Benjamin January 3 - Graveyard (29 page)

At no time was the cast of characters assembled at the request of the Bailiff of the Criminal Court of the State of Louisiana particularly inspiring of trust in the jury system. Watching them take their seats on the benches of the courtroom on the upper floor of the old Presbytere building, January felt a certain longing for the intendants and juges d'instruction of France.

In the summer the situation was worse, for the men of property and responsibility had already largely abandoned the town. What was left to make up the bulk of the jury pool was a disproportionate number of laborers, stevedores, saloonkeepers and cafe owners, small merchants such as January had rubbed elbows with on the wharves, and pettifogging businessmen like those along Baronne Street; frequently men of small education and intense prejudices. On the whole this batch didn't look too bad, thought January, taking his seat beside Vachel Corcet at one of the long tables near the empty jury box. But he would have felt more sanguine about the whole thing if there'd-been more of them who looked like they had the intelligence to read and write.

“State your name,” said the Clerk of the Court, and spit.

These were the twelve men, January reflected, they'd have to convince that just because Olympe worshiped African gods, it did not mean she was a poisoner. “Henry Shotwell.”

“I object to these proceedings, sir!” Monsieur Vilhardouin was on his feet. “It is prejudicial to the defense of my client, and indeed a slight upon the entire community of New Orleans, to assume that English is the language to be spoken in this Court!”

Henry Shotwell, a heavyset man in an over-gaudy tie and stickpin, removed his cigar from his mouth and said, “Oh, for Chrissake,” and the Clerk of the Court turned red.

The State Prosecutor set down the bundle of papers he'd been perusing and rose, and January, seeing him for the first time, groaned inwardly. It was Orell Greenaway.

“Let me remind Mr. Vilhardouin,” said Greenaway, glaring venomously up at Vilhardouin's tall elegant form, “that the State of Louisiana is now part of the United States, and that the official language of the United States is English.”

“We true citizens of the City of New Orleans,” retorted Vilhardouin, in French, “were sold to the United States against our will and without being consulted in the matter-”

“Welcome to our ranks,” muttered January dourly.

“-and we were assured that our rights would be respected as citizens on an equal standing with those who invaded us.”

“I very much fear,” retorted Greenaway, in English, “that I have never had the opportunity to study a foreign tongue.”

“It was not foreign upon these shores!”

The judge banged his gavel. It was, January was relieved to see, J. F. Canonge in charge of the Court, the gray-haired and formidable pillar of Creole society who had been conspicuously absent from Madame Redfern's Bastille Day celebrations. During the Revolution his father had been a soldier of the Loyalist cause.

“Monsieur Vilhardouin begs Mr. Greenaway to take into consideration,” translated the Judge, “that the rights of the French citizens of this territory were guaranteed when they were ceded, without their knowledge, to the United States. Monsieur Shaw,” he went on, turning his leonine head to address the Lieutenant, who was lounging in the back of the court cracking his knuckles, “please request that an interpreter be sent in.”

Greenaway directed a glare at Vilhardouin that would have taken paint off a fence. Henry Shotwell flipped aside his coat skirts and seated himself again, took a flask from his pocket, imbibed a stiff jolt, and relit his cigar. The man next to him, who looked like a minor clerk or an apothecary's assistant, wrinkled his nose and fanned at the smoke, as if the whole room weren't choking with the fumes of the fever smudges in the courtyard behind the building. Had Hannibal been with him and not flat on his back in an opium stupor after hemorrhaging half the night, January would have offered handsome odds on at least one challenge before the end of the day.

He wondered if Corcet was a betting man.

The interpreter was the same harried-looking notary who'd been press-ganged at the Recorder's Court. While this gentleman was inquiring of the Judge when he was expected to get his own work done, January saw Hubert Granville rise from the bench, where he sat beside Madame Genevieve and Antoine, and go up to speak to Greenaway, his forefinger jabbing instructively. At the same time Mathurin Jumon went up and spoke to Vilhardouin. There appeared to be genuine distress in his face, and it crossed January's mind, absurdly, to wonder if the money Mathurin sought so desperately to raise was in some way destined to save Celie.

Antoine, plumaged in mourning nearly as elaborate as his mother's, turned in his seat, his eyes following the big man. He hastily straightened when Mathurin turned his head. His black-gloved hand made a feint at a pocket, but he caught his mother's warning glance, and resettled it in his lap. Mathurin, for one moment, stood looking at him. Then he, too, averted his face.

