Marcel looked up. He saw them, their eyes holding one another, and then Rudolphen"s face contorted with rage.
"Shopkeeper or no, it was his will," Rudolphe whispered.
"I am not referring to the cabinetmaker, Monsieur, I am referring to you!"
"Maman, what are you saying?" Marcel"s tone was impatient, desperate as if to say What now?
Rudolphe was furious. He remained a moment longer, his hands curling at his sides, then forming into fists. He strode toward the alley-way and then turned.
"What is it?" Marcel rose, his hand on the banister, wiping the tears from his face. "What are you saying?" His mother was angry, he could see it in the tremor of her lip, the narrowing of her eyes. "Maman!"
"You had best go, Monsieur, and leave me to care for my son," she said coldly.
Rudolphe"s voice was equally cold and controlled. "You destroyed those books!" he glared at her.
"Leave this house," she answered.
Late that night, drunk to incoherence, Marcel lay across the bed. All the long evening he had been with his friend, Anna Bella Monroe, in her little parlor behind the boardinghouse at the corner. And it was she who had taken the wine away finally and locked it up. "You haven"t lost him," she had said, and when he protested through his tears that he did not believe "those things," she had shaken her head patiently.
She seemed a lady to him then through the glaze of his pain, not merely his Anna Bella, but then she had always been so, perhaps, deeper and better than childhood allowed, and at fifteen a lovely equanimity shone in her eyes that often drained the tumult out of him. "I mean you"ll always have what pa.s.sed between you, no one can take that," she said, "what you remember in here!" in here!" Her small curled hand tapped her breast, her face a perfect sweetheart amid the soft fullness of her black hair. It seemed he had kissed her then, just to let her know how much he loved her. She had always understood about Jean Jacques, even when Richard did not understand, when no one could understand, and as he felt the baby roundness of her chin, the plumpness of her cheeks, all the exquisite pain of loss dissolved for him. But a warning hand had pressed him gently away. And from a dim bedroom beyond, her ancient guardian, Madame Elsie, pounded the floor with her cane. He could not have gotten to his own gate without Anna Bella"s supporting arm. Her small curled hand tapped her breast, her face a perfect sweetheart amid the soft fullness of her black hair. It seemed he had kissed her then, just to let her know how much he loved her. She had always understood about Jean Jacques, even when Richard did not understand, when no one could understand, and as he felt the baby roundness of her chin, the plumpness of her cheeks, all the exquisite pain of loss dissolved for him. But a warning hand had pressed him gently away. And from a dim bedroom beyond, her ancient guardian, Madame Elsie, pounded the floor with her cane. He could not have gotten to his own gate without Anna Bella"s supporting arm.
Now he was only vaguely aware that she was, in fact, gone from him, not holding him, that he was in his room, and that Lisette had silently opened his door. She had a bundle folded in her soiled ap.r.o.n and approaching him she held it out. He squinted at her, feeling a vague fear of that reverent posture, the way that she held the folded ap.r.o.n as if it had some power. It put him in mind of fetishes, those foul-smelling objects she sewed into his pillows when he was sick, her magic powders.
"The dead are the dead," he whispered. "Get me a bottle of whiskey, Lisette, get it. I"ll give you a dollar."
"You"ve had enough whiskey, now sit up and look here."
And flipping back the ap.r.o.n she showed him the charred remains of a ledger, its corners blacked and burned off, the leather of the cover blistered. "I dug through those ashes with my own hands for this, Michie, I burned my hands for this, sit up."
He s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her, cracking it open to see Jean Jacques" script.
"Richard Lermontant brought it for you, Michie, never you mind what she she says!" she spoke now of his mother. "There was a note on every one of them with your name, I can read that much, Michie. That old man left them for you and I saw says!" she spoke now of his mother. "There was a note on every one of them with your name, I can read that much, Michie. That old man left them for you and I saw her her light that fire with her own hands. I got this one for you, Michie, digging in those ashes myself, all the rest is gone." light that fire with her own hands. I got this one for you, Michie, digging in those ashes myself, all the rest is gone."
