Heartsong

by James Welch

  Marie lay on her bed in a flannel nightgown, a chenille robe, and wool slippers, necessities against the late-night chill, her head resting on a pillow propped against the wall. The small brown box lay on her stomach. She didn’t want to open it just yet. Instead, she closed her eyes and saw herself standing before the mirror, admiring the cameo but stealing a glance at the dark, wild face behind her. The face seemed to float in the mirror, somewhere above her head, and the eyes were not so savage and the lips were parted in a real smile.

  Marie stroked the velvet box and tried to understand her feelings for François. At the age of nineteen, she was too cynical to believe in love—at least as far as she was concerned. Laurence, who was sixteen, seemed to fall in love every night. Sometimes Marie let the young girl sleep with her and she would prattle on about one man or another who had promised to make her his own girl. It was true Laurence was cute and she had a ripe body for one of her age, but she would learn that the promises were empty and that working girls, even the beautiful Aimée, never left the houses until they became too old and lost their looks and their firmness. Then they became servants or took in washing (if they were lucky enough to find a place to live) or even beggars. Although Marie was young yet, she had been having dreams in which she found herself wandering in the streets of a town she almost recognized. She had nothing but the clothes on her back, and children teased her. The dream always ended with her standing on a dark street corner not knowing which direction to take. All four directions looked exactly the same—empty and bleak and familiar. And when she sat up, panicked by the darkness, not knowing where she was for an instant, she wanted to cry out for someone, anyone, to comfort her. But the only comfort she could find in her situation was that she could probably be a whore for at least ten more years. She would have a place and a job for at least that long. And her immediate future didn’t look so bad after all.

  But now she had been touched by the tall dark man, and in more ways than one. He was certainly a gentle giant, a welcome relief from her usual rutting customers, who seemed to think that smothering her would be a fine idea. He was quite shy and had been almost delicate in their coupling, his weight barely there, his smooth chest just brushing against her nipples. And although she didn’t come this time—she was too preoccupied with the cameo tight and cool against her throat—she did feel a kind of tingling disappointment when he lifted himself off her. That surprised her more than the fact that he had made her come last time. She had seldom felt anything with a man, much less disappointment when he left her. That the man was a strange, dark foreigner confused her. She had always considered herself lucky that she worked in a house that did not allow foreigners, especially the dark ones. And now—what?

  She sighed. Now nothing, she thought, and she was relieved to have regained her senses. He was a customer and nothing more. He had given her a present, he had fucked her, and now he was gone, probably home to his wife, feeling a little guilty but smug that he had gotten some fucking on the side. Marie knew that some men needed whores, and that was what she was there for. Their wives were too proper to allow their men to sweat and rut all over them. This one was just a bit more considerate.

  Marie stood and shook off the robe, which she draped over the headboard. Then she knelt before the dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer. This was where she kept her small things—her mending kit, a stack of letters from her parents that had been written by a schoolmaster and that she couldn’t read, a beaded purse that had belonged to her g rand-maman, three small santons that she put on her dresser during the season, and her Bible with the white cover. She decided that she would not look at the cameo tonight. As she placed the velvet box in the drawer, she remembered that he had asked her name and she had told him. “Marie,” he had said. Then he said it again, and yet again, as though to memorize it. She had never heard her name so reverently pronounced.

  And she further remembered, as he stood in the doorway, about to leave, she had said, “François,” and when he turned, she had said, “Thank you, François.” That was another first. She had never thanked one of her customers for anything. Even when they left a tip on the dresser, she had preferred a demure silence.

  Marie had tried to be cynical about François, but now she knew that he was a man who excited her in a puzzling way. As she turned out the light and crawled into bed, curling herself into a ball against the cold sheets, she wondered what his home was like, what it would be like to be there, perhaps to wake up in the morning next to him. She knew, in spite of her cynical ruminations, that he wasn’t married. But what would it be like—to wake up next to him?

