Between Two Worlds (15 page)

The first voice said, “Sutter bid for her, too. He said he wanted her strictly as his artist’s model. He’s a liar.”

I tried to push the conversation from my mind. The gossip went on, getting worse. But I strained to hear.

“Sutter’s spent time with Eskimos before. He was on a voyage that took some of them to New York. He left the ship before the Eskimos were taken to live in the museum. He said that thousands of people came to the docks to get a look at them. People were more interested in seeing the Eskimo children than Peary’s big meteorite.”

“Too bad they took sick and died.”

“That boy, Minik, saw what they did with them. It was in the papers.”

Then another, louder voice, one of drunken singing, drowned out the other voices.

What did Minik see?
I hugged my knees and huddled under my
kapatak
, listening to my heart beating. After Duncan came to the bunk, I waited until the men settled down and we heard snoring. Then I asked him what they’d meant. “They talked about Minik seeing something, and ‘the papers.’ ”

“Newspapers. Some story that was printed. But most
of these men don’t know how to read. It’s gossip. Sailors are ignorant men. They will believe anything they hear and
repeat it
. Idiots!”

“Duncan, now you’re telling
me
lies.”

He buried his head on my shoulder. After a long silence, he said, “Well, newspapers don’t always tell the truth.”

Though I barely remembered what “newspapers” were, I tried to let the idea sink in that their stories could be wrong.

I drew a breath deeply. “The truth about what?”

“I don’t know.” Duncan held me tighter. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

Duncan fell asleep. I sat up and reached under Duncan’s bunk and brought out my wooden chest. In the dim lamplight, I touched my treasures: the little seal and other animals my father had carved for me, feathers, pieces of smooth silk. Acorns and buttons. The empty cardboard box of animal crackers. The photographs of my mother and me. The comb from Mitti Peary. Then I felt a long shape—a large whale’s tooth?
I didn’t put it in here
.

Who did?

Duncan rolled over. By the way his breathing changed, he was awake. He stretched his arm out for me. “Billy Bah?” he whispered.

“I’m here.” I kept my voice low.

“What are you doing?” He sat up.

“Somebody put something in my chest.”

“I did. I gave you a lot of things. Needles. Coins. A cross that was my mother’s.”

“And ivory.”

“Yes,” he said. “A whale tooth. Though it’s a different kind of whale than in the Arctic. When you can look at it in the light, you’ll see that I carved a ship on it.”

He laid his head on my shoulder. He was much gentler with me than Angulluk was.

“Why did you give me these things?” I asked.

“Soon I’ll have to let you go, won’t I, Billy Bah? I don’t want to. I wish I could take you to America. But there’s Angulluk.” He sighed. “And Christmas is coming. And who knows what will happen to us all? This ship could sink in the next storm.”

“Don’t say that!” I replied uneasily. “Never say a thought like that out loud.”

I thanked him for the gifts and put the box away. On deck, Cin began to howl and the men around us stirred from sleep. “Someone shut that dog up!” a sailor grumbled.

“I’ll go out.” I put on my furs.

“Do you think she’s hungry?” Duncan asked.

“She hears the dogs howling on shore and she’s lonely. She wants her own kind.”
Like me
.

Opening the box again made me think of America when I’d packed up my things to finally return home.

One day, Mitti Peary brought me into her study, where a tall man with dark hair and a slim mustache sat at her desk. He was her brother, Emil Diebitsch. “Billy Bah, there’s a ship that will soon be leaving for Greenland to bring Lieutenant Peary supplies. Mr. Diebitsch will accompany you on the voyage. You and he will leave for New York in the morning.” She paused. “You’ll have to ride on a train again. I’m sorry. I know how trains frighten you.”

What joy and shock I felt at her sudden announcement! I said, “Aren’t you and Marie coming?”

“Not this time,” Mitti Peary said.

Why did Mitti Peary sometimes live with her husband and sometimes not? And I still didn’t understand why they traveled to my land. But all that mattered was going home! In another few minutes, I was packing ribbons, acorns, feathers, and all my other keepsakes.

The next morning, I clung to Mitti Peary one last time, rubbed noses with Marie, and hugged Mayde and old Mitti Diebitsch.

This time, when the roaring monster came rattling toward me, belching its black smoke, I hid my eyes but did not scream or cry. In the same way, I braved the sea voyage on a new ship, the
Falcon
. The
Hope
had gone down in a storm.

From the railing, I watched and waited. One sun-filled day, Itta’s red cliffs finally came into sight. I cried for joy to see the ruddy cliffs dotted with millions of auks and
other birds; the glacier that reached like a pebbly ribbon down to the beach; my village on the bluff with its tents and rock houses and piles of debris; an escaped dog trotting along the crest.

Soon the ship anchored and hunters in kayaks came out to greet us. My father and my brother called to me from their kayaks. I threw my arms in the air. My father and my brother paddled back to land. People gathered on the beach, and even from a distance, I could recognize their shapes—my mother, my sister with a baby! I saw Peary in his blue uniform and cap, Mauripaulak and a few of Peary’s other men.

As we neared the shore, I jumped from the rowboat and ran toward my father. He lifted me, hugged me, stroked my hair, then set me down. We rubbed noses. “Ataata!”

“My little seal!” he said.

I rushed toward my mother. “Anaana!” I said, happy tears in my eyes. My mother wrapped me in her arms. It was everything that I wanted: her warmth, her tenderness, the way she babbled sounds in my ear as if I were a baby again. She smelled of salty sealskin. Anaana seemed smaller to me now (or was I taller?), her skin dirtier than I’d remembered. Her smile was wide, her delight unmistakable.

