Bride of New France (16 page)

M
adeleine is sick for most of the journey across the sea. After spending eighteen days with the others, Laure and Madeleine are permitted to occupy a special room beside the Sainte-Barbe, reserved for dignitaries or the sick. Laure is relieved that she doesn’t have to sit listening to the other girls any more. They try all day to get the attention of the three-year men, combing out their matted hair and applying perfume to the stench of their bodies. The other topic of their conversations is the life they will soon be living in New France. Several of the women have sisters or cousins already living in Québec, and so the others listen to them recount what they know about the place. They will all be married to soldiers and fur-trading men when they disembark. Laure tries to reassure Madeleine that her fate will be different and that she won’t be forced to marry when they land. In truth, Laure doesn’t know how either of them will avoid being married to one of the colony’s men. It is clear to everyone on the ship, including the priests and nuns, that the dozens of young women being transported in the Sainte-Barbe are destined to be the wives of the men established in the colony. Laure has heard Madame
Bourdon speaking with a priest and telling him that getting married and having children is the only way that these men can be kept off the ships returning to France. Laure thinks Canada must be quite an awful place if these men are all so eager to leave it. She doesn’t bother trying to remember the names of the women in the hold. Many of them are called Marie and Jeanne, and Madeleine knows most of them. They enquire after
la petite sainte souffrante
, as they refer to Madeleine, who rarely gets up from her place on the floor of the Sainte-Barbe.

The
quartier-marin
has set Madeleine up in the sick hold, away from the others, behind one of the curtains where the priests and other notables have been sleeping throughout the journey. The cot and blanket inside are cleaner and there is a shelf for placing a prayer book or writing paper. Now that they have moved behind the curtain, Laure does not have the conversations of the other women to distract her, and she grows more worried about Madeleine. Each night when Laure emerges from behind the curtain for dinner, the young Jesuit priest comes to enquire about Madeleine’s health. There isn’t much for Laure to report. She tells him that her friend has energy for prayers and is eating a little, although she is still not strong enough to join the others.

One day, while Laure is sitting reading aloud from a prayer book, Madeleine interrupts her. “Laure, do you remember when we first met?”

Of course Laure remembers, even though several years have passed since that time. It was on one of her first days in the Sainte-Claire dormitory, after Madame d’Aulnay had
died, and Laure had been standing at a window watching the Seine River flow past the Salpêtrière. She had thought at the time that girls must look out from this same hospital window to the river below and imagine leaping out. Some because they wanted to return to a lover they had left behind who lived free somewhere. There must have been a few girls, Laure had thought at the time, who wanted to jump into the Seine simply to drown. Laure had been such a girl when she re-entered the Salpêtrière two days after the funeral of her beloved mistress.

She had been puzzled by the small, pale child with the soft, sweet voice who insisted on standing beside her at the window while she entertained her morbid thoughts. Madeleine hadn’t said very much but had listened to Laure tell her about the wonderful life she had just lost. She had responded that our lives were like rivers flowing to all sorts of destinations. Although Laure found herself back in the dreadful women’s hospital, Madeleine had given her hope for the future, even if she could not imagine what that would be. Even then it was impossible to remain angry for long around Madeleine.

Laure wonders why Madeleine wants to reminisce on the ship about their childhood in the hospital. It isn’t like Madeleine to discuss the past or the future. She prefers always to focus on her present moment, which usually involves saying a prayer or spending her time talking to those around her. When she was feeling better, Madeleine was the one who offered small favours to the others in the dormitory, bits of her food, sewing advice to new girls. But Madeleine is determined today to control their conversation. She says that for a long time she has kept an important story from Laure, from everyone in fact, and that she now feels the need to tell it. Laure is surprised at Madeleine’s
emphatic voice. It seems impossible to imagine that her docile friend has been harbouring some secret.

Madeleine gains a little energy as she begins to speak, and tries to lift herself onto her elbow. She tells Laure that it is the story of her origins, that she actually remembers her life before she entered the monastery.

“It doesn’t take long for the regular customers of En passant, the La Rochelle tavern, to hear that a young girl is growing up right above them. At the time I am ten years old, and they have noticed me rushing in the early afternoon down to the pier, although none of these sailors have ever seen me upstairs in the room when they pay their nighttime visits to my mother.”

Laure’s eyes widen when she hears that Madeleine’s mother had been a port prostitute, but with her usual peaceful smile, Madeleine pats Laure’s hand, insisting that she remain silent for the telling.

“One night, a man named Ti-Jean decides to find out about me, a young girl living with the old prostitute. Ti-Jean was a sailor aboard the ships that collect slaves from Africa for work in the French Islands. He is strong enough to outfit the
nègres
in metal masks and is the least favourite customer of my mother’s and of the other women who sell their services to the seamen.

“Beneath the table where Maman hides me, I tremble on the nights Ti-Jean’s heavy legs mount the stairs to our room. He speaks harshly to Maman, calling her an ugly old whore, no good for anything but giving sailors a bad night.

“‘So, I hear you’ve got a little girl that will be running her old mother out of business before too long,’ he says on the night he comes to find me.

“‘I don’t have anything of the sort,’ Maman replies.

