Anton’s mind stopped at the words, what they go through and putting it together with what his father told him the night before he felt certain emotion towards these Indian boys and girls; his eyes darkened, his heart started galloping like a wild horse, he stopped eating his cheesecake and staring in Molly’s eyes he said,
“I wonder what is hidden in the walls of that beautiful looking building which gives the visitor who walks inside the impression they are in a mausoleum”
The sixty something man sitting next to him turned towards Anton and concurred: “horrible things have occurred in that School, you aren’t the first one who feels that disappointment and anxiety”
“How do you know?” Anton asked.
“I know the old man, the caretaker Dylan, we’ve lived under the same roof for a long time; we talk, you know, sometimes, after a few drinks the tongue becomes loose.”
“You know Dylan Kelly? What a coincidence. He’s retiring soon and I’m supposed to replace him.”
“What have you heard, Simon?” Molly asked the man next to Anton.
“You don’t have to hear these things; let us call them horrible and leave it at that. What could you do about it anyway? Who could ever do anything?”
Molly let her eyes dive deep in Anton’s eyes and they both felt it was somehow an agreement between the two, an understanding of some short, they both felt it was something they had to do. Perhaps they were those who could do something about the horrible things that take place in the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Molly knew a lot of people, from truck drivers to loggers and members of the local Indian Band. Perhaps she and Anton could truly do something. Anton reflected on Molly’s glance and accepted the challenge; yes, perhaps they could do something.
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C
You never gave me wealth
always devastated by the races of Continents
and always praised by their arrogance!
The North took the grapevine
and the South took the Wheat Ear
buying out the direction of the wind
and profanely cashing in the trees’ wealth
two or three times.
But I knew nothing
other than the thyme in the sun’s pin
and I felt nothing
but the water drop on my unshaven beard
yet I laid my rough cheek on the stone’s rougher
century after century.
I slept on the concern of my tomorrow
like the soldier by his rifle.
And I searched for the compassion of the night
like an ascetic his God.
Out of my sweat they created a diamond
and secretly they replaced
the virgin of my glance.
They weighted my joy and they found it light, they said,
and they stepped on it like an insect.
They stepped on my joy and encased it in stone
and lastly they left me the stone
a horrible likeness of me.
They strike it with a heavy axe, they bore it with a sharpened scalpel
they carve my stone with a bitter chisel.
And as time erodes the matter, the prophesy emerges
clearly out of my face:
FEAR THE WRATH OF THE DEAD
AND THE STATUES OF THE ROCKS
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THE GATE
Excerpt XXXIII
The old women put their spindles on the stones;
two first aid men put their stretcher down; the injured
man is too heavy; through his half unbuttoned orange
colour shirt his belly shines in the moonlight;
the last glow of the twilight shivers on the windowpanes
behind the rooms
three soldiers and the made-up woman under the lamppost;
he kicks an empty matchbox that travels in an angle
a boy listens to the harmonica in his pocket — first
suspicion:
death exists, for this perhaps they build the gate.
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Manolis Aligizakis 