Feast of All Saints (88 page)

Smart she was, wasn’t she? Smarter ten times over than Michie Philippe, oh, ten times over than that driveling sentimental lying man! My papa, the rich planter, going to take good care of me, going to set me free.

She let the whiskey slide down her throat.

And this one, look at her, poor Missie Marie, rocking, crying in that chair. She could see Marie’s white hand gleaming like a light; and now the white skin of her forehead as she lowered her hand to the dark taffeta of her lap. What’s it like to wear a dress like that, to feel that taffeta next to your skin? Marie’s hair almost closed on the whiteness of her forehead, the dark taffeta almost enveloped the tiny white hand. There was the almond of the face flashing again as she lifted her head. “What am I to do, Lisette, what am I to do,” to do, to do, to do.

In a way, it was good that it was over! It was good that all hope was gone. It seemed she’d been born with a fever and it had raged in her, raged in her, year in and year out ever since she had known. “He’s your papa, honey, that’s right, but don’t you ever tell anybody, honey, he’s going set you free when you’re grown-up, you’re going to be free!” And how she had played it all out in those little dreams. She would work for some nice lady, she would take her wages every Friday afternoon to the bank, they would know her name there after a while, and when she made her little deposits the clerk would say something nice to her, like, “My, Lisette, aren’t you a thrifty girl.” “Oh, I have my own rooms, Monsieur,” she’d explain. Maybe some day even, “I have my own little house.” “Don’t you take any liberties with this girl,” she would say to the slaves who tipped their top hats, those arrogant swaggering men at the corner grog shop, “I’m free!”

Well, it was over, wasn’t it? It was done.

“What am I to do, Lisette,” Marie was crying. “What am I to do?” Other words, small dusty sorrowful little words about Richard Lermontant and that shrew Louisa and that shrew Colette and that shrew “Maman” and that knight in shining armor, “my brother,” Marcel. What’s it like to have a dress like that, hair like that, that skin! And she whines in that chair, helpless, never able to do the slightest thing for herself, weak, whining, “Lisette, what am I to do!” O God, to have that for an instant, to look like that, walk like that, speak that perfect lady’s French. Back alleys, Lola Dedé’s, cheap men and filth in bed, and back alleys. But not! Not the auction block!

No, there had never really been any question of that, had there? No, that wasn’t it at all. And good Michie Christophe, begging her to be brave, promising her he would reach Michie Dazincourt himself, tell him the truth. You needn’t bother, Michie, good as you are, you
needn’t put yourself out. Again her arm like a machine went out for the glass of whiskey and the whiskey came into her mouth. Some sudden impatience made her drink the glass down; and setting it back on the chest, she lifted the bottle with that same arm and filled the glass again. It had not been necessary for her to move any part of her body other than that left arm for two hours and a half.
Go on, run off, live from hand to mouth in back alleys, go to that Lola Dedé, why don’t you?
Yes, that is exactly what is going to happen, and it will be just as terrible, just as dreadful as she said it would be.

“They want me to go to the balls, Lisette, they want me to give up Richard, to take a white man…” Oh, you poor baby! Such a dreadful fate!

“Lisette, what am I to do?”

Steal those dresses, why not, you’re going, aren’t you, she’ll hunt you down no matter what you do. Steal those dresses, the green taffeta, the muslin, that rose silk…hmmmm…steal the pantaloons, the chemises, you’ve washed them, ironed them, washed them, ironed them, you know every bit of thread, every seam. And the money, what’s she got in that
secrétaire
, one hundred dollars? Take it!
You’ll never work for a decent family in this city, not so long as I have breath!

“If only Marcel could come home, Lisette…” Marcel, Marcel, Marcel.

“What the hell damn can he do, Missie, he’s just a child!”

And now Marie was sobbing, those white hands up to that white face. Steal it, steal it, those corsets, sachet, taffeta, silk, perfume. “He’s got to help me, Lisette, he’s always been on my side.”

I’ll make him set you free, Lisette, have faith in me, I’ll get him to do it, but this takes time!

Ooooo God. But had she ever really done anything like that in her whole life, steal the dresses, steal the money, run. What did Lola Dedé say once, about a poison, you put that in your
maîtresse’s
food and you just sit back,
chère
, and watch it work. Dreams, that’s what it was, dreams of making that bitch suffer the way she made me suffer, making her afraid the way that she made me afraid. Only I’m not going, not going on that block!

