Pacific Avenue (15 page)

SAVITRI: I will go to the
forest with you.

SATYAVAN: Will you abandon
your prayers, then, my love?

SAVITRI: I will never do that.
(aside)
He does not know his fate. I
will not leave him, wherever he goes.

I had another quick scene change at that point. The
altar and the other trappings of an Indian interior had to be replaced by a
believable forest. I wondered if I could use Indian music between scenes to
distract the audience while I managed the scenery. Even an extra half a minute
would make a big difference.
I have the same problem as Savitri—needing to
buy a little time. Only it’s not quite as important for a puppet show as when
you’re trying to save your husband’s life.

The curtain would open on
Savitri and Satyavan walking through the forest. Or maybe it could open on the
empty set, and the two of them could walk onto the stage. That would work
better—Satyavan could stumble, to show he was ill.

SAVITRI: We have walked many
miles.

SATYAVAN: Yes, I am very tired.
I will rest for a while.
(lies down)

What would Savitri do then? She might stand near him,
or she might sit beside him. She knew he was about to die—surely she’d want to
touch him one last time. But then she’d have to look up, startled, as Yama, the
god of death, appeared on the stage.

Thu would be operating Savitri, and I knew she’d make
her look frightened but determined. Maybe Savitri would flinch a little, but
she would stand her ground as Yama came and claimed Satyavan’s soul. This was a
prop detail that I had yet to work out—Satyavan’s soul was to be a tiny
likeness of him, concealed somehow in his costume. It would have its own
string, and be able to be switched from Satyavan to Yama. Maybe Thu would know
how to do that.

Yama would then turn and
walk away, but Savitri would follow.

YAMA:
(turning to SAVITRI)
Go back, Princess. I go to the Land of the Dead. Go
back. Your husband’s time has come, and yours has not.

SAVITRI: I will not go back.
It is my duty to stay beside my husband.

YAMA: Savitri, you are brave
and loving. But your duty to your husband is over. I will grant you three
favors, but none may be the life of Satyavan.

SAVITRI: Yama, I ask that you
restore my husband’s father to all that was his, his kingdom and his sight.

YAMA: I will grant that. And
what else do you ask?

SAVITRI: Yama, I am my
father’s only child. Grant that he may have many more children.

YAMA: Yes, I will grant that.
And what will your last favor be, Princess?

SAVITRI: Yama, grant that I
may have many children—the children of Satyavan.

YAMA: Savitri, you are as
clever as you are brave. I have no choice but to release your husband.

Richard had struggled with the emotions in the play and
how to express them. His acting
was
improving, but he wasn’t going to win any Academy Awards yet. There were still
the basic emotion exercises to do with the hand puppet. Maybe he’d do that this
evening, while I wasn’t there to make him self-conscious.

The class took a break and I looked at the portraits.
Some of them were awkward, and these were more or less alike. The good ones all
looked like me, but not like each other, as if each artist had seen a different
Kathy behind my face. I thought that portraits were a bit like puppetry, trying
to get to something that was there but hard to see.

I picked up a charcoal stub and sketched a face on the
back of a scrap of paper while the others chatted over coffee. Tex came up and
considered my picture.

“Ever had art lessons before?”

“In high school I did. It was my major in college, but
I didn’t stay there long. I do scenery for the puppet theater where I work. And
one of my bosses is teaching me to carve.”

“You want to take lessons here? You’re not bad at all.”

“I don’t think I’d have the money.”

“You could swap for more modeling.”

I considered it. I liked the thought of having an art
class. It would mean being away from home one evening a week—but Richard and I
had gone from hardly seeing each other to spending a little too much time
together. Maybe a few hours apart would be good for both of us.

“Okay, I’ll give it a try.” We dropped the subject as
the others came to their places and waited for me to take my place.

But I thought for the rest of the evening about all the
new things in my life. Mom was mad because I’d dropped out of school—she kept
saying I’d never go back, not with a child to care for. She probably didn’t
like being a grandmother anyway, and a black grandchild was just too much to
take.
Faculty-wife tea: “How are your sweet daughters doing, Virginia?” “Oh,
just fine, Sharon is marrying a doctor!” “And what about the cute little
blonde?” “She’s living with a black boy in New Orleans. They’re having a baby.”
Uh-huh.

I wished she could at least see that what I was doing
now was better than school. In a way, it was like a real art school—carving,
drawing, and making the sets and costumes for the puppets. Even better, because
I was learning the puppets themselves, and the folklore that went with them,
and about the cultures that the folklore came from. Those things were more
important than what I’d found in college courses, too. Especially if Martin was
right, that the puppets would make people understand each other better.

