Crescent City

  David sighed. In the sunlight the fountain splashed so prettily, with its graceful cascades so polished and smooth. The whole pastel city, polished and perfumed, was rotting underneath.

  Miriam was looking at the ground. Her head drooped sadly.

  He thought he knew what she was thinking. “You’re thinking that now you will never get away. That’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she answered, in a voice so low that he could barely hear her. “It was never realistic, anyway. I should have known that.”

  Still, there is something else, he persisted to himself. She has not told me all. He did not know how he knew, yet he knew. But if it was not the woman Queen, what was it, then?

  He tried one more time. “You don’t want to tell me anything else?”

  “There isn’t anything else.”

  “Well,” he said, giving up, “well, I’ve calls to make. A gangrenous foot. I’d better go.”

  Miriam saw him first. Eugene had gone that morning for the daily drive with Maxim or Chanute that, after a season or two, had become his routine. Where he went, she had no need to ask. So it surprised her now to see him there on a bench in the square, with his blind eyes turned up toward the streaming light and a cluster of pigeons around his feet. Puzzled, she looked about for the carriage or a servant, but neither was in sight; something warned her then to go on past and leave Eugene alone.

  Angelique cried, “Look! There’s Father! What’s he doing here by himself?”

  “Leave him! He wants …” she began, but the children had gone running to their father.

  Eugene was not there by himself. A few feet behind him stood a tall boy holding a sketch pad on a board; when, gracefully, with a motion almost feminine, he threw a handful of corn to the birds, Miriam knew at once who he was. That grim scene flashed again; the cramped, gaudy room, Eugene writhing on a couch, the woman passionately weeping, the scared boy hovering .…

  She had no choice now but to face the moment

  “The doctors want me to exercise,” Eugene was saying, “so Pierre took me for a walk.”

  His name was Pierre. She wondered what he used for a last name.

  Young Eugene said stoutly, “I could take you, Father. Why didn’t you ask me?”

  “You’re not old enough yet to lead me, son.”

  “I’m almost as big as he is! How old are you?” young Eugene demanded of the other boy.

  “Thirteen.” The, voice was almost a whisper, deferential, as were the backward steps taken to give space to the thrusting pair of seven-year-olds. Yet the eyes were curiously bold, moving in turn from the twins to Miriam.

  He knows who we are, she thought. He remembers me, of course. But he must have been told everything even before that. How strange it is that they always know all about us, while we don’t even know they exist!

  And she wondered what Eugene’s eyes would have said had they been able to meet hers during this discomfiting encounter.

  “Come, children,” she urged brightly, “your father wants to rest. Come along home.”

  But they protested. Angelique could be especially stubborn.

  “Why must we? Father, you don’t want us to go home now, do you?”

  “I think you should. Do what your mother tells you.”

  Little Eugene stood on his toes to see the drawing board.

  “What are you drawing?” he wanted to know.

  “The pigeons.” And Pierre, lowering the board, faced it outward so that Miriam could see his work.

  He had caught in simple charcoal, black against white, the myriad gradations of iridescent feathering. He had caught the heaving motion of the flock, the peck and rise, the flutter and strut. The little sketch had a startling beauty. Miriam felt a sudden softness in herself. The way he stood there, so shy of speech, so painfully conscious of the situation, and still proud enough to want them to see his work!

  “It’s lovely,” she said. And something, some sense of pity or fairness, compelled her to give this perception to her husband. “Pierre is talented, Eugene. Professional.”

  He did not reply. His face was flushed.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” asked Angelique.

  “I have art lessons.”

  “You can’t go to school,” the little girl said.

  Miriam could only wince at the cruelty of the remark. For, at seven, what could a child know? Only enough to know that color was status, to know without being told who was one of the Others, who was a servant in his proper place, which did not include school.

  “Blaise can draw,” said little Eugene. “Blaise belongs to my father and mother. Who do you belong to?”

