And yet I feel a burning pain when I try to move after these ordeals, and I have to make an effort to walk. I continue to rush downstairs so as not to worry my parents. Not a single day did he spare me. Tonight, he was crazy. He screamed, he sniffed and licked me like a beast. Then he thrust his fist into my body and watched in ecstasy as the blood poured out of me. Vampire! Vampire! I saw him sipping and getting drunk on my blood like wine.
From the beginning, I knew what to expect. Since these men showed up on our land, I knew it would come to this. A sixth sense? No matter how far away things are, I can recognize their scent. I have been able to detect the tenacious and intoxicating perfume on engravings of oriental flowers; and I’ve sneezed from the dust raised by the hoofs of a ranch horse stamping in a movie. My mother would say: “Have you caught cold?” “No,” I would say, “it’s all that dust.” “What dust?” my mother would ask. And I would point to the screen with my finger. But I have also dilated my nostrils at the majestic sight of the heavy falls at Niagara: they smelled of rainwater along with something else I can’t quite put my finger on. I scrape and scrape, deep into the very entrails of the earth. I dig and dig, and already know the warm humid flavor of its grayest roots, the musty stench of everything that crawls upon the buried bodies.
It was six years ago that my mother first put her hand on her heart. And that day, I heard it beat more heavily, more irregularly, as if performing hard labor. The day her heart stops beating, I’ll know before she does. “My God! My God!” she sighs, her fingers gripping her dress above her stomach. If Grandfather weren’t so old, if he weren’t so preoccupied with the little one, he’d realize a great many things. But he sees only Claude. Actually, we’re all alike, but each of us plays at hiding from one another in different ways. The little one has detected an indecent smell on me. There must be something unsettling and innocently perverse in me, and only the fact that I’ve been forced stops me from climaxing in this man’s arms. If I could free myself from this, I would probably make a partner worthy of him. Yesterday, he knelt in front of the bed and gently wiped the sweat on my brow. “I would like to please you,” he said to me. “I’m very ugly, but I would like you to at least enjoy it when I caress you.” He closes his eyes halfway and cries out: “You’re so beautiful, my saint!” He has a strange look that then becomes transformed and softens in pleasure. He gave me a tour of his house. I could smell the dogs before I saw them. I drew back and he grabbed my wrist and dragged me over to the huge cage where he locks them up as if they were wild animals. “I had them brought here from overseas,” he told me, “see how fierce they are?” They were foaming with rage: “You see, there’s only one way to get respect in this world: be like them,” he added. He doesn’t realize these are the affectations of a despot, surrounding himself in such luxury.
“Do you like making love, my saint, do you like luxury and jewelry?”
I said nothing. I don’t think I have ever opened my mouth after what I’ve seen except to moan or sigh in pain. I think that’s what he prefers from me; according to him it makes me look even more like a martyr. But am I the martyr I say I am, that I’ve convinced myself I am? I anticipate his desires. My submissiveness is nauseating. I undress and lie there with my legs spread, arms splayed in a cross, and wait. Torture! What torture! He has said to me: “If you wish, I will keep you till death do us part.” He’s learned to read my eyes and he anxiously monitors my every expression. “You like that, huh?” he cried out, although I was moaning in pain, “you like that too!” Still no response from me. “Rose, my little sister!” Paul used to call me. And he would carry me on his back so I wouldn’t have to walk on thorns. Once he was offended when a peasant surprised me as I was taking off my rain-drenched dress to wring it out. “Quick, hide, Rose!” he said to me. His eyes were full of tears. What does it matter if I give my body to the eyes and kisses of a monster, as long as I can save him. He’ll get out of here. Alone. As for me, I will slip down the slope of easy affairs, discreetly of course, very discreetly, with my saintly face. I’m full of self-pity. Is my fate so appalling? More than a few husbands probably behave just like this man. Vices sanctified by the sacrament of marriage. In any case, I have lost my innocence. Was I ever innocent? I understood the ugliness of life too early and it aged me. Jaded without experience, I’ve been like this since childhood. Like Claude. He can guess too many things as well. The day Anna began hating me because of the sewing box her father gave me, I felt it; just as I knew she’d torn my dress on purpose despite the innocent look on her face. I was only fifteen when I was already toying with Dr. Valois. That sensuous Normil force! Hits hard! Hell had its eye on us for some time and now we’re deep in it. The stakes have traced the infernal vicious circle, and maybe the hands that planted them are less guilty than ours. We are reaping what we sowed, the curse of our ancestors will disappear with our line. We must be hated and loved to the same extreme. I admire my father’s moderation, he’s the only one who stands out among us. How could Grandfather love him? Keep the sheep far away from us, for we would devour them. We, too, belong to a race of wildcats and raptors, that’s why we struggle so fiercely against those who’ve taken our lands. And the history of our property is quite murky. I heard my mother and father talking about it when I was six years old.
My mother was saying: “Grandfather insults me, he calls my father a drunk and a good-for-nothing; if I were mean I’d throw in his face what people say about his father.” “And what do people say?” my father asked. “They say he murdered a man to secure ownership of the land.” “Oh Laura, repeating such wild rumors?” my father replied. And my mother lowered her head.