Kamouraska (18 page)

I'm lying awake, joined to that man who sleeps through the rain. Far apart in time and space. Yet bound to him all the same.
Bound to George Nelson. Now, at this very moment, while all the countryside around Sorel is foundering in a sea of rain. And all the while, in Quebec, my husband's every gasp wafts death itself through the house on Rue du Parloir.

That wonderful black horse of yours, Doctor Nelson. His legs, so long and slender. From far away they look like matchsticks holding up some strange, fantastic creature with a flowing mane. Hurtling across the landscape through the storm. Deep ruts all over. But you can't bear the thought of people suffering, people in pain. (That whimpering child at school. Or that young wife so mistreated by her husband. Or most of all that Protestant lad. Singled out, standing alone, over on the left, in the chapel of Monseigneur de Laval.) Now, riding your horse, you scour the countryside from end to end. Even the tiniest roads, rutted like the gullies of torrential streams. Not a single house where you fail to make your rounds. And usually through the kitchen door. And you ask: “Is there anyone here who's sick, or crippled, or distressed, or afflicted?” Looking for ills that can be cured, woes that can be confessed. To reassure yourself. But what about the others? Those monstrous, hopeless cases? Wouldn't it be better to destroy them all, at once, and the root of their ills along with them? Your specialty, if only you were willing. To wipe out all those living creatures marked with the look of death . . . You don't trust yourself, Doctor Nelson. You pretend you believe in pity. You cling to
pity as if it were a sign of your own salvation. At least you can do your best. Tending the sick, healing them, day and night. Until your strength gives out. Sometimes a weariness so deep you almost think you're at peace. Going to sleep like some dumb beast, without even stopping to take off your shoes. Forcing yourself to get up again. To snatch a child from death. To wrest a victory from death, eyes filled with tears. And your hands, covered with pus and blood. See how grateful the parents are, weeping their thanks. Yes, everyone loves you here beyond belief. Why not? You do your best to make them love you. You've treated and cured the whole Richelieu valley . . . You're sobbing with joy, Doctor Nelson. Peace is on its way at last. With muffled step. From the depths of the earth. Another moment and the decree will be proclaimed, here, in broad daylight. In French and English: “Hear ye, hear ye. Worthy citizens of the town of Sorel, called William Henry by the English . . . Doctor George Nelson, residing in said parish, is hereby formally accepted, approved, and acknowledged as belonging to said parish of Sorel, in the county of Richelieu . . . Not only as a parishioner in good standing, and entitled to all the rights of citizenship, but indeed as an honored member of said community . . .” The whole county is there, in front of the church, out in the sun. My revenge. My recognition, total and complete . . . But look, Doctor Nelson, you can't hold back your joy. See how you noise it about. So loud that Mélanie Hus, the patient you tended and cared for with such devotion, suddenly wakes from that sleep of death that closed over her yesterday. Utters a cry of horror. Points her arm at you. Her long, endless arm, all stiff and withered. Found out! Master Nelson, they've found you out! No good to play the doctor who heals the sick and comforts the afflicted. They've found you out. Impostor. Just an impostor . . . And the crowd now, turning against you. Shouting, jeering. Protestants can't get into Heaven . . . A witness steps forward. Then a
second, and a third, and a fourth . . . And all of them, testifying under oath that “Doctor Nelson and Madame Tassy have had an adulterous affair.” Then someone complains that “children are unbearable, with their faces full of tears.” And Madame Tassy says that the only thing to do is to “take that big fat boy, bent over the icy basin, and push his blond head under the water. Get a good firm hold and let death do the rest.” Doctor Nelson explains to the people of Sorel that “this child should never have seen the light of day.”

Madame Tassy replies that “it would have been better to drown the pup the moment he was born, whereas now that he's grown so big and fat it's terribly hard.” Then the crowd again, with its jeers and accusations. “Foreigners can't get into Heaven . . .” And Madame Tassy, with an outraged look, cupping her hands and screaming that she “was born and raised here,” and that this is where she belongs . . .

