Maiden from the Sea

by Nellie P. Strowbridge

  A skiff putt-putts into the cove, and a tall woman with strong-looking legs in knitted stockings turns to a voice calling into the wind. “Aunt Liz Emma! Jake and the crew must have lots of fish; the boat gunnels are low.”

  Soon, brawny men in oilskins lift codfish from skiffs tied to the stages. They, and sun-freckled women in linseed oil barbels, split and gut their catch. Over long, unsteady platforms, they wheel barrows of fish to be cured in ash-grey buildings. Beside them, ochre-red sheds and square and rectangular yellow and white houses stand on hills and cliffs. The houses are all neat, their windows open to the sea below them, lace curtains dancing in the breeze. The windows become dark lengths of glass in evening shadows. Across the cove, a wharf bridges land and water, boats tied to its head.

  One by one, stages are emptied of people as lightened skiffs are placed on collar in the cove. Doors open and close as houses gather tired fisherfolk in sleep, some to be awakened long before the day cracks open.

  The buildings look as if they could be lifted away by a strong wind, their imprint left on the pressed yellow grass growing sunless beneath them. In time, it would be as if they were never there.

  A gentle touch, like a flittering butterfly wing, on her nose awakened Genevieve. She sat up to the soft light of the morning sun, the quiet feel of a calm day. She jumped up, letting the stones fall away from her. A feather floated into the air.

  She turned, stupefied by the sight of a tall, lean male coming toward her from the far end of the beach. Animal skins flapping around him parted and she saw brown legs tight like rope in short skin boots. He stopped in front of her, and she stared. Feathers stood up from the crown of his head and his black, braided hair, its ends as flat as fish tails. An Indian! she thought warily. Maybe one of the natives the fishermen had mentioned.

  Fear shadowed her wide eyes. The intruder quickly folded his arms as if to ease her fright. His dark eyes gleamed under the sun’s light, his lips marked out by a ridge of soft flesh. Copper skin stretched over the frame of his face, taut and lean. He wasn’t wearing red markings on his face. Monsieur Laurier’s servants had whispered about fishermen bringing Indians back to France on fishing schooners that had sailed to the “new” world. Their skin had carried red markings.

  She struggled against her apprehension as the stranger’s eyes met hers and held them, until she felt as if they were being burned by two bright suns. Terrified of what he might do to her, she leaned back, away from him. She fell, her hands striking rocks. He dropped to his knee and his hand clasped her leg, then moved up and held tight. A whimper escaped her lips and her eyes welled with tears. His hand, gripping her leg, relaxed and fell away from her body. Her mouth closed in relief.

  The Indian smiled at her, and his intrusive presence lost its terror. He stood up quickly, scattering small stones under his feet, turned, and left without a backward glance. He went over a knob and in through the forest. She wished she could have spoken to him, seen if he knew English or French and if there were more inhabitants like him on the island. But it had been as if she were in a dream, her voice caught in a muff.

  The tide had gone out and she climbed over jutting rocks to get back to the familiar cove beach. She walked a pebbled path up over a hill that lifted above a grassy valley rising to the lip of the cliffs. Among rocks and low shrubs she bent to the sight of a profusion of red berries. She filled her mouth and then her pockets. Knowing there were human eyes other than hers, she kept turning her face to the forest, not wanting to be set upon without warning. But nothing moved, except curlews flying close by, their quavering whistles ringing through the trees.

  That night she had vivid dreams. Sarah Ann works at cold, limp fish, not seeing the lapping, shining waters sucking the longers of the stagehead that bears the weight of her feet. Underneath, the sea folds under, then rolls over itself, its milky green waters fringed with lace that changes patterns, then falls apart. White floating spots rock gently in the water.

  Her mind is at home preparing barm for baking bread; thoughts of other chores, needed doing to feed and clothe a large family, pile inside her head, making it heavier than her hands holding the dead weight of a codfish. When she’s at home, her mind travels to the seas where her husband’s boat cuts through black depths, feathering them white. She wonders if Joe will make it home through heavy seas, or fog. She imagines a giant squid, like the one fishermen have told her about, stirring from the depths and sweeping its tentacles in over the boat, finding Joe and dragging him into the deep, more tangled than when he fell overboard into his salmon nets.

