The American Fiancee

by Eric Dupont

  “The rifles fired real bullets,” sobbed the nun, head in hands.

  In a trembling voice, she had explained her helplessness and confusion to her Mother Superior, who found it impossible to reason with her. A little alarmed herself by the shouts and cries of the young nun, and fearing for her protégée, the Mother Superior had advised the priest to call on the services of another reader for his nativity scene, even recommending another nun by the name of Sister Mary of the Eucharist, who had volunteered to do the reading, but of whom nothing was known other than a boundless love and respect for the Holy Scriptures. Nobody in Fraserville in that December of 1918 managed to come up with a satisfactory interpretation of the nun’s nightmare.

  The organist was at the dress rehearsal. He held in his hands a few loose sheets of paper, some scores, and the list setting out the order in which the pieces chosen by Father Cousineau were to be played. Louis-Benjamin and Madeleine the American felt as though they had been admitted to an inner circle of actors, and followed the priest’s orders with the diligence of dilettantes. After two hours of practice, false starts, and retakes, they agreed to meet in the sacristy at nine o’clock that evening for the final preparations. The priest was still nervous. Sister Mary of the Eucharist had not been able to attend the rehearsal. A birth had held her back in Cacouna (she was also a midwife). She had, however, promised Father Cousineau she would be at the ceremony and would take her time reading whatever section of the gospel she was asked to. That evening, Old Ma Madeleine went outside and contemplated the overcast sky.

  “Looks like snow,” she said in her husband’s direction.

  “That’s nice, snow at Christmas.”

  Then they decorated the tree, the little girls dressed in their Sunday best, big Napoleon in a suit, and they waited for the birth of Christ. Louis-Benjamin and Madeleine the American were already in the sacristy. Sister Mary of the Eucharist still had not arrived. The priest was pacing around in circles, praying that a mishap hadn’t befallen her on the way to Fraserville. The actors got into their costumes. For Joseph they had chosen a loose-fitting beige shirt and moleskin pants. By way of props, a set square and a small saw hung from a braided cord at his waist to remind everyone he was a carpenter. Louis-Benjamin felt very much in character. Sitting in a corner, two blond angels, brothers from the same family, helped each other adjust their great white wings as they hung from a harness. Both were to play the Archangel Gabriel. The priest had at first wondered whether the audience would be confused if he had the same character played by two different actors, but neither of the two was prepared to give up a speaking part to his brother. The role was therefore divided into two equal parts. To avoid the whole thing dragging on for hours, the performance would follow the regular midnight mass his parishioners had grown used to.

  Sister Mary of the Eucharist arrived just as mass was about to begin, which meant that the priest didn’t have a chance to introduce her to the other actors. Madeleine the American spent the whole mass wondering why Father Cousineau, a man who placed such stock on appearances, had asked such a frightening-looking woman to take part in a nativity scene. From the front, the sight of Sister Mary of the Eucharist could elicit the odd snigger. But from the side her silhouette recalled that of a crow or some other large-beaked bird. Her nose, upon which sat a small pair of round glasses, seemed to go on forever. And it would have been impossible, even if one were to mime, to describe her face without first mentioning that nose, just like it would be impossible to speak of Paris without mentioning the Eiffel Tower. Young or old? It was impossible in the penumbra of midnight mass to put an age on the bleak, tortured, and downright alarming face. In contrast to her black and white Sister of the Child Jesus habit, the pale skin of her face shone in the church like a moon in June; the image would have been reassuring and calming in this particular context, had the nun been careful not to smile: instead, the determined contraction of her facial muscles made her look as though she had swallowed a boomerang in full flight. The American recalled the legends of New England, terrible tales of pregnant women who, startled by some hideous monster or other who had appeared out of nowhere, had given birth to appalling, deformed creatures. While Sister Mary of the Eucharist sang about shepherds watching their flocks by night, the American felt a stirring in her breast, a dull, deep trembling that in other circumstances would have scared the wits out of her. Sister Mary of the Eucharist’s voice, nasal and sharp as a bayonet, broke away from the rest of the choir.

  But the young woman had no more time to continue with her questions. Her belly filled with pain, she stood with the others to hear O Holy Night being bellowed by a townsman whom a fellow parishioner, seeking to flatter, had foolishly complimented one day on his voice. At “Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!” the American felt another stirring inside her, as though the words had been addressed to her personally. While the church was only three-quarters full, it was not for a lack of devotion from the parishioners, nor because Father Cousineau had failed to promote his show. Rather, around ten o’clock that evening, heavy snow had begun to fall on Fraserville. After a quarter of an hour it lay already an inch or two deep in front of the church and showed no signs of letting up.

  For fear of seeing the first gust of wind transform this touching scene into a hellish storm, many parishioners had not made the trip to midnight mass, even if that meant being refused communion for a week or having to go to confession. The snow was now falling in dense flurries. And yet it was only when the wind began to whistle over the church roof that the parishioners really began to worry. No doubt about it: Father Cousineau would have excommunicated on the spot the first person to dare suggest they leave the church earlier than planned. The nativity would go on!

