As Long as the Rivers Flow Read online

  When she refused to eat her dinner and sobbed throughout prayers that evening, Sister Angelica strapped her. As she did so, the nun told the little girl that every student had to follow the rule of silence.

  Martha cried herself to sleep that night. The next day she wept during prayers, over breakfast and in class, each time receiving a strapping from Sister Angelica. By the end of the first day, physically and psychologically drained and with the palms of her hands swollen and red, she accepted the view of the older girls that the nuns were not bearwalkers. They were only horrible women wearing black dresses that dragged on the floor.

  Martha also saw that she was not the only one being punished. For that same day, she saw nuns strap children with leather belts, slap them with open hands, hit them with pointers, and force them to eat their vomit after being sick on their plates.

  The nuns would have been surprised if anyone had told them they were being cruel. For they all came from large Quebec farming families where ties were close and kisses and love were lavished on them by their parents, uncles, aunts and grandparents. But in the briefings they received before leaving to work in the residential school, their superiors told them that the Church had learned hundreds of years ago that the best way to save the souls of Indians was to take the children away from the bad influence of their parents and educate them with a firm hand.

  “Your task will be hard,” they said. “Indian children are like little animals and need strong discipline. You will sometimes have to be harsh but it will be for their own good.”

  Thus, as the nuns beat their little victims, they assured them with an air of morose selflessness they were being chastised for their own good and for the love of God, and they sincerely believed that they were doing the right thing.

  Martha learned to obey the nuns without question and the punishment stopped, but she still missed her mother and was desperately lonely. One night, she closed her eyes and pretended that she was back home in bed, drinking in the wild smell of the balsam needle mattress and snuggled up under soft bearskin covers between her parents. And when morning came and she pushed open the door, she saw images from the time before she had been sent away that she thought had been lost to her forever: The first dusting of snow on the black spruce trees, the outstretched wings of crows, ravens, pelicans and eagles framed against the late fall sky, the lake so calm it had turned to glass, and ice newly formed along the shore.

  And her father, as was his practice after visiting his fishing nets in the early morning, was on the beach cleaning northern pike, white-fish and pickerel and throwing the scraps to the gulls circling overhead. She ran to him and he picked her up and he hugged her and he told her he would never let anyone take her away again. She smiled and fell asleep, happy to be home again, if only in her imagination.

  On other nights, Martha recreated in her mind the storytelling sessions she had attended the previous summer around the campfire back on the reserve. She saw herself edging closer to the fire as the flames glistened cheerfully on the face of an elder sitting on a log happily telling the legends of her people. She watched the gentle old man sip from his mug of black tea and rise to his feet to demonstrate how Muskrat dove down into the waters to bring back a handful of mud out of which the world, known as Turtle Island to the Anishinabe people, was formed. She marvelled as he described how the first man and woman emerged out of the body of a dead animal to people Turtle Island. She looked on with rapt attention as he pointed up at the Milky Way and said it was actually the handle of a bucket holding up Turtle Island and a bridge across which the souls of the dead crossed on the way to the Skyworld. She laughed as he described how Nanabush turned stones into butterflies to bring delight into the lives of unhappy kids just like her. She fell asleep with a smile listening to him tell her that the Anishinabe people had lived in harmony with nature since the beginning of time, and she should never forget that Gitche Manitou was the Great Spirit.

  She then discovered the joys of making up her own stories and creating her own imaginary friends. Lying in her cot in the school dormitory with only the sounds of the other lonely children sleeping around her, she imagined she was back in bed in the family cabin. It was the middle of the night, and in the distance she could hear the reassuring howl of a wolf singing her a friendly serenade. Closer to home, an owl hooted, telling her it would be keeping watch over the family’s cabin throughout the night.

  But what was this noise? Could it be that a little animal was lost, homesick for its mother and whimpering outside the cabin door? She eased herself out from under the covers and crawled out of bed, being of course careful not to disturb the sleep of her parents. She tiptoed to the door, pushed it open and stepped outside. There, sitting in the welcoming moonlight, was a baby bear.

