The truth of that statement stopped the discussion. Aida was flighty and featherheaded. Everybody knew that. She couldn't remember where to find the beans, much less when to put them on the fire. She would never be able to keep in her silly brain all the cures and charms necessary for the welfare of the people in the parish.
"Armand could write them down."
The surprise statement came from Felicite.
"What?" Orva's interest was piqued.
"While you apprentice Aida as treater," she said. "You must keep Armand with you. He can write down in words all the mixes and spells."
"But a man can't be a treater," Madame Marchand pointed out.
"And he won't be," Felicite said. "Aida will be treater and when she can't remember what to do, Armand can read it to her."
"All the cures written down in words?" Madame Doucet wasn't certain.
"After you are gone," Felicite said, indicating Madame Landry. "After Aida is gone, even after Armand is gone, the words would still be there. My Gaston is learning to read the words," she admitted proudly. "Other boys will learn, too. They can read them for the next treater and the next and next."
"The men write down laws and contracts," Madame Hebert piped in. "Why should not the women have those things important to us kept in ink and paper?"
Orva was nodding thoughtfully. "Writing it down. Having Armand write it all down. Yes, that would work," she said. "That would work very well indeed."
Outside of the hulling bee, standing along the riverbank in a dripping rain, the menfolk cast their fishing lines. It was a women's occasion. And it was not so much that the men felt unwelcome as they just felt unnecessary. They were expected to load, unload, transport, and carry. But when females got an opportunity to sit together, the farmers were supposed to make themselves scarce. A small fire pit blazed under the protecting limbs of a lilas parasol. A pot of strong black coffee was the only comfort being afforded.
Armand watched the end of his cane pole with a substantive concentration that could have snapped it in two. He'd already caught a stringer's length of fish that morning, but he had no heart for the sport this day. All around him he heard light-hearted conversations in which he did not participate. His mind was troubled.
Laron continued to be reluctant to go ahead with his wedding plans. He still insisted that he would have Helga or no one. Armand wanted to support his decision, but he could not. Not with his brother's happiness in jeopardy. Not with Jean Baptiste still sleeping in the garconniere.
Aida Gaudet was much too dangerous for that. He'd nearly gotten into an argument with his brother the day they had caught her doing laundry. Armand remembered well his own reaction. He'd gotten hard as a stone just looking at her that day. And when he had waded in to stand beside her, it had been all he could do to keep himself from reaching out to touch the white skin on her arm, the loose lock of hair on her cheek. She was beautiful, desirable, and almost available. For any man that was a temptation. For one suffering a weakness in his marriage, it could be a damning combination.
Jean Baptiste continued to sing her praises while sighing with disappointment about Felicite.
"What is wrong with her face?" Jean Baptiste had asked Armand just this morning.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Felicite's face," his brother continued. "Her cheeks and neck are so fat, she looks as if she's gotten bee-stung."
She did look bad, Armand couldn't deny that. But pregnancy and vanity were not a good mix. Jean Baptiste should be looking at her through a haze of love.
But any haze cleared when the lovely Aida was helped out of her pirogue, showing an unmannerly amount of bare leg, Armand thought. And giggling about forgetting her gloves. What kind of woman went to a hulling bee with no gloves? The answer was simple, a woman who was more interested in being seen than in doing any work.
Aida Gaudet was silly, superficial, and useless compared to Felicite. And Jean Baptiste couldn't keep his eyes off her. It was frightening. Terrifying. If only Armand could speak up to him directly, man to man, and say, "Don't do this to your wife!" But he was afraid. Look at the mess careless words had already gotten him into. If he pointed things out to him, the situation might even get worse.
"Well, look who is here!"
The statement of surprise came from Emile Marchand.
Oscar Benoit sniggered under his breath. "Never known him to show up when there was real work going on."
A chuckle of agreement moved down the line of men like a contagion.
"Bonjour, Father Denis," Jean Baptiste said, stepping up to greet the man. "Welcome to my home."
The priest gave him a hasty, halfhearted blessing.
"Come and have coffee," Jean Baptiste continued. "You have walked so very far. If we had known you wanted to attend the hulling bee, we would have sent someone in a pirogue to fetch you."
"Hulling bee, is it?" the priest looked around him critically. "It looks more like a fishing party."
The men offered good-natured disagreement.
"Alas, our women keep warm and dry with the cotton," Hippolyte Arceneaux piped in sarcastically. "While we poor men are left outside with the gray and drizzle. Nothing to give us comfort but cold coffee and wet fish."
That comment evoked guffaws. Even Father Denis joined in.
"Would you care to linger with us, Father?" Jean
Baptiste asked. "Or would you prefer to join the women under a roof?"
"Oh no, I can't stay long," he said. "I only came to speak with your brother."
Jean Baptiste spotted Armand. "He's here to see you," he reported.
Of course Armand had heard Father Denis's words but he was quite reluctant to rush to the old priest's side. His unwillingness was not because he loved fishing, but rather a great aversion to having to deal with one more uneasy problem. Reluctantly he began pulling in his line.
