Bride of New France (26 page)

But Laure feels she needs to repay this Deskaheh who was kind to her at the funeral. After all, he was only concerned about her health. Mathurin should not have punched him. Laure picks two tomatoes from a stalk and hands one to each of them. Deskaheh looks at the fruit in his hand and exchanges a few words with his companion. They drop the tomatoes into their sacks. Deskaheh sticks his hand through the fence again. Laure walks down the rows of the garden, filling her hands first
with strawberries, then with beans. Each time her arms are full, she brings what she has picked to the fence. She is careful not to touch the hands of the Savages when she passes the food to them. She even brings them a pile of lettuce leaves. Deskaheh’s companion shakes his head at the offering and throws the leaves on the ground.

Laure makes a round of the entire garden, filling both their bags. When she has finished, Deskaheh sticks his hand through the fence once again. He is assessing her with the same look she received from the Duke and the Tailleur Brissault. He is still grinning. His friend pushes at the fence and motions for Laure to follow them. Together they speak in a Savage language, probably Algonquin, that Laure doesn’t understand, even though she knows that Deskaheh can say some French words. They examine the different parts of her body and then discuss this among themselves. She takes a step back.

Laure sees that they both have knives at their waists, and although Deskaheh is taller, they are both as big as grown men even though they are probably only her age. The fence that separates her from them could easily be scaled. Laure turns away from Deskaheh and his companion and runs toward the house. She trips over her skirt and falls on her knees in the dirt of the garden. The sound of their laughter follows her into the cool entrance of the congregation.

Laure doesn’t tell anyone about the two Savages she saw outside. The other girls would think her mad for getting close to them. She is angry with herself for letting those boys see her fear. She should have been brave like when she left behind
the hospital and walked to Paris to see Mireille. Like when the hospital director visited the workshop and said her dress was unholy, and she held her breath waiting for him to leave, pretending she was a wealthy young woman getting her gown adjusted by the poor residents of the hospital. What can she possibly have to fear in this colony?

Deskaheh returns to the garden the next day and again on the one after. He comes back with different boys. But none of these boys ever come back without Deskaheh. Each time, Laure fills their bags with corn, tomatoes, beans, raspberries, whatever is ready to be harvested. There is so much food growing in the garden that nobody notices the absence of what she gives them. Deskaheh continues to laugh at her, telling his friends about her in the Algonquin language, but she is no longer afraid.

One night, after Laure has been staying at the congregation for many weeks, she writes another letter to Madeleine.

Dear Madeleine
,

It is good that they still let me have my own room here. As a Queen should. Remember how you called me the Queen of the New World? The other girls behave worse than they did on the ship, as they are no longer afraid of catching their death at sea. They giggle and scheme all day long about which horrible peasant they
will marry. Some of them have been married before and they still dream that this time they will meet their prince. They are learning how to make curtains they will sew on their new shacks and how to darn socks for their future husbands. Their fingers are slow and thick, and Madame du Clos wouldn’t tolerate their clumsiness in her workshop. I refuse to speak to any of them. Luckily they are afraid of me so they leave me in peace
.

The nuns here are gentler with us than the officers of the Salpêtrière. They are desperate to do good work as they have left behind fortunate circumstances in Old France to teach girls in the colony. Like Marie de l’Incarnation in Québec, they prefer teaching catechism to the Savage girls more than they like teaching the girls from France how to knit socks. You would have liked these Savage girls. They are very pious, unlike the Pitié girls who came across with us on the ship
.

At mealtimes there is plenty to eat. The stews are filled with meat from forest beasts. I spend my days in the garden watching the plants grow. I pretend to be working but really I am just sitting in the sun. My mind becomes so empty that I forget the whole day has passed until the light fades and I start to get cold
.

The Savage from the funeral has been coming to the fence. I should tell one of the sisters about him. I have given him half the vegetables of the garden and he still laughs at me. He finds me just as ugly as I find him. When he speaks French, he sounds like a snake hissing
inside my ear. Still, listening to him is better than being inside learning how to make socks
.

Soon I will have to get married. Then my life here will really begin. I am dreading the day
.

Your friend
,

Laure Beauséjour

Laure blows out the candle and rests her head on her arms. Her dreams are strange in Canada. They are filled with the screams of the forest.

Laure’s hair is long, and she sits in the congregation garden with it spread all around her. She has enough hair to fill the entire garden. The long black strands cover the vegetables. They grow over the pumpkins and the other strange things that emerge from the earth here. Her body is entangled with the garden. The soil is pulling her down by her hair. The fence keeps the forest away for now, but it is encroaching.

Deskaheh has come to see her. His ugliness makes her ache. She tears whatever she can from the earth to give to him. She hands the vegetables, still heavy with clumps of dirt, over to his waiting arms. But he reaches through the fence and grabs hold of her hair instead. He twists it around his fingers and laughs. She wants to make him stop laughing but doesn’t know how to. He is pulling her, bringing her nearer to the fence. His eyes are full of hate.

When Laure awakens from this dream, there is only the forest outside and the moonlight on her tingling arms. She knows how to make him stop laughing. She picks up her comb and turns to the window. The Savages believe the dead roam through the trees at night, so they do not wander after dark. It is the safest time to walk through the forest for the French. Still, nobody does it.

Laure is tired of his mockery. She is wearing the grey dress from the hospital. She was still a child when they gave it to her; a new smock every two years for each resident. It has been almost two years since this dress was given to her. The linen has grown thin and patchy. She won’t need a new hospital dress here. She grasps the material in her hands, digging her nails into it. The old gown tears easily down the front. She waits to hear something from the forest. There are only the voices inside her head reprimanding her.

Laure wonders what it feels like to run through the woods at night. To trip on stumps and branches, to get cut, bitten by insects, and attacked by animals. What it would be like to get lost in a world of trees. She wonders how far she could get before succumbing to the vast wilderness.

Deskaheh calls the congregation nuns Manitou women. They give themselves to their God instead of to their husbands. He says that the Savage women only give themselves like that to Manitou when they are very old, after they have had children and grandchildren and have experienced all things in life. Only
then can they counsel others on how to live. Laure tells him about the very young Savage girl she saw in Québec and how these girls prayed with more fervour than the French and were more devout. She doesn’t think these girls are preparing themselves for husbands. He shrugs and says maybe such girls exist. It takes Laure and Deskaheh half an hour to convey an idea with gestures and the bit of French he speaks, but Laure says it doesn’t matter about the languages because the spirit of a person can be known before they even utter a single sound. That was true of the Superior, of Madeleine, Madame du Clos, and even some of the sisters Laure has met here in Canada. Of course, she was wrong about Mireille Langlois and isn’t certain about Deskaheh either.