  The little bear said his name was Makwa, and his parents had sent him off to bear residential school far from home. He had been lonely and had been badly treated, but he had managed to escape. When he reached home, however, he discovered that his parents had died. He was thus sad and needed a new family.

  “Why, you can be part of my family and be my friend,” said Martha. She brought the little bear into the cabin and introduced him to her parents who welcomed him as if he was one of their own. From then on, Martha always had a friend and was never lonely. The two friends then came across a little raven, named Kagagi, who had fallen from his nest and he likewise became part of their family. The three became inseparable playmates and had many adventures.

  On one of their adventures, they met the beaver who lived in a nearby marsh. Mr. Amick was his name and he was busy cutting down birch and poplar trees to repair his dam and to stockpile food for his family to eat over the winter. At his invitation, the three friends visited his lodge in the middle of the pond, taking deep breaths, swimming under the water to the entrance, and by some magic not getting wet. Once inside the cosy living room, they met the many members of the Amick family and spent an afternoon drinking black tea with sugar, eating hot, fried bannock filled with raisins and discussing all manner of interesting things.

  It was not long before Martha carried over into her daylight hours the world she had created for her nighttime relief and comfort. She would wake up early while the other girls were still asleep and let her mind run free, searching for a suitable adventure to begin her day. Once, she thought of flesh-eating monsters and journeyed back in her imagination to the family cabin to discover that it was late winter and there was no food to eat. To make it worse, there was a gigantic Wendigo lurking outside, hiding in a tree just waiting to devour anyone who left the safety of the cabin.

  A nun rang a bell to summon the girls to rise and go the bathroom. Martha put her story on hold as she washed and dressed but eagerly returned to it afterwards during morning prayers. As she recited the rosary along with the other children, she saw from behind her closed eyelids her father pacing up and down in the cabin trying to come to a decision on what to do. She begged him not to go outside for he would surely suffer a horrible death. But he paid her no attention and began his preparations to leave, telling her that even if the risk was great, he had to hunt to feed his family. Besides, he wasn’t afraid of any old Wendigo. After all, if it dared attack him, he would shoot it with his rifle.

  By the time Martha was eating her breakfast, her father had gone out the door and was struggling on his snowshoes through the snow, holding his rifle at the ready, anxiously watching out for the Wendigo and looking around for game. Ahead of him on the trail was a caribou. He lifted his rifle, aimed, pulled the trigger, and the animal fell. After offering a prayer to Gitche Manitou, he pulled out his hunting knife and started to cut it up into steaks. But suddenly he saw the Wendigo sitting on a branch of a tamarack tree, licking its lips, preparing to jump on him and tear him limb from limb.

  Just as the tension became almost too hard to bear, the bell rang again ordering the children to their classrooms. Once again, Martha was obliged to set her story aside and pay attention as the nuns le
d the students through their lessons. But afterwards, as she carried out her obligatory chores, washing dishes and sweeping floors, she returned to her make-believe world.

  Fortunately Kagagi had been watching the dramatic happenings from a nearby pine tree and the little raven flew as fast as he could to the cabin and tapped excitedly on the window with his beak.

  “Come quick! Come quick!” he told Martha. “Your father is in great danger.”

  Martha climbed onto the back of Kagagi, who had grown as big as the cabin, and the two friends rushed to the rescue, snatching her father from the claws of the Wendigo just in time.

  Martha and Kagagi turned to face the angry Wendigo. Kagagi swelled to the size of a mountain and cried out in a voice of thunder, “Take that, you bad Wendigo,” and stomped him to death.

  Martha, Kagagi and her father returned to their cabin with a supply of caribou meat as well as a bag of flour that they just happened to find lying on the trail, and the danger of starving to death or being eaten by the Wendigo was over.

