Feast of All Saints (78 page)

Rudolphe was not far behind Christophe with Placide coming after with Marcel’s trunk on a cart.

“Bonsoir
, Michie,” said the slave with a deep bow, “looks like you got enough clothes here to retire to the country for the rest of your days and it feels like it too.”

“Get it on hoard,” Rudolphe said with disgust. “Now, here’s your ticket,” he turned to Marcel, “and you’ve got a first-class stateroom though I dare say you paid a little more for it on account of the color of your skin. Have you got some coins, and some dollar bills?”

“Yes, Monsieur.” He patted his breast pocket instinctively. He had taken some two hundred dollars from the strongbox in his desk, money saved from all those munificent handouts, and after seeing to it that Cecile had ample household money, had put the rest in large bills. It crossed his mind now as it had earlier that this was the last bit of fortune he might ever see. “But please, go on and take Marie before she begins to cry, and I begin to cry, too. Monsieur, will you look after her while I’m gone, I am leaving at a bad time.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. Your beloved mother called me a shopkeeper again today, and she says it with such a delightful ring!”

Marcel bit his lip and made a faint smile.

“All right,” Rudolphe said, “now remember what I told you. If there are many
gens de couleur
on board, there will probably be a special seating for your meals. If there are only a few, they may set a table aside for you at the same dinner hour for everyone else. Just watch, and wait for the signals, and be generous with your money, but not a fool. You’re a gentleman and expect to be treated like a gentleman, understand?”

Marcel nodded. He gave Rudolphe his hand.

“When you come back,” Rudolphe said, “then we’ll have a talk. Some decisions can be made then, after you have cooled somewhat, gotten a better view of things…well, there’s time.”

Marcel merely smiled again, the silent semblance of consent. He had already told Rudolphe quite firmly that he would not become his apprentice in the undertaking trade, and he had conveyed this as well to Jacquemine. And all of Rudolphe’s kind actions, seen in the light of Marcel’s altered prospects, cut Marcel and humiliated him as they would not have done in the past. The penniless in-law who just might become a stone around Rudolphe’s neck? Marcel would starve first. He shook Rudolphe’s hand warmly, but no more words would come.

At last, there had been a few more polite farewells, and Christophe and Marcel stood alone near the foot of the gangplank, out of the way of the trooping passengers and the procession of baggage and trunks. The lower deck of the steamboat was jammed with produce, bales of cotton, hogsheads, horses on short tether, and slaves. A coffle had been led on board, in fact, of miserable shackled human beings, a child or two wailing, and it had been as degraded a sight as Marcel’s
life had ever yielded to him, living in the heart of New Orleans as he had always been.

The state of his nerves was raw, and the vision of the slaves had put him in a particular gloom. He was not at all excited to be making this journey to
Sans Souci
, in fact,
Sans Souci
itself seemed a myth, while his last few days with Christophe had been sublime. It seemed a great burden had been lifted from Chris, and their talks had been more intimate, spirited, and exhilarating than before. Marcel didn’t want to leave. And this afternoon, only hours before they left for the docks, Christophe had given him a very special gift.

At first it appeared to be an issue of a French journal, and Marcel, touched by Christophe’s brief but affectionate inscription had moved to tuck it into his valise.

“No, look at it,” Christophe had said.

And Marcel opened it again, quite surprised to discover that it had been published in New Orleans. But in a moment, he was leafing through it with unrestrained excitement. He knew the names of some of these contributors, some of them he had even met, and suddenly, excitedly he looked up:

“Why, this is published by our people!” he said. “These are men of color!”

Christophe nodded with a smile. “It’s the first number of a quarterly, and our people did it here,” he said, “not in Paris, but in New Orleans.”

Marcel was proud beyond words.
“L’Album littéraire, journal des jeunes gens, amateurs de la littérature,”
he read the title aloud and for a long time he sat reading the poems—they were in flawless Parisian French—and then reverently, carefully, he had wrapped the small magazine in brown paper and placed it with his belongings. An hour passed as he sat thinking of this little book, and not without some pain. He knew that one of the contributors had recently gone to Paris, and word had it that he was moving in literary circles there with some success. His father was a dry cleaning merchant whom Marcel had nodded to often enough in the street.

