Three Women in a Mirror (33 page)

At sext, a priest arrived, notified by one of the doctor's assistants, in order to administer last rites to Ida. She emerged from sleep just as the man of God was leaning over her. Her eyes stared at him, aghast. If she had seen the devil she would have reacted no differently. She resisted and tried to get away.

The priest spoke kindly to her. When she understood that she was about to leave this world, she suddenly exclaimed, “I want to confess!”

The priest asked to be left alone with Ida.

The doctor, his apprentices, his nurses, and Anne left the room. Sébastien Meus stopped the young woman on the threshold.

“Stay here.”

“Pardon?”

“Stay in this room. Hide behind a pillar. If her pain starts up again, you must relieve it with cold water or ointment. I am entrusting her to you.”

Confident his order would be carried out, he closed the door.

Anne sat in a sort of recess in the wall so that neither the priest nor Ida were aware of her presence.

Ida grabbed the minister of God by the throat and cried out, “I am the one who started the fire.”

Anne shrank further into the recess. What? Was she about to hear Ida's confession? She tried to block her ears.

“Yes, I set fire to the house to take revenge on my old fool of a mother. I want her to suffer. I want her to pay for all the evil she has done me.”

Anne could not help but overhear. She resigned herself to listening to her cousin.

Boiling with spite, Ida explained to the priest that her mother did not think she was pretty, and consequently had never brought any suitors to her. As a result, she had been obliged to find her own admirers, but—“You know what men are like, Father”—they had taken advantage of her.

At this point in her confession, Ida changed. Whereas up to then she had acted the victim, now she was transformed into a bawdy fury, more lubricious than a faun, and to the panicked priest she related in full detail all the fantasies she had enacted with men, sometimes several at a time.

Anne, too, was forced to listen to Ida's stories: Ida had overstepped the bounds of honor to prove that she was attractive and that her mother was wrong.

While Anne, who was pure, should have been shocked, Ida's stories had the opposite effect. The more filth Ida unveiled—with a certain delight in the telling—the more tenderness Anne felt for her cousin. Beneath the arrogant, excessive, debauched Ida, behind the vengeful arsonist, Anne saw a little girl who was full of questions, unsure of her ability to please men, and her mother first and foremost. What a terrible path she had traveled . . . The legitimate sorrow of a little girl had transformed her into a criminal harpy. If only Anne had understood this in time, she might have been able to help Ida transcend her anger and regain self-confidence. How guilty Anne felt: although she had spent years in Ida's presence, she had never guessed what was troubling her mind or destroying her heart.

At last Ida reached the end of her confession: her mother had called her a prostitute—oh, she did not say the actual word, but you could see it in her eyes. The day Godeliève informed her that she was taking Hadewijch and Bénédicte with her to the country—it was clear that she wanted to remove her younger daughters from the eldest's horrible example—she had said again from the doorway that all three of them would pray for her.

“Pray for me! Do you realize? Pray for me, as if I were a monster.”

“You are a sinner, my daughter. As are we all.”

“No, coming from her, that meant I was as bad as they come. So I decided to destroy what was hers, everything she had, the house and all its contents. I poured oil onto the floor and the furniture. But the flames consumed the rooms more quickly than I had planned—I meant to light the fire on my way out—and I had forgotten that the hearth on the ground floor was still lit: one of the embers sparked. As I had already poured the oil on the floor, the fire broke out while I was pouring the rest upstairs. So I was trapped . . . ”

She felt no remorse, merely regretted her clumsiness.

Horrified by what he had heard, the priest remained silent, dreading she would tell him still more unseemly episodes. But Ida did not speak.

From her sniffling, Anne could tell she was weeping. What was she sobbing about? Her botched crime, or the life she was about to lose?

The priest began the sacraments:

“I entrust you, Ida, to the compassion of the healing Christ.”

He placed his hands on her face to call down the Holy Ghost; his insistent manner suggested to Anne that he was, above all, chasing away the demons. Then he administered the unction with a holy oil, first on the forehead, then on the hands. Whether it was because the oil had been consecrated or because it was nourishing her charred, dried body, Ida did not cry out when the priest touched her.

