Long Distance Life Part 23

But Christophe merely sat there, drinking the whiskey and suddenly both of them were roused by a loud knock on the door. It was followed immediately by the impatient tapping of something metallic on the gla.s.s. And then the door opened with a click and through the long vista of the deserted cla.s.sroom Marcel saw the figure of Dolly Rose.

She wore a dress of lilac taffeta and a loose black cape over her shoulders, head bare, and her cheeks ruddy from the cold. Christophe, too, saw her, but he did not move, slouched back in his chair behind the table, watching her through the double doors.

"Chrisssstophe!" she sang out softly, moving lightly through the wilderness of desks. She did not appear to know that she was being watched, and seemed to enjoy being alone in the vast room. With a series of little pirouettes, she moved behind the lectern and suddenly with a gesture so genuine of feeling that it was startling, brought her clasped hands up to her bowed head. As she raised her eyes, her voice rang out dramatically as if before an immense audience.

"Randolphe, Randolphe, kill me then, for if I cannot go with Antonio, I do not wish to live!" she cried. "Kill your beloved Charlotte! For death alone shall possess her if Antonio can not possess her." And then grabbing herself about the throat she proceeded to struggle as if being strangled by her own hands. But a deep false masculine voice boomed from her at the same time, "Yes, die, Charlotte, die! Not because you want to go with Antonio! But because you are the heroine of a bad novel!" And strangling, she fell over "dead" on the lectern.

Marcel could hardly restrain his laughter.

"All right, Dolly!" Christophe said, and even on his lips there was the slight twist of a smile.

She slowly lifted her head, staring at him from the corner of her eye. Then she marched back the center aisle, eyes appraising the walls with their engravings and maps, and the great world globe in its corner, and entered the reading room as Marcel, resentfully, rose to his feet.

"Bonjour Blue Eyes," she said winking at him. Her face was radiant, the old shadows gone, the lips faintly rouged enticingly. But then she became serious and said to Christophe who had not risen, "Peace?" Blue Eyes," she said winking at him. Her face was radiant, the old shadows gone, the lips faintly rouged enticingly. But then she became serious and said to Christophe who had not risen, "Peace?"

"Go to h.e.l.l," he said.

"You want your little bootblack, don't you?" she said. The tender flesh beneath her eyes quivered. She was lovely enough to make Marcel forget what she'd done. All the gossip about her "waning beauty" was spite. Warily, he looked down.

"Yes," Christophe sighed.

"Then take me to the opera tonight," she said.

Christophe studied her, his own eyes flinty, suspicious.

"I am accompanying my mother, but thank you, Madame, you flatter me," he said.

"Your mother. How tender!" she said with a mock dramatic tilt of her head. "Why, I thought you might have planned to take Bubbles!" she laughed. "You're so fond of him, after all."

Christophe's face darkened with anger. The swelling of a vein showed against his temple. "Get out of my house, Dolly." he said.

She approached the table and just as he reached for it, s.n.a.t.c.hed the gla.s.s of whiskey and took a drink.

"Hmmmm...you must be one very rich schoolteacher," she said, running her tongue over her glistening lip. Again Marcel looked away, only to look quickly back at her. "Or did your English friend leave that?" she asked.

Her eyes glistened without a scintilla of deeper feeling. And she was so fresh, her cafe au lait cafe au lait skin so clear and creamy that she seemed the embodiment of seduction, something inherently dangerous and irresponsible which could never be held to account. Marcel disliked these thoughts and tried to think on skin so clear and creamy that she seemed the embodiment of seduction, something inherently dangerous and irresponsible which could never be held to account. Marcel disliked these thoughts and tried to think on who she was who she was. There were soirees at her house nightly now, with white men trooping up the steps. "Take me to the opera," she said gravely.

Christophe frowned. "Madame, you're mad."

