Long Distance Life Part 29

But the man forged through the thickening crowd in the aisle, turning theatrically to the white onlookers and declared in a booming voice, "A negra standing up to me in a court of law. A negra laying hands on me in a public street!"

Marcel was almost to the door when this commenced, but both he and Christophe turned to look back. The man, his eyes red and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears, stood staring at all around him in disbelief. "And what am I, then," he demanded, the fleshy mouth quivering with self-pity, "if a negra can stand up to me in a court of law?"

Marcel was struck silent watching him. The face so full of outrage, the voice sincere beyond doubt. "A negra, a negra!" Bridgeman nodded as he insisted again. The man was actually hurt.

But then Marcel saw that Rudolphe, too, was staring at the man with the same awful fascination that Marcel himself felt. Rudolphe's face was blank, solemn, and then without a word he walked out of the court. Marcel forced himself to look away from the white man, and only in pa.s.sing now did he see Christophe's face.

And Christophe's face was unlike the face of anyone else at hand. Because Christophe was about to laugh. Only some weariness prevented him from doing so, something akin to boredom, and suppressing a smile, he merely shook his head. It was so frankly disdainful that for a moment Marcel clung to it, and attempted to work his own mouth into a smile that he could not feel.

It seemed everyone was happy then as they spilled into the Rue Chartres. Madame Suzette came quickly from the back pew in the Cathedral where she had been waiting, and people pressed to shake Rudolphe's hand.

"I want to stay with Richard for a while," Marcel said, and Christophe, shrugging as if he found the role of disciplinarian unpleasant, said, "Of course."

But Rudolphe did not appear to share the common relief, and as soon as he could, he took his leave for the shop, telling Richard to accompany his mother home. Marcel watched him walk off alone down the Rue Chartres, and the vision of the man, though there was nothing remarkable about it, filled Marcel with gloom.

A celebration was called for. As soon as they reached the house, Richard got a bottle of good wine from the back and brought it up to his room. Marcel had already built the fire and the two of them toasted the victory right off, settling back in their chairs. The Lermontant house had about it an almost antiseptic cleanliness which Marcel had always found appealing, softened as it was by the sheen of fine furniture and waxed floors. But this room he loved above all others because its high lace-curtained windows looked over the Rue St. Louis; and Richard's immense desk, packed as it was with bills and other business of the undertaker's shop, was the picture of order even to the small bra.s.s cylinder which held a cl.u.s.ter of quill pens. The coverlet of the bed was green satin and in winter, drifts of velvet hung in deep folds from the canopy above.

But Marcel was quite surprised to note, as he surveyed all this with the usual pleasure, that the sharp clear Daguerreotype of Marie had been added to the room's few ornaments. She peered at him from the center of the small ornate case which stood open on the marble top table beside the bed.

So the exchange had been made in spite of everything, Marcel thought, and as always he admired Duval's work, the man's sense, not only of how long to expose the plate itself, but of every element of the picture, every detail of the background which provided a shadow, a line. Of course what Marcel had never bothered to tell Richard about that little session at the picture studio was that Duval and Picard had thought Marie was white, and there had been an inevitable shock when it became clear that she was Marcel's sister, a shock which both men had taken pains to disguise. And though Marcel smiled faintly now at the perfection of the portrait, that memory lent its particular darkness to the gray cloud that was fast settling over him, a cloud which was settling over Richard as well.

"To victory!" he said again, attempting to dispel that cloud, and Richard did not answer, nor did he lift his gla.s.s.

"Mon Dieu, we ought to be celebrating!" Marcel tried again in a moment. And to this Richard merely nodded as he stared off.

But it was coming clear to Marcel, as he sat there, what was wrong. They had never been brought close to the law before, any of them, not Marcel, not anyone that he knew, certainly not the mighty Lermontants. And it had reminded him that they were people of color living in a white man's world. Their own world was magnificently constructed for forgetting that, the Lermontant house itself a veritable citadel, but all of them were fortified in a thousand ways. And today, those fortifications had been besieged. And it was not only Bridgeman who had penetrated the battlements, it was the judge with that weary and heartless recitation of their "inferior status," as much as it was the white man in his heartfelt declarations, who had brought the realities of the situation cras.h.i.+ng home.