What was there? Fragments.
All through the hot summer he pored over it, finding not a single sentence complete for all that had been burnt away around it. Observations of the weather, bits of a transaction, some purchases of imported woods further on, the note of a public hanging. And here and there the dates that fixed the year as 1829 with all the rest gone forever.
This the only doc.u.ment left of a life, this the only relic of fine slanting script replete with curlicues, and some fine relationship between the exquisite purple ink and the cleanliness that had been the page, as though the man who had taught himself all he knew had liked to lift the pen, to form the words as well as he had done everything.
October came. Marcel was fourteen.
V.
MARCEL READ night and day, dreamed at school, listened with bright attention to the chatter of fishmongers, and wandering at random found the world alien with wonders. night and day, dreamed at school, listened with bright attention to the chatter of fishmongers, and wandering at random found the world alien with wonders.
Before a clock shop at noon, he strained to see and hear all the clocks strike at once behind the plate gla.s.s windows. And reading the newspapers in French and English, ate his breakfast with one hand, speaking to no one. In bitter October rains, he trudged through the high gra.s.s in the cemetery and gazed with head turned from the corner of his eye down the aisle at the stone of Jean Jacques"s high crypt, one of a hundred fixed into the crumbling whitewashed walls.
Only for Marie"s First Communion did he affect a human face and kiss her afterwards on both cheeks, refusing for a moment to let her go, then drinking sherry with the party, sharing cakes, and smiling stiffly at his aunts and their pleasantries, words he instantly and effortlessly forgot.
Writing his name, Marcel Ste. Marie, in his diary, he found his hand stopped. Where had Cecile got the surname, anyway? From her prayers? Bare feet, dirty face, tangled hair Bare feet, dirty face, tangled hair. After supper he watched her at the head of the table as she pinned up her taffeta sleeves. The slaves set a basin of warm water before her as always, and carefully she washed each painted china plate herself, only entrusting them to Marie"s waiting hands. Drying her long fingers afterwards, she fanned them on her palms to inspect the perfect ovals of her nails.
How many times in the long summer nights of his childhood when the damp heat made his sheets limp and the air close, had he heard her suddenly moan in her sleep, and through the open doorway saw her rise from the pillow like a doll thrown forward, her hands in her hair. She would pad silently across the boards, her chemise luminous in the dim flicker of the night-lamp, and taking the pitcher in both hands drink it down. "And oh, to hear that child scream! It made no difference to that baby that that man was dead, oh, to hear that child scream oh, to hear that child scream! It made no difference to that baby that that man was dead, oh, to hear that child scream..." And even setting the pitcher by, seemed still heavy with her dreams, turning, and turning again as if she could not find her bed.
People still called Marcel an angel, dutiful son, sometimes even yet a perfect child, were they out of their minds? He glared as if they uttered abominations. In this new blaze of clarity that threatened to consume the most mundane objects, he turned his relentless gaze upon himself and realized that he had always known the truth about his world, breathed it like the very air.
Who had told him a pedigree lay behind the endless washing of hands, suffering of starched collars, the lowering of voices in this tiny parlor, leaving the last of the soup when you are hungry, never daring to tip the edge of the plate? The world was gla.s.s like angels on the mantel, bound to shatter at the thrust of a crude word. "Why did you burn those books, how could you burn those books!" "Why did you burn those books, how could you burn those books!"
"Don"t you raise your voice to me, Monsieur! May I remind you that I am your mother!"
She shivered in his arms. He felt the stays of her corset, the p.r.i.c.kling layers of lace. Her hands clung to his thick hair, her lips quivering against his neck. "You did a bad thing, Maman." "You did a bad thing, Maman." She cried bitterly, She cried bitterly, "I didn"t know, I didn"t know." "I didn"t know, I didn"t know."
And I am a part of this, he hissed to himself in the oval of a mirror, affecting the stiffness of an ancestral portrait until the image fired before his eyes with a separate life and turned him away, his fingers digging into the back of his neck, his breath halting.
