Celia's Song by Lee Maracle Page B

had money, but she was not going to turn it over to some white man she didn’t know, even if it meant jail and giving up her children.
    There is enough wood. Rena turns and spits into an old can. She is pissed, pissed that the longer punishment was meted out to her and her sisters, one of whom had left the village bitter and resentful, never to return.
    Judy frowns at Rena and shakes her head. Rena shoots an “I dare you to say something” kind of face at Judy, then looks away. They weren’t allowed to have the wood and that damned mother of theirs wasn’t about to pay them people a licence fee for the prohibition they had no right to visit upon them.
    After the prohibition and the vote everything changed. Children grew up but stayed in their parents’ homes as young couples with small children. Squeezed into too few rooms, the racket and lack of space made them edgy and desperate.
    Decisions made by desperate humans are usually not well thought out.
    Jacob stops breathing, he resents that he did not receive an answer. What does wood, the abundance or shortage of it, have to do with the loss of smells in our homes? What has any of that got to do with the vote? He isn’t that concerned about the question. He had thrown it out more to keep the conversation going than out of real interest in an answer. He wants to hear the sound of the women’s voices. Their voices take the sharp edge off missing his cousin Jimmy. They still his constant wondering about why Jimmy did that to himself. He wants their voices to help remove him from his sorrow, from this cedar branch, from this serious wondering. A chill wind passes through him. He snaps the cedar branch in his hands and tosses it at the table.
    Celia slides across the room in the flicker of the uneven candles, one candle shining on her buxom chest, the other lighting part of her chiselled face, bringing out her cheekbone. One of her eyes disappears in shadow, the other comes alive, registers dangerous emotions.
    Jacob shrinks back, picks up the cedar branch and hands it to her. She takes it. She looks as though she can see a secret inside him, a secret that even he is aware of. Jacob shudders. She gives him a sweet smile, the sort that goes with a wink. She goes to the stove, flips an element on, sets a cast iron frying pan on it, and burns the branch.
    She returns with the pan, her face has changed. The tightness of her skin has loosened. She holds the frying pan steady while she bathes his face, his hair, his chest, and his hands with the smoking cedar. She utters something in their language. Momma stares at Celia; she has no idea that Celia knew about this, nor does she know that she speaks some of the language. Jacob thinks he understands her. He feels cedar’s smoke go down his throat. It settles in his belly and calms him. He gives Celia a half smile when she finishes cleansing him. He decides not to harm cedar again.
    By the time Celia finishes they are staring at her, except for Ned. Ned does not understand what she is doing, but he figures that she lived with old Alice so she learned this business from her. Ned does not think of himself as a Sto:lo man. He adapts to whatever is before him, like a Sto:lo man, but would not say that was why he did so. When he lived among white men, he adapted; now he is here with the women of his wife’s family, so he adapts.
    Ned is in the corner not thinking about Jacob’s question; Celia’s Jimmy trails through his mind. Jimmy never seemed to be dissatisfied with anything specific, but there was always this tension in him. He came over every Sunday to visit Ned like a lot of the boys, sewed nets, cleaned rifles, and sharpened axes with him. As he grew older he took up smoking, but the tension hovering around him continued. Jimmy was meticulous: he sharpened his axe until he could split a hair with it; he sewed perfectly even stitches into the nets; he cleaned his rifle bore until it shone.