  She closed her eyes and thought about the beautiful cameo. It was the first true gift she had received from a man that had no strings attached. But what did he want?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Charging Elk had been seeing Marie once a week for the past three months. Now as he sat on the bench before the open window, buffing the brown shoes, which had never been the same since he had walked through the downpour, the leather stiffer, the toes slightly curled, he wished things were a little different. For one thing, he lived from payday to payday now, without a thought of saving any money. He bought wine, he ate out more often, he took his shirts to the laundry to be cleaned and pressed each week, he bought a few gifts for Marie, although none as expensive as the cameo. Consequently, he had nothing in the purse in the duffel bag. He hadn’t even seen the purse for two months. As for his hope that one day he would get home to his land and his people, it became more and more a distant dream. He thought of his parents often enough, his mother beading or standing at her iron stove, his father sunning himself with the other men or perhaps riding High Runner for the pleasure of it; he thought of Strikes Plenty, now planting potatoes and surrounded by his own children—it was almost more than he could imagine, his kola married to a woman of his own kind, living in his own country, watching the same sun rise every day, the familiar animals, the distant but loyal Paha Sapa. He thought of these things and his people, but always the dream he had had would creep into his pleasant reverie and fill him with a cold fear.

  Charging Elk knew that the dream should have made him anxious, even desperate, to go home. He should have wanted more than anything to see if the dream had been true. If it was true, it would be a catastrophe beyond belief. You are my only son.But whose voice? Bird Tails? His fathers? Lately, since he had dreamed one time of Crazy Horse, he had begun to believe that the war chief had contacted him from the real world. Charging Elk’s own father, Scrub, had said Crazy Horse had lived in the world of dreams and vision even when he was alive. Perhaps the wind that held him back was from the real world. It would not let him join his people, his ancestors. You are my only son. Even now the voice and the wind sent chills through his body, as though to warn him away from his degraded life.

  But Charging Elk always had an antidote to this fearful dream. He would force himself to think of Marie. He still knew almost nothing about her, only that she had worked in the whorehouse for three years and that she came from a village outside of Marseille. But he knew her body and he knew her eyes—the way they would light up when he walked into the whorehouse or brought her a gift, then go dark when she sat with him in the large parlor, watching the crowd of men surrounding the girls or singing around the piano. He knew she didn’t like to be with them, even if it was her job. Charging Elk always left Le Salon after their time together, because he didn’t want to see her misery. But as he walked back to Le Panier, he felt a burning frustration that became a confused anger by the time he reached his flat.

  Why didn’t she leave? He couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t just leave. But he was more angry with himself for not having the guts to ask her to go with him—home to his flat. And he felt ashamed for not even being able to ask her to go for a walk or to a café. He knew the words to ask her out of that place. He just didn’t have the guts to utter them. He had become a coward since he left the Stronghold. It pained him to think that as a
youth he had taunted the miners in the Black Hills, stolen from them, sneaked down to Pine Ridge at night to visit his parents even though he knew if the wasicuns caught him, they would send him away. He hadn’t been afraid of anything in those days. He had lived as he imagined the old-time Oglalas lived, fearing nothing, risking everything for the sake of adventure. Now he was afraid of the smallest obstacle, the smallest pebble in the road.

  Charging Elk laced up the brown shoes, stood, and shuffled into his freshly pressed suit coat. He checked his hair in the mirror. He had taken to wearing it in a bob in back, folding it under and tying it with a blue ribbon, much like the one on the cameo. Marie would take the cameo from her dresser and he would tie it around her neck. For some reason, the fact that both of them would be wearing blue ribbons excited them. It still stunned him when he thought of how she would wiggle and whisper beneath him, slapping his flanks with her thighs, until she began the now familiar grunting that led to a loud, startling keen that inflamed his ears and his cock at the same time and he would feel himself rushing into her with an agonizing grinding that left him almost senseless with pain and ecstasy.

  Because it was too early yet for his appointment with Marie and because it was a warm evening in early April, the Moon of the Red Grass Appearing, Charging Elk decided to stop at Le Royal for an anisette. He hadn’t been there for many moons—since the hot summer—and he wanted to see the old waiter. Or rather, have the old waiter see him in his suit and bobbed hair.

  But a young waiter, with black hair slicked down from a central part and a thin mustache that curled up on the ends in the latest style, served him. The waiter seemed confused by the large, dark man in the fine suit and starched shirt and at first didn’t understand what Charging Elk was asking. What did he mean?

