Bride of New France

by Suzanne Desrochers

  “You are thin, like the dogs in my village.” His voice is concerned and soft, a sort of sad whisper. Laure thinks she must look as though she is dying. Maybe she has misinterpreted his intentions with her. Perhaps he has come like the official to bring her provisions. What a pathetic creature she is, buried in this winter tomb of a cabin, abandoned by the man who promised several months ago to protect her for a lifetime.

  “Let me make you something to eat.” Deskaheh starts to move toward the cupboard and the fire.

  “I don’t need food,” Laure says, blocking his way. He steps back, a surprised look on his face.

  For once, she has frightened him. She is angry that the man who is supposed to be helping her to survive the winter is not here and that in his place she is being offered scraps by a colony official and this Savage who should have disappeared from her life months ago. It is darker tonight than when he visited last, and she has a hard time reading his face. “Someone might think you’re here to kill me.”

  He doesn’t respond.

  “Why do you come to see me?” She waits a moment, thinking he hasn’t understood. She repeats the question, looking at his coat, at his clothing made of pelts, at the long hair, up at his scarred face. These are just the external things that make Deskaheh Savage. How can she possibly comprehend his mind, let alone his heart? Laure recalls her baptism at sea by the strange creature they called Bonhomme Terre-Neuve. How much she has been warned about the dangers of the Savages of Canada.

  Deskaheh steps toward her without making a sound and twists her hair around his hand. Laure’s head jerks back and she looks up to see his eyes glazed. She doesn’t understand all the words, isn’t even sure that he is talking to her, but she hears something like this: I didn’t choose to seek you out in the woods, where it is dangerous. You appear in my dreams. When dreams push you toward someone, toward a place you’ve never been, there is no use in fighting it. It will eventually find you and the dream will be realized.

  She can smell his musky skin. It is the scent of rotting leaves, of damp earth. She inhales the warm stench of his breath. It isn’t sour like Mathurin’s milky tongue, but is bitter from the herb teas the Savages drink. Deskaheh lifts Laure from the ground. She can feel how light she has become, more starved even than she was in the Salpêtrière. She lets him carry her. He places her through the door into the bed and kneels on the dirt floor in front of her. Laure closes her eyes and waits as he runs his hands over her ribs and stomach. He is still speaking as if to himself in his Savage tongue as he works to undo the strings of her dress.

  Deskaheh lets out a short cry, and she feels the wet warmth of her blood spilling from her breast before she feels any pain. Deskaheh lowers his head to the wound. He begins to suck as if trying to remove the venom of a snakebite. After a time, when the blood slows, the awful pain of the cut creates an intensity that mirrors the cold of the cabin, the brutality of living amongst trees. He is an expert at this mutilation, Laure thinks, and knows that there will be no more pain.

  Laure expects there will be something more now, something to take away the pain he has inflicted. But Deskaheh is pushing Laure away and covering her back up. She burns with humiliation.

  Everything with Deskaheh is a ritual. At least it is better to think that way. That he at least knows where they are going. That there is some place for this sort of thing in the universe. That there is a god that watches with pleasure waiting to see them intertwined, becoming liquid together.

  Laure thinks of Mathurin who is her actual destiny. The cabin he built with his thick hands in preparation for her or for some other, tougher country woman from across the sea. When Laure would awaken screaming, haunted by the sounds of the woods passing through their feeble home, Mathurin would say that he doesn’t dream.

  Deskaheh stumbles away from her, and she reaches on the bed for the knife he cut her with. It is some traded item being used against her. Maybe Mathurin gave it to him. The handle is carved into a Savage animal, a bird of some sort. Deskaheh no longer has any fire in his look. He is reaching for his coat. Laure stays on the bed in the corner of the room holding the knife in her hand. She considers throwing it at him, but doesn’t want to hurt him. She is weak with adoration for him. What woman would feel this way? Why can’t I feel limp, consumed like this when Mathurin touches me? The door closes without making a sound and he disappears into the cold.

