Chapter 33
33
I killed the bear but lost the sun entirely. In the cold and whiteness I did not read. I did not pray. Alone I slept. Alone I ate. I saw no other creature. None to wonder at and none to fight. Like an animal, I gnawed my meat, and I lived for myself only.
Even as the days grew longer, I did not venture out. Instead, I clung to winter, and I hid myself. Within my cave I slept and dreamed. As I lived like a beast, my dreams were all of animals.
My enemy’s jaws widened. Yellow fangs pierced my temples, and my eyes burst from their sockets. My own mouth opened, and I screamed. I was sightless, and yet I saw myself with blood streaming down my face. Blind, and yet I watched myself walking like Saint Lucy, carrying my own eyeballs on a plate.
I died upon the snow. I was unlaced, my body naked, as the white fox stepped lightly over me. With neat paws, he covered my breasts, my belly, and my neck with sooty footprints, and every place he touched was ashen.
I was a bird, and my guardian roasted me. My wings blackened and my bones cracked while fire consumed me with a roaring and a breaking. Then I woke.
My body was intact. I saw and felt no crackling flames, but I heard a roar like nothing I had ever known, neither animal, nor wind, nor storm. It was a crushing and a grinding, the sound of mountains crumbling.
I thought that, once again, I must be dreaming. And then I thought I must be possessed to hear this rhythmic crashing. I was growing mad, alone upon this island, for I could no longer distinguish what was real. My hair fell loose about my shoulders. My clothes were rags. And now this roar oppressed me.
But as I listened, I crept to the entrance of my cave, and hearing the noise grow louder, I knew it was outside me. “It is a storm,” I said aloud. “It must be.” But I heard no rain or thunder.
I ventured into the dim morning, and the air was wet and sharp, and cold. I took a few steps, and the noise increased. Over slick rocks, I followed the sound, and as I climbed down to the shore, the grinding and the crush grew louder. My heart pounded as I stumbled to the water’s edge. There I stopped.
The sea had thawed, freeing imprisoned waves—but even as the water surged, the air was so cold that waves froze as they broke, crashing into ice and shattering.
Wind stung my eyes, and yet I could see clearly. An icy tide crusted the ocean’s edge, sank back in liquid form, then changed to ice again.
I knelt and picked up glassy shards. I dropped them, and they broke upon the rocks. On the crystal shore, the shards fell sparkling.
Waves rising and then crashing into glass. The tide, both dead and living. Wretched as I was, I saw and heard all this. The rush of water, and the thunder of ice breaking.
I bowed my head because the world was stranger and more terrible than ever I’d imagined. The sea more mysterious—and I more blessed. How could I think otherwise? That I was blessed to witness such a thing. I did not deserve to see such beauty, and yet this wonder spread itself before me. And I felt God’s presence as I had never done in grief and anger; I knew it in my insignificance. I had given up, and yet God came to me in winter and in ice, in the hard world and in the night.
I asked myself, How could it be? But I could not doubt what I was witnessing. I thought, Judge by what you hear. Judge by what you see.
“Forgive me,” I called out, and I meant forgive my lack of faith, my anger, and my willfulness—but most of all, I begged forgiveness for hiding in my cave. Silently, I pleaded, Raise me. Bring me back. Gather me as the tide gathers shards of ice.
This was my prayer. Not for rescue or escape, but for my soul, which had been sick. I gazed at waves rising and shattering, and this was my resolve—to remember myself as God remembered me.
I watched until I was too cold to stay out longer, and then I climbed to my poor dwelling.
There I combed my hair and tried to tame it. Where I could not work out knots, I took my knife and cut them so my hair would grow again untangled.
I discarded my ragged clothes and dressed in a gown of Damienne’s. The fabric was coarse and the bodice too big, but I laced it up as best I could.
And now I cleared refuse from my cave. Fish bones, feces, and dead leaves. I swept them away and lined up my provisions—my glass bottles, my boxes, and my tools. I shook out my bedclothes and smoothed my mattress of peat. With a scrap of fur I wiped the Virgin’s frame and face.
“Do you see?” I asked her. “Do you understand what I am doing?”
I took out Auguste’s paper and turned a piece to its blank side. I built up the fire and melted snow to mix with ink now dried, and I began a new calendar. I had no idea of the date, but I wrote it as the first of April and I called it Easter because, on this day, I returned to life.
To celebrate, I ate a double portion of bear’s meat and a handful of dried berries, and I opened Auguste’s book and read of Lazarus, who had been dead inside his cave. Christ said, Move the stone, and he cried out, Lazarus come forth. And he who had been dead was now alive again.
