Rising Tides (24 page)

“I had one of those myself when I was a boy,” Ferris said. “Can you walk it?”

Phillip shook his head. He gazed curiously at Ferris, but he didn’t back away.

“Would you like me to show you how?”

“Yes, thank you.” Phillip handed Ferris the yo-yo.

Ferris noted an accent that wasn’t American, but wasn’t French, either. “Where did you learn English?”

“My mother’s American. My father was, too.”

“Oh, then you’re an American, too.”

“I guess so. But I live here.”

“Had some excitement this week, haven’t you?”

“Were you on one of the ships?”

“Sure was.” Ferris spun the yo-yo and tried to make it skim the ground. He almost succeeded.

“That must have been swell,” Phillip said with enthusiasm. “My mother and I were away.”

“Did you just get back?” Ferris tried the yo-yo again. This time he managed to make it walk a couple of feet.

“This afternoon. That’s great! Let me try.”

Ferris handed back the yo-yo. “Do you live here?”

Phillip pointed to Palm Court’s rear second story, just visible from the street. “Up there.”

“Is your mother’s name Nicky?”

“How did you know?”

“Well, I was supposed to find her and give her a message.”

“She’s upstairs. I’ll take you.”

“No. More tanks are coming, and you won’t want to miss them. I’ll go. Do I get in through the back?”

“The stairs are on the side over there.”

Ferris circled the building and found the stairs. Nicky’s eyes
were red when she answered the door. She stared at his swollen jaw, then she stood back so that he could enter.

She didn’t close the door. “I have plans,” she said when he was inside, “so say whatever you have to and leave.”

“What if I came here to tell you I was sorry?”

For a moment, something like hope flickered in her eyes. Then it died. “You’ve never been sorry for anything in your life, have you?”

“Yeah. I have. I’m sorry you’ve come between me and my brother.”

“Your prejudices came between you and your brother.”

“You know that? After a glance or two?” He laughed. “I guess you’re smarter than I thought.”

“Why did you come here?”

“I want you to leave Hap alone. I want you to tell him you won’t marry him.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you think you love him. And because you know that marriage to you will ruin his life.”

She walked to the window and fumbled for a cigarette on the smoking table. “Don’t you think I’ve almost told him that a million times?”

Surprised, he waited.

“I know what it’s like to be thought of as a Negro first and anything else second. Hap will be the man who married a colored girl. It’ll be the first thing people see when they look at him. He won’t be asked to continue in government service after the war. No American business will hire him, not even as a foreign representative. Whatever he’s able to do will be less than what he might have achieved.”

“You know all that, and you’re still hanging on to him?”

She turned. “Hap and I both know it. We’ve talked about
it. I’ve agonized. But when it comes right down to it, I’m not brave enough or good enough to tell him to go.”

“Why should you? You’re going to be a nigger for the rest of your life. You can’t do anything about that. So why not drag my brother right along behind you?”

“I love your brother.”

“Do you?” Ferris moved closer. “Or do you love what he can give you? Sure, he’ll throw away a career if he marries you, but he’ll still have Gulf Coast Ship ping. By Louisiana law, our parents can’t even disown him, though my father can sure make his life hell. But when all’s said and done, there’ll still be a nice little nest egg for the two of you. You’ll have your white boy and his money.”

“It’s time for you to leave.”

He closed the distance between them. “I don’t have much respect left for my brother, but I owe him some thing. I want you out of his life. What will it take to convince you?”

She gave him a languid once-over with her eyes. “Not a thing you could offer.”

“How much money?”

“Doesn’t your kind prefer strong rope and a tree limb?”

“I’ve got money.” Up close, Nicky was even more attractive than Ferris had realized. His brother was a fool, but at least he’d had plenty of reason to lose his head. Ferris almost felt sorry for Hugh. He trailed a finger down her cheek. “I’ve got everything my brother’s got.”

“Except integrity.”

“How many white men have you used this way?”

“Aren’t you asking how many more I’d be willing to use?”

He shoved her against the window, and the unlit cigarette
fell to the floor. “I want you to leave my brother alone,” he said. “Get out of Casablanca, and don’t see Hap again.”

She straightened. “Get out of my apartment.”

He shoved her once more, but this time she jammed a knee in his crotch. Then, as he yelped and bent double, she skirted him and started for the door. She’d gone only a few feet when he knocked her to the floor. He pulled her under him and slapped her. “Get out of my brother’s life!”

“Leave my mother alone!” Phillip charged into the room. He sprang at Ferris and began to pummel him.

Ferris shoved him away, and Phillip fell to the floor. Ferris slapped Nicky again, but she was like a wild thing beneath him. He couldn’t hold on to her, and he couldn’t protect himself from her fists. He bent lower to grab her hands.

