by Pamela Morsi
"We have had cross words," the good father stated calmly as the two reached beyond the hearing distance of the others.
"It is not the first time, Father," Armand replied.
The years of tutelage and obedience were long in the past. Armand had long since spoken his mind with the priest and as often as not that frankness had brought discord.
"I have offended you somehow and in some way that I did not intend," the old man said. "And I find that I much need your help."
"If this is about the school, Father," Armand told him, "I have said all that I wish to upon the subject."
"But not all that needs to be said has been," he answered.
"Father, I will not—"
The old priest held up his hand.
"You are correct, my son, when you say that after twenty years I should understand your people better," he said.
Armand nodded agreement.
"I am a man of God, but I am also a Frenchman and will always be so. You and your people"—he shook his head—"they are a breed still strange to me, strange to most anyone, I think."
"We are not strange to ourselves, Father," Armand replied.
"Well said," the priest admitted. "It has been so many years that you have been away from anyone but your own. You have become distinct and strangely unique in your ways. The people here have grown less French in their ways than many of the Africans that have not one drop of French blood inside them."
Armand wondered how the father could know all this, then determinedly shrugged off what sounded to him very much like criticism. The two had reached the corner of the fencing and could walk no further. Armand leaned back against the cypress pieu, spreading his arms along the top railing and propping one bare foot upon the bottom.
"It is the French themselves who taught us that we are not French," he countered.
"Yes, yes, I know," Father Denis said patronizingly. "But that was all a very long time ago."
"A long time ago?" Armand's tone of voice lowered and intensified. "It was a very long time ago. But if we forget this wrong," he said, "if we say what is past is past, if we do not tell our children the story of how we came here and why, all that pain and rage and death will have been for naught."
The priest's expression was solemn. "The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies, Armand. To bless them that cursed you and pray for them that despitefully used you."
"And we do, Father," Armand told him. "We wage no war. We plot no revenge. Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, Spaniards, Creoles, or Americaines, they are all safe here in this place. We laugh, we dance, and we welcome strangers among us. We live on as God intended. But we will not, cannot, forget our past, and we shall not allow our children to do so."
Father Denis observed his pained expression, but eventually nodded.
"All right, Armand," he said. "I will not ask you to bring your people around to my way of thinking."
"Good."
"But I still ask you to help me to start a school."
Armand stopped in his tracks and huffed with indignation. "You have not heard a word that I have said."
"I have heard every word," Father Denis replied. "But none of it convinces me that these children should not learn to read."
"There is no need," Armand insisted.
"I would do nothing to turn the children against the old ways," the priest assured him. "You are right when you say that there is much evil in the world and that it is good to stand clear of it. But it is a perilous idea to believe that ignorance can be a protection. We must know what dangers lurk around us or we should never be on watch to avoid them."
"To know the dangers of the world, Father, is to be tempted by them," Armand said.
"But without temptation there is no virtue, no choice to do right. We would all choose for children the good way, but in truth they each must at some time choose for themselves."
Father Denis glared at him sternly. "You always think that you know what is best, Armand Sonnier. That is always what you think. When I pushed you to become the judge, I did it because I believed in the strength of your mind. But your vanity has blossomed with your age."
The priest's words were soft, but their meaning was a condemnation.
"God has granted you much capacity for knowledge," he said. "I do not see yet that you have acquired much wisdom."
Chapter Ten
Aida Gaudet wanted to crawl into a rabbit hole and pull the dirt back over to cover herself up.
"Aida Gaudet to be the new treater?" Armand's tone was incredulous.
"I know it's a silly—" Aida began.
"It's my idea and a very good one, I am thinking," Orva said sharply.
Aida had mentioned Orva Landry's plan to no one, not even her own father. She knew that it would seem foolish, ridiculous. She was not a treater and she never would be. Women like her were not chosen for such tasks. Women like her were the decorations of a community, not the pinions.