“Look at you, dressed like a
qallunaaq
. I’ll find clothes for you.”

“I want to walk in
kamiit
. I will never wear these boots
again!” I unlaced them and threw them across the sand. Barefoot, hand in hand with my mother, I climbed the familiar path from the beach to the village, surrounded by a sea of my own people, listening to the fast, happy words of my own language.

Once I arrived at my parents’ igloo, I dressed in some of my sister’s worn-out clothes, which were too big for me. I stuffed grasses into the toes of the
kamiit
to make them fit. I was, again, the girl I was meant to be, in the place where I was meant to live, among my true family.

Good luck followed, and that very day a hunter caught a narwhal. After our great feast, it came time for me to speak to the villagers, to answer everyone’s many questions about the white man’s land. They gathered around me in a circle. I said, “In America, there are so many ships that they crowd a bay. The sky is nearly covered by houses. The people live like cliff birds, high above the ground. Smoke fills the air from the peoples’ cooking fires. They look out of windows made of glass that is clear as fresh ice. In winter, the sun shines all day. You would not believe how many people there are in America, too many!”

I began to describe the strange beasts that pulled people in carriages and the monsterlike trains racing through tunnels. One of the older hunters interrupted me. “Are you sure this is what you saw, child?”

No one accused me of telling lies, though some adults felt I was too young to understand what I had seen. From my chest, I took out my precious treasures, one by one, to
be passed around: pieces of silk, acorns, ribbons, bird feathers, the box of animal crackers. Eyes narrowed, hands grabbed, bodies leaned forward, mouths opened wide. My precious things were touched and smelled, rubbed and bitten. I tried to keep the children from going off with my treasures. “I want to go to America!” one boy said as he held my red feather.

People gave me quizzical looks when I talked about a gigantic gray animal with floppy ears and a long trunk I’d seen at a zoo.

I felt equally relieved and disappointed when my father took over as storyteller and presenter. He held up two rifles that Peary had just given him in payment for my service to his family. These items the hunters respected and understood.

I collected my treasures and returned them to their chest. From now on, I’d keep them to myself.

At last, the blue and green streaks of the Ancestors replaced the storm’s raging snow and winds, but there was still no sign of Angulluk. I kept looking across the ice from the ship, hoping, waiting. Marie and I worked under the canvas roof, sorting the cans and tins of food spread on the deck. Duncan, Captain Bartlett, and Charlie the cook emptied still more crates, and Mitti Peary made notes. “Five … six … no, seven cans of peaches!” Marie counted. “Let’s ask Charlie if we can eat them tonight.”

“We’ll save those for Christmas,” Mitti Peary said.

“But, Mother, that’s over a month away.”

“Count yourself lucky that we’ll have any food at all.” Mitti Peary looked up from her writing and asked the captain, “
Do
we have enough food to last through the winter?”

“Barely. If we ration these cans and have the Eskimos hunt for us.”

Marie whispered to me, “There’s chocolate and nuts hidden somewhere in these boxes. Help me find them.”

I nodded, though of course I didn’t care about either chocolate or nuts. All I could think about, aside from Angulluk, was getting away from the ship, and especially the
sailors and their gossip. Today, I’d return to the village. During the storm, I’d finished sewing both Marie’s and her mother’s
kamiit
and mittens. I only regretted that I’d leave Duncan.

Suddenly, Marie gave a shout. “People are coming. Maybe it’s Dad!”

Two dark forms moved across the ice toward the ship. Snowdrifts had shifted in the wind over the night and we could now see nearly as far as the beach.

Why only two people?
My heart raced. I put down cans, ran to the ship’s rail, and climbed down. Plunging onto the snow and ice, I ran out.

A man in furs strode toward me. “Eqariusaq!”

My eyes welled up with tears. “Angulluk.” I rarely called him by his true name.

He lowered the sack slung over his shoulders. We rubbed noses. His nose looked too red, as if stung by frostbite. He was exhausted.

He saw the tears, lifted me into his arms, and set me down again. His voice was raspy but cheerful. “You’re heavy, you fat seal!”

“And you’re a smelly walrus!”

Duncan came up. He waved to me and forced a smile. I nodded to him, and he turned away.

“Where is Piugaattoq?” I asked my husband.

“In the village. With Ally. They’re celebrating—we killed a
nanoq
.”

“A
nanoq
! How? Where? Tell me!”

“Well!” Angulluk cleared his throat. “It was a big male. An enormous bear, magnificent! Piugaattoq took the honor. His bullet pierced the bear first, in its side. Five of us also took aim and hit it. Qaorlutoq got in close, dodged the claws, and thrust his harpoon into the neck. Then I fired a shot to the head and killed it.”

A great
nanoq,
what a prize!
I was eager to hear more, but when we climbed aboard the
Windward
, a whole crowd pushed near, hurling questions at Angulluk and Bag of Bones like seabirds fighting over fish. Then Mitti Peary pressed in. “Did you find him?” she asked. “The lieutenant?”

Angulluk coughed. “I walked far without water. I need to drink.”

“Please let my husband go inside,” I said.

We tumbled into the saloon. I took Angulluk’s arm so we wouldn’t be separated.

I helped him off with his furs, and we sat together on the floor. The bottoms of his scuffed, dirty boots were badly worn. I wished I’d had enough skins to make him a new pair. Charlie brought drinking water and pots of hot tea. Bag of Bones, whose English was improving, ended up talking the most.