Long Distance Life Part 15

"And why, may I ask?" Christophe said. "When I left this city ten years ago, I may have been a little boy, Maman, but in the event that you haven't noticed, I have come back a man."

II.

MADAME E ELSIE C CLAVIeRE walked with a cane all the time now, dragging her left foot slowly as the consequence of a recent stroke. She was bent, her hair a fluffy white from the temples, and beneath a black veil, she struggled along Pere Antoine's Alley, her right hand tightly clasped to Anna Bella's arm. walked with a cane all the time now, dragging her left foot slowly as the consequence of a recent stroke. She was bent, her hair a fluffy white from the temples, and beneath a black veil, she struggled along Pere Antoine's Alley, her right hand tightly clasped to Anna Bella's arm.

She had been born in the days of the French colony, remembered the old Indian attacks, and those times under the Spanish when Governor Miro, driven to it by the white ladies, had pa.s.sed the famous "tignon "tignon law" restricting the quadroons to a simple scarf for a headdress as if that might stifle their charms. She laughed even now at that old tale. But New Orleans had grown around her into a vast city, brilliant perhaps as the Paris and London of travelers' talk. There were eighteen thousand gens law" restricting the quadroons to a simple scarf for a headdress as if that might stifle their charms. She laughed even now at that old tale. But New Orleans had grown around her into a vast city, brilliant perhaps as the Paris and London of travelers' talk. There were eighteen thousand gens de couleur de couleur in it today, only a part of its ever-shifting and motley population, and despising the Americans, she lamented those olden times, when Spanish officers had brought her Madeira and jeweled bracelets, and her daughters had been fair and spectacular, their meager offspring disappearing north into the white race. She was lonely in her old age. She often said this with a sneer. And with a firm grip on life and on Anna Bella's arm, she averred now that she was weary of this world, she wanted to be taken home. in it today, only a part of its ever-shifting and motley population, and despising the Americans, she lamented those olden times, when Spanish officers had brought her Madeira and jeweled bracelets, and her daughters had been fair and spectacular, their meager offspring disappearing north into the white race. She was lonely in her old age. She often said this with a sneer. And with a firm grip on life and on Anna Bella's arm, she averred now that she was weary of this world, she wanted to be taken home.

"I don't see why you don't go visit Madame Colette," Anna Bella was saying in her slow but easy French. "Madame Colette is always asking for you, and Madame Louisa too."

As they struggled along the Rue St. Louis toward the Rue Royale, Anna Bella continued her campaign.

"Why, every time I see them at Ma.s.s, they ask about you, Madame Louisa says she means to come see you and with this and that, and the opera season, well they'll be busy all summer long."

"All right, then," Madame Elsie said finally. "I want to get off my feet."

The dress shop was thronged as usual, and Colette at the rear was making notes in an immense ledger, when seeing Madame Elsie and Anna Bella, she rose at once and brought them in. Of course she was glad to see Madame Elsie, and oh, what lovely white lace on Anna Bella's pretty dress, my, but she did make the most beautiful lace, please come on now into the back room.

"Now you just sit down here, Madame Elsie," Anna Bella eased the old woman into the chair. "Why, maybe you ought to be looking at a few of those bonnets while you're here. And I'll just go down the street now to get that sachet."

"Won't you have some coffee, Madame Elsie?" Colette asked. But Madame Elsie was glaring at Anna Bella from behind her veil.

"What sachet?"

"Don't you remember now, I told you. I wanted some sachet for the armoire, and some camphor, too. Don't you remember, and you said to get some blessed candles, why I've made a list." Anna Bella drew back toward the door, bowing to Colette. "You just rest yourself, Madame Elsie, you know, Madame Colette, she just has to get off her feet."

"You leave her to me, chere chere, you go on." Colette was clearing a heap of lace, and ribbons from the small table by Madame Elsie's chair.

"You come right back," said Madame Elsie.

"Yes, Madame Elsie, I sure will," Anna Bella answered, and quickly she rushed through the bustle and press of the little store.

Behind her she could hear Colette's voice, "My, but that girl's turned out to be a little lady."

