Voices? Marthe stops rocking and listens. Nothing. A lull, then once more the rustle of leaves. Blowing in from the river, laden with briny scents mingled with the fragrance of autumn, the wind lashes the trees. She thinks of seaweed; wind and water are the same thing, she tells herself.
She rests her head against the back of the rocking chair. At the foot of the property, the river pounds the pebbles. The river’s going out, old Wilfrid used to say. The river’s going out and fall is dying. Time to haul the boat ashore. She smiles and looks up at the sky. It will be a fine day, despite the strong wind and the clouds.
Bruz’s fur parts obediently beneath her fingers. The cat answers with a purr and settles deeper into the hollow of his mistress’s lap. Marthe watches him for a moment. He opens one eye, then closes it again. Her fingers travel the length of his spine. He extends his claws; she feels their tips against the fabric. She strokes his ears; he shakes them to drive off the intruder and, as a gesture of goodwill, releases his grip. The fabric is spared.
She turns her gaze back to the river, visible beneath the trees, turbulent and swollen by a full moon still lingering in the daylight. In this region, the St. Lawrence grows broad; at high tide, it swallows the Gulf’s overflow. Its waters teem with whales and seals. The crossing takes more than an hour, and the tide travels six kilometres inland before dying at the feet of those walking the shore. She knows this rhythm all too well. As a child, she would wake before the others and go downstairs to sit beside her father, who would pretend to scold her: “Whatcha doin’ here, little one? Even the hens ain’t up yet.” She would say nothing, only nestle beneath his shoulder.
Sitting on the steps that led to the veranda, they watched the sun rise. Her father would sniff the air to better grasp its substance. She did the same and waited for his verdict: “gonna be fine,” “gonna be grey,” “gonna be hot.” When it rained, they sat on the old sofa on the veranda. Winter did not discourage them. She would dress herself, ease the door open and wait for her father to speak the magic words: “Come on, little one, don’t heat the outdoors.” She would rush to him. He always brought a blanket and wrapped it around her. They never stayed long, because in winter there is not much to say about the morning; there is only the groaning ice and a sky nearly always blue but empty of birds.
If her father was not on the veranda—an emergency in the barn, no doubt, perhaps a calf being born—she would close the door and sit on the stairs to wait for him. Her mother would soon come down and gently help her out of her clothes. As soon as he returned, her father would say to her, “Sorry, little one,” never revealing the reason for his absence. He would take her in his arms and kiss her neck with lips still very cold. She would laugh. “You’re like your mother’s good bread, my girl; I could gobble you right up.”
Bruz purrs; she sighs, partly to join him, closes her eyes and lets the memories come home to roost. Old age resembles a season out of time, she thinks. Images overlap, forming troubled kaleidoscopes. Her gaze returns to the property. As it plunges towards the river, the wind carries the dead leaves with it. Branches crack; a few will surely fall. The damage will amount to little; the trees are old and strong.
It rained last night. She woke with a start; the river was roaring more loudly than usual. Or was it only the echo of the waves, magnified by her dreams? Had there been thunder? She can no longer remember. A woman who checks everything, she is frustrated by the increasingly frequent omissions of her memory.
She straightens slowly so as not to disturb Bruz and glances at the cottages to her right. Bruz is dreaming; his hind legs twitch. She strokes his head. Are they all still asleep?
From the kitchen comes the heavy tread of Lucienne at work. What had the morning been like? Black and blue at first; then the clouds had given way to anxious, almost diaphanous ribbons while the sun, as unsubtle as ever, trumpeted its arrival. On the horizon, clouds had spoiled the performance. This time the Moon was contesting the throne from the other side of the Earth, swollen to bursting, tugging at the solar winds and, in the process, rumpling the fabric of the day.
