Wow. That’s some armor, Jeanne. Where did you get it?
They made it especially for me. Now please. Just hush.
Jeanne, Jeanne, what’s wrong?
I’ll tell you something. I’m going to be wounded at Orléans. I know it. Right here, in my shoulder, above my chest. The weapon will strike and penetrate my flesh to a depth of six inches.
Then don’t go, Jeanne!
I have to, she says calmly.
I run over to Diane and tell her what Jeanne said and that we have to somehow stop her from going, the thought of Jeanne hurt makes me sick, but Diane’s eyes light up and she says, Hmmm, penetrated to a depth of six inches, eh? That sounds like a euphemism if I ever heard one, sounds like Jeanne’s planning to finally lose her virtue. I say, What, with her shoulder? And Diane says, Don’t be stupid. She says, Hmmm, I wonder who’s going to get to pop her cherry. We’ve got to get it on film.
Waiting outside Orléans
The army is assembled. Jeanne is impatient to attack. She has waited so long.
The captains tell her they must wait. An unfavorable wind is blowing, making the approach difficult.
The wind will change, she says.
It does.
La Hire, a captain, speaks
Yes, my name is La Hire, I am known for my fighting spirit, my fiery temper, and my filthy oaths. Jeanne has made me promise to stop swearing, and I am trying, but, f———it’s hard.
If you must swear, say mon matin, she tells me.
I say, S———, Jeanne, I try, but then when I see those f———s———English, I can’t wait to p———their a———. Please, can’t I swear a little? If it’s only on the battlefield?
No, Jeanne says sternly, not budging an inch. Now tell me, she says, when did you last go to confession?
She has driven all the loose women out of the encampment. She spurs us on to battle with passionate words, she carries her standard into the fray to give us hope. We know that God is with us.
You should see the men, how they love her.
She keeps her clothes laced up tight and sleeps in her armor. But truly it is unnecessary.
We love her, I love her, but not in the carnal way.
A loose woman speaks
Yes, it’s true that Jeanne drove us away. We were having a fine time in the camps till she came chasing after us yelling about sin and God.
I don’t see how it’s any of her business, really.
She screamed threats but never got close enough to spit. We ran fast and laughing, dresses undone to give the men one last glimpse of what they’ll be missing. She was too slow, all weighted down with armor as she was.
People talk about her radiance and purity, but no one seems to mention the plain fact that she possesses not one iota of beauty. She is short and dumpy and homely, with her cropped hair and bulging eyes and her neck always stretched and knotty, like an old plow horse straining against the harness.
The other loose women like to joke that she is not a virgin by choice.
She’s jealous of us.
That must be the case. Otherwise, why won’t she share? I ask you, why does a woman who professes to be a virgin need a thousand men all to herself?
Burt describes her sustenance
I do my best, I try to provide anything anyone could want. Seventeen different kinds of bottled water. Vegetarian, vegan, lactose-free. I’ve been doing craft services for seventeen years. I keep telling Jeanne, just say the word and I’ll whip it up. But no. Eats nothing but her disgusting bits of bread dipped in water. She hardly drinks either. That’s probably, you know, to avoid the bother of constantly having to take off her armor. I worry about dehydration, electrolyte imbalances. It’s no wonder she’s seeing things.
Burt on the battlefield
The way they fight is like nothing I’ve ever seen before: men bellowing and horses thrashing around and the screech of metal on metal, and the whiz and thud of things flying through the air and landing and embedding themselves. On the ground everything is ponderously slow. The men’s armor is so heavy it makes them move like they’re underwater. While they’re locked in combat they snarl vile insults at each other, trying to ruin the other’s concentration. Sometimes in the midst of their straining and heaving and smashing, one will come out with an epithet so flowery and excessive that the other can’t help but laugh.
Diane will have a fit when she sees this footage, the intern moans. It’s all going to look slo-mo. She’ll say we had the camera on the wrong setting.
