A Free Man Of Color Part 3

"I'm a surgeon, actually," said January. "I trained at the Hotel Dieu in Paris. After that I practiced there for three years."

"Even better." The Prussian's fair hair was cropped like a soldier's; it made his head seem small and birdlike above the flare of his Elizabethan ruff. Like Hannibal, he spoke with barely an accent, though January guessed it came from good teaching rather than length of time spent in the United States.

"Bone and blood is a constant. I would prefer a man who understands them, rather than one who spent six years at university learning to argue about whether purges raise or lower the humors of the human const.i.tution and how much mercury and red pepper will clarify a man's hypothetical bile. That imbecile Bouille's challenged Granger to a duel," he added, evidently not considering a Paris-trained surgeon's current position at the piano of a New Orleans ballroom a subject of either surprise or comment. "Children, both of them."

The lines at the corners of his eyes marked Mayerling as older than he looked, but he was still probably younger than either his student or the man that student had challenged. January didn't say anything, but the lines deepened just slightly, ironically amused. "Well-paying children," admitted Mayerling, to January's unspoken remark. "Nevertheless. Bouille's wife is the sister to two of the physicians in town-physicians who actually studied medicine somewhere other than in their uncles' back offices, you understand-and the third has money invested in Monsieur Granger's prospective LaFayette and Pontchartrain railway company. The others who have been recommended to me seem overfond of bleeding.... I trust that your remedy for a bullet in the lung does not involve a cupping gla.s.s? It is to my professional interest, you understand, to know things like this."

Considering how nearly every young Creole gentleman bristled and circled and named his friends at the most trivial of slights, it wasn't surprising that Mayerling, Verret, Crocquere, and the other fencing teachers would be on intimate terms with every medical man for fifty miles.

January shuddered. He knew several who would resort to just that, accompanied by ma.s.sive purges and a heavy dose of calomel-salts of mercury-for good measure.

"You think they'll accept a physician of color?"

The sword master appeared genuinely surprised. "It is of no concern to me what they accept. Jean Bouille is my student. The American shall accept your ministrations or die of his wounds. Which, it is of little interest to me. May I count upon you, sir?"

January inclined his head, hiding his amus.e.m.e.nt at the extent of the Prussian's imperial arrogance. "You may, sir."

Mayerling produced his card, which January pocketed, and accepted one of January's in return. Mayerling's said simply, Augustus Mayerling. Sword Master. Augustus Mayerling. Sword Master. January's was inscribed, January's was inscribed, Benjamin Janvier. Lessons in Piano, Clavichord, Harp, and Guitar. Benjamin Janvier. Lessons in Piano, Clavichord, Harp, and Guitar. Underneath the lines were repeated in French. Underneath the lines were repeated in French.

"I can't find her anywhere," wailed Marie-Rose at twenty minutes until midnight, coming up while Minou was flirting with Hannibal across the palmettos that screened the dais on both sides. Henri had returned to the respectable purlieus of the establishment with promises to be back in time for the tableaux; even the senior M. Peralta, pillar of rect.i.tude that he was and a.s.siduous in his attentions to Euphrasie Dreuze, had been back and forth several times.

By the way the old man was watching the lobby outside the ballroom, January guessed he had no idea where his son was. The boy was only seventeen. If he'd sent him home or banished him to the Theatre he wouldn't be watching like that.

And Euphrasie Dreuze, quite clearly aghast at the possibility that her daughter might have whistled at least some percentage of the Peralta fortune down the wind, was like a pheasant in a cage, flitting in and out from ballroom to lobby in a fluffy scurry of satin and jewels. January dimly recalled his mother telling him that Etienne Crozat, owner of the Banque Independent and stockholder in half a dozen others, had paid Euphrasie Dreuze off handsomely upon his marriage. Her concern might, of course, stem entirely from care for her daughter's welfare, but the woman's reputed fondness for the faro tables and deep ba.s.set were probably the actual cause of the increasingly frenzied look in her eye.

When the Roman, Jenkins, returned from negotiations downstairs, he, too, loitered around the lobby with an air of searching for someone, but at the moment January couldn't see him.

"It's just like her," sighed Minou, as Marie-Anne, Marie-Rose, and one of the Ladies of the Harim-shedding an occasional peac.o.c.k eye in her wake-scampered off after the next waltz to make another canva.s.s of the courtyard. "I asked Romulus to check the gambling rooms, but even Angelique wouldn't have gone down there. Maybe vanis.h.i.+ng like this is part of her plan."

