Heartsong

by James Welch

  “Oui, monsieur,” she said. But the voice seemed very far away, as though it were an echo of another voice in another room. “Oui, monsieur, if it would please you.”

  Marie sat on the edge of her bed, still in her plain white shift, her black stockings, her high shoes. She stared at the small glassine envelope between her fingers. The man was gone, had been gone for twenty minutes, had in fact only stayed for fifteen minutes. When she started to remove her shift, he had said, “Don’t bother. I don’t want to see your body. I have come only to talk to you.”

  Marie had been horrified at the man’s proposition. She had shaken her head and said, “No, no, monsieur, I cannot do this. You ask too much.” Even when he dropped a ten-francs note on the bed she had refused just as vociferously. And when he dropped another ten, she had swept them off the bed onto the floor. “Take your money. I will not do it.” And she had looked up at him with a rare defiance.

  That’s when he stepped forward quickly and slapped her on the cheek. It was not a hard blow. It barely stung. She had been hit harder by men in the throes of frustrated lust, when they were angry at that part of them that remained limp and took it out on her. She lowered her head and shook it again, almost violently, her dark hair swirling like the skirt of a dervish.

  He called her a bitch, a slut, a cunt, and still she shook her head wordlessly. He told her she was not worth fucking, that she was a fat cow not fit to be mounted by the meanest, most disease-ridden bull of her pathetic Vaucluse.

  Then he cajoled her. He was sorry, he had been angry at other things in his life. She was very attractive and he knew why men desired her so. What a nice room. And look—what a pretty little lamp.

  But Marie responded to neither insult nor compliment. The insults did hurt her—they confirmed how she felt about herself in her worst moments, when she thought no decent man would ever want her. But now a decent man had come into her life and this pale villain wanted her to help him harm François. To what end, she didn’t know, but the thought that she could be an agent of such harm horrified her.

  She lay across her bed and listened to the almost cheerful voice go on about her Rubenesque figure, her lush hair, and she wanted to cry but couldn’t. She just felt drained, as though the man had performed the one act on her she loathed but had to accept.

  Then there was a moment of silence. She knew he was looking down at her, thinking of his next move, but she turned her head to the wall and kept her eyes closed. She heard him sigh and thought, with some joyless hope, that he had given up.

  “Very well then. I can see that you do not want to do this. I accept that.” She heard his footsteps as he walked toward the door. Then he paused. “I’m afraid I’ll have to tell Olivier that you didn’t please me. He will be very offended.” Another pause, as though to give her a chance to respond. Then the voice said, “You see, he is in love with me, but I find him as attractive as a fat toad. I’m sure you do too. Nevertheless, you will have to answer to him. Perhaps you will go back to your family in the Vaucluse.”

  Marie heard the doorknob turn, and she sat up quickly. “Wait a moment, monsieur,” she said. “I beg you—wait a moment.”

  Now, Marie knelt before the bureau and opened the bottom drawer. She stared at the few things in it. She opened the velvet box and ran her finger over the cool stone of the cameo, tracing the bust of a beautiful lady. Who was she? Had there really been such a lady? Marie closed the box and hooked the tiny brass latch. Then she opened her Bible to a place marked by a ribbon. Her eyes fell on a familiar passage underlined in ink. Although she couldn’t read, she could hear the priest’s voice reciting it a long time ago: “Why then hast thou not kept the oath of the Lord, and the commandment that I have charged thee with?” The commandment that I have charged thee with. The Lord would not condone this commandment. She placed the glassine envelope in the crease, along with the two ten-franc notes, and closed the Bible.

  Perhaps she would go to Abbaye St-Victor tomorrow and pray to the Black Virgin for forgiveness for this thing she was obligated to do. Marie had stopped going to church, except for the holy days, since she had become a whore. Part of it was that it was too difficult to get up on Sunday morning after a long, busy Saturday night. The other part was that she felt unworthy to enter a church, ashamed to confess her sins, and afraid that she might incur the wrath of God. She had grown up with stories about an unforgiving, vengeful God, who would inflict punishment on those who didn’t glorify him. It was too horrific to think about. She only went on holy days because some of the other whores went. Perhaps they all thought there was safety in numbers. MLarie didn’t question them. Religion was a private matter in a whorehouse.

