Kamouraska (27 page)

Now nothing is left but to climb into his sleigh. Get back to land as quickly as he can. Try to make out the line of snow between the frozen river and the shore.

The stark austerity of the manor table comes to a sudden halt. Old Madame Tassy must observe the convention that opens the doors of a dead man's house to one and all for days on end. There she is now, in the kitchen, giving the staff her orders. Two capons, two ducks, a suckling pig, a half-dozen little pork pies and a pig's-knuckle stew . . .

At Madame's request the justice of the peace swears in two deputies. James Wood, owner of the inn at Kamouraska, and little Robert Dunham, who works at the manor. Both of them sure to recognize the young stranger who took Antoine Tassy into his sleigh. Off to find him, right on his trail. Just follow the road to Sorel, that's all . . .

Sorel! See how that clear, transparent, limpid name strikes you square in the heart, Dame Caroline des Rivières Tassy! Can it be because of that daughter-in-law of yours, holed up on Rue Augusta, trying to choke back her less than proper feelings of hope and impatience? What do you really know about her after all? See with what loving care she nurses her third little son . . .

I'm waiting for a certain traveler. Waiting for the news he'll bring of my deliverance. Your son is a beast, Madame. He tortures
me, tries to kill me. Again and again. The last time he tried to slit my throat with his razor. It's only right that he should be . . . No, don't look at me with those relentless eyes. Your face, so much sand, could crumble to dust, and still those gaping eyes would bore right through me. With only that strange little quizzical look. I don't let anyone stare at me that way. You'll see, I'll escape. Besides, there's so much to keep you here in Kamouraska. The death of your son, the coroner's inquest, the young squire's burial in the little parish church . . . A family council, arranged already. Only the first. Between you and his uncle, Charles-Edouard Tassy. And if by some chance, the mere thought of me grazes you ever so slightly, either one, you're sure to keep it quiet. While rumors go buzzing around inside your heads. Rumors about that woman who used to be Antoine Tassy's pathetic wife . . .

The aristocratic old family machine grinds into motion. Parleys and ponders. My fate is sealed. Decided even before a word is spoken. Keep everything quiet. Condemn Elisabeth d'Aulnières to wear the icy mask of innocence. For the rest of her days. Save her, and save ourselves along with her. Measure her virtue by that haughty way she has of denying the obvious truth.

My strange, deep, dark, conniving fellowship with them both. My awful terror . . .

The tracks are fresh. The innkeepers start to loosen their tongues. At Rivière-Ouelle he asked for a glass of brandy. Didn't want to go inside. Had it served through the window, then didn't even drink it. At Sainte-Anne he tells how his sleigh and his blankets got all splattered when a whole pack of animals had to be slaughtered at once. At Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies he asks to have the blood cleaned off his reins. It's just about two when he comes to L'Islet. He washes up, changes his clothes. The water he uses is all red with blood. He hardly eats. Goes off again. It's ten at night when he asks for a room at the inn at Saint-Vallier. He doesn't take a bite. Pulls off his
woollen belt and throws it in the fire. Next day, Saturday, the second of February, he's on his way at the crack of dawn.

At Saint-Thomas the tracks disappear. No trace of the high-perched sleigh. James Wood and Robert Dunham are ready to think that the big black horse must have some kind of magic power. Carrying off its fiendish master inside the earth. Over perilous roads. Through a desert of trees and snow.

The news doesn't reach Quebec until Tuesday, the fifth of February. On the sixth the coroner's inquest opens in Kamouraska. There's talk of a girl, a stranger, who came to the Dionnes' inn. Just before Epiphany. And gave Monsieur Tassy a drink with poison in it . . . James Wood and Robert Dunham keep following the southern bank. Realize all at once, a good ten miles past Pointe-Lévis, that they don't have a warrant to arrest their man. Turn round and go back all the way to Quebec to get one from the powers that be. And all the while the slow wheels of justice are being set in motion.

The horse goes trudging through the melting snow. Pulls its hooves from the mire with every struggling step. Leaves little holes that fill with water. Like walking along a sandy beach, gnawed away by the tide. A traveler, sinking in the snow. When he ought to be flying, swift as an arrow whistling in the wind . . . No breeze at all. No dead man, murdered, moaning in the breeze. A calm so deep. Everything gently sinking, swallowed down into a strange and mournful silence.

