An Embarrassment of Riches

by James Howard Kunstler

  They sat on crude wooden benches helping one another remove the white paint from their faces, hands, and feet. There was something eerily moving about it, as of a ritual done with infinite sadness. A chill ran up my spine. It was quite cool down there for a summer’s night. In the far corner, sitting upon a bench alone, was the giant who had played Othello. He sat as still as a statue, stiff-backed, with a grim, determined set to his mouth. Though the expression on his face was by no means a happy one, neither was it the look of stony cruelty that the Indians cultivated. Perhaps I was influenced by having just seen him play the tragic Moor, but I could not help reading the signs of nobility in his broad black face and ramrod-straight bearing. And there was one other quality he possessed, which spoke through his large yellow-white eyes, with their soft, deep brown pools of iris, a quality that seemed lacking in the Indians, and this was a look of soulful humanity. Gazing into the face of this dusky giant, one saw the essential paradoxes and mysteries of human existence refined to a gleam in the eye.

  “I enjoyed your performance very much,” I told him. He blinked as though snapping out of a daze and looked up at me. He seemed not to understand. I repeated the compliment in French. This too appeared to bewilder him.

  “I am afraid it is no use, Sammy,” LeBoeuf touched my shoulder. “They do not speak either tongue.”

  “What? Why then how do they—?”

  “Sheer mimicry,” LeBoeuf said. “Like parrots. Of course, a parrot cannot strut about the stage, nor bellow, like this sturdy chap, ha ha,” he added in an attempt at humor that fell flat to my ear.

  “What do they speak?” Uncle inquired, his own curiosity piqued by this strange revelation. “They must speak something.”

  “They speak a kind of patois. Various Africanisms. Some Choctaw. We are so far away from ... from anything, you see. Many of these … creatures were brought here as babes, straight off the slaver’s boat. The tongue they speak amongst their own is unique, tribal, you might say. To keep slaves, to own slaves, this is a regrettable thing. Tant pis. C’est ça. Our economy depends upon it. Without the slaves, there would be no hemp, without the hemp, no Chateau Félicité, n’est-ce pas? Alors, we do the best we can by the poor brutes. Each one is entitled to work himself to freedom.”

  “A noble policy, sir,” Uncle observed. “Not one in an hundred American slaveholders follows so enlightened a custom.”

  “We do what we can,” LeBoeuf reflected modestly.

  “Just how do they work themselves to freedom?” I inquired.

  “Simply by doing what is asked of them over a term of years.”

  “And then you simply let them go free?”

  “We send them downriver to their freedom.”

  “I see. But how do they manage wherever it is you send them—St. Louis, or New Orleans, I presume. Without a language?”

  “How does anyone manage in a foreign land, Sammy? How did we when we landed in England in ’91? My English was no better than your Uncle William’s French. Or when we came here to this wilderness? Eh? I assure you,” LeBoeuf glanced slyly at his adjutant, Yago, “that I had not a word of Choctaw. And yet, we managed. Au fait, we flourished. Man is an ingenious animal. He learns. He survives. He aspires. We here at Chateau Félicité aspire to the greatest things.”

  “What is the name of this Othello?” I asked, meaning the strapping slave who had portrayed him.

  “Is it important? Call him what you like.”

  “I should like to know, that’s all. To address him by it, so he knows that he is appreciated.”

  “Call him Cinq cent vingt-trois.”

  “How melodious,” Uncle said.

  “Why, that is not a name. It is a number, 523,” I said, surprised and not a little shocked.

  “What!” said Uncle. “A number?”

  “Names, numbers, what does it matter? They are just sounds, no? Did you not say it was a pretty sound, William, mon ami?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “They do not know it is a number. Besides, they have their own names amongst themselves. For our purposes, believe me, this is much more convenient, more logical.”

  LeBoeuf turned and left the room.

  “Well done, Othello,” I said, resolving that the name suited him better than any number. The huge fellow nodded his head ever so slightly, as though he understood after all.

  “Come along now,” LeBoeuf called from the corridor, clapping his hands twice. We left the stinking bilges and returned to the fairyland above.

  It was past midnight when we left the theater. LeBoeuf, yawning, invited us to the library for a dram, but we declined and said goodnight. Shortly, we were back in our apartment.

  “The more I see of Fernand LeBoeuf’s handiwork, the more facets of genius doth he reveal,” Uncle declared whilst rubbing his weary eyes. “I tell you, this is a man of Ben Franklin’s timbre.”

  “Uncle,” said I, moving to his side and speaking sotto voce, “I think we should have a talk.”

  “A talk? Very well, nephew.”

  “Not here,” I whispered. “The walls may have ears.”

  He looked at me quizzically.

  “Art still in thrall to the plots of Shakespeare, Sammy?”

  “Please, Uncle, bear with me. Tomorrow, after breakfast, let us make some excuse to retire aboard our keelboat. It should be safe to talk upon her deck, out in the open.”