Marcel was scowling now into the dregs of his wine. And had no spirit to reach for the bottle on his own. Any white Creole father might have killed Bridgeman for his insult to Giselle, not even waiting perhaps for a formal appointment at the dueling oaks. But there was to be no satisfaction for the Lermontants. And what would it have been for a poor man of color, for any one of the thousands of hardworking free Negroes who were hauled into the recorder's office daily for squabbles on streetcorners or arguments in bars? A crime to verbally insult a white man, Marcel grimaced in disgust. And found himself again envisioning that bored and distant expression on Christophe's face in the court.

Well, it was all well and good for Christophe to find it amusing. Christophe seemed forever "above it" because Christophe was here by choice. Marcel reached for the bottle without thinking, without realizing he had let out a sharp little sound of anger, despair.

Richard hastened to pour the wine for him like a good host.

"It's at times like this that I think of one thing," Marcel murmured. "And that is setting foot on that boat for France." Why pretend anymore this was a celebration? Why pretend the "victory" had been enough?

Richard only nodded at this, as if he were quite unconscious of Marcel's probing stare.

"And you know," Marcel murmured, the voice devoid of feeling, "you don't talk much about that anymore, our going to Paris. In fact, it's been months since you spoke of it at all. In a way, that's what we were getting to the afternoon all of this started when Oncle Rudolphe got into the fight."

"Paris, Paris, Paris," Richard said softly to indicate that he remembered. "Marcel, it's far from my thoughts."

"Is that why you haven't been coming to cla.s.s regularly? Is that why you're spending more and more time in the shop?" Marcel's tone was mildly accusatory.

Richard's eyes s.h.i.+fted dreamily to him and attempted to fix on him, as if to fix on the subject at hand. "I'm not going, Marcel," he said. "I'm not going with you to the Sorbonne, and I'm not going with you on the Grand Tour, and we've both known that for a long time..."

"But Richard, you're not even needed in the shop!"

"No," Richard took a swallow of wine. "But I am needed here. In this house. I don't know," he shrugged, looking away again. "Perhaps I've known this all along and it was just fun to plan with you, and dream with you, it made school so much easier, and so I did it, knowing I would never go."

Marcel's face appeared almost angry. But a languor lay over both boys, a sense of defeat. "I couldn't live here," Marcel whispered, "not one more day if I didn't know I was going to France. If I didn't know that at least there would be those years when I could live and breathe as a free man."

Richard's expression was serene and detached. He put his elbow on the arm of the chair and stared at the subtle movement of the curtains against the gla.s.s. Cold air seeped in at the windowsills, and he could feel it despite the fire. He was startled suddenly to see Marcel's expression underscored with something bitter, something bordering on rage.

Marcel rose silently and moved across the room, lifting the Daguerreotype of Marie from beside the table.

"And I thought you felt the same way I did. Until you became enamored of my sister." He glared at the fine white image in the frame, and then he put it down abruptly as if distracted, exacerbated in this vein. "Richard, you know this is the time of temptation, this is the time when young men forget all about the vows they made in childhood, not just the vows they made to each other, but the vows they made to themselves. The world has a way of closing in on us now, inundating us with the practical, and the enticing, and sometimes even the small."

Richard listened to this patiently. He was struck by the conviction of Marcel's tone as well as by the uncommon maturity of the words. Marcel who so often eluded and discouraged Richard with a scintillating pa.s.sion, seemed to have struck something undeniable and just a little too complex. But there was quiet resignation in Richard's tone when he answered.

"I know what you're saying," he said. "But believe me, Marie has little to do with this, Marcel. I always knew I wouldn't be going with you to Paris, I knew it as soon as I was old enough to understand what my brothers had done."

