Kamouraska (26 page)

Little Robert is telling his story for the hundredth time. His voice, shriller and shriller, more and more frightened:

“Thursday, night, about half-past six, I was driving Monsieur Tassy to the village. We took the road from the manor and were just getting onto the highway, when we met a sleigh with a man in it that Monsieur Tassy knew. Both of them shook hands. The man told Monsieur Tassy that he was on his way from Sorel, and that he had some news about Monsieur Tassy's wife and children. Then he asked Monsieur Tassy to get into his sleigh. Said it might be nice to go to Monsieur Tassy's little house at Paincourt, next to the church. Said they could talk better there. So Monsieur Tassy got out of the sleigh I was driving and got into the stranger's. Then they turned around and went back up the road toward the church. Monsieur Tassy yelled that I should tell his mother he was bringing a friend home to the manor for supper . . .”

“Thursday night, at about half-past seven, I was on my way back from my brother Pierre's. Me, Bertrand Lancoignard, the one they call Sansterre. He lives about three-quarters of a mile up from the church at Kamouraska. Well, I'm walking along with Jean Saint-Joire (the one we call Sargerie), and with Etienne Lancoignard (he's called Sansterre too), when all of a sudden this sleigh comes along, fast as anything, going off toward the cove. We're pretty frightened and we get over to the side of the road. The man who's driving is singing at the top of his lungs. He's got one leg inside the sleigh and the other one out. The one on the right. And he's got his fur blanket in back, spread out over something that looks just like another drunk. You could hear a voice, kind of soft, moaning in back of the sleigh. The horse looked pretty big and black, and it was really moving right along . . .”

“Nine o'clock, Thursday night! I swear it was nine o'clock! Thursday night at nine o'clock! . . .”

The one called Blanchet. From Saint-Denis (or maybe Saint Pascal). The one who goes tippling from village to village, begging for a place to sleep by the stove. Spent the night of January 31st at Louis Clermont's inn, at Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière. Remembers, all at once, the very hour that he met a stranger lost in the cove at Kamouraska. From the depths of his memory muddled with drink and cloudy visions, he holds the precise hour up triumphantly, for all to see. Casts a defiant look at the whole of Kamouraska's population, assembled in James Wood's tavern.

“Nine o'clock! It was nine o'clock at night! The man asks me where the shore is. He makes me walk in front of his horse and take him to the highway. I point out the road to Rivière-Ouelle, like he asked me. I didn't get a good look at his face. But he was wearing a country coat, with a hood. Next morning, at the inn at Sainte-Anne, I see a stranger. In a hurry, and he looks real nervous. And his blankets are all covered with blood. It could be the same one I saw at the cove at Kamouraska. The one that didn't know which way to go. But I didn't get a good look at his face the first time, on account of the dark . . .”

James Wood, the owner of the tavern, says that on that same Thursday evening, between five and six, a stranger came to his place and ordered some supper. Afterwards he asked how to get to the manor in Kamouraska, then he left. He wanted to know too if Monsieur Tassy was likely to be at the manor about that time . . .

“I'd know him anywhere if I saw him again . . .” “His sleigh was really different, not like the ones we have around here . . .” “He was wearing a coat like the kind they make upriver, a lighter shade than ours . . .” “He's English. Or maybe he's from some other country, even though his French is good . . .” “He said he had news about Monsieur Tassy's wife . . . And no one has seen Monsieur Tassy since . . .” “News about his wife in Sorel . . .”

They're all there, in James Wood's tavern. Talking back and
forth, almost in a whisper. Trying not to look at one another. Just staring straight ahead, at the bare wooden wall, above the shelf with its row of bottles and glasses. As if, while they speak, they were watching a series of rapid portraits, sketched on the wall, rubbed out, and quickly sketched again. Over and over they study the images on the wall. A man, a horse, a sleigh. Always recurring, always distinct, each time like the last. As if, in fact, they were all the selfsame sleigh, the selfsame horse, the selfsame man, come from Sorel in order to . . .

Elie Michaud threads together in his head, in one big bundle, all the facts he has at hand. (His own story, Blanchet's, and everyone else's.) Then he hears himself declare straight out that it's perfectly possible Monsieur Tassy has been murdered, and that they should really be looking for him over by the edge of the cove, where he, Elie Michaud (and the beggar Blanchet too), saw a trail of blood on the snow, on the way back from Sainte-Anne, yesterday morning . . .

