A Witch's Burden

by D. W. Goates

  Later, on the street, Sascha asked her what all that had been about. “Do you know them?”

  “No, but I’ve seen them around. They were gossiping about us.”

  “How could they?” he asked. “They don’t know us.”

  “Exactly,” said Elke. “But they are right. We don’t belong here . . .”

  “I thought you liked Paris.”

  “I do. But not . . . not like this,” she said, with a show of her palms indicating her Lyonnaise silk dress; purchased only a week prior, it was her newest and in Sascha’s favorite color: pale blue.

  “What did they say?” asked Sascha, as a footman assisted his companion into their carriage.

  “They can tell we’re no aristocrats,” she replied, settling into her seat.

  Hopping in beside her, the boy nodded his agreement.

  “Let’s find you something to eat, shall we?” said Elke.

  Sascha smiled.

  That evening they decided to allow their monthly lease on the “old Boissieu place” to expire. December was upon them, and this left them little time to pack, and even less to research where next to go.

  They decided to go south, but once on the road discovered themselves unable to pass at Lyon. The city was closed owing to unrest. The pair had unknowingly followed in the path of an army sent to retake the town from rioting silk workers. Thus thwarted, Elke and Sascha opted instead to go east to Geneva where they spent the winter.

  They found Geneva—recently readmitted to the Swiss confederacy by The Congress of Vienna—to be a wonderful layover in spite of the winter cold. Sascha was able to continue with his French language studies, while Elke got in plenty of reading. When the weather was fair, they took a boat out onto the lake, and even when it wasn’t, Sascha would go out often by himself to fish. By late March he had become an expert at both catching and preparing Lake Geneva’s delicious perch. And as he often caught more than anyone in their house could eat, he had taken to supplying local restaurants with his bounty. One chef taught him a delightful specialty as partial payment for his efforts: tender fillets of perch in saffron butter. Neither Sascha nor Elke had even imagined that food could taste so heavenly.

  And so, it was with some surprise that Elke greeted Sascha’s springtime suggestion that they move on. Elke was ready to propose the exact opposite: that they make Geneva their home. She liked the people, the city, the lake, and the view; Mont Blanc on a clear day made her feel as if she resided in Olympus. Sascha didn’t disagree, but alas, the boy had grown too big for his mighty lake; he wanted to see the Mediterranean. He had heard tales and refused to be shut of them until he saw it for himself. They struck a deal whereby, before they settled anywhere, they would visit the coast; they could always return.

  On April 9, 1832, they set out from Geneva in a loaded diligence. As Lyon was a hub for roads south, the pair had need to return to it; order had been restored to the textile center, or so said the papers—now more concerned with cholera’s mortiferous march through Paris. From Lyon they agreed to take whichever road offered the least resistance to either Nice, in the nearby Kingdom of Sardinia, or Marseilles in France.

  In Lyon they found a regional coachman who offered to take them as far as Avignon. He was a nice man who spoke chiefly the Provençal dialect of Occitan, an ancient Romance language, requiring Elke to employ elements of her best French and Latin to have any success in communicating with him. He had gotten them safely to a modest roadside inn in Avignon, and had just arranged to carry them on to Marseille, when tragedy struck.

  Arriving in the main room for breakfast the morning after their arrival, Elke and Sascha found their coachman huddled with others at a table, sobbing uncontrollably. Electing not to disturb him, they ordered breakfast nearby, and were just finishing their meal when he came over to them, his eyes still wet with tears.

  “I’m sorry. I cannot take you to Marseilles, madame,” he said, with head hung low and his hat in his hand. “It is my mother. She has died. I must go to her.”

  “I am very sorry, good sir. Please accept my condolences,” replied Elke sorrowfully. “Would you know someone who can take us on to the coast?”

  “I know of no one who goes to Marseilles now, madame. I am sorry.”

  “What about Nice?” asked Sascha.

  “Savoy? No, but I go to Antibes. I am from that place,” replied the man.

  “Antibes?” asked Elke.

  “Yes: Antibes—to Nice, not far.”

  “Is it on the coast?” asked Sasha.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you take us with you there, then?” asked Elke.

  “Yes. Yes, but we must hurry.”

  “We’re ready!” said the pair of them, standing to go.

  XIII

  The journey to Antibes took three days, and when they arrived, it was dark. Their driver thoughtfully put them up with what they surmised was one of his cousins—a serene widow with kind eyes who lived alone. The coachman assured them before he left that they were on the coast. Though they could not see it, they smelled it: the salt air was unmistakable. Even Sascha was too exhausted to go exploring, and after a meal of delicious spiced stew offered by their host, the pair were soon fast asleep.

  Elke awoke, uncomfortably hot, with her sweaty cotton nightgown clinging to her skin; at some point during the night she had kicked off her covers. Dispelling the sleep from her eyes, she looked around the simply decorated room and easily identified the cause of her discomfort: the sun shone directly onto her bed through the un-shuttered second-story window. A check of her watch confirmed that it was almost noon. Getting up, she opened the window, and a gentle breeze greeted her, blowing her hair back. There was the sea, over a hill and beyond the trees, stretching out to the horizon beneath an equally beautiful blue sky.

