“Nenpòrt,” Adeline said. “Never mind. We’ll work on your fashion sensibilities later. Today just try . . . not to speak. Listen and learn.”
Effie’s stomach quivered as she mounted the short flight of steps to the porch. What had she gotten herself into? Good thing she’d opted for only bread and butter for breakfast. She took a deep breath to settle her digestion and straightened her shoulders. Lesson one—how hard could it be? But when their hostess opened the door—a young woman of Adeline’s ilk with a fine satin dress, light brown skin, and dark sleek hair—Effie’s resolve wavered. She could see over the woman’s shoulder to a large parlor, where several similarly styled women sat, their hands busy with needles, yarn, and other implements of domestic torture.
“Ma chérie!” the woman said, kissing Adeline on either cheek. “Enfin. Nous avons pensé que tu as oublié.” She turned to Effie and her ebullient smile sagged. “Qui est ton . . . amie?”
“Ma cousine,” Adeline said, and then, in a whisper, “du nord,” as if being from the North bordered on indecency. “Elle s’appelle Effie.”
Effie didn’t bother to point out she’d been born in the South or that she was not Adeline’s cousin.
“Bienvenue, Effie,” the hostess said, leaning in and kissing her too while Effie tried not to grimace. “Je m’appelle Odette.”
Inside, Effie endured a bevy of kisses and names, of sidelong glances and pinned-on smiles, before the gaggle of women settled. Adeline sat on a damask sofa and tugged Effie down beside her. She pulled two sets of knitting needles and two skeins of yarn from her bag and handed one to Effie. The other women resumed their knitting, the clink of needles underscoring their chatter. Effie listened intently at first, deciphering the Latin roots of their creolized French, but the rumored affair between the young star of the visiting theater troupe and her tailor, or the relative advantages of the new tournure petticoat over the crinolette held little interest for her.
She looked down at the yarn in her lap as they jabbered on, and strove to remember how to use the dratted needles. Mrs. Kinyon had tried to teach her the full gamut of domestic skills, from cooking to crochet, but Effie preferred her books and color plate drawings of human anatomy. She watched Adeline from the corner of her eye and did her best to copy the twist and looping motions. It jogged her memory enough that she was able to lay the first row in what—if she were to mimic the others—was to be a child-sized hat.
Her hands did not take to the motion with the speed or grace the other women’s did. She found herself hunching over or bringing her work needles-to-nose that she might scrutinize a stitch, while the others hardly gave their work a glance. By the time she’d managed another row—with more than a few dropped stitches—Adeline was already binding off the final row of a bright yellow cap.
But surely, this—knitting—was not what she’d come to learn.
The women’s discussion meandered to the social calendar, busy now that Carnival had begun, and which fête or masked dance they most anticipated. As the others’ voices grew sharp and animated, Adeline quieted. Her smile thinned and even faltered when the others’ eyes looked away. When probed about which events she planned to attend, she demurred. “Oh, but you must come!” someone would say—as best Effie could translate—and then extol all the wonderments prepared for the occasion. Ice cream and orchestras, tableaux and dancing.
Effie didn’t much like ice cream, the way it coated your tongue and numbed your throat. She abhorred dancing. Sweaty palms, clumsy feet, barbecue-scented breath inches from her nose. Worst of all had been the feeling that everyone was watching her, the lone black girl amid a sea of whiteness, the charity case every boy must take a turn with before claiming a second or third dance with another.
But Adeline didn’t seem to share her distaste for such things. She sighed and reminded them of her mother’s frail health. Her other difficulties—the impossible expense of new gowns and slippers and hired coaches—Adeline did not share.
Did these women not know of her money troubles? Not that Effie knew more than what she’d observed and deduced. Whatever the extent of Adeline’s financial shortcomings, she hid it well.
And yet, these women were her friends. They’d kissed her cheeks and called her chérie. They must know, or at least suspect, but they preened and prattled on just the same.
“Effie, qu’est-ce que vous faites comme occupation?” one of the women said when the conversation lagged.
Effie looked up from her knitting and found the entire group of women staring at her. She hid her loose jumble of stitches in the folds of her skirt and replayed what the woman had said.
