Pamela Morsi

by The Love Charm

  "Get the hot water and rags," she told him.

  Jean Baptiste left her and hurried to the fire. The water was just beginning to boil and using a mitt on the handle, he carried it into the bedroom.

  Felicite was moaning and writhing on the bed.

  "Have you got your knife?" she asked.

  He pulled it out of his pocket.

  "Drop it in the water, that's what Madame Landry always does."

  Jean Baptiste hesitated a moment—water would rust a blade—then he dropped it with a splash into the pot. If his wife wanted a wet knife, then a wet knife was what she would get.

  "Soak some of the rags in the water," she told him.

  "And wring them out good, they should be hot rather than wet. And get that cotton cord out of the cupboard and bring that dishpan I threw at you."

  He nodded and did as she asked. The nausea had eased somewhat. He laid the items he'd retrieved in easy reach on the floor by the bed, then he bent to check the cotton rags in the water.

  They were hot, almost to scalding. He tossed the wet rag from hand to hand for a moment until it had cooled enough to hold.

  Another pain gripped her.

  Jean Baptiste used one of the warm rags to wipe her brow.

  "Not there!" she growled. "A cool cloth for my forehead. The hot ones go down there."

  He didn't ask her to elaborate but hurried to dip a cool cloth for her. Once more he talked to her through the pain, caressing her back and belly and urging her onward.

  When the contraction subsided she turned sideways in the bed, hanging her feet off the side, and spread her legs so that he could stand between them.

  "The hot rags go down there," she said. "On my . . . on my yum-yum."

  Jean Baptiste raised a surprised eyebrow.

  "They loosen up the flesh," she explained. "Help it give without tearing so badly."

  He dipped his hand into the hot water and brought one out. It was almost too hot to wring.

  "I'm afraid I'll scald you," he said.

  Felicite shook her head. "It's better to scald than tear," she assured him.

  He didn't scald her. He packed the hot rags around the opening of her body. Jean Baptiste barely had time to complete the task before the next pain was upon her.

  This time she reached for the straps. He put them into her hands and she pulled against them. She threw her head back and the sound that came from her clenched teeth was almost a howl.

  Jean Baptiste felt frightened, helpless. What if something was wrong? How would he know? What if this baby ripped her apart? How could he stop it? He was her husband, the only husband that she had. He had brought this pain, this danger to her, and he had no idea how to take it away.

  He dropped to his knees in front of her, massaging her legs and thighs and talking, endlessly talking, reminding her of their three beautiful babies. Reminding her of their life together. Reminding her that no matter how he acted or how foolishly he had treated her, he loved her. He completely, totally, truly, and eternally loved her.

  "It's time!" she hollered at him.

  Jean Baptiste removed the hot rags that covered her and the truth of her words was revealed. His brow furrowed in momentary confusion as her intimate body appeared changed. There were tufts of hair inside?

  Realization dawned with wonder.

  "I can see him, T amie," he told her. "I can see his little head."

  Felicite didn't answer. She was gripping the harness straps with such force that the bed was shuddering with her effort. She was growling and snarling like an animal as she bore down heavily and pushed, pushed, pushed.

  "Here he comes," Jean Baptiste told her.

  The tiny head eased out of her and he held it in his hands. Felicite was grunting and puffing. The baby turned slightly to let its shoulder pass and then, with a startling whoosh, it was in Jean Baptiste's hands.

  Immediately, unbelievably, it set up an angry wail.

  "It's here, it's alive," Jean Baptiste said, his voice filled with wonder and incredulity. "It's . . . it's . . ." He glanced down to the baby's genitals. "It's a girl!"

  "A girl?" Felicite's first words were weak and near breathless. "I thought it was a boy."

  "It's a girl," he told her with certainty.

  "You must tie the cord and cut it," she said.

  He lay the slippery new little creature on Felicite's abdomen and used the cotton string to tie two knots a handspread apart. Then he fished the knife out of the hot water pot and forever separated his wife from his new daughter.

  Chapter 19

  Helga and Laron sat up all night. It was, they knew, their last few hours alone together. Those couldn't be wasted with sleep. They gave little thought to Armand and Aida except to momentarily rue their own thoughtlessness.

  "This is their wedding night," Helga said. "We should have let them have the shelter and the fire."

  Laron nodded. "Or you would have thought that he and I were bright enough to know that we would need two fires and two shelters!"

  "Do you think that they are truly happy?" she asked. "It was all so surprising and hurried."

  Laron shrugged. "I don't know how it happened, but he says that he loves her. I have never known him to be a liar."

  "She must love him, too," Helga said. "When she looks at him her face nearly glows."

  They shrugged at each other at the unfathomable mismatch and then smiled. Laron wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer.

  "I can say that I envy my friend Armand this night," he told Helga.

  She nodded. "Aida is most beautiful," she agreed.

  "No, I don't envy him the possession of her. I envy that this is his first night with the woman he loves. For me and the woman I love, it is the last night."

  Helga nodded, understanding. They kissed, almost dispassionately, storing a memory of taste and texture and feeling.

