Feast of All Saints (26 page)

Each day after that he had risen, dressed excitedly and walked at the slowest pace humanly possible past the Mercier townhouse, only to see the usual shuttered windows and the vines threatening to close the old gate. Then he would go on to Madame Lelaud’s, taking the route along the waterfront so he might pass in and out of the bustle of the market, and once inside the smoky cabaret, he would begin with coffee, later swallowing some gumbo for lunch, and spend the afternoon sipping beer, his sketchbook spread upon the greasy table, his pencil working constantly, his eyes returning again and again to the page.

Who knew but that Christophe might come through the door? He’d suffer the chastisement for being there, but it would be worth it just to see Christophe again.

And after all, he told himself, these gala days were coming to an end, it was good-bye to the delicious foam on the beer and the click of the ivories, he was a serious student now, and would soon be so busy with lessons that he would have no time to degenerate at all. It had to be so. Because he had to be at the head of his class by the time Monsieur Philippe came to town. That was the cloud that hung over him, the coming of his father.

But meanwhile, it seemed he heard news of Christophe everywhere that he turned and all of it was good.

Christophe, for example, had already called upon the Lermontants, seeking Rudolphe’s advice on how he might advertise the new academy. And Rudolphe, after some hours closeted with the new teacher in the parlor, had emerged to announce that he was much impressed. Indeed, he thought Richard should prepare himself for the change from Monsieur De Latte’s.

Richard was flabbergasted, and Marcel who came that evening for supper was too excited to risk an impetuous word.

Only Antoine, Richard’s cousin, spoke forcefully against the idea, hinting again and again that the boys really knew nothing of this Paris Bohemian. “You can admire a writer who is quite far from you, but schoolboys imitate their teachers, which is quite a different thing.”

“I don’t care how the man lived in Paris,” Rudolphe had boomed impatiently at last. “That was Paris, the
Quartier Latin
, where he was the dilettante and probably too popular for his own good. So he drank, so he kept company with actresses.” Rudolphe shrugged. “He’s home now, in New Orleans, and obviously prepared to be a serious man.”

Antoine had not yielded, however. The family had never seen him in such opposition to Rudolphe, and even Marcel had to admit later that there was about him some sincerity in all this, which was rare. Antoine was jealous of Richard, at least so Marcel thought. But here Antoine seemed genuinely concerned. And finally giving his uncle a frankly incredulous look had said, “But you’re not really considering it!…”

“Hold your tongue!” Rudolphe had pointed to his nephew. And then lapsing into a more practical tone of voice went on, “The man reads and writes ancient Greek fluently, he can recite from Aeschylus…from memory! His Latin is perfect, he knows all the poets, and Cicero, Caesar as well. And he’s fluent in English, besides. Richard has to learn English. I can’t understand him when he speaks English and I’m his father! The man deserves his chance, and if he’s half as good as he sounds, we’re fortunate to have him.”

But it was when Antoine pressed, his vague but angry statements obviously circling some point that he feared to make, that Rudolphe lost his temper. “I deplore gossip!” he said, leaning with wide eyes toward Antoine. “I tell you I will not listen to one more word about this teacher, do you hear me?”

It was finished. And both boys knew of course that as soon as Rudolphe let it be known that Richard would attend the new school, many of the other old families would follow his example.

But Christophe with a shrewdness they might not have expected
of him had also called upon Dolly Rose’s godmother, the rich and independent Celestina Roget. Might she consider enrolling Fantin who had not been in school for years? Of course if Celestina were to do this, her quadroon friends might follow her example just as the old families followed Rudolphe.

And Celestina was indeed considering such a move. After all, Fantin was a young man of property, and though that property was well managed, shouldn’t he perhaps know a little more of the basic skills, he didn’t read so well, Fantin, he couldn’t read English newspapers at all.

But what had influenced her in this decision—Fantin having proven “too nervous” for any extended educational effort so far—was her personal feeling for Christophe. She had known him as a boy. And Dolly, her godchild, had known him as a boy. And on that recent Sunday, at the funeral of Dolly’s little Lisa, it was Christophe who had saved the day.

