The Animal Wife (13 page)

***

"You don't like to feel doubt, it's true," said Andriki. "But what can you do? Divorce her? After all, Pinesinger is young and strong. If she's carrying a child that isn't yours, she'll have yours later."

"And before you divorce her," said Kida, "remember how hard you tried to get a woman of her lineage. Remember your betrothal to Meri."

Meri? A girl named Meri lived in Father's cave. She was married to White Fox, Kida's wife's brother. "What Meri?" I asked.

"The Meri married to White Fox," Andriki answered. "What other?"

I knew of no other. Still, the news surprised me. White Fox's Meri was still young. She must have been a baby, almost like Frogga, when she was betrothed to Father. I saw how badly Father must have wanted someone of her lineage, if he, a grown man with children of his own, a headman, had been willing to wait for a baby.

"Ever since Meri," Maral said to Father, "you've had trouble with those women. Her sister spoiled your betrothal to Meri—her sister, Yanan! And then? Yanan talked you into marriage with her mother's sister, Yoi. So thanks to women of this lineage you have a wife who has always been childless. Yanan surely knew her aunt couldn't have children. Her own aunt? Of course she knew."

Now Andriki took another turn at Father. "But you wouldn't learn from your mistakes," he said. "When you couldn't get Yoi pregnant, you tried to marry Yanan. You were going to divorce Yoi."

"I would have had to," said Father. "Could I marry an aunt and a niece at the same time?"

"No. That you thought to marry an aunt and a niece even at different times shows how badly you wanted one of those women," said Maral. "And you wanted Yanan even though she was married, pregnant, and telling everyone she hated you."

"She didn't want me, it's true," said Father.

"So it's a good thing you didn't divorce Yoi," said Andriki.

"I suppose," said Father.

"You suppose?" cried Andriki. "Think what would have happened! You would have divorced Yoi and married Yanan. But Yanan died. If she had been married to you when she died, do you think her lineage would then have given you Pinesinger?" To me he said, "These days, Pinesinger's people don't want to give us women. They say we divorce them or kill them. Those people would have refused to give us Pinesinger if Bala hadn't helped us. Without Bala we would have come home with no one but you." To Father he said, "Be thankful that Bala doesn't listen to the others. It was he who found Pinesinger."

"A good man, Bala," said Kida thoughtfully. "Always a good friend."

"Do you still want a woman from the lineage?" asked Maral.

"Yes," said Father.

"Then keep Pinesinger," said Maral. "Her lineage has six women, and no others. The first," he said, showing his thumb to Father, "is Pinesinger's mother—married and past childbearing. The second woman"—he held up his forefinger—"is Yoi. Yoi is childless. The third woman is Yanan. Yanan is dead. The fourth woman is Meri. Meri is married to one of our own people. Not one of us here could agree to your trying to take Meri away from one of our own men. The fifth woman"—Maral now showed Father his little finger—"is Pinesinger. So you see? You have what you want. You're married to the only woman possible—Pinesinger!"

Eider, Yoi, Yanan, Meri, and Pinesinger made five. "Who is the sixth?" I whispered to Maral.

"Teal," he answered. At the mention of her name, the four grown men laughed, their bearded faces wrinkling pleasantly.

"Who is Teal?" I asked, puzzled by the laughter.

"Watch out for Teal," said Andriki.

"She's an old woman," said Maral, "one of the wives of the headman of the Char River people. She left the Fire River before you were born."

"Teal is a shaman," said Father quietly. "Her mother was Sali Shaman. Now do you know her?"

Ah! Who had not heard of Sali and the wonderful things she had done? She had brought the Woman Ohun to some of our people when they were camping by the Fire River. Before everyone's eyes, the Woman had given birth to a baby who got up and walked away, then to a bear who got up and walked away, and last to a reindeer who got up and walked away. The Woman then had vanished in a whirlwind. Ever since my childhood I had heard this story. I had also heard that Sali was killed by her husband and then became a tigress who in turn killed him. Ever since, whenever a certain tigress came to hunt on the banks of the Fire River, people feared that she was Sali, back again.

"Yes," I said. "I know her."

