Kamouraska (21 page)

Rue du Parloir. Someone is stirring beside my husband's bed. But I, Elisabeth d'Aulnières, evil Elisabeth, I only hear the sharp, clear voice of Aurélie Caron, off in another world. A world where . . .

“This love affair of yours will be the death of me, Madame! How long . . .”

A voice I adore replies.

“We only have to wait for the snow and the ice. As soon as the roads get hard enough, you'll leave for Kamouraska . . .”

“I'm Aurélie Caron, from the town of Sorel . . . That's who I am. Still a minor . . . The next morning, Doctor Nelson called me into his office. He gave me twenty dollars for the trip, and nine more to buy myself a bunch of clothes.”

Now Antoine's murder is in Aurélie's hands. Such a feeling of calm. A rare peace of mind.

Nothing to do now but wait. Be patient and wait for the snow. Learn to live within ourselves. With just enough room to exist. Careful not to look too far ahead. George, Aurélie, and I, trying to pull the four corners of space about us. Gather them round us. Reduce them to their simplest terms. Even less than the walls of a room. A kind of small, scaled box. A jar, closed tight. And we learn to breathe as little air as possible.

We mete out our every word, our every gesture. Choose them sparingly. Only the really essential ones. Stripped of all far-reaching implication. Gestures and words that have nothing to do with a certain plan that could ruin us all.

I have to take a careful look at Aurélie's new clothes. The ones she bought from Jean-Baptiste Denis, just for the trip. We're speaking to each other in a whisper.

“You're sure you won't be too cold, Aurélie?”

“Oh no, Madame! . . . Look how pretty everything is! . . . Did you see the knitted shawl with the red tassles?”

Worst of all is Antoine's silence. Not knowing what he's doing,
where he is. Couldn't he surprise us and come bursting in? Here in Sorel? Even at this very moment, while we're planning to go to him in Kamouraska? . . . Isn't there some uncomplicated way the whole thing could be done without disturbing Antoine's silence? Without piercing the mystery of anybody's silence, his or ours. Working invisibly, somehow. Leaving Antoine to stagnate, tucked away; buried in his manor in Kamouraska. Leaving him there forever, to sleep off his liquor and lick his wounded pride. Letting him calmly be swallowed up. Then vanishing, like merciful shadows, without a trace . . .

Aurélie has her new shawl on, over her head. Won't even take it off inside the house. Each time it slips down from that mass of unruly hair, piled high on her head in a tangle, back up it goes. She's sitting on the kitchen floor. Over and over, trying to read the future in the cards. And when it comes out badly she turns very pale and looks as if she's going to be sick. With one dramatic sweep she whisks the cards away. Comes looking for me all through the house. Whispers in my ear.

“We're in for a bad time, Madame! I can read it in the cards!”

Oh, how I wish she would leave! I can't bear having her here in the house! That deathly pallor . . . Yes, that's what sets my nerves on edge. I seem to see her wasting away before my eyes the closer we come to a certain day, the day she leaves . . . May as well ramble on like this about Aurélie and how bad she looks. It's better than thinking about the drunken, sickly squire of Kamouraska.

Besides, it's so easy to flush that moon-white face of hers. Just start to talk about velvet and fancy silk, mad love and consuming passion . . .

Soothed and comforted, imbued with a sense of her own importance, grasping and greedy beyond all decent bounds, Aurélie Caron swears that she'll carry out her mission. She packs her carpetbag. Carefully making sure that there's room between the piles of clothes to slip in the two little flasks the doctor has prepared.

Snow. It's not the end of the world just yet. It's only snow. Snow, as far as the eye can reach. Like being lost at sea.

I'm here at my post, at my bedroom window, behind the blinds. Rue Augusta lies out at my feet, covered with white. Sleigh tracks gleam in the hardened snow. The shadows are very blue. Rue Philippe, close by, goes out into the country. The dry trees crackle in the wind . . . The gift. I have the gift of second sight. That's why they've put me here. Massive and motionless. (Almost ready to have my baby.) To learn what's going to happen. See it and hear it all. That's why they've torn me away from Rue du Parloir, in Quebec, at this very moment when my husband . . . As if the most pressing thing of all, the most urgent thing in my life, were to sit behind a window, here in Sorel, and wait for Jérôme Rolland's hoarse, throaty gasps to grow still forever.

