Read Online The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich - Free Book Online

Instead, blinking out at them from spike tufts of hair, a chubby boy face, round-cheeked, warm and sparkling brown eyes. The men all reared back at the unexpected sense of warmth and goodwill from the German’s pleasant smile.
    “Hay’, ” they exclaimed. Expectation was something more impressive than a porcupine man! His hands were chubby, his skin almost as brown as theirs. Around his circle eyes his stubby hair poked out like a quill headdress. His smell—that came off him too now—was a raw and fearful odor like the ripe armpit stink of porcupine. He moved slowly like that creature, his deep eyes shining with tears. He took them all in one by one and then cast his eyes down, bashful, as though he would rather be under the porch or inside his own burrow.
    “Babagiwayaaneshkimod atoon imaa oshtigwaaning ji-gaajigaadenig omaji-dengway,” said Asin hurriedly.
    “No,” said Ogichidaa, hurt and surprised at the meekness of his catch.
    “Grüsse!” The prisoner bowed. His voice was pie sweet and calm as toast. “Was ist los? Wo sind wir?”
    Nobody answered his words even though he next made known by signs—an imaginary scoop to his mouth, a washing motion on his rounded stomach—his meaning.
    “Haben Sie Hunger?” he asked hopefully. “Ich bin ein sehr guter Küchenchef.”
    “Gego bizindawaaken waa-miigaanik!” Asin’s attitude was close to panic. The kitchen window shed frail light on an old wooden table, the stove in the background of the room, the prisoner blinking.
    Shawano picked up the gunnysack uncertainly, ready to lower it back onto the porcupine man’s head.
    “Nishi! Aapijinazh! Nishwanaaji’ a’aw maji-ayi’aawish ji-minonawe’angwaa gigichi-Anishinaabeminaanig gaa-onjigiyang.” Asin now spoke in a low and threatful tone. At his command, everyone fell silent. The old man was behaving in a way that did not befit an elder. Yet the younger men had been taught to respect him.
    “Why should we do that?” asked Bagakaabi. “He can’t be a slave if he is dead.”
    “It is the only way to satisfy the ghosts,” Asin answered.
    “Haben Sie alle hunger, bitte? Wenn Sie hunger haben, werde ich für sie einen Kuchen machen. Versuches mal, bitte.” The prisoner offered to bake for them. He spoke modestly and pleasantly, though he seemed now in his wary poise to have understood the gravity of Asin’s behavior. He seemed, in fact, to know that his life might hang in the balance. Although Asin had spoken his cruel command in the old language, his ferocity was easily translated. With a burst of enormous energy, the German tried to make good on his offer using peppy eating motions and rubbing his middle with more vigor.
    Booch, always eager for food, finally nodded. He knew the word kuchen . “Why not let him prepare his offering? We will test it and see if his sweet cake can save his life.”
    He said this jokingly, but Asin’s gleam and nod told that he took the baking test seriously and looked forward to the German’s failure.
    The First Metaphorical Cake
    The porcupine man drew a tiny diagram or symbol for each thing he needed. Little oval eggs, flour in a flour sack, nuts of a rumpled shape, strawberries, sugar, and so on. By now, even though the men had no money extra, they had to go along and so they all dug deep into their hands, socks, the liners of their shoes, and the rabbit fur inside their moccasins. They sent Charlie to the traders’ for these things and he returned with his lower lip stuck out and fire in his eyes. He thought this whole plan was wrong and yet he was curious about the cooking aspect, the baking, which would in time become his passion.
    The stove. The German seemed to have a problem with that. He fiddled and poked it and tried to figure out its quirks. The brothers picked red berries for him, though, ode’iminan, heart berries, from the clearings. So fresh and dewy and tender. The sweet red melted in your mouth. Charlie gave the prisoner a makak full of the