The Lover, the Lake

by Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau

  Still smarting from the previous day’s humiliation, he lashed out at her, “What did you think? That your family would give its blessing to your dating a savage?”

  His eyes followed the supple swish of Rose-Ange’s white dress round her legs as she ran to her father’s home at the other end of the village.

  13

  Wind blew smoke from his pipe back into his face and he coughed, his eyes tearing up. He had rationed the contents of his tobacco pouches over the long months of trapping and was thrilled at the prospect of fresh tobacco. He sped up as he reached the river’s tributary that ran through the village.

  Gabriel beached the canoe in front of his uncle’s residence. He climbed the steep bank in long strides, deliberately avoiding the steps meant to facilitate the climb. He entered without knocking so as to surprise Pierre-Arthur. The latter was pouring thick black coffee into a porcelain cup.

  “Well, look at that! My nephew! Am I glad to see you! You’re looking pretty good, my fella. Tell me about your winter.”

  Pleasure danced in his blue eyes made even more striking by the blond of his hair streaked with white. The Métis laid his hand on the thickset man’s shoulder, the only touch they allowed themselves.

  “What’s new, uncle? Your health okay? I’ve brought you quite the stock this time. Enough to cover a year for both of us. Come help me, we’ll carry it up. I can’t wait to show you!”

  Radiant, the young man raced to his boat, followed at a more leisurely pace by Pierre-Arthur smiling with excitement. Gabriel flung onto shore the bundles of furs held together with rawhide strips. His uncle pulled a switchblade from his back pocket, cut the tie and opened one of the canvas bales. Beaver, otter, lynx and martin pelts shone like silken gold in the morning sun.

  “That’s what I call one good haul, Gabriel. Congratulations, m’boy!”

  The young man flushed with pleasure and scratched his head staring at the ground, a sign he was at a loss for words. He cleared his throat and bent over to redo the knot.

  “It wasn’t hard, uncle, the critters clambered onto the porch of the shack just begging me to trap ’em.”

  Pierre-Arthur’s laughter erased his nephew’s embarrassment. They both laughed at length, proud of the harvest and happy to be together again. Then, as one, they each grabbed a bundle and made their way to the house. The smell of coffee whetted Gabriel’s appetite. He pulled bread and butter from the cupboard and set to work making a hearty breakfast over the wood stove only to become aware of Pierre-Arthur’s silence.

  “What are you pondering, uncle? You look miles away!”

  A hint of sadness had, in fact, clouded Pierre-Arthur’s gaze. How could he announce to his nephew Rose-Ange’s engagement to the young doctor come to help her father who, getting on in years, could no longer keep up with his growing practice?

  14

  Through the window’s open curtains, a harsh light fell on Gabriel’s face. Pain pounded in his temples to the beat of his pulse. He groaned as he rolled onto his back and cast a doleful glance round the room. He didn’t recognize the wallpaper, where on earth was he? Nausea made his stomach heave; he stumbled to the toilet, bile pushing past his lips. There he vomited all he could of liquor, anger, sorrow and disgust. He lay back down on rumpled sheets stained with sperm and vaginal secretions. He clutched at his head with both hands in a desperate attempt to stop the lancing pain.

  So Rose-Ange, he thought, how about you tell me who I screwed last night? That damn booze. Probably the hotel hooker. I knew it would never work out between you and me, even so, the thought of you marrying someone else still hurts …

  He cast round for his pants, saw them on the back of a chair. He stood and rummaged through the pockets for his wallet. Empty! His pockets were empty! He sat on the edge of the bed that creaked under his weight. Staring out the window at a distant cloud, he tried to recall the events of the previous day. The effort made him sick all over again. He lay down and closed his eyes; images resurfaced. Pierre-Arthur! He’d given the money from the furs to Pierre-Arthur! Relief flooded in, but a bitter taste still lingered in his mouth.

  “Rose-Ange is going to marry the new doctor.”

  The day before, reeling at the punch of his uncle’s words despite the gentle tone used to deliver them, Gabriel had pushed back his plate. “C’mon, uncle, let’s sell us those furs!”

