Pamela Morsi

by The Love Charm

  "I only wish for you and Aida," Jean Baptiste told him, "all the happiness that Felicite and I have."

  His brother looked at him askance.

  "You are happy with your marriage?"

  Jean Baptiste looked momentarily chagrined. "I am very happy," he said. "You have worried about me, haven't you?"

  Armand had no desire to mention the sleepless nights, the anxious days, and the hours of planning and scheming that he had been through. He simply nodded.

  Jean Baptiste lowered his head guiltily. "Armand, the only piece of wisdom I can offer you about marriage is that it is not a line from here to happily ever after or from here to death do us part."

  His brother was thoughtful for a moment, and then as if noticing it for the first time he held up the thick piece of braided hemp in his hands.

  "Marriage is not a line at all," he said. "It's a series of loops or coils like the ones in this rope. At the top is total bliss, at the bottom abject misery. Sometimes you are high on the loop and sometimes low. Most of your life you are somewhere in between. At times you know how happy you are and believe that it must go on that way forever. At others you may think that you cannot bear the pain any longer and want to throw the coil away completely. What you must remember is that the loops are never ending. When you are low, so low you are agonizing, you must simply have faith that the coils head upward next toward happiness once more."

  It seemed to Armand later that the coils he was living through these days were very tightly wound. One moment he was happy and jubilant, the next deep in despair.

  That night he had made love to his wife in a real bed for the first time. It was Aida's own girlhood bed, laid with fresh cotton sheets and strewn with sweet herbs, and one candle glowed from the bedside.

  They had reached the high desperate peak at the same instant and had thrown themselves together from that precipice. It had been exquisite. Afterward, however, he had lain awake worried.

  "Armand," she'd said sleepily beside him. "What is wrong?"

  "Nothing," he assured her.

  "It is something. Is it about Laron and Helga?"

  He turned to her and pulled her into his arms. "No, my love. I was thinking about my brother."

  "Jean Baptiste?" Her expression was curious. "He seems very happy about the baby."

  "Yes, he is," Armand told her.

  He was quiet for a long time, looking into her eyes, wanting, hoping.

  "Do you mind very much that you are married to me?" he asked.

  She lowered her eyes, afraid to face him. "No, Armand, I am happy about it."

  With one finger he raised her chin, not allowing her gaze to evade him.

  "Do you love him still?"

  Her brow furrowed momentarily. "Laron? No, I told you. I did not love him at all."

  "Not Laron, Jean Baptiste."

  "Jean Baptiste?"

  "Yes, Jean Baptiste."

  Her brow furrowed in incredulity. "Your brother, Jean Baptiste?"

  "We know no other."

  Aida sat up in bed, pulling the sheet up to cover her nakedness, and stared at her husband in disbelief.

  "You think that I loved your brother?"

  "I know that you loved him," Armand said. "I cannot and will not ask you to change the past. But what I must know is do you love him still?"

  Aida continued to stare at him.

  "You see, Madame Landry warned me that my careless words to Laron were going to cause him to turn from you. It was only natural that you would fix your choice on another man. Jean Baptiste was there and he was so smitten with you. It would have been hard for you to resist that."

  "You thought I would break up your brother's marriage?" Her tone was not pleasant.

  "At first that's what I thought," he said. "Before I really knew you. I know now that of course you would never have done that. The two of you would have just been unrequited lovers. In anguish from afar."

  Aida maintained her silence.

  "But when we ate the love charm, I became really frightened. If you were under the spell of the charm and were to see Jean Baptiste, nothing might stop you from being together. So I ... so I purposely drew you to me and kissed you. I must not have eaten any of the charm. I felt nothing but the . . . the desire that I have always had for you. I maneuvered you into this marriage and I will try to make you happy. But I must know. Do you still love him?"

  Aida got up out of the bed. She didn't even bother to drag the sheet with her. Stark naked she stood in the room and gazed around as if looking for something.

  "I wondered where this had gotten to," she said as she crossed the floor to pick up the wooden battoir with which she did the wash.

  She turned and raised it high over her head. To Armand's total surprise she brought it down in fury, aimed right at the most vulnerable part of him.

  "Aida!" he hollered, jumping out of range and then out the other side of the bed.

  "You idiot! You fool! You . . . you ... I can't think of anything bad enough to call you!"

  She raced to the other side of the bed and swung the battoir at him once more. Thankfully missing again.

  "I have always thought you were so smart, so smart," she snarled at him angrily. "But you are the most stupid, stupid man that I have ever met in my life."

  She swung at him again. Armand was backed completely in the corner and frantically tried to appeal to her reason.

  "Aida, please, put down your weapon and we'll talk."

  "Talk! I never want to talk to you again, Armand Sonnier. I have always known that I am not as smart as you. But you always treated me as completely without sense at all. And this . . . this just proves that you believe it. I would not, ever, never, not in a million years fall in love with a man who was already married. That is the most stupid idea that any woman ever had and I would not have it. Do you understand me?"

  "Yes, yes, my darling. Please put down the bat, my darling."