“May the Lord, in his infinite kindness, comfort you through the grace of the Holy Ghost. May God, having freed you from your sin, save you and uplift you.”

He waited for Ida to say “Amen,” and as she did not, he said it in her place.

Finally he gave her communion, offering her this viaticum to accompany her in her passage from earthly to eternal life.

“‘He who eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood shall have eternal life; I will be born again on the last day,' saith our Lord.”

Finally, with a whisper, because Ida was no longer listening, he quoted from Saint Luke and Saint James, a jumble of words only he could hear.

 

In the hours that followed, Ida went through various stages, from utter prostration to shouting, from prayers to insults, from despair to resignation.

Anne stayed by her side. It seemed to her that most of the time Ida could not see her or, if her protruding eyes looked at her, that she did not recognize her. Only twice did Ida identify her, because hatred darkened her eyes and the worst insults came from her lips.

Anne pretended not to hear. She took Ida's one good hand and squeezed it with affection, trying to send calming waves to her suffering body.

When Godeliève, Hadwijch, and Bénédicte, alerted by a neighbor of the disaster, came to the hospice, they were distraught at the sight of Ida's critical condition. The mother collapsed in Anne's arms, shaking with sobs, when she heard that her daughter had already received the last rites.

While she held her aunt close, Anne knew she must be careful—she must not reveal that Ida had intentionally set fire to the house, nor must the bedridden woman catch them in a moment of familial affection.

Gently pushing her away, Anne explained quietly to Godeliève, Hadwijch, and Bénédicte that she was leaving them her place at Ida's bedside, as the dying woman needed their love in her last moments.

Then she observed the scene from a distance. While Aunt Godeliève was sobbing, Hadewijch and Bénédicte murmured sisterly words. Although she pretended not to see them, Ida knew very well that they were there; she feigned unconsciousness, and enjoyed what she saw. From the tension in her cousin's forehead, and a sort of relaxation in her shoulders, Anne could tell that Ida, even if she was hiding it, was pleased with the sorrow she had unleashed: once again she was the center of attention.

Exhausted, Anne left the room where she had stayed for so long without sleeping, eating, or drinking, and she stopped in the courtyard to breathe in the light.

The doctor came to join her.

“Thank you for assisting me.”

Anne smiled. It seemed pointless to thank her for what was perfectly normal.

“Did you know that your cousin may yet survive?” continued Sébastien Meus.

“I thought—”

“It is not always possible to know initially how deep the burns are. It becomes apparent in the days that follow. Now I consider her wounds to be superficial. The proof is that she is covered in blisters, a sign that her body is reacting and trying to repair itself. The skin has been attacked but not pierced; neither the muscles nor the bones have been affected. To be sure, she could still die of an infection; however, she does have a chance to survive.”

“Oh, my God, if only that were true—”

“Let us not anticipate, Anne. And if she recovers, she will be disfigured—she will lose an eye. She will manage to heal, to be sure, but will be unbearable to look at.”

A nurse called the doctor regarding a fuller who had been knocked down by a cart, and he left Anne to contemplate this eventuality.

Anne walked along the wall, then, sitting on the ground, gazed at the sun.

Which would be the better fate? For Ida to surrender her soul and carry with her to her grave the secret of her sins? Or for her to survive with her remorse, fragile in flesh as much as in mind, bearing the weight of her sin in a body she would henceforth detest? She would be ugly, furrowed with scars, splattered with spots, one-eyed, crippled by suffering, and the life of a woman as she had known it would forever be barred to her . . .

“Oh, let her die . . . that is the best solution.”

The moment she had uttered these words, Anne blushed. Why? Did she want Ida to die?

Full of shame, she swore that if Ida recovered, she would look after her until the end of her days.

Dear Gretchen,
I am writing without waiting for your reply, because events here have suddenly taken a tragic turn.

In what order should I tell you?

As I was saying in my last letter, Dr. Calgari has turned my life on end. I love him—or rather, I loved him—with a hitherto unknown intensity. Naturally, my observant friend Aunt Vivi figured this out.