"Sali was very strong," said Father. "And her daughter, Teal, is strong too. The shaman's power of those women makes my own seem weak. Because of their power I want a wife from their lineage. I want the shaman-child I will get on that wife. That's why my heart has turned against Pinesinger, for the harm I think she did me."

"But how much harm has she really done?" asked Maral. "Suppose she is pregnant? Aren't all children welcome? After she gives birth to this child, she'll be ready for your shaman-child. Just be sure you get to her first."

We all laughed at Maral's words, even me.

"It doesn't help to brood," Andriki said later, after we had eaten the liver and were roasting strips of the bison's flank. The wind had died. The moon was high and had turned from blood red to bone white, licked clean by the hunters of the sky.

We had felt very bold about lions when the night began, but we were not so bold now. When we thought we heard a roar, we silenced Andriki so we could listen carefully. Perhaps we hadn't heard a roar. The plain was quiet.

"Here's how to look at this," Andriki began again. "Think back a few years. Do the things that worried you then worry you now? Of course not. This too will be forgotten. We offered Bala too many things in the marriage exchange. We'll tell him to expect less when we see him. That's how to look at this, Brother. Not with anger, especially since you can't do anything."

Again we listened to the night. We heard the wind around us and a nightjar very far away, one of the last of the year, but still no lion.

Then Maral spoke. "Andriki is right about the marriage exchange. Pinesinger's parents don't deserve a large share, since they left her so long unmarried. They were careless or ignorant. Compare how they managed their family with how we manage ours! We married your son to my daughter. When Frogga is ready for a man, Kori will be there waiting for her. But Pinesinger had no husband to watch over her. Only thoughtless people would expect men and boys to keep away from a willing girl of that age."

"The willingness of a woman has much to do with her pregnancies," said Father dryly. "You make it sound as if Pinesinger's pregnancy were her parents' fault."

"It was their fault," said Maral.

"It's womankind's fault," said Andriki. "Do you remember the story of the First Woman and her sleeping-skins? Shall I tell it?"

It is good to hear stories often, since there is much to be learned in them. "Yes, tell it," Maral said.

So Andriki told the story. According to him, the First Man, Weevil, gave a gift of sleeping-skins to the First Woman, Mekka. She was his wife, and the sleeping-skins were the same as ours today, winter reindeer hides sewn together with the soft fur inside and the tough hide outside. But Mekka wasn't grateful. She had fallen in love with another man, Wolverine, and when summer came she made Weevil go alone to his summer hunting grounds so that she could open her sleeping-skins to Wolverine.

When Weevil came home in the fall, he was hungry for his wife. He hurried into her sleeping-skins and coupled with her. Afterward he noticed that her belly was swollen. "What's this?" he asked. "Are you pregnant?"

Mekka pretended to be very modest and shy. She whispered, "Yes."

"When did you conceive this child?" asked Weevil.

"Just now, with you," she said.

They went to sleep, but during the night Weevil was wakened by the grunting voices of the reindeer sleeping-skins, right in his ear. "What was that?" he asked. "Are reindeer passing?"

"It was nothing," said Mekka.

Weevil went back to sleep, but soon woke again. This time he heard the sleeping-skins saying, "If she just became pregnant, it must be summertime."

"Let's get up," said Weevil. "I want to turn the bed inside out to find who is talking inside it." Mekka tried to stop him, but he took the sleeping-skins away from her, pulled them inside out, and found them covered with short brown hair. At his feet lay their long white winter hair. Thinking it was summer, the skins had shed.

"Now I see how you tricked me," shouted Weevil. Seizing his belt, he turned Mekka under his arm to punish her for faithlessness and lying, but she became a red cuckoo and flew away. Even today when you hear a she-cuckoo calling in the woods, you know it's Mekka, jeering at Weevil and at every woman's husband.

The story made us quiet. For a long time we thought our own thoughts while we watched the wind send the fire this way and that, as if an unseen foot were kicking it. At last Kida said, "Ah, the people long ago, and the things they did.... If Weevil hadn't left his wife alone in summer, Wolverine wouldn't have had the chance to make her pregnant. And wasn't Weevil a coward to want to beat her in revenge? I'd rather beat the man."

"Now you sound ignorant," said Andriki. "A man can't watch his wife all the time, any more than he can teach all men to keep away from her. He must teach his wife to keep away from other men."