The man gets up from his nightmare. The burden of all his life on his shoulders, weighing him down. His stomach still caught in the grip of the dream . . . The pump, with its rusty squeak. The tin cup, tinkling. George Nelson drinks. He splashes cold water over his face. Turns his frightened eyes, his harried features, toward my dreams now. My own. And I — although I could spend my life caressing his face, wiping it clean of evil and death, easing his pain — instead I haunt and torment this man. Just as he haunts and torments me.

Now is the moment I choose. In the middle of the night. For the first time. And in the rain . . . Quietly I take the key from Aunt Adélaïde's purse and steal out of the house on Rue Augusta. Straight into George Nelson's dream. Myself, in flesh and blood. Here, now, knocking at his door. Soaked with rain, covered with mud, shivering with fever. Knocking at his door. Calling to him softly, pressing my mouth against the jagged wood.

“Doctor Nelson! Doctor Nelson! It's me, Elisabeth . . .”

“You, Elisabeth? Here? So late? What kind of madness . . .”

I've never come here at night before. It was bound to happen. Utter, unthinking madness. The risk of eternal damnation. A soul in peril, held up for all to see. In a loud burst of laughter. Yes, I'll push you to the very limit . . .

Your eyes, clouded with sleep. And yet, your whole being, taut, more and more on edge.

“You, Elisabeth? Here?”

I tell you about my letter to Antoine. I admit that I slept with my husband the very day he left for Kamouraska.

Your anger frightens me, thrills me, all at once.

You say you're glad to give him reason to curse his life, dog's life that it is! But still, some of the tricks a woman plays infuriate and disgust you.

“You, Elisabeth? With him? You . . . you liar! You nasty little hypocrite!”

You swear you're going to kill Antoine. You say you'll never forgive me.

I hang my head. I don't know how to make you understand. My silly little tricks. To deceive Antoine. Allay his suspicions. Let
him think that the baby . . . Make a fool of my husband . . .

I seem to be crying. You're crying too. I beg your forgiveness. You beg mine. You tell me that I'm sweet and good, and that I only did such an awful thing because I'm so unhappy . . .

A man and a woman, standing face to face. In the middle of a big country kitchen. No curtains on the windows.

People can see us from the road. Any moment someone might come looking for you, to take you to see a sick patient. Yes, now's the time to compromise ourselves for good. To cause a scandal. Take our stand.

Let them point their fingers and accuse us. Both of us bound together in a single fate. Against the world. Utter totality of love and death. Justice restored. The reign of blessed savagery. That's what will save us. The two of us, possessed.

The man looks down, stares at the floor. Seems to be measuring out the minuscule space on the knotty boards between the woman and himself. The invisible line between livable existence and unpardonable folly.

“You're mine, Elisabeth. And so is the baby, isn't it? Mine, no one else's . . . Say it. Over and over. Loud and clear . . .”

“Yours, no one else's. I swear . . .”

The sound of his breathing, quicker and quicker. Filling the silence. The woman is trembling. Bends over the table to blow out the lamp. Can't stand the light. And those bare windows too . . . A voice is giving orders. Rough, unrecognizable, abrupt . . .

“Don't touch the lamp. Now take off your shawl. And your, dress. Your skirts. Go on . . . Take everything off. Your corset too. Your drawers, your chemise. Faster . . . Your shoes . . . Your stockings . . .”

My hands are trembling. So badly that I have to try and try before all my buttons, buckles, and laces will come undone . . . I do as I'm told. As if I were dreaming. Obeying a voice I can't
refuse. Standing there, naked. My pregnant belly already beginning to bulge. Clutching the table to keep from falling.

“Stand up straight. People can see us from the road. Isn't that what you want?”

In a moment his clothes join mine in a heap on the floor.

“Now blow out the lamp.”

I fumble about, trying to turn the wick. I try to blow. It's as if no breath at all were left inside me. Finally a kind of sigh escapes from deep inside my bosom. More like a spasm, a throaty sob. Then George's voice, in a whisper.

“There! Now are you happy? Now that we have nothing left to lose . . .”

All the countryside around the house. Who's out there, watching, hiding in the darkness? Spying. Ready to send the news flying off tomorrow, at the crack of dawn. Like a flock of pigeons. Straight to Judge John Crebessa of Sorel. And beyond Sorel. Even beyond Quebec. All the way down the river . . . In no time at all, reaching the squire in his manor. The squire of Kamouraska. A man condemned.

