by Pamela Morsi
He was still shirtless and adjusting the knee ties of his culotte as Karl appeared on the stairs.
The two looked at each other.
Laron nodded. "I hope you slept well," he said. "There is lots of hard work to be done today."
The boy nodded, rubbing his neck as if it ached.
Laron finished donning his clothing and caught up to Helga at the fireplace. He leaned down to kiss her on the cheek and then grabbed a basket for gathering eggs.
More footsteps sounded on the loft ladder as Elsa and her baby brother hurried into the room.
"Good morning," she said to both of them. "It looks to be another beautiful day. And a good one for rice, I think. Much hard work today will make for full bellies this winter."
The children looked upon the coming day's work eagerly. They knew that they would be working, working very hard. But working together as a family was much preferred over the solitary chores that filled their everyday life.
Buckets and baskets were taken up all around as the man and the children hurried to tend the hens and hogs and the milking before breakfast. Young Elsa rushed to the outhouse alone. The three males stopped in the weeds near the edge of the yard to relieve themselves before beginning their chores.
The morning was a fair one. The chinaberry tree at the north end of the house was already bright yellow, foretelling a coming frost. The distant sky was bright with pink clouds, pretty and predictable.
"It is going to rain tomorrow," Laron told the boys.
He gestured toward the eastern horizon and the boys noted the color.
"A bad storm? A hurricane?" Young Jakob sounded almost excited.
They had reached the bank and as Laron bent to fill his buckets he chuckled and shook his head.
"Just a rainstorm," he assured Jakob. "That will be good to have now before cold weather sets in."
"Why?"
"If the grass is too dry when it gets a heavy frost and then is thawed by warm rains it will rot," Laron explained carefully and with respect. Karl and Jakob might be only boys, but even boys, Laron thought, should expect to be spoken to without condescension. "The pasture needs to be wet when it freezes."
"But the cattle aren't even here," Karl pointed out, his voice questioning and surly.
"They are around somewhere," Laron answered, unconcerned. "And as long as there is grass they will not stray far. Jakob, take this water to your mother. Karl and I will tend to the chores."
The little fellow hurried back toward the house, spilling nearly as much water as he managed to carry. An inordinate amount of smoke was now drifting up from the chimney as Helga started the fire.
She would warm the water for him to shave, she would present clean clothes for him to wear, and she would fill his belly with good hot food. She was like a wife. But she was not his wife. She was his . . . his . . . even in thought he was troubled by the word. She was his whore. The term stung him. She was more to him, so much more.
He hadn't intended the relationship they had. He was not raised to consider such unseemly conduct.
"A man's seed is not to be sown illicitly," his father had declared one long-ago afternoon as the two, along with his brother three years his senior, set lines from their pirogue.
"The marriage act outside of marriage is a grievous sin and brings shame and ruination upon the man that consummates it."
Laron had had very little understanding of the marriage act or even how to consummate it. He was in fact a little young for the talk being given, very near the age that Karl was now. But his father, who was perhaps more rigid in his beliefs than most, did not relish the necessary father/son discourse required upon approaching manhood. On this occasion with his youngest sons, he thought to let one talk do for the two.
"There may be temptations set before you," he had told them. "But you must resist so that you would bring yourself as clean and whole to your marriage bed as you would expect of your bride."
"But if the women keep themselves pure, where would these temptations come from?"
It was his brother who had asked the question. Laron had had a similar thought, but was far too embarrassed to voice the question.
"There are women, even among us, who can be led into sin," his father answered. "A man intent upon a path of evil can always find the way. You must resist the unsanctioned desires of your body. Your reward will be much pleasure in marriage without the guilt of sin."
Pleasure without guilt. That was a thing to be sought after, Laron now knew.
Perhaps if his father had warned him about German widows, but no. No warning could have prepared him for his Helga.
The first time he'd seen up a woman's dress, it had been hers. Of course, she'd been giving birth to little Jakob at the time and truly there had been nothing sexual or seductive about the sight.
