by Frank Yerby
Stephen looked down at the soft bare shoulders which were ivory-white overlaid with thin, transparent gold. And the green eyes were opening, deeper than the sea, wiser than all forgotten mysteries, looking into his.
“I love you, monsieur;” she said, “so very, very much!” Andre was whirling past with a slim quadroon beauty in his arms.
“Time we were off, Stephen,” he said warningly.
But Desiree reached up and brushed Stephen’s lips lightly with her own.
“To hell with that!” Stephen said. “I’m staying!”
Outside, in Orleans Street, Amelia and Odalie sat in the hired carriage looking at the ballroom. They had been there now for almost three hours. Then, at last, the men were coming down the stairs and into the street.
Abruptly, Amelia stiffened, laying a hand on Odalie’s arm. Stephen and Andre were coming down the stairs and walking arm in arm toward the curtained cab. As they neared it, the women could see that they were laughing.
“Drive on!” Odalie said furiously to the driver. The whip slashed down across the thin nag’s back, and the cabriolet moved off.
“That’s odd,” Stephen observed. “I could have sworn that cab was empty!”
When they reached the Exchange, both Stephen and Andre found that their coaches were gone and that they were faced with the painful necessity of hiring horses in order to get back to their plantations.
Stephen smiled a little ruefully.
“ ‘Tis better that we go to your town house for a few hours’ sleep,” he said. “No livery stable will be open at this hour.”
“Sleep!” Andre groaned. “Oh, my God!”
“Ye’re troubled?”
“Stephen, you don’t understand. What if they’ve found out? I only went to that accursed ball on your account. And by now Melia probably thinks I’ve got a yellow placée . . .”
“Then ye haven’t?”
“Of course not! Melia is an angel! I’ve never even looked at another woman since we were married.”
“Ye poor fellow,” Stephen murmured.
Despite his misery, a thin smile crossed Andre’s face.
“In what way am I a poor fellow? Because I’m in trouble now or because I’ve had no other woman?”
“Both,” Stephen said. “But ye have no cause for worry. A bit of exasperation over our long delay—that’s all. Besides, ye seemed to be enjoying your night.”
“I did; but it wasn’t worth this. Stephen, let’s try a few of the stables, there might be a possibility . . .”
“Oh, all right. God knows there are many forms of slavery.” To their astonishment the first place they tried was open. They Creole liveryman met them with a smile of bland amusement.
“But of a certainty I am open,” he grinned. “I always stay open on those nights that the Cordon Bleu conflicts with a ball at the ‘Change. There are always many who have need of my services.”
So, after having paid exorbitant fees for their use, Stephen and Andre limped homeward on a couple of ancient splayed-shanked nags which could not move above a slow walk.
XVII
ALONG the edge of the bayous, the fronds of the palmettos were like giant hands waving. Here and there the heavy, yellow-white flowers of the yucca moved majestically above the menacing bayonet spines of the cruel plant. The water came up to the very roots of the trees, and where they were cypresses, it was black. The great oaks trailed streamers of Spanish moss that caught the smallest breeze, and the willows sighed, dipping their branches into the water.
It was morning, so early that the mists had not yet left the bayou road, yet Aurore was already up, riding her chestnut mare toward Harrow.
‘Tis a very great sin that I do, she thought bitterly; yet it is one for which I cannot seek absolution. No point to confess this that I will always do again and again—that indeed I cannot help doing—and Father DuGois says the sins of the mind are taken no less into account than the sins of the body. I guess I am truly damned. Both in this life and the one to come. But I cannot help loving him. ‘Tis a thing beyond my will. And this is the worst of it, this shameless riding out to see him, so early that he will not have had time to have gone into the fields. May the Blessed Mother of God forgive me and give me strength against this thing.
As she rode up the oak-canopied drive to Harrow, Georges came scurrying out to take the reins. Aurore noticed that his face was strained and fearful.
“Morning, Mademoiselle Aurore,” he quavered.
“Is your mistress up yet?” Aurore asked.
“Oh, yas, she up, her. She been up for hours.”