“Pardonne,” Adeline said. “Ma cousine does not speak French.”
Several of the women gasped, dainty and affected. Quel dommage! Excusez-moi! Non, vraiment? they muttered, one on top of the other.
“I’m an embalmer.”
Her declaration met with silence.
“I believe you asked about my livelihood. Mon occupation. I work as an embalmer.”
“Qu’est-ce que c’est an embalmer?” a woman in green silk and a yellow tignon asked between giggles.
“Embalming comes from the Latin word balsamum, balm. It’s the art of preserving dead bodies from decay by means of aromatics, antiseptics, or desiccation.”
The giggling stopped. Knitting needles stilled. Several of the women crossed themselves.
“The Ancient Egyptians practiced embalming and—”
“Bon Dieu, Effie, that’s enough,” Adeline hissed at her. Then, with a tight smile, she said to the others, “The things une femme must do today to survive.” They all nodded solemnly. “I, for one, feel quite blessed to be spared such necessity.”
More nodding. The women returned to their knitting. Odette, speaking again in French, mentioned something about the weather and the others rushed to comment, talking over one another with forced lightness.
Effie took up her paltry hat and cast another stitch. She glared sidelong at Adeline, who returned the look with matching venom. Spared such necessity—ha! What would these women, her friends, think of Madame Desâmes? Effie clenched her jaw lest the temptation to reveal Adeline’s secret burn any hotter.
She thought to leave—what had she learned of value to her situation with Mr. Greene, anyway?—but the women’s trivial discussion of the weather had waned. They bound off their little hats, laid them in a communal basket, and stowed their needles. Effie hurried through her last stitches. The hat she’d made was misshapen and had several noticeable holes, but she cast it into the basket with the others. Whatever their intended use, hers would have to suit.
Adeline stood, donned her shawl and bag, and nestled the basket of hats in the crook of her arm. “Qui vient avec moi?”
The women busied themselves with their gloves and handbags and sewing boxes, muttering excuses why they couldn’t come along. At the door, Odette embraced Adeline, but didn’t suffer Effie any more kisses. She insisted again that Adeline must make a showing at the upcoming Carnival fêtes, mentioning the name Monsieur Chauvet. Adeline danced her fingers down the line of her carotid and looked away.
No sooner had the front door closed behind them than she seized Effie’s arm. “Tonnerre! I told you to keep quiet.” She pulled Effie down the porch steps and into the street. “The things they must be saying right now.”
Effie shrugged free. “They brought it up.”
“Lesson one—when someone asks you what you do, lie.”
“Is that why you brought me here? To learn about deceit from the masters?”
“Mes amies and I—”
“Those women are not your friends.”
“What do you know about friends? Even the women who brought you to my séance can’t abide your company.”
Effie looked down. Pounded shell paved the narrow way. She bore the toe of her boot into the jagged white shards, despite the grit it left on the new leather. “I don’t claim them to be friends.” She met Adeline’s eye. “And
I’d rather have no friends at all than those as counterfeit as yours.”
Adeline opened her mouth but closed it again. Voices and laughter rang from within the house. She patted her shiny silk tignon. “They’re just a little jealous is all.”
Effie smirked. That was Adeline’s answer to everything. The afternoon sun had dipped below the surrounding buildings, casting the street in shadow. A wagon rumbled past, chasing them to the banquette to avoid the spray dust. “Why bring me along if my very presence is an embarrassment to you?”
“We have a deal, remember. Besides, I rather like a challenge.”
“I’m not the simpleton you think I am. I know I don’t fit in. I don’t need you parading me around your chères amies just to prove it.”
“Clearly, you missed the point.”
Effie gritted her teeth. Could she have brokered a deal with a more odious woman? “So enlighten me.”
“When are you seeing this Mr. Greene again?”
“Tuesday next.”
“Parfait. A Mardi Gras fête.”
“The Republican Club is meeting at the parade.”
Adeline gave a puckered expression. “Hardly the most romantic circumstance, mais nenpòrt. The principles still apply.” She set to walking and Effie begrudgingly followed. “Now, wherever you are you must learn to read the social environment. Think of it like the opera. You’ve been to the opera, oui?”
