Black Apple (38 page)
Authors: Joan Crate
Instead, she found herself above a road. A mountain loomed ahead, a skirt of trees falling from its stone waist. This was not Tête Rouge.
Non
, not her family farm.
As she drifted gently down, she could hear boots crunching snow, and in the distance she made out a man walking towards her. She half expected it to be Brother Abraham, but no, she didn’t know this man.
He carried a suitcase. Trailing behind him was someone else, a youth, it appeared, one hand gripping the handles of a paper bag; their breath broken pillows in the air, white down spilling, and they kept their eyes lowered. There was a solemnity about their procession, as if a serious business was to be carried out. Possibly they were travelling to a funeral, or maybe one of them would be leaving, perhaps the youth.
Still in single file, first one, then the other turned down a wider street, the hills of snow on each side soiled by exhaust fumes. From an alley, a third figure emerged, falling in line behind the youth. All three trudged towards a dingy building with a Greyhound bus parked outside. The youth wore a hat, scarf, new overcoat, and boots, and though overwhelmed by clothing, the young limbs moved easily through winter. As young limbs do.
Mother Grace turned her attention to the man at the end of the procession. He looked Indian, with shaggy hair.
Was this a dream? Yet she was not asleep, she could swear.
She felt an urge to get closer to this odd little parade making its way to the bus.
And then she was right behind the first man, could reach out and touch his broad wool back if she wanted. She could hear his steady breathing as he took the suitcase to the side of the bus and set it in the baggage compartment. A big man, he turned to the youth, drawing close. “Keep in touch,” he said, his voice low. “Let me know you’re safe. You know I’ll be waiting for you.” His eyes were such a pale grey, they looked almost clear.
The young face lifted to his words.
It couldn’t be.
They embraced. The man closed his eyes. He kissed the strand of dark hair spilling over the youth’s forehead, while the Indian man shuffled uncomfortably behind. “Remember I’ll be here, waiting.”
As they broke apart, the Indian man moved to the youth. “If you don’t find him,” he said, stepping in front of the bigger man, “you know where you belong, Sinopaki.” He pulled off the youth’s hat and laughed.
C’est vrai!
Long, gleaming black hair tumbled around Rose Marie’s face. She was a woman, not a youth, not even a girl, her face fuller and softer than it had been when she left St. Mark’s three months before. She embraced this man too.
“Thank you,” she said, turning to include them both, “for everything.”
“Keep in touch,” the big man repeated.
“Make sure you do,” agreed the Indian.
“I will.”
She took the bag and climbed the bus steps. The men shuffled closer, following her with their eyes until she had moved past the bus driver and disappeared behind steel and glass.
The men remained standing outside, but Mother Grace had left them, was somehow with Rose Marie, watching them through the window. She sat down in the same bus seat and felt a young heart beat in her breast, driving out her old aches and pains.
The motor coughed and turned over; the bus doors wheezed shut. Pressing her forehead against the cold glass, Rose Marie waved at the two men.
Frank, both hands in his pockets, had moved back from the bus and was peering into the sun. Cyril found her in her seat, and stepping forward, he touched the window near her mouth. She could almost feel his fingers through the glass.
As the bus backed up, she swelled with anticipation and waved excitedly at Cyril and the glow of Frank, who was moving forward and squinting now, trying to see her inside. She kept waving as the bus started down the road. She waved until it turned the corner and they vanished behind Wong’s General Store.
The bus picked up speed as it headed for the highway. Then, suddenly, it started to slide, brakes squealing, passengers sprawling across the seats. As it screeched to a stop, she was thrown against the window.
Rolfe Mooney rose up on the other side of the glass, his face not two feet from hers. Fear flooded Rose Marie, and a small sound of alarm escaped her lips. Mother Grace’s heart seized.
Scowling, Rolfe staggered backwards.
“Drunk as a skunk,” someone had said somewhere about someone, and she heard the bus driver open the door and yell, “Get the hell off the road!”
The bus started up again, and she rubbed her hands together, jittery with anticipation and fear. She was journeying north to find little Kiaa-yo, big Kiaa-yo now—Joseph, her brother—and her aunt, her uncle, her cousins, all the relatives she hadn’t yet met.
Ahead, the road unwound like a ball of wool. The sky was a brilliant blue, the snow a slurry of constellations.
Mon Dieu, mon Dieu
, such beauty in the world. Why had she so seldom seen it?
Reaching into the large McBride’s shopping bag, Rose Marie pushed aside the carton of cigarettes Mrs. Mooney had given her and pulled out the lunch Mrs. Rees had made. As she peered inside at the sandwiches, butter tarts, an apple, two thick slices of lemon loaf, and an orange, she thought of the new dressing gown Ruby had sewn her, now tucked inside her suitcase. She felt humbled; she felt rich. At the front of her skirt, in the secret pocket Sister Bernadette had added three months before, was a crisp fifty-dollar bill from Cyril and two twenties from Frank.