  Marie closed the drawer and stood and looked at her face in the mirror. She rouged her cheeks and painted her lips. She didn’t look into the eyes. She dreaded going back downstairs. But it was only for a couple more hours. And she still had a job and a place. As for Saturday night, she would do it and François would be out of her life forever. She was sure of that. But he hadn’t really been a part of a life that she wanted, only the dream of it.

  Charging Elk was puzzled by the coolness between him and Marie. Even as they sat on the divan, virtually thigh to thigh, she seemed very far away. When he told her about his new job, and the extra three francs a week it brought him, she had barely acknowledged his good fortune. When he told her he was thinking of moving into a nicer flat, a larger one, one that might be big enough for two (although he didn’t know how such a move was accomplished), she had looked away and said, “That will be nice for you, François.”

  It was then he realized she had not really looked at him since he had crossed the floor to sit beside her. Now she sat quite still, looking off toward the piano player. Something else was occupying her thoughts. Or perhaps she had no thoughts at all.

  “Is your family fine?” he said. They had never discussed her family, but he could think of nothing else to say just then. He had decided earlier to tell her his real name tonight when they were alone. He would tell her all about Buffalo Bill and his people and his country. He had told her one night that he was American—but nothing else. He would explain, if he could, how he came to be in Marseille. But would she understand? Or would she think he was only a savage who had been deceiving her with his gifts and good manners?

  “I don’t think of them much.” Her voice was dull, almost a mumble, unlike the shy but clear language she had come to use around him.

  “I think you should leave here,” he said too abruptly. This was what he had come to say tonight but the words sounded wrong in the big room. For six sleeps, ever since he started his new job, he had been practicing a speech that would end with a request that she come with him to a new flat. They could be married and have children. She could cook him good meals. He could buy her a nice dress and a hat. They could walk along the Corniche on Sundays and watch the fishing boats. He had imagined that her eyes would light up over these plans, that she would be happy to leave this place and the many men she had to fuck. He had imagined that she would be happy to be with only him for the rest of her life. But the words seemed too thin and inconsequential in the strangely festive atmosphere of the whorehouse.

  Her lips thinned into a pained smile as she snorted a pale imitation of mirth. “And where would I go? Home? To pick cherries? To cart melons to the market?”

  The bitterness in her voice startled Charging Elk, but he said, “You come with me. I have a good job. I have plenty of friends.”

  Marie almost looked at him then. Way down deep within her, she had expected that such a moment might happen. She had thought about it, in an offhand—almost dreamlike—manner when she sat in the kitchen with the other girls and had her café crème. She had listened to the other girls and thought how lucky she must be to have at least one good man in her life. And she had thought that such a moment as this just might occur. But now it was too late. Or was it?

  Why couldn ‘t she say yes, right now, and leave this unna
tural life behind forever? She would probably never have this opportunity again. She didn’t know if she loved François, but does one really need love? And couldn’t she learn to love him over time? That happened. It had happened to her grandmother. One day when she was fifteen, as they were shelling peas in the kitchen, her grandmother had told her that love is better if it comes gradually. Marie had fallen for the boy at the next farm and wanted to be with him in a most desperate way. But her grand-maman told her to be patient, that she had married Marie’s grandfather late and had to learn to love him. It took a few years but she had put her trust in God and it had worked out for the best. They had had seven children and were still in love. If she had married the first boy she fell in love with it would have been a disaster. The man was now a big wine producer but he was rumored to be a drunkard and a womanizer. So, you see?

  Marie was beginning to think that such a thing was possible. She could learn to love François and together they could have seven children and live a gentle life, perhaps in the country, perhaps her own. She could go back with him and they could live and work with her family.