“No.”
Her expression soured again. “Well, in each company you have the lead, the prima donna. She’s the one with the power, the one everyone else is trying to please. Then you have the mezzo. In an opera, she usually plays the role of the friend or caretaker. Think of her as the prima donna’s second. You have the chorus—that’s everyone else, really. Those people who follow along in the prima donna’s shadow. Oh, and the soubrette. Be careful of the soubrette.”
“Who’s she?”
“She plays the role of the ingénue or comedienne. But she’s got her sights set on being the prima donna someday and will claw through whomever to get there.”
Effie’s feet slowed as she worked through what Adeline had said. Prima donna, mezzo, soubrette . . . perhaps she was now ready to sit through a performance of Faust or Fidelio, but how did this help her fit in or win Mr. Greene’s affections? “I still don’t see the point.”
“Like I said, you’ve got be able to read the social strata of those around you. If you want to gain entry into a group, you can’t go up to the prima donna and expect her to give two fiddles about you. Or the mezzo for that matter. Start with someone in the chorus—befriend her and work your way up.”
“Up to what? Is Mr. Greene the prima donna in this scenario?”
Adeline laughed. “Primo uomo. And no, of course not. Men are an entirely different matter.”
They stopped at the intersection of Canal and Rampart to let the streetcar pass. The horse’s flanks were slick with sweat despite the evening’s chill.
“You’ll never catch the eye of Mr. Greene, or that of any man, if you can’t get along with the women around him,” Adeline said as they continued on. “His mother, his sisters, his friends. You must find these women, figure who’s who and how you can gain ingress. If you can’t do that, you’ll never have your Mr. Greene.”
It still seemed a silly analogy, but Effie nodded.
“A new dress wouldn’t hurt either. A different color, a more flattering décolleté.” She tugged at Effie’s straight-cut sleeve, but Effie batted her hand away.
“So, Odette is the prima donna in your group.”
“What? Non, c’est moi.”
Of course.
“Odette . . . she’s the mezzo. Béatrice, the one who asked about your livelihood—an impertinent question to begin with—she’s the soubrette.”
They stopped at a multistoried building with gable roofs. Leafless treetops peeked over the surrounding brick wall. CHARITY HOSPITAL read the bronze plaque beside the gate.
Passing through a dark foyer and up several flights of stairs, they arrived at the Negro ward. A row of beds lined both walls of the long hall. Feeble light drifted in through the grimy windows. They crossed to the far end, their boot heels clapping atop the scuffed wood floor. Effie kept her head down, eyes sweeping from one occupied bed to the next. The hacking, the shivering, the frailty—it made her skin itch beneath her chemise. Death she could stand; sickness was something else entirely.
Adeline stopped and handed Effie a stack of hats. The patients at this end of the hall were smaller, skiffs in a sea of stained white sheets. Children. She looked from the beds back to Adeline and shook her head.
“Don’t be a ninny,” Adeline said.
Effie clutched the stack of hats and watched as Adeline moved from bedside to bedside with her radiant smile. The children bloomed in her presence, their small hands grasping, eager for their gift. She spoke to them in quiet tones, and they replied with weak but exuberant voices. When they coughed, sneezed, retched, Adeline didn’t flinch, but wiped their noses with her hankie and rubbed their spiny backs. Was this yet another ruse?
At a tug on her skirt, Effie looked down. A young boy had crawled to the foot of his bed and reached out to her. She knelt on shaky legs and held out the bundle of hats for him to choose from. He sifted through them, stroking the soft fabric of each. His tiny hands were all bone. A green tinge played beneath his black skin. How did Adeline do this? How did she look down at these children and smile? He selected a royal blue hat—Effie’s hat, all misshapen and holey. She tried to offer him another, but he shook his head and tugged the blue hat over his closely cropped hair. It flopped down over his eyes.
She cuffed it twice until it fit snuggly about his ears. “Not so bad,” she said aloud. His cracked lips parted, and his white baby teeth showed in full. Effie found herself smiling too.
