by Andrea Lewis
“Remember where this came from?” He knew we remembered, but that never stopped Louis from telling a story. “This belonged to my grandmother, Queen Juliette. Remember?”
“I remember she was a whore,” Iris said.
Louis bowed his head over the carving. “True,” he said. “But her father sold her into that life. She was only fourteen.”
“Another happy, nuclear family,” Iris said.
He turned it over in his palm. “This was the only thing Juliette had from her own mother. Folks believed a mother pelican would feed her young with her own blood if necessary.”
“I’m touched.” Iris reopened her book and pretended to read.
Louis went on. “My grandmother did all right though. She made a fortune.”
“What happened to it?” Iris snapped off the question without looking up. She knew that this part of the story tortured Louis.
“Well, my mother Cate got it.” Louis tried to laugh a little, I think to keep from crying. “But she lost it all.”
“Mothers are funny that way,” Iris said.
“I forgave her, Iris. She couldn’t do anything right, but I loved her.”
Louis held out the pelican and took two steps toward Iris. She dragged her gaze up from Le Bleu du ciel and fixed him with a look of bored hatred.
“Take it, Iris,” I said. They both jumped a little, having forgotten I was there.
“No,” she said.
“Just keep it for me.” Louis held it under the coral light. The polished ivory shone and revealed its fine network of pinkish brown veins.
“Why?”
“Take it on loan,” Louis said. “From Queen Juliette. She was smart, Iris, and brave. Like you.”
“I don’t want it,” Iris said. But as if her hand couldn’t obey her voice, she reached up and took it. She held it by its little ivory feet and looked it in the eye.
3
Queen Juliette
10 February 1895
Maestro Rainer von Schofeld
Chartres Street at DumaineΌ
New Orleans, LouisianaΌΌ
Francesca Countess von Schofeld
Neustadtviertel, Linz
Empire of Austria
Dear Mother,
Please stop worrying about my search for a bride. The day I arrived here, patrons of the French Opera House began flinging girls at my feet. They cannot bear for their new maestro to be sans female companionship. Even if said maestro does stand a mere five and a half feet tall and have rather too high a forehead and too thick an Austrian accent. (“He is thirty-three? And unmarried?”)
Case in point: dinner Thursday last at Phillip Gerrity’s—his fortune made in canals and bridges, his townhouse tucked into the elite Lower Garden District, his wife’s taste running to massive pieces of Hepplewhite decked out with paisleys, brocades, gewgaws, and froufrou.
His wife paraded their daughter before me like a veal calf on market day. Seraphina Carolina Kincaid Gerrity. A lovely child, perhaps eighteen, overdressed and nervous under the ferret gaze of her mother. Mounds of alabaster flesh on display. The girl’s pink frock was so puffy she threatened to levitate to the punched-tin ceiling. She had pleasing green eyes and shot me the occasional mischievous glance. While my first thought was Frederick should meet this girl, I did find myself attracted.
After a tedious supper, Mrs. Gerrity pushed Seraphina to the pianoforte. So many of these ladies imagine music is the way to my heart. Seraphina, to her credit, kept it short, singing a Liszt setting of Die Stille Wasserrose, and not badly, but she perspired so freely I took pity and asked if she’d care to walk outside. Her mother pounced on this request and herded us out the door. We walked under their magnificent oaks and I attempted conversation, but Seraphina preferred kissing. I admit I obliged her. When I asked if she’d be home in the coming week, she said, “All the time. Or I could come to you.” So you see, Mutti, American girls are bold and opportunities are boundless.
Please forgive me for leaving Magda behind in Vienna. I know you wished us married, but we are not suited in the least. I trust she was not truly broken-hearted—you know what a great actress she is. Anyway, why cannot she marry Frederick? We look somewhat alike but he is taller and if you had one son married, you could suspend half your despair.
