The Darling of Kandahar Page 4

  She travelled from La Rochelle to Quebec with the Jesuit Père La Place and 12 workers. Beside Jeanne, there were three more women bound for Montreal, the wives of craftsmen who had refused to go without their families. This was allowed because it had proved very difficult to recruit settlers skilled as carpenters, joiners, masons and blacksmiths. Also needed were forestry and sawmill workers, people to clear the land, sailors and soldiers, a surgeon and a gunsmith. With the few exceptions mentioned above, the 1641 immigrants were almost all single men.

  The winter of 1641 passed desperately slowly in Quebec. Paul in particular had difficulty getting used to the harshness of the climate. His attempts to use snowshoes to move from one place to another were the laughing stock of the settlers, as he often stumbled and fell. Besides, in the small colony he and Jeanne were more and more often being referred to as “two young fools.”

  In spring, as soon as conditions allowed, the vessels built in Quebec over the winter were loaded with food supplies, tools and wood. Forty-four people boarded four small boats to go upstream. There are no written accounts of the journey; no one wrote down their first impressions, fears or uncertainties. The passengers were on their guard, too worried about arrows to think of writing. Towards the end of her life, though, Jeanne told people that during this journey she had seen beautiful lands dotted with colourful flowers.

  The boats dropped anchor in Montreal on May 17, 1642. After unloading, the men put up tents as protection against rain and cold. The next day the settlers all attended the first religious service on the island. They erected a small altar, and Jeanne decorated it with flowers. Dressed in his liturgical vestments, Père Vimont struck up Veni Creator. During the sermon, according to some witnesses, he said, “We owe our resources to France, thanks to the generosity and kindness of a few men and especially their wives.” Which is an acknowledgement that Montreal owes its existence to the charity of women.

  Master carpenters and joiners started building houses right away. In 1642, a small fortification surrounded a church and some log cabins. Jeanne Mance organized the first clinic in Montreal in one of the huts. The Indians and their families started coming to the camp asking to be baptized. In return, they got a piece of land where they could settle. Maisonneuve and Jeanne became godfather and godmother to little dark-skinned Josephs, Pierres, and Maries.

  Two years later, the settlers left their log cabins for more comfortable and solid houses. The hospital Jeanne had dreamed of was built outside the fort, and Jeanne moved in before it was finished. The building was equipped with a tiny kitchen, a room for herself and another one for patients. She was the first person to leave the fort and live alone in the forest with her assistant, Catherine Lézeau, a few acres from the Montreal community.

  It was a challenge to adjust to life in Ville Marie, which had a very different feel from France.

  In summer, the settlers’ skin suffered from mosquitoes and other huge and virulent insects. In winter, the bread and wine froze on the table in the refectory. Snow snuck in through cracks in the walls.

  The biggest challenge for the settlers was to adapt their clothing to the harsh weather. Jeanne Mance dressed all the women in clothes made from beaver leather, sewing together two pieces of fur the way the Indians did. Paul often made fun of the nuns’ outfits and headdresses, which were so faded and threadbare that you had no way of knowing either the colour or the fabric.

  The Notre Dame Society sent supplies of livestock, cereal, and furniture from France. A later convoy brought what the settlers needed most – other human beings – on a vessel sent personally by Louis XIII. The ship was called Notre Dame, and its precious freight included ammunition and the invaluable gift of an agronomist and a military engineer. These were the contribution of Queen Anne of Austria, a fervent Catholic and supporter of the Montreal cause. This was encouraging, but the number of believers would soon diminish considerably, and it wasn’t long before the missionaries were left to themselves – and to the hardships of the country.

  In 1644, Maisonneuve was named Governor of Montreal. He received the precious document in the presence of Jeanne, who was surely impressed by the honour bestowed on her companion in faith. Construction soon began on the Governor’s House not far from the hospital, on a windmill, and on a bigger graveyard. Little by little, the improvised fortress, though still modest and provisional, was taking on the style of a European settlement.