  She wonders how it would have felt if Deskaheh had cut her deeper, if the blood had continued to flow out of her.

  18

  The dress Laure completed for Madeleine over the winter, blue with fox-fur trim, hangs from the ceiling of the cabin alongside the yellow one that once belonged to Mireille. From the material in her chest, the extra pieces given to her at the Congrégation Notre-Dame, Laure has also made two more dresses. She has sewn into the linen and serge patches of animal skin, a little tree bark, whatever she could find to continue with the patterns in her mind.

  It is spring, and despite the four gowns hanging from her ceiling, Laure has on a linen housedress and a grey woollen blanket that once belonged to Mathurin over her shoulders. He must have stolen it from the ship when he crossed over from Old France, or perhaps it had been handed out in the colony to the soldiers of his regiment. Although the sun of early spring has grown stronger and there are hints of green coming through the remaining snow, Laure is still afraid to put out the fire in the cabin. The pig, Mathurin, has long forgotten the meals of deer flesh that ran out almost a month ago. He is once again hungry and listless in his pen. Laure watches the beast from the middle of the room. She has been ready all winter to try and shoot the pig if he decides to attack, but he does not.

  Laure is as thin as the dresses she has hung from the ceiling when Mathurin, fattened up by his stay with the Algonquins, enters the cabin. He gags and covers his nose when he walks through the door. Laure wonders how she could have grown accustomed to the smell in the room if it is really that bad. When Mathurin sees Laure sitting by the fire, he takes a startled step back. She isn’t sure if it is her appearance that frightens him or the gun she is holding on her lap.

  Laure glances up at her husband, her eyes trying to focus on his figure. She remembers having many dreams of his return from the cold confines of the lit-cabane. The reappearance of this man is Laure’s prize for making it through her first winter in Canada. Her mouth opens and the sound that comes out is a cry and a question. Where have you been? Only no words form in her throat.

  Laure wonders what Mathurin sees when he looks at her: Has her first winter in Canada turned her into a madwoman, a heretic, worthy of being imprisoned? “You have returned to your wife,” she finally says in a low voice, keeping hold of the gun on her chest. There is no way Mathurin can see in her features that she spent two of the winter nights in the company of Deskaheh. Even Laure can barely remember his visits. They have melted from her mind like the heavy snow around the cabin. She is empty now, a shell welcoming back her husband.

  Mathurin notices the dresses hanging from the ceiling and his eyes grow even wider. He walks over to them, touches the seams where Laure has sewn in the debris of the winter she spent without him. “It’s the Salpêtrière,” he says as if to himself. “The men who married women from there are all complaining.” Laure wonders if perhaps she has become a ghost as transparent as the figures she has imagined wearing the gowns.

  The dresses are impressive, varied in cut and style and well stitched. Although to make them Laure has used up in one winter the thread and material in her chest from Paris that were supposed to last her a lifetime in the colony.

  Mathurin walks toward Laure and crouches beside her. “City women can’t handle life here.” His voice is gentle now. He releases his hand from over his nose and reaches for her matted hair. Laure strikes his wrist in a quick animal movement. He backs away from her.

  Up close, Laure can see that Mathurin has painted his face to look like a Savage. Her pink-pig husband has red stripes on his glowing ch
eeks. She begins to laugh. Mathurin returned from the forest after being away for 126 days suddenly seems hilarious to her. “This is how I passed the time,” she says, indicating the dresses. Her voice sounds frail and hoarse, as if this one winter has turned her into a very old woman.

  “Why didn’t you go stay with the others? There are other women here. The wives of Tardif and Lefebvre …” Laure thinks that Mathurin is seeking some way to alleviate his guilt at the sight of his wife’s winter-starved body and the horrible stench of the cabin. What a coward he seems to her.