I'm watching for you, Doctor Nelson. Waiting. The prayers for the dying are pounding in my ears. Ready to lure me out of my real life. To bring me back at any moment to my house on Rue du Parloir.

Miserere nobis
...
For behold I was conceived in iniquities
And in sins did my mother conceive me.

Twice now that high-pitched voice of Léontine Mélançon perches above my head. Begs me to get up, out of this bed, where I wallow in my none-too-virtuous adventure.

I try to fight off a great mass of fog. Choke on my words, one by one. Unable to say a thing, to utter a sound. My every gesture shriveling, shrinking. And yet, by some monstrous effort, I seem to be telling Léontine Mélançon that I need so terribly to sleep, to dream . . .

No sooner facing the wall again . . . A horse's galloping hoof-beats whisk through the air like those great gusts of snow in the cove at Kamouraska. Sweep everything along in their internal path. Chasing me! Ready to cut me down! Kill me dead! My God, I'm possessed! . . . No, wait. Now the frenzy has stopped, and the gentle gait of an undertaker's horse takes up in its place. I'm opening my eyes . . . I see Florida, standing in the doorway, with her big face and those gray braids of hers. I seem to hear her saying that someone should bring some coffee, strong and black, to bring Madame round . . .

Oh, no! Whatever else, don't leave the darkness. Not now. Not just when my love is on his way back . . .

To my hearing thou shalt give joy and gladness
And the bones that have been humbled shall rejoice.

The awesome, superhuman things this man has done, he's done for me. And I have to be there, on Rue Augusta. Be there to welcome George Nelson home. With all the thanks and tenderness he deserves. Jump into his arms. Lay my head on his breast. Hear the beating of his heart. Feel his labored breath against my hair. Breathe deep that smell still clinging to his clothes, his skin. The smell of blood and death. Learn of my deliverance from his own parched, fevered lips.

“It's done, Elisabeth. My darling, my wife . . . Now you're free. We're free, the two of us . . .”

But it's Aurélie's piercing voice that first strikes my ear.

“Madame! Madame! It's Monsieur . . . It's the doctor . . . He's back from Kamouraska! . . .”

Aurélie shudders and runs away. Shouting, off in the distance, into the wings.

“Monsieur looks so different. I hardly even knew him! . . . Really, Madame, it's too awful. Just looking at him, thinking about what he must have . . .”

“But Aurélie, my husband's a brute. You know he is. A brute, a wicked brute . . . We had to kill him, we had to . . .”

“We're all of us wicked, Madame. Like the plague . . .”

Someone has just come into my room on Rue Augusta. He's pacing back and forth. Goes over to the window. Lifts the curtain. Looks outside. Peers into the street at his horse and sleigh, in front of my house. Asks in a broken whisper, muffled and harsh at once, if somebody might not be out in the corridor, listening. I hear myself answer, in my sweet, schoolgirl voice, that my mother is sleeping and my aunts are at church.

It's time for me now to walk up behind this man, as he stands at the window. To look him in the eye. To see who he is and let him see me.

His body's shadow, against the light. The massive outline of his shoulders, that chink in the back of his neck as his head bends low. And he mutters his story in precise detail, spitting out his words.

“I'm a doctor after all, and I swear it's just not human. All that blood in one man's body! I'm sure that damned Tassy must have done it to me on purpose! . . .”

Then all at once his shoulders begin to shake, torn by an imbecilic laugh.

He's turning toward me . . . My God, is this how I'm going to see him again? His beautiful face, ravaged and racked and sapped by a madman's laughter?

How much do I really know of what happened between Antoine and George in the cove at Kamouraska? Executioner and victim, in a subtle give-and-take. Two partners in the awful alchemy of murder. The somber business of death, dealt and received. Casting its inconceivable spell. What if, in some mysterious way, my husband's mask were to spread itself over the conqueror's features? No, no! Don't turn, don't look at me now! What if I found on your dear, sweet face the selfsame look of that vicious young man who was once my husband? Sneering and cruel. Raising his arm to strike me. Dreaming of how he can kill me in time . . .

“Elisabeth, look at me. Please, I beg you.”