  "We should not make love," she told him with firm conviction. "We have too many memories together already."

  He agreed.

  "It would be too bittersweet to claim you this night," he said. "And I need your words and your voice to soothe me as much as the feel of your body."

  They lay together side by side, chastely, as friends. Talking, sharing, regretting the past, fearing the future. The hours passed.

  As the night waned and the reality of their time together drew short, things changed between them. Over and over each cast anxious glances toward the eastern sky, fearful, apprehensive. Their kisses became more sensuous, more daring, more urgent. Suddenly and simultaneously they both became almost desperate for the touch of the other.

  Laron ripped her drawers getting them off and she cursed their existence in expressive German. They made love forcefully, passionately, rashly. Biting. Scratching. Pleading. It was a frenzied coupling. Full of fire and lust and recklessness. As if the physicality of their love could drive away the reality of their lives.

  Helga moaned his name as she shuddered with release. Laron moaned in agony as he was barely able to remove himself from her body in time.

  They lay in each other's arms, quaking, shaking, humbled by the power their bodies could create in tune. But as the sweet ecstasy stole away from them, misery took its place.

  Helga cried then. She cried wrenching, bitter tears. Laron held her close and whispered his love to her. He cried, too, his strong, solid chest heaving in grief.

  Afterward, in the quiet of the storm's wake, they dried each other's eyes and kissed each other's cheeks. They joined their bodies again. There was no wildness this time, no primal insistence, only the sweet swell of love expressed, bodies connected. They moved slowly and languidly together, tiptoeing to the brink of passion and retreating again and again, until finally exhaustion alone spurred them to fulfill the climax.

  Spent and sleepy, they lay wrapped together in a blanket sheltered by the windbreak of poles and brush. She rested her head on his chest. And he toyed with the sweet-smelling wildness of her loosened hair. A
s they faced the end of their time together, they reminisced about the beginning.

  "I couldn't believe it," Laron admitted. "I was green and ignorant and just plain scared. I thought that it couldn't be true. You weren't really going to touch me, of that I was certain."

  "You didn't make it easy for me," she told him.

  "How could I?" he asked. "When you knelt down in front of me, I thought you were going to pray."

  "I was praying. Praying I could go through with it," she said.

  Laron shook his head, fondly recalling the night so long ago.

  "When you took me in your hand I closed my eyes and convinced myself that I was imagining the whole thing."

  "And I thought you closed your eyes because you liked it so much!"

  "I liked it too much. I told myself that I was back in my own sleeping cot, dreaming of you and holding myself."

  She chuckled. "Perhaps had it been your own hand, monsieur," she said with feigning complaint, "you would have comported yourself more ably."

  Laron growled and pulled her closer to him. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

  She shook her head.

  "Oh Helga, my sweet Helga," he said. "After three years I am still embarrassed and ashamed. Right in your face! One touch of your lips and I go off right in your face."

  She began to giggle, remembering.

  "You're laughing at me!" he complained and pointed an accusing finger. "You were laughing at me then."

  She admitted as much.

  "In truth, I think it was good that you were obviously so unfamiliar with the carnal," she told him.

  "Why is that? Because you enjoyed being my teacher?"

  Helga was thoughtful for a moment. "The years of my marriage I . . . well, I didn't enjoy sex. Helmut was often drunk and he was never . . . never tender. I had never initiated the act, not ever."

  Laron rubbed her arms to ward off the chill he knew she always felt when she spoke of her husband.

  "Helmut took what he wanted from me; I never gave anything," she said. "If you had been more knowledgeable, more demanding, perhaps I could not have given to you, either."

  "I am more knowledgeable now, am I not?" Laron asked her.

  She huffed irreverently. "You are far too clever a pupil for this teacher," she told him. "You have learned your lessons so quickly and so well, did I not know better I would think you were having a tutor on the side."

  He pinched her backside playfully. "Careful, Madame Shotz," he said. "A woman making unfounded accusations may well find herself across my knee."

  "Oh please non, monsieur," she said, her voice tiny and theatrically pleading. "My big derriere is still stinging from the last time!"

  He laughed heartily and then pulled her close to look into her eyes. The mood sobered.

  "What I intended to tell you," he whispered, "before you teasingly changed the subject, is that you should never believe that somehow you are responsible for the failure of your marriage with Helmut. It was not that he was domineering and that you needed to control. It was not that he was powerful and that you wanted that power for yourself. It was not that you required a lesser partner. Never, never think that. Now I am knowledgeable and I am demanding. Yet you still give to me fully and unhesitatingly. The difference, my Helga, is that while I take from you, I give also. That is the way it should be. So that one partner need never fear to end up empty."

  "Empty," she repeated the word like an echo on her breath. "That is what I most fear about the years ahead. That without you they will be empty."

  "You will have Karl and Elsa and Jakob," he told her. "And you will have the certainty that I have loved you truly and as God surely intended. And that love will be with us always though we never touch again."

  "Perhaps when the children are gone, in our old age maybe—"

  Laron placed a silencing finger against her lips.

