An Embarrassment of Riches (16 page)

“I hope I did not wake you up?” he said in a voice strangely squeaky coming from one so large, like an elephant with the voice of a mouse. He nibbled the inside of his lip anxiously and darted his eyes from my face to the carpet and back again.

“No, no … I was reading,” I told him, regaining my own composure.

“Your uncle shall be a great friend of my uncle,” he said, brightening like a little boy. “Perhaps you will be my friend too, no?” His face looked at once so pained and hopeful that it would have been the sheerest cruelty not to agree—like spurning the affections of a puppy.

“Would you care to come in for a brandy?” I asked him.

He shook his head.

“No, it is forbidden,” he said sadly.

“Brandy?”

“I am not to come in here.”

“Certainly you are,” I corrected him. “I have just invited you to do so.”

“No-o-o-o.” He shook his head and bit his lip again.

“Who forbids it?”

“Uncle Fernand. But you could come down to my room.”

“Very well. May I bring this brandy with me?”

“I-i-if you must. But don't leave it there!” he added emphatically.

“Never fear,” I said. “Lead the way.”

And so I followed this lonely dullard of a boy as he waddled heavily down the hall in his nightclothes and slippers. Twenty paces down he slowed, turned, raised his index finger to his lips, and said, “Sssshhhh,” pointing to a door.

“What…?”

“Tante Marie!” he whispered and pointed to the door, then tiptoed further down the hall to another door. He opened it gingerly, glanced down both ends of the corridor, and motioned me inside.

Lou-Lou's room was on an even grander scale than the bedchambers of our suite. To the right stood a magnificent cherrywood canopied bed large enough to accommodate an entire frontier family. The light blue walls were adorned with Indian curios, bows, spears, masks, carved paddles—things that would appeal to a boy. On the wall opposite the bed hung a stuffed boar's head, the snarling snout bristling with twisted tusks. Beneath it, tacked to the wall, was a series of crudely painted pictures of Indians and Negroes, done in the style one associates with schoolchildren, the figures all sticks. At the far end of the room, before the window, stood a broad desk or play-table upon which were dozens of locks, of all sizes, shapes, and metals, along with many iron key rings, a vise, and an assortment of files. The vast Chinese rug was littered with playthings—tin soldiers, carved wooden alligators, stuffed lizards. Altogether, the room looked as though it belonged to a solitary ten-year-old princeling.

Lou-Lou pulled the chair out from under the desk, dusted off the seat with the sleeve of his nightshirt, and bid me sit down. I did, though I felt awkward because Lou-Lou remained looming, hulking over me, the grin of a true imbecile on his face. I crossed my legs, He crossed his arms and nodded his head.

“So…” he said.

“So…” I replied.

“You will be my friend?”

“Yes. I will.”

“I am so happy.”

“I am happy that you are happy,” I said sincerely.

For an awkward interval, the two of us looked blankly at each other.

“You're fond of locks, I see,” I eventually remarked.

“I love them,” he declared. “They are my friends. Here, I'll show you.” He picked up a brass padlock. “This one is Jacques. He was old and broken when he came to me. See how he is well now.” Lou-Lou took a brass key from one of the rings, opened the lock, held it close to his ear, and closed the shackle again, savoring the solid metallic click of its works. “Ah … this is little François!” he continued, showing me a small silver one, the sort a gentleman might secure his trunk with. “Here is my newest friend: Big Bertrand!” He held up a rusted iron behemoth. “It will be a long time to make him well again. Perhaps you would help me.”

“Perhaps,” I replied, trying to show some enthusiasm. “Tell me, Lou-Lou—may I call you Lou-Lou?”

“Please, monsieur.”

“And please call me Sammy,” I said hard upon his monsieur. “You refer to Monsieur LeBoeuf as your uncle.”

“Yes…?”

“Yet he refers to you as his ward? Uh …” I struggled for the right phrase. “
Are
you his nephew?”

“No, he is my uncle,” Lou-Lou explained.

“Very well. But if he is your uncle, then you must be his nephew, no?”

“No, I am his ward.”

“Then he is not your uncle.”

“He must be my uncle, for that is what I call him.”

“I see,” said I, yet quite in the dark.

“I am an orphan, you know,” Lou-Lou said and waddled to the bed. He sat on the edge of it in a manner rather prim for such an unwieldy individual.

“It must be a very sad thing to be an orphan,” I sympathized.

“I think so,” Lou-Lou agreed, and a tear ran down his cheek.

“When did you come here?” I redirected the interview.

“Many years ago. I remember the long sea voyage. I remember a great city between two rivers, sails everywhere, like clouds. They kept me in a house there. I was forbidden to go outside and play.”

It struck me that the “great city between two rivers” was none other than my dear New York!

“How long were you there?”

“It was spring when we came, and the leaves were golden when we left. A year?” he ventured.

“Wait. If it was spring when you got there, and fall when you left, then you must have been there half a year.”

“I think you are right,” he agreed dolefully, then brightened somewhat. “You are very smart. A genius!”

“No—”

“I am so lucky to have a genius for a new friend. I am very stupid, you know.”

I wasn't entirely sure if he were speaking bitterly or just stating a fact, but irony did seem beyond him.

“You are an excellent locksmith,” I tried to bolster his spirits.

“My father was one,” he said.

“Do you remember anything else about him?”

“He used to bounce me on his knee, like a horsie.”

