Grandpère by Janet Romain Page A

weekend.
    After supper I bring up the subject.
    “Angel, the man who hurt you, do you know who he is?”
    “Yes. He went out with my mom after Robert left, but I hate him and I never want to see him again.”
    “If you will say what happened to you, we can get the papers that let you stay here.”
    “Will I have to see him?”
    “I don’t think so, dear. I think that you just have to tell a judge or a child worker.”
    “I don’t want to. I just want to forget about it.”
    I actually don’t know the process that gives custody of a minor to someone other than a parent. I tell her not to worry, even though I’m a little worried myself; if there’s any way to get legal custody without telling about the rape, we’ll do it that way.
    “You have to go back to school in the fall, and we can’t register you without the world finding out where you are. The only reason you’re safe here now is that no one knows you’re here.”
    She understands this, and we talk about her going back to school. She says she did well in school till this last year when her Mom started doing so many drugs. She starts crying again, and I worry that talking about this is going to set her back. I hug her for a while, then change the subject and say, “Let’s hear a story from Grandpère about the old days.”
    He nods, and we go sit in the living room.
    The fire is going nicely in the stove and I open the door and put the screen in front of the blaze. All of us like to watch the fire. I get my pad and pen and sit beside Grandpère. I think it’s time I wrote down some more of his stories.
    Angel sits on the floor a few feet in front of us, and Grandpère begins. “There are two mighty forces in this world. You can call them God and the Devil, but your Grandmère Clementine, she called them Gitchi Manitou and Matchi Manitou. She said Gitchi Manitou was good. It was this being who brought the fish up the rivers, brought the summer back each year and looked after the well-being of the people.
    “Matchi Manitou was not good. All the bad things that happened were the fault of this one. All Clementine’s family left things in the bush to try to be the friend of him. That way she could make sure he didn’t bring his bad ways to our house. Sometimes she would throw good stuff in the stove and say ‘Matchi-Manitou, take this bad away.’
    “When I was young, the elders would talk about that time before the black robes, before the priests of God. My mother did not like them to tell us about the old times, and she told us not to talk about the old times. She told us God was our father now. She was always excited about priest days.”
    Grandpère is quiet for a minute and seems lost in thought.
    “What were priest days?” Angel asks.
    “In those days the priests travelled around. When they would come, we would know for weeks ahead of time where they were coming to. Everyone would go to the priest days. The priests would perform ceremonies for the people’s weddings, the births of new children and the funerals for the ones who passed on. Sometimes the only time you would meet all your relatives was then.
    “It was a big celebration when the priests came. All year long my mother would talk about the priest days. Whatever the priests said, she believed. She was very afraid of the devil. She told us the devil could hear us thinking.
    “She told the elders to quit telling those stories, that God could hear them and the devil would get us all.
    “We didn’t have a sweat lodge ceremony like they do on the reserve now, not like the one you went to,” he tells me.
    I think back to the sweat I went to. Rose had phoned and asked if I would like to go to a sweat with her. I was surprised to be asked and had gone mostly out of curiosity.
    “You went to one? That is so cool. Tell me what happened,” Angel asks.
    “We’re supposed to be writing down Grandpère’s memories, not mine!” I laugh.
    “No, Anzel, I can’t tell the girl about that. I