Crescent City (16 page)

But I can’t do it, she thought; something in me can’t do it. And she felt pity for him because he gave fairly to the bond called marriage while she did not. They were strangers to each other, although he would never undermine his dignity by admitting that he knew they were, or that she loathed him.

Only in company did his laughter ring. All the long summer, by carriage and steamer, the guests came and went, whole families of them, to stay for a day, a week, or longer. Early in the morning before they clattered away on horseback to the hunt, the men breakfasted downstairs. Still in bed, for pregnancy gave her an excuse to avoid whatever she wanted to avoid, Miriam could hear them talking over their potted meats, their salmon and prawns, their claret and sugared brandy.

In the evening after dinner she could excuse herself again and go upstairs; a pregnant woman was supposed to be delicate. But she was not delicate; her body tingled with energy. Her feet moved to the sound of violins, to the mazurkas and quadrilles being danced below. It was only the spirit, weighted down, that did not move.

Her mind drifted. To walk downstairs and out of the door! To throw off all these cumbersome skirts, to stride away like some countrywoman in her shift, her cotton or linsey-woolsey with a hole for the head, her cool garments so poor and still so graceful! Yes, dressed like that, to walk and walk through the fields, past the sweet gum groves, up the hill, free, free—Her hand made an arc in the air, a falling gesture of resignation.

Romantic nonsense! Free, free, and over the hill to where?

Late, after she had fallen asleep, Eugene would come upstairs. She would awake to the rustle of his clothes and the creak of the bed when he climbed in; then he would turn and take her by her shoulders. Someday, she thought, someday it will happen. Something inside me that I am holding back will give way, and I shall pummel his back with my fists and scream.

Yet he meant her no harm. He had sought her out and wanted her. She was to mother his child. Would the child make a change? In him? Or in herself? She wanted to ask Pelagie, now pregnant with her sixth child, whether that was so. When Pelagie came to visit she would ask.

“I’m very unhappy, Pelagie,” she said.

The blood flowed up Pelagie’s white neck and tinged her earlobes.

“I hate it,” Miriam whispered. “I dread it.”

And she wanted to ask, Is there something wrong with me? Is there any way I can make it better? But Pelagie’s hideous blush prevented her.

“If one wants children, it’s the only way,” Pelagie said. She had not once looked at Miriam. Her answer was no answer.

Pelagie’s trailing, wispy hair had not yet been done
that morning. Her hair had gone dead. Her brightness had flowed away, gone into the children. Thick and swollen, how changed she was from that girl with the sweet round face!
All
those children! All those months of vomiting, for Pelagie was sick each time. Now, feeling Miriam’s gaze, Pelagie looked up. The same sweet smile came to her face. Uncomprehending and sweet.

“He’s a generous husband, Miriam. You must think of that. Your lovely house and this place. Think of all the good things. I’m sure you’ll learn to be happy, dear. It’s within yourself, you know.”

So not even with Pelagie could she open her heart and mind.

One rainy morning when Fanny brought breakfast, Miriam saw that she had been crying. Fanny’s emotions had always reflected Miriam’s joys or griefs, never her own. This startling realization flashed through Miriam’s head.

“What is it, Fanny?”

The girl struggled. “It’s Blaise. The master wants to send him away.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“It’s so. Master says there’s no work for Blaise, not enough for him to do. Blaise has been crying. We’ve been together since we were born, Miss Miriam.” Fanny swept her apron up to hide her face.

“Where does he want to send him?”

“To some friend of his. I don’t remember the name.” Fanny’s voice was muffled under the apron. “Somebody moving to Texas, he said. I don’t know where Texas is, but they say it’s far.”

Miriam got out of bed. “Bring me a dress, Fanny. Hurry and do my hair fast. Where is Mr. Mendes?”

“In the library he was.”

Miriam trembled. She had no idea how she would
do it, but she was certain on the instant of one thing: This was not going to happen to Fanny.

Eugene was reading letters at his desk. He looked up, annoyed at the interruption.

Miriam was still trembling. Nevertheless, she demanded, “What are you doing to Blaise?”

“Doing? Oh, my God, has that Fanny of yours gone crying to you? Don’t tell me. I’ve been wrestling with his tears all morning.”

