Celia's Song Read online

  When Celia hears mink whisper “This is war” she stops opening her bills and focuses on what is happening. She does not want to carry on watching, but like mink she can’t resist looking; she wants to know what is going on. Since her son’s death, seeing chaos has been her only pleasure. The trees, shrubs, even the dead are locked in battle; everything struggles against the onslaught of wind and rain. The screams of the wind sound deliberate. It scares her. She hears a sound at the front of her house and runs to the window. She looks and listens, anticipating an intruder. Intruders aren’t common anymore. White men used to come on to the reserve, grab a girl walking down the road, rape her, and return her. This stopped when Buddy, the chief’s son, shot at them. The RCMP tried to find out who the shooter was, but no one would tell. The white boys left them alone.

  What Celia sees stuns her. Her front yard is gone. In its place is the ocean.

  She falls into the story.

  THE MOUNTAINS ABOVE THE ocean are naked. They look as though they have been skinned bald. There should be berry bushes, Celia thinks. Maybe spindly new trees. But before anything had a chance to take root the rain dragged soil and seed to sea. I stare, catch Celia watching, and wonder how she has arrived here. The bare stones along the shore offer no buffer against the rain, and they cannot soak up the shock of wind. Maybe she is another witness. Celia doesn’t like the direction this story is going, but now she is as captured by it as I am. But to her it doesn’t matter; she thinks none of this is real; she thinks it’s just another of her delusions.

  Transform. My murmur comes from under the stone. I am about to turn tail and run, but some part of me freezes me to the spot. Transform to what, an eagle, a human, anything but a four legged? As the wind subsides, I wrench myself free of the storm and dash up the bald mountainside. At the top my body shifts; my arms become wings, my back legs become talons, my tail becomes feathers. I fly and perch atop the last spruce so as to continue my vigil from this safe place.

  Celia retreats from her window. On a rickety table made of pressboard that serves as a nightstand, an old plastic clock reads 2:13 a.m. She has not finished paying her bills. Celia puts the coffee on. When it’s ready, she pours herself a cup and sits down. She has to finish the bills.

  This is not the first time the blue waters of the Pacific have threatened to seduce her. She was six when she first witnessed this ocean. While her parents visited a relative, she wandered along the shore, excited by its strange fluidity. She had liked the way the sea stretched out as though it did not want to stop. It made her feel flush in a way land did not. Land and its erratic markers — tall trees, low shrubs, hills, valleys, gullies — disturbed her, but the sea flowed out to the edge of the earth and seemed to just fall off and this filled Celia with awe. The land was still, but the sea never stopped trying to get somewhere and she liked that. She had approached the tide’s waves tentatively, dipped her feet in the edges of its watery skirt, squealed with delight when the waves advanced and then retreated as they caught her. She toyed with the tide. Other children were there, playing the same game. She squatted in the sand and stared at the water. Its curved flow moved outward in wider and wider arcs. Its shifting, rocking beauty mesmerized her. When Stacey came to get her, she was burnt on one side of her nearnaked body.

  Celia twirls her coffee cup as she gazes into the candle. She sees the falling trees scramble away from the wind. The delusion becomes a grisly scene of clearcut logs lying dead, stripped of bark, their bare flesh showing red or yellow. Old and unused logging roads wind their way through these bare mountains. It is nearly a wasteland. “Desolation Row” comes to mind and she sings the words of her favourite Dylan song. Not far away stands a grove of branchless, skinned alder; in front of them cottonwood saplings lean helter-skelter, ready to fall over. They all look as though they are waiting for a ship or truck to haul their anorexic trunks away. Clearcutting. Her great uncle Hank Pennier hated clearcutting with chainsaws; he said it was chickenshit logging. At least with an old Swede saw the tree had a fighting chance. But this scene is not about her family and she knows it.

  Celia cannot connect these images to her present and although this is not unusual it always unnerves her. “I’m delusional,” she complains out loud. The delusions convinced her family and her fellow villagers that she was half-crazed; even in her own mind they mark her as odd. They come more often now. Disruptive as they are, she ought to reject them. But she feels compelled to embrace them, or at least get used to them. Controlling them never seems to work. Not having them is not an option. There is no sense fighting what she can’t change.

