by Ali Alizadeh
And it is then, when she is thirteen or thereabouts, months after the news of the war has reached their village. It is then that an event occurs, in the very heart of her being.
A humid summer day, and the sky is filled with many small clouds. She has been crying at the church, and is back at home now, and she is alone. Everyone else is away working on the harvest and she has been told to dig turnips out of their vegetable garden. She has wrapped a rough scarf around her thick black hair, has squatted and begun her chore. But then a sharp breeze and the branches of the apple tree tremble above her.
The sky has quickly become overcast. Jeannette is aware of the rapid change, and she is worried. I started tossing muddy vegetables into my basket but the wind gathered strength and it became so fierce that it almost tore the scarf off my head. Jeannette feels heavy, cold drops hit her cheeks. Then, a terrifying clash of thunder. She leaps to her feet but a furious rainfall erupts with another heavenly shriek, the ground is so wet so quickly, so slippery, and her bare heels give way. She falls on her back and the vegetables float in the puddles.
She has never been caught in such a terrible storm and there is so much pain in her skinny body. I struggled to stand back up. The whole world flared up in the lashes of blinding lightning. The rain immersed my being. She is kneeling, paralysed in the mud. My tears merged with the rainfall. (Did I tell you, my love, how exactly it happened?) The thunder strikes harder and the rain is now a flood and it is in this cascade – why do historians insist it was a sunny day? – amid the fruits and plants being washed away by the storm that Jeannette clenches her fists. It is then that she howls back at the unforgiving sky. She rips off her scarf.
O God O angels O Saint Catherine.
Are you there?
Are you there?
I wanted her to hear me. Jeannette wants the saint to understand the truth of her suffering, her loneliness, her fear of aggressive boys, the horrors of war. I wanted Saint Catherine, she who had been martyred for fidelity to divine truth, I wanted her to comfort me. I wanted her to soothe the pain of what I desired, the hurt of what I did not know I desired. Jeannette sobs. But can she be believed – can she be truly believed? – when she says that she was not expecting the saint to speak back to her.
When, amid the severe downpour, weeping very much like an abandoned child, she loses her hearing she thinks that the rainwater has filled and blocked her ears. And I can’t forget how shocking it was to then hear something. A whisper. The haunting, deep, clear voice of a woman. It broke the silence.
Jeanne
daughter
of God
Jeanne
What is to be made of this? I was truly startled. I looked everywhere. There is nothing but the deluge engulfing the world around. No humans. She is petrified. Who had just spoken to me? She trembles and crosses herself, begins to crawl to the cowshed but the Voice, the ghostly Voice, follows her there.
Jeanne
look
at the church
I turned around fearfully to glance at the church steeple looming above our garden and then – can anyone believe this? – the storm faded, or disappeared or at least I no longer noticed it because at the pinnacle of the tall stone steeple where there was a rusting cross, and I am not lying, there was this circle of light like the sun, golden, ablaze, but, by God, it began to smile like a human face with golden locks, long curly hair just like Saint Catherine’s in her effigy.
But the effigy is not painted, and the golden ringlets of this story belong to none other than her cherished and hurtful girlhood friend, Marguerite. Can Jeanne accept that? Not yet. She must deny such feelings. Dishonourable and unnatural according to the Holy Book. So this is not an encounter with rejected desire. It is no longer an immense fiery face, and Jeannette is no longer afraid. She rises to her feet. The face has vanished but the Voice will return. She has adored the saint’s wooden image for so many years. She breaks into tears of joy and gratitude. I begged the Voice, how I begged her, never to leave me.
6
Everyone has heard about her Voices, and we know nothing about their reality.
I’m sure they’re real. (Real like yours, my love.) But can one ever be certain? That it was Saint Catherine and not a demon or an imaginary thing. Informed by psychology, psychiatry and neurology, theorists peddle their theses. Epilepsy is the latest fad, but she never had a seizure. And it is known that one should not trust historical records and religious beliefs. So what can be said about her Voices? A dialogue with a deity or a deep internal monologue? Supernatural voices that reverberate eardrums or true, inaudible voices in the mind’s intangible ear?
