Cane River Part 28

"What?" Joseph said.

"You know it's bad luck to touch the roses after three o'clock," Emily said. "The roses are your responsibility."

"Emily, don't do this." Joseph s.h.i.+fted his weight forward and looked directly at her. His tone turned hard and dangerous, caught between his two audiences.

Without further word, Emily went back into the house, leaving the door open behind her. There seemed to be no motion anywhere, inside or out, except for hers. Her children watched her carefully, waiting. The oil painting mocked her from its position of honor over the fireplace in the front room. She allowed herself only an instant to wonder at the strange, overconfident girl captured on canvas, hand resting lightly on the chair, staring out at a future full of promise. Emily moved quickly. She had to drag a chair over and stand on tiptoe, working at the hook and wire to get the portrait down. She didn't call on anyone to help her, and each was hesitant to come to her aid unasked. The painting had never been removed before, and the rectangular patch of wallpaper underneath looked fresh and new compared with the familiar pattern exposed to the air and sun. Emily gently placed the painting next to her rocking chair and sat down calmly.

"Come," she said to her children, trying to give a rea.s.suring smile, motioning to the couch and chairs.

They followed suit and sat down tentatively, alternating between keeping their eyes down and glancing apprehensively at this tiny woman who was their mother.

As if a signal had been given, the men moved inside. It was Joseph who decided what went to the new house. Emily asked for nothing other than the rosebushes, her horse, and the painting. She was unresponsive to questions the men put to her, and they stopped asking. She rocked. The men edged around them reluctantly, throwing guarded glances toward her and the silent children, loading those things that Joseph pointed out. Except for Antoine Morat. He caught Emily's eye once when Joseph was in another room, and Emily was sure she saw a slight gloat to his smile.

The men loaded up all of the children's beds, miscellaneous furniture, lanterns, and most of the kitchenware. One of the wagons was for livestock, hogs, and chickens, and they tied a milking cow behind it. Last, Joseph loaded up her dressing table and the rocking chair she had been sitting in, both gifts he had given in happier days.

They used the lead wagon for the human cargo. Joseph Billes's family, Emily, children, and grandchild, were helped into the buckboard and began the journey to their new home two miles away. Joseph himself drove the horses forward, in silence, and the other wagons followed. The strange caravan made its way from the river side of Aloha over to the wooded side on Cornfine Bayou where the new house waited.

When they arrived the men began to unload and carry the heaviest furniture into the house.

"Come to the barn, 't.i.te. This is important," Joseph said. He untethered Emily's dapple gray horse from the back of the wagon and led him to the barn.

Emily left the children in the wagon and followed. Out of sight and earshot of the others, Joseph pulled a package from the saddlebag and handed Emily a small canvas bag.

"There's five hundred dollars in cash here, 't.i.te. Don't let anyone know you have it, and hide it well. If there's anything you need, just send T.O. over. He can come for me anytime, to the house or the store or the mill."

"It appears that suddenly you see the wisdom in me having money of my own," Emily said, but there was no satisfaction in it.

She stuffed the sack between two piles of hay and collected her children out of the hot sun. T.O. drew up water from the well, and they waited in the barn until the men left. Before going into the new house for the first time, Emily dampened the roots of the rosebushes the men had left leaning against the gallery.

"We will replant them along the side of the house first thing in the morning," Emily said to her children. "There is never any excuse for a bare-dirt yard."

Joseph Billes married Lola Grandchamp the next day in a small, private ceremony in Cloutierville and brought his bride back to his house on Billes Landing.

To the townspeople, Joseph Billes had mended his ways and married white, a signal that it was safe to return to the substance of their own pursuits.

Joe Billis was very fond of His Children but all his friends demanded Him to a White Girl He did.--Cousin Gurtie Fredieu, written family history, 1975

38.

T wo weeks after the incident at Billes Landing, on a muggy midsummer day, T.O. came to Philomene's farm. Suzette sat on the front gallery, snapping beans for supper, and she could feel her great-grandson's misery even before he got off his horse. T.O. dismounted, respected her politely by tipping his hat, and went straight away to the side garden where Philomene tended the tomatoes. wo weeks after the incident at Billes Landing, on a muggy midsummer day, T.O. came to Philomene's farm. Suzette sat on the front gallery, snapping beans for supper, and she could feel her great-grandson's misery even before he got off his horse. T.O. dismounted, respected her politely by tipping his hat, and went straight away to the side garden where Philomene tended the tomatoes.

"It's Maman, Maman," Suzette overheard T.O. say. "She will not get up from her bed. She won't eat."

"Does she have fever?" Philomene asked. Alarm made her voice rise.

T.O. reddened. "It isn't urgent. She is not that kind of sick."