"Richard, I'm not saying go for the rest of your life! I'm not saying you should leave your family as your brothers did. I'm only saying that while we're young still we can do things that in later years will be impossible..." He stopped, and again there was that distraction in his expression as if he had touched on an inner pain, a secret stress. "Now I'll be saying good-bye to you, too..."

"I've taken on more and more responsibility in the shop because I want it," Richard said calmly. "I'm not the scholar you are, Marcel, and not the dreamer besides. I never was, and even if my mother and father insisted that I go abroad for a while, I'm not sure that I would accept. It isn't merely that I'm their only son now or that I wouldn't recognize those brothers of mine-wherever they are-were I to meet them in the street. It's that I have a feeling for my father's profession, it's become my profession, too. My life's settled, Marcel. It's like a puzzle, and all the pieces are fitted into place. Except one. Marriage, that's the remaining piece. And if Marie, if she will actually consent, if I can bring her home as my bride...well, that will be my Paris. Don't you see?"

"So it's come to that, has it?" Marcel said.

"I love her," Richard whispered. "Didn't you know that? Could you forgive me were I to tell you that she loves me?"

"Forgive you!" Marcel's smile was bitter. But then it became light. He settled easily into the chair and watched Richard fill his gla.s.s for him, feeling now there was something a little felonious about drinking at midday. "You and Marie." He was absorbing it, of course he'd seen it, yet to hear it stated in such a great perspective, it gave him a feeling of solemnity and somehow a feeling of peace. If he could leave his sister, his beautiful and strangely sad little sister married to Richard...why, the future was becoming too inevitable, too articulated, as childhood melted away all around him and dreams became a matter of certain steps.

"Then you approve?" Richard whispered.

"Of course I approve. But you're sincere, aren't you, really sincere when you say that your life is here?"

"I'll be content with that life," Richard said. "I'm content now."

"Well," Marcel rose slowly leaving the gla.s.s untouched. There was still time to go to school. "I don't know whether you are simply more courageous than I am, Richard, or whether you've just had better luck. One way or the other I envy you."

"Envy me, you?"

"You have a place in this world, Richard, a place where you truly belong."

V.

IT WAS THE WEEK before Christmas. Anna Bella sat at the marble top dresser in the only ball gown she had ever owned. The little parlor of the cottage glistened. Zurlina had just given the furniture a last dusting, and had beaten the art square before stretching it out on the waxed floor before the hearth. Decanters of bourbon and sherry stood on the sideboard with gla.s.ses in a s.h.i.+ning row. before Christmas. Anna Bella sat at the marble top dresser in the only ball gown she had ever owned. The little parlor of the cottage glistened. Zurlina had just given the furniture a last dusting, and had beaten the art square before stretching it out on the waxed floor before the hearth. Decanters of bourbon and sherry stood on the sideboard with gla.s.ses in a s.h.i.+ning row.

All of the furniture Anna Bella had chosen was light in feel, she preferred pet.i.t-point to damask, and had hung lace curtains with only a strip of velvet around each window at the edge. A Queen Anne table stood on tiptoe in the small dining room, already set with gold-edged china, and ornate sterling service and brand new napkins in their heavy rings.

Only the bed was out of scale to these small rooms, rearing its high mahogany back almost to the ceiling. The tester writhed with Cupids frolicking in scalloped garlands. It was a bride's canopy, the sort made specially for the wedding night.

Now and then, when Zurlina opened the back door, a waft of supper came with the cold wind. Gumbo was simmering in the low slope-roofed kitchen, there was chicken roasted in the iron pot, two dozen oysters scrubbed and waiting to be opened, warm bread in baskets on the back of the stove. Zurlina would sleep in the room beside the kitchen for these next weeks until Vincent Dazincourt provided Anna Bella with slaves of her own. She was not happy with this at all, though Anna Bella had bought her an expensive bra.s.s bed. However, since Dazincourt had chosen Anna Bella, Zurlina had shown her a new begrudging respect.

