Madame Victoria Read online

  “No half-measures for you, my friend, eh? There’s another baby in there. We’ll have to get him out.”

  She groans and the vicar bolts from the room. It’s the dead of night when Augustine at last expels the second twin, a small thing, gummy and inert, which the clergyman hastens to bless and carry away. Fifine assists me as I make certain Augustine’s belly is quite empty. Her fever has dropped and she’s no longer shivering.

  “The old woman hasn’t poisoned you after all,” I say.

  Fifine crosses herself as Augustine smiles wanly.

  “No, but she well-nigh killed me all the same.”

  We embrace through our sticky shawls, and I leave the Limoges’ house at dawn. Place Royale is deserted, save for a sleeping drunkard propped against a horse more dignified than him. When I get home, Hector comes down in his nightshirt.

  “How is your friend?”

  “She is safe and sound.”

  My skirts ripple around my ankles as if they were alive. I find myself, I don’t know how, standing a few inches from Hector. Outside, the wind lays into the leaves and sets the trees swaying. I gather his face in both my hands and bring it close to mine. His mouth is a chapel and my entire soul kneels within it. I’m blind and my ears are whistling. When we move apart and Hector leaves, the kitchen empties altogether, nothing remains. I slip into my room. Near my bed, the stove wall glows as red as hot coals.

  Madame, back from Quebec City, exclaims, “Our Victoria, a midwife! Who would have thought! The Limoges are in our debt—just imagine if they had had to buy a new slave!”

  Her cousins in Quebec City told her that smoking is a cure for headaches. Now rose-coloured wreaths trail after her throughout the house, and she coughs in her sleep. She goes to bed early, and no sooner has she retired than Hector comes to me. The time we spend together escapes through a hole in time. He unbraids my hair, I slide my fingers between his shirt buttons, and in these few gestures three hours are swallowed up. He makes as if to take his leave, and I can’t bring myself to let him go. Mornings find me enervated, the survivor of a luminous battle.

  He is as smooth as the surface of water, as the first day of a life. His scent is that of mint and great journeys. His caresses bring to mind the age before death, and I sing him songs I’d long forgotten. He wants to undress me, to possess me completely, but I’m too afraid of what very nearly killed Augustine, I beseech him to stop and he stops. We breathe very hard, it hurts between my legs and then he goes and kisses that burning place, assuring me that this is not how children are made, and I dare not reply that what awaits us instead is hell.

  He believes the streets are dangerous. Last week, a band of soldiers dragged a slave woman by the hair and dishonoured her till she lost the power of speech. This took place at night, in one of the poorer quarters, but I go out only in the daytime. Still, Hector says he fears for me, and he follows me from a distance, hidden among the crowd. He wants to stay close to me. It makes me smile. As I’ve fallen behind in my chores on account of our evenings, he lends me a hand. He pricks his fingers with my needles, the candles he makes are all crooked, and I nearly wake Madame with my guffaws. He kisses my fingernails and my eyelids, and I press my hand against his heart. There are times I doubt he truly exists.

  Somehow Augustine realizes what’s going on. She chides me.

  “Silly girl. You think he’s going to take you out of your kitchen? He’s going to ruin your life—that’s what’ll happen. It amuses them to make us believe in love.”

  She’s unaware of the pain her words cause me, otherwise she would keep quiet.

  “It’s not unheard of, a white man marrying a Negro woman. The Smiths, the people who came from the Great Lakes, they’re married,” I tell her.

  “They’re poor. Rich folk aren’t like that. They never wed slaves.”

  I feel a lump in my throat. She’s right and I hate her. I scurry home in tears, and I can hear Hector running behind me. Madame is playing cards with her friends and doesn’t notice when I come in. Hector must stay to chat with them. His voice is different when he speaks to his mother’s friends and this vexes me. I have no way of knowing whether he dissembles with them or with me. He finally arrives after supper and steps toward me. Immediately I start to weep again.

  “I don’t want you coming to see me anymore.”

  He stops short, as if I’d dealt him a blow to the stomach.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re just amusing yourself with me. You’ll cast me off when you’re done.”

