آخر 10 مشاركات
وريف الجوري (الكاتـب : Adella rose - )           »          لك بكل الحب (5) "رواية شرقية" بقلم: athenadelta *مميزة* ((كاملة)) (الكاتـب : athenadelta - )           »          445 - غرباء في الصحراء - جيسيكا هارت ( عدد جديد ) (الكاتـب : ^RAYAHEEN^ - )           »          الجبلي .. *مميزة ومكتملة* رواية بقلم الكاتبة ضي الشمس (فعاليات رمضان 1436) (الكاتـب : قصص من وحي الاعضاء - )           »          دين العذراء (158) للكاتبة : Abby Green .. كاملة مع الروابط (الكاتـب : nagwa_ahmed5 - )           »          لقاء الخريف / الكاتبة : طرماء و ثرثارة ، كاملة (الكاتـب : taman - )           »          لا تتحديني (165) للكاتبة: Angela Bissell(ج2 من سلسلة فينسينتي)كاملة+رابط (الكاتـب : Gege86 - )           »          Caitlin Crews - My Bought Virgin Wife (الكاتـب : silvertulip21 - )           »          رافاييل (50) للكاتبة: ساندرا مارتون (الجزء الأول من سلسلة الأخوة أورسيني) .. كاملة.. (الكاتـب : Gege86 - )           »          Kay Thorpe A MAN OF MEANS (الكاتـب : رومنسيات - )


العودة   شبكة روايتي الثقافية > مكتبات روايتي > English Library > Fiction > Drama > Danielle Steel

إضافة رد
 
LinkBack أدوات الموضوع انواع عرض الموضوع
قديم 07-02-11, 10:01 AM   #11

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي


Her mother was startled when she heard her daughter. “You sound awful. Are you sick?” She was instantly worried. Brigitte was her only child.
“I … no … yes … well, sort of. I’m not feeling great.”
“What do you have, darling? A flu or a cold?” Actually neither, a broken heart.
“Maybe a little of both,” Brigitte said vaguely, wondering how to tell her what had happened that week. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“How’s Ted? Anything new?” Brigitte’s mother always acted as though she expected him to propose at any minute, and couldn’t understand why he hadn’t. Brigitte hated to admit to her what a mess her life was at the moment, or whine about it. Her mother was always so strong and positive and energetic about life. Brigitte admired her a great deal, and had since she was a child.
Brigitte decided to bite the bullet and start with Ted. “Actually, he had some big news this week. Great news for him. He got his own dig in Egypt. He’s leaving in three weeks.” There was silence at the other end of the phone.
“What does that translate to for you? Are you going to Egypt with him?” Her mother sounded worried when she asked. Having her only child in Boston was hard enough. Egypt was nowhere on her map.
“No, I’m not. This is what he’s always wanted, and he’s going to be there for a long time. At least three years, maybe five. And who knows, if he does a good job of it, maybe ten. That pretty much lets me out of the plan.” She tried to sound calm and philosophical about it, more than she felt.
“Did you know about this?” Her mother sounded disapproving and shocked.
“Sort of. I knew it was what he wanted. I guess I never really thought it would happen, but it did, and things are moving pretty fast. So we kind of decided to end it between us this week and move on. He needs to be free to pursue his dream.” She tried to sound up about it, but she was way down, in a dark pit of self-pity and grief.
“What about your dreams? You’ve been with him for six years.” Her mother sounded stern. She wasn’t angry at her daughter, but at Ted. The trouble was that Brigitte had never identified her dream, neither to Ted nor to herself. So now he had his dream, and she had none. “That’s pretty selfish of him to just go off and do his thing,” her mother said bluntly. She sounded angry, in defense of her daughter.
“It’s what he’s wanted since he started working at BU, Mom. I can’t blame him for that. I just somehow forgot that along the way. Anyway, that’s the way it is.” She swallowed hard then, and decided to tell her mother the rest. “It’s been kind of a crazy week actually. I got laid off yesterday, replaced by a computer.”
“You got fired?” Her mother sounded stunned.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much the way it is, with six months’ severance, so I’m okay financially, but it was sort of a surprise. I knew about the computer, I just didn’t know it would replace me. So it’s been kind of a clean sweep. Ted and BU. Maybe it’s easier that way.”
“For whom?” Her mother sounded irate on her behalf. “Not for you certainly. Ted walks out after six years and waltzes off to Egypt, and BU dumps you after ten. I think that’s shocking, on both counts. Do you want me to come up?” Brigitte smiled when she asked. She felt like such a loser, but it was nice to have her mother’s support. Even though she was outspoken and opinionated, she was devoted, good-hearted, and kind, and had always championed her daughter in all things.
“I’m fine, Mom. I’m going to work on the book and see how that goes. This might be a good chance to finish it in record time. I have nothing else I want to do right now.” She still had the class she was taking toward her doctorate that semester, but after what had happened, she was thinking of dropping it and taking a semester off. She wasn’t in the mood for studying and term papers. Working on her book would be more than enough, given how upset she was.
“Why don’t you come down and visit me in New York?” Her mother was seriously worried about her.
“I have nothing to do there, Mom.” Brigitte hadn’t lived in New York since college, and a lot of her friends had moved away. “I want to send my résumé out to some of the schools here, to see what jobs turn up. Six months will go by pretty fast. I could start somewhere else next fall. And work on the book between now and then.” Her mother didn’t sound convinced and was upset for her.
“I hate to see this happen to you, Brigitte, especially with Ted. You can always find another job. But you invested a lot in the relationship with him. It’s not easy to find someone at your age, and if you want children, you have no time to waste.”
“What do you suggest? Leaflets or billboards? Or full-page ads? It’s my fault too, Mom. I never pressed the point about children and marriage, I didn’t want to. I wasn’t ready either, I always thought I had time. And I figured it was a sure thing with him. I assumed. Well, it wasn’t as sure as I thought. In fact, not at all. He’s not even sure he ever wants to get married or have kids. I guess I missed that message, and I never really asked, not as seriously as I should have. So this is what I get. Maybe no kids.” She felt sad as she said it, and her mother was sad for her.
“He should have said that to you plainly if that was how he felt, and not wasted your time.”
“Maybe. I didn’t think we were in a rush. I wasn’t ready to commit either.” Neither of them said it, but they both knew that now it might be too late. At thirty-eight, she had been suffering from a delusion of youth. Until now. And suddenly her whole world had crashed, both job and man.
“All you girls today think you have forever to get married and have babies. Women have first babies at forty-five and fifty now, with all kinds of crazy medical help. They don’t get married at all. Sixty-year-old women get pregnant, with astounding interventions. It’s not as easy as you all think, and sometimes all these modern techno ideas boomerang and give women a false sense of time. Nature is still on the same schedule it always was, no matter what men have invented to trick her. I hope you’ll be serious about who you get involved with now. You don’t have time to waste anymore.” It was a stern speech and hard to hear, but Brigitte knew she was right.




Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-02-11, 10:02 AM   #12

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي

“I was serious about Ted,” Brigitte said quietly.
“Not as serious as you needed to be, nor was he. You both thought you were still kids.” Brigitte knew she was right about that too. Her mother usually was. It had been easy living that way, but it had all blown up in her face. “Now he’s going off to Egypt, and you’re all alone. That’s very sad.” She sounded sympathetic. She felt terrible for her.
“Yes, it is. But maybe it’s destiny or something. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.” Brigitte was trying to be philosophical about it.
“I wish he’d made that clear earlier.”
“Yeah, me too.” But Brigitte also realized that they had both been emotionally lazy, cavalier, and immature. They were grown-ups, not kids.
“Let me know if you want to come down. Your room is here for you anytime, and I’d love to see you. I’ve been making some real progress on the genealogy. I want to show you what I’ve found recently. If you get tired of working on your book, you can help me with it.” Brigitte couldn’t think of anything she less wanted to do right now. The history of her mother’s family all the way back to the Dark Ages in France had always been more interesting to her mother than to Brigitte, although she admired her mother’s hard work on it. It had been her mother’s hobby and passion for years. Their family history was a legacy she had always wanted to give her daughter. Brigitte preferred historical mysteries, and their very proper ancestors always seemed too tame and mundane to her.
Brigitte visited Amy and her boys later that afternoon, and on Sunday she got started again on her book. And for the first time ever, she found the material she had gathered and the whole issue of women’s suffrage tedious and dry. It no longer seemed as important to her as it once had. Everything in her life seemed lackluster and dull now, and without meaning. Without Ted and her job, she even hated her book. She felt as though she’d reached a dead end in every aspect of her life. What was the point?
By Tuesday, she was bored stiff with what she’d written. And she had heard nothing from Ted since the week before. She pressed on with the book, but by the following weekend she was ready to scream and felt like throwing it all away. She was getting nowhere with it. She was too depressed about Ted and losing her job. She had sent her résumé out to other colleges, and it was too soon to hear anything back. She realized that this time, if they offered her a job, she’d have to be willing to take more responsibility than she had before. Her unwillingness to take on greater challenges had made her easy to replace with a computer and had done her out of a job. But she didn’t expect to hear from the schools for a while.
And after working on the book for a week, it finally ground to a stop. She had nothing left to say, no energy to say it, and too little interest in her subject. She was blocked. She was beginning to think about Amy’s suggestion to go to a beach, just to get away for a while. It started to snow again and everything about Boston depressed her. She hated knowing that Ted was getting ready to leave, and suddenly in the space of ten days, she felt as though she no longer had a life. Without a job or a man, she felt like she didn’t have much to keep her in Boston at the moment, and on the spur of the moment, she decided to fly to New York. She needed a break from everything, and her mother was delighted when she called her from the Boston airport.
Brigitte looked out the window on the brief commuter flight. She felt childish doing it, but with everything in her life topsy-turvy, it felt good to be going home. She knew that she needed to start over, but for now, she had no idea where to start, and a few days in New York would do her good. Her mother had suggested that she send her résumé to NYU and Columbia too, but Brigitte didn’t want to live in New York again. It was raining, and as the plane landed, she had no idea where her life was going. She wanted to spend a few days with her mother in the cozy apartment she had grown up in. And after that Brigitte planned to go back to Boston, although she had no idea where her life would lead. All she knew now, after the recent changes in her life, was that she wanted it to be different from before. Settling for “easy and comfortable” no longer seemed like enough.




Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-02-11, 10:03 AM   #13

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي

Chapter 3

Marguerite Nicholson looked relieved and delighted when she opened the door to her daughter. It was pouring rain in New York, and Brigitte was soaked just getting from the cab into the building. Her mother hurried to hang up her wet raincoat, told her to take off her shoes, and a few minutes later handed her a cup of tea as they sat in front of the fire. There was something immensely reassuring about being there for Brigitte, like sinking into a down comforter, or a feather bed, with a sigh of relief. Her mother was a capable, intelligent woman Brigitte could always count on. Marguerite had saved them from disaster and turned tragedy into a good life for both of them. She had built a respectable career in publishing. When she retired the year before, she left as a senior editor, with many well-known books to her credit, and respected in her field. She had put her daughter all through school, for both degrees, and taught Brigitte the importance of an education, and she’d been proud of Brigitte’s accomplishments and plan to get a Ph.D. She was only disappointed when Brigitte settled for an uninspiring job in the admissions office at BU, and even more so when Brigitte’s seemingly endless years of research never produced her long-promised book. She was as disappointed by that as by Brigitte’s failure to marry and have kids. She wanted her to challenge herself and take life by the horns, but so far Brigitte never had. Marguerite knew she was conscientious and worked hard, but she wanted so much more for her. She was well aware of Brigitte’s aversion to risk-taking and she knew where it came from. All Brigitte had ever wanted was to be safe. Her mother had always wanted a more adventuresome, inspiring life for her. Marguerite knew she was capable of it, but something always seemed to hold Brigitte back. She was still haunted by the traumas of her childhood and her father’s death.
They sat in the cheerful living room of the apartment, and the two women couldn’t have looked more different. Marguerite was as fair as her daughter was dark, although both were tall, with good figures, and whereas Brigitte’s eyes were nearly as dark as her hair, her mother’s were an almost sky blue. They had similar smiles, but different features. Brigitte’s looks and bone structure were far more exotic.
The room was warm and pleasantly decorated, there were a few well-worn antiques, and Marguerite had lit a fire in the fireplace before Brigitte arrived. They sat in front of it in worn but elegant old velvet chairs, drinking tea from the Limoges cups her mother was so proud of, which had been her grandmother’s. Marguerite looked aristocratic and genteel, although nothing in the apartment was of great value, but she had good taste, and had lived there for years. Their home had the patina of time. On every wall, there were bookcases filled with books. It was a home where learning, literature, and education were revered, and anything about their family history fascinated Marguerite, and always had.
“So tell me what’s happening with your book?” Brigitte’s mother asked with interest, not wanting to bring up the painful subjects of Ted and her job.
“I don’t know. I think I’m too distracted. It’s stalling, I’m completely blocked. The research is good, but I can’t seem to get it off the ground. I guess I’m upset about Ted. Maybe it’ll go better after I take a break. That’s why I came down to see you.”
“I’m glad you did. Do you want me to have a look at it? I have to admit, anthropology isn’t my usual subject, and your material is a little lofty, but maybe I can help you give it some zip.” Brigitte smiled at the offer, typical of her mother. And Brigitte was grateful that her mother hadn’t made any harsh comments about Ted. She was just sad for Brigitte.
“I think it needs more than zip, Mom. I’ve already got six hundred and fifty pages on it, and if I follow my outline, through history and in all the countries I want to cover, it will run well over a thousand. I wanted it to be the definitive book on women’s right to vote. But all of a sudden, I wonder if anyone will care. Maybe women’s freedom is about a lot more than their right to participate in the democratic process,” Brigitte said sadly.
“Sounds like a real page turner to me,” her mother teased, but she was sure it would be a thorough, extensive, impeccably competent book. She knew Brigitte’s ability to write, even if the subject seemed dry to her. Brigitte smiled at the comment. It was after all an academic and not a commercial book. “I’ve been busy too. I’ve been back at my research at the local branch of the Mormon library for the last three weeks. It’s incredible the documentation they’ve collected. Do you realize they have more than two hundred camera operators in forty-five countries around the world, taking photographs of local records, for people to use in genealogical research? Their real purpose is to help people baptize their relatives into the Church, even posthumously, but anyone is free to use the records for ancestral purposes. They’re incredibly generous with the information they’ve gathered, and very helpful. Thanks to them I’ve traced the de Margeracs all the way back to New Orleans in 1850, and I know they came to the States from Brittany around that time. Some of them were there long before that, from another branch of the family, but of the same name. Our direct descendants came from Brittany in the late 1840s.” She said it like a news bulletin, and Brigitte smiled. It was her mother’s passion. “That would be my great-grandfather, and your great-great-grandfather, who came over then,” she went on. “What I want to know now is the history of the family before they got to America. I know that both a Philippe and Tristan de Margerac came to America, and there were several counts and a marquis in the group, but I don’t know much about them, or anything actually, before they left France.”
“Wouldn’t you need to research it there, Mom?” Brigitte asked her, attempting to be interested in it. For some reason, although anthropology fascinated her, her mother’s tireless genealogical search for family history had always bored her to tears. She had never developed her mother’s curiosity about their ancestors. It seemed like such ancient history to her, and so irrelevant today. And their ancestors all seemed so dull. None of them seemed exceptional to her.
“The Mormons probably have more of that history than any library in France. They’ve photographed local records there. The European countries are the easiest to research. One of these days I’m going to go to Salt Lake City and pursue it, but I’ve gotten a lot of good material from their library here.” Brigitte nodded politely as she always did, but her mother knew how little the subject interested her, and they moved on to other things—the theater, opera, ballet, which were passions of Marguerite’s too, and the current novel she was reading. Eventually, they talked about Ted, inevitably, and his dig in Egypt. The subject couldn’t be avoided any longer. Marguerite was still sorry about what had happened, and sad for her daughter. She knew it was a huge disappointment, and Marguerite was impressed by how philosophical Brigitte was about it. She wouldn’t have been, in her shoes, to be abandoned after six years. Brigitte was taking a lot of the responsibility on her shoulders, although Marguerite didn’t entirely agree with her. She thought he should have invited Brigitte to go to Egypt with him, and instead he was using it as an opportunity to end the relationship and move on.
They talked about the schools Brigitte had sent her résumé to. She was still determined to stay in the Boston area, but it was too soon for them to have responded to the résumés she sent out. Brigitte knew that the colleges were all busy processing applications, and after that they’d be dealing with acceptances, and their wait list. She doubted that she’d get any response to her letters until May or June. She wasn’t panicking, and she was willing to wait until then. She just needed to find something to do in the meantime, but her mother’s never-ending ancestral project wasn’t it. She wanted to be helpful to her mother, but cataloguing generation after generation of similarly respectable people seemed as dry and predictable to her as her own book. She wished at times that they would turn up a criminal or a creative scoundrel in their background, someone to bring more life to their family tree than what was there.
Both women turned off the lights and went to bed at midnight. The fire was out by then. And Brigitte slept, as she always did, in her childhood room. It was still decorated in flowered pink chintzes, which had been her choice as a young girl. She liked coming home to the familiar fabric and old room, and her long intelligent conversations with her mother. They got on well.
The next morning, they had breakfast together in the kitchen, and then Marguerite went out to do errands, buy groceries, and play bridge with friends. She had a pleasant life, and had been involved with someone for several years. He had died a few years earlier, right before she retired and there had been no one since. She had a wide circle of friends, and went to lunches, dinners, museums and cultural events, mostly with other women, and a few couples. She lived alone but was never bored. And her genealogical project kept her busy on weekends and on nights when she didn’t go out. She had learned to put inquiries out through the Internet, but most of the information she had, she’d gotten from the Mormons. She dreamed of putting it all in a book one day, for Brigitte, and in the meantime, she loved the search, and the hunt for history and relatives of centuries past, even if Brigitte found them tedious and unexciting.
She showed Brigitte her latest notes that afternoon when she came home. Brigitte had done some shopping, and then went up to Columbia, to visit a friend who was a professor there, who promised to keep an ear out for any openings in admissions. He suggested that she might consider teaching instead of admissions, but she didn’t think she had a knack for it, and wanted an administrative job, which gave her more time to write and take classes toward her doctorate. Brigitte looked in better spirits than she had the day she arrived. Her mother had been right, and it was good for her being in New York. Everything seemed electric and alive, although she liked the academic world around Boston. The atmosphere was more casual and younger. But being in New York gave her a nice change of scene. There was a lot more to do here, which was why Marguerite loved it.


Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-02-11, 10:04 AM   #14

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي

When she looked at her mother’s recent research, Brigitte was impressed by the information Marguerite had gathered. She seemed to have the birth and death dates of all her direct ancestors, and many cousins. She knew the counties and parishes in New Orleans where they had lived and died, the names of their homes and plantations, the towns they had migrated to in New York and Connecticut after the Civil War. And she knew the name of the ship one of them had arrived on from Brittany, in 1846. The family seemed to have stayed in the South until just after the Civil War, and then migrated North in the 1860s and 1870s, where they had lived ever since. But what had happened in France before that remained a mystery to her. If anything, Brigitte thought that segment of their history might be more interesting than what her mother knew so far.
“It’s not that long ago, Mom. You ought to be able to get that from the Mormon library too, or a trip to France.”
“I really have to go to Salt Lake to do that. They have more of the European records there and a much larger facility. I just haven’t had time. And libraries that size terrify me. You’re much better at all that than I am.” Her eyes begged Brigitte to help her with the project, and her daughter smiled. Her mother’s enthusiasm touched her heart.
“You know, you have enough here for a book, if you ever want to write one,” Brigitte said encouragingly. She was always impressed by her mother’s diligence and perseverance.
“I don’t think anyone would care about it except our family, and that’s mainly me and you, and a few cousins scattered here and there, unless we still have relatives I don’t know about in France. But I doubt that we do. I’ve found no recent de Margeracs in France. And everyone here has pretty much died out. There’s no one left in the South, and hasn’t been in a hundred years. Your grandfather was born in New York at the turn of the century. There’s really just us now.” It was a labor of love that had fascinated her for years.
“You work so hard on it, Mom,” Brigitte said admiringly.
“I love knowing who we’re related to, where they lived, and what they did there. It’s your legacy too. Maybe one day it will seem more important to you than it does now. There are some very interesting people perched in our family tree,” Marguerite said with a smile, but Brigitte hadn’t found that to be so. They were aristocratic, but there was nothing unusual about them.
In the end, Brigitte spent the rest of the week in New York. She had no pressing reason to go back to Boston. She and her mother went to the theater together, the movies, several small, casual restaurants for dinner, and took long walks in Central Park. They enjoyed each other’s company and her mother tried to stay off painful subjects. There was nothing left to be said about Ted, except that in Marguerite’s opinion Brigitte had wasted six years. And she suspected now that Brigitte thought so too. Ted had proven himself to be totally selfish in the end. Brigitte hadn’t heard from him since his text the morning after they broke up.
On Saturday afternoon they spent a lazy day at home, reading the early edition of the Sunday Times. Her mother chortled when she found an article about genealogies in the magazine section. Predictably, it extolled the virtues of the Mormons and their libraries, and her mother looked at her wistfully again.
“I wish you’d go out to Salt Lake City for me, Brigitte,” she pleaded with her. “You do so much better research than I do. That’s not my forte, but it is yours, and I can’t go any further back now, until I trace the family back to France. I’m pretty much stuck around 1850. Any chance that you’d go there for me?” She didn’t want to add “now that you don’t have a job or a man,” but it was true. Brigitte had time on her hands, and she was feeling restless, while she waited to hear about a job.
She started to say no and then thought about it. There was no reason for her not to go, and from what she’d just read in the Times about the Mormon Family History Library, she had to admit that it sounded interesting, and it was something she could do for her mother, who was always volunteering to do things for her, and was so supportive of her and always had been. It was a small favor she could do for her and Brigitte had nothing else to do now.
“Maybe. I’ll see,” she said noncommittally, not wanting to promise to do it, but she also realized that it was a great way to avoid the book that she was suddenly so disenchanted with. And she thought about it again on Sunday when they were having breakfast in the kitchen and sharing the rest of the Sunday Times. Brigitte was supposed to go back to Boston that afternoon. The weather report said it was snowing there with no end in sight. Two hours later they closed the airport in Boston. The weather was fine in New York; the storm currently in Boston wasn’t due to hit New York until the next day.
“Maybe I could go out to Salt Lake for you for a couple of days,” Brigitte said thoughtfully. “I have a friend from school there, or at least I used to. She has about ten kids and is married to a Mormon. I could look them up and do research for you. It might be fun.” Brigitte smiled at her mother, and Marguerite’s face lit up at the prospect.
“I’d be so grateful if you did. I can’t do another thing until I trace them back through Brittany. The Mormons have incredible records on microfiche and disks, with assistants to help you find it.” She was selling hard, and Brigitte laughed.
“Okay, okay, Mom,” Brigitte answered, and a few minutes later she called the airline and booked a flight to Salt Lake for later that afternoon. It felt good to help her mother, and it was beginning to sound like a more intriguing project. Brigitte was suddenly fascinated to see the Mormon library in Salt Lake, and she wondered if she’d find something there she could use for her book too, although it was unlikely.
Her mother thanked her profusely when she left, and Brigitte promised to call and report her findings. She had booked a reservation at the Carlton Hotel and Suites, which she saw on the Internet was within walking distance of Temple Square where the Family History Library was located. Now that she had agreed to go, Brigitte could hardly wait to see it. She was vastly impressed by what she had seen on the Internet about it. They apparently had hundreds of volunteers to help, and all their records and resources were without charge, except for photocopying documents and photos. It was a remarkable service to the public that they had been providing for decades. The Mormons had a gigantic organization and the most thorough research operation in the world.
Brigitte was thinking about it when she boarded the flight to Salt Lake, and hoped she’d find something of interest to her mother. She didn’t really expect to find anything exceptional in her family history. Everything her mother had come up with so far was both circumspect and benign. They were respectable aristocrats who, for some reason, had chosen to come to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, long after the reign of Napoleon. Perhaps they had come to purchase land, or discover new territories—and they stayed. But Brigitte wondered now too what they had done in France before they’d come to America, what had happened to them during the Napoleonic reign, and the French Revolution fifteen years before that. She was on a mission of discovery now that suddenly seemed a lot more interesting than chronicling women’s rights to vote around the world. Maybe her mother was right after all, and the subject she was researching now was far more worthwhile than what she had been doing for the last seven years. Brigitte was about to find out in Salt Lake.
