by Lara Parker
“Pelée?” she said. “No … but, when the god is … awakened, he turns over, and … Pelée rumbles and spits fire!”
“Oh, I should love to see that! Wouldn’t it be fun? Like Vesuvius! Everyone buried in lava, caught instantly in the act of whatever they were doing—and preserved forever—picking bananas, or sweeping the floor, or using the chamber pot!”
He laughed, delighted at his own joke, and Angelique smiled a little because she thought of Thais frozen in stone in that very position. The boy stared at her again.
“Would you like to see my treasure?” he said. He reached into his top breast pocket and withdrew a small sack. “There is a ship in the harbor at Saint Thomas that belongs to the Great Mogul from India and carries women! And silks embroidered with gold! My uncle, Jeremiah, the lucky codger, has gone aboard. And, this … is what they have in India.” He leaned closer and poured a small handful of loose jewels into her lap, brilliant colors, apple green, amethyst, amber, and deep red. “He gave this lot to me. What do you think?”
Angelique gasped at the jewels and gazed at the boy in total wonderment.
“Look at this one,” he said. “It’s called a moonstone. See?” He took her hand and placed a pale white stone in her palm. “The moon is captured there.” And he rocked the stone slightly so that she could see the bright flash. “Do you see it?”
“Oh, yes!” She looked at him, astonished, then back at the stone.
He folded her fingers around it. “It’s for you,” he said, “to remember me by.” And then he leaned in and kissed her softly on the cheek.
“Barnabas! Are you in there?”
The boy cocked his eyes at her and placed a finger across his lips.
“Come out of there this minute!” came a furious voice.
The boy scooped his jewels from her skirt, grinning at her as he stuffed them back in the sack. Then he tumbled head-over-heels backward out of the chaise and fell onto the ground. He was jerked rudely up by the man called Jeremiah and set on his feet.
“My God, Barnabas! Are you a complete imbecile?” His voice was more fearful than harsh. His eyes flew to Angelique’s face, and he frowned and looked anxiously about him, before railing at the boy in a fierce whisper. “I told you how dangerous it was! If they caught you, they would kill you and think nothing of it. You would never see it coming. A puff of invisible dust! And that would be the end of you.”
Barnabas winked at Angelique to show how absurd he believed this threat to be. But Jeremiah took him by the collar and practically pulled him off his feet. “Come along, young man. Back to the ship with you before I lose my temper.” Angelique could hear their voices fade as they moved away. “How could you do such a foolish thing? Good Lord, Barnabas, don’t you know you are in my charge? My brother would see me shot!”
And the last words she heard were the boy’s. “They’ve made her into a silly idol, and she’s only a little girl. What will become of her?”
She held the moonstone in her fist for a long time, and it was sticky with sweat before she was able to open her fingers and look at it again. She tipped it until its moon danced. Quickly she reached for the ouanga and pulled it loose from her neck. She untied the knot and placed the moonstone beside the tiny snake’s skull. Then she tied it all up again.
Late that night, when the ceremony of Erzulie began at last, she stood in her rose-colored gown, with her golden hair falling about her. While thousands of candles starred the darkness, and the slaves sang to her and laid their powdered gifts at her feet, she wondered whether he was there and imagined that she saw him, standing behind the swaying crowd, watching her with his merry eyes, the boy whose name was Barnabas.
Seven
Barnabas set the journal down in absolute astonishment.
He remembered well his first trip to the islands. He had gone with Jeremiah when he was a young boy—Jeremiah whom he adored, and who had betrayed him in the end. He recalled, in a jumble of images and colors, the creaking merchant ship, the lush green islands, the fragrant, caressing air. He could still picture the Carnival in Martinique, seeing magic performed for the first time and—it seemed incredible—could it possibly be? The pagan creature hidden in her chariot—the “living goddess,” whom he had found so fascinating, and so poignant—was Angelique? He remembered now that the whole journey home he had imagined himself to be in love with her.
