Crescent City (18 page)

Gabriel’s hand, holding a coffee cup, paused in midair. “Surely you’re not going to leave the place like this? You’ve been here for months and it looks as though you’d moved in this morning or were about to move out.”

“I’ve all I need. A bed, a table, a couple of chairs, and some bookshelves. What else do people want?”

“Well, let’s see. People want carpets, curtains, sofas, pictures, mirrors, many things.”

“You sound like my sister. Miriam is constantly after me to ‘fix up.’”

“Eugene tells me your father can’t understand why you won’t let him set you up in a proper office. In short, you puzzle him. You puzzle us all, my friend.”

“I do?”

“You know you do. I still haven’t fathomed your change of heart. When we were in New York, you used to talk as if we were all poisonous snakes down
here. You’d never go back, you said. You even used to talk about bringing Miriam up North.”

“I was sixteen when I said that and she was all of nine,” David answered evasively.

Something was being held back, Gabriel thought. Since long before they had both left the North, he had sensed something vaguely secretive under his friend’s familiar manner. Troubled and anxious now, he waited. Dust motes hovered in a bar of sunshine to settle in a fine soft film on the floor and on his shoes. And David’s eyes, cast down, also seemed to be following the dust motes. Suddenly he spoke.

“I came back to change things.”

“To change things!”

“Yes. What use am I sitting up North and talking my heart out about the southern system? Talk is easy. Enough steam comes out of talk to drive a thousand machines. So it came to me that I must act instead.”

“And how do you plan to act?”

David understood that his friend’s calmness was only on the surface. So he said reassuringly, “Don’t worry. I won’t get anyone into trouble. You can depend on that.”

“What about getting yourself into trouble?”

“I’ll certainly try not to. But sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in. Does that sound too noble?” He paused. “I just heard my own voice and I’m afraid it had a pompous ring. But I can’t help it, I’m only speaking the truth.” Lines of strain and agitation marked David’s face.

“You’re deluding yourself, you know. You can’t change things, David. You are David, remember? They’re Goliath.”

“Ah, but David slew Goliath. Remember?”

“Well, all right. It was a poor comparison. But listen,” Gabriel said earnestly. “Remember when we
were boys on the
Mirabelle
and we were in Bordeaux. There were rows of abandoned mansions and warehouses falling apart, all the grandeur and riches rotted away. Why? Because the slave trade had been outlawed. You will see the same here, David. Mark my words. It’s only a matter of time and patience. But the time’s not yet.”

“And it won’t be for another century if it’s allowed to go at its own pace. The system’s too profitable. The cotton gin has increased the value of cotton a hundred times over. The steam engine and the sugar mills have doubled the value of Louisiana’s plantations. The upper South produces far more slaves than it needs to work the soil, while down here, and in Texas, where we’re expanding, we keep needing more slaves. Why, a trader can double his investment in a matter of days by buying in Virginia and selling in Louisiana! I read a study of that when I was in New York. I have the figures somewhere here to show you.”

“So you want to hurry things up? How? With a bloody war? You’ve got to be out of your head if you want that.”

“There’s a fascinating book,” David said. “I’ve got it here, hidden away, of course. It’s called
The Partisan Leader,
about southern states founding their own government and the war that results. Terrifying, and maybe accurate, God only knows. I’ll lend it to you if you want.”

“No, thank you, I don’t want. And so you’re going to be a partisan leader, is that it?”

David nodded. He sat up straighter in the chair.

“Then you are out of your head. You’re mad.”

“I know. You said that before.” David’s smile was almost affectionate.

A young Negro man shook a broom out of the kitchen door and closed the door again.

When the door had closed, Gabriel warned, “Servants talk. I hope you know enough at least to keep a good rein on your tongue.”

“Lucien won’t talk. We’re on the same side. He helps me. That’s why I hired him.”

“Hired him!”

“Yes, he’s a free Negro. I pay him wages. Did you think I would own a slave?” And again David’s eyes flashed.

A fever is burning in him, Gabriel thought. He asked cautiously, “Does anyone else know about this?”

“If anyone did, do you think I would betray him?”

