A Twisted Ladder (4 page)

She made a final turn. And she wanted to be wrong. God, how she wanted to be wrong, and wished for the comfort of that joke, that stupid joke she’d played on herself as she’d driven to Houma. Pretending she could make him laugh, throw back his head and have a big old laugh. That she herself might fall for the ridiculous joke that he was fine.

Crack!

She felt him now in an orange burst. Felt his fear and anguish and fury, all reaching out to her in a moment of monstrous ecstasy. The darkness stole in around her, and eyes of the swamp creatures flashed in slivers of moon.

She touched her hair, expecting to find blood. But no; she was unharmed. She switched on the light.

He was there. His boot and leg were still tangled in the skiff, but the rest of him hung over the side, suspended upside down in the water. Lying in wait, but no longer waiting to die.

HAHNVILLE, 1912

R
ÉMI WHITTLED ON A
length of hickory and breathed the wet wind from the river. Jacob sat next to him. The gallery wrapped around the entire perimeter of the plantation house, a shelter of mortise and tenon trusses extending from the roof. The design served necessity over vanity, admitting the breeze from the Mississippi while keeping out the rain. From the rails of the gallery, Rémi could see the river, rows of sugarcane, and all the workers of Terrefleurs.

“
Il va pleuvoir
,” he said as he dragged his knife along the wood, pulling a long thin curl, then revised, “
Mais non
, I’ll say it in English: It will rain.”

Jacob took a sip of cherry bounce. “Now how in the hell am I ever gonna learn French if y’all insist on speaking English?”

“My friend, you will never speak French. You are too thick in the head. At Terrefleurs, we speak only English now.”

“You just switchin because of my pretty little sister.” Jacob offered a wink. “She always gets her way with you.” He paused and eyed Rémi. “You know, I been meanin to say, I’m sorry about Mama.”

Rémi shrugged. At the wedding reception, he had overheard Mrs. Chapman refer to Rémi’s family as Creole savages.

Jacob sighed. “I just wanted you to know I’m glad you’re part of the family now. I guess we all must seem kinda arrogant to you.”

Rémi smiled. “I understand how it is. As Creoles, we have our ways, and your parents are not used to it. But with each generation, our differences get smaller and smaller.”

“I s’pose eventually we won’t be able to tell who’s who.”

The air hung thick. The sky shone in a hazy light blue and the evening sun illuminated the yellow paint of the gallery, but rain was coming. The two men sipped their drinks, Tatie Bernadette’s homemade cherry bounce. And as the breeze escalated, Tatie’s voice rippled from inside as she instructed the other servants to close the shutters. Rémi watched the workers of the field swinging their cane knives in time to the line boss’ cadence.

“Seem like they’re moving faster than usual out there today,” Jacob said.

“They’re excited. It’s almost
roulaison
, the celebration at the end of cutting season.”

“Roolay-who?”

“
Roulaison
. The people have worked hard. We’ll have a big feast. They’ll make hot punch of boiled cane juice and brandy.”

“Sounds like my kind of tradition.”

Rémi eyed him. “If you had planted cane this season, you could celebrate your own harvest.”

Jacob shrugged. “I know, I know.”

“If you’re not going to plant, you might as well pull out altogether.”

“We’re gonna plant. I know you have a lot of your own assets tied up in helping us get started. We’ll get around to it.”

Rémi said, “I just think you should either plant or not plant. I don’t know what you’re waiting for. And to tell the truth, I say forget about sugarcane. It’s too demanding. Even the Americans know this. They don’t call it ‘growing cane,’ they say, ‘raising cane.’ ”

“No, you got it all wrong. You’re quotin the Bible there. It’s ‘raising Cain,’ as in Cain and Abel, not sugarcane. Cain was the bad seed. So when we say ‘raising Cain,’ we mean raising hell.”

Rémi nodded, smiling. “Yes, it’s true, just as it says in the Bible. And raising cane is the same as raising Cain.”

The door to the ladies’ parlor opened, and Helen emerged with her servant, Chloe. Helen stood slender and handsome, pale-skinned with soft black hair and clear green eyes. Chloe’s wide eyes shone from the black skin of her face, her body more skinny than slender, her dress overworn. She carried a silver tray with a fresh carafe of cherry bounce.

“There’s my little sister,” Jacob said, and he rose to kiss Helen.

Chloe set the carafe on the round wooden table without pouring. She raised her head and sniffed the air, but her gaze did not lift toward the clouds amassing in the west. She looked instead toward the eastern well, and as she turned her head, her dress moved to reveal a scar at her shoulder, a long, pale zipper across her African skin.

