Kamouraska (3 page)

The sugar! Ring for Florida! Give her a proper talking-to for being so careless. The peal of the bell rips through the silence of the night, echoes into every corner of the sleeping house. Madame Rolland stands startled by the noise. Still holding the cord. Vibrations rippling through her hand in little waves, diminishing. Let go of the cord before it's too late, before a deafening clamor rings out and wakes the town. A ghostly carillon, pulling at all the strident, clangorous chimes, drawing them in. This time it happens by itself. All through her arm, an explosion, bursting through her arm. Fingers to shoulder, like an electric shock. Silence for a moment, then a timid reply, ever so slight. The front doorbell. Struck once. One single peal, left hanging. Incomplete.

Madame Rolland jumps. There, hidden behind the breadbasket: the sugar. She tucks up her skirts with one hand, throws a few lumps into the hollow. Picks up the lamp, still burning. Goes scurrying up the stairs, out of breath. Stands before her husband. Heaven be praised, he's still alive. He smiles at her, dimly.

It's only the pain . . .

Madame Rolland begins to count the drops. Her hand is trembling. He must trust her, reassure her, do anything to stop that trembling in her hand. He has no choice, he must make peace with this woman who stands there trembling. His life depends on it. Again Jérôme forces a feeble smile. He feels his dry lips tighten against his teeth.

“Please, Elisabeth, control yourself.”

Madame Rolland draws close to her husband's side. She measures out the drops before his eyes.

“Count them with me, will you . . .”

Have her husband count the drops, share in his distrust. Let him watch her to be sure. Accept an insult, an indignity like that. Allow his loathsome supervision, after a lifetime as a model wife. Anything, anything is better than to be a party to another death.

Monsieur and Madame Rolland are safe again, joined to each other like the fingers on a hand. Wholly united in one being, reduced to their simplest terms. One single mind, frenetically intent. One single, concentrated life. One single fear, one single wish, one single prayer: to measure out the drops. Above all, to stop trembling. To let them fall, flawless, spaced out one by one, round as tears.

The husband, thankful, crunches his sugar, swallows it down. He closes his eyes in gratitude and fatigue. To go on living. Living. Such an unusual woman, this wife of his. But why is Elisabeth still so shaken, so disturbed? Won't she ever collect herself? Won't she ever let me rest? Oh, to sleep. To force my wife to come away with me, off into a deep, eternal slumber. No thoughts of the past, no fears for the future. Only a present. A peaceful, slumbering present. My wife by my side. To sleep. “Whatsoever is hidden shall be manifest.” To sleep together.
In pace.

Elisabeth is still trembling.

“Jérôme, did you hear the bell?”

Monsieur Rolland opens a doleful eye.

“The bell? When you rang for Florida?”

“No, no. I mean the doorbell.”

“The doorbell? At this hour of the morning? Are you out of your mind?”

Yes, no doubt I am. That's what it means to be out of your mind. To let yourself be carried away by a dream. To give it room, let it grow wild and thick, until it overruns you. To invent a ghastly fear about some wagon wandering through the town. To imagine the driver ringing your doorbell in the middle of the night. To go on dreaming at the risk of life and limb, as if you were acting out your own death. Just to see if you can. Well, don't delude yourself. Someday reality and its imagined double are going to be one and the same. No difference at all between them. Every premonition, true. Every alibi, gone flat. Every escape, blocked off. Doom will lie clinging to my bones. They'll find me guilty, guilty before the world. It's time to break free, break out of this stagnation, now. To stifle the dream before it's too late. Quick, into the sunshine. Shake it off. Throw off the specters. Only one hope: to step out into the daylight. Not to miss the chance. To keep from being crushed by the dream. To strike that regal pose again, all haughtiness and
injured innocence. Like all those days before, those days of endless questioning: “But how can anyone suspect me of such an awful thing?” To state your name. To be forever named Elisabeth d'Aulnières. To live to the fullest in your flesh, intact, like blood coursing happy and free.

Madame Rolland goes over to the window. With a sweep of her arm she opens the shutter, throws it back against the wall. May as well clear things up right now. We'll see if there really is a blasted wagon . . .