  And after one imaginary adventure ran its course, Martha would embark on another, and another and another, blotting out as much as she could the dreary daytime life of the school until it was time to go to bed and she could escape to her nighttime world of fantasy.

  Sister Angelica, not suspecting that the little girl inhabited a parallel universe, mistook Martha’s serene demeanour and look of preoccupation for a natural sense of piety and allowed herself to hope. Perhaps Martha would become a novice at the convent in Quebec City where she had taken her vows. Perhaps she would return one day as a sister and become a teacher. It would be wonderful to have another Indian at the school who had risen above her lot in life who could be her friend and serve the Church.

  3

  Father Lionel Antoine

  SHORTLY AFTER CHRISTMAS, Father Lionel Antoine, responsible for the spiritual direction of the children and the nuns, took an interest in Martha. Lost in her own world, the little girl had not paid him much attention. To her, he was the fat, balding grown-up dressed in black who was constantly dropping into her classroom to stare and smile at the girls and make them feel uneasy. He was the priest who led prayers in the mornings and evenings in the chapel and who conducted the long church services on Sundays. He was also, she noticed, the one person the nuns treated with unfailing deference, and someone the older students made fun of behind his back.

  What Martha and the others did not know was that Father Antoine was a lonely and deeply troubled man. That had not been the case when he was a child and adolescent. His parents, now long dead, had lavished love and praise on him when he was growing up, and he was well liked and known in his village as someone with a wry sense of humour, who was a passionate fan of the Montreal Canadians and their star players, Howie Morenz and Sylvio Mantha.

  At the dances held every Friday night in the church basement, he had been a favourite of the older ladies, whom he never failed to ask to join him on the floor. He was always among the first to volunteer his services at the suppers and bingos organized by the Church to raise funds for missionary work abroad. An eager reader and passionate lover of books, he had haunted the village library, developing an interest in the history of the Church, in medieval music, in village life in New France and in nineteenth-century French novels. He had even put together an impressive personal library that he never tired of showing off to friends and relatives.

  Most important, all his life he had been devout and had obtained consolation from his faith and joy from singing in the choir. He loved the beauty, mystery and ceremony of the Latin liturgy, the harmony and balance of the holy words chanted by the priest, and the scent of incense and the flickering of votive candles. On the day of his confirmation at the age of thirteen, he was overcome by the presence of the Holy Ghost and underwent a life-altering religious experience. He knew from that moment his vocation was to be a priest serving God in a small, rural parish, just like the one he called home.

  When he told the village curé, his parents, his friends and relatives, they rejoiced with him. The curé marked him out for special favour, making him an altar boy, obtaining a scholarship for him to go to a classical college boarding school for boys in a nearby town, and using his influence in the Church to have him accepted at a seminary in Quebec City.

  His happiness and sense of fulfilment would have been complete were it not for an obsession that disturbed him greatly—as long as he could remember, he had been attracted by prepubescent girls. As an adolescent at his classical college, he did not find his feelings unnatural. He joined in the laughter as his friends repeated the smutty stories they heard their older brothers tell when they went home on weekends.

  But when he was in his early twenties at the seminary, he found he could not stop himself from fantasizing about little girls, and only about little girls. He sensed that his feelings were unnatural and sought the advice of an older priest, his confessor.

  “My son,” the priest asked him, “have you ever done anything improper with a little girl?”

  “Of course not, Father.”

  “I would not worry too much. You are probably just going through a phase in your life that you will outgrow. You should pray for strength to resist your weakness, and remember, never, ever, act out your fantasies.”

  However, despite much fervent praying, the seminarian’s obsession became stronger, and incidents occurred, all of which were hushed up. In one instance, the parents of an eight-year-old girl walked into the vestry of their church to find him fondling their daughter who was sitting partially undressed on his knee.

  The girl’s mother swept the girl up in her arms and the father punched and kicked the seminarian as he fled the room.