Philomene brushed past T.O. without stopping to take off her work gloves or change her bonnet. Harnessing the mare, she called to Suzette, "I will be back when I get to the bottom of this." Philomene rode straight-saddle in the direction of Emily's new house on Cornfine Bayou, T.O. straining to keep up on his horse beside her.

Night had fallen and the full moon was high when Philomene returned alone, worry chiseled across her forehead. "We must act quickly, Maman, Maman," she said to Suzette. "The girl is hurt, she needs us near. Emily doesn't know what it is to be without a man, crying all day for what is already gone."

"Emily could move back here," Suzette said. "We can make room."

"No," said Philomene. "Joseph put the land in the name of the children. If she leaves the property, even for a short while, there could be trouble later. We must move there."

Suzette knew Philomene well enough to know she had already decided on some course of action and would be almost impossible to sway. She protested anyway. "There are twelve years of sweat, prayers, and Sunday dinners put into this house."

Philomene untied and removed her bonnet, and Suzette noticed for the first time a lone gray strand in her daughter's hair.

"I made the arrangement already with Monsieur Billes," said Philomene, putting aside the sweat-stained hat, her face hard. "That was the reason for my delay. I agreed to sell him this property, minus a piece for Bet to stay on as her own. In exchange, we get land on the other side of the river next to Emily's." She struck a more conciliatory tone. "We earned every acre here, Maman, Maman, and it served us well, but this parcel was the poorest of Narcisse's land, ringed by swamps. It gave our family a start, but most have gone on to their own lives now, or died, and the farm is getting to be too much for us alone. We'll have less land, but the soil around Emily's new place is richer, the house bigger and already built." and it served us well, but this parcel was the poorest of Narcisse's land, ringed by swamps. It gave our family a start, but most have gone on to their own lives now, or died, and the farm is getting to be too much for us alone. We'll have less land, but the soil around Emily's new place is richer, the house bigger and already built."

"I am old, almost at the end of life, and you would uproot me again?" Suzette heard the whine in her own voice. Although she spoke the words, and her mind could reach back over seven decades, it was almost impossible for Suzette to accept herself as an old woman. Time had forced her to create a special place in her mind for death, a place already packed to overflowing, so many of the people who shaped her already gathered there. Elisabeth, her sister Palmire, Gerasime, Nicolas Mulon, Marraine Marraine Doralise, Oreline Derbanne, Narcisse Fredieu. She had outlived them all. Doralise, Oreline Derbanne, Narcisse Fredieu. She had outlived them all.

"We can bear the move across the river to Cornfine Bayou, for Emily." Philomene stood unwavering in the face of Suzette's resistance. "Family does for family, and young life around will do us both good."

The night before the move, Suzette rummaged in her private storage, a cigar box where she kept her special things. Inside was a broken string of white rosary beads, an old oak figurine Gerant had carved, and her tatted lace handkerchief. She removed the shabby cowhide strip Nicolas had given her and rubbed it for luck. Memories of long-ago days broke free. She felt her whole life had been spent traveling from one cramped s.p.a.ce to another. Always there seemed to be a next place.

As Philomene checked the house before turning in to bed, she came upon Suzette, reflecting. "You seem lost in thought," she said, entering the room.

"I've been thinking about a last name," Suzette said.

"You have a last name, Maman. Maman. Madame Mulon." Madame Mulon."

"If I can pack up and start fresh at my age," Suzette said, "I can change my last name." One of the few advantages of growing old, she decided, was the freedom hidden in it. People seemed to relax their expectations, suddenly allowing so much more, word or deed. "Mere Elisabeth is gone, bless her soul, and Nicolas's people never did want me to be one of them. There's no need to hang on to Jackson or Mulon. From now on, everyone is to call me Suzette DeNegre." Elisabeth is gone, bless her soul, and Nicolas's people never did want me to be one of them. There's no need to hang on to Jackson or Mulon. From now on, everyone is to call me Suzette DeNegre."

It amused Suzette to take a new name, especially one of her own making, insisting they all call her by something entirely different. If she felt like it, she might even change her last name again. If she felt like it.

At Emily's new house Suzette took as a personal campaign the effort to save the transplanted rosebushes, whose flowers were wilted and drooping since the short journey from Billes Landing to Cornfine Bayou. She pruned back stems to the five-leaf, slow-soaked the bushes to encourage deep rooting, and set traps for beetles. Already she saw improvement.

All of the women shared ch.o.r.es, helped tend Emily's children, looked after the chickens and livestock, put in a vegetable garden. Family Sunday dinners moved with Philomene and Suzette to the other side of the Red River, to Cornfine Bayou.