  Pierre-Arthur followed him, carrying a bundle on his shoulder, to the Hudson Bay Company’s general store. The Métis headed to the back of the building and the entrance through the depot. He shrugged his load onto a table in the middle of the room and strode into the main store where loud voices could be heard. The manager was busy discussing the latest news on conscription and the war in Europe with a stranger seated on a low chair surrounded by boots.

  Adrien Pomerleau caught sight of Gabriel. Taken off guard, he exclaimed, “Oh, Gabriel, you’re back from trapping! I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Then, turning to his customer, he said, “See here, Dr. Marsan, I’ll have to order a pair of boots in your size. They should arrive from Montreal by next week.”

  The Métis leaned his elbows on the counter, his eyes locked on the short, puny man. Despite his stony expression, he was consumed by the thoughts racing behind his furrowed brow like a bushfire gone wild. Comfort and respectability. That’s what Rose-Ange had opted for, but still, with this second-rater? Rose, with this little runt?

  Rage cut a rocky path from his belly to his heart. The doctor held his gaze, embarrassed at finding himself in the presence of the young man his fiancée had fancied, a man her parents deemed unworthy of their family. A trapper who was half-Indian to boot!

  Good-looking fellow though, he thought.

  The man clearly hadn’t had a hot bath for quite some time. He reeked of spruce boughs and sweat. Yet the oily hair curling on his shoulders, the stubble on his chin and his stained clothing took nothing away from his imposing presence, a sort of natural nobility. He understood Rose-Ange’s attraction. Pierre-Arthur cut through the tension in the room, deflecting his nephew and Pomerleau’s attention by joking about the giant specimens the young Métis had caught in his traps. The manager walked Dr. Marsan to the door, once again promising boots in his size as soon as possible.

  The trappers bartered to their satisfaction. Gabriel stuffed two ten-dollar bills into his pocket and handed the rest of his earnings to his uncle. He bought the first shirt and pants he came across, socks, underwear, shoes. He paid cash and addressed a worried Pierre-Arthur, who hadn’t missed a thing.

  “I’ll be fine, uncle! I’m off to the hotel for the day.”

  He waved at Pomerleau, grabbed his purchases, crossed the road and turned onto the street leading to the Hotel Victoria where his friend Raymond Leclerc worked night and day. Stepping inside, the stench of alcohol and stale tobacco assailed his nostrils. The bartender had just finished drying glasses that he was busy putting away under the counter. The two men slapped each other on the back, cursing up a storm.

  “Same as last year, Gab? A room with a tub, a barber, a woman and beer?” Leclerc joked. “You’re here bright and early! Ya want a beer right off the bat?”

  15

  Maria opened her arms to Gabriel.

  Two years earlier, he had paid his first visit to the woman, who lived alone in a house outside the village. For a reasonable sum, she offered her services to travelling salesmen, single loggers, travellers. He laid a wad of bills on her table and spoke.

  “I want to know everything there is to know about a woman’s body. Show me!”

  She looked at him without smiling. Men of all kinds had been in her bed, and not one had ever asked about women and their pleasure. This one was still an adolescent, despite his broad shoulders. She said nothing for a long while.

  “My name is Maria … To begin with, you use your eyes to really see a woman. Fully clothed. Her colour, her skin, her hair, the shape of her head, her arms, her breasts, her belly, rounded or flat, the curve o
f her hips. You look her straight in the eye … You read her slowly, with interest, because she is unique … Then you breathe her in. The smell of her skin, her hair, her breath. You’ll discover whether your scents work well together because body odours are part of the game of love.”

  Gabriel listened. Her voice was gentle, inviting him to practise on her the loving gestures she instructed him in. He caressed her with his dark eyes, then drew close to breathe her in. She wore a heady, wafting fragrance under which he tried to detect her own scent. She let him, aroused.

  “Now you reach for her, keeping your touch gentle. The skin beneath her hair is sensitive. You might dig your fingers into her hair, massage her scalp, softly, trace round her ears, tasting her all the while, place your lips on her neck, nibble her earlobe, always slowly, gently, moving to her mouth, lick it, then use your tongue to open her lips, run it across them, feel her breath …”

  The Métis kissed her pale neck with passion, his hands buried deep in her hair. It was too much, his erection painful. Mindful of his condition, she pushed him away.

