Tarnished Gold

  I couldn't help wanting to see Paul as often as possible, to see the changes and the development in him. I cherished a newspaper photo of the Tates that had appeared in the local paper's society pages because Paul was just visible between Gladys and Octavious. I kept the clipping close to my bedside so I could look at it under the light of a butane lantern every night. I had opened and folded the clipping so many times, the words were practically illegible.

  Mama knew the pain I was in, the way I tossed and turned at night regretting the agreement I had made. She could see the agony in my eyes every time someone appeared with a baby in her arms, whether it be one of our neighbors or a tourist stopping to buy something from our roadside stand. I volunteered to watch anyone's baby. I needed to be around the diapers, the pablum, the rattles. I needed to hear the giggles and the cooing and even needed to hear the cry for food or attention.

  "I know why you upped and volunteered to watch Clara Sam's baby this afternoon, Gabriel," she would say whenever I offered. "You're just

  tormenting yourself, child."

  "I can't help it, Mama. I'd rather have a few moments of pleasure, even though I know when Clara Sam comes to take her baby home, I will feel my own emptiness that much more."

  "That you will," Mama predicted, and threw an angry glance in Daddy's direction.

  Most of the time Daddy pretended none of it had happened. Whenever Mama made reference to the money he had gotten from the Tates and then squandered, Daddy would either act deaf or say she didn't know what she was jabbering about. We knew that even though he had been thrown off Octavious Tate's property and threatened with being arrested and put in jail, he had tried on at least two subsequent occasions to get more money out of him; but always to no avail.

  "The man has no conscience," Daddy would wail. "Rich men like him who make their fortunes on the backs of honest laboring men never have a conscience."

  "What honest laboring man might that be, Jack?" Mama snapped. "Surely you're not referring to yourself."

  "And surely I am! Just 'cause I've been through some hard times, it don't mean I don't put in a hard day's work, woman. Look at me now. I put food on the table, don't I?" he protested.

  Mama just shook her head and returned to weaving her palmetto basket. She couldn't argue. Daddy had been employed at his present job longer than he had at anything else I could remember. He was working as a guide for Jed Atkins, who ran a swamp touring company and who provided boats, tackle, and guns for tourists and for rich city men who came to the bayou to hunt ducks or white-tail deer.

  Jed was Daddy's favorite sort of boss. He drank a great deal of homemade whiskey himself, smoked, and cursed every fourth word. He lived alone in the rear of his gun, tackle, and boat shop, which was a wooden building so rotted, it looked like it would collapse the moment the vermin and insects that had made it their home decided to leave.

  Despite his drinking, gambling, and fighting, Daddy had developed a good reputation as a swamp guide. It seemed he fit the bill because he looked and talked the way rich Creoles from New Orleans expected a Cajun swamp guide would look and talk. For an extra dollar, he would pose for their pictures: his hair wild, his beard straggly, his skin tan and leathery.

  The truth was, Daddy always found them ducks or got them to get off some good shots at deer. Daddy knew his swamp; he was as much a part of it as a nutria or gator, but I hated the work he was doing because the men he guided were men who killed for sport and not for food or clothing. Some of them left the animal carcasses where they shot them because they weren't big enough or impressive enough trophies.

  But between what Daddy made, or what he would bring to Mama before he gambled or drank away, and what Mama and I would make weaving baskets and blankets and selling jams and gumbo, we were doing better than ever. Daddy got himself a later-model truck, and Mama bought a new set of dishes from the Tin Man who came by in his van. On my nineteenth birthday, Mama had Daddy buy me a watch. It was silver with Roman numerals. It had a thin, black band. Daddy thought it was a waste of money.

  "She can tell the time better than any watch just by looking at the sun," he explained. "No one reads the signs in Nature better than Gabriel."

  "A young woman nowadays should have a nice watch," Mama insisted.

