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  “Really, Madame, you’re asleep on your feet. You should go lie down. You haven’t slept for days. You can’t go on this way. You should go lie down . . .”

  The doctor and Florida are in this together, trying to get rid of me. Resist. Don’t lie down. Send Florida away, and the doctor too. Stay here, alone, by Jérôme Rolland’s side. His wife . . . I’m his wife. Send for the children. Give him something to drink. Sponge his face. Close his eyes. Only me, no one else. Take him in my arms. Down from the cross, his fat little body, cradled in my arms. And me, a kind of backwoods weeping Virgin, statue defaced with tears. To save us both . . . Oh, God, he’s looking at me!

  “Elisabeth, you should go get some sleep!”

  He wants to get rid of me . . . The priest is on the way. Extreme Unction. I have to be here. Let the children know. And Jérôme’s sister Eglantine, whimpering since the day she was born. All this to add to her fountain of tears! They’re going to fill the house, drown us all in a flood of dirty water, full of face powder. I have to be here. Jérôme has only one thing in mind, one dying man’s obsession. To send me off to sleep, catch me shirking my duty, plain as day. And that creature in there, all stiff and starched, plotting with him to rob me of his last, dying breath. I’m the only one who should be here. The only one, me, Madame Jérôme Rolland, for better or for worse. Worse? What could be worse than this? My husband, sending me away, trying to get rid of me . . . Mustn’t give in. Mustn’t let go . . . That hysterical crying. Who is it? The tears well up, they’re filling my throat. Heavy, sobbing. Racking my chest . . . And again the doctor’s dull, obsequious voice.

  “Madame, you have to get some sleep. You’re feverish. Here, take this powder with a little water . . . Really, you can’t go on this way. Believe me, you’re exhausted . . .”

  Léontine, with that clipped step of hers, takes Madame Rolland to her musty little room.

  “Come, Madame. Lie down. I’ll take off your shoes.”

  She tugs at Elisabeth’s shoes as hard as she can. Her pincenez goes bouncing madly all over her meager bosom.

  The room is so absurdly small. A kind of square hatbox with flowered paper. The red linen drapes are pulled tight. Someone forgot to close the shutters. Sunlight is coming through the curtains. It casts a curious glow over the bed, the color of raspberry juice. My hands in the light, like a pool of red water. The doctor’s powder, a tall glass to wash it down. Oh! My head stuck tight in a vise, like an iron crown pressing against my forehead. My temples are throbbing. They should have closed the shutters, locked the door. Blocked all the exits. Alone, to be all alone. No company but this aching head of mine. Let nothing in, no other torture but my pounding head. Keep everyone out. Everyone and everything. Just rest. Appease the evil spirit of sounds and visions, give in to him on a minor point or two. Trick him into giving up. Choose my own mad fantasies. Listen to the wonderful words of the doctor and Léontine Mélançon. Be comforted. Have my praises sung all over town. Give out halberds and cocked hats. Give Léontine and the doctor great armloads of them. The uniform of my heralds, going through the streets exalting my name.

  “Monsieur is dying! And so is Madame! Madame has cared for Monsieur so long, she’s dead on her feet. Oyez! Madame’s devotion to Monsieur. Madame’s fidelity to Monsieur. Oyez! Madame and Monsieur, and their model life together! What God has joined together only He will put asunder. Oyez!”

  A rosary hanging from the filigree frame of the little iron bed. On the dresser, a weather-beaten missal, a statue of the Virgin, a cheap brooch, a cake of camphor. Léontine Mélançon is well protected. The arsenal of every poor old maid.

  My eyes are heavy. Sprinkled with sand, with stones. My face, eyes closed, turned to the wall. Tiny women in white aprons and bonnets filter through my lids. Like rays of light, sparkling with glint of fire. Why didn’t they close the shutters? All kinds of little creatures dancing between my lashes. Blurring my vision . . . Justine Latour, Sophie Langlade . . . Those two I recognize, so timid, so frightened . . . The third one, wearing a paper mask. A pipe, dangling by a ribbon from her belt. A clay pipe, well seasoned. Yes, I know. Of course I know. The third one’s name is Aurélie Caron. Aurélie Caron! . . . I’ll call Léontine and Agathe. Tell them to close the shutters, get rid of these creatures. It’s the light. It’s playing tricks. They came in on those rays of light. Those sharp rays of light, tearing at my eyes. Those hideous visions, like needles, pricking my eyes. Trying to get inside my head . . . Turn aside, open my eyes. Mustn’t let them take hold. Pluck them out, whisk them out like a speck of dust . . . Can’t move. My eyes, so heavy . . . Like lead . . . The doctor’s powder, that’s what it is . . . But I’ve got to turn around, I must be able to . . . There. I’ve done it. Not easy, but I’ve done it . . . Oh, just what I was afraid of. The women, the three women . . . They’re bigger now, big as life. And here they are bursting into Léontine’s little room. They’re cleaning house . . . No, they’re putting things out on the dresser. Evidence for the judges, evidence to convict me.

