by Frank Yerby
The fat man’s face was ashy pale and his struggles ceased.
Stephen bound his wrists with his own stock, then they laid him gently upon the ground and removed his trousers. They both laughed.
“Can’t say I admire your taste, my friend,” Stephen said.
“Probably made by that scoundrel Clovis,” Andre told the helpless man. “You should patronize Lagoaster. He’s by far the best tailor in New Orleans.”
Stephen ran his hands expertly through the fat man’s pockets. He came up with a purse and several letters.
“This gentleman’s name is Metoyer,” he said, after glancing at the letters, “and he lives in Poydras Street. Remember that when we go to abduct his wife and daughter.”
“Give him back the letters,” Andre said. “Now how do I look?”
“Like a prince of the blood. But off with ye, we still have to bludgeon that old widow near the Ramparts.”
“Shall I untie him?” Andre whispered, his voice shaken with laughter.
“No. Let the police find him. He’ll probably describe us as two of the most fiendish footpads that ever desecrated the city. A good day to ye, sir!” he added loudly. “I trust ye will sleep most comfortably!”
The two of them moved off, arm in arm, leaving their clear laughter floating on the fog.
“We’ll go to my home,” Andre said. “First we’ll breakfast, then we’ll sleep an hour or two. Afterwards I’ll show you the town. I’m not anxious to take my leave of you. Before this morning I was dying of ennui.”
“Ye’ll get your fill of me,” Stephen said, smiling. “I’m here to stay.”
They turned down a number of twisted, ill-paved streets. In the gutters the stagnant water still stood, although it had been a fortnight since it had rained. A smell rose up from the walk and struck Stephen in the face. When he looked, he saw the bloated carcass of a dog, dead three days at the least, floating in the cypress-lined gutter. He turned away quickly.
“By our Lady!” he swore. “This is the filthiest hole! Don’t the authorities ever—”
Andre shrugged.
“No,” he said, “and when it is hot, the people die like flies.”
“And nothing is done?”
“Nothing.”
They walked along in silence. The sun was up and the morning mist had melted away into the ground. The streets were narrow, mere lanes, innocent for the most part of any sort of pavement. Here and there were stretches of cobblestone, broken and irregular, which started, ran for a stretch and stopped all with the same apparent disregard for reason.
The houses, Stephen saw, came down to the very edge of the sidewalks, and lacked walks, verandas, or even a façade of any sort. Most of them, however, had overhanging balconies called galleries, richly ornamented with wrought iron. One instant, one could be within the privacy of his own dwelling, and the next, in the hurry and bustle of the streets.
Andre’s house was the same way, though larger and finer than any of the others that Stephen had seen. The ironwork of the huge overhanging gallery was like delicate lace. They went through a massive oaken door which opened directly into the street without the intervention of so much as a half step. Inside, it was cool and dark, but even before his eyes had grown fully accustomed to the gloom, Stephen knew that it was magnificently furnished. The finest cabinet makers of old France had worked this oak and teak and mahogany, shaping it with loving care, and polishing it until it shone.
Andre’s manservant took their hats and cloaks.
“Good morning, Monsieur Andre,” he said. “Your father—”
“Is displeased. Papa is nearly always displeased,” Andre said to Stephen. “I sleep in the daytime and prowl at night; that displeases him. I loathe planting. I go out to La Place des Rivières—that’s our plantation—only when I cannot help it, and die of boredom all the time I’m there. That displeases Papa. I won’t get married. Papa has the affair already arranged. He has even picked the girl. But me, I like variety in my bedfellows. And as for Marie de Pontabla—I’d sooner sleep with a hatrack. That doesn’t displease Papa—it infuriates him. Ti Demon! What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing, Monsieur Andre!” and the white teeth disappeared into the black face with startling abruptness.
“We’ll have our coffee in the courtyard. Black coffee, Ti Demon, no milk. And brandy. Chateau Elisee, ‘69, none of that urine de cheval that Papa keeps about the house. Come, Stephen—you don’t mind if I call you that? It seems I’ve known you so long.”
