That same night Frédéric asked to marry her. He did it in the French manner, formally. He had planned the evening, asking Rosalie to take the children out, going to the finest jewelers, where he bought a slim red gold band that was exquisite, with hallmarks from France. He took pink flowers from the garden for their table, but was stung while doing so. When he came inside with the bougainvillea, Rachel saw that he’d been hurt. She paid no attention to the flowers, but instead took his fingers into her mouth. The old women in town said a bee sting could be soothed in this manner, but Frédéric was inflamed. He took her to bed right then and wouldn’t let her leave, even when Rosalie called for her that supper needed to be started. He kept one hand over her mouth so she couldn’t answer, and she bit him as she had in his dream, and he laughed to think there was so little room between the everyday world and his dreams.
At last, Rachel moved away and slipped on her dress. While her back was turned, Frédéric went onto one knee, without a stitch of clothing on, and asked her to be his wife. Rachel laughed so hard she collapsed beside him on the floor.
Frédéric shook his head, hurt. “You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not,” she insisted. “It’s simply that we can’t.”
“Of course we can.” He stood and turned away from her as he began to dress.
Rachel went to embrace him, resting her head against his back. She felt everything inside of him, including the hurt she had just caused him. She loved him twice as much as she had only a moment again.
“Are you certain you want to face Madame Halevy?” she asked.
Now it was his turn to laugh. “I thought you had no fear of that witch. I know that I don’t. This is our business, not hers or anyone else’s. In the end they’ll be won over.”
“You don’t know what these people. They have lived a hundred lives of suffering, all for their freedom. There’s a reason for their rules and a reason they can’t abide people like me. They will turn against us.”
“No,” Frédéric insisted. “They’ll have no choice but to accept us.”
He kissed her without stopping, and she knew what Madame Halevy had said was true, and that she would bring ruin on them if it was her fate to do so.
She said yes to his proposal, but refused to wear his ring until they were wed. She walked along the beach in the evenings, wondering if she should reconsider. She was the older, more experienced person. She should have known better and called a halt to their love affair. She could have written to his family and insisted they bring him home and send someone in his place, an old uncle, a married couple, the nastiest man in the family.
She had tried her best to keep Frédéric away. After Isaac’s death she had written a letter to his nephew, suggesting he stay in France. Thank you for your kindness, but don’t feel you must come to our Island, for I am fine on my own. He’d written back, Of course I will come to assist you. She had cursed him, but in the morning after she’d read his response she’d woken to rainfall though it was the dry season. Now she reread his letter and notice a line scrawled beneath his name she’d overlooked before.
I will think of nothing but you.
Every night she walked farther, until there came an evening when she was so deep in thought she paid no attention to her whereabouts. Before she knew it she was lost, even though she’d spent her childhood in these hills. She found herself on a path that led into the mountains. She heard running water. The waterfall. It sounded like a heartbeat. She thought about love and what a mystery it was, how when it came it seemed to be inevitable.
She had stumbled upon the herbalist’s house. She had no idea how she had discovered this place, which was so hidden even Jestine had had trouble remembering where it was. Perhaps everything that had happened was meant to be, for this was where her love had led her. The herb man came outside as if he’d been expecting her. She owed him something, it was true. “Thank you for giving me my life,” she said. She kissed him then, and although he neither thanked her nor stopped her, he accepted her gratitude.
THEY WENT TO THE synagogue to ask to be married. They wore their best clothes when they called on him. Both were rattled, filled with nerves. But they needn’t have dressed in their finery for the occasion, as they were not allowed into the Reverend’s office. His secretary said he was too busy, and when they’d sat there for more that four hours, with people going in and out to meet with the Reverend, Frédéric rapped on the door. Now the Reverend’s secretary told him the good man had gone home to dinner. They went back the next day, and again they were denied. They did this for a week, wearing the same clothes. Each day they were told the Reverend could not see them and each day they waited on a carved wooden bench. At last the Reverend sent them a written message that his assistant brought into the corridor where they were waiting. Frédéric read it, then crumpled it, dropping it on the floor before he stalked away. Alone in the corridor, Rachel bent to retrieve the missive directed to Frédéric.