  "And as for you maneuvering me into this marriage, you haven't enough sense," she declared. "I maneuvered you! I wasn't affected by that love charm, either. I knew I wanted you and when you kissed me and caressed me, I knew that if I were compromised you would have to marry me."

  She ground the words out through clenched teeth.

  "When you managed to restrain yourself, I wasn't disappointed just because I wanted you. I was afraid that you might get away. So I insisted that I was compromised. And I insisted that I must be married."

  She threw the battoir from her. It clattered along the floor. Her fury and anger turned to other emotion as her beautiful eyes welled with tears.

  "You have never thought me anything but some silly decorative flower. I have value beyond my appearance. I am ... I am a flowering herb. I have beauty, but I have power, too. I loved you and I wanted you. When I broke my engagement to Laron, Armand, it was for you."

  "Aida," he whispered and pulled her into his arms. "Aida, I have loved you all my life. Even when you were affianced to my best friend, I loved you. I spoke to you as if you were silly and treated you as if I didn't care for you because I was trying not to. I was trying not to love you as I always have."

  "I love you, Armand," she whispered against him. "In all my life, the only man I have ever loved is you."

  The next morning as he headed down to the church

  to speak with Father Denis, Armand recalled his wife's sweet words and they brought a smile of satisfaction to his lips.

  She loved him. He loved her. Now all that was to be done was to make things right for Helga and Laron.

  "I cannot do it," Father Denis stated flatly.

  "It is perfectly legal," Armand told him. "The law was made for situations exactly like this."

  The old man tutted disapprovingly.

  "I wanted you named as judge, Armand Sonnier, because I believed that you were honorable and principled."

  "And I believe that I am, Father," he said. "I believe that what I am doing is the best thing, the right thing, and the perf
ect solution to the problem at hand."

  The old priest's huff was skeptical.

  "Laron and Helga love each other. They have been living in sin, but they want to repent of that, to 'go and sin no more.' We can give them the opportunity to do that.'

  "It would compound sin upon sin to bless a marriage that is unlawful and bigamous."

  "I have issued the declaration of death. It is therefore neither unlawful nor bigamous," Armand said.

  Stubbornly the priest shook his head.

  "Helmut Shotz is dead, absolutely and incontrovertibly dead to the state of Louisiana."

  "What is truth for the state of Louisiana, young man," the priest answered, "is not the same as truth for the Holy Roman Catholic Church."

  Armand's expression turned shrewd. In life, as in the game of bourre, it was best to let one's opponents take the easy tricks, puff up their confidence, so that one might more easily overwhelm them at the last. Father Denis had already thrown in his best cards. Armand moved to play his own.

  "Father Denis, are you still praying very hard for your new school?"

  The old man raised an eyebrow and regarded Armand questioningly.

  "I know what it is you want," Armand said. "You want a school to teach our children about reading and writing and the world outside ours. But we are very leery of such teaching. We want our children to grow up just like us, farmers, cattle herders, fishermen. Most of us would not voluntarily send our children to school. But if it were the law, if the parish law required that all children attend school, no man or his family would go against it."

  "You are telling me nothing that I do not know," Father Denis said.

  "You need for me to make such a law, Father. You will never have your school unless I do. And I am loath to make it, because I worry about our children also."

  "What are you saying?"

  "If you will honor the death declaration and accept the marriage of Laron and Helga, I will decree that all parish children be given education."

  "That is blackmail," Father Denis accused.

  Armand grinned at him. "Father, the Lord works in mysterious ways."

  The old priest was thoughtful, pensive, considering. Armand knew he had found the chink in his armor.

  "Her husband is dead," Armand assured him.

  "Madame Landry believes it to be so, and so do I. The paper only officially declares what we believe already."

  He wasn't convinced.

  "What we believe or want to believe is not equal to what we know to be true. There is no grave, no body, not even word that the man has died."

  "But Madame Landry—"

  "The old woman is an herb healer not a soothsayer," Father Denis insisted. "She cannot know things beyond us."

  "She is the traiteur, Father. She talks to the voices," Armand said.

  The old priest scoffed. "She thinks she hears Joan of Arc on the river. That is superstition and none of the Church."

  "Who is to say what is real and is not?" Armand asked.

  "I am to say it," Father Denis replied. "I am to say it and I do say it. Helmut Shotz is not dead until he is proven dead. You may declare him dead a hundred times, but until I see that he is dead, his widow will not be married in my church."

  "They need not marry in your church, Father. They can marry elsewhere. You need only to accept their marriage, bless it, and regard it as true."

  "You think some other priest would marry them quicker?" Father Denis asked incredulously.

  "It need not be a priest, Father. Helmut Shotz was Lutheran, Helga's first marriage was in their church. She and Laron could wed there also."

  Father Denis scoffed. "Wedding in a Lutheran church is the same as no wedding at all."

  The two men stilled at the words. They stopped and stared at each other.

  "She was married to this Shotz by a Lutheran minister?" Father Denis asked. "No Catholic priest or prelate officiated?"

  Armand shook his head. "No, Father."

  The old priest smiled. "Then as far as I am concerned, the woman has never been married at all."