That was odd, Aurore decided as she swung down from the horse. Odalie was not overly fond of arising early. And the morning after a ball too. . . .
She shook her head, so that the chestnut curls bobbed, and went on up the stairs. She crossed the great hall and approached the dining room. She was walking rapidly, her mind preoccupied with many thoughts, so that she passed through the doorway and into the dining room before the voices arrested her.
“So,” Odalie was weeping. “You’ve come home to me night after night with your lips still warm from the kisses of your Negress! Filthy, disgusting beast! I wish I could scald off the skin where you’ve touched me!”
“Ah,” Stephen mocked. “That would be a sight. Please do so, my dear. I should like to see what a charming chameleon ye’d make.”
“Don’t provoke me further, Stephen! Have you no shame? What under heaven could possess you to ride fifteen miles to visit a mulatto wench? Tell me—I’m trying to understand— truly I am.”
“That ye could never understand,” Stephen said drily. “ ‘Twould be describing the colors of a sunset to a blind man. And now, if ye’ve finished this senseless tirade . . .”
“But I haven’t finished; I shall never finish it! I must know what this thing is—I must know!”
“That—ye cannot, even if I were so foolish as to attempt to tell ye. But there is enough and too much of this—and I have work to do.”
He made a half turn, but Odalie laid a hand upon his arm.
“Never go to her again,” she said. “Promise me, Stephen!”
Stephen looked at her, and his pale eyes were blue glacier ice. Then very gently, he disengaged her hand from his arm, and turned to go.
“I shall have her whipped!” Odalie cried. “You know I can! It’s the law, Stephen, it’s the law.”
Stephen turned back to face her.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “ ‘Tis the law, all right. But if ye ever dare invoke it, ye know right well who would suffer.”
“You—you don’t mean you’d leave me for her—for a Negress!”
“And why not? She has been a better companion to me than ever ye could dream of. She is twice the woman, and thrice the wife that ever ye were. Remember this, my dear—no man ever leaves a good wife. Think on that, if ever ye think at all!”
He spun on his heel so that his eyes met the stricken face of Aurore, who was still standing, as though frozen, in the doorway.
“No, Stephen,” she whispered. “No—this I cannot believe—not of you—never of you, Stephen.”
“Thank ye for your trust,” he said. “But ‘tis true, Aurore. I have a quadroon mistress. I don’t try to justify it—what is—is. Good day to ye, ladies.”
“Wait, Stephen,” Aurore said. “Let me ride with you into the fields.”
“I shall not discuss this thing, Aurore!”
Aurore hesitated looking into the pale blue eyes that were like those of a peregrine. Then she turned to her sister.
“Stay with me, Aurore,” Odalie sobbed. “I need you.”
Aurore crossed the room, and stood beside her sister’s chair, one arm around Odalie’s shoulders. But her gaze followed Stephen as he went through the doorway. Then she folded her sister against her, and both of them wept, there in the silent room.
Night after night, Stephen rode away to New Orleans toward the little house on Rampart Street where musi
c was and laughter and a slow, insidious witchery that poured fire into his veins and kept it ever blazing. All his instincts, all his better judgement rebelled against this thing, but, for the first time in his life, he was powerless. ‘Tis wrong, wrong, wrong! he would tell himself, and the next instant an image of Desiree—dancing a mad gypsy dance, her scarlet skirts swirling about her perfect limbs, or Desiree’s lips, moist and warm and parted sighing under his, waiting to be kissed, or Desiree naked in his arms, her body of pale white gold stirring ever so gently so that the long curving sweep of arm and thigh and waist seemed to flow from one position to another each more enchanting than the last—would arise in his mind and groaningly he would commit himself to damnation.
At Harrow, Odalie grew thin and pale from days of scarcely touching food and nights of sleepless waiting. It was on one of these nights, after she had seen Etienne tucked safely abed and seated herself at her window that faced toward the river road, that Caleen came into the room, silently, without even knocking. She must have stood there a long time before Odalie sensed her presence. She whirled, a little half scream caught deep in her throat, one hand pressed against her mouth.
