Crescent City (22 page)

The latter now resumed the interrupted discussion. “Resistance to the new is understandable, of course. When Moses Mendelssohn translated the Torah into German, how the Orthodox attacked him! They forgot how sixteen centuries earlier the sages had translated it into Arabic and Greek. No, David, it is some measure of reform that will save Judaism for many who would otherwise abandon it.”

“The way it’s been saved here in New Orleans? What have you got? Shops open on the Sabbath, synagogues three quarters empty …”

“But we haven’t modernized yet here. That’s my point! What we have here is just a handful of Orthodox leaning a trifle in the direction of change. And the rest of the people are nothing at all.”

“Like my father,” David said.

“Don’t be too hard on your father.” Gabriel spoke quietly. “He has no choice here, as I’ve just said. And he won’t accept the old ways anymore. The old ways remind men like him of Europe. What does he remember? Suffering and brutality. Humiliation and—”

David interrupted. “You’re more tolerant than I.”

If only David would learn not to interrupt so rudely, Miriam thought. Forgetting her embarrassment in his presence, she wanted to hear what Gabriel had to say.

“More tolerant of everything around you,” David said emphatically.

Something compelled Miriam to speak. Part boldly, part shyly, her words came forth. Without looking directly at him, she was addressing Gabriel. “Things don’t seem to have changed much since Josephus wrote. The problems were the same almost two thousand years ago.”

“My wife is a reader,” Eugene said.

He was angry that she had spoken. He himself was too prudent to offer an opinion on a controversial subject. One never knew which potentially useful person one might offend.

“There’s my son,” he said abruptly.

Children and nursemaids were passing through the hall. On seeing his father, little Eugene came running. The father took the boy on his lap.

“What’s this, what’s this on your arm?”

“It’s a bee sting. Blaise put mud on it.”

“A bee sting? This time of year? It happened just now?”

“It happened yesterday,” Miriam said.

“You didn’t tell me!”

“It didn’t seem that important.”

“Well, well, since it’s all right—but I should be told.” And, as if doubting the wholeness of the boy, Eugene carefully examined his face, his neck, and his fat knees.

For a moment conversation stopped. All were expected to give their attention to little Eugene. And he was a handsome child in his kilt, his badger sporran, and Glengarry bonnet with its sprig of heather, all à la mode. Eugene had ordered the outfit from Scotland.

“Soon you will be going to school,” he said, dandling his son.

“You’re sending him to France?” inquired Rosa.

“Oh, not yet, but when he’s older, of course.”

No, Miriam thought fiercely, you will not do that to
me. And although she knew the answer perfectly well, she pursued the question. “What about Angelique? Shall you send her to France, too?”

Eugene shrugged. “If you wish, but it’s not essential.”

She had not spoken to him so directly for a long time, if ever. But now she was driven by the sight of him holding her child, as if he alone were responsible for Eugene.

“Oh, I know it’s thought that a woman needs no education,” she said in a low, rapid voice. “Education will only make her discontented and unfit to keep a household! Yes, that’s what’s said.” She stopped. It was no use.

Eugene put down the boy, who scurried away, then turned to David. “Tell me, is it from you that my wife gets these unusual tastes?”

“Not at all. Miriam has her own tastes.”

“These discussions lead nowhere.” Eugene stood up. His tone touched the edge of mockery, as if he were saying: What do ideas matter anyway? We all know they don’t.

“Down with discussions, then,” David said.

The group dispersed and Miriam found herself enclosed with Gabriel behind a wall of people.

“Your brother and I have our differences, as you see. I like to think they keep our friendship lively.”

“Your differences are very small, I think. You don’t disagree on principles. And they’re really all that matter, aren’t they?”

“Do come, they’re making a toast!” someone cried, and Miriam was pushed forward in the general movement toward the dining room.

“So you have been reading Josephus,” Gabriel said, hurrying beside her.

“Over my husband’s objections.”

He did not comment. Instead he asked gently, “How is the dog getting on?”

“Oh, he has got his land legs. You were so kind, I don’t know whether I thanked you enough.”

“You did,” he said.