"Eh, and whose doing was that!" rumbled Madame Elsie, "I tell you she doesn't know how to behave. However...well the face is not pretty, but you know, well, the figure is, something else..."

Anna Bella shut the door behind her and started back toward the Rue Ste. Anne. "The face is not pretty," she said to herself in a whisper, "but you know, well, the figure is something else!" She glanced to heaven for justice and shook her head. Pa.s.sing the open doors of a restaurant with its black doorman, she heard him say as he pretended to tip his hat, "Well, ain't that a pretty n.i.g.g.e.r gal, I say, ain't that a fancy n.i.g.g.e.r gal."

She dropped her eyes, her head tilted to one side, and walked fast as if she hadn't heard.

"I say that's one fine n.i.g.g.e.r gal," he said louder, mocking her, "bet that's a Creole lady for sure!"

It seemed the faster she walked, the slower she moved, his voice still in her ears, and when she saw her reflection in the darkened windows of the undertaker's shop she lifted her head a little haughtily, lips quivering between sudden tears and a smile, as she held the deep folds of her light blue dress.

The Ste. Marie cottage looked deserted in the glaring sun, the long blinds loosely latched over the front door; and she didn't stop because she would have lost heart if she had, but went right up the path and tapped by the window, head down, eyes averted as if when she was discovered there someone would deal her a hard blow.

But there was no sound from within. She rocked for an instant on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet, and then shaking her head, eyes still down, withdrew from the stone stoop and went back the alley along the windows toward the rear courtyard, "G.o.d help me," she whispered, "I've got to do it, I've got to..." but as she turned into the bright square of sun that fell on the flags, she stopped with a short cry.

Two figures moved quickly, awkwardly in the thick grove of banana trees behind the cistern, both of them startled by her as she had been startled by them. Richard Lermontant emerged, fl.u.s.tered, rubbing his hand nervously and senselessly against the side of his leg.

"Bonjour, Anna Bella," he murmured in that low languid voice of his. And then, utterly at a loss, he made a quick bow to the figure in the grove behind him and hurried out of the yard.

"O, my lord," Anna Bella whispered. There was a young woman in the grove, her broad skirts flickering amid the slender bright green trunks, a broken veil of ivy obscuring her face as she lifted it now and stepped out, her arms bare in her fluttering short sleeves except for a very thin white woven shawl.

Anna Bella, glancing desperately in the direction of Marcel's windows, turned to go. She was certain Richard was well ahead of her, they would not collide again. But the woman said, "Anna Bella?"

And turning Anna Bella was astonished to see that this was Marie Ste. Marie. She put her hand to her lips, unable to suppress a gentle laugh. "Why, it's you!" she said, glancing shyly at the lovely ruffled afternoon dress, the pale arms.

Marie was pressing the palm of her hand to her cheek. She looked steadily at Anna Bella, her eyes as they had always been, black, almond in shape, and cold.

"I'm sorry to be here like this," Anna Bella said. "I'm just so sorry. I knocked at the door and when there wasn't any answer, why, I thought I'd leave a note up there on the door for Marcel." This was a lie.

Marie moved toward her. With her hair combed back severely from her perfect face she looked so much older, older perhaps than any of the girls they both knew.

"I don't want to disturb Madame Cecile," Anna Bella said, knowing full well that Madame Cecile was not there.

"Come inside," Marie said.

It was more a command than an invitation, but Anna Bella could sense that the tone was not intentional. She followed her through the darkened bedrooms with their gleaming white coverlets, a faint clean smell of wax rising from the little altar of the Virgin, and into the front rooms. Anna Bella had always loved this little house, its sweet scents, its spotlessness, the exquisite touches of luxury everywhere, and she felt with pain how long it had been since she had seen it, how long since she had sat in this chair. This last year had been the longest of her life, and she was bitter all at once that she had not caught Marcel alone here as she hoped, it had taken her weeks to get Madame Elsie to the dress shop, her plan was ruined, she ought to go. And she was annoyed at the same time by the sight of those two together, that handsome and polished Richard Lermontant and this beautiful cold-eyed girl. It struck her to the heart, actually. But she had cried so often in the last few weeks that she would not allow herself to feel it. She started to rise. "I should go home."