Let them say and do what they please. I'm still the main witness in this drama of snow and passion. The others will come in, one by one, and refresh my memory. And even the places along the way, the scenes of the action — from Sorel to Kamouraska, Kamouraska to Sorel — will open themselves up before me. Free to come and go as I please, as the need arises. Never failing,
never dying. Still so strangely fresh, this tale of mine . . .

I keep my watch. Lift a corner of the curtain. Scratch my nails against the frost. And my eyes go running up Rue Philippe, out toward the country. In no time at all I see the doctor's wooden house. The roof, sloping sharply, and snow piled high around the dormer. The stone chimney smoking against the hard blue sky.

Aurélie Caron goes tripping over the snow, her airy shadow dancing before her. A man in a raccoon coat is coming down the road to meet her, here in the bitter winter cold. Waving his arm above his head. Gesturing Aurélie on . . . Now they're side by side. Aurélie and this man whose figure, stoutly wrapped in fur, sets my heart beating, heavy and hollow. I can see them both very clearly. Thick clouds of frosty breath streaming from their lips. Aurélie stares at the ground.

“Well, Aurélie, winter's here at last. You leave tomorrow.”

Little Aurélie Caron . . . Is she trying to resist? All ready to do his bidding, but not without a grumble. Is that a quiver I hear in her fretful voice as she declares:

“If I do a thing like this for you and Madame Tassy, I'll be disgraced forever. Me and my whole family . . .”

Behind the window I can only imagine what George Nelson and Aurélie Caron are saying. Only try to reproduce the sound of those voices I can't really hear, clashing together. In the bright winter morning.

“There's nothing to be afraid of. No one will ever know. Think of your poor mistress and how miserable she is. Think of your future, Aurélie . . .”

Her face, red with the cold. Knitting her brow and squinting in the brilliant sun. An instant, no more, and a monstrous idea works its way through her head. Then suddenly an end to all resistance. Under the dark and penetrating gaze that holds her fast.

Aurélie's voice, with a haughty little pout. Almost in a whisper.

“Besides, Monsieur, it's an awfully long trip . . .”

I wish I could urge her on. Encourage this child entrusted with such a frightful mission. Smile at her from behind my window. Promise her all the wonders that can transform her life.

“You won't have to work for the rest of your days, Aurélie. You'll have the prettiest dresses money can buy. You're my friend, my only friend. More than my friend, Aurélie. My sister . . .”

No use to go and shout myself hoarse. She can't hear me now. And neither can anyone else. My whole life has to run its course again, and there's nothing I can do about it. Not even make the slightest change. I won't be spared the least detail. May as well save my strength. Here in my glass cage, stop all my futile shouting. Opening, closing my mouth, like goldfish in a bowl.

Nothing to do but count the hours, the days. Wait until Aurélie Caron comes back. Pay careful attention to how much time goes by. Try to imagine exactly what she's doing at every moment. This child, traveling down the river . . .

Monday evening George gives Aurélie two little bottles. One with a half-pint of brandy in it. The other, a whitish liquid, just about a wineglass full. Next morning, bright and early, Aurélie climbs up into the mail coach. Dressed in her new clothes, from tip to toe, like a bride going off on her wedding trip. A coat of homespun cloth, a green serge dress, a pair of Indian boots, heavy knitted stockings. And the red woollen shawl, with the tassels.

Aurélie doesn't let her carpetbag out of her sight. Keeps it by her feet all the way. At Trois-Rivières she takes the stagecoach to Quebec. Then the boat across to Pointe-Lévis. She meets a man from Kamouraska at the dock, and he offers to take her to Kamouraska for a couple of dollars.

My third child is born. I can hear a young woman screaming with pain inside me. I can hear a man, all by himself, singing a lullaby in a closed house on the outskirts of Sorel. Perhaps in some secret way, he's actually part of the winter cold. Blended and fused together as one. Just as he seemed to be part of the mud-soaked roads one autumn night . . . I can hear the tune he's humming: “My baby and my wife, in one bouquet of love . . .” His tenderness, soft as honey. Shine a light on his heart, examine it. You won't find even a trace of sin. Now the murder is all in Aurélie Caron's hands. And the poison. We're saved. Both of us, peaceful and calm, as if by some miracle. Only time will tell if this deceptive peace might not make us shriek with fright one day . . .

I wish Aurélie could try her skill on my newborn son. Lick him all over from head to toe, and tell me whether or not he tastes of salt and death.

