Kamouraska (19 page)

Both of us, lying in the stifling shadows of that bedroom with its wooden walls. Midafternoon. (The quilt, tacked over the window, like a curtain.) And we speak to each other, saying frightful things, with the thoughtless freedom of the dying. (The very way Jérôme Rolland . . .)

The peaceful calm that follows love. The weariness. Our eyes, still resolutely closed. In an alcove whisper we talk about Antoine's death. It seems so perfectly natural that we should. Our bodies, scarcely done with the frenzy of love. As if we were given this moment of peace only to launch into a madness more violent still. As if the killing of Antoine were merely the supreme extension of our love.

We should probably kill ourselves as well, both of us together. Be sure that neither one outlives the other. One bullet, one thrust of the knife, one single deadly blow. Before the ordinary life of everyday dulls our pure fervor for living and dying.

We decide to wait until the baby comes before we make our move. Still, we'd better hurry. Afraid our resolve might wither away with time, the more it comes in contact with our nerves, our blood. The body, weakening. While the monstrous soul holds fast.

George shows me his pistol. Loads it with powder and a bullet, before my eyes.

The need to overcome our tenderness with terror. We'll bring about justice by fire and sword. And we'll be happy.

After trying so long to lead a model life, a life of utter selflessness, are you finally going to see your dream come true, Doctor Nelson? Exiled so young from the world of kindness, are you going to find your lost kingdom and make it your own again? I'll give all my strength to help you. I'll give you my life itself. To punish the wicked, reward the good. Deliver the suffering princess, slay the fierce dragon that holds her prisoner. Justice, justice, justice . . . Antoine Tassy deserves to die. He's asking to die. By his very silence. His inscrutable absence. He's challenging you the way he's challenging me. He wants to destroy himself, and us along with him. That death wish, deep in his bones, from the very beginning . . . Will you conjure up the image of a blond lad's misery, reflection of your own despair? Will you let Antoine go free? Turn the gun on yourself? The crime is the same. It's all so strange . . . If you don't watch out, ideas like that can make you go too far.

But I'm with you, here. I want you to live, and I want him to die! I've chosen you, George Nelson. I'm life and death, bound up together, for good and all. You see how bittersweet I am . . .

The doctor is busy examining an old woman's hand. Her fingers, tightly clenched. He tells her to lay her forearm flat on the
table and open her fist. She says she can't. That's where she burned herself. Inside, right on the palm, down deep. Some lard she was holding. And all of a sudden it caught on fire. How could she do such a thing, poor soul? . . . The doctor smooths some ointment over the burn and puts on the bandage. The old woman groans a little. Finally mutters that “in love and pain, tears are vain . . .” Digs down into her pocket with her good hand. Pulls out a coin and clutches it in her fist.

“Keep your money, Grandma, and buy yourself some sweets.”

The word “sweets” seems to offend the wizened creature. “Sweets,” at my age? What do you take me for? . . . She puts the coin back in her pocket and goes grumbling out of the doctor's house.

Never has George Nelson paid more attention to his patients or given them better care. Never has he been more sympathetic. Like a spring of compassion, gushing in his heart. Sometimes a kind of mournful sadness comes over him all at once. A very special sadness that he knows so well, drawing him up to the brink of despair. Only then does he look at his pistol for consolation. Takes it out of its gray cloth cover. Sits gazing at it. Unloads it. Loads it again. Gets a dark delight from the sharp, clear click in the stillness of his house.

Like a man about to die, he's putting his things in order. Arranging his papers, his powders and salves, his forceps and scalpels. Dawn often finds him at the kitchen table, poring over figures and minute calculations. That is, when he's not engrossed in his instruments, and flasks, and beakers . . . A certain powder, heated up, flashing in a puff of metallic smoke. Insoluble. And a strange scent of garlic . . .

The poison is Elisabeth's idea. A pregnant woman's obsession. Send Aurélie to Kamouraska with poison, so she can . . . No use trying to reason with Elisabeth. It's easier to pretend you agree . . .
Like a good chemist, go on with your experiment. While that lurking sadness, creeping through our soul, becomes too much to bear. Erupts into such a frenzied fury that, at last . . .

Who let the doctor into the house? What is he doing here? It's five in the morning! . . . At least let me take off this silly nightcap! . . . Aurélie must have opened the door. See, Aunt Adélaïde. See how the doctor heads straight for the child's room. All those closed doors in the corridor don't confuse him a bit.