She had appeared at the plantation a few years ago, half-starved and looking for work. She’d spoken only Creole. Rémi never asked about where she came from. He set aside his whittling and brushed off his hands.

“It’s so good to see you, Jacob,” Helen said as she embraced her brother. “You’ll stay for supper, won’t you?”

“No honey, I gotta get back. I was just passing through and wanted to welcome y’all home from your honeymoon.” He kissed her cheek again and turned to Rémi, shaking his hand. “Take good care of my little sister, now, you hear?”

Jacob descended the steps, and Rémi noticed that Chloe’s gaze measured Jacob with distaste as he joined his driver by his motorcar. For one who’d appeared from nowhere, desperate and hungry, Chloe was not terribly deferential. A good thing, as Rémi saw it; he preferred to know the minds of those in his employ. Rémi and Helen waved at Jacob and watched the vehicle disappear through the allée of pecan trees.

“You are so thin,
chérie
.” Rémi said as he slipped his arm around his bride’s waist. “No one would even know that you are carrying my child.”

He nestled his face to her neck and breathed the warmth of her skin, his knuckle gently brushing her belly.

She pushed him away. “You prefer that I were fat?”

“I wish you to be healthy, and our child to be healthy.”

“All right then.” She patted his cheek.

“
Eau de cerise, monsieur?
” Chloe was staring at him, her cheekbones forming chevrons in the waning sunlight.

“English, please Chloe,” Rémi said. “Remember at Terrefleurs we speak English now, in honor of our new mistress. And no, I have had my share. See to Tatie Bernadette.”

She paused for a moment, then retreated around to the rear gallery where he heard her open the pantry door.

Helen lifted her face toward Rémi. “By the way I meant to tell you, I’m going to have the house painted.”

Rémi glanced at the outer wall in surprise. The paint was in good condition, glowing in shades of gold and coral with a red roof and teal trim.

“It’s going to be painted
white,”
Helen added.

“White? But
chérie
, we’ve always painted the house in bright colors.”

“Creole colors. You said you are ready to behave like an American. And the American houses are white.”

“You use my words against me.”

He stepped away from her. Perhaps the time had come to impose limits on this American homogenization.

“You are worried that our child will grow to be a Creole savage,” he said.

“Now who’s using words against whom? It was never I who said that!”

Her black hair shone in a clean knot at her neck. Rémi imagined how he would like to free that knot, and watch those black waves spill about her shoulders. He reached for her hand, but she pulled away and turned her face toward the river. Even out on the gallery with no one around, Helen behaved as a proper lady.

Rémi smiled. He did not mind, because he would visit her later in her parlor, in the lantern glow of night, and she would not feel compelled to be such a lady.

“Ah, well,” he said. “Maybe white walls are a nice change.”

The sun began to set, bringing the golden gallery to a crescendo of brilliant orange. On the horizon, a flash in the charcoal-smudged sky. Clouds channeled in from the south, and with them came the sound of thunder.

NEW ORLEANS, 2009

I
GUESS YOU’RE CHLOE
, then?” Madeleine said, because the old woman had still not offered her name even though Madeleine had introduced herself. “Chloe LeBlanc?”

The Victorian drawing room on Toulouse Street smelled of rot and had not undergone much restoration after the hurricane. Madeleine felt Mrs. LeBlanc’s stare lingering over her blue eyes and black skin. A typical reaction, but she hadn’t expected it from her own great-grandmother, stranger or not.

Mrs. LeBlanc herself seemed of purer African blood; no hint of Caucasian. With dark eyes and mottled coffee skin, the only lightness about her was in her startled-looking gray hair.

“I am one hundred and fourteen years old,” the old woman replied, as if that said it all.

Madeleine gaped at the suddenness and weight of her announcement. A hundred and fourteen years. Madeleine wasn’t sure she believed it. The old woman’s helper, an albino black man with yellowed hair and pale skin, nodded confirmation. He settled Chloe into her seat and then abandoned them, leaving Madeleine alone with her.

Madeleine said, “A hundred and fourteen years? That’s quite an achievement.”

Mrs. LeBlanc nodded. If this really was her age, she was getting along remarkably well. Perhaps remarkable wasn’t the word. Unsettling, more like. Madeleine decided not to believe it. They looked at one other. Madeleine shifted and regarded the sagging drapes that probably hadn’t been replaced—nor drawn, nor opened, for that matter—in half a century. If she were to touch them she guessed they’d vaporize in a shimmer of dust.

“Well. The reason I wanted to meet you is—”

“I know why you’re here,” Mrs. LeBlanc snapped.