Openers

Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 by Michel Noël
Translation copyright © 2004 by Groundwood Books
Published in Canada and the USA in 2012 by Groundwood Books

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Excerpt from “The Lake” by Alphonse de Lamartine; excerpt from “Oceano Nox” by Victor Hugo, Cassell’s Anthology of French Poetry, translated by Alan Conder (London, 1950).

This edition published in 2012 by
Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press Inc.
110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801
Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4
Tel. 416-363-4343
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or c/o Publishers Group West
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National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Noël, Michel.

Good for nothing / by Michel Noël; translated by Shelley Tanaka.
Translation and compilation of:
Journal d’un bon à rien, Le coeur sur la braise, and Hiver indien.
eISBN 978-1-55498-267-7
1. Algonquin Indians--Quebec (Province)—Juvenile fiction. 2. Métis—Quebec (Province)—Juvenile fiction. I. Noël, Michel. Hiver indien. English. II. Noël, Michel. Journal d’un bon à rien. English. III. Noël, Michel. Coeur sur la braise. English. IV. Tanaka, Shelley. V. Title.
PS8577.O356G66 2004     jC843’.54     C2003-906918-4

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF).

En hommage à tous les jeunes amérindiens, inuits et québécois.

1

WHEREVER I GO on the reserve, people recognize me.

“Kwe! Nipishish, how are you doing?”

“Okay, fine!” I answer as firmly as I can. “Actually, really good!”

But the questions keep coming.

“So you’ve come back to us?”

“Yes, I’m living with Manie —”

“You’re not going back to the residential school?”

“No! That’s all over.” I cut them off. My voice is harsh, like the crack of a whip.

It’s the one thing I know for sure, in my head and in my heart. I will never go back to that hell.

I wish people wouldn’t keep asking me all these questions, because I feel like I have to lie.

It’s not true that everything is fine. I feel like a deer, fleeing after it has been wounded by a hunter. My heart won’t stop pounding. I want to run deep into the woods and roll in the damp spring earth and lick my wounds.

I don’t know who I am or what I want anymore. When I was little and we lived in the woods, I told my father I would grow up to be a great hunter just like him. After he died, it was Jos, Manie’s husband, who taught me the best place to set a snare, how to make the call of the Canada goose. He always said that to be a good hunter, you had to observe nature, be patient. I dreamed of being as good as Jos.

I was all set until the whites locked me up in that school. Even when I left, I was still full of hope. I was going to learn to hunt, trap and fish. I would paddle down the great rivers, run rapids, make portages with my tent on my back, spend long evenings listening to the elders talk about their brave deeds. I thought my life would quickly get back to normal.

Now I feel trapped all over again.

Ever since I came back to my own people, I’ve been disappointed. It’s not at all the way I imagined. Life is completely different here now. These aren’t the people I knew when I was little. Or maybe I’m only now seeing the way they really are.

When the principal kicked me out of the residential school, he practically spat in my face.

“That’s it, Larivière. Get out of my sight. I know what you’re in for. You’ll end up in jail, a drunk who beats his wife and children, a shame to us all. Go on, if that’s what you want. I know you Indians. You’re good for nothings!”

What if it’s true?

And if I left here? I could go and live somewhere else. But where? The city? I push the idea away, but it keeps coming back, like water that drips over a dam until it ends up carving out a whole river bed.

I know others who just up and left without a word. Napéo, Dominique, John. They never came back. There’s nothing here for them anymore. Some people said too bad for them. Let them fend for themselves. Others said we don’t need them coming back to tell us what to do. We’ve got enough whites around here doing that.

I wonder what Manie would say if I left. She’s tough. I bet she’d stick up for me. But I just don’t know anymore…

And then there’s Pinamen. Beautiful Pinamen. We met at the train that took us all to the residential schools. We only spent a few hours together, but I’ve never forgotten her. It’s like she cast a spell on me, and ever since our paths crossed, my love for her continues to grow. It’s taken root in me, it fills me up.

