Kamouraska (23 page)

I try to stop, get a foothold at the inn at Saint-Vallier. Try to see what the young stranger looks like. But already the innkeeper's voice goes running along, faster and faster now, hurtling me on through time. At the speed of his words. With no image to cling to. No face to recall . . .

Now Michel-Eustache Letellier is speaking again. About the young stranger, and how he returned. Sunday, the third of February, at night.

“I noticed that on his way back those black whiskers of his were much longer than before. Almost covered the whole of his face. And he really seemed awfully excited and upset. Why, he pulled off his woollen belt and threw it away. Right in the fire. You could smell it burning all through the hall.”

I wish I could fill my lungs with the odor of smoldering wool. In the hall at the inn at Saint-Vallier. Walk up to that man bent over the fire. Creep up behind him. Take my time gazing at my lover's neck. The back of his neck. Sure as I've always been that that's where you'll find a man's vigor and power. Such fierce determination in George Nelson's neck. So graceful, yet so strong. And hiding the secret of his energy deep inside. It fills me with awe and despair, both at once. Oh, to possess my love. To make him my own, like my very own hand. Be with him at every deed of his wonderful manly strength. Knowing his every thought. Feeling his every pain. To be two with him. Double and fierce with him. Raise my arm with him when the time comes to do it. To kill my husband with him.

The belt he burned, his homespun coat, his little black hood, his fur-trimmed cap, his black horse and American sleigh, the bisonskin blankets lined with red . . . Sorel to Kamouraska and back in ten days: Four hundred miles, in the dead of winter, without even a change of horse.

No use for the innkeepers down the river to go over the same description, hit or miss. There's no one but me who could really . . .

The stranger says he's off to do what has to be done. Where nobody else can take his place. Or understand, or feel the way he does. Let Elisabeth d'Aulnières look after the children and try to comfort Aurélie as best she can. This is a job for a man to take care of. Between this man and his solitude, that's all. And now, coming to meet him at dizzying speed, this act that will give that solitude its meaning. The strange conclusion to the frantic battle George Nelson has waged for so long against death. Perhaps forever? Almost since the day he was born. Or maybe even in his mother's womb . . . ? His dead mother, snatched away so soon. And the child, so dark and thin. Struggling against the image of death within himself. Or perhaps the thought of his father's death? Or the son's (his own reflection, that is, so distorted, so terribly weak)? Or
Antoine's childish face, with his big, fat cheeks, bending over a basin of icy water?

Raw flesh, rotting corpse, blood, pus, urine, filth of every kind, gangrenous decay, noxious stench, crushed bones, drowned beauties with eyes agape and swollen bellies, baby born deformed, woman raped, galloping consumption, diphtheria, dysentery . . . Doctor Nelson has fought so hard against disease and death. He's given so much of his life to the saving of men and women. But this one won't escape.

“He won't get away from me, Aurélie.”

This one deserves to die. He's much too fat, too soft and weak. His wife is too pretty and so unhappy. He's lost her, and now he'll lose his life. Better if the squire of Kamouraska had never been born at all.

What can Antoine Tassy be doing on that lonely cape of his out in the river? Under the piercing gaze of Madame Tassy, his mother? Does he keep rehearsing his fits of rage, and wounded pride, over and over, in endless drunken revels? Is he ready to go after some simple, frightened young peasant girl and chase her from barn to barn, from shed to stable? Isn't the one task left for him now to wait for his murderer, making his way over miles and miles to reach him?

Antoine's strange complicity drives me to distraction. Yet all of this is taking place beyond me. In a far-off land full of blood and snow. Between two men, bound to each other by an awesome, otherworldly mystery. What if each of them, both at once, were to wear the same fraternal face? Two men, with faces racked and transfigured by something strange and dreadful sweeping over them. The taste of death. And what if, somehow, I could see it all happen? There in the cove at Kamouraska. A loaded pistol, aimed at a young man's temple. A young man, much too fat, and rotten to the core . . . No, I would die! I'm sure I would die! I'm just the
opposite of death. I'm love. Living and loving. Living and dying . . . No, I want to live! And I want you to live! Antoine is the one who has to die. Well, let him die then, and that will be that!

Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière! A name that rings like a bell. A single peal, long and deep, echoing in the winter cold. Once past Saint-Anne the witnesses' stories will start to multiply, make leaps and bounds, burst into view, cut across one another, complete one another. Strike like arrows against my flesh.