“Not at all,” Stephen said. Andre walked through the cool rooms with the immensely high ceilings. The front of the house, Stephen saw, was in reality the back; the rooms were arranged so that the whole house seemed to be disregarding the outside world with true Creole hauteur. Crystal chimes, suspended from the magnificent cut-glass chandeliers, tinkled softly as they passed through the rooms to the courtyard.
The courtyard was paved with blue-gray flagstones. Flowering oleanders grew in large jars. There were ferns suspended from the windows overlooking the yard, and potted palms and a banana tree. In the center of the yard was a birdbath in which the little sparrows were already splashing. As he sank into a chair, Stephen’s eyes wandered over a row of huge urn-like vessels, glazed a rich blue.
“Water,” Andre answered his unspoken question. “Wait, I’ll get you some.” He went into the house and came back with a crystal pitcher and goblets of the finest glass. Standing on a low stone bench, he dipped the pitcher into one of the urns and came out with a clear, almost sparkling liquid.
Stephen raised the goblet to his mouth and drank deeply. Then his face reddened, and his ears stood out from his head.
“Spit it out,” Andre laughed. “You see now why we always drink wine?”
“By all the saints!” Stephen spluttered. “What do ye put in it? It binds up a man’s jaw like steel!”
“Alum and powdered charcoal. It would kill you, if we didn’t. All the water here is deadly. That from the well is impossible, so we buy the nectar you’ve just tasted from wagons which bring it from the river. It kills you a little less quickly than well water. So we don’t drink any of it. But this you can drink,” he added, indicating the coffee and brandy that Ti Demon was bringing through the archway. “In fact, I think you’ll like it.”
Andre laced his coffee liberally, but Stephen drank his brandy first. Then as the warm feeling began to swim up from his middle and swing in slow circles around the inside of his head, he gulped the coffee quickly.
“Now we will sleep,” Andre said. “All day if you like. That’s what I usually do.”
“Excuse me, Monsieur Andre,” Ti Demon said. “But today is the celebration for the gran’ general, the Marquis de Lafayette.”
“That’s true. We mustn’t miss that.”
“De Lafayette is coming here?” Stephen asked.
“Yes. He’ll arrive on the Natchez from Mobile this morning. The Mayor has appropriated fifteen thousand dollars—with the consent of the city council, of course—to entertain him. Everybody will turn out. You’ll see more of the gentry of New Orleans today than ordinarily you could meet in a year.” He stifled a yawn with the back of his hand.
“Ti Demon, show Monsieur Fox to the guest chamber. After you have seen to his wants, come to my room. I have an errand for you to run.”
“Ye’re sending back the trousers?”
“But certainly. And with them a little snuff box of gold inlaid with lapis lazuli that the skinny Mademoiselle de Pontabla brought me from Mexico. A horribly barbaric thing. I’ve been wondering what to do with it.”
Stephen laughed aloud.
“ Tis very clear,” he chuckled, “that your devotion to your father’s choice is a little short of overwhelming.”
“A little,” Andre admitted. “I’ve always been a dutiful son, but this time dear papa is asking too much.”
He put out his hand.
“Sleep well, my friend. Ti Demon will awaken us before the parades
start.”
Stephen followed the lean figure of the black man through a maze of rooms and up sweeping flights of stairs. Then Ti Demon opened a door and stood aside. Stephen went in. The room was richly decorated. In the center stood a massive, canopied bed.
Already, Ti Demon had crossed the room and was adjusting the covers.
“Monsieur wants something?”
“Nothing now, thank you. When you wake me—some hot water for a bath, and a razor. That’s all for now.”
Ti Demon bowed silently out of the room.
That was it, Stephen thought. To live like this—graciously. with leisure to cultivate the tastes and to indulge every pleasure—a man must be free of labor. Leave the work for the blacks. Breed a new generation of aristocrats. Yes, there was no doubt about it. New Orleans had it all over Philadelphia, which he had called home since he had come to America. Four years ago, that had been, when he had just turned twenty-one. A mere stripling, perhaps, but a more accomplished rake and sharper than many a man twice his age. In the four years, he had filled out, broadened. He had lost that look of youth. Now, at twenty-five, he might be taken for twenty-eight or even thirty. The reflection pleased him.