CHAPTER 9
The streets teemed with maskers headed toward the intersection of St. Charles and Canal streets, where the Henry Clay statue signaled the start of the parade. Horns and rattles sounded from amid the throngs. Somewhere near off a snare drum nattered out a halting rhythm, while its brass accompaniment danced through scales and squeaked into tune.
Effie hurried home from the shop, passing gypsies, Arabs, and clowns. Men dressed as ladies and ladies dressed as witches. Harlequins and devils. At last, she reached Mrs. Neale’s. Upstairs, she unbuttoned her bodice and shimmied out of her skirt. She splashed some water on her face and under her arms. From beneath her bed, she pulled out a large box tied with string. Inside lay her newest treasure—a gown of fine muslin. It had cost extra to have the hem let down and the sleeves lengthened for a total sum of three-and-a-half weeks’ wages. An irrational expenditure and one that set Effie’s heart trilling. As a girl, she’d worn the cast-offs of other children—most in good repair and only a few seasons behind in fashion—but nothing she’d chosen for herself or tailored for her large frame.
The skirt settled smoothly over her petticoat. Several flounces enlarged the bustle. At the shop, though she’d been tempted to select plain brown and black calico, she’d thought of Adeline’s words and chosen lavender instead. The bodice buttoned snug over her corset and the sleeves, for once, neither bunched nor constricted. She refastened her bonnet and rushed down the stairs.
In the foyer, she grabbed her shawl from the peg and caught sight of herself in the small oval mirror hung over the settee. A thin film clouded the glass, giving her reflection a strange pallor. Who was this woman hurrying out—new dress, new boots—into the crowds and chaos. The Effie she knew would never brave such a thing. No, perhaps brave was not the right word. Foolery was more apt. Whatever it was—bravery or lunacy—Effie decided she didn’t care. It was Mardi Gras after all.
The closer she got to Canal Street, the more packed the walkways became. The slanting afternoon sunlight, clipped and bullied by the surrounding buildings, cast the maskers in an ominous glow. Up close she could smell the sweat bled into their costumes and alcohol suf
fusing their breath. Young boys scampered like animals on all fours around her ankles, pressing to get closer to the parade route. They hung from the streetlamps and perched on windowsills, blowing on noisemakers and brandishing flags.
She wound her way toward Dryades Street, where the club had agreed to meet, but the growing crowd slowed her progress. Soon she was floating with the tide of bodies more than walking, trapped in its haphazard ebb and flow. Gone was any pretense of manners. No pardons, or excusez-moi’s. Someone elbowed passed her, jabbing her hard enough to leave a bruise. Another hissed “out of my way” as he pushed her to the side.
She bobbed like a piece of flotsam cast about on storm-riled waves. She gulped down several breaths, but still hungered for air. The chatter and laughter and horn tooting muddled in her ears. Here a black mask, there a Mephisto, a jester, a monkey. Her feet found the paving stones and she backed out of the crowd, fighting the current with each step.
A sliver of space existed at the fringe of the crowd between the fluid mass of bodies and the unyielding buildings. Here at least she could breathe. She leaned against the cool brick and tried to quiet her nerves.
Soon the thud of her pulse settled. Pleasant smells—roasting peanuts, simmering gumbo, cooling pralines—fought off the stench of the crowd. Farther up the street a brass band played.
She reveled a moment in the melody, then searched out a street sign. Once oriented, she skirted the crowd, her bustle pressed flat against the brick and stucco buildings behind her, toward the club’s rendezvous. Green, gold, and purple banners festooned the galleries above her, fluttering like the wings of exotic birds in the gentle breeze off the river.
Rex approached, seated on a bedazzled white stead, at the head of the parade. The crowd pressed toward the street, widening the narrow passage Effie navigated. The band, some distance behind Rex, had switched tunes. A lively number now played, heavy on the trumpet and drum line, and her feet fell in step with the beat. Her eyes, searching the crowd for faces from the ward meeting, strayed to the approaching parade. Flanking Rex, but a pace behind, rode several more men dressed in medieval finery. Their shiny bangles and silver-trimmed coats glinted in the sunlight.
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