In the beginning the house was unfamiliar, and Suzette had great difficulty keeping still in bed. From her room she listened to the night's quiet sounds or pushed her feet into slippers to walk the house before returning to bed. One night, prowling noiselessly down the narrow hallway toward the kitchen, she heard the subdued hum of conversation. Philomene's rea.s.suring voice played counterpoint to Emily's hollow-toned dejection. Not wanting to disturb their intimacy, Suzette stayed silent, listening.

"It is difficult for you to believe at this moment, but you can survive this," Philomene said.

Emily's voice sounded limp. "I know you mean well, Maman, Maman, but you can't understand. There is no happiness left for me. Surviving isn't enough." but you can't understand. There is no happiness left for me. Surviving isn't enough."

"You have never allowed sadness around you, child. It will be that way again."

"Why, Maman? Maman?" Emily asked. "Why would you give up your farm to move here?"

"A family belongs together."

"Bet is on the other side of the river."

"Bet doesn't have the same kind of pain." Philomene sighed heavily. "Emily, I understand the suckhole loneliness makes after love disappoints. Memere Memere Suzette and I can help." Suzette and I can help."

"This is nothing you can mend. Joseph has left me, humiliated me." Emily's voice threatened to break. "Even so, I still want him."

"That will play out in its own way, in its own time. For now, it's you and the children that matter." There was a long pause, and Suzette heard the pouring of coffee, the soft sc.r.a.ping of a cup replaced on the table. "Emily, there is one thing you must never forget. You do not come from fragile stock."

Suzette thought then of her own mother, how her death left an emptiness even now but had brought young Emily closer. Maybe this was the lesson each generation had to learn, over and over again. Where the strength began, and how it kept itself alive.

Philomene's voice was low and soothing, almost crooning. "I am the rock in your garden, Emily, and you are the bloom in mine. Count on me."

Suzette quietly retraced her steps down the hall to her room, leaving mother and daughter alone in the kitchen.

Life went on, for all of them.

It took time, but the flush came back to Emily's cheeks, and the Sunday came when she sang and danced for them again. Joseph reappeared in their lives. The first reasons given for his visits were to make repairs to the house on Cornfine Bayou or to bring gifts for the grandchild, but finally the detailed excuse making fell away, and his appearances became frequent and accepted.

As a new bride still in the habit of trying to please her husband, Lola Grandchamp reluctantly permitted the children to visit their father at Billes Landing three or four times a year, at Joseph's insistence, but even then they couldn't enter the house. Before allowing them to go, Emily examined each of them, inspecting their freshly washed hair, the press of their Sunday-best clothes, the polish to their shoes. Only then could they leave their house on Cornfine Bayou, the six of them together, Angelite, T.O., Josephine, Joe, and Mary, with Buck in Angelite's arms, eagerly setting off for Billes Landing, a family adventure. As Buck got older he walked alongside them through the woods. The house on Cornfine Bayou emptied out by six, leaving behind three older generations of women, Suzette, Philomene, and Emily.

T.O. brought back reports of Lola sitting off to one side in the deepest shade of the gallery, while Joseph basked in the center of the circle of his children. It was an uneasy truce for all of them, but they managed. For years they all managed.

Angelite entertained the attentions of several suitors. She settled on Dennis Coutee, a tall, lanky colored farmer with an even disposition, as fair of skin as she. He was a neighbor, a sharecropper, and wanted from the first to make her his wife. Angelite broke new ground in the family by marrying Dennis and soon afterward becoming pregnant, in that order. She lived with her new husband on his plot and was close enough to walk to Emily's house every day. The couple often took supper there.

T.O. worked in the sawmill, with no greater ambition than a little money in his pocket, but he had a restless disposition like his father. He pa.s.sed all the way into his late teens committed to no one thing in particular and often went off by himself, appearing and disappearing at will. He was a polite and self-effacing young man, handsome in a gentle way, but he kept his own counsel. T.O. was never quite the same after the move from Billes Landing, except with Angelite. Only his sister seemed to coax him toward liveliness, keep him from brooding, from going into himself too deeply. With Angelite he laughed and even joked.

Angelite Billes and husband Dennis Coutee.

Josephine and Mary, young women five years apart, were so compatible that it became difficult to think of them separately. They preferred their own company to any other; both were shy with outsiders. The girls seemed content around the farm.

Joe Jr. grew tall, so confident in himself that they began to call him "Man." The most forward of the colored girls in the small community competed for his notice, and he encouraged the attention, unable to resist a pretty face, but he never allowed himself to become entirely distracted from learning all he could to be able to follow in his father's footsteps. Joe had Joseph Billes's drive, did well in school, and worked hard at his lessons.

LR. Mary Billes, Angelite Billes holding Buck Andrieu, Emily Fredieu, Josephine Billes.