  Laure recites to him each of these women’s reasons for leaving her alone all winter. “Madame Tardif is a Canadienne. Born here.” This was the woman Laure had shown her needlework to, the colony wife who thought that ways from Paris didn’t belong in Canada. Madame Tardif already has three children and arms the size of the cabin’s pillars. She had offered to house Laure, but with about the same amount of emotion that the Superior of the Salpêtrière felt about providing a bed for another poor girl from the countryside. It was to be Madame Tardif’s third winter alone in Pointe-aux-Trembles and she was proud of her ability to endure it.

  Then there was Madame Lefebvre, a nervous rat of a woman much younger than Madame Tardif. She had asked Laure back in November to help her nail a board across the door to her cabin, to keep out the hungry bears. Then she had scurried off through the forest, with a brother who looked just like her, back to her father’s place in Ville-Marie. “How was I to know?” Laure’s words are an accusation, and Mathurin looks at his feet. What a weak man she has married.

  Mathurin comes forward and takes the gun from Laure’s hand. She relinquishes it and slumps forward a little. She watches as Mathurin lifts the gun, opening and shutting the chambers, clicking it into working order. She wonders for a brief moment if he is planning to shoot her. Perhaps the winter has left her unworthy of further life, like a horse who has outlived its legs. But Mathurin turns away from Laure and walks over to the pen. Mathurin the pig looks up with tired eyes. By the time Laure realizes what her husband is about to do, it is too late. The cabin resounds with the shot he fires. The pig lets out a disappointed sigh.

  “Let me prepare you a feast to celebrate the end of our first winter in Pointe-aux-Trembles,” Mathurin says. Laure watches the dresses swaying around her husband, feeling as if another ghost has entered her life.

  Mathurin has insisted that they eat outside. Although it is still chilly, much of the snow has melted. He has lit a fire between two tree stumps. The damp air quickly fills with smoke. Laure sits on one of the stumps and watches her husband roast the flesh of his pig self. He carries the meat over to her in a bowl, but she refuses to eat any of it. Mathurin devours the contents of his bowl, his fingers and mouth becoming greasy. Laure stands up, her knees wobbly, and returns to the cabin with careful steps. She wonders if it would have been better if Deskaheh had let her starve. She wouldn’t be sinking her weak legs into the muddy holes of her life with Mathurin if only the winter had swallowed her whole.

  Shortly after Mathurin’s return from the pays sauvages, green buds begin appearing on the dry branches of the aspen trees. The snow around the settlement melts into little streams that gather strength as they flow toward the river. Even after a few weeks, Laure’s body still feels weak, as grey as the mud the melted snow has exposed. But it won’t be long before the long, cold months are behind her. The silence of winter has passed, and she feels herself gaining strength each day. Squirrels and birds dash in and out of the trees searching for supplies to build their nests. Laure sees a robin outside the cabin, its red breast an infusion of life. Despite herself, she turns her face to the warmth of the sun and waits to come back to life.

  Throughout the months of April and May, Laure and Mathurin work, along with the other settlers of Pointe-aux-Trembles, at preparing the settlement for summer. The men cut wood to repair the cabins, patching up the places the women tell them let in the cold. The roof of the Lefebvre cabin collapsed in the winter from the weight of the snow. It is good that the woman abandoned it early to go live with her family in Ville-Marie. Her husband has decided to stay on with the Savages, so the remains of their hut sit like a skeleton, a gloomy memory of winter amidst the optimism of spring.

  The settlers also look for open spaces among the trees, for spots to plant gardens from the seeds they have received from the Intendant. In the largest clearing they plant wheat, a little barley and oat. In the smaller patches they plant cabbage, turnips, carrots, peas, and onions. But digging into the hard ground to clear the soil using axes, stones, and whatever else they can find is painful work that nobody can stand to do for very long. Even the women take turns so the men can rest. It is a beastly endeavour to pound and rip at soil that is thick with ancient life. The work of fools is what Laure thinks as she attempts to make some progress despite the weakness of her arms. In the end, the settlers cannot clear enough land to plant all the seeds they have been given and decide to save some for the following year.