But how could he have imbibed this desperate need to build a respectable world as if it were Cecile"s pa.s.sion for chocolates, her wild aversion to the color red? So he breathed this. It was the very air. But some flaw in him must have made him the all-too-perfect player of parts, what was it? what was it? He saw himself poised on that stool in the back of Jean Jacques" shop, hands immaculate, gloss and gleam like the polished tables, Queen Anne chairs on tiptoe, armoire doors inlaid with mirrors. Some flaw in him, He saw himself poised on that stool in the back of Jean Jacques" shop, hands immaculate, gloss and gleam like the polished tables, Queen Anne chairs on tiptoe, armoire doors inlaid with mirrors. Some flaw in him, what was it? what was it? He dipped his own pen to write, to make his own diary. He dipped his own pen to write, to make his own diary.
That he had loathed childhood from the beginning? That he had absolutely hated being a "little boy?" And bruised and confounded by those stifling limits, put himself by will upon another path? Games bored him eternally. The dull-witted repet.i.tions of his teacher, Monsieur De Latte, made him grit his teeth. But with a monster"s mind he had perceived the workings, what was wanted, and settled on a subtle subterfuge that had no use for innocence. He would be perfect out of rage, bow of his own accord to kiss the ladies" hands, scorn chatter in the back pews, and look upon humiliations from aloft, seeking eternally for reason. That"s such a good boy, that is the best boy, why that"s Madame Cecile"s little man, that boy That"s such a good boy, that is the best boy, why that"s Madame Cecile"s little man, that boy.
My little man, your little man, her little man.
He belonged to the adults, he was their darling, with uncanny calm, and a perfect liar.
But he hadn"t known it then. It had seemed so natural. As natural as it had been to seek those long afternoons with Anna Bella, away with the din of the boys of the street, listening to her read from the English novels, his foot against her coal stove, his eyes on the woven plaster wreaths of her ceiling. She was a woman at twelve. They had played at lady and gentleman, and with a grown woman"s impeccable grace she had understood his new pa.s.sion for the cabinetmaker and had not begrudged him the new world away from her in the cabinet-maker"s shop. She made him English tea, when he came to call, from a china pot.
And then there was Richard who was, in fact, the gentleman and had treated Marcel like a man from the moment they met, coming forward out of the cold-eyed pale-skinned gathering in the new cla.s.sroom at Monsieur De Latte"s to show Marcel to an empty seat, welcome him to the new school, remark that they might walk home afterward the same way. And Marcel, frightened to the marrow of his bones in that new world, would never all his life forget this kindness, the clasp of this hand which said, "We are young men, we are brothers." Theirs was a bond that would last a lifetime.
And so the strife between them was all the more painful now. "Je suis un criminel!" "Je suis un criminel!" Marcel would stop suddenly with a shudder as they walked in the street, gripping the backs of his arms as though he were cold, and Richard astonished would murmur steadily of the time of day. And with some frantic movement like that of a bird, Marcel might bolt through the crowded streets, crossing the Rue Ca.n.a.l, finding the depot of the Carrollton Railroad and riding for hours up the sh.e.l.l road through a world he had never seen, tall oaks, the white columns of the homes of the Americans. Nothing had been real in childhood. And things were so real now that he could have spoken aloud to the very trees. Marcel would stop suddenly with a shudder as they walked in the street, gripping the backs of his arms as though he were cold, and Richard astonished would murmur steadily of the time of day. And with some frantic movement like that of a bird, Marcel might bolt through the crowded streets, crossing the Rue Ca.n.a.l, finding the depot of the Carrollton Railroad and riding for hours up the sh.e.l.l road through a world he had never seen, tall oaks, the white columns of the homes of the Americans. Nothing had been real in childhood. And things were so real now that he could have spoken aloud to the very trees.
On the street one day, he met Anna Bella in a splendid dress of plum taffeta, hair swept up beneath a lady"s broad brimmed bonnet. She carried a parasol that threw lace shadows on the bricks behind her. And startled to see her the grown woman with her fine small velvet gloves, he was speechless as she reached to take his hand. Madame Elsie, her guardian, always a mean woman, urged her forward.
