Excerpt
“No, I like you a lot,” he said, thinking that he liked her far too much
and that was the cause of this ache that was spreading in his chest. “I
think you’re a marvellous person.”
“If it’s not me, then is it what happened to you in Portugal?”
Ken’s breath whooshed out of his lungs. “How do you know about
Portugal?”
“You talked to Patrick and he told me about it.”
“How much did he tell you?”
“That some bad things happened. That the woman you loved died and
you blame yourself for it.”
Ken looked away.
“You’re like my brother,” she said. “You won’t talk about it, will you?”
“No, I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“You sure are like my brother. I don’t know what it is about you men.
You’ll talk forever about some things but there are things that neither one
of you will talk about. And if you don’t start talking about them, you’re
going to be ghosts, living with ghosts in a ghost world. My brother went
to residential school and he won’t talk about it. There must have been
some kind of hell there because it’s something he just won’t go near.”
Jessica explained how the Indian children had been taken away from
their families and forced into residential schools where they were supposed
to be assimilated into the white man’s world. Ken’s heart ached. His
experience of school, though not that harsh, had also been cruel.
Jessica turned over on her back. “I’m going to tell you our story, and
my story, from the beginning,” she said. She began with the mythology
of how the world was created and how human beings came to be. The
words that rolled off her tongue were as satiny smooth as her skin. She
told about her tribe and the Indian wars and how they had come to the
place they were today.
When she finished, she told Ken it was now his turn but he couldn’t do
it – not all the way from the beginning to now. He had no creation myth
and no core view. His story was fragmented. He lay on his back, doing his
best to describe his story. Her eyes never left him and he felt her soul all
around him.
When he grew silent, Jessica moved closer and folded him into her
arms. They held each other gently, tenderly, and Ken felt a hunger beyond
any ability to interpret and that hunger was matched exactly by a terror
of having what he ached for. Very gently, very determinedly, Ken made
love to her and some time before dawn they fell asleep. Once during the
night Ken woke up. The kerosene lamp was burning low and by its fading
light, he looked at her, realizing that everything he was experiencing
was beyond any story he had ever told or heard. He was in the middle of
a magical spell.
Libros Libertad 