"No," Marie said. "Please. I'm glad that you've come." She was standing by the window blinds as if to catch a little fresh air, that hand still pressed to her cheek. And what she said was true.

Richard had just kissed Marie, and she had never felt a physical sensation akin to what she'd experienced when he was holding her lightly, gently, as if he might break her, in his arms. His hands had spread out firmly against her back, pressing her to his chest so that the b.u.t.tons of his frock coat had touched her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. And when that had happened a shock had pa.s.sed through her, so keenly pleasurable that she had let her head fall back, her lips part, and felt that shock's consummation in one shuddering instant as his lips pressed against hers. His arms had closed around her. He had lifted her off her feet. And she had been obliterated in that instant, everything she'd ever been taught had been obliterated, all that she was before was simply gone away. She might have fallen if he had not held her, because the shock had weakened her legs. They had no strength at all and seemed in fact to be closed tightly together, in the blessed secrecy of her skirts, of their own accord. She remembered breaking loose from him, however, and leaning against the trunks of the trees, shuddering, her lips tingling and then numb. His hands were on her waist. He had kissed her shoulders, her neck.

Anna Bella had come at that instant, and if Anna Bella had not, Marie might have given herself over to this pleasure without reserve, something that would have been unthinkable for her only moments before. She was in the act of turning to him again when Anna Bella stepped into the yard. And she was still weak from this now, her lips were still numb. There was yet a humming in her ears, and Anna Bella's voice and Anna Bella's person were remote from her, outside of her. And so unaccustomed was she in her life to gaining anything for herself, to desiring anything for herself, that she could not quite accept the extraordinary elation that she felt.

She could not accept that this had happened to her.

That Richard having seen her at Ma.s.s that Sunday in her new grown-up dresses had asked if he might call on her, and indeed had come to the door only minutes ago, and that she knowing she must not sit with him alone in the cottage, and not wanting to let him go, had led him with low awkward words, senseless small talk, into the back courtyard. And that there, she herself had moved toward the cover of those soft, nodding, banana leaves, the ivy spilling down from the roof of the garconniere garconniere, and that in some sudden and perfect moment their eyes had met and she had let him, led him, by subtle gestures she might never duplicate, to take her in his arms. "I love you...I love you," he had whispered. And then this kiss, this shrill and palpitating ecstasy that had almost been pain. It struck her as monstrous but absolutely true that she might go to h.e.l.l for what she'd done, just as a man who had murdered another man, or a woman who had murdered her own child. These were mortal sins, all. But that was an idea idea. And there was something so immense, so overwhelming and sweet about those moments that she could not feel guilt for him, but rather saw calmly a vision of her soul having become as a stagnant swamp filled with foul and breeding things, and there he was at the same moment, breathing "I love you, I love," his own body filled with some marvelous vibrant power that made his fingers warm and shocking against her bare skin, her clothes. Her words moved in a silent prayer. Don't let this be wrong. She closed her eyes.

And when she opened them, she saw Anna Bella in that little curly-legged chair by the fire where she herself never sat. Anna Bella's elbow was on the arm, and her fingers pressed into the soft flesh of her cheek, her pretty eyes so large and so mournful, so sad.

"I don't know where he is, Anna Bella," she said. And Anna Bella started, looking up at her. Marie had lost all track of time, how long had they been there together in their own thoughts? "He's gone all day every day," she said, knowing this was what Anna Bella wanted. "He may be at the corner helping Monsieur Christophe, he's been going there often, to prepare for the school."

"Hmmmm..." Anna Bella felt sick. She had come this far, why not go there? It was impossible. Marie had already discovered her, she couldn't enter that house with that strange mad woman, and that famous man. It was bad enough as it was, and yet thinking about it, she almost burst into tears. "I've got to talk to him!" she whispered in English. She didn't know if Marie had heard. She clasped her hands together in her lap and let her head fall to one side.

"I'll tell him that you came," Marie said.

"No, no, don't do that!" she looked up. "I don't want him...I think..."

Discreetly, Marie nodded.

