Kamouraska Page 5

  Suddenly, the crowd, struck by her confession, bursts out laughing. Row by row, the crackle of laughter spreads like fire, leaping from branch to branch. The three little sisters, caught in the thundering laughter, rush headlong from the arena. Shaking, trembling, leaving a drunkard’s zigzag tracks in the sand.

  The judge orders the clerk to take note: “The child is damning her soul! And we’re damning ours to protect her!” Over and over the clerk rewrites the sentence. Ad infinitum. Fills up pages and pages. Fast and furious, taking special care with the capitals.

  “The child is damning her soul! And we’re damning ours to protect her! . . .”

  Big thick peals of lusty laughter. Filth showered on our heads. Madame Rolland tosses and turns on Léontine’s little bed, dreaming she can’t escape from the arena. She has to stay and watch the next scene. A woman, breasts bare, is standing with her back against a board. Her hands are tied behind her. The crowd stops laughing, holds its breath. The three judges, in their white wigs, bend over to watch. Gazing in rapt attention, as if the fate of the world were suddenly at stake. An invisible hand is throwing daggers at the woman, held fast to the board. Aiming at her heart.

  Madame Rolland, on Léontine’s bed, struggles to shake herself free of the nightmare. Sees the metallic flash of the knife flying, striking the doomed woman square in the chest. Manages to close her eyes. Gropes through the blackness, feverishly looking for some hidden escape from the circus. Comes to a staircase in the darkness, climbs her way up. Thinks she’s waking at last. Makes out the flowered paper in Léontine’s room and clutches her breast. Feels a biting pain.

  Why this calm? Why this soft, gentle light spreading over a little deserted town? Sorel. Its streets with their handful of houses. Wooden houses. Brick houses. Square Royal. Rue Charlotte. Rue Georges. The corner of Rue Augusta and Rue Philippe. Close by, the river flows between its level banks. The long green islands, property of the parish, where cows and horses, sheep and goats are grazing.

  Life here is calm, radiant. Not a soul to be seen. I feel I’m going to be happy in all this light. The river, unruffled. The pasturelands, down to the water’s edge. This frieze of peaceful creatures, grazing as far as the eye can see. I stretch. I heave a deep, deep sigh. Is it for my early innocence, suddenly mine again in this childhood setting?

  But something seems to be happening. Something over by the light. A kind of glow, rising, getting brighter and brighter. Getting stronger, too strong, almost unbearable. I want to raise my arm and shield my eyes from the dazzling glare.

  Now, all at once, it comes to a stop, singles out a red brick house on the corner of Rue Philippe and Rue Augusta. Set off from its neighbors, bathed in light, the house begins to shine. So clearly. As if magnified under a glass. Gleaming. All glazed and bright. In back, the little garden pales beneath so powerful a sun. The blue hydrangeas seem to be all powdered white. Two floors of brick. Green wooden shutters, scrupulously shut. A wooden balcony, narrow columns. The façade, cut into the surface of the wood, fine fretwork, whitewashed. So very white, so elegant, so absurd. I could reach out and touch it. Each notch, each figure in the molding, alive in a blaze of awesome brilliance. Hard, sharp, yellow . . . A sun, stock-still above the house, off a little to the left.

  Try as I may, I can’t move away from this circle of light. The whole town seems to be plunged in darkness. All except my house on Rue Augusta, corner of Rue Philippe, standing out, glittering like a chunk of broken glass. Oh, how I’d like to leave it behind me. Go back to Rue Georges and the house where I was born. Escape from the clutches of this frightful place on Rue Augusta. My life! My whole life, with all its turmoil, all its passion, waiting for me there behind the shuttered windows on Rue Augusta. A wild beast, caged, lurking in the shadows, watching for a chance to pounce. Can’t I run away from that part of my life? Back to where I was born? Back to the gentle, peaceful time before I was born? My mother, deep in mourning, carrying me in her womb. Like the stone inside a fruit . . . Poor little child, growing in a black crape cocoon . . . Could I glimpse the world outside through the red, weeping eyes of this young widowed mother of mine? . . . They’re taking my father’s coffin out of the house. My mother is fainting dead away. And here I am, shut in tight, kicking her in the belly. Trying to wake her up. Jumping and bouncing about. Why, such a long, frightening faint could kill us both!

