Long Distance Life Part 39

"But you didn't deserve it," Christophe said. "And I think you are punishing yourself much too much for what you did today, you need to rest in this place, Sans Souci Sans Souci, you need to think. But not about the exchange between you and this white man. It's finished. You frightened him, outraged him; he feared some humiliation before his white family which from all I've heard simply did not come about. They didn't see you, and more than likely if they had, they would not have guessed who you were. So don't go on with this, Marcel, turn your eyes ahead."

"Ahead, Chris!" Marcel demanded. "Ahead to what!"

The smooth flesh of Christophe's forehead contracted into a sharp frown. But he was as still as before. "I didn't educate you for the Ecole Normale in Paris," he said. "I educated you for yourself. And you will kill me-you will kill me!-if this has proved a waste. If I haven't given you something with which to fortify your soul now, well then truly, I've failed."

"You've never failed!" Marcel whispered. He looked away. It was excruciating to him that their talk had taken this turn. Unwillingly he thought of that night in Madame Lelaud's when Christophe first came home, he thought of all he had expected of his new teacher and of how the flesh-and-blood Christophe had put to shame the poverty of his dreams. He let his eyes return to the disarray of poems, books that made up Christophe's wall and then again to Christophe's face. It wasn't a severe look he found there, not even with a touch of the reprimand which had just barely sharpened Christophe's voice. "Why is it you're not angry with me?" Marcel demanded. "Why is it you're not disgusted with me for what I've done? Why do you go on believing in me when everyone else has probably given up?"

But Marcel didn't wait for an answer. If they could not embrace, he could still find some voice for his heart. "It could have been so different," he said. "You could have been the same teacher, and the school, it could have molded me in the same way. But why have you given me so much more than that, why have you demanded of me over and over just what I really wanted to demand of myself? You trusted me when you came home, trusted me when I'd disappointed and frightened everyone; and you trusted me later with Juliet, trusted me to love her and not bring harm to any one of us, and you're trusting me now, aren't you, not to fail us both?"

"Is that so remarkable!" Christophe's face had changed. The calm had melted to an agitation, and the voice was deepened as it always was at moments of emotion. "Why shouldn't I trust you!" he insisted. "Why shouldn't I believe in you as I always have? Marcel, is it that you fail to see what's really happened here? What is cutting you even now? I'll tell you then if you don't see it. It's that this man, Philippe Ferronaire, has dismissed you, that he doesn't give a d.a.m.n about you, your accomplishments, your dreams. And you stumbled out to that plantation to make him see you, to force him to recognize you for the young man that you are! But Marcel, he'll never do that, and you must let him be a fool in his own world without destroying yours!"

He stopped. He had never once broken the still posture, never once even raised his voice. But his face was contorted and his eyes were moist. "He's a b.a.s.t.a.r.d for what he's done!" he whispered. "And you never deserved it, and it is no measure of what you are!"

Marcel was shaken. He knew that Christophe was watching him, waiting for some sign that he had been heard. And that desire in Marcel to embrace Christophe was almost more than he could surmount.

"It's not going to cripple you!" Christophe said. "It's not going to ruin you. Do you understand?"

Marcel nodded.

Their eyes met.

And the clearest perception occurred in Marcel then. So clear that it was never subject to doubt. He knew suddenly that Christophe wanted to rise, to come to him just as surely as Marcel wanted it, he knew that Christophe wanted desperately to underscore this moment with some vibrant and man-to-man warmth. He wanted to slip his arm around Marcel's shoulder, he wanted to say with a forthright gesture, yes, I trust you, and there is love, too. It was all there in Christophe's eyes. It pa.s.sed between them unspoken. And just as surely as Marcel sensed this, he knew Christophe would never embrace him at such a moment. Christophe would never, never take the risk. Because all of the old suspicions about Christophe were true. And that rigid poise which over and over again simulated the Daguerreotype was simply the violent and obdurate check on physical desire.