  "I wouldn't mind it if she went places where some young man could consider her for to be his wife," Daddy said. "Actually," he added after mulling it over a moment and chewing on his lip, "I'm glad she has a watch. She can hear time tickin'. 'Fore you know it, she'll be twenty and unmarried. Then who'll come for her? Huh, Catherine? Not one of your wellto-do respectable town boys, no. And if one comes along and learns she ain't a virgin . . she'll be lucky she gets one of my swamp rats."

  "You stop that talk, hear, Jack Landry?" Mama said, snapping her forefinger at him, the way someone would snap a whip. "I'll put a curse on any man who talks poorly about Gabriel, hear? Any man," she emphasized, her eyes blazing.

  "Well, she don't go to no dances; she don't talk to anyone at church, she don't go anywhere 'less you go, and all she does is follow you around on your traiteur missions. Most men round here think she's strange because of all the time she spends in the swamp. I know," he said, poking his own long right forefinger into his own chest so hard, I had to wince with the imagined pain. "I hear 'bout it all the time at the boathouse.

  "Can ya daughter really talk to gators, Jack? Does she really sleep on a bed of water snakes?' " he mimicked, wagging his head. "And what you doin' to get her lookin' presentable for a suitor, Catherine? Huh? Lettin' her walk around here barefoot with vines and wildflowers in her hair? Keepin' baby turtles, nutria, frogs, every varmint in the swamp, as a pet."

  "She's a fine-looking young lady, Jack Landry. I don't have to do anything to get her suitable., Any man who doesn't see that doesn't deserve her," Mama told him.

  "Ah, you're just as highfalutin as she is. Any man who doesn't see that . . Ya got to know the garden's ready for some plantin' before you come around to put your seeds in," he said, pumping the air with his long arms. "That's what my daddy used to say."

  "Swamp wisdom," Mama threw back at him. "And don't you go bringing any of those swamp rats around here to court her, neither, Jack. I want her to have a good husband, one who'll take good care of her, hear?"

  "I hear, I hear. Trouble is, you don't hear. You don't hear the clock tickin'. Put your ear to her watch, too."

  Lately, maybe because I was closing in on twenty, Daddy was complaining more and more about my failure to find a suitable husband. He threatened to write BRIDE AVAILABLE, ASK INSIDE on a sign and post it on our front lawn if I didn't find my own man soon. Of course, Mama told him she would rip it right out and smash it over his head if he tried to put such a sign on our lawn.

  But the truth was, my mind wasn't on young men and marriage. Daddy was right. All I could think about was baby Paul and how I would get to see him again. Romance and love, marriage and husbands, seemed the stuff of movies and books, far-off like a thunderhead in the distance, bursting over someone else and not over me.

  One afternoon because, my heart was so empty it had put a twilight gloom in my very soul, I poled my pirogue east on the canal and docked near the Tates' mansion. I found a deserted path to the road under a canopy of cypress trees and then crossed the highway and slipped through the forest to come around behind the house where I knew they had put up swings and a sliding pond. The Tates' nanny would bring little Paul out to play. I found a shaded spot under a large willow tree nearby and crouched down behind some branches and leaves of the vines that were woven through the fence to watch him laugh and giggle, stumble about and make discoveries, or just sit in his sandbox and push his toy cars.

  Paul's nanny was a girl the Tates had imported from New Orleans. She had honey-colored hair, but a plump face and a pear-shaped figure. She waddled lazily behind the baby, her face revealing her annoyance with any extra effort Paul demanded of her. She didn't look all that much older than I was, and every time I
saw her with the baby, she always looked bored. Whenever he played in the sandbox, she would sit with an emery board and work on her fingernails for hours, as if she were carving out some great marble statue, or she would be reading one of her movie magazines and chewing gum like a milk cow chewing on a blade of grass. Sometimes she would let him cry for nearly ten minutes before she looked to see what was bothering him or what he wanted. It took all my strength to keep my lips sealed or keep myself from jumping up and running over to him. It was probably more painful to do what I was doing than not to be there at all.

