Tansy

by Gretchen Craig

  Colette’s mother had once been a placée, but her brother Nicolas had decided their fortunes lay outside of plaçage. He became a procurer of young girls for the brothels, and when Colette reached fifteen, he’d introduced her to the life.

  Tansy, when she too reached fifteen, had caught his eye. She’d wandered away from Maman in the market and he’d approached her. A handsome devil, tall, broad-shouldered, he’d had the voice of an angel, whispering to her of freedom and choices, of affection and pleasure. He’d stroked a finger down her arm and promised to love her and protect her, and God help her, Tansy had thrilled at his touch, at his warm breath on her cheek.

  Maman had appeared and raked him across the face with the spiny top of a pineapple. “You speak to my daughter again, I will have you arrested. No, I will have you beaten and thrown in the river.”

  Nicolas, blood beading on his chin, had managed a cocky smirk and eased away into the crowded market. That was not the end of it, though, for Estelle grabbed Tansy’s arm and marched her down Levee Street to the same brothel where Augustine’s sister Colette made her life. Without knocking, she barged into a red and gold parlor, empty in the early morning. The lavish furnishings spoke of elegance and prosperity. Maman thrust the curtains back for the sun to reveal the tawdry cheap gilt, the worn spots on the velvet, the dust and the grime.

  “Take a good look, Tansy Marie,” Maman had demanded. Then she’d dragged Tansy upstairs where four doors opened on to the hall. She threw the first door open to reveal a small, bare room that reeked of a musky scent Tansy did not recognize. The sheets were twisted, thin, and stained.

  Maman had thrown open the next door and disturbed a woman sleeping in an identical shabby room. The woman had squinted at them from an unwashed face, her yellow hair greasy and uncombed. “Who the hell are you?”

  Tansy had wanted to flee, but Maman gripped her wrist. “Take a good look, Tansy. This is what Nicolas Augustine offers.”

  “Get the hell out of my room!”

  The woman’s snarl revealed two missing teeth. A pink scar marked her cheek. She smelled of sweat and that same musky sourness that lingered in the other room.

  “How old does she look to you? Thirty? Forty? I promise you, she is no more than twenty.”

  Tansy tugged at her mother. “Come away, Maman.”

  “How many times do you suppose she’s had the pox? How many times has she dared the knife to rid herself of yet another unwanted brat?”

  “Maman!”

  Maman turned on the whore. “How many men did you fuck last night?”

  The whore cackled like a demented hen. “Scared for your little chick, are you? Think a colored girl like her can do better?” She laughed again.

  Tansy had twisted free of Maman’s grip and run from the house.

  She’d been sick when she got home, and she’d never forgotten Maman’s point. Without a patron’s protection, she would be the prey of men like Nicolas Augustine. All these years later, Tansy’s stomach still roiled remembering the smell in this very brothel. Swiftly she crossed the street, watching Colette from the corner of her eye. Colette tilted her chin up and blew smoke, then raised the cheroot in salute with a sneer on her face.

  Alain tugged at her hand. “Maman, there’s the hurdy gurdy man. Come on.”

  She let Alain listen and give the man a coin, then they went on to the park. She settled under a sycamore with a book while Alain ran off with a friend from Mrs. O’Hare’s who babysat for neighborhood youngsters. They chased each other and rolled in the grass and found every small patch of mud in the park. Tansy reminded herself little boys were supposed to get dirty and messy, and really, they had the whole day to themselves. Valere would not come to her this day, would not know she’d let herself become sweaty and sun-kissed.

  In the heat of the afternoon, she persuaded Alain to cool off in the shade for a while. Certainly against his intention, he drifted off. When she too grew drowsy, she leaned back and closed her eyes, unconcerned for once if her skin should darken in the sun. The lightness of a quadroon’s skin was part of her fortune, and unlike the delicate ladies of society, she could not shield her face under a broad-brimmed bonnet. A tignon wrapped around her head offered no shade at all. But today she didn’t care. Valere would not notice whether her skin had darkened or not.

  She woke to a tap on the bottom of her shoe. Christophe stood over her, grinning, and gave her boot another little kick.

