Long Distance Life Part 34

For a long moment Marcel stood staring down at her. He had never seen the life go out of any living being, and as he watched her face relax in death, he felt the tears come.

With a solicitude that amazed him, Monsieur Philippe drew Zazu's rosary from the covers, and slipped it over her fingers. "Adieu, ma chere," "Adieu, ma chere," he whispered heavily. Then he folded her hands atop the counterpane and he brought the lids of her eyes down gently, letting her head sink to one side. he whispered heavily. Then he folded her hands atop the counterpane and he brought the lids of her eyes down gently, letting her head sink to one side.

And when he stepped out on the gallery with Marcel behind him, he struck a match hard to light his cigar. "d.a.m.n that girl!" he said.

Cecile turned, shuddering, and walked swiftly down the length of the porch to the stairs. Marie had gone into Zazu's room at once.

Then Marcel touched his father's arm. Lisette stood at the entrance of the alleyway, her yellow tignon tignon bright against the green brush. She was glowering at them, and even from where he stood Marcel could see she was unsteady. bright against the green brush. She was glowering at them, and even from where he stood Marcel could see she was unsteady.

"Is my Maman dead?" she asked in a low voice.

Monsieur Philippe moved so fast Marcel was nearly knocked off balance by him. But Lisette turned and ran. She was gone before Monsieur Philippe ever reached the bottom of the steps. He stamped out the b.u.t.t of his cigar and beckoning angrily for Marcel, he stalked into the cottage.

"I have to get back to the country," he said. He was picking up his cape and putting his flat black wallet into the pocket of his coat. Cecile sat in the corner of the parlor, her head bowed.

"Your mother can't take care of this, go get your friends, the Lermontants," Monsieur Philippe said with his eyes on her. Indeed, she looked miserable, and extremely weak.

"I imagine they've taken care of a few devoted servants in their time."

"Yes, Monsieur."

"So get them to do it right." He slipped several twenty-dollar bills into Marcel's hand. "And when you see that girl, you tell her to do what you say. You be the master here now, you get her in line!" He pointed a warning finger at Marcel. "I'd do it myself if I didn't have to get back to the country and discover what little surprise my young brother-in-law has cooked up for me now. He's had time enough to flood the entire plantation in my absence and turn the crop to rice!" He gathered his keys, and removing his watch checked it by the clock over the mantel.

"But Monsieur, what's the matter with her!" Marcel whispered. He was not in the habit of asking his father questions, but this was too much. And there had been those muted arguments for months.

"She wants her freedom, that's what's the matter, wants it on a silver platter now!" Monsieur Philippe declared. "Got some fancy notion I should tell poor Zazu on her deathbed that I was setting her daughter free."

"Freedom!" Marcel gasped. That she should want it was hardly a surprise to him, but was this the way to get it? Lisette who had been nothing but trouble all her life, Lisette who was rebellious to the marrow of her bones? And now to do this? He shook his head. It was more than folly. It was insane.

"Run off with that woman on her deathbed," Monsieur Philippe was muttering. "I took that girl out of the kitchen yard at Bontemps Bontemps, gave her money, brought her to live in town!" His face was working with his anger. "Well, she's not playing games with me! And what would she do if she were free, I've seen the n.i.g.g.e.r trash she runs with and the white trash too!" He hesitated, his lips working angrily, his eyes casting a protective and pointed glance at Cecile. "Don't you take any sa.s.s from her," he said to Marcel under his breath. "I've never whipped a house slave in my life, but by G.o.d, I'll whip her if she doesn't get back here before you put Zazu in the ground. Go to those Lermontants," he said over his shoulder. He approached Cecile, his hand out for her shoulder. "And you tell her if she ever wants a pet.i.tion from me for her freedom, she's to do as you say!"

It wasn't until the morning of the funeral that Lisette finally appeared. The Lermontants had buried many a loyal and faithful servant for their white and colored clients alike, and they did well as always, a procession of neighboring servants and friends following the coffin to the grave.

Cecile was trembling violently as the coffin left the house and quickly shut up the windows and the doors as if to keep some unnamed menace away. Marcel disliked leaving her, knowing Marie could be of no comfort to her, and after the brief ceremonies at the St. Louis Cemetery, he hurried home.

