Gaston
“No Gaston, I don’t want to kiss you.”
“But, Aia, every other woman I’ve known your age was already with child. What’s wrong with you? I should speak with your father and make him understand. He could force you to submit to me. It’s the natural order. God’s will.”
“I don’t want to be with you. Or any other man. And that’s all there is to it,” I state firmly, trying to leave no room for discussion.
My point made, I immediately turn away from him. I determinedly stride down the dirt path towards my home, the hut I share with my parents. I walk past sixteen other circular huts, all looking much like ours. They’re scattered along either side of the path that runs through Bellua. Never particularly close together. Even at a brisk pace, the walk takes me ten minutes. The oven marks one end of the village, our house is almost at the other. There is only one more past ours.
I had intended on going to the pond, just past the communal oven, to cut some reeds for a repair to our roof. There was no way I could stay out there with that man harassing me. Gaston is now so convinced that it is his duty to bed me that he scares me.
The hut feels safe. I’m pretty sure he won’t come in here uninvited. The mud brick wall barely comes up to my shoulders, but it's strong, seemingly invincible. I sit against the wall and stare up in exasperation. I half watch the thin wisps of smoke rise out of our fire pit. They climb past the three large branches that interlock in the center of the roof; together, they support the weight of the roof. As if they know the way, each wisp finds the hole left in the thatch where the three branches connect, thereby making their escape into the greater world.
I wish I could escape so easily. I don’t know what to do. Every month, Gaston becomes even more insistent.
Hopefully, father will not succumb to Gaston’s words. He’s always protected me before. I know he’s under pressure from others in the village to make me conform. Everyone wants more children. I’m not sure why my parents only had me. I know they still have sex regularly; it’s hard to hide much in a one room house. But that leaves me as their only chance for grandchildren.
I decide I might as well start on cooking dinner. I pull out a few turnips and carrots from our supply. The larder is much emptier than it was when I harvested the last of the vegetables in the fall, but I think the remainder should last us through the end of winter and early spring. I will be planting turnip seeds within a week, the first planting of anything each year. Some of that early crop will be ready less than two moons from now.
I always get nervous this time of year, as our rations we’ve saved for winter dwindle. We had a summer when I was a child when the rain didn’t come and didn’t come until it all came at once. We didn’t have much to eat that winter. I still remember being hungry all the time. I think my parents had even less to eat than I did. I don’t want to go through that again.
I look reassuringly at the large sack next to me, the bottom bulging from its contents. We still have plenty of grain for bread.
I eye the glowing embers in the pit in the center of the hut. It slowly smolders all day, but cooking dinner will require more of a real fire. Besides, I’ve recovered enough from the confrontation with Gaston that it’s starting to feel nippy in here. The late winter air still has a bite to it. Getting a real fire going for dinner will chase the chill out of our hut for the evening, warmth that I hope will carry all the way until morning.
I sigh. It’s unlikely to last all night until we repair the roof. That hole lets out too much of our precious heat.
As I start to prepare the vegetables to be roasted, I frown. If I’d been able to get to the pond, I probably would have gathered some onion grass to give dinner a little more flavor.
“Aia, after you’ve cleaned up from breakfast, can you work on gathering reeds and enough small branches so we can fix the hole in the roof? I thought you were going to do that yesterday. I’d really like to be able to make the repair tomorrow. You still need to prepare the turnip garden and milk the goat, first.”
“Of course, Poppa. I tried to get the reeds yesterday, but Gaston started harassing me. I just hope he doesn’t bother me again.”
He sighs. “Well, you’re going to have to deal with that yourself. Your mother will be at the oven most of the day, baking us more bread. I’m going to see if the witch has anything to help with her knees. They hurt badly most days now.” He looks at me. “Have you tried just telling him no.”
I frown. “I do, Poppa. Every time I see him. He’s becoming more and more insistent, despite my best efforts to deter him.”
Poppa frowns. Then he looks at me and sighs, a sadder sound this time. “I’m assuming this means we’ll never have any grandchildren?”
“Not if I can help it, Poppa.”
Cleanup from breakfast is easy. We had our usual breakfast: bread and a little cheese with some watered goat milk to drink.
Heading out into the morning chill, I milk Blossom, then play with her for a while. I’m trying to get her to stop head butting me in the stomach, but I still love our time together. She’s my closest friend.
