Maria Breaks Her Silence by Nancy Mattson WRITING Run, little helper to the cottage of the tietaja This manuscript is a poetic biog- a poem about a famous man we all despise her except in distress raphy of a woman from Kauhava, is one thing: now that her husband has left her Finland, who emigrated to Michi- Socrates Blake Three heavy lumbermen carry Paavo gan in 1886 and to Saskatchewan Picasso a log filled with pain in 1891. his leg wrapped in sodden shirts The character Maria is based on but how to hymn a woman to Maria's kitchen her children standing around a real historical figure whom I whose voice was lost discovered while working where as she shifted continents She unwraps his foot my parents were born and where I languages dips her hands in the stream of blood spent all my childhood summers. I husbands seeks out the edges of his wound know the bare bones of Maria's names presses the slippery flesh together one dying into another skin to skin life,but I have had to invent details threads the rivers of blood since she left no letters, no diaries, whose letters were lost in vein to vein and no pictures, and her descen- oceans lifts her head to Ahto dants know very little about her. furrows utters these words: decades She had three husbands, all of Blood, blood, become a wall whom died before her, and three thicken, thicken, like a fence whose thoughts were lost in stay, stay, behind my hands children, one of whom died in in- sewing fancy. I have speculated that her washing stop, stop, beneath my thumbs! first marriage in Finland was making do As Maria chants what she knows, unhappy and that her second mar- chanting softly from under a tangle of genealogies riage to David Kautonen, the the lumberman Paavo, fearful as a rosebushes wounded bear founder of the New Finland settle- cloudberries falls quiet under her hands ment, was extremely happy. Her nettles When the sun falls, his blood sleeps third marriage occurred when she dries in thick threads and wooden scabs was 80 and her groom, a widower your voice, maria, whispering growing stronger and old friend, was 76. Maria rises, her hair matted I see Maria as a Finnish "ev- blood hardened on her dress erywoman," in some senses a com- congealed on her arms: a newborn calf covered with blood and TIETAJA: ONE WHO KNOWS posite of the Finnish women I've straw known. In many of the poems I've When Paavo, the seasoned lumberman incorporated elements of Finnish strikes his foot with an axe folk poetry and customs, historical the devil's axe seeking a tree root CROSSINGS details of the Finns in the old coun- finding instead Paavo's ankle through layers of boot and heavy sock try and the new, and some Finnish Here on this blunted border words and phrases which seem to between snow and snow When Paavo's eyes are swimming she is crossing blind fit in context. in blood and branches and clouds a crone clicks his own blood soaking earth and wood (The poem Tietaja: One Who her teeth on the tracks Prism What can he do but send for Maria, Knows was reprinted from 1 She remembers another crossing International, Vol. 26, No. 2). village blood-stopper? 38 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESLES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME the blood. Fora few days their milk will be they marry men who love them, this is a a rope thick as a woman's curdled, but soon they will offer smooth new land. wrist cut through milk again. The deer meat will be good. by salt scissor wind David quarters it, hangs it in the seppa David scrubs my back in the sauna moonlight a midwife shop. It is sweet and pungent and lean tickles me with the vihta ship adrift with the taste of wild grass. He's a good we throw cold water slowly man in my middle age. on the hot stones She tightens her belt prolonging the loyly What I must keep locked inside: Matt the stones laugh with steam around the sharp stone was seldom kind, though he struggled. our bodies soften and ripen of a wizened berry You saw in hiseyes what1 couldnot see, we go outside to cool off, recite the the withered grief of leaving home tried to warn me. But why did you and stars the train slows down mother close your door to me when I come in again for loyly stops for no reason married him? After sauna, the house is quiet the girls are asleep in the loft She hears through the steam The geese came down today from the we drink tea and look at each other north. David ran in to tell me he heard make love as slowly as we can her daughters' cries, "Maa maa" them honking and growling and filling the cool off and start again. her body their only country sky. He took me outside, we threw back she settles their heads our heads, laughedand called to the geese. We broke more land this year, 6 more on her empty womb They flew in a wide V from Vaasa, head- acres. The