Marcel didn't move. And yet the physical presence of Christophe overwhelmed him. He felt drawn to Christophe as he had always been, to Christophe's quiet and compelling strength. And he knew that it had never been his fear which stood between them; rather it was Christophe's fear, and this seemed quite suddenly absurd. But what amazed Marcel was not this final realization, not the quiet admission that he had always known the truth, but rather that he had struggled against it for so long. What had he felt? That the world would become chaos should he admit what he could never deny? What world, and what chaos, he mused. Who had mattered more to him than Chris, what had mattered more? And any fear he had once known was obliterated, gone with the remnants of his dreams and his patronage which had never been there at all.

But even as Marcel stood still at the mantel, Christophe underwent a slow but cataclysmic change. His eyes narrowed for an instant, and he rose, moving impulsively away from the desk and toward the window where, resting his shoulder on the frame, he gazed through the narrow slats into the street.

These thoughts were too much for Marcel. It was all beyond him, and mingled with his love it was more than he could comprehend. He never once took his eyes from Chris, and now as only a yard lay between them, he moved silently forward. There seemed no reason on earth not to do that, not to defy the entire world.

Christophe's restraint yielded slowly. He put his arm around Marcel. But it was rough, warm, as any man's embrace might have been.

"Now, are you going to stand on your own?" Christophe whispered. His hand was almost hurting Marcel's shoulder with its urgent clasp. "Answer me, I want to hear you say it."

Marcel nodded.

"I won't fail you," Marcel said. "But you must tell me. Have I ever failed you in some other way?"

There was a flicker in Christophe's eyes. His arm didn't release Marcel; rather it tightened. "Never," he whispered, the eyes inquisitive, solicitous. "How could you think that you have?"

Marcel, wondering, gave a slight shake of the head. "Has there never been anything else you wanted of me, something perhaps for which you wouldn't ask?" He thought he saw just the glimmer of pain in the shadowy face. "Take it," Marcel whispered. "It's already yours. It's been yours all along."

Christophe was incredulous, then slowly amazed. And then there was the light of recognition. He raised his right hand, gently, tentatively. And it seemed he made some soft sound. Then suddenly he drew himself up, and shoved Marcel backward and away.

The gesture was brutal. Marcel was stunned. "Christophe," he gasped. He had to reach for the mantel to prevent himself from falling. And he heard himself again say Christophe's name. But Christophe was gone. And by the time Marcel reached the head of the stairs, the door to the street had slammed shut.

It was six o'clock. It seemed there were sounds from below of the early morning churchgoers, those steady daily attendants at Ma.s.s. And carters headed for the waterfront markets and slaves, starched and pressed and on their way to the restaurants and the big hotels. That old man would be pa.s.sing, most likely, who opened his shoe shop down the block long before anyone else. He would be outside on the stool reading last night's papers before the others unlocked their doors.

And Marcel who had been lying in Christophe's bed was dimly aware that he had fallen to sleep, and that on awakening he was not alone. He sat up slowly, pleased that the pain in his head did not blind him, and lifting the napkin from the gla.s.s beside him drank the water down. Then he drank the pitcher, too.

And looking forward, and slightly to the right, he saw Christophe's feet before the leather chair by the hearth. He stared vacantly at those boots, and felt a dull despair.

I've ruined it, he thought, ruined it all. He is going to tell me to go to the Lermontants, and that's unbearable and I'll have no choice. But more than that, greater than that, how can we go on being teacher and student, friends? Only silence made that possible, only pretending that I did not know what I knew.

He jerked the covers back and set his feet on the floor.

"I want you to know this," he said in a low voice, his eyes down. "I've always thought...perhaps wrongly...that you and the Englishman were more than friends. I thought...I thought that you were lovers. And when I approached you last night, it was from the heart." He rose and moved to the door.

"Wait," Christophe said.

"I'll never mention it again. I'll never say a word."

"Will you let me explain?" Christophe said softly. "Will you allow me that?"

Marcel sat listlessly on the bed. It was dawn all right, he could see the colors of the rug, the tiny flowers on the wall, and even as he sat there the light brightened around him almost magically. "Explain?" he asked. "Why in the h.e.l.l should you explain anything to me? I am the one who presumed, not you."

"You were right," Christophe said. "Michael and I were lovers. But I never thought, never once, that I'd given you cause to believe I wanted that from you."

"You didn't give me cause!" Marcel looked up at Chris for the first time. "It was I who wanted it. Mon Dieu Mon Dieu, isn't that plain?" He turned away almost angrily.