  “To Mr. Mendes,” Pierre replied. The statement was flat, conveying no more than the fact. For an instant his hand brushed Eugene’s shoulder, then was removed, as though he had quickly recalled the fitness of things.

  Conceived, most probably, by accident, thought Miriam. And probably unwanted; at least, it was doubtful that Eugene had wanted this superfluous boy .… She felt oppressed, saddened, angry, and bewildered.

  “I insist you come home now!” Her voice was so sharp that the children turned to her in surprise.

  Abruptly Eugene stood up, seizing his cane.

  “You will find Maxim at the carriage,” he directed Pierre. “Tell him that I have walked home.”

  Miriam asked Eugene, “Are you sure you can walk so far?” Her anxiety was affected, the question merely a thing of words to fill air and time as she guided him out of the square.

  “It’s my sight that I’ve lost, not my legs.”

  The children had once more run ahead. The incident in the square, which for them had been without significance, now lay behind them; they were having an argument over the ownership of a white cat that had recently strayed into the yard.

  After a minute or two Eugene spoke again. “Go on. Say what you have to say. Get it over with.”

  “I’d rather not.” Confusion was still in her. She wasn’t even sure how she felt, or ought to feel.

  “Well, it happened this way. I quite thoughtlessly accepted the boy’s suggestion that we go for a walk.” He spoke sternly, covering his own embarrassment over a situation in which a gentleman should not have allowed himself to be caught. “Quite thoughtlessly … a public place … It will not happen again.”

  No reply was needed. And Miriam concentrated her thoughts on her two, who were by now far ahead. It was lucky they weren’t both boys, or both girls. There would have been much more rivalry. This way they really got on quite well, considering how young they were. So she consoled herself for her other lacks with her satisfaction in her children.

  At the same time the image of that other child floated through her head and steadied itself there; his narrow hands on the drawing board, his lowered lashes, and when he raised them, the unanswerable question in his eyes.

  14

  “So life goes on,” Emma said brightly, opening another invitation as she read her mail at the breakfast table. She had at last accepted her position in the Mendes household with remarkable grace. A valiant lady, Miriam reflected. It took real courage to learn the art of receiving when one had always been a dispenser of gifts.

  “Do you suppose, Miriam my dear,” Emma inquired now, “that you could persuade your cook to make bière douce sometime? My Serafina used to do it for your father. He loves it and it’s quite simple, really, just a few pineapple peelings, brown sugar, cloves, and rice.”

  “I’ll tell her, Aunt Emma.”

  “Thank you, my dear. Oh, my, listen to this! My cousin Grace writes about that awful Tremont business. The old lady was a cousin of Grace’s on the other side, you remember. Murdered in her bed! By a crowd of savages whom she’d raised and fed from childhood!”

  “It’s said, though, that her son was a cruel man. He sold them away without heart and they were badly fed,” Miriam began, but was stopped by a snort from Eugene.

  “Rubbish! That’s what they always say. Abolition
ist rubbish!”

  “Oh, see,” Emma said, “here’s a letter from Marie Claire. My goodness, she’s given a lieder recital. Had a fine reception. Her teacher predicts increasing success. Isn’t that amazing! I always knew she could sing, but I really never thought she would … oh, they have made some fine contacts in Paris .… The Baroness Pontalba … you knew she’s from New Orleans, didn’t you, Miriam? Yes, it was her father who built the cathedral, the cabildo, and the presbytère. They married her off to Pontalba when he came here from France, and it never worked out. It’s just all wrong, I always say, forcing or coaxing a marriage—they’re both the same when you come down to it—it doesn’t work out.”

  “No,” Miriam assented faintly. It was hard to believe what she was hearing from the same Emma who had—well, no matter now.

  “There was such a scandal. Quarrels over money, you know. Her father-in-law, the old baron, tried to kill her, then shot himself. My word, Marie Claire writes that the baroness is coming back here to build on her property in the Place d’Armes. The Perrins may eventually buy an apartment there when they’re finished. Goodness! They’re planning to sell their house!”

