Heartsong (62 page)

After her father went to bed, she hurried down to Charging Elk's room with a bowl of warm soup and a chunk of bread. It was a cold, clear night and the moon was nearly full, casting clean shadows from the buildings and the bare trees. When she was a small child, Nathalie used to thrill upon such a night with Noël drawing near. She would imagine that the Christ Child and the Virgin were up there, somewhere beyond the moon, looking down on her with great love and understanding for all her shortcomings. On such nights she would pray fervently that her family would always be whole and happy. But tonight she was anxious.

And when she saw no light in the small window, she feared the worst. She knocked and waited for a few seconds. Then she tried the door and it swung inward.

“Charging Elk? My dear?”

The window cast a small square of moonlight on the bed. The
covers were undisturbed. She looked at the table. The unfinished belt lay across it like the dark shadow of a rope.

Nathalie walked slowly into the room and sat down on the bed, still holding the bowl and the bread. The soup steamed in the chill air. Now everything was gone from her, she thought, first her mother, then her home, now her lover. She had been so resolute and determined before dinner—the mistress who would welcome Charging Elk like a member of the family, perhaps even pretend for an evening that he was her husband sitting before the fire—and now she felt like a little girl again, the little girl who had not experienced the love of a man. She set the soup and the bread on the floor and sank back on the bed. Then she cried and she did become the little girl—and the woman in love she had always wanted to be.

And when she awoke, the first thing she noticed was the light from the oil lamp, the soft glow that seemed to warm the cold room. And she saw Charging Elk sitting in his chair beside the bed, looking down at her. Without a thought, she held out her arms, almost like a child wanting to be picked up. Instead, he stretched out beside her and pulled her close into his open coat. They lay quietly for several moments, her chin tucked into his shoulder, his arms circling her in a warmth that made her almost cry again. Then he whispered in her ear and she said yes, yes.

T
he next morning Charging Elk wore his suit to breakfast. By now it was eleven years old and very much out of style, even by the standards of provincial Agen. More than that, the pants were baggy in the seat and in the knees and there was not even a suggestion of a crease. The coat looked like those worn by the peasants on town days, the pockets empty but retaining a vestigial bulge from long-forgotten cargo. Nevertheless, Charging Elk wore the suit with dignity, and the nearly clean white shirt, which had been packed away
since his arrival in Agen, gave him an almost priestly look. Only the hair which flowed down his back to his shoulder blades was a reminder of his days at the Stronghold and later the Wild West show.

Charging Elk sat down in his usual place across from Vincent. Vincent toyed with his spoon, twirling it around and around. Nathalie had her back to the two men, stirring the porridge on the stove. Her brown hair, which she usually let fall loosely around her shoulders, was pinned up so that it formed a neat bun. She wore her usual dress and apron but her shoulders seemed a little higher and her back straighten She left off her stirring and poured coffee and hot milk into a large bowl and set it before Charging Elk. He glanced up at her almost without recognition. He had his mind on another thing.

“Again I ask for your daughter's hand in marriage, Monsieur Gazier,” he said, as though he were simply carrying on the conversation they had had in the orchard. He was looking at his own hands, which were folded together and resting on the oilcloth covering the table.

Vincent toyed with his spoon for a moment, tapping it against the table. Then he glanced toward his daughter, who had quit stirring the porridge and stood erect but motionless. There was much about her, now that she was filling out, that reminded him of Lucienne. Even the way she wore her hair in a loose bun today

“And what does my daughter say to this?” he said to her back.

Nathalie didn't turn around right away. With her apron she moved the steaming pot of porridge to a cooler place on the stove. She wiped her hands, a practiced but unnecessary gesture. Only then did she turn, but instead of facing her father she looked toward Charging Elk.

“I would be very happy to become his wife,” she said. Her
voice sounded weak to her, unused, but she added, “We are in love.”

Vincent frowned. “So you two have discussed this—without telling me?”

For a moment neither of them answered. Perhaps they were deciding how much to tell him. Perhaps they were both remembering last night. Finally Charging Elk said, “Yes. Nathalie has agreed to become my wife. With your permission, monsieur.”

“We love each other, father. We will be happy together.”

“And if this marriage were to take place, would you move with him to Marseille?” But Vincent didn't wait for an answer. He stood stiffly and walked around the table and out the door, closing it behind him.

At any other time, Vincent would have marveled at such a beautiful morning. A thin fog hung in the courtyard, golden beneath the rising sun. Soon the fog would burn off and the sky would become the clean blue of a rare late-December day when the earth would warm just enough to remind him that the orchards were only sleeping, that in three months' time the tiny buds would begin to appear on the plum trees and the growing season would begin again, just as it had for the many generations that the Gaziers had owned this land. At any other time, Vincent would have given thanks to the Lord for allowing his family to enjoy the bounty of such a paradise. And Vincent would have considered himself a very lucky man on such a rare day.