Granville returned to his seat and said something in an undervoice to Madame Genevieve.

“State your name. Donnez votre nom, s 'd vous plait.”

“Aristide Valcour.”

“State your occupation. Donnez votr' occupation.”

“I am a mechanic at the municipal waterworks.”

“Je suis mechanique au-”

“I object, Your Honor.” Greenaway stood. “How can I be certain that this interpreter is giving a true and impartial translation of the prospective juryman's state ments? I request that a man better versed in the true language of this country be called in-”

“The true language of this country is French!”

“Za langue vrai du cette pays c'est-”

“It was the last time you paid any attention to what was going on arourd you!”

“How dare you-”

Vachel Corcet bolted to his feet one second behind Vilhardouin, reached out half-instinctively to stop him and at once pulled back. Granville, Shaw, and Mr. Shotwell all sprang forward and interposed themselves between the two lawyers: “Don't be a fool, man!” yelled the banker. In a rear corner of the courtroom, Burton Blodgett, a sweaty wad of rum-soaked wool and rumpled linen, scribbled gleefully in his notebook.

“Monsieur Vilhardouin,” said Judge Canonge, “as you may have observed, it is a hot day. Due to Judge Gravier's illness, and judge Danville's departure, there are one hundred and thirty-two cases on the docket to be heard, and more coming in every day. It is now nine-thirty in the morning. If we could settle this matter, grave though it is, with expedition as well as justice, it would be an act of merry not only to all in this room but to those poor souls locked up in the Cabildo, awaiting their turn on Justice's scales.”

Face flushed under the dark glory of side-whiskers, Vilhardouin straightened his somber tailcoat and resumed his seat.

“Mr. Greenaway.” Canonge switched effortlessly to English as perfect as his French. “As a notary of this city Mr. Doussan is completely versed in both languages native to the population and I take it as a mark of disrespect to the judgment of this Court that you express doubt as to his ability or inclination to translate words as they are spoken.”

Greenaway drew himself up to his full five-foot-four-inch height. “I accept the Court's decision.” He spit, quite accurately, into the brass cuspidor.

The jury selection continued. Vilhardouin challenged Colby, Shotwell, Quigley, Horn, Lupoff and Haldeman; Greenaway challenged prospective jurors Pargoud, Seignoret, Bringier, Valcour, Lanoue, Rouzau, and Villiere, all clsallenges taking place at length and through the medium of the harassed Monsieur Doussan, who gamely and vainly tried to work at his own papers in between quarrels. At the back of the courtroom Lieutenant Shaw continued to chew and spit like a placid locust, watching everything with narrowed gray eyes. During the proceedings Monsieur Vilhardouin rose from his seat two or three times to go to the doors of the courtroom and question the Bailiff outside: Blodgett, seated beside Shaw, leaned and craned unashamedly to hear.

“Monsieur Gerard and Madame Celie Jumon have not yet arrived,” murmured Corcet to January. In the front row beside Granville, Madame Genevieve Jumon, and Antoine, Paul Corbier sat rigid in his go-to-church black corduroy coatee. His hands were folded around the brim of his shallow-crowned beaver hat on his knees and his eyes were straight to the front. He'd come in last night on the Bonnets O'Blue, harried and visibly thinner; January had supped with the family, and even Gabriel's cooking hadn't been sufficient to make the meal anything but an ordeal of silent anxiety.

By eleven the jury had been chosen: four Americans, five Frenchmen, a German, a Greek, and a Jew, comprising a saloon keeper-though January was well aware that the Blackleg Saloon on Canal Street was as much a house of prostitution as it was a tavern-a paperhanger; a furniture dealer; the boss of a stevedore gang from the levee; three fishermen, one of whom spoke neither English nor French; a tailor; the man who mucked out stalls at Postl's Livery Stable on Baronne Street; a printer's devil; a shoemaker; and the husband of a woman who sold mantillas. They sat strictly segregated, Americans and French, and glared at one another while the Bailiff brought in Olympe.

She walked straight, cold, and self-contained. Her dark-blue calico dress and yellow tignon were faded but clean, for although no one was allowed to visit prisoners, Paul had handed the clothes over to Shaw earlier in the morning.

“How bad is it?” whispered January as Olympe took her seat on the other side of Corcet.