  After dressing in a loose sage-colored linen frock and her most comfortable shoes, Elke went next door to wake Sascha, only to discover that the boy had already been up for hours. He had something to show her, and so after goading her into wolfing down her late breakfast, they were off. They had walked some distance before she realized Sascha was barefoot.

  “Do you want to go back and get your shoes?” she asked.

  “Nah,” he replied, utterly careless.

  “Well, what about your pack? You know the one—with the gold and jewels? Without which we’d both be beggars?”

  The boy was unmoved. “I trust her.”

  Elke examined her friend as if he had had his soul switched in the night, an eyeing he ignored, choosing to focus on their objective; he had yet to share where they were going. Dragged along by the hand, Elke contented herself with enjoying the ride. It was most pleasant. The dirt road they walked was flanked lushly with plant life, and much of the greenery, or weeds, were festooned with fragrant flowers.

  “Well, all right, then,” said Elke after a while.

  “I’m an excellent judge of character. Remember?” replied Sascha, still looking forward. He picked up their pace.

  Elke just smiled. As they walked further—hand-in-hand, past ancient houses with cracking stucco and friendly villagers going about their day—she allowed the whole of the experience to wash over her: the warm air, bright sun, cobalt sky, the quiet, the flowers, even Sascha’s sweaty hand. How long had it been since they had held hands like this? And then another thought intruded: where was he taking her so intently?

  “There! Hear it?” he said.

  “Hear what?”

  “C’mon!” Sascha released her and ran off on a narrow path through the trees to the top of a low hill.

  Elke followed and, once alongside him, stopped in her tracks. The shore! Beneath them was the azure sea lapping its waves upon a stony beach. The water, so vivid, was unlike anything she had seen before, the antithesis of the dull grey of the North Sea and Baltic. She was struck dumb by it, so splendid was th
e sight.

  “Look!” cried Sascha, pointing, “Le Fort Carré! They once held Napoleon there.”

  “Wow . . .” replied Elke, in dreamlike astonishment, while at the same time wondering at the source of his information.

  It truly was an amazing sight. The impressive bleached stone, star-shaped fortress hung there before them above the sleepy harbor. Across it, the city of Antibes itself—more a village, really—only added to the charming scene. Their view, if framed, would have proven a glorious addition to even the Louvre, perhaps providing it with a new signature attraction.

  Elke gestured at the beach. “Let’s go!”

  They ran to it, and while Elke stopped short of the moist sand, barefooted Sascha continued. Navigating the beach’s litter of smooth stones, the boy scampered to the water’s edge and dipped his toes in the surf. The gently breaking waves soothed them both as they contemplated the vista with its tiny fishing boats, bobbing about on the edge of the sky.

  But for Elke and Sascha the beach was deserted, though of the view itself they could claim no exclusivity. Behind the seawall sat a soldier, smoking his cigarette; on a wooden bench, an old man sat feeding stale bread to the gulls; and nearby, in no particular hurry, a woman lugged her basket of something to somewhere.

  “This is the place,” Elke murmured, and then she repeated the phrase—still under her breath—as if it were a mantra. “This is the place.”

  Sascha could not hear her. He had rolled his pants legs up to his knees and was standing ankle-deep in the froth ahead of her.

  Elke didn’t care anymore.

  She no longer cared that the Bürgermeister of Waldheim and the rest had apparently escaped justice for their crimes. She no longer cared about the corruption, indifference, or incompetence of the Bavarian State Police. She no longer cared about having never received an offer to teach from her old school in Bremen. She no longer cared about having abruptly left the untenable situation she had been offered by what proved to be more social experiment than school. She no longer cared that Parisian aristocrats thought her ridiculous.

  And she didn’t care now what the peaceful residents of Antibes would think of the newest addition to their number.

  A flash—or a streak—caught the corner of Sascha’s eye, and then came laughter in the accompaniment of alabaster skin. The boy saw her—Elke, a lithe and developed woman—as he never had before: free in her natural state, unbound by convention, shameless before the society of man. Her chestnut hair, likewise released from its pinnings, trailed freely behind her in the warm sea breeze.

  In that eternal moment Sascha’s eyes had barely managed to fix upon the fleeing figure of his friend, upon her shapely derrière, before it and she disappeared into the sea—Aphrodite, returned whence she had come, or so it seemed. Stunned by her uncharacteristic behavior, the boy finally retrieved his wits and pivoted to see a pile of clothes where she had been only moments before. He turned back to the water in time for the goddess’s return. But this was no goddess—just the laughing head of a naked idiot, treading water beyond the break.

  “Come on in!” she said, loud as could be.

  “Are you kidding? There are people up there! What are you doing?” he protested.

  “I don’t care,” she said, fluttering her eyes and shaking her head; her wet hair hung straight behind her.

  And she didn’t. He had to know. A sea change was afoot.

  “But what will they say?” asked Sascha, again indicating the people behind the seawall.

  To be sure, there weren’t many of them, but those present had begun taking a keen interest; such activity was sui generis on the small beach, or at the very least exceedingly rare. The soldier settled into his vantage, fishing out a second cigarette from his case.