George Nelson has come this way. He's been seen. Looked over. Followed. His description will be picked up from tavern to tavern. From inn to inn. From village to village.

If only I could conjure up once more the chatter of the gentle ladies of Sorel. I'd make it a bulwark against the innkeepers' menacing voices, swelling together in a deep, hoarse drawl, all down along the southern bank. Buzzing around my head. Like a swarm of angry bees . . . Safe with my aunts again. Their boundless love. Their tender pity.

“The child is sick. We'd better put her to bed. Take care of her. Fix her some compresses, nice and cool . . .”

That little round woman! Her blue apron. Face all pink. Features melting together like an old cake of soap! What right does she have to stand at the foot of my bed? Who's forcing her, here in the darkness, to raise her right hand and swear in a tearful voice?

“Victoire Dufour. Wife of Louis Clermont, owner of the inn in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière parish . . .”

How on earth could my aunts let someone come bursting into my sickroom like that? . . . Oh, no! They've left! And so has my mother! Left me alone with her. Her and her blue apron. I can smell her sour breath. And there's nothing I can do to make her go. Now she's bending over my bed. With her big eyes, cold and hard. Lifeless, unmoving. Staring right at me. How long have those pale eyes been looking at me like that? Those eyes that can't blink.
That just gaze at me and fill with tears. Can it be that they don't even see me? Those glassy eyes, still as the hands of a clock stopped dead . . . I'm spellbound, transfixed. Chained to my bed. And the woman in the blue apron is talking and sniffling. If she'd just give her nose a good blow, once and for all, and come right out with what she has to say. That's what she's here for, isn't it? And I wouldn't miss a single word, I'm sure of that. Trussed up the way I am.

Oh, how I wish she'd stop that whimpering! It wouldn't be so hard to stand her scene . . .

“I was really frightened, Your Honor. We're poor people, me and husband, and we run a little inn. There's not too much close by, not many neighbors, you know. And it's a good thirty miles to the church at Kamouraska. Besides, our children are all still small. The oldest one is going on nine. And our hired girl is deaf . . . Well, it was the 31st of January, at about two in the afternoon. I saw this man, this stranger, coming along the road, heading down the river. So I stood at the door to watch him go by. He was driving a different kind of sleigh, not like the ones we have around here. And his overcoat was made of some sort of grayish cloth. It looked to me like what they make way upriver, a lighter shade than ours. With a black hood. And he had on a dark cloth hat, with fur all around. It was good and cold, and his face was red. He seemed like a nice-looking fellow, maybe a little young. Well anyway, afterwards, I went back in. It wasn't until later on, that night, that . . . No, my husband will tell you the rest . . .”

No harm in seeing the round, blue woman clutch at the foot of my bed with both her hands. (The witness stand.) And no harm in hearing her describe the younger stranger in such exact, minute detail. The danger would be if I recognized him and let him recognize me. For our own good, his and mine, I really can't be too careful. Just play dead. Stay out of it altogether. And if they question
me, shake my head on the pillow from side to side. Tell them, “No, no, I don't know who he is.” Not lift a finger to put George on his guard. Powerless to warn him about the innkeepers . . . See! They've thrown us to the witnesses already, even before . . . I speak to you softly, so softly . . . Without my lips, or my eyes, or by hands. Even without my heart, held tight in the grip . . . Make believe I'm asleep. Perfect imitation of a flat, hard stone. And I urge you on, so softly that my voice becomes a kind of heavy, muffled whisper, from the depths of my being. My love, I'm here. I'll wait my whole life through until you're done, there in the cove at Kamouraska. Until you wash your blood-soaked hands and make your way back to me. Your handsome face, triumphant over death, flashing with a wild delight. The way I love you, yearn to make you mine. But first you'll have to push yourself beyond the limits of your strength. That absolute, gnawing away inside you. Turn it to crime, to a deed of blood. You're so much like Catherine of the Angels, you know. One day, in the little chapel of Monseigneur de Laval, you swore that you too would become a saint. No answer from above. Only your wild, unfathomable passion. What dark god must have heard your vow? But now your prayer is answered, granted beyond your wildest dreams. Take care not to faint and fall!

