The Corsican Woman

by Madge Swindells

  Father Andrews had been in Taita for just seven months, on an eighteen-month visit to further his research. While here, he was supposed to act as assistant to the Taitian parish priest, Father Delon, but four months ago the old man had suffered a stroke, and now the work had fallen on the young priest’s shoulders. There was little time left for his research. He was young and idealistic, and he reckoned that the practical experience he would gather here would be invaluable. Perhaps this was the only chance he would ever have to work with real people, for, as a brilliant scholar, he was destined for a research job at the Vatican.

  This was his first wedding, and he was over-anxious. It was past one P.M., and for the fifth time that day he climbed the old stone spiral staircase to the bell tower, where there was an uninterrupted view for miles around. Now that the mist was drifting away, he could see a cloud of yellow dust hovering over the start of the last steep climb to Taita.

  ‘To be sure it’s them,’ he whispered gratefully. Only the villagers came this way, and no other large group was expected. As he made the sign of the Cross, he admitted to himself for the first time that he had never believed the wedding would take place at all.

  In Taita he had quickly learned that the head of the family was far more powerful than either the Church or the French authorities. Xavier Rocca was a man of considerable influence. He had not attended church since his mother’s funeral. Rocca had intended that his son and bride would be married in the traditional Corsican manner, where the girl was simply summoned by her father to meet her groom in the house of her parents. At this meeting they would kiss in the presence of relatives, the girl would hand the groom a plate of fritellis (fritters made from chestnut flour), and shortly afterward the wedding party settled down to munch fritellis while the groom led his bride into her room and promptly consummated the marriage.

  This was indeed a cold-hearted, heathen practice that offended Father Andrews’s sentimental Irish heart, so he had waylaid Xavier one afternoon some distance from Taita and trailed behind him pleading for a decent marriage for the young couple. Inexplicably Xavier had put up very little opposition, and the wedding had been arranged for noon that day.

  Ah, well! Father Andrews smiled as he looked at his watch. Pointless to expect the Corsicans to be on time. Lucky they were coming at all.

  When he clattered down the steps to the church, he was surprised to see Xavier’s wife walking into the nave with an armful of tatty shrubs that were dropping bits of bark and dried leaves on his spotless flagstones. She was touched in the head, he’d decided, from her strange, babbling weekly confessions, yet she had her moments of lucidity. Presumably this was not one of them. He summoned an altar boy to take care of the mess and grabbed the bundle.

  ‘It’s really kind of you, madame,’ he said in his slow but accurate French. Then he paused suddenly and looked at her, really looked at her for the first time. She had the most extraordinarily beautiful yet piercing eyes of bright blue, deep-set in an ugly face with skin the texture and colour of gravel. He felt he had caught a glimpse of a once beautiful women trapped in the shell of an old and ugly hag. For a moment he was quite stunned with compassion.

  ‘Wild flowers,’ she was stammering. ‘So much more beautiful than the cultivated ones — they are natural, you see, whereas these…’ She gestured contemptuously toward the magnificent floral arrangements that he had personally supervised.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he acknowledged grudgingly.

  For a moment Maria forgot her shyness and smiled winsomely, but suddenly remembering her discoloured teeth and the gap on one side, she clapped a hand over her mouth and backed away.

  ‘This is a big day for you, Madame Rocca,’ Father Andrews began again more jovially. ‘They’ll be here within the hour.’

  Within the hour! The thought appalled Maria. Was everything going to be all right? What about the cat? she thought. Why had she forgotten the cat when she laid the food on the table? She had worked so hard for days. She had no daughters to help her, and lately she kept forgetting what she was doing. Her mind wandered around like a butterfly, stopping here and there but never anywhere for long enough. She seemed to remember her mother saying the very same thing, yet surely she was much older then — in her eighties — and at that great age you can be excused for a wandering mind. She broke off, remembering the day her mother forgot they were going to the plot to dig onions and instead picked a huge bunch of lavender and brought it back to the kitchen. How they had laughed at her, but she had pretended it was to keep the flies out of the kitchen — and it worked.