"No woman wears a getup like that and disappears before the tableaux vivants, tableaux vivants," Hannibal pointed out. He turned away to cough, pressing a hand briefly to his side to still it, and the candlelight glistened on the film of sweat that rimmed the long fjords of his retreating hairline.

"No," retorted Minou. "But if she's not back in another few minutes Agnes is going to have to fix her daughters' hair, and everybody knows Agnes is just dreadful at that sort of thing. And now we can't find Clemence either. If Henri comes back and so much as speaks to another woman, have a waiter slip some mysterious potion to him to render him unconscious, would you, p't.i.t?"

"You'll need a sledge to get him home."

"I'm sure Monsieur Froissart will oblige. Why does everything have to go wrong at these affairs?" She fluttered away again, sleeves billowing like white and gold sails.

"I don't know why she'd take an hour and a half at it," said Hannibal, plucking at the strings again, and turning a key. "Any of the girls down in the Swamp-the Glutton or Railspike or Fat Mary-can have you begging for mercy inside five minutes. Seven, if you're dead to start with." He coughed again.

"Maybe that's the reason they're working the Swamp instead of having some banker buy them a house on Rue des Ursulines?"

"Surely you jest, sir." The fiddler grinned, and drained the last of his second bottle of champagne. "Though I'd trade a week's worth of opium to see what the Glutton would wear to one of these b.a.l.l.s."

"What I'd trade for," remarked January, beginning to sort through his music and his notes for which tableau would be first, "is to know where they could could have gone for an hour and a half. The building's filled. If Peralta Pere and Phrasie Dreuze are that puzzled, it's got to mean they've asked in the courtyard and the gambling rooms whether anyone saw the two of them leave." He reached up and took the empty bottle from Hannibal's unsteady grasp. have gone for an hour and a half. The building's filled. If Peralta Pere and Phrasie Dreuze are that puzzled, it's got to mean they've asked in the courtyard and the gambling rooms whether anyone saw the two of them leave." He reached up and took the empty bottle from Hannibal's unsteady grasp.

"Easy," said Hannibal. "They could have gone through the pa.s.sageway to the Theatre. Those boxes above the stage are curtained. Angelique's white enough to pa.s.s. It's not easy to tup a woman in a gown like that-twelve petticoats at the least, not to speak of the wings-in a box, but it can be done, if you don't mind leg cramps."

"Peralta would know that," pointed out January.

"And there's lot o' compet.i.tion for them boxes," added Uncle b.i.+.c.het, who had been following the entire intrigue with interest.

Minou strode over to them from the direction of the lobby doors, Agnes Pellicot at her heels, like a pair of infuriated daffodils. January saw both of them look automatically in the direction of Euphrasie Dreuze, seated in the triple bank of spindly gilt chaperones' chairs with two of her cronies, fanning herself with what looked like an acre of ostrich plumes and watching the archways into the lobby with a wild and distracted eye.

"I have done what I can," announced Agnes, her protuberant brown eyes flas.h.i.+ng grimly. "Wh.o.r.e and b.i.t.c.h she might be, but she can can fix hair. How such a woman could have been so..." She gave up with a gesture. "This is the big chance for Marie-Anne and Marie-Rose to be seen, to be admired at their best. If that conceited light-skirt doesn't turn up..." fix hair. How such a woman could have been so..." She gave up with a gesture. "This is the big chance for Marie-Anne and Marie-Rose to be seen, to be admired at their best. If that conceited light-skirt doesn't turn up..."

"I'll move her tableau to last." January s.h.i.+fted the Rossini aria he'd arranged as Angelique's music in behind the Mozart dances that would usher in the Harim.

"Don't you dare!" cried a masked woman in a red-and-gold has.h.i.+sh dream of a Sultana costume. Her fantasia of dyed ostrich plumes tossed like storm clouds as she shook her head and shed a faint snowfall of shreds. "We're on last. It serves her right if she misses her place."

"Rach.e.l.le, of course if she shows up after you go on, we'll put her on last," said Minou coaxingly. "Think how unfair it would be to punish Emilie and Clemence and the two Maries. And where is is Clemence?" Clemence?"

"I think she left when Galen did," put in Marie-Rose. "Iphegenie's aunt saw someone wearing that gray-green dress in the courtyard."