  But sitting undetected in the woods by the house, I could imagine myself there, beside him, maybe reading him a story or caring for his needs. Usually he played so well and so quietly by himself. I could see he was going to be a bright young man; everything attracted his curiosity. I was disappointed when his nanny realized the time and scooped him up to bring him into the house.

  However, I returned the next day and the day after that, sometimes waiting for hours before she would bring him out. And when it rained, I was terribly frustrated, for I knew he wouldn't be out at all. Then one day while I was sitting in my spot watching him play, crawl, and toss the sand in his box while his nanny sat reading a magazine with her back to him, I spotted what I was positive was a cottonmouth snake slither over the grass and curl just beside the sandbox. It raised its triangular head ominously. Paul caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He studied it a moment and then laughed and started toward the snake. The nanny continued to be absorbed in her magazine.

  "No!" I screamed from the woods. She spun around. "He's going right for a cottonmouth snake. Quickly!" I screamed, and pointed. For a moment it looked like she wouldn't get over the shock of seeing me pop out of the woods, but she got herself together quickly enough to reach down and scoop him up just as the snake recoiled.

  She screamed, too, and the cook came charging out the back door, followed by Gladys Tate.

  I was too amazed to retreat quickly enough, so when the nanny started to explain and point, Gladys focused in my direction, her face filled more with disgust about me than the snake. The cook went around the sandbox and killed the snake with a metal rake. Gladys ordered the nanny to take Paul into the house. I turned and ran through the woods, my heart pounding all the way to my pirogue. I never poled up the canal as quickly to get home.

  I was afraid to tell Mama what I had done and what I had been doing. Lucky for me, she was busy with a customer for her linens, so I was able to sneak by and go into the house and up to my room. When twilight fell, Mama called.

  "You all right?" she asked after I appeared on the stairway.

  "Yes, Mama. Just resting."

  "Well, I'm not preparing anything new for dinner. We'll eat the crawfish etoufee. Your daddy sent word he won't be home for dinner. Claims he has work to do, but I know he'll be playing cards in some garage or barn and losing a week's wages."

  She was so distracted about Daddy, she didn't notice anything in my face, but we no sooner had sat down to eat when we heard an automobile pull up to the front of the house. Whoever it was started to honk his horn and wouldn't stop until we appeared in the doorway. My heart sunk. I recognized the expensive, big Cadillac.

  "Who is that?" Mama wondered, and then her squint changed to wide eyes and her face filled with annoyance. "What does that woman want?"

  Gladys Tate got out of her automobile and strutted toward our shack with her familiar arrogant gait. I stood a few inches behind Mama, my heart thumping so hard, I was sure Mama could feel the pounding, too. Gladys looked taller in her black cape. She had her hair down. As she drew closer, she glared up at me with her cold brown eyes shooting hateful sparks. A white line was etched above her tightened lips.

  "How can I help you?" Mama asked.

  "I'll tell you how you can help me. You can keep your daughter off my property and away from my baby. That's how you can help me," she replied.

  "Property?" Mama turned to look at me.

  "That's right. She was there today, spying on my family, hiding herself in the bushes."

  "Is this true, Gabriel?" Mama asked. "You were at the Tates'?"

  "Yes, Mama, but I wasn't spying on her family. I was just .

  "Just what then?" Gladys demanded, her hands on her hips. She looked like a giant hawk about to pounce.

  "Just watching baby Paul. I wanted to see how he plays. That's all."

  "Oh, Gabriel," Mama said, shaking her head and fixing her eyes of pity on me.

  "Everywhere I go, in town, to church, stores, every time I turn, I see her gaping at us. I won't have it, I tell you," Gladys said, her voice coming almost like the hiss of a venomous snake. It reminded me of what happened.

  "If I wasn't there today, Paul might have been bitten by a cottonmouth. Go on, tell it all," I said with defiance. "Tell Mama how your nanny doesn't pay attention to the baby."