From that day on every time Jeanne is alone the speaker talks to her in the same calm, resonant voice and the girl kneels in front of Saint Catherine’s effigy, clasps her hands, and closes her eyes to imagine the wooden surface of the saint’s icon become soft skin, and the folds of her carved gown turn into white fabric and a bright halo illuminate her kind face in the tarnished chapel. Jeanne speaks to the saint about many things.
I told her: O Sister, I’m so angry with the brutes. Boys throw clumps of dirt at me.
And she told me:
sun gives light
to every leaf
in every tendril
water flows
I’m not a force of nature, Sister.
flesh of the Earth
blood of God’s rivers
Papa became drunk and mad again last night. We have to pay more rent for the land, because of the war.
hatred is weak
love, almighty
perfect love
drives out all fear
Sister, why doesn’t God end the war? Will the English attack our village?
the great misery
not eternal
only love
everlasting
Colin and Gérard called me a dimwitted bitch again today.
weakness
like weed, shall wither
amid your orchard
Mama has told me I’m getting on and should start attending the dances. Food’s becoming scarce. She told me I have to provide for myself one day. But boys, Sister, they’re thugs. They all hate me.
strength
shall win you
great happiness
beyond common womanhood
hope and glory
O Sister, why are you so kind to me when everyone else is so vicious? Why does Heaven care for a pathetic thing like me? Will anyone ever love me?
the one
with clear blue eyes
from a distant place
she with hair the colour of fire
Jeanne is suitably horrified. She? (It was you, of course.) The apprehensive adolescent crosses herself and stands up. In times like this she seeks the melancholy village priest and convinces him to hear her confess again. She babbles to the lowly clergyman about a most trivial transgression such as overcooking a pie, her eyes exuding an absurd quantity of tears.
Jeanne is not the only villager crying these days.
One afternoon Jacques and the boys drive back into the village, their cart laden with sacks of cabbage and turnip. When Jeanne’s distraught mother Isabelle enquires after supper, Jacques says that there were no buyers for their foodstuff at the markets of Neufchâteau. Jacques tells Isabelle, in a voice burdened with shame and defeat, that because of the war the lords are spending all their coins on fortifications and weapons. Isabelle can’t hide her agitation. How are we to hold a wedding feast for Joachim? What will everyone say?
Jacques goes beyond threatening. He starts hitting Isabelle from that night. Jeanne tries to support her mother but Jacques picks up his daughter’s tiny frame and hurls her out of the house – she has not yet learnt to fight men. Isabelle, at any rate, does not appreciate her daughter’s amity. She becomes malicious whenever Jeanne does anything minutely wrong. Isabelle calls the adolescent girl a disgrace, a burden, and ugly even though Jeanne’s pimples have miraculous
ly left her face.
And one day Sir Robert’s men ride into the village with a carriage, a bulky load covered with stained sheets. The squire asks the village priest how many men they have sent off to the war. He then points to the carriage and mutters: We have ten here. Some still recognisable. Sound the bell and tell your people to fetch their dead. Among them is Marguerite’s would-be bridegroom Collot, a grey body with open eyes and slit throat.
The precious girl, having waited for over a year for her brave fiancé to return and marry her, shrieks and moans. Jeanne tries to console her old friend but the grieving adolescent rejects her with insults: You were always jealous of me you strange queer creature you gave me the evil eye you cast a spell to have my Collot murdered begone, Jeannette, begone.
