Kamouraska (6 page)

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 infant. 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!”

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 moment? 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 . . .”