  His eyes grow wide and for the first time the green and the blue seem to blend. “That’s not true.”

  “Masters never wed their slaves, everyone knows that.”

  “That may be so here. But elsewhere it’s different. The world is changing, Victoria. Soon there will be no more slaves.”

  “Is that what you believe?”

  “It’s what I wish.”

  “So why haven’t you enfranchised me yet? What are you waiting for?”

  “I’m waiting for my mother to convey to me the deeds of property that my father bequeathed to her.”

  I don’t know what to answer. Behind me, the eggs are bouncing around in the boiling water, they’re overcooked now and a sulphury stench wafts up from the pot. Hector approaches and embraces me.

  “I love you, Victoria.”

  At nightfall he refuses to leave and persuades me to let him lie down in my little bed. I can’t stop the tears, he enfolds me in his arms. Just before dozing off I’m gripped by a wild urge to tell him my name, burning on the edge of my lips, turning hard as a bullet. But then I’m submerged in dreams.

  Tears are the verbena of the heart, they bring on sleep. Nestled one against the other, we’re unaware of the dawn. It’s Madame who wakes us. My first impression is that she has doused us with a bucketful of cold water, but, no, the sheets are dry to my touch. Hector leaps up and follows his mother, who stomps across the house in a rage. As I rub my swollen eyes, I hear her shouting through the door of the library.

  “How many times have I warned you! These Negresses are all strumpets!”

  I discern Hector’s voice trying to calm her, but I’m unable to make out his words. Nor can Madame hear them, apparently. From the thumping noises, I gather she is hurling books.

  “First it was your father with that wench of a Greta, and now you! You’re sick! Well, I know a proper remedy for that!”

  My cheeks flame up. Monsieur and Greta. I should have understood long ago. Thoughts race through my mind. If Greta was sold for frolicking with Monsieur, will I come to the same end? I spin in circles while redoing my braids. Bertaud, who has a great knack for sensing an approaching storm, has taken shelter in the garden, amid the frost, where he makes a show of picking fruits that will never ripen. I busy myself in the kitchen trying to reassure myself. Hector will smooth things over. If he doesn’t manage to reason with his mother he’ll surely find a way of buying me from her. The bread in the oven refuses to rise.

  Madame and Hector stay shut inside the library for nearly an hour. When I hear doors slamming I let the potatoes rest and press my back against a beam, as if standing to attention. Madame enters the kitchen.

  “Victoria, your presence in this house has become intolerable. My cousins in Chambly, the Tousignants, are in need of someone. You’ll go there tomorrow.”

  Inside me, a sack full of sand falls without landing anywhere, as if down a gaping well. The Tousignants have dozens of slaves working the fields. They’re driven like animals. The slow ones are beaten.

  “Where is Hector?” I stammer.

  Madame’s face grows taut, her lips entirely disappear, and she gives me a slap that makes everything go blue for a second.

  “That’s one question you won’t be asking ever again. Understood?”

  All the livelong day I do nothing else but
weep. Bertaud brings me little flowers that he’s picked on the fringe of the garden, in the tangled corners that I couldn’t tame. I’d like to go there now, to burrow into the rotten leaves and let the horseflies devour me. Bertaud taps me on the shoulder. I ought to bid him farewell but can’t bring myself to do it; I can’t believe this is how it will end. Hector doesn’t come back, and I pray he’ll find a notary or a priest kind enough to help him get me out of here.

  At the headache hour, Augustine comes scratching on the service door.

  “They told me what’s happened. How dreadful, Victoria.”

  “It’s not over. Hector’s going to straighten things out. He wants to enfranchise me. He told me so yesterday.”

  Closing her eyes with an air of hopelessness, Augustine proffers a little basket.

  “Hush up, and take this. There’s still time to save your skin. You’re so young. Forget your Monsieur and do what you must do. I love you, my friend.”

  She kisses me and dashes away. Her big, dry arms break up in the autumn mist. The front door slams, and I slide the basket under my bed. I cock my ear and my shoulders sag even more. It’s not Hector but a friend of Madame. They smoke and fill the house with poison.

