Read Online As Long as the Rivers Flow by James Bartleman - Free Book Online Page B

After all, communications with Indian reserves in the north were difficult. Indians, in any case, were ignorant savages, were used to the deaths of their children and probably did not grieve like civilized white people.
    There was also the bother of dealing with so many dead children. In the early days, sometimes up to half of all the children in a class died, and it would have taken an inordinate amount of valuable time, better spent on more important matters, like submitting routine reports on the functioning of the school to the bureaucracy in Ottawa, than in informing their next of kin. Why send messages, when their families would learn the news anyway from the other children when they returned home for the summer?
    When she emerged from the float plane alone, therefore, Martha assumed that the stricken look on her aunt’s face was due to the death of Little Joe. She did not know that her aunt had just realized that her boy was dead.
    “I am so sorry, auntie,” she said, and walked toward her silent mother who had likewise just guessed what had happened.
    In tears, her aunt rushed wildly at Martha, seized her by the arms and began to shake her.
    “How could you? You promised me you would protect him! It’s your fault!”
    Martha’s mother intervened. “Don’t blame her. She’s just a child. You gave her too much responsibility!”
    The aunt released Martha and asked, “At least tell me how he died. Did he suffer?”
    Martha said nothing, not wanting to cause even greater pain by providing the details. Her aunt, however, mistook her reluctance to speak as an indication of a lack of concern, and after giving her niece a nasty look, returned to her home to break the devastating news to her family. Even later, when the other children told the aunt what had really happened, she never forgave her niece—for she had promised to protect Little Joe and had failed to do so.
    When Martha climbed aboard the float plane in late August to return to the residential school, she was accompanied by another six-year-old, this time a girl. In the years that followed, as they turned six, a procession of other children accompanied them on the flight. Humiliated and hopeless after the beating she suffered when she had tried to help her cousin, and embittered by the ongoing sexual abuse from the priest, Martha did nothing when she saw Sister Angelica leading the girls to Father Antoine’s office.
    As the years went by, the priest became more and more demanding, and Martha coped as best she could by retreating within herself and numbing her emotions. At times she gazed at the photograph on his office wall and wondered who the people were. The young priest in the picture was obviously the son of the happy mother andfather who stood on each side of him. But who were the kids in the picture? Were they the brothers and sisters of the priest? Were they cousins or neighbours? Had they just come from church? Had they just had lunch or dinner? What had been served? What had they talked about? Were his brothers and sisters still proud of him? Would the parents have been pleased to know that at this very moment their son was forcing himself upon a helpless child?
    One day, however, after she turned twelve, she could take no more. She would kill herself, she told Father Antoine, if he did not leave her alone, and she meant it. The priest, who preferred much younger girls in any case, summoned her no more.
    By that time, Martha had become completely disillusioned with life and was desperately lonely, and from time to time would allow a teenage boy to sneak into her bed at night. It was easy to arrange. The nun on duty at her dormitory was hard of hearing and slept soundly from when the lights were turned off until the first bell announcing the start of a new day the next morning. The anxious boy would wait until it was late enough, and slip quietly into the dormitory and join Martha. No one ever reported her, and she was never caught.
    Each time