Of course it’s not a game. They inflict hideous damage on each other. The intern keeps puking up the truffle omelet I made him for lunch. I hate to see my work wasted like that.
Where’s Jeanne? he keeps saying. I can’t see her, where is she?
Diane, on Jeanne’s wound
The arrow pierces her right where she said it would. They have to drag her off the battlefield and pry the standard from her fingers. Even as they’re cleaning the wound she’s still screaming about driving out those rotten goddamns.
Goddamns. That’s what she calls the English. She doesn’t know what it means, but it’s the word she hears them shouting more than any other on the battlefield. She thinks she’s throwing the ugly sound of their language back in their faces; she doesn’t realize she’s breaking her own no-swearing rule.
Victory
Yes, the French are victorious, of course. Didn’t she promise they would be? The inhabitants of Orléans claim Jeanne as their own. La Pucelle, the Maid of Orléans, they call her.
Diane says, She never actually fights, you know. She’s never struck a single blow. She just charges into the thick of things, yelling and waving her standard, and the men follow her in. They’re the ones who do the actual fighting. The captains allow her in their meetings, but they ignore her. She’s not a leader, she’s a mascot.
The intern says, I was there. I saw her. She was magnificent.
Burt shooting the battle at Jargeau
We’re in the thick of battle. The intern excused himself a while ago, pleading nausea. I’m getting a little tired of carrying everybody’s weight around here. I’ve got enough of my own.
I’ve given up on trying to follow Jeanne. She likes to launch herself practically into the enemy’s lap, crying for the men to follow her, clinging to her standard for dear life like it’s an umbrella in a hurricane. It’s too hard to keep up. Instead I’m trailing the duke of Alençon around. He’s pretty impressive. He makes me want to start working out.
All of a sudden Jeanne is right next to us, calmly telling the duke, Move away from that spot, or that piece of ordnance up on the rampart will kill you. The duke jumps like a scared rabbit. A second later something whistles through the air and strikes a man who’s standing right where the duke was standing a second ago. The guy goes down without a sound. The duke is goggle-eyed. Jeanne is already gone, sprinting toward the castle walls screaming at the top of her lungs.
I look up above her, up along the stone walls, at the rampart from which the mysterious missile was fired. And who do I see skulking around up there among the English soldiers? The intern! He’s the one who tried to drop that deadly piece of rock on the duke. The jealous little sneak. If Jeanne ever finds out, she’ll never forgive him.
Karleen at the coronation
Am I the only one who thinks a coronation seems a little premature? I mean, I know I’m not some big-shot God-sent general or anything, so what do I know. But the English and their allies are still occupying a good bit of France. Shouldn’t we be dealing with that, first?
But hey, who am I to stand in the way of a good party.
The duke of Alençon knights Charles, and then the bishop crowns him. Jeanne stands right beside him the whole time, holding her standard, which is filthy by now.
You’d think she’d be proud enough to burst, but her face is solemn, thoughtful, almost sad, like she’s already thinking about the next task and troubles ahead.
And there’s a subtle shift that hap
pens the minute the crown settles on King Charles VII’s greasy hair. It’s almost like, before, Jeanne was sort of in charge, she had the support of the people and the love of the soldiers and all the forces of Heaven on her side, and he was almost afraid of her and would do what she told him to do. And now, thanks to her, he’s the one with the power. She’ll bow to the authority of the king. It’s sad to see.
J & A on Paris
Alençon, let’s go to Paris.
Jeanne, let’s not.
Please, I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.
Jeanne, now is not a good time to go saving Paris.
Please?
Non.
Please?
Non.
Pleeease, mon beau duc?
Oh…all right.
Jeanne forced from Paris
I have abided by the counsel of my voices at every step.
They have not advised me to make an attempt to take Paris.
But I am impatient. I am running out of time, I feel. King Charles VII is dragging his heels, the army is losing momentum, all will be lost if we do not press on.
We try Paris.