  When evening comes I’m incapable of holding still. Hector has not yet returned, and Bertaud won’t leave, like a cat that knows rain is on the way. I kneel down before my medal of St. Mark and pray very hard for forgiveness, for my wish to be fulfilled, for love, for salvation. Around ten o’clock, something is slipped under the door. I grasp the paper and quickly lift the flap. A young boy, a stranger to me, moves off at a casual pace. I unfold the paper and Hector’s blue script scrolls out, powerless to provide me with the slightest explanation. My sobs redouble, out of anger and love, while I hold the message with my fingertips, as if it were about to take wing and carry off my last chance to be rescued. Nearby, Bertaud is breathing like an ox. He gently takes the letter from me and his voice, deep as a church organ, rises in the room.

  “‘What shall I, withdrawn, alone, / make of the day and the sky without you, / Of my kisses without your mouth, / Of my tears without your eyes!’”

  He pauses, stares at me, then slowly adds:

  “And below it says, ‘Forgive me, Victoria.’”

  So astonished am I to hear Bertaud reading out these words that I need a little while to grasp their meaning. Hector won’t be coming. I’m lost. I turn toward this man, so large and so gentle that he has saved his voice for this one moment. I stroke his cheek.

  “Thanks, Bertaud. You go home now.”

  The look he gives me is heart-rending, but he obeys. Once he’s gone into the night, I feel as though I’ve finished something. I put away the remaining pieces of cutlery in the kitchen, and I collect my medals. I examine the basket that Augustine brought me. In it, there’s a loaf of bread, half a ham, three cheeses, a knife, a tinder light, a woollen bonnet, and a handful of pieces of sugar. She’ll no doubt be punished for stealing it all from her masters. I hug the bonnet against my breast and slip a cube of sugar between my lips. The taste fills my mouth and shakes my limbs. When I go out, a biting wind stings my face.

  The night is very dark, but the clouds moored to Mount Royal send forth a glow that guides me. I skim across the avenues chilled by the approach of All Saints’ Day and by the lurking dead. Tonight, they’ve agreed to take under their wings a poor fool who believed that love would free her. Sheltered by the shadows, I trot, I run, I stride over the puddles, I go along the rows of naked trees and the monastery walls.

  The mountain draws closer. I offer up my flight to it, I hold out my hand to it. I’m an arrow, and my whole being aspires to the north, where slaves are protected by impassable swamps, by tree trunks as broad as bell towers, and moose bearing sovereign antlers. I remember, I saw them, just before my mother died in our cabin, killed by liberty, it seemed. A few weeks later I returned to the farm whence we’d fled, too young to make it on my own in the vast choir of the northern forests. But now I’m big, I’m strong. I’ll be able to chop wood, to keep the fire going, to slit throats and don the skins of the beasts I kill. I’ll be a queen, the queen of the spirits that the Indians let loose upon those who know how to take but not create, to do but not dream.

  Only when I reach the first ramparts of rock do I hear them. The echoes carry the sound of their steps, the shouts of their throats. They’ve brought dogs, I catch a whiff of their musky odour. It’s for me they’ve come. Madame must have foreseen my escape—why hadn’t I thought of it? She hired the men this morning to watch me, unless they’re in the colony’s service, charged with tracking runaway slaves. I start to run.

  The mountain is steep. I scramble up the slope. After a few minutes I’m short of breath and the basket feels heavy. Below I can see the grey stone districts, with the horses of the English, who sleep under heavy blankets like princes. I’m hot in my woollens, and my feet, too small for my boots, rub against the rough leather. I keep climbing.