  "That's none of your affair," Gladys replied, but a lot less firmly.

  "The baby was almost bitten by a

  cottonmouth?" Mama asked.

  "She exaggerates. There was a snake in the yard. My girl had plenty of time to protect the baby. Besides, it's none of her business," Gladys insisted. "We paid to keep you away and I intend to see that the deal is kept. The next time your wild daughter is seen on my property, I'll have her arrested, do you understand? And if she continues to follow us around wherever we go, I'll go see a judge and get a court order that will slap the lot of you into jail."

  "I don't follow you around," I moaned.

  "You've got nothing else to do with your meaningless life than seduce grown men and then follow their wives around," Gladys continued. "You should be in a convent, away from good and decent people."

  "That's quite enough," Mama said. "You've made your point. Gabriel will never again set foot on your property, and if she sees you people in town or in church, she will look the other way."

  "That's more like it. If you kept a tighter grip on her in the first place, we all might not be in this situation," Gladys added, her face flushed with satisfaction.

  "I think you have it all a bit muddled," Mama said softly. "If you had given your husband the loving home a wife should provide her man, he might not have wandered into the swamp to rape my daughter."

  "What?" She raised her shoulders. "If that's not the pot calling the kettle black . . . Why, your husband is probably the worst degenerate in the bayou."

  "At least he doesn't pretend to be a saint and put on false faces in church," Mama retorted.

  Gladys Tate's face reddened. She pressed her lips together and then lifted her right arm slowly to point her long, thin forefinger at me, the fingernail a silver shade.

  "Keep her away or else," she warned, pivoted, and marched back to her car.

  I couldn't swallow. I felt numb and incapable of movement. It was as if my feet had been nailed to the gallery floorboards. We watched her churn the lawn with her tires and then spin out and away.

  "A horrid woman," Mama said. "It's like she has a snake eating away her heart." She turned and looked at me. "Gabriel, you have got to let go, honey. It's over; he's gone."

  "Yes, Mama. I'm sorry."

  "It's all right, honey," she said, embracing me and petting my hair. "It's all right. Let's have a good dinner and think about tomorrow."

  I nodded. In the distance we could hear Gladys Tate's car squeal around a turn and accelerate. With it went my hopes of ever really knowing my own baby.

  We never told Daddy about Gladys Tate's visit. He would have just ranted and raved and threatened reprisals. He might even have seen it as a new opportunity to extort some money from them.

  He surprised us the next day anyway when he brought home a new dress for Mama and a new dress for me. Now it was her turn to think he was

  extravagant, for she could make a dress as good or better than any store-bought one.

  "And what did you do, Jack Landry," Mama asked with suspicious eyes, "win a big pot at bourre?'

/>   "No. This comes from all honest work, woman." He poured himself some lemonade and sat at the dinner table, smiling widely.

  Mama gazed at me, looked at the new dresses, and then shook her head. "Something's up."

  "Nothin's up. I was just thinkin' it was about time I took you and Gabriel out for a night. We should go to the fais dodo at the Crab House this Saturday night."

  "Fais dodo? A dance? You want to take me to a dance?" Mama asked with amazement.

  "And Gabriel. It's a good place for her to meet someone. I been thinking I ain't done enough to provide the opportunities for her."

  Mama stared at him, still not believing what she heard. "That's all, woman. It's no big thing here," he said, looking down quickly.

  "You ain't asked me to a dance for a long time, Jack Landry," she told him. "Something smells rotten."

  "What? Howja like them apples, Gabriel? A man asks his wife to a dance and she says it smells rotten."

  "Well, I can't help it, it does," Mama said.

  "Well nothing. I realized we ain't been out together for a long time and thought it was time I asked, is all."

  "You ain't going to take us there and then get stupid drunk, are you, Jack?" she asked, her head tilted, her eyes scrutinizing him.