by Lynn Shurr
In the morning, her father hitched the U-Haul trailer to Laura’s car. Her mother, who had no gift for parting words said, “Get over David and start a new life then. I wish you’d stayed closer to home.”
“Get over David? I will never forget David.”
Fuming over her mother’s insensitivity Laura pulled hastily away from the curb with only a wave to her bewildered father. Get over David. Forget David when the very trailer she towed contained all the bits and pieces of their brief life together: an extravagant solid brass bedstead purchased with wedding gift money and their well-used old mattress, their wedding album and a box of even more precious candid photos, the delicate miniature oil rig that sat on his desk, the coffee mug he always used, the old shirt she slept in on nights when her grief grew unbearable. She took as much of David as she could to Chapelle.
Dragging her baggage behind her, Laura crossed the Mason-Dixon Line leaving Pennsylvania and entering the Southern States, so designated only because of previous differences on slave holdings, and not because of any great difference in weather, flora or fauna. By evening she had reached the true red dirt south of piney woods and twanging gas station attendants. Her second day on the road brought her to the South of slow drawls and evergreen magnolias, and her third across the Mississippi and deep into Louisiana where David had died and Laura now planned a new life.
The road off the interstate and into Chapelle seemed less hostile this trip, even with the ever-irate Miss LeBlanc waiting at the end of it. A few of the walls of cane had been broken down into wide alleys where machines with claws gathered the severed stalks and loaded them into carts to be hauled in cumbersome loads to the mill. The furnace-like autumn heat had diminished to a pleasant daily warmth, and cooler evenings laid the virulent mosquitoes to rest.
The rambling gray mill had taken on life, its cranes grasping at the cane and gobbling the stems by the cartload. White smoke from its chimneys spread out over the shabby houses in its shadow and left a sticky dew behind. The grinding season had arrived and given its blessings to the quarters. Here new clothes, unfaded, untorn, flapped on a clothesline, and a small child as black as the soil sat on one slanting porch and nurtured a baby doll still robed in a stiff, pink dress and spotless white booties. More people passed on the streets of Chapelle. Most turned to eye Laura’s trailer, and one, old Thibodeaux at the former Canal station, raised a friendly hand.
Having volunteered two men in the lunchroom away from their beer and boudin sausage, Lola Domengeaux supervised the unloading of the trailer. Mrs. Domengeaux pushed her recruits, loaded to the maximum, up and down the narrow stairs, urged along by a steady stream of Cajun French.
Though the brass bed set up by one of the volunteers using Mrs. Domengeaux’s screwdriver looked inviting after the day’s drive and unpacking, Laura dutifully borrowed the delicatessen phone and called first, her parents, and then the library to announce her arrival.
Miss Lilliane was in fine form. “So, you got here. I suppose you want to start work right away.”
“Actually, I could use a few days to get settled. Would Monday be all right?”
“Take all the time you need. I can manage without you. I’ve been doing it for fifty years.” Miss Lilliane hung up.
Trying not to be disturbed by what lay ahead on Monday, Laura made up the bed, smoothing wrinkles from the sheets and absorbing old memories. Lola Domengeaux interrupted these thoughts by showing up at the door with two plastic containers of her “own etouffee from da freezer” and “dat other one is rice.”
“Just heat it up, cher, pour it over da rice, den get you some rest. I close up at six, but if you need anyt’ing else, you call.”
After singeing her fingers in the sudden flare from the old gas range, Laura did enjoy the zesty pink etouffee. She picked out the tender tails of crawfish and left some of the rice. Ice water and fresh fruit from the little travel cooler completed her meal. She chanced lighting the old stove again to brew a cup of relaxing hot tea, but with so much left to unpack, Laura could not rest.
Along one wall, she erected bookshelves of cinder blocks and boards that had served her through college, career and marriage, and sat her television in its center. She filled the empty space with her unlimited supply of books and several small sculptures, David’s miniature derrick among them, along with a picture of her lost husband.
