Chapter 16 –
Aftermath
I screamed as loudly as I ever have in my life. Folks might have run to my room to see what was the matter, but they were screaming too. If forty million people were watching the scene in front of the court house, then forty million people were screaming. How could this be? She was the nation’s hostess, and here she was, slumped in Andrees’ arms, red blood running everywhere across her pure white dress. Was there any chanced she was alive? No. There were too many wounds, too much blood. And you could see in Andrees’ actions, she was dead. He held her, hugged her, wrapped his huge arms around her. His cries went on and on.
I stared at my computer. It made no logical sense, but I also turned on my TV. Was the outcome going to be any different? Of course not, but I was not being rational. I wanted another source. The channels all showed the plaza, most using the same feeds as the website. Some had talking heads making inane observations, comments about things we could see for ourselves. Most channels I checked had the good sense to just shut up. What could you say? There had been a slaughter, and among the many killed was Margaret Riemard.
At some point I went down to the lobby. Why? Maybe just to see if other people had seen what I had seen. Maybe just to see other people. There were fifteen or twenty people standing in the lobby or in the adjoining dining room. No one said a word. All were staring at the TV in the corner. It was funny, no one sat. Maybe it felt disrespectful to sit. Everyone stood in complete silence and watched.
Time passed and ambulances arrived, and medical people. One emergency worker, running up the stairs to help the wounded, slipped on all the blood and landed on his face. Others moved more carefully, working their way from the fringes of the plaza, back to the people closer to the building. Out on the fringes, they paused, looked, knelt by each body, but it was clear these people were beyond help. Back toward the building they were able to find survivors. Each survivor drew more and more attention as more medical people arrived. But they also drew more attention because there were so few survivors. No newscaster had been stupid enough to do a body count or estimate, but all of us could count for ourselves. At least a dozen were down and not moving. Several others were making feeble gestures, gravely wounded, on the edge of death. Seven or eight wounded were getting all the attention. Those were the people who might survive.
Andrees sat with Margaret in his arms. Several times emergency personnel knelt at his side to check on Margaret, but each time they said something to Andrees and then moved on. He held her in his arms, sometimes gently rocking her. His face was generally lowered toward her, but when it was visible, his tears were flowing. He looked as anguished as if she had been his own daughter.
Eventually they started bringing body bags around. Here the video feed was cut, with an announcement saying it was to respect the dead. The last scene before the cut was of Andrees, holding Margaret almost protectively as the men with the body bags came toward him. He shouted something at them, and held her even tighter, and then the cameras went black.
With the plaza video gone, the TV showed newsrooms, the usual news readers sitting behind their usual desks. The news readers tried to explain what we had just seen, providing some background information about the constitutional convention meeting that had been going on all day. They referred to the schedule that had been posted by the meeting folks, showed some footage of the meeting room, and then switched to the scene at the plaza and reran the assault footage.
I couldn’t watch any more. I walked into the dining area and asked for a bottle of cognac. While I stood waiting for it, the manager approached.
“Please Professor Murphy, do not leave the hotel tonight. Things will be very bad now.” I nodded and pointed to the bottle the waiter was bringing me.
“She was a beautiful woman, wasn’t she?” I asked. The manager agreed. I went back to my room. I shut off the TV and my computer and my phone. I cried through the first two glasses of cognac.
As evening came on I stopped drinking. I also stopped thinking, or even moving. I just stared at the wall of my suite. My mind seemed to be set on pause. Time passed. At some point I was aware of sirens in the distance. How long had they been wailing? I had no idea. I found myself listening to them. I thought they might be coming from several locations. The manager had been right. Things were going bad. Sirens were never good news. Things were happening in New Orleans. They were probably happening all over Louisiana. Bad things. The sirens were distant. I was safe. Other people weren’t.
At some point that evening I called Elise. I am not sure if I made much sense. I was pretty drunk. She knew about the massacre and knew Margaret had died. I was glad I did not have to describe the scene. I do not think I could have done that. I think I said “Hi”, and I think I told her I was in my hotel. And I am pretty sure I was not crying. Elise said she was sorry I had lost a good friend. She was also very glad I was in my hotel. Bad things were happening all over Louisiana. Cathedrals were being burned. I suspect she knew much more about the horrors underway that night, but she chose not to tell me. This was to be a quiet call to a man in mourning. The call probably did not last five minutes. The point was not to share lots of information, the point was just to hear each other’s voice. I told her I loved her and missed her, and then I got off the line. Two minutes later I went to bed.
