Heartsong (18 page)

That had been twenty-one years ago. It had been five years from that moment until they were married. In fact, they never spoke another word to each other for two years after the incident. Madeleine learned, after they were married, that René had sought out the older priest for advice on entering seminary that very week. Father Daudet was encouraging and gave René special religious instructions for the next two years while he finished lycée. But the week before René was to enter the seminary, his father was killed by an insane sailor while he was at the quai, bidding on fish.

Madeleine had accompanied her parents to the funeral, and they sat only two rows behind the bereaved family. She was surprised
that while the others gave in to their grief, René had sat quite erect, clear-eyed, seemingly emotionless.

And the next day, she saw him again, at the fish stall this time, working alongside some of the other fishmongers, who had volunteered to man the stall while the family recovered. He never missed a day after that.

Madeleine had been puzzled then, and slightly angered, by the boy's lack of feelings for his own father. Could this be the same boy who had been so solicitous of her injury and her dignity? It was only after they were married that he revealed his one overriding principle in life—everything that happened was God's will, good or bad. But even in the bad, there was good, for it was God's will, and was not God good? Did He not do things for the betterment of mankind even though they seemed bad, often tragic? Madeleine tried to understand this mishmash of simple reasoning, but in the end she could not. She considered herself a devout Catholic—she and René took the children to mass every Sunday and every holy day—but she could not bring herself to feel that all the tragic things that went on around her were good simply because they were God's will. She often thought that René had the temperament of a priest—grave but not undone by bad things. Perhaps even uplifted by tragedy.

S
o she sat in the captain's office, waiting, rueing the day that she and René had followed Father Daudet and the other parishioners down to the Préfecture to protest the imprisonment of the Peau-Rouge. She had felt quite virtuous in offering up her prayers for the well-being of the savage. As Father Daudet had said, he was one of God's humblest creatures. And René was right, of course—it was their Christian duty to offer shelter to a fellow human being. She didn't object to that. They had, after all, housed an engineering
student from Montpellier for nine months, and while he had paid a small amount for rent and a little for food, they hadn't gotten rich—nor had they expected to. And there was the little nurse from Apt before that.

But this was a savage! Surely God didn't intend for Christians and savages to live together! Madame Soulas shook her head and looked at her husband, who was patiently explaining how the mistral and the tramontane were keeping the fishermen from going out as often as they normally did. The captain was snorting in disgust. One would think that René had committed a crime against the state, instead of being guilty merely of foolishness in this foolish endeavor.

And yet, here it was—the moment at hand. They had already been to the Palais de Justice and signed the temporary custody papers. The tribunal had questioned them—or rather, René extensively. Could they provide the savage with creature comforts? Were they prepared for such a person in their house-hold? How would the children adjust to such an exotic creature? How did they think a savage would respond to living in a civilized neighborhood? Finally, the
président du tribunal
had turned to Madame Soulas and said, “And you, madame, are you prepar-ed for—how shall I say it—for whatever unusual needs this savage might require?” She remembered the look on René's face—the smile that was somewhere between Christian joy and pure apprehension—but he needn't have worried. She was his wife. Now she wondered what would have happened if she had said no. She was quite sure the tribunal, given the severity of the questions, would have turned them down. But René—what would it have done to him, and to them? She couldn't understand why he would want to bring this
indien
into their home. But he was almost uncharacteristically insistent, as though his own family were not enough for him. Sometimes his piety was a burden.

For the fiftieth time in the past three days, Madame Soulas asked herself, Why us? She understood that there were other families, not to mention relief agencies and church organizations, that would have been only too happy to take in the savage. Just the day before, two nuns from the Vieille Charité had appeared at their doorstep. The older one was severe and erect in her habit and the younger one wore thick wire-rimmed glasses that made her eyes too big for her face. Both were quite reasonable in their request that the Soulases give up their claim to the Peau-Rouge. They were equipped to deal with vagabonds and orphans, it was their calling to care for indigents. When René scoffed at the notion, the nuns became more insistent and threatened to talk with Father Daudet about the moral fitness of the Soulases. And that enraged Madeleine as much as it did René, and it was she who escorted the nuns out the door. In spite of Captain Drossard's questioning the honesty of the Association des Poissonniers, René was the most moral man she knew. He never put his thumb on the scale or failed to put his tithe in the collection plate. And besides, it was Father Daudet who had recommended to the tribunal that the
indien
be placed in their care! Those were the final words hurled by Madeleine at the retreating nuns.

Later, when she had calmed down, Madeleine found herself wishing that things had turned out a bit differently. Perhaps if René had seen the nuns' point that they were in a better position to help the savage, it all would have worked out for the best. Their life would be normal, the children wouldn't be threatened, and the savage would have the best of care. And besides, he had been arrested for loitering. Didn't that make him a vagabond and therefore eligible for care at the Vieille Charité?

Madame Soulas sighed. The solution to this problem had been at hand just yesterday, but René had offended the nuns. He was a good man, but sometimes she wished he had a little more sense.
What a mess we are in, she thought.

All of this because they had gone to the Wild West show of Buffalo Bill one Sunday afternoon. René had sat on the edge of his seat during the whole of the performance. He had clapped and cheered at the big carriage and the pursuing Indians. He had let out a howl of delight when the Indians rode among the running bison. And he had actually made savage whoops when the Peaux-Rouges had killed the brave soldiers. Madame Soulas had been horrified at his behavior until she noticed many of the other spectators doing the same thing!