But his sharpest memory was his discovery on his return to America. The decks of his father’s ships were crowded with their contracted cargo, barrels of rum. One night on the voyage back to Boston, he and his classmates had decided to peg one barrel and drink like real sailors, tasting the golden elixir that poured fortunes into his father’s pockets. That was the night when, after the others had fallen asleep, and his head reeled with rum, he had crept beneath the decks. Down in the wet and shuddering darkness, he had seen dozens of slaves crammed together and moaning, their black bodies chained together.
A soft tap on the door broke his reverie. It was Julia. Quickly, he hid the journal beneath the other books on his desk and rose to greet her as she opened the door.
“Let us be off to Collinsport,” she said briskly. “I’ve brought the car around.”
“Yes, of course. Good of you to come.”
She hesitated, watching him, sensing something in his manner.
“Are you all right, Barnabas?”
“Of course I am. What do you think?” He was uncharacteristically gruff, which surprised them both.
“I only thought, perhaps, we should make it some other day.”
“But we must go back by the Old House. Check on the wreckers. They must be fairly far along by now,” Barnabas insisted.
“I can do that for you, if you would like.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t be so solicitous, Julia. I’m really rather tired of being pampered. And seeing that anxious look on your face. It’s most unbecoming.”
“I’m sorry…” She sucked in her breath, but held her tongue. Barnabas reached for his jacket and, in doing so, knocked the books onto the floor. The diary fell among them, and Julia frowned.
“You haven’t been reading that, have you?”
“No! Well, I … glanced through it. It’s really not very interesting.”
“Barnabas, for the love of God, give it to me. It has already soured your mood and made you irritable—”
“Not in the least, my dear. Don’t be absurd. I’m not at all irritable, as you say. And I must insist you leave off this nattering. It’s getting on my nerves. As for the diary, I intend to burn it as soon as I return.”
“I see.” She took a breath. “As you burned the Old House?”
“What…?”
“Barnabas, how else could the fire have started?”
“Julia, I do believe you have lost your senses.”
Julia hesitated a moment, staring into Barnabas’s eyes, before she turned away. “Forgive me. I don’t know what possessed me to say such a thing. Shall we go?”
* * *
Roger droned on and on. Barnabas realized he was a captive audience of one at a lecture, and that Roger was in sore need of a partner and an admirer. He was a man of spiteful opinions and fierce energy, philosophizing, moralizing, content to pursue his topic without response. Barnabas stared at the aristocratic face of his cousin with its finely chiseled features, and he listened to his mellifluous tones, but in truth he felt terribly weary as Roger contemplated business ventures, capital, and investments.
Barnabas knew he should value any opportunities Roger presented. Why did his passions remain unstirred? Was it a symptom of his cure?
His eyes drifted to the window, where even in the manicured landscaping outside Roger’s waterfront office, spring had strewn her lavish bounty. Beside the water, a magnificent cherry tree stood heavy with blossoms, its black branches sleeved in tissues of pink. The two opposing textures, one like jagged coal, and the other as delicate as the dawn, caused him a peculiar spasm of depressi
on.
Bees had found the flowers, and they were mad with buzzing, thousands of them, drunken with nectar, and their humming filled his brain with a dull roar. He suddenly felt terribly lonely, and with a start, he recognized an old yearning: He wished he were in love.
He forced himself to listen to Roger.
“Now that you have recovered, Barnabas, I must tell you how anxious I am for you to come on board. We have several, what would you say, ‘irons in the fire,’ and a few broad-reaching involvements to be made more secure. Who is to do it, if not you? Carolyn would be a first-rate executive, if she so chose. However, unfortunately, she still shows no interest. She is bored with trading and feels, I’m sorry to say, that the textile mills are … ahem … unsanitary and ‘unfair to the workers.’ Of all the absurd positions to take. Collins Enterprises! David shows some promise, and one hopes that will be his field when he matures, if he ever matures. At any rate, you would do well to investigate all the Collins’s ventures and not take things for granted. Times change. Carolyn and David must be provided for; investments don’t just happen, they require planning and risk. So, what did you have in mind?”