"Now wait, please, Madame Elsie," Anna Bella had said in her soft always slurred American voice, "Marcel, why don"t you walk a ways with us?" But he had seen the look in the old woman"s eyes, her gnarled hand pressing Anna Bella on.
Had she seen that kiss in the parlor, had she overheard those drunken tears for Jean Jacques? He had stood stock-still among the jostling pa.s.sersby, to watch that small-waisted figure make its way into a crowded shop.
And calling for Anna Bella soon for evening church, he was told simply she could no longer go. He stood silent before the old woman as she adjusted the quilt over her lap, until finally, brushing her gray hair back from her temple, she said under her breath with a shrug, "Mais non "Mais non, you are no longer children, hmmmm?"
Something was over.
But why? With some silent, almost obdurate instinct he would not question it, he would not dare to bring it to the surface of his mind, and leaving his gate each day turned sharply not to see the shuttered boarding house, not to risk a glimpse of Anna Bella at her door.
But walking back from Benediction one night alone he found himself by no accident standing before the high facade of the Salle d"Orleans, swept up at once by the music, violins raw and lovely in the cold air, so that he did what he had never done before which was to linger in this spot, turning his head slowly but boldly toward the commotion in the open doors. Carriages crowded the cobblestoned streets, and black capes glistened as they shook off the rain. Young white men, sometimes arm in arm, talked rapidly as they pushed through the candlelit vestibule, and beyond Marcel saw the bare shoulders of a dark woman on the broad stairs.
The music swung violently with a waltz, and through the high French windows above he could make out the shadows of swaying couples on the walls, women he knew to be colored, men that he knew to be white.
Overhead the stars went out behind the winter clouds and a voice beat beneath the gentle pounding of the rain, speaking to him of what he"d always known, that he would never be admitted to this place. White men only were admitted to this place, and all places like it. Though of course even now he could glimpse the colored musicians against the windows and just catch the rise and fall of the bows of their violins. But there had always been such b.a.l.l.s, they were a tradition as old as New Orleans, why think of it? He felt the sudden shame of someone who invites misery, it was senseless. Yet it was at such an affair as this perhaps that Cecile had met Monsieur Philippe, and perhaps it was beneath this very roof that Tante Colette had approved Philippe"s promises, promises that built the Ste. Marie cottage, promises that would send Marcel to Paris when he was of age. Paris, it struck him with a new searing intensity, and in a mercurial vision he saw all doors opened to him, dim places of fashion where dark men might dance with beautiful women while music this sweet cut the winter air. "What is this to me?" he all but whispered aloud. "Why, in Paris, soon enough..." But he"d been distracted from some other path, some other thought which came back to torment him now, like the press of a child"s face against a windowpane.
It was Anna Bella he had been thinking of, Anna Bella who should have been with him tonight but could not be. They would have walked hand and hand through this sprinkling rain, his arm from time to time about her waist, talking softly, listening to one another. He might have shared his anguished soul and come to understand it better. And it was Anna Bella whom he saw now, above, in some vague vision of that whirling ballroom, Anna Bella with the glint of a woman"s jewels, those rounded arms bare.
