Obasam

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9:05 P.M., AUGUST 9, 1972. The coulee is so still right now that if a match were to be lit, the flame would not waver. The tall grasses stand without quivering. The tops flop this way and that. The whole dark sky is bright with stars and only the new moon moves. We come here once every year around this time, Uncle and I. This spot is half a mile from the Barkers’ farm and seven miles from thevillage of Granton, where we finally moved in 1951. ‘‘Nothing changes ne,” I say as we walk toward the rise. ‘‘Umi no yo,” Uncle says, pointing to the grass. ‘‘It’s like the sea.’‘ The hill surface, as if responding to a command from Uncle’s outstretched hand, undulates suddenly in a breeze, with ripple after ripple of grass shadows, rhythmical as ocean waves. We wade through the dry surf, theflecks of grass hitting us like spray. Uncle walks jerkily as a baby on the unsure ground, his feet widespread, his arms suddenly out like a tightrope walker’s when he loses his balance. ‘‘Dizzy?” I ask, grabbing him as he wobbles unsteadily on one leg. His lips make small smacking sounds as he sucks in air. ‘‘Too much old man,” he says, and totters back upright. When we come to the top of the slope,we find the dip in the ground where he usually rests. He casts around to make sure there are no wild cactus plants, then slowly folds down onto his haunches, his rootlike fingers poking the grass flat in front of him. 1

Below us the muddy river sludges along its crooked bed. He squats and I stand in the starlight, chewing on bits of grass. This is the closest Uncle ever gets to the ocean.‘‘Umi no yo,” he always says. Everything in front of us is virgin land. From the beginning of time, the grass along this stretch of prairie has not been cut. About a mile east is a spot which was once an Indian buffalo jump, a high steep cliff where the buffalo were stampeded and fell to their deaths. All the bones are still there, some sticking right out of the side of a fresh landslide. Uncle could beChief Sitting Bull squatting here. He has the same prairie-baked skin, the deep brown furrows like dry riverbeds creasing his cheeks. All he needs is a feather head dress, and he would be perfect for a picture postcard—“Indian Chief from Canadian Prairie”— souvenir of Alberta, made in Japan. Some of the Native children I’ve had in my classes over the years could almost pass for Japanese, and viceversa. There’s something in the animal-like shyness I recognize in the dark eyes. A quickness to look away. I remember, when I was a child in Slocan, seeing the same swift flick-of-a-cat’s-tail look in the eyes of my friends. The first time Uncle and I came here for a walk was in 1954, in August, two months after Aunt Emily’s initial visit to Granton. For weeks after she left, Uncle seemeddistressed, pacing back and forth, his hand patting the back of his head. Then one evening, we came here. It was a quiet twilight evening, much like tonight. His agitation seemed to abate as we walked through the waving grass, though his eyes still stabbed at the air around him and occasionally at me. When we reached the edge of the hill, we stopped and looked down at the coulee bottom and the river withthe tree clumps and brush along its edge. I felt apprehensive about rattlesnakes and wanted to get back to the road. ‘‘Isn’t it dangerous?” I asked. Uncle is almost never direct in his replies. I felt he was chiding me for being childishly afraid when he said abruptly, ‘‘Mo ikutsu? What is your age now?” ‘‘Eighteen,” I said. He shook his head as he scuffed the ground. He sighed so deeply thatwhen he exhaled, his breath was a groan. ‘‘What is the matter, Uncle?’‘ He bent down and patted the grass flat with his hands, shaking his head slowly. ‘‘Too young,” he said softly. ‘‘Still too young.” He smiled the gentle half-sad, half-polite smile he reserves for small children and babies. ‘‘Someday,” he said. Whatever he was intending to tell me ‘‘someday” has not yet been told. I sometimes...