All my affection,
Your son, Rainer
2 April 1895
Dear Mother,
To answer your questions: yes, I have spent time with Seraphina and yes, she is a sweet and wholesome girl and yes, she is interested in marriage. Her coterie—spoiled daughters of the Garden District and their obedient beaux—have kept me entertained with their idea of the high life. I’ve drunk cognac and Bordeaux, eaten foie gras and frog legs, sat under magnolias and mimosas to sip juleps or ginger beer, smoked excellent LaGloria Cubana Minutos and taken breezy lakeside rides in handsome phaetons, all with Seraphina stuck like stickleweed to my side, arrayed in elaborate frocks from blinding white to devil red. I could propose now, but why spoil the sport of watching her win me? Given the hours of rehearsal at the Opera House, including harangues from the house manager and mishaps from wardrobe, diversion with Seraphina is always welcome.
Seraphina’s parents—her father forever puffing on a Meerschaum and her mother forever eyeing the social ladder—are the quintessential parvenu opera patrons, attending every performance and contributing tidy sums. In fact, this whole city is mad for opera. Bootblacks whistle “Una furtiva lagrima” in the streets! Waffle men, clothespole men, fig men, and icemen sing out their wares in the most astounding voices. People of every race, caste, and hue come to the opera house, with coloreds seated or standing one or two balconies up, darkest skins farthest from the stage. The zeal of the audiences compensates for the poor lighting, the moldy walls, and the crushing humidity, which takes entire string sections out of tune in ten minutes.
My debut production—“The Daughter of the Regiment”—was well-received. Our star tenor drank like a Spanish pirate, yet his voice held and he never missed a cue. One night a piece of château fell on a soldier and gashed his forehead, but he kept singing. Everyone loved it. To add to the drama, there was a race riot in the city during the final performance. These riots break out like thunderstorms—violent and fleeting—usually over labor problems. Negroes taking jobs, Negroes refusing jobs, Negroes wanting higher wages, and hooligans opposing them. We were forced to remain in the opera house until the disturbance abated. Made me feel I was living on the Wild Frontier. Don’t worry—I am quite safe.
Your devoted (bachelor) son, Rainer
10 April 1895
Frederick von Schofeld
Neustadtviertel, Linz
Dear Frederick,
Thank you, Little Brother, for your letter with its leering references to my new “fiancée.” You know perfectly well I have not proposed to Seraphina, nor done any of the things to which you so cleverly and glancingly refer. But my life here is not entirely dull. I haven’t told Mother everything. In fact, thanks to the race riot I mentioned in my last letter, I have met an intriguing creature.
Because we were barred that night from leaving the opera house until 2 AM, all the performers, dressers, ushers, and audiences—even those from the colored balconies—gathered on the main floor. A rare but propitious co-mingling of social strata and pigmentation. We handed round champagne and the mood turned festive.
One striking girl glided by, so tall that the entire assembly gaped at her, yet so beautiful no one dared approach. She had a startled gazelle quality, sleek and vulnerable. Only a maid accompanied her, so I introduced myself and we conversed. We must have been quite a spectacle: the elfin maestro and his long-stemmed fleur. She wore a glistening aquamarine gown that frothed about her like the glacial waters of the Alps. All the so-called European ladies (that is to say, no African blood) regarded her with jealousy and loathing. Yes, she is colored, Frederick—are you shocked?—but nothing like the obsidian-hued Africans we have glimpsed in the capita
ls of Europe. She is probably a quadroon or an octoroon, as they say here. They are a caste called “free people of color” (first balcony). To envision her skin, think of Arabian coffee laced with crème fraîche.
Her presence transformed me so that I almost felt handsome, like you, as I gazed upon her. Her skin actually shone—I can’t explain it. I understand there is a cream women use containing crushed pearls. Could that be it? Her eyes were long and slanted, and her hands, in ivory gloves, were slender and expressive. No more than twenty years old, yet she had read the entire libretto of “Daughter” and expressed great sympathy for the abandoned girl, Marie.
I discovered her name at least—Julie Devereaux—but she slipped away before I learned anything about how to find her. Now I am frantic to see her again.
Impart none of this to Mother, Freddi, please! She is still upset over my leaving Magda and still hoping I’ll marry Seraphina. If she knew I was lusting after an African, she would disown me. You have much more experience than I with these matters. Send advice!