His pulse quickened. He turned to go. But all along he had been wondering, why not admit it, was she now destined for this-white men kissing that dimpled hand, white men whispering in that tiny ear? His mind said stop this. Shut the door. Why, after all, should you care? "Paris," he whispered as if it were a charm, "Paris, la cite de la lumiere la cite de la lumiere ..." But he had lost her, lost her! In all the fine confusion of this dreadful year, she"d been s.n.a.t.c.hed away, long before the pain of leaving her for the world abroad had ever come to test him. It was as if he"d turned his back, and she"d grown up. But if it was to be so, why had he not known it, why must every commonplace truth become a shock? Did this not happen around him day after day? Where had he gotten those blue eyes that stared at him morning and night in the mirror, white men, dark women! It was the alchemy of his history. But Anna Bella, he"d taken her for granted, years of childhood binding them tight, that arm about his shoulder as he wept for Jean Jacques, that blinding sweetness when at last he"d dared to kiss her. Stop this, shut the door. Yet it seemed suddenly that it was something in himself that had thrust her out of reach, as surely as Madame Elsie"s malignant sneer, some mounting force within him that brought their lips together. ..." But he had lost her, lost her! In all the fine confusion of this dreadful year, she"d been s.n.a.t.c.hed away, long before the pain of leaving her for the world abroad had ever come to test him. It was as if he"d turned his back, and she"d grown up. But if it was to be so, why had he not known it, why must every commonplace truth become a shock? Did this not happen around him day after day? Where had he gotten those blue eyes that stared at him morning and night in the mirror, white men, dark women! It was the alchemy of his history. But Anna Bella, he"d taken her for granted, years of childhood binding them tight, that arm about his shoulder as he wept for Jean Jacques, that blinding sweetness when at last he"d dared to kiss her. Stop this, shut the door. Yet it seemed suddenly that it was something in himself that had thrust her out of reach, as surely as Madame Elsie"s malignant sneer, some mounting force within him that brought their lips together. Mais, non, you are no longer children, hmmmm? Mais, non, you are no longer children, hmmmm? No. He was astonished to feel the blood flow from the palms of his hands, and lifting them suddenly in the slanting silver rain he saw that his own nails had broken the flesh. No longer children, no. But what if...what if he were not going, if foreign portals didn"t await him over No. He was astonished to feel the blood flow from the palms of his hands, and lifting them suddenly in the slanting silver rain he saw that his own nails had broken the flesh. No longer children, no. But what if...what if he were not going, if foreign portals didn"t await him over wine-dark seas? wine-dark seas? The rain pelted his palms; the blood vanished only to reappear. The rain pelted his palms; the blood vanished only to reappear.
And above the music surged, while the wind came in cold gusts. It was lovely music, was it not? He pressed his lips to make a thin, fine whistle, and moving on was vaguely conscious of another melody in the air, the high-pitched falsetto of a black voice near him, singing faintly, softly as he slowed his pace. And through the dark he saw the glittering eyes of the black coachman leaning against the side of the carriage. Marcel knew the tune, he knew the words, and the Creole patois in which they were sung, and he knew it was meant for him: Milatraisse courri dans bal,Cocodrie po"te fa.n.a.l,Trouloulou!C"est pas zaffaire a tou,C"est pas zaffaire a tou,Trouloulou!Yellow girl goes to the ball;Black man lights her to the hall,Yellow man!Now, that"s no affair for you that"s no affair for you,Say, that"s no affair for you that"s no affair for you,Yellow man!
Jean Jacques had been dead three months before Marcel caught Tante Colette at the door of the dress shop at dawn.
"But her mother..."
"What is it now, Marcel? I"m busy as it is, can"t you see that?" She was going through the mail. "Look at this, I paid this."
"My mother"s mother, who was she?" he said in a low voice, his eye on the shop behind her. He could see the dark swish of Tante Louisa"s skirts through the gla.s.s. And hear a rumbling of heavy heels.
"What"s the matter with you, cher?" cher?" she reached for his forehead. "You have a fever, she reached for his forehead. "You have a fever, cher cher, now don"t do that." He shut his eyes, his lips tense, his head going to one side in a near imperceptible negation.
"I don"t have a fever," he said softly. "Tell me, surely you must have seen her mother sometime or other...you saw so much of her father."
"Her father, cher, was the richest planter north of Port-au-Prince," she said, feeling his cheek. He pulled back. Tante Louisa had called his name.
"Please, Tante Colette," he said earnestly, and in an uncommon gesture he clasped her wrist.
"Oh cher cher, what mother?" She sighed...
"Surely she had a mother!"
"I don"t know, cher," cher," she shook her head, but her eyes held him steady. "It"s cold out here, you come inside." she shook her head, but her eyes held him steady. "It"s cold out here, you come inside."