  Genevieve awoke from her dreams feeling like a shadow in someone else’s life, carried along by the voices of people inside her. She slipped back into dreams.

  The next morning a drift of smoke assailed her nose, awakening her. She pulled back the flap of the lean-to’s entrance and saw in the firepit a friendly flame waving in the morning air. She ran toward it. For a moment she thought the fishermen had returned. There was no one in sight.

  In a small cask against the cliff beside the beach, Genevieve discovered hard bread and dry, salted, eviscerated codfish wrapped in birch rind the fishermen must have left her. Next to this cache of food was a pile of little fish, with tiny, knotty eyes, wrapped in cerecloth. Luke had called these fish capelin. She roasted the codfish in the fire, drawing in its tangy, burnt aroma. She realized too late, as the briny fish touched her tongue, bringing exclamations of distaste, that she should not have cooked it before soaking it for a while in fresh water.

  She jumped up and hurried to the small stream not far from the shelter and, bending down, she cupped her hands for a drink of the clear, sweet water. She looked wistfully out over the ocean, wanting to gaze on it for the day. Instead, she strode along the skirts of the cove, gathering more brush to stow in her shelter. She was taking in the calm look of the sea now, but she knew it would change as quickly as night changes from day. She would need lots of fuel and food. Her aim was to gather all the berries she could find without wandering into the woods. She wasn’t going to freeze or starve. Her stomach grabbed at her memory of daube: French stew made with meat, vegetables, and herbs steeped in wine, and cooked in Madame Laurier’s maison. Most of the meat would have been taken by the time she got her share, but the gravy always carried a hint. I’ll not think of it, she decided. Otherwise, I’ll be drooling for something I can’t have.

  A few mornings later, Genevieve awoke to a soft brushing sound outside the tilt, and then a sharper noise. Tremors wavered down her spine as she cautiously lifted herself from her bed. She tried to be brave as she shifted the flap and peeped out.

  Birch rind lay piled on the ground beside the young Indian as he vigorously rubbed flint and steel together close to curls of rind and moss. Flames sprang to life, their tongues leaping into the air before curling down into a black crisp. Acrid smoke drifted toward the lean-to, stinging Genevieve’s nose. The Indian tried again and this time there arose a powerful crackling fire sending its warmth toward the lean-to. Genevieve’s lips tightened. If I am going to survive, she thought grimly, I will have to do better in banking the fire. She watched as the Indian dug a hole in the ground and spread a layer of the birch rind he had gathered, covering it with an animal skin.

  She crept back to her bed, thankful for the gift, but not wanting her benefactor to see her, not trusting his motives. When she was sure he had left, she got up and tended the fire, watching it spring up, lapping the air. She stumbled, almost dropping into the fire. Startled, she chided herself for her carelessness. She set about building a wall of rocks between the fire and the lean-to, knowing that fire had the power to snatch her breath if it got inside the lean-to.

  She drew in shallow breath. Her lungs felt sore and her breathing laboured from her ordeal in the sea. She went inside and lay down, taking slow, easy breaths past her stinging throat. Soon the whistles of curlews and screeches of gulls faded. Genevieve drift
ed . . . stirred in sleep . . . her ears perked. The wind calls: “Bridget.” It howls, pushes at her; its ugly claws scrape her back. The woman flees into the woods, holding a precious bundle inside her coat. She stoops at the sight of fenberries nesting in last summer’s faded hair caught in slivered ice. The berries lie like rubies in crystal beds, golden under the sun’s cold rays. She pulls at them, stuffs her mouth, filling her belly. Her fingers become icicles; she warms them in her armpits. As the wind falls dead into the sea, she straightens, her eyes lift. The wind rushes back into a lively voice: “Bridget!” It sweeps into her ears—invisible threads tying her hope in knots. Bridget’s body shivers around a newborn baby, the red of spring fenberries on her lips. She tries to shield her child, draws back from wind blowing on crackling fire. A French and Indian attack has set the Avalon Island on fire, taking her hut, her food, her man. The fire takes Bridget . . .