"How long do you think he'll stay?" Anna Bella asked, looking at herself in the mirror between a pair of candles. The hairdresser had very skillfully layered the waves along the side of her face. Madame Colette had come late in the afternoon to make the very last adjustments on this tight and perfectly fitted blue silk gown.

"He can stay as long as he wants to!" Zurlina said. "He can stay till Mardi Gras next year if he has a mind!" she laughed coldly, bending down to open the bottom drawer of the armoire. Anna Bella, through the mirror, saw her lift out the white nightgown to which she had so carefully sewn the intricate lace. There was a catch in her throat at the sight of it being laid across the bed.

"Now don't you ring that bell unless he wants some supper," Zurlina said. "You serve him the coffee yourself, and don't you sit till he tells you to sit, and remember just how he likes that coffee, and how he wants his bourbon, so you don't ever have to ask him again. Now he just might not want any supper, he's up at the boardinghouse now."

"Oh, I hope not," Anna Bella bit her lip. She couldn't endure the thought of it, the long meal as if nothing were to happen afterwards. She had been living in the cottage for a week and she was sick with waiting.

However, her days had not been unpleasant. Old friends of Madame Elsie's had come to visit her with gifts, and to her utter amazement Marie Ste. Marie had come, too. She had brought Anna Bella a very beautiful little lap secretaire secretaire, inlaid with gold, apologizing for a broken edge saying it had been pa.s.sed through many loving hands. Anna Bella had been delighted. The very next day she had used it to write a note to Marie in thanks. And Gabriella Roget had stopped in one afternoon with her mother to present Anna Bella with a silver dish for sweets.

In fact, it seemed all the world was abuzz with news of this alliance, people had complimented Madame Elsie on her shrewdness, and Dazincourt's affections had cast Anna Bella in a new and somewhat flattering light. Women who hardly noticed her before nodded after Ma.s.s.

Zurlina poured a little perfume into the palm of her hand and ma.s.saged this gently into Anna Bella's shoulders. Anna Bella seeing that thin haughty face in the mirror looked away.

"Don't be anxious," said the old woman. Still Anna Bella didn't look at her. She didn't want to hear any unkind words.

Zurlina took a tiny bit of cream on her fingers now and tilting Anna Bella's head touched it to her eyelashes to make them seem darker, longer. Anna Bella held still patiently. "You are prettier than I thought," said Zurlina, with a lift of her chin, "yes, very pretty indeed."

Anna Bella's large black eyes studied her, searching her face for some meanness.

"Everybody's been very good to me," she whispered.

The old woman snorted as if this were foolishness. She pulled a long pin out from her tignon tignon and made some little adjustment with Anna Bella's hair. "Be smart for once," she said in Anna Bella's ear. "Get that gloomy look off your face. Learn to smile! They're jealous of you, all of them, you got what they want." Zurlina picked up Anna Bella's hand and slipped another gold ring, set with a pearl, on her finger. "Stop thinking about that Marcel Ste. Marie." and made some little adjustment with Anna Bella's hair. "Be smart for once," she said in Anna Bella's ear. "Get that gloomy look off your face. Learn to smile! They're jealous of you, all of them, you got what they want." Zurlina picked up Anna Bella's hand and slipped another gold ring, set with a pearl, on her finger. "Stop thinking about that Marcel Ste. Marie."

"Oh, stop it," Anna Bella went to pull away, she had known some meanness was coming.

"I heard you ask Michie Vincent if he could come and visit you, you're a fool!" Zurlina said. Their eyes met through the mirror.

"What pa.s.ses between Michie Vincent and me is my business," Anna Bella said attempting to look hard, her lip quivering. "And if you don't like what you hear, then don't bend down by the keyhole."

"I don't have to bend down by any keyholes to know what that boy is up to," Zurlina smiled. The candles below did not flatter her face, her eyes were too much in shadow, the expression was eerie. Anna Bella drew herself up, rubbing the backs of her arms.