  ‘It really does work,’ she said earnestly to the puzzled young priest. ‘Lavender keeps the flies away. I’ve proved it myself many times, but there now, I’ve forgotten the cat again.’

  She hurried away, and Father Andrews watched her cross the square, a frown on his forehead. How would she cope with a daughter-in-law in the house? Was she really as batty as she seemed, he wondered, or just shy and absent-minded?

  The Rocca house was an imposing fortress of granite, four storeys high, towering on the edge of the precipice that overlooked the lake. Like the rest of Taita, it had been built five hundred years ago by the industrious Genoese, with walls two feet thick and huge timber doors and shutters.

  From the outside it looked wretched, with peeling plaster, badly discoloured paint, and the doors and shutters in an advanced state of decay. Maria never looked at the outside, but only at the interior, which was always spotless. She gazed with satisfaction at the wooden floors polished to a mirror surface, freshly painted walls, hand-embroidered muslin hung at every window, and the well-made furniture. She had time for a last-minute inspection, she decided.

  The basement, which was the ground floor at the back, contained a wood stove for heating water, for here they did the washing and bathed in a large copper tub. Directly above, up a broad flight of stone stairs, was the kitchen.

  The kitchen led into the parlour, which was Maria’s pride and joy. It was a big room with an oval cherrywood dining room table, inherited from her mother, and twelve chairs of pine. Cushions of her own embroidery were placed on the seats and on the long blue couch. Family photographs hung on the walls around a framed reproduction of a painting of Mount Cinto by Edward Lear, which she had once found in an antique shop in Ajaccio and bought because it resembled the view from her bedroom window. On the marble mantelpiece was a statue of the Virgin Mary. An old upright piano that had belonged to her mother stood next to the door.

  Today, however, the room was crowded with trestle tables laden with food.

  The floor above the living room contained two rooms, one huge main bedroom and Xavier’s private den. Above that was the attic of two large rooms, which had been converted into a flat for Sybilia and Michel. All the ceilings of the house were of yellow timbers, which shone golden at night in the glow from the oil lamps.

  Maria gazed lovingly at the attic flat, which looked so inviting. There were two rooms. The first was the couple’s own parlour, with a big couch she had bartered with the Pinellis in return for oil and a sheep. There were also two hard-backed wooden chairs with cushions she had made to soften the seats, a small oak table, a desk, an open grate, and a bookcase for Michel’s books. The bedroom was filled with the furniture from Michel’s room, except for the bed, which was a double brass bedstead covered in knobs with a thick mattress of goose down and a feather bolster. She had even given the bride her own dressing table, reasoning that it would give her pleasure. The girl would bring her own linen, naturally, but meantime she had loaned some of her own, only the best, of course. She had filled stone vases with fragrant herbs gathered in the maquis, and the rooms were filled with their pungent scent.

  Would she be happy here? Would she be good to Michel? Maria knew very little about this young girl, Sybilia, who was about to be thrust into her household, other than listening to Xavier boasting about the fields she was adding to the family fortune.

  Marriages were arranged am
ong the men of the family, and she had not expected to be consulted. Xavier kept his peace. He was not a man to confide in anyone. Happy-go-lucky with his friends, he acted out the part of the brave, reckless Corsican. Brave he was, she admitted, but reckless? Never! Behind the genial grin was a devious, close-mouthed man whose first consideration was keeping up appearances.

  Well, she had no cause to complain about arranged marriages. Suddenly she was tossed back in time. She was a young and prudish girl, not yet eighteen but strong-willed and determined to enter a convent. It was springtime. A lovely spring. Xavier Rocca, on leave from the navy and looking dashing in his French pom-pom, had grabbed her, pulled up her veil, and kissed her on the church steps in full view of the entire village. An unforgivable act in Corsican society, which had compromised her entirely and should have cost him his life. He had pleaded ignorance, having been abroad for so long. He had forgotten he was in Corsica, he had lied. So they were married at once. Her mother had cried, while her father had raged at the dowry Xavier had cheekily demanded. Later, of course, she had discovered Xavier Rocca never made mistakes, but she had not regretted marrying him.