A note had come from Anna Bella. His mother behind a veil of netting, her head against her pillow appeared asleep. For a moment all he saw of the note was an ornate and curling script replete with beautiful capitals, and then slowly the sentiments, perfectly and briefly expressed, made their impression on him with a peculiar pain. Anna Bella had commenced her confinement. She had been unable to come. He held the note for a moment, quite unwilling to let any thought form in his mind. Rather, he saw himself in the Rue St. Louis approaching Anna Bella's gate. But Lisette. Lisette. He slipped the note into his pocket and went out to cross the courtyard to his room.

She did not disappoint him. She came wandering in, her eyes red, her dress filthy and carrying a tattered broken bouquet in her hands. But as soon as he saw her, her head to one side like a bruised flower, and saw the way that she picked the petals from the chrysanthemums that she carried, letting them fall on the sh.e.l.ls of the alleyway, all the anger went out of him.

"They covered her up already, Michie," she said.

Marcel followed her into the kitchen and into her room.

"You'd better sleep it off, Lisette," he said.

"Go to h.e.l.l," she answered.

He watched her. She was throwing these flowers all around the floor. Now she was tramping on them with her feet. Now she tore the tignon tignon off her head, and her copper hair poofed out in thick tight ripples and she scratched at it, shaking her head. off her head, and her copper hair poofed out in thick tight ripples and she scratched at it, shaking her head.

He sighed and sat down in the corner in Zazu's old rocker.

"You remember after Jean Jacques died?" he started. "You got that diary for me out of the fire."

She stood in the center of the room scratching at her head.

"I remember it, if you don't," he said.

"Well, bless you now, Maitre, you're one kind man."

"Lisette, look, I know it's grief that's eating at you, and I know what grief is. But Michie Philippe's really put out at you, Lisette, you've got to get yourself in hand!"

"Oh, come on now, Michie. You scared of Michie Philippe?" she demanded.

He sighed. "If it's your freedom you want, this is no way to get it." He rose to go.

"Get it, get it?" she came after him. "And what should I do to get it?" she hissed at him. Reluctantly, he turned his head.

"Act like you'd know what to do with it, that's what! Running off like that with your mother dying. Michie Philippe's at his wits' ends with you, don't you know that?"

But instantly he regretted this. He could see the fury in her eyes.

"He promised me my freedom!" she said, her fists striking at her own breast. "He promised me when I was a little girl, he'd set me free when I was grown! Well, I pa.s.sed my twenty-third birthday, Michie, I've been grown for years, and he broke that promise to me!"

"You can't get it this way!" he pleaded with her. "You're being a fool!"

"No, you're the fool! You're the fool to believe anything that man ever said. Sending you to Paris, putting you up like a gentleman, don't you believe it, Michie," she shook her head, "My Maman served that man for fifty years of her life, she licked his boots, he promised her she'd see me free before she died and he broke that promise to her! If he wouldn't set me free before she shut her eyes on this world, he's never going to set me free. 'Oh, you just be patient, Lisette, you just be a good girl, you just take care of your Maman, what you want with freedom anyways, Lisette where you going go?'" She spat on the brick floor, her face twisted with contempt.

"He's been good to you," Marcel said in a low voice. He started for the kitchen door.

"Has he, Michie?" She came after him and reaching out swung the door shut behind her, facing him, so that for an instant he was blinded and saw only a sparkle of light in the rough cracks.

"Now stop this, Lisette," he said. He felt the first real urge to slap her. He moved to push the door. She clutched at the latch. He could hardly make out the features of her face, and the kitchen seemed at once damp and suffocating. He took a deep breath. "Get out of the way, Lisette." The sweat broke out on his forehead. "If Maman hears all this, she's sure to tell him."

It seemed the faint light gathered slowly in her eyes as he became accustomed to it; her face was a grimace. He could smell the wine on her breath.

"If he can break his promise to me, Michie, he can break it to you," she said. "You think you're so special, don't you, Michie, you think 'cause his blood's running in your veins, he wouldn't do you dirt. Well, let me tell you that with all those books of yours and schooling of yours, and that fancy teacher of yours, and that fancy lady you keep up there right under everybody's nose, you're not so smart! 'Cause that same blood's running in my veins, Michie, and you never so much as guessed. We got that in common, my fine little gentleman, I'm his child just as sure as you are! He slept with my Maman same as he slept with yours. And that's how come he hustled us off Bontemps Bontemps years ago, 'cause his wife caught right on to what you never guessed in fifteen years!" years ago, 'cause his wife caught right on to what you never guessed in fifteen years!"