At last a groan breaks free from my throat. Even before George pulls me down to the floor, on the pile of clothes. A man's weight on top of me. The hair on his body, black as a beast's. His sex, hard as a gun.

Pick up my skirts, my crumpled bodice. Pull myself out of George's arms. Back to Rue Augusta. Quickly, before the cook lights her fire.

The sun is coming up. This barren world. The worst thing that could happen to me now. To be doomed to live in this barren world. Where are you, love? In what strange land? Away so long . . . I live on Rue du Parloir, in Quebec. People even say that I'm Madame Rolland, wife of Jérôme Rolland, a notary there, in the city . . .

Aunt Adélaïde begs me to think of the family honor. Of my children's future. I kiss her and slip the key to the house on Rue Augusta back in her purse, where I got it the night before. I laugh.

“Come now, Aunt Adélaïde. You know that my honor means more to me than life itself. How can you even suspect me of such an awful thing?”

Aunt Adélaïde looks down. Embarrassed by my lie, as if she herself were caught in some dreadful act.

“But my dear child, you have to be more careful. Antoine's last letter is full of threats. He says he's coming to get you. You and the children . . .”

“A letter from Antoine? For me, Aunt Adélaïde? And you didn't give it to me? And you read it? . . . But you had no right . . . Let me have it! Give me that letter, this very minute! . . .”

“I can't, Elisabeth. I don't have it. I burned it . . . Some letters we have to burn. And some things we have to avoid if we don't want to burn in the next world ourselves!”

“You mean hell, Aunt Adélaïde? You're putting the fear of hell in me? You, so good, so kind?. How could you? . . .”

“Sometimes you seem to forget your soul, my child . . .”

I heave an exquisite sigh. Like throwing excess baggage out the carriage door, while the team of horses whisks me off.

“It's so easy to forget your soul, Aunt Adélaïde. To leave it behind. If you only knew how easy . . .”

My mother comes out of her lair. Casts a lifeless glance at her daughter. Complains about the heat. Goes rambling through her weary soliloquy.

“What a handsome man, that Doctor Nelson . . . Such an excellent background . . . Fine old American family . . . Loyalists . . . Too bad the child didn't meet him first . . .”

“But Mother, he is the first! The very first, Aunt Adélaïde! There's never been another, and there never will be, you hear?”

“That's sinful, child. Terribly sinful.”

“Even more than you think, Auntie dear. If you only knew . . .”

My soul will have to take strange paths to catch me . . . All of a sudden I feel so tired. This need of mine to be rid of my husband. To hurl him over into the void. At all costs, keep him away from Sorel. Rub him out of my life forever. Like a drawing erased from a sheet of paper.

My mother is bored. She straightens the shawl on her shoulders and leaves the room.

Oh, what a summer! The heat, the storms . . . And when that relentless sun decides to shine, you seem to see the landscape through a prism of water. The weather is strange. It changes so quickly . . . The phlox! I can smell the phlox again! August is over already. I look so foolish with this five-month belly, and these sudden red patches all over my face. The light, the color of sulfur . . . The phlox, blooming in the garden, behind the house. Their fragrance reaches me, even up here. Goes to my head, gets on my nerves . . .

Anne-Marie is standing in the doorway with a big bouquet of flowers in her arms. I'm talking to my daughter through a fog. Telling her that just a couple of fresh, white sprigs will be enough for the ceremony. They smell so strong . . . And then, she mustn't forget the white lace tablecloth and the silver candlesticks. And a crucifix . . . I can hear my own voice, thick, explaining that they'll need two deep little cut-glass dishes. One with holy water, and a twig that's been blessed to sprinkle it with. The other one with plain water, and a white towel, so the priest can wash his hands . . . Anne-Marie's timid voice asks me for my keys. I tell her to take them, from under my pillow . . . The door is already closed. I can't
call her back. Can't even open my mouth and move my tongue. But I absolutely have to tell her . . . Cotton! A piece of cotton, for the Extreme Unction! . . . Someone with a loud voice, out in the corridor, says that they'll come and get me when it's time . . .

I'm living somewhere else. A very specific place. A certain time in the past. Something no marvel of memory could accomplish. My real life, that's what it is. My perfect escape from Rue du Parloir . . .