  Strange, even Léontine’s things are changing. So very slowly, but they’re changing, I’m sure. Little by little, they’re being transformed. Now, on her dresser, everything a rich old maid might own. Silver Virgins, gilt-edged missals, emerald brooch, rosaries strung with pearls. Treasures spread out on the marble top, black with streaks of white. All the treasures of my spinster aunts, the three little Lanouette sisters.

  Justine Latour, Sophie Langlade, Aurélie Caron . . . Now they’re bustling about the room, moving the furniture without the slightest effort. Hardly a touch. Their bodies are light as air, there’s nothing to them. You could poke your arm right through, like a cloud . . . Look, that upright piano. They’re rolling it over to my bed . . . No, I won’t look at it. I won’t hear the rustling of the music as they spread it out on the stand. The name of a single song, out in the open, and I’m done for . . . Whatever else, don’t let them touch my needlework! That piece of petit point, stitch by stitch . . . I couldn’t bear to see it. The yellow background. The rose, bright red, left unfinished. No, no, that’s more than I could bear! Suddenly, coming to life . . . The long needlefuls of scarlet thread, the patient outline of the flower. The blood-red flower. The plan . . . Conceiving it, working it out stitch by stitch, evenings on end, by the light of the lamp. Plotting the murder, setting the wheels in motion, gradually, all in our own good time . . . Pull on the thread. Little silver scissors hanging from my belt. Moistening the thread, slipping it through the eye of the needle. The crime, crossing the threshold of my willing heart. Antoine Tassy’s death, hungered after like a piece of fruit. Silent accomplice by my side. His dark, handsome face close to mine . . . I’m spellbound, Doctor Nelson . . . And my ear, listening hard, picking up the murmur of his blood. At the slightest move his knee grazes mine. On the surface, everything correct. My mother, leaning on the table, playing with the cards, trying to read the future. In vain. The cards are silent. She begins to lose interest. Ace of hearts . . . A love letter . . . Lies, lies. Mother doesn’t believe in the cards. Or in love either. Besides, the deck is fixed. And so are our hearts . . . Queen of diamonds . . . Elisabeth, my only child. Her blond hair, with flashes of red in the light . . . Two of clubs . . . The evening is peaceful and calm, like a tub of fresh-drawn milk. My aunts, busy with their embroidery. Beneath their dry little fingers, dull, lifeless flowers take shape, slavishly copied from the pages of the Boston Ladies’ Needlework Magazine.

  “Look, Adélaïde. You see how much red the child is using on hers? Really, it’s outrageous. Why can’t she follow the model? Nice subdued colors . . .”

  A typical winter night in Sorel. In the cottage, a single lamp burning. The child is well protected. Her brute of a husband can go gallivanting to his lordship’s heart’s content in his domain of Kamouraska . . . Here, all these women, quietly embroidering. And one male, only one, allowed in this room, with its low wooden ceiling, all white and shining like porcelain, covered with flickering shadows. Every
evening Doctor Nelson comes to visit with us and pass the time. He’s so pleasant, such a gentleman, this Doctor Nelson. And he took such good care of the child when she was sick. A trifle nervous, perhaps. A little too pensive. It would take a clever one to find out what it is that’s preying on his mind, what secret makes that look of anger flash across his face from time to time.

  “I’ll call Aurélie and tell her to bring us some lemonade.”

  “You would do better to get rid of that girl. With her reputation . . .”

  “Now you mustn’t do anything to upset Elisabeth. The child is so miserable with that husband of hers . . .”

  My mother and my aunts are speaking in a whisper. Doctor Nelson and I don’t say a word. He hands me the lengths of thread as I need them. Together we sit looking at the canvas, watching a flower take shape, a flower that’s much too red.