  I want her to know they are not delusions, but have no way to reach her.

  The sea appears and disappears as though playing a game of hide-and-seek; intermittently, old sayings and old phrases infiltrate the game. Chaos, my life is about chaos. The candle shrinks, nearly goes out, then bursts back into flame and the curtains shuffle reacting to the shrinking candle. Then the candlelight flips, turns, shrivels, and ignites.

  Fire is a dancer. It is possessed of its own will. Celia’s candleflame dances, sure of itself; its fire gives the room an odd sort of light. It glows soft blond on black, then it fires up bright as day, then like lightning it floods the room, painting it soft and pale, then dark gold. Then the room is awash with the candle’s dim light breathing steady, nearly motionless, then constricted; it casts unruly shadows.

  Rekindle the fire. Rekindle the fire. Celia ignores my hiss. Maybe she can’t hear. I lick my paws.

  In the space between fire-flicks, together the sea, the war, the bones, and I sway, dance forward and back, between erratic light and the dark folds of night. The fire bends and swirls, entices Celia to come forward, to slide into this waltz, to dance and slide into its shadowland.

  In shadowland, you can see the frightening underbelly of continuous war, see its unrepentant violation, and see its relentless insistence on expressing wrath.

  Seduced by the flicks of light Celia sways, lets the fire tease her. As it dances, her mind blurs and new images invade her reality. The waltz becomes more insane, the flames grow aggressive, large and threatening. Celia fights to extricate herself by focusing on her kitchen, the old cupboards, hand-hewn, unvarnished, with curtains in place of doors, but this doesn’t help. She shifts her attention to the pile of bills, anything to end this crazy moment; but this too is futile. She is losing her battle with fire. Her emotions rise, raw and murky. She needs clarity, but there is nothing clear in this shadowland. Fire is how we are siem. Fire is how we are. I can’t help sighing.

  The tide unfurls destructive crisp wave after destructive crisp wave, each one seeming to have a specific goal, as though the ocean has a plan. On their retreat, the waves lay out strips of seaweed to form a dark green-black ribbon that tracks the sea’s journey along the shore. The tide carries its debris, drops it shamelessly on shore. The mountains behind look almost ashamed of their nakedness.

  Celia sees the tide grab bits of dead wood tangled with detritus from some party. She cannot stop looking now. She is caught in the seaweed ropes. Beer bottles, chip bags, hamburger wrappers are braided into the ribbon of seaweed. A wisp of shame crawls through Celia’s gut. As the refuse whirls in the tide’s folds, Celia’s shame becomes a melancholy song without clear language. Some of this debris began as an insult to women; it makes Celia shudder to think about the underwear and condoms left behind on the open vista of the shore, unmindful of the owner’s need for modesty. She focuses on the underwear: who was the owner, was she the intended love interest of the man who left behind the condom? She hopes so. She hopes that there had been some kind of intelligent consent between the man and woman. She gasps: the woman’s panties are so small. Was she old enough to consent? Beach parties, too much beer, and the hormone rush of pubescence are a dangerous recipe for young girls with a desperate need to experience some sort of affection.

  It happened a long time ago, Celia t
hinks, This part of Nuu’chalnulth territory has been deserted for a long time — not to worry.

  But it does not help.

  Celia shivers, sips her cold coffee and withdraws her focus from the panties. She concentrates on the waves, each linked to the next, becoming a series of snakes bent on destruction. Waves are odd, Celia thinks. Even as they retreat they look as though they are rolling forward. The shore, the snapping cedars take on a sinister desolation as the storm gains intensity. Wind, sea, and rain rage. The snake of waves, slate grey and menacing, topped by whitecaps cruel and triumphant, threatens to pull the entire shore into the belly of the ocean. The massive storm is a monster now. The weirdness of the storm acquires a strange ordinariness despite its violence.

  I leave. I am fascinated by certain newcomers and so go to see them.