Of course Richard had witnessed the events at the funeral just as he had witnessed Christophe’s meeting with Dolly at the wake the night before. But he could not tell anything of this to Marcel. He did not even tell Marcel that he had seen Christophe at all. The Lermontants never spoke of the private affairs of their clients, what happened in their homes was sacred, whether it be violent grief or quiet heroism, no mention was ever made. And Richard had been so strongly inculcated with this professional stance since childhood that he did not dare to say even utterly harmless things for fear this would lead him toward that bizarre bedroom conversation when Dolly had teased Christophe from her pillow and Christophe had teased her in return.

But Celestina had told the story of the funeral many times over. Everyone knew it by the week’s end.

It seems the white father of little Lisa had been there on Sunday over Dolly’s vociferous objections, and Christophe had come as well. And when the time came to nail shut the little coffin, Dolly began to scream. She tried to force her hand between the wood and the nails, and was pulled away. “Go on with it,” said the white man, and the Lermontants, believing it was best for everyone, including Dolly, began to drive in the nails, Monsieur Rudolphe comforting Dolly all the while. “No, no, don’t do it yet, stop it,” Dolly kept screaming, however, until finally they hoisted the little box onto the shoulders of the pallbearers and Dolly went wild. Then Christophe appeared, “You want it opened, Dolly?” he had asked. And Dolly, covering her mouth with her hand, nodded her head. “Monsieur,” Christophe turned to Rudolphe. “Dolly won’t see that child again in this life. Open the coffin. Let her say her farewell. She’ll be brief, I promise you, and then you can go on.”

And all this had sounded perfectly reasonable to those who’d thought Dolly hysterical a moment before. The coffin was opened, Dolly kissed her daughter and touched her daughter’s hair, and then bending low appeared to whisper a little chant to her daughter, telling her good-bye under all the little pet names the child had ever had, it was a poem coming from Dolly, they said, then it was over, and falling back on Christophe’s chest, she let them take the coffin away.

But Celestina was not above adding, good friend to Dolly though she was, that Christophe had remained alone in that flat with Dolly when all the other women had finally gone home.

“Imagine that!” Tante Colette had laughed later with Cecile. Cecile was disapproving of the turn this conversation had taken and glanced pointedly at Marcel. No one had to explain to Marcel that Dolly Rose had never been seen “in the company” of a man who wasn’t white.

“I’m quite sure he was there to comfort her,” said Tante Louisa. “The man’s to teach school after all, he has to think of his reputation.”

“His reputation?” Tante Colette had laughed. “What about hers?”

It would have been difficult to define Dolly’s reputation at any time before that, but by the following Friday it was damned near impossible, if Dolly had any reputation left at all. For on that evening, only five days after little Lisa’s death, she had dressed to the teeth and strolled boldly through the streets to the Salle d’Orleans where she danced the night away at the “quadroon ball.”

Eh bien
.

Meanwhile, workmen had begun to swarm over Christophe’s house, stripping paint from the streaked walls, hammering on the broken roof, filling the lazy afternoon with the clatter and boom of debris heaved from the heights onto the flags below. One could hear the scrape of shovels within the yard. And Juliet had been seen rushing to and from the market with her basket, properly dressed, her hair no longer a nest for the birds. Very soon fresh paint brightened the scraped shutters, clean glass sparkled in the sun, and from the back kitchen chimney rose the regular evening belch of smoke.

And on Saturday morning, just when Marcel’s excitement had reached a painful peak, Christophe himself appeared at the cottage door, bowing courteously to Cecile, the faint scent of pomade emanating from his brown curly hair, to ask if he might see Marcel that day, might Marcel consent to take him about the city for a while, be his guide?

Marcel was in heaven.

Christophe was amiable as they walked but very quiet, and when deep in his thoughts, his face would acquire that hardness that Marcel had noted when they first met. But now and again he would ask some
question, or nodding to Marcel’s tentative commentary, would smile. They roamed the market, stopping for a small cup of very black, very strong coffee which they drank on their feet, and went on, wandering finally into Exchange Alley, the domain of the fencing academies, and glimpsed that famous quadroon Maitre d’Armes, Basile Crockere, just stepping out of his fencing salon in the midst of his white students. A handsome man he was and a collector of cameos which he wore all about his person. And though no white man would fight a real duel with him, it was rumored he had buried quite a few opponents on foreign soil.