  “Who is? What house?” Miriam asked in the same faint voice.

  “Why, the new house that they’ve never lived in. How strange!”

  “Do they say when they’re coming back?”

  “Let’s see. No. They are planning to stay abroad a while longer because of her progress .… Oh, but André must be disappointed .… To think he planned that wonderful house himself .… Well, if they move to the Place d’Armes, I know Pelagie will be pleased. They’ll be around the corner. Pelagie was always rather fond of Marie Claire, odd as she is. And André is so agreeable, don’t you think so, Miriam?”

  “Oh, yes, most agreeable.”

  “The whole thing’s disgraceful,” Eugene said contemptuously. “Singing. I don’t know why he puts up with it.”

  Eulalie nodded agreement, and then remembering that Eugene could not see the nod, repeated, “Disgraceful.”

  Eulalie, who had been staying in her sister’s town house, had been spending most of her days with Eugene, reading aloud to him and waiting on him, moving his chair from sun to shade. A curious relationship had developed. Eugene is a Jew, but she overlooks that, Miriam thought, because he allows her to serve him. He accepts her and no other man ever has. They made an odd contrast, he with his lavish beard and she with her scanty hair, too thin even to hold her combs.

  “Where’s my son?” the father asked now. “I haven’t seen him since this morning.”

  Eulalie stood up. “I’ll fetch him for you.”

  The children, especially the boy—or could it, Miriam thought bitterly, perhaps be “boys,” to include that other one?—were all Eugene still cared about. Except for them he had removed himself from everything that had once filled his life. He was a crumbling castle, falling into ruin. His long silences were almost more disturbing than his tempers had been. She tried to comfort him, to reach out to him in his disaster, to tell him he was not alone.

  “Don’t,” he would say. “You don’t mean it. We don’t mean it.”

  She protested. “I do mean it, Eugene. What kind of a human being do you think I am?” She had suggested a club, the Pelican Club, where doctors and lawyers, bankers and brokers, met to play brag and eat dinners prepared by a superb French chef.

  “The finest people in the city belong,” she said, appealing to his snobbishness.

  And he had retorted, “I already know the finest people in the city. Clubs are all right for Anglo-Saxons. I’m a Creole and we don’t need clubs.”

  You’re a Jew, she thought, not a Creole, but of course a Jew could align himself with whatever forces he wished. Very well, Eugene had chosen to consider himself a Creole.

  She had suggested that he be driven to the office every morning. Someone there could read reports to him and he would make decisions as before.

  He had refused that, too. “No, Scofield is a good enough manager. I’ll leave things in his hands.”

  Miriam wasn’t so sure. Last month Scofield had brought a note to be signed.

  “What’s this?” Eugene had inquired after his listless hand had been guided to write his signature.

  “Nothing of any great importance,” Scofield had told him. “I had to borrow from the bank. Just temporarily to tide us over the month until they pay for the last London shipment.”

  As he was leaving, Miriam had stopped the man in the hall. “Why do we have to borrow, Mr. Scofield? We never had to before, did we?”

  And he had looked at her with insolence in his eyes, while giving a courteous answer. “Nothing to worry about at all, ma’am. A common business practice. A lady shouldn’t have to worry herself with such things.”

  But she had burned with anger.

  Now she tried to put these thoughts at the back of her mind. “Shall you be coming this afternoon to the temple dedication, Eugene?”

  “No. I can’t see it, so why should I go?”

  She had expected the refusal, for he had a dread of showing his infirmity in public places. She understood that.

  When at certain angles the light struck his glasses, one could see the shriveled, dead-white eyes. Scorched flesh shone hideously pink from forehead to cheek.

  She had a mixture of feelings: first pity, then shuddering horror, then shame, a shame all the more painful because Eugene had never with the slightest word alluded to her father’s part in his disaster.

