Read Online Amandine by Marlena de Blasi - Free Book Online
Authors: Marlena de Blasi
Tags: Fiction, Historical fiction, General, Romance, Historical, Historical - General, Fiction - Historical, Girls, World War; 1939-1945, Nobility, Governesses, Poland, Guardian and Ward, Illegitimate Children, World War; 1939-1945 - France, Birthmothers, Convents, Nobility - Poland
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his rough—and you, loving that caress, push your face into his and stay quiet, eyes closed, as though you would fix him with your stillness. He pulls cherries from the pocket of his soutane, dips one into the tiny glass of Armagnac that waits for him on the table near his chair and, by its stem, holds the dripping cherry to your lips. You lick your lips where the cherry touches them, smart, lick your lips again. Philippe tells you your mouth is “just like a tiny cherry.” You flail your arms again as if to beg another drop of the lush amber stuff, and he repeats the gesture. The sisters giggle, goad you on to another lick of the cherry, ignoring Paul’s harrumphing, a foiled effort to check the game.
And when Philippe places you down upon the small blue rug beside his chair, then sits, opens his book, you are content to lie on your tummy and look up at him, the thin wings of your back arching through the white batiste of your nightdress. He reads, and you stay becalmed upon your tiny blue sea, hushed save some intermittent gurgle or chuckle or the sound of your sucking to soothe your aching gums upon the cool metal of the crucifix that falls from his belt.
I was right about you, Amandine. On that first day when I held you in my arms, I told Paul that you would hardly ever cry. You are almost never cross or contrary. It makes me fearful, though, this restraint. Even when you topple in the garden or when Baptiste pricks your forearm to draw blood each month, you hold your sobs within. Squeezing shut your eyes, the tears streaming, your mouth opened in a scream, you make no sound. Cry, Amandine, screech, I howl at you, let it out, let it go. I shake you up and down in my arms as though the rough movement will dislodge the choked sound, but it does not. It terrifies me, this voiceless cry. Your distress is not that of a child who waits for rescue but that of one who understands she is alone. You are not alone. Do you hear me, child? You are not alone. I’m here with you, I’ll always be here with you
.
In the hours when Solange and Amandine keep to their rooms, they are serene together, a young mother with her growing daughter. Solange sings to Amandine as she bathes her, fixes little suppers for her over their fire, supplement to the good custards and cereals and paps that the kitchen sisters prepare. She tempts the child with a paper-thin slice of pink ham set to sizzle in a small black iron pan with an egg. Sometimes with figs roasted soft and warm over the embers then dusted in dark sugar and bathed in cream, and often apples stewed in a copper salver with a nugget of white butter. She sets a tablet of thick milk chocolate near the hearth to soften, feeds it to Amandine with a tiny silver spoon. When Solange sits with Amandine in her arms to read to her, the child closes the book, places her hand near Solange’s mouth, signals that she prefers the stories Solange invents.
On her second birthday, Philippe gifts Amandine a miniature rosary made of seed pearls. The string of beads in her baby hands, she squats or tries to kneel with Solange of an evening, earnestly watching, imitating Solange’s fingering, and making her own repetitive devotional sounds.
Though she walks daintily and with perfect balance, Amandine prefers to mimic Philippe’s lurching gait and accompanies the motionwith sounds alarmingly like his breathlessness. So clever is she in this guise that Solange, when she first saw it, called for Baptiste.
Amandine calls the sisters by name, addresses Paul as Mater and Philippe as Père just as she has heard the others do and, though her stutter and lisp seem normal infant noises to the rest, Paul pronounces them marks of the devil. Philippe tells her, “The household has understood that the child’s presence is your burden, Paul. Now will you have the child herself understand it as well? Who, indeed, does the devil inhabit in this place?”
CHAPTER IX
“A
MANDINE, DOUCEMENT, DOUCEMENT
. HOLD MY
And when Philippe places you down upon the small blue rug beside his chair, then sits, opens his book, you are content to lie on your tummy and look up at him, the thin wings of your back arching through the white batiste of your nightdress. He reads, and you stay becalmed upon your tiny blue sea, hushed save some intermittent gurgle or chuckle or the sound of your sucking to soothe your aching gums upon the cool metal of the crucifix that falls from his belt.
I was right about you, Amandine. On that first day when I held you in my arms, I told Paul that you would hardly ever cry. You are almost never cross or contrary. It makes me fearful, though, this restraint. Even when you topple in the garden or when Baptiste pricks your forearm to draw blood each month, you hold your sobs within. Squeezing shut your eyes, the tears streaming, your mouth opened in a scream, you make no sound. Cry, Amandine, screech, I howl at you, let it out, let it go. I shake you up and down in my arms as though the rough movement will dislodge the choked sound, but it does not. It terrifies me, this voiceless cry. Your distress is not that of a child who waits for rescue but that of one who understands she is alone. You are not alone. Do you hear me, child? You are not alone. I’m here with you, I’ll always be here with you
.
In the hours when Solange and Amandine keep to their rooms, they are serene together, a young mother with her growing daughter. Solange sings to Amandine as she bathes her, fixes little suppers for her over their fire, supplement to the good custards and cereals and paps that the kitchen sisters prepare. She tempts the child with a paper-thin slice of pink ham set to sizzle in a small black iron pan with an egg. Sometimes with figs roasted soft and warm over the embers then dusted in dark sugar and bathed in cream, and often apples stewed in a copper salver with a nugget of white butter. She sets a tablet of thick milk chocolate near the hearth to soften, feeds it to Amandine with a tiny silver spoon. When Solange sits with Amandine in her arms to read to her, the child closes the book, places her hand near Solange’s mouth, signals that she prefers the stories Solange invents.
On her second birthday, Philippe gifts Amandine a miniature rosary made of seed pearls. The string of beads in her baby hands, she squats or tries to kneel with Solange of an evening, earnestly watching, imitating Solange’s fingering, and making her own repetitive devotional sounds.
Though she walks daintily and with perfect balance, Amandine prefers to mimic Philippe’s lurching gait and accompanies the motionwith sounds alarmingly like his breathlessness. So clever is she in this guise that Solange, when she first saw it, called for Baptiste.
Amandine calls the sisters by name, addresses Paul as Mater and Philippe as Père just as she has heard the others do and, though her stutter and lisp seem normal infant noises to the rest, Paul pronounces them marks of the devil. Philippe tells her, “The household has understood that the child’s presence is your burden, Paul. Now will you have the child herself understand it as well? Who, indeed, does the devil inhabit in this place?”
CHAPTER IX
“A
MANDINE, DOUCEMENT, DOUCEMENT
. HOLD MY
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