The volunteers had placed her tan leather loveseat along the opposite wall. Its simple modern lines and warm color blended nicely with the cypress plank floors, but the ornate ceiling seemed to warrant carved rosewood and brocade. Instead, it got a plain, but solid oak coffee table, lovingly refinished and presented as a parting gift from Cynthia. As Laura arranged a few of the overflow of books on its shining surface, she made a mental note to find something special for Cissy, something the children would not break.
Dishes and pans put away in cupboards that required no wiping thanks to Miss Lola, clothes stored in the closet, the antique armoire stuffed with linens and odds and ends of apparel, Laura rested at last on the big brass bed, her body wrapped in David’s old shirt, her mind full of his image. Halfway through the night, she jerked herself out of a dream where a man with dark eyes and black hair laid beside her and caressed her breasts with callused hands. She rebuttoned the shirt that had opened over hot, sensitive skin and peaked nipples.
Climbing out of bed, Laura walked out of her bedroom through the black shadow cast by the massive armoire and into the small kitchen. She poured some milk from the plastic quart jug stocked, along with a few other basic groceries, by Miss Lola in her refrigerator. No way would she risk lighting that stove to heat the stuff when clumsy with sleep and shaken by a bad dream. She could burn the place down. Taking her glass over to the French doors, Laura gazed out on Chapelle. No cars moved along Main Street. With her eyes still seeking heaven, the statue of Ste. Joan glowed near a streetlight. Laura went to her shelves and picked up the framed photo of David with his wide smile and twinkling eyes. She fixed his face firmly in her mind and went back to bed.
****
As if summer could not keep its sweaty hands off of October, Laura’s first morning in Chapelle threatened to be hot and sticky again. Resolutely, she set out along Main Street to finish furnishing her apartment. The Dollar Store provided a huge petticoat fern hanging on a summer clearance rack of outdoor plants. Dot’s Antiques & Used Furniture supplied a refinished solid wood table and four chairs of Depression vintage from the used furniture section of the store. The dining set did not quite have the age or elegance to command the prices of the cypress armoires and nineteenth century marble-topped washstands in the antiques section of the shop. Miss Dot, herself, promised her man would deliver the furniture that same day, nothing being too good for the new librarian.
Laura’s status bought her a bargain at the Cajun Corner, a local crafts shop brimming with cornhusk dolls, oil paintings of live oaks and orange nutria tooth necklaces. She selected two large, handmade rag rugs in muted earthy tones and got a twenty percent discount and two overdue library books to return by the proprietor. A boy from the Penny Saver grocery carried two boxes of food and cleaning supplies up the stairs and into her kitchen and refused a tip. By then, the kitchen table had been delivered as promised.
Laura hung her fern from a hook where, undoubtedly, similar plants had hung in front of the French doors. The doors opened on to a small balcony of wrought iron, much like those at the rear of Chateau Camille but infinitely more rusted, not a place to stand on even momentarily. The rag rugs made circles of color on the old flooring as she laid them down.
She unearthed the carton of framed art prints, remnants of cheap interior decorating from her college days, and placed more color on her bare plaster walls. Once, the walls must have been papered, but now they were stripped bare, patched and painted in what Laura thought of as “apartment beige.” Their blankness enhanced the sunny impressionist garden scene over the sofa, the waggish Toulouse Latrec above the table, and the delic
ate Japanese landscape by the bookshelves. The picture of her and David locked together on their wedding day she placed in her bedroom.
Laura settled in more quickly than she could have imagined, and a long unfilled weekend stretched ahead. The rugs and furniture absorbed only some of the echoes of emptiness in the new apartment. She gazed out her front window. Below on the green, her companion of the night, Ste. Joan, looked up at her as if Laura had found the paradise she sought. The benign St. Francis, who had dined with Laura on the day of her interview, was hidden by the wide leafy arms of the live oaks. If the black kitten still lived beneath the church, Laura had a promise to keep.
Wrapping some of the cold, barbecued chicken Mrs. Domengeaux had thrust on her at lunchtime, she went to visit St. Francis. “Thanks for the job, Frank. I hope I don’t regret this later.”