I was also learning some things that I’d rather not
think about. Martin’s folktales were pretty idealistic. About brave, clever
people like Savitri. I wasn’t like her.
All I want is to be close to
someone, to belong to someone. To Richard. But why would anyone want me? If Yama
came through the forest toward me, Richard or no Richard, I’d run. I’d feel
guilty about it, but I can’t imagine doing anything else.

The evening finished late. Back home, I parked the car
on the night-quiet street and walked softly past Francine’s darkened house. As
I reached our place, Richard’s voice startled me, not loud but charged with
feeling.

“I’m scared, I’m so scared. I’m trapped. I can’t get
out. I want out.
Oh, God, let me out!
”

I dropped my purse on purpose just outside the door. I
thought if he heard me coming, he could get himself together before I had to
look at his face. As I came in, he was taking the boy glove puppet off his
hand. He looked shocked, and not one bit glad to see me.

I called Eddie a couple of weeks before Mardi Gras to let
him know our schedule in New Orleans.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said, “and I talked
it over with my friend Francine. She asked me to invite you to stay at her
place instead of going to a hotel.”

“Oh, Eddie, I couldn’t possibly intrude on her. I mean,
she doesn’t know us—we’d just be underfoot.”

“It wouldn’t be an intrusion. I’m sure it wouldn’t.
Francine has a mother-in-law house in her backyard, so you’d really be on your
own. As a matter of fact, it’s where Kathy lived. Francine never rented it to
anyone else. She keeps hoping Kathy will come back.”

“Would it be okay if I talk it over with my husband and
call you later?”

“Sure. Just let me know. And we’ll get together while
you’re here, either way.”

I thought staying with Kathy’s friends was a great
idea, but I had no idea how Willis would feel. He’d be glad to save the money,
but he might think Gretna was a little too far from downtown. He also might be
uncomfortable about staying with people he didn’t know, private house or no
private house.

But the main concern was slowly dawning. I did know
about southern hospitality, but these people seemed surprisingly eager to take
us in, considering they didn’t know us from Adam.

I’d launched this Mama Fix-It campaign believing that
Kathy’s problems were likely to be kid ones—misunderstandings I could clear up
without much trouble. Even after I’d seen her the day of the Christmas Faire,
I’d thought she was probably overreacting to situations that would look
manageable to an adult.

But Eddie was no kid. He sounded like he’d been around
the block a few times. And his voice had an edge of desperation that made me
wonder if I was going to be able to help at all.

What had I gotten myself into?

“Is Francine black?” asked Richard.

Thu, Martin, and Eddie looked up, surprised at the odd
question right after Martin’s usual table grace. We were having dinner at the
picnic table in our yard, bundled in sweaters and jackets. It was my idea—I
didn’t want to wait any longer to invite them over, and Martin’s chair couldn’t
get into the house because of the steps. I was serving steaming gumbo, fresh
homemade bread, and hot tea to make up for the chilly April dusk.

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Yes and no,” he said. “She’s
a Creole.”

Richard tore a chunk off the braided loaf and passed me
the basket. “Is that different?” he asked.

“Depends. There are French Creoles, black Creoles, and
Creoles of Color. Goes back a lot of years here. Francine’s what you’d call a
Creole of Color. The old
gens de couleur libre,
” Eddie said.

Richard frowned. “I have no idea what that means,” he
said.

“Free people of color,” Thu translated. “Which color
are they talking about?” She kept an eye on Dom and Joss as they scampered
around, chasing an early lightning bug.

Eddie snorted. “
Color
always means
black,
Thu,” he answered. “Pass the bread, would you, Kathy?”

I started the basket toward Eddie. Eager hands reached
in all along the way, but there was plenty. I poured tea into mugs and passed
them, too.

“So, exactly who is a Creole?” Richard asked.

Eddie laughed. “Seems like it’s anyone who says they
are.” He took Martin’s bowl and ladled gumbo into it from the pot.

“She asked if
I
was one.” Richard looked confused. He held out his bowl as if Eddie could fill
it with information along with the soup.

“She
does
tend
to include people,” said Eddie. With all the soup bowls filled, he sat down and
tasted from his. “Why don’t you ask her about it?” He took some filé and passed
the jar to Thu. She sprinkled it on top of the gumbo, as the rest of us were
doing, and then squinted at the label. In the dimming light, she gave up
quickly and passed it to Richard.

“I thought she might be offended,” Richard said.

“Francine?” Eddie laughed. “Not her. Francine’s a
typical Creole. Proud as Lucifer, every one of them. The only problem with
asking about Creoles is that she’ll talk your ear off, half of it in French.”
He looked around. “She coming tonight?”

“No, she’s off at her daughter’s. She said to ask you
for some tomatoes and okra, when you get a chance,” I told him.