There was no sound then except that of her breathing. He was staring into the darkness, seeing nothing.

"I don't believe that," he whispered.

She was perfectly still.

"I don't believe that!" he whispered. "He wouldn't have brought you here!"

"The h.e.l.l he wouldn't," she growled. "Madame Aglae said to him 'you trouble your house bringing that copper-colored baby into it, I won't have my children growing up with that copper-colored baby, you trouble your house, you inherit the wind...'"

"No," Marcel shook his head. "He wouldn't..." I never whipped a house slave in my life, but by G.o.d I'll whip her, you be the master with her! I never whipped a house slave in my life, but by G.o.d I'll whip her, you be the master with her! "Not here!" "Not here!"

"Yes, here, Michie, here! And your Maman, your pretty black Maman, when she saw me, she said, she said, 'you ever tell anybody you're his whelp so help me I'll kill you!' digging those fingernails into my arm. I tell you, Michie, men are blind as bats but women can see in the dark! So what do you have to say to your sister now!"

Marcel let out a long raw moan.

He was not conscious of the turns he took. He only knew that he was walking and that he would continue to walk until some of the tumult in him died away. And the awareness that it was early evening meant little to him, any more than the awareness that he was wandering in the Rue St. Louis not far from the Lermontant house. Only he was not going to the Lermontant house. He felt if he had to sit down to supper with them tonight he would lose his mind. He was going somewhere else, but perhaps not, he could make another decision, there was no law against pa.s.sing the gate. And what if he stopped when he got there, overcome with the perfume of the jasmine, wanting just to enjoy it for a little while? Two neat crepe myrtles stood on either side of the gate, their hard waxy limbs as clean as bones beneath the lacy foliage, crepe myrtles just like those in Madame Elsie's yard. Maybe Anna Bella had picked the cottage for those crepe myrtles with their fragile red blooms. A rich wave of the jasmine pa.s.sed over him, and drifting out into the street, he made a small circle under the night sky. It seemed the world pulsed with the cicadas' scratching song, and beyond the crepe myrtles was the glow of Anna Bella's windows, and he had no doubt that she was there. If ever there had been a time in his life when he wanted to fall into her arms, it was now. He did not know whether this was shame or simply horror. And when he thought of Lisette sleeping in that back kitchen room, her dress stained with dirt, her body moist and shuddering from the drink she'd had for three days, it was for him a perfect image of misery, if not h.e.l.l.

When he saw a dark shape in Anna Bella's window, he did not look away. And hearing the heavy shutters of the front door creak, he watched for a movement on the path. The moon spilling through the trees made s.h.i.+fting shadows on the figure, on the pale face and the white shawl.

Now he saw her clearly at the gate.

"Marcel," she beckoned. "Marcel, come inside."

"Is he there?" he asked.

"No," she said. "You come on inside!"

It seemed an hour that he talked, he did not know.

Anna Bella, her thickening waist covered with a light quilt, sat in the rocker to one side of the open doorway, tendrils of her soft hair moving in the breeze. She had put out the one candle. And Zurlina to make her disapproval known, puttered in another room. They paid no attention to her. The door was shut. She could not have heard. There had been no real greeting, he had not so much as touched her hand, none of that polite kissing on either cheek, and she did not seem to expect it, she had merely led him to his chair. He felt exhilarated as he talked, certain of her understanding, and when he saw by the light of the moon the tenderness of her large brown eyes he was not surprised.

"Never tell anyone," he said thickly. "I can't stand for anyone to know this! I just can't bear the thought of it. You must swear to me, you'll never tell a soul."

"You know I won't, Marcel," she said. "But where is she now? How are you going to stop her from being crazy, and from doing herself some harm?"

"I don't know. I don't know what to do with her! Why she hasn't run away for good before this, I don't know."

"This is her town, Marcel, where would she go? Away from New Orleans and her own people? No. She wants to be free right here, Marcel, not living hand-to-mouth, but set up nicely somewhere right here. That's not to say she couldn't ruin herself, ruin any chance she's got. But you don't think Michie Philippe would send the police after her if she did run away..."

