by André Alexis
When he asked her about this, Madame Madeg said
– I always forget how little you know,
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teasing him before unbuttoning his shirt and running her hand
over his chest, down to where the hair started beneath his navel.
It seemed to him then that arousing him – which she did easily
– was her way of changing the subject. He began to resent it a
little, despite the pleasure.
So, he persisted with his questions about her. From time to
time, when he was bored or spent from pleasure, he asked about
what she did or asked about her life. And, at last, when spring
arrived and the land smelled of loam, she told him.
– I was born, she said, in Caen.
(Here, Mr. Henderson stopped a moment and sighed. It was
only then that I noticed he’d been crying, the tears on his left cheek
creating a sheen. When he noticed me looking at him, he sniffled.
– How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to love, he said.
Professor Bruno reached across to pat his shoulder.
– It’s all right, Henny, he said. Go on. It’s a terrific story. I’m
intrigued by the witch.
– Thank you, Morgan, said Mr. Henderson. Thank you. I
always cry at this part.)
Marthe Madeg was born just off Boulevard Maréchal Lyautey
in a quartier called la Grâce de Dieu. Nor was she born to be a
witch. Au contraire, from her earliest days, she had a deep love
for God – a love that she still possessed, though her notions of
“God” had changed. If anything, it was her natural piety – her
instinctive absorption in prayer, her attention to the natural world
– that her parents found disturbing. They were themselves believ-
ers but only just this side of atheism. To “loosen her up,’ they
sent her to spend summers with her aunt Mireille in Clasville.
The first summer she spent in Clasville, Marthe was twelve
and ostentatiously pious, proud of the love she had for God. In
retrospect, she thought she must have been insufferable. That
said, it seemed to Marthe that her aunt was at least as devout as
she was. For one thing, there were crucifixes in every room, along
with what she took to be paintings of female saints in agony. It
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did seem odd that the crucifixes were all hung upside down. But
Mireille made the sign of the cross whenever she herself entered
or left the house – the house in which Glenn Baillie now sat –
and that was enough to reassure young Marthe that the crucifixes
had been hung that way in error.
Mind you, there was something sly about the way Mireille
made the sign of the cross. Marthe sometimes had the feeling
she was being mocked. And then, too, the portraits of the saints
were not as saintly as she’d first thought them. The paintings
were dark, save for the women at their centres. At the edges,
there were men with antlers or wild animals – wolves, mostly:
sculpted shadows with white eyes and yellowish teeth. They
seemed surreptitious and terrifying, and one felt sympathy for
the women in the paintings. And yet, these saints in white dresses
or robes had the most ambiguous looks. Were they crying in
pain and terror or was it something else that drove them to roll
their eyes back, to clutch at their breasts or middles? And why
did they wear no underclothes – pale haunches in view so there
was little left to the imagination?
That first summer, there were so many things just beyond her
ken. But one thing was clear: her aunt adored her. Not for a
moment did Mireille treat her like a child. From the start, it was
as if they were sisters, though Mireille, then in her forties, was
clearly the one with things to teach. What did Marthe learn?
Flowers, herbs, roots, and stems: the taste and smell of them, the
uses of lemon balm and mugwort, foxglove, and lavender. In fact,
for the first three summers, Marthe did little else but study roots,
stems, and leaves, learning to draw them so well that she made
her own 150-plant herbarium from memory. It was only then,
when Marthe was fifteen, that her aunt began to teach her about
spells, charms, tonics, potions, and, most intriguing, augury.
The summer she was fifteen was significant for another reason:
Marthe began to understand what the portraits of the “saints” signi-
fied. They were like stations of the cross devoted to sexual pleasure.
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Mireille was sensitive to her niece’s disapproval and aware
of her discomfort. One morning, in an effort to explain herself,
Mireille spoke to her niece about the “facts of life.’ She told
Marthe about her own fifteenth summer, the summer when a
talented witch had read her future. The woman had informed
her that she (Mireille) would never fall in love and, that being
the case, it was best if she became intimate with her body’s
wants and desires. Mireille had taken the woman’s words as
fact. From her fifteenth year, she had been open to all the pleas-
ures of the body.
Though Mireille did not want to influence her niece in matters
of sentiment, she admitted that, for her, the idea of “romantic
love” was an encumbrance that men and women took on for differ-
ent but equally bad reasons. In fact, it was far from clear to
Mireille that romantic love existed at all. Or, if it did, that it was
in any way superior to the love she had for her family and friends.
Really, she had no regrets.