The room dimmed. For a moment he felt nothing, but he noticed that the lights were flickering. Then pain roared through his head.

“Leave my mother alone!” He looked up and saw that the boy was standing over him with a brass lamp.

“You hit me….” Ferris tried to figure out if it was true.

Nicky pushed him away, and he seemed powerless to prevent it. She got to her feet. “Phillip, go get Abdul. Now! Tell him we’ve got trash in the apartment that has to be put out.”

Phillip looked as if he weren’t sure whether to leave. “Now,” she ordered.

He dropped the lamp and fled.

“You’ve got about a minute,” Nicky said. “You can get out of here on your own two legs, or you can let Abdul toss you in the gutter. What’s it going to be?”

He began to curse, and she folded her arms. He got to his feet, still calling forth the wrath of centuries. Finally he fell silent.

“You know,” she said, “if you’d come here because you loved Hap, it might have been different. But you didn’t. You want me out of his life because you’re afraid. You’re a pathetic little piss-poor coward who’s so terrified of change that he does anything he can to make sure the world stays exactly the same. Has your life been so terrible that every time something new is waiting around the next bend it scares you to death?”

“You’re going to ruin my brother’s life.” He bent slowly and lifted his hat off the floor.

“I make your brother happy.”

He started for the door. A muscular man in Arab garb waited there. The boy was beside him.

“Little nigger bastards have hung for less,” Ferris told Phillip as he edged past the Arab.

“You ever touch my mother again, I’ll kill you!”

Ferris looked into the boy’s eyes and saw that he meant it. Something almost like fear shot through him, and he thought about Nicky’s words.

Exactly what kind of world was waiting around the next bend?

A
urore swung slowly back and forth on the wide gallery of Ti’ Boo’s home in Côte Boudreaux. Pelichere had given her dried beans to shell, but her hands were still.

One week ago she had received a long-delayed letter from Hugh, and she was desperately afraid for him. If her father had loved anyone, it was Marcelite Cantrelle, a woman he, in his own weakness, had condemned to death. Rafe had been lost to Aurore by society’s prejudices and her own lack of courage. And now her beloved son had found his own impossible love.

Nicky Valentine was a Negro, and Hugh, who didn’t know their love was impossible, was going to marry her. He was braver than his mother and his grandfather, a man willing to reach for happiness and hold it close. Aurore knew her son well. Nothing would sway him from his decision. He would never return to Louisiana, be cause his marriage would be declared illegal if he did. Hugh was as good as lost to her.

Aurore was afraid for her son, but she was afraid for Nicky Valentine, too. She had searched her own heart and found no anger in it for the woman who had captured her son’s. She
felt only fear for them both. They would endure so much. She prayed that their love was strong enough to sustain them.

“Drink some coffee, Ro-Ro. You didn’t drink or eat a thing this morning.”

Aurore reached for the cup Ti’ Boo held out to her. She hadn’t even realized her friend was standing beside the swing. “I wish you wouldn’t worry about me. You’re supposed to be resting. I came to Lafourche to take care of you.”

“Me? I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me.
Le bon Dieu
knows I’m needed here. He won’t take me yet.”

Aurore wasn’t so sure. Pelichere had phoned Aurore from her home on Côte Boudreaux to tell her that Ti’ Boo was ill but refused to see a doctor. Instead, Ti’ Boo had asked a neighbor’s son to take her to the back of Lafourche, to a cabin in the swamps where a
traiteur
lived. The
traiteur,
a healer, had prayed over her, then given her herbs for tea and a charm to put under her bed.

Aurore had arrived on the next boat.

Ti’ Boo insisted she was fine, but Aurore had been shocked to see that her friend had lost so much weight that her clothes hung from her large-boned frame. Her hair was wispy and dull, and her cheeks were sunken. Only her dark eyes were the same.

“Ti’ Boo, you’ve got to see a doctor,” Aurore said. She accepted the coffee, noticing as she did that Ti’ Boo’s hands trembled. “I’m going to stay here until you do.”

“You were thinking about Hugh.”

“And now I’m thinking about you.”

Ti’ Boo lowered herself to the swing beside her friend. “There’s nothing a doctor can tell me I don’ know, Ro-Ro.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’re not going to talk about me. Hugh, he’s got to find his own path. You can’t interfere.”

“I know.”

“So you’re not going to stop him? You’re not going to tell him he can’t marry this woman?”

“No.”

Ti’ Boo fished something from the wide pocket of her apron. “Then I can give you this. It came from New Or leans. Peli just brought it to me.”

Aurore took a letter with brightly colored stamps from Ti’ Boo’s hand. “It’s from Hugh.”