  “What a naughty little girl!”

  Is that the first voice in the world to reach my ears?

  No sooner do you get used to one nursemaid’s face than a new one appears. Madame d’Aulnières changes nannies with every breath. On account of the child. It’s the servants who take charge of the child, body and soul.

  “Simply can’t keep her. No two ways about it. Believe me, she’s just too smart for her own good. You’ll never change her!”

  White bonnet perched on a dingy chignon. This one has lice. Get rid of her at once. Cook can’t stand for it. It’s too disgusting. Mother grumbles:

  “What a nuisance . . . Oh, my poor head! . . . Really, cook is just too fussy . . . Oh, well, if I must, I must. All right then, find me another one as soon as you can!”

  The nanny is gone! Long live the nanny! This one is clean and uncompromising.

  “The child is full of lice!”

  A fine-tooth comb, that’s what we need. Ayyy! Like needles, raking my poor skull back and forth.

  “Sit still or the lice are going to eat up your brains!”

  The child’s hair is so thick, it would really be better to cut it. Only way to take care of these vermin. Snip, snip. Curl after curl. Down to the scalp. The kitchen floor is strewn with golden fluff. Just look at that shorn head! Like a convict! The child goes rummaging through the sweepings, looking for her blond curls. The red copper pots shine in a row along the wall. Cook says if you slice a raw onion and put it in a saucer it will keep the mosquitoes away. I swear, I can hear her mumbling it now, leaning against her hot black stove.

  Once her daughter is born, Madame d’Aulnières puts aside her widow’s weeds of deepest mourning for that somber garb that will mark her sorrow for the rest of her days. Just like a grandmother, though she’s only seventeen. With her black dress, white bonnet, collar and cuffs of fine linen, she sets about growing old and disconsolate. Day and night. Never leaves her room. Quite satisfied merely to sit there, feeling her pulse at regular intervals. No other care but the feeble beating of a heart wrapped in swaddling.

  My dear little aunts begin to prod her. Use their authority as older sisters.

  “You can’t stay here. Think of your daughter. Why not come back home and live with us? The way it was before?”

  Madame d’Aulnières, my mother, shakes her head sadly.

  Go back to the family home? That trap! Let people confuse me with my spinster sisters? Risk an insult like that? No, I’ve paid too much for the honor of being Madame to give it up so easily.

  “Listen to me, all of you. Nothing will ever be the way it was before. I’m Madame d’Aulnières. And that’s how I’m going to stay until my dying breath. Until then, I have a right to my own way of life, to my daughter, my servants, my household, even my mourning. This is my husband’s house. This is where I’m going to die. My mind is made up.”

  “But what about the child? She’s growing like a wild little weed. Someone’s going to have to look after her education. See that she learns English, and catechism . . . Teach her good manners . . .”

  “Please, my headache . . . No, for goodness’ sake, don’t open the curtains . . . I’m tired of thinking about the child. And I’m tired of our good father from Sorel, who keeps coming to console me with Our Lord and Saviour. And if you must know, Our Lord and Saviour himself is beginning to get on my nerves. That’s what kills me. This terrible boredom. Eating me up by inches. I can’t stand it much longer . . .”

  My dear little aunts shower me with hugs and kisses. They smell of naphthalene and gingerbread. Are they really here with me now, at this very momen
t? Pathetic and perfumed, just as they were when I was a baby? My three aunts, with their little bird-like frames, and their skin, still almost fresh. Their jet-black eyes, round and shining, staring at me. All the adoration in the world.

  Again and again they renew their attack. My mother keeps managing to elude them.

  “But something has to be done. It’s absolutely dreadful. Why, the child is up every morning before daylight, sneaking out the window, with that tomboy haircut of hers, and running off with a gang of urchins to go fishing for catfish. Over by the islands . . .”

  One day, my mother, just to keep peace . . . No, too soon! I haven’t had time yet to remember a single room on Rue Georges. Oh, my first house, gone for good! A kind of white fog, like milk, spreads over the town. Only one house is left lit up. Standing out. The least little speck of dust, as clear to the eye as a moth fluttering around a lamp. The air itself is like the light, bright and resounding. You could hear a mouse breathing. Whatever happens here will be decisive. Exact. Sharp as the clink of crystal. Pure and uncompromising. Like a judge’s verdict.

