LaRose (52 page)
Authors: Louise Erdrich
Past him, around the elders, not noticing that the elders or her mother noticed them, intent only on themselves, Maggie slipped with Waylon into the woods.
LaRose was given an eagle feather and an abalone shell containing a ball of smoking sage. He went around smudging the food. He brushed the holy smoke over the electric cookers, casserole dishes, cakes, the tables, and the basket of cards. He went around to the elders, who pulled the smoke over their heads, as did his sisters, and Hollis. Then the sage was ash. LaRose made a plate with a taste of everything, even a secret corner of cake, and a pinch of tobacco. He went down the side of the yard and stepped off into the trees, put the plate down at the base of a birch tree. He stood beside the tree, staring through new leaves, toward the spot he’d fasted, where Dusty
and all of the others had visited him. LaRose didn’t know what to say to them, if they were out there. Oh well, he’d treat them like regular people.
You’re invited, he said in a normal voice.
When he returned, the yard around the house was crowded with people talking, filling plates with food, laughing and laughing, like, well, a bunch of Indians. So many people were eating that all the chairs were taken, then the back steps, the front steps. Towels were laid out on top of the cars so girls wouldn’t stain their flouncy skirts with car dirt. People stood talking with plates of food in their hands, eating and eating because the food was top-shelf. Everybody said so. Top-shelf. People brought random offerings, too. Loaves of bread. Packages of chips, salsa, cookies.
When it was time for the cake, Hollis was called forward by Landreaux. Then Hollis went into the crowd, over to the edge of the yard, and stood before Romeo.
Yeah? said Romeo.
Hollis took his arm.
Me?
Come on.
As Hollis walked Romeo up to stand with him at the cakes, Romeo knew, just knew! It had been written in his life that someday he would be walking on air. Now here he was, floating up to the front of the gathering. Everything was passing by him slowly. He could see every detail. The tucked-in shirts. The girls in bright dresses, yellow, pink. And here he was, walking past them beside his son, just regular. No twisted lurch. Before the tables, he stood, aligned from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, beside his son, not hunched over. Did people notice? They must have, but nobody commented. Romeo felt it strongly, though. Rooted, he was rooted right there. He was smiling, maybe, put his hand to his face to feel if that was true.
Ordinarily, at this moment, they would have asked Father Travis
to say a prayer. Nobody had thought of asking the new priest. People resented having been assigned a priest named Father Bohner. As if, where else could he go? And you couldn’t call him Father Dick. It wasn’t right.
Emmaline stood on the other side of Hollis. Her eyes were fixed on Landreaux in a neutral way, not exactly warm, but not with the usual bitter impatience. Josette noticed.
Landreaux sang an Honor Song. His voice was innocent and full. As always, his voice warmed people. Then he asked Romeo to say a few words.
The thing to do at that moment was to speak from the heart. Romeo froze. People always said
speak from the heart.
What would that even mean? Speak from the squashed flask, the dead shoe, cheap cut of meat pulsing in his chest? Speak from the old prune of crapped-on hopes? Well then, be brief. Romeo blinked in panic. He shambled a few steps forward and put his hand on his jaw.
So he . . . Romeo nodded at Landreaux.
So I . . . Romeo nodded at Hollis.
Not much good as a father, said Romeo. Me. Not much good as a mother. Some people don’t have an alternative. His voice gathered a little strength.
No alternative to being humble, said Romeo. Because I don’t know how to do stuff right. I just grab what I see. That’s how I am. So when Emmaline . . .
Romeo ducked his head in Emmaline’s direction.
So when Emmaline and my old teacher, my young teacher, haha, Mrs. Peace over there, and so when Landreaux. They took in my baby and they brought him up. And here he is. A graduate here. Romeo’s voice box was shutting off. He closed his eyes.
I don’t have much to offer, as a person. People say I am a waste and that’s being generous. But I was surprised to get a job this year. Even more surprised I kept it. Don’t fall down in a fit now, for shock, now, I banked the money.
Romeo reached into his back pocket, took out a brown plastic checkbook. He held the checkbook in both hands, and leaned over with a ceremonial bow. He offered the checkbook to Hollis, who in surprise accepted it.
There’s three thousand in there, he said to Hollis. I live a slight kind of life. So here you can start off to college. Quit the National Guards, my boy.
Hollis stepped forward and put his arms around Romeo, and as the two hugged, Romeo heard people clapping.
Well, fuck me, thought Romeo, after the hug stopped and he stepped back. His faucets were going to burst.
His mom would be so proud, said Romeo all of a sudden, loudly, throwing his arms wide.
Hollis was looking at his father in concentration.
Who was she?
Charisma with a K, Lee with an i. Karisma Li.
Karisma Li? That sounds like a . . . Hollis was about to say name of an exotic dancer, stripper, but he stopped, perturbed.
Yes, said Romeo, I lost her to a Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan.
Let’s eat the cake now, said Josette, touching her mother’s arm. No more speeches.