"I do as I like these days," she said quite seriously. Then uncertain, she drifted about the room, her fingers playing with the back of the wing chair. She flashed a sudden brilliant smile at Marcel. But then she was to the point again. "No one owns me anymore, Christophe, no one tells me with whom I can be seen. I am mistress of my own house. I do as I please." I do as I please."

"Not with me," Christophe shook his head.

"Not even for Bubbles?" she asked.

Marcel turned his face toward the windows. She was a Circe. If Christophe were to appear with her, it would be the finish. The white men on the parquet might not give a d.a.m.n about it anymore, but all the colored community would see this. Dolly Rose's house might as well have had a shingle over its door.

"What do you want, Dolly," Christophe sighed. "What do you really want!"

At these words her facade appeared to crack. Marcel saw the sudden involuntary pout of her lip, the flicker in her eyes. She pulled back the chair across from Christophe, and seated at the table drew a sheet of paper out of her m.u.f.f. She handed it to him. One glance over Christophe's shoulder told Marcel it was the t.i.tle to the slave.

"Sold to Christophe Mercier for the sum of one dollar," she said. "One slave Bubbles, Senegalese. Hmmmm? Go on, take it."

Warily, Christophe studied the paper. Then he folded it, and slowly he removed a silver dollar from his pocket and reaching across the table put it in her open hand.

A wicked smile brightened her face.

"Christophe is a slave owner!" she sang suddenly. And jumping up, "Christophe is a slave owner!"

"I intend to set him free!" Christophe growled.

"You can't set him free, he's fourteen years old and unskilled, and been in the Parish prison seven times, they'd never grant your pet.i.tion even if you had the money to post bond for him, no, my cher cher Christophe, you're his master!" She let out a husky laugh and backed out the door. Christophe, you're his master!" She let out a husky laugh and backed out the door.

"Lord, G.o.d," Christophe sighed.

"Christophe is a slave owner, Christophe is a slave owner," she sang as she twirled through the cla.s.sroom. But she stopped suddenly, only halfway to the front door.

"Don't take me to the opera, then, if you don't want to," she said coldly. And then in a small voice, marked by mock sincerity, "All your little secrets are safe with me."

"Get out of my house," Christophe flashed. His hand clutching the paper almost crumpled it. "And I want those tuning wrenches," he said contemptuously, "I want them now."

"They're under my bed," she said. Her voice was dry as if burnt by feeling. "You know what you have to do to get them? Can you figure that out? Have you read about it in books!"

"Get out of here!" He rose, all but upsetting the table.

She took a step backward, almost afraid. She was shaking her head. She was on the verge of tears, and Christophe didn't move as if he didn't trust himself to move.

"I wish Captain Hamilton had killed you!" her voice rang out over the cla.s.sroom.

"So do I!" Christophe said. "So do I!"

But she had already turned, and banging the front door behind her, she was gone.

Christophe slumped in the chair. He tilted the bottle to the gla.s.s.

"Christophe..." Marcel came forward. He put his hand around the neck of the bottle..."don't do this. Don't let her...she's nothing but a..."

"Don't you dare purport to tell me what she is!" Christophe hissed. He jerked the bottle from Marcel and rose, glowering into Marcel's eyes. "Don't you say one word about her. You and your miserable bourgeois friends, don't give me any more of your bourgeois estimations of anything, slavery, manners, morals, women! She's worth more than the lot of you, indolent planters' brats and shopkeepers all!" He stopped, his mouth open.

Marcel was so stricken that the tears came at once. He backed away from the table, his fists clenched, and trembling turned and went through the door.

"Marcel, don't go!" Christophe said. "Don't go. Please, don't go."

Marcel turned to see him standing beside the table, his face as defenseless as that of a child. His voice was simple, without pride. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know why I said that to you, to you above all. I didn't mean it, Marcel."

Marcel wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He couldn't have refused Christophe anything at this moment. Yet he was bruised. "But why did you defend her, Christophe!" he asked.