“They have a right to their tears. Do you know what their life has been? What it was until they came to my father’s house? Their father was—”

“Don’t bother to tell me, please. I’ve heard these stories a hundred times. Misery, misery. I’m not responsible for their past miseries.”

“You could help make up for them, though,” she replied, surprising herself with the sharpness of her tone.

The black eyebrows slithered upward. To her farther surprise, Eugene defended himself.

“What do you want of me? I treat my people well. You’ve never seen me lay a hand on anyone. True or not?”

“True, but—”

“But nothing. I’m not running a charity. If I have no use for a person, I have no use. And I’m not going to keep him on, feeding and clothing him, when he’s not earning his keep.”

“Surely you could find something for Blaise to do. Surely the food he eats isn’t going to make us poor.” The pain in Fanny’s eyes drove her on; she felt Fanny’s cause as though it were her own.

“You know they all exaggerate, don’t you? When they don’t lie, they exaggerate. They’re all hysterical. Blaise will have a good home where he’s going and Fanny will get over it. They won’t die of the separation.
They won’t be the first brother and sister to be separated. Aren’t you separated from your brother?”

“That’s different, Mr. Mendes, and you know it is.” This mention of David emboldened her further.

“If he were here, David would understand.”

She had almost forgotten how, long ago, her brother had been fired by what had seemed an exaggerated anger. Now she remembered that fire.

“David would not do this to them,” she said.

Eugene stood up. “Ah, so it’s your brother, is it? You’re turning out like him, are you?”

“What do you know about my brother? You’ve never even met him.”

“No, but I’ve heard plenty,” Eugene said grimly. “He and his loose-tongued kind don’t know what they’re talking about. Do you want blood to flow here? Do you want to see the house burned to the ground?”

“I don’t understand you. All I asked is that you don’t send Blaise away. That’s all I ask. Is it so hard to do one simple kindness?”

“One so-called simple kindness after the other. Where’s the money to come from? The way I feed my people—”

“Cornmeal, salt pork, and molasses.”

“What should they eat, then? They eat what country people eat. Go see what a white farmer puts on his table! The poor are poor everywhere. Can we feed them all from our table?”

That was true: The poor were the poor, as they had been in the Europe that she still remembered. Here, though, the poor whites came to the door, not begging, but demanding. Under their poke bonnets the women’s eyes were scornful and Eugene always gave.

“You know I do what I can,” he said.

Sometimes when the fanners “got in the grass,” when the weeds threatened to choke out the cotton
plants, he sent them help to do their weeding and save the crop.

“You know I do what I can,” he repeated, and she saw that he was agitated, that in some way she had reached him.

“Do you know how some other people treat their servants? No, I suppose you don’t. Well, I’ll tell you so you won’t think I’m such a monster. Have you never heard of the iron collar? The head enclosed between three iron prongs so that the neck can’t turn? Do you know that runaways have been tied naked to a tree and lashed? Or—”

“That’s enough! Please.”

“Well, then! I treat honorably, I trade honorably, and I don’t need interference in my affairs.”

She had caught a word. “You trade?”

“It’s not my main business, certainly not. But once in a while if a gang should be sent down from Virginia, for instance, and I can make a quick turnover, I do. I’ve never dealt with smugglers or anything outside the law, and I can swear to that, which is more than some of your most respected families like your Aunt Emma’s people can do.”

She faltered. “But you’re a Jew!”

“I am a southerner, of the South. My people have been in this country for two centuries. We old Spanish families helped to build it. Go to Charleston, to Savannah, and you’ll see.” He drew himself straight. “I shouldn’t have allowed this discussion to go so far, and you should know a woman’s place.”

A woman’s place! Once, perhaps more than once, during the courtship, he had admired her spirit, as on that fateful afternoon when, with Emma, she had been conducted through his house. Now all he expected of her was submission. Anger met shame and burned like fire in her throat.

Then she thought of Fanny’s sorrowful eyes. She thought of Blaise, a young man weeping, standing here before the authority of this other man, and weeping. And suddenly she knew what she had to do.