“‘I never would have thought it, homely as you are. But I’ve heard the rumour and now I’d like to see for myself.’

“‘What’s all this you’re talking about? I sure know you don’t come up here to chat.’ Maman’s voice is moving toward the bed at the other end of the room, trying to draw him away from where I am hiding.

“‘No, I come up here when every last wench on the port has her legs raised and there’s nowhere else to turn.’

“I then hear the rustle of my mother’s skirts as she tries again to entice Ti-Jean away from my hiding place.

“‘First show me this daughter of yours so I can decide if either of you are worth my while.’ Then I hear his heavy boots pace across the length of the little room. He is looking for me. When his feet are just inches from where I am hiding, crouched under the tiny table, he lets out a laugh. ‘Well, she must already be well trained, hiding under here getting pleasure from all that goes on in her mother’s dirty bed.’

“I gasp as Ti-Jean raises the cloth that covers the table. This piece of cloth has been my silent protector, the thin barrier that has kept my mother’s employment from fully reaching me. If I plug my ears with my fingers and imagine a daylight scene, the sun on the ocean, the market filled with precious goods, then I can almost forget what my mother is doing with the men in her bed. But when Ti-Jean rips the cloth away, for the first time I am no longer safe.

“Maman is at his side, pulling at his broad shoulders and screaming to get him to turn away from me. But it is of no use,
as he is so big and strong and Maman is a woman not much bigger than me.

“‘So this is the little woman that’s been getting so much attention from the sailors.’ His laugh is mocking and he crouches down so that the enormous stout knees are in line with my eyes.

“‘Leave her alone! She’s only a child!’ Maman screams at him.

“Then I feel my legs slide across the hard floor as he pulls me upright onto my feet.

“‘You are much better looking than your mother,’ Ti-Jean says. I can smell the sour thickness of his breath. ‘Nice little face.’ His rough hand caresses my cheek and passes over my lips. I want so badly to bite him but I fear that doing so will make things worse. He entwines his fingers in my hair and pulls my head back. His other hand reaches for my neck and I do nothing to stop him. ‘Just like a kitten being separated from her mother,’ he says to me.

“His lips and unshaven face are sliding across my neck while his hand remains tangled in my hair. He is pulling my body up to his chest and I feel my feet leave the ground.

“‘You taste sweet. I think I’m going to get a bit more of this.’ His breath has grown a little ragged as he reaches under the nightdress I’m wearing and up along my back. ‘Stay away from me, you old whore,’ he says to Maman, who is still at his back, and he kicks her hard. I remember thinking that the worst part of it all was that Maman was there through it all, wailing as if I were being killed.

“It took two days for Maman and me to walk to the Sulpiciens monastery in Aunis. We pass beggars, mostly maimed soldiers, along the way and are offered rides several times by
men in various types of carts and carriages. Each time, Maman refuses their offers.

“As we walk, she tells me the story of Mary of Egypt, the patron saint of prostitutes. ‘Each morning I have prayed to this saint, and it is her voice that told me to take you to the Sulpiciens,’ Maman says. Maman tells me that when Mary of Egypt was twelve years old, she ran away from her home, although her family was rich. For seventeen years she lived in the city of Alexandria as a prostitute and a dancer. She then travelled to Jerusalem to search for material gain among the pilgrims gathered there. When she tried to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the celebration, she was repelled by the Holy Spirit and could not enter the door. She then prayed to an icon of the Virgin Mary and repented for her sinful life. It was only after she had done this that she was able to enter the church.

“‘My dear daughter,’ Maman says to me, ‘please pray to Mary of Egypt every day so that you will not ever have to be a prostitute as she was and as I am. For how much better to be pure in body and spirit, untainted by the filth of this world, when you leave it.’

“But I could still feel the bruises on my body from Ti-Jean and thought it was too late. I was already as tainted as Maman and as Mary of Egypt.”

Laure cannot imagine a girl more innocent and devoid of sin than Madeleine.

“By the time we reach the doorstep of the monastery, we are parched and dusty from our journey. Maman speaks immediately to the priest who answers the door and attempts to shut it upon seeing us there. ‘I ask nothing of you. I know that I am a condemned sinner in the eyes of this holy place. If
you can provide me with a little water and whatever food you normally reserve for the animals, I will be on my way.’

“My mother’s blotchy face meets his severe eyes, and he nods.

“‘This child I am offering you is the finest of all my worldly possessions.’

“Since the wars, the priest tells them, he has had a number of beggars each day come to his door with stories of their sad plights. The monastery is generally a place where the sons and daughters of wealthy families come to study, with generous dowries, for religious vocations, he tells us. He looks at me, studying my face for some sign of my worthiness, my value. I hope that he turns me away so I can stay with Maman. I have told her that we don’t have to return to La Rochelle and to that room, but she tells me that she has no skills and knows no other way to survive.

“‘Father, if you turn us away, this innocent young child will have no choice but to join me in my wretched profession. You cannot possibly allow that to happen.’

“‘Does she have any skills?’ he asks.

“‘She is fine at needlepoint,’ Maman says, pulling me tightly against her. ‘And can read from prayer books.’

“The priest raises an eyebrow.

“‘Somewhat,’ she adds.