Barnabas was jarred by the question. “What do you mean?”
“Why, to do, Barnabas, to do? Surely you don’t intend to live off your fortune, or the Collins family fortune … such as it is.”
“I—well, I thought, naturally, to become a member of the board, make some contribution on the executive level—”
“What sort of contribution?” Roger persisted.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What unique talents do you feel you possess? You have traveled a great deal, I know. What was your profession, actually, in London? The law?”
“I—well—business, I suppose. As a matter of fact, I have not needed to toil on a daily basis. There is a substantial amount of property,” Barnabas explained.
“Land?”
“No … jewelry, antiques, furnishings…”
“Have you any notion of how quickly such objects, however precious, lose value? Have you made investments?”
“Uh … yes, of course.” Suddenly Barnabas felt annoyed. “Roger, I resent the implication that I would not carry my weight. I have a large fortune which rests in England, and have no intention of living off of you, as you say.”
“Well, now, my boy, calm down. I don’t mean to pressure you, but nothing like a new involvement to get the blood flowing, if you get my meaning. What do you say?”
“To what?” Barnabas asked.
“To a new involvement. I declare, Barnabas, do I even have your attention?”
“Sorry, Roger. My mind was wandering. Perhaps I should return to the Old House and see whether the wreckers have come. They had still not arrived at noon—”
“Oh, hang the wreckers. Now listen, Barnabas. Here’s a word for you. Tourism! Great profits to be made in tourism, you know, they come in hordes—from Germany, the Orient … everyone wants to see the world!”
Barnabas began to wonder if the interview was ever going to end, for Roger showed no sign of slowing down.
“Travel is now the great middle-class occupation. Overweight Midwesterners in Bermuda shorts, or Japanese businessmen with expensive cameras—no sensitivity for the culture, without a clue about history, collecting countries as they would bottle caps or baseball cards! Nevertheless, it’s a well to be tapped. What would you say to a four-star hotel! A first-class resort!”
Roger paused. Barnabas felt his head swimming from the onslaught of words. Roger lowered his voice and spoke conspiratorially. “We still, as you may or may not know, have property in the Caribbean. A sugar plantation fallen to wrack and ruin, but up on a cliff with a spectacular view, I’m told, of the sea.”
Barnabas was jolted by the word: Caribbean. “Really?” he asked. “Where?”
“Why, in Martinique, of course, French West Indies. We once traded sugar there. We had ships, lost them all after the revolution. The estate came into the Collins family in the late eighteenth century and nothing has ever been done with it. It was purchased, I believe, by one of our illustrious ancestors for his bride-to-be. The marriage never took place, I’m sorry to say. She died mysteriously. But, we still have title to the land. All the way back to the king of France!”
“And nothing has ever been done with it? Why is that?” Barnabas asked, his attention fully on Roger now.
“Politics, my dear man, politics. And lack of workers. But, I’ve just received carte blanche from the French government. They welcome such an endeavor. So, we need someone to go there, arrange for an architect, a contractor, find laborers, and … naturally, I thought of you!”
“Cousin, I don’t think I could take on such a monumental task—”
“Come now, Barnabas! Mustn’t be a slacker, my boy! I can see you have a sense of these things! A love of fine furnishings, as you say—antiques! Imagine it! A grand hotel! You could travel to Europe, purchase the decorative arts—rebuild it from the ground up—breathe new life—apparently there are statues, parapets—”
There was a knock at the door, and Julia burst in breathlessly. Her face was grave with concern. “Roger! Barnabas! There’s been a dreadful accident. On the road to Collinwood. Two men have been killed!”
* * *
Julia gripped the steering wheel as they drove down the road toward the Old House, searching for some sign of the accident. The sun was low in the sky, and they were driving into its glare.