  Finally Charging Elk was able to say, “Your predecessor, the old waiter, my friend.”

  “Ah, you mean Lachaisse. Of course.” The waiter set the anisette before Charging Elk. “But he is long gone.”

  “Where?”

  “They say he went to live with a sister in Arles or Nîmes. Since last fall.” The waiter tore off a piece of paper with a number on it and left it on the table. “Was he really a friend of yours?”

  Charging Elk looked off toward the ships resting in the harbor. In the warmer weather, the smells of offal mixed with the brine were already sharp in his nostrils. He had never known the waiter’s name, Lachaisse. “An old friend,” he said, and he felt bad for having stopped coming to Le Royal.

  At first, Breteuil was shocked more than anything else. Usually he never stood at the bar in Le Salon. He loathed the kind of men who came here. Ironically, they were the same kind of men who made his restaurant the most exclusive in Marseille. But Breteuil, arrogant as he was, considered himself apart from the haute bourgeoisie—inferior in his upbringing but superior in his refinement. These were the kind of men who drank too much wine and treated his food as though it were the meanest of peasant fare, meant to plug up that empty hole in their guts so they could swill more wine. Of course, he did have patrons who waited for a month or more to pay homage to his creativity. These were the ones he toasted as he emerged from the stifling kitchen, only slightly disheveled, and made his round of the tables. He barely acknowledged pigs like the ones that surrounded him now in Le Salon. He usually went through to the back parlor, to the beautiful Miguel, a young Spaniard, who eagerly accepted Breteuil’s lavishments of affection. Today, he was waiting for a cutlery salesman from Paris, who insisted on meeting here so he could kill two birds with one stone.

  But the tall dark one sitting with the dark-haired whore had intrigued him. Although he was very exotic, there was something familiar about him. Was he an entertainer of some sort? A strongman perhaps? An actor? He was very handsome in a crude, almost fearsome way. Breteuil had seen that face before—the slitted eyes, the high cheekbones, the thin lips that were now curled into a faint smile as the whore talked to him. But what was he doing in here? Breteuil looked around him. Except for a light-skinned redheaded man and the beautiful transvestite with the short blond hair, all the men looked pretty much alike—mustached or bearded, impeccably clothed, young or old, all alike. He even recognized a judge, an officious whippet, who often entertained large parties at the restaurant. And a marquis who had sold his title but still insisted on the appellation.

  Breteuil took a sip of his champagne, then turned his back on the room, but he could still see the dark man in the bar mirror s reflection. Why would Olivier let such a strange creature into his establishment? Unless he was famous. Or rich.

  He watched the man stand, then assist the whore to her feet. Such manners. And for a slut—not very pretty at that. The man looked even bigger now that he was on his feet. Breteuil turned and watched the two walk toward the back room, the whore in the lead. Such shoulders. Such a slender waist. The man turned slightly to slip between the red velvet drapes. He glanced back toward the bar, a casual glance, and Breteuil almost gagged on his champagne. He did spill a bit on his lapel but he didn’t notice. He was shocked. Something in that backward glance, the eyes that did not seem to really see anything, had jolted Breteuil as though he had been struck with one of his own tenderizing mallets. He stared at the velvet drapes for a moment; then he beckoned to the bartender.

  “That big, dark man—do you know him?”

  The bartender looked around the room, his mouth open with curiosity.

  “He just went back with one of the whores.” Breteuil thought the man looked stupid, but surely he couldn’t mistake whom he was talking about. There was, or had been, only one man of that description. “Come on, man.”

  The bartender lifted Breteuil’s glass and wiped the bar. “You mean the big fellow with the squinty eyes. Don’t know him. He comes in here every Saturday night about this time. Goes upstairs with the same girl. Marie. Kind of unusual-looking, eh? A Turkoman maybe. Don’t know.”