Eddie’s spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. “Tomatoes
and okra! Where am I going to get decent tomatoes and okra, middle of April?”

I shrugged. “I think that’s her problem, too.”

“What do you do with okra?” asked Thu. She loved good
cooking as much as any New Orleanian, and was starting to experiment with local
specialties. I wasn’t sure how she would fit okra into her repertoire, though,
and sort of hoped she’d lose interest.

“Roll it in cornmeal and fry it, that’s the best,”
offered Eddie. “Otherwise, it tends to come out slimy. You can thicken gumbo
with it, too.” He swirled his spoon through the gumbo, checking the
ingredients. “Kathy doesn’t have any in this one, though.”

“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t like it. I used filé
instead.”

“We use filé too,” said Thu. “Gumbo is like bouillabaisse.
I didn’t know it could be thickened with okra.”

She called in French to the boys, who were getting
excited chasing the bug. I knew vaguely that France had held Vietnam for a
while.

“Oh, no. But the French were in Vietnam for a hundred
years or more. My family were artists in Hue and Saigon. We had partly a French
education.”

“Do you mind my asking?” She didn’t sound as if she
did, but Mom had always said not to ask personal questions.

“Not at all. In fact, I’d rather you did. Why does no
one ask? Like Richard, being afraid to ask about Francine. Why is it?” Dom and
Joss ran to her, and she tousled their hair and gave them soup and bread.

“You never know if people might have a chip on their
shoulder,” I said.

“Chip?” Thu’s English was so fluent, I tended to forget
she didn’t know all the idioms.

“Might be sort of sensitive,” I explained. “Or ready to
get mad about it for their own reasons.”

Martin looked up from his plate. “Same thing with the
wheelchair,” he said. “Parents tell their kids not to stare at people in
wheelchairs. So, nobody looks at all. Everyone I see just happens to be looking
the other way.” He laughed. “I always wanted to turn heads—guess I forgot to
specify which direction.”

“It’s like being a veteran,” Richard said. “No one
wants to think about it. I swear, I might as well be a leper.” Suddenly he
looked at Thu in horror, realizing what he’d admitted.

She was unperturbed. “I
thought
you’d been a soldier. So have most of the men in my
country, and not only this generation, either. Over the years, some of my
family have been on one side, some on the other. That part is hard.”

She looked straight at Richard with trouble in her
face. “This is our misfortune, all of us. But even Uncle Ho said our quarrel is
not with the American people.”

“Uncle Ho?” he asked, hoarsely.

“Ho Chi Minh,” she explained.

“Ho Chi Minh was your uncle?” Eddie exclaimed.

“Not like an uncle here. In Vietnam, we believe we’re
all related. So, we say “sister,” “aunt,” “uncle,” depending on the person’s
status. It’s polite.” Thu looked around to see whether we understood.

“Actually,” said Eddie, “I feel that way about this
neighborhood. Most of us are like family. Back in my mother’s day, it was true
most
places, but here it’s not gone yet.”

“We’re sort of a motley family,” Martin objected. “An
Italian, a black soldier, a gimp Aussie, a Vietnamese, a
gens de couleur
libre,
and Kathy. . . . What
are you, Kathy?”

I scraped the last of the gumbo from my bowl. “Worst
thing of all. A Yankee.”

“You are?” Martin looked up in surprise. “You have a
southern accent.”

“I was born in Illinois. My dad moved us south when he
got hired at LSU.”

“I’ll never tell. Provided you give me one million
dollars in a plain brown bag.” He put out his hand for the loot.

I laughed. “You can’t blackmail me. I’m a relative.
We’re the Motley family.”

“The Motley family,” said Eddie. “I like it! That’s who
we are—the Motley family!” He raised his mug in a toast.

“How can we just say we’re a family?” asked Richard.

“Same way a person can just say they’re a Creole, I
guess. Who has the right to tell us we’re not?” Eddie countered. We all raised
our mugs.

I reached out to touch Dom’s silky hair. We
were
sort of a mixed bunch.
Maybe that’s why,
for once, I feel like I belong.

“The baby will be even more mixed,” I said without
thinking.
Me and my big mouth—Richard will be mad.

“Baby?” asked Martin. He and Thu each picked up a twin.
“Congratulations! I thought you were getting a bit stout. But, you know, I
didn’t want to say anything. . . .”

“In case I had a chip on my shoulder,” I agreed.

“To the youngest Motley!” Martin said, raising his mug.
All the mugs were raised again—except for Richard’s.

“When’s it due?” Martin asked.

“September.”

“What are you going to name it?” asked Thu.

“We haven’t decided.”
No “we” about it—Richard won’t
discuss the baby at all. I hope they don’t notice how withdrawn he looks all of
a sudden.