The turn of the century came and went, and they set up their own routines on Cornfine Bayou, mixing in the past and the future. The young outnumbered the old, and they all prepared for the imminent arrival of Angelite's second child.

Angelite delivered a small, weak son, but they lost her in childbirth. After a long and difficult birth, pa.s.sing from one day into the next, life and death made an unbearable trade.

It was then that Suzette began to feel she had spent enough time with both the living and the dead, that to outlive a great-granddaughter meant she had surely gone on for too long. The death place in her mind was overfull.

Joe "Man" Billes Jr.

They mourned on Cornfine Bayou, a deep and profound grief, but the demands of the living trumped the call of the dead. Emily plunged headlong into the raising of her two orphaned grandsons, a woman's concession to the caprices of life. Philomene spent extra hours in the kitchen preparing food, forcing everyone to eat. Little Buck wrapped his bony arms around their necks, and they consoled him in turns.

The old women had children to raise, food to put on the table, the farm to run, and each other. Josephine and Mary grew more inseparable every day. Joe, the clever son, was smart and popular, surrounded always by friends as well as family, and found his solace there. Everyone else had someone, but T.O. and Angelite had been the natural pairing in the family while she lived, his confidante, and after she died T.O.'s absences from the house became longer and more frequent.

Joseph Billes started to come apart, an alarmingly rapid deterioration. Overnight he took on an old man's shuffle, halting, tentative, losing a full inch of his height. Weight vanished from his too thin frame, the flesh covering his gaunt cheeks pulled overly tight across his face, his brooding eyes p.r.o.nounced and watery.

With Angelite gone, a neediness opened in Joseph so profound that it seemed to push aside caution. He couldn't get enough of his remaining children and summoned them more often to the house on Billes Landing. The unbearable tension there between Joseph and Lola grew tauter than a hangman's noose, with Joseph seemingly oblivious of the hostility Lola directed toward the six of them in their Sunday finery when they marched en ma.s.se through the gate. They went whenever summoned, still six, with Angelite gone and little Ernest added.

Angelite Billes Coutee gravestone.

39.

J oseph sent word to Cornfine Bayou that he requested the presence of his children on the upcoming Sat.u.r.day at Billes Landing, the first anniversary of Angelite's death. They were their customary six, outfitted in Sunday best, dresses and s.h.i.+rts starched and ironed, shoes polished, backs stiff even in the heat. They sat on the edges of their chairs along the cramped gallery, and Joseph held Ernest on his lap. T.O., the oldest of the Billes children now, was twenty-four, Mary at fifteen was the youngest, and Angelite's baby, Ernest, celebrated his one-year birthday. oseph sent word to Cornfine Bayou that he requested the presence of his children on the upcoming Sat.u.r.day at Billes Landing, the first anniversary of Angelite's death. They were their customary six, outfitted in Sunday best, dresses and s.h.i.+rts starched and ironed, shoes polished, backs stiff even in the heat. They sat on the edges of their chairs along the cramped gallery, and Joseph held Ernest on his lap. T.O., the oldest of the Billes children now, was twenty-four, Mary at fifteen was the youngest, and Angelite's baby, Ernest, celebrated his one-year birthday.

Joseph made idle conversation while Lola fanned herself on the far side of the gallery. When he cleared his throat and coughed grandly, a staged sound meant to signal an announcement, T.O. put down his coffee cup.

"As my natural children and grandchildren," Joseph said, "this land is to be yours when I die."

Lola let out a small, surprised gasp and quickly pulled her lace handkerchief to her mouth, as if by so doing she could swallow Joseph's offending words and make them disappear. She stood, all eyes now on her, and after an awkward moment of apparent disorientation fled into the house, the petticoats under her cotton dress rustling violently.

The next time the six came to Billes Landing, instead of her regular spot at the far end of the gallery, Lola refused to appear. But she was a presence just the same, perched inside the front room with the front door ajar and the outer screen door latched shut, a pair of listening ears and a voice that could lash out at them whenever she chose.

"Mongrels," Lola said midway through the visit. Her voice was distinct, the word clear to everyone on the gallery.

"Mongrels," she repeated, more loudly this time. "More of that trashy life you led before me. I won't be a party to it. I don't want them on my property."

"Woman, shut that noise," Joseph said as if to the air. He had been drinking, and there was a slight slurring to his words. "You know whose property this is, and I'll have anyone I please here. These are my children."

He made a show of bouncing Ernest on his knee until the toddler, too young to understand the mood, grinned his delight.

After that day the invitations to the house on Billes Landing were withdrawn. No more summons, no need for T.O. to slick back his hair or polish his shoes. Joseph asked them to stop coming to the house, showing up instead more often on Cornfine Bayou.