Isola

by Allegra Goodman

My guardian was my father’s cousin, Jean-François de la Rocque de Roberval, and he was a great man because he had been the King’s boyhood friend. My father had been greater still, or so Damienne had told me. As for my mother, she had royal blood. However, my guardian had the advantage because he was living.

If you want to be considered wise, behave wisely and chastely. Be humble to all. Be truthful, courteous, and amiable…

and then to set my work aside as though it did not signify. I learned to write so that my words were clear and flowing—and then to say that I wrote poorly. To play my music perfectly and say I could do better. All this to imitate Claire and her good mother, for I saw what they held dear. Patience, excellence, humility.

Now that I was quiet, she was not afraid of me.

no longer wished for it. My own life was what I hoped he’d grant me.

ourselves, said Madame D’Artois. How frail every living thing. Roses shatter; winged insects live a single day. She said, Do not depend on anything but providence, and she told us parables of those I called the deadly virtues—patience, humility, and diligence.

Vanity, vanity, taught Madame D’Artois. Everything we treasure has a price. And everything we have will slip away. She told us we were dust and our lives brief as grass. We might understand this if we were truly wise—but I lacked wisdom.

All that long day, I saw my life reverse its course. My nurse became my helpless child. My companions became my patrons, paying me from their own wages to purchase my instrument, my portrait of the Virgin, and my linen chest.

Because of the stye, half her face appeared serene, the other half confused and weeping. “Put a potato on it,” Damienne said. Travel-worn and discouraged she might be, but my old nurse knew more than most. “Slice a raw potato and hold it to your eye to draw the infection out.”

In all that dark house, Alys was the one who welcomed me. Her face was open, her eyes laughing, and she seemed unafraid.

But I told her, “Now is our chance.” For I would take my place at table and show what I deserved. Lands, money, all my inheritance. I would have them back again. Wasn’t this the lesson in Madame D’Artois’s books? Those tested were rewarded if they were patient, careful, good.

And this was New France, which Cartier called Canada, an isle so rich it was an empire in itself—but its greatest gift was the wide river—for ships might sail to the Spice Islands and China by this northwest passage.

“They speak with arrows and with spears. They speak by stealing through trees and slicing throats, but we entertained them with firearms. Then they revealed the secrets of their country.”

Claire and her mother loved to pray and read—but I remembered how they had gathered information. How practical they had been.

tried to catch my breath and understand what Roberval had done. Why was he kind one moment, cruel the next? Like a cat, he loved to play with me. His pleasure was to give and take away again, to reassure and then unsettle me. He praised me when I performed well, but he enjoyed my failings even more. When I was ruffled and unsure, he taunted me. When I was hurt, he pounced.

He is a speculator, I remembered. He is an adventurer. He had sold my lands to fund his expedition, trading my future for his own. He had done this to me, but I could not object. My guardian served as my protector, but I had no one to protect me from him.

I was sport for him, and he enjoyed catching me. Like a hunter, he might slit my throat, or tie me up, or carry me off just as he liked. I might struggle; even so, he would possess me.

On the stairs, I heard light voices, and laughter, as though the world were good.

“Ah, Ruth,” said Damienne. “You were always faithful, and God remembered you.”

Rage did not suit him; fury gave too much away, and so he mastered himself as he mastered others. He knew his strength was mystery, and his power diffidence.

And she contrived a little broom from a bough she found on one of the dwarf trees, and she used the whisk to sweep our hearth and granite floor. In this way, she kept house, and she named each place so that our granite ledge became our kitchen, our driftwood shelter was our chamber, and at some distance in a crevice, we maintained our privy. Damienne deemed all this necessary because, she said, “We must remember who we are.”

Auguste said, “You see why the birds are innocent. It is because none come to molest them. That is why they build nests upon the ground.”

Cast together, we might sing and laugh and kiss just as we pleased, and we enjoyed the paradox that bound us. Imprisoned, we were also free.

“Now I am refreshed,” said Damienne when we had done. And looking at her, I thought, Praying is refreshment when you toil. Kneeling feels better after long hours on your feet.

I thought, This is work. This is what it’s like to bring something into the world. And when I knelt to worship with Auguste and Damienne, I prayed

Was it strange to talk like this? It was stranger still to live upon the isle. To love freely but live with such uncertainty. Each day presented a new riddle. What is a house without a door? What is a prison without walls?

We ate fresh meat but slept outside, as beggars did at home. We had property and yet we were impoverished. On this island, we were rulers and our own subjects too.

“It is not how you appear,” she said, “but how you live.”

Filling these packets and wood boxes, I felt a joy I had not known before. It was not love, and it was not comfort, nor was it mastery or beauty, but it was usefulness.

Here, even thorny brambles glowed vermillion. This was the strange magic of the place, that autumn came so brilliantly upon us. Never had we known such days—but they were short.

But Damienne examined me, touching my body and my face. She listened to me breathe and felt my belly and at last she said, “These berries have not poisoned you. It is hunger and fear sickening you.” “I could not stop myself from trying them,” I said. “I was craving fruit. Forgive me.” Sorrowfully, she rocked me in her arms. “You will not die,” she said. “You are only sick as you must be.” “I am punished,” I said.

As other creatures do in winter, we ate less and slept longer. The nights were so long that it seemed the whole world was asleep.

be patient because it pleases God, and govern wisely without behaving like those foolish women who rant and rave,

“Remember who you are. Take care, or you will lose the child.” And these words pierced me. Hadn’t I promised Auguste to defend our son? I did not recognize myself at all, but underneath my skin, I felt the baby moving. He will be tall. He will be wise. He will fear nothing. I remembered all we had said.

A month before, this sight would have frightened me. A year before, this gorging would have disgusted me. Now I watched jealously. Such was my hunger that I thought of shooting to scatter the wolves and steal their prey.

Deer were safe in numbers. Birds flew together. Wolves hunted in a pack.

My old jealousy, my frustration, even my disappointment in Claire faded. From this vantage point, Claire’s silence, and her plan to stay, seemed necessary. I had not understood necessity before, but I did now.

Then I understood what it meant to say that women had been cursed with childbirth.

And my nurse saw that her words hardened my heart, so she gave up speaking. She carried her sadness as she had so many other burdens. Only in the night, I heard her weeping.

Her grief shook me. I who had thought only of my own. If I had been wounded, why did I wound her? If scripture would not comfort me, did it follow that it could not comfort her? How cruel I had been to deny Damienne. What had she ever done but love me? “Forgive me,” I said. “We will read together.”

Although Roberval had voyaged in the King’s name, he acted for himself—and this was true always. My guardian took and took and searched for more so that after squandering his fortune, he spent mine. Seizing my property, he was pleased to leave me where I could not be found, casting me off as a thief might throw away a key.

Strangely, as her life became more difficult, she complained less. She did not rail against injustice, although her fate was unjust. She did not question God’s will. I looked at her and thought, Why do I sit self-pitying? Why don’t I think of her? Damienne was blameless, and I had brought her to the island. This I knew, and for this I must atone.

began to see the wisdom of Damienne’s busy hands. Working, I had little time to mourn—but in my dreams, I grieved.

Always, Damienne worked as she was able, doing what she could with what she had. Always, she was faithful, cleaning, sewing, butchering.

“Who shall go up to the hill? Who shall stand in the holy place? The one with clean hands and a pure heart. He will receive God’s grace.”

But she spoke now to herself. “God is good.” And I bent my head and said, “I know he is because he brought you to me.”

After that, she lay quietly, and I gave up begging her to speak. Damienne had taught me every day, and she had blessed me with her life. I could not ask for more.

because, in all my life, I had never been alone.

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

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.