She was aware then of Marie's eyes on her and again she looked up into Marie's cold face. All the girls had thought her so vain, so proud of her incomparable beauty, her white skin, her satin hair. Anna Bella had always defended her, she's such a sweet girl! And yet at this moment she felt the most violent and disturbing resentment of her. What would she ever know of these troubles, she or Richard Lermontant, she thought, and without realizing it, she shook her head. She would have to get up, leave without seeing Marcel, go find Madame Elsie and go home.

"What is it, Anna Bella?" Marie asked. Her voice was smooth, like a breeze blowing over the waters of a lake.

"I have troubles, Marie, troubles within myself." She looked up. "Marcel's my friend, he's always been my best friend, I'm not talking about courting and foolishness like that now, I'm talking about us always being the best of friends."

"I know," she said. And it seemed for a moment that maybe she did.

"Why we were always together, I never had a girl friend that was close to me like Marcel, and now Marcel won't come back. Madame Elsie said something to him, something mean, I don't know what it was, I don't listen to Madame Elsie, I mean...well, I listen to her but not all the time! And I just can't figure out all these things alone, I can't think. I used to believe that I could think in my head when I was alone. It's not that way anymore, I have to talk with him to figure things out. If Madame Elsie knew I'd come over here to his house on my own..."

"No one will tell her," Marie said at once.

Anna Bella regarded her for a silent moment. It penetrated to her slowly that Marie was on her side.

"Tell me, Marie, what would you think if I went up there to Monsieur Mercier's right now and just asked for Marcel? There's workmen all over that place, and I don't know those people, that woman and her son, but what would you think if I just went right to the gate..."

"No," Marie advised gently. "Don't do that, Anna Bella." She sat in the chair opposite. "Let me explain to him that you want to see him. He need not know you were here."

"O, my lord," Anna Bella clicked her tongue. "I just have to see him."

"But what is it?" Marie asked her.

"Oh, I can't...I don't want to trouble you with my affairs, I...it's just I'm all alone these days and Madame Elsie's getting on, and I have to think things out!" If she didn't stop, it might all come out of her now which she knew would be a dreadful error. How could she speak of all those white gentlemen boarders and their appraising eyes to this girl, this girl who had everything at her fingertips, in the palm of her hand?

"Would you tell Marcel something for me?" she asked, rising now and smoothing her skirts. She went to the door. "Would you promise me you'll never tell a living soul what I'm going to say, except Marcel? That you'll tell him just what I say?"

"Of course I will," Marie whispered. But her smooth porcelain face showed little of the warm inflection in her voice, and once the words had died on the air there was nothing.

"You tell Marcel for me that Madame Elsie's forcing me to those white gentlemen, that Madame Elsie's made up her mind for me, and that's not what I want. Tell him I've got to talk to him, I need him, he's my friend." She searched Marie's face for the slightest glimmer of feeling. Marie dropped her eyes. It seemed she sighed but Anna Bella wasn't sure. And overcome with shame Anna Bella turned around, eyes stinging, and unlatching the narrow blinds hurried out across the yard.

The gate must have closed. There was the sound of it, and of a carriage rattling unevenly through the rutted street. Marie was looking at the pattern of the sun on the floorboards, and when she looked up the sky showed blue over the far roof of the cottage across the way, a blinding blue among the shifting shapes of green leaves.

She sucked in her breath. Her hands were moist, the thin muslin of her tight bodice clung to her and the heavy weight of the chignon on the back of her head pulled at her. She turned on her heel, walking fast across the little parlor, jerking pins from her hair all the while with both hands. And when she reached her bed, she lay down heavily, her hair descending all around her, and she began to cry.

A long time after, she was conscious that she was not alone. She heard her mother's step in the front room. She wondered if her mother had heard her tears, and she wished that this question had not entered her mind. A strange peace came over her, devoid of the slightest shame. She felt a wordless and consuming desire for Richard and she said those words, "I love, I love you," just loud enough so that she alone could hear them, and closing her eyes, she felt his lips again and his hands against the small of her back lifting her into the air. If life were such that you could want something and you could work to get it you could work to get it-then, she wanted Richard more than anything in the world.