But I was not Lazarus. Nor was I transformed in an instant. I cleaned and dressed and kept my calendar, but I did not pray. I looked upon the Virgin and received no blessings. She was not my holy intercessor, nor could she be my companion. Not she who had allowed Auguste to die and watched my child starve. She, who smiled while Damienne stopped breathing.
The sea thawed and lost its icy mystery. Rain drenched my clothes and soaked my firewood. My grief returned, and I scrabbled to live, not brutishly as I had done before, but inconsistently. Sometimes busy, sometimes idle, sometimes believing I was blessed, sometimes certain I was cursed to live upon the island.
As snows began to melt, I slipped and fell at the shore. I tried to walk, but my ankle was swollen and tender so that I could scarcely take a step. Then I wept as I limped, hurting, to my cave. For three days, I could not fish or hunt or fetch fresh water. I could only chew the last of my dried meat and sip the water I had stored in bottles.
In pain I wondered, Is this how my life will end? I had imagined I would freeze, but I realized that I could perish in the thaw as well. Like any animal, I would starve if I went lame. I thought of this and I was afraid, for I no longer wished to die.
Sunlight penetrated my cave’s entrance. Hunger roused me, and so I bound my foot and ventured out again. At first, I crept gingerly upon the rocks, but the next morning I stepped with greater confidence. Each day I grew stronger, and as I healed I began to climb and hunt without pain. I wish I could say that I had prayed to heal and Christ had answered me, but this was not the case. In truth, I did not pray while I was hurt, but I thanked God for my recovery.
—
Grateful as I felt, I believed that I was undeserving. I did nothing to merit sun or spring. I walked outside to see my island reawakening, and it was neither bitterness I felt nor gladness but a release from fear. With clear eyes, I met each day.
I woke early and stayed awake to absorb the light. I watched the isle and saw it greening. The wild grass grew tenderly, and the birds returned all in a cloud, but rarely did I hunt because my powder was so meager. I stole into the rookery with Auguste’s sword and snatched eggs without shooting. I cast my line for cod and waited for tart berries to ripen.
If winter was a curse, then summer was a blessing. Was I not blessed to taste this fruit and fortunate to sleep in a dry cave? Opening my book, I read a psalm I knew by heart. In time of trouble, he shall hide me. / In his secret places he shall protect me. Once these words had burdened me while I recited them in fear. Now when I saw these verses on the page, I thought, But they were written for me. He shall set me upon a rock. / Though my mother and father forsake me, The Lord is my aid. / Though I have fainted / Yet I will be brave.
Bravely I lived in the sun, fishing for cod and filling my bottles with fresh water. Already I was spreading seawater on the rocks to harvest salt. This was my brief time of plenty—but even Damienne’s gown was tattered beyond mending.
As for shoes, Auguste’s boots were now so cracked that they were scarcely worth wearing. I thought to fashion some new from my deerskin, but I did not know the cobbler’s art and could not contrive a way to fit and shape the leather. Therefore, while the weather held, I went without, and as I wore no shoes, I wore no stockings. My skirts brushed against my naked legs, and I began to know the island with bare feet—its rough granite and tickling grass and pebbled shore.
I climbed better barefoot, although I heard Damienne say, It isn’t right. I wore my hair loose, although I knew she would have disapproved. Remember who you are, said Damienne, but I only remembered her. I swept the cave and aired my featherbed to make up for my poor appearance.
One fair morning I shook out my pelts and washed and scrubbed and wrung my sheets. At last, when they were clean as I could make them, I spread the wet linens upon brambles in the sun.
It was then I saw a gleam of gold.
What could it be? All my coins were in the cave. I never carried any out, and I had never seen gold on the island. I was sure my eyes deceived me—but when I knelt to brush grass away, I found lost treasure. Uncorrupted by snow and ice and thaw, Claire’s ring lay shining.
Slipping her gift onto my finger, I thought, I am the gold coin. I was lost and now am found. And it made me laugh to think I was the coin and also the housewife laundering.
But even as I found the ring, I felt Claire’s loss. And, delighted as I was, I knew she would have enjoyed my discovery more. God’s will was what she would have seen, while I credited the melting snow. What would have been a miracle for her was for me a change in weather. If I had starved in winter or frozen on the ice—even then, this ring would have revealed itself, glinting in the sun without me. Auguste would have understood this. We might have talked of miracles and happenstance. But I was left to ponder. In my experience, God’s work was unexpected. His grace required interpreting.
Wild thoughts, but I was wild. Ideas unbecoming—but what had I become? I, myself, was now an island, solitary. Brambles and five-petalled flowers were my garden. Rocks my furniture. Ocean waves my lessons. Sadness overwhelmed me and sank back. Then, like the tide, joy crept in on me again.