"So should I have done with Pinesinger," said Father. "Only now it's too late."

"She was pregnant when you got her!" cried Andriki impatiently. "From that day it was too late!"

W
ITH THE WANING
Dust Moon came cold gusting winds that turned the birch leaves yellow and sent flocks of birds whirling through the night sky on their way to their far wintergrounds. It was time for us to go too, leaving the cave to the blowing snow and to some hyenas who, said Father, used it in winter. It was time for us to travel to Father's lodge.

One morning after we had killed the bison but before we had finished the meat, people began to make up their packs, ready to travel. I had very little to pack—my sleeping-skins, my mittens, my outer trousers and parka. Looking at these things reminded me that I needed new moccasins for winter, since my old ones were almost worn through, and that I had this summer taken only one fox.

I thought of the skin of the cow bison, perfect for moccasins. But among Father's people, as among Uncle Bala's, the hide of an animal belongs to the wives of the eldest hunter. Since Father and Maral were each the first-born son of their father's two wives, each of them was eldest, so the skin of their cow bison had been cut in four pieces. Father's wives and Maral's wives now owned these pieces, and none of the four women would have any reason to share with me. So that morning my mind was at the Fire River, where my mother would have had a skin to make my moccasins.

As we would soon be gone, no one bothered to feed the fires, and the cave grew cold. It smelled of dust instead of smoke and roasting meat. It also began to echo as it emptied, as people took their packs out to the trail. I was among the first to be ready, so I sat on the trail with my pack, waiting. My mind was very much on my mother and my little brother, who perhaps were also packing then, under the hazy sky above the Fire River, getting ready to travel to Uncle Bala's lodge. So I didn't really notice that the echoing voices in the cave behind me had grown loud. Suddenly I heard screaming and weeping, and I turned, surprised, to see that Pinesinger had dropped her pack on the floor and was pulling it apart.

The people on the trail stood up, not sure what to do. The people still in the cave seemed angry and were all noisily talking at once. Yoi's eyes were stretched wide, and her voice rose above the rest. "Now see what she's doing!" she screamed.

But Pinesinger seemed strangely calm. Although tears were rolling down her face, she slowly unrolled her sleeping-skins and took out all her things, then sat on her heels, rested her elbows on her knees, and stared stonily out of the cave's mouth. Her chin was high and her tear-streaked face wore no expression.

Father strode over to her. "Pack!" he demanded. Her tears began again. Father softened. "Pack, Wife," he said. "The lodge is far, and snow might find us on the way." But Pinesinger didn't move.

Father looked around at the other people helplessly, at a loss for what to do. Some people were impatient and stood, waiting; others bent their knees to set their haunches on the floor. For a long time no one said anything. Then Andriki picked up a few twigs and dry leaves, ready to rekindle a fire, as if he thought we might not be leaving after all.

Although Father stood over her, Pinesinger seemed not to know it; her eyes were fixed on something far away, and her tears were drying.

Rin said wearily, "It's late. If we don't start soon, we'll have to wait for another day. If we don't start soon, night will find us on the high plains. We don't want to sleep there. There are lions."

"My sister is right," said Father to Pinesinger. "Don't be stubborn." Pinesinger's tears began again, but she sat motionless. Father reached down and gave her shoulder a shake. "Must I beat you?" he asked quietly.

Pinesinger didn't seem to hear him. She stared at the horizon while her breath came shallow and fast. At last she answered, her voice low. "Yes," she said. "You must beat me! You must beat me to death! Only then will I spend the winter with my co-wife."

"What?" cried Father. Then, "Where else would you stay?"

"I'll stay here," said Pinesinger.

The people in the cave had been very quiet while Father tried to move Pinesinger, but now everyone began to shout. Some people thought Pinesinger should be punished. "She wants to be beaten! Oblige her!" screamed Yoi to Father.

"Beat her. She'll find she'd rather travel," said Andriki's wife, sounding more like Andriki than Andriki himself.

But other people took Pinesinger's side. "Yoi forced her to this!" cried Frogga's mother. "Of course she doesn't want to come with us. Her co-wife wants to fight with her."

Above the noise, Aunt Rin kept trying to speak.