Wake The Stone Man (10 page)

“So what was the dinner for?” he asked.

“Something to do with the building of the railway I guess. Look, they even give the menu: Lake Superior whitefish, braised fillet of beef, roast partridge with bacon and for dessert Charlotte Russe — whatever that is.”

Mr. Klien picked up another clipping: “Three hundred guests gathered for the grand march descending the staircase into the ballroom for the Bal Poudre.”

“What's a Bal Poudre?” I asked.

“It means literally ‘powdered wig ball.'”

Mr. Klein passed the clipping to me and I saw the ladies in their fancy ball gowns coming down a winding staircase. “Hard to believe this town was such a happening place back then,” I said.

***

That afternoon I spent hours cataloguing each of the Mariaggi photographs and cross-referencing them by the names of the people, the clothing and the events. I made a photocopy of the Bal Poudre and put it over my desk, beside the photo of my great grandfather.

After work I walked out of the library along First Avenue. After a long day in the basement looking at old photos it was hard to get my head back into the present. I felt like Billy Pilgrim — unstuck in time. One minute I'm walking down First Avenue in 1971, then zap, it's 1898 and there's a dirt road lined with wooden shacks, then zap, it's 1910 and there's a horse and carriage going by, then zap, it's 1958 and the Santa Claus parade is coming down a paved street.

I stopped on the street that evening and looked up at the clock on the tower of the Empire Building. It had stopped. I wondered when. I looked down the street again and I saw that everything had stopped. The front of the Odeon Theatre boarded up, Portland's Ladies Wear closed. There was a homeless shelter beside the Lorna Doone. The street was dead.

When did it happen? I looked down First Avenue again and felt like I was living in a ghost town. No rotten egg stink was coming out of the mill — the mill was shut down. No Auto Works rolling subway cars off the assembly line — the factory was closed. No grain being loaded into grain boats — the grain elevators had been empty since the grain started moving west to Asia.

I heard a plane overhead and looked up. Flying east. Probably filled with people with one-way tickets to Toronto. Lucky them.

chapter twelve

Late in August I found a stack of six cardboard boxes piled outside my office door. I went to Mr. Klein's office to find out what they were. He was talking on the phone and motioned for me to wait until he finished.

“You found the boxes?” he said when he hung up the phone.

“I did. What's in them?”

“I don't know. They were brought in yesterday.The woman who brought them said she works in the office at St. Mary's residential school. They're tearing it down apparently.”

“Tearing it down? I didn't know that.”

“She said she'd been a student at the residential school when she was a kid. Anyway she'd been told to shred these papers, but she brought them here and asked if the library would take them.”

“Do the Sisters know she brought them here?”

“No, and she asked me not to tell anyone.”

“So…”

“I'll have a look through first, make an inventory of what's there. If there are important papers I think I may have to hand them over to the Sisters of St. Mary's.”

“I could do that for you.”

“What's that?”

“Have a look through the boxes. Make an inventory.”

“I couldn't pay you, Molly.”

“That's OK. I could do it on my lunch break. Do a bit each day.”

“That would be great, if you're sure you don't mind. It's a lot of work.”

“I'd like to do it.” I hesitated. “I had a friend who was there.”

“At the residential school? What was it like?”

“I don't really know. Bad I think. She didn't talk about it much. I think stuff happened there. Stuff people didn't talk about. I think the church tried to cover things up.”

Each day at noon I ate my lunch at my desk and unpacked the boxes from the residential school. In a lined journal Mr. Klein had given me I listed everything I found. In the boxes I found journals from the 1940s with the names of students and their places of birth. I found files with correspondence between the Department of Indian Affairs and the Catholic Diocese. Looked like important stuff. I found photos of students standing in front of the school and photos of inside the classrooms. I found newspaper clippings from the local paper. I found letters from parents.

One afternoon Mr. Klein came downstairs with two mugs of tea and I showed him some of the documents I'd found.

He looked at two letters — one from a parent saying her child had been beaten, and the response from the school administrator denying any mistreatment.