It was the food that did it, he mused; the food and the good living, and something about the air of this land. It did something to you, that air. It was the height of the sky perhaps and the sweep of it. The clarity too—no muggy, cowed sky of shifting fog and whimpering rains. It was a sky that thundered and splashed sunlight like gold over everything, and rained and stormed like an angry Titan and whipped the land below with winds and washed it with light until everything took on a jewel-like clarity. Even the state of a man’s mind. He knew what he wanted now: freedom for himself and his sons; mastery over this earth; a dynasty of men who could stride this American soil unafraid, never needing to cheat and lie and steal.
He pillowed his head upon his arms and slept.
II
ANDRE and Stephen moved through the crowds slowly. As they passed, heads were turned in their direction. There were not, in that day, many men so tall as Stephen, and his coppery red hair was like a beacon among the dark Creoles. It was surprising, too, to see a ‘Mericain coquin, a despised Kaintock on so friendly terms with an aristocratic young Creole. The older Frenchmen shook their heads sadly, and spoke of it as one more evidence of the degeneration of modern youth. The American city was growing like a rank weed, crowding the lordly Creoles back into the old square, the original boundaries of the city. And the Frenchmen had had many sad experiences with the fierce flatboatmen who fought with knives, bottles and their fists but never with a rapier or a colchemarde. The American business men, too, had many methods which to a Creole smacked of pure thievery. Certainly, no American had ever heard of honor.
“We had might as well rest,” Andre said. “The Natchez won’t be here for hours.”
“All right,” Stephen agreed. “I could do with a glass. What about that café yonder?”
“Heavens no! That’s the Café des Améliorations.”
“So?” Stephen said, still marching firmly toward it. “They have wine, don’t they? Or even whiskey perhaps? Or is that too much to expect?”
“But you don’t understand, Stephen. They—the men that go there are old, terribly old. And they have old-fashioned ways. . . .”
“Speak your piece, lad. Don’t beat around the bush.”
“All right. Those are men from the very oldest families. They see no reason why Louisiana should not still be a part of France. And perhaps they hate the devil himself worse than they do an American, but, frankly, I doubt it.”
“I could say I was not an American,” Stephen said slowly. “After all, I’ve only been here four years; but, when I think about it, I’m afraid I am. We’ll go elsewhere then. I’m in no mood for quarreling.”
“Good. May I suggest La Bourse de Maspero?”
“Ye may suggest what ye like. Maspero’s it is then. Carry on, lad.”
They started through the crowd, using their elbows to make a way. But the mass of people in the Square was so dense that they made little progress.
“It’s not worth it,” Stephen declared. “I vote we take our refreshments from the roadside like the others.”
“Now really, Stephen . . .”
“Don’t be such a damned aristocrat! That’s what cost your nobility their heads. A man can be a gentleman without playing the role every minute.”
Andre shrugged and the two of them moved through the crowd to the place where the dark little Greek in the enormous crimson fez was selling oysters in the half shell and ginger beer and sherbet. When they came away they felt full and vastly pleased with themselves. An old Negro woman called out as they passed:
“Estomac mulâtre! Belly of mulatto! Estomac mulâtre! Achetez! Buy! Venez vous et mangez! Come and eat! Estornac mulâtre!”
“Are ye cannibals too, in this country?” Stephen asked. “And what do ye do with the rest of the Nigra, if ye eat only his belly?”
“One moment,” Andre said, turning to the old woman. “Tante! Give me eight pieces of mulatto’s belly!” He gave her a coin. The old woman put her hand inside the basket and came out with eight small round cakes, smelling of spices, still hot from the oven.
“Here,” Andre said. “Four for me and four for you. Our mulattoes have delicious bellies, do they not?”
“What a name to give gingercake! Now I know ye French are crazy!”
“Perhaps—but there is another of our products—look!”
Stephen’s nimble fingers lifted a banana from a fruit vendor’s stand. As he stripped it, he turned in the direction that Andre had indicated. A group of young girls, afoot, and dressed in bright colors was slipping through the throngs like gayly chattering songbirds. They carried no parasols, and their lovely young faces were bared to the sun. But strangest of all they wore on their heads instead of the bonnets of the Creole ladies, the bright tignons of the slaves.