  As the Latin mass ended quietly with Christmas wishes and hopes for greater fraternity that bore more than a passing resemblance to those of the previous year, the actors gathered in the sacristy to make their entrance. The American felt a little light-headed. Only Sister Mary of the Eucharist had stayed with the choir, looking over the pages of the New Testament she was preparing to read. But fear was beginning to get the better of the faithful. As the wind whistled more and more insistently, they feared they would no longer be able to make it home. A handful of families excused themselves politely and exited via the main aisle under the wrathful stare of Sister Mary of the Eucharist, her pale, haunting ugliness glinting in the low light.

  The runaways had waited for Father Cousineau to disappear into the sacristy, but were forced to turn back once they realized, upon opening the church doors, that a terrible blizzard was beating down on Fraserville. You couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead, the wind flinging to the ground any brave souls who might have preferred the prospect of a nice warm meal in their cozy homes to a nativity scene in a poorly heated church while the wind howled ominously outside. A few families who lived in neighboring homes took their chances with the snowstorm. The rest returned to their seats, informing those who had stayed behind of what they had seen. The congregation was seized by panic. Were they all going to have to spend the night in the church? A worried murmur went up from the two hundred or so people who had resisted the temptation to slip out.

  Sister Mary of the Eucharist cleared her throat to attract everyone’s attention. She had just heard Father Cousineau signal that they were ready to begin. Someone turned down the lights. Between two gusts of wind, the nun’s nasal voice rang out in the church.

  “There was in the days of Herod, the King of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

  “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

  “And they had no child . . .”

  No one in Fraserville could claim they had ever heard Sister Mary of the Eucharist read out loud. People vaguely knew the nun, a ghostly, furtive figure sometimes glimpsed striding down Rue Lafontaine. Be
hind closed doors, Sister Mary of the Eucharist was referred to, depending on people’s imaginations, as The Crow, The Raven, The Wicked Fairy, or, quite simply, Sister Scary. It would never have crossed anyone’s mind to cast her in a living nativity. Far from evoking the grace of an angel in flight, her face recalled more the fall of the walls of Jericho than it did the Annunciation. As for her voice—a husky growl escaping from an ashen, wrinkled throat—it seemed to come straight from the deep, smoking crater of a devastated land. A shiver ran down the spines of the faithful.

  The characters appeared stage left as their names were called. Father Cousineau had given himself the role of Zacharias, while Elizabeth was played by a young woman by the name of Marie Plourde, the notary’s daughter. The nun rolled her r’s terribly, stressing the final syllable of each phrase as though it were a judgment of apocalyptic proportions. Worst of all, she was afflicted by a tragic lisp. It was, as someone was to say forty years later when describing her sepulchral voice, “as though a Brussels sprout had started to talk.” In the darkness, the two little blond boys had silently ascended the pulpit, the tiny balcony attached to a large column in line with the first pews, its staircase wound around the column on the left. The thought of leaving the church in the terrible storm was momentarily pushed to the back of the congregation’s mind. The nun droned on:

  “And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

  “And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.”

  The nun delivered the last sentence in the same tone storytellers adopt to say, “and the wolf gobbled her up!” A murmur ran through the congregation while the organist, high up in his jube, attacked the opening notes of the accompanying music whose chords, far from reassuring or calming them, only made everyone more nervous. In the pulpit, the two angels began to speak at the same time, not giving a thought to the priest’s instructions.

  “Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.”

  Father Cousineau, playing Zacharias, responded to the Archangel Gabriel’s long tirade in his deep voice: “Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.”

  The congregation pondered, and for good reason, a certain number of questions, namely: Why does the Archangel Gabriel have two heads? And why four wings? Why is one angel being played by two boys?

  The priest, when he heard the boys parroting the gospel as one, looked up and could not prevent an expression of surprise from spreading across his face, an expression so in tune with the scene that someone was heard to mutter, “You can tell he’s no stranger to acting, eh?” But the poor director’s troubles had not ended there. Aside from the fact that they were both speaking at the same time, the little archangel boys did not have the clearest diction, so that “thy prayer is heard” came out as “thy bear is bared” and instead of “thou shalt be dumb” the congregation heard, “thou shalt be a bum,” but these mispronunciations were quickly forgiven. The Elizabeth-Zacharias procession fell silent, giving way to the Annunciation. In the half-light stage right, Father Cousineau prayed to all the saints that the boys would begin taking turns. But his prayer was not heard over the howling wind. When Louis-Benjamin’s brother Napoleon made his entrance, leading two lambs on a leash, cries of delight rang out. The young man smiled beatifically, conscious of the effect the charming animals were having on a Catholic audience whose imaginations were largely composed of bucolic scenes, and who, more than anyone, were inclined to accept the animals as a happy omen. To general hilarity, the lambs bleated as if to announce their entrance. People turned to look at each other:

  “Ah! Dear old Father Cousineau! Is there anything he wouldn’t do?”

  “Are those the Lévesque lambs there?”

  “All that’s missing is an ox and a donkey!”