Aida watched Armand. He looked down at Madame Landry, seated heavily upon a short stool in the middle of her garden and then over at Aida. He swallowed determinedly as if choosing his words and turned back to the older woman.
"I am not saying that Mademoiselle Gaudet could not be a fine help to you, Nanan," he said quietly. "She could be a companion, assist you in the garden. But learning the cures and charms?" He glanced toward Aida. And then smiled with genuine sympathy. "Why, la demoiselle has much too much to think about already."
Aida wanted to defend herself, but when she looked into his eyes she could not. Armand was correct. She was not nearly smart enough to become the treater. She'd known it all along. That Orva Landry even suggested that she could was ludicrous. But the old woman seemed wholly set upon it.
She sat stubbornly amid the remainders of her garden plot. The uncut corn was drying on the stalk, a few late tomatoes still hid among the vines, and a dozen brightly colored gourds were ripe enough to pick.
"The young woman has an interest," Orva insisted. "She has an interest and she shows an aptitude. That says enough for me. Would you have me ask the voices for your sake?"
Armand cleared his throat nervously. Clearly he did not want any sort of personal consultation with the voices.
"I wouldn't truly be the traiteur," Aida assured him with sincerity. "I would just grow the herbs. I can do that. It's simply gardening. And you will tell me how to put them together. You will keep the secrets of the charms and cures."
"Men don't keep those secrets," he told her.
"Of course they don't," Madame Landry agreed. "And I'm not asking you to keep them. Just to write them down. They need to be written down and I'm not the one to do it."
"It will never work," Armand insisted. "If you must apprentice someone, it must be someone who can be treater."
"There you go again! Thinking that you know everything." Orva huffed in disgust. "Has this current load of lessons you've been burdened with taught you nothing at all?"
Young Monsieur Sonnier appeared distinctly uncomfortable.
"I would think," the old woman continued, "that between that fat old priest's book teachings and my personal guidance, the brightest young man on the Vermilion River would have learned that things are not always exactly as they appear. But no, you believe you know best for yourself, best for everyone. It's a conceit, young man, very much a conceit."
Aida watched as Armand's cheeks reddened. She felt immediate empathy for him. How strange that a man as smart as Armand could be made to feel as silly and foolish as she often did herself. He looked strong and determined, his blue eyes intense. Without thinking she reached out to touch his arm.
He flinched slightly beneath her fingers and glanced up at her, startled.
"Excuse us for a moment," she said to Madame Landry. "I need to speak a word with Monsieur Sonnier."
The treater nodded and Aida led a reluctant Armand out of earshot. She regretted her action almost instantly. She could not offer wisdom or even reason. He would think she had gotten
far above herself if she did. All she could speak was the truth.
"I know that I am no choice for this burden," she whispered to him. She kept her head high. She would not be ashamed of who she was, not in front of him. "I don't know a lot. I lose things. And I don't have a very good memory."
Armand said nothing. It would have been polite if he had begged to differ with her. But she took it as a compliment that he didn't immediately agree.
"Surely a true treater will come along and Madame Landry will recognize her straightaway," she continued. "It is a strange idea, indeed, that I could be of any help to Madame Landry. But she thinks it will be so."
"It is not for me to say who the treater should be," Armand said finally as he watched the determined set of her shoulders. "I just thought that it would be . . . it would be someone other than you."
"I agree completely," Aida told him, grateful that he was not openly derisive of her. "It's not a job I would want. And I am sure that another woman will come along who will be perfect for it. But until she does ... it is only an afternoon or two spent in the old woman's presence. Will it be so much work to write down what she has to say?"
"No, I suppose not," he admitted.
"Until the true treater comes along, I can listen and learn what I can. That will not hurt anyone," she said. "And it will be a good thing to have the cures written down on papers, don't you think?"
He shrugged, but appeared to be conceding. "It could be a good thing," he agreed finally. "A written record is always a hedge against disaster or uncertainty."