Her screaming had literally terrified him. He well understood the fear the little boy had shown when he'd coming running toward him on the bank of the river. He hadn't understood the boy's frightened words, but he'd recognized panic when he saw it.
He'd followed Karl back to the cabin and discovered the woman about to give birth. He had known about the German who had lived there. He had seen the man a few times and knew that he had a family. But it was said that the man had left for points downriver. It had never occurred to Laron that he might have left his wife and children behind.
He had been beside her while she gave birth. He couldn't say that he'd helped her. He'd mostly just wiped the perspiration from her brow and whispered coaxing endearments to calm her screaming. When the child had arrived in his arms, it was a miracle he could not believe. Perhaps he had begun to love her right then.
He hoped that it was his concern for his fellow human being and the hungry mouths of two innocent children that had kept him coming back to that cabin. He hoped that that was what it had been and not the occasional glimpse of pale female flesh when Helga took the baby to nurse.
He had never allowed himself to touch her, not even to brush against her accidentally. He just wanted to be near her. And he believed that she needed him. He could hardly stay away. Several days a week he headed up her bayou bearing stores and game and meat.
He remembered the evening he'd brought her the first of her guinea hens. He'd traded one of his brothers a half-cured deer hide for the pair of them. If his brother had wondered about his need for guineas he hadn't asked. Laron had loaded the two in separate sacks as if they were fighting roosters and carried them on the pirogue.
She had been delighted. Oooing and giggling over them as if they were satin shoes or hair ribbons.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she'd said to him. It was the first French she had ever spoken, obviously taught to her by her children.
He had been pleased to hear the sounds made uneasily by her pretty lips.
She'd fixed him a wonderful meal. That was one of the first things he had learned about her, that she was a marvelous cook. He could bring her anything, woodcock, squirrel, even possum and she could turn the meal into a dinner more luscious than wild turkey and sweet potatoes. That night she'd fixed a soup of fish with very strange but tasty bread. He'd never had such a thing to eat, but he decided that he liked it. He liked it a lot.
He had brought her coffee, but she knew very little about it and made it more like a tea. He brewed it for her as she got Karl and Elsa up to bed. The baby slept peacefully in the basket she'd woven for him from salt-soaked reeds.
Later as they'd savored the dark rich coffee, she suddenly seemed distracted and ill at ease.
Why should she not be? he had thought. The little ones were all asleep. It was if they were completely alone in the cabin. And it was not at all the thing for a woman to be alone with a man who was not her husband.
He should go, he decided. But he lingered one more minute. It was one minute too long.
"Thank you, thank you," she said again.
He shrugged as if it were nothing.
She couldn't sit stil
l and got up to pace before him momentarily, wringing her hands.
Her distress was evident. It was clear that he should go.
"Madame Shotz—" he began.
She dropped to her knees in front of him. He was startled. Was she going to pray? Was this some kind of homage, kneeling to him to express her gratitude. It was not necessary. He wanted to tell her that. He did tell her that. But of course, she couldn't understand his French.
She moved closer to him, her teeth biting down on her upper lip as if steeling herself for something painful. With no warning she reached into his lap.
"Madame!" he'd said, rising to his feet in shock.
Her hands were on him then, on the front of his pants. Touching him there, there where he was already growing to fit her hand.
And afterward they knelt together on the cabin floor, his arms around her, laughing together.
And then he kissed her. She tasted of him and herself and of the sin they had committed. It was a better taste than even her cooking.
Laron smiled to himself as the tender memory washed over him. He held the curtain aside and allowed Karl to precede him into the cabin. They carried eggs and milk and were hungry as bears.
Elsa and Jakob were helping their mother. Or at least Elsa was; Jakob seemed to be more employed in laughing and scampering about the room.