The shrill little bells in the church at Kamouraska peal out their death knell over the cove's expanse. Spread with the wind, far and wide, through the blue and frosty air. Like a tide gone wild . . .

Antoine Tassy was there, with an arm sticking out of the snow. That's how they were able to find him, buried in a mound of snow and ice, piled high. They dug him out and laid him on a sleigh. Then took him to the home of Charles-Edouard Tassy, his uncle.

Elisabeth d'Aulnières, widow of Antoine Tassy, arrives at the manor. Goes in the kitchen door. Pushed and prodded from every side. Joins all the folk from Kamouraska. Tries to get lost in the crowd. To pass unnoticed. Not even suspected. Creature out of time and place. Obliged to appear in person at the manor in Kamouraska. Mere formality, nothing more. Over and over, the same unbending, timeless summons. At intervals more or less the same . . . Young and fresh, back once again to a certain Sunday morning, the third of February, 1839 . . .

Little Robert is telling how, when he showed up, Monsieur Tassy was already dug out. But they hadn't moved him yet. His head and his hair were full of blood and snow . . .

They found him buried in the snow and ice. At the edge of the
cove at Kamouraska. Next to a wicker fence. A half-mile or so from the town. Not far from Paincourt and that little house of his. About two o'clock this morning.

In the manor at Kamouraska people are on the move. Everywhere groups are forming. In the kitchen, outside on the steps, even in the courtyard. Elisabeth d'Aulnières — delirious, all her born days behind her, pulled out of real-life time — merges and blends with the rustlings of cloth, the muffled outcries, the muted groans. Melts into the cautious, catlike tread of this hectic procession up and down, back and forth . . .

Rose Morin is saying that when Antoine's mother, old Madam Tassy, heard he was dead, she just doubled up like a broken branch. Fell in a heap on the rug, in a clatter of crutches. No sooner came to, than she took off her bonnet. The white one, with ribbons. (There's no one can boast they ever saw her with her head uncovered!) For a moment that tiny head of hers is showing, with its few thin strands of hair pulled tight. Pathetic, like a little plucked bird. Then Madame calls for a bonnet. A black one, with long black strings. Plants it square on her head, sticks in a few long pins to keep it in place. She'll send to Quebec for the mourning veils soon as she can . . .

Little by little the bits of ice and snow clinging to Antoine's clothes, caught in his blond hair, begin to melt on the canopy bed where they've laid him out. At his uncle's, Charles-Edouard Tassy. Rose Morin has come with old Madame Tassy, her mistress. Crying and crossing herself. Saying that it sure is a shame for a man as young as Monsieur to be lying there thawing, nice as you please. Like one of those poor little fish that they catch through the ice.

Old Madame Tassy's face, all hard and shriveled — no bigger than your fist it seems — betrays a tear that looks as if it's been there for ages. Like those long-forgotten tears on dead men's cheeks.

Now, this very moment, Antoine Tassy's widow, Elisabeth d'Aulnières, makes her entrance. Struck by the utter crassness of her action. Pushed to her nightmare's farthest edge. No refuge left within herself. Thrown out. Leaving Madame Rolland and all her dignity and pride behind. Never before this total separation from her being. This urge to say such monstrous things to old Madame Tassy. This need to look squarely at that burned-out face, just at the utmost point of its destruction.

I go inside and look at this woman. I tell her: “I want to see Antoine Tassy, the squire of Kamouraska, your son and my husband.” Her steady gaze. That tear on her cheek, never moving. And she answers in a voice no louder than a whisper: “You know Antoine is dead. You know. You killed him . . .”

I can hear the medical examiner, Doctor Douglas, speaking his piece. Little by little his voice grows stronger, more and more precise. As if my presence here at the manor were meant to drag that dry, brittle voice up from the shadows of time where it lies at rest.

“One of the bullets from the pistol entered just above the victim's ear, below the brim of the cap, and lodged in the brain, one inch in depth. The second bullet entered through the back of the neck and lodged below the frontal bone. The posterior portion of the skull is shattered. Seven separate points can be determined where it received sharp blows of unusual force . . .”

Doctor Douglas's voice. Dispassionate, colder and colder (almost turning to stone as he speaks), reciting the official report line by line. Somewhere, off in a house shut tight, they've begun to intone the prayer for the dying. At the home of Charles-Edouard Tassy, perhaps? Or in the kitchen at the manor? I listen, hard as I can, to the muffled litany of the saints. Hoping to pull myself free from Doctor Douglas's icy voice.

