Crescent City

  The comment surely was a rebuke. She had made a stupid, unforgivable mistake in mentioning André. A cruel mistake. She had ruined the visit And she thought, I wish I could talk my heart out to him. Yet she was not even sure what she would say if this inhibition were to be removed. One knew this man, yet always there was a distance, a space around him that kept one away. Or was it only she whom he kept away? What would she find if he were to open the door, so to speak, and let her in?

  Then at once she answered her own question: Of course, he had long ago opened the door. She was the one who had shut it again, so what could she expect of him? And now she had reminded him so bluntly of André, of the other—but then came the reply to that: It is better to be honest. Gabriel is the first to want you to be honest.

  He said formally, “You’re looking well in spite of everything.”

  She regarded her chapped, uncared-for hands and the scuffed toes of her homemade shoes, just visible beneath her skirt.

  “It’s Mrs. Hammond’s dress that improves me.”

  “Hammond? That’s where you’re staying?”

  “Oh, yes, they’ve been so hospitable. It’s as if they’d just turned time back in that house.” She chattered nervously. “Everything is the way it used to be, they’ve anything you want to eat, and such cheerful gaiety, you can’t imagine.”

  “Oh, yes, I can, very well,” Gabriel said.

  “Well, but if people like them have all that fresh meat and—and other things, why aren’t there more of all those in the stores?”

  “Very simple. Because it’s more profitable to bring in liquor and imported luxuries.”

  The champagne tonight is a gift of André Perrin.

  But no, there had to be something else. A trickle of inexplicable fear ran through Miriam, and she shook her head, as if to shake the fear away.

  Gabriel stood up. He had grown older. There were two lines between nose and mouth which she did not remember having seen before; she supposed they would fill out whenever he was able to eat well again. But he was still the impressive man, detached and correct, that she remembered.

  “You’ll be home in time for Passover, I suppose,” Gabriel said. He was making conversation, as if he had become aware of the cool atmosphere in the room and were making proper amends.

  “Yes, between Rosa and myself, we’ll try to have what holiday we can.”

  “I thought about it last year in Elmira. When you’re hungry, you remember holidays, the way the table is set, and even the smell of the food. Two years ago we were in West Virginia fighting in the mountains. We got eggs and some chickens from a farmer and cooked them outside over a fire. General Lee sent matzoh and prayer books by a supply train; we rode thirty miles to the depot to pick them up. A great, good man, Lee. A tragic man, divided in his soul. I understand why.”

  The short afternoon was going. A misty twilight crept into the room, covering the stains on the carpet. And into this fading day Gabriel’s voice melted; again he had retreated into himself, as if he were speaking to himself, not caring whether she heard or wanted to hear what he was saying.

  “Yes, I understand. There is such loveliness here in our southern land! The pine hills, the gentle rivers, the way spring comes. The old houses and the sweet ways. It’s been ours for two hundred years. How can a man turn his back on it? And yet—states rights are passé, I see that, too. There’s to be a new age. One people.”

  “You believe that now?”

  “Yes, yes I do.”

  “Then what are you going to do about it?”

  “Do?” Gabriel repeated, not understanding.

  “With yourself, I mean. Now. Next week.”

  “Next week? Why, I am going back to join my regiment,” he said as if the question surprised him.

  Miriam was more astonished. “After what you’ve just told me?”

  “But of course. When you’ve set your hand to a thing, you finish it, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know whether you do or not, Gabriel.” A weight fell on her heart.

  “But I know. There are times when one can turn away, but this isn’t one of them.”

  She understood then. And she saw that this was a simple question of honor: one did not abandon a sinking ship. Honor. A little sigh came from her, without intention.

  “Are you thinking this is some sort of theatrical grand gesture? I should be sorry if you were to think that of me.”

  “I could never think that of you. You are the last man of whom anyone could think that.”

  “I’m glad, then. You see, I went with Lee at the start, I gave my word. So now I’ll stay and see what happens.”

  “You know what will happen.”