“You answer all my questions with questions,” Gabriel said with some exasperation.

The other laughed. “Don’t they always say that’s a Jewish habit?”

“David, I’m very serious. Have you ever hinted at this business to your sister?”

“Of course I haven’t. Do you honestly believe I would put Miriam in danger? The person who means more to me than the rest of the world put together?”

“Questions again! I can only say I should hope you wouldn’t. There are people in that family who would—I can’t think what they would do!”

“Believe me, I know that, Gabriel.”

“They called a special grand jury here only a few years ago to investigate the abolitionist movement. Sylvain Labouisse was on it. They recommended a permanent military force to protect against an uprising. Sylvain’s in that, too. Oh, you’re playing with a terrible fire, David!”

“I understand that.” David spoke gravely.

“Let me tell you something eke. Your own brother-in-law, Eugene—I betray no confidence when I tell you this, because it’s a matter of public knowledge—is
the head of a vigilance committee to combat sedition. He’s a man of great influence, make no mistake. He’s already a power in the Democratic party.”

“They sicken me, all of them! You can’t know how they sicken me!” And David’s mouth puckered in disgust.

Gabriel sighed. “I know. But we’re not all evil men here in the South, remember that, David. When I was in England I saw more suffering than you will ever see here. Hunger and rags in those cold tenements .… And in Massachusetts, all the young village girls in the mills—”

“An accurate description, I’ve no doubt, but still irrelevant,” David interrupted.

“You can’t deny we’re making progress, either. Take Dyson’s school for free Negroes—”

“What do you know about Dyson?”

There was an edge of sharpness in the question that surprised Gabriel. He answered, “Why, nothing that everyone doesn’t know! It’s a fine thing for a white man to be doing. You see,” he explained earnestly, “we are getting somewhere, but it has to be gradual, you can’t just turn everything around overnight. Take your own servant—”

“Yes, take him! He had to
buy
his freedom! And even now he can’t vote or sit where he wants in a theater! Lucien Bonnet, decent, intelligent—”

Gabriel threw up his hand. “Wait! I’m not arguing, I agree with you. I’m only saying, you’re in too much of a hurry, it won’t work.”

There was nothing new in all this. Too often David had heard these apologies. Time was all you needed before these wrongs would right themselves. Why, not so long ago people in New York City had owned slaves! Why, in Virginia fifteen or twenty years ago even the
Richmond Enquirer
was writing articles in
favor of emancipation! And what happened? The abolitionists came in, stirred up all kinds of fury, caused the Nat Turner insurrection, and there you were, with everything set back God knows how long, just because outsiders were in too much of a hurry.

Yes, he had heard all that before, and now was silent.

“So that’s not the way,” Gabriel said. “Oh, it’s easy enough for the North to condemn! Slaves don’t fit into the industrial economy! It’s easy for Garrison and his ilk to demand an immediate end to the system in the South, but how to do it without ruining the economy here and creating chaos? The slaughter could be terrible, when you whip up passions among the ignorant! You of all people, with your family’s history, must understand what mobs are capable of doing.”

“I do understand.”

“Well, then! Only a few years ago they were plotting slave rebellions in Madison and Carroll parishes. Fortunately, they were found out in time.”

“Rebellion is not my intention, Gabriel. Education is. Reasonable, political organization—”

“But it won’t stop at that! You’ll have clandestine meetings, you’ll be found out, there will be terrible punishment, then violent retribution, and it will all come to nothing in the end. No, David, there is no way except to work slowly and patiently within the law. Time and the law will do it.”

“Spoken like a lawyer.”

“Well, I am a lawyer.”

Abruptly David moved on to another subject. “Where are you off to this afternoon?”

Gabriel accepted with grace. “A committee meeting with Gershom Kursheedt. We’ve come along very well with our new congregation—the Dispersed of Judah,
it’s to be called. We’re going back from the Geman rite to the Portuguese.”

“Too aristocratic to mingle with Germans? Sorry, nothing personal.” David smiled.