“You need a name,” said Martin. “Which names are you considering?”

“Maybe one for either a boy or a girl. That way, we’ll
have one no matter which it is.”

Martin considered this. “Like Jo or Jamie?” he asked.

“Jamie! We didn’t think of that. I like Jamie.”

I smiled at Martin, and he bowed from his chair. “Do I
get to be the godfather?”

“Eddie already has dibs. Do you get two?”

“Only if it’s a boy,” said Martin. “Hey, Eddie—you knew
and you didn’t tell? Not fair, buddy.” Martin turned back to me. “You’d better
quit hauling the sets and props around like you have been, or neither one of us
will be a godfather.”

“Lord, Martin, I’m not made out of glass.” I looked at
Richard.
How is he taking all this? He looks a million miles away.
The conversation dropped, and he came out of his reverie.

“I need to work some more with the shadow puppets,” he
mumbled. I wondered if he’d heard us at all. Eddie clinked his knife on his
glass.

“Attention, all members of the Motley family! You are invited
to attend Easter Vigil service at Our Lady of Lourdes next Saturday night with
Francine and me. Please come. It’s a Motley family tradition.”

Thu laughed. “How can it be a tradition when you formed
the Motley family ten minutes ago, Eddie?”

“I formed the traditions at the same time.”

“I can’t wait to find out what the other ones are,” she
said.

“One is the annual family reunion,” Eddie announced.
“This is the first.”

“Richard and I aren’t Catholic,” I said, getting back
to his invitation. “I’m Episcopalian and Richard’s a Baptist.”

Eddie turned to Richard. “Do they have Easter Vigil at
the Baptist Church?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So, come with us.”

It didn’t seem completely logical, but that wasn’t any
reason not to go. I gathered the empty bowls, and wrapped the leftover bread in
a napkin. Richard was off in his own thoughts again—probably puppets. The boys
had dropped off to sleep. The gumbo was gone, and everyone was starting to
shiver. We said good night. The first Motley family reunion was over.

* * *

The neighborhood was busy Saturday night as Richard and I
walked to Martin’s house. The circles of light from the porches
almost-but-not-quite touched, like flower heads in the sweet clover chains I
braided as a little girl. Doors of houses and doors of cars closed softly, and
a voice called, “Let’s go, let’s go now.” All the walkers were headed the same
way.

Richard and I were awkward, churchgoing-solemn. Richard
wore his gray graduation suit, and I had on a secondhand maternity dress. I was
at an in-between stage—maternity clothes swamped me, but nothing else was
comfortable. Francine had given me a lace circle to cover my head, like the one
she was wearing. They made me think of Tante Beatrice’s doilies.

Thu answered Richard’s knock. I’d never seen her wear
anything but jeans and a T-shirt before, but here she was, stunning in a silky
red
ao dai.
A black mantilla floated
over her hair. Eddie and Francine had already arrived, so we started for Our
Lady of Lourdes right away.

Dom was whining because it was Joss’s turn to ride in
Martin’s lap, so Richard took him from Thu and carried him piggyback. Dom
laughed with glee to be riding so high, and the others laughed too. I was
startled and then touched by their casualness. Like we were headed over to a
friend’s place.

The church was dark as we approached, but the lawn outside
the front door was crowded. We waited quietly. The crowd passed around unlit
candles.

A group near the entrance of the church stood around
something that looked like a small table. A flame struck, faded, steadied. A
fire sprang up in the bowl-like top of the table.

A huge candle was lit, and people began filing through
the doors. Altar boys scurried with tapers to spread the light to the
congregation’s candles. Waves of light followed the great candle’s progress to
the altar. A voice came out of the dim, singing strongly and alone:

“Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!”

The points of flame pushed back the darkness, and I
felt goose bumps on my arms. Richard, intent beside me, had the face of an
African angel. I couldn’t see the singer from where I sat, but I heard every
word, so distinct that he might have been singing especially for me:

“The night will be as clear as day: it will become my
light, my joy. The power of this holy night dispels all evil, washes guilt
away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy; it casts out hatred, brings
us peace, and humbles earthly pride. Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded
to earth, and man is reconciled with God!”

I gripped the candle until my nails made crescents in
the wax. Lost innocence brought back, and peace—was that what Easter was about?
Could a soldier ever be innocent again? The tears running down my cheeks were
almost as hot as the wax drips that rolled burning over my hand. I didn’t wipe
either away.

Readings and prayers and songs followed, and I sat and stood
and knelt with the others. When they said, “I will take you out of the nations;
I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own
land,” I looked secretly at Thu. Did she miss her country? Was it gone forever,
destroyed by our guns and chemicals? Richard had helped to do that.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in
you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”