"Tell you what," said January, as the Sultana Rach.e.l.le's bronze mouth puckered dangerously. "We'll do that mazurka as an extra, to give everybody a little more time. Minou, you checked back on the parlor lately? She's got to go back there one time or another if she's going to fix those wings of hers. It's the only place where she'd have room to work."

"Hussy," whispered Agnes Pellicot, her face like a hurricane sky. "Bandeuse! Coming to the ball like this, two months or less after Arnaud Trepagier is in his tomb, to see what else she can catch! If she'd had any decency she would have left the tableau, turned her position in it over to someone else! She can't be needing money. After all he gave her, the jewels he lavished on her, slaves, a house fit for royalty, horses and a carriage, even! You saw those pearls and emeralds she had about her neck! He'd ride in from his plantation every night to be with her, even took her to the opera...fie!" Coming to the ball like this, two months or less after Arnaud Trepagier is in his tomb, to see what else she can catch! If she'd had any decency she would have left the tableau, turned her position in it over to someone else! She can't be needing money. After all he gave her, the jewels he lavished on her, slaves, a house fit for royalty, horses and a carriage, even! You saw those pearls and emeralds she had about her neck! He'd ride in from his plantation every night to be with her, even took her to the opera...fie!"

She stormed out into the lobby again in wrath.

"Dare one infer," murmured Hannibal, turning over a page of the mazurka, "that Mama had some plans for Peralta Fils and the fair Marie-Rose?"

"Sounds like it," agreed January philosophically. "Shall we?"

The brisk dance was entering its third variation when Minou reappeared in the hall, her face ashy in the dark frame of her hair. January, glancing up from the piano, saw the flutter of her sleeves with the shaky wave of her hands, the way the jeweled pomander chain at her waist vibrated with the trembling of her knees. With a quick gesture he signaled Hannibal to carry the figure as a solo-hoping his colleague wasn't going to engage in any adventures with the tempo, as he sometimes did at this stage of an evening-and leaned from the piano's seat.

"What is it?"

"I..." Minou swallowed hard. "You'd better come."

"What happened?" He hadn't known his sister long, but he knew that under the empty-headed frivolity lay considerable strength of mind. It was the first time he'd ever seen her unnerved.

"In the parlor," she said. "Ben, I think she's dead."

FOUR.

From the time he was fourteen years old, January had wanted to study medicine.

St.-Denis Janvier had sent him to one of the very fine schools available to the children of the colored bourgeoisie-where he had been looked upon askance, as he had in his music lessons, for his gangly size and African blackness far more than for his mother's placage-which boasted a science master who had trained in Montpellier before returning to his native New Orleans to teach.

Monsieur Gomez had been a believer in empiricism rather than in theory and had trained him as a surgeon rather than a physician. For this direction January was infinitely and forever grateful, despite his mother's sneer and frown: "A surgeon surgeon, p't.i.t? A puller of teeth, when you could have an office and a practice of wealthy men?"

But his reading of the medical journals, the endless quibblings about bodily humors and the merits of heroic medicine-his experience with the men who prescribed bleeding for every ill and didn't consider a patient sufficiently treated until he'd been dosed with salts of mercury until his gums bled-convinced him early on that he could never have adopted a livelihood based so firmly on ignorance, half truths, and arrogant lies.

Instead he had dissected rabbits and possums netted in the bayous and cattle from the slaughterhouses; had roved at will through Monsieur Gomez's meager library and had followed the man on his rounds at the Charity Hospital, learning to set bones, birth babies, and repair fistulas regardless of which bodily humor was in ascendance at the time. He had been more than a student to Gomez, as Madeleine Dubonnet had been more than a student to him; rather, he had been, as she had been, a secret partner in a mystery, a junior co-devotee of the same intricate gnosis.

He had fought alongside Gomez in Jackson's army when the British invaded and afterward had tended the wounded with him. When yellow fever had swept the city for the first time in the summer before his departure for France, he'd worked at his mentor's side in the plague hospitals.

But from the start, Gomez had told him to be a musician.

"That Austrian drill sergeant is the best friend you have, p't.i.t." Gomez's Spanish-dark eyes were sad. "You have talent. If you were a white man, or even as bright-skinned as I, you could be a truly fine doctor. But even in Europe, where they don't look at a black man and say, 'He's a slave,' they'll still look at you and say, 'He's an African.'"