"Then you will help me?" she asked. "You will listen while she tells me and you will write it down?"
"All right."
"Thank you, monsieur. Thank you so much." Aida smiled broadly at him, inordinately happy and pleased.
Armand gave her a strange look. "You have a chipped tooth," he said.
Aida covered her mouth, embarrassed.
"Yes, monsieur," she admitted. "I fell when I was ten."
"Pardon, mamselle, I don't know where I lost my manners to speak of it. I had merely never noticed it before. It is not at all distracting."
Aida was still blushing.
"I . . . I, too, have one cracked," he said, showing her a lower incisor. "Laron once hit me in the mouth with a poling tool."
She smiled broadly.
"You must learn to duck," she told him.
Her humor was unexpectedly contagious and Armand actually grinned back. "With my lack of height, mamselle, I had never before needed to!"
She actually giggled at his joke.
It was a warm, pleasant moment. Reminiscent of the friendship long past. Perhaps Monsieur Sonnier did not really like her, but he was willing to tolerate her ignorance for the sake of Prairie l'Acadie and Orva Landry. And he had seen her, he had seen her flaw. Strangely she found that pleased her.
"I promise to do my best to learn what Madame Landry tries to teach me," Aida vowed to him. "And for your sake, I will not act any more silly than I can help."
Those words raised his eyebrows and Aida wished she could call them back. She would look smarter, of course, to pretend that she didn't know that she wasn't smart. Oh how she wished he were more like the other fellows, like Placide or Ignace or even Laron. If she could just tease and flirt with him then it would be so easy. But Armand Sonnier was much too intelligent to be fooled by such nonsense. And nonsense was all that she had to offer.
"Are you two conjuring up a love affair?" Orva Landry called out to them.
Armand jumped back as if a shot had been fired, clearly horrified. Aida swallowed hard and kept her chin high as inwardly she writhed in humiliation, wondering if Madame Landry had somehow known the direction of her thoughts.
With deliberate purpose she forced a little giggle from her throat. "Oh, we are going to be much too busy for that this morning," she said. "You have promised to show me how to lessen Poppa's joint pain with potato shavings."
"That I will," the old woman said. "I will indeed. Well, mon fils," she said to Armand. "Go fetch your pen and paper if you are to write down my words."
"Oui, Madame," he answered and headed for the house.
Aida watched him go for a moment and then moved to Madame Landry's side, seating herself in the cool earth at her feet.
"I am so glad he is going to help me," she said. "I could never remember all this."
"Of course he will help," Orva said waving away her concern.
"I was afraid for a moment that he would not," Aida admitted.
The old woman smiled vaguely. "Things always work out exactly how they are meant," she said. "Remember that, young one, exactly how they are meant. Fate. It's just that at times we are so stubborn, we cannot trust in that to be."
Aida frowned at her words, not understanding. The voices themselves couldn't be any harder to comprehend. She hoped that Madame Landry would speak more plainly. It was going to be difficult enough to fathom the treater’s knowledge without the rarities of language.
In fact, the afternoon proved to be a lot less difficult for Aida than she would have imagined. She was honestly surprised at how much she already knew about the herbs. Santolina and tansy. Marjoram and feverfew. They were as familiar to her as jasmine and marigold. And even the cures themselves seemed rather straightforward and commonsense. Not at all the strange spiritual world that she imagined.
"To get rid of head lice, you wash the hair in whiskey and powder it with sand," the old woman explained. "The lice will get drunk on the whiskey and the sand will make them think they are down on the ground. They'll fight each other to the death over territory."
"Really." Aida shook her head in amazement. Then resolutely committed the story to memory. Drunk lice will fight on sand.
"Now if it's body lice," Madame Landry continued, "it's a completely different problem.
Aida nodded, listening, deliberately trying to commit Madame Landry's words to memory. It was challenging and very difficult. She was so very grateful that Monsieur Sonnier was writing everything down.