I start clearing the winter overgrowth from the garden beside the hut. That garden, along with Blossom, is my major responsibility in the family. Soon it will be time to plant turnips; I’ll add carrots in a few weeks.
Preparing the garden is tedious work. I wish I could just go back to playing with Blossom.
Once the garden is fully cleared, I head behind our hut, where a large oak tree towers over it. That oak marks the beginning of a sizable grove of trees, mostly oaks like ours, but some beech and a few ash. A few of our oak tree’s branches overhang our roof. One branch broke off in the storm last week and crashed through the thatch. It almost fell on me while I was asleep!
That’s why the roof needs to be repaired.
There are plenty of branches still scattered nearby from the storm. I pick a nice selection of them for rebuilding the base. Once woven together with reeds, they will hold up the hay. Hay is what the roof is mostly made of.
The easy part done, I’m now forced to venture out for the reeds. I peer around the corner of our hut. The mud brick wall is only shoulder high but a stack of small logs atop the bricks effectively extends it well above my head. The logs’ rough, inconsistent surface gives me a good chance to spy without being too visible.
I don’t see Gaston on the path. I glance out into the fields beyond the house on the other side of the path. He’s not out there. No one is. The fields still lie fallow for the winter. The spring planting of wheat and rye will be in a few weeks. That will be a busy time, second only to harvest. All the villagers work together those days.
I hurry down the path, past the other huts in the village, hoping to secure my reeds before Gaston appears. I pass the mud brick dome of the communal oven, which defines the edge of the village. I nod to Mama as I scurry past. There are two other women baking with her this morning. Each family needs to bake bread every two or three days. It’s what we mostly live on, especially in the winter.
The path only continues another few hundred paces through the forest before it comes to the pond, where it forks into two, going either way around the water. I feel lucky, still no sign of Gaston. I see the reeds growing by the side of the pond.
Bent over, I position a small scythe to cut the bundle of reeds I’ve gathered in my left hand. Suddenly, I feel hands around me, groping my breasts. I’m being pulled backwards. I feel someone grinding their crotch against my backside.
“Isn’t this what you really want?” Gaston asks, clearly not expecting an answer. “We could have so much fun!”
“Okay Gaston, let me turn around and I’ll show you what I’d like.”
I feel his hands loosening their grip. As I turn, I see his smirking face. He thinks he finally has me.
Once I’m face to face with him, he leans forward, expecting a kiss.
I forcefully thrust my knee up and forward into his crotch. He buckles in pain. I push him hard enough that he falls to the ground. “I want to be left alone by you. That’s what I really want. Try that again, and I may use this for something other than the reeds,” I say, brandishing the scythe still in my right hand.
I don’t want to give him a chance to recover, so I run.
I race past the oven into the village.
“Are you okay, Aia?” my mother calls to me, but I don’t slow down for her. I’m not sure if he’s following me or not. I’m not sure I have the luxury to look.
I don’t stop until I’m in my hut, with the door shut. I wish Poppa was around, just in case Gaston comes for me. If I made him mad enough, he might not stop at the door today.
“Get back quickly, Poppa, I need you.”
Despite the social pressure, I think Poppa will still chase him off. Even if he does want grandchildren. Mama wants them at least as much. Gaston was correct in saying that it’s the expectation. I shake my head vehemently. Please protect me, Poppa.
I notice the light filtering through the thatch. Frowning, I remember why I was out there. We still need those reeds to repair the hole in the roof at the back of the hut. Almost directly over my straw bedding. Hopefully I can get them before it rains in on me. The rain is so cold this time of year.
But I will do nothing now. Not with Gaston out there waiting.
Maybe I could be like Poppa and go see the witch. I think she could conjure a potion that would dissuade Gaston. Or maybe a poison that would kill him.
Shuddering at the thought of the woman, I try to put that fantasy aside. Our priest insists that the witch is an evil woman, possessed by demons. No one in the village is supposed to see her, deal with her. He says it’s a sin, but people do. She knows how to make magic potions, mostly medicines.
Father Keller never comes to our small village, he rarely leaves town; he doesn’t know what goes on. Certainly no one would tell the priest of their own dealings with her. Or apparently even the sins of their neighbors.
Closing my eyes, I let myself drift off. Hopefully Gaston will be off somewhere in an hour or two and I can finish my chore then. I was so close this time.
My last thought is the memory that I have a stalk of onion grass in my tunic. I managed to gather that much before I was attacked. At least dinner will be a little tastier tonight.