  She thought, If they kill you, what a waste it will be! To think that one bullet, one fraction of an instant, can destroy all that knowledge, all that quiet strength!

  But she forced a little smile, thinking to take leave of him now with some smooth pleasantry, to end the visit in decent style.

  For the second time that afternoon he asked her why she was smiling.

  “Oh,” she said, saying the first thing that came into her head, “I was thinking of Gretel.”

  “Which one?”

  “Of both, I suppose. You gave them both to me, in a way. But this last one is an old lady. She sleeps most of the time. I hope she will still be alive when I reach home.”

  They had both stood up. Hesitating, they faced each other, caught hi one of those uncertain moments of departure when neither wishes to appear abrupt.

  “Gabriel. Tell me something. Tell me you’re not too angry at me. I feel you’re so far away! I don’t want to leave you like this.”

  He went quite still, not merely quiet, but arrested, removed from the moment And thinking that perhaps she had now really made him angry, she waited.

  He put out his hand to touch hers, pressing lightly, withdrawing quickly.

  “You’re right. You’ve read me. I was locking myself away. But it’s over now.” And a compassionate expression of great beauty passed over his face.

  “Will you tell my sister, please, that a letter will be on the way? Now that I’m not a prisoner anymore, the mails should be more dependable.”

  “Do you know we have no writing paper? We turn old envelopes inside out and use the blank pages of books. But Rosa will find something to write on, you can be sure.”

  “And you? You have never written to me once since the war began.”

  It was true. Why hadn’t she? Because of the memory that he loved her, and because of not knowing what to say.

  “Why have you never written to me?” Gabriel persisted. “Was it because of André? Was it?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, looking at the floor.

  “You’re still in love with him.”

  “Yes.”

  The sound of André’s name caused a rush of feeling, painful and confused.

  Only a few days ago, when she had been with David, she had had such a clear vision of André’s bright face; in her mind’s ear she had even heard his voice. Here, suddenly, all that had vanished; she could summon none of it back; all was vague and fearful. But why?

  “I’m worrying you. I’ve no right. If you love him, that’s the way it is. Forgive me. I only wanted to be sure in case there might be a chance for me …”

  Before I die, he meant.

  Without thinking, she laid her head on his shoulder. It was so comforting, this man’s shoulder. His arms went around her and she felt his cheek against her head.

  In her shyness, this strange shyness, she heard him say, twice—three times?—“Take care of yourself; be happy; I love you so .…”

  She pulled away.

  “Yes, go,” he said quickly, “go home now.”

  “Home?”

  “All the way home, I mean. Get out of Richmond. It may not be safe much longer. I want to know you’re on the way home.”

  It had been no joining, but a touch; no, it had been more than a touch,
more like a thing that happens in a dream, and like a dream, is only half remembered in the morning. Yet all the way back to the Hammond house, and afterward on the far journey home, it stayed with her, ebbing and flowing in turn and in time, with a long lament.

  31

  There was no hope left in the land of Louisiana. Governor Allen still sat in the capítol at Shreveport, but Union forces had spread almost entirely across the state, and Beau Jardín was on a shrinking little Confederate island in the midst of a rising sea.

  The roads were thronged with deserters who had given up the fight. Three of these, to Miriam’s astonishment, were sitting in the kitchen when she came home. To her further astonishment the kitchen helpers, busy over the iron pots that hung in the fireplace, were none other than Fanny and the ladies of the house—Eulalie, Rosa, Pelagie, and Angelique. Not one of these, to Miriam’s knowledge, had ever done more in all her life than peek through a kitchen door.

  “The cook has left,” Fanny said, answering Miriam’s question before she could ask it.

  And Angelique said, “Go inside, Mama. Grandpa has something to tell you.”

  It was then that she learned of Emma’s death.

  “It was pneumonia.” Ferdinand looked bewildered and somehow smaller than he had before. “The cold here was terrible. We couldn’t cross the Unes to take her body back to New Orleans, but the servants took her, Sisyphus with Blaise and a couple of young hands. They put her in the family vault. She left you her star sapphire, Miriam. And she dictated a will to me. There’s a copy on her desk.”

