Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse

Author:Karen Hesse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2003-01-30T05:00:00+00:00

chapter 5

LAST LEG

We had a service the night before, and there was such joy, knowing, at last, our exile was over. After the service we burned our Ward Lake altar, and an elder from each village took a handful of ashes with him, to be buried back home.

In the morning we boarded the Branch and began the last leg of our journey.

Three years ago there were so many of us heading into Southeast, into the unknown. Now we leave too many behind as we sail back to the Aleutians.

Someone says they heard Alexie and Fekla held on almost to the end. But I refuse to believe the Golodoffs are not waiting for me.

NO MORE KASHEGA

All the Kashega people are told they must live in Akutan now. The government will not let the people of Kashega return home.

Too much is broken, the government says. Too few Kashega people left to fix it. My mother knew all along she was finished in Kashega. She remained in Southeast with all the others, the dead,

And the living with their jobs, their steps, their Ketchikan beaus.

The government allows me to return to Unalaska village, and though Alfred’s family will start over in Akutan, Alfred has chosen to come with me.

SEA CHANGE

After three years of promises we are back

Where the sun emerges from the galloping clouds,

Where one moment the rain ices our hair and the next a rainbow arches over the volcano,

Where early grass ripples in the wind and violets lead an advance of wildflowers across the treeless hills.

It all comes back so quickly, the particular quality of the air where the Bering Sea meets the Pacific.

The Aleutian sparrow repeats over and over its welcome of fluid notes.

Our resentment folds down into a small package and is locked away under the floor of our hearts.

What other chance do we have to survive if we cannot forget?

HOMECOMING

When we dock in Dutch Harbor,

The army

Will not let us go to our homes. We hear rumors, terrible rumors.

But the army makes us stay in Quonset huts behind barbed wire.

BEYOND THE BARBED WIRE

I turn to Alfred.

He holds me as the truth about the Golodoffs breaks over my head.

Our isolation once shielded us from the greater world.

Where is that protection now?

RETURNING TO UNALASKA VILLAGE

My chest is tight as I push through the debris that was my home. The peeling wallpaper, the rusted stove, the broken pipes.

I tell Alfred, “This once was the place I lived with Alexie and Fekla.

I wonder if I had been with them, would they still be alive?”

Alfred says, “I wonder if you had not been with me, if I would be.”

The doors hang open.

All the windows shattered.

The trunk busted; books, bedding, papers, clothing strewn in piles, ruined. Alexie’s gun and tools gone, the Golodoff’s marriage certificate stolen off the wall,

Even the seal-gut pants. What does a soldier from Arkansas want with seal-gut pants?

SMILE FOR THE CAMERA

A white man comes up.

He points a camera at what is left of my home.

“Hold that cup and look sad,” he says.

I drank tea from this cup, sitting across the table from Fekla.

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