Clara Woods Character Analysis

I left Lucy alone again that night. […]. I grabbed my special bag and headed for the Kingsway bus, ready for the transformation again. When I first got out of the Mission, I only had to go out maybe once a month, sometimes once every two months even, and I would be fine. That unbearable panic and urge to scream that I could barely suppress would ease. But now, it seemed like every day all day, it was all I could think of. The last few months the Old Man had given me something to smoke. Called it horse. Said I’d like it, and I did. Made it hard to remember and easy to forget the disgust I felt for him, for myself, for my need to do it again and again, like it might make it all go away.

Lucy left the lights off and quietly sat at the kitchen table. She watched the usual goings-on outside her window but remained distracted and overwhelmed by the flood of memories she’d worked so hard to keep below the surface. Clara had been there with her at the Mission School, but she was older and they hadn’t talked about it much. It was an unspoken agreement between them: the past was the past. It’s hard to run from the past, but once stuffed away, they knew it couldn’t be allowed to poison the present moment. They couldn’t be who they were now, with their lipstick, paycheques and rooms, if they were also those children, or the children who’d left the other children behind.

Lily’s pale little face seemed to hover in the air in front of Clara, soaking and shivering on that bench, and once again the rage rose up in her. She leapt from the bench and ran across the parking lot, the rock raised high above her head. With a scream, she threw the rock through the lobby window of the Manitou, and then raced away into the night. She could hear the wailing of the alarm bell as she ran.

“That little birch tree. Even here they shine.”

Clara looked again. A little birch, no taller than Clara herself, stood alone in a small square of dirt carved out of the pavement for it. The rain had stopped and the clouds parted for the muted sunlight of dawn. Clara watched as the leaves of the little tree captured the light, shining silvery and soft. The old woman looked at her with eyes as black as night and placed her hand over Clara’s.

“The power of Creation is everywhere. In the tree, in you, in all of them.” She gestured to the others. “Never forget.” The old lady settled back into the variegated shadows of the cell, her deeply wrinkled hands folded. Clara gazed at the little birch, blocking out the restless sounds of the cell.

Lucy looked away. “You’re gonna think I’m stupid.”

Clara laughed. “I already know you’re stupid, so what can it hurt?”

The two giggled, startling Baby-girl. Lucy held her closer and she quit her half-hearted fussing. Lucy looked away again and blushed. “I thought they wouldn’t give her to me.”

“What? You see? I knew you were stupid.” They giggled again, but this time Clara stood up and put her arm around Lucy and the baby.

Lucy whispered, “Were we ever allowed anything good?”

They sat in silence together, lost in a shared truth rarely spoken.

Clara rallied first. “Let me hold her!”

Beaming, Lucy handed Baby-girl over.

The infant cooed and gurgled in Clara’s arms.

“What’s wrong? Whaddo I do?”

“Jeez, stop rocking her so hard, you’re freakin’ me out.” Clara dug through the basket where she’d dumped all the stuff they’d brought home from the hospital. She grabbed a little booklet with a picture of some rich white lady giving her baby a bottle. Do’s and Don’ts: Feeding Your Bundle of Joy. “Here,” she said, “gimme the baby. You read.” Clara started rocking the baby, trying to stay calm.

Lucy flipped the pages, reciting headings: “Formula…Breast Milk…Bloating…Gas…Gas! I bet she has gas.”

“Okay, genius, but what do we do about it?”

Lucy flipped another page and was visibly relieved by the illustration of a mother burping her baby. “Hand her over.”

The grainy image of a group of Indians in front of a big old white church zoomed into close-up. There stood a slight brown woman, her fist in the air, microphone pressed toward her face. A detached voice rose above the chatter: “Tell us why you’re here, Mae.” She looked straight into the camera, fearless, furious, determined. “Who do these white people think they are? Our people saved their raggedy asses when they got off the boat, freezing and starved. They returned the favor with hatred and murder. There weren’t so many of them and it changed everything. There ain’t so many of us and we will change everything, too, and we will change everything, too, and I will lay my life down to take back what’s ours.” Clara was transfixed by this woman.

She didn’t have to call [John Lennon] this time. With the car back in order after the border pillaging, Clara walked around toward the driver’s door and that was enough for him to know. He ran to her through the purple flowering weeds, tongue lolling and happy. Weeds. She remembered George telling her once that Indians were like weeds to the white people. Something to be wiped out so their idea of a garden could grow. He told her weeds were indigenous flowers. “Clara, you’re an indigenous flower. Don’t ever think of yourself as a weed.” That’s what he said to her.