  II

  IN A LAB NOT far from the sea, a film reel whirs as four men watch. Its images are hazy. Sam Johnson, Frederick Bauer, Davis Jameson, and Thomas Friesen are mute and still, until something odd appears — a shadow that casts itself from the fifth minute to the eighth. These guys don’t know their lab is smack dab in the middle of Musqueam territory. Everyone used to know that. Everyone used to respect that. But these guys are a tad thick. Now they are magical.

  Frederick sits upright, hands on his knees, leans toward the screen.

  Like that is going to help. Blond, tall, and forty, Frederick Bauer earned his doctorate in marine biology earlier than most. He has since worked at the university as a professor and as its lead researcher. Methodical and brilliant, he rarely lets his emotions get entangled in his work.

  I always thought this was odd about the newcomers. I mean, no emotion? Go figure.

  Frederick says nothing about the shadow, just raises his eyebrows. Sam is a little too new-agey for his colleagues; he cocks his head and whispers, “Something is wrong here.” Davis rolls his eyes; it’s just a shadow. Thomas points out the obvious. They all mumble a series of mm’mmhs … maybes … can’t bes … almost a miles … mm’mmhs.

  “There is something there,” Sam offers. Frederick thinks maybe Sam has something, but he also knows Sam is quick to jump to conclusions. It’s not that Sam neglects to test his conclusions, but Frederick mistrusts this quickness. He waits for the reaction of the others; clearly they are not so sure.

  “It’s bad film,” Davis scoffs. Thomas nods in agreement. Frederick suspects the bias in these two men; they do not like life to upset their science. He smiles to himself, for at least their science was jostled a little.

  I want to laugh, but I am witness and so I swallow it.

  The shadow ends. Sam stops the film; each man looks at the others, and then looks back at the film. They are all suspicious now. Sam hits the rewind button and replays the segment. All four men barely breathe as the film replays the same shadowy image.

  “What the hell, the thing must be a mile long,” says Sam.

  Davis doesn’t think so, and he prepares to argue.

  “A little like Hitchcock,” Frederick quips. He hopes this will loosen the tension in the room. It does not.

  None of the men can laugh about what they are seeing. Each has their own agenda, and this shadow is not on any of them. These guys struggle so hard to be objective, but can’t get past their agendas. I leave them. I decide to retreat to another era.

  SE’EALTH’S LONGHOUSE CRASHED AND his village became Seattle. Then the longhouse disappeared. I lick my paws, wondering what this has to do with Celia, the lab, and the storm. I blink and I am back at the lab and Celia is there watching. In one room, she catches sight of men in lab coats — white men, official looking. These men are quiet.

  Me, I study illusions, hallucinations without any apparent motive.

  Celia believes that environmental degradation threatens the earth.

  Well, actually it threatens humans and the lifestyle of humans on this part of the earth, and a good many scientists have studied the ocean because of that. The earth has been through cataclysmic change a few times, every time a lot of humans perished, but the earth has survived.

  From their conversation, Celia gathers that these men seek evidence of previous vegetation, unknown life before the coastline was manipulated by the newcomers. Celia chuckles; some old Indian could just tell them what sorts of tender sea vegetables perished on the coast, but then these guys would have to believe them. Their science is not about belief; their science is about proof.

  This makes me laugh too.

  THE OCEAN WAVES CONTINUE to thicken and roll forward, but the white froth that tipped the waves has disappeared. “Why are the waves so grey near the shore?” Celia’s hands tremble as she watches the waves gain volume. She does not like the looks of the size of the swell nor does she like the feeling the waves inspire. She no longer feels compelled to watch. She shrugs, returns to her bills, and thinks no more about the ocean.

  “HALF THE WORLD HAS stories of sea monsters, no less on this continent,” Sam argues with the men in the lab as they head for Davis’s office.

  “Someone would have seen it before now?”

  Thomas doesn’t disguise his exasperation. He believes the film is defective. Sam wants the film tested for defects, but only because he believes it isn’t defective at all. Although it’s absurd to waste time speaking about it until the film is tested, they continue to argue.

  I find them kind of funny.

