Heartsong (37 page)

He spent half of his saved-up francs to order a tailored suit, buy two shirts, some collars, and a new pair of shoes. The only shoes the clerk could find that would fit him were brown and just a bit cruder
than the ones the gentlemen wore around town. And in fact, the brown shoes looked somewhat awkward when he tried on his black suit a week later. Nevertheless, they were new and shiny and a vast improvement over his old ones, which he threw into the very alley in which he had found the dead baby. He thought that one of the vagabonds who often slept there might have a use for them.

Madeleine taught him how to tie a proper gentleman's tie that Sunday after dinner. René made several comments about his love life until Madeleine scolded him for being so rude and made him leave the room. Charging Elk enjoyed standing beside Madeleine in front of the mirror, both of them tying ties simultaneously, he just a step behind. After five or six attempts, Charging Elk tied a decent-looking knot, with both tails coming out just about even. Then Madeleine had him tie another knot all by himself. After a time, he did it just right. As he admired himself in the mirror, she asked, “Is it true? Have you found yourself a girl?”

Charging Elk felt his face go hot with shame. He hadn't expected that René and Madeleine would guess that he was dandifying himself for a woman. How could he tell them that the girl was a whore? Without turning around, he said, “Perhaps so, perhaps not. It is early yet.”

He sneaked a quick glance at her in the mirror and saw a hint of a smile on her face. He liked her to smile—she rarely smiled more than she was doing now—but now he wasn't sure what the smile meant.

But then she said, “If so, you must bring her to dinner. Perhaps next Sunday. But you must ask her parents for permission.”

Charging Elk thought about Madeleine's invitation for the next few days. He wondered if whores were allowed to leave their whorehouses, if they were allowed to go with men, if they had parents to ask permission of. Madeleine had inadvertently planted a seed in his mind, a seed which grew until he began to glance around
his flat, imagining the girl sitting on the bench in front of the window or washing her face at the washstand or lying in her white shift—or even naked!—on his bed. He even imagined her cooking a big piece of meat on a kitchen stove like his mother's back at Pine Ridge while he sat at the small table paring potatoes, which he often did for Madeleine.

One night Charging Elk dreamed. He had wanted to dream of the girl, because in dreams many things happen that one desires. But this dream was not a happy one; nor was it about the girl in the blue robe. In his dream he was standing on one of the sheer cliffs of the Stronghold. Something was wrong and he was weeping. He wanted to jump off the cliff, but every time he tried, a big gust of wind blew him back. He tried four times, five times, ten times, but each time the wind pushed him back, until he was exhausted from his labors. But the next time he approached the cliff, too weak to even attempt to jump, he looked down and he saw his people lying in a heap at the bottom. They lay in all positions and directions—men, women, and children, even old ones. They lay like buffaloes that had been driven over the cliffs by hunters, and Charging Elk understood why he had been weeping. As he stood and looked down at his people, he heard the wind roar in his ears like a thousand running buffaloes, but in the roar, he heard a voice, a familiar voice, a Lakota voice, and it said, “You are my only son.” And when he turned back to his village at the Stronghold, there was nothing there—no people, no horses or lodges, not even the rings of rock that held the lodge covers down—not even one smoldering fire pit. Everything was gone.

When the dream ended, Charging Elk found himself awake and staring up into the darkness of his room. It was as though the dream hadn't been a dream and he hadn't really awakened because he had not been asleep. And yet he had seen everything as though he had been there. Even now he could see himself leap over the
edge of the cliff, only to be pushed back by the wind. He could see the people lying at the bottom. He could hear the rush of the wind, and the voice breathing into his ear. But whose voice was it? And why had it chosen him?

Charging Elk spent the rest of the night sitting on the little bench with his quilt around his shoulders, smoking cigarettes and looking at the dark sky beyond the window. There was no moon, no constellation of stars to remind him of home. But he didn't need any reminders. His heart was not here; nor was it there, at the Stronghold. It was somewhere he could not name just now, just as he could not name the familiar voice.

The dream haunted him for several days. It was not a question of understanding the dream but of not believing it. Bird Tail, the old
wicasa wakan
at the Stronghold, had interpreted dreams for Charging Elk, as well as for others. Often Strikes Plenty and he discussed these interpretations, and they discovered that there was a truth that the dreams told of. Now Charging Elk knew what Bird Tail would say of this dream, but he didn't want to believe it. Instead he put the dream away in a corner of his mind. He was tired of being troubled. He had been troubled ever since he had left the safety of the Stronghold over four years before.

But every once in a while, when he was least expecting it, when he was wiping the sweat from his face at the furnaces, while he stood in line waiting for his baguette, the dream would sneak out and he would hear the voice whispering above the roar of the wind and he would tremble with a dangerous knowledge.

The only way he could think of to combat the persistent dream was to crowd it out with thoughts of the girl in the blue robe. And so he became even more obsessed with her, even to the point of practicing things he would say to her when next they met. He stood before the small, smoky mirror and made sentences in the French tongue—“Where do you come from? I am François from America.
This night is very beautiful”—and he was pleasantly surprised that the words came out almost as he wished. Mathias and Chloé would be pleased with his attempts but perhaps not with the object of his desire.