The sky seemed to hum with the spray of stars laid bare of clouds by the wind. Clara thought of another night sky, the full moon, small and cold, a bitter orb above the badlands as she lay there, wounded and certain her death was upon her. John Lennon had put himself between her and death, lying next to Clara against the deep chill that night. Turnaround is fair play. The near-full moon was golden and so bright it cast shadows. Still, there was something so completely unfamiliar about the earth in darkness, no matter how confident Clara walked in the daylight. Storm clouds recaptured the stars as she closed the porch door behind them.

Within a couple of weeks Mariah and Clara slipped into a comfortable routine. Mariah cooked and was thankful that Clara kept the woodbox full. Sometimes, on clear days, Mariah would take Clara out on her trapline […]. Whenever they found [a rabbit] in a snare, Mariah would reach into the pouch tied around her waist, put down tobacco with soft Cree words, and then knock it over the head, efficiently and even lovingly. She taught Clara the unique way of skinning a rabbit, much like taking off a sweater […]. Clara would get dizzy sometimes as she watched Mariah dress the rabbits, thinking back to Indian School and how Sister Mary would’ve knocked her on the head if she saw a return to such savagery. It pleased Clara, thinking of that evil woman and how she would see her Christian mission had failed, seeing Clara in the hands of this pagan.

Over the next few months, Clara bit her tongue, listened and watched. She thought of what it was like to lose your freedom. She thought of her helplessness at the Mission and being under the thumb of Harlan and the city cops. She met with court staff, judges and prosecutors during her training and hung on their every word, gleaning everything she could. It wasn’t easy to say the words that all of them needed to hear, but Rose was right. This was about those people standing helpless before the law, often just trying to get by in a world they’d been abandoned to, entirely unprepared.

Later that night […] Clara told Lucy about her first case. The guy, not much more than a kid, had been caught stealing apples from a corner grocery. Clara leaned back in her chair. “He’d just been let out of Indian School, up north somewhere. They kept him until he was eighteen, then put him on a bus to the city.”

Lucy shook her head. “Those people. What was he supposed to do? Starve?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. The judge didn’t like it much, but I tried to explain he just didn’t know what else to do and had nowhere to go.”

“Like us. Just thrown away.”

[…]

“Well, at least he’s not going to jail tonight […]. We’re going to find him a job. At least he’ll have one meal a day until then.”

Lucy yawned, stood, planted a soft kiss on Clara’s head. “Keep fighting, woman.”

I left Lucy alone again that night. […]. I grabbed my special bag and headed for the Kingsway bus, ready for the transformation again. When I first got out of the Mission, I only had to go out maybe once a month, sometimes once every two months even, and I would be fine. That unbearable panic and urge to scream that I could barely suppress would ease. But now, it seemed like every day all day, it was all I could think of. The last few months the Old Man had given me something to smoke. Called it horse. Said I’d like it, and I did. Made it hard to remember and easy to forget the disgust I felt for him, for myself, for my need to do it again and again, like it might make it all go away.

Lucy left the lights off and quietly sat at the kitchen table. She watched the usual goings-on outside her window but remained distracted and overwhelmed by the flood of memories she’d worked so hard to keep below the surface. Clara had been there with her at the Mission School, but she was older and they hadn’t talked about it much. It was an unspoken agreement between them: the past was the past. It’s hard to run from the past, but once stuffed away, they knew it couldn’t be allowed to poison the present moment. They couldn’t be who they were now, with their lipstick, paycheques and rooms, if they were also those children, or the children who’d left the other children behind.

Lily’s pale little face seemed to hover in the air in front of Clara, soaking and shivering on that bench, and once again the rage rose up in her. She leapt from the bench and ran across the parking lot, the rock raised high above her head. With a scream, she threw the rock through the lobby window of the Manitou, and then raced away into the night. She could hear the wailing of the alarm bell as she ran.

“That little birch tree. Even here they shine.”

Clara looked again. A little birch, no taller than Clara herself, stood alone in a small square of dirt carved out of the pavement for it. The rain had stopped and the clouds parted for the muted sunlight of dawn. Clara watched as the leaves of the little tree captured the light, shining silvery and soft. The old woman looked at her with eyes as black as night and placed her hand over Clara’s.

“The power of Creation is everywhere. In the tree, in you, in all of them.” She gestured to the others. “Never forget.” The old lady settled back into the variegated shadows of the cell, her deeply wrinkled hands folded. Clara gazed at the little birch, blocking out the restless sounds of the cell.

Lucy looked away. “You’re gonna think I’m stupid.”

Clara laughed. “I already know you’re stupid, so what can it hurt?”

The two giggled, startling Baby-girl. Lucy held her closer and she quit her half-hearted fussing. Lucy looked away again and blushed. “I thought they wouldn’t give her to me.”