"You don't know the whole story," Christophe said softly. He paused, his level brown eyes merely holding Marcel, and Marcel felt the most unexpected sense of foreboding. It was as if Christophe were trying to make him understand something here, beyond the words, and Marcel was filled with fear.

But Christophe had looked away, and when he spoke again it was as if he were speaking to himself. "I wounded Dolly," he said. "She expected something of me, something I just couldn't give." He stopped, and then in a low voice added, "I disappointed disappointed her." her."

"So you didn't love her!" Marcel blurted out. "And if you had, she would have wounded you!"

"You think so?" Christophe's eyes fixed on him.

"She's a d.a.m.ned soul!" Marcel insisted.

"So am I," Christophe answered.

"I don't believe that!" Marcel said, his voice breaking. "I don't believe that anymore than I believe we're all...we're all indolent planters' brats, whatever you called us! I don't believe anything you say today. You should stop talking altogether!"

There was a flicker, a flinching in Christophe's eyes. He took a slow drink of the whiskey. "You're my star pupil, Marcel," he said. "You're the one face out there in the crowded cla.s.s room that means the world."

"Then don't disappoint me me, Chris!" Marcel said. "Not for Dolly Rose!"

Christophe winced. He sat still for a moment, and then with a soft sound more subtle than a sigh, he took the bottle of whiskey and locked it in the press. He rested his back against the press and looked calmly at Marcel.

"I'll see you tonight," he said. His voice was low, devoid of irony. "And tomorrow and tomorrow...and tomorrow, I'll be here."

III.

IT WAS ONLY A FEW HOURS later that Marcel entered the cottage parlor, dressed for the opera, his serge cape over his shoulders, his white gloves clasped in one hand. He had no spirit for it, and could not remember his pa.s.sion for the music he had heard the year before. The image of Dolly Rose twirling her skirts in the empty cla.s.sroom had commenced to obsess him for reasons that weren't clear to him. And he was thinking only of his duty now to Marie. His aunts were fluttering about, a.s.sisting Lisette with all the boudoir preparations while Cecile sat collected by the fire. later that Marcel entered the cottage parlor, dressed for the opera, his serge cape over his shoulders, his white gloves clasped in one hand. He had no spirit for it, and could not remember his pa.s.sion for the music he had heard the year before. The image of Dolly Rose twirling her skirts in the empty cla.s.sroom had commenced to obsess him for reasons that weren't clear to him. And he was thinking only of his duty now to Marie. His aunts were fluttering about, a.s.sisting Lisette with all the boudoir preparations while Cecile sat collected by the fire.

But as he was sipping his brandy, and had just lit a cheroot by the coals, he raised his eyes to see, quite unexpectedly, a woman he did not know emerging from the bedroom door. And it was with a flush of embarra.s.sment that he realized this was his sister Marie. Forgetting himself entirely he rose in one fluid unconscious gesture from the chair.

Her black hair was brought up and back from her forehead to descend in deep waves on either side of her temples before being swept to the wreath of braids behind her head. Lisette had threaded these braids exquisitely with pearls, and pearls dangled as well from the pendants in the delicate lobes of her ears. The deep ruffle of her emerald green dress plunged to reveal for the first time the full swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. And the skin was flawless there, set off by the iridescence of the watered silk, and it was as smooth and as fair as her naked arms. Marcel drew in his breath. She was a vision standing before him, in an excess of ornament that only a G.o.ddess might have supported, and as she lifted her eyes to him he saw that these were her real jewels. He was proud beyond words. And he felt such a rush of tender love for her that he realized he was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. He forgot Dolly, forgot Christophe, forgot all the world. She reached out for him. He drew close to her as Lisette brought her velvet cape.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "let me kiss your hand."

But it was not until they had settled in the box at the opera house and he saw the heads turn throughout the crowded tier that he began to feel a pounding excitement for her, an exultation when he looked at her, which he could not conceal. He could all but feel the eyes upon her, they seemed to give her cheeks a glow. And as she gazed for the first time on the spectacle around her, the commotion everywhere of painted fans and flashing jewels, and heads bowed beneath tiaras, she seemed to feel some genuine pleasure of her own. That old doleful aura had been dissipated. She was not that funereal angel that had always made him sad. In fact she was looking boldly across the dim gulf that divided the arms of the balcony to the Lermontant box.

