Kamouraska (17 page)

“They pet me, they coddle me! They rob me and rape me! They cost me a fortune. I'm riddled with debts. I'll go back to my mother's. I'm the squire of Kamouraksa. I'll sell some of my wood-lands . . . But first I want to make peace with my wife.”

Eluding every watchful eye, Antoine shuts himself up in a bedroom on Rue Augusta. While wife and children are spirited through a side door out of the house.

Antoine sleeps for three days. Wakes up at the end of the third and, in a booming voice, demands his dinner in bed. He eats in his room, all alone, like a prisoner. Seems to take great delight in his seclusion. Looks at himself in the mirror, amazed to see a shaggy beard over-running his face. Orders the beard to be shaved off at once. Calls for hot water and soap. Soaks a good hour in the tub. Tells his servant that all the remains of Horse Marine are washed away forever.

“There, Ignace, I'm nice and clean. Like after confession.
Now go tell Madame.”

Ignace stares blankly at Antoine. Recites his lesson, carefully learned. Transfixed, trembling from head to toe.

“Madame is gone, and all the ladies and the children too. There's no one here. No one except the lawyer, Maître Lafontaine, and his son. And they're going to Kamouraska. They're waiting for Monsieur downstairs, in the drawing room . . .”

Then, all of a sudden, the one nobody expected. The angry wife. Sparks flying, like a gun. Striding into the house with firm, quick step. And close on her heels, a procession of weeping women.

“Let's make our peace with my husband, once and for all, and let that be the end of it.”

Once it's clear what “making peace” means to Antoine, the sooner his urges are satisfied the better. As violently as possible . . . The real world is back in order. Honor is restored. And the blameless wife can announce that she's pregnant again by her husband.

We make our peace in the big guest room where Antoine has taken refuge. The bed, draped with chintz. The sheets, a little rough. A red tulip sits in a pot on the windowsill. And deep inside me my baby suffers the frenzied attacks of an alien passion. My baby, assailed, defiled . . . .

But now, suddenly, Antoine throws his arms around me, tries to kiss me. No, that's one thing I won't let him do. I scream. Everyone in the house comes running. Sees me clutching the sheets to my chin. Hears me claim that my husband has tried to choke me . . . .

It's three in the afternoon. The drawing room on Rue Augusta, cluttered with knickknacks. My mother has had the bizarre idea of inviting Antoine to tea before he leaves. I'm shaking so badly I can't hold my cup. Maître Lafontaine's rocking chair creaks through the silence.

It seems that Antoine no longer sees or hears a thing. Oblivious to the absurdity of his position. Somehow withdrawn from the world. Consumed in the fruitless search within himself for that unbearable, debasing, degrading something down at the very roots of his being.

The sun is too bright here in this house too. Antoine makes no effort to move back from the window, out of the blinding light. His red eyes don't even blink. It's almost as if he were glad to submit to the torturous sun without the slightest struggle.

A long ray cuts through the room, hits me head-on.

My turn to be caught in its snares. I look away.

Someone is telling them they'd better hurry. The steamboat leaves Sorel at four.

All at once Antoine is in front of me, face to face. That expression of utter obtuseness. His last look. Too much sun. I don't dare show my loathing, turn away again . . . He's speaking in a whisper, across my sightless gaze. Slowly, faintly. And yet, with a menace in his voice that seems to come from out in space. Its murmur echoing in my ear.

“Elisabeth, my dear . . . You're not getting rid of me so easily. I'll be back, you'll see . . .”

He asks to see his sons. They're brought in. He kisses each one voraciously on the cheeks.

As soon as Antoine has gone, things are calm and peaceful for a time. And we keep pretending, George and I, that a life of peace and calm can really exist. Keep playing the game. Discreetly. Keep making plans for the future. Chatting about how we're going to be married. About wiping Antoine off the face of the earth. As simply and nicely as can be.

From time to time we meet near the little church. Take leisurely walks. Play at Monsieur-and-Madame-out-strolling. Toss offhand nods at the few passersby. And before we know it, we find ourselves heading out toward the country.