“What? You see? I knew you were stupid.” They giggled again, but this time Clara stood up and put her arm around Lucy and the baby.

Lucy whispered, “Were we ever allowed anything good?”

They sat in silence together, lost in a shared truth rarely spoken.

Clara rallied first. “Let me hold her!”

Beaming, Lucy handed Baby-girl over.

The infant cooed and gurgled in Clara’s arms.

“What’s wrong? Whaddo I do?”

“Jeez, stop rocking her so hard, you’re freakin’ me out.” Clara dug through the basket where she’d dumped all the stuff they’d brought home from the hospital. She grabbed a little booklet with a picture of some rich white lady giving her baby a bottle. Do’s and Don’ts: Feeding Your Bundle of Joy. “Here,” she said, “gimme the baby. You read.” Clara started rocking the baby, trying to stay calm.

Lucy flipped the pages, reciting headings: “Formula…Breast Milk…Bloating…Gas…Gas! I bet she has gas.”

“Okay, genius, but what do we do about it?”

Lucy flipped another page and was visibly relieved by the illustration of a mother burping her baby. “Hand her over.”

The grainy image of a group of Indians in front of a big old white church zoomed into close-up. There stood a slight brown woman, her fist in the air, microphone pressed toward her face. A detached voice rose above the chatter: “Tell us why you’re here, Mae.” She looked straight into the camera, fearless, furious, determined. “Who do these white people think they are? Our people saved their raggedy asses when they got off the boat, freezing and starved. They returned the favor with hatred and murder. There weren’t so many of them and it changed everything. There ain’t so many of us and we will change everything, too, and we will change everything, too, and I will lay my life down to take back what’s ours.” Clara was transfixed by this woman.

She didn’t have to call [John Lennon] this time. With the car back in order after the border pillaging, Clara walked around toward the driver’s door and that was enough for him to know. He ran to her through the purple flowering weeds, tongue lolling and happy. Weeds. She remembered George telling her once that Indians were like weeds to the white people. Something to be wiped out so their idea of a garden could grow. He told her weeds were indigenous flowers. “Clara, you’re an indigenous flower. Don’t ever think of yourself as a weed.” That’s what he said to her.

The sky seemed to hum with the spray of stars laid bare of clouds by the wind. Clara thought of another night sky, the full moon, small and cold, a bitter orb above the badlands as she lay there, wounded and certain her death was upon her. John Lennon had put himself between her and death, lying next to Clara against the deep chill that night. Turnaround is fair play. The near-full moon was golden and so bright it cast shadows. Still, there was something so completely unfamiliar about the earth in darkness, no matter how confident Clara walked in the daylight. Storm clouds recaptured the stars as she closed the porch door behind them.

Within a couple of weeks Mariah and Clara slipped into a comfortable routine. Mariah cooked and was thankful that Clara kept the woodbox full. Sometimes, on clear days, Mariah would take Clara out on her trapline […]. Whenever they found [a rabbit] in a snare, Mariah would reach into the pouch tied around her waist, put down tobacco with soft Cree words, and then knock it over the head, efficiently and even lovingly. She taught Clara the unique way of skinning a rabbit, much like taking off a sweater […]. Clara would get dizzy sometimes as she watched Mariah dress the rabbits, thinking back to Indian School and how Sister Mary would’ve knocked her on the head if she saw a return to such savagery. It pleased Clara, thinking of that evil woman and how she would see her Christian mission had failed, seeing Clara in the hands of this pagan.

Over the next few months, Clara bit her tongue, listened and watched. She thought of what it was like to lose your freedom. She thought of her helplessness at the Mission and being under the thumb of Harlan and the city cops. She met with court staff, judges and prosecutors during her training and hung on their every word, gleaning everything she could. It wasn’t easy to say the words that all of them needed to hear, but Rose was right. This was about those people standing helpless before the law, often just trying to get by in a world they’d been abandoned to, entirely unprepared.

Later that night […] Clara told Lucy about her first case. The guy, not much more than a kid, had been caught stealing apples from a corner grocery. Clara leaned back in her chair. “He’d just been let out of Indian School, up north somewhere. They kept him until he was eighteen, then put him on a bus to the city.”

Lucy shook her head. “Those people. What was he supposed to do? Starve?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. The judge didn’t like it much, but I tried to explain he just didn’t know what else to do and had nowhere to go.”

“Like us. Just thrown away.”

[…]

“Well, at least he’s not going to jail tonight […]. We’re going to find him a job. At least he’ll have one meal a day until then.”

Lucy yawned, stood, planted a soft kiss on Clara’s head. “Keep fighting, woman.”