She had gained a little weight while in Black Apple, and the waistband was snug; she’d have to move the button once she arrived on Papa’s Reserve. She would be in a new place, a young woman making decisions for herself. She had already made one.
Even if she couldn’t find Joseph or Aunt Katie right away—if the information about the Reserve that Frank had found from Forest Fox Crown was wrong, or if they were away somewhere, or their house was hard to get to—she’d be fine, she told herself. After all, she knew about people like Rolfe Mooney, Mrs. Tortorelli, and Father Seamus. If she could steer clear of troublemakers and instead find relatives and friends, she’d be fine. And if worse came to worst, she’d go to the priest on the Reserve or to the band office.
But she expected to find her relations.
And beyond that, she was out of expectations. They hadn’t done her any good in the past. Recently she had discovered choices, something she had never had before, and she wanted to make her own, not be caught up by the ambitions others cast out like nets, catching her up and dragging her behind them.
The sky pressed against the bus windows, singing with snow. Ahead, the road kept tugging them on. From the corner of her eye, she spotted a silver wolf slipping into the woods, its luminous coat and star eyes glowing. There, piercing the air, a raven flew ahead of the bus, its wings flapping like Sister Cilla’s habit used to when she ran.
She was the air in the bus, the wind chirping at the window, that raven, ragged in the wind but flying strong.
She was Sinopaki at the beginning of her life. She was Mother Grace at the end.
She had never been so free.
I
N 2015, THE
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released a report based on extensive evidence of the egregious treatment of children at the residential schools, with the goal of educating all Canadians about this dark era in Canadian history.
In
Black Apple
, I visit the residential school environment not because I want to—it’s a disturbing setting—but because with my characters and their time frame it couldn’t be avoided. Nor should the reality of residential schools in North America, their political aims, often horrendous conditions, and dire consequences be forgotten. Those survivors who reveal their experiences, whether openly or confidentially, do so at great personal cost in order to break the conspiracy of silence around Canada’s residential schools, a reality that continues to affect generation after generation.
At the same time,
Black Apple
is a work of fiction. I wanted to explore the psychology of those who worked at the schools, often well-meaning individuals whose sense of religious, cultural, and/or racial superiority allowed them to think of their service as a personal sacrifice for the greater good, one for which they were neither adequately compensated by the government nor admired by their charges, the result sometimes being acts of cruelty and depravity of which their younger selves would never have believed their older selves capable.
A few former residential students do speak of kind and loving people who made their experience more bearable. Rare as they were, those people had a sense of truth and conscience not tied to a particular institutional policy but rather to true wisdom and an attitude of respect.
In
Black Apple
, I wanted to show the many sides of human behaviour, to find, through fictional re-creation, a greater truth about who all of us are as a people.
I
N THE WRITING,
editing, and publishing of this book, I owe so much to so many.
First of all, my sincerest thanks to those who shared their experiences with me. I am truly grateful.
Thanks as well to Canada Council for their assistance in the writing of this book.
I’d also like to thank several writer friends for their considered advice: Kimmy Beach, Leslie Greentree, Carolynn Hoy, Joann McCaig, Blaine Newton, Susan Ouriou, Roberta Rees, Jill Robinson, Cathy Simmons, and Barb Scott. I am indebted to Ruby Eagle Child for help with the Blackfoot language, to Judy Dussault for information about life within a religious order, and to the people at Sage Hill Writing Experience. I very much appreciate the insight, patience, and advice of my editor, Phyllis Bruce, as well as her team at Simon & Schuster Canada, and the support of Martha Webb, my agent.
Love and thanks to my partner, Kamal Serhal, to my four amazing children who always stand behind me, their partners, and my two wonderful grandchildren.
My research took me to many beautiful places in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, but most of my time was spent in southern Alberta. I also searched through some websites and many history books. Books that were particularly valuable include
Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools
by J. R. Miller;
Residential Schools, The Stolen Years,
edited by Linda Jaine;
Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School
by Celia Haig-Brown; and
Indian School Days
by Basil H. Johnston.
JOAN CRATE
was born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and was brought up with pride in her Indigenous heritage. She taught literature and creative writing at Red Deer College, Alberta, for more than twenty years. Her first book of poetry,
Pale as Real Ladies: Poems for Pauline Johnson
, has become a classic. Her first novel,
Breathing Water
, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Award (Canada) and the
Books in Canada
First Novel Award in 1989. She is a recipient of the Bliss Carman Award for Poetry and her last book of poetry,
subUrban Legends
, was awarded Book of the Year by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta. She lives with her family in Calgary.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.