Often I feel as if she isn’t far away. When I see a beautiful starry night, a huge fir tree stretching its branches wide, the reflection of the sun on the water, I stop and share my feelings with her. I know she would feel the same way I do.

I’ve even started talking to her in my heart. I’m sure she can hear me. Sometimes I hear her calling out to me with her beautiful Attikamek accent. My heart stops, and I hear her calling my name. “Nipishish! Nipishish!”

2

TODAY I NOTICE strangers in the forest around the reserve. I’m curious, so I sneak between the birch clumps and jackpines on the edge of Lac Cabonga. I crouch down in the thick green brush like a partridge on the alert. From here I can see everything without being spotted.

The men suspect nothing. I keep a good distance behind them. They’re white, and they’re wearing hard hats and boots like loggers. There’s a young guy and an old one. It’s the old one who’s carrying the heaviest load.

He carefully sticks a big tripod in the ground. It’s got a big scope on it, just like the ones on American rifles.

But these men aren’t hunters.

The older guy is obviously the boss. When his tripod is firmly in place, he squats and bends forward, his hands on his thighs and his rear end high in the air. He looks through the sight at the other man standing off in the distance.

Suddenly he gets all excited. He spreads his legs and flaps his arms like he’s about to take off.

The young man faces him and holds a long pointed stick straight up. He carefully follows the signals of his boss.

He goes to the right, to the left. He backs up, moves forward. He’s like a duck that’s trying to hide and doesn’t know whether to dive or fly away.

Suddenly the old guy straightens up and crosses his arms.

“Hold it!” he shouts. He makes a fist and points his thumb down at the ground. The other man grabs a long wooden stake from a bag on his back and hammers it into the ground with his ax head. The stake sinks deep into the black earth.

Satisfied, the two men walk on a bit farther and go through the same routine.

That evening I tell Manie what I saw.

Manie’s the head of an important family, the Twenish. She took over after Jos died. She’s like a mother to me.

She’s a big woman with square shoulders. She’s plump and her skin is as brown as the earth. But what strikes you the most about her is her eyes. They’re deep black, like the water at the foot of a cliff at the moment the sun goes down. Her hair is done up in two buns over her ears. She wears a beret and a flowered dress that falls down to the tops of her moosehide moccasins.

Manie has a lot of influence in the community. She’s known for her courage and her good judgment, but people still don’t listen to her the way they would if she were a man.

And she’s worried about these strange men. She asks the hunters about it, but nobody knows what’s going on. Why are these men hanging around the reserve? What are they doing? Why haven’t they introduced themselves?

It’s all very suspicious. We know the white men are clever, and they never do anything without a reason.

“Planting a stake here and there doesn’t hurt anyone,” some people say. “The forest is big. It belongs to everyone.”

The orders are to wait and see, but Manie isn’t satisfied. She wants to know what’s going on. She tells me to keep a close eye on the strangers and report back to her.

There are six of them in all, and they arrive early every morning in yellow pickups. As soon as they get out of their trucks, they get together for a smoke. Then the boss shouts, “Okay, boys, let’s go! It’s seven o’clock!” and the men gather up their equipment and disappear into the woods.

In the afternoon, they come back to the same place for another cigarette. Again the boss cries, “Okay, boys, let’s go! It’s five o’clock.”

They are very punctual and well disciplined.

All day long they go through the same routine, lining up and planting their stakes. The wood is very white and looks freshly cut. The stakes seem harmless, except for the part that sticks out of the ground. It is painted red, like blood.

The men are working smack in the middle of the McConninis’ camp. Won’t the family be surprised when they come back from the winter hunt and go to put up their tent. They sure aren’t going to want to live with a red stake planted in the middle of their house. Mr. and Mrs. McConnini are going to be mad.

One day I decide to come out of hiding. I’m tall and easy to spot, but the man carries on as if I’m not even there. I figured he would stop working when he saw me pop out right beside him, but he doesn’t do a thing. He doesn’t even say anything. I could be a rock, or a tree.

I stand there and try to remember the few words of English I know. I smile to be polite.

“What are you doing here?”