"No." He reached beyond her and pulled the door to.
"Marcel!" she said.
"Tante Louisa won"t tell me," he said glancing beyond her at the gla.s.s windows, "You know she won"t. And if you won"t tell me I"ll ask maman myself."
"Don"t you do that, Marcel," she said. "I tell you since that old cabinetmaker died, you"ve been a handful." But as he turned to go, she caught his sleeve.
"She was one of those slave women, cher cher, I don"t know who she was, a slave on that plantation. "Course they weren"t slaves by that time, oh, no, they were all free, she didn"t care anything for that baby the way I remember it, G.o.d only knows where she was when we took that baby, probably run off with that black army of General Dessalines for all I know, she was nothing for you to think about, cher cher, that woman had nothing to do with you...Marcel!"
He was a pace away looking at her. His lips had formed words, but she didn"t hear them, and she bit her lip as she watched him walk swiftly off, the crowd closing around him, his pale blond head glinting suddenly in a faint shaft of the winter sun.
Slave women, one of those slave women. The words refused to be made flesh: Behind the garconniere garconniere, he watched the slave women he had known all of his life gather the billowing sheets from the line, Lisette, running with arms out, letting the wooden clothespins pop in the air, while Zazu, her mother, blacker, thinner, handsome, swung the wicker basket on her agile hip.
Droplets everywhere turned the beaten earth black and a dusty scent rose on the cold air. Wandering under the bent banana fronds, listening to the tap-tap-tap and a storm in the cistern, he saw them lighting the kitchen lamps, putting the flat irons on the glowing coals. Lisette, hands on her narrow waist, came to the door to scowl at him with a lowering head. "Someone put a spell on you, Michie," she said voice deep-throated, scornful. "So you want want pneumonia!" pneumonia!"
It was Lisette, the copperskinned one who sometimes sulked, begged for gold earrings, and tied her yellow tignon tignon in glamorous knots around her reddish hair while Zazu doted, loving to dress Cecile, to brush her long straight black tresses and wind them into soft curls. It was Lisette who whispered of voodoo, terrified Cecile with the mention of spells, and from time to time in a rage banged the kettle and vanished for a whole night, only to reappear at some odd hour the next day, her ap.r.o.n stiff with ruffles, hands busy with a dust rag as if nothing had happened. These women had rocked Marcel"s cradle. Monsieur Philippe had brought them from in glamorous knots around her reddish hair while Zazu doted, loving to dress Cecile, to brush her long straight black tresses and wind them into soft curls. It was Lisette who whispered of voodoo, terrified Cecile with the mention of spells, and from time to time in a rage banged the kettle and vanished for a whole night, only to reappear at some odd hour the next day, her ap.r.o.n stiff with ruffles, hands busy with a dust rag as if nothing had happened. These women had rocked Marcel"s cradle. Monsieur Philippe had brought them from Bontemps Bontemps, his plantation, before Marcel was born.
Ah, Bontemps Bontemps, that was the life, the picnics on the bayou and the dances, ah the dances, it was a whispered recrimination which Marcel had long ago ceased to hear. Occasionally, he said sardonically to Lisette, "And I suppose you don"t enjoy your Sat.u.r.day nights on the town." But when Felix the coachman came bringing Monsieur Philippe from the country, then it was party time in the back kitchen with Bontemps Bontemps gossip, white linen on the deal table and chicken roasting in the pot. Felix in nifty black with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, said, gossip, white linen on the deal table and chicken roasting in the pot. Felix in nifty black with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, said, "Bonjour "Bonjour, Michie!" with a slight sarcastic bow to Marcel and took his place at once on the stool by the door not waiting for a child to tell him he might sit down.
But on those days when Cecile with wringing hands whispered of waste and sa.s.s, or found some frightening bundle of mysterious feathers sewn into the hem of a sheet, Philippe would saunter out to them, shaking his head, rout Felix, and settling in his place draw the women near. "What"s happening to my girls?" he would begin, but soon sent them, with his low whispers, into peals of confidential laughter. "Now make your daughter mind," he would turn eventually to the serious vein, his arm encircling Zazu"s waist.