There's not much chance that my husband will challenge my lover to a duel. All the same, we carefully pick out a proper meadow just on the edge of the forest. Let our imagination picture that morning at the crack of dawn. The dew shimmering in the sunlight. The white shirts. The seconds with their hangdog looks. The surgeon's little black box. The choice of weapons. The heavy pistols, gleaming bright. The fifteen paces, according to the rules. The piercing shot echoing through the air. The terse ritual of death . . . . Then the smoke lifts. The victor stands revealed, head bare. In the middle of the meadow. Still holding his smoking weapon.
Looks aghast at his rival, lying on the ground. Justice has been done . . . . But now the wife, weeping bitter tears. Running breathless through the dew-soaked grass. Her shoes are wet. She lifts her skirts to run still faster. Screams in that voice that only a widow can utter: “My husband! You've killed my husband!” Poor Antoine. It's over, finished. Your brawny chest, ripped open by a bullet. Your heart, torn out like a baby's tooth. Your blood, spilled out on the ground. Under your arm, tufts of blond hair matted with sweat . . . It's all well and good to say that the drunkard's hand can't aim. To say that it shakes. But what if, by some awful mistake, that were your heart, my love, ripped open by a bullet? I know I would die . . .

One day won't we have to make up our minds to put an end to chance? To stop dreaming. If we want to go on living . . . My, but you like to lag behind! . . . What are you thinking, here beside me? Sitting on the ground, under the pines. With your body against a tree. As if nailed to a cross.

One of us has to die. Just one . . .

The young man sits motionless. A young woman sits beside him. Her white muslin skirt is spread out around her. She looks up at the man. A calm resolve takes shape on her face. Her hair, severely parted, pulled back tight, outlines her narrow brow.

“My, my, Elisabeth. See how you're staring!”

The young woman carefully writes a message on a pad of paper. Short and concise. Hands it to the man.

“Antoine must be killed!”

The young man writes an answer on the pad.

“That's just between Antoine and me.”

For a moment a strange expression comes over your face. A vague little smile. A brief look of bliss. Is it the thought of death that fascinates you so? Transfigures you? I read the words on your lips more clearly than I hear them.

“Antoine must be killed.”

Just you and Antoine now, closed off from the rest of the world. You're speaking, but I'm sure you neither see nor hear me. You seem a little sad. You're saying that pity has rotted away, that it's dead beyond recall. You even remind me that once upon a time, at school, no youngster was more miserable than . . .

That one word, “school.” And I'm swept up in a flood of anger. Torn by jealous rage. I wish I could erase forever that part of your being where I don't exist. That schoolboy's world. A private world, with its masses, its Latin . . . But hard as I try to plunge within myself, I can't hold off your childhood memories. Listen. Little by little, with every word you utter, a bell begins to ring, louder and louder, echoing through my ears. Grows sharp as a blade. Forces me to listen. Wakes up a dormitory, fast asleep. In the middle of winter. Cries out the news that it's five in the morning . . . . Thank God it's so dark that I can't make out a soul. That smell, like an animal's den. Beginning to choke me . . . The boys are trying to wrench themselves awake. Somebody lights a candle. Dubious shapes come out of the darkness. Move about in the candle's glimmer. Cast giant, languid shadows on the wall. Shiver. Sink back into the darkness. Blend with their shadows on the wall . . . The shadow of a hand makes the sign of the cross, vaguely, off in space. The huge, bare wall, with bits of saltpeter clustered about the cracks, swallows up the shadow of this holy hand. “
In nomine Patris
” . . . Begun in deep, sepulchral tones, and ending high and shrill. Another voice, a little softer, and just a bit younger. Your voice, George, with your thick American accent.

“The hardest thing is to duck in the icy water while your face is still fast asleep!”

I can hear ice now being broken in a pitcher. Someone whimpering, asking for a pick to break the ice. Someone using my oldest son's voice to cry with. (Antoine's voice as a child, I'm
sure.) I want it all to be over. All of it, now, this very minute . . .

I'm looking up at the cloudless sky. Up through the dark leaves over my head. My gaze, rising past you, up along the pine tree where you're leaning. As far as the great blue burst of sky. On the ground, red-brown needles, prickly and perfumed. Once more you tell me that pity is dead, that it's rotted away. Then silence takes hold of you again. Leaning against your tree. As if you were closing yourself inside that tree, with all your foreign and mysterious ways . . . Bark is growing on your hands. A rough, gnarled bark. Beginning to cover your face, to reach your heart now. Turning you into a tree. I scream . . .