  “Espèce de maudit salaud! Don’t think that because you’re a member of the Church you can do such things to a little girl! I’m going straight to the police. Tabarouette!”

  The police, however, were reluctant to lay charges against a future member of the clergy and asked the bishop to smooth matters over.

  The bishop received the angry parents at his official residence.

  “I have asked you here this morning,” the bishop said, “because I want to express the remorse of the Church for the actions of the young man. I understand your anger and I must tell you I would feel the same way if I was in your shoes. However, I am a bishop and must think of the well-being of the Church. If you press charges, its reputation would be damaged. As good Catholics, you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  When the parents grudgingly nodded their concurrence, the bishop quickly told them to condemn the sin and pray for the sinner.

  “Leave the matter in my hands,” he told them. “I promise you that that young man will never do such a thing again. You can be certain that the Good Lord himself would want it dealt with in this way.”

  The parents nervously glanced at Pope Pius XI smiling beneficently at them from a framed photograph hanging on the wall and quietly left the premises.

  Since the seminarian was so widely read, so ardent in his faith, so passionate about the Church, its music and its history and such a good candidate in every other way, the bishop allowed him to be ordained when the time came. But to ensure he would cause no future scandal, he sent him to an Indian residential school in northern Ontario, where presumably he could do no harm, to cater to the spiritual and moral needs of the children and teaching staff, all of whom were nuns.

  Father Antoine was so pleased at escaping arrest and being allowed to accept his calling, he embraced with great energy his new duties—at least for a while. In his daily routine, he celebrated Holy Eucharist, led prayers, delivered sermons, heard confessions and taught catechism to the children, preparing them to take their first communion and, later, for their confirmation. In his free time, he read the books from his library that he had brought with him from home.

  Every Saturday, alone in his room, he listened to Hockey Night in Canada, broadcast on the CBC Northern Service from the Forum i
n Montreal where the home team, with their new generation of superstars such as Maurice “Rocket” Richard, Toe Blake and Elmer Lach, played their home games.

  But as the years passed, and as the 1940s became the 1950s, his enthusiasm waned. Some nights he would turn from the book he was reading to think of the life he could have had as a priest in a small Quebec village if he had not been found out. He would imagine himself knocking on the door of a farmhouse on a cool, dark, fall evening. Supper would be over but the family of twelve would not yet have gone to bed. The children would be playing cards on the kitchen table, the mother and her eldest daughter would be drying the dishes, and the father would be listening to the latest agricultural news on the radio.

  A child would answer the door and would cry out in pleasure on seeing him. “Mama, papa, c’est monsieur le cure! Venez vite! Venez vite!”

  Mama and papa would hurry to the door. “Entrez, s’il vous plaît. Entrez. Quel plaisir de vous voir. Quel honneur vous nous faites de votre visite.”

  As they ushered him into their modest home, repeating over and over how honoured they were by his visit, mama would ask him to sit in the parlour but he would say “No, no, no, I would love to join the family in the kitchen. Don’t forget, I am a son of the land and know the best place to be in a farmhouse.”

  He would enter the kitchen and pull up a chair to the table, the cards would be quickly cleared away, the radio switched off, and mama would soon be serving him a cup of freshly brewed coffee and a piece of homemade tarte au sucre. He would joke, laugh, gossip and dispense wise counsel throughout the evening as the fire in the big cookstove roared, as grandpapa puffed on his pipe on a nearby rocking chair and chuckled, and as the family dog stretched out in comfort at his feet.

  The scene would shift and Father Antoine would be celebrating midnight mass on Christmas Eve before a standing-room-only crowd of the faithful who had defied the arctic temperatures and snowdrifts to come to church. The mood of the villagers would be joyful and passionately spiritual, for Christ the Saviour was born at midnight and they had gathered together, missals in hand and wearing rosaries, just as their ancestors had over the centuries in France and in Quebec, to receive Holy Communion, to pray, and to sing the traditional carols.