  Oh, her head! If only it did not ache so much. These blinding headaches to which she was so prone filled her with anxiety, for they often led to her nightmares. Oh, God! Surely not today? She must pull herself together.

  All of a sudden she remembered the food and clattered down the stairs in a rush. Yes, she was right, there was a chicken missing, and only a short search revealed the greasy trail where the cat had dragged it into the garden. Fortunately there was plenty, but if the evidence of the theft was still around when Xavier arrived, the cat’s head would leave its shoulders.

  On the spur of the moment she decided to throw the carcass farther away from the house, but the cat, snarling and angry, fled with it into a corner of nettles. Maria shrugged and hurried back to the house.

  She was about to cross the square to the church when she felt a sudden surge of pain in her temples. The light seemed blinding, and as she gasped and clapped her hands over her eyes, she heard the sudden beating of a drum.

  She winced, clasped her ears, and hurried faster. Mary, Mother of Jesus, help me. Help me. Not today. Not on my son ‘s wedding day.

  The sound of the drums encompassed her, all-embracing, inescapable. It seemed to originate from the mountains, but it was echoing in her head. The echoes hurt, and there was no escape. She groaned quietly and collapsed on the old stone bench by the fountain. Oh God, help me!

  But there was no help for her. The spirits were calling to her, and she must obey the drums, omen of death. Groaning quietly, she stood up and stumbled toward the edge of the square. The weird, grey, misty substance that always accompanied her dreams was drifting down from the mountain slopes, and soon she was able to make out the dim shapes of people walking solemnly through the mist.

  She saw Xavier leading the small band of village elders who were carrying the coffin. Their faces were set in lines of anger, not grief. Why? She had to know. They looked tired, unshaven, and unkempt, as if they had all spent several nights in the maquis.

  Who was it? She did not want to know, but she was no longer in control. Her feet carried her forward as if sleep-walking, and peering down into the coffin, she saw her son, Michel. She screamed quietly. He was horribly mutilated, his face swollen and disfigured, his eyes blackened. Staggering back, she had time to see his widow, a beautiful girl, in men's khaki jacket and trousers, carrying a rifle, as a man would, and she too was crying. Her sobs were the last thing Maria heard as the vision faded.

  Suddenly she was alone.

  She staggered back to the fountain and pushed her head into the stream of ice-cold mountain water. ‘A dream, it was nothing… just the ravings of a mad old woman,' she muttered, wiping the tears from her cheeks. ‘It’s not real. Never! Never! I should be put away.’

  She remained there, peering fearfully toward the church, her face filled with dread.

  Chapter 9

  It was after two P.M. before the footsore relatives from Chiomia felt sufficiently refreshed by the fresh fountain water to be shepherded into the church. Shortly afterward the bride was hustled across the square by her parents and brothers. Clutching her veil, she hesitated on the last step of the porch and turned toward the west, as if snatching one last glimpse of the forests and valleys of her home. Then she genuflected and with a bowed head walked up the aisle.

  Watching her, Father Andrews felt compassion for this trembling figure in the elaborate wedding dress, which was clearly too tight and hideously uncomfortable. She was unusually tall, he noticed, with square shoulders, now drooping disconsolately, a narrow waist, and slender hips. He could see her long, tapered fingers, fidgeting nervously with her bouquet, but the rest of her was a mystery. Her face was hidden under a thick bridal veil. Nevertheless, he noticed her hand stealing up to brush her cheeks dry every few seconds, and beautiful hands they were, too.

  Poor child, he thought, to be married at sixteen when she’s never so much as set eyes upon the bridegroom before this morning. ‘God give her courage,’ he muttered under his breath. She’d need all she could muster and still more.