  For long minutes Miriam stood in Emma’s room before she could bring herself to read the document on the little desk. Every object in the room spoke of its owner: a heap of lace-trimmed pillows on the bed; pastel drawings, framed in gilt, of all her babies; her ruffled peignoir hung on the back of the door. And, with an unconscious gesture, Miriam straightened a ruffle, touching it as softly as if she were feeling Emma’s own soft, powdered arm. With insight that only years can bring she felt for the first time the full measure of Emma’s loving welcome when, as a child, she had come into the household. She smiled a little, remembering all the motherly injunctions about clothes and manners and family trees. She was a mother to me, Miriam thought, very different, I’m sure, from the one who brought me into the world, but in her way a mother, all the same, and I loved her. Suddenly the room, for all its tidy clutter, seemed very empty.

  It was a minute or two before she could steady herself to read the will. Written in Ferdinand’s pointed Germanic script, it made quick disposition of the few possessions left to Emma Raphael, née Duclos.

  I know that Sisyphus, Maxim, and Chanute no longer belong to me, Mr. Eugene Mendes having purchased them from creditors in order to keep them with my family. Having no authority over their disposition, I yet request, and it is a heartfelt request, that my daughter Miriam Mendes keep them with her as long as they live and not dispose of them to strangers. They have given faithful service, and I consider them a part of my family. I have a bag of gold coins which I have saved and ask further that its contents be divided among the three aforementioned, the greater portion being given to Sisyphus, he being the eldest and the longest in service of my family.

  This kindly, humane document, now soon to have no meaning or authority, touched Miriam’s heart. Oh, possibly it was just as well that Emma had died when she had! The life that was coming would be too hard for her; it had already become too hard for her; she had not been able to understand it. And gently, Miriam laid the paper back in the drawer.

  Outside spring had come streaming out of the earth as always. The far line of woods was edged with a fretwork of greenery, and in the middle distance the tulip tree that shaded the Indian mound where Eugene lay held its silky pink cups erect. Spring had no care for man’s pains or joys or the dark iniquities of his wars.

  Fanny opened the door and brought in a pile of clean wash.

  “So, Fanny, you have been managing very well without me, I see,” Miriam said, forcing herself back to practical matters.

  “Oh, yes, everybody busy, Miss Miriam. Miss Pelagie, she’s the same as always, cuts out baby dresses for the new ones in the quarters, gives medicines, busy every minute. Everybody loves Miss Pelagie. And Miss Angelique, she’s grown up, she’s learning, too. Miss Eulalie teaches her.”

  “Miss Eulalie teaches her?”

  “Oh, yes, they’re making sarsaparilla tea for spring, to purify the blood. And making dyes, blue out of indigo and red from pokeberry juice.”

  “I didn’t know Miss Eulalie knew—I wonder how …”

  “Miss Eulalie says she learned at home. Just watch the servants, she says.”

  Yes, that’s how it would have been for her: a lonesome child, standing about, observing life, not in the parlors where a little girl was supposed to be pretty in her flounces, but in the hidden, back-door places where no one cared.

  “Well,” Miriam said, maintaining the cheerful, brisk appearance, “it’s nice that my daughter is learning,” and did not add, Because we have all been merely ornamental for too long.

  “I must thank Miss Eulalie,” she said.

  “She works hard. Knits socks and things for the soldiers. Knits at night till her eyes ache.”

  “It sounds as if you’ve all been getting along very pleasantly together.”

  Fanny grimaced. “Well, most of the time. Of course, Miss Eulalie is—well, you know, Miss Miriam, how she is. But she’s better than she used to be.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I think she feels important,” Fanny said wisely.

  That was probably true. For the first time in her life, Eulalie had been needed.