Marguerite was perhaps the first person she loved. The premature widow is wed to a swineherd from the town of Maxey and leaves for good. The following week Jeanne hears a new Voice in the chapel, and recognises it as that of Saint Marguerite of Antioch, or Marguerite the Virgin-Martyr, who slew a dragon and died for refusing to relinquish her virginity. In a bout of tears and self-creation, Jeanne takes a vow of chastity. I promised to remain a virgin for as long as it should please the saints. Does she not intuit the possibility of her own martyrdom? Would I too have to be killed one day for my love of truth and freedom, for my love for you?
7
Everyone has a passion and some have a cause, but we understand little about the soul of the revolutionary.
She who would lead a nation in the name of justice, in the name of unity, in the name of eternal peace. Not an armoured heroine yet. Still only a timid teenager in a peasant woman’s canvas dress. I sensed the evil of the war, saw it in Papa’s red eyes, in Mama’s dark bruises. Poverty invaded our village before the raiders. Her filthy brothers fight over the wine villagers can no longer sell. I spent much of my time in the church, speaking to the saints.
Mama says I must choose a husband, Michel Lebuin or another man.
divine virgin
forever chaste
only love
will end your promise
They shan’t let me be a maid forever, Sister. I’m already sixteen or seventeen. Papa will sell me like a chattel, like poor little Marguerite.
daughter of God
beloved of Heaven
your sublime story
not a normal woman
the one who will seek you
in her sky blue eyes
your search shall end
in her flaming hair
Please, Sister. You frighten me. How could a woman love me, another woman? I’m so sick of this village. Other than this chapel and your statue nothing pleases me in this terrible place.
Jeanne, you will not be
forever captive to your family
soon you shall know
soon it will be revealed to you
the path to a glorious mission
for hope, for fairness, for Heaven
the path to the arms of the beloved
an unbelievable journey
daughter of God
an unbelievable gift
I don’t understand, Saint Catherine. How can I find happiness, in this horrible world? Who will end this war? Should I run away from Domrémy?
the sword of the tyrant
glistens with the blood of the innocent
the celestial wounds, the wrath of God
the cry of victims
be the power of the warrior
to lead your people to happiness
to take you to the place of love
do not fear, Jeanne
your strength
the force of liberation
do not fear martyrdom
in the quest for heart’s freedom
And at last on a Sunday Sir Robert’s squire rides into the village again, with a wounded arm, shouting like a town-crier: People of Domrémy. Thousands of English soldiers are now attacking the city of Orléans. Our king is in danger. Burgundians are attacking this region. To lay to waste the last garrisons loyal to the king. Leave now. Leave for the safety of a fortress. We can do no more to protect you.
The horrifying English are finally here. Isabelle hastily tosses tattered family heirlooms into chests and loads them on the back of Jacques’s cart. The villagers pack only the healthiest farm animals between furniture and barrels of wine. I was so scared, but also strangely excited. Jeanne wants to take the effigy of Saint Catherine but the parish priest grumbles: It’s the property of the Church. And there is no time to argue with him. She runs back out of the church and jumps onto the wobbly cart hitched to their aged stallion. The family leaves home for the safety of the walled town of Neufchâteau.
Jacques knows the gatekeepers will not let them enter the town as refugees. He tells the guards they are travellers and seek lodging at an inn. He pays them. Once in the town, Jacques dismounts the cart and leaves to speak to the innkeeper. He returns to inform the others that there is no room available. Thank God – the same God who has stood by and let the villagers’ lives be ruined – the benevolent innkeeper, a woman known as La Rousse, has permitted them to sleep in the stable free of charge.
La Rousse, the Redhead. Jeanne’s ears have pricked. Her heartbeat has become palpable. She helps her parents and brother unload their belongings in the stable and tells them that she wishes to make herself useful by assisting the generous innkeeper. She walks into the tavern, agitated, curious, afraid. Her eyes survey hunched backs and the muddy boots of gloomy journeymen. She walks past them into the kitchen.
And there she finds a tall woman in her twenties or thirties, in a black bodice over a wrinkled shirt, a black scarf wrapped around her head. A long orange plait falls down her back. She is plucking the feathers off a dead bird, does not notice Jeanne’s presence for some time.