  The forest is truly a labyrinth. I twist and turn in the darkness not knowing if it’s up or down, if I’ve come closer to the summit or to the men hunting for me. Suddenly, I arrive at a promontory. I nearly plunge but I seize a branch and hold on. Montreal is spread out before me, its torches striving to illuminate the dense waters of the night. Somewhere beneath one of those flames Hector is awake. He is surely aware of my flight by now. I picture him tremulously reading once again his books of poetry—they’re no use to us now—his forehead beaded with sweat, the blue of his hands engulfing the world. In a flash, my thoughts spring up from where I’d buried them. I hurt in a place I’d never known of, the place in my body that hates the man I continue to love so fervently, and that hates me for letting myself be ruined by one so craven. I am exposed. The barking comes nearer.

  When the first shot rings out it appears to come from all sides at once, as though the city and the mountain were assailing me in unison. My first thought was of that famous barrel of powder that served to buy me seven years ago. I wonder if it’s the same gunpowder, if I’m being slain by the thing that already slew me a hundred times. I look for a tree, a rock to shield me, but my legs won’t budge, they’re full of Hector. I think of Augustine, of her mouth tucked into a grain sack pillow, repeating the words, “silly girl, silly girl,” for hours on end. The shots multiply, I try to mumble a prayer, to touch my medals, but even this is beyond me, and it occurs to me that I may already be dead.

  A stifling heat explodes in the middle of my chest. My fingers reach for the spot, searching in the sticky fluid that seeps through my clothes for a strand, a thread I can grasp. The smell of blood envelops me, the dogs bark louder. I’m still on my feet, my legs hold me up, and the night lights up imperceptibly. Then I hear nothing. Nothing but a sort of rustling about my head, as if time were unfurling on either side of my face to lead me back to its beginnings. I clasp my hands tightly together, very tightly. For an hour, two perhaps, I was free. A great bonfire flares up in my back.

  She knows she’s seen him before somewhere. The feeling shouldn’t come as a surprise, here, at the local studios of the national TV network. But nothing about him suggests an actor or a news anchorman. He looks like a man accustomed not to being watched but to watching others, and each of his gestures evinces kindness.

  Then she notices the object that he’s set down by his feet, next to a plastic bag.

  “Is that Queen Victoria?” she asks, pointing to the picture.

  He looks up.

  “Yes, it’s for my daughter.”

  He lifts up the little portrait, examines it, and then turns it toward the woman, as if to invite her and the sovereign to exchange hellos.

  “You don’t miss a thing,” he adds with a smile.

  “Let’s just say that Victorias tend to catch my eye.”

  “The same goes for me. Are you here for the interview?”

  Almost disappointed
ly, the woman nods yes. For months now she’s garnered many such coincidences, traces of Victoria in her daily life. She would have liked for this one to be purely a matter of luck.

  “And what is your connection with Madame Victoria?” she inquires.

  “I’m the one who found her. Her body. Her skull, to be exact.”

  “Oh, you’re Germain Léon!”

  He arches his eyebrows in surprise. The woman holds out her hand.

  “Céleste Hippolyte. I worked on the case, that’s how I know your name. You’re something of a legend to us.”

  “No!” Germain protests.

  “Oh, yes! You were the starting point! She chose to make herself known through you.”

  Germain chuckles. She’s a strange one, this detective. He decides he likes her.

  “So, still no leads?”

  Céleste shakes her head. Afraid she might take his question as criticism, Germain studies her face, gives her a benevolent little smile, and looks down again at the portrait of the queen resting in his hands.

  “It isn’t easy to get out of our Victorian era, is it?” he continues.

  Céleste’s face suddenly opens up in agreement.

  “I think she’ll be with me for the rest of my life,” she adds.

  They haven’t noticed Loïc’s arrival. But Loïc heard Céleste’s comment, and something inside him shuddered. He’d like to respond. He’d like to tell them—this bright woman and this gentle-eyed nurse—about his quest. But time is short and the camera crew is waiting.

  “Ms. Hippolyte, Mr. Léon, I’m Loïc. We spoke on the phone. You’re on next.”

  Germain and Céleste follow the reporter through the maze of the building. Loïc introduces them to the program host and then returns to his office. The interviews that eventually come out of his preparatory conversations are always a letdown. The material provided by these two, in whose minds Madame Victoria has lodged just as she has in his, will amount to just a thin substratum.