“It shouldn’t be much farther,” she said, her voice shaking. “The police said it was before the crossroads, just past the covered bridge. In the stretch up ahead, don’t you think?”
Barnabas squinted, then raised his hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the glare. “I can’t help but feel that this is somehow my fault,” he muttered.
“Barnabas, that’s absurd.”
“I know, but I arranged for the demolition and—”
“Goodness! I can’t see a thing!” she cried as she braked the car almost to a stop. The dust on the windshield flared in the setting sun, obscuring the road. It was as if they were enveloped in a cloud of fire, golden haze gilding the glass. They inched forward, and, once the glare faded, they saw the wreck.
There were two police cars with their red lights twirling, along with an ambulance. Several policemen were huddled beside the embankment of the river. Julia stopped the car, and she and Barnabas got out.
The flatbed truck which had been carrying the bulldozer was upside down in the river, its wheels in the air, looking like a dead elephant. The cab was a blackened hulk, smashed flat; only the river had prevented the fire from spreading when the gas tank exploded. The tractor was lying on its side in the bushes, its wheels twisted and its bucket completely separated, tossed beyond the trees, as if it had been a boy’s toy discarded in a sandbox.
“When did it happen?” Barnabas asked.
“Early this morning,” said Julia. “The police didn’t discover anything until an hour ago, but the burned metal was already cold to the touch.”
“You mean we drove right by them today on our way to town and saw nothing?”
“How could we have seen it? The bridge is in the way. They were in the riverbed.” She paused. “We couldn’t have saved them, Barnabas.”
“How do you know? We could have tried to do something.” He looked down at the truck. “Poor bastards. What a waste!”
He stared dully at the two dead men. They had never made it to the Old House. Something had stopped them along the road, something he should have known would be there. One body was being loaded on a stretcher, but it was difficult for the paramedics in the rocky riverbed, and they stumbled with the weight. The other victim was still in the upside-down cab, his blackened face just visible, his mouth hanging open in a silent scream.
* * *
Barnabas had begged leave to retire early. Dinner had been a wretched affair, and he had felt only irritation with his family, their hypocritical concern f
or the men who had been killed in the accident. Elizabeth had called it a “tragedy,” surely a misconception, for the drivers had been innocents, hired to perform a service, and they had carried no hubris. Any guilt was his own guilt.
The pall that hung over the family was the same unspoken sense of destiny and inevitability that Barnabas had experienced in other generations. Little was discussed, no sense of outrage or search for rational explanations heated the conversation. What was said was a set of lukewarm euphemisms about death; all were painfully conscious of what was not said: The family carried a curse. Misfortune came, and had always come, relentlessly and predictably. The Collins family kept itself apart from the community, kept its secrets buried away, and never knew release from Fate’s avenging hand.
Out of sheer boredom he had withdrawn from the superficial discussion at the table, distracted with thoughts of his upcoming marriage.
Several days earlier, before this latest set of events, Julia had accepted his proposal with delight. They would set a date soon and planned a honeymoon in Singapore, where Julia knew of rare blood elixirs which she felt might preserve Barnabas’s cure. Still, he was troubled by thoughts of sexual consummation. He had embraced Julia affectionately many times, held her hand as they talked, even kissed her lightly on the lips in greeting or parting. But he had never really kissed her—with passion. Sometimes he could feel her restlessness when they were alone together, an urgency to her response when he hugged her good night, an unspoken signal in her gaze. Soon, he must make love to her.
He did not feel precisely reluctant, although his performance as a lover gave him some concern. As a vampire, arousal had been a response to quite different cues, and he felt out of practice. Still, Julia was so clever, and so supportive, she was certain to ease that transition as well. He was, he told himself, still a young man, vigorous and hungry for life. He liked her lithe body, with its jaunty step and quick movements. Energy—passion—would return, he felt certain. He was more like an addict recovering from the insidious drugs which had shaped his personality for so long; now he would have to rediscover what he once had been without them.