  “Just like in the old stories,” she said lazily, “the devil has come aknockin.”

  He laughed, his face alight with fun. “Tired out your little man, have you? Seems an excellent place for a snooze.” He stretched out on the grass next to Alain, sharing their shade. Sometimes he quite shocked her, his ease with himself, at the ball, anywhere. She admired the length of his legs, the slim hips, the tightness of his sleeve above the elbow when he leaned his head on his hand. Unbidden, an image of the slight paunch Valere was developing came to mind.

  “Through with school for the day?” she asked.

  “Yes, and with money scorching my pockets. I played three parties last weekend, and you know what I do with my fiddle money.”

  “Books!”

  “You want to go with me? My favorite bookseller keeps a stall on the levee.”

  It was one thing to visit Christophe at the school where Madame Rosa was just in the next room. She went there, after all, to borrow books, not to meet with him. But, old friend or not, he was a young man. Who had once kissed her. Whom she had kissed. “Fie, Christophe. What would Maman say if I were seen walking with you?”

  “She would say, That hussy, Tansy Marie Bouvier. I shall have to give her a piece of my mind!”

  His imitation spot-on, Tansy laughed.

  “Come on. No doubt your maman is sitting in someone’s parlor drinking coffee. I’ll let you choose a book.”

  “Really? My choice?”

  Christophe carried Alain who woke from his nap cross and groggy. They walked up Esplanade to the levee where hundreds of people worked and shopped and strolled. Stevedores carried goods over gangplanks, and ox-drawn carts squeaked up to the loading docks. The smell of the river strong here, they threaded their way through the throng to a stall where a wizened man in faded black stood among piles of used books.

  “Monsieur Desmarais, bonjour! You have a son!”

  Tansy darted a look at Christophe. Would he be embarrassed?

  Christophe still carried Alain on one arm, the boy’s arms around his neck. He pressed a hand against Alain’s back in contradiction to the answer he gave. “No, Monsieur, he is not mine.” He shifted toward Tansy. “May I present his mother, Madame Bouvier?”

  “Enchanté, Madame. You have a fine boy.”

  They spent a pleasant quarter of an hour perusing the books laid out on a plank table. Alain sat on the ground with a book of Aesop’s Fables open on his lap. Christophe had a dog-eared volume of essays by Montesquieu under his arm.

  “Tansy,” Christophe said. “I would not hurry you for the world, for the stars, for the very heavens, but — ” He nodded toward the sky where dark clouds were piling into impressive masses.

  “Oh, but I can’t decide.” Tansy held up a copy of Pamela and another of Tom Jones. “Which one?”

  She could see Christophe about to speak, fun in his eyes, and then abruptly the sparkle disappeared and he turned away. “You must make your own decisions.”

  Tansy swallowed and blinked. She handed the bookseller one of the books, she didn’t notice which one. Christophe paid the man and the three of them strolled back up the levee.

  She tried to pretend she had imagined the sudden coldness in Christophe, but she couldn’t manage it. There was that disapproval again, that impatience as if she were a recalcitrant child who continually disappointed him. It made her feel unbalanced and unsure, as if her life were not all it should be. Should be? Who was Christophe Desmarais to decide what her life should be? Her life was wonderful and he was a pompous prig.r />
  Having worked herself from hurt to angry, she felt much better. Then, as always, she found she could not hold on to the anger. It always seemed to slip away, like water through her fingers. Christophe was right. She was nice. Well, so be it.

  The wind blowing upriver from the Gulf picked up. Rain began to plop down in huge drops. They held hands, Alain in the middle, and ran for it. By the time, they reached Tansy’s door, their hats and shoulders and shoes were soaked. Laughing, Tansy pulled Alain in with her and then stood aside for Christophe to enter. Instead of coming in, he took a step backward, and then another. Surely he would come in — it was pouring. No one could fault a man for seeking shelter in a downpour like this.

  “Christophe?” Water streamed off his hat brim, curtaining his dark eyes, but she read the tautness of his mouth, his unwavering gaze on her face. “Christophe,” she demanded. “Come in.”

  He shook his head and stepped further away. Abruptly, he turned and strode off into the rain.

