"I had a very strange dream the other night," she said, leaning toward him slightly. "I need to tell you about it."
"A dream?" He appeared momentarily disconcerted. "Madame Landry sometimes interprets dreams, perhaps you should tell her."
"No, no," Aida said with certainty. "I must tell you because you were in the dream. There was something about it that was very important, I think."
Armand shrugged with unconcern. "It is nothing, I'm sure. I've always thought most dreams to be just too much coffee after supper."
"This one was not coffee. In fact, it was not a dream, not exactly."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I was not asleep when it happened."
Armand's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "You weren't asleep?"
Aida shook her head and cast a hasty glance in Orva Landry's direction before answering. "I was washing dishes," she said quietly. "I ... I was washing dishes and a ... a feeling came over me. I had a . . . well, a vision." The last was spoken with a low whisper.
"A vision?" Armand was incredulous. "Mademoiselle Gaudet, this attempt at being traiteur has gotten out of hand. Madame Landry has visions, you do not."
Aida was stung by his dismissal.
"It was a vision. I did not ask for it and I did not want it, but I got it all the same. And there is something in it that I am supposed to relate to you."
"Mademoiselle Gaudet, I don't think—"
"Just listen," she told him. Deliberately she took a deep breath and tried, as best she could, to convey the importance and urgency she'd felt in her dream.
"I saw Laron cutting a field," she said. "But there was no grain there to cut. It had all been shorn and was lying in wait to be gathered."
Armand's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he considered her words.
"I wanted to tell him that he should put away the scythe and gather up what was on the ground," she said. "But it was as if I was not there. He could not see or hear me."
Aida regarded Armand steadily. "You rode up on a big chestnut horse."
She hesitated momentarily. Somehow she didn't want to describe how handsome and noble he had appeared. In her memory he seemed strong and brave and infinitely hers. She was not willing to share that.
"You began talking to him," she said. "Trying to get him to stop scything at nothing. You continued to intone him, argue with him, plead with him, but you never once pointed out that the grain lay cut on the ground. Somehow I know that if he realized that it was already cut, he would go on about gathering it up."
There was silence between them for a long minute. Finally Armand pushed his hat back slightly, using his sleeve to wipe the sweat that had inexplicably gathered there in the cool morning.
"I don't believe for a moment," he said, "that this was a vision. But whatever it was, it seems easy enough to interpret."
Aida swallowed hard and forced herself to look up at him questioningly. "And how do you interpret it?" she asked tartly.
"Well," he answered. "It is obviously about the broken betrothal. The German widow is the grain that Laron is trying to cut. He needs a wife and he is trying to find one. But that woman is already married. She is not available to him. You are the cut grain already shorn and waiting to be gathered up."
"What were you telling him then?" she asked.
"The same thing that I am telling you. The marriage between you two is the right thing and the sooner you go through with it, the better it will be for everyone concerned."
Aida considered his words for a long minute.
"That isn't what it means," she said finally.
Armand was immediately annoyed. "If that is not it, then what does it mean?" he asked, annoyed.
"I'm not sure. But I believe that you have spoken too quickly. Perhaps if you think about it longer, you will see some meaning more plausible."
"I think the meaning I have come up with is more than plausible," he said. "You must marry Laron Boudreau. It is exactly what you are meant to do."
"I will not do that," she stated flatly. "I do not love him."
"But you should, Mademoiselle Gaudet," he said. "You should."
She looked at him askance. "Do you believe, monsieur, that a person can force such a feeling?"
"I am not trying to tell you where to love," Armand said firmly. "I do suppose that is something
that is out of a person's control. But I do think that a person, a man or woman, can decide on the simple things, the very important things, that could ensure or deny happiness. Those elements that they will and will not accept."
"What do you mean?"
"Well . . . like the prospective mate has a nasty temper or ... or that he doesn't like children."
She scoffed. "I can't imagine many women falling in love with a nasty-tempered man who doesn't like children."
"Of course not, but you see my meaning. Standards are set."
"And you believe that Laron Boudreau and I would meet the standards of each other?"
"Perfectly," Armand answered. "He will be a handsome, generous, supportive husband. What more could you want?"
"And for him?"
"You are . . . well, you are not married to someone else," he said.
Aida thought it was very little to recommend a woman.
"Have you set standards, monsieur?" she asked.
"Certainly I have."
"What kind?" Her question was more than idle curiosity.
"Hmmm." Armand was thoughtful for a long moment. "The woman I wed doesn't have to be pretty," he said. "But I would be pleased if she had some attractive aspect. Nice eyes or soft hair or something that I would feel drawn to."
"All women have some desirable feature," Aida pointed out.
He nodded. "Yes, I think you're probably right. I'd also like to be able to talk to her. She doesn't have to be a keen wit or a brilliant thinker, but I would want her to have an opinion."
"Still that is nothing," Aida said. "Even I have an opinion. Is there nothing else?"
"Naturally she would have to be small."
"Small?"
"Yes, shorter than I. Certainly I would never consider a marriage to a woman who was taller than me."
"That's silly."
"It is not."