“So there's more correspondence there?” Mr. Klein said. “More letters like these?”

“Lots more. And one whole box is filled with lists of all the students. Some of the stuff looks really old. You're not going to give these papers back to the church, are you?”

Mr. Klein was quiet for a moment while he read through one of the documents I'd given him. When he looked up he said, “Lets finish the inventory first. Once that's done I'll decide what to do with them.”

Over the next few weeks I continued going through the boxes, and the more I went through the correspondence the more I understood why the church wanted to destroy the records. I started making photocopies of some of the documents for myself. I didn't tell Mr. Klein, just slipped them in with the papers I was photocopying for the cataloguing project. I took them home to read through when I had more time.

***

One Saturday I took my camera and walked to the residential school. I arrived as the sun was rising. I wanted to catch the changing light. I stood behind the chain-link fence and took photos of the demolition crane in front of a pile of rubble and bricks. I could see the back wall and the narrow interior walls on each floor. The back section of the roof was intact but the front of the roof was gone. It was like looking into a giant dollhouse.

I took my camera bag off of my shoulder and screwed on my close-up lens. I took shots through the fence of the exposed belly of the school. The sun was just above the horizon and there was a subtle change in light, silhouetting the dark walls of the building against the soft blue-gray of the morning sky behind.

I walked the length of the fence and found an opening I could squeeze through. Once inside I checked to see if anyone had seen me. There was no one around. I walked through the piles of bricks, shooting everything I saw. I knelt down and took a photo of the shards of stained glass from the chapel window. I noticed something under the glass and reached down carefully to pick up a small black shoe. The shoe of a child, maybe five years old. I held the shoe in my hand, so small and worn, and wondered where the child was now. I thought about Nakina and wondered how old she was when she was brought here?

When I stood up I saw bright fingers of light coming through the cracks in the crumbling wall. I took that shot, light breaking through darkness. I tucked the tiny shoe in my pocket and made my way back to the other side of the fence.

Before I left I turned to take one last shot. I stood on the spot where I had first seen Nakina, fingers curled over the top of the chain-link fence. I raised my camera and looked through the lens: crumbling walls of brick and broken glass. All the children gone. Nakina gone.

***

My job at the library ended in September. On my last day Mr. Klein took me out for coffee to the greasy spoon across from the library.

“You did a great job with the photos, Molly,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Have you ever thought of going to library school?”

“No. Not really.”

“If you ever do, I'd be happy to give you a reference. You have a very organized mind and good attention to detail.”

“I always thought I was just anal and boring.”

“Two essential qualities for a librarian.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

“I haven't told anyone yet, but I applied for a job in Montreal,” he said.

“So you're leaving?”

“Just heard back today. They've offered me the job.”

“Congratulations.”

“Molly, you know those papers from the residential school?”

“Yeah.”

“I've put them in the archives, in the basement behind the closed stacks. They are in a box labeled SMP.”

“SMP?”

“St. Mary's Papers.”

“I'm glad you kept them,” I said.

When we got back to the library Mr. Klein gave me a gift, a mug with the library crest on it.

“Thanks,” I said. “It will remind me of our afternoon tea breaks together. I really enjoyed them.” I put on my coat. “Good luck in Montreal.”

“Thank you.”

As I left the library I was surprised how sad I felt to be saying goodbye.

***

That night Anna took me downtown for drinks to celebrate. “So, what are you going to do, Molly?” she asked.

“Order a rye and ginger.”

“Ha funny. And after that?”

“What?” I was trying to stuff Anna's canes under the chair across from us.

“Seriously. What's your plan?” she asked.

“No plan.”

“I thought you were going to art school,” she said.

“Stupid idea.”

“No it's not. You've got talent.”

“I'm crap.”

“You give up too fast.”

“Shut up.”

“Why don't you apply at Lakehead? You could get in for the winter term.”

“Don't want to go to Lunkhead.”

“Confederation College?

“What for?”

“I don't know. To get a job.”

The band was playing “Stairway to Heaven” and a young guy came towards me looking like he was going to ask me to dance. I gave him my “fuck off” look and he backed right off. Nice to have power.