I receive an arrow’s wound in the flesh of my thigh. I want to keep fighting, but Alençon and the others beg me to retire. I consent only when they promise to renew the attack in the morning.
The next day King Charles VII insists on a retreat. Why? Doesn’t he want me to take back Paris for him? The army is disbanded for lack of funds; King Charles VII is going back to Gien and orders me to accompany him. Why? Why? Why? But I cannot ignore the command of my king.
Alençon will leave us soon to go home to his wife. I will never see him again. I know this.
What has happened to my clarity of purpose? The voices are far and faint.
I take off my armor and leave it lying in the Cathedral of Saint Denis, before the image of Our Lady.
The intern observes Jeanne in private
I’m afraid to talk to her anymore, but I’ve started following her everywhere. I have this sort of fantasy about her being in terrible danger, and me being the only one who can save her.
She spends a lot of time in churches, praying. She takes long walks through fields and forests. She wades through mud knee-high, never noticing.
One day I see her stop in her tracks far ahead of me, and as I draw closer I see that she is talking to three people, I don’t know how to describe them, I can’t think of the words.
When they are finished they take themselves away, and again I don’t know how to describe it except that it was a sort of dipping a sort of a sweeping a sort of swooping themselves away. Jeanne turns and spots me.
You saw them, my voices, didn’t you? she says.
Yes.
What do you want? she says shrilly.
Will…could you show me how your points and laces work?
Is that all? she says, and her hands go to her waist. She unties one lace and I see the flash of skin. Two postage stamps’ worth, at the most. It’s as frightening and amazing as if she’d ripped open her belly to show me her secret jeweled organs. Before she can even begin on a second lace my hands are on her, grabbing and groping.
Enough! she cries, pushing at me, kicking feebly, amazing, I can barely feel it. She’s only a short, teenaged girl after all—you forget that once you’ve seen her leading hundreds of men into battle. She knocks me to the ground, but only because I let her. I watch as her skin gets tucked away like a wound being stitched up.
I’m sorry, I say.
It’s nothing, she says, abruptly calm, as if her anger got laced up tight along with everything else. I don’t know what you are, she says.
I am a man who loves you. That is what I would say if I were a different sort of person. And then I would take her in my arms instead of watching her run down one hill and up the next until she is just a brown spot that flops down on the ground, spent.
Karleen, on Jeanne’s drive
I’m packing up my makeup kit because Jeanne’s decided it’s time to go to war again. It’s the same old song as before—drive out the English, France for the French, blah blah blah. If you ask me, we’re the ones driving her back to the battlefield, not the English. What with the intern trailing her around like some lovesick puppy, and Burt constantly trying to get her to eat something, and Diane with her relentless interview questions, and me chasing her around with my moisturizer and cover-up, we must be driving her mad.
Jeanne on Jeanne
A new thing happened this morning. I rose early and went to the stream beside the camp. I dipped my face in the water. I opened my eyes underneath and watched the weed and drift and bubbles. And then I heard footsteps, heard someone calling Jeanne, Jeanne, and I quickly sprang up and leaped over the stream and ran toward the trees to hide. I did not want to have to talk to anyone, man or angel, so early in the morning.
When I reached the trees I looked back over my shoulder and saw myself still kneeling by the stream, my face in the water, bubbles rising around my ears and the intern shuffling uncertainly up to the bank, waiting for me to come up for air.
I ran into the trees, abandoning the other Jeanne. Let her answer his inane questions for a while. I walked among the trees, feeling soundless, invisible. Later I returned to the camp and no one mentioned the other Jeanne or seemed to have noticed anything amiss.
It was bliss.
I’ll try to summon her again sometime.
I have a feeling the voices will scold me when they find out. We will have to keep it a secret.
At Compiègne
Jeanne says, I will be taken by the enemy at Compiègne.
The intern says, Why won’t anybody stop her?
Burt says reluctantly, Objective distance, remember.
At Compiègne the enemy surround her and pull her from her horse.
Diane says, Burt, did you get all of that on film?