  Breteuil didn’t bother to answer. He knew who the man was, had in fact thought of him quite often. What was it—three, four years ago? He remembered the man’s handshake, oddly limp for such a powerful hand. He remembered looking him up and down and thinking how dangerous—and desirable—he looked. He was the miserable little fishmonger’s helper, the Peau-Rouge who had been in the Buffalo Bill Wild West show and had somehow been left behind. As the memories came back, Breteuil felt almost faint with excitement. The Peau-Rouge had helped the chef load his fish onto the cart. He had accepted a cigar. In an unguarded moment, he had looked right into Breteuil’s eyes and made him look away. Breteuil had never looked away before—or since. He knew that he was quite beautiful and that men and women alike looked at him with admiration, often desire. He enjoyed staring their eyes away, so that they became confused and suddenly shy. He enjoyed his power to humiliate them, especially if they were with their friends. But this Peau-Rouge had looked into his eyes as though he could see the very soul of Armand Breteuil.

  Breteuil pushed his champagne glass toward the bartender, who had been watching him. He too was impressed by the pale, slender man’s fine looks. “Areyou all right, monsieur?” He poured the glass full, let the bubbles die down, then poured again.

  “Of course,” Breteuil snapped, not looking up. “Leave me.” He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. Where was that damn cutlery salesman? He wanted to do business, then get out of there. Already some men were gathered around the piano player, singing a martial song.

  Charging Elk. Soulas had pronounced the name so proudly. My new helper. Breteuil remembered with some satisfaction that he had almost stolen Soulas’s new helper away that very first morning. And he might have done so, if he had known what to do with him. Charging Elk was so helpless then, so vulnerable. Breteuil was almost certain, given the right circumstances, he would have come with him. Like a lost puppy. Charging Elk. What could such a name mean?

  Breteuil was so lost in his memories of that dark morning four years ago that he didn’t notice the light touch of a hand
on his back. He hooked his spectacles over his ears, glancing at himself in the mirror—he was afraid he had been noticeable in his uncharacteristic behavior—and he saw the plump face of Olivier gazing sideways at him. He had been noticed! Angrily, he said to the mirror, “What do you want, Olivier?”

  Olivier stepped back half a step. “Just to say hello, Armand,” he stammered. “To ask after your health, my friend.”

  “There is nothing wrong with my health, and it is not a particularly good evening, thank you.”

  “But what are you doing out here?” Olivier lifted his hand and swept the room with it. “Normally you do not stop here, I think.”

  “Tonight is not normal. I am being stood up by a cutlery salesman who wants to sell me knives and fuck your girls all at once. Can you imagine?” Breteuil meant being stood up.

  But Olivier misunderstood. “One can sell and one can fuck—but not at the same time. There is a time and a place for everything, but one must use a little common sense.”

  Breteuil turned and glanced down at the pathetic little man in his ruffled shirt and expensive scent, his plastered-down thinning hair and slim mustache low on his lip. He couldn’t believe that they had once been lovers. But he had been poor then and Olivier had been infatuated with him. Still was. This thought cheered him up a little, and he said, “And you, Olivier, are you prospering?”

  “As you can see, Armand,” Olivier said, turning to survey the room, “my girls are the loveliest in town.” He smiled up at Breteuil, his narrow mustache twitching. “My boys are not so bad either, eh?”

  Breteuil suddenly hated Olivier. Although they both liked their boys, Olivier was a common pederast, whereas he, Breteuil, was capable of a purer, higher-minded kind of love, one more consistent with his artistic temperament. He considered the six francs he paid for Miguel more an expression of his largesse than a pimp’s fee. He also knew that he had no time to make assignations on his own—he spent six days a week at his restaurant, all day, from buying the fish and meat and vegetables in the morning to cooking until eleven at night. Most nights he got only four or five hours of sleep. Still, it would be nice to have somebody he could spend all day Monday with. Even at that, he jealously guarded his day off from all intruders, preferring to sleep, to walk, to read, to sleep some more. Even though his restaurant was a great success—the cutlery salesman had promised to bring an article from Le Figaro in Paris, which had listed La Petite Nani (named after his grandmother) the best restaurant in all of Provence—Breteuil was not a happy man. Lately he had been yelling at his sous-chef and his waiters, even his busboys. He controlled all aspects of his restaurant, and that is why it was the best. But he would have to slow down, to relax, or he would burst something inside of him. Already, for the past three weeks, he had been troubled by a gnawing in his gut, a burning sensation that made it difficult to even taste his own dishes.