He and Karl emptied their buckets and poured the milk through a straining cloth. Laron leaned more closely to dip himself water from the big black pot that hung on the firehook. Then using the punch on the end of the poker, he eased the hook over the flames.
Helga was setting breakfast on the table. She had already washed with last night's water, her hair carefully braided and once more atop her head. She looked tidy and neat, and Laron wanted to walk across the room and kiss her. But it was full daylight and the children were there, so he did not.
"Beignets!" Jakob called out as if it were a battle cry.
Helga had learned to fry the sweet Acadian treat to please Laron, but her children enjoyed the hot, sugary cakes as well.
"And eggs, too," his mother answered. "The guinea hens have laid four this morning. That seems much abundance for this family to share."
The word family caught momentarily in her throat and Laron could not help but notice it. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
"It is a wonderful day outside," little Jakob announced to anyone who had not heard already. "A storm is coming. Oh I wish, how I wish that after breakfast we could go fishing in your pirogue?"
Laron shook his head. "Not today," he answered. "Today we harvest that providence rice down in the swampy bog. We've left it almost too long already. It's going to turn cold soon and we might lose it altogether before I return."
Jakob nodded, not wholly disappointed.
But surprisingly Karl turned surly. "I don't want to work in the rice," he complained. "I work here all week every week, while you come and go as you please. It's your rice; you should harvest it yourself."
The boy's attitude was more than disagreeable; it was disrespectful, and Laron opened his mouth to tell the boy just that. To his surprise, Helga unexpectedly interceded.
"Perhaps Karl can borrow your pirogue and catch us a big fish while we cut and stack the grain," she said. "With me and the children helping, you should be able to get the rice in without him."
Stunned almost speechless, Laron hesitated to reply, giving Helga a long curious look before he nodded and answered. "Of course," he said. "We can do it ourselves."
Karl puffed up like a toad fish and gave Laron a look that was positively defiant.
"You want to go fishing with me, squirt?" Karl asked his brother, one eye on Laron, almost daring him to speak.
The little fellow seemed startled by the invitation. Karl usually treated him like an unwelcome pest. Jakob hesitated, momentarily tempted. The tension at the table was palpable, undoubtedly even young Jakob could feel it.
"Non," he said finally. "I want to be with Oncle."
Karl looked daggers at Laron.
Laron looked questioningly at Helga.
Helga looked down.
Laron took his place at the table, still puzzled and uncertain. Without Karl to help, cutting the rice would put more work on Helga and Elsa and take all day at least. But Karl was Helga's son and she raised him as she saw fit. But clearly, something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
Aida was horrified when the Sonnier family arrived in their pirogue shortly after dawn. They towed a skiff piled high with sacked corn.
Aida hastily covered her mouth as a little exclamation of dismay escaped her throat.
"Bonjour," her father said, greeting them. "And what a beautiful morning for travel."
He hurried down to the end of the dock to help them alight. Aida followed and soon found herself holding fat little Pierre as Madame Sonnier was handed out.
"You look surprised to see us, Jesper," Jean Baptiste commented.
"It's my fault," Aida hurriedly explained, turning with embarrassment to her father. "Monsieur Sonnier asked me at the cattle branding when he should bring his corn for grinding. I said today would be fine and then I didn't remember it again until I saw them from the doorway."
Momentarily everyone appeared uncomfortable. Why hadn't she remembered? Once more her foolish feather brain had failed her and other people were embarrassed as a consequence.
"If this is not a convenient time," Jean Baptiste said. "We can come back another day."
Jesper waved his words away. "Non, non. It is a perfect day for grinding corn. Not so damp that it will take on moisture and later spoil and not so dry that the turning of the stones will scorch it."
"I am so sorry for forgetting." Aida looked anxiously at the men.
"No harm done," her father assured all of them. "With Jean Baptiste and Armand to help me, it won't take any time at all to hitch up the team."
The men began unloading the skiff. The children, curious and energetic, began running up and down the dock in bare feet, their shapeless gowns slapping against their knees.