The flight to Salt Lake City took five and a half hours, and she went straight to the hotel from the airport. It was a European-style inn built in the 1920s, and was a short walk to Temple Square, which was her destination the next day. To orient herself and get some air, she went for a walk before dinner. She found Temple Square easily, a few blocks away, and immediately spotted the enormous Family History Library on the west side of the square, on the same side as the history museum of the Church, and Osmyn Deuel’s cabin, which had been preserved since 1847 and was the oldest in the city. She walked past the Mormon Temple with its impressive six spires, and the domed Tabernacle next to it, which was open to the public for rehearsals and concerts of the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Both structures were impressive to see, even from the outside. She saw the capitol, and walked past the Beehive House and the Lion House, both built in the mid-1850s, which had been the official residences of Brigham Young, who had been the president of the Church and the first governor of Utah.


Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-02-11, 10:04 AM   #15

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي

Brigitte was startled to see how many people were walking around the square, despite the chilly weather, and all of them were looking at the buildings with both awe and interest, which suggested that they weren’t locals but tourists. There seemed to be a huge number of people in town, many of them congregated around the square. And people looked pleasant and happy, and were obviously excited to be there. The atmosphere was contagious, and Brigitte was in good spirits when she went back to her room at the hotel. She was beginning to enjoy her mother’s project more than she ever had before. With the time to explore it now, it was adding a new dimension to her life.
She called her mother from her room, after she ordered dinner, and reported on everything she’d seen so far, and she was sorry her mother hadn’t come with her. Marguerite was grateful that Brigitte had made the trip on her behalf.
“I couldn’t have gone anyway,” Marguerite said practically. “I have a bridge tournament tomorrow.” For a woman who had worked hard for twenty-five years and had never expected to before that, she enjoyed her leisure days, and Brigitte was glad she did. She had earned them. And if their genealogy was so important to her, Brigitte was happy to use her own research skills to help the project along. She had a feeling the Mormons were going to advance the project considerably. With two billion names in databases, two and a half million rolls of microfilm, and 300,000 books with information gathered from all over the world, Brigitte was sure that she would find records of some of their relatives in France. Her mother wanted to go back as far as she could. It would have been a thrill for her if the de Margeracs turned out to be important players in the history of France. She had been a history buff since college. There was certainly no harm in that, and it was coming to mean more to Brigitte than women’s suffrage, which had seemed so vital to her before. This was far more personal, and she felt as though she was just blocks away now from where the history of her family lay.
She ate dinner in her room, and wished she could share what she was doing with Ted. She knew he hadn’t left Boston yet, and thought about calling him, but she realized that hearing his voice when he was already lost to her would upset her too much. He would be leaving for Egypt soon, for the excavation that had replaced her.
She tried to look up her old friend from school that night, and discovered that finding her was hopeless. Her husband was a direct descendant of Brigham Young, she had said, and Brigitte found page after page of Youngs in the telephone book. His first name was John, and there were hundreds of those too. She was sorry not to see her, and wished she had kept track of her over the years. All she knew of her before they lost sight of each other was that her friend had ten kids. It was hard for Brigitte to imagine, but it seemed to be a fairly normal occurrence here, where large families were common.
Brigitte slept well that night in the big comfortable bed. She had asked to be woken at eight o’clock, and when they called her, she was dreaming of Ted. He was still much on her mind, and it was hard to believe he had left her life forever, but it was obvious that he had. Six years gone up in smoke, and now she had hundreds of years of her family history to pursue for her mother. She was suddenly grateful for the distraction. She felt the thrill of the hunt as she got up, showered and dressed, and ate a quick breakfast of oatmeal, tea, and toast before she left the room.
She knew the way to Temple Square now after her reconnaissance mission the night before. She saw the familiar buildings, and walked into the Family History Library, and then followed the signs to the orientation that would help her find her way around. There were hundreds of library assistants throughout the building, just waiting to offer their expertise and help. After seeing the brief presentation, Brigitte knew exactly where to go, and went upstairs to a desk, where she knew she could find records for Europe. She explained to the young woman at the desk that she was looking for a family in France.
“Paris?” the young woman asked her, grabbing a notepad.
“No, Brittany, I think.” Brigitte wrote down her mother’s maiden name, de Margerac, which was her own middle name. “They came to New Orleans sometime around 1850.” It had already been an American territory by then, having been sold by Napoleon to the Americans sometime during his reign, for fifteen million dollars. “I don’t know anything before that. That’s why I’m here.” She smiled at the librarian, who was helpful and pleasant. She was wearing a name tag that said her name was Margaret Smith. She introduced herself as “Meg.”
“And that’s why we’re here, to help you,” the woman said warmly. “Let’s see what we have in our records. Give me a few minutes.” She indicated a sitting area where Brigitte could wait, in front of one of the film reader stations, where later they would look at microfilm together, poring over lists and records and birth and death certificates from the region, photographed by the researchers who traveled around the world to film them.
It took about twenty minutes for her to return, carrying the film, and she and Brigitte sat down together. She turned on the machine and they began looking at what she had found. It was a full ten minutes before Brigitte saw anything that looked familiar to her, and then suddenly there it was, de Margerac, Louise, born in 1819, followed by Philippe, Edmond, and Tristan, all born within a few years of each other, and in 1825, Christian, who died a few months later, as an infant. The records were from a county in Brittany. It led them to look back further to the previous generation. It took another half hour, and there were three of them, boys, born between 1786 and 1789, right before the French Revolution: Jean, Gabriel, and Paul, brothers born of the same parents. This time, searching forward again, there were records of their deaths in Quimper and Carnac, in Brittany. All three of them had died between 1837 and 1845. Brigitte made careful note of their names in a notepad she had brought for that purpose, and the years they had been born and died. And by moving farther forward on the microfilm, they found the deaths of Louise and Edmond de Margerac, sister and brother, in the 1860s. But nowhere could they find records of the deaths of Philippe and Tristan. The young library assistant suggested they might have moved away and died elsewhere, and Brigitte knew they were the de Margeracs who had come to New Orleans circa 1850 and eventually died there. She knew that was the part of the research her mother had already gathered. Brigitte had written down everything so far to share with her, although she was planning to buy copies of the microfilm documents for her mother as well.
They went back to an earlier generation, and found the births of both Tristan and Jean de Margerac, names that had been used again in later generations. Jean had been born in 1760, and Tristan a decade before that. There was no record of Jean’s death, but it showed that Tristan, Marquis de Margerac, had died in 1817, after the abdication of Napoleon, and the Marquise de Margerac a few months later, but there was no record of her birth in the area before that. Brigitte wondered if she had come from another part of France, and as they checked the date of her death again, only two months after her husband, Brigitte scribbled the information down and was struck by her name. It didn’t sound French to her.


Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-02-11, 10:05 AM   #16

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي

“What kind of name is that?” she asked the librarian. “Is that French?”
“I don’t think so.” The woman smiled at Brigitte. Like all families, or most of those she helped research, they had uncovered a mystery in hers. The first name of the Marquise de Margerac was listed as Wachiwi, in the careful scrolled hand of the county clerk at the time of her death in 1817. “It’s a Native American name actually. I’ve seen it before. I can look it up for you, but as far as I know, it’s Sioux.”
“How weird to give a French girl a Sioux name.” Brigitte looked intrigued.
The librarian left the reading station and looked it up while Brigitte checked her notes again, and then returned to confirm what she had said. “It’s Sioux. It means ‘dancer.’ It’s such a pretty name.”
“How odd that a French noblewoman would have a Sioux name.” It sounded a little eccentric to Brigitte, although who knew what the fashions had been then, or where Wachiwi’s mother had heard the name?
“Not really,” the librarian explained. “I’ve heard that Louis XVI was fascinated by Native Americans before the Revolution. I’ve read stories about how he invited Indian chiefs to France, and presented them to court as honored guests. Probably a few of them stayed, and the most common ports of entry then were in Brittany. So perhaps a Sioux chief and his daughter remained in France, and she married the marquis, your relative. She wouldn’t have come alone, and most likely one of the chiefs brought to court was accompanied by his daughter. The Revolution was in 1789, and if she came to France before that in the 1780s, that would make her about the right age. Assuming she was somewhere in her teens when she came into France in the 1780s, she would have been in her fifties when she died in 1817, which was considered a great age for a woman then. The three boys born between 1786 and 1789 were undoubtedly hers. More than likely she was a Sioux woman who came to Brittany from the States, and captured the heart of the marquis. I’ve never come across a Frenchwoman called Wachiwi—all of the women I’ve read about with that name were Dakota Sioux.
“There were definitely Sioux in France in those days, and some just never left. It’s a little-known piece of history, but it has always fascinated me. They weren’t brought in as slaves or prisoners, they were brought over as guests, and several were presented at court.”
Brigitte was enthralled by what she said. She had found a piece of history in her own family that had sparked her interest. Somehow, somewhere, for some reason, the Marquis de Margerac, who would have been the grandfather of her mother’s great-grandfather, had married a young Sioux woman and made her a marquise, and she had borne him three sons, the eldest of whom was named for the marquis’s younger brother, who had died somewhere along the way. They found a record a few minutes later of two other of the marquis’s children, born earlier than Wachiwi’s three sons. Their names were Agathe and Matthieu. The marquise listed as their mother had a different name than Wachiwi, and she died in 1778, on the same date their youngest child was born. She had obviously died in childbirth, and Wachiwi had been a second wife to him. It was fascinating piecing it all together from the ledgers the Mormons had photographed in Brittany.
“How would I find out more information about Wachiwi?” Brigitte asked Meg with a look of delight over the information she’d been given and that they had unearthed together. It had far exceeded her expectations and surely even her mother’s. She had gone back another hundred years from what her mother had been able to learn, and now they had some really interesting things to work with, like a young Sioux woman married to a marquis in Brittany.
“You’d have to go to the Sioux for that information. They keep records, not as detailed as ours, or as varied geographically obviously. But they’ve transcribed a lot of the oral histories. It’s not as easy to find people, but sometimes you do. It’s worth a look.”
“Where would I go to find that? To the Bureau of Indian Affairs?” Brigitte asked her.
“No, I think to the Sioux historical office in South Dakota. Most of the material is there. It might be hard to find a record of a young woman, unless she was the daughter of an important chief, or had done something illustrious herself, like Sacajawea, but the Lewis and Clark expedition was about twenty years later than our dates for Wachiwi,” Meg said thoughtfully. They both felt as though they had a new friend, and Brigitte felt suddenly bonded to the ancestor who had married the marquis. “You look a little Sioux yourself,” the librarian said cautiously, not sure how Brigitte would react to that information, and she looked wistful as the librarian said it.
“My father was Irish. I always thought that accounted for my black hair, but maybe it’s not him at all. Maybe it’s some kind of throwback to Wachiwi.” She suddenly loved that idea, and wanted to know everything she could find out about her. They pored over the records at the Family History Library for another hour, but for now there was nothing more. She had discovered three generations of relatives, all descended from Tristan and Wachiwi de Margerac, and a mystery she had never known of before that felt like a gift. She thanked Meg profusely and it was midafternoon when she got back to her room at the hotel and called her mother. Marguerite sounded in good spirits and said that she and her partner had won at bridge.
“Have I got a fascinating piece of family history for you!” Brigitte said victoriously, in a voice of excitement that delighted her mother.
“You found something?” Her mother sounded thrilled at the news.
“Lots of somethings. Three generations of de Margeracs in Brittany, and two who have no death dates, Philippe and Tristan, and since Philippe was the eldest, he would have been the marquis at that time. I was able to trace back three generations.”
“Those are the two who went to New Orleans in 1848 and 1850!” Marguerite said excitedly. “Ohmigod, you found them, Brig! Who else was there? I know all about those two. Philippe was my great-grandfather, my father’s grandfather. His brother Tristan moved to New York after the Civil War, but Philippe died in New Orleans before that. I’m so excited you found their birth records. Who else did you find? The Mormons are amazing, aren’t they?”
“They’re incredible. I found their sister or cousin Louise and brother Edmond, who died in France, and a baby brother Christian, who died as an infant. And in the generation before that, Jean, Gabriel, and Paul de Margerac, whose father was the Marquis Tristan de Margerac, and I found his two earlier children as well, and both his wives, one who died in childbirth, and the other who died around the same time he did. We should probably go to France and look at records there to discover exactly who was married to whom. Sometimes it’s a little hard to figure out who are siblings and who are cousins, unless they make it very clear. They don’t always, but the really exciting piece of history I discovered was the second wife of the marquis at the time of Louis XVI.”
“That’s amazing for one day’s research!” The two women sounded elated, especially Brigitte’s mother, who that day had acquired another hundred years of her family history that she had been pursuing for years. What was available at the local branch of the Mormon library wasn’t as extensive as what Brigitte had access to in Salt Lake.
“The librarian was incredibly helpful, the records are all there, and I was lucky. Maybe I was destined to find it.” She was beginning to feel that way. There was something almost mystical about it. She had come across more anthropology in the last three hours than she had in the last ten years. “The name of the marquis’s second wife was Wachiwi,” Brigitte said as though she were handing her mother a gift.


Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-02-11, 10:05 AM   #17

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي

“Wachiwi? Is that French?” Marguerite sounded confused. “I don’t think it is. What nationality was she?”
“She was Sioux. Can you imagine? In Brittany. Apparently, Louis XVI invited several Sioux chiefs to the court as honored guests. Some of them stayed. She must have been related to one of them, or got to France herself somehow. But the librarian at the Family History Library said there’s no question. She’s Sioux. Wachiwi means ‘dancer’ in Sioux. So we have a Sioux woman in our family history, Mom, way, way back through the generations. And she married the marquis, and had three sons. One of them must have been the father of the Philippe and Tristan who went to New Orleans, and the older Tristan and Wachiwi were their grandparents. That means she was the grandmother of your great-grandfather, Mom. I want to find out more about her. Apparently I have to go to the Sioux nation to find that. I think I might fly to South Dakota from here. I want to see what I can find.” Brigitte hadn’t been on a hunt like this since school, but it was what she loved about anthropology. And finally she had come across one of their ancestors who truly grabbed her interest. Suddenly both women’s passions had converged, brought to light by this one Sioux woman in their ancestry. Brigitte hadn’t had this much fun in years. Even her name was romantic. Wachiwi. The dancer. Just thinking about it made her dream.
“It’s hard to believe that a young Sioux girl could get all the way to Brittany, and marry a marquis. That was an incredibly long way in those days. It must have taken months to get there, on some little tiny ship.”
“Imagine what it must have been like to be a Sioux woman at the court of Louis XVI. That’s pretty amazing,” Brigitte added. “I hope I can find something about her in the oral histories. The woman at the Family History Library said it was unlikely, unless she was the daughter of an important chief. But she might have been. She must have been someone important to get all the way to France, and to be presented at the court of the king—if that’s how she met the marquis.”
“We might never know, dear,” her mother said reasonably, but Brigitte was on a mission. She wanted to discover whatever she could find about a Sioux girl called Wachiwi, who was part of her history. Brigitte suddenly felt a bond to her like no other, and she was going to do all she could to find out about her. Wachiwi, the Marquise de Margerac, wife of the Marquis Tristan de Margerac. Brigitte felt a powerful pull to find out who she was, as though Wachiwi herself was calling to her, taunting her with the mystery. It was a challenge Brigitte found impossible to resist.




Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-02-11, 10:06 AM   #18

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي

Chapter 4
The trip from Salt Lake to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was long. Brigitte had to fly to Minneapolis first, kill time in the airport, and then finally get a flight to Sioux Falls. She arrived there six hours after she left Salt Lake. She could hardly wait to go to the university the next morning to begin her research. The university itself was in Vermillion, South Dakota, sixty-five miles from Sioux Falls, but she had decided to spend the night in Sioux Falls, and travel the rest of the distance in the morning. And the only accommodation she could find was at a clean, brightly lit motel, located across the street from a park. The town was situated on the bluffs above the Big Sioux River. And after settling into her motel room, Brigitte went outside for a walk. She found an appealing-looking diner while she was walking and stopped for something to eat. She loved watching the people come and go as she ate.
She noticed that there was snow on the ground when she left the diner. The temperature was freezing, and she was anxious to get back to her motel. She wanted to get up early to drive to Vermillion the next morning. Brigitte’s destination was the University of South Dakota, where the Institute of American Indian Studies housed the Dr. Joseph Harper Cash Memorial Library. There books, photographs, films, and videos referred to the oral histories Brigitte was seeking. The Sioux referred to their myths and legends as “lessons.” She hoped that the mystery of Wachiwi would be solved there.
If not, she had no idea where else to go. The Institute of American Indian Studies was the definitive resting place for oral histories about the Sioux, with nearly six thousand recorded interviews in their archives. But the woman she was seeking had lived more than two hundred years ago, closer to 230, and she wouldn’t be easy to find. She was the proverbial needle in the haystack, and it was only with great good fortune that some story about her would have been passed on from generation to generation and been preserved. Maybe the fact that Wachiwi or her father had gone to France had made them noteworthy. She must have been remarkable in some way to have gone so far from her Dakota home.
The artifacts at the institute were ancient and fragile, and had been carefully preserved, and once again Brigitte was able to find a librarian, who in this case was not just helpful, but fascinated by the story Brigitte told. As Brigitte did, the librarian at the institute loved the idea that Wachiwi had wound up at the court of the King of France, or close enough if she had stayed in Brittany and married a marquis. It seemed more than likely to both of them that she had been one of those rare, early Americans who had been guests at the French court, like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. And maybe Wachiwi de Margerac. Why else would she have gone to France? How had she gotten there? Who had invited her? Who had gone with her? And how had she stayed on another continent so far from home? Brigitte wondered if her relatives had traveled with her, her parents, maybe siblings. It was inconceivable that she had journeyed to France alone, particularly as a young Sioux girl.
The librarian introduced herself as Jan and explained to Brigitte that the mores that applied to young Sioux maidens had been extremely strict for a long time. They were kept secluded, their virginity was essential, and they could not look the men in their tribe directly in the eyes. One could only assume that Wachiwi had been carefully surrounded and protected when she went to France. It was hard to imagine her family’s reaction to her marrying a French marquis, or that of the French marquis’s family to her. It was hardly an ordinary match. Finally, Brigitte had found an ancestor who not only excited her imagination but captured her heart. It made the whole project come alive for her at last.
The woman in charge of the library showed Brigitte countless photographs of young Sioux girls, and this time they both noticed that Brigitte bore a faint resemblance to some of them. Brigitte was older and modern in style, her features were less pronounced, but in more than one of the photographs, there was a similarity between her and some of the young girls. And her long black hair made the resemblance easier to discern. If so, Wachiwi’s genes had been strong, or perhaps it was only coincidence, but Brigitte loved the idea. She couldn’t wait to tell Amy about it when she went home. It suddenly made her feel more exotic, and she felt an even stronger tie with this young girl, who had ventured into a whole other world.
Jan showed Brigitte the records of the oral histories then, and it was hard to know where to start, there were so many of them. But the librarian knew her resources well. They pored through them all afternoon until they closed. But nothing about Wachiwi had turned up, or even anything about a chief going to the French court, although Brigitte knew now that several had, and the librarian said she had read of it too, mostly in books about eighteenth-century France. She had even seen drawings of Sioux chiefs in a combination of native and French court garb.
Brigitte was discouraged when she drove back to the motel in Sioux Falls. She had hoped to find something, anything that led Wachiwi from the mists of the distant past. She called her mother and told her they had found nothing so far, and Brigitte dreamed of Wachiwi that night. She was a beautiful young girl.
They found nothing on the second day either, and on the third day, Brigitte was about to give up, when they came across a series of histories that had been taken from old Sioux men of the Dakota tribe. The accounts had been recorded in 1812, and in one case were recollections an old chief had from when he was a boy. He had spoken of a Dakota chief named Matoskah, White Bear, who had had five brave sons from his first wife who died. His second wife had been a beautiful young girl, who also died when their infant girl was born. The child became the song of her father’s soul. She grew up protected by her brothers and father and refused to marry until she was older than the other girls in the village. Chief Matoskah thought no brave was worthy of her, and he and his daughter refused all the suitors who came for her hand. The man who had given the oral history said she was a proud, beautiful girl. And then he talked of their wars with the Crow, the many braves who had died fighting to protect the village, the war parties, the raids, and then he mentioned the girl again. He said that on one of their raids, the Crow had killed two of her brothers who were trying to protect her, and a young boy, and the Crow had taken her to give to their chief as a slave. The Sioux braves tried to bring her back but never could, and her father, the great chief Matoskah, had died of a broken heart later that year. The man giving the history said when the girl left, her father’s spirit left with her. He had been young himself then, but he remembered it well. He said they heard stories of her later, that she had been given to the Crow chief, and she had killed him and run away. They never found her, and she was never seen again. She never came back to her father’s tribe. A French trapper said he had seen her once, traveling with a white man, but trappers were known for their lies to Indians, so no one believed him. The girl was gone. The man telling the story said he didn’t know. Maybe she had been taken by a great spirit for killing the chief of the Crow. He said her name was Wachiwi, the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and her father, Chief Matoskah, had been the wisest chief he’d ever known.


Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-02-11, 10:06 AM   #19

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي

There she was, Brigitte thought to herself, as he moved on to another story of his youth and the buffalo hunts on the Great Plains. Wachiwi. She had been taken from her tribe, and given to a Crow chief. They said she killed him, and ran away. Who was the white man the trapper said he saw with her? Brigitte had the feeling that she was following a ghost. Elusive, beautiful, mysterious, brave. She wondered if this was the same Wachiwi who had turned up in France. It was hard to know. More than two hundred years later, the trail was cold. And maybe it didn’t matter. They knew enough. But Brigitte was like a dog with a bone. She couldn’t let go.
For the next week, she and Jan, the librarian, combed the oral histories of the Crow, who were part of the Sioux nation too, even though frequently at war with the Dakota Sioux. At lunchtime, Brigitte and Jan went to a nearby restaurant, and they talked endlessly of the collections of histories that Brigitte was discovering day by day. The stories were totally absorbing and Brigitte was falling in love with the people she was reading about. Talking to Jan about it brought it more and more to life. It was like traveling back in time.
They found nothing for days, and then finally, there she was again, and the earlier story was confirmed.
The man telling this story sang the praises of the Crow chief Napayshni, whom he had known as a boy. He said the chief had two wives and was given a beautiful girl they had taken from the Sioux. He called her a bad spirit and said she had bewitched their chief, lured him into the woods, and killed him. They never found her again. He thought she might have been taken by another tribe, and a trapper said she had been taken by a Frenchman, but she was long gone. The man telling the story was convinced that she was a spirit and not a girl, and she had simply vanished after killing their chief. As she read it, Brigitte knew it was Wachiwi, and she was mesmerized by the mention of the Frenchman. Brigitte knew in her bones that someone had saved this girl. And whatever had happened, she had clearly been very brave, to kill her captor and run away. She knew in her gut that it was the same Wachiwi who had gone to France, and whoever the Frenchman was in the second story, somehow he had taken her home. The rest of the story might never be told. But it was enough. Brigitte knew what she needed to of Wachiwi, the young Indian girl who had been adored by her father and brothers, taken by the Crow in a war raid, and given to their chief; she had killed him to escape, and then a mysterious Frenchman had found her and took her back to France. She must have been a beguiling woman. The second narrator had called her bewitching. But she was no witch, she sounded like a beautiful, fiercely brave young girl, and from there she became a marquise in Brittany. It was an extraordinary story, and a remarkable history to share.
Brigitte hated to leave, but she had accomplished what she had come to South Dakota to do. She had found the traces of Wachiwi she needed to confirm what she believed. She thanked Jan profusely when she left, and felt as though she had made a friend. After saying goodbye, she drove back to Sioux Falls, and caught a flight that would connect her to Boston. She felt at peace, as though a missing part of her had slipped into place. Wachiwi. The dancer. Brigitte wondered what more she could discover about her if she delved deeper into her family history in France. A girl as remarkable as that would have been talked about there too—a young Indian girl of the Dakota Sioux, who captured the heart of a marquis, and spent the rest of her days in France. Surely someone would have written of her there. It had become Brigitte’s mission to follow her trail.


Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-02-11, 10:07 AM   #20

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

? العضوٌ??? » 130321
?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
? مشَارَ?اتْي » 49,796
? الًجنِس »
? دولتي » دولتي Egypt
? مزاجي » مزاجي
?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي

Chapter 5
Brigitte had a lot to think about on the flights from South Dakota to Boston. She had only been gone for ten days, but she felt as though her life had been changed forever by one Dakota Sioux Indian woman. Wachiwi was all she had thought about for days, while she tried to find her in the oral histories. There were still so many mysteries about her. How had she come to leave the Crows who had kidnapped her? Was she the same girl as the Wachiwi who had married the marquis in Brittany? Was she really the one who had killed the Crow chief and disappeared? Had someone rescued her? Who was the white man with her that one of the oral histories talked about? And the Frenchman with her in another? And how had she gotten from South Dakota to France? Brigitte was convinced it was the same girl, and it was frustrating beyond belief not to have all the pieces of the story and all the missing links. She felt like one of Ted’s fellow archaeologists finding bone fragments and trying to build an entire dinosaur out of them, to discover everything about him, including where he lived, how he died, who his enemies were, and what he ate. But sooner or later, most of the time, the pieces came together. And she hoped they would about Wachiwi too. It had been such an exciting time for her. She was so glad her mother had convinced her to go to Salt Lake. She had picked up the trail where her mother left off, and had discovered something entirely new. Wachiwi. Brigitte thought she was more interesting than all the rest of their relatives put together, except maybe the marquis.
As exciting as the trip had been, because it had taken her mind off all her problems and failures, coming home to her apartment in Boston sank her into a depression that took her breath away. The apartment looked dark and dusty. It hadn’t been cleaned in two weeks, or more since she’d been depressed when she left. The first thing she saw when she looked at the bookcase was a shelf of Ted’s books that she had forgotten to return and he had forgotten to reclaim. It reminded her that he was gone forever, that she didn’t have a boyfriend—or a job. There was not a single response by mail, or e-mail, to all the résumés she had sent out. No one had offered her a job, or even wanted to see her for an interview. And she didn’t have a man in her life. And if she wanted one, she had to start to date again. How was she supposed to do that? Computer dating? Blind dates through friends? Pick-ups in bars? None of those solutions appealed to her, and the thought of starting to date after six years sank her spirits to rock bottom.
When she checked her messages, she found that Ted had called to say goodbye. He hadn’t called her cell phone where he knew he would almost surely get her, he had called her at her apartment, at an hour when he’d been almost sure that she was out, so he wouldn’t have to talk to her. It was a cowardly thing to do. He didn’t want to talk to her, and his voice on the message said he was leaving for Egypt the next day. When she had been flying in from South Dakota, he was flying out. He was gone. Forever. Following his dream. And what was hers? Another job in a college admissions office, checking applications? Finishing a deadly boring book about women’s voting that no one would ever read? For ten days she had been totally excited about what she was doing. And hours later, if that, she felt dead again. As dead as her life. But she couldn’t spend the rest of her days chasing Wachiwi either. She had lived more than two centuries ago, and many of the mysteries about her would never be solved, the questions never answered. Brigitte had to go back to trying to finish a book she no longer cared about, find a job she didn’t want, and look for a replacement for a man she no longer thought she really loved and who hadn’t loved her. What was she doing with her life? And what had she been doing for the last ten years? Damned if she knew. And she knew even less what she wanted to do now. It was a miserable place to be in. And finally, not knowing what else to do, she went to bed.
She got up early the next morning, and organized all the notes she had taken in South Dakota and Salt Lake. She wanted to put them in some kind of chronological order for her mother, and hand them over to her. She had it all in perfect sequence by noon, and then she faxed it to her mother. Late that afternoon her mother called her after she had read it all and digested it.
“That’s fantastic, Brig. I’m sure it’s the same woman who married the marquis.”
“I can’t prove it, but so do I. She must have been quite a woman. It’s nice to know we’re related to her. She must have been one gutsy kid.” Her mother smiled at what she said. Brigitte sounded better again, but Marguerite was worried about the direction her life was going to take.
“So what’s my gutsy kid going to do?” her mother asked her. “Are you going to stay in Boston, or move back to New York? This might be a good time to do it. You’d probably earn more money here.”
“There are more colleges in Boston,” Brigitte said reasonably. “I’m just going to wait and see who responds, and try to finish my book.”
But it was easier said than done. She felt as though she had a cement block on her head, when she got back to her book about the vote the next day. Compared to her exciting research about Wachiwi, her book about the vote was like swimming through glue. She just couldn’t do it, and she could no longer remember why she thought the definitive work about women’s suffrage was such a good idea. She called Amy in her office that afternoon.
“I think I’m schizophrenic,” she announced when her friend answered.
“Why? Are you hearing voices?”
“Not yet, but maybe I should. The only voice I’m hearing is my own, and it’s boring me to death. I think I have writer’s block. Maybe I’m traumatized over Ted. I hate my book.”
“You’re just in a slump. It happens to me too. Go for a walk, or a swim, play tennis. Do some exercise. You’ll feel better when you get back.”
“I’ve just had the most fun I’ve had in years, for the past ten days.” Brigitte even sounded excited when she said it, and Amy was thrilled to hear it.
“Ohmigod! What? A guy?”
“No, a Sioux Indian girl I discovered in my family tree in Salt Lake. If she’s the right one, she was kidnapped from her village by the Crow Indians, ran away from them, may have killed the chief on her way out, possibly ran off with a Frenchman, or a white man anyway, and somehow got from South Dakota to France, where she married a marquis, and may have gone to the court of Louis XVI. Now how exciting is that?”
“Very. But there are a lot of ‘may haves’ and ‘possiblies’ in the story. How much do you know for sure, and how much are you wishing is true?”
“I’m wishing all of it is true. And some of the oral histories are a little vague. But she turns up in several of them, by name. And she definitely married the marquis, and my mother is descended from her, and so am I. She wound up in Brittany, married to a marquis, and she definitely is Sioux. That I know for sure. I fell in love with her, following her life. It’s the most exciting stuff I’ve read about or researched in years, and I come back here, my apartment is dirty, my boyfriend is history, and left me a stupid message before he flew off to Egypt forever. No one is offering me a job and maybe never will, and even if they do, I’m not even sure I care about the job, and I’m trying to finish the dullest book in history, which I hate. Now what do I do?”
“Sounds like you need a fresh start. What if you shelve the book for now and write about something else? Why don’t you write about this intriguing relative of yours? That might be a lot more interesting than the women’s vote.”
“She probably is, but then I’m throwing away seven years. I threw away six with Ted. And ten working for BU, and they deep-sixed me on two hours’ notice. That’s a lot of years to have spent and wind up with nothing on all fronts.”
“Sometimes you just have to let go. Like a bad investment, at some point you have to cut your losses and start over again.” It was good advice, and Brigitte knew it.
“Yeah. But on what?”
“You’ll know. I think you need a break. Why don’t you take a trip? I mean a real trip. Not Salt Lake and South Dakota. Why don’t you go to Europe or something? There are a lot of cheap tickets on the Internet if you look for them.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Brigitte didn’t sound convinced. “Do you want to have dinner tonight?”
Amy sounded apologetic. “I can’t. I’m writing another article, and my deadline is next week. Both of my kids have been sick, and I haven’t done a thing. If I don’t stay home and work, I’m screwed.”
Brigitte felt better when she hung up, but not enough so, she still felt antsy and bored and as though her life had no direction, and that night she thought about what Amy had said. Maybe she was right. Maybe she should do something totally crazy, like go to Europe, even though she didn’t have a job. In fact, maybe it was a good time to do it. Maybe she could go to Brittany and Paris, and look for history on Wachiwi there. By midnight, she had decided to do it, somewhat nervously. And by the next morning, she was looking for tickets on the Internet, as Amy had suggested.
She found one for the following weekend. March wasn’t a great month to go to Europe weather-wise, but she told herself there was no time like the present, she had nothing else planned, and it would give her something fun to do. She called her mother that afternoon and told her what she was doing, and her mother sounded amazed. Wachiwi had given Brigitte a whole new lease on life. She was obsessed with finding her. Her mother thought her trip to Brittany and Paris was a great idea. Suddenly she’d been bitten by the genealogical bug, just like her mother. But what fascinated Brigitte was Wachiwi, not their long aristocratic history, which meant nothing to her. Wachiwi. The young Sioux girl who had defied all odds, survived the unthinkable, accomplished the impossible, wound up in France, and married a marquis. It didn’t get more interesting than that, as an anthropologist or a woman. What she was doing was even more exciting to her than Ted’s long-awaited dig in Egypt was to him. This was so much more recent, Wachiwi was so real and seemed so alive in everything Brigitte read about her. She couldn’t wait to get to France now and continue her research.
With a sigh, she put all her material on the suffrage book in two cardboard boxes, and stuck them under her desk. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she was going to think about that tomorrow. For now, all she cared about was Wachiwi. Everything else could wait.




Dalyia غير متواجد حالياً  
التوقيع
أنْت يـَـــا اللَّـه 【 تَكْفِينِي 】ツ

رد مع اقتباس
إضافة رد

مواقع النشر (المفضلة)

أدوات الموضوع
انواع عرض الموضوع

تعليمات المشاركة
لا تستطيع إضافة مواضيع جديدة
لا تستطيع الرد على المواضيع
لا تستطيع إرفاق ملفات
لا تستطيع تعديل مشاركاتك

BB code is متاحة
كود [IMG] متاحة
كود HTML معطلة
Trackbacks are متاحة
Pingbacks are متاحة
Refbacks are متاحة

الانتقال السريع


الساعة الآن 02:43 PM



Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.