  Rue Augusta. You can see the space between the bricks, as if you were right on top of them. The mortar sticks out a little, here and there, dotting the red ochre with bits of gray. A foul cloud of soot hangs over the garden. A withered vine clings to the little courtyard wall, like hair on an old woman’s head. You can see every detail in the shutters. The knots in the wood. The green paint fading in patches. To the left of the front door, the right shutter, pulled off its hinges, slamming against the wall at the slightest hint of a breeze.

  I’d swear that it’s even brighter now than before. A young widow is climbing the well-worn steps. There’s something both childish and stilted in the way she walks. For just a moment she turns a crestfallen face in my direction. My own young mother! Holding a little girl awkwardly by the hand. A little girl, bareheaded, hair cropped short.

  Tired, I suppose, of changing nursemaids every other day, Madame d’Aulnières resigns herself to going back where she came from. The family cloister. Celibate seraglio all in red brick, in the shadow of the tall, trembling poplar. Mother surrenders. Turns herself over, lock, stock, and barrel, to the comforting guidance of her elder sisters.

  I must be seven or eight. And my education begins.

  “Elisabeth, sit up straight!”

  “Elisabeth, don’t speak while you’re eating!”

  “Elisabeth make that curtsy again, this very moment!”

  “Elisabeth, how many persons are there in God?”

  “Repeat after me, the cat, the bird . . . Don’t forget, you make the th in English with your tongue on your teeth.”

  Adélaïde, Luce-Gertrude, Angélique. All beaming with delight. Stop reading their favorite novels. Fill up the emptiness of their existence. Intensely, by a kind of osmosis, they share the lot of the weeping widow and live through a whole rebellious childhood.

  Elisabeth’s hair grows back in dizzying abundance. The three little sisters vie for the joy of combing her tawny fleece. Their own sparse locks light up and shine with vicarious pride. My first period. Their chaste excitement.

  “Are you sure, Aunt Angélique, that it’s going to happen like that every month?”

  “Yes, darling. It’s something we all go through. It’s the way of the world.”

  Aunt Angélique is ill at ease, embarrassed. But still delighted. “The way of the world.” A deep, mysterious communion with all of womankind seems to hold a fabled, romantic fate in store for her. Is each and every wasted ovule of her sterile life about to be made fertile? Gallantly? By tender husbands? Tender lovers? Is mad passion and all its magic, somehow, old as she is, about to make her pregnant at last, with a hundred happy, blue-eyed babes?

  Above the house, the sun has gone out. Suddenly, like a lamp. All at once it’s very dark. My dear little aunts are getting excited, running about in every direction. Up and down the balcony stairs. Rushing to pick up three pots of geraniums. Disappearing inside the house. Each one clutching her pot of flowers, red or pink, tight to her bosom. The front door slams shut. Behind the closed door, an extraordinary echo. The sound of the door slamming lingers for a time, as if in a great empty space. An immense space, with no furniture, no drapes. Huge. Like a rail-road station. A vault, high and bare. A moment later, a sharp voice pipes up, caught in an endless echo.

  “I assure you, it’s going to freeze tonight. It would be a shame to leave the geraniums out on the balcony . . . Ge-ra-ni-ums . . . bal-co-ny . . . co-ny . . . y-y . . .”

  The words well up in waves. Roll and subside. The voice was coming from the drawing room. Aunt Luce-Gertrude? Yes, that’s who it is, I’m sure. It’s night now, altogether dark. My house, shut tight, fills all of Rue Augusta with its somber silhouette. It seems to be rising up from the middle of the street. Massive, unavoidable, provoking. Like a barricade.