(Here, it was Professor Bruno who interrupted the story.
– I don’t think I could choose pleasure over love, he said.
– It is a drastic choice, said Mr. Henderson. But I wonder if
more men or women would choose pleasure over love.
– Younger men, maybe, said Professor Bruno. The search for
pleasure gets a little tiresome, after a certain age. But I’m not sure
this is a male or female question, Henny. It’s a question of libido,
surely. Don’t you think?
– I’m with you part of the way, Morgan, said Mr. Henderson.
I don’t think the difference between men and women is absolute.
But I don’t know for certain what it means for a woman to have
sexual pleasure. So, I’ve never quite known what to make of
Madame Madeg’s aunt. Maybe she was fortunate.
– But she had no choice, I said. What could she do if being
loveless was her fate?
– You’ve found the right question! said Mr. Henderson.
What’s a life, if physical pleasure is the best it has to offer?)
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Having heard her aunt’s story, did Marthe wish to know her
own fate?
Yes, she did.
So, Mireille cut open one of the pigeons she kept for harus-
pication, poking around in the bird’s entrails after Marthe had
breathed on its innards. And she read her niece’s future.
– My poor Marthe, she said after thinking about it, you’re
luckier than me and less fortunate, too.
What she meant was that Marthe had a choice where her
romantic future was concerned. She could choose a life of pleas-
ure, as her a
unt had. In which case, like her aunt, she would
know the heights of pleasure but not of love. Or Marthe could
abstain from lovemaking until her beloved came to her.
And who would this beloved be? That Mireille could not say.
And would he or she love her? That Mireille could not say.
When would her beloved come? No one could tell her that,
sadly.
But would this love endure? It would endure within her, yes,
to her dying day. But her beloved would not stay with her long.
Nor would she ever love again.
It was impossible to say what she might choose now, but
Madame Madeg’s fifteen-year-old self chose without hesitation.
Bewitched by ideas like “god” and “purity,’ she chose to forego
pleasures of the flesh for the possibility of true love. And though,
in the twenty years that followed her decision, she often wondered
if she’d made a mistake, her soul would not allow her to sleep
with any of those who desired her.
That’s not to say that Marthe spent twenty years pining for
her beloved. Far from it. She devoted herself to the dark arts her
aunt had mastered. She learned the subtleties of spell casting,
the precision of potion blending, the various grammars found in
the innards of pigeons, bats, and certain fish. In fact, by the time
Mireille died in her arms, Marthe had long been accepted as a
worthy successor to her aunt, accepted as a “bride of the devil,’
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one who was, in some areas, superior to her aunt. Her love
potions, for instance, were much more effective.
And then, on a day when her only thought was apples, when
she entered the tavern in Clasville looking for workers to cull
her orchard, she heard his – that is, Baillie’s – voice and knew at
once that love had come. It was nice that he’d spoken to her, but
that hadn’t changed a thing. She’d have known him if he’d sighed
or coughed or stayed silent. She knew him by what she felt at the
sight of him: like the door to a forgotten but thrilling room being
pushed open before her. And how strange to recognize someone
you don’t know! But she did recognize him and that’s why she
hired him on the spot. It was also why she hired him alone. Know-
ing what she knew – that this slightly awkward, fawnlike twenty-
year-old was her destiny – she wanted no one else around, no
one to share him with, no one to distract them.
The days before they made love had been almost unendurable.
She had never felt such fascination for another. The very smell
of him even – as he walked near her, as she put his bedclothes in
the wash – was intoxicating. Nor could she have anticipated
such longing, desire so strong she was constantly distracted by
thoughts of him. And how humiliating! It felt as if anyone might
have known her most private feelings by a glance at her face, as
if anyone could have seen how much she wanted to touch him.
And yet, she was defiant. Let them read her!
Baillie had thought her expert in bed. But, of course, she’d
had no experience at all. She’d been, rather, so virulently innocent
that she’d seemed jaded. More: knowing that this relationship
would not last – but not knowing when it would end – every
moment with him was miraculous.
There: now he knew what she did for a living and, to an
extent, who she was.
In revealing herself to him, Marthe had been generous, open,
and vulnerable. The older Glenn Baillie, the one who told his
story to John Skennen, understood that fully. And he found it
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humiliating to admit that it was as Madame Madeg confessed
her love for him that a coldness had invaded him. He was
suddenly aware that he felt nothing like this “once-in-a-lifetime
love” for her. Well, after all, he was twenty at the time. For him,
physical pleasure was a transaction, a mechanical operation. He
had no inkling that, when one loves, the word pleasure hides a set
of desires and expectations that are not easily met by just anyone.