But this did not obsess Marcel, he did not dwell on the young man who had crossed the sea, rather he was thinking of the others here at home. And several times, he took out the little periodical, again leafed through it, and smoothing its cover with his hand, replaced it. He would read every word of it when he reached
Sans Souci
, Christophe would send him the next number, and perhaps, oh, yes, certainly, he would write to these men.

And now as the whistle sounded and people commenced to run toward the long gangplank, it did not surprise Marcel that he could find no words to tell Christophe farewell.

Their eyes met and Christophe gave him a firm clasp of the arm.

Marcel forced a thin smile, but he could feel the inevitable lump in his throat, and when Christophe, his eyes moist, made an emphatic gesture of release and turned away, Marcel started for the deck.

But when he reached the rail, he felt panic suddenly. He searched the crowd for Christophe, and picking out the small figure with arm raised, he waved broadly as the whistle gave another violent blast.

It was only when Christophe was out of sight that Marcel looked about himself, at the great swell of gray water pouring past the hull beneath him, and at the crowded stairs to the upper deck. In all his life, not five steps from the Mississippi River, he had never actually been on this water, and he had never heard the sudden violent blast of the whistle so close. It sent an immediate thrill through him. And even as he moved toward the stairs, he felt the immense floating palace shudder and as the hands on shore threw the ropes toward the heavy Negroes against the rails, he realized the boat was moving out.

Once on the upper deck he was amazed to see some yards already between the boat and the docks, the heavy boats at anchor rocking with the churning of the river around them, and the passengers shouting from the land becoming smaller as they received the last farewell from those on board.

Even after the others had dispersed, he clung to the rail, watching the city recede as the boat made for the very center of the immense river, and he was surprised to discover that he could see the towers of the Cathedral, the high fringe of trees among the mansard roofs, and that they were moving rapidly and steadily past the Rue Canal up-stream. The boat seemed so apart from the current, its giant wheel turning hypnotically, the smokestacks gushing, and only that tremor throughout that he could feel with his feet.

It was dark before he’d left the deck. The boat had long passed the city of Lafayette and the town of Carrollton, leaving the urban landscape for the open country, and all that could be seen of the plantations beyond the ragged trees and the low hump of the levee were occasional twinkling lights. The stars were wondrously clear over the low land, and the wind was cold. Those who promenaded on the decks wore heavy coats or shawls and light laughter came from the open salons. Marcel had not gone to supper, reluctant to eat, for the first time in his life, at a table separated from white men, but he did not much care. He was excited now, and it was penetrating to him at last that he had left New Orleans, and was really on his way to
Sans Souci
.

Turning to find his stateroom, he was pleased to run upon a courteous porter who directed him graciously, and as he slipped his key into the lock, a tall white man coming down the passageway acknowledged his nod with a murmured greeting of his own. The little room
was splendid with its garlanded wallpaper and sumptuous furnishings, and through the open window he could see the heavens again with those miraculous and low-hanging stars.
Sans Souci
, he sighed, and was struck by the actual meaning of those words. It had been a name and picture on the wall so long he had forgotten:
without care
. It made him smile. And though he had the strangest feeling that the acute happiness of his last few years would not come back to him for a long while, something new and perhaps far more exciting was taking its place. He had always wanted it to end, that limbo of childhood, and now it had all but come to its close. And it astonished him to realize slowly that the next time he saw the home he was leaving now he would be on his own.

What would he do? What would he make of himself? Strange that in the midst of a morass of difficulty that question kindled a flame in him, a flame that actually warmed his heart.

T
HE RAIN CASCADED DOWN
the panes, and again there came that hard insistent knock. “Michie,” Felix said, rousing himself from a drowsy posture beside the mantel, his lean corded black hands loosely clasped over his bent knee. He had been looking out the windows at a landscape rendered shapeless and splendidly colored by the rain.

“I hear it,” Philippe muttered. “Open that bottle.” He turned up one more card. Red queen, red queen on a black king, he had been certain there was a black king. “Not that bottle, the Kentucky whiskey,” he said. The knock came again.

Felix filled the glass. “It’s the
Maîtresse
, Michie,” he whispered. He regarded Philippe almost sleepily, and the distress that lined his gaunt black face was remote, as if not attached to this room and this time.

