about seventeen now. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” the woman said, after thinking about the question for a minute. “I’ve seen a lot of Indian kids on the streets, but they usually stick to themselves.

“My story’s a bit like yours,” she said. “Raised in the bush. Taken away when I was ten and sent to residential school. But I guess I was lucky ’cause the nuns and priests were really good to me. None of those beatings and sexual things you hear about that happened at other schools. My family didn’t want me so I stayed at the school in the summers until I was sixteen. When I went back to the reserve to stay, my family still didn’t want me. I started running around. Got pregnant. Got pregnant again and again until I had half a dozen kids. I guess I wasn’t the greatest mom and the Children’s Aid stepped in and took them away. Don’t know where they are—never tried to find them. I got fed up and took the bus to Toronto. Just like you.

“Been here about two years, all of them on the street. Met up with a guy from up north and we’ve been together ever since. So whadyasay? Gonna join us?”

Martha did not reply.

“Our life’s pretty good,” the woman said. “We get welfare just like back home. Some days we make good money bumming change. When we buy booze we can go into any liquor or beer store and pay the normal price. No big bootlegger prices here. And if you like Indians, there’s lots of us here.

“Didya know Toronto’s Canada’s biggest reserve? There’s Indians around here from up north, from down south and from the States. Even some who call themselves Indians from Mexico. People who were once rich and important. Everyone’s got lots of stories to tell, even if most of it’s lies.”

“But isn’t your life dangerous? Where do you sleep? What do you eat?” asked Martha.

“I’m not gonna shit ya,” the woman replied after a pause. “It’s a hard life just the same. Sooner or later you go from booze to rubbing alcohol, to mouthwash, to aftershave, to shoe polish and eventually to Lysol. Didya know you could go blind if you’re not careful? Before ya know it you’re having the shakes, you know, the DTs—the seizures and craziness when you think you’re being chased by pink elephants and monsters—and that’s it for you. But it’s always the other guy who’s gonna get it. Won’t never happen to me ’cause I’m too smart.”

“But it’s cold. Where do you sleep?” insisted Martha.

“It’s a secret, but since we’re such good friends, I’m gonna tell ya.”

In a theatrical whisper, the woman said, “Under the overpass at the bottom of Spadina Avenue. Right where it goes onto the Gardiner—not much of a secret, eh?” She laughed. “It’s actually not so bad. We gotta big pile of sleepin’ bags and blankets. We crawl into them and drink to our heart’s content. We don’t even hear the traffic no more. And do you know something? I actually like the smell of exhaust fumes—reminds me of nights back home when I came back from residential school and a bunch of us used to do a little sniffing. Not too fussy, though, about the water that drips on us when it rains.”

“And your food?” Martha asked.

“That’s easy,” she replied. “We get breakfast in bed. The Sally Ann comes by every morning with their Welcome Wagon and gives us hot coffee, soup and sandwiches. We don’t even have to get up—all we gotta do is pretend we’re interested when they ask us to pray with them.”

“Sometimes we go to the Council Fire over on Dundas for a meal. That’s an outfit that’s run by Indians for people like us. Every
night the Indian guys who run the Anishinabe Street Patrol bring more soup and sandwiches. Plus sleeping bags, socks, gloves and blankets if you need them. If you get sick, someone will call 911 for you. Everything’s all taken care of.”

Martha hesitated.

“Look,” the woman said, “I came to the city not so long ago just like you. It was a tough place. But I made real good friends with people just like me who liked drinking. We’re heading back now to finish off our booze and you’re welcome. And that’s an offer you won’t get around here every day. It seems to me,” she added, “that we gotta lot in common. I bet we’re even the same age. Come on, guess how old I am.”

Martha thought that she looked to be in her fifties or sixties, but to be polite, told her she was about forty. The woman laughed and said she was only twenty-six.

Martha shivered, this time not from the cold. She had been growing increasingly uneasy as the woman described her life. Why did this person assume that just because she was Native she would want to live on the streets? It was true that she was lonely and wanted friends but not at the cost of losing her self-respect and dignity. She would rather die than live under an overpass exposed to the elements like an animal and have to rely on the handouts of the Salvation Army and the Anishinabe Street Patrol to survive.

Surely there was more to life than spending her days with people who appeared determined to drink themselves to death. What about her mother and Raven? She had to find a job to make money to support them. There was Spider to think about. Now, to her horror, she discovered that the woman she was talking to was actually eight years younger than she was. Looking at her more closely, she saw herself in two years if she opted for life on the
streets—sick and woebegone and waiting to die. There had to be a better way.

The woman cut in. “Well, what’s it to be? You coming or not?”

But before Martha could reply, she saw a sign blinking out of the dark. “Kwawag Andwad, Native Women’s Shelter.”

Martha knew that
kwawag andwad
meant “our home” in Anishinaabemowin. Perhaps the people there could help her.

“Meegwetch,”
said Martha, “but I think I’ll try that place down the street.”

The woman shrugged her shoulders. And as Martha walked away, she called out, “No skin off my ass!”

After Martha rang the doorbell, it did not take long before a Native woman in her mid-thirties, short, round-faced, with dark brown skin and alert, friendly black eyes, opened the door. Seeing Martha standing there silently in the dark with her pack on her back, she guessed she had just arrived in the city.