"Seems to me you ought to build up that fire," she whispered, eyeing Zurlina.

"It's that Juliet," said Zurlina in a dry whisper. "Night after night." She gave a low hollow laugh. "He plays the good schoolboy by day and that man plays the good teacher. And then when Madame Cecile's asleep, he slips down those stairs..."

"Stop it, I don't believe anything you say."

"...and up to that bedroom, night after night. Sometimes in the morning he goes, just before sunup, he has his own key to the gate." Her wrinkled face was crimped with laughter. "They dine together, those three, alone in that house, just one big happy family," she sneered, "and she has that boy to warm her bed, night after night."

"That's a lie," Anna Bella whispered. "Michie Christophe wouldn't let that happen. Michie Christophe's one of the nicest men I ever knew."

"Michie Christophe!" Zurlina snorted. "Michie Christophe! He can't get that crazy woman in line. So he gives her the boy." She shrugged.

Anna Bella shook her head.

"Did you think that boy wanted you?" Zurlina hissed.

Anna Bella's eyes narrowed. She peered up at Zurlina through the mirror, saw the evil play of the candles on her cheeks. "You stop it!" Anna Bella said. "Don't you say one more word to me about Marcel Ste. Marie!" she said.

But nothing changed in the woman's smile.

Anna Bella rose abruptly, pus.h.i.+ng the chair against her and went into the parlor alone. She lit the candles on the mantel, those on the sideboard, and took her place by the fire.

"You don't know what you have, you!" Zurlina hovered in the doorway. "Don't you be the fool and throw it away."

Anna Bella turning her back said nothing. It had been over a month since she had seen Michie Vincent, she wished she could remember anything special about him except that he was handsome and that she had resolved to give herself to him with a pure heart.

He was late in coming. It had been raining for hours, Zurlina was gone. The cold air swept through the rooms as he opened the door, and she saw his shadow leap suddenly forward from the fire. He held a bouquet of roses in his hand, the only dash of color about him except the soft ashen pink of his lips. She had forgotten the man's presence, his strong steady gaze, his black eyes. An elusive perfume seemed to rise as he removed his black serge cape and threw it carelessly over a chair. She went to take it, her hand out, when he stopped her.

"Do you want some supper, Monsieur?" she whispered. "Why, there's gumbo and oysters and, why, there's anything you..."

"I've never seen you in silk," he whispered. And touching her shoulders lightly he moved her as though she was a statue planted in the center of the room. He had not touched her since that last day in the parlor of the boardinghouse, he had come and gone, visiting only with Madame Elsie in the back upstairs. His white cheeks looked utterly smooth above the sleek black of his whiskers and the eyes, deep-set, gleamed from the neat lines of his eyelids as if these had been drawn with a pen. It seemed the sense of belonging to him pa.s.sed over her for the first time, and at that same moment he smiled.

She took a step back and began to cry.

"I'm afraid, Monsieur!" she whispered, all dignity and coquetry utterly lost. He would be so disappointed. She looked up at him through the glaze of her tears.

But he was smiling still. "Of me, Anna Bella?" he whispered. "Of me? Why, you're frightening me, now, Anna Bella, come here."

But this was mere nonsense he said to make her laugh. He was all confidence and gentleness. He guided her directly past the carefully set little table into the bedroom and toward the bed. She could feel his eyes moving lovingly over her, hungrily, she could feel an urgency in his hands. He stood stood behind her, his hands on her naked shoulders, and then on her naked arms. He kissed the back of her neck and waited and then breathing deeply he kissed it again. "O Lord," he whispered. A startling chill moved over her flesh, and without meaning to, she became nearly drowsy, head falling to one side. behind her, his hands on her naked shoulders, and then on her naked arms. He kissed the back of her neck and waited and then breathing deeply he kissed it again. "O Lord," he whispered. A startling chill moved over her flesh, and without meaning to, she became nearly drowsy, head falling to one side.