“Do not have fear, maîtresse,” Caleen said. “ ‘Tis only me.”
“Well,” Odalie snapped, “what do you want?”
“Nothing,” Caleen said. “Only to help, if I can.”
“You—you want to help me? Why, Caleen? How?”
“I know maîtresse’s trouble. The maître run after Negre gal. That’s not new, that happens a lot, yes. But maîtresse is good to Caleen, and the good maître is tricked by Negre magic. So I help, me. Somebody got to have sense round Harrow, so I have it, me; ain’t nobody else got none.”
“All right, Caleen, get to the point.”
“I know a wise woman—wise in Negre magic. She can tell maîtresse what to do.”
“Not—not one of those Voudou priestesses, Caleen?”
Caleen nodded.
“Yes. She a Mamaloi, and a good one, I tell you, yes!”
“Now, Caleen, don’t be ridiculous!”
The old woman drew herself up proudly to her full height. Caleen was a tall woman, and she knew how to be impressive.
“Maîtresse ever see Caleen fail? Didn’t maîtresse give birth all right when docteur say her die? Didn’t ‘Tienne live, him? An’ maître—when he got shot by that wicked old man—didn’t Caleen bring him back when already he ‘most dead, him?”
“You—you have much right,” Odalie said. “Still a Mamaloi. . . .”
“She wiser than Caleen. She teach me all I know, her. You see, maîtresse, white man wise, all right; he wise one way; but Negre wise, too; he wise another way—a old, old way. White man can’t understand that way. I sing a song, me, out in the kitchen house. Maîtresse hear me sing it a hundred time, but tonight I sing it different, just one sound different; hold one word a little too long, maybe. Cook, her hear me sing it. She hear that one word held too long. She go outside to empty water and she sing it too, her. And she hold that one word too long. Negre passing by hear it, him. He go through all the fields singing it the same way, till finally it go from mouth to mouth and the Negres in the fields next to ours done got it too, them. Then tonight, Negres from every plantation in fifty miles meet me tonight in the black bayous when the moon is dark. Ain’t no white man can do that, maîtresse. Ain’t no white docteur, no white priest can tell maîtresse what to do. Got to fight magic with magic: gris-gris with better gris-gris. We get maître back—you watch.”
Odalie stood up, her dark eyes very clear.
“This woman,” she said. “When can we see her?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight? But Caleen it’s raining like mad and it’s very late and . . .”
“Maîtresse want maître back?”
“All right, Caleen. Go get my things—you know where to find them.”
A half hour later, a small black coach rocked away from Harrow through the driving rain. Caleen sat beside her mistress, who was dressed in black and heavily veiled. The rain steamed up from the flanks of the horses and drummed against the roof of the coach, which lurched on at a furious speed through the puddles and ruts in the road. Odalie sat very still, twisting a handkerchief into a damp ball in her hands.
Then, hours later, they were turning into New Orleans, the horses flecked with foam and heaving. They kept on at a trot until they came to the quarter where the free Negroes lived. It was a dark, evil-smelling collection of ruined buildings. Looking out, Odalie shuddered.
Caleen ordered the coachman to stop.
“We get out here,” she said. Odalie’s black eyes widened. “Come!” the old woman commanded. Odalie stepped down into the inky road.
“You wait here, you!” Caleen said to the coachman.
“Come,” Caleen said again to Odalie. “I’ll go in front, me. Quickly now.”
Odalie lifted the corner of the heavy black veil that hid her face. It was very dark and the rain fell hissing into the mud puddles, stippling the surface of the water. There was no light, and the Negro shanties, blackedged even against the blackness, slanted up at crazy angles. Odalie let the veil fall again and put her slim hand on Caleen’s arm. They turned and twisted through a labyrinth of narrow lanes and alleys, covered ankle-deep with mud and icy water. Suddenly Caleen stopped.
“Here,” she muttered, “here.”
Odalie could feel a great trembling running through her entire body. Now, at that moment, she would have run away, twisting down all the dark and muddy alleys they had come if she had known the way. But she was lost. They had turned too often, retracing their steps too many times. Standing there, she could feel nothing but the cold and the fear. There was a vast, echoing hollow in her middle, a gone spent feeling, a weakness in the very marrow of her bones and her blood ran very clear and cold like spring water.