January had sat for a long time, looking down at the backs of his huge ebony hands. Very quietly, he said, "I'm not."

"No," agreed Gomez. "Were you an African-living in Africa, I mean, in the tribes-I daresay you'd have found your way to the healing trade. They're not all savages there, whatever the Americans may say. You have the healer's hands and the memory for herbs and substances; you have the lightness of touch that makes a good surgeon, and the speed and courage that are the only salvation of a man under the knife. And you have a surgeon's caring. You'd have been exceptional, either in the one world or the other. But you're not an African either."

January was silent. He'd already encountered too many of his mother's friends-too many of his cla.s.smates' parents-who gave him that that look. Who said-or didn't say-"He is...very look. Who said-or didn't say-"He is...very dark dark to be Monsieur Janvier's son, is he not?" to be Monsieur Janvier's son, is he not?"

With one white grandparent-whoever that had been-he was only sang mele sang mele by courtesy in those days. He knew how, in colored society, one white grandparent was looked down upon by those who had two or more. Even in those days it had been so. Now it was worse, now that the colored artists and craftsmen of the city, the colored businessmen who owned their own shops, were being met by the newly arrived Americans flooding into the city and taking up plantations along the river and the bayous. They were being called "n.i.g.g.e.r" by illiterate Kentuckians and Hoosier riverboat men who wouldn't have been permitted through those artists' and craftsmen's and businessmen's front doors. by courtesy in those days. He knew how, in colored society, one white grandparent was looked down upon by those who had two or more. Even in those days it had been so. Now it was worse, now that the colored artists and craftsmen of the city, the colored businessmen who owned their own shops, were being met by the newly arrived Americans flooding into the city and taking up plantations along the river and the bayous. They were being called "n.i.g.g.e.r" by illiterate Kentuckians and Hoosier riverboat men who wouldn't have been permitted through those artists' and craftsmen's and businessmen's front doors.

These days, the colored had stronger reasons than ever to proclaim themselves different-entirely different-from the black.

Maybe he could have practiced medicine in New Orleans, he thought, if he were as light as Monsieur Gomez, as light as the one or two other colored physicians in practice there-even as light as his own mother.

She was a mulatto. He, with three African grandparents, was black.

"I'll make them change their minds," he said.

That was before the war.

Despite Napoleon's betrayal, St.-Denis Janvier, like most Creoles, regarded himself as French. When January spoke to him about going to study in Europe, it was a.s.sumed by both that he would study in France. But by the time he was old enough to undertake the journey, fighting had broken out afresh between England and France, and between England and the United States. There was little enough fighting on land in Louisiana, except toward the end during Pakenham's disastrous attempt at invasion, but it wasn't a safe time to be on the sea. Thus January was twenty-four, and a veteran of battle, battlefield surgery, and a major epidemic, before he set sail for Paris, to study both medicine and music, subjects that in some fas.h.i.+on he could not explain seemed at times to be almost the same in his heart.

He had found Monsieur Gomez to be mostly right. He studied and pa.s.sed his examinations and was taken on as an a.s.sistant surgeon in one of the city's big charity hospitals, but no one even considered the possibility of his entering private practice. In any case it was out of the question, for St.-Denis Janvier died of yellow fever in 1822, shortly after his adopted son was admitted to the Paris College of Surgeons. He left him a little, but not enough to purchase a practice or to start one on his own.

He had still been working at the Hotel Dieu two years later, when a black-haired, hook-nosed, eighteen-year-old Moroccan seamstress had brought in a fifteen-year-old prost.i.tute who sometimes did piecework for her, the girl hemorrhaging from self-induced abortion.

The girl had died. Ayasha had left, but later, coming away from the hospital, January had found her crying in a doorway and had walked her home.

He was not making enough as a doctor to marry, and by then he knew that he never would.

But Paris was a city of music, and music was not something that whites appeared to believe required a white father's blood.

Angelique Crozat had been bundled together in the bottom of the armoire in the retiring parlor, beneath a loose tangle of cloaks and opera capes.

"I looked to see if she might have stowed her wings in here." Minou was still a little pale, her voice struggling against breathlessness as she glanced from her tall brother back to the silvery form stretched on its scattered bed of velvet and satin, the face a deformed and discolored pearl in the particolored delta of hair. One extravagant sleeve was torn away from the shoulder, and a drift of white swansdown leaked out onto the dark satin of the domino beneath her. Beside her, the wings lay like the brittle, shorn-off wings of the flying ants that showed up on every windowsill and back step after swarming season. January knelt to touch the needle dangling loose from the torn netting at the end of its trailing clew of silk.