He had brought the dog, complete with a basket and blanket, one Sunday afternoon. Rosa had put a red bow on its head; the wobbling bow had fallen over one eye, so that the little thing had seemed to be winking. Miriam had laughed with delight.

“Gretel the Second! She’s almost exactly the same! It’s so good of you, Gabriel, such a beautiful surprise!”

“Very thoughtful,” Eugene had added. “I daresay if you’d brought her a basket of diamonds she wouldn’t have been as pleased.”

And Gabriel had stood there on the verandah watching the event, saying no more, but watching as he was doing right now, with a gaze so intense, so serious, that in her confusion she could only pretend to fix the clasp of her bracelet, which did not need to be fixed.

Earnestly, as if to draw her attention away from the bracelet, he said, “I had planned to replace your Gretel as long ago as last winter. It took too many months to make the arrangements.”

He can’t take his eyes away from you,
Eugene had said.

In the dining room a bald gentleman with raised glass was saying something about blessings on the young couple, on the friends, on the house, on everything.

Ferdinand spoke jovially into Miriam’s ear. “You see what a brotherly spirit we have? All for one and one for all.” He was not a drinking man and he had already had two glasses of champagne.

“This party must be costing a fortune,” someone
remarked in Miriam’s other ear. She recognized the voice of Sylvain, who was hidden behind a pair of broad shoulders. “It’s rumored that Raphael’s overextended himself most awfully. Of course, it may be only a rumor. I hope so for the sake of my mother-in-law.” And as the broad shoulders moved away, he caught sight of Miriam. “Ah, Miriam, I want to introduce the bridegroom. You must meet André. Everyone admires him.”

“I have met him,” she objected, but had already been drawn away by Sylvain’s arm to a group around another small table upon which a single supper plate had been laid. There sat old Lambert Labouisse, enthroned and erect; his expression under a crown of immaculate white hair was severely regal. A discussion of politics had apparently been going on around him.

“My son, Alexandre, is five years old,” said Sylvain, at once joining in, “and I predict that he will grow up to fight in a war.”

“Let us hope not,” Gabriel answered soberly.

“In Congress they are already ranting about ‘the sin of slavery,’” Sylvain continued. “John Slidell—a very good friend of mine—comes back from Washington with warnings of the sentiments in the Senate.”

“Do you not think it’s significant,” asked the elder Labouisse, “that some of our most brilliant defenders in the Senate are not southern born? Slidell is from New York; and, of course, Soulé is from France. Remarkable,” he mused, and the others inclined their heads respectfully as though the old man had himself said something remarkable. “Soulé is coming here tonight, I’ve been told. I’ve not seen him yet. In my opinion this talk of war is exaggerated. Our civilization will not be undermined by a handful of fanatics,” he concluded scornfully.

Startled, Miriam heard a whisper and turned to look into the face of André Perrin.

“Excuse me. Would I be depriving you of this discussion or might you like to dance?”

“I should like to dance,” she said, rising.

Suddenly the talk had become too heavy. It was important talk, but she had had enough of it; guiltily she understood this was because she was too absorbed with herself.

“Such heavy talk on a night like this,” said André Perrin as if she had spoken her thought aloud.

In the courtyard, where dancing couples were moving in concentric circles, he drew her into the outer one. At once they fell into step.

“I have just come back from the war in Mexico,” he told her. “I don’t want to hear any more threats of war. People think it’s all parades and flags. But you enjoyed old Rough-and-Ready’s victory parade, I hope? He was quite a sight, riding Old Whitey.”

“Oh, yes, it was splendid.”

“Your little boy was thrilled with it, anyway. You’re wondering how I knew he was there? I saw you. Your girl was with you, too. They’re twins, aren’t they?”

“Yes, but they say forty thousand people were in the Place d’Armes. How could you have seen me?”

Perrin enjoyed her surprise. “Because when we stood at attention opposite the cathedral, I recognized Pelagie in the front row. You were next to her. You wore a gray velvet bonnet with a white plume. Your boy wanted to pull away from your hand and run with the soldiers. You had to hold him back.”

“Incredible! What a memory you have.”