But in truth, he was a dispirited man and had been so for the past several months. Perhaps he could have gotten over Lucienne's death. He had watched it coming for a long time, and when it came, in spite of his grief, he had felt relieved and almost was able to think of a new life for his daughter. He knew that eventually she would marry and go off to start her own family. But he could have lived with that, as long as she was happy. And who knew—perhaps her
husband would end up working alongside Vincent in the orchards. Then they would all be together. He had always dreamed of grandchildren playing in this very courtyard. In his best moments, he thought that life could be tolerable again for him. Even without Lucienne.

But Vincent s own health had taken a turn for the worse. His leg ached constantly now, no longer a matter of mere annoyance, and was actually growing thinner, weaker. He knew that even if Charging Elk managed to complete the pruning by himself, his leg would not allow him to endure the rigors of the growing and harvesting seasons—and of taking care of the pigs and geese and doing the dozens of other chores around the farm. Even if Nathalie decided to stay with him, if they could somehow stay on the farm, she would become a slave to the garden, to the orchards, to a life of constant labor. He had seen it happen before—young women who became little more than beasts of burden, who became bitter and resentful, old before their time, and finally as unresponsive as the dumb oxen who pulled the millstones in circles.

No, he couldn't allow this to happen to his daughter. But to marry a savage! What would Lucienne think of such an ungodly union? Where was God in all this?

Later that day, Vincent composed a letter to Madame Loiseau. His hand was slow and deliberate but the words and letters were very readable, thanks to his mother, who had taught in a country school only a few kilometers to the south before she had married his father. Even as he wrote the words that he hoped would put an end to this insanity, he regretted never having insisted that Nathalie learn to read and write. Although she had gone to school for three years, she had been an indifferent pupil whose only concern seemed to be measuring up to her friends, and when her schooling had ended, so too ended any desire to read and write. She had been content to learn the skills of the house and farm with the idea that such
skills would serve her better as a farm wife. What good is it to learn to read and write when I have nothing to read and nobody to write to, she would say to his entreaties.

As Vincent folded up the letter, he felt a stabbing ache in his leg from having sat in one position too long. And when he stood, he couldn't feel any sensation in his foot. My God, he thought, it gets worse by the day now. He hadn't been to a doctor for many years, at least twenty, since the time he almost lost a finger splitting kindling. He had been embarrassed then at such a stupid accident, but this was serious. He sat down again and massaged the leg with both hands. Even as he felt the burden of his miseries seemingly mount by the hour, he tucked the folded letter into a cubbyhole of the writing desk, then closed the top. He suddenly was frightened for himself and for Nathalie. Dear, sweet Lucienne, what should I do?

N
othing more was said of the proposed marriage that day or the next. Vincent ate his breakfast in near silence, and at dinnertime, he retired early, even though Nathalie would light the fire in the parlor. He spent the days either inside or wandering among the buildings of the farm, rearranging tack, cleaning the goose pen, although that was Nathalie's job, or just standing in the horse shed, not really knowing why he was there.

Charging Elk spent the days pruning in the orchards. He had not pushed Vincent again because he sensed that the man was thinking, that he was not just ignoring the proposal. And so he pruned the trees, sometimes with a great burst of joy at what might be, other times with a numbing despondency at what would probably happen. In the evening, he and Nathalie would sit in the parlor and watch the fire and look at the crèche. They sat apart from each other, glancing at each other from time to time in an almost
searching way, then he would swallow the last of his
eau-de-vie
, say his good night, and go to his room.

On the eve of Noël, Charging Elk hitched the horses to the wagon. He had not wanted to go to the
wasichu
church again but Vincent had insisted. This puzzled Charging Elk; nevertheless, he waited outside in the cold night air for Vincent and Nathalie.

Vincent sat between them during the service. Charging Elk was pleasantly overcome by the holy smoke and the songs of the priest and the choir, but he noticed that Vincent slumped when he knelt, half sitting against the bench, his forehead resting on his folded hands.

When Vincent slumped like this, Charging Elk had a clear view of Nathalie out of the corner of his eye. He had never seen a more beautiful woman, and in her finest dress and felt hat with a netting that half-hid her face, she was truly a woman. But even as he was thrilled at the sight of her, he almost felt that he didn't know this young woman, that she might have been a stranger that he admired from afar. And he suddenly felt unworthy—a savage that didn't deserve such beauty. Although he knew that this was not a holy place for him, he closed his eyes, breathed in the smoke which reminded him of burning sweetgrass, and asked Wakan Tanka for kindness and pity just this once.

After a late dinner of fish soup, a dish that Lucienne had always prepared on the eve of Noël, Nathalie cleared the table while the men sat and talked of the pruning. Nathalie listened with a feeling of annoyance and disbelief that such a mundane subject should occupy the two men. She had prepared the soup that afternoon, almost without thinking because her mind was on so many things—this was the first Noël without her mother, the first with Charging Elk, the last on the farm, and perhaps the last with her-father.

She had made up her mind to run away with Charging Elk
rather than go to Bordeaux. She didn't know how they would get to Marseille, what they would do for money, and the thought of such a far, strange city filled with a different kind of people frightened her. But since the night he had opened up his coat for her she had come to feel that he would protect her no matter what they did, no matter where their fortunes took them.