“Of course it would be ideal if we were all the same. But we’re not. All people like to keep their familiar ways, that’s all. Especially now that the antisemitic laws in Europe are bringing in so many Germans. However, I must tell you,” Gabriel said enthusiastically, “Kursheedt has been doing wonders with Judah Touro. He’s got him to subscribe a lot of money for the synagogue and other charities. No one can figure out how he’s done it, unless it’s a question of timing. Touro’s getting old and afraid to die.”

“There you are! The power of persuasion toward the right. Isn’t that what I’ve just been talking about today?”

“Not quite, David. Not quite.”

Now it was Gabriel who moved away from the subject. “Kursheedt is a sort of disciple of Isaac Leeser’s. Now, there’s a great man, Leeser. A prolific writer. You ought to read his
Occident and American Jewish Advocate.
It comes out every month, tells you what’s going on in Jewish life around the country. He keeps it up even though it loses money regularly. However, he’s a bachelor with few wants.”

“Like me. A bachelor with few wants.”

“David, I came by this afternoon to ask you whether you’d want to work with us in Jewish charities. There are so many committees that need workers. But I can’t recruit you if you’re going to get mixed up in that other business. You understand?”

“Perfectly. Your meaning’s quite clear.” David’s tone was unmistakably bitter. “I’m not welcome.”

“Don’t be bitter about it. Would you want to drag others down? Your sister, for instance?”

“I told you a while ago that I wouldn’t, didn’t I? Yet, I can’t help but think: How fortunate for the southern Jew that the Negro exists! He takes the brunt of prejudice away, and now the Jew is freely accepted in the best society.”

“That’s not fair, David.”

“It is fair. Oh, I’ll grant there may be some excuse for people like you who’ve been born into the system and grown up in it, but for those of us from Europe who ought to know better, there can be no excuse.”

“We are only doing what the rest of society is doing. We are people like everyone else. We’re not all as noble as the prophets.”

“We’re the People of the Covenant. A greater sense of justice is required of us. Examine our history—”

Gabriel rose to leave. “I haven’t made your deep analysis,” he said with slight stiffness.

David went with him through the house to the street. “Don’t be angry with me. Must we think alike on everything to be friends?”

“No, not at all. I’m not angry, either, only distressed. Take care of yourself, David.”

For a few minutes David stood in the doorway watching Gabriel go down the street. Salt of the earth, he thought. Steady. You could trust him with all you had or ever hoped to have. A fine mind, a scholar, with deep warmth beneath the austerity. But slow, too slow, not a man to accomplish things. More’s the pity. He sighed.

The afternoon’s talk had tired him. He was too tired of late, but it was no wonder. Talk of burning candles at both ends! All the organizing, the planning, and the tension of utmost secrecy, while keeping all the time a “normal exterior,” which meant a minimal social life for the world to see.

Often he wished that the social life might be more
than minimal, that he might allow himself more than a dance or casual chat with one of the delightful girls who were so eager to welcome the young doctor, the son of Ferdinand Raphael. And he smiled to himself, with a certain wistfulness, this “eligible young man” who was not really eligible at all: Marriage to him must eventually bring cruel disaster to any young daughter of the South. So, in all decency, he must keep his distance and, when any young woman seemed to be especially charming, must be careful to stay away.

He was wearying beneath many pressures. The practice had grown rapidly. It had begun one night when a midwife who had somehow or other heard his name had appealed for help with a hard delivery. And he had gone down to the Irish Channel, stumbling over goats and drunks, and in a shanty behind the slaughterhouse brought a life into the world. What stench, what misery! In the North he had heard the diatribes of the Know-Nothing party and seen signs on shop doors:
NO
IRISH
WANTED
HERE
. They were condemned for being shiftless and unclean. When people were ground down they were blamed for every plague, as were the Jews in Europe.

Never, never did he see cruelty of any kind without thinking of his mother. And David burned with furious conviction. Things ought not—the world ought not—people ought not—His anger choked him.

How was it possible that his father had no such burning?

I try to understand. I do understand more clearly than I could have when I was fifteen. He’s had his struggle and used up his ambition; now he wants only to enjoy what he has. How glad he is to have his son back! And inevitably I shall bring him pain again. I shall be sorry when it happens.