You look at me. To beg me to be quiet.

Your face emerges from the void, stands out from the shadows. Seems to be born again, a second time, clearer and more precise. The bridge of your nose, sharper somehow. A darker flashing in your eyes, set deeper under the ridges of your brow. Your pallor, brighter.

The summer day is streaming with light. You look at your hands, so thin. Examine them with care. Hold them out to me, open and defenseless.

“I don't have a murderer's hands, though, do I?”

Poor dear, you must expect me to reassure you. But all I can do is take your hands and kiss them, one at a time. Run them, warm and willing, over my face. Your dear, sweet, murderer's hands . . .

A kind of ritual between us. Each time we're together in the pine grove, when it's still not dark enough for us to . . . We make believe we're tombstone figures, lying flat. Playing at death. The tautness of death, stretched out to its final length. The stiffness of death, all feeling gone. Complete and utter emptiness. And anything not part of us has to be stripped away. Like mushrooms scraped off a rock with a knife. (An old school friend, an unfortunate husband . . .) Any link with the world outside must be
destroyed . . . The body, frozen. The heart, drained hollow. Silence. Dizziness.

You touch my hand. The blood comes surging back through my veins. Untrammeled, purged of the great wide world, we have nothing inside us now but desire. Like a flame. And we let ourselves roll toward each other, ever so gently. When, all at once . . . Close by, the pine needles, crackling. Aurélie and the children . . .

And whispered in English: “Good-bye my love . . .”

The way you say that, darling. As if we were free, the two of us.

Great slapping sheets of rain are breaking against the window. The street is full of puddles. The rain's smell mingles with the musty stench of ink and paper. That sheet of paper, lying blank in front of me on the table. Over my shoulder, a burst of Aurélie's piping laughter.

“Look at that rain! You poor thing, Madame! Kept indoors like a naughty child! Just look at that rain!”

I sigh and chew on the tip of my pen. This dreadful assignment. And during vacation! May as well do it tonight, as long as it's raining. Besides, it's getting late. Better hurry . . . Now I want you to copy this over one hundred times: “My darling husband — your loving wife is writing — to announce a blessed event — a blessed event to take place . . . in the month of . . . (I count on my fingers, then count again) in the month of December, if my calculations are correct . . . My darling husband — your loving wife is writing . . . if my calculations are correct . . . your loving wife . . .”

Someone says it's time to go to bed. The rain is letting up. The countryside blows great sodden gusts in through the window. Little frogs, chirping, off in the distance. Their notes enclose the
town in a kind of crystal circle, broken from time to time by the muffled croaking of the giant bullfrogs.

The rain holds me prisoner. And I think about that other prisoner of the rain. The one I can't be with. Out there, in his house. Out there, beyond . . . The sound of raindrops on the shingled roof. I see his face. I manage somehow to see it, but only through the window. Water, deep and impassable . . . Far from me now, but he's gesturing, speaking. Living. His every word, his every movement, there in that total solitude, meant just for me. If even one wave of his hand escapes me, my life could begin to slip away. Seep out through my very pores . . .

That gutter on the house on Rue du Parloir will have to be fixed. How can I live in Sorel, out here in the country, with all this rain, and that waterspout clanging in my ears? And Florida, lumbering between the bed and the table. She shouldn't make so much noise. Well, at least we don't have to listen to Jérôme Rolland and his breathless gasps . . .

“My darling husband — your loving wife is writing . . .”

The doctor's kitchen, filled with the smell of oil and smoke. The wick in the lamp is too short. It's smoking. He trims the wick. Wipes the soot from the globe. His deft hands show their dazzling skill. Such perfect control of the body. While the head goes wandering off its course, lost in the summer night.

You have to go to sleep, Doctor Nelson. Stretch out on that bench. Don't even take off your clothes. Just your jacket and shoes, that's enough. Now roll up your jacket in a ball, under your head. Like a soldier, ready to leap to his feet at the least little signal. Rifle by his side. You're a doctor, don't forget. They can call you any hour of the day or night. For a child being born, or someone about to die, or . . .