“My God,” Stephen said. “They’re dressed like blacks. Better stuff, but the cut’s the same.”
“They’re quadroons. Their fathers and grandfathers—”
“Were white. While their mothers were like the one who sold us mulatto’s belly. I don’t see how ye Frenchmen do it, Andre. To me there is nothing on earth so repulsive as a black. To sleep with that old monkey—ugh!”
“You haven’t been here long. Your ideas will change. Besides, their mothers were almost as fair as they. We started bleaching them generations ago! You’ll acquire your own pretty little place’e, before you’ve been here many moons, I’ll wager.”
“Never,” Stephen said flatly. “Never.”
The crowd jostled them along the street. There was the sound of a cannon booming, and all the people surged forward at once.
“That’s it!” Andre said. “The Natchez has docked!”
All the people were tense, waiting. Stephen let his eye wander over the throng. The people were dressed in their best clothes, and were waving the tricolor; but Stephen’s glance passed on to where the coaches, barouches, landaus, phaetons and cabriolets waited. There the women were dressed in watered silk, and India muslin; there the little midnight bunches of curls bobbed over each shell-like ear as they smiled and talked, while the beribboned parasols nodded deliciously.
“They’re coming,” Andre said. “See—you can see them now. There’s de Lafayette! That’s Mayor de Roffenac with him, and Joseph Duplantier . . .”
But Stephen wasn’t looking. A saucy little green and gold landaulette had come flashing up to the square, drawn by two spanking bays. Stephen, who was an excellent judge of horseflesh, thought he had never seen finer carriage horses. Their appointments were of the best and the Negro who drove them had on spotless green and gold livery.
Stephen’s eyes swept past the horses and the coachman.
“And that,” Andre was saying, “is Vincent Nolte, the banker, and that’s General Villere . . .”
But Stephen’s fingers w
ere biting into the flesh of his arm.
“Who,” he demanded, “is that?”
Andre turned.
“You have an eye for beauty, have you not?” he said. “Those are the Arceneaux sisters—in my opinion, the two loveliest girls in New Orleans.”
“I didn’t ask ye about both of them. That one—with hair like night cascading out of God’s own heaven, unlighted by a star—that one!”
“And you’re a poet, too! I hadn’t suspected it.”
“Holy Mother of God! I ask him to tell me the name of the girl I’m going to marry, and he talks about poetry!”
“Not so fast, my friend. Her name is Odalie. And she is directly related by blood to the late, lamented royal house. Also, every man of wealth and distinction in New Orleans has already asked her hand, either for himself, or in behalf of his son. I would suggest that you try someone a trifle less difficult—say the Crown Princess of England. I should also suggest that it is very, very rude to stare!”
“Hang your suggestions! Ye’re going to present me—now!”
“I’m sorry, my dear friend, but that is quite impossible.”
“Why?” Stephen demanded.
“Here, in this public square, it would be the height of impoliteness. I’m not at all sure Odalie wouldn’t cut me dead for even associating with a mauvais Kaintock.”
“I’m not from Kentucky!” Stephen snapped.
“To a Creole,” Andre said gently, “all Americans are from Kentucky—and they’re all bad.”
“I see,” Stephen said quietly. “An opinion in which ye doubtless concur?”
“Softly, my good Stephen. I have no desire to kill you in a senseless duel. Let’s be frank about this affair. You’re penniless and something of an adventurer. At the present moment, your chances with Mademoiselle Odalie Arceneaux are exactly nil.” He stopped, looking at Stephen. From the center of the Place D’Armes, Mayor Louis Phillippe de Roffenac was making a speech to the city’s most distinguished guest. Neither of them heard a word of his swift, sibilant French.
“Go on,” Stephen said.
“Later, they might be better. The good God knows you’re a hard and reckless man. If you’ll accept my counsel, I’d say wait. Fatten your purse. Distinguish yourself in political matters, preferably in the interest of the Creoles—that, in an American, would win you many friends. Then with your lightning changes from youthful impetuosity to icy calculation—who knows? Truly many have failed; but they were none of them like you.”