  “Probably something in Provençal,” she said.

  “All right, but I’m not taking my pants off,” said Sascha, removing his shirt to reveal his pasty white and boyish chest.

  As he waded in further, Elke swam to meet him in the shallows, intent on splashing the tentative boy with cold water. At waist-deep she found her footing, and when she emerged, Sascha colored. Her breasts amply provided an opportunity to inundate her stunned prey.

  “Oh, really! You’re almost thirteen!” she chided, over his shrieked complaints. “Sooner or later you were bound to see a woman. It doesn’t much signify.”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing. I’ve just had an epiphany. I don’t care anymore—what other people think about me.” Having said this, Elke looked up beyond the seawall, some two hundred meters away, to the soldier there and, with a grin, waved to him.

  Abashed, the man dropped his cigarette, but he collected himself in time to manage a feeble wave in return.

  Sascha stood still before her with eyes averted.

  “Look at me. Look at me, Sascha,” said Elke.

  He refused. A moment passed before he asked her, finally, “What about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “Don’t you care what I think about you?”

  “Of course: you’re my friend,” replied Elke.

  “Well . . .” Sascha had fixed his gaze on the surf.

  “Well, what?”

  “I think you should put some clothes on.”

  “Not until you swim with me.” Elke punctuated her demand with more splashing of the tortured prude.

  They swam for a time, enjoying themselves—a delightful romp for the new libertine that proved at least awkward fun for her companion. Elke’s lasting insouciance would have persevered even beyond the conclusion of their dip were it not for lingering evidence of Sascha’s disapproval.

  As they made their way back out onto the sand, Elke said, “You’d better not fall in love with me, boy!”

  “What? No! What are you talking about?” Sascha had led the charge to their clothes, but having heard such an accusation could not prevent himself from whirling back to her—all of her.

  “I’m talking about how you’re acting all weird around me,” she said, reaching back to squeeze out her hair.

  “I’m acting ‘weird’ because you’re making a public nuisance of yourself!” Sascha turned away in exasperation, shaking his head.

  Elke picked up her dress and threw it over her wet body, wriggling into it. “Well, all right, then. I have to say: nothing’s more loathsome than sibling attraction.”

  At these words, Sascha looked askance at her and caught her eye. She, at last, had some clothes on. His eyes softened as he replied, “I agree, sister.”

  The two exchanged sincere smiles. The bond that both comprehended so profoundly had finally been put into words. At times in the past, Elke had wondered at his feelings for her, had hoped against hope that he avoid romantic attachment, but until now she had had only clues. She could not have known that Sascha had felt for her exactly as she had for him from the start, as two travelers not only on the same road, but in the same car—family, to replace those that each had left behind, and a family improved, not of blood but persuasion.

  No one disturbed them that day on their beach, and none came to gawk beyond the few already ensconced in their vantage. The family—this sister and her brother—were home, home and free to be themselves and to live their lives.

  That night, resolved to begin their search for a permanent house in the morning, Elke and Sascha slept restfully—Elke, more restfully than she had in months. But it was a restless night for one fort guard who, having arrived late for duty that afternoon, had been ordered to pull a double shift: two long shifts without a single cigarette remaining in his silver case.

  In the days that followed, their sense of belonging in and to Antibes only grew. And as they met more of the people of this place, they weren’t surprised to find them as it, alike: languid and peaceful. Yet the Antibeans were not lacking in industry, only in
the characteristics of it that one found elsewhere; things in this Eden by the sea got done in their own way, and never on a schedule artificially imposed. No one was in a hurry, and still the bread got baked, nets got woven, and the sardine fishermen always returned on time.

  The two siblings explored their new home with a joyous reverence. They had decided to settle before barely a sight had been seen, and in every new discovery their original impression was justified. They would eventually come to know Antibes as the natives did—know its history, the very soul of this land whose settlement predated the Greeks who would found “Antipolis” on the site, suggesting its name to come. The pair began even to learn the local dialect. Provençal, so rooted as it was with the ancients, suited those who spoke it: traditional, less innovative, immune to progress, its influence permeated the habits and mannerisms of its people. The contrast between it and modern French was the difference between the face of a suntanned fisherman and that of a silly painted Parisian. Here were no revolutions in the street. Here Elke and Sascha found only simple people, with the simple wisdom to appreciate the dangers inherent in innovation; these people had had their choice from the “better ways” on offer over the course of millennia.

  This was why the Antibeans had rejected Napoleon upon his escape from Elbe, seeing his narcissistic shenanigans for precisely what they were. Likewise, they had forsaken vulgar republicanism with its predilection for ugly mob mentality: republics of hypocrisy, so insistent upon byzantine rules and chambers of various function, all for the purpose of protecting the people from themselves—so noble, yet so willing to suspend these devices whenever the wind began to blow. No, the people of Antibes were content only with the kind of government that was content with them—suspecting the kings who meddled, and approving the kings who did not. In Augustinian fashion, here was a people “united by concord regarding loved things held in common”—virtuous things, better things—and thus not another hodgepodge affiliation merely biding its time to get at one another’s throats.