Wait!
Sam walked smoothly forward holding out an eagle feather. It was a mature golden eagle tail feather, beaded at the base with leather fringe swooping down.
The most handsome feather I ever seen, hissed Malvern. He sundanced with that there feather, Sam. He dressed that feather up for Hollis.
Sam faced Hollis and said a prayer in Ojibwe. Everybody shushed everybody. The people who understood Ojibwe couldn’t hear, but now Sam was talking straight to Hollis. LaRose was listening as hard as he could.
As he listened, the floaty feeling of being with those other people came over LaRose, and he felt them come out of the woods. They wandered up and stood behind him. He felt their sympathy and curiosity. As he felt them move closer, LaRose noticed that the colors of the clothing that the living people wore sharpened and brightened. Yet he heard each word that the other people said distinctly, though all together it was a babble. He watched as they moved together and apart, frowned or laughed, in a dance of ordinary joy that kept moving and vanishing as soon as it happened, and moving again. More of the transparent people came walking out of the trees and stood with the others. Dusty wanted some cake. LaRose told him go ahead, and he walked over and got some cake. Nobody noticed Dusty was there except the dog, and perhaps Dusty’s mother, who turned in his direction and smiled in a perplexed way. The old-time woman with the feather in her hat said,
You wait, they are going to get a package and it will be my time-polished bones.
Ignatia walked slowly, but without the oxygen now. Two women he did not remember said, with amused affection,
That Maggie. Watch out for her.
Others spoke about how Hollis and Josette made such a good couple and how Ottie had one night told them to stand by the gate. He would be over there soon. Just look at him. He’s on his way. They sat on chairs made of air and fanned their faces with transparent leaves. They spoke in both languages.
We love you, don’t cry.
Sorrow eats time.
Be patient.
Time eats sorrow.
Josette served up the first piece of cake.
This is the most beautiful cake ever, said Hollis, his voice scratchy with emotion.
Wait! Wait for the cake song!
Oh no, said Josette. Cake song?
It was Randall, who had come late, but made his way straight to the front to stand with Landreaux. He had a hand drum and a big grin. Randall and Landreaux began to sing a song about how sweet the cake was, all full of sweetness like the life before Hollis, like the love everyone had for Hollis, and the love that Hollis felt for his people. It was a long-winded song and Hollis stood there in front of everyone, feeling a little foolish, holding his piece of cake, nodding, serious but filled with the happiness of the moment, though awkward, the sweetness, smiling along with the song.
Anyway, said Josette, edging around the table, still holding her cake spatula. You can quit the National Guard now, right?
No way, he said, surprised. I signed the papers.
Oh, Hollis.
Josette was staring straight ahead, standing next to him, and her voice was the voice of a woman.
RITA GOURNEAU ERDRICH,
my mother, mentioned an Ojibwe family who allowed parents enduring the loss of a child to adopt their child—a contemporary act that echoes an old form of justice. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad, Ralph Erdrich, for thirty-five years of National Guard drills. Thank you, Persia, for teaching Ojibwe immersion to a new generation of LaRoses; Pallas, for your close readings and constant cheer; Aza (see below); and Kiizh, Nenaa’ikiizhikok, Sky Woman, for calmly fixing our world. Thank you, Richard Stammelman; Dr. Sandeep Patel; James and Krista Botsford; Brenda Child; David Gizinski; Preston McBride; Jin Auh; Terry Karten, my editor; and Trent Duffy, my copy editor.
My grandfather Patrick Gourneau, Aunishinaubay, attended Fort Totten Indian Boarding School and Wahpeton Indian School. All his life, he wrote in his trained and beautiful script. Aza Erdrich used his boarding-school handwriting when she designed the cover of this book. In doing this, she connected us all with her great-grandfather and his great-aunt, our ancestor, the original LaRose.
LOUISE ERDRICH
is the author of fifteen novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, short stories, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel
The Round House
won the National Book Award for Fiction.
The Plague of Doves
won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and her debut novel,
Love Medicine,
was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Erdrich has received the Library of Congress Prize in American Fiction, the prestigious PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She lives in Minnesota, with her daughters, and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.
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NOVELS
Love Medicine
The Beet Queen
Tracks
The Bingo Palace
Tales of Burning Love
The Antelope Wife
(1997; revised editions, 2012, 2014)
Antelope Woman
(2016)
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
The Master Butchers Singing Club
Four Souls
The Painted Drum
Shadow Tag
STORIES
The Red Convertible: New and Selected Stories, 1978–2008
POETRY
Jacklight
Baptism of Desire
FOR CHILDREN
Grandmother’s Pigeon
The Birchbark House
The Range Eternal
Makoons
NONFICTION
The Blue Jay’s Dance
Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country
COVER DESIGN BY AZA ERDRICH
Nothing in this book is true of anyone alive or dead.
LAROSE. Copyright © 2016 by Louise Erdrich. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.