  But then the air went out of her imaginings. Expecting her family, the people of the Vaucluse, to accept this dark giant was too much. He would be a freak and she would be married to a freak. And what if they stayed in Marseille? He now had a good job. He was going to acquire a big flat. He was gentle and considerate, unlike her other customers. In his own way, he was striking if not handsome. And he made her feel something that she never thought possible when they fucked. She felt that they were actually making love even if they were not real lovers.

  But he was not French. He was not from Provence. He came from America. What if, after they were married, he just decided to disappear? He could do that. Or what if he decided to start drinking and to beat her? Perhaps these Americans were not as sane as the French. But the thought that worried Marie the most was that he could one day just disappear. Back to America. And where would she be? Out of a job and a place. She could not come back here. And perhaps by then she would be too old or too fat to be a whore.

  No, she could not take the chance. She would not. For all its unpleasantness—for the monotony of sitting down here, then taking men upstairs, of drinking coffee with the girls when decent women were shopping or taking their children for a stroll—this was her life, a life she could count on for some time to come.

  Marie almost moaned with disgust for herself as she turned to the tall dark man, who was smiling expectantly. “Would you like to go to my room, François?”

  Charging Elk was surprised but pleased to see a bottle of wine and two glasses on the top of the bureau. Had she known that he was going to ask her to come live with him? Perhaps she had acted so distant downstairs because the other men—men who had probably gone upstairs with her—were watching them. He was used to being looked at, up and down, but Marie was not, at least not as a curiosity. She was always reserved when they sat downstairs. But in her room she came alive and for a few long moments they were as close as a man and woman can be. He still marveled at the act and in fact was becoming erect. But was this to be a celebration of something so fantastical that he could scarcely breathe at the thought of what might happen?

  Charging Elk hung his jacket on the hall tree and loosened his tie and slipped it over his head. Then on a whim, he undid the blue ribbon that tied his hair up and felt the long, dark hair cascade down over his shoulders. He had his shirt unbuttoned when Marie called to him.

  “Come, have a glass of wine with me, François.” She held out a glass half full of the deep red wine. He noticed that the liquid trembled with little waves. But perhaps she was nervous.

  He bowed slightly and said, “Beautiful wine for a beautiful woman.” Then he drank and watched her take a sip. “Perfect for such a joyous moment,” he said, pleased with his nice words.

  Marie sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him. She didn’t know how long the drug took, so she patted the bed beside her. She felt his weight settle, drawing her a little nearer to him. She felt his arm behind her, then his fingers along her waist. By now she was trembling all over.

  “Can you be cold? It is so warm in your room.”

  “No, no, it is nothing—only a thought.”

  Charging Elk took a sip of wine and it warmed him inside and out. He wanted her to say something that would tell him that he hadn’t been mistaken about the celebration. But when she sat and said nothing, he finally said, “You will come with me?”

  She looked at him, and he thought it was a strange look, as though she were searching in his eyes for something. He thought perhaps she was deciding, and his heart was high with anticipation. He could feel it beating against his chest and he could hear it in his ears. He felt warm and suddenly very lazy. She was still looking into his eyes but her own eyes were dark and watery. He heard his own voice but he couldn’t make out the words. And then he felt himself lying back across the bed and he looked up and saw Marie very close, standing over him, and then she leaned closer still so that her face was a golden blur above his eyes and he felt her mouth on his. She had never kissed him on the lips before, and he thought how strange and pleasant it was. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the lavender scent of her hair, the light brush of her hand on his face . . .

  Charging Elk looked up and saw a dark, ever-changing cloud. He had seen clouds like this on very cold days near the end of the Moon When the White Calves Grow Hair—large, dark clouds with silver-tinted edges. Sometimes the sun came between them and lit the earth with a fire that crossed ones head and shoulders and suddenly it grew warm and pleasant and he and Strikes Plenty lifted their faces to it. Charging Elk could see the plains between Pine Ridge and the badlands dappled with such sunstreaks, lighting the dark earth beneath the clouds with ragged patches of fire that almost hurt the eye. High Runner lifted his head and whickered, as though he too knew that Wakan Tanka was teasing the boys, that winter was not far off.

