Smoke Ghost & Other Apparitions (23 page)

She said evenly, "My name is Berenice."

He lowered his glass an inch. "Truly the Angel of the Odd is amongst us tonight. I have written a story 'Berenice' about – But I promised you no more gloom."

"Oh do tell me, sir, you must. You have ignited my curiosity. And one always desires to hear about one's self."

"Namesake only, it had better be – about a girl who is visited in her flower-fresh tomb by her lover, who pulls out all her teeth."

"Faugh! You have an odious mind, sir. Were I that Berenice, I would buy me sharp false teeth and come back from the grave to bite you. I respectfully suggest that your tales are dark and perverse because you attribute your own morbid thoughts to the persons and scenes around you."

"You have solved my riddle. But recollect, I warned you not to look into that closet, Madam Bluebeard. Once more, away with gloom! To Berenice! To the Berenice across the table!"

She modestly lowered her countenance and then merrily raised her eyes. They took a moderate sip of their drinks, he his dark purple, she her dark yellow one. He had almost returned his wineglass to the table when the muscles of his wrist stiffened, his face grew stern, he returned the glass to his lips and drained it, set it down, rapped out an imperious tattoo, and instantly began to talk animatedly to his companion, his face rapidly flushing and the words rushing out as if he knew he had only a limited time in which to speak them.

"Enchantment rules Richmond tonight. This chamber is the Red Palace and you its queen. Mysterious mademoiselle, saintly Berenice, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever known. The Marchesa Aphrodite Mentoni of my tale 'The Assignation.' Sipping not poison, but sherry flip. And I am the most blessed of men, privileged to share your divine company, rather than sip my poison in some lonely red-litten palace of my own. Another blackberry brandy, boy! Wineglass! On the run! Your features are finer than classic, Berenice. Your hair like a raven's wings. I once wrote a poem called 'The Raven.' Popular success. But the critics saw only an exercise in intricate stanzas and far-fetched rhymes. Like my 'Ulalume,' or my 'Bells.' Emerson calls me the Jingle Man. But I diddled them. I said what my critics said before they did! Took the wind out of their sails. But tonight it comes to me – Thank you, boy. Fetch another, straight off. Oh blessed, grape-dark anodyne! It nourishes the nerves, Berenice. Makes sensitivity endurable. Blackberry for the black moods. But tonight it comes to me that my Raven is Sam Houston. They call him that, you know. Literal translation of his Cherokee name of Colonneh. He had a young bride. As I did. Ran away from her, no one knows why, to live with the Cherokees again. Resigned the governorship of Tennessee to do it. Made Texas a nation. Freed her from the Mexicans. Licked Santa Anna when no one else could. President Lone Star Republic. Fought corruption, fought the Gold Bug. Helped join Texas to the Union three years ago. Believes in Union. Sees what's coming to the South and'll do his best to stop it. Watching, watching, watching. Pallid bust of Pallas – some state capital building. Houston's shadow on me, demon eyes too, beak in my heart so I won't forget my guilt – I'm America in that poem. Tell Emerson that! Bet he can't work out a compensation. Tell Lowell, too! Put some brandy in his skim milk. Thinks my Raven's a diddle-bird, the ranting abolitionist! Thanks, boy. Just a sip now, to hold my level. What's coming to the South? What I told you when we met, beloved Berenice. Wrote a poem about it too. 'The City in the Sea' and
down
in the West too. Death enthroned on high. The South is building that city. Own universities, own factories, own everything. But the city'll sink in the iron-and-fire Maelstrom and it'll all end in death, Berenice. Death! Death fascinates me, you know."

"Oh sir, sir, sir!" the woman interrupted excitedly. Ever since he had mentioned 'The Raven' she had been trying to break into his monologue, unmindful of his rapid potations and threatening incoherence. "You must be the poet Edgar Poe whom my twin brother Charles admires, nay, adores, ever since he first encountered your writings two years ago. How he envied me my voyage from our native France to this land – he is madly desirous of meeting you. He never showed me your stories. He said they might offend me. But your verse I knew at once. That Raven – his emblem, his obsession. Oh sir, my brother has vowed to devote his life to widening and perpetuating your fame by translating your works and by writing in your manner, so that it will forever be. Edgar Poe, the Master, and the Acolyte, Charles Baudelaire!"