  Chapter 22

  The wedding of Helga Shotz and Laron Boudreau was one of the happiest ever celebrated in Prairie l'Acadie. The couple was dazzlingly attractive. Laron, as always, was resplendent in knee-length culotte, formally donned with silk hose and leather boots. His indigo-blue jacket was buttoned high, just to the knot of his yellow silk tie.

  Helga looked startlingly different divested of her drab German clothes. With Aida's help, she had donned a striped skirt of pale green and purple and her corset vest was vivid red.

  Virtually every human being within fifty leagues of the parish had shown up. The Boudreau family alone was a monumental crowd.

  Father Denis officiated. After effecting Helga's conversion to Catholicism, he was eager to lead her out of sin and to bring her, much welcomed, into the fold.

  The wedding was quiet and solemn. The Mass was said, the wine was tasted. The vows were made. It was not Armand but Karl Shotz who stood as garcon d'honneur beside the bridegroom. His chin was held high with pride, and the young boy's bearing was already much that of a man.

  When Father Denis pronounced them husband and wife a cheer of joy went up from the crowd. Laron kissed his bride, lovingly, longingly, lingeringly, until young Karl tapped him on the shoulder and reminded his new father that the couple was not alone. The well-wishers laughed uproariously. The happy couple blushed with chagrin and happiness.

  Ony Guidry struck up the fiddle and the dancing began. Food for the feast had been brought from every household and the long planks that had been laid out were filled and weighted down with it.

  The Shotz children had been totally taken in by the Boudreau family and at the wedding Jakob and Elsa found themselves completely surrounded by their new relatives, tantes, oncles, and cousines, many many cousins.

  "How many cousins do I have?" Jakob had asked Father Denis, overwhelmed with his good fortune.

  The old priest considered for a long time.

  "That will be your first mathematics problem at the school, Jakob," he said. "When you can count high enough to get the number of all your cousins, I will award you a mark."

  The little boy was industriously working on it. But he continued to have trouble with the numbers that began with twenty.

  Aida danced with the new bridegroom, her brother-in-law, Marchand, Granger, Pierre Babin, and even old man Breaux. But mostly she danced with her husband, who twirled and twirled her on the floor, glorying in the pleasure of partnering her.

  Aida was laughing and happy and having a wonderful time. When she spied Ruby, she motioned the young woman over to her.

  "Ruby, you look lovely tonight," she said. "And so very very happy. What is it?"

  Her friend smiled back. "Oh, you are joking with me. You must have heard," she said.

  "Heard what?" Aida asked.

  "I am engaged."

  Aida's mouth dropped open in disbelief and then she squealed with delight and hugged her friend.

  "Who? Who is it?" she asked.

  "Surely you know?"

  "No, I haven't any idea."

  "But you must," Ruby insisted. "You invited me Sunday after Sunday to sit upon your porch. Why else would you have done that? Surely you planned for me to marry him."

  "Who? Placide? Ignace?"

  Ruby wrinkled her nose and giggled with disbelief. "Of course not, silly. I'm to wed Monsieur Gaudet."

  "Who?

  "Monsieur Gaudet, your father."

  "My father?"

  "Yes, as soon as he heard you had wed Armand, he came over to ask me. He said that he had waited so long because he wanted you safely wed and didn't think it fair to bring another woman into the house while you still lived there."

  "That's why he is so anxious for us to move," Aida said to herself.

  "You do not mind, do you? I thought you would be happy for us. That you had planned it for us. But if you—"

  Aida hushed her
with a kiss.

  "I could not be more happy. You and Poppa, I ... I am delighted."

  "He is so handsome, do you not think so?" Ruby gushed. "And such a gentleman. He makes me feel so pretty. He says that I am the most beautiful woman in his heart. Is that not lovely? And Maman is so thrilled because he is such a great catch for me. He is wealthy, the wealthiest man in the parish, you know. Of course he is much older than I," Ruby admitted, but then leaned closer to speak more privately. "But when I agreed to wed him, Aida, he kissed me. And then he did not seem old at all."

  It was after much dancing and laughter and celebration that Laron and Helga boarded their wedding pirogue. The little boat sported a fresh coat of pine tar and was festooned with ribbons and berries and prettied up in a manner befitting a bride.

  Once the bride was seated and they pulled away from shore, the rowdy young men waded into the water, teasingly threatening to tip them into the river.

  As Helga squealed Laron kept them at bay with his pole until they were out into the river far enough to be safe.

  Aida felt a hand enjoin with hers and glanced back to find her husband at her side. He gave her a wink and surreptitiously pulled her away from the crowd. Hand in hand they ran away from the rollick along the river and into the privacy of the wooded glade beyond the church.

  Alone at last, Armand backed her against a sturdy cottonwood and kissed her passionately.

  "I love you, Aida Sonnier," he said. "I love you more than anything or anyone in the world."

  "Mmm, and I love you, my Armand, my wonderful, wonderful Armand," she answered.

  Their mouths and bodies fit together perfectly.

  Both because they were made that way, and because of much recent practice. Their kiss was hot and urgent with pent-up longing.

  "I want you, Aida," he whispered. "I don't think I can wait until we get home."