The Painted Drum - Louise Erdrich [55]
“But you don’t have to poison my baby,” said Anaquot, clearly, to the woman. She rose from her blankets with energy. “I’m ready to do all that needs to be done.”
The woman put down her needle, folded her hands on the table, and frowned as Anaquot sat down across from her. This time, when Anaquot demanded her name, she told her that she was named for the spirit of the wolverine. Ziigwan’aage was indeed a poisoner, or rather, she was one who was entrusted with all of the most dangerous medicines and deep knowledge of them. She knew the properties of all the plants and how they interacted, especially mushrooms, the food of the dead. She knew which fish spines to strip for venom and twice a year she traveled west to trade for the milk of snakes. She had never used her medicines for a dark purpose until now, but she had reason.
“So you’ve awakened” was all she said.
“I have,” said Anaquot, “in every way.”
Ziigwan’aage waited calmly for her to go on.
“I see your love for him and for your children. I know why you brought me here. I understand it. We would not in fact be enemies were it not for him.”
For the first time, the woman seemed a little shaken. Perhaps it was Anaquot’s directness, or the hard confidence in her eyes, the smooth power of her movements. Or perhaps Ziigwan’aage hadn’t put the thoughts together in her mind like Anaquot did. Perhaps she’d laid all the blame on Anaquot and not on her husband because she loved him so, and wanted to believe him. Whatever the reason, Ziigwan’aage now found the things that Anaquot said were compelling to her. Ziigwan’aage could think of no reason that she shouldn’t continue to listen, and gestured for Anaquot to continue.
“He told me that he once had a wife, but he threw her away,” said Anaquot.
Ziigwan’aage’s eyes jumped to Anaquot’s face and her mouth squared when she saw it was true.
“He didn’t mention his children,” said Anaquot. “I never heard about them.”
At this, Ziigwan’aage’s body stiffened. She looked away from Anaquot and her stare scorched the air all around the two. For a long time they sat, in silence, until the light of the afternoon disappeared entirely. Then they got up at the same time and began to work, as one person, their movements smooth and spare as if they’d been sisters since they were born. Sisters who might hate each other at times, but who matched so well that the work almost did itself.
When the two older children returned from their day at school, they were cold and hungry, laughing. Banging their empty lunch pails they looked eagerly at the stove. They went silent when they saw the visiting woman at work, chopping gristle from frozen meat to add to their mother’s stew. Because something in their mother’s bearing had led them to believe, even before the visitor arrived, that she was a threat and not to be trusted, they were surprised to see that the two were speaking calmly and easily, working side by side.
The children knew in this way that something had changed; what it was they couldn’t tell. They had no way of knowing that a great change was being effected in the two women. As Anaquot and Ziigwan’aage worked, their hearts turned slowly, suspiciously, unevenly at times, toward each other and against the man they had both loved, whose name was Simon Jack.
He had a strict mind and a somewhat foolish heart. A contradictory person, he was known for his rigid memory of ritual and detail. He was the one they called upon for the sequence of songs, the order of creation, the accounting for of spirits. He had a love of little pleasures, like gambling, and he was vain of his looks, though he wasn’t even that handsome. His wife oiled and combed and cared for his long, stringy hair better than she cared for her own. He was picky about his shirts and trousers, and he wore a white shell earring. At the same time, he cared nothing for the things of this world and would