“As a matter of fact, my memory is not all that good. But I remembered you.”

He was not much taller than she, so that she could look almost directly into his face. His skin was ruddy
brown from wind and sun. He was so close that she could see the blond roots of his eyelashes.

“You think I’m too bold, Mrs. Mendes? I don’t mean to be.”

“It’s all right,” she murmured. After a moment of awkward silence she could think of nothing better to add than “It was a stirring parade.”

“It was a stirring war. All the way from Matamoros, where we landed, to Monterrey.”

“But such terrible suffering! The heat and the flies—we kept reading the dispatches in the
Picayune.
Surely you must want to forget it all.”

“I should like to.” He laughed. “My mother won’t let me, though. She has renamed our plantation ‘Palo Alto,’ after the battle in which I was almost wounded. She wants to think I was a hero, which I wasn’t.”

Miriam liked the way he could laugh at himself, liked the easy grace of the dance, liked the way she was feeling. Swaying and swinging, they drew an arabesque around the courtyard. The light played on his face whenever they passed beneath a lantern. His mouth was beautifully molded, and even when he was not smiling, the curve of the lips gave an effect of good humor. Like sunshine, she thought.

“Shall you be living at Palo Alto?” she asked, and remembered at once what Pelagie had said about going abroad.

“No, we’re going to France for a while. But we’re having a house built here in town for when we come back. It’s in the Garden District with the Americans.”

“So you’re deserting us in the Vieux Carré!”

“Oh, we are all getting mixed up together these days. The old rivalry’s dying, it’s practically dead. Look at us here tonight Everyone of us speaks both languages. The Creoles themselves are moving,
spreading all over the city. It’s a wonderful city. I shall love working here.”

“You’re an attorney?”

“A notary. Of course, we’re all mixed up here between the Code Napoléon and the English common law. But you probably know all that already. Or else you aren’t interested and don’t want to know, for which I wouldn’t blame you.”

“But I am very interested,” she said brightly, making her eyes larger and at the same time thinking, This is just common flirting.

The waltz crashed and whirled. Marie Claire flew past in the arms of the French consul.

“How happy she must be!” Miriam cried.

“Who must?”

“Why, your Marie Claire, of course.”

“Dancing with the Frenchman? Oh, she is in love with France, with anything French.”

“So you are to live in France.”

“Only for a year or two. We shall be here first for a while, though, at the St. Charles Hotel.”

The St. Charles Hotel. A suite with a balcony. Cream-colored roses, large as cabbages. A bed. White linens and a blue silk quilt. A bed. With this man.

His right hand lay between her shoulder blades, not pressing, but so firmly placed that its heat, even though the hand was encased in a kid glove, rippled down to the small of her back. She was not used to being touched that way, with such natural familiarity. It came to her mind that she had never been touched with any tenderness at all—not even as a small child. There had been no one to do it.

And now she was only aware of that hand as it moved an inch or two from side to side over her naked back. All the blood in her body seemed to be pouring into the place where that hand rested. She wanted him
to move her nearer to himself, to obliterate the empty air between them. At the same time she was horrified by her desire. This total stranger! It was absolutely mad!

How queer it would be if a person were ever able to look through the flesh and the forehead’s white bone to know what another was thinking! It would be like walking naked down the street, as sometimes one does in those frantic dreams where one seeks a place to hide and something with which to cover oneself.

All this time her feet were moving to the music.

He was saying something to her. He had pulled a little away, to see her more clearly. She thought she had heard his question, but was not sure, and he had to repeat it.

“Why are you so unhappy?”

The most burning tears came at once. Her lips quivered. He had seen through her skull.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “Please don’t, or I shall cry here in front of everyone. Please.”

He was shocked. “Forgive me. Oh, my God, I don’t know why I said that! Forgive me.”

Like wheels revolving to a stop, the music slowed and Perrin danced them into the house. In a tall mirror she saw that he had indeed turned his head away. He understood, then, that when you stare at a woman’s tears, you make them flow harder. He brought her to where Eugene was standing, thanked her, and moved quickly away.

I have made a fool of myself, she thought.