  "It is too dangerous to wait, to hope. Know that if heaven grants that I can be with you, I will. And I will know that if you ever feel that you are free, you will seek me out."

  She kissed him then. And he held her tightly in his arms. The vaguest gray light of dawn was lightening the eastern sky. Their time together was almost a thing of the past. They clung to it and to each other, in their hearts both praying for a miracle.

  Armand awakened slowly. He was cold, gritty, exhausted. The ground beneath him was harder than rock and every muscle in his body ached from misuse. He had never felt better.

  In his arms lay the lovely Aida Gaudet, now Aida Sonnier. There was a strange rhythmic sound coming from her throat and he listened to it critically and grinned. The most beautiful woman on the Vermilion River was snoring.

  Her hair was everywhere. Those long dark locks that he had never before seen completely loosened were upon him like silken ties, binding him to her forever.

  The sun's warm glow had not yet reached the place where they lay, but it was morning nonetheless. The first morning of their married life.

  She had been right, of course. He'd thought to remain chaste until they were in more suitable surroundings. He dreamed of her, loving her for the first time, atop a warm overstuffed mattress, on fresh cotton sheets strewn with herbs and the glow of one candle lit at the bedside.

  Yes, that would have been nice. It still would be nice. He wanted to have her there. And he would. He would have her there. And he would have her on the floor in front of the fireplace. He would have her in the hayrick. Upon the kitchen table. In a prairie field. Could such a thing be done in a pirogue? If it could, they would.

  The nature of his wicked thoughts was tightening the front of his trousers. She was sleeping so soundly. He disengaged himself from her embrace and moved away, careful to tuck the blanket in around her so she would not be chilled. He hesitated only long enough to place a gentle kiss upon her brow.

  "Rest yourself, my love," he whispered. "You're going to need it."

  He walked toward the shoreline, dusting the sand from his clothes as he went. She had been right. He had already been worried that her desire for him would have faded with the charm. Waiting another day or perhaps two would have made him far more pessimistic and unsure.

  Perhaps it was that she had lived so long without confidence that she knew so well how to shore it up for others. He had never consciously worried about his ability with women. But she was no ordinary woman. And he wanted her to find him as no ordinary husband.

  He had only meant to touch her, hold her. But when he had seen her passion and watched her reach fulfillment with only the caress of his own hand, he had felt a power and a certainty that transformed him. In a flash of an instant as her body clenched against his hand he had changed from hesitant bridegroom to insatiable lover. It was a conversion that they could both appreciate.

  Love. Sexual union. Procreation. Eternity.

  Armand sighed with appreciation as he stared out at the waves rolling into Vermilion Bay and pondered their meaning. The sea was good for that. Good for pondering. And for men such as the Sonniers the sea was truly a link with life itself.

  Far to the north in a place that existed now only in - the memories passed down, Acadians had built their lives, their culture, on the Bay of Fundy. The sea had been their source of strength and hope and survival. The lands they had farmed had been culled from it. The ships sailing upon its surface gathered fish and lobster and crab. Their ways and seasons were prescribed by the tides. They were a seafaring people.

  Even now, though they had been land-living, prairie people for two generations, the terms and phrases that flowed from their tongues were spawned from the sea. The prairie itself was like a sea of grass, slow-rolling like waves. They were creatures of the sea and it would always be with them, even if only in their hearts.

  Armand stared out at the rolling water before him. Waves rose and broke and receded to rise once more. So much like life, he thought. The deceptive appearance of changelessness while change was constant.

  He thought
of Laron and Helga. His heart ached for them. He had been sympathetic to his friend before. He had felt sadness, but he had not been able to comprehend the agony. Now, knowing love, knowing the oneness of a man and his mate, he understood fully for the first time the harrowing pain of this parting. If only there were something that he could do.

  His brow furrowed in thought. Aida had been right about their first night together. Perhaps she was also right about the vision. There was no question in his mind of what she had seen. And why would she have seen it if it meant nothing? Maybe there was some answer within it.

  Calmly, deliberately, he seated himself on the edge of the water. Like a man mesmerized he stared out on the breaking waves and forced himself to think. He had to think. He simply had to think harder.

  Deliberately in his mind he went over what Aida had seen again. Looking critically at each piece of the strange puzzle. Laron had been trying to cut grain that was already cut. Armand had gone to stop him. But Armand did not point out to him that the grain was lying in windrows around him. For some reason it was not possible for Laron to see that. But Armand could see it. Armand could see it plainly, or at least he could have if he had looked.

  "Well now I am looking," he whispered quietly to himself. "Now I am looking as carefully and as fully as I have ever done in my life."

  Armand leaned forward thoughtfully, elbow on his knee, chin in his hand.

  A careless word—Madame Landry's voice lingered in memory. Careless words were everywhere, he realized. Careless words had set everything in motion and careless words might well be the key to setting it right again. It was all there in careless words. And careless words were all around him.

  Laron: I want to kill him.

  Helga: We cannot live in sin.

  Aida: There must be some other way.

  Madame Landry: Something must be done and soon.

  Helga: I do wish he was dead.

  Aida: You are the answer, Armand.