  Footsteps in the hall, brisk and confident. Aurélie with the lemonade. A jumble of other footsteps. Sophie Langlade and Justine Latour are with her. Frenetic, these two, always caught up in a flurry of activity. Forever opening doors, as if they feel they have to open every room in the house, connect them all together. Mysterious, these rooms one after another. They beckon to me. With their sly little looks they urge me to hurry and live in this house again, here in Sorel. To live in it all, and not leave out a single room.

  “Madame would always go and lock herself in one of the bedrooms with Doctor Nelson.”

  Who said that? Who dared say such a thing? It’s written down on paper, with an official stamp. Aurélie Caron’s sworn deposition. That lying child. And innocent little Justine Latour, testifying later.

  “Madame was never alone with Doctor Nelson. Her mother followed them everywhere they went.”

  Good-hearted child, Justine. But the consolation of your simple little soul doesn’t last too long. Listen to the clerk, reading the last words of the indictment.

  With intent in so doing feloniously, wilfully, and of her malice aforethought to poison, kill, and murder the said Antoine Tassy, against the peace of our said Lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity.

  The Queen! Always the Queen! Couldn’t you just die laughing! As if it makes the slightest difference to our dear Victoria-beyond-the-sea! What does she care if there’s a little adultery, a little murder, way out there on a few acres of snowy waste that England once took away from France?

  Elisabeth d’Aulnières, widow Tassy. You hear that? You’re being charged in a foreign tongue. The language of my love. Nothing matters now but the shape of the words on his lips. Elisabeth d’Aulnières, widow Tassy. Remember Saint Denis and Saint Eustache! Let the Queen have every patriot hanged if that’s her pleasure. But not my love. Let him live, him alone. And let me belong to him forever.

  The servant girls from Sorel have finished arranging things on the dresser. Now they’re bringing in hats, and coats, and gloves for the Lanouette sisters, off to testify before the magistrate. My three aunts . . . Husbandless, hopeless . . . Dressed as women of respectable years and good family should be. Some brown, a little lace, very little . . . Some gray, a good deal of gray . . . Some beige, but not too much beige . . . Black, the choicest, finest black . . . And a tight-lipped, straight-laced look to rival any lady of the Congregation.

  “Place your right hand on the Bible and repeat: ‘I do solemnly swear.’ Go ahead, I’m listening.”

  The feather quill scratches over the paper. The clerk bows his head and writes. Everything you say will be put down.

  Mademoiselle Angélique Lanouette, being of legal age and in exercise of her legal rights, residing in the town of Sorel, being duly sworn, does testify and affirm:

  “I am the aunt of Madame Elisabeth d’Aulnières, her mother’s sister. And I don’t know how anyone can think my niece is guilty of such a terrible thing. A lady of her breeding, a child that I helped raise myself to lead a good, religious life? No, she could never be a party to her husband’s murder. She loved Monsieur Tassy. She was a devoted wife. And as for Aurélie Caron, everyone knows what a reputation she has. Elisabeth’s worst mistake, the only thing she can be blamed for, was keeping that girl on. That shameless, unprincipled liar . . . That drunken beast . . . That . . . That slut . . .”

  Aunt Angélique bursts out sobbing. Tears roll down her sunken cheeks, stop at the corners of her lips, pressed tight. Her left hand, gloved in kid, wipes them away. The smell of the fine leather grazing her nose only adds to her distress. So much refinement, so much good taste . . . Kid, lace, First Communion, Walter Scott . . . Such elegance, such dignity . . . That it should all come to this. This disgrace. All of us, dragged through the mud with our haughty little darling. Pride and joy of our barren existence. Impudent idol of our miserable spinster life.

  Mademoiselle Luce-Gertrude Lanouette, being of legal age and in exercise of her legal rights, does testify and affirm:

  “I declare for all to hear that my niece, Madame Elisabeth D’Aulnières, widow of Antoine Tassy, is a young lady of flawless reputation. Raised in a manner befitting her fine background, and according to the best religious principles, she is utterly blameless and above reproach.”

  Aunt Luce-Gertrude doesn’t cry. Her voice is curt and precise. She has taken off her gloves. Her hands are moist and cold. She feels her pulse throbbing, racing along her arm, with sudden spasmodic twitches. Feels it reaching her shoulder, her back, her other arm. Feels it shaking every inch of her body. An apple tree in the wind.