  Genevieve awoke murmuring, “Even when the day is hot, life is cold.” She ran from the lean-to and sank down on the ground, her eyes closed tight. She willed the voice and the images to go. Then the gulls and curlews were back above the cliffs and sea, and it was only their voices she heard.

  Chapter 4

  Genevieve’s Discovery

  Genevieve held the flap of the lean-to between her closed fists and peered out one morning when she heard a skittering of stones. The stranger had returned. She watched with one eye skirting the edge of the doorway as he lowered himself to a smooth, flat rock beside her fire. Beside him was a grass basket holding powdered eggs, dried salmon, and fish.

  Genevieve came out toward the fire and stood, meeting his silence with hers. His dark, lean cheeks rising above a strong, firm mouth made her fingers want to reach toward them, to touch them, to feel their texture under her fingertips. There came a craving deeper than anything she had ever felt. She imagined her head pressed into his muscled chest, him letting the scent of her into his nostrils, his heart pounding against her ear. Now and then he looked toward the forest with an unsettled look. She followed his gaze reluctantly. Finally, he got up to go, giving her a soft look as he left. She watched him disappear into the forest. Then she sat eating the birds’ eggs. Afterwards, her mouth felt as if it were covered in barley flour. She went a little ways to the small stream and dipped a bark cup. She gulped its fill of water several times. Then she turned to look toward the forest, wondering what or who else was beyond her new world.

  A few days later, the Indian came again and sat silently. Genevieve sat on a rock facing him. He stood up abruptly and reached down to take her hand in his. She let her arm stretch without moving her feet. He smiled and she got up, letting her arm go slack. He dropped it and started to walk across the cliff. She trailed him from a distance as he walked on the edge of the cliffs and down into a hollow beyond her sight. He came back and beckoned her with a tilt of his head. She followed him, stopping abruptly as he came to a halt at the slanted side of a large boulder. He turned sideways and disappeared. She followed cautiously, turning sideways into the oblique opening of a cave. Wind was shut out and most of the light. Bright sunshine squeezed through a crack in the cave cap and spread like dusty gold threads across the floor. Water glistened along the dark wall under the opening. A more sheltered place in winter than the lean-to, she thought.

  Stepping carefully in the haze of light, she followed the young Indian until he came to a narrow opening that led to a fringe of slated beach. The roaring of the sea as it broke upon the shore seemed to fill Genevieve’s head. She trembled. What if the sea filled the cave with her in it! The Indian reached his hand to take hers. He led her back to a ledge where he pried away a large slate rock. She looked down into a niche. A red cloth lay folded on a small shelf. He nodded and she reached in cautiously, afraid of knocking it down into a deep crevasse beneath the niche. Her hand touched the hard lump wrapped in the soft cloth. She slid her other hand beneath the bundle and lifted it with both hands. As she laid it in her lap, the Indian kept his eyes on her, as if waiting for her reaction. She cautiously unwrapped the bundle, unprepared for the sight of strange gold and silver coins with motifs outlined in black.

  The Indian’s head bent so close to hers, she forgot the coins. Her hand lifted to the warm curve of his lips. Dry and tight beneath her fingers, they fell open, softened. Her hand dropped, but her eyes held his. He moved toward her. Hard fingers touched her cheek. Becharmed and mesmerized by a potent pull, she went into his arms like someone falling away from herself and toward someone she felt she could become a part of. She heard a gasp and she wasn’t sure who had made it. The two strangers pulled apart, as if startled. They looked at each other. Then they let out a synchronized laugh that held them in one language.

  The Indian moved away abruptly, his blackberry eyes like velvet. “Gold—pirate gold.” He smiled.

  His voice, low and husky and in sounds she could understand, astonished her. She stared at him. “You speak English?”

  “A lit-bit-bita English.”

  “I know bita English too.” She laughed. Then she looked at him curiously. “But how do you know it?”