At once the visits commenced. She had been the last to arrive, perhaps by some marvelous timing on the part of the aunts, and Marcel could see Celestina and Gabriella making small motions of greeting, and the Rousseau family, wife and daughters of the rich tailor, and the LeMonds with their cigar factories, and the colored planters who had come in from Iberville and St. Landry and Cane River were all settled comfortably in their chairs.

But behind him, Augustin Dumanoir had just entered to pay his respects with his father, that impressive, chocolate-colored man, his gaunt face and powerful African features rendered all the more dramatic by his silver hair. The young Augustin was the color of bronze. He wore a small ruby ring on the little finger of his right hand. And no sooner had they withdrawn than Marcel had risen to greet the LeMond brothers, and then came young men from the Cane River with a note of introduction from Tante Josette. And here was Fantin Roget, clever enough to flatter Colette and Louisa enormously before turning ecstatic and simple eyes on Marie. His face as he bent to greet her was as fair, as white as her own.

But something had distracted Marcel. It was faintly disturbing, but he had to get back to it, and as soon as he could he looked out again across the house. It was a familiar figure in a far box, and there were other figures with it, one of them pathetically small, bent. It was Anna Bella, he realized, with Madame Elsie behind her stooped over her cane. And it was the slim, square-shouldered figure of Christophe that stood above her as she looked up. The endearing tilt of the head was unmistakable; she was laughing now without bothering to lift her fan, and even at this great remove, Marcel was overcome with a sense of her, of that sweetness, that slow, mellow voice that Christophe must be hearing now. Lightly, her white-gloved hand touched the sparkle of a pendant on her breast. And her breast was the color of ivory and flowed beautifully into the low bodice of apricot silk.

But the light was sputtering, going out. He could not tell if the distant face saw him as it turned, if the eyes were meeting his as Christophe withdrew. He saw the pale slope of rounded shoulders, that long graceful neck, the full bouffant of heavy black hair. And dropping his eyes, he peered at the distant glimmer of the musicians' lights, and sighing, let the antic.i.p.ation all around lull the fever in his veins. But there was pain in this. He did not feel enchantment. He could not lose himself, even as the music came at last, with a lovely surge, it was as if he could not care.

At each intermission, the admirers came. Marie was the sensation of the evening, and Marcel spent every minute clasping hands. Even Christophe came before the last act, reciting another little poem for Louisa which thrilled her so that she coquetted as Marcel hadn't seen her do in years. The poem was straight from Lord Byron, and Christophe had a mocking smile. But Louisa had never heard of Lord Byron, and doubtless forgot the words as soon as they were recited. "Go visit with Juliet!" she struck Marcel's shoulders with her fan. "Go on now," she bent to whisper. "Your teacher's mother hasn't been here in ten years. And she so loved the opera, go on. I made her new dress."

Richard had just lifted the green curtain and silently entered the box.

Marie shifted without the slightest coyness, "Eh bien," bien," she said under her breath. "I thought you had forgotten me, Richard." And Marcel could see the blood rush to Richard's face. He was radiant, teasing her in return. "Ah Marie Ste. Marie, but we've met before, haven't we?" He bent to kiss her hand without even lifting it. "Surely...or was it in my dreams?" she said under her breath. "I thought you had forgotten me, Richard." And Marcel could see the blood rush to Richard's face. He was radiant, teasing her in return. "Ah Marie Ste. Marie, but we've met before, haven't we?" He bent to kiss her hand without even lifting it. "Surely...or was it in my dreams?"

Marcel was on the verge of laughing. Sooner or later he had to start teasing Richard mercilessly about all this. Christophe, beside him as they moved down the carpeted corridor, said, "They are in love!"