The man straightens up slowly, pressing his hand into the small of his back and wincing. He’s covered in sweat, and he wipes his forehead with his handkerchief. It’s filthy with brown stains. His pale face is streaked with red blotches and swollen with mosquito bites. His lips are puffy.

He swipes at the clouds of mosquitoes that are drawn by the heat of his blood.

“What are we doing?” he replies. “We’re measuring, drawing lines. We’re surveyors, her majesty’s surveyors. Isn’t it obvious?”

He starts to gather up his tripod, but I want to get to the bottom of this.

“Who gave you permission to do this?”

The surveyor glances at me out of the corner of his eye.

“The government, of course! You don’t know that? The land you walk on, those trees, the lakes, rivers, the air that you breathe, the fish you eat — all that belongs to the government. And the government doesn’t need permission from anyone. If you don’t like it, why don’t you take it up with them!”

The man starts to laugh, but then he sees that I’m not reacting, that I don’t seem to have understood him.

He heaves his tripod onto his shoulder.

“Look, you Indians are lucky,” he says. “The government is going to build you free houses — nice wooden houses with windows, a kitchen, bedrooms. One day you’ll have a school, a clinic, just like in town. Say goodbye to your tents full of holes, your old log cabins. This is progress, even for Indians!”

He turns on his heels and disappears into the forest, followed by a thick cloud of thirsty mosquitoes.

I hurry back to tell Manie. Everyone is in an uproar. The worst thing is that we weren’t even consulted. The government wants to build us square wooden houses just like the ones the whites have. What for?

“We live the way we do so that we are always free to move our houses,” Manie says solemnly. “That way we are at home wherever we pitch our tents.”

And why now? Where’s it been hiding, this damn government? When you do need something, you never know where to go or who to talk to. The young people say the government’s like a wolverine. You can recognize its tracks, smell it, see the damage it leaves, but it’s still invisible. You can never catch it, and it will avoid any trap you set for it.

• • •

Pinamen…can you hear me? I’m out here alone on the beach, far from the village. I feel good here, and closer to you. I’ve got the big lake in front of me and the forest at my back. Tonight our grandmother the moon is round and full. The huge fir trees wrap me in their shadows.

Pinamen, I can still see your smile — and the look you gave me when we went our separate ways. Your eyes and lips were sad.

I’ll find you again, no matter what. But I don’t know what the future holds, and right now I’m like a hare leaping around in a panic — first left, then right, not knowing where it’s going.

The road I take may be a long one, but I know in my heart that it is leading me to you.

3

FATHER LAFRAMBOISE IS our new young missionary. He can speak our language a little. He says he learned it from books.

When he arrives for his parish visit today, it’s as if he knows what’s been going on. Some people think he has good intuition. Others say he’s just well informed. Faces cloud over when he comes and people are quiet. We talk about hunting, fishing, the weather, but no one says a word about the surveyors.

As usual, Father Laframboise goes from tent to tent, from cabin to cabin. He smiles, shakes hands, coos at the babies. He seems cheerful. Then he goes down to the beach beside the Hudson’s Bay Company wharf.

The men are all gathered there, repairing their canoes, smoking their pipes and chatting together. They’re worried because more and more loggers are moving into the hunting grounds. They cut down everything in sight, like they’re in some kind of rage. They leave nothing behind. The animals flee from the noise of the chainsaws and the lack of food. Logs are floated on the rivers and then stored in the big lakes. They rip our fish nets, smash into the canoes, block the waterways. Now our bears are feeding in the logging camp dumps. Their meat tastes bad; it’s not good to eat anymore.

The hunting grounds grow smaller by the day. The men wonder where and when it is all going to stop.

“What will be left for our children?” asks Basile.

The men’s silence says everything. Basile’s voice rises in anger. He holds the bowl of his pipe in his bony hand and points into the distance.