“Why don't you follow your inclination, my little Hanna?” she suggested the other day.

“Aunt Vivi, are you advising me to do this?”

“Why act so surprised? I am hardly a model of virtue, as far as I know . . . ”

With an irritated expression she pinched her nostrils.

“You are Franz's aunt.”

“Oh, yes,” she sighed, as if this were a minor detail.

She ordered more tea and cucumber canapés. We loved to meet at Wurzig's, the place for illicit couples, with its tiny private padded booths,.

“My darling, I want your marriage to be long-lasting. So, for a couple to endure, the partners must avoid frustration. A little bit of unfaithfulness toward your husband will not ruin your union, it will consolidate it. I know what I'm talking about, believe me.”

“I wouldn't dare.”

“Wouldn't dare what? Forget Franz for a moment, or reveal your feelings to Dr. Calgari?”

“I am afraid I would fail.”

She smiled.

“Oh, fine, I see you are already considering the practical aspects.”

“I have never gone after a man.”

“Poor child! A woman does not woo, she consents. Otherwise the male runs away. She must give him the impression that it is his idea, and that he is in charge.”

With that, Aunt Vivi launched into a lengthy lecture, which no doubt would be fascinating for someone more calculating than I am. While she described her subtle strategies in detail, I was hardly listening; my cheeks were red, my ears were buzzing, just to think of the possibility of embracing the dark Dr. Calgari. What? Did I have the right to desire him? Could I embark on an adventure, just the thought of which made me feel faint?

Aunt Vivi could see my confusion. “Hanna, you have not been listening.”

“I can't, Aunt Vivi. It troubles me, to share my secret with you. I have to get used to the idea.”

Suddenly silent, she observed me more closely. In her gracious face, immaculate with powder, her blue eyes sometimes take on a metallic glint that makes her physiognomy quite hard. And yet Aunt Vivi spends her time helping those around her.

She frowned and concluded vexedly, “How I envy you for being so young . . . feelings fade so much with age.”

As we made our way home, she explained once again what would be the best way to confess my attachment to Calgari: by not confessing. This time, I listened.

“Who taught you all this, Aunt Vivi?”

She seemed surprised.

“Did you, in your youth,” I went on, “have an Aunt Vivi who taught you the Ten Commandments of femininity?”

Her laughter rippled.

“No, my dear. Talent implies doing spontaneously what others must learn to do. I am talented at being a woman.”

Her remark struck me with its clairvoyance; but it also made me sad—I had no aptitude for being a woman.

At least, a “woman” in the sense that Aunt Vivi implied . . .

 

The next morning I went to Calgari's office, determined to take our relation one step further.

Already at the threshold I was in pain. Everything that had seemed so easy before was now an ordeal. To see him there—slim and elegant in his frock coat, which emphasized his athletic build and his narrow waist—brought on a flush of heat. Removing my coat and hat in front of him then lying down on his couch seemed somehow dubious, as if such behavior were more in keeping with a lovers' tryst than a medical visit.

In keeping with Aunt Vivi's advice, I alternated between chilliness and palpitations. I was not certain I would manage: my chilliness turned to ice, my palpitations to a nervous tick. I felt oppressed. The more I accentuated my acting, the less he noticed. Was this to insinuate that he accepted me? Or did he find me so ridiculous that he did not take it into account? I could feel the sweat running down my thighs.

With every passing second a part of me rose to the ceiling and looked down from the chandelier at the couple we made: clearly, we were flirting. How else was I to explain the fact that he was wearing such attractive clothing, that he smelled so good, and spoke to me in such a charming voice, while still displaying such exquisite courtesy? Why must he constantly revert to talk of my body? Of my lovemaking with Franz? And my sexual dissatisfaction? He was forever leading me into topics that would have been scabrous if his aim had not been to create a sensual closeness between us. Why question me about my fantasies if not to explore them and make them reality? From one session to the next we had been tearing down the barriers. Although I would not have removed my clothes, I had already cast aside all modesty.