"I don"t know what to do with that girl, Michie," she would say in her soft deep voice, a tone mellow like the expression on her stoical black face. But then he would insist, "Be good to my Cecile."
He gave them dollar bills, declared the gumbo was better than in the country, and warned them over his shoulder at the cottage door, "Stay away from those voodooiennes!" But then he winked his eye.
Slaves.
From the corner of a narrow eye, Marcel watched the black prisoners in chains who bent their backs to shovel filth from the open ditches, winced at the snarl of the overseer, affecting a casual air, burned with shame for staring at a common spectacle he had been taught to ignore since childhood.
Was it possible he had thought suffering vulgar before this? And bondage merely degrading?
His eyes watered too easily in the cold wind, and wrapping his cravat high, he bent forward as he made his way to the City Exchange, hands numbed in his pockets.
He had a letter with him should anyone question his presence, he"d never hung about the place before, and wandered baffled through the open doors into the smoky din, gazing up at the high dome, and then from one auction block to another.
Pushing his way through the rumbling crowd until he stood before the block itself, he did not know that he had clenched his teeth, and then stared astonished at the smoothness of the wood before him. For a moment he couldn"t fathom it, that smoothness, that perfect gleam. He thought of all the hours that Jean Jacques" hand would rub a surface, folding and refolding the small square of cloth soaked soft with oil. Until with a sickening jolt he realized this wonder. That it was the work of bare feet. A vague nausea threatened him. He needed the outside air. But slowly he lifted his eyes to the row of bright dressed men and women beyond, blue calico, tailcoats, and dark eyes that watched him from impa.s.sive faces. A child clinging to his mother"s skirts let out a wail. Marcel had frightened him with the mere intensity of his stare. He turned to go, the blood rushing in his chilled face and hands, but like a gun came the auctioneer"s bark. It was ten o"clock. The day"s business was beginning.
A tall freckled mulatto had stepped up before the tightening a.s.semblage, rolling his pants above the knees and stripping the shirt from his back as he walked up and down, up and down, to show that he had no marks from the whip. "Now what am I offered for this lively boy," came the guttural English. "What am I offered for this fine healthy boy, master hates to part with him, reared from a baby, right here in the city of New Orleans, but needs money!" needs money!" And then in rapid rhythmic bursts of French: "The master"s misfortune is your good fortune, a household slave but strong as an ox, baptized right here at the St. Louis Cathedral, never missed Sunday Ma.s.s in his life, this is a fine boy, this is a good boy..." And then in rapid rhythmic bursts of French: "The master"s misfortune is your good fortune, a household slave but strong as an ox, baptized right here at the St. Louis Cathedral, never missed Sunday Ma.s.s in his life, this is a fine boy, this is a good boy..."
And the boy, turning round and round on the polished block, as though completing a dance, bowed to the crowd, a smile like a spasm in his taut flesh. He bowed low and whipped the shirt up, deftly closing the first two b.u.t.tons with one hand. Then his eyes moved furtively over the shifting faces, down over the rows that surrounded him, and fixed suddenly on the face more nearly like his own, looking up at him, blue eyes into blue eyes.
Marcel, motionless, lips slack, was unable to move toward the winter street.
Slaves.
He had never seen the country fields, knew nothing of the coffles trudging overland with children wailing, and had never breathed the stench of the slave ships long relegated to the distant and thriving smugglers" coves.
Pa.s.sing the slave yards, he saw what he was meant to see: bright turbans, top hats, rows of men and women in idle conversation eyeing him casually as if he were on display, not they. But what went on inside the walls? Where mother was ripped from daughter, or listless old men, their grizzled sideburns stuck with bootblack, hunched to hide from the probing buyer a racking cough; or gentlemen, gesturing with walking sticks, insisted perfunctorily they must see this bright mulatto girl stripped if you please, the price was exorbitant, what if there were some hidden disease? Would you please step inside? Of these and other things, he could only guess.