The effect of that last name on the man was extraordinary. He started, he winced as if struck across the face by a whip, then he took control of himself and his speech, so that the three-quarters-filled wineglass stood steady in his forcibly relaxed fingers and his babbling became once more connected discourse. It appeared to require an almost superhuman effort, but he triumphed.

"Yes, I am Edgar Poe, Mademoiselle Berenice. And I am deeply moved that someone of poetic sensitivity in France should find some merit in my poor writings. You are this Charles Baudelaire's sister, you say?" He watched her narrowly.

A rapid nod. "His twin."

"You sailed here from France?"

"Yes, and am shortly to return, taking ship in New York City."

He nodded slowly and started the wineglass toward his lips, became aware of what he was doing, and returned it until it was once more poised an inch or so above the table. Forming his words with care, he said, "You mentioned a liquor for which your brother has a predilection. May I ask its name?"

"Absinthe, sir. It contains oil of wormwood."

"Yes. The Conqueror Worm."

"Also, sir, he is, alas, a devotee – he would wish me to tell you this – of laudanum and morphine and their parent, opium."

Another slow nod. "So true poets and fantasists in France as well as America and England must seek the patronage and protection of that wondrous and terrible family. I should have known." An almost cunning look came into his still watchful eyes. "Tell your brother they are not reliable overlords in adversity." His countenance, grown pale again, filled with misery. "The princely opium genii whirl the rag-tag visions to us from the ends of the universe, but after a while they whirl them past us so fast we cannot quite glimpse them to remember, and in the end they whirl them away."

"Oh sir, I too admire you deeply and your unhappiness tears at my heart," the woman said softly yet urgently, leaning forward and gliding her narrow hand a short way across the table. "Can I not help you?"

He lifted his dark eyes as if seeing her for the first time. His countenance became radiant. "Oh, Berenice, the opiates are sorry, tattered phantoms when matched against the face and form of a supremely beautiful woman and the blessed touch of her fingers." He laid his free hand on hers. She started gently to withdraw it, he increased the pressure of his, gulped the three-quarters-full wineglass of dark brandy, set down the glass so rapidly it fell over, captured her hand in both of his, and drew it across the table to his lips. "Oh, Berenice."

The wineglass slowly rolled in a curve across the white linen to the edge of the small table and stopped there.

The man's face had flushed again and when he spoke his voice was almost maudlin. "Beloved Berenice," he crooned, fondling her hand close to his lips. "Ber'nice with the raven's hair and the little white teeth. Little Ber'nice."

With a strong movement which nevertheless revealed nothing of a jerk, she withdrew her hand from his and quietly stood up. He started to snatch at her departing fingers, broke off that movement almost at once, and tried to stand up himself. He was not equal to it. His ankles twisted together. He started to whirl and fall. He caught hold of the edge of the table and the back of his chair, turning the latter sideways. He managed to get a knee on the seat of the chair and half crouched there, still holding on with both hands and swaying slightly.

The wineglass fell to the floor and shattered, but neither he nor the woman appeared to notice it. The few people at the other tables looked at them. The darkies peered from the doorways.

"Ber'nice, I'm no good tonight," he said hoarsely, drawing rapid breaths. "Can't take you home. Disgraceful. Wretch. Profound apologies. But I
must
see you again. Tomorrow. Most wonderful woman in the world. Beauty, wit, laughter,
youth, understanding.
Come when all hope gone. Tomorrow. I
must
."

"Alas, sir, I depart from Richmond tonight on the first stage of my journey back to my brother." Glass crunched faintly under her black caoutchouc over-slippers as she walked around the table toward the doorway. Her face was very grave. "I thank you, sir, for your entertainment."

He reached out to catch her elbow as she passed him and he almost fell again. "Wait. Wait," he called after her, and when she did not, he cried out with a note of spite, "I know one thing about you. You're not Berenice Baudelaire. That's a lie. Profound apologies. But you're a diddler. Charles Baudelaire hasn't got a full sister or brother. Let alone a twin."

She turned slowly and faced him. "How can you know that, sir?"

He winced again as he had when she had first spoken the name Baudelaire. Finally he said in a husky, ashamed voice, "Because I got three letters from Charles Baudelaire about a year ago and never answered them. Told me all about his life. Only child. Praised my works. Understood better than anybody. But I never answered them." A tear ran down his cheek. "Lunatic vanity or resentment. Imp of the Perverse. I kept them in my coat pocket for months. Got all creased and dirty. Lost them in some tavern. Probably reading them aloud to somebody." His voice became accusing. "
That's
how I know you're not Berenice Baudelaire."