It was terrifying to want and terrifying to think that that "want" could be fulfilled. So terrifying perhaps that what struck her suddenly with the immediacy of an apparition was Anna Bella's face at the door. Anna Bella's poignant and desperate confession just as she had turned to go. She felt so sorry for Anna Bella! Yet she was bruised by the reality of those words just as she had been bruised weeks before by the raw reality of those moments in the shop of the notary, Monsieur Jacquemine. They brought the world home to Marie-Anna Bella and Jacquemine each in their own way-the world Marie had witnessed all her life with a defeat that was too profound for her years.

Now something was crystallizing in her as she lay on this bed. Her eyes shut and she yielded to a dim and ethereal vision of her wedding, the altar before her resplendent with flowers, and Richard's face above hers, the play of candles beautifully obscured as if by the soft whiteness of a veil. There had been such a moment at her First Communion only the year before when she had risen from the marble rail, the Host on her tongue and all the world about her was softened with the scent of roses, and pure. That Christ was with her, inside of her, had been the only thought in her mind as she walked down the aisle. The magic of the splendid painted church had merely resonated with her prayers. And all the guilt she had felt moments before for those seconds in Richard's arms was gone now as the conviction of his goodness took hold of her, the conviction that nothing so ineffably sweet could have been evil at all. That he might love her, really love her...that she might have that moment at the altar-it astonished her, and drew from her now a conviction that had always been latent there. Yes, conviction. She felt it growing stronger and stronger; she felt the powers of her will.

Never, never would she be forced into the arms of a man she could not marry, never would she stand with Anna Bella on that awful brink. And never, never would any child of hers know the shame she'd known when she walked into that notary's office with a note for a white father who could never give her his legal name.

Maybe she had always known it, known every morning of her life as she hurried through the streets to Ma.s.s, known it when rising for Communion, she saw those "respectable" quadroons about her remaining impa.s.sively in their pews as the young girls took the Sacrament which they themselves had been unable to receive for years. All those prosperous and genteel women waiting the days, the weeks, the months, for those white "protectors" to come unexpectedly and desperately welcomed through their doors.

No, perhaps she'd always known it, and her heart was breaking for Anna Bella, breaking for the misery in Anna Bella's face. But those words spoken to her today, "I love you, I love you," had given her the courage to make it a solemn vow. All right, then, she had learned to say "no" with strength. But how to say "yes, I want him, I want him!" him!" She found herself rising suddenly from the pillow and staring, fl.u.s.tered ahead of her into the shuttered gloom. She found herself rising suddenly from the pillow and staring, fl.u.s.tered ahead of her into the shuttered gloom.

For the first few moments after he left the Ste. Marie courtyard, Richard was not aware of the direction he took, or that he had stopped at the corner of the Rue Ste. Anne and the Rue Dauphine, one foot on the curb, the other in the gutter, staring about him like a man who had never seen these streets before. He started violently when a white man with blond hair brushed his arm. And was in the midst of a stammered apology when he realized that the man was already across the street and disappearing into Christophe Mercier's gate. This appeared to mean something, this white man, but he could not figure what. A man of color, meantime, had pa.s.sed Richard and tipped his hat. That meant something, too, but he could not figure what.

At last, unable to think anything coherent at all, he realized he was walking straight for the Cathedral, and that only the incessant movement of his legs could bring his body into check.

And his body was almost under his conscious command again when he reached the doors of the church. He almost laughed out loud as he dipped his fingers into the holy water and made his way across the vestibule, nodding again to someone whom surely he must have known. Dolly Rose was in a rear pew, and this seemed to mean something, too, but he could not figure what.

It was only when he had finally found a nice dark niche for himself in the far side of the Cathedral that he realized Dolly Rose had been frightfully pale. Her usual caramel color had been sallow. And she had been bent over the pew in front of her, her knuckles almost white, while holding firm to her waist with her other arm. This meant something, but what?

All he could think-truly think-was this. Marie had let him kiss her. She had drawn him into that grove. Her face had been inexplicably innocent and desperate at the same time and she had let him do it, even putting her arms about him as if she had actually wanted it, as if she, beautiful and distant Marie whom he had loved all his life from afar, could actually love him. He almost laughed-almost gasped aloud. He fell down on his knees, clasping his hands before him as if he were praying so that he might hide his face.