"May I fish with your pole, Uncle Armand?" little Gaston asked excitedly. The boy's own had proved unlucky that morning. He'd not caught even one measly throwback.
Armand ruffled the boy's hair and handed him the pole.
"Clearly the fish are having trouble swimming around all this other bait," he said to Gaston, indicating the long line of fishermen. "My hook is always their favorite."
Around him the other men scoffed good-naturedly. The boy looked up at him, his trusting eyes wide.
"Give it just a tiny flick of the wrist when you toss it out," Armand suggested quietly. "No grand gesture, like a beau making bow to a mamselle, just a tiny flick, like a husband bidding his wife to dance."
Gaston nodded solemnly.
"The big catfish know that gesture," Armand assured him. "As soon as they see it they'll hurry to the end of your line."
Biting the side of his small mouth in concentration, the child attempted to follow his uncle's advice.
Armand squeezed his shoulder before turning toward the long-robed priest.
Armand offered a polite word in greeting. Father Denis answered with a blessing.
"What is it, Father?" he asked as the two stepped away from the riverbank. "You wished to speak with me?"
The cleric gave a quick disapproving look at the palmfrond hat that remained on Armand's head but made no comment.
"It is a beautiful day," Father Denis commented conversationally.
Armand raised an eyebrow. "It's drizzling rain."
The old priest shrugged. "Even the worst of times are the gift of our Father in heaven," he replied.
Armand shrugged a tacit agreement.
"Let us walk, shall we?"
Armand followed the priest's lead and they slowly made their way along the high ground path, pausing to turn inland when they reached the cypress pieux split rail fence.
"We have had cross words," the good father stated calmly as the two reached beyond the hearing distance of the others.
"It is not the first time, Father," Armand replied.
The years of tutelage and obedience
were long in the past. Armand had long since spoken his mind with the priest and as often as not that frankness had brought discord.
"I have offended you somehow and in some way that I did not intend," the old man said. "And I find that I much need your help."
"If this is about the school, Father," Armand told him, "I have said all that I wish to upon the subject."
"But not all that needs to be said has been," he answered.
"Father, I will not—"
The old priest held up his hand.
"You are correct, my son, when you say that after twenty years I should understand your people better," he said.
Armand nodded agreement.
"I am a man of God, but I am also a Frenchman and will always be so. You and your people"—he shook his head—"they are a breed still strange to me, strange to most anyone, I think."
"We are not strange to ourselves, Father," Armand replied.
"Well said," the priest admitted. "It has been so many years that you have been away from anyone but your own. You have become distinct and strangely unique in your ways. The people here have grown less French in their ways than many of the Africans that have not one drop of French blood inside them."
Armand wondered how the father could know all this, then determinedly shrugged off what sounded to him very much like criticism. The two had reached the corner of the fencing and could walk no further. Armand leaned back against the cypress pieu, spreading his arms along the top railing and propping one bare foot upon the bottom.
"It is the French themselves who taught us that we are not French," he countered.
"Yes, yes, I know," Father Denis said patronizingly. "But that was all a very long time ago."
"A long time ago?" Armand's tone of voice lowered and intensified. "It was a very long time ago. But if we forget this wrong," he said, "if we say what
is past is past, if we do not tell our children the story of how we came here and why, all that pain and rage and death will have been for naught."
The priest's expression was solemn. "The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies, Armand. To bless them that cursed you and pray for them that despite-fully used you."
"And we do, Father," Armand told him. "We wage no war. We plot no revenge. Frenchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards, Creoles, or Americaines, they are all safe here in this place. We laugh, we dance, and we welcome strangers among us. We live on as God intended. But we will not, cannot, forget our past, and we shall not allow our children to do so."
Father Denis observed his pained expression, but eventually nodded.
"All right, Armand," he said. "I will not ask you to bring your people around to my way of thinking."
"Good."
"But I still ask you to help me to start a school."
Armand stopped in his tracks and huffed with indignation. "You have not heard a word that I have said."
"I have heard every word," Father Denis replied. "But none of it convinces me that these children should not learn to read."
"There is no need," Armand insisted.
"I would do nothing to turn the children against the old ways," the priest assured him. "You are right when you say that there is much evil in the world and that it is good to stand clear of it. But it is a perilous idea to believe that ignorance can be a protection. We must know what dangers lurk around us or we should never be on watch to avoid them."
"To know the dangers of the world, Father, is to be tempted by them," Armand said.
"But without temptation there is no virtue, no choice to do right. We would all choose for children the good way, but in truth they each must at some time choose for themselves."
Father Denis glared at him sternly. "You always think that you know what is best, Armand Sonnier. That is always what you think. When I pushed you to become the judge, I did it because I believed in the strength of your mind. But your vanity has blossomed with your age."
The priest's words were soft, but their meaning was a condemnation.
"God has granted you much capacity for knowledge," he said. "I do not see yet that you have acquired much wisdom."