Hearing her speak of the “miraculous,’ he began to suspect that
although he may have been meant for her, she was not meant for
him. The days that followed confirmed his suspicion.
Did she realize something in him had changed?
Oh, yes. She knew at once. It was like turning a green leaf
over to find a dark line of aphids. More: his doubts infected
every aspect of their life together, effectively ending what had
been six months of glorious, almost irresponsible pleasure.
Did she wait for his feelings for her to disappear entirely?
Yes. Because she hoped he’d return to her. And yes, because
having waited so long for love, she wanted to know all of it, right
down to its dregs, however bitter. She willingly accepted the
bewilderment and the suffering at their broken bond. Baillie, for
his part, was happy to carry on fucking until his feelings for her
were so distant that physical pleasure became a chore. Not capable
of understanding Marthe’s feelings, he was done with her a month
or so after her confession.
There were a number of things Baillie regretted about his last
days with Marthe. With each retelling of their story, he felt
greater or lesser humiliation at the thought of this moment or
that one. As he spoke to Skennen, for instance, he was mortified
at the memory of the awkward silence that followed his excuse
for going away – “My parents need me back home.’ Marthe had
smiled at his words.
– But she let you go? asked Skennen.
She’d done more than let him go. She’d cooked a simple but
lovely meal for his departure, a feast for two, though he didn’t
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actually see her eat the dark meats and bitter greens she’d
prepared. Nor did she drink any of what she called “Ego Fata
Domini Tui,” a concoction that looked like a tequila sunrise: sweet
orange juice in which a layer of what he thought was grenadine
– but which tasted herbal, like dandelion wine, and salty, like
blood – lay at the bottom.
– Ego fata domini tui, said Skennen. I’m master of your fate?
Why would you drink that?
– Is that what it means? asked Baillie. She told me if I drank
it I’d have control over my fate.
And for ten years, he had no reason to think he’d been wrong
because, for ten years, there were no consequences to his behav-
iour. His time near Clasville became a distant, erotic memory.
Then he fell in love with Carson Michaels.
You’d expect a man who’d never been in love to change when
love found him, and Glenn Baillie did change. He changed in all
the usual ways: his heart raced at the thought of Carson, his
thoughts all strayed to her, his days were filled with longing and
hope. He lived in fear that his feelings might not be returned.
All of this naturally reminded him of Madame Madeg, of
her feelings for him, but now he found his memories of Clasville
painful. There was more to it than that, though. The moment he
story of his and Marthe Madeg’s relationship, compelled to tell
it to those who were also in love with Carson Michaels. Nor
could he avoid Carson’s would-be lovers, because along with
the compulsion to tell came an unerring ability to find those
who loved her.
Did the need to tell his and Marthe’s story lessen after he’d
failed to answer Carson’s question?
On the contrary, it was then that the compulsion to tell
became oppressive, almost taking over his life. It was as if he
had some neural disorder that manifested as storytelling. That
or he’d been cursed.
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No sooner did the word curse occur to him than Baillie was
sure Madame Madeg had had a hand in the torment he was
living through. Desperate for peace of mind, he returned to the
outskirts of Clasville – to Marthe’s farmhouse – for the first
time since he’d fled. There, all of his doubts were quelled at once.
Though he’d told no one where he was going and had arrived
without warning, it seemed Marthe had expected him. She
stepped from her farmhouse at the very moment he got out of
the car he’d rented in Rouen.
– So, she said, you’re finally in love.
There being no doubt that she knew, he told her the truth.
– And you’re suffering? she asked.
– Yes, he said. Please help me.
– That I won’t do, she answered. I want you to suffer.
Nor was that the worst thing she told him. Her curse had a
harsher sting in it. Not only was Baillie doomed to love someone
who could not return his affection, but the story of his and
Marthe’s relationship – the one he was compelled to tell – had
something in it that would allow someone (but not him) to win
the love of the one he loved. So, not only was he forced to tell
the story of his thoughtlessness, but that very story would help
another person win his beloved.
Baillie pleaded for forgiveness. But Marthe would not give it.
– When the woman you love loves someone else, you’ll be
set free, she said.
Those were her last words to Baillie and they were Baillie’s
penultimate words to John Skennen. Having come to the end of
his story, Baillie drank the seven whiskies he’d ordered. He drank
them quickly, one shot after the other. Immediately after drinking
but before the alcohol hit him, Baillie, obviously distraught, told