"Anna Bella," he laughed. "What do I know? Had you asked me yesterday could he put his own daughter, black or colored, to licking her brother's and sister's boots, I would have said never. Ties of blood mean something to the man, he wouldn't stoop so low. But that's just what he's done. She's my sister! And my mother knows this, has always known." He stopped. This was one salient aspect of the entire revelation that caused him private and particular grief. "Marie doesn't guess," he said in a calmer voice. "Anna Bella, I tell you I can't go on under the same roof with Lisette now that I know this, and with Marie it would be the same way. Do you know she brushes Marie's hair every night, she takes her dresses from the laundress, swears they're not done well enough and heats up the iron again after the supper's cleared away at night? I see her down there in the open kitchen ironing those dresses while Marie sleeps. What am I going to do with her? What am I going to do with myself?"

He could not see the reservation in Anna Bella's face as he said these last words. He could not know that Anna Bella had overheard too much of Lisette's sharp tongue to believe Lisette had ever loved Marie. Lisette played with those pretty dresses as poor children play with dolls.

"There's only one thing you can do as I see it, and I think you know what that is," she said. "You've got to get Michie Philippe to keep his promise to her. She's got to get her freedom for your sake now as well as her own."

He was quiet. In all the day's interminable wanderings this single fact had never come clear in his mind.

"That girl's ruining herself in ways you don't even know," Anna Bella murmured, "what with that Lola Dede the voodooienne..."

"I know that," Marcel said with a nod. "But how can I do this? No one demands anything of Monsieur Philippe! If you knew how things stood with me and..."

"I'm not talking about demands, Marcel, I'm talking about getting him to do it, they aren't the same thing. You've got to put it to him in the right way, don't you see, you've got to convince him it'd be best for all of you if Lisette wasn't around. Now don't tell me that man would put his own daughter on the block. Don't you see, you've got to put it like an advantage to the peace of the house if Lisette goes. You've got to work up to it, you've got to begin by asking him gently if he means to do it sometime, you've got to play it smart."

"I can't do that! I swear if he were in town now, I don't know that I could look him in the eye. I couldn't stay in the house with him."

"Stop that," she said. "Don't you ever say that. Don't you ever stop looking him in the eye or staying in the same house, and don't you ever let him know that you know! You just have to set your mind on one thing, the best way of getting that girl free without making the man mad. You've got to keep pride out of it, not just for her sake, but for your own."

She stopped, alarmed at her own heat. "Don't you let it come between you, Marcel, you and your father. You know what that could mean."

He was musing. He was thinking of Zazu, tall, slender and ebony black as she'd been when he was a little boy, thinking of that mute subservience, the decorous manner in which Zazu had always waited upon Cecile, and Cecile's quiet dismissal, while Zazu had once been...But he would become angry if he thought of it again, and blinded by that anger he would not be able to extricate Lisette from this, nor himself. Anna Bella was right the way Anna Bella was 'most always right.

"And what will she do if she gets free?" he murmured thoughtfully. "There was a time when the better slaves used to call on her, the blacksmith Gaston, you remember, and those blacks that worked at the hotels...But lately, what's happened to her with that Lola Dede and those women in that house..."

"All that in time," Anna Bella said. "When that girl's free and on her own. She's a smart girl, smart as you and me, the way I see it, and with a little money in her pocket she can hire out as a cook, as a lady's maid. I'd hire her in a minute myself if you want to know it, and she'd have decent wages and..."

"You're right." I must think practically, I must be wily, I must accomplish this, he thought, with disgust.

They sat for a long while in silence. He lifted the gla.s.s of white wine she'd given him and tasted it for the first time. "You're right," he said again softly with resignation. "I will manage to get her free."

A mellow breeze moved through the open door, and the dull glow of the lights beyond the gate made a soft halo of the edges of her hair. She moved her palmetto fan drowsily.

"I want to know..." Marcel said finally. "How is it with you?"

He felt an anxious tremor as he asked this question, as if venturing into waters where he might be afraid. It had been easy to talk of Lisette, to let Lisette bring them together, but now- "Well, you can see that for yourself, can't you?" she smiled. But she wasn't so big yet with the baby, and draped with the white shawl as she was, no one could have told. What was changed about her-he couldn't really put it into words. The voice was a woman's voice? But hadn't it been always? And there was that easy confidence about the way she moved, the way she spoke. And they were as close it seemed suddenly as they had ever been.