  She watched him until he turned the corner, then slowly closed the door. After a supper of hot soup and bread, she put Alain to bed, then curled up on the sofa. Rain still pattered on the courtyard bricks. Wind rattled the shutters. Her new book lay in her lap unopened. They’d had a wonderful day, she and Alain. Such ease, free of anticipation, of waiting. Talk and laughter with Christophe. Yet she’d never felt so alone.

  ~ ~ ~

  In the morning, a March wind chilled the cottage, but sunshine lit the banana tree in the courtyard. Later she and Alain could walk along the levee and watch the paddle-wheeled steam ships. They could have another day of freedom … she stopped herself. Freedom? She missed Valere, of course she did, missed expecting him to knock on her door.

  When a knock did come, Alain jumped down from his chair and ran. “Christophe!” he called out. Pain pinched at Tansy’s chest. He never ran for the door when he thought his father had arrived.

  Alain pulled the door open, then stared at the young man on the stoop. “Madame Bouvier?” The boy, perhaps fourteen, handed her a note. “I’m to wait for your answer, Ma’am.”

  Tansy unfolded the paper. “Tansy — Rosa is sick. Desperate here. Can you take the eight year olds for the day?” Christophe.

  “Oh,” she breathed. He wanted her to take a class? Her, Tansy Marie Bouvier, to be a teacher for the day? She pressed her hand over her heart.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yes! Tell him yes. Quick as I can get there.”

  She bundled Alain and together they marched down Decatur and up Decatur to Madame Rosa LeFevre’s Academy for Boys. Tansy had yearned to go to school when she was a girl, but Maman had hired tutors, dancing masters, and voice teachers so that her childhood lessons had been learned in solitude. And now to be in a school, as a teacher? She couldn’t stop smiling.

  Monsieur Fournier met her in the hallway, his white hair showing the effects of running his hands through it in frustration. “Madame Bouvier. Thank heavens you’re here. I simply cannot teach quadratic equations while the eight year olds babble about dogs and toys. Come this way.”

  He hustled down the hallway to the last door on the right. Tansy followed him into a scene of pandemonium. Eight little boys climbed over and crawled under tables, chased each other, giggled, and crowed at the top of their voices.

  “Gentlemen!” Monsieur Fournier clapped his hands together loudly. One child seemed to hear and faltered in his wild scramble over chairs, then regained his momentum and kept going. The aging master found a ruler and pounded it on the desk, again to little effect.

  Tansy looked down at Alain and winked. She walked to the center of the room, raised Alain to the top of desk, and began to sing.

  Alouette, gentille Alouette

  Alouette, je te plumerai. Je te plumerai la tête.

  Je te plumerai la tête, Alain chimed in.

  Et la tête

  Et la tête, Alain repeated.

  Alouette

  Alouette, Alain sang.

  O-o-o-oh … Tansy drew it out dramatically, waiting for the boys to join in.

  Alouette, gentille Alouette

  The last of the rapscallions gathered round her, Tansy waved at Mr. Fournier as he gratefully retreated to his own classroom.

  No one came to advise her what to do with a room of eight year old boys, so Tansy improvised. They sang all the verses of Alouette from plucking the poor skylark’s head all the way to its tail. Then Frère Jacques and half a dozen other folk songs every child learned in the nursery.

  By then, Tansy had arranged the boys in a circle on the floor around her. The boys displayed skin tones from deep brown to nearly white, every one of them the child of gens de coulour libre, the free blacks who were an integral part of New Orleans.

  “Now what shall we do? Numbers? Letters?”

  “Stories!” a dusky child cried out.

  “Very well.” Tansy began the tale of The Lost Children. As she described the brother and sister wandering lost in the forest, their eyes grew big. When she came to the part when Jeanette fooled the devil by cutting off a rat’s tail instead of Jean’s finger, they giggled. But when she described how the children slew the evil one in order to escape, they clapped their hands over their mouths, horrified, though they must have each heard the story a dozen times.

  Tansy reminded them that they must practice their letters or surely Madame Rosa would be disappointed when she returned. When everyone had his slate, she said, “What is the first letter of Jean?” Everyone called out “J” and then made the letter on their slates.

