Restoration (32 page)

“Stand here, Jack,” she said, holding my waist with both hands and guiding me to a spot at the foot of the tables. She then lifted the ends of the second and third tables and brought them flush against each other. This matched up the edges of the middle panels, and gave the painting a narrative form that it didn’t possess when the panels were separated. “Tell me this isn’t the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in your life.”

In the painting a beautiful man, dressed as a swashbuckling pirate, embraced a beautiful woman in the middle of a French Quarter street, while all around them Carnival was in full swing. The man had white skin; the woman, who wore the crown and frilly clothes of a fairy
princess, had a darker complexion. I recognized the lovers: Asmore had painted himself in the arms of Jacqueline LeBeau. As many as a hundred other faces populated the scene. They were black and white, yellow, red and brown, and every combination and shade in between. Each figure was presented in colors even bolder than those in the Ninas murals at the Sazerac Bar, and each wore a costume, some with feathered masks, others with tall, pointed hats wrapped in brightly colored ribbons. The figures danced together, kissed and hugged each other, conversed in pairs and in groups, shared smokes and bottles of alcohol, and howled or pointed at a smiling caricature of the moon. Above the party a costumed black man on stilts reached for the hand of a costumed white woman on stilts, the tips of their fingers touching. A yellow man, tall and thin, whispered in the ear of a red one, who was short and heavyset. A young brown woman swooned in the arms of an older black one. In the distance stood town houses with still more revelers, arranged several deep on the balconies. These people, too, appeared to be of every race and sexual orientation. In the foreground a black child and a white one held hands as they navigated the crowd. Sprawled on the ground next to them was a group of rough characters shooting dice. It was hard to distinguish each man’s race, but the joy they seemed to find in their illicit game was shared equally among them. As I studied their faces one of them struck me as being familiar. Something about the shape of the jaw, and the owlish contours of the eyeballs, triggered the recognition. It was none other than Lowenstein, with his hair a thick patch standing on end, a pack of cigarettes screwed into the sleeve of his shirt.

The scene was both an orgy and a celebration.
“Look at me,”
each of the figures might have been saying.
“Look. I am alive.”

“It could be this year’s Carnival,” I said. “Or next year’s.”

“Have we really come that far, Jack? I’m not sure we have.”

“It reminds me of that line from Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, the one about little white boys and white girls joining hands with little black boys and black girls and walking together as sisters and brothers.”

“Yes, it does, but ratcheted upward exponentially. Those little kids there at the bottom are indeed holding hands, but most of the other figures seem to have more serious contact in mind. Now consider that Levette made this picture more than twenty years before Reverend King gave his famous speech. This might’ve been Levette’s idea of utopia, but you can’t overstate how shocking the scene must have been to your average white-bread American in the Deep South in the year 1941. It’s a defiant renunciation of Jim Crow and segregation. It throws every sexist and racist taboo on its head. And while the image might fit today’s idea of America as a melting pot, sixty years ago this kind of integration would’ve been greeted with hysteria. See all these happy people in the painting, Jack? Most of them would’ve had their asses tossed in jail. Others would’ve had their skulls cracked, and I promise some would’ve been lynched. In that respect, Levette’s mural is asking for it. The man wasn’t stupid. He had to know he would be pissing people off.”

She stepped in front of me and, using a fingernail, carefully removed a fleck of something from the canvas. “Do you remember the story I told you about the artist from Mississippi who depicted whites and blacks swimming together in a public pool? For that the man was dragged out of his house and beaten. Levette’s message is a helluva lot more incendiary than that guy’s. Levette has blacks and whites actually touching each other, Jack. The two on stilts are obviously a couple, and other interracial pairs look like they’re about to go at it in the street. No wonder city officials and the WPA ordered the painting destroyed. What’s more surprising is that Levette himself wasn’t tarred and feathered the moment anyone had a look at this thing.”

I kept returning to the portrait of a dog in the middle ground, its coat a quilt of colors. The dog had a superior expression on its face. “Even the mutt is telling people to go to hell,” I said.