"No, you don't want it, that's just the trouble," Christophe said. "But I've always wanted you. From the first night I saw you, I wanted you. And it's been nothing, nothing but a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle ever since. I've lived in terror that the slightest gesture might betray it, that I'd lose our friendship, which was all I'd ever have. And then, out of despair, Marcel, out of despair, you approached me. Not out of love, not out of desire, but out of despair."

"That's not true," Marcel said bitterly. "I love you. And I'd do anything for you and if you don't know that, it's because you don't want to know it."

"Spare me the sacrifice!" Christophe's voice was sharp.

"But I don't know how to be your lover!" Marcel came back. "Sacrifice has nothing to do with it! You have to show me, you're my teacher, you have to show me what you want!"

"You d.a.m.nable little son-of-b.i.t.c.h," Christophe bent forward. "Don't you understand! It's not me you want, it's that man who's eluded you all your life, the father that Ferronaire refused to be. That's what you want, that's what you were searching for the night I met you. Don't shake your head and look away from me. By G.o.d, I've kept my hands off you long enough and I'll turn your head around on your neck if you don't listen."

"And so we all want fathers and mothers," Marcel said with disgust, "tumbling in the dark and lost. My mother wants some dead father she left dangling from a hook in Saint-Domingue so she lays her head on my father's chest. It's a father Marie wants when she looks up to Richard, so it's a father I want when I look to you."

Christophe stared at the barren fireplace, his boot thrust against the fender, his fist under his chin. And Marcel looked at the smooth brown skin of his face, his hands, the glittering and narrow eyes that were averted, shutting Marcel out and slightly maddening him. He had that same mounting feeling of the night before; if I touch you this ache in me, this misery, will be gone, and we'll be together in some new dimension of love; you'll be there with me if I'm afraid. He drew in his breath. But this had no immediate physical figment for him, which made it all the more alluring and strange.

"They may want a father, a mother, whatever you say," Christophe said. "But the need is not the same. It's the intensity that breaks the heart, the feeling of being lost in a world of fragmented dreams and aspirations without guidance, without some strong hand that can lead you to a maturity where you will feel self-reliant at last. I don't think you can really love anyone, Marcel, until you have that self-reliance, until the need is diminished. And I tell you right now that need in you is desperate. You laid your heart bare to that old cabinet-maker, Jean Jacques, and it was pure and unmingled with desire just as it was the first night I came home. You said to me from your soul, 'be my teacher, be my father, help me to become someone who is valuable, someone who is good...'"

Marcel let out a small desperate sound and motioned for Christophe to stop.

"But you see," Christophe continued, "now you are confusing that need with something else. You're confusing it with a physical love with which it doesn't belong. And that combination, Marcel, that need and that love, it would be the most appalling, the most dangerous mistake."

"It was a mistake between you and the Englishman?" Marcel demanded.

"Oh, was it ever!" Christophe whispered. "But I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't gone off with Michael. I wasn't as strong as you are, Marcel. All we had in common as boys was that terrible need.

"And Michael filled that need. He was father, lover, teacher, all blown into one magnificent figure that overpowered me and held me just like this in its hand. Oh, the world was born the day I left Paris with Michael, everything had meaning when Michael explained it, it was beautiful if Michael said it was beautiful, and as long as Michael was with me, anything, absolutely anything at all, could have been endured.

"But don't you see, his hold became so tight I was strangling! That's why I left Paris, surely you know that now. I was engulfed by him, I couldn't breathe. So I crossed the sea to break the hold. I went back to the only other person who had a grip on me and thought, well, at least that's a step towards freedom, and Maman for all the grubby power she's got over my soul has never wielded it with any conviction or any purpose whatsoever.

"But you know what happened. He came after me before I could break his hold, and he died here because of me. And he took half of me with him to the grave. I'll never be free of him, and the life I live now is an imitation of the life I dreamed of, nothing more.

"Now you must listen to me. You feel the same need that I felt. In your own way you are equally lost. You love your father, no, don't say you don't. I know you do, you've always been more or less in love with him and the whole idea of him, that powerful planter strewing your path with gold. But what you loathed was that he did not love you at all. And when that need in you went unsatisfied, you turned to others, to old Jean Jacques and then to me. I knew in every word you ever told me about that old cabinetmaker what it was you wanted. People always tell us what they want. I understood when you finally confessed to me that you'd jumped the cemetery wall that night to visit his grave. I understood it much better than you did. Just as I know now I cannot do to you what Michael did to me.