“I’ll go inside. I’ll let you read it alone.”

Aurore put her hand on Ti’ Boo’s arm to restrain her. She thought of everything Ti’ Boo had helped her weather. Now her friend was ill, but still Aurore needed her strength. “No. Please? Will you stay?”

Ti’ Boo settled back. “Me, I’ll watch the boats on the bayou. That’s what I do best now.”

Aurore tore open the letter, noting how long it had taken to reach her. “He says he’s well.” She fell silent, finishing it. Her hands began to tremble. She read it again; she had to read it again. Surely she hadn’t understood the first time.

“Ro-Ro?” Ti’ Boo took her hand. “What’s wrong?”

Aurore began to sob. And as she had so often since Aurore’s childhood, Ti’ Boo took her in her arms.

Hugh didn’t really understand why he had been summoned to Washington. He had made suggestions on ways to sabotage Axis trade routes, and perhaps they were now to be taken seriously. But the command to appear in Washington several days after Christmas had been cryptic. He was to return to the U.S.
for a conference with his superiors. He was to leave nothing of importance behind.

Instead, he had brought nothing of importance with him. Nicky and Phillip were his life, and they were still in Morocco. If today he was offered an important position in a place where he couldn’t bring them, he would try to refuse it. Perhaps he had distinguished himself enough to be considered for a more prestigious assignment, but his skills were still needed in Africa. He was sure he could convince his superiors.

Hugh had visited Washington as a schoolboy. To a child, the city had been overwhelming, a bustling metropolis dotted with historic monuments and scenic vistas. Now bustle had become chaos. Despite gasoline rationing, the streets were crowded with cars and the sidewalks with people swarming to and from government offices. Housing was in short supply and hotel vacancies nonexistent. He would bunk on a cot in a YMCA dormitory during his stay.

The office where he was supposed to have his meeting was in a solid, unimposing building near the Capitol, and he arrived on a streetcar packed with office workers and soldiers. He was early, and he killed the extra half hour huddled in the folds of his overcoat, pacing the chilly streets. He noted a few bedraggled remnants of Christmas, a deteriorating wreath, windows edged with graying-soapsuds snow. But the nation’s Capitol seemed to have quickly forgotten the holiday and gone back to its business of making war.

Nicky had seemed upset when he said goodbye, but she had refused to voice her concerns. He had assured her that the freighter on which he was sailing would be safe from U-boat attack and that he would be back in a month’s time. They had exchanged their Christmas presents the night before he sailed. He had given her a car pet for her apartment, woven in shades
of red, blue and green of the finest Moroccan wool by the finest family of weavers in the old medina. Wool was thought to bring good luck, and Berber craftsmen often tied strands of it in their headdresses. Hugh had promised that the car pet would bring them luck, too. He had told her that she was to think of him each time she walked across it—and she was to place it where she could cross it often.

Nicky had given him a leather chair and embroidered cushions for his apartment, but at the dock she had slipped another package inside his coat. He had opened it on board. It was the gold locket she had worn next to her heart for so many years. The gold locket with his mother’s picture.

Now he fingered the locket as he made his way to his appointment. He had attached it to his watch chain, and on the trip to Washington he had often found himself tracing the etched design of roses with his fingers. He hadn’t written to Aurore to tell her that he was coming home. He planned to complete his business, then take a train to New Orleans and confront her face-to-face. He hadn’t received an answer to either of his letters, and he didn’t know what to expect when he saw her. In his worst nightmares, he hadn’t imagined that Ferris would react as he had. Now his faith in his mother was shaken, too.

He arrived at the appropriate office and announced himself. The receptionist gave him an odd look and asked him to be seated. A few minutes later she ushered him into a small office at the end of a labyrinth of hall ways.

His mother stood at the window. No one else was present. She turned when the door opened, but she didn’t greet him. Her cheeks were visibly streaked with tears. The door closed behind him, and they were alone.

“Mamere?” He didn’t move from the doorway. His mind whirled as he tried to make sense of this.

“Hugh.” She didn’t move toward him.

She had aged in the years he was away. His heart turned over, but he couldn’t move. She was so distraught. He was afraid she would shatter if he touched her. “What is it?”

“You got here safely. I was so afraid…”

“We had an escort. Mamere, what is it? Why are you here?”

“I’ve tried for weeks to think of a way to tell you this. I still don’t know how.”

The room was small and stacked with boxes. Two chairs took up a corner. He gestured toward them, afraid that if she didn’t sit, she might collapse.

She crossed the room and took one; he took the other. She didn’t reach for his hand. She didn’t even offer her cheek for a kiss. She stared at him, but she didn’t speak.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said gently.

“You’ll hate me when I do.”

“That’s not possible.”