  Paul and Jeanne’s dream did not last long. The settlers, who had survived thanks to the generosity of the Notre Dame Society in France, came to realize that the colony would have to come to terms with trade, bigger buildings, roads, and adventurers. The appearance of commercial shops and even a ministry of religion started to corrupt Paul and Jeanne’s vision of a peaceful and natural existence.

  No apostolic aim can remain aloof from commercial interest. Faith can never exist outside the institutions that protect it and, eventually, transform it into a weapon. The new colony was therefore obliged to increase the number of its residences and to welcome newcomers from Quebec and Trois-Rivières. On the other side of the ocean, the Notre Dame Society desperately needed to reform its own finances, for it had neither capital nor income, and enthusiasm had started to cool.

  Even when we weren’t rehearsing, Marika and I thought a lot about the brave men and women linked together in a genuine congregation, where people called each other sister and brother, where rules were unwritten, and where there were neither records nor savings accounts. Our plays dwelled on the settlers’ daily activities, which consisted of praying and working hard to maintain and expand the community. Sometimes they also had to become soldiers to drive back some of the Indian tribes.

  In 1647, the settlers were granted a small plot of land in their names as well as the right to trade furs with the Indians. The only person indifferent to this was Maisonneuve. As Governor, he was owed a small percentage of the settlers’ profits for his subsistence, but he often forfeited what was his in attempts to resolve conflicts and difficulties among his men. In one case, the tailor Guillaume Chartier, the poorest of the settlers, was unable to trade with the Indians as he had nothing to offer them in exchange for their pelts. Maisonneuve gave him the curtains from his own house so that Chartier could make clothes and pay the Indians.

  The period between 1648 and 1653 was troubled. The conflict between the Huron and the Iroquois erupted into violence that threatened the security of Ville Marie. The settlers were so frightened that they packed their bags and boarded the first vessel bound for France. Jeanne Mance then decided to make the biggest sacrifice in her power. With the situation so radically changed, and security more important than anything else, she handed over to Maisonneuve the funds – 22,000 pounds – that their benefactor Madame de Bullion had donated for the hospital.

  Paul set off for France to recruit soldiers and purchase ammunition. He ended up staying in France for two years, longer than expected, because he had to comfort his sister Jacqueline, whose husband had been murdered by a cousin. Paul struggled to help her in this crisis, but in vain, for the workings of the French bureaucracy – unlike those of the Montreal settlement – were out of his control. The cousin remained free and unpunished, and four years later murdered Jacqueline herself.

  When Maisonneuve returned to Montreal in 1652, he brought 120 men and 30 women with him and was greeted by the settlers on the shores of the St. Lawrence. For Jeanne, Paul had another present: a young nun called Marguerite Bourgeoys. Jeanne herself was never a nun, just a secular nurse who would later become the manager of the hospital. However, Jeanne would have good relations with the religious women around her, and especially with Marguerite.

  Between 1653 and 1659 the colony took on new life, as the soldiers were able to safeguard its security so the settlers could dedicate themselves to their work in the fields. They cleared new land, ploughed, seeded, built bigger houses, and set up a flourishing busin
ess with the Indians, who controlled the impenetrable forests into the continent.

  There was no peace for Maisonneuve, however. In 1655, he had to go back to France for Jacqueline’s burial and the settling of her estate. Again he was away for two years, but he kept in close touch with Ville Marie. When he returned, he brought with him four priests from the Order of Saint-Sulpice, which was less strict than the Jesuit Order.

  In 1658, it was Jeanne’s turn to voyage to France in search of more money and new settlers. The journey was made at great personal cost, for she had fallen on the ice and broken her forearm in two places and dislocated her wrist. Almost incapable of moving, this generous woman nevertheless decided to return to France, wanting to carry out this last service for the mission before she died. She left Quebec in October.