Caleen was knocking now, making a definite rhythm, three times repeated. The door swung open, noiseless on its hinges, and a rich, rolling, midnight bass called out in Gumbo French:
“Who’s there?”
“Me,” Caleen snapped. “Tante Caleen. Voudou Magnian!”
“Voudou Magnian,” the voice repeated. “Enter!”
The two of them slipped into a hallway, and the door was shut behind them. There was no light, and the blackness had thickness and texture. It seemed compounded of smoke and foul air and the smell of musk and oil and dark bodies. Odalie’s trembling increased so that Caleen could feel it, communicated through the grip of her mistress’ fingers on her arm.
“Not the fear,” she said. “ ‘Tis nothing.”
The man who had admitted them was moving ahead in the darkness. Odalie knew that, although she could neither see nor hear him. Then a hinge creaked briefly, and a slanting blade of yellow guillotined the darkness. The man stood half revealed in the doorway, and now for the first time Odalie could see him. He was a magnificent Negro, more than six feet tall, and proportioned like a Nubian archer. Standing there, the stillness about him had an impact that was almost physical, a sensation of force frozen into quiet which stunned Odalie’s senses so that the trembling stopped as if by a word of command.
“Enter,” he said again.
They went by him very rapidly into a room illuminated by half a dozen flambeaux. When the smoke had ceased stinging Odalie’s eyes, she could see a large mulatto woman seated on a rude throne. Half a glance told her that as a girl this woman had been very beautiful, and even now was still compellingly handsome.
“Closer, my child,” the woman said in perfect French. “Do not fear. What is it you desire of Selada?”
Odalie moved toward her. Then she stopped. From a wicker basket before the throne, a full-grown snake had put out its head. Then another and another and another until the petrified Odalie, her arms half strangling Caleen—and the scream she had started to utter caught somewhere deep in her throat—had counted twelve of them.
“My pets will not harm you,” Selada said. �
�Take them away, Tante Caleen, since they frighten our guest.”
Calmly Caleen broke her mistress’ grip, and picking up the basket, the snakes twining and untwining about her arms, she placed it in a far corner.
“Speak, child,” Selada said. “What is it you wish?”
Odalie stood before her, her lips moving, but no sound came from them, no sound at all.
“It does not matter much,” Selada said, her eyes sweeping over the veiled young figure, resting for a moment on the heavy gold wedding band, then traveling on. “Voudou Magnian will speak to me. Your husband, is it not so? I see him and another woman. A woman of the blood of the blacks. I have right, do I not?”
Odalie nodded dumbly.
“I will help you. Hercule!”
The magnificent black man appeared and bowed low before Selada.
“Your servant, Queen,” he said.
“Summon the others. We will dance Calinda. We must make strong gris-gris for Madame.”
Hercule was gone as silently as he came. Selada indicated that Odalie and Caleen should be seated. After a moment Hercule was back, followed by twenty-five or thirty Negroes of various ages and colors, including a quadroon girl of sixteen or so who was so beautiful that Odalie caught her breath looking at her. They grouped themselves around the throne and two men only a shade less perfectly developed than Hercule seated themselves before drums which looked as though they had been brought, hundreds of years ago, from Africa.
They began to beat the drums with the palms of their hands, a slow steady rhythm never varying, never ceasing. Odalie could feel her breath coming quicker. They kept it up, over and over again, the whispering, muttering, muted blood-throbbing beat.
Selada made an imperceptible gesture and the beat changed. Faster it grew, faster, louder: low thunder on the dog-skin drums. The beautiful quadroon girl went down the rows between the guests and placed a baked clay vase filled to the brim with Tafia, cane rum, before each of them. They began to drink, and Odalie, fearing to be different, sipped hers once and again as the beat of the drums increased, then again and again until the ice water in her veins changed into warm wine. Then her blood was pounding through her body, and her eyes were bright as the rest, and her young patrician body was swaying with those of the others.