Oh! Who might you be, my lass?
I am Jeanne. Jacques Darc’s daughter. We arrived from Domrémy. Today. Madame.
La Rousse drops the naked carcass on a bench and wipes her forehead.
That would be mademoiselle, lass. I am not married. Say, have you come to assist me?
Yes, yes, please Mada…mademoiselle La Rousse. I shall be your maidservant for as long as we are your guests. If it pleases you.
La Rousse considers the ebullient girl.
It indeed pleases me. I’ll have to throw out the drunkards after vesper and the barkeeper is out of town. Your brothers could help with that. Could you fetch them for me?
Jeanne shakes her head adamantly, truthfully.
Mademoiselle. We don’t need my brothers. I am strong. I know I look small but I can lift very heavy things.
Can you, now? You’d better help with collecting plates and goblets and washing them. You can draw water from the well in the courtyard of the blacksmith’s forge on the other side of the street.
Yes. Thank you, mademoiselle.
Lass. Wait. What is your name once more?
Jeanne. My parents call me Jeannette. But I’m not a little girl anymore, mademoiselle.
La Rousse seems intrigued.
Very well, Jeanne. If the blacksmith puts on airs and doesn’t let you draw from his well, remind him he’s indebted to me. And lass, do stop calling me mademoiselle.
There’s authority as well as kindness in the woman’s voice. I thought she was amazing. Jeanne knows she must be blushing.
I will, La Rousse. I will.
8
Everyone thinks everything has been written about, has been repeated ad infinitum, and there’s nothing left to excavate.
But how little historians know about the red-headed innkeeper. At night, after the tasks have been accomplished and Jeanne has impressed the hostess with her diligence and obedience, after the paying guests have either been accommodated in the rooms or fallen asleep under blankets on the floor of the tavern, La Rousse invites Jeanne to follow her. She lights a candle, closes the kitchen door behind them. She takes a tarnished bottle and two delicate gl
asses out of a chest.
These are called tulip glasses. Are they not beautiful? Gifts from a duke I once knew.
La Rousse’s voice is warm, seductive.
You were acquainted with a duke?
Acquainted? I suppose you could call it that, my lass. Have you had brandy before?
I don’t drink. I mean, I have tasted wine when taking Holy Communion but I’m not like other youths. They become inebriated at dances. I don’t go to dances.
Jeanne is being blunt, unsophisticated. She can’t help but be honest with La Rousse.
One drink never killed anyone, and it has been a long day. I’ve never seen this town so crowded, with all the poor refugees fleeing the countryside. Here. Santé!
The strong liquid almost scalds Jeanne’s throat, but she must not scowl.
It’s wonderful. Thank you so much, La Rousse. You’re very generous.
La Rousse slaps Jeanne’s elbow playfully. Her touch shook me.
Stop it already, Jeanne. Don’t flatter me. I’m not nobility. I’m a commoner like you and your family. Here, sit next to me on the chest. Now, tell me about life as a country girl. I was born in a great city called Rouen, in Normandy. That’s a long, long way from here. I don’t know anything about milking cows or things of that sort. Do you like it in Domrémy?
Jeanne tries to answer calmly, and fails.
I…to be honest…I hate my life. I’m really very lonely.
I’m sorry, lass. Have my kerchief. Brandy does that, makes people very emotional. It’s alright. I don’t have any real friends either, such is life. Things won’t be like this forever, take my word for it.
I made myself stop crying. Jeanne sniffles and takes a deep breath.
La Rousse, is there a man you love?
The innkeeper laughs, surprised. She patted me on the cheek, softly.
You are a curious one, aren’t you, Jeanne of Domrémy. Why do you ask? There was a man once with whom I was head over heels in love. But that is a very long story, and you must be tired after all the good work you’ve done for me today. Your family must be worried for you. Take two of those eggs and some bread with you.