  On her arrival at La Rochelle, she insisted on going on to La Flèche at once to pay a visit to the settlement’s spiritual leader and benefactor, Le Royer. She made the entire journey on a stretcher carried by four men, for she could not stand the jolts of travelling in a vehicle. Le Royer received her coldly; he himself was sick and ill-tempered. As Jeanne had long suspected, her patron was lacking not only management skills but faith, as well.

  She set off again for Paris to visit Madame de Bullion. Miraculously, after a few days on the road, she started to feel better, declaring herself completely healed by the time she got to Paris. Her dramatic recovery caused a sensation, and Jeanne knew how to take advantage of her sudden fame to promote the Montreal cause among the wealthy and pious women. Madame de Bullion donated another 20,000 pounds that Jeanne personally brought back to Ville Marie.

  Le Royer’s death, the following year, marked the ruin of the Notre Dame Society, which in 1663 was obliged to sell Montreal to the Sulpicians to settle its debts. The coronation of King Louis XIV further changed the rules of the game when Montreal and Quebec came under the jurisdiction of a single Sovereign Council.

  Maisonneuve refused to accept the authority of the Governor of Quebec. Montreal was his island, and he would not give it up. Quebec therefore organized a blockade of supplies destined for Montreal. Maisonneuve was relieved of his duties and sent back to France. The colony came under royal administration, which knew nothing about the life of the settlement.

  After the departure of her friend and protector, Jeanne’s life was little more than a painful expectation of death. Her role at the hospital had diminished. Old friends were disappearing one by one. But nothing was as unbearable for Jeanne as the pain caused by Monseigneur de Laval, Bishop of Quebec.

  Irritated by Montreal’s independence, Laval did not like the idea of a religious colony ruled by secular people, and he never accepted the fact that France owed the existence of Montreal to the devotion of a soldier and a nurse. After Maisonneuve’s departure, Laval hounded Jeanne, insisting she repay back the money Madame de Buillon had given her for the hospital, the original 22,000 pounds the nurse had given to Maisonneuve to buy an army and protect the fort. From Paris, Maisonneuve did everything in his power to protect Jeanne, but in vain. The Bishop pursued legal proceedings against the old woman.

  Apart from her personal grieving, Jeanne was pained to see what the settlement had become. Montreal was going through a bad period, and traffic in alcohol and guns had undermined the early settlers’ tranquility and confidence.

  Jeanne Mance died on June 18, 1673, at the age of 70. Her heart was put in an iron box and set in the small Hotel Dieu chapel under the lamp of Saint Sacrament. Unfortunately, a fire in the chapel reduced it to ashes before it could be moved into the new church.

  Our religious plays about Paul and Jeanne in Montreal are almost all I can tell you about my childhood. The rest can be summarized in a few sentences. I can’t have much of a memory, if my entire childhood is reduced to my years at Villa Maria. What I still remember are my frozen legs, as our uniform consisted of a shirt, a blue sweater and a kilt up above our knees. I recall hurrying to get indoors at the métro to escape the cruel winds.

  Maybe I should mention Open House at the beginning of the school year, when I was assigned to the science laboratory to show new recruits and their parents an electrical engine. To test the electric current, visitors had to touch a big iron ball, and it was my job to tell them not to be alarmed, even though I knew that the power produced was not only strong, but amplified by their fear and surprise.

  Marika was in the biology laboratory, where her role was to dissect a pig embryo in front of visitors and demonstrate its internal organs. She used the same fetus all day long, washed in alcohol so that it wouldn’t stink in the overcrowded room. When the room was empty, Marika played with the animal’s tiny organs, passing her gloved hands over the little heart muscles and the spongy lungs.

  Marika was my one and only friend. A woman does not have more than one real friend in her life, and when that friendship comes to an end there will never be another. When Marika and I parted, we knew it was forever, and that it was not even worth keeping track of each other. After a while, we found out how vulnerable friendship is at this age.