  “We’ll continue the lesson later on. For now, come with me.”

  She led him into the bedroom, unbuttoned the fly to his pants, knelt on the floor and took him between her lips. Gabriel burst into a thousand lights, a star exploding in a magma of burning lava that flowed along his spine. He staggered and leaned on Maria’s head. Then she undressed him.

  “Stretch out on the bed, I’ll be back.”

  Gabriel must have slept. Steam rose from a cup of tea on the nighttable. He heard sounds coming from the kitchen. He rose, took a few steps, stood against the doorframe. He watched the woman closely, her homely gestures, the way she carried herself, the dance of her loose hair across her blue dress, the curve of her legs accentuated by its fabric. As though internalizing her essence. She smiled.

  “Ready to continue?”

  She walked toward him and closed the door.

  Intimidated, he was unsure how to begin, how to resume their love play. She lifted her hair off her neck, placed her hands on the young man’s chest and threw back her head. He enfolded her in his arms and touched his lips to her skin making her shiver; he thrilled to see the effect he’d had. He sucked her earlobe, nibbled, then probed inside her ear with his tongue.

  “That’s it … keep going. Run your tongue over me, lover, taste me. Draw closer to my mouth …”

  Her breath grew ragged. Gabriel had another erection. One she could feel through her dress. He was young, so frisky. She would take the time it took to guide him to her body and her manner of being loved, her woman’s way. That night she would sleep, her body sated by caresses, her belly appeased, her skin serene. He slid his tongue across her half-open lips, then drew it back to taste Maria; now it was her turn to poke her tongue into his mouth, run it across his teeth, probe his gums top and bottom, thrust deep into his cheeks, then beneath his tongue, encircling it, swallowing his saliva. The sucking sound excited the young man. She whispered in the sensual voice that was hers, “Hear love’s echo in your lover’s mouth, her breath, her moans and groans, her words of passion … All must tell you whether she truly welcomes your overtures. You have to listen to her body, her needs, which aren’t the same for you … each woman is special …”

  She wrapped her fingers round his penis throbbing against the hairs of his taut belly. She knew he would climax too quickly again, too soon. So she caressed him softly, without pressure, and his semen spurted into her hand. He buried his face in her tangle of hair.

  “Ah, Maria …”

  She led him to the bed where he felt the cool of the sheets against his back. She stayed standing, undoing the buttons of her dress one by one, her hands white birds against a sky of silk, opening the fabric with their wings so slowly the Métis found it almost painful. She spoke.

  “This is how you will do it, how you’ll unwrap the woman’s body, a gift, slowly, because you have nothing more important to do and all the time in the world. Peeling an orange while its taste, its juice, its sweet water, its pulp the colour of the sun are already in your mouth … the woman you open, her scent inside your mouth along with your saliva …”

  Her dress now crumpled on the floor, she lifted up the shimmering slip that hugged her and revealed her curves, those of a mature woman. She unfastened her garters, let her stockings slide down her thighs and calves. She turned her back for him to unhook her brassiere; he did so awkwardly. She said, “Hold my breasts, stay behind me, let their fullness lie in your hands, feel their weight climb the length of your arms. Glide your palms over the grain, close your eyes, focus on their quivering aliveness, place your fingers round the nipples, feel … how they harden. Your hands are rough, already the hands of a grown man who does rugged work; my skin bristles at their touch … almost like that of a horsehair glove. Caress my back, gently, lovingly … so good. A woman’s body is a garden of Eros, all its folds and recesses, curves, hollows … if you know to bring her to the crest of her desire, her orgasm will come about, simply, in her belly. As the river flows or morning laughter sounds …”

  She writhed in pleasure, thrilling Gabriel. This woman loved his caress, loved his jobber’s hands, guided him with warmth and generosity to his man’s role. She restored his pride when he came too soon, started the lesson over again with the patience of a mother who has her son’s whole childhood to bring him to maturity. And so the day continued, interspersed with brief periods of slumber. He savoured her, sucked on fingers and toes, suckled her breasts, drank of her peppery fluid, slid inside every opening, heard, as he laboured, a lapping like that of the marsh beneath moose hooves, her murmurs turning feral when her role as a teacher evaporated, her trill after orgasm, her tear-filled cries of astonishment as he kept the rhythm going on and on.