“Yes, even the mutt.”

“It’s kind of corny.”

“I suppose it is. But a lot of art is corny without an historical context. Even I can remember when people in this town called any dog
that wasn’t purebred a nigger dog. Didn’t matter if it was a good dog, if it was a dog that did tricks or saved people from house fires. If it wasn’t a certain type, with papers, it was a nigger dog. Well, that little dog right there is happy, he’s happy with his place in the world, and it doesn’t matter what anybody calls him.”

Now she pointed to the figure of Jacqueline LeBeau. “Levette gave her the
Beloved
treatment, didn’t he? The poor girl looks like she just tumbled out of the sack. She’s the virgin princess who’s been deflowered, and by a rogue! Look at her expression, Jack. It’s almost exactly like that of the little colored dog. You think she cares what anyone thinks of her and her handsome pirate?”

“Pirates are rebels,” I said, glancing at Rhys for confirmation. “That’s why Asmore presents himself as one, isn’t it?”

“Very good, Jack.” She was standing close behind me; I could hear her breathing. “I’ll need a few more weeks to finish. But I also need to sleep—real sleep in a real bed. The cot in my office has done a job on my back.”

“You should go home, Rhys. Give it a break. But first let me buy you dinner. There are some things I need to tell you.”

She stood looking at me, then found another fleck to remove from the painting. “Some things, are there? That sounds rather ominous. Are they bad things, Jack?”

“No, I wouldn’t call them bad. But they are significant. They’re things about Asmore I think you should know.”

“In that case let’s get moving. Know what I have an
envie
for? Red beans and rice—a big, messy plate of the stuff. How about Mother’s on Poydras?”

“Mother’s is good if we don’t have to stand in line with all the tourists.”

“Let’s go see.”

As she was locking the building she said, “Oh, I hate to leave the painting. This is the first time it’s been out of my sight since we…?”

“Stole it?”

“Right.” Now she blew a kiss and started across the street. “Bye, Levette. Be good, sugah. Mama will be back soon.”

We drove downtown in my car. Rhys clapped her hands at the sight of an open parking slot on the side of the restaurant. Business was slow tonight, without a wait in line. We placed our orders, paid at the register, and claimed a table in the middle of the room. My name was called and I went up for our food. I placed Rhys’s plate in front of her and she forked up some beans and rice even before I’d had time to sit down. “Sorry, Jack. Obviously I’m starving.”

“Eat,” I said. “That’s why we’re here.”

“It’s not pizza, it’s not a burger in a sponge box, and it’s not indefinable chicken parts. Okay, Jack. Now let me hear what I need to know. I promise I can handle it.”

“This isn’t easy for me,” I said. “I’ve debated whether to tell you, because I’m not really sure what it means yet.” I paused and waited for her to look at me. “Levette Asmore was black, Rhys—he was an African American. He started passing as a white sometime after he moved to New Orleans. I interviewed his last surviving family member yesterday in a little town in Saint Landry Parish, a place called Palmetto. Her name is Annie Rae Toussaint. She was his first cousin.”

“That would make her my cousin, too.”

“Yes, it would. You’re related, the two of you.”

“Does this upset me?” She put her fork down and sat up tall in her chair. Her head moved on a swivel. “I don’t think it does. Do I look upset to you, Jack?”

“Maybe you’re chewing faster than you should. That’s the only thing I can see.”

“I’m chewing faster because the food is so good.”

“What about the tears in your eyes? What would that indicate?”

“That I’m sleep-deprived? Yes, I’m sure that’s it.” She reached across the table and placed a hand on top of mine. “What’s important, Jack, is not how your discoveries inform Rhys Goudeau’s story, but how they inform Levette Asmore’s. It’s his drama we’ve set out to understand,
and his mystery we need to solve.” She pulled her hand back. “It was Levette’s masterpiece that got lost, not mine.”

I’d ordered onion rings and a Ferdi poboy, a sandwich combining a long list of improbable ingredients, a chunky beef gravy called “debris,” made from roast leftovers, most prominent among them. I took a few bites out of the thing and watched Rhys’s eyes for clues to how she was feeling. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she said.