She got down on her knees. When her voice came it was so faint that Eugene had to stoop to hear it.

“Please. I beg of you. Don’t send Blaise away. He could …” She swallowed. “My time is almost here. If we have a boy you could give Blaise to him. He’s a gentleman. He would be a good servant to bring up a boy.”

“Get up, Mrs. Mendes, will you, for heaven’s sake? Don’t be dramatic.” Eugene held his hand out to raise her, but she grasped the arm of the chair instead and pulled herself up.

He walked to the desk, turned over a paper, and coughed while she stood waiting.

“Well, to tell you the truth, I had not thought of that. You may be right. He would be ideal for a boy.”

“You’ll keep him, then? You’ll tell them that?”

“I’ll keep him only until we know about the child. If we have a son, then, yes, he may stay.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mendes. Thank you.”

So if it’s a daughter, she thought, as she went upstairs, I shall simply have to think of something else. For the time being she had won.

Oh, she thought, I wish I did not know I would have to live out my life in this country, where things like this happen every day and the government allows them.

She was very, very tired, with a weariness and a confusion in the depths of her soul. Best not to think about anything more just now. Best just to close her mind and drift through the days.

Autumn, the season of russet leaves and the turkey hunt, approached. This year there was no cooling of the air; instead, the heat mounted, and in the city the Asiatic choleras appeared, adding to the annual horror of yellow fever. All who could and who had not already fled the city, did so now. But for some it was too late.

Eugene brought in a letter. “This just came by boat. It’s from Rosa de Rivera—bad news. Henry’s dead of the fever. They ought to have stayed longer in Saratoga. Very poor judgment.”

A chill shook Miriam. This was her first experience with death. No one she knew had ever just disappeared, just vanished. Who would sit in Henry’s chair at the long table? Kindly, quiet self-effacing Henry! And poor Rosa! For all her lively, brisk importance, the real source of her strength had come from Henry.

“I shall have to find myself a new lawyer,” Eugene said. “Too bad. He was honest and clever. Unfortunately, those don’t always go together, either.” He tapped the desktop, a habit he had when making a decision. “So. We won’t go back as planned on the first of the month. You’ll have to be confined here. We’ll summon Dr. Roget. He bought a plantation upriver after he retired. Manufactures rum. But I daresay he hasn’t forgotten how to deliver a baby.”

She was enormous, unable to bend and button her strapped slippers.

Abby, the chambermaid, remarked darkly, “Might be you having twins, missus. I remember my Auntie Flo died birthing twins. Screamed two days and three nights before she died. It was awful, I stopped my ears. Those twins like to tore her in half before she died. You sees my Auntie Flo’s boys running round here, two big healthy rascals.”

Fanny was angry. “Don’t listen to her, Miss Miriam.
Didn’t the butterfly sit on your arm yesterday? That’s a good sign, always a good sign.”

She wanted not to be afraid. When Pelagie came to visit, Miriam told her of the newspaper article about Queen Victoria, who had taken chloroform when her last child was born.

“They say it’s miraculous. One feels no pain, nothing at all. I wish Dr. Roget knew something about it. No one here does.”

Pelagie thought it was wrong. “It’s not moral. It’s against nature. You’re supposed to feel pain. If you weren’t supposed to, you wouldn’t. Doesn’t that make sense?”

No, it did not. How stupid to believe that whatever
is
must be right! Well, that was Pelagie. And yet, to be fair, Pelagie was not really stupid, she was merely unaccustomed to thinking for herself. It came down to that.

Anyway, it didn’t befit Miriam to judge Pelagie’s reasoning powers. She wasn’t above some fuzzy, credulous thoughts of her own, like reading omens in nature’s faces. After a gray week during which a melancholy rain dripped steadily from every tree and eave, suddenly one noon the sun pierced the clouds and gray brightened into silver. Not an hour afterward, as if the sunshine had been its herald, David’s letter arrived.

“I can’t imagine,” Miriam cried, “what made him change his mind! Do you know it’s eight yeans since we’ve seen him? Oh, Papa will be so glad! And he
must already be on the way. But whatever made him change his mind? He was so against everything here.”

“Apparently,” Eugene said, “he has acquired some sense.”