  Neither Sam nor Davis challenges the notion that as scientists their own beliefs should be held suspect, nor do either of them think that making decisions based on belief without checking, researching, or verifying the evidence is odd.

  “By ‘someone’ you mean you and me. Have we actually seen the atom split?” Sam challenges. “Someone has seen it.”

  Frederick is curious as to why Sam is so touchy about the stories of people disconnected from his heritage and scientific world, but he says nothing.

  “Don’t pull that race card on me, you know what I mean: some scientist would have seen it.”

  “No scientist believes there is a Sasquatch, but in the state of Washington, if you cause one to die through harassment of any sort you will be charged with murder. Look, I’m not convinced it’s anything, but as scientists we are given to inquiry, so let’s inquire.” Sam’s voice is sure and steady.

  “It’s a waste of time; we’re marine biologists, not myth hunters.” The possible reality of a sea creature challenges Thomas’s sense of self; it’s an affront to his education.

  “Any judgment not based on inquiry is superstition,” Sam snarls back as he fills another cup of coffee. He spoons three teaspoons of sugar into the cup, stirring it so hard that it spills. He curses, grabs a towel, and wipes it up. “In the forties, science held that only humans had language, but the Natives believed they could converse with orcas and whales. Every scientist laughed at them. By the nineteeneighties, when the Natives who could speak the language of the orcas were wiped out, scientists discovered that orcas and whales do have language, they engage in conscious communication.”

  I want to tell him that I believe he is a sugar addict, but he would not hear me.

  Frederick frowns; there’s just a little too much push in Sam’s voice and it makes Frederick wonder. Are his relatives Native?

  “Just this past spring, you remember, three whales were stuck in Arctic ice. The Inuit offered to talk them out. The marine biologists forbade them to try. At a cost of three million, icebreakers from Russia and America were hired to clear a path. Every day the Inuit came and offered to talk them out. Two weeks and one dead whale later, they were nowhere near freeing the trapped whales and the other two were near death. They relented and let the Inuit talk them out. These old hunters drilled holes in the ice one hundred metres apart, then they went to where the whales were trapped and started humming. They walked across the ice, humming. The whales followed.”

  I remember th
at story. I’m surprised this guy does too.

  “What is your point?” Clearly aggravated, Thomas is unable to stay silent.

  “We aren’t the only people who know things, Thomas.”

  I have to say something about that. People aren’t the only beings who know things. I am standing right outside the window in full view, talking out loud, but these guys don’t see or hear me.

  “So what are you suggesting, Doctor Johnson? Should we find some old Native conjurer to shake his rattle and tell us what this shadow on our film is?” Thomas Friesen scoffs at his colleague.

  “No. I think we should see a scientist who might know something about mythology,” Sam answers.

  “Before we do that,” Frederick suggests, “we should have the film checked by the AV department.” Frederick loves to be orderly, loves the proper order of things. It’s why he became a scientist: first things first. Order gives him the courage to reach beyond the known.

  “Splendid, some attempt at rational thought prevails,” Dr. Friesen triumphs.

  “Let’s get a copy first,” Sam cautions.

  “Why?”

  “In case the Audio Visual department ruins the original.”

  This makes Frederick laugh. “Okay,” he says, and swings into his jacket.

  LATER, OVER LUNCH, WHILE the film is being checked, Sam asks Thomas what he meant by “Some attempt at rational thought prevails.”

  Thomas is sorry he raised it. He is pretty sure Sam’s question was rhetorical, so he doesn’t answer.

  “Not many scientists invent things, did you know that, Friesen?” Sam takes up the dead air between himself and Thomas. Thomas sips his coffee and feigns staring at the menu.

  “Millions of items are invented each year,” Sam continues, “some of them dangerous, some absurd, useless, some vital to human existence, but no one knows which until a scientist gets curious about it and tests it. Scientists further knowledge, we don’t create it, and we don’t invent. We test, we inquire, but we do so only if we possess a nagging doubt about the veracity of all beliefs. It’s a pretty closed mind that dismisses testing, even of the craziest beliefs.”