  He turned toward the exit of the cave as if in fear. “I Nasook, and you Genevieve. I listen to you tell fishermen name. I not s’pose talk to you. But now I tell you how I taken across sea by English fisherman. I alone on back side of cove picking fenberries when I catched by men. They made as if to scalp me. They took me in big boat away from this land to England for all winter. It seems now I bes dreaming. I saw horses and chariots and big houses with strange tops, and ladies in dresses not made of skins; they colours of sky, land, sea—and flowers. People everywhere on wide walkways. I hid from dogs. They not same as animals on our land. Caribou and wolf run from arrow. Dogs tried to eat leg. When I opened my mouth and roared, a good man found me; he took me to his shack. He jibbed my hair to my poll and hove me white men’s garments that not smell like animals. They made from canvas dress from boat sails. My beaver skin around neck and seashell they keep. The smell of my people went dead.”

  Genevieve looked at him without saying a word.

  He kept talking. “White man learned me English and I learned him our people’s talk. He sounded our words and marked them on skins. I only know how to speak in words. I cannot mark them down on birch and rock so they be seen. I cannot understand markings of other people. They are not likeness I can mark out. I can make sea waves and trees, and birds, but I cannot read words. I not see likeness of things in earth in white man’s write-downs, and for that I puzzled.” Nasook took her hand. “Come see Addaboutik, my people.”

  They moved to a side of the cave where the whole wall was shelved in slate. Genevieve watched as Nasook pried slate after slate from the wall. He laid them down on each other. Genevieve’s mouth opened in astonishment as she bent to carefully lift each one. They showed ochre-shadowed figures of small and big Red Indians, mamateeks, and canoes.

  “Look! I show you magic,” Nasook said softly. He pulled a blank slate from the wall and then a sliver from a crevice. He touched the slate pencil to the slate, quickly feathering it in white. Genevieve watched the dark slate take on white markings, amazed that something dark could mark in white.

  Nasook turned over the slate and outlined a big bird. He filled in the white belly, leaving the slate bare inside the white outline for the black paddle wings and black back.

  “You not see often po-pa-dish—a big bird—that not fly. It hides. White man kill walking bird.” He spread his hands lengthwise away from each other. “Apponath—Great Auk—very long.”

  Nasook carefully placed each slate back in the wall and then turned back to Genevieve. “For many summers, the bouguishaman—white man—and his ship brought me back to this land from across water and worked me to catch fish from man’s boat. I not go find my people. There be no sign to show there was anyone left but me. One day last year afore Englishman left, he give me tools and sayed, ‘go back to red peop
le.’ He see them on other side of cove. I lost; my people find me.”

  Genevieve looked at him and asked, “Where did the Englishman go?”

  Nasook drew in a deep breath and let it out, his eyes troubled. “The Englishman come every spring until shots from French pirate’s gun spilled man’s blood. I found pirate on beach and he groaned under my arrow until breath gone. I took gold from pockets and ran away—to here. His head in ground. I show you.”

  “No!” The word left her in a cry.

  “I tell you nothing more now,” he said solemnly, going toward the cave opening.

  “Stay!” Her word surprised herself. Nasook’s voice had come like a doorway opening him up to her. There was a tantalizing pull to be closer. She didn’t understand it. She had never felt such power in her own body to tie her with someone else’s. The Indian moved toward her, his breath against her face as sweet as sorrel leaves. She let herself drop. Above her leggings, the lined coat opened to show white, warm flesh above the bodice of her dress. The coat became a blanket under her body, a willing companion to his, and after her resistance to a sharp pain she relaxed into a oneness with him until her being seemed to explode in an ecstasy that surprised her. Tidal waves swept through her, leaving her body limp and relaxed. Her hands touched male flesh and held it without shame, as she relished the discovery that her body was capable of making its own pleasure by coupling with another.

  Nasook pushed her hands away and stood up. He left without meeting her gaze. It was only after he had gone that her conscience tightened, as binding as a chastity belt. She had done wrong, committed a sin in letting the heathen’s body bind with hers.

  She lay for a while, her face flushed from a memory she knew would keep bringing her body alive with the passion he had stirred in it. Very deliberately she made the sign of the cross. Only God needed to accept this union—to make it right, as He had done for the Adam and Eve her mother had told her about. She asked Him to do that now. Her hand tightened on the cross, knowing it wasn’t a request Madame Laurier would have blessed. She would have thought of Nasook as a heathen tainting Christian blood.