Anna changed the subject. “Hey, do you ever see Nakina?”

“No.”

“Too bad,” she said.

“No loss. Hey, lets get out of this place. It's dead in here.”

We went back to the Wayland Hotel after and had a blast with all the ole guys buying us drinks. The band from the Legion was playing a Johnny Cash tune and Anna and I went up on stage, grabbed the mike and started singing. Don't know if we were any good or if everyone was just so completely shit-faced that it sounded good, but man, the crowd loved us that night.

Anna went to the ladies room, or the “ladies and escorts” room as it's known at the Wayland. She came out weaving and wobbling her way across the floor and I noticed something creeping below the hem of her skirt — her underwear was heading south. She couldn't let go of her canes to grab them so before she knew it she was flying the flag at half-mast. I suppose I should have given her a hand but it was so damned funny. She started laughing so hard I thought she'd have a stroke. I eventually got up and helped her back to the ladies and escorts room but we were both so drunk I don't know who was escorting who.

We closed down the Wayland that night and Toivo carried Anna home. Good times.

***

I was sitting in Anna's room one night. We were listening to John Lennon. Loved John. When the Beatles split up I went with John. We were lying on our beds drinking a bottle of Old Sailor, smoking Cameos and listening to “Imagine.”

“I'm thinking of moving out,” I said.

“What?”

“I'm going to get a place of my own.”

“Why.”

“Don't want to be a nuisance.”

“You're not. You're a pain in the ass, but not a nuisance.”

“Thanks.”

“Where would you go?”

“In the bush.”

“The bush. Seriously. You're moving into the bush?”

“Maybe.”

“Why? You've been bitching for years about wanting to get out of this town, and now you've got the chance to get out and you're going into the bush?

“Yeah.”

“Don't be an idiot, Molly. Get out. Travel. Go to art college. You've got the money.”

Anna was right about the cash. I had this uncle who sold life insurance. Uncle Tommy used to come by the house about once a month with a bottle of rye and plunk himself down in the kitchen. He'd sit there getting shit-faced and the only way Dad could get rid of him was to buy insurance. So Dad bought life insurance. A lot of life insurance. Lucky me.

Anna was right about art school too. As long as I could remember I'd been planning my big escape from Fort McKay. I was going to go to art college — had it picked out. The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

What I couldn't explain to Anna was that after the accident everything changed. I changed. I'd tried a few times to fill out the application form for NSCAD but I couldn't do it. It wasn't that I didn't want to go. I just didn't think I was good enough. I figured that if I didn't apply I couldn't be rejected. Simple.

Next day I told Anna's dad I was moving out and wanted to get a place as far back in the bush as I could get. Toivo took me to the Wayland and introduced me to a buddy from the mill who had a place for sale in Kamanistiquia.

Forbes Township, Kamanistiquia. Now that's out there. Fifty miles out of town, off the highway, down a dirt road just wide enough to get a car down. The nearest house was more than five miles away.

I bought a car from an old lady across the street. Sixty-nine white Dodge Polara with red leatherette seats. Leatherette sounded so much classier than plastic. And it had a slant six engine. Don't know why it mattered that the engine was on a slant, but it sounded hot.

I loaded it up with all my worldly belongings. I packed a garbage bag with my clothes and my grandmother's old fur coat. I packed up all my canvases and easel and my acrylic paints and brushes. I packed some pots and pans that Kiiko gave me and three shoeboxes full of photos. I filled the trunk with canned food, a huge box of tea, a bushel of apples, a ten-pound bag of rice and three big plastic containers of drinking water. I didn't know how safe the well water was. Bought an axe and a box of tools. I also packed the box of photocopies of the papers from the residential school. Toivo gave me a couple of bottles of wine and a case of beer. Kiiko was baking like crazy, and the last thing I loaded into the car was a large bag of homemade bread and my favourite sour cream coffee cake.

I knew Toivo and Kiiko weren't happy about me moving out to the bush — no power, no phone, no one around for miles. But it suited me just fine. I wanted to be alone.