This man is drunk with the weariness of sleepless nights. Mad with jealousy. Imagining things. Sure that Antoine is hiding somewhere in the house. He says he'll have to be ferreted out, like a rat. When things quiet down a little . . . My love sees Aunt Adélaïde and says hello. Whispers in my ear. All out of breath. Insists that we'll have to get Antoine away from Kamouraska. Out in the open. Get it over with once and for all . . . I beg him not to go before the baby comes. I'm so afraid I might die in labor . . .

Antoine sits sulking in his manor in Kamouraska. Selling land and planning his return to Sorel. Or is he here already? Hiding with Horse Marine, or maybe someone else? We'd better go scour the countryside around Sorel. The woods, the bushes, the streets in Sorel. The bed of every whore in Sorel. The taverns in Sorel. Search every house, probe every wall. He could swoop down on us here at any moment. “Peekaboo! It's me, your darling husband.
See? I'm back!” With that stinking drunkard's breath of his. And he'll beat me all over, shame me in front of the help. “Here's my wife, nailed to a cross with her feet in the air. I'd like you to meet her . . .” His loud, idiotic laugh. Then he'll grab me, and hold me. Won't let me go till I'm lying there dead, in a pool of blood. Like a woman dying in childbirth, gasping her last. And my baby, ground between two stones . . . Oh, what a strange and agonizing cry will send me hurtling into hell! So unresisting, so resigned. Letting myself be caught and killed in Antoine's snares. Too terribly willing . . . No, I want to live. I'm innocent. I won't give in. Won't do what my husband wants of me. It's my death he's after. Lurking in the shadows . . . No, Antoine's the one who has to die. And I'll be saved. Loving and faithful. Sweet and pure. And George too, George will be saved. By Antoine's death. A holy sacrifice. No other way. Just go on living!

My love says I have a fever. He kisses me on the forehead. Pulls the covers up around my chin. Says he'll come see me again this evening. Tells them to let me sleep, all day if I want to. Tiptoes out of the room . . .

I plunge into darkness. Won't open my eyes. Not before night comes falling all around us. Everyone sleeping.

I jump down from my bed, run out of the house. Don't take the time to dress. Don't bother to throw off the vestiges of sleep . . .

Too late! It's too late! The street is full of people. Incredible, All these people, milling about so late at night . . . Someone is saying that my trial has begun. The witnesses look me over, up and down. Seem to know me. Take their oath on the Gospels.

“Yes, she's the one who killed her husband! She's a criminal, that woman. See how she dawdles about through the streets, and in the middle of the night. Must be breaking her back with so much love!”

“Alexis-Paul Hus, seaman by trade . . . I was coming home,
between one and two in the morning. All of a sudden I catch sight of Doctor Nelson and Madame Tassy. They're in a little garden, near where Madame d'Aulnières and the Lanouette sisters live. They seem to be getting up off the ground, both of them. Anyhow, I'm sure they weren't standing up a minute before, because the wall is real low over there, and I would have noticed them right away. And Madame Tassy has on a kind of dressing gown, a white one I think. And as soon as they see me, they separate. Madame Tassy walks across the courtyard into Madame d'Aulnière's house. And the doctor goes off in the other direction . . .”

Everything drowned out by the sound of hoofbeats. A horse, galloping along the horizon. The other direction! My love, running off. Far, far away. Over the border. He'll never be returned to face this country's justice. There won't be a trial. And the witnesses can all go home . . .

A familiar voice, muffled ever so slightly. Saying that nothing has really happened yet. That everything is still to come. Doctor Nelson has only gone to Quebec. To be with his sister, the Ursuline nun, who's terribly sick.

This horse is even more wonderful than you can imagine. Every innkeeper down the river sings his praises. From Sorel to Kamouraska. For some, it's his strength. For some, his endurance. For others, his dark, demonic beauty, like the devil himself. But only George Nelson can make you feel how really sensitive this beast can be. How perfectly his powerful stride echoes the frenzied rhythm of his master's heart.

The trip to Quebec, through rain and mud. There and back. Just time enough for this man to enter the convent walls and stand by the bed of the poor little nun about to pass away. To say goodbye. Receive her dying words. Carry them off forever. Not even stop to rest, or to rest his horse. Start back again, in the dark and the rain . . . The need to be happy. Not wait any longer. Now that death has come and gone. Get back to Elisabeth as fast as he can. Just one thing matters now: to live! Whatever the price. But live!