Charging Elk now not only desired the girl sexually but wanted her for his own. She was the woman he had been wanting for the past four years. That she was a whore did not diminish this wanting; rather, it only added a complication. How could he get her to come with him? He knew next to nothing about courting a girl. There had been a few girls out at the Stronghold that he and Strikes Plenty had flirted with, but he mostly hung back and listened to the happy teasing. Later Strikes Plenty would admonish him: “She had big eyes for you, anybody could see that. You are going to become an old man and you will still be grabbing yourself.” Now Charging Elk wished he had had the courage to ask René how one goes about getting a woman, but he would have had to endure the little fishmonger's questions and jokes.

O
n a Thursday, a week and a half after his first visit to Le Salon, Charging Elk walked purposefully along the Quai des Belges on his way to the whorehouse in Rue Sainte. He was wearing his new black suit, a starched white shirt with a neatly tied gray tie, and his new brown shoes and was carrying the duck's head walking stick. The shoes were softer than his old ones but still they bit into his heels. He had left his topcoat at home. It was far too shabby and ill-fitting. When he had put it on over the crisp suit, he knew how ridiculous he must have looked last time in such splendid company.

There was something of a festive atmosphere around the Old Port—a small band of horns and drums was playing songs of the Noël season; the juggler in the white face was throwing his burning sticks into the air and catching them in a kaleidoscope of flame; not
far away, two acrobats in skimpy tights and singlets performed their feats of balance and strength. Several tables lined the quai, each displaying for sale the small figures that Charging Elk now knew were called
santons
. Lights strung from some of the ships' riggings turned the murky water a golden velvet. The day of the Noël was only two sleeps away, and for some reason, Charging Elk dreaded spending such a long day with the Soulas family. On the other hand, the shops and cafés would be closed and the streets all but deserted. He remembered that first Noël when he had wandered the streets of the city, lonely and desperate. He would need the comfort of René and Madeleine and the children.

Charging Elk thought for a moment of stopping at Le Royal and offering the old waiter a
Joyeux Noël
, a peculiar greeting that he had learned from the Soulases and their friends. It had to do with the birth of the holy child, who would later become the
wasichu
god's child and sit with him in a place called heaven. Charging Elk wondered why Wakan Tanka never took a real child into his home to keep him company, to become his own. He had wondered a good deal about Wakan Tanka lately—the only real contact he had had with the Great Spirit had been in his dream, and he had only sent the dream. Why would he send such a sad dream if he meant to help Charging Elk? And why were these people so happy with their god? Charging Elk couldn't bring himself to think the next thought.

He thought about the old waiter, who seemed to know so much without saying much. Somehow, he knew the old man would have the answers to his questions. But now the girl in the blue wrapper was waiting for him and so he quickened his pace. He would wish the waiter a
Joyeux Noël
tomorrow night.

But the girl wasn't there. Charging Elk stood at the bar for two hours, checking the large watch that fit so snugly into his vest pocket every five minutes. The little fat man was also absent. The
woman with the yellow hair was not at her table surrounded by fancy men. In fact, the whole atmosphere of the whorehouse seemed strangely subdued. The girls went to the back rooms with men occasionally but mostly they sat on the divans or wandered back and forth by themselves or in pairs.

Charging Elk thought of asking the short, broad man at the door why the girl in the blue wrapper wasn't there tonight, but he knew the man did not like him and would be curt, even hostile. Instead, he asked the bartender why it was quiet in the whorehouse.

“It is the season,” he said, without looking up from his newspaper. “Our clients are very religious. They do not want
le péché
on their souls so close to Noël.”

Le péché
. Or as Sees Twice had called it, the sin. According to him, fornicating with the girls of Paris was a sin to the
wasichu's
god. When Featherman had mentioned that fornication made one feel good, Sees Twice had said that was the devil's work. The devil wanted the Oglalas to have their pleasure with the white girls of Paris so he could claim their
nagis
. Although Charging Elk and some of the others had laughed at such an absurdity, none of the Indians went with the girls.

But now he was bitterly disappointed as he bade a sad good night to the unheeding bartender and walked slowly, aimlessly, back to his flat. Perhaps she was ill tonight or perhaps she didn't go with men on Thursdays. It was natural to take an evening off. But he was worried that she had gotten tired of fornicating with men and had quit. It was this possibility that he chose to believe. Charging Elk put his hand in his pants pocket and closed his fingers around the small brown velvet box. It contained a cameo that he had purchased in the flea market on Rue St.-Ferréol. He had meant to give it to her. He wanted to tie the blue velvet ribbon around her neck and watch her as she admired herself in the mirror over the dresser. He had not thought that he would
end up walking home with it still in his pocket. He felt sad for himself.

By now the Old Port was nearly deserted—the juggler, the acrobats, the band, were gone. The tables filled with
santons
had been packed up and the lights on the big boats were extinguished. Le Royal was still lit, but he did not have the heart to wish the old waiter a
Joyeux Noël
. There was nothing merry or holy about this night. The waiter would take one look at him and see that.