  At the end of the day, Tansy left Alain with Christophe and went upstairs to see Rosa. The room was dark and stifling. Tansy glanced at the window, wishing she could open it for some light and air, but she knew any doctor would insist it remain closed.

  “Rosa?”

  Rosa pulled the blanket from over her face. “Who is it?”

  “Tansy. I’ve come to see how you are.”

  “Ah, Tansy. I’ll either be just fine, someday, or else I’m never getting out of this bed again.”

  “Well. I’m expecting the first. You’re not too hot?”

  “I could use a fire, in fact.”

  Tansy bustled around the small apartment building a fire and making tea. She told Rosa all about her day with the children.

  “Can you finish the week for me?” Rosa asked.

  Valere wouldn’t come see her for a week or more, that’s what he’d said. She could do as she pleased. “I can. You don’t need to worry about a thing. The boys and I will do very well together.”

  Friday afternoon, Monsieur Fournier presented her with an envelope. Her pay. For having worked, for having had a wonderful time teaching her boys. She didn’t open it. She didn’t care how much money she’d earned, only that she had earned it. All her life she had admired teachers, tutors, masters. When Christophe had become a teacher, she’d been so proud of him. A poor boy of color whose white father had died bankrupt, he had worked hard and made himself into a distinguished professional. And she, Tansy, a mere placée, had had a taste of that profession. She hugged that newly won pride to her as she strode home with Alain.

  At bedtime, stretching and yawning, Tansy hung her dress up and arranged her shoes precisely in the bottom of her armoire. She pulled the mosquito netting aside and paused. The bed was rumpled, the pillows awry. Valere had been here? She’d missed Valere! A smudge of dirt from his boots marred the foot of the satin coverlet.

  Heavily, she sat down on the edge of the bed. He’d come and she wasn’t home. In all of their five years together, she had almost never been out when he came, hardly ever. She ran her hand over the coverlet. He’d waited for her, here on the bed. Maybe he even took a nap.

  She pressed a hand to her chest. Had he been angry? He’d never been angry with her before. She’d never given him cause to be angry before. She lay down and curled into herself. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered. Valere was even-tempered and sweet-natured.

  A hin
t of his familiar scent lingered on her pillow. Her bones began to loosen, her body sinking into the mattress. She closed her eyes. Why was Valere here and not with his wife? Had things not gone well with Miss Abigail? Probably he had simply missed her and Alain. She smiled and drifted into sleep.

  ~ ~ ~

  After a quiet weekend, no Valere, no responsibilities, Tansy sipped coffee as Alain gobbled buns, bacon, and orange juice, all the while kicking his feet, thumping them against the chair legs.

  “Alain.” Tansy raised her brows at him. He stopped kicking. In a few minutes, biting into his second bun, his feet swung again. “Alain?”

  He stuck a slice of bacon in his mouth and let it hang out like a tongue, a deadpan expression on his face.

  She laughed. Plenty of time yet for a four year old to learn not to swing his legs. He wiped his fingers on his shirt as he climbed down from the chair. “I’m finished, Maman. Let’s go.”

  She looked at him over her coffee cup. “Go where?”

  “School!”

  “Alain, we aren’t going to school. Madame Rosa is well now.”

  “Maman, we have to go to school. My friends are waiting for me.”

  Tansy’s forehead creased. She had thought he understood. “Sweetheart, we aren’t going to school. We only went to help Madame Rosa, and she’s well now.”

  Alain stood very still. His lip trembled. “They’ll miss me if I don’t come.”

  She folded him into her arms as great hiccupping sobs shook his little body. “Oh, darling.” She rocked him and wondered why not? Valere had never come before early afternoon. While Rosa taught the other boys, she could work with René. He was behind the others. He needed help.

  “Alain.” She held him back so she could see his face. “What if we make a deal, you and I?”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “You don’t wipe your hands on your shirt …” She hoped for a grin. She got a hopeful look. “And we’ll stop by the school. Just for an hour. That’s all. And when it’s time to go, you don’t fuss about it.”