Laura lay a bit of chicken near the feet of the statue. The ivy rustled, and the black kitten slithered from the fist-sized hole in the foundation of the church. He ran his rough tongue over the meat, scooping it into his mouth as fast as he could. When he came to give Laura thanks in the way of cats, coiling around her ankles and sniffing for more food, she scooped up the small feline and felt his small bones beneath the velvet of his fur.
“Shall I call you Snake in honor of the scare you gave me?” asked Laura. Snake remained indifferent to everything except the last of the cold chicken. Placidly full and purring, he allowed Laura to carry him to their home.
Snake filled Laura’s weekend with a trip to a veterinarian who worked on Saturdays and pronounced Snake healthy, but thin, and pumped the kitten full of vaccines for various cat-killing diseases. She obtained permission from Miss Lola who understood about promises to saints, purchased cat food and litter, and accomplished the general orientation between pet and mistress. Snake, far from being either finicky or aloof, ate everything ravenously and absorbed and returned affection in equal amounts. When Monday morning arrived, Laura faced the library with at least one small ally behind her.
Chapter Seven
Incarcerated in the glass-walled office with Miss Lilliane and released only for coffee and lunch, Laura learned the basics of operating a parish library on Monday and on Tuesday and on Wednesday until another weekend gradually crept into view. Miss Lilliane refused any suggestions for change from Laura, always citing her Bible of library practices, a thick volume issued by the State Library in 1945. The yellowed pages crumbled at the edges when the retiring librarian pounded on them to make a point.
“But we could save time in cataloging by using the CIP information on the reverse of the title page. The clerks could do it.”
“Then what do you have? Someone else’s cataloging—totally inappropriate to this library! Lazy person’s cataloging!” Miss Lilliane pounded more paper fragments to dust.
“I believe it would be a good investment to hire a part-time secretary to do the bookkeeping and payroll. We could have more time to develop new library programs and services.”
“I’ve been doing my own books for fifty years. You can, too.”
The office offered too confined an area for Laura to scream, not to mention all the second-hand smoke she’d inhale if she did. In this library, the books stayed in perfect order on the old wooden shelves and old men slept in the periodical area during the afternoon. Housewives came in for their weekly quota of romances, but no one under thirty entered except for the students forced into coming for homework assignments.
“I wondered if we could have some sort of Halloween party for the children and maybe for their parents, too.”
“We’ve never had anything before, and no one complained. You’ll just bring the Fundamentalists down on us for celebrating witchcraft.”
Laura grew more stubborn by Friday. She filed away most of her innovations for the time when Miss Lilliane finally relinquished her place behind the large desk and overflowing ashtrays, and she could remove herself from the straight-backed chair in the corner where she’d been put to learn her lessons. Feeling the need to do something—anything—Laura stuck to her point. “It’s time we had a program just for fun. I’ll handle the arrangements and the Fundamentalists. Maybe, we could have a bonfire on the green and call in some local storytellers. Father Ardoin told me about an old black woman with some fabulous tales only the other day. I’ll bet he would like to tell one himself. Catholics don’t have anything against Halloween, do they?”
She rushed on. “I know a few good stories, too, though I didn’t get to practice them at the university library.”
Admitting to herself her idea might be only an excuse to play hooky on a lovely Friday afternoon and escape Miss Lilliane’s smoky den, Laura left immediately after lunch to begin arrangements. Miss LeBlanc let her go with the encouraging comment, “No one will come!”
The volunteer fire department chief was amenable. He and his crew policed the annual homecoming bonfires for both the Catholic and public high schools. It meant a little overtime pay close to the holidays for Chief Fontenot, one of two paid members on the force. Father Ardoin lent his enthusiastic support. After being assured the storytelling activities would not conflict with the religious observances for All Saints Day, he volunteered himself and got halfway through the story of the Devil and the black preacher when Laura interrupted to get directions to the house of Tante Lu.