What he did know was New Orleans, and all around him the city"s poor-black, white, immigrant, Creole-cooks driving bargains for fowl at market, the chimney sweepers roaming door to door, carters and cabmen, dark faces blank with sleep in the shadows of the presbytere presbytere arches, hands limply anchoring the lap basket of spices for sale. In dim sheds nearby, black men forged the iron railings to grace the balconies that lined the Rue Bourbon or the Rue Royale, and amid showers of sparks beat with rhythmic hammers on horseshoes in the stables after dark. arches, hands limply anchoring the lap basket of spices for sale. In dim sheds nearby, black men forged the iron railings to grace the balconies that lined the Rue Bourbon or the Rue Royale, and amid showers of sparks beat with rhythmic hammers on horseshoes in the stables after dark.
And all through the back streets near his home there had always been those hundreds upon hundreds of independent slaves who hired out their services, renting a modest room with wages, only sending a sum now and then to a master they seldom saw. Waiters, masons, laundrywomen, barbers, you gave their grog shops a wide berth in the evenings, if you had to pa.s.s them at all, hardly noticing the eternal rattle of dice, the aroma of cigar smoke, high-pitched laughter. And in those same streets, here and there the softened silhouettes of scant-clad black women against lamplit doorways, beckoning languidly, then letting the curled fingers lazily drop.
It was prosperous slave men who often came, spruced and shining, to hurry with Lisette on Sundays to the Pontchartrain railroad for the ride in the starred Negro cars to the lake. And on holidays, in hired carriages, they came clattering to the gate, bright in new broadcloth waistcoats while she in her fine red dress would run to meet them, sidestepping the rain puddles in the narrow alley as if in a dance, her picnic basket rocking on her arm.
Slaves.
The papers complained of them, the world was filled with them, New Orleans sold more of them than any city in the Southland, and they had been here for two hundred years before Marcel was born.
Roaming aimlessly at a rapid pace, his eyes searched the faces that pa.s.sed him, as if for some sudden illumination, some undeniable truth. "I am a part of this, I am a part..." he whispered aloud, and sat at last among the books and clutter of his darkened room, cold, but unwilling to light the fire, staring at nothing, as if the power to do the simplest things had left him.
He was afraid.
All his life he had known that he was not white, but snug in the tender advantages of his special world he had never for a moment dreamed that he was black. A great gulf separated him from the throngs on either side, but oh, how dimly he had miscalculated, misunderstood. And pushing his fingers to the roots of his hair, he gripped it, pulled it, until he could no longer stand the pain.
As winter wore on, he knew what it was to be fourteen. Richard"s sister Giselle had come home with her husband from Charleston for the opera, and the family invited Marcel to go with them for the first time.
And weak with antic.i.p.ation, he had been led through the brightly lit lobby of the Theatre d"Orleans, directed to the loges pour gens de couleur pour gens de couleur and hurried to take the seat given him in the very front of the Lermontant box. The spectacle of his people ringing the horseshoe tier stunned him as he raised his eyes, silk flashing in the flicker of candles, white linen all but luminous in the azure gloom. Faces both light and dark glowed above the beat of feather fans, and there hung about him, as it were, a wreath of low, sonorous chatter sweet to breathe like the perfume in the air. and hurried to take the seat given him in the very front of the Lermontant box. The spectacle of his people ringing the horseshoe tier stunned him as he raised his eyes, silk flashing in the flicker of candles, white linen all but luminous in the azure gloom. Faces both light and dark glowed above the beat of feather fans, and there hung about him, as it were, a wreath of low, sonorous chatter sweet to breathe like the perfume in the air.
Richard in his white gloves was a gentleman of the world with his elbow on the arm of the chair, legs easily crossed, and Giselle wore a cl.u.s.ter of tiny pearls on a chain around her neck like the buds of a flower set among gold leaves. Bending forward, she raised a pair of ivory opera gla.s.ses before her eyes, the thick glossy corkscrews of her curls shivering against her pale olive throat; and the scent of camellias suddenly surrounded her like an aureole.