But she’d never had the courage, never had the strength. Poison, charms, it was dreams over and over again so that it made her sick. Could you even steal those dresses, could she even break the lock on that
secrétaire? Lisette, why do you run off like this, why do you drink like this, you just hurt yourself!
Dreams of taking that black shrew by the neck, of breaking that neck, breaking it.
Honey, you have to be nice to the
Maîtresse,
that’s the way it is now, and you just have to be patient, Michie Philippe’s your papa, Michie Philippe’s going to set you free!

“I don’t know what to do if Marcel doesn’t get here, Lisette, I can’t go back to them, I can’t go into the house…”

Oh, poor helpless little white Missie Marie with all that beautiful long hair. Poor, poor, little Missie Marie who had never been anything but unhappy all her life! “Let me just sit here with you, Lisette, Lisette, he has to come home!”

“What you need is a charm, Missie.” Again the arm raised the glass. “Some powerful magic to make them leave you alone till your brother comes home, to make those white men look away from you.” That little waist, that red mouth, Lisette let out a husky mean laugh.

“No, no, don’t talk of all that, Lisette, let me stay here with you in the kitchen, I can’t go into the house.”

“Get a charm,” Lisette murmured. You know how it will probably turn out, you won’t steal anything from them, nothing, no poison in the food, and no little free nigger going into the bank with her own money and her own little house and some nice spiffed-up free nigger coming to call on you on Sundays, “Well, good afternoon, Miss Lisette, you mind if I just sit with you for a while on your step??????”

Stop it, stop dreaming. Those papers might just be here tomorrow and you are not, not going on that block!

A strange thought came to her. She was holding the glass in her hand.

It was a sensation at first, something she felt in the muscles of her face and in the roots of her hair. A strange relaxation very like the relaxation of getting drunk. She could feel the air on her face, and her mouth partially open as, concealed by the darkness, she was peering into it, at a possibility that had never occurred to her before. Was it like all the rest, would there come that little catch when she knew it was all make-believe? No. This was so easy, so simple, and so big, bigger than anything she’d ever imagined, she was struck dumb. Her mind tried to back off and say, no, you’d never do that, not you, Lisette. It wanted her head to fall to the side with the “no” on her lips as she looked away. But what if you did it! What if you
do
it! And who can stop you, you can do it, you can do it now!

And suddenly it expanded in her vision; it blossomed from its first conception into something ripe and immense and evil, and splendid in its evil, splendid in all that it would do to all of them, that black shrew Cecile, that shrew Louisa, that shrew Colette, that knight in shining armor, that brother, who is not here! She let out her breath and drew it in deeply, it was magnificent, the like of which she had never never done.

“…don’t believe in charms, please don’t talk of charms, Lisette, just let me sit here with you…” Marie was crying, poor, poor little rich, white, beautiful Marie!

“Poor Missie,” Lisette’s eyes grew wide looking at the white ghost of the girl across from her. She ran her tongue along her lips. “But there are such charms. Just a little thing that can make them not want you anymore, they won’t even look at you when you pass in the street, makes no difference what your aunts say, they can talk themselves sick to those fine gentlemen…” her voice trailed off. And she slid her legs off the cot. She felt her feet find the slippers, and rose in the darkness, moving toward Marie, there was that splendid evil before her, the chance of a lifetime, there was no doubt any longer. As she lifted Marie by the arm,
it was done
.

M
ARIE STOPPED AT THE MOUTH
of the passage, as for one second the silent glimmer of lightning showed the small peeling cottage in the slanting rain. She blinked in the darkness. Music pounded from within and behind the colored cloth that masked the windows, she could see figures dancing to the rhythm of the drums. “What is this place?” she whispered.

“Come on, out of the rain.” Lisette put her arm around Marie’s shoulders and forced her forward into the alley. “We aren’t going in there!” she said with contempt. “We’re going to see Lola Dedé in the back.”

“But I don’t believe it, how can it make men look away from me?” Marie stopped again.

“You leave that to Lola Dedé,” Lisette said, “you leave everything to Lola Dedé and me!”

Someone in the little cottage was shouting and figures leaped against the red cloth on the windows, as Lisette pulled her back through the crunching shells, under the wet branches of the fig trees toward the huge hulk of the house in back. Long galleries ran the length of the yard, two stories high with glowing windows against the falling rain, and a yellow door lay open from a townhouse whose façade opened on another street. A figure was standing in the door and it was to that figure now that Lisette and Marie ran.