“You’ll hate me, and I’ll deserve it.”

“Why not tell me and find out? You might be wrong.”

“I only wish.” She began to cry. He reached for her, but she wrenched away. “Hugh, I’ve destroyed you!”

“Is this about Nicky? Has Ferris written you?”

“Ferris?” She seemed confused.

He felt apprehension growing inside him. “What is it? You’ve got to tell me.”

“I got your letters.”

He sat back, convinced now that he knew the source of her agitation. “Not you, too. Have you gotten me here from Morocco to try to persuade me not to marry Nicky? Because you can’t.”

“Oh, God, don’t tell me you already have.”

“Not yet, but not because of me.”

“Then she’s refusing?”

“She’s waiting.” After Ferris’s visit, Hugh had asked Nicky to marry him, but she had refused. He still wasn’t sure why. He had asked her repeatedly if something had happened to make her even more hesitant, but she had never answered directly. She had just insisted that they had to wait, that he had to be sure. And assuring her hadn’t been good enough.

“You can’t marry her, Hugh.”

“I
can
marry her, and I’m
going
to.” He got to his feet, sickened by her betrayal. “I thought better of you. Maybe all Ferris’s prejudices don’t just come from our father.”

“Sit down.”

“Why? So you can tell me how you brought me all the way from Morocco to persuade me I’m making a mistake? Did you go to some official in the agency and ask him to intercede for you? Did you tell him why?”

“I didn’t tell him why! And you don’t know why!” She began to cry again.

Something twisted inside him. Until Nicky, he had truly loved only two people, his mother and Ferris. Now Ferris was out of his life, and his mother was sobbing in front of him. All because he loved a woman forbid den by law and custom to him.

“How can you be this way?” he asked. “You were the one who taught me that all human beings are equal.”

“This has nothing to do with equality.” She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. She didn’t look at him. “You have to tell me two things before I can go on. Is Nicky’s real name Nicolette Cantrelle?”

“Then it
is
your picture in the locket. You knew her as a child. Her mother was your friend.”

“How did she get to France, Hugh? Do you know who she went there with? How old she was?”

“She went with a friend of her father’s, a jazz musician named Clarence Valentine. Her father was killed in Chicago.”

Aurore clutched the handkerchief to her mouth. As he had spoken, she had seemed to grow visibly paler and older. Fear began to replace his anger, and an answer formed. An unthinkable answer. He wanted to flee the room.

“Sit down, Hugh.”

“Just tell me.”

“Will you believe me when I say that you can’t ever see Nicky again? Will you do it without question, be cause you trust me and have never had cause to doubt my word?”

He already knew the truth. It was now as clear to him as anything had ever been. But he shook his head slowly. If he was going to be forced to live with this horror, he had to hear it from her lips.

She gazed into his eyes, begging silently for forgive ness. “Nicky is your sister. She was my first child. And now you know why you can never go back to Morocco.”

She had lost Hugh, and although her daughter was not dead, she had lost Nicolette, too, as surely as if she were.

Aurore stared out the train window at the long stretch of marsh that was New Orleans’s welcome mat. Her legs ached, but her heart ached more. Even if she had been able to secure a bed in the sleeping car, she wouldn’t have used it. The scenery had kept her from going mad. Like a child, she had counted cows and, after dark, the lights of houses, all in a vain attempt to keep from envisioning Hugh’s face when he had realized the truth.

He had stood as rigid as a soldier. He had aged a hundred years before her eyes.

“You didn’t know,” she’d said. “You couldn’t have known she was your sister. God will forgive you.”

“Do you think it’s only God who worries me?” he’d asked at last. “Are you concerned even a little about your daughter?”

She had explained as best she could how she had believed for twenty-three years that Nicolette was dead. She had tried to make him understand how she had loved Nicolette’s father but hadn’t been courageous enough to overcome generations of hatred. She had told him of the two times she had spoken to her daughter, of the terrible turmoil, of the agony of giving away her own child, then learning later that Nicolette had died. His expression hadn’t changed and might never change again. His wounds were so deep that they would affect his every breath, every step, for the rest of his life.

“You didn’t want her.” He shook his head. “How could you not have wanted your own flesh and blood?”

“I couldn’t have her! Where could I have taken her?”

“And now? Do you want her now? Are you glad she’s alive?”

“I don’t know what to feel! She’s alive, and you’re in love with her. I’ve destroyed you both!”

“Yes.” He turned away.

“Hugh, you can’t tell her.”

“You still don’t want her. It’s a different era, and you still don’t want her.”

“No! Think! Would you tell her that you’re her brother? Which will be worse for her, if you disappear, or if she finds that she’s been—?” She couldn’t finish.

He murmured something that sounded like a prayer.