"Then you see it, too!" Marcel said. But as Christophe lifted the curtain of his box, Marcel paused. It seemed no happiness tonight could be more than evanescent, he didn't understand himself and this sudden apprehension, this sudden compulsion. "And why not?" he whispered defiantly, "Why not?"

"What is it, Blue Eyes?" Christophe whispered.

But how with that old witch right at Anna Bella's side? And if we are not children, then what in h.e.l.l are we, if I cannot call upon her between acts as it's always done, if I cannot visit with her in her box? But he did not allow these thoughts to become confused. He turned, telling Christophe softly, urgently, he would be back.

Neither Anna Bella nor Madame Elsie saw him as he entered. And, as he drew close behind Anna Bella's chair, the bell was sounded for the last act. Her head was slightly bowed, and those curling wisps that always escaped her coif lay on the fair nape of her neck. The old woman was stirring with the dry rustle of taffeta and some clicking noise from her throat.

"Aaah!" she let out that scornful sound as if for a vocal chord she had only her long hooked nose. And gently, just beneath him, Anna Bella looked up. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, so full, were actually plumped against the apricot silk and between them lay a deep well of shadow with the sparkle of the diamond, cold, against the flesh. But it was her bright face that obliterated this, the light gathered in the irises of her enormous eyes.

"Marcel," she whispered, and the lights all around went dim. The old woman was speaking rapidly, viciously, she brought her cane down with a thump.

"Stop it, Madame Elsie!" came the insistent plea, the face the perfect shape of a sweetheart now rent with distress. She reached out for Madame Elsie's cane. The stage lights had risen far below leaving them in a dusky cloud. Then without thinking Marcel lifted his fingers to his lips, placed a kiss on them and touched her baby-soft cheek. He heard her desperate whisper, "Marcel!" as he left the box.

The pa.s.sage was dark. He was all but stumbling toward Christophe quite far ahead of him, and then into the loges, Christophe directing him to sit beside his mother as he took the other chair.

The music was all around him, the wild and tragic theme of the closing act. He bowed his head. He saw nothing, and felt an immense suffocating lump in his throat. It was noise, deafening noise, this music. Painfully obliterating all else except the sensation that he was standing in the unlit hallway of the Mercier house and that Anna Bella was glaring at him from the wall, tears on her cheeks, and then came that right hand up toward his face. And what had this to do with the figure of Dolly Rose in lilac taffeta twirling through that cla.s.sroom today as if she were a young girl? And what had this to do with the woman beside him, Juliet in black velvet, her gown so much a part of the dark that she was nothing but radiant flesh and otherwise naked, conceivably, an animalian posture nevertheless visible against that ornate little chair. He blinked at the distant stage, saw its colors running as if on a rain-drenched window pane. He could remember nothing of the sensation of Anna Bella's hand against his face then and all of the sensation of having held her in his arms. All he had to do now to see Anna Bella was ever so slightly turn his head.

All he had to do to see beauty all around him was ever so slightly turn his head, Gabriella and Celestina, Nanette LeMond with her russet curls, and Dolly, Dolly whom he'd glimpsed before with those country quadroons done up in their Paris gowns, and Marie whose silhouette he could still see against the glow of the stage. Beauty was all around, beauty which seemed the very nature of his people in its infinite variety, splendid mixtures, that unabashed blend of the genteel and exotic that had made his women famous for two centuries and brought the aristocratic white blood again and again into their veins.

He sucked in his breath. This was unbearable to him, and he stared at the opera gla.s.ses in his hand. Juliet's fingers had placed them there, and withdrawing stroked him lightly as they disappeared. The music sang of foreboding, tragedy, death. A Charlotte was being overcome by a Randolphe, while an Antonio wept in the wings.