I sat outside my cave and saw the moonrise. I watched the brightening stars, and I said these verses. The heavens declare the glory of God, / The firmament his handiwork. / From day to day they extol / From night to night they explain. / They cannot speak; they have no words, / But their voices fill the world. I spoke these lines and thought, The stars are words enough. I understood this on the island.
I watched the sea and thought, You know nothing of me and care nothing, but you delight me. I considered the waves and thought, You are another riddle. What is constant and ever-changing? Who confines and consoles at the same time?
So I lived, and I endured alone, but God chose once more to confoundme.
It was early morning as I prepared to take my hook and line to the shore. I wore Damienne’s brown gown and tied my knife, as always, at my waist.
Climbing down from my cave dwelling, I hummed the galliard Auguste used to play. Remembering his sound, bright and silver, his questioning eyes, his voice in the dark—I heard a man calling.
Was it an echo or my imagination? I had not heard another voice since Damienne died. But there it was again. A man speaking a strange language and now another answering.
Animal that I was, I sprang back and climbed higher up the bank to hide. There, concealed by the rocks, I scanned the shore.
Two vessels had anchored—and they were not the narrow sort the native men had used, nor were they tall ships from home. Wide and round, these were open boats. Unadorned with flags or pennants, they were heaped with nets and silver fish, and each vessel had two masts.
On the nearer boat, I saw two men kneeling, and they were cleaning fish. On shore, I saw another man in a red cap, and he was spreading cod to dry in quantity. These visitors were little, far below, and could not see me. Even so, I was afraid, for they were the first strangers I ever saw upon my island. I counted twelve men tanned by the sun. Eight upon the boats, three on land, and now one more wading, splashing onto shore.
Two years before, I would have rushed to any fishing boat and cried out, Save me! Now I held back, and spied upon these strangers silently. They were rough men, their arms burly, their hair wild. I judged them in this way, although my face was sunburnt, my feet bare.
I watched these men shout and laugh and relieve themselves just where they pleased—not in the crevice we had called our privy. Careless, the strangers tossed fish guts on the ground, despoiling my country. But even as I watched, they cleaned cod in hundreds. With flashing blades, the men cut open each fish in a moment so that they could knife the next. And I understood their skill and marveled at their speed.
How confident they appeared. I could see they were great travelers. These men had survived a voyage my guardian had undertaken with three ships, a full complement of sailors, and an expert navigator. How had they done it in two open boats? These folk must have been as skilled with their small craft as they were with knives. Perhaps they would sail on to Africa or China. If they sailed to France, could they take me?
I might reclaim my place, or at least my name, in the known world. But did I want to? If my love had been with me, and my nurse and my child, it would not have been a question. What else had we prayed for? But wild as I’d become, I doubted. I had grown strange and solitary.
I wished to speak to these men, and at the same time, I wished to hide. I wanted to ask if they would take a passenger, but I feared revealing myself to strangers. I’d be at their mercy. And then, even if they permitted, how would I travel with them? I would be the sole woman in their company with no defense, no refuge, and no privacy.
The man in the cap glanced up at the cliff, and I drew back.
Softly I retreated to my cave—but while hidden, I could not see the shore below. In all my time upon the isle I had not seen any vessels except Roberval’s. I might never see another, and I was afraid that while I turned my back, these boats would slip away. I feared this and, at the same time, dreaded the men’s presence. What if they camped here? What if they attacked?
I gazed upon my picture of the Virgin, and she stared back, smiling.
I said, “They are too many.”
They were twelve and I was one. They had two boats; I had none. They might steal or rape or kill me and depart, and no one would ever know.
“It is too dangerous,” I said.
But as I spoke, I picked up the black claw I had left upon the altar. Like a curved dagger, this token rested in my palm. Needle sharp, the tip grazed my skin. I won you, I thought. I cut you from my enemy. I took you in victory. Why, then, am I afraid?
Holding the claw, I remembered the white bear. He had stalked me, but not as men did, cruelly. Not as my guardian did, for pleasure. Why had he come, except for hunger? Why had we fought? Because winter was a duel, a battle against cold and want. The birds would leave, the ice would come, and I had scarcely any ammunition left. I had sworn to live, but without powder it was death to stay. Go down, I told myself. Climb down, or you will miss your chance.
Quickly I tugged my stockings on and laced my ruined boots. I arranged my hair but had no help or time to do it well. Nor did I have any hair covering but a piece of linen which I folded over my head, as old women do. In my rush, I did not stop to consider how I might appear.
From my lookout, I saw the red cap, the fish, and the two boats anchored still. I carried my knife tied at my waist, although it was useless against so many. My throat was dry. I did not know how to speak to strangers. I had lived alone so long, I feared I could not speak at all. I climbed down anyway. I took my path, and faint with dread and hope, I stepped out onto the rocks before the men.