“Hmmmmm,” Philippe gathered the cards again into a thick pack. He shuffled them easily, fancily. “Miss Betsy loves that,” he laughed, glancing to Felix as he arched the divided pack, the cards falling into place. Miss Betsy was Philippe’s daughter who was not there. “She loves that,” Philippe laughed again. He always called her Miss Betsy because she spoke English so well, had so many American friends, the mere thought of Miss Betsy brought him a soft delicious smile. Miss Betsy had been ten years old the week before, the perfect little lady, with his blond hair, his blue eyes. “That’s what I like,” he said as he dealt the long line of solitaire across the shining surface of the table, stopping once for a large swallow from his glass. “That’s what I like,
two aces on the first go-round,” and quickly he removed these from the line and placed them above. His eyes moved back and forth over these fine surfaces, the gilded cards, the polished table, the shimmer of the amber whiskey in the glass. Then he stopped, eyes vacant. There was the grind of the key in the lock. His heavy face, the cheeks bruised with a wilderness of broken blood vessels, became set. Aglae stepped into the room, her eyes scanning it at once, and she gestured for Felix to go out.

“Don’t you move,” Philippe said, his eyes fixed malevolently on his valet. Felix dropped back into the corner beyond the chimney where the fire illuminated nothing but the gleam of his patient eye. The mistress never countermanded the master’s orders, disliked to challenge the master in the presence of the slaves.

“Well?” Philippe said. “So I have no privacy even here in the
garçonnière
, and where’s your shadow, why didn’t you bring your brother here to break down the door?” He reached for the queen of spades. “Ever have your fortune told with the cards, Madame?” he said with a smile so sweet and natural no stranger could have perceived its bitterness as he looked up to her. “I’ve had my fortune told a thousand times, and it’s always the gambler’s card that turns up. I am a man willing to take risks. Give me the unknown rather than the known.”

“Monsieur,” she said in a deliberate monotone, “you are gambling with the entire crop.”

Philippe’s eyes widened. The expression became thoughtful. Vincent had moved into the room, as reticent as Felix on the edge. Heaving a sigh, Philippe turned up another card. “Madame, there is enough wood to run the mill for three years,” he said with that loose, gentle smile, “every fence is repaired, the…”

“That may be so, Monsieur, but you have been locked in this room for three days.”

He studied the board, moved a black king into the empty space left by the ace which he had placed above. Then he gazed at the palm of his hand, and holding it out to her by the light of the fire said, “Blisters, Madame, I was in the saddle for a week. Blisters take time to heal.”

“Monsieur, if we do not harvest now, we are running a dreadful risk. If you would leave this room only long enough to…”

“It’s too early,” he said firmly. He had turned up the two of clubs, placed it on the ace.

“Monsieur, the temperature has dropped drastically,” came the same monotone, Aglae’s figure as straight as if it were cut from cardboard against the fire. “You have not been out of this room for three…”

“When have I ever waited too long?” he said. “Madame, I have
run this plantation for eighteen years, I have never, never waited too long.”

“I am losing patience, Monsieur.”

“You are losing patience!” His eyes grew wider, a flush disfiguring his face so that his golden eyebrows became prominent against the pink flesh and gave a sharp intensity to his anger. “You are losing patience! And what about your husband, Madame, eighteen years of this icy courtesy, this venomous decorum. Tell me, Madame, what is the inside of your mind? What barren, wintry place,” he spat the words, “that the fortress which surrounds it is so impregnable, so cold?”

“Aglae, come out,” Vincent whispered.

“Ah, yes, and it’s our blessed boy, is it, the joy of his father’s old age.” Philippe dealt another card. Good luck, a red seven. He laid it neatly in place, his hand deftly straightening the crooked rows before him. His eyes were glazed now with tears. He stared at Vincent who looked away from him. “All right, what do you want, cut the cane then, cut the cane! Go on, tell Rousseau to cut the cane!” he said with a powerful shrug. “And if the weather holds for another month, then what will you say, Madame, ‘he cut the cane too soon, he is not the master here any longer,’ and if there’s a frost tomorrow, you’ll say I waited too late.” He laughed, a soft genuine laugh. “Do as you like. Ride the fields if you like. I’m tired, Madame, your unpaid overseer is tired…This room, Madame, this room is my New Orleans, now if you please…” he stopped. He let the little pack slip from his hand and brought his hands up to support his bowed head. “What do you want of me, Madame?” he whispered.