“They took our sons and daughters so they could ‘educate’ them in the residential schools. They took them against our will, by force and with lies. We were deceived and today, I ask you, what has happened? Our children don’t know how to live like Indians. They no longer speak our language, they don’t recognize us anymore and we don’t know who they are. But they are still our children, our flesh and blood! They are ashamed of their ancestors and they disown us without daring to say it. It saddens me when I see how we have become strangers in our own land. We must do something before it’s too late!”

Then we see the priest walking along the shore. Basile shuts up, pulls on his pipe and goes back to repairing his fish nets.

“Kwe! Kwe!” shouts the missionary, holding out his hand.

“Kwe!” the men reply. They take turns shaking his hand.

“Hard at work, I see,” says the priest, trying to be cheerful.

For a few minutes they all talk about one thing or another, in that flat voice you use when you’re trying to kill time. Finally the priest decides the moment is right. He announces that officials from the Ministry of Indian Affairs, representatives of the government, will be coming this evening to meet with everyone. The meeting will take place in the chapel after mass. It’s important, so he wants everyone to be there.

The men nod. They’ll be there. Maybe they’ll finally get some answers to their questions.

• • •

The chapel is packed. Even the aisles are full. The women and girls sit on the left; the men and boys on the right. The first to arrive take the benches and choir stalls. The others crowd around the big open windows outside. You can only see their heads.

All the women are wearing long flowered dresses, checked shawls, their usual black berets with the Hudson’s Bay Company insignia, and moccasins. The men are wearing moccasins and baggy trousers held up by wide white suspenders that cross at the back. Their flannel shirts are buttoned at the neck and wrists. Their bashed-up felt hats look like the kettles we use to boil tea. Mostly their faces are very tanned and lined like the bark of an old cedar.

Mass is spoken in Algonquin and it goes on forever. Finally Father Laframboise blesses the congregation and leaves through the little door behind the altar. When he comes back a few minutes later, he has taken off his white and gold cassock. He’s accompanied by officials from the ministry.

With the crowd watching his every move, the priest quickly turns the altar into a table. He brings two chairs so the men can sit down. The officials open their black briefcases and take out thick files which they place on the table in front of them. They look out over the crowd below and smile vaguely.

These men come from another world. Their faces are pink and clean-shaven. They wear gray suits, polished shoes, white shirts and wide polka-dot ties tightly knotted under their Adam’s apples. They’re handsome men, nice haircuts, strange but impressive looking.

The smells in the room are growing stronger. The men’s odd sweet aftershave mixes with the smell of incense, smoked moosehide and the sweat that’s coming off the congregation.

The missionary looks nervous. He stands in the spot where he usually gives his sermons. He’s chewing his lip and swaying back and forth, his hands clasped behind him. He’s a little man with curly hair, brown eyes and thick bristly eyebrows. His collar is open and his sleeves are rolled up. His body is covered with big hairy patches. He looks like a bear that’s just come out of hibernation. When he gives his sermons he always says, “My dear brothers…” The rest of the time he calls us his “good friends.” But we’re not his brothers or his friends.

He talks too much and listens too little.

“My good friends,” the priest begins solemnly. “Let us rise for a short prayer. We ask God to show us the light and to give us the wisdom to make the right decisions for our future and the future of our children.”

We recite the Pater Noster.

One of the officials, a man with blue eyes, clears his throat.

“Can everyone hear me?” he shouts.

We can hear him all right. We just can’t understand him. He continues, exaggerating every syllable.

“Thank you all for coming here this evening. Such a good turnout demonstrates the interest you take in your future and the plans the government has for you.”

The priest signals for him to stop while he clumsily translates his words into Algonquin. Then the man from the ministry continues.

“We would like to have met with you sooner. Unfortunately, your community is isolated, far from our offices, and we are overwhelmed with work. However, better late than never, as the old saying goes.”

The two officials exchange glances and burst out laughing. We wonder what’s so funny. The priest, who also looks amused, translates again. We wait to hear the joke so we can laugh, too, but there’s nothing funny in his words.

The heat and smells rise as the setting sun streams through the windows. Babies are nursing hungrily at their young mothers’ breasts. The officials’ strong aftershave is starting to attract midges, and the mosquitoes are having a feast.

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