"You'll be gentle, Monsieur..." she whispered. He turned her around. She could see the flames in his cheeks, hear that rapid, urgent breath. And suddenly she understood as he held her how much he wanted her, how much he wanted all of this.

"Sweet, sweet, that's what you are, the word is sweet," he breathed, kissing her. And then his hands moved rapidly over her hair. He pulled the pins out, he caught the curls as they unraveled. "Please, take it off...no, here," he sat on the side of the bed, "let me watch you, I won't hurt you. No, don't touch the candle. I want to see you. You don't know how pretty you are."

He ripped at the strings of her corset, and sliding her chemise off onto the floor, clasped her tightly, almost painfully at the waist. He ran his fingers over the soft marks left in the flesh by the whalebone, and lifted her quickly into the bed. She closed her eyes as he undressed, and did not open them until she felt his kisses again on her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He was stroking her all over as if he could not see enough, feel enough, savor enough. And she was suffused with a drowsiness that seemed to come from the way that he said, over and over, "Ma belle "Ma belle Anna Bella, Anna Bella, ma pauvre pet.i.te ma pauvre pet.i.te Anna Bella." It was almost an hour before, unable to contain himself any longer, he seemed to become rigid from his shoulders to the tips of his toes, mounting gently, gracefully, careful not to crush her with his weight, as he gathered her under him in his arm. But she was yearning for it, the pain was nothing, she could hardly feel it at all. Her head was thrown back in some delicious paralysis in which he had become the mover of her limbs. She let out a little laugh when it was finished. His pleasure had been acute, and he was lying back on the pillow beside her, his face smooth in contentment, his hand gathering hers by his side. "Was I gentle?" he smiled. Anna Bella." It was almost an hour before, unable to contain himself any longer, he seemed to become rigid from his shoulders to the tips of his toes, mounting gently, gracefully, careful not to crush her with his weight, as he gathered her under him in his arm. But she was yearning for it, the pain was nothing, she could hardly feel it at all. Her head was thrown back in some delicious paralysis in which he had become the mover of her limbs. She let out a little laugh when it was finished. His pleasure had been acute, and he was lying back on the pillow beside her, his face smooth in contentment, his hand gathering hers by his side. "Was I gentle?" he smiled.

"Yes, Monsieur, very gentle," she said.

She was drifting into sleep when she realized he was dressing by the firelight. He put on the robe that Zurlina had laid out for him, and ran a comb through his long hair.

It seemed a gift of the G.o.ds that he was so uncommonly handsome, "Go to sleep, ma bebe," ma bebe," he said leaning over her. he said leaning over her.

"Are you happy with me, Monsieur?" she asked. Zurlina would have been so furious if she had heard.

"Splendidly happy," he said. "Can't you tell?"

She was asleep again when he came back into the room. She thought she should get up, attend him at once in whatever he wanted, and struggling she broke the surface of her dream. She'd been riding south with Old Captain, stopping at one plantation after another where she'd slept in s.p.a.cious bedrooms in his arms. A black woman in a white kerchief had been saying, "Let me rub that child's feet, look at that child's feet, those feet are cold!"

"I'm coming," she said sitting up so the counterpane nearly slipped away. She had to catch it at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He sat beside her. He was holding something in the dark, too large to be a book, she couldn't see what it was.

"Where did you get this?" he answered. She put out her hand.

"Oh, Marie, brought it to me, she's my friend..." she stopped. "You put it on a table to write letters, or on your lap in bed."

It occurred to her then, without much reality, that he might not know that she could read and write, and she wondered if he could disapprove. What would he think when he saw her books that were still in the trunk, or her little diary with its gold clasp?

"Marie?" he asked.

"Marie Ste. Marie," she said. She wondered if he would know the name. It frightened her suddenly. She knew his relation to Michie Philippe, she knew all about it, Madame Elsie had investigated him completely. She wished now she hadn't brought the name into it at all.