There in the street, in front of their door, an old horse, head hung low, seems to be sleeping. Hitched up behind him, a cart spread over with a canvas. Small and frail, the driver, perched on his scanty load — vegetables more than likely — sits curled up in the rain, elbows on knees and head in hands. He looks like a stubborn little child, locked tight in his sodden wretchedness.

Madame Rolland holds back a scream. Runs to her husband's side. Kneels by his bed.

“Jérôme . . . In the street . . . A wagon, in front of our door!”

Just then the wagon begins to move. Goes slowly off, into the distance.

Monsieur and Madame Rolland keep still. Not a word between them. For a long time they follow the sound of the rig as it disappears into the night. The cool, damp air comes wafting into the room. Madame Rolland can't seem to budge. Monsieur Rolland begins to shiver.

“Please, Elisabeth, Close the window.”

“I'm afraid . . . I'm so afraid . . .”

She buries her head in the blanket, nestles her cheek against her husband's hand.

This man can only protect me just so far. When the fright becomes too real, when it fills the night with the noise of a rattling old wagon, Jérôme is caught up in it just like me. Caught in the
trap, the two of us. That's what marriage is. One fear shared by two, one need to be consoled, one empty caress in the darkness.

“Close the window, Elisabeth, I'm cold.”

Elisabeth closes the shutter and the window. She's almost tempted to draw the curtains too. To barricade herself inside, to stave off any attack. It's beginning to get light already. Dawn, that ominous time. That dim, uncertain moment between day and night, when body and mind suddenly give way and hand us over to our nerves and their mysterious powers. Awake all night. This sleeplessness has worn us down.

No, Monsieur Rolland, it isn't death quite yet. Still, you can feel yourself going under, about to drown. Weariness washes over you, in one long wave, heavy and dense. Rolls over you in its broad, heavy sweep. Throws you onto the sand, weak, exhausted, tasting the salt and slime, a body fairly ringing out with pain. And getting worse all over. There, the pain, easy to recognize. You can hear its echo under the fingernail, just beneath the skin. And at your bed-side, your wife, far off in her solitude again.

Better hurry, call her back. Make her return to this slender brink of life, Monsieur Rolland, here where you're spinning out the last few threads of your sickly days. You mustn't be left alone like this. Unthinkable. This agony, this narrow little plank. Just enough space to force one living creature up here with you, someone to
keep you company a little while along the way. Quick. Better call her back.

“Elisabeth!”

Madame Rolland is miles and miles away, lost in contemplation of her right sleeve, fringed with lace. Absorbed, engrossed, assiduous. Scrutinizing and obsessed.

Oh, to be well enough to rape that woman. To force her back with us onto the marriage bed. Lay her out on our deathbed, here beside us. Force her to think about us, to suffer with us, to share our agony, to die with us.

What a riddle she is, this wife of ours. This guilty woman who went unpunished, our wife, our tainted beauty. Oh, to convict her of her sin, to catch her mind red-handed in its wanderings. To break the pact of silence. To rattle the past under her pretty little nose, as casual as can be.

“Elisabeth! That girl . . . What was her name?”

“What girl? What are you talking about?”

Her voice is flat, vacant. She seems to be staring in rapt attention at the lace frills on her left sleeve now, no different at all from the right. She looks at both sleeves under the lamp, compares them carefully.

“You know, the one who used to smoke a pipe? . . . Aurélie Caron . . . Wasn't that her name? . . . Yes, I remember now . . .”

Jérôme Rolland has pronounced each syllable carefully, distinctly. Now he lies in fear of what Elisabeth might do. As if, for revenge, she might stone him to death.

Elisabeth grows pale. A shudder shakes her from head to toe.

“Why bring that up? . . . What's come over you? . . .”

Silence. Then a kind of scar forming fresh over the silence. Jérôme Rolland's insidious little question slithers its way in. Silence, wound closed. Silence, sewn up again with great needlefuls.

Madame Rolland picks up the pitcher. Try to change the subject,
pretend you've forgotten the question, put on your compassionate Sister of Charity face. She pours out a glass of water. Walks over to her husband.

“Would you like some water?”

Monsieur Rolland shuts his yes. Nothing to drink, certainly not. He's waiting for Florida. Time doesn't matter anymore. Why spare Elisabeth's feelings now? Why not come right out with it, show her how much we distrust her? Show her we've never been duped by her innocence.