"I am facing the same moment that Michael faced in Paris. And this decision will not be Michael's decision. It will be my own.

"But what I'm going to tell you now is the hardest lesson of all. This need of which I've spoken all along, this need must never really be fulfilled. To be a man you are going to have to forget it, you are going to have to learn to live with the knowledge that the child in you has come to maturity without ever knowing that protective love.

"Someday, someday you may have a lover, someone you love above anyone else in the world, and that could be a man. It doesn't much matter, not so much as people suppose. And there's always been something exquisitely discerning in you, something quite apart from the prejudices of the world. I do believe you when you say you came to me last night with your heart. But whether it be a man or a woman, you can only love that person fully and trust that person fully when you no longer have that need."

He paused, the pupils of his eyes dancing, his fist curled under his chin. "Men and men, women and women," he said staring at the fireplace. "I've known the best brothels this world has to offer, and the best brothel boys from Istanbul to Tangier. I suppose I could make you overcome any antipathy with a skill the like of which you can't conceive. But mix a child's need and a man's desire, I will not do it. I've made my decision and the answer is now and forever simply no."

Marcel rose and walked slowly, silently, back and forth across the room. The sun was just coming through the slats. And he stood for a while at the blind letting the sun warm his face and his hands. A long interval pa.s.sed, and finally he spoke.

"I love you, Chris," he said.

"I know you do," Christophe said. "And you know my answer..."

"But Chris," he looked down at Christophe in the chair, "it can't be as lonely as that. An imitation of the life you wanted, I can't accept it. When I think of you in the cla.s.sroom, when I think of the pa.s.sion and the power you've always shown us..."

"We're talking about my battle now, and frankly I'd rather not!" Christophe averred. But then his face softened, eyes still on the hearth. "Maybe I haven't worked hard enough," he murmured. "I don't know." And then he looked up at Marcel with an open, defenseless expression as if they were men of the same age. "I've got to stop loving you so much. I've got to stop constructing a little world of dreams around your comings and goings, and imagining every time you darken my mother's door you're coming to me."

Marcel's face was drawn into a scowl. "Christophe," he said. "You know you're just hanging onto the Englishman, don't you? You just don't want to let him go!"

Anger rent Christophe's face. His eyes became defiant at once. "And I asked you if you were going to stand on your own! Do you ever lie down!" he demanded. "Do you ever stop swinging? Well, don't take advantage of what I feel for you!" and in a rage he rose to go.

"And what about what I feel for you, Chris!" Marcel asked. "I don't mean the blundering gesture I made last night. I mean what I really feel! Doesn't that give me some right to speak now? You've got to let the Englishman go. Of course you live in dreams of me because you know you'll never let those dreams come true. And that way you can be faithful to Michael forever, can't you? Well, how are you going to stop all of that if you don't love someone else?"

Christophe had slumped against the frame of the door. His eyes were weary, reddened from lack of sleep, and he stared forward listlessly. "Come here to me," he said softly with a gesture of his left hand.

Marcel stared for a moment, confused. And then quickly he moved forward closing the distance between them and felt Christophe's arm enfold him just as it had done the night before. He felt it strong, simple against his back with a rea.s.suring pressure that suddenly softened him all over and made him feel a curious relief.

"Now I am going to demand something of you," Christophe said in a low voice, "with a lover's prerogative and a teacher's authority, and that is this. That you never, never mention any of this to me again."

II.