  Inside their cabin, Mathurin has constructed a rudimentary table, two logs with a plank overtop. They sit at it, Laure on her chest and Mathurin on a stump he has turned into a chair, eating a fish the men caught from the river. The summer insects haven’t yet emerged, but the worst of the cold is long behind them. Laure is at least comfortable if not happy in Mathurin’s hut. He works, still mostly chopping at trees, fishing and hunting with the men throughout the day, while Laure and the other women weed the garden, prepare meals, and mend clothing. For the time being there is no talk of life beyond the settlement.

  “You know that la Course’s wife is pregnant again. Their fourth,” Mathurin says. They have resumed sleeping together in the lit-cabane.

  Laure does not respond. When women of the settlement do speak to her, it is always about their children or about being pregnant. They tell her what signs to look for, missed monthly bleeding, sickness to the stomach, swollen breasts. Laure feels none of these things, but doesn’t dare tell the other women that she is relieved.

  “The King will give three hundred livres to each family that has ten children,” Mathurin says.

  “Legitimate children,” she mumbles, thinking still of the winter he spent away. She would probably be pregnant by now if he hadn’t gone off with the Algonquins seeking money in furs.

  “You’re only eighteen. Ten children should be easy enough to produce.”

  Mathurin is always thinking of the future, in decades, whereas Laure cannot foresee the next week with him. She also cannot imagine being pregnant even once, let alone falling into the rhythm of having a new baby every two years the way the colony’s women generally do.

  When they finish eating, Mathurin nods his head toward the lit-cabane. Laure gets up and carries the dishes outside to clean them in the bucket of river water by the door. She takes her time to dry them and place them back on the shelf. When she has finished with the dishes, she makes her way over to the bed and crawls in beside Mathurin. He grabs right away for the bottom of her dress to lift it over her hips. Weeks ago Mathurin had noticed the cut on her chest. He had recoiled at the sight of it. Laure had told him that she inflicted the wound on herself, a form of bloodletting she had learned in the hospital. It was meant to give her strength to get through the winter. She told him she did it when she felt most weak. Mathurin had believed her.

  Laure is tired of his advances, of his attempts to make her pregnant. “If you really want that money from the King,” she says to him, “you should gather up all the Savage children you have running wild through the forest and send them straight to Paris. Maybe he’ll give you more than three hundred livres.”

  Mathurin sucks in his breath. After a moment, he strokes her hair, laughing a little. They have been married for almost eight months and still there is no sign of a baby.

  Laure says, “Unless you are also incapable of getting those Savage women pregnant.”

  Mathurin pulls his hand away from her. “With all the trouble you give me
, I should have married an Algonquienne, brought her into the settlement. She would have been given a hundred and fifty livres to marry me and we’d already have two babies by now.”

  Laure snorts at this. “You know as well as I do how the Governor gives out money. Lots of promises, then the amount gets reduced by half, and when it comes time to pay, suddenly there are no circulating coins. Your sauvagesse would have received the same pig and chickens that I got for marrying you.”

  “Do you know what I’ve been hearing all through the Ville-Marie settlements?” Mathurin’s eyes have turned mean, his face shiny. “That the women from the General Hospital are diseased. That’s why they can’t have children.”

  The next morning Mathurin is packing his things when Laure wakes up. He is dressed again like a Savage, with a knife at his waist and a gun strapped over his shoulder.

  “Where are you going?” she asks, her memories of the winter flooding back in a moment of panic.

  “To collect more furs before the August trade fair at Ville-Marie.”

  He is probably going to a woman who will have him, will flatter him and need him. Laure is better off without Mathurin and is glad to see him go. She has survived the winter. Surely the spring and summer, now that she can visit her neighbours and walk through the settlement, will be easier to endure alone. But before Mathurin leaves this time, she asks him to teach her how to use the gun.

  Part Four

  Les filles envoyées l’an passé sont mariées, et presque touttes ou sont grosses ou ont eu des enfants, marque de la fécondité de ce pays.