“Ah, Tante Lu! A good choice. Didn’t I tell you she lives in the old Segura cabin? Alma Segura’s land is still in the family after two centuries, but I imagine all that will end when Tante Lu passes on. That old woman must be nearing one hundred, and she’s still as sharp as they come. Two generations separate her and the last of the Seguras. One of them works at your library, Ruby Senegal, a Segura that was. And then, there’s Pearl, a maid out at the LeBlanc place, but that one never married. Might be another one, Opal, I believe, who lives in California, but I can’t see any of them staying on in a country cottage. Senegal has done very well in sanitation, has his own company, lots of garbage trucks, two sons in the business with him, but of course, the old Segura family name is gone. The place should be declared a landmark when the old lady dies. I’ll have to look into that.”
“The directions?”
“Yes, oh yes. Take Bridge Road out by the cemetery. You’ll pass through a little town called Nebo, an African-American Baptist church on the right and a country store on the left. About five miles beyond that, the old Segura place sits in a grove of oaks on the bank of Little Black Bayou. What a lovely day for a drive. Unfortunately, I must prepare for Mass. Tante Lu will probably be out on the porch in her rocker on such a nice day. Send her my blessing.”
Laura took the blessing to Tante Lu along Bridge Road. The Deep South autumn put on a display more suitable for spring. The drainage ditches, free at last of summer’s overflow, stood deep in goldenrod, purple with wild asters and blue with mistflower. She drove through Nebo, noting that all of the faces watching her pause at the single stop sign just past the Mount Zion Baptist Church possessed the color of coffee, black or light with varying amounts of cream.
Laura nearly missed the old raised cottage with its screen of live oaks grown so large and impressive they should have been guarding a palace instead of hiding the shabby Segura place. The low interlocking branches partially concealed a battered pickup truck, its tailgate showing a familiar pattern of rusty dents. Laura turned her car into the rutted dirt lane leading to the house and tried to place the ownership of the pickup truck, about as easy as trying to distinguish among the live oaks in Chapelle. Most nights, Main Street provided a parade route for an endless procession of such vehicles.
The deep porch of the cottage held a rocking chair and a swing on rusty chains, but no elderly woman sat on them. After Laura parked by the pickup and turned off the car’s engine, she located Tante Lu by the scratch of a broom on the weathered cypress planks over in the shaded corner where a flight of short and steeply angled stairs led to the garconniere. Laura’s eyes followed the stairs to the trap door and the
loft where Alma Segura’s sons must have slept so long ago, then quickly returned to the wizened woman vigorously sweeping dust and the leaves of October from her porch.
The old lady, so tiny the broom seemed oversized in her knotty hands, gave it a few more forceful strokes. As age shrunk Tante Lu from the inside, the skin of her younger self settled over her frame in myriad yellow folds and wrinkles. Barely covering her ancient skull, a few puffs of hair like white fleece were gathered into a small knot on the top of her head. The bright bird-like eyes in their nest of wrinkles took in Laura as she climbed the two steps to the porch. In a voice much louder than such a small body should own, Tante Lu called out, “Pearl, we have a visitor! Bring some tea.”
Laura began her introduction. “I’m…”
“Yes, the new library lady. Pere Ardoin told me. Sit, sit.” Tante Lu took her place in the rocker and gestured to the swing.
Laura obeyed. The rusty chains rattled but held. “Father Ardoin told me you are quite a raconteur, Mrs. Segura.”
“Tante Lu. Even my own great-grandchildren call me Tante Lu. It’s true. I know all the stories, told and untold, far back in time. Me, I never was a slave. I’m too young for that, but the children ask me just the same, all the time. My great-grandmama, born into slavery, lived nearly as long as me. I have her stories, and those from before her, stories that belong to this house and this parish.”
An aluminum screen door, set like an anachronism in the walls of crossed timbers, mud and moss bousillage and flaking whitewash, slammed behind Pearl Segura as she maneuvered a tray of tall glasses and a sweating pitcher of iced tea across the porch. Pearl, out of uniform, was simply dressed in gray and white seersucker. As she set the tray on a small plastic table and poured the tea into three glasses filled with ice and crushed mint leaves, she glanced at Laura defiantly.