“Really? What else.”

“He loved me.”

“Yes. It is a good thing that our fathers love us,” I observed, “and that we love them.”

“Who is your father?” Lou-Lou asked avidly.

“My father is John Walker, a merchant, of Oyster Bay, Long Island.”

“Ah,” he nodded his head. “What is a merchant?”

“Well, uh, a merchant is someone who buys things that people need and sells them for more than he paid, thus earning a profit.”

“He must be a genius too.”

“He is no dunce,” I said, rather regretting my choice of words.

“Sammy, may I ask you a question?”

“Of course you may,” I told him, impatience drawing knots in my stomach.

“You say your father buys things that people need?”

“That's right.”

“And sells them for more than he paid.”

“Yes.”

“Why don't the people buy the things they need from the same man your father buys these things from?”

“That is a very good question, Lou-Lou. Very good indeed. See, you are not stupid after all. The reason my father buys all these things and sells them at a profit may be summed up in one word: commerce.”

“Ah ha!” Lou-Lou clapped his hands. “What is commerce?”

“Well,” I puzzled my brains further. “My father operates a store, you see?”

“What is a store?”

“A place where people may find the things they need.”

“Where does your father find these things to put in his store?”

“He goes to the wharves,” I said, “where the ships unload the things that people need, and that is where he buys the cloth, sugar, rum, what-have-you.”

“Why don't the people go down to the ships too?”

“They come to Father's store instead.”

“Then he must be a genius to get them to come there.”

“He … maybe you are right, Lou-Lou,” I gave up. The job of school-master was evidently not my
métier
. “Do you remember your mother?” I took a fresh tack.

“Yes. She was very beautiful.”

“Madame LeBoeuf is very beautiful too,” I said.

“Perhaps. But she is not fond of me like a mother,” Lou-Lou said with a sniffle. The subject seemed a source of deep unhappiness to him, so I abandoned it.

“What do you remember of France?” I asked instead.

“France…?” He looked bewildered and once again exhibited that nervous habit of nibbling his lower lip. “There were many big people. Not so many Indians. We lived in a big house, like this one, but upon dry land. Do you live in a big house, Sammy?”

“Not the size of Chateau Félicité,” I assured him.

“No?” Lou-Lou seemed scandalized. “My Uncle Fernand must be a greater genius than your father—oof, excuse me. That was a bad thing to say, no?”

“Don't worry, I'm not offended. But I do agree that your Uncle Fernand is indeed some species of genius. He has carved a veritable dukedom from this howling wilderness. That in itself is an amazing accomplishment.”

“Your uncle must be a genius too.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because my Uncle Fernand loves him, and he does not love people unless they are very clever. Yago is very clever. I am very stupid.”

“Who is Yago?” I tried to probe beneath the surface of things.

“Yago is the Choctaw who sat at the summer table beside Uncle Fernand. Did you not see him? I could swear that he was there tonight.”

“I saw him,” said I.

“That is Yago,” Lou-Lou informed me.

“Ah yes,” said I and dropped that line of inquiry. My eyes burned with fatigue and I had no further appetite for circumlocution. “I must return to my apartment and sleep, Lou-Lou. Perhaps we shall visit again tomorrow, eh?”

“O, yes. I am so happy, my genius friend.”

He then did something that, though undoubtedly innocent, and a symptom of his loneliness as much as his idiocy, still appalled me. He sprang from his seat on the bed and flung himself at my feet, whimpering like a puppy.

“Lou-Lou, please, I implore you!”

“My friend, my friend …” he whined.

“Go back to your bed. To your bed, I say!” I virtually ordered him. He stood up and sheepishly returned to the place in question.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“It is already forgotten,” I assured him and rose to take my leave.

“Promise you won't tell Uncle Fernand that you came here tonight.”

“Why shouldn't you be allowed visitors?”

“I don't know. But he told me not to bother you.”

“Did he?” I exclaimed. “Oughtn't it be left for us to decide whether we shall be friends?”

“Perhaps,” he said without conviction.

“Come now, how old are you, Lou-Lou?”

He puzzled his brains a moment.

“I don't know,” he finally said, crestfallen.

“Well, in any case, you are almost a man,” I said. “Do you know that a man is someone who can do as he pleases, without asking his uncle's permission? I, for example, did not have to ask my Uncle William's permission to come and visit you here, did I?”

“No …” Lou-Lou answered timidly, though I sensed he followed my logic.

“Did not your Uncle Fernand tell you at the supper table tonight to act like a man?”

“Yes …” Lou-Lou said, his puzzlement turning to cogitation and thence igniting in the flicker of understanding. “Yes!”

“There you have it,” I rested my case.

“O, you are such a genius,” he marveled at me, but his jubilance was short-lived. He bit his lips again. “Still,” he reiterated, “don't tell.”

“I promise I won't, Lou-Lou. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, my genius friend Sammy. I will see you tomorrow.”

“I look forward to it,” said I from the door and took my leave of the poor, solitary, overgrown booby.

I was more than halfway back down the long corridor to our apartment when, to my sudden fright, I heard a bolt thrown, the turning of a knob, and the telltale creak of a door hinge. Upon sheer instinct I ducked for cover behind the object nearest at hand: in this case a Pembroke table and its accompanying side chairs. Out into the corridor, still dressed in his linen shirt and smallclothes, strode Yago. An alabaster hand reached from the door and seized his arm, causing him to halt.