Cathy's dying words. Impossible to shake them off along the way. Even with the wind and rain. Feeling them etch themselves deeper and deeper. With each passing moment. Despite the noise of galloping hooves. Despite the terrible scraping of wheels . . .

My love is coming back. Go light the fire. Aurélie. It's autumn, Aurélie.
Don't make a fuss. My love is on his way, he's coming back. I want to soothe and comfort him. That awful look on his face, already . . .

Sister Catherine of the Angels has offered up her life and death to God. From her very first moment in the Ursulines' cloister. Gave up her long black hair. And that inkling of human warmth in her childish heart. Now, with all her tender passion stifled at its source, with her three vows faithfully kept each day, our little sister Cathy is about to die. Both her brothers by her side. Here, within these walls, by permission of the bishop. Because one is a doctor and one is a priest . . .

Sister Catherine stops them in the midst of their prayers. The prayer of the dying. Calls out in a loud, clear voice. Calls to her brother the doctor. Holds out her departing soul to George. George, the impenitent thief, the brother lost beyond recall.

“It's too late now to pray. Doctor, save me!”

The other brother — the fiery preacher, the penitent thief by trade — crosses himself with trembling hand. Catherine of the Angels dies with that cry on her lips. In her loud, clear voice:

“Doctor, save me!”

George leaves the convent. Runs out like a madman. His horse, dashing headlong. Back to Sorel . . . I can hear him coming toward me now. With that tormenting cry ringing in his ears and mine: “Doctor, save me!”

I'll use Cathy's voice if I have to. The selfsame voice of every threatened life that wants to live. Save me, Doctor Nelson! And save yourself! No, not with prayers. Not with some righteous, abstract alchemy. But with all your body, with all my body. Living flesh of man and of woman. With your name, Doctor Nelson. A name to give your wife. Instead of a name she loathes. With your heart, your soul, your all . . . There's a man to be killed. There's no other way. I'm love and I'm life. And my need is as imperious and absolute as death itself . . .

Where you're concerned I move so near the edge it makes me dizzy. May as well ponder your family problems with you (and more than just your family problems . . .). All the way back from Quebec to Sorel. In the muck and mud of autumn. The wallow and rot of autumn. The heady smell, the lashing rains, the groaning gusts of wind.

“Poor Cathy. So grim, so serious, yet such a child. ‘My calling . . .' That's what she used to tell me. In that strange and mystical way. Oh, what a farce . . .”

Now Aurélie looms up before you, ghostlike, over the muddy road. Her face, so white. Her woollen kerchief, black, twisted about her narrow shoulders. Tossing her kinky little head, like an actress. With a black girl's grace. You can't imagine how much shame and scorn will cling to this love of ours because of her. Fixed forever in a grimacing mask . . .

You breathe the decay of autumn until it makes you sick. Catherine of the Angels' death sticks in your throat . . . See, I won't leave you alone. Despite your grief, my love, I'll prod you on. Remind you over and over that you have your calling too. The real one. Just like your family . . . (The perfect alibi: to each his own!)
A murderer! Yes, you're a murderer! And I'm your accomplice, your wife. Waiting for you here in Sorel. With Aurélie by my side, thrashing about, caught in the trap.

I make her sit down on the floor, beside me. Facing the fire. First, blow out all the candles. Solemnly, one by one. Only the glow of the fire lighting the room. Our shadows on the wall. And we hold out our hands toward the fire. Aurélie's, so tiny. Fingers spread, like rays. She asks if she can light her pipe. Wraps herself in a cloud of smoke. Sits musing. Eyes half closed. A dream of happiness, clear and simple. Surging waves of passion over her face, pink in the firelight.

“Your affair, Madame . . . You and the doctor . . . I'm dying to see what happens!”

Aurélie doesn't run around with bad boys anymore. Doesn't make her predictions over newborn babies. Never goes anywhere. Just follows me about, wherever I go. Comes to life when I give her a message to take to George. And only then. Bursts into bloom, atwitter and atremble, as soon as I tell her my pleasures or pains. I read a boundless admiration on her face. An infinite awe. A kind of enchantment. As if this hectic life of mine were quite enough for Aurélie now. Enough to spare her the need to live herself. But sometimes it seems to make her angry. And her old hostility toward the doctor comes back again.