  I’m really not as clever about people as I thought I was, Miriam told herself when Fanny had left the room. See how Eulalie has surprised me! And what about the slaves? If they had revolted while all the men were away at the front, the Confederacy would have collapsed, there could be no doubt of it. Pelagie, intending no unkindness, believed it was because they were inferior and didn’t have enough intelligence. Faithful oxen, she called them. Other people, though, including Miriam herself, were apt to say that their loyalty was a mask and that the revolt would surely come. But it had not come.

  No, I am really not keen at seeing what is inside of other people. It is a serious defect, I am afraid.

  Richmond fell.

  A letter from André, posted in Richmond just before the fall, arrived at last.

  Miriam’s hands fumbled at it, while her heart’s dull thudding sounded in her ears. Her heart was behaving as if it were afraid of something.

  I shall be in Louisiana again before long. I have news for you. Oh, Miriam, I can’t wait!

  The script itself was large and confident, commanding her to read it again. She read the few words half a dozen times, still with that dull thudding in her ears.

  And read on:

  Jefferson Davis says that the loss of Richmond will not be a hopeless calamity. The army is mobile and can keep on striking. They are saying that Lee will retreat to Danville to unite with Johnston, and following the railroad, will cross the Appomattox River, but I do not think he can do it.

  This pessimism, so unlike André, had sounded like a doomsday bell in her ears, almost as if he had spoken the words aloud. Her sense of sorrowful foreboding astounded her: The defeat of the Confederacy was, after all, what she had wanted and expected! It had had to be. And yet there was all this pity, this regret in her.

  I do not think he can do it. He had not done it. The letter had reached Miriam after Lee’s surrender. She held it thoughtfully, then laid it down and picked up the newspaper again.

  “Men,” Lee said, “we have fought through the war together. I have done the best I could for you. My heart is too full to say more.”

  And she read about how Lee had asked that his men be allowed to keep their horses for spring plowing, and how Grant had assented; she read about the men in gray falling in line to stack the
ir arms, and how some wept, and, again to her own astonishment, she wept, too. She thought of all the dead young men, the blue and the gray, now mouldering in the earth. And she thought about Gabriel, who had followed Lee to the end.

  She put the paper aside. Why, she ought to be thinking of André! Soon he would be here .… But what had happened to the joy? Oh, it was because there were too many things to be decided! Her mind was too full, she told herself, tapping her nails on the tabletop. Yes, there was simply too much to do.

  Last night Ferdinand had asked her where they should go, now that the war was over. He had made the question sound rhetorical, but in truth he was asking for his daughter’s guidance; since Emma’s death he had become more acquiescent, putting all decisions, without admitting that he was doing so, into his daughter’s hands. Should they go back to New Orleans now? The house would be returned to them, surely, And she knew he wanted to go.

  But how were they just to walk away from the land? Once she had seen this place only as a refuge, a kind of safe prison to shelter them through the war. She could remember her own shuddering dread of the long, useless days .… These last years, though, had been different years. Here the family had survived. The land had responded to their labor and kept them alive. It seemed as if now they must owe it something in return.

  In the enclosure across the lane a small flock of new sheep, two ewes saved from the wreckage, followed by two lambs, ambled and grazed in peace.

  Nearer, in the yard where they had been assembling for hours, the dark people waited for Miriam. For them, unlike the sheep, peace would be less simple than they probably expected it to be on this morning of their glory, their emancipation day. She tried to imagine, to feel how this must be, this fulfillment of a hope that had for generations gone unanswered; now that it was here it must be past believing! She supposed they must be dazed with the enormity of their rejoicing, as is the way when a grand wish comes true. In and out of the house since breakfast time, as she tried to prepare herself for the meeting, she had observed the differences among these varied individuals, as they jostled and argued among themselves, confronted as they were for the first time in their lives with choices, and uncertain which to take. She had seen many faces: ashamed and furtive eyes, sullen and defiant mouths, asserting themselves so that she would be sure to hear: “This land is mine, I worked it and it belongs to me now.” While others proclaimed their plans for up North “to get my plenty, because there’s piles of gold up there.”