Waiting
They pass her from hand to hand, from prison to prison, castle to castle. We follow along. No one seems to notice us; all eyes are on the famous Jeanne, in captivity at last.
At Crotoy she sees the sea for the first time. The little country girl from small-town inland France looks at the heaving gray waves of the English Channel and sighs.
Why are you sighing, Jeanne? Diane shouts over the crashing wind, holding the microphone close.
This is where they imprisoned the duke of Alençon, she says, and sighs again.
The intern sighs loud enough to drown out her sigh, and the wind and the waves as well. Is he still pining?
Later, Jeanne leaps from a seventy-foot tower, without so much as twisting an ankle.
Jeanne, how could you? her captors admonish her as they lead her back inside. You know suicide is a sin, they say.
They don’t want her to die before they can put her on trial.
I wasn’t trying to kill myself, she says. I was trying to escape.
Burt observes the trial
Her trial is conducted by the Church, to determine whether or not she is a witch (heretic, sorceress, schismatic, or other). The inquiries are carried out in dim, dank, dungeony rooms. Diane loves it.
Mind if we bring some lights in here? says Diane. No one stops her.
Could we raise Jeanne up a bit? I can’t get her in the shot…
They put Jeanne up on a high stool, alone inside the circle of questioners, swaying and shifting.
The questions must seem nightmarishly familiar for her: Describe the visions, what do they sound like, what do they look like, what do they taste like, what are they wearing, do they have faces, do they have wings, do they have crowns? These are all questions she’s answered a hundred times for Diane already.
Jeanne answers calmly and firmly. But sometimes she gets confused, or saucy, or clams up inexplicably. It’s going badly for her.
Her questioners keep coming back to the Fairy Tree. No, she says over and over, I never went there to practice black magic or convene with witches. It was a place for children to p
lay, that’s all; I haven’t been there since I was a little girl.
But you were seen, by reliable witnesses, standing by the tree just before you left Domrémy. You were seen standing by the Fairy Tree speaking to five black figures of unnatural appearance.
Jeanne chooses to say nothing. She is unwilling to point us out though we’re standing right there in the room with her.
The clothes, that’s another point they get stuck on. Why the male clothes, why the cropped hair?
Karleen and I both feel like shit whenever they mention the haircut. But Jeanne never so much as looks our way.
Will you confess to inventing the voices?
No, I will not.
Are you driven by God, or Satan, or your own mortal pride?
I’ve been through all this already, Jeanne says calmly. My testing at Poitiers. I was found acceptable there. Send for the record of that trial. You’ll see. It’s all there.
Get the trial records from Poitiers, she says over and over.
But the records have disappeared.
The folks at Poitiers never sent the records, or they got lost on the way. Or else the records have been hidden or deliberately destroyed. If they were here, Jeanne might actually stand a chance.
I’d forgotten about it till she spoke, but now I remember…the trial at Poitiers: we filmed it! Not the whole thing; we got bored. But at least half. Surely it’s enough. We could bring in a monitor, show the judges.
Burt, we can’t do that, Diane says. Objective distance, remember?
I race back to the old stable where we’ve been storing the earlier stuff. I sift through the reels and videotapes for hours but can’t find the Poitiers stuff anywhere. Diane? Did she destroy it? She’s certainly capable of it. She’d do it in a minute if she thought that footage might prevent her from getting the dramatic, tragic ending she’s hoping for.
It’s black night outside. I think of Jeanne lying in her cell, maybe in chains, guarded by five loutish English soldiers of the lowest sort. But what can I do? I sit on the floor, straw pricking through my clothes, feeling fat and old. I try to remember the last time I was home.
Jeannes
I find I can do my trick when I am alone in the cell at night. I’m sitting on the floor and then I go lie on the bed but I’m still sitting on the floor. And then I stand up and go lean against the wall but I’m still sitting on the floor. And then I move again until there are four or five Jeannes in the cell and we can talk to one another.
This Is Not Chick Lit Page 22