Marthe relaxes, leans back in the chair and begins to rock again. Her body sways. She sniffs the air. “Gonna be fine,” she says, trying to imitate her father’s voice. Then nothing remains inside her, only a leaden silence, almost a weariness. She listens. Someone aboard a ship she cannot see sounds two short blasts of a foghorn, probably to signal his presence to a wife or a friend. Perhaps a lover? She dismisses the thought and returns to listening to her own mind. Nothing. Peace. A kind of happiness grown old, or rather, a welcome lull.
The door of the house creaks open. The hinges need oiling. Lucienne appears behind the screen door.
“Morning,” she says without emotion or a glance at her employer.
“Good morning, Lucienne,” Marthe replies with a little more warmth.
The maid pushes the screen door open with her shoulder as she ties her apron.
“Think it’ll be nice out?”
“I think so, yes. Windy, but nice.”
Marthe knows Lucienne will not pursue the conversation. Despite the wind, she can hear her maid’s hydraulic breathing and observes her neatly arranged hair.
“Going out today?”
Lucienne looks her up and down.
“Well, yeah. It’s Wednesday…”
Marthe smiles. Wednesday is the day Lucienne makes her rounds in town.
“Who is it?”
Lucienne steps forward, giggling. The loose flesh of her neck warms, turning into a delicate jelly.
“My Haitian.”
“The taxi driver? I thought he’d gone back to his family.”
Marthe could swear the jelly turns to plasma.
“Guess he ain’t in any hurry to leave…”
“How many does that make, waiting for you in town?”
Lucienne is unfazed, rather proud of herself.
“Three!”
They laugh at the statistic. Lucienne resembles the planet Jupiter, Marthe thinks. Enormous, voracious, with men like moons circling her equator, all of them mad for her prodigious flesh.
“They must be jealous…”
Lucienne shrugs.
“I don’t think they care…”
The remark surprises Marthe. Lucienne is not given to such confidences. To encourage her, she adds:
“Don’t tell me all they want from you is sex…”
She regrets the words at once. Lucienne does not miss it, accustomed though she is to her employer’s double entendres.
“I ain’t no whore…”
“Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?”
Marthe feels guilty. Lucienne seems to sense her embarrassment, pats her shoulder and yawns coarsely. Marthe immediately pictures the lascivious dance of the Andalusian woman Lucienne might have been. Facing the rising sun, Lucienne becomes a gargantuan firefly, her feet striking the ground while her hips, defying gravity, roll to the sound of powerfully rhythmic imaginary music. Marthe smiles.
“You’re beautiful, Lucienne.”
The compliment brings the maid back to reality. Uncomfortable, she straightens her apron and, before disappearing into the house, adds curtly:
“Breakfast is ready. I hope the others are awake.”
“I think they are.”
Marthe points with her chin towards Armand’s cottage. A cat emerges, followed by its master’s head, his hair in disarray. After watching his cat stretch, Armand waves to them, then goes back inside. Bruz senses Katou’s presence at once; he gets up and hurries over to her. As soon as he reaches her, he veers away, leaps onto a tree and climbs to a broad branch. Katou willingly follows.
Closer by, Hélène emerges from another cottage, gives her a friendly wave, looks at the river and pulls her cardigan tighter around herself against the wind. Finally, Gustave appears on the threshold of the third. Without bothering to look at anything, he joins Hélène. They kiss each other on both cheeks, already laughing. Armand hurries out; that did not take long. The three of them walk towards Marthe, who smiles at them.
“Bit chilly!” Armand exclaims.
Marthe kisses them in turn.
“Sleep well?”
“Yeah, I did… except for the thunder…”
“…didn’t wake me…”
“…of course not, you took a sleeping pill…”
Gustave has already opened the door and greets Lucienne. Before following the others into the house, Marthe glances at the fourth cottage, the farthest of them all. The sun manages to illuminate it from time to time as it continues its struggle against the clouds. She sees an omen in it. Something must be done… rent it out? burn it down? The wind closes the breach in the clouds, and everything grows dark again.
She closes the door. The others are already seated at the table.