  Spring sunshine fell on the crowd at the corner of Canal and Bourbon streets. It whitened six tall Ionic columns under the splendid entablature of what had once been Christ Church Episcopal and was now, through the beneficence of Judah Touro, becoming the Nefutzoth Yehudah Synagogue. The splendid organ was still pealing after the service while a crowd of the rich and famous, Jew and non-Jew alike, in flowered bonnets and silk hats, lingered on the sidewalk to watch the dignitaries.

  “The choir was magnificent,” said Rosa. Her eyes fell fondly on her sons. “Your father would have been in his glory today. Look, there’s Isaac Leeser, come all the way from Philadelphia.”

  “He’s staying at Kursheedt’s house. He must have had a dozen invitations, but he wanted a kosher home,” David said meaningfully.

  “Isn’t that Touro?” Miriam asked.

  Encircled by admirers in rainbow colors, Touro stood starkly in his somber black suit. His deep eyes were black and the furrows running to the corners of his stern mouth were dark.

  The conversation on the homeward walk made much of him, as they passed the arcaded Touro Block and the bark Judah Touro on the riverfront, ready for departure.

  “Astonishing,” Gabriel remarked. “He has even become a Sabbath observer. Turned his life upside down at his age. After that, nothing seems impossible.”

  And Miriam remembered that he was one of the people who had made it possible. Suddenly she wanted to tell him of the fear which had been nagging at her for weeks. He was the family’s lawyer, after all.

  So when Rosa, with David and her sons, walked ahead on the narrow banquette, she began, “I am worried. It’s about my husband’s business affairs.” She related the incident of the note and the encounter with Scofield. “I fear for us, for my children. Of course, I know nothing about business. I try to talk to Eugene, but he has lost interest He has lost more than his eyes. He has lost his will.”

  “I know that,” Gabriel said quietly.

  “I daresay it’s unbecoming of me.” She heard herself apologizing. “I’m certain Mr. Scofield is an honest man, but—”

  “Are you? One can never be certain about anyone.”

  “Well, then, I don’t know what is to be done.”

  “I’m only your husband’s lawyer. I have no power to examine his books without his permission. I’ve tried to speak to him, too, but as you say, he’s lost interest. He has affairs in Memphis, cotton and lumber, which should be looked to.”

  Miriam felt suddenly lo
st, as if a chill wind had blown through the warm afternoon.

  And she repeated, “It’s as if he doesn’t want to think anymore.”

  “Then someone must think for him.”

  “But there is no one! Surely not my father! And David knows less than nothing about business affairs. My children will have no one to protect them.”

  “They have you.”

  “I? What can I do? I’m a woman.”

  Gabriel stopped and looked down at her.

  “You can learn,” he said sternly.

  “Who will teach me?”

  “I will. But you must get Eugene’s permission to act in his stead.”

  Eugene would not grant it. “What! You to sit in an office and deal with men? No, I’m hardly such a fool as that! Not yet. I will take Scofield over you any day.”

  In spite of herself Miriam was relieved. Eugene was right: How was she to sit in an office and deal with men?

  Yet she was troubled all that summer. In the autumn Scofield came again to the house with papers for Eugene’s signature. Again, having glimpsed a bank’s letterhead, she was certain that they were loans. This time Scofield avoided her, almost running in the hall on his way out. Standing in the doorway, watching hum rush down the front walk and slip out of sight around the corner, it seemed to her that she was being given forewarning of disaster. She had lived long enough in New Orleans to know that fortunes are lost far more quickly than they are made. And she kept standing there, staring into the street, seeing not the child rolling a hoop, not the fruit cart, not the two old women chatting on the walk, seeing only that specter of disaster.

  That night Angelique had a bad dream. Her cry woke Miriam out of the heavy sleep in which an aching mind seeks relief from its pressures.

  The child was standing up in bed holding a doll. The beam from the candle made black pits of her eyes.

  “There’s no place to go,” she whispered, “no place.”

  Miriam saw that she was terrified. She sat on the bed, drawing her daughter down onto her lap.

  “No place to go? Tell me what you mean, darling. Tell me.”