  Mademoiselle Adélaïde Lanouette, being of legal age and in exercise of her legal rights, being duly sworn, affirms and testifies:

  “Madame Elisabeth d’Aulnières, the wife of the late Antoine Tassy, is a lady through and through. A fine, upstanding Christian lady. And so young, so pretty. Simply an adorable child. And now, maligned, slandered before the whole wide world! Why, the love and affection she lavished on her husband . . . Her late husband . . . The attention she showed him! And their three little ones . . . Why, the baby is scarcely four months old. An angel . . . No, I wouldn’t believe a word, not a single word that Aurélie Caron says against her!”

  Aunt Adélaïde, till then so self-controlled, so pleased with her bit of storybook fiction, trilled out with just a touch of affectation, suddenly breaks down at the mention of Aurélie Caron, begins to sputter disconnected phrases, while a flood of tears furrows her contorted little face:

  “Aurélie Caron . . . Nothing but a liar . . . A slut, a drunkard . . . Little Elisabeth . . . Her father died before she was born . . . And we raised her, the three of us, because her mother couldn’t . . . Marie-Louise, poor dear . . . How could she bring her up? . . . So young to be a widow, so soon, only six months married . . . And her husband, dead at twenty-two, from the pox . . . A terrible, terrible shock for her, poor dear . . . Such grief . . . Never got over it . . .”

  Is that how pious women live? Up bright and early, off to perjure themselves, with only one thought in mind, one order to carry out. Risk your immortal soul, but save the family name. Bring the child back home, snatched from disgrace and prison. Save the child. She’s so pretty, after all. Who wouldn’t trust her with the keys to heaven! . . . No, the trial must not take place. We’ll teach this worthless rabble that some of us are above the law. Besides, the child will do the rest. Just let her appear, she’ll silence her accusers. Just let her stand there, straight and tall, with her haughty, cunning air. That dazzling flesh, that stance, those well-cut clothes of hers. That arrogant little smirk, and her cold, unbearable statue gaze. She could walk through fire and never be burned, wallow in the depths of vice and never change her expression. Tragic, implacable beauty, sufficient unto itself, bowing to no laws but its own. You wouldn’t understand. She’s above the ordinary laws of men. Try not to wither under her gaze, sharp, the color of grass and tart green grapes . . . We’ll take her home, we’ll comfort her. We’ll wash her body from head to toe, and her long hair too. In great red copper tubs. With perfumed soap. Big white towels. We’ll wrap her up like a newborn infa
nt. Tiny newborn babe, this niece of ours, fresh from her mother’s womb. Her little wrinkled face, with slits for eyes. Her very first squeals . . . Yes, we’ll restore her honor, build it up again, impregnable. And her good name, invulnerable . . . Invulnerable. Impregnable. Adorable . . . What an adorable child. Three little fairy godmothers, all pointy and shrill, bending over her cradle . . . We’ll raise this child. We’ll teach her to read. We’ll have her make her First Communion. We’ll take her to the governor’s ball. We’ll make a fine match for her, give her an enormous wedding. Antoine Tassy, the squire of Kamouraska . . . The squire . . . Antoine . . . Of Kamouraska . . . Dear me, indeed! What an enormous wedding . . . Oh, what an enormous crime, Elisabeth! Your poor dear husband, dead in the snow! Who could have killed him? In the cove at Kamouraska? The snow . . . And so much blood . . . Your pretty face, all stained! . . . Snow . . . Snow . . . Kamouraska . . . It’s our fault, all our fault. We didn’t raise you right. We spoiled you, Elisabeth. Our little idol, the little golden statue in the desert of our lives. Three old maid sisters from Sorel. Good God! We’re damning our very souls to protect her!

  Eccentric aunts of mine. Black furs, black veils. Strings of jet beads tangled about their scrawny chicken necks. Silly old maids. Look, there you are in the midst of a circus, a huge circus, black with humanity on all sides. Adélaïde, Luce-Gertrude, Angélique . . . Tiny, hemmed in, hooted down . . . Shaking their tight-clenched fists up in the air. Their rosaries, jingling around their wrists like so many little bells. They’re shouting, struggling in vain to be heard over an endless roll on the drum. In the front row, three immense judges. White wigs and all. The biggest one waves his hand, gestures for the drummer to stop. Silence. So abrupt that Aunt Adélaïde can’t hold her tongue. She keeps on shouting, as if the drum were still rolling. Shouting, all by herself: “The child is damning her soul! And we’re damning ours to protect her!”