And finally we look at each other. For a moment, without a word. Standing there face to face. Filling each other with the shadows of darkness. Touching each other with unfamiliar hands. Trying to pick up our scents, like animals new to each other . . . Your face, with its growth of beard. Your body, so thin. Your hands, burned raw by the cold. And me, in front of you. My hands, so white. My heart, like a frantic bird. See, here she is, this silly, vapid, befuddled little creature with the red-blond hair. The one who made you kill.

Which one of us first breaks out in gentle sobs? Head hanging down, like a man on the gallows.

Which one of us dares to utter those two words “love” and “freedom,” there in the dark, and still not die of despair?

Sleep. We have to sleep till morning. Don't we have all our lives to be happy, spread out before us? And we cling in a long embrace, as if we were going to drown.

Too late! James Wood and Robert Dunham, the ones sent out from Kamouraska, meet with the authorities in the town of Sorel. Next morning, February seventh, two policemen appear at Doctor Nelson's house with a warrant for his arrest.

Too late! It's too late! My daughter, Anne-Marie, is trying to bring me to. Tugging at my wrist, hard as she can. And Léontine Mélançon is there, making me take a deep breath of ammonia. Her pincenez falls loose from those colorless, deep-set eyes. Against her hollow chest. Dangles at the end of a long golden string.

I won't let all that life and death on Rue du Parloir come near me. I'm setting up dams of stubborn, dogged defiance. Clinging to the darkness. Delving through the darkness. Feeling my way, as if I were blind. Two arms outstretched in the shadows . . . And all at once, beneath my fingers, a certain wooden wall looms up. Then another. At a perfect right angle. I'm sure I could count every pinewood plank. Back in the doctor's waiting room. The stove marked with the name “Warm Morning,” standing cold. The crumpled bed, the red and blue quilt, the sheets strewn over the floor. A cupboard with its two doors open. Empty. The curtain rod pulled loose. A cretonne curtain, faded white by the sun, hanging like a
rag . . . It's too late! Too late! Why am I here? Doctor Nelson has escaped. Slipped off. They say he's been seen at Saint-Ours . . .

Just time enough to sell his black horse, his American sleigh. Quick, the American border. In a new one, drawn by a brand-new horse. The police, right on his trail . . .

Through my lips a peevish voice is saying that their coffee isn't strong enough to wake me up. A certain urge, like nothing in this world, makes me hold my pillow over my mouth, my eyes, my ears. I don't want anything to do with Rue du Parloir. Or with my husband, Jérôme Rolland.

I dream that I'm all dressed in white. Silly little girl again, going to be married. Someone I can't see fixes my fine silk veil, hanging to the ground. Plants a crown of orange blossoms on my head, heavy with the smell of musk. I have to pass under an archway of stone, with the devil himself on my arm. My fingers clutching a bouquet of bees. And all my children, escorting me along. The darkest one, the smallest, nestled in my right arm, sleeping. Pulls at my spotless bridal gown. Opens the bodice ever so slightly. A breast appears, bursting with milk. And the guests all swoon with pleasure and sing my praises. Oh, what a lovely wedding! They can hardly believe it. Then Aurélie Caron . . . Yes, she's the one, I'm sure . . . Begins to laugh, splits her sides. And somebody says it's high time I looked my love in the face. I lift my head. His face meets mine so fast, I close my eyes with delight . . . Dizzy. Too late. Should have run . . . Like the wind . . . My love is gone already . . .

I beg Aunt Adélaïde to come with me, over the border, far away. But first to Montreal, to the lawyer, Maître Lafontaine. Then retrace our steps. Run off . . . But where can we look? How can we find him? Somewhere deep in the vastness of the woods and forests? He's lost, this man. I'm lost. Aunt Adélaïde and I . . . We're being followed . . . God, the police!

Monday, the eleventh of February. The widow of Antoine Tassy is arrested and taken to prison in Montreal.

You're not my friend anymore, Aurélie. I told you to lie when they put you in the box. Anything, so long as you didn't betray us. Now look what you've done. Here you are in prison, just like your poor mistress. I'm so afraid this awful place is going to taint me, Aurélie. You know how I shrink from anything foul or shameful. (Even in hell I would try to avoid disgrace.) Oh, I can't stand that look of yours. That prison-look. Your profile, pale and wan . . . How can they think I'm guilty of such an awful thing? Your Honor, this girl is a liar, a shameless slut. All the best families for miles around will come to my defense . . .