ANNA B BELLA HAD BEEN CRYING on and off for days. Zurlina said it was nothing but the usual after the birth of a child. Yet Zurlina had told her in glowing detail of Marcel's long walk to on and off for days. Zurlina said it was nothing but the usual after the birth of a child. Yet Zurlina had told her in glowing detail of Marcel's long walk to Bontemps Bontemps and that his father, Michie Philippe, had given him the flogging he deserved. Anna Bella did not have to ask each day whether or not Michie Philippe had come to town after Marcel, Zurlina let her know the goings on at the Ste. Marie cottage as always, replete with gossip of how that miserable Lisette was ruining herself again, sneaking off evenings to the house of Lola Dede, the voodooienne, who was nothing but a harlot selling colored girls to white men in her house for good money, just as she sold voodoo candles, and powders and charms. And of course the Ste. Marie family didn't know any of this, didn't have the slightest idea. and that his father, Michie Philippe, had given him the flogging he deserved. Anna Bella did not have to ask each day whether or not Michie Philippe had come to town after Marcel, Zurlina let her know the goings on at the Ste. Marie cottage as always, replete with gossip of how that miserable Lisette was ruining herself again, sneaking off evenings to the house of Lola Dede, the voodooienne, who was nothing but a harlot selling colored girls to white men in her house for good money, just as she sold voodoo candles, and powders and charms. And of course the Ste. Marie family didn't know any of this, didn't have the slightest idea.

Meanwhile Anna Bella was tired, dreadfully tired. She had not seen Michie Vince since the week after their son was born, and Anna Bella knew that he was disappointed that this baby had not been a little girl. He had stayed several days, however, and once in a while had held the little baby in his arms. It had been foolish of her to want to name it Vincent, she realized, though he had been tender with her in explaining that he might someday have another son who would be called by this name, perhaps she should give the child her father's name, Martin. This was done. He had filled the bedroom with flowers, and worked all day long in the parlor with his agricultural journals as usual, the aroma of fresh coffee wafting again and again through the small rooms. And though polite to her as always, there was a stiffness about him, and that old sense of foreboding came over her often when she looked into his pensive withdrawn face.

Then only hours after he had finally left, Zurlina came to tell her, it was Michie Vince's wish that she put the child out to nurse. The tears had come at once. "I don't believe that!" Anna Bella had said. "I won't believe it." She held little Martin tightly, her face averted, whispering, "You go away."

"Listen, girl," she had said. "You put that baby out to nurse now. When that man comes here, he wants to find that baby out to nurse."

"He won't even be back until after the harvest," Anna Bella said, her lip trembling, "and I want to hear that from him when he comes back, why didn't he say it to me?"

And so each day after that Zurlina warned her to find a wet nurse for the child. And each day Anna Bella rocked by the fire, attempting to affect her entire body with the love she felt for the baby so as to calm her body and not injure her milk.

Then there were the visitors, so many, day after day, Madame Elsie's old friends, Gabriella Roget and her mother, Madame Suzette with the ladies from her Benevolent Society, and even Marie Ste. Marie with her aunts. And over and over, from the little crowd about the ba.s.sinet came those shrill and sprightly observations, "Why that child's got his father's nose and mouth, and good good hair! Course Anna Bella's got good hair, just look at that pretty child!" And what if it had gone another way, Anna Bella thought. It seemed it was all that concerned them, that mixture of the white and the black, could this child perhaps pa.s.s? hair! Course Anna Bella's got good hair, just look at that pretty child!" And what if it had gone another way, Anna Bella thought. It seemed it was all that concerned them, that mixture of the white and the black, could this child perhaps pa.s.s?

But alone at night after Zurlina was asleep, she lifted the baby from the ba.s.sinet beside her bed and laid it sleeping still against her breast. "All right, then, Martin, since the world's the way it is," she thought, "you are certainly blessed. You won't know the pain I've known," and a glistening tear fell once on his tiny cheek as she brooded lovingly over him, "but when you grow up, son, what will you think when you look at me?" It seemed to her at such moments that it would have been better, actually better, if Anna Bella Monroe had never been born.

Her son's large dark eyes opened to reflect a mere particle of light from the little crackle of a fire on the hearth, and unseeing, uncomprehending, he lolled in the warmth of her arms. "I don't believe Michie Vince said such a thing," she whispered aloud to no one, "I won't give him up to a nurse, I won't do it," and at the faintest cry she put the nipple in his little mouth.

"You ought to be happy," Zurlina would say as she yanked Anna Bella's hair with the brush in the morning, "with all you've got! Don't you know you've got to please that man! Didn't you see the look on that man's face when he saw you nursing that baby! Why, girl, you've got to pay attention to that man."