crop was healthy except for the the train pulses forward ing for warm islands. David sings to me of oats, maybe we got some bad seed. David from darkness to darkness the tropics, he went for asailor someof the has time now to build me a loom, the rugs years of his wandering. He ties up the from Kauhava are finally wearing out. horses with sailors' knots, tells me stories Take care of yourself, do not worry about in the sauna. me, but write to me again with news of New Finland Kauhava. Canada What I cannot ask you: why did mother October 28, 1894 hurt you? You never spoke harsh words in return, but charmed and teased her With love, My dear father, out of her moods. your goose, your girl, This is aletter to bless the day you were The girls are growing, they like David. born. I wish I could celebrate with you, eat He's carving them dolls for Christmas. I berry preserves and cake. I miss you, but wish they could see their grandpa. I hope I cannot say I'm lonely here in thisclump of Finns. They speak the same language my tongue learned when my tongue was unlocked. Sometimes the towns- people laugh at my Eng- lish, but I know enough to get along. It is cold here today, nearing winter. But I'm used to the cold: the Fame north wind, pohjan tuuli, blows from Kauhava across the pole to Canada on our huddle of buildings in Uusi Suomi. David shot a deer this morning for the girls and me. He is bleeding and gutting it, skinning its soft hide. He does it swiftly in the barn, the cows shift and tremble in their stalls, their Prairie women worked with the men in the fields. Family Hjelt, Steeledale, Saskatchewan, 1914. eyes roll when they smell Photo: Multicultural History Society of Ontario/ Ontario Archives. VOLUME 9, NUMBER 2 39 on the lowest shelf waiting and thinking She's killed pigs before I was the first woman photographer in how would this baby be? but this one's too mean the west I looked at the knots in the wood and Mmknows she's getting old the one who captured women watched the flame in the lantern their lined faces, tired eyes Hitching her skirts above her boots children at their skirts Finally Maria would arrive: she strides off through the snow the ones buried in your trunks how come you get an old woman to the neighbor Lauttamus whose names you don't remember out of her warm cosy bed? to fetch young Gus the smith Oh well, now that I'm here he treated the sow last week This one was Maria let's see if there's a little one hiding for running sores in her eyes she had eyes like the glint of a bluebird's wing She sang as she stroked Old Juha is splitting wood fair hair braided and coiled my belly, legs, back his axe true, his forearms thick heavy as August wheat loosening the skin and nerves when he sees Maria she wiped my face with cool water his back straightens Her dress that day was a clear red made circles with her fingertips like a sapling slowly released if you look closely on my forehead and temples but she heads straight for the seppa you'll see tiny ovals on it her hands were rough from work shop little pointed eggs she wasn't afraid to use pressure without so much aspaivaa or grains of rice for the friend of her youth in a flowing pattern When the time came near she crouched below me "My son has gone to Yorkton I posed her in front of the garden fence: kneading and stretching the walls to buy his animal medicines willow branches woven every time the pain bore down he won't be back for a week into a landscape of hills the sauna walls contracted come in for a coffee... her daughters had gathered wild flowers she told me to throw my pain What's the matter? stuck them into the fence here and there into the coals, throw it in the water Are you planning to murder the Czar?" let it steam away I caught her with one arm outstretched "I guess it has to be you, my friend beckoning to a wren She had a chant for breathing: the old sow's gone crazy Yksi, kaksi, wind goes in needs to be put down today - This is a picture of the girls kolme, nelja, hold it there are you sure you can do the job?" one was sprightly like her mother viisi, kuusi, shoo it out the other tall and serious after her father Another verse when she saw the baby's "Do you see that woodpile?" a study in contrasts head: Open up, my flower Never mind his years They helped me load the equipment into come out, my bird Juha is up for the task the buggy don't be afraid to leave your nest still on the green side of fourscore it was cool in the house if he can kill the sow clean I drank two dippers of cold spring water When the baby came she caught it maybe Maria will listen to him many cups of strong coffee cradled it, cleaned away the blood she always says they're both too old with honey-dipped buns laid it on my chest I closed my eyes' Maria skims the clean fat When her husband came