But this was only part of the shock that gripped him. The other was too complex for him to understand. In fact, he had no private vocabulary for straightening it out at all. Suffice it to say, he had had women, women he could not even think about under this church roof, and women he could never think about when thinking of Marie. But they had been just about the best women a man of color could buy. And somehow, somewhere, it had been made known to him that that forbidden pleasure-arranged for with rather lavish sums-was just about the keenest pa.s.sion a man might expect. Yes, that was the way it was supposed to be. Because when one took the woman of one's dreams to bed, the mother of one's children, that irreproachable and convent-bred woman with whom one was to share one's life and one's home, she would endure it with all the forbearance of a brittle china doll. Well, someone-and he could not for the life of him think who had told him such things-was very simply a d.a.m.ned fool.

He had known fire in Marie's arms, physical fire which came from her, and which ignited in him a miraculous and carnal blaze which he had been all but unable to control. And that, now inseparable from his chilling and beautiful vision of her, left him shuddering as he tried to comprehend it. But it was too much. Too splendid. Too rare.

Love, that was the only explanation, it was what love could do. And the world was as the poets described it, not cynical, not disappointed men. It was love. And it brought, very slowly, the tears to his eyes.

"Could she love...?" he wanted to whisper aloud. He let his head, unconsciously tilt to one side. "Could she love me?" And then with his eyes fixed on the distant tabernacle of the main altar, he was saying a prayer. Dear G.o.d, I want to try! And if my heart is broken in that effort, I don't care!

There was one last baffling aspect to it, wonderful perhaps as all the rest. He was astonished, he was shaken by what had pa.s.sed between them, but in some very real way he was not surprised. Her eyes had spoken to him more eloquently perhaps than the arms that had closed around him. And the eyes had said, "Don't you know? Haven't you always known that you were the one?"

He was puzzling this out, a weary hand ma.s.saging his temples now, lightly, when he started to see beside him an animate and dark form.

It was Dolly Rose. She had let her long mourning veil down over her face, and through it he saw her features indistinctly, the shuttering movement of her lips, the dark of her eyes. She settled in the pew beside him, her bombazine skirts rustling against him, and trying to speak, stopped as if she could not, her hand closing on his wrist.

"Dolly, what is it!" he whispered. The scent of verbena came from her. Her hand was ice cold.

"Help me home, Richard, I cannot..." she whispered, stopping again, her lips pressed together. "Help me. Let me lean on your arm."

He rose at once, ushering her out into the sun.

She didn't speak. She had to stop twice. Once to catch her breath, and another time, she put her arm about her waist as if she were in pain. It was only three blocks to her house and finally he had tucked her against him, his right hand under her right elbow as he lifted her weight from her feet.

It did not surprise him to find no servant for the door. Or to see the house dark behind closed blinds and in some disarray. A lot of new furniture stood about the parlor and flies swarmed over a ruined dinner beyond the double doors.

He settled her in a chair by the window, telling her he would get water for her at once.

"You're kind, Richard, you're always kind," she whispered, and lifted up her veil to take a deep breath.

He was just turning to go when he stopped with a start.

In the shadows he had not seen that a man lay sleeping on the couch. And the man was rising now on his elbow, squinting at the distant blinds. Seams of light lay across his face. It was Christophe.

"Dolly?" he asked, shielding his eyes from the thin glaring light.

"It's gone," Dolly said. "It's gone."

"She's ill, Monsieur," Richard whispered. He didn't understand Dolly's words.

"Did you see the doctor?" Christophe scrambled to his feet. He smoothed his jacket haphazardly.

"It's no use," she whispered. "It started last night."

Richard was looking everywhere for a pitcher and a gla.s.s.

"You shouldn't have gone out," Christophe said almost angrily. He was beside her and she let her forehead rest against him.

"It doesn't matter," she was saying as Richard went down the pa.s.sage. "It's always the same. One month, two...and then it's over. I don't know why I let myself hope. I don't know why I thought that it would be any different this time."