"No, you know what I mean, Anna Bella," he strained to make out her expression in the dark.

"He's more than a fine man, Marcel," she said, her voice low with feeling. "I am not fortunate, I am blessed!"

He did not answer. And she could not guess that he had been surprised to discover that this was not the response from her that he had wanted to hear. What did he want, he thought in disgust, for her to be miserable? "I'm glad," he said softly, but the words stuck in his throat. "Of course, it's what I've heard all along. I don't know what I would have done if I'd heard different." And why couldn't he mean that, after all this, the longest, most eventful year of his life? He wondered if those perceptive eyes could, in fact, see the lie in the dark.

"What sort of a man is he?" he asked dryly.

"I can't describe him, not in a few words, I don't know where to begin. He's a man that lives for his work, Marcel, that plantation, it's his life. I never knew there was so much to study in the cultivating of sugar cane, I never saw so many books and letters as he reads on that one subject, of how to grow it, cut it, refine it, s.h.i.+p it out. I wonder sometimes if all hardworking men don't have something in common, really, whether they're gentlemen or laborers or craftsmen like old Jean Jacques. I mean, that is, men who love what they do. It's an excitement, it's something almost magical in their lives. You remember, watching Jean Jacques in the shop with his chisels, his tools."

He nodded. Time would never diminish that.

"I remember my Daddy," she went on, "when he used to be working on his books, figuring how he could pay off the barber shop and that little farm we had outside of town. My Daddy had two pieces of property when he died and he was a young man. He loved his work, you know what I'm saying? I suppose it's like that with you when you're studying for school, and when you're in Michie Christophe's cla.s.s. Everybody says you're the star pupil these days and that Augustin Dumanoir from St. Landry Parish is fit to be tied. Is that true? That he's always trying to do better than you and he never can?"

"It's Richard he'd like to best at the moment," Marcel smiled. "It's Richard who's gaining on the prize he really wants."

"I heard that too."

"But what were you saying about this man and your father?" he asked.

"Only that he puts me in mind of my father, when I'm watching him work. 'Course I wouldn't say that to Michie Vince," she laughed with just a touch of slyness. "What I mean is, he's a hardworking planter, he's got his hopes and dreams wrapped up in Bontemps, Bontemps Bontemps, Bontemps means everything to him, and he's earning what that land puts out, he's putting in his share. Every time he comes to town, seems he has to visit with his lawyers, he spreads maps out all over that table, he writes in his journal, he makes his plans. Right now, the whole plantation's working to lay enough wood by for the sugar mills in the fall. They have to get it early out of the back swamps, because it has to have time to dry. He's in the saddle these days, more than he's out. I never knew there was so much to it, I guess, I never thought much about those big plantations, it's an industry, he says, he says it will take as much as a man may give." means everything to him, and he's earning what that land puts out, he's putting in his share. Every time he comes to town, seems he has to visit with his lawyers, he spreads maps out all over that table, he writes in his journal, he makes his plans. Right now, the whole plantation's working to lay enough wood by for the sugar mills in the fall. They have to get it early out of the back swamps, because it has to have time to dry. He's in the saddle these days, more than he's out. I never knew there was so much to it, I guess, I never thought much about those big plantations, it's an industry, he says, he says it will take as much as a man may give."

She regarded him quietly. "Come on now, you don't want to hear all this, you probably heard enough about Bontemps Bontemps over the years to put you to sleep." over the years to put you to sleep."

"Maps?" he asked. "Lawyers?"

"I don't understand any of it, he never goes into the complicated questions with me. I'll tell you one thing. He likes to hear me read in English just the way you did, which is nice, and I've been just reading myself blind. I have a pair of eyegla.s.ses now, Zurlina says they're ugly, but he likes them, and I like them. Michie Vince says they look pretty, eyegla.s.ses on women, he can't get used to the sight. Can you figure that?"

She lifted them out of her bodice on a little silver chain, a tiny pair of eyegla.s.ses, round as coins with a light and flexible frame. She fitted them to her nose, and they flashed instantly like mirrors.

He smiled.

"Of course I only wear them when I'm reading," she said. "I've been reading Mr. Edgar Allan Poe to him, and some of those stories like to scare me to death."

"Were they maps of the plantation?" he asked thoughtfully.