She glanced momentarily in his direction. He was sitting nearby them on a cane-seat chair. His legs were crossed, right ankle on left knee, with the breadboard he'd appropriated from Madame Landry's kitchen serving as a writing surface.
The tiny bottle of blue-black ink was uncorked and held securely with the two fingers that also steadied the paper. He was obviously listening, but he kept his eyes on his efforts, writing continuously, with only occasional hesitations to re-ink his point.
His face, shaded by the wide-brimmed hat, was not visible to her. So Aida allowed herself to look more closely at the rest of him. From her place on the ground and with the distance separating them, Armand didn't appear little or boyish. It was curious actually how people talked of him as if he were a small, frail man. He may have been ill in his youth, but now, in fact, he looked to Aida to be anything but.
Normally he wore trousers, which Aida generally preferred on men, being so much more fashionable. Today however he was clad in Acadian culotte and buttonless cottonade shirt. The traditional costume suited him somehow. He looked natural. He looked attractive. Aida was somewhat surprised at her own thought. She scrutinized his appearance more carefully as if checking her conclusion.
His shoulders were actually quite broad. Oh, certainly not as broad as perhaps Laron's, but much broader than his hips, which were narrow and lean. The afternoon sun was warm and the sweat-dampened cottonade of his clothing clung tightly to his form. Aida found herself measuring the length of his torso and the width of his chest. He was fit and healthy, robust even. There was no evidence of the sickly scholar.
Her glance skittered past the frighteningly foreign territory at the crotch of his pants, lingering along the thick muscled length of his thigh, at the very top of which she could detect just the hint of a round masculine backside. Oh how she would love to touch it.
The idea shot through her like the heat of lightning and she wiggled a bit uncomfortably on the hard
ground where she sat. What a strange notion to have!
Determinedly she tried to concentrate once more on what Madame Landry was saying.
"Put a small piece of mutton tallow to a jigger of snake oil and set it near the fire. When it's melted, add in twelve drops of attar of roses."
Aida's attention once more strayed to the man seated at a distance from her. Primly she withdrew her gaze from the not quite proper perusal of his nether person to the much more socially acceptable view of his limbs.
His culotte was tied neatly at the base of his knee. Below them his calves were bare, or mostly so. Even at a rail length or more, Aida could see the profusion of tawny brown hair that festooned the well-muscled curve of his leg.
Aida swallowed, but her mouth was surprisingly dry.
Short men should have short legs, stubby legs, she thought to herself. But Armand was not built so. He was perfectly proportioned, as if his growth had not been stunted as everyone said, but as if God intended for him to look exactly the way that he did. And what God made, He made perfectly.
Aida allowed her eyes to wander the length of his naked limbs, curious and admiring. With the wearing of culottes Aida was familiar with the shape of men's legs. At the fais-dodo or special dances the younger fellows often tried to draw attention to them by tying multicolored bows at their knees, occasionally with flowing streamers. Even in the coldest part of winter when their nakedness was covered by durable thigh-high Indian moccasins, leather fringes were attached to draw the eye. And the action of the gentlemen's bow was obviously designed to show the male limb to best advantage. Aida had cast her glance on many legs, but none had ever before held her attention.
The intriguing fleece of masculine hair stopped abruptly upon the top of his foot, which was rather long and narrow. His toes were well-shaped and lean, the second one slightly longer than the first. The sole she observed was callused and rough, a testament to the roads he traveled. His instep was high-arched and graceful, somehow giving the perception of both beauty and strength.
Beauty and strength. She had never associated either word with this man. No, not Armand Sonnier. Yet somehow, suddenly now, she knew both words described him. She allowed her gaze to wander back over the length of leg, the thighs covered in closely clinging cottonade, the curve of his handsome derriere, the strong muscled chest, the deceptively broad shoulders, the noble jut of his chin, those brightly honest blue eyes. His—