I awoke around dawn and stood by one of the open balcony doors. There was a smell coming into the room – wood smoke. It was not intense. I did not fear that the building was on fire. But clearly some thing – or things – was on fire. I closed the door, showered, and slowly replaced my bandages and got dressed. I had no idea how I would spend the day, but it felt good to start with the usual routine. I went down to the dining room thinking I would try to at least eat some croissants.
The lobby had a different feel to it. It was still silent, as it had been yesterday while the views of the massacre were coming over the TV, but somehow now it seemed even more silent. I realized the TV was on, but the sound was off. I glanced at it as I crossed to a table and I realized why none of the dozen or so people in the area were speaking. Louisiana was on fire. Or at least every cathedral in the province was burning. The TV would alternate scenes of burning churches with maps of various places so viewers could tell which cathedral was on fire. And then I saw another reason for the silence. There were bodies. Many were wearing clerical robes. Two were hanging from a tree in front of their church. The night had been very, very ugly.
By the time I got to a table, the scene had changed. Now the TV was showing pictures of military trucks. Soldiers were heading somewhere. There seemed to be long rows of trucks, and they were moving fast. The labels at the bottom of the screen identified the units as Louisiana National Army. There was going to be a battle somewhere. No destination was identified; it would have been odd for an army to tell its enemy where it planned to attack. All we could see was trucks moving. Based on shadows, they seemed to be moving north.
I was sitting at a table in the dining room, and I didn’t remember ordering breakfast, but I found a plate of fruit, croissants with butter, and a cup of coffee at my place. How do you eat breakfast while watching a war get started? I don’t know, but I did it.
Other people in the lobby drifted away. A few ate as I did, others went back to their rooms, a few ventured out the hotel entrance, looking fairly cautious as they pushed the door open. What do you do when the world is falling apart? Apparently you still do something, even if it is just to go outside for a walk. I finished my breakfast – something else you apparently still do when the world is falling apart. I decided I would go out too. It would still be dangerous, but with so many people fighting so many people, maybe no one would pay any attention to me. And I needed to see something other than the inside of this hotel.
The weather turned out to be very pleasant. There was plenty of smoke in the
air, but the temperatures had not gotten too high yet, and the humidity did not oppress. In short, it was a good day for a walk, and if people had not made a mess of things yesterday and last night, nature would have presented us with a very pleasant day. It would have been a day for deep breaths and wide smiles. Instead, it was a day of anxiety. What might be around the next corner? What might be charging down the next street?
I had walked about four blocks before I realized where I was going. Unconsciously, I had started for the plaza in front of the provincial courthouse. It was about ten blocks from my hotel. As I got closer I realized I was not the only one drawn to the location. Others were headed there too, and hundreds had gathered at the site. A makeshift memorial had been set up. A chain-link security fence had been put around the base of the stairs, and set in front of the fence were all kinds of flowers. Some were bouquets obviously bought for the occasion; others were just flowers picked from a home garden. Among them were written notes taped to the fence - hearts, mostly, but also some white sheets of poetry, some pictures, some newspaper clippings describing the massacre.
At one point along the fence was a sign in the blue and white of the Heritage Party. It said “Our 17 martyrs will never be forgotten.” There were some flowers there, but most were farther down the fence near a sign that simply said “Margaret.” I looked over the fence at the stairs where Andrees had been holding her. I was crying. The stairs had been cleaned. There was nothing to see, just courthouse stairs, but I stood and I looked, and I cried. At some point I realized I was not alone. Standing at my shoulder was Colonel Goulet.
“I loved her before you did. And I loved her more. You were a challenge to her. You were the distant, the foreign, the unique. I was the boy next door. She knew she had me whenever she wanted me.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“You were lucky to be her friend. We both were.”
“The men who did this will pay.”
“They were all killed yesterday.”
“You’re a moron. None of them were killed yesterday. But they will be.”
“Killing priests won’t bring her back. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“Priests had nothing to do with this.”
“Who?” I turned and looked at him. “Who?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“I want a piece of this.”
“If you want to help, take this account number to your consulate.” He gave me a piece of paper.
“The consulate people tried to kill me three days ago.”
“You’re dumb, even for an American. Find someone at the consulate who won't kill you. If you want to know who attacked you, check that account.” He turned and walked away. I was tempted to grab him and ask him more questions, but I let him walk away. This was not the place for a confrontation.
So now what? As I stood there two more young women came to the fence and put flowers beneath Margaret’s name. The pile was really just a jumble, but it was heart-felt. I wished I had something to add. I felt around my pockets and found the plastic bookmark she had given me. It was a “commemorative souvenir” I would not want to keep. I knelt down by the fence, put the book mark by the flowers, and said a prayer. I was still crying as I walked away.