  The latter did put in an appearance, but only in song. The choir of nuns struck up a crystal-clear rendition of Silent Night. The spectacle was a feast for every sense. Somewhere myrrh was burning. Thick, perfumed smoke rose slowly in the air, wafting through the church.

  Just as she was about to make her entrance onstage, the American was struck by such a violent cramp in the lower abdomen that she fell to her knees before the Archangel Gabriel, stretching out a trembling arm toward him. “My word, the girl’s got talent!” Father Cousineau thought to himself. He hadn’t seen such a powerful performance since his own Charles VII in The Maid of Orleans. Then the two-headed archangel cried:

  “Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee.”

  The howl of pain that went up from the American was drowned out by the organ as it launched into Balbastre’s Joseph est bien marié, the music temporarily calming the electric atmosphere in the church. The archangel went on, “Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and . . .” The nun continued to rhyme off the gospel like a bailiff delivering a death sentence. The pain had left the American groggy and stunned. Louis-Benjamin helped her to her feet. Among the congregation, people said she was a born actress for being able to swoon so convincingly before an angel that wasn’t even real. After a fashion, they finally got to the birth of Jesus.

  “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.”

  At these words, the American girl let out a scream that is still echoing around the church of Saint-François-Xavier to this very day. Standing in front of the make-believe stable, she gripped Louis-Benjamin’s shoulders with both hands, pulling his fake beard off in the process.

  “My God! Oh my Gooooood!” the pretend Virgin Mary roared, as though pierced by spears.

  Before the horrified gaze of the congregation, the poor woman fell onto the straw, rolled herself up into a ball and continued to scream.

  “Her water’s broken!” shouted Elizabeth, who had edged closer, now certain that the cries were not part of the production.

  A frightened snort made its way around the church. Her water? Already? A particularly nasty gossip seized the moment to whisper to her sister-in-law in a slanderous tone, “I thought she was supposed to have it after New Year’s Day.” On the altar, the nun had stopped reading and made her way over to the American. Louis-Benjamin, down on his knees beside his wife, was imploring her to calm down. Father Cousineau’s heart had skipped a beat when he heard the frightful cry.

  “Somebody fetch a doctor!” a voice rang out.

  Two strapping lads opened the main doors, engulfing the inside of the church in an ice-cold blizzard. From outside could be heard the sound of part of a building being torn off by the storm and now making a terrible din as it clattered against the stone. A maple bough as big as a man, only just ripped from its trunk, flew into the church to the shouts of women who huddled together, prepared to face the apocalypse. On her bed of straw, Madeleine was now howling desperately, her body shuddering from the powerful contractions. Sister Mary of the Eucharist had placed her head in her lap and whispered a hoarse prayer “. . . blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb . . .” to the irritation of Father Cousineau, who could see his nativity was going to end in drama. The bulk of the congregation had gathered at the door to throw the maple bough back outside. Others strained to close the doors that the wind had slammed against the outside wall; it took no fewer than four men to a door. By the time the doors had been shut, the two hundred or so who had stayed behind for the nativity scene were bitterly regretting their decision. Fetching Doctor Lepage, who lived at the lower end of town, was out of the question. Neither man nor beast would be able to convince him to make his way up the hill to the church. Rather than feeling sorry for the American, the congregation was busy planning its escape from this house of pain. Whether prudish, irritated, or disgusted, they’d had enough drama for one night. Some one hundred people, mos
t of them bright young things with no fear of God or high winds, faced with the choice of watching the American bring a child into the world or freezing to death in a blizzard, had chosen to brave the elements without a second’s hesitation. The church doors were opened one last time to let the runaways escape. Most of them lived nearby and would probably manage to make it home. For the others, those who lived more than five hundred yards away, escape was unthinkable.

  “We must pray!” proclaimed Old Ma Madeleine, drawing a set of white rosary beads from her pocket.

  “Yes! A rosary! A rosary for the American!” another woman chimed in. Those who had left their pews sat back down, casting a discreet eye over the terrible scene unfolding before the altar. Now writhing in pain on the straw, Louis-Benjamin’s young wife was panting like a thirsty dog, giving out the occasional shriek in between the odd heartrending “Nooo!” and “Help me!” Her husband was sobbing in the arms of the priest, who was trying to console him. The two little angels, still high up on the pulpit, were crouched beneath the balustrade so as not to have to witness the scene. Only the tips of their wings could be seen trembling in the half-light. Two nuns came running from the sacristy with towels and assorted metal instruments. The American had to be brought to the sacristy right away, they gasped. But the American was not for moving.

  “I can’t move! Help me! Oh Lord, help me!” she shrieked. Her cries echoed three or four times around the almost-empty church.

  Sister Mary of the Eucharist took the situation in hand.

  “We must save the child!” she said in a voice that instantly made everyone fear the worst.

  She knelt before the American, and with the dumbfounded congregation, the priest, and Louis-Benjamin looking on, lowered the American’s stockings and underwear to spread her legs.

  “Don’t be afraid, Madeleine. This child is going to be born. I know a thing or two about bringing children into this world. Pray to the Lord and breathe as I tell you. And when I tell you to push—push!” she told her in her back-from-the-grave voice.