Chapter 10
Aida Gaudet wanted to crawl into a rabbit hole and pull the dirt back over to cover herself up.
"Aida Gaudet to be the new treater?" Armand's tone was incredulous.
"I know it's a silly—" Aida began.
"It's my idea and a very good one, I am thinking," Orva said sharply.
Aida had mentioned Orva Landry's plan to no one, not even her own father. She knew that it would seem foolish, ridiculous. She was not a treater and she never would be. Women like her were not chosen for such tasks. Women like her were the decorations of a community, not the pinions.
Aida watched Armand. He looked down at Madame Landry, seated heavily upon a short stool in the middle of her garden and then over at Aida. He swallowed determinedly as if choosing his words and turned back to the older woman.
"I am not saying that Mademoiselle Gaudet could not be a fine help to you, Nanan," he said quietly. "She could be a companion, assist you in the garden. But learning the cures and charms?" He glanced toward Aida. And then smiled with genuine sympathy. "Why, la demoiselle has much too much to think about already."
Aida wanted to defend herself, but when she looked into his eyes she could not. Armand was correct. She was not nearly smart enough to become the treater. She'd known it all along. That Orva Landry even suggested that she could was ludicrous. But the old woman seemed wholly set upon it.
She sat stubbornly amid the remainders of her garden plot. The uncut corn was drying on the stalk, a few late tomatoes still hid among the vines, and a dozen brightly colored gourds were ripe enough to pick.
"The young woman has an interest," Orva insisted. "She has an interest and she shows an aptitude. That says enough for me. Would you have me ask the voices for your sake?"
Armand cleared his throat nervously. Clearly he did not want any sort of personal consultation with the voices.
"I wouldn't truly be the traiteur," Aida assured him with sincerity. "I would just grow the herbs. I can do that. It's simply gardening. And you will tell me how to put them together. You will keep the secrets of the charms and cures."
"Men don't keep those secrets," he told her.
"Of course they don't," Madame Landry agreed. "And I'm not asking you to keep them. Just to write them down. They need to be written down and I'm not the one to do it."
"It will never work," Armand insisted. "If you must apprentice someone, it must be someone who can be treater."
"There you go again! Thinking that you know everything." Orva huffed in disgust. "Has this current load of lessons you've been burdened with taught you nothing at all?"
Young Monsieur Sonnier appeared distinctly uncomfortable.
"I would think," the old woman continued, "that between that fat old priest's book teachings and my personal guidance, the brightest young man on the Vermilion River would have learned that things are not always exactly as they appear. But no. You believe you know best for yourself, best for everyone. It's a conceit, young man, very much a conceit."
Aida watched as Armand's cheeks reddened. She felt immediate empathy for him. How strange that a man as smart as Armand could be made to feel as silly and foolish as she often did herself. He looked strong and determined, his blue eyes intense. Without thinking she reached out to touch his arm.
He flinched slightly beneath her fingers and glanced up at her, startled.
"Excuse us for a moment," she said to Madame Landry. "I need to speak a word with Monsieur Sonnier."
The treater nodded and Aida led a reluctant Armand out of earshot. She regretted her action almost instantly. She could not offer wisdom or even reason. He would think she had gotten far above herself if she did. All she could speak was the truth.
"I know that I am no choice for this burden," she whispered to him. She kept her head high. She would not be ashamed of who she was, not in front of him. "I don't know a
lot. I lose things. And I don't have a very good memory."
Armand said nothing. It would have been polite if he had begged to differ with her. But she took it as a compliment that he didn't immediately agree.
"Surely a true treater will come along and Madame Landry will recognize her straightaway," she continued. "It is a strange idea, indeed, that I could be of any help to Madame Landry. But she thinks it will be so."
"It is not for me to say who the treater should be," Armand said finally as he watched the determined set of her shoulders. "I just thought that it would be . . . it would be someone other than you."
"I agree completely," Aida told him, grateful that he was not openly derisive of her. "It's not a job I would want. And I am sure that another woman will come along who will be perfect for it. But until she does ... it is only an afternoon or two spent in the old woman's presence. Will it be so much work to write down what she has to say?"
"No, I suppose not," he admitted.
"Until the true treater comes along, I can listen and learn what I can. That will not hurt anyone," she said. "And it will be a good thing to have the cures written down on papers, don't you think?"
He shrugged, but appeared to be conceding. "It could be a good thing," he agreed finally. "A written record is always a hedge against disaster or uncertainty."
"Then you will help me?" she asked. "You will listen while she tells me and you will write it down?"
"All right."
"Thank you, monsieur. Thank you so much." Aida smiled broadly at him, inordinately happy and pleased.
Armand gave her a strange look. "You have a chipped tooth," he said.
Aida covered her mouth, embarrassed.
"Yes, monsieur," she admitted. "I fell when I was ten."
"Pardon, mamselle, I don't know where I lost my manners to speak of it. I had merely never noticed it before. It is not at all distracting."
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