Your clumsy older brother, R.
1 May 1895
Dear Mother,
Magda is in New Orleans! Did you know this? She arrived last week on the E.H. Fairchilds from Memphis. Half the men of Austria at her feet, and she traipses after me! She burst into the opera house on Wednesday afternoon, wearing the pointiest shoes, the biggest bustle and the reddest rouged lips I’ve ever seen. She brought the entire rehearsal of “Robert le diable” to a standstill, greeting me like some long-lost intimate, trailing a flea-bitten greyhound on a leash and bossing about a poor mulatta. She probably kidnapped both on the docks.
Using all the false charm for which she is famous, she has coerced the poof who runs the St. Charles Theatre into giving her the lead in one of those overwrought Sardou melodramas in which she fancies herself the next Bernhardt.
First she insists she is not in New Orleans for me (merely “touring the colonies”); then she gads about with her theatre friends, hinting at romance between us. The gossip-starved newspapers eat it up—ah, the charming rumor, ah, the Maestro and the Actress, a little bird told us, etc. Last night she invited me to supper. Luckily I had an engagement with Seraphina, which was tedious enough—two hours of St. Michael’s church choir mangling Bach—but was preferable to Magda’s histrionics.
SAME DAY. LATER—This afternoon Magda arrived uninvited at my apartments, bearing a box of cigars and a silly glass parrot on a stick. She claims they are peace offerings and we should remain friends, or camarades, as she likes to say. But I want nothing to do with her. Seraphina, since seeing rumors of Magda and me in the newspapers, has sulked in a snit of jealousy. She said she would murder Magda. A sweet girl from the Garden District talking of murder. That’s the kind of mayhem Magda stirs up everywhere she goes.
Mother, Magda trusts you. Please send her a letter and reason with her. Convince her to quit New Orleans and return to Vienna. I beg you.
Rainer
17 May 1895
Dear Frederick,
Truly, Little Brother, you are wasting your time in Linz. Come to New Orleans. We need engineers here, too. Dykes, levees, depots, piers, docks, bridges, buildings—all are either going up or coming down at a rate we never witness in the Old World. And there are amusements aplenty—you could maintain your Frederick-the-Rake reputation, drink and debauch till dawn, and then build a castle or courthouse by teatime.
Allow me to recount an evening I spent with my brass section on their latest carousal through “the District.” I was supposed to be at Seraphina’s whist party but left early in search of darker adventures.
René H. (trombonist) had procured a copy of The Mascot, the catalogue of concupiscence that guides gents through the strumpetmaze of Storyville and beyond. He devised an itinerary of saturnalia that would have pleased even you: first, Miss Ray Owens’ “Star Mansion” on Iberville, where an engauzed girl attempted an Arabian seven-veils dance to music by a blind harmonium player; next, Miss Antonia P. Gonzales on Villere Street, where Antonia herself plays the cornet, albeit fully dressed and, one assumes, fully sighted; next, “The Phoenix,” featuring a circus of Negro midgets performing lewd acts. Of course, all these staged tableaux are mere sideshows to the ladies of the night employed at each establishment. I had no intention of availing myself of their charms, however tempting some may appear in The Mascot. Gonorrhea (“the gleet”) and syphilis (“606”) are rife here. René H. tells me the girls massage a man’s member with potassium permanganate to protect against contagion. Apparently the penis turns purple as a petunia.
Our final destination was “El Paradiso,” the highest-priced bagnio on Basin Street, where the promised star octoroon goes by the name Queen Juliette. We arrived at two in the morning and I, unlike my brass section, was tired of the whole adventure. But I was mildly drunk on watered-down rye whiskey and let myself be dragged in.
Imagine my amazement when I learned the aforementioned “Queen Juliette” is none other than Julie Devereaux, the ravishingly beautiful, unforgivably tall octoroon girl I met the night of the race riot. I rushed to speak with her, but, alas, she was otherwise engaged. I learned that one arranges far in advance for an evening with Queen Juliette. I asked the Madam—a turbaned St. Domingue Negress the size of a small cottage—if I would be allowed to invite Queen Juliette to be my guest at the opera. The woman took charge of the affair like a Leipzig lawyer. She cogitated every detail—such as the size and condition of the carriage that would transport her prime chattel six blocks to the opera house—but the evening is fixed: June 3, for the second performance of “Robert le diable.” I am brainsick with anticipation.