Do things like that shock and disgust you, Doctor Nelson? Risk stirring up the worthy country doctor's righteous wrath? Don't you know how useful it can be, at times, for nice little witches to be born and die? To walk the earth just long enough to bear the burden of crime and death for us?

Whatever you do, my love, don't think too much about Aurélie. Don't give a thought to taking her place in Kamouraska. I don't want you to leave me. To overcome a certain loathing and let your handsome face take on the mask of death. No, no, I beg you. No, not you . . .

My three fairy godmothers — a little more stooped, a little more bony and brittle — are leaning over my new baby's cradle. Blessing him, in the depths of their apprehensive hearts. Bestowing upon him the seven traditional gifts of the Spirit. But without much faith left in the power of their love. And with tears welling up in their eyes . . .

The midwife washes her hands. Folds up her butcher apron. Laughs with every wrinkle in her face. Goes off to bring the happy news to Doctor Nelson, just as he asked.

“It's a boy, Doctor Nelson. Madame Tassy gave birth to a boy. About three this morning. She's doing fine. And the baby seems set to stay around a good long time! . . .”

You're bending over this bed where I bore my child. Saying that everything is just as it ought to be. That only people who are really alive, the way we are, deserve to live.

Someone is here in the bedroom with us. Someone surprised at how long Aurélie has been gone. Three weeks already since . . .

Again the window, covered with frost. The command to keep an eye on the street, be sure to notice if anyone comes or goes. Watch for the slightest sign. I'm hardly over my labor, hardly on my feet, and still I have to take up my post again behind the glass. Scan the horizon as far as the eye can see. To the utmost limits of my concentration. As far as Kamouraska. I must, I have no choice . . . I've just found out that Aurélie is back, and already George is going to leave. Right away. It can't be helped. And I have to say good-bye to him through a windowpane. Forever and ever, this screen between us, this layer of glass and ice. Your image, distorted by frost and death, off to the end of the world. Good-bye my love. Adieu mon amour . . . When you come back nothing will be the same. You won't be, I won't be . . . I plead with you not to go. You tell me that Aurélie failed us, and that now you'll just have to go yourself.

“He won't get away from me, that swine!”

Torture her, hang her, cut off her head, rip it from her body . . . Aurélie won't take back a word of her story. She'll shout it loud and clear through all eternity.

“I put the poison in his brandy and gave it to him to drink. Then
I left him for dead in the sleigh. And he was, too. He was dead . . .”

“But look, you little fool! I'm telling you that Monsieur Tassy is still alive! We got a letter from his mother just this morning. She says he's fine, in spite of those little flings of his once in a while!”

“Little flings! Sweet Jesus! He drank half the poison in the tin cup I gave him! And I left him in his sleigh. And I'm sure he was good and . . . No, that man must have nine lives, that's all. Like a cat! . . .”

Rose Morin, servant in the manor at Kamouraska, says she can't sign her name. Makes a cross.

“Thursday night, at about eleven, Monsieur Tassy came home, and he was very sick. He kept throwing up. He told me he was at the inn. The Dionnes' inn. And that this girl he knew gave him something to drink. Yes, he was really sick. Straight through till Sunday. And then he began to get better. Little by little. For a long time his face was all pale, and he looked just awful . . .”

The sound of a whip cracks through the echoing air. It's five in the morning. At the other end of Sorel a man is putting up the collar of his peasant coat. Tightening his woollen belt around his waist. Climbing into an American sleigh perched high on its runners. Speaking softly to himself. Like someone who's all alone in the world. Saying that now he knows what he's good for. That this is something that has to be settled man to man. The days of witches are over. Their poisons, their charms, their iron cauldrons . . . Put away, laid aside with lullabies and swaddling clothes. Evil Elisabeth, all because of you . . .

Black on white. Beard, hair, eyes, heart . . . Oh, yes, especially your heart. Black, black, black . . . The horse and sleigh. And the white snow, blinding, under pounding hooves, all the way to the end of the road. Of every road. Where the horizon teeters on the edge of emptiness. To kill a man, out at the farthest reaches of all that emptiness. To keep from falling over, into the abyss. Just
long enough to take aim and fire. A gallon of blood to shed. About a gallon, not much more. You're a doctor. You know about things like that. No one knows as much about birth and death as you. No one, except perhaps those backwoods crones. Eternal seamstresses of swaddling clothes and shrouds . . .