  He could not help frowning at the groom, who was waiting beside the altar. At twenty-two, Michel Rocca was a strange, introverted boy who never came to church and had few friends. He spent his hours wandering alone in the maquis or working on the Rocca land. Some said he had inherited his mother’s second sight, but the priest did not believe this. He had certainly inherited her strangely hooded eyes, which no doubt reinforced the rumour. He had long, straight black hair. His features were curiously sharp, with a short nose and high cheekbones. His pale skin, straight black brows, and thin, expressive mouth gave him a strangely elfin appearance. The priest scowled until his brows met across the bridge of his nose, and unexpectedly Michel looked straight at him suspiciously, as if sensing the priest’s thoughts. Then his eyes shied as he flushed, and gazed desperately around the church, anywhere except at his bride.

  The guests were fidgeting noisily, clearly impatient to get on with the celebrations. With a sigh, Father Andrews launched himself into the nuptial mass and his sermon. ’The art of loving,’ he began confidently, for his sermon was based on several days’ earnest thought and meditation, ‘is an art which is sadly neglected in this day and age, and strange that it should be so, since love is a word much bandied around by young people the world over nowadays. The young couple standing before us today are here to unite their two families in bonds of kinship, in a marriage which has been arranged for them by their parents in their wisdom. Now, as they set off to build a life together, they should make love their first target, for without love their separate existences will be lonely and barren. But with love even the lowliest task each day will be a joy and they will be truly united. So I say to you, Michel and Sybilia, love God, love the world, and then I promise you this love will flow into your relationship…’

  Love, Xavier thought scornfully as he listened to the sermon. Such nonsense this fool of a priest was stuffing into their heads! What part did love play in a Corsican marriage? Romantic love, which he had learned about to his astonishment in his travels, was one of the many sicknesses that was seeping into Corsica from the outside world. There was no such awareness in Corsican traditions. A girl was the property of her husband and his family. All her energies and her desires would be channelled into serving the family. She would expect protection, food, and shelter, children — but love? Well, what could you expect from an Irish priest? He could have done without this ceremony, but Michel being the way he was… He shrugged off unwelcome thoughts and shifted to a better position on the hard pew.

  Sybilia listened to the words in dismay. Love him? How disgusting! It would be a miracle if she did not die of shame.

  All the world knew what would happen to her tonight, she would have to open her legs and… Oh, God — oh, Virgin Mary, save me, help me… Her mother had just told her, in hushed whisper
s while she rearranged her veil, what she could expect, and not too long after the ceremony, either. Would it hurt too badly? Worse than the mule ride? Mother had said that it did. But what did the pain matter compared with the shame of it? How would she ever lift up her face in public again?

  She was the only person in church that day who was not longing for Father Andrews to finish his long-winded sermon. Let it go on forever, let this ceremony never end for when it ended…

  When the priest pronounced them man and wife a few minutes later, the girl stiffened and seemed to shrink into herself. But she recovered and lifted her veil, offering her cheek for the traditional kiss.

  It was the priest’s turn to be astonished. For the first time in his life he saw real beauty, and he gaped with his mouth open. Her features were classically correct: the nose and chin in perfect harmony, the long, graceful sweep of her cheekbones, the lips full and perfectly formed, her eyes set wide apart, huge and candid, like a fawn’s. But most remarkable of all was her flawless golden skin, characteristic of the Corsican mountain people. Her hair was brown, shining with reddish glints in the candlelight, but her beauty was more than the sum of these things. It had a great deal to do with the sweet and loving nature that was so clearly stamped upon her face. Truth, beauty, and love personified were standing here before him.

  As the organist, Vannina Susini, began the ‘Wedding March’, Sybilia tossed her head proudly and gazed scornfully at the priest and the congregation and all her new relatives. It was a good try, but she could not conceal the grief and fear that was brimming out of her.