It was noon when they reached the Rue Canal, and early afternoon when they took the Carrollton Railroad uptown, past the massive Grecian mansions of the Faubourg Ste. Marie, where all was still beneath the spreading oaks, as if the white families had fled, one and all, to the country to escape the summer’s inevitable scourge of yellow fever. Early evening found them passing slowly through the glittering coffee shops, confectioners and cabarets of the Rue Chartres, where occasionally Christophe would glance through the plate glass at the flicker of gaslight, at the white faces, at the spirited movement within. Marcel’s heart contracted. He hastened to point out the sky, gone a rare and exquisite purple over the river, all but luminous behind the darkening trees, as if its extraordinary glow had nothing whatsoever to do with the dying sun. A serene smile softened Christophe’s features, and reaching out he did that inevitable thing which Marcel so hated from others, he touched Marcel’s tight yellow hair, “Ti Marcel,” he murmured. Marcel was indignant and deeply moved at the same time. Yet Christophe seemed to savor the evening, its fragrances, the coolness of the air, and as they stood beneath an old magnolia leaning out over the arch of a Spanish house, his eyes narrowed to pick out the distant white blooms. Marcel murmured that they had always frustrated him, because they were so high. Children sold them sometimes in wagons, but the waxy white petals were invariably bruised then, perhaps from being thrown from the heights. Christophe seemed heavy, almost sad. And then with the shameless agility of a street urchin, he climbed the wrought-iron carriage gate, and mounting the stone arch, broke loose an immense flower at its brittle stem. “Give that to your mother,” he said softly as he landed on his feet beside Marcel.

“Merci
, Monsieur,” Marcel smiled, taking it in both hands.

“And grant me one very special request,” Christophe said, putting his hand on Marcel’s shoulder as they walked home. “Don’t ever call me Monsieur again, call me Christophe.”

What had Christophe thought to hear of Dolly’s return to the “quadroon balls,” what had Christophe thought of all those gilded
billiard parlors, white men and women sipping chocolate through the windows of the fashionable Vincent’s, what was Christophe discovering all about him now that he was home? Marcel shuddered.

Alone again in Madame Lelaud’s on a Monday afternoon, his sketchbook before him, he let the pencil move sluggishly as he felt himself numbed by a vague and familiar pain. He had long ago erected between himself and the white world a wall that he was not eager to penetrate, but the thought of Christophe penetrated it for him, thrust him acutely against the doors that were closed to him, the lines of caste and race that he felt powerless to change. He thought of Rudolphe, shutting up the undertakers shop on days when death did not detain him, who might stop into the Hotel St. Louis long enough to gather the newspapers of the day, nod to white acquaintances, or even speak with them a moment under the rotunda, then walk quietly to his immense house in the Rue St. Louis where his valet, Placide, had ready for him his small glass of amontillado, the day’s mail. Would he give a thought to the bars where he could not drink, the restaurants where he could not dine? Rudolphe did not set foot in the shabby waterfront cabarets that served the common black man, and perhaps Marcel would not either as the years passed. Nor ride in the starred public cars for Negroes even if he must walk the length of the town.

But what does all this mean to a man who has strolled with other white-gloved gentlemen on the parquet of the Paris opera, to a man who has danced at the Tuileries?

Only that spring, another such world traveler had returned to New Orleans, and Marcel could well remember the outcome of that visit, as would others. This had been Charles Roget, Celestina’s eldest son.

All the Roget family was excited, of course, though Charles had warned by letter that his stay would be brief. And on the great day when he at last arrived with presents for everyone, a party was given that spilled over onto the front banquettes while the courtyard of the Roget house roared with gentle voices, the tinkle of glasses, and the shrill sound of violins. Marcel had glimpsed Charles hugging his brother, Fantin, bestowing kiss after kiss on his little sister, Gabriella, and chatting now and again with two white men who stood near the back gate smoking cigars. The young boys studied him, approving his elegant dress and the pomade that he wore in his hair. There seemed no touch of the Louisianian in his speech, he was a Parisian, had strolled the boulevards.