“Looks like you’ve come a long way. My name’s Nora Simcoe and I won’t bite you. C’mon in and make yourself at home.”

Martha entered saying in a low voice, “Mine’s Martha. I saw your sign.”

Nora motioned to the closet and said, “Hang your coat up and stow your pack in there. Do you want to visit the washroom? It’s just down the hall. Then let’s get together in the kitchen.”

The two women sat together around the kitchen table drinking instant coffee.

“Looks like you’ve had a tough day,” Nora said.

When Martha did not reply but fixed her eyes on the table, Nora did not press her. She was Anishinabe herself from Chippewas of Rama First Nation on Lake Couchiching, one hundred miles north of Toronto. Although the Anishinabe of southern and northwestern
Ontario were separated geographically by great distances, their culture and language were similar and they had no problem understanding each other. In their tradition, long silences in conversations were the norm, and Nora did not interpret Martha’s lack of response as a sign of indifference or rudeness.

Nora also had years of experience in dealing with women who came to the city with high hopes, but who had neither the life skills nor the training to survive in a tough urban environment. She had graduated from the University of Toronto as a social worker and had devoted her life to helping Native women who had left their reserves and were in a state of cultural shock.

It was critical, she knew, to help them as soon as possible after they arrived in the city and before they drifted into a life on the streets, or before pimps in search of gullible girls to exploit as prostitutes took control of their lives. All too often, she knew, these women joined the ranks of the thousands of Native women who had simply “disappeared” over the years across Canada, murdered by their pimps or their johns and dumped like roadkill in places where they would never be found. Since they were street women, the police just went through the motions in looking for them and society did not seem to care.

Eventually, in a soft voice, Martha asked Nora in Anishinaabemowin if she spoke her Native language: “Gdi
nesh naabem nah?”

Nora answered her in the affirmative:
“Aanish gonna.”

Martha smiled and remarked that Nora sure talked in a funny way: “Gdi
pkan gdi nwaam.”

Nora shot back saying she could say the same thing about Martha’s accent: “Maa
dash wiin miigoo Naasaab! En weeyagng ma north.”

The two women laughed and the ice was broken.

“I was about to make myself a snack. We don’t have any country food here but I make real good grilled cheese sandwiches. Want one?”

Martha nodded her agreement, and soon they were eating and talking quietly.

“So where do you come from and what are you doing in the big city?” asked Nora.

“I’m from way up north,” said Martha. “It was time to make a new start in my life and I thought I’d try my luck in Toronto. But this is a scary place and I don’t know if I can handle it.”

“Sure you can,” said Nora. “You just have to get used to it and make some friends. I can help you.”

“Could you put me up for tonight?” asked Martha. “I have some money.”

“Of course,” said Nora. “You can stay as long as you want, and if you run short, you don’t have to pay.

“What about your family. Are you married? Any children? Are they coming down to join you?”

At the mention of children, Martha began to sob. Nora got up and put her arms around her shoulders and it was not necessary to say anything. When Martha stopped crying, she returned to her seat and waited for Martha to speak.

Although used to keeping her feelings and thoughts to herself, Martha was comfortable with Nora and felt she could confide in her. She thus told her about Spider and Raven and how bad she felt for not being there for them when they needed her. When Nora said she shouldn’t be so hard on herself, and there were surely reasons for acting as she did, Martha opened up and told her everything: her residential school experience, Father Antoine, the death of her little cousin Little Joe, her depression, the circumstances of Spider’s birth and removal, the life she made for herself in the community afterwards, Raven’s birth and her departure for Toronto. By the time she had finished, it was one in the morning and both women were crying.
With the help of Nora and the other staff members of Kwawag Andwad, Martha adjusted to life in the city. For the first six months, she lived at the shelter, taking her meals there and sharing her room with other women who likewise had come to Toronto knowing no one and trying to make a fresh start in life. The staff helped her prepare the paperwork to receive temporary welfare assistance, to register for medical care at the Anishinabe Health Centre, and to begin classes to finish her high school diploma. When Nora noticed that Martha sometimes appeared troubled, she invited her to join their weekly healing circle.

“You will never be well, Martha, if you don’t share your feelings with others.”

But Martha refused. She had been prepared to talk privately with Nora about her past—and that had helped—but it was a different thing to air her problems in public with strangers.

As the years went by, Martha lived a modest version of the Canadian dream, moving to her own apartment and finding work as a waitress to pay for evening studies to obtain her high school certificate. She took courses to become a bookkeeper, obtained a well-paying job at the Native Friendship Centre and was even able to buy a car.

Life would have been good were it not for the poor state of her relations with her mother and daughter. In the years she was away, even though Martha had the money to do so, she took no trips home. It was not that she did not want to see her family. She did, and after she had put some money aside, she told Nokomis in a letter that she would be returning home for the summer holidays. But the reply, drafted for Nokomis, who did not know how to read or write, by a clerk at the co-op, was a great disappointment.

Afterwards, Martha wrote often to her mother enclosing money to help her with living expenses and asking about Raven. In her letters back, Nokomis enclosed photos of her daughter that Martha framed and kept on her bedside table, but she gave no news of the little girl other than to say she was well. When Martha wrote some time later to say that she was now well established in Toronto and wanted to bring her daughter to live with her, her mother replied that she would be ever so lonely if her granddaughter were not with her to keep her company.