  Taking his leave, his lips lingered on her mouth, now swollen. Bluish shadows showed under her eyes and the scent of their bodies lay on her, rich, thick, viscous. She said, “You’ll be back … With the others I wear protection, my health is sound.”

  As he shut Maria’s door behind him, he was a man.

  16

  Gabriel became Maria’s occasional lover while she became his confidante — he trusted her. They kept their affair secret. The night before, near midnight, he’d rapped on her bedroom window, a signal he alone used.

  He was strangely silent. Below the surface of his silence, she heard soundless screams, a new sorrow winding its way through her young man, her colt, usually so lively and joyous. He lay soaking in the tub. She scrubbed his back, under his arms, then reached for more intimate parts hidden beneath the bubbles. His breathing grew more ragged.

  “Maria, come into the water with me.”

  She wore a filmy nightgown that scarcely veiled her generous curves. She was round and full and tender to the touch, her breasts opulent, their tips erect. Her white skin took on a pinkish hue during lovemaking. The Métis drew her to him, kissed her breasts through the flimsy fabric, latched onto her nipples, leaving a trace of saliva behind. She swung her legs over the side of the tub and slid down onto the young man who grabbed her hair, pulling her head back. He felt a surge of anger that had nothing to do with this woman, a rage of passion, something he’d never experienced before.

  He parted his lips on her neck, ran his tongue over her greedily, transporting her, then dug his teeth into her flesh, wanting to hurt her, hear her moan in pain. Instead, she groaned with pleasure. Both exciting and exasperating him. He flipped his lover over and, on all fours, she clung to the side of the bathtub as he raised the wet nightgown above her buttocks. She ground her hips, the fabric accentuating her voluptuousness, driving him near mad. He touched his lips to between her cheeks, pushed his tongue inside, harder, grunted. He sank his teeth into their fullness, shifted for a taste of her vulva, open and flushed, backtracked. She squirted like a pierced otter, viscous fluid flowing from her sex. The Métis entered then, ramming into her, circling, harrowing, holding fast to Maria’s flanks.

&n
bsp; She climaxed with a cry, holding nothing back. Burrowed inside her snug warmth, he forgot his earlier rage, joy concentrated in his core like a full, bright star. Muscles squeezed and relaxed round his glans. He came in a white flash that set his belly on fire.

  Later, she stroked his face and said, “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

  He told her about meeting Wabougouni, his confusion at the feelings she stirred up in him. Then he spoke of Rose-Ange’s engagement. Of his anger, his disappointment, his mixed emotions.

  He slept at her place and in her arms all night long. Morning dawned as they ate breakfast together in bed. He knew her story, this woman passionate about life. She had loved a man; she was sixteen, he eighteen when war was declared in 1914. He’d been conscripted against his will, leaving his fiancée behind. They had made love, despondent, as a light rain fell the night before his departure, sheltered by an arbour deep in a park deserted by passersby, leaning against a trellis that broke beneath their bodies.

  A few weeks later, she found out she was pregnant. Her family reacted as people did back then; the young woman gave birth in a convent, far from prying eyes. All she was told was that the baby was a boy and that a decent couple who couldn’t have children of their own had adopted him. Not long after, she learned of her lover’s death in Belgium. She followed her uncle and aunt who had decided to move to Abitibi and try their luck in the new territory despite having always lived in a city. Plots of land were being offered for the taking to would-be farmers. They thought their niece would find a husband among the young men seeking adventure there. They didn’t realize that she was still deep in mourning for her fiancé and child and had no desire to marry; copulate, yes, make love. She refused to open her door to married men though, saying the brave women who’d taken on the challenge of inhabiting this destitute land deserved their spouses’ attention.