“Let this girl sit down, Ma’ame Lola,” Lisette said. They had come into a cluttered room. A brass bed stood against a row of lace curtains. A long altar there was crowded with statues of the saints. “Voodoo saints,” Marie whispered. She pushed back against Lisette toward the door.

“You just rest yourself,” Lisette said. “You don’t have to stay here if you don’t like it, you just let me talk to Ma’ame Lola.”

A man was laughing somewhere, and there were steps on those galleries in back, and the music thudding from the little cottage beyond. Marie had been offered a chair. Scarves hung over it, a fringed shawl, but a black woman snatched these away. And sitting, her hands smoothing the rain-spotted flounces of her skirts, she looked up to see some shadowy figure beyond a thin veil of beads at the door. It seemed a man with a top hat was talking to another man there, but then this brown-skinned woman in a brilliant red silk dress drew a tapestried curtain over that door. “Lisette, I want to go!” Marie said.

“Now,
bébé
, why you want to go and leave us on a night like this when you only just came in?” said this brown-skinned woman, her long dark tendrils of hair winding down her back beneath her flowered
tignon
. Her voice was like a song.

“This is my mistress, Ma’ame Lola, Marie Ste. Marie,” Lisette said.

“Oh, I know who this girl is,” sang the brown-skinned woman. “Now Lisette, gal, get your mistress some tea. You talk to me, pretty girl!” The brown-skinned woman dropped onto a piano stool in front of Marie and clasped Marie’s hands in her own. “Child of grace,” she said, and reached out to touch Marie’s cheek. Marie drew back, and looked at the hands that were holding hers, the small serpent ring that wound about the woman’s finger so that she pulled away. This was a mistake, all of it, a dreadful mistake!

“Now what this girl needs is a charm, Ma’ame Lola, you know what her Maman and her aunts want her to do, they want those white men to fix her up, they want those white men quarreling over her at the Salle d’Orléans, at the balls.”

“Lisette, I want to go,” Marie said in a timid whisper. She tried to pull her hands loose, but the woman, Lola, held them fast. She was a pretty woman, she had perfect teeth. Again she lifted a hand to brush Marie’s cheek. She brushed Marie’s hair back from her face. “Don’t you like those fancy gentlemen, precious
bébé?”
she asked. But something had distracted Marie. It was a statue of the Virgin on that altar, complete with blue veil and white gown, and the hands outstretched lovingly and around it was wound the dead skin of a snake. Marie gasped, and Lola Dedé was taken by surprise when Marie jerked loose and stood up.

“Now why you want to go and make a fool of me in front of my friends,” Lisette whispered. She had her arm around Marie’s waist. “It isn’t going to do any good for you to go home now. Your aunts are probably there by this time, and then it will be the three of them on you, you best stay with me. Now sit down, you just sit down and wait now while I talk to Ma’ame Lola, you hear me? Sit down!”

Madame Lola had shut the door to the yard. “Cold wind,” she sang out, “cold wind, you and this girl like to caught your death.”

And Marie turning saw the two women’s heads together as Lisette whispered in the woman’s ear. “Get that girl some hot brandy with her tea,” sang Ma’ame Lola’s voice and a black woman who had snatched the scarves from the chair set them down now and returned, the ivory white of her eye growing huge in her head. Madame Lola took the cup from the black girl as soon as it was poured and taking a brown bottle from the marble dresser by the bed tilted it into the tea. A piano began above. Marie looked at the ceiling, at the faded paper with its wreath of painted roses about the chain that held the candles in the brass chandelier.

“Don’t you be rude now!” Lisette scowled with the cup in her hands. “You drink this now, you be polite to my friends!” Marie could smell the brandy wafting up with the steam and meant to turn her head when Lisette raised it to her lips.

“You let me cool that for that girl,” said Madame Lola, “you let me put a little sweetness in it,” and taking the cup she poured a dark syrup into it and gave it back. It smelt strange but good. Marie let her eyes close just for an instant feeling the steam on her face. Her hands and feet were cold and she was wet all over from the rain which had soaked through the shoulders of her dress and run down her bodice and her back. She sighed, exasperated, weary, and took the smallest drink of the tea. “I want to go,” she whispered to Lisette. Lisette glowered at her. “You drink that first!” came the intimate whisper. “What you want to do, shame me in front of my friends! Drink it, I told you, then we can go!”