Don't you be a fool, came the old refrain, that man's crazy for you but he won't be for long, you just better put that baby out, out, out, till Anna Bella angrily s.n.a.t.c.hed the brush from Zurlina's hand.

"Why did you want to come here after Madame Elsie died?" she said bitterly. "Why didn't you stay on at the boardinghouse, those old women would have paid well for you, they told me so themselves, no, you had to tell Michie Vince you wanted to stay here."

"And you be d.a.m.ned glad I did," Zurlina said, looking down her long narrow nose, her thin lips pressed together. "Now give me that brush back, look at your hair. And I've got to go to market besides."

"You run this house, that's why you wanted Michie Vince to buy you," Anna Bella said. "Well, go on to market and leave me alone."

"Don't you be a fool," Be a fool, be a fool, be a fool.

And then two weeks after Michie Vince had left there came this word that Marcel had gotten wildly drunk and wandered right through the gates at Bontemps Bontemps.

She sucked in her breath shuddering, and finally after two days had written him a letter. But his reply had been protective of her. "Don't worry, Anna Bella, I am going to the country for a few months, I have done myself no great injury, and not harmed anyone else besides." He had recounted simply for her the story of his altered prospects. He would not be apprenticed to Monsieur Rudolphe in the undertaking trade. He did not know now what he would do. She put down the letter and stared at the grate. And when she had read it several times, committed it to memory, in fact, she burnt it quickly though why she could not say.

And now alone in her little parlor, the child rocked to sleep in his draped cradle beside her, she watched the night shroud the open windows, the late September air at last touched with a real chill, and she felt her tears coming again. She had almost fallen asleep, her fire dead, her shawl tight over her shoulders and the trees black against the curtains, when she heard that familiar step on the walk. "Michie Vince," she whispered aloud and turned, rising, just for a moment groggy and confused with sleep.

He had slammed the door behind him, and without removing his cape he came across the parlor toward her until she could just make out the sharp features of his face.

"Have you heard!" his voice came in a terse whisper. "Have you heard what your friend Marcel has done?" It was rage that was emanating from the familiar figure as if an alien force had inhabited the body that was looming over her, the dark heavy cape distorting it into a great menacing shape.

"Michie Vince," she whispered softly in amazement.

"Don't you ever, ever, ever in your life let that child come on my property!" he said throwing a long white finger out toward the ba.s.sinet, his voice rising to a roar in the silence.

She gasped.

"You teach him, teach him from the day he is old enough to understand anything, you see that he understands, that he is never, never to do such a thing!"

From the lace over the cradle the child moaned and let out a wail.

"You teach him from the beginning never to come near me or my family, do you understand! That child is never to come near Bontemps, he is never to mention the name Bontemps Bontemps to anyone, you are never to mention that name to him yourself!" to anyone, you are never to mention that name to him yourself!"

The baby had begun to scream.

She stood staring at Michie Vince, her hands clasped against her face, and suddenly she went past him, hands digging down into the covers to scoop up the little boy. She wound the blankets around him, awkwardly turning, and walked fast to the back of the cottage, stopping short helplessly before the back door. Her head bent forward and her forehead smacked the frame of the door. An instinctive motion of her arms soothed little Martin, and as she stood there, her eyes shut, her head against the door frame, the baby became quiet.

It must have been an hour that she sat alone in the dark bedroom in a small chair, only the upper part of her body moving back and forth, back and forth, cradling the child. She heard nothing from the living room not even the faintest sound. Once she imagined that she had fallen to sleep and that Michie Vince had actually gone. Then finally came the creak of those boots on the boards and out of the corner of her eye, without turning, she saw his dark shape in the door.

"Anna Bella," he started, the voice soft now, a little breathless, his own. "Anna Bella, I...I..." he stopped, with a sigh. After a long pause he came toward her slowly and his hand reached out for her shoulder finding it and clasping it tenderly as she sat there staring forward, still rocking the baby in her arms. She rose. She walked to the back door and looked out into the night. The cicadas still sang in the trees, those long rasping drifts of song that rose to one terrible pitch after another and then died away. She had not even heard them until this moment, and now suddenly they sc.r.a.ped at her nerves.

She could hear and feel Michie Vince drawing close to her, and now she felt the weight of his forehead against her head. It seemed he was turning his head from side to side against her, his hands on her arms.