"It is. It's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard."
"Then you don't often listen, mamselle. Everyone in the parish agrees with me. People are always suggesting to me young female relatives and acquaintances that are small in stature. It is accepted that the husband should be taller than the wife."
"I thought you could read both the law and the Bible?"
Armand eyed her curiously. "I can," he said.
"Is that written either place?"
"Of course not, but—"
"I know that I am not very bright, monsieur," she interrupted. "But if I were to love someone . . ." Her voice became soft, almost dreamy as she spoke. "If I were to love someone, I would let nothing that anybody thought or said dissuade me from my lover."
Armand's eyes widened in genuine concern. "But a person must always listen to their friends, their relatives, the people of their community."
"And why must I do that?" she asked. "A marriage
is between two people, a man and a woman. No one else must live day by day for the rest of time with that person. So no one else should have a say in it."
"So you would go against your family, your friends, your people?" His tone was angry, disapproving.
Aida Gaudet looked up at him, standing in the pirogue. Her chin was high and her words determined.
"For the man I love, monsieur, I would go against God Himself."
Armand was nearly shaking from the import of Aida's words. For the man she loved, she would go against God Himself. Certainly she was preparing her conscience for the break with church and community and family. She might not even realize it yet herself, but she was preparing to break up his brother's marriage and bring pain and misery upon all of them.
He glanced over at Gaston an
d Marie, still happy and contented in Madame Landry's lap. Earlier he had seen Aida hold the little girl tenderly in her arms. How could a woman do that? Be gentle with a child whose life she planned to ruin?
"Take this stream right here," Orva Landry ordered, breaking into Armand's thoughts.
"Bayou Tortue?" He looked at the old woman questioningly.
"Yes, this way," she said, indicating the narrow waterway named for its abundance of turtles.
"Madame Landry," Armand spoke up sternly. "You have no business up there."
Orva gave him a long, deliberate stare, nearly cool enough to frost his eyelashes.
"Bayou Tortue, young man. There is a person up that way with whom I must speak."
He hesitated only a moment, casting a quick glance at Aida, who was wide-eyed. Madame Landry was going to speak to the German widow. The prospect did not please him. Then he thought once more of Mademoiselle Gaudet's strange vision. Perhaps the old woman, too, had a plan to tell Aida that she must marry Laron.
With mild trepidation, Armand guided the pirogue into the turn and began the more laborious task of poling it and five people upstream.
The bayou was much narrower than the river, and the huge cypress and stately tupelos shaded the water so that it felt chill and dark. The verdant duckweed and water lettuce was thick and surrounded the boat like an unimpeded effluvium. Armand had been up this way, hunting and fishing many times in the past. The pervasive feeling of the place had never been as it was now. It was as if there were a sadness that seeped even from the vegetation.
"Something must be done” Orva said aloud, breaking the strange silence that had settled upon them. "Something must be done and soon."
Armand's pirogue covered the stretch between the river and the German widow's settlement in good time. The occupants of the boat, including the children, kept quiet and watchful until the small, well-worn cypress landing came into view.
"Look! It's a boy!" Gaston exclaimed as he spotted Helga Shotz's youngest handfishing from the end of the dock with a length of cotton cord.
The little boy looked up, his eyes curious and a little wary.
"Bonjour!" he called out to them. The sound of his French, as familiar as their own, was in stark contrast to his appearance. He was as blond as a human could be, the fairness of his hair and eyebrows almost the exact color of his skin. And he was dressed in the German fashion of very short wide-legged pants of homespun with shoulder galluses bibbed together with a block of the same material. He was small and strange and very foreign, but he appeared eager and friendly.
"Bonjour," Armand called back.
"Put the boat in," Orva told him. "I wish to disembark."
With some skill Armand eased the pirogue next to the boat. Gaston threw the rope out to the boy and he attempted ineffectually to tie it to the pillar.
A young girl came rushing down the dock. Her long blond braids were as thick as sweetgum saplings.
"Let me do it," she told the little one without criticism. She easily pulled through the good knots, without requiring the help of Armand, who had set the pole firmly in the bayou floor and bounded onto the cypress to assist.
"Good morning," he said formally to the newcomer and her brother. "I am Armand Sonnier. This is Madame Landry, Mademoiselle Gaudet, and my niece and nephew, Marie and Gaston."
The young girl gave a credible curtsy, nodding. "I am Elsa Shotz and this is my brother Jakob. Welcome to our home." Her smile was sweet and winning. "I have heard of you, monsieur," she said. "I have heard of all of you. You are acquaintances of our friend Monsieur Boudreau."
"He's not our friend” the little boy argued. "He is our uncle."
The little girl's cheeks flushed with embarrassment and she opened her mouth to dispute her brother's words, but Armand forestalled her.
"Indeed?" he said, sounding delighted. "Monsieur Boudreau is as well a cousin to Madame Landry, who is also my godmother. So it seems we are all almost family."
Armand deliberately avoided any mention of what his friend's relationship with Mademoiselle Gaudet might be.