"She was under the cloaks. I saw just a corner of her dress sticking out and remembered there was no one else in the ballroom wearing white."

"Did you pull off her mask?"

Minou nodded. "She had it on when I-when I found her. I thought she might have been still alive.... I swear I don't know what I thought."

This room, like Froissart's office, had not been included when the building was converted to gaslight. Instead, branches of expensive wax candles burned against gla.s.s reflectors all around the walls. It was a haunted light, after the brilliance of the gas, as if the whole chamber had been preserved in amber long ago, and the woman who lay on the cloaks were no more than some beautiful, exotic relic of an antediluvian world. But under the eerie, tabby-cat face shoved up onto her forehead, there was no mistaking the bluish cast of the skin, the swollen tongue, and bulging, bruised-looking eyes. There was certainly no mistaking the marks around her neck.

Behind them, Leon Froissart whispered, "My G.o.d, my G.o.d, what am I to do? All the gentlemen in the ballroom..."

"Send someone for the police," said January. "G.o.d have mercy on her." He crossed himself and offered an inward prayer, then turned the lace-mitted hand over in his. There was blood under all her nails; two of them had been pulled almost clear of their beds in the struggle, and dabs of red stood on her skirt and sleeves like the fallen petals of a wilting rose.

He was thinking fast: about the pa.s.sageway from the ballroom to the Theatre, about the courtyard with its teeming, masked fantasies. About the Coleridge dreams ascending and descending the double stair to the lobby, and the double doors opening from lobby to gaming rooms, and from gaming rooms to the street.

"Now, immediately, as soon as possible. Keep anyone from entering or leaving the building and send someone over to the Theatre and tell them to do the same. If anyone tries to leave tell them we've found a large sum of money and we have to identify the owner. But mostly just tell Hannibal and the others to play that Beethoven contradanse. It should keep everybody happy," he added, turning to see the look of horror that swept Froissart's face.

Belatedly, he remembered he was no longer in Paris, s.h.i.+fted his eyes quickly from the white man's eyes and modified the tone of command from his voice. "You know the police are going to want to talk to everyone."

"Police?" Froissart stared at him in horror. "We can't send for the police!"

January looked up, startled into meeting his eyes. Froissart was a Frenchman of France, without the American's automatic contempt for persons of color, but he'd been in the country for years. Still, an American wouldn't have flushed or have turned his glance away in shame.

"Some...some of the most prominent men in the city are here tonight!" There was pleading in his voice.

The most prominent men in the city and their colored mistresses, thought January. Any one of whom can be headed out the side door this minute, masked and disguised as who-knows-what.

And French or not, Froissart was white. January looked down again and made his tone still more conciliating, like the wise old uncle common to so many of the plantations. "Believe me, Monsieur Froissart, if I had a choice between what your guests'll say about your calling the police, and what the police'll say if you don't call-if it was me, I'd call."

Froissart said nothing, staring in fascinated horror down at the dead woman's face. The beautiful light skin of which she had been so vain was suffused with dark blood, the delicate features-indistinguishable from a white woman's-contorted almost beyond recognition.

"I could be dismissed," he whispered in a wan little voice. "M'sieu Davis wants no trouble in this house, not in the gaming rooms, not in the Theatre...." He swallowed hard. "And bien sur, she is only a placee..."

January could see where that was going. The custom of the country... The custom of the country... So could Dominique; she gestured toward the door with her eyes, and January bent down closer to the body, his motion deliberately drawing Froissart's attention. "You see how her neck's marked?" The man would have had to be an idiot not to note the ma.s.sive bar of bruise circling the white throat like a noose, but Froissart knelt at his side, leaned attentively, fascinated by the gruesome melding of beauty and death. Dominique slipped from the room with barely a rustle of silk petticoat. So could Dominique; she gestured toward the door with her eyes, and January bent down closer to the body, his motion deliberately drawing Froissart's attention. "You see how her neck's marked?" The man would have had to be an idiot not to note the ma.s.sive bar of bruise circling the white throat like a noose, but Froissart knelt at his side, leaned attentively, fascinated by the gruesome melding of beauty and death. Dominique slipped from the room with barely a rustle of silk petticoat.