And then one image imprinted itself clearly upon his eye. It was that of a white man, against the wall of a box below where women in front of him could not see him, looking up directly, unmistakably, at the colored tier. It seemed he lifted his gla.s.ses now to probe one certain spot. That box to the far left and down the length of the balcony where a girl with snow-white shoulders sat looking serenely at the stage. And Marcel, turning his glance to her, picked his sister out of the gloom. Dream on, Marcel thought suddenly, acidly, look while you can. She's no immigrant off the boat from Saint-Domingue, no vain and vicious Dolly Rose. A gasp went up from the audience. Another Charlotte had met her inevitable violence, what had he said that night to Christophe when Christophe had only just come home? It was the death of innocence. He shook his head.

"But what is it?" Christophe whispered to him. The opera was over. All around men rose to their feet. "Bravo, Bravo." There was stomping on the hollow wooden floors.

There was a party afterwards at the aunts' flat to which all were invited, the Lermontants with Giselle and her children, the Rogets, the Dumanoirs. Fiddlers had been hired and a spinet rented, Lendamain the caterer had rolled back the carpets for dancing, brought gallons of champagne.

Marcel realized at once that it was so crowded he could easily slip away, and Christophe did not surprise him by coming on alone.

"But where is that Juliet, I made her gown," Tante Colette said to him, and he after a few polite excuses whispered to Marcel. "I can't trust her at these affairs, you know how she is. She saw Dolly on the street a week ago and tried to catch her by the hair."

Small wonder, Marcel thought. It seemed he should be loving all this, how exciting it would have been the year before when he'd gone home with all that music playing triumphantly in his brain. And now he could remember nothing of the opera, it had become a din.

"So she cannot be trusted at these affairs," he thought irritably, and when Christophe spoke to him again he was almost rude.

At last, bad company for himself as well as anyone else, he went to take his leave of his aunts. The music had commenced, and Christophe had asked Marie to dance. They had just begun to move, gracefully, swiftly about the polished floor as Marcel headed for the stairs. Richard in the shadows, his arms folded, watched Marie, her skirts swaying with the waltz, his face serene with absorption, his lips just touched with a smile.

For an hour Marcel roamed.

He walked around the iron fence of the Place d'Armes, then through streets no wider than alleys, oblivious to the mud that spattered his boots, winding his way along the riverfront, imagining now and again and unsuccessfully that he was walking along the Rue St.-Jacques in Paris to cross the Seine and make his way to the Tuileries. But he was in the city of New Orleans, and outside the fashionable billiard parlors in the Rue Royale, he watched the white men milling about the tables, heard the crash of the b.a.l.l.s. He melted into the shadows as they swept past him, top hats glistening in the rain.

It was sweet to know he might return at any moment to the crowded party and yet it was not sweet at all. He gazed up at the lighted windows of the Hotel St. Louis, watched the carriages stopping, heard the music of the salons.

The Mercier house was dark when he turned the corner into the Rue Dauphine. Then drawing near the end of the wall in back, he saw a light in Juliet's window above. Curtains were drawn, a phantom smoke rose in gusts from the brick chimney against the gray sky. Catching his hand in the thick vines that still covered the bricks, he gazed upward, musing, wanting, but not really daring to sound the bell. So she could not be trusted at these affairs, so she had tried to catch that sorceress, Dolly, by the hair! It made him smile.

All of her life was Christophe's now, she cooked for him, ironed his shirts with her own hands, worked like a servant in the back kitchen and seemed content with a white ap.r.o.n tied across her skirts, her hair gathered under a red tignon tignon. And yet she could emerge that magnificent lady in black velvet who had smiled at him tonight as he entered the box. She had hummed once with the opera, and he had been touched by it, soothed by it, in spite of the complexity of his thoughts. "Ah, think of it if you like," he whispered aloud in the dark street, "no one can stop you from dreaming, dreaming about them all." But closing his eyes, a torturous sensation intruded. It was Anna Bella he was holding, Anna Bella he was kissing, and then he remembered with a surge of anger that guileless virginal sweetness, those trusting little arms. In this very street, he could have pressed his head against the vines until their thorns cut him, he could have cried.