More might have been said had not, at that moment, Helga Shotz stepped out on her porch. Her threadbare workdress was scrupulously clean, her hair exceptionally tidy, and her face as white as death.
"Has something happened?" she asked anxiously. "Has something happened to Laron?"
The use of his given name said volumes about the nature of the woman's relationship with Boudreau as well as her current state of apprehension.
"No no," Orva said, waving assurance. "I have only come for a visit. Mon fils, help me from the boat."
The children scrambled to the dock and Armand hurried to assist the old woman. He then offered a hand to Aida and the two of them followed the old woman up the ramp to the small house.
In front of him the children chattered together as if they were old friends.
"This bayou is so gloomy," Gaston commented to Elsa.
The little girl shrugged without comment, but her brother piped in a comment.
"Only since Oncle has gone away. We were all so happy before," he said.
Armand cast a quick glance at Aida before the two of them stepped inside.
Helga Shotz bustled around nervously, apologizing for the state of her home. In fact, the little cabin was scrupulously clean and the fragrance of fresh-baked bread emanated from the row of big bowl-shaped loaves cooling upon the shelf.
Her accent was heavy, forcing the listeners to pay close attention to her words, but her understanding of the language was estimable. The woman cast several surreptitious glances at Aida. Armand wondered what she was thinking. How would a plain, almost haggard-looking housewife regard the beautiful woman who was to be her lover's bride?
Aida, in fact, appeared more uncomfortable than Madame Shotz. She kept her body still and her eyes lowered as if she were trying to make herself disappear.
"Would you like coffee?" Helga asked. "I am afraid I do not make it so good, but I can make it."
Orva smiled broadly at her. "Do make us coffee," she said. "And do not worry about the quality of it. If an Acadian wants coffee he will drink any kind. And if he doesn't want coffee, then he's probably drinking sazerac!"
The joking comment dispelled some of the tension in the room.
As Helga busied herself brewing the aromatic cafe noir, Orva chattered along in what sounded much like idle conversation.
"I knew the man who built this house," she said. "It was empty for years before your husband bought it. But I knew the fellow who had it first."
"Really?" Helga's question was politeness devoid of interest.
Orva took no notice. "He was a Spaniard, a strange little man," she continued. "He lived alone here, needed no one and talked to no one. He trapped in the back prairies for thirty years before our people arrived."
"What happened to him?" Helga asked.
Orva shrugged. "No one knows. Some say he moved on to less peopled hunting grounds. Some say he was killed in a drunken brawl with a trader in Opelousas. Years back old Arceneaux killed a gator and found a silver belt buckle in his belly. It looked a whole lot like the one that Spaniard always wore."
"Oh dear." Helga's eyes widened in shock.
"The syndic we had then." She pointed to Armand. "The fellow who served as judge under the Spanish, he finally had to simply declare the man dead."
Orva tutted almost to herself and shook her head sadly.
"When a man has made a life where no one knows or cares about him, often when he leaves it, there is not so much as a ripple in the water to show his passing."
The coffee, when presented, was certainly drinkable, and the strange German bread was surprising tasteful, though a little coarse for their tastes.
Madame Landry kept up an unending stream of conversation, seemingly in no direction at all. Armand waited patiently for her to get to the point of their visit but the old woman seemed content to just drink coffee and chat.
With Helga's
admonition to Elsa to watch the little ones, the children played together outside. Their loud boisterous play belied the fact that they had never set eyes upon each other before that morning.
The only disruption in what appeared to be an amiable social call was the abrupt arrival of Karl Shotz, Helga's oldest son. The burly twelve-year-old burst through the back door, clearly believing that something was amiss. Then he glared unhappily at the room full of strangers who had come for coffee.
His mother introduced her guests and the youngster offered polite greetings in a slightly belligerent monotone.
Helga suggested that he help his sister supervise the younger children. Instead he pulled up a chair and seated himself between his mother and Madame Landry.
"Do you know who I am?" Orva asked him.
"You are the fortune teller," he answered.
Madame Landry's eyebrows shot up.
"No, that is not quite correct," she told him calmly. "I am a treater. I do what I can to aid the sick and injured. For that job, I often have the help of voices and visions. At times, it is true, I can tell a person what his future will be."
He gave the old woman a slow, almost insolent look.
"Then tell me my future," he demanded.
Armand was startled by the young man's antagonism, but even more surprised by Orva's calm response. From his own experience, Armand knew that
Madame Landry did not tolerate insolence or disrespect. Yet she continued to talk to the boy as if she did not notice the offensiveness of his tone.
"You have a very bright future," she said to him. "But you think that it begins now. It does not."
The young boy's brow furrowed. "What does that mean?" he asked.
Madame Landry smiled. "It means that it is still time to leave the judgments of elders to elders." She reached over and patted his arm. "Soon enough you will be such a one yourself."
Karl angrily jerked his arm from her and stormed out of the room.
Helga's face was flushed with humiliation. "I must apologize," she said. "My son has been very short of temper these days, but I cannot excuse his rudeness."
"Let it be," Orva said, waving away the woman's concern. "It is a difficult time for your family. And a difficult step in childhood."
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