  I want to run. To keep from going inside the house. Not risk the certain chance of seeing my bygone days spring back to life, shake off their ashes in powdery little flakes. Each burnt-out log rekindled. Each rose-red ember blazing, bursting into flame. No, no! I won’t! I’ll never cross the threshold of my house again. There must be some mistake. You’re confusing me with someone else. I have a perfect alibi. My pass is in order. Let me go. I’m Madame Rolland. My husband is Jérôme Rolland, notary in the city of Quebec. None of this is any of my affair. All these mysterious happenings of dubious taste, long dead, here in this brick house on the corner of Rue Augusta and Rue Philippe, in the town of Sorel. You’ve got the wrong person, I tell you. Let me go. I’m supposed to be somewhere else. My duty calls me. I’ve got to get back to Quebec, to Rue du Parloir. This very moment my husband is dying. My place is by his side. I have no business on Rue Augusta, here in Sorel. I’m Madame Rolland. I swear I am! Madame Jérôme Rolland!

  I don’t dare turn aside. I keep staring straight ahead. And yet, to my right and left there’s something happening, something I can’t see. Coming closer, from both sides at once. Now it’s grazing my body. Pressing against me. Right beside me. Someone rumpling my skirt. Touching my knee. I’m being lifted off the ground. Under my arms, two powerful arms seizing me. Will I have to put up with this outrage again? Must I cross that threshold, in front of me there, with two policemen by my side? And the witnesses! All of them, packed into the vast drawing room, safely behind closed shutters. I can hear them whispering. No, I won’t be brought to trial before the likes of them! Servants, innkeepers, boatmen, peasants! Good-for-nothing witnesses, every one! None of them can stand up against me. And as for Aurélie Caron . . .

  There! My fear has called her back, conjured her up. Aurélie has hold of my arm. I steal a glance her way. See her profile with that jutting jaw of hers. Her bosom heaving with each labored breath. She seems consumed with indignation. Somehow I manage to turn my head and look the other way, painfully, like a sick man lying prostrate on his pillow. Now it’s Justine Latour, gazing at me, bewildered. Half smiling, half in tears.

  “Good God a’mighty, but Madame has really got us in a stew!”

  Aurélie’s wild laughter. Exploding in my face. My two bodyguards hold me tight. Hurry me up the steps, four at a time. Someone I can’t see, inside, opens the front door. Now I’m standing in the hall. The door to the drawing room is closed. Behind it the witnesses stop talking. I can hear their muffled breathing, hear them clearing their throats, snorting, crumpling bits of paper or cloth between their fingers. The muted sound of restless foot-steps fills the room.

  The silence that follows is so sudden, so complete, it almost takes my breath away. There’s no one in the drawing room now. The door opens, slowly, onto the empty space. There’s no one standing beside me either, no one making me move along. Aurélie Caron and Justine Latour have disappeared. I’m alone in the hall. That strong, stale smell of houses shut up tight spreads over me. Goes up my nose, stings my eyes. Sticks to my skin.

  You can see where the plaster has peeled off the walls in great flak
es. The chips have been swept into little piles against the base-board. There’s a fine dust falling, effortless as snow. Am I going to die in this utter void? Here, under glass, smothered in this dry endless dust?

  In this minute space, this gray and thinning air, suddenly a little girl appears, dressed for Communion. All in white, from head to toe. Her long veil reaches to the ground. A crown of white roses on her head. I’m powerless to move. In her heavy hand, in my own arm turned to stone, expires a feeble, half-attempted sign of the cross. My childhood self smiles soberly and looks me in the eye. Makes me listen to that solemn little voice I thought was gone for good.

  “I renounce Satan and all his works and all his pomps, and I take Jesus Christ unto myself forever.”

  And so, the vows of baptism are solemnly renewed. Now the rest can proceed apace. The door is open. The clear, brisk air fills my lungs. I find I can move again, while here in the hall the child before me is taking off her Communion clothes. My three little aunts go bustling about her. Removing her veil, her crown. She drops her white dress gaily to the floor in a snowy ring around her feet. Hops over it quick as a wink.

  But let’s not linger. Her childhood is past. Now the rearing of a rich young miss can all unfold in order. Quickly the tulle of her First Communion dress gives way to silk and sheer batiste, to muslin, velvet, satin and furs, to fine cashmere. The fashion books, the bundles of cloth, still fragrant with the smell of distant oceans crossed, deep in the hold, wash up ashore here in this shabby hall. This scene of the reenactment.

  “The child is growing up before our very eyes!”