"She was strangled with a cloth or a scarf, like a Spanish garrote. A woman could have done it as easily as a man. She was wearing a necklace of pearls and emeralds earlier-see where the pressure drove the fixings into her skin?" His light fingers brushed the ring of tiny cuts. "They took it off her afterward. So it's a thief.... Which means they might strike here again."

"Again!" gasped Froissart in horror.

January nodded, remaining on his knees in spite of an overwhelming desire to thrust the nattering fool aside and fetch Romulus Valle. Romulus could organize an un.o.btrusive cordon around both the ballroom and the Theatre while he himself could have enough time alone to examine the body and see if Angelique had been raped as well as robbed.

But such a cordon-such an examination-would never be permitted.

"Of course none of the gentlemen in the ballroom would have done this-why would they have needed to steal? But one of them may have seen something. And there's nothing says they have to take off their masks or give their right names when the police ask them questions."

And if you believe that, he thought, watching the groping quest for guidance in the manager's eyes, I have the crown jewels of France right here in my pocket, and I'll let you have them cheap at two thousand dollars American.... I have the crown jewels of France right here in my pocket, and I'll let you have them cheap at two thousand dollars American....

"But...But how will it look?" stammered Froissart. "I depend on the goodwill of the ladies and gentlemen.... Of course, there must be a discreet investigation of some sort, conducted quietly, but can it not wait until morning?" He dug in his waistcoat pocket, took January's hand, and slapped four gold ten-dollar pieces into his palm. "Here, my boy. I'll send for Romulus, and the two of you can get her to one of the attics. Romulus can have the room tidied up in no time, and there'll be another four of these if you hold your tongue."

He started to rise, looking around him-possibly for Dominique-and January touched his arm, drawing his attention again. "You know, sir," he said gravely, "I think you may be right about a private investigation. Myself, I wouldn't trust the police now that they have so many...Well, maybe I shouldn't say it about white men, sir, but I think you know, and I know, that some of these Kentuckians and riffraff they have coming down the river nowadays...And putting them on the police force, too!"

"Exactly!" cried Froissart, with a jab of his stubby, bejeweled finger. January saw all recollection of Dominique's presence in the room evaporate from Froissart's face and felt a mild astonishment that he'd remembered, out of all his mother's crazy quilt of gossip, that Froissart had been furious with chagrin over the construction by Americans of the new St. Louis Hotel Ballroom on Baronne Street.

But as if January had rubbed a magic talisman he'd found in the street, Froissart launched into an extended recital of the insults and indignities he had suffered, not only at the hands of the Americans on the police force but of the Kentucky riverboat men, American traders, upstart planters and every newcomer who had flooded into New Orleans since Napoleon's perfidious betrayal of the city into United States hands.

During the recital January continued to kneel beside Angelique's body, touching it as little as possible-she was, after all, a white man's woman-but observing what he could.

Lace crushed and broken at the back of her collar, knotted with the gaudy tangle of real and artificial chevelure. chevelure. In the dim light of the candles it was hard to tell, but he didn't think there were threads caught in it, though there might be some in her dark hair. Fluffs of swansdown from her torn sleeve were scattered across the gorgeous Turkey carpet, thickest just to the left of the low chair. A cl.u.s.ter of work candles stood on the small table immediately to the chair's right, draped with huge, uneven winding-sheets of drippings. They'd been there when he'd come in. She'd been fixing her wings, he remembered, by their light. In France it would have been an oil lamp, but mostly in New Orleans they used candles. The drippings were distorted from repeated draughts-people had been in and out of the parlor all evening, fixing their ruffles or looking for her. Froissart was lucky the table hadn't been kicked over in the struggle. The whole building could have gone up. In the dim light of the candles it was hard to tell, but he didn't think there were threads caught in it, though there might be some in her dark hair. Fluffs of swansdown from her torn sleeve were scattered across the gorgeous Turkey carpet, thickest just to the left of the low chair. A cl.u.s.ter of work candles stood on the small table immediately to the chair's right, draped with huge, uneven winding-sheets of drippings. They'd been there when he'd come in. She'd been fixing her wings, he remembered, by their light. In France it would have been an oil lamp, but mostly in New Orleans they used candles. The drippings were distorted from repeated draughts-people had been in and out of the parlor all evening, fixing their ruffles or looking for her. Froissart was lucky the table hadn't been kicked over in the struggle. The whole building could have gone up.