Aida still held little Pierre and the fat happy baby gurgled contently.
"Please come inside and I will fix coffee," Aida said.
Felicite accepted gratefully. "I should rightly feel guilty to rest myself while the men work," she told Aida. "But in truth, I am such a great cow that just getting from place to place seems a worthy effort."
The two commiserated as they made their way up the bank to the house, leaving the men to take up the challenge of turning a year's worth of corn into meal and flour.
In many ways it was the height of luxury to have corn mechanically milled. The Gaudets' moulin a gru could grind a year's worth of cornmeal in the time it took a woman working with mortar and pestle to pound out a day's ration. A man could rightly be proud of taking this burden from his womenfolk. And he could also be certain that if it was not ground to his satisfaction, he could complain about it hours on end without incurring his wife's wrath.
"I was just sorting some sweet herbs," Aida said as they passed through the curtained doorway. "My little garden has really produced this year."
Felicite followed to the table where she sat down heavily in one of the leather-seated ladder-back chairs. Aida handed little Pierre to her and she set the little fellow on the floor beside her. The baby immediately grasped fistfuls of his mother's skirts and pulled himself into a standing position.
"He's going to walk soon," Aida said.
Felicite nodded. "I'm hoping he'll wait until this one is born. I'm in no condition to be chasing him now."
Aida began poking the ashes in the fireplace and urging new kindling to light.
Madame Sonnier looked around curiously, surprised.
"You've had no fire yet this morning?" she asked, clearly puzzled. "And you are sorting herbs before breakfast?"
"Breakfast?" Aida repeated the word as if she had never heard it.
Her eyes widened and she glanced down at her r
ight hand, chagrined to find circles of thin cotton cord neatly tied on three of her fingers.
"Oh no," she wailed, sitting back on her heels. "I remembered the string, but then forgot to look at my hand."
Felicite's brow furrowed, confused.
"Poor Poppa," Aida explained, shaking her head. "He's out there working on an empty stomach."
Leaning forward, Felicite patted her shoulder, offering comfort. "Well, we will take him some bread and coffee," she said. "Men find that welcome any time of day."
"Yes, oh yes. Can we do that?" Aida asked. "It seems almost like cheating. Like pretending that you remembered a meal when you didn't."
"I don't imagine anyone will mind," Felicite assured her. "If you put on the coffee, I'll slice the bread."
"Bread!" Her whispered exclamation was disheartened and fatalistic. "Yesterday was bread-baking day, but I forgot all about it. So I thought I would just bake this morning. But then I got started with the herbs and—"
"We'll make biscuits," Felicite interrupted.
In less than a half-hour the two women headed out the back door of the Gaudet house carrying a huge basket of hot biscuits and a pot of hot coffee.
Jesper Gaudet had fashioned his grist mill, his moulin a gru with grinding stones bought downriver. It had taken two weeks and nearly ruined a team of horses to pull them upstream. But Gaudet told anyone who asked that it was the smartest move he'd ever made.
Jesper's three mules were hitched to long poles connected to a center axis. The grist mill was housed in a well-built shake-roof shed that sat on a raised dais just outside the horsetrod. Each creaking, groaning circle pulled by the mules created about one hundred revolutions of the stone wheel.
Inside, the great stones lay one atop the other. Aida's gaze was immediately drawn to Armand who stood in the shed, shirtless and straining as he and Jean Baptiste attached the long bull-hide band that connected the spindle that turned the top stone to the pulley that transmitted the power that was generated by the walking of the animals.
It was tough, heavy work and both men were slick with the grease they liberally smeared upon the stem. Aida swallowed a strange sense of nervousness inside her as she watched him. The muscles of his arms and chest were tight and flexed against the smooth pale flesh so faintly shaded with soft brown hair. There was no burliness or brawn upon his frame, but Armand Sonnier appeared sturdy and stalwart and somehow breathtakingly masculine.