But Madame Soulas was more concerned about the children. Many of the acts had frightened them. Chloé had wept when the bison pounded by, shaking the long portable bleachers, followed by the half-naked, flinty-eyed savages. She had hid her face in Madeleine's skirt at the sound of the guns and the cries of the soldiers as they fell. Mathias had tried to act brave, as thirteen-year-olds will, but she had noticed how he flinched back when the action got too close or too noisy. The Americans seemed to think that violence was just a way of life. The announcer had said as much. But it was not the French way.

Madame Soulas was astounded all over again as she thought that one of the Peaux-Rouges who had chased the bison and killed the soldiers was actually coming to live with them. What could René have been thinking? What about our poor children? Poor Chloé was only nine ! And Mathias was impressionable to a fault. To have a savage sit down at their table, to sleep in their home, it was too much. And what of the neighbors? Did they deserve to have a savage frightening their children half to death? And Mademoiselle Laboussier—would she ever come again to give Chloé her piano lessons?

Madame Soulas found herself caught between the states of high anxiety and sullen misery when she heard the sounds of several
footsteps outside the captain's office. She suddenly felt her heart pound and flutter and skip all at once as she prepared for her first sight of the Peau-Rouge.

But only one person entered the room, a tall man in a brown suit with long bushy sideburns and a neatly trimmed mustache which curved down around the corners of his mouth. His thick sandy hair was rumpled, but he had the air of someone important. He strode to the captain's desk, took the official's hand, and pumped it a little too vigorously. Madame Soulas noticed that his ears were small and close to his head. Beneath the hair, his face was quite delicate with hardly a line on it. He seemed very young to carry such authority. As she listened to the two men exchange greetings, she noticed that the man's French was quite simple and quite bad. There was something of the north in his accent, a smooth clipped accent, but the words were not smooth. It was clear that French was not his natural tongue.

The captain introduced him as the American vice-consul Franklin Bell to Monsieur and Madame Soulas, and the vice-consul insisted on shaking hands with both of them. He was the first American she had seen outside of a few sailors carousing around the Old Port, and of course Buffalo Bill and his cowboys. Americans never came to her neighborhood and she seldom left it.
“Enchanté, madame
,” he said, as she looked into his blue eyes and thought they were the color of the ceiling of Notre Dame de la Garde, a pale but lovely blue that seemed impossible. Madame Soulas felt a tingle in her cheeks as he bowed over her hand.

“And so, madame,” he said to her, “would you like to meet your new ward? He is quite a gentleman—although they tell me he eats like a horse. Finished off a whole chicken by himself.”

Madame Soulas was taken aback by his familiarity and a little embarrassed that he was addressing her so directly. She looked toward her husband, her eyes wide with confusion. She was not
really a shy woman, and certainly not helpless—she sold fish right alongside René, although she didn't engage in the banter and insults of the market like many of the other wives. But this man—this American—was far too familiar for a complete stranger.

“Yes, of course we would like to meet Charging Elk, Monsieur Bell. But could you tell us about him first?” René glanced nervously at Madeleine, but kept his attention on the American. “It is my understanding that he speaks neither French nor American.”

“Only too true, monsieur. He does know a few English words—Buffalo Bill, Wild West, and, of course, his own name—Charging Elk. He speaks the Siouan tongue, but unfortunately I have been unable to locate an interpreter. Nor am I likely to.” Bell shook his head regretfully. “I'm afraid all the Sioux and their interpreters left with the Wild West show.”

“But why don't you just send him to wherever they are?” The words were abrupt and desperate—and out before Madame Soulas could catch herself. She felt her face tingle again.

Bell looked at her for a moment, his unguarded expression caught somewhere between annoyance and amusement. “A very good question, madame. Very good. One that I have asked myself. But, you see, madame . . .” He paused, glancing at the captain. “I'm afraid your government will not let Monsieur Charging Elk leave the country. At first, it was because he had to appear before a tribunal to settle some petty charges. He did that. But now they say he entered the country illegally—he is not a citizen of the United States, he does not hold a valid passport—and so he must remain in your country until the justice system decides otherwise.”

“It is the way the law works, Madame Soulas,” said the captain. “The French Republic would be overrun with undesirable types if we didn't secure our borders.”

“But will he ever be allowed to go home?” René seemed almost stunned at this kind of law that would keep a human being who
apparently had done nothing wrong from returning to his country.

The captain raised his shoulders in an elaborate shrug. “I am only a guardian of the peace, monsieur. It is up to a higher authority. Who knows what they will decide?”

“But the law is misguided in this case,
capitaine
. The Peau-Rouge is clearly a citizen of America. He is the original citizen. Buffalo Bill said so.”

The captain had attended a performance of the Wild West show too, and he had heard the speech about the original Americans, these
indiens
. At the time, he thought it must be true. But now the government said that the
indiens
were not real citizens of their own country, so this must be true too. It was all very confusing, but he was duty-bound to uphold his country's laws. He was about to shrug again, but the American stepped between him and the fishmonger and his wife.

“This will all be sorted out, monsieur, madame. Please rest assured that Monsieur Charging Elk will be with you only for a short time. Then he will be allowed to return to his own people and we can all get on with our lives. In the meantime, let me extend the heartfelt appreciation of my government for your kind generosity.” He turned to the captain. “May I bring in our citizen now?”