“The first shot was fired from the side. Such that the murderer must have been seated quite close to the victim, in the sleigh. The
second shot was fired after Antoine Tassy was already dead, or dying, and stretched out on the ground, face down. The killer then struck the victim repeated blows with the butt of his pistol . . .”

Sancta Lucia, Saint Agnes, and Saint Cecilia
! How gentle, how soothing the litany sounds! . . . That voice . . . Thank God! I recognize it now! . . . It's Anne-Marie's! My daughter's innocent voice! And all of this is taking place at home. In my very own house on Rue du Parloir. I'll run to my husband's side. My husband, Jérôme Rolland. Comfort him right to the end. No one will say that I let my husband die alone and unconsoled. Haven't I been a faithful wife for eighteen years?

The most moving, most compelling voice of all (that trace of an American accent). Doing its best to hold me back, to keep me in the realm of fevered dreams. And with that voice of yours (changing, decaying, crumbling to dust in my ear), you beg me please to hear you out, to hear your story to the end.

“But listen to me, Elisabeth. I stood Antoine up on his feet, just to be sure he was really dead. And he was. He was dead. I swear!”

No need to swear. See how I'm shaking. I believe you, love. But you frighten me so. Please, let me by. I can't live this way, in the face of such terror. That dreadful deed before my eyes. Please, let me go. Let me be Madame Rolland again, forever. Let me be rid of this game of death between you and Antoine. Innocent! Innocent! I'm innocent, you hear! . . . Good God, your face, racked with cold, turning toward me. A sudden flashing glimpse of black. Your eye, lifting its heavy, weary lid. So tired, beyond belief. Your lips, cracking, taut against your teeth. That pathetic little sneer, trying so hard to smile. My love, you're trembling. . .

And yet you tell me over and over that your hand was never so steady. So swift and sure. You're not a surgeon for nothing, after all . . . Again I beg you. Please, don't make me hear the rest of your story. All this is a man's affair. Just two men with a score to settle.
I don't mind waiting here by the side of the road. (Like a sweet little child, lost in the snow.) Waiting for Antoine to be put to death. But don't think you'll make me follow you all the way . . .

The black sleigh passes by, brushes against me. Carrying both men off. Full speed. Over the highway. Up toward Paincourt and the little house. Doctor Nelson, you don't have a minute to lose. Whichever one takes the trouble to open his mouth and swear at the other is sure to be done for. Checkmate, Tassy old boy. The fastest player wins. You shouldn't have wasted your time cursing your old school friend that way. Already the gun barrel, cold, against your temple. Fires. Pierces your brain. You slump your head on your murderer's shoulder. Drench him in blood. Crush him beneath your bulk. And a voice above your head, saying that there's all the news you'll get from your wife in Sorel . . .

The sound of the first shot over the highway, swallowed up in the thick swirling snow. In the whistling wind. I seem to be holding my hands to my ears. My pulse, pounding madly against my hands. Only my beating heart, I swear. No other sound at all, for hundreds of miles around. And yet, three men are standing with me. Here, by the side of the road. Almost trampled (to hear them tell it) by a black horse coming on at an infernal gallop, bearing down, heading straight for us . . . Bertrand and Etienne Lancoignard, the ones they call Sansterre. And Jean Sainte-Joire, the one they call Sargerie. They'll swear to it, all three. But I'm deaf. I'm blind. I can't tell you a thing. Just someone standing up in a sleigh, driving a dying man over toward the cove. Singing as loud as he can. To cover a muffled groan, back in the sleigh, under the blankets.

The sound of the second shot, far, far away. Out in the cove. Hardly noticed at all. Like a ship in distress, fading off in the distance, over the river . . .

A man, striking a corpse with the butt of his gun. A corpse
stretched out in the snow, face down. Striking him over and over, as long as the superhuman strength let loose within him lasts. Lord of life and death . . . The conqueror stops for a moment and wipes his face on his sleeve. Searches his heart to find the woman for whom . . . Yearns to possess her body, here and now. In triumph. Before his power and madness wane. Before his drunken frenzy cools . . . But even now he seems to be hemmed in by a ring of tears. Consumed by such a weariness, welling up inside him. Like madmen after their fits, or women after their labor. Or lovers after their passion.