  On the other hand, it is true that real friendships can only be forged at this age. Older people never experience this feeling of complete communion with someone, such fear of loss and loneliness. Children’s experiences of these strong feelings are, I think, a counterweight to their animal-like selfishness. Childhood is a combination of insane cruelty and supreme altruism.

  So Marika’s departure healed me of feminine friendships. I have always had a lot of acquaintances among my classmates, as I always had an ability to make friends, but I would never again play nurse and soldier or build a mystical city on an island. I would never again experience that strange mixture of atheistic indifference and religious enthusiasm. Marika and I understood that people could avoid God, but not faith. She had always envied me the role I played in our theatre, and often told me I had a vocation as a healer. Later on, she convinced herself that Maisonneuve’s character was not out of line with her life either. She, too, was an explorer. She still travels a lot, but I don’t know anything else about her. Maybe she is searching for her Jeanne Mance self, while I am looking for my own Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve.

  It’s time to get back to the story of the photograph.

  Two weeks after the incident on campus, my mother – who knew about the photograph – came home with the magazine that had my face on the cover. She had bought two copies. We left the magazine on the small table in the sitting room to look at while we smoked our cigarettes. Inside there was a long piece on the university rankings, but neither of us read it.

  By next day, I was a celebrity. It started in class, where I felt what it’s like to be noticed when you enter a room. My classmates and professors, even people from other departments, stared at me in the halls. I felt people’s eyes on me when I was sipping coffee and eating my favourite blueberry muffin in the cafeteria. I felt proud of this without knowing exactly what I had done to deserve it. It was just fate that had played into my hands, but there are always people who think that anyone who had been lucky must be worthy of attention.

  I hope it’s obvious that I am not someone who gets drunk on cold water. This cover photo did not change my life. It would not give me everything I had always lacked. If you were to ask me what I didn’t have or what I had always longed for, I would in any case have great difficulty telling you.

  As you can tell, I am not wealthy at all, and I have no way of knowing if my diploma will allow me to get a better job when I get my Master’s degree. Becoming a rival to Paris Hilton all of a sudden was not something that made me shiver with pleasure. So I did not really understand the excessive attention my classmates were now paying me. The truth is that their interest was no more than a little envy mixed up with nastiness and the hidden desire that this incident be forgotten as soon as possible. I know this because I would have felt the same thing. It’s like winning a small am
ount on the lottery: it has no fundamental effect on your life.

  I have to admit, though, that a strange sensation came over me in class when I caught people eyeing me. The more I noticed their stares, the more confidence I gained in myself. Once more, I have to say that I am not naïve, or overly naïve. But I can assure you that people never know the truth about themselves and, particularly not about their physical appearance.

  I was too used to my face to find anything new there. I knew I was not bad looking, but I wasn’t slaying people on every street corner, either. But that cover picture revealed to me my own beauty, buried in the grave of lifelong habits, muddied by the routine that makes us ordinary to ourselves.

  It was the same sensation I experienced on a beach, watching the surface of the water on a calm summer day. Everything was smooth, when suddenly a wave came out of the depths to break on the shore with a small sound. How could this happen? A moment of absent-mindedness and the eye would have missed the instant when the surface of the water folded into a small pleat that grew and grew as it drew closer to the shore.

  I felt like this kind of wave, just part of the mass of water in the sea for so long, and now suddenly here I was with my very own existence. Exposed to the scrutiny of other people, I was no longer anonymous. My oval face was perfectly divided between the height of the forehead, the protuberant chin, and the nose, which perfectly matched my Mongol eyes.

  I did not know this face. The photographer had immortalized it through an angle and in an attitude that perfectly expressed my usual mood – a hint of fatigue, indifference and nonchalance. I am not talking about any qualities of my own, but in the photograph that combination lent me an unearthly dignity. Even my mother looked at me with different eyes. She was detaching herself from me, her child. I was blossoming. I did not belong to her anymore.