Her dark eyes flickered to the Bailiff, who was watching her closely, and she said in a breath, “Two in our cell. Another last night.”

“Shapannan?” He named the smallpox god, the god who must not be named, knowing Olympe would know he spoke of cholera, and she moved her head slightly, No. “Our friend John.”

Bronze John.

Thank God for small favors. Women as dark as Olympe, men as dark as January, seldom came down very sick of it. Cholera would take anyone.

Audience was filing into the courtroom. Mamzelle Marie. Olympe's friends among the market-women and laundresses in the poor neighborhoods around the city pasture, Alys Roque and Lizette Genois and Nan LaFarge. Basile Nogent. Four young women who appeared to be shopgirls or laundresses took their places near the table where Greenaway sat; the State Attorney went immediately to speak to them. Soothing their fears, January decided, watching him-over the noise of the crowd he caught the words silly superstition and you don't really believe that. Leaving them, Greenaway went to exchange a further word with Granville; and Antoine looked around again at Mathurin Jumon, glowering as if he would draw a dagger and fall upon him shouting, Thus is evil punished! It had been Rose's intention to attempt another meeting with Madame Celie, so Gabriel had been asked to stay with Hannibal, but scan the crowd as he would, January could see no sign of the schoolmistress's neat tignon or round-lensed spectacles.

January wondered where Killdevil Ned was. Watching the building, perhaps? Waiting for him to come out? Clement Vilhardouin got to his feet again and went to the doors: “Really, Mr. Villardang,” remarked Greenaway, strolling over behind him and lighting a cigar, “looks like putting up bail for the wench wasn't such a good idea after all.”

Vilhardouin rounded on him. “Only a cowardly poltroon whose natural recourse in times of danger is behind a woman's petticoats would dare to imply-”

At that moment Monsieur Gerard entered, face clotted with anger. Celie Jumon followed in her father's wake, her swollen, fear-haunted eyes and trembling mouth a shocking contrast both to her frock of simple mourning crepe and to Olympe's threadbare calm.

“The Criminal Court of the State of Louisiana is now in session,” intoned the Bailiff, first in English and then in laborious French. “All rise for the judge.” Genevieve Jumon, resplendent in a fantasia of bombazine and silveret, with veils draping a tignon of quite startling elaborateness, testified as to her “friendship” with Laurence Jumon: that he had freed her, educated her two sons, Isaak and Antoine, given her property, promised to look after her. Yes, Isaak had been on extremely good terms with his father. Yes, there was every expectation that Monsieur Laurence Jumon would provide handsomely for his son. She spoke good, slightly accented English-elegantly gesturing aside the offer of assistance from Monsieur Doussan-while the stableboy and one of the fishermen helped themselves to their hip flasks and the shoemaker frankly dozed. While she repeated herself in French, Mr. Shotwell handed cigars to Mr. Quigley and Herr Fliigel and offered one over the rail of the jury box to Hubert Granville, at the same time trading a quiet-voiced joke with the banker, who chuckled and made a suggestive gesture with his hands.

“And did you speak to your son against his courtship of Miss Gerard?”

“I did.” Genevieve straightened the diaphanous folds of her veils. “I warned him about that girl from the start. Behind that innocent convent-bred facade I detected a hard-eyed and grasping little hussy-”

“I object!” Vilhardouin shot to his feet at the same moment Monsieur Gerard slammed his fist down on the table before them, and in the audience Mathurin Jumon shouted, “Shame!”

“This is a judgment extremely prejudicial to the welfare of my client!”

“And how else would you describe a girl-Oh, all right.” Greenaway lit another cigar and waited while Monsieur Doussan repeated the entire interchange in French for the benefit of jurors Valcour, Huguet, Seignoret, Roux, and Fragonard. “How else would you describe a girl who attaches herself to a young man who expects to inherit several thousand dollars from his mother's lover?”

“My daughter expected nothing!” cried Gerard. “She was foolish, yes, in throwing herself away upon the son of a common whore-”

“Silence!” roared Canonge, whacking away with his gavel.

“A whore, is it?” snapped Genevieve, whirling in a storm of sable point d'esprit. “It's your daughter, rather, who-”

“Be silent or I'll have the room cleared! Madame Jumon, please confine your remarks to observed facts and not to your opinion of your daughter-in-law and her family.” Celie's eyes were blazing, and Mathurin Jumon was half-risen from his seat, face crimson with rage.