“You’re sitting right in front of me. Where the hell else am I supposed to look?”

She gave me a wad of paper napkins for the debris that was running down my arm now. “What else?” she said. “I hope there’s more. That can’t possibly be the best you can do.”

“Levette was rooming with Lowenstein when he jumped from the bridge.”

She stared at me and continued chewing. Her head moved up and down. “When he killed himself. From here on out let’s call it what it is. Saying he jumped from the bridge sort of sanitizes what happened. Levette Asmore was a suicide.”

“He and Lowenstein were sharing a cottage in the French Quarter at the time. Lowenstein apparently witnessed everything that day on the bridge.”

“Did Mr. Lowenstein tell you this?”

“His nephew did.”

“Have you confirmed this with Mr. Lowenstein yet?”

“No, but only because I haven’t approached him with it. He’s a tough one, and I’m not sure he’ll be accommodating to more of my questions. He’ll talk about the past, but only in trade for something he wants. As we were driving over here I thought of a way to get him to open up about Levette. He told me once that he saw the mural before it was destroyed. I bet he’d give up a lot for another look, including the story of what happened that day on the bridge. Will you let him see it, Rhys?”

She was a while before answering. “It’s risky, but I’d do it. Sure, I
would. Soon enough others will have to see the painting, too, if we intend to sell it. Nobody can be expected to offer a dime until they see it in person.” She put down her fork and leaned back in her chair. “You can probably guess that having others experience the painting isn’t something that excites me in the least. The fact is, I loathe the thought. Right now Levette’s mural is mine. When others come to inspect it I give up that sovereignty. Does that sound selfish? I suppose it does. But having the painting to myself has been nothing short of magical. I would tell you it also was a spiritual, life-altering experience but you probably wouldn’t buy that. The last couple of weeks have been the most intense and gratifying of my life, Jack. It’s almost been like having a lover, a secret lover, who no one else in the world knows about but me.” She smiled and ate more of the red beans. “Okay,” she said, “now it’s my turn to tell you something. Remember back, if you would, to the night when you and I met at Patrick Marion’s dinner party. I told you then about repairing one of Mr. Lowenstein’s paintings.”

“A Drysdale. The old man put a foot through it.”

“Yes. Jack, I think Mr. Lowenstein intentionally damaged the painting to arrange a meeting with me. Only a week before his accident, the Guild was featured in a story in
New Orleans Magazine.
There were pictures—pictures of our work in studio, and close-up shots of me as well. Portraits, you know? Mr. Lowenstein mentioned the article when he called and asked me to come by and give an estimate for a repair. The moment I walked through his door and introduced myself he became extremely nervous. The way he looked at me—I can’t describe it. He gave me the creeps. Usually when somebody calls about a painting their concerns are whether I’ll be able to fix a cherished family heirloom or whether they’ll be able to afford the cost of restoration. Neither concerned Mr. Lowenstein. He kept apologizing, although I never knew for what exactly. He was trembling when I thanked him for the job and shook his hand good-bye. Stranger still, he followed me out to the van and stood in the street as I drove away—he just stood there watching.”

“It was about Levette.”

“Of course it was.”

“He saw your picture in the magazine story and saw the face of an old friend.”

“You know everything,” she said. “Now finish your Ferdi before it gets cold.”

When we were done she asked me to take her for a drive up Saint Charles Avenue. She hadn’t been out in weeks, and she was starved for fresh air and a view. We lowered the windows and let the wind blow in, and she sat with her head thrown back on the padded rest. The great homes and gardens flashed by one after another, but her eyes were closed for most of the trip. We went up past Riverbend and stopped at a confectionery on North Carrollton and she stayed in the car while I went inside and bought small cups of pistachio ice cream. As I walked back outside I glanced at Rhys past the windshield. She was asleep, head lolling against the seat. Even when I closed the door she didn’t wake up. “It’s pistachio,” I said. “Aren’t you hungry, Rhys?”