“No, nothing to drink. I'd rather wait for Florida.”

Madame Rolland puts down the glass and pitcher.

The shameless arrogance of the dying. Jérôme Rolland has nothing to lose anymore. How he must despise me, my young fiancé of days gone by, beside himself with gratitude: “Elisabeth . . . Marrying me! . . . How could I ever dare to hope for a gift like that!”

Elisabeth is sitting now, far from the bed. She rests her head against the back of the chair. Strands of hair fall loose from her chignon. Her eyes are ringed deep with circles and her full lips throb with blood. Me too, awake the livelong night. I'm mad, but my mind is clear. Oh, if you only knew, Jérôme, if you only knew, dear husband, how I share your feverish sleepless nights . . . Both of us, together in the same delirium, yoked up together for the selfsame chore. Dragging the waters, together. Our huge nets scraping the ocean floor for its meager treasures. Infallible, a madman's memory drags up details like mussel shells. The first time you came to my bed, Jérôme, so round and plump, so small in that enormous dressing gown of yours, with its checks and its fancy buttons. I wanted to laugh out loud. I couldn't stop humming to myself: “Papa has found a man for me, Good God, he's small as small can be!” You caught my glance. That look of wistful disbelief in your colorless eye, that mute reproach. The failure of our wedding night . . . My God, can it be that nothing inside of us ever
gets washed away? We go on living as if nothing at all had happened, then suddenly the poison deep in our hearts comes rising up to the surface. It's clear, he never forgave me, not really . . . Aurélie Caron . . . That name he dredges up from the stagnant water, like a rusty weapon to kill me with.

Twice more Monsieur Rolland whispers distinctly: “Aurélie Caron . . . Aurélie Caron . . .” Elisabeth doesn't flinch. She feels her forehead covered with sweat. He must be delirious. If not, he wouldn't dare . . .

Monsieur Rolland is breathing hard. How he would like to fling away that wretched girl's name, throw it back, back into the shadows. It's a two-edged sword, and now it's falling on me. Tearing at my breast. Aurélie Caron . . . With every fiber of her being she clings to the guilty heart of Elisabeth d'Aulnières, my wife in the eyes of God and man. I don't want to know about it. I swore I would never know a thing about it. Just close my eyes and go on living. Oh, God, the sordid memories, filling my veins, smothering me . . .

Elisabeth comes over to his bed. Looks at her husband's haggard face.

“Try to relax and get some sleep. Florida shouldn't be much longer now.”

Monsieur Rolland closes his eyes. What a good wife you have, Monsieur Rolland, so attentive to the slightest sign of death on your sallow face.

Elisabeth pulls herself together. Fixes her hair, spreads a large shawl about her shoulders. Why not take her stand here and now? Stop caring for this man, once and for all. Too bad. Isn't that what he wants? Let it all be just between Florida and him, between him and death itself. Doesn't he always call for Florida? Well, she can take care of him now, I wash my hands of it. I'm turning him over to Florida, for good. Time now to rest. To stretch out on the bed.
Lengthwise, crosswise, all to myself. To live . . . And what's the harm? The only time Florida ever came to life, the only time her eyes lit up, was when she caught the scent of death. Then all at once a spark in the clumsy hulk. Transformed by the intuition that her master is about to die. A simpleton stepping out of her stupidity. A cataleptic learning how to use her life. A lost soul finding her way and her reason for being . . . Good God, is it possible? This gawking, good-for-nothing maid of ours! Letting the milk boil over on the fire, breaking the glasses and the plates. Can't even put the children's shoes on right. Never knows which foot they go on. What are we going to do with her? Useless, absolutely useless. Shouldn't we send her home, back to the town she came from? . . . Then there she was, watching, while Jérôme was having his last attack. All she needed to make her emerge from the depths of darkness. Become a new person. Discover her deathly calling. The transformation is complete. Now the new Florida: eyes sharp, movements precise. Strange, agile creature, ready to officiate at the final moments of Jérôme Rolland, with all the sacred rites. Leeches and poultices, hot-water bottle and eggnog, compresses and Extreme Unction, tears and shroud. Nothing has been forgotten and nothing will be. You can count on Florida. Madame can go off and cry in peace. I'll see to everything.