Freddi, this Juliette is as tall as René H., so at least six feet. Can you picture the two of us? I cannot tell you how exquisite she is, like a delicate animal, feral and sublime. She was wearing a white messaline robe that clung to her body like integument and flowed behind her like ice, and her feet were bare! Which proved somehow more provocative than all the décolletage, veil dances, and naked midgets on parade to that point.
Am I intrigued merely by her African blood? Do you think it is safe to consort with them? It feels like school days, when the more forbidden something was—first sweets, later smoking, then liquor—the more we wanted it. Is she forbidden because she is beautiful? Because she is African? Because she is a demimondaine?
I left El Paradiso and walked to the foot of Esplanade and hurried across the French Market—you should smell it at night—rotting fruit, rancid shrimp vats, trampled flowers—along the river to my apartments on Chartres, wondering how I would keep knowledge of my beautiful opera guest from Seraphina and her parents. In truth, I should break it off with Seraphina. Only cowardice keeps me trailing about with her. I am quite bored. She was angered by rumors of Magda and me in the newspapers. If only she knew no threat comes from that quarter but from the salacious parlors of Storyville. Remember, nothing to Mother.
Rhine
27 May 1895
Dear Mother,
I continue to pray that Magda will receive a letter from you. An unfortunate incident occurred Friday noontime in my parlor. Magda stopped here on the pretense that her mulatta had run off with a French gunrunner and that she—Magda—had to dress herself. Quelle horreur. She pretended to need buttoning and then, as soon as my hands touched her gown, flung herself onto my person. Naturally, Seraphina chose this moment to arrive for our walk.
Mother, Seraphina is a healthy, well-built girl. She pulled Magda off me as if plucking a pomegranate from a branch. She called Magda names I never dreamed she knew. She picked up the glass parrot—rightly guessing it was from Madga—and dashed it to the floor. It shattered into a thousand colorful shards, one of which she brandished close to Madga’s face. Well, you know how fearful Magda is of her beauty, her coin upon the stage. She struggled and Seraphina flailed away, slashing violently enough to rip Magda’s sleeve and pierce the skin. A little blood beaded up, but it wasn’t a deep cut. Magda pulled free and f
led. I would have gone after her, but Seraphina turned on me! She still gripped the glass and she demanded to know when we’d be wed.
It sounds like the kind of thing Frederick would be involved in. Should I have proposed to her under threat? To calm her, I made the mistake of saying I loved her. Now she believes we are engaged. Oh, perhaps it would have happened anyway. I’m not growing any younger and she is one of the most desirable daughters in the city: proper heritage, good money, high standing, beautiful in an American sort of way. And so, Mutti, it would appear you have your wish. I am affianced, after a fashion, but very unsure. I have come to question Seraphina’s soundness of mind. I require your advice, as I have all my life. What should I do?
Rainer
7 June 1895
Dear Freddi,
My invitation to Juliette (as she prefers to be called) for “Robert le diable” began with disaster. Given that I have bided here more than eight months, I should have known not to reserve a place for her on the main floor, close to the stage. I had no idea the restrictions on seating someone of her color would extend to a personal guest of the maestro. I was beckoned from my dressing room before curtain to deal with a disturbance in the lobby: A Negress claiming you supplied her ticket. Ah.
In the lobby I argued with an insufferable usher, drawing a crowd and reducing Juliette nearly to tears. Seraphina’s mother and father stopped to gape: I don’t know which was worse—his goat-like grin of carnal curiosity or her pinch-faced moue at my supposed improprieties. I can only wonder if they will report the incident to Seraphina.
I was prepared to fire the idiotic little usher, but clearly Juliette did not want to sit where she was not welcome. She kept her composure and was shown to the last row of the first balcony. I was so unsettled the entire performance suffered.