I'm surprised I can stand the snow in this brilliant sun. The blinding glare of the bright blue sky. Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière. January 31, 1839. That day of days. I can see it all. Everything, so clear. The little clumps of snow kicked up by the horse's hooves. That kind of white smoke following the sleigh. The highroad, straight, packed down by all the sleighs gone by . . . Then a man's face, red with cold, turning in my direction. Is it me he's looking at? His upper lip curled in a strange, corpselike smile. And his teeth?! I never knew they were so long and pointed! There on the sides. Like some wild beast. And it's terror, suddenly,
that clouds my eyes. Destroys the image of my love . . .

Gaily the sleigh bells jingle in the sharp, brisk air. Begin to fade, a little at a time. Off in the distance, toward Kamouraska. Then finally die . . . Innkeeper Clermont's wife closes her door.

Rivière-Ouelle, Rivière-Ouelle . . . To hear that name ringing in my ears and not have the strength to get up from my bed.

“Madame is sick. See how she's trembling in her sleep?”

My mother and my aunts have really left the room. I think it's Léontine Mélançon's voice I hear.

Rivière-Ouelle. Cling for dear life to the name of that village. Like a buoy. (The village just this side of Kamouraska.) Try to stretch time, make it last. (Five or six miles from Kamouraska.) Draw out the syllables “ri” and “vi” as far as they can go. Then let them open out on the “ère.” Try hard to hold onto the “Ouelle.” But no use. That liquid name, rippling and rolling, runs off like a brooklet through the mossy grass. Soon the green-tart, jagged sounds of “Kamouraska” will jangle against one another. That old Algonquin name. Rushes-beside-the-water . . .

I play with the syllables. Hit them hard against one another. To drown out all those human voices that could rise up against me in one great throng. To raise a great roar of syllables loud and harsh. Turn them into a shield of stone. A sling to protect me, tough and resilient. “Kamouraska! Kamouraska!” Rushes-beside-the-water! . . . Good God, they're coming! Those voices from down the river,
they're on the move! All of them talking at once! The bees! Again the bees! . . . The people from down the river, closing their ranks, on the young stranger's trail. Their voices, louder and louder, clearer and clearer. Describing him, accusing him. And his wonderful, strange black sleigh, and his black horse more wonderful still . . .

Outside my bedroom door the witnesses wait, begin to lose patience. They've taken the whole house over, the house on Rue Augusta. Laid it waste. Destroyed it from top to bottom. My mother and my aunts are buried in the ruins, gasping for air. If only the witnesses stay where they are. Not go sneaking off to Quebec and Rue du Parloir, where my husband is so sick! It's easy to seize on a dying man's wild delusions and mix in a share of calumny and terror.

Besides, soon I'll be off where Jérôme Rolland can't touch me. Way out beyond the reach of everything that still draws breath. I'll be pulled out of bed. Stood on my feet with all my clothes. Dragged from my house. Thrown in with the witnesses. (Tell us all you know.) Mixed and stirred up with them all, in one soft, doughy mass. Put out in the snow. The cold. One silent, unresisting watch. Taking turns with myself, changing places with myself; here and there, from inn to inn. And everyone whispering in my ear. Everyone. Innkeepers, husbands and wives, hired girls and servants and stable-boys, peasants and fishermen. All of them swearing to drag me along. To throw me out on the frozen road. On the trail of a traveler that no one but me can name.

“Bruno Boucher, from Rivière-Ouelle, hired hand . . . It was last January the 31st, on a Thursday, at about half-past two. I was coming back from the woods with my cart full of logs, and I met a stranger. He stopped me and asked if it was far to the manor house in Kamouraska. I figured he couldn't be one of us, because he made a lot of mistakes when he talked. And I got a good look
at his horse and his sleigh. Never in all my days saw anything like either one of them . . .”

“Jean-Baptiste Saint-Onge, from Rivière-Ouelle, hired hand at Pierre Bouchard's . . . A stranger came to the inn at about half-past three in the afternoon. He asked me to water his horse. I stood for a long time just looking at it. That horse and that sleigh were really something to see. I'd know them anywhere. The harness straps were black and the collar had a lot of little bells. He went riding off about five o'clock, fast as you please. Toward Kamouraska. Next morning, the first of February, a Friday, I saw him again. Same man, same horse, same sleigh. I recognized what he was wearing. There he was, going by my place, somewhere between seven and eight . . . I live just off the main road, up toward the northeast, half a mile or so from the inn . . . Well, I pointed out to my boy that the stranger didn't have those little bells now, the ones he had the day before. And just to be funny I said I wished I knew he wanted to get rid of them. I'd have been happy to take them off his hands . . .”