  Charging Elk watched the cloud move and change shapes, and the realization came to him that it was a lone cloud, drifting all by itself against a gray sky. And then he noticed that there were jagged rents in the sky, as though it were filled with lightning all at once, crisscrossing the gray sky And then the cloud ceased to drift and became something else. He studied the cloud and the lightning and then he realized he was in a room.

  His head was tight against a hard wall. The cloud became a water stain and the lightning cracks in the plastered ceiling. His first thought was that he was back in the iron house. But it was too warm. Then he thought it was the sickhouse. He strained to move his head to see if the room was full of beds, of sleeping men. He tried to lift his head, his shoulders; he tried to get up on his elbows to look around; but his body would not obey him. It didn’t hurt as it had in the sickhouse; in fact, it felt pleasant, as though the warmth came from him, a warmth that spread from his center to his whole body.

  He quit trying to raise himself for a moment and enjoyed the tingling pleasure in his loins. And he recognized a plain wooden cross on the wall to his left. He was in Marie’s room. He lay back and closed his eyes, relieved and full of joy, as he felt the pleasure that he now recognized as sex. Marie was doing something to him but he couldn’t quite figure out what, only that it was causing his hips to move and his breathing to sharpen into quick gasps. He tried to raise himself again and this time he managed to get his elbows to support him.

  And he saw hair. And ears. The tip of a nose. A head. And the head was moving between his naked thighs. It took him a time to recognize that the mouth was sliding up and down on the smooth shaft of his cock, and the sight filled him with excitement. Marie had not done this to him before. He remembered the vague blur of her face as her mouth kissed his. And he remembered the celebration, the wine. It was all too new, these things she was doing.

  As he watched the bobbing head, moving faster now, it began to dawn on him that the hair was not Marie’s. It was light and wavy, shorter than hers. Th
e sharp scent that filled the room was not lavender.

  Charging Elk’s arms and shoulders grew weak, and he fell back on the bed and closed his eyes. His head was fuzzy and empty of thought and he felt both lazy and excited. Then he drifted off. And when he came back he felt the warm mouth on his cock and both mouth and cock seemed remote, as though he had left his body and was watching the act from a long way off. He saw the sandy hair, the ears, from his far-off corner; he saw the lips and the tip of the nose. Then he froze. And he was back inside his body.

  His hand brushed against something and he turned his head. It was his pants bunched up on the bed beside him. His head was clearer now and he saw his hand move over the pants until it found a pocket. But there was nothing there, save for a few coins. He moved his hand again under the pants until he found the other pocket. Then he felt the long, slender knife and he held it before him. It was a beautiful knife, the handle silver at both ends with a strip of ebony between. He saw the small silver button and he pressed it and saw a blade as long as his forefinger magically appear with a small click.

  As his eyes focused themselves on the gleaming blade, he knew what he must do. It was not so much a decision as a resolve. And he suddenly felt strong, as though he had awakened from a waking dream. He sat up slowly, deliberately, so as not to disturb the bobbing head. He looked at the slender back, the knobs of the spine and the indentations around the ribs. He saw the slope of the thin buttocks and the narrow cleft between them.

  And he saw the knife, poised in the air for just a second in the dim room, suddenly strike the naked back, and he heard a harsh grunt and felt his fist thud against flesh almost simultaneously. He struck again and then again, each time burying the knife in the pale back. Then he grabbed a handful of the sandy hair and pulled the head back. He looked into the wide blue eyes as he set the blade against the side of the throat, and they looked familiar. He saw the pink froth bubbling from the delicate lips, which were moving but making no sound. And then he drew the blade across the throat, leaning into his work when it reached the windpipe. But the knife was sharp and he heard a sharp sucking sound and then he let go of the hair and the head fell forward, heavily, into his lap.