She returned a few steps. She said to him, "Nevertheless, Charles Baudelaire did have a twin sister, whose existence was kept a strict secret for reasons which I may not divulge, but which concern the Duc de Choiseul Praslin, patron of Charles' father."

He turned completely toward her, both hands gripping the back of his chair now and his knee still on it, with the effect of a stump. Whenever he tried to put down that foot, he'd start to fall, and he was swaying more now despite his support.

"Lies. All lies," he said, but when she started to turn away again, he quickly added, "but I don't care. I forgive you, Ber'nice. Makes you more mysterious and wonderful. Ber'nice, I
must
see you tomorrow."

She said without smiling, without frowning, "Alas, sir, I must tonight begin my return to France."

He stumped forward a step like a cripple, sliding his chair and once more almost falling, swaying worse than ever, and said, "But you're sailing from New York. Couple days
I'm
going to New York City myself. By way of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Going to New York to close my cottage and bring back Muddie, who's my aunt and poor Virginia's mother, Mrs. Clemm, so she can–" He hesitated, his eyes blearing, and then poured out, "Tell you everything – so she can be here at my wedding with Myra. Myra Royster. Mrs. Shelton. Childhood sweetheart.
0ld
woman, old as I am. Doesn't mean anything. Only you, Ber'nice. We can meet in New York. What hotel are you staying at?"

She said to him gravely, "But sir, you do not know me. We met less than an hour ago. How can you be certain that on another day and perhaps in another mood, you will desire my closer acquaintance? Or that you will care for me at all when you know me better?"

"I
know
I will. Only you." His eyes were glazing as he implored, "Tell me who you really are, where you'll be. Or don't tell me, I'll forget. Write it down, then I'll remember. Write down your real name, the hotel you'll be staying at in New York."

She looked at him compassionately, a lovely figure in her black rep that glinted in the candlelight, which also glistened on her swellingly-parted raven's wing hair and made mysterious her more slim than classical pale face and her great dark eyes with the forbidding yet alluring, distance in them, those eyes that while giving absolute attention to the man, still seemed to look at all the world.

Then she turned, saying, "Alas, sir, I cannot meet you in New York City," and walked glidingly and silently toward the outer door.

Slipping to his knees on the floor, but still clinging to the chair, the man cried piteously after her, "Tell me your name and where. Who really are you, Ber'nice? Virginia come back? Sarah Whitman lost your curls? Mrs. Osgood in your Violet Vane dress? Annabel Lee? Madeline Usher? Aphrodite Mentoni? Ligeia? Eleanora? Lenore?
My
Ber'nice? Really Ber'nice Baud'larie? Don't leave me. Plea' don' lea' me–"

She turned again, and as she faded back through the doorway, which the bobbing darkie opened and closed, her lips shaped themselves in an infinitely tender, utterly infatuated, truly loving smile and she called out clearly, "Never fear, my dear. I will meet you once again, sir. In Baltimore."

 

 

 

THE HOUSE OF MRS. DELGATO

 

THE HOUSE of Mrs. Delgato was a sour stench, quite truly, in the nostrils of the respectable citizenry of Felicidad, New Mexico – which in this instance included all the other inhabitants of that lazy border town. They had a name for her house – a name that most people wouldn't consider nice and certainly not respectable.

Yet they delayed in taking decisive action, legal or otherwise, against Mrs. Delgato and "her girls," as she openly referred to them.

There were several reasons for this. The City Fathers were traditionalists: they respected Mrs. Delgato's one-time international reputation – it lent an oblique glamor to Felicidad.

And Mrs. Delgato was a good, even a righteous citizen in most respects. She paid her taxes on the dot, she frowned on noise and drunkenness, she always drew her shades, and she kept her girls within strict bounds. Never were they permitted out on the streets of Felicidad. Seldom were they even allowed to take the air in the high-walled, deep-shaded garden.

Mostly Mrs. Delgato's girls were confined to the imposing dark stucco house proper. Summer and winter, naked and in furs, they lolled in its shadowy bedrooms, or paced restlessly along its corridors behind the drawn blinds, or gathered of an evening in the large parlor with the upright piano, the horsehair sofas, the bead curtain and the peacock plumes.