  “Hast thee uncovered some shifty connivance?” Uncle asked in a scoffing tone of voice. “Hast thee learned that LeBoeuf is in the service of the Spaniards? Or is it the Austrians?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “Well then?”

  “Just say that you will come out to the boat with me tomorrow.”

  “Very well,” he whispered back with some exasperation. “I will go out to the boat with thee. Goodnight, nephew.”

  “Sleep well, Uncle,” said I and watched him retire to his bedchamber.

  I poured myself a glass of sweet brandy and picked up Troilus and Cressida, but had not read three lines before I laid it down. The more I thought of Lou-Lou’s crude ejection from the theater, the more it discomfited me. I resolved to visit him again—if only to instruct him how a man ought to behave at a play, poor booby.

  The corridor was deserted. I stole down it on tiptoe, past the door where I witnessed the importuning of Yago the night before. Shortly, I arrived at Lou-Lou’s door, tried the knob, and found it unlocked. It was dark inside. I took a candle from the hall. He was not in his room.

  I would have left at once, but was overcome by an irresistible urge to investigate the premises. The bedcovers had not been turned down, and so I deduced that Lou-Lou had not returned here after his ignominious exit from the theater box.

  I opened the door to his wardrobe closet and peered inside. It contained a few suits of clothing, frock coats, waistcoats, and shoes, in the rear an old stuffed toy lion, a tattered thing that a lonely boy might secretly cherish as a silent friend. I moved across the spacious room to his chest of drawers. On top stood a regiment of tin soldiers. In the drawer where he kept his stockings I discovered a handkerchief wrapped around a small, hard object. Within was a gold-framed painted miniature of a middle-aged gentleman with features oddly familiar: the same puffy eyes, weak chin, and rather pointed head of Lou-Lou. The figure was draped in a powder-blue robe emblazoned with tiny gold fleurs-de-lis, the armorial bearing of the Bourbon family. My heart flew into my throat.

  My instinct was to replace the object where I had found it, but I simply could not part with it until I could show it to Uncle, for what it portended about Lou-Lou—or should I say Louis?—had the most profound ramifications. I slipped the miniature into my pocket and replaced the empty handkerchief in the drawer. Daring not to remain a moment longer, I stole out of the room and back to our apartment. Once safely there, I took out the miniature and examined it in closer light. The resemblance to Lou-Lou was really striking. Should I wake up Uncle and show him the portrait? Suddenly I hea
rd footfalls in the hall and three light raps upon the door.

  “Lou-Lou!” I said, throwing open the door. Imagine my surprise to find myself face to face with the dazzling Madame LeBoeuf.

  “May I come in?” she asked, touching the tip of her tongue to her upper lip in an inquisitive manner and raising her eyebrows. She was attired in a red silk dressing gown with a collar and cuffs of downy white feathers. It was intricately embroidered with a scene depicting riparian wildlife. A heron stalked across her right breast looking for little fishes, while on the left lurked a smiling crocodile. “Are you a statue, monsieur? It is drafty out here in the hall.”

  “Of c-c-course,” I finally managed to respond. “Please come—”

  She stepped right past me across the threshold. Once inside, she pressed the door closed with her back. I heard the complex metallic click of the latch.

  “It is much warmer in here,” she said.

  “Do you think so?” I replied stupidly.

  “Without question,” she asserted. “Well, aren’t you going to offer me a brandy?”

  “Will you have a brandy, madame?” I inquired, but she had already crossed the parlor to the lowboy and was pouring the amber liquor into two snifters. These she brought with her to the sofa, where she sat down, patting the cushion next to her.

  “Come here, young man, where I can see you better.”

  I crossed the room and joined her on the sofa. She gave me a snifter. It was awkward holding it in my swaddled hands.

  “How are your palms feeling, Sammy?”

  “Much improved, madame. Your treatments were just the thing.”

  “A toast,” she proposed. “To medicine.”

  She quaffed the entire contents of her glass in a few swallows, then fastened a smiling, self-satisfied gaze upon me.

  “You drink like a Breton milkmaid,” she observed with a mischievous laugh. “I thought you Americans consumed strong spirits the way the Indians drink rainwater.”

  It was hard not to take this remark as a challenge to both my country and my manhood, and I downed what remained in my snifter in a trice.

  “Ah, you live up to your reputation after all, monsieur,” she rejoined. “Bravo.”

  I smiled, though my throat felt full of flames and my eyes watered.

  “Your poor little eyebrows,” she next commiserated, wetting her index finger, leaning toward me, and dabbing the tender areas where the hair had been scorched in the gun explosion. As she did, the front of her robe parted slightly. One breast was entirely open to view in the flickering candlelight, the wide, womanly nipple tipped with a brown berry, and a blue vein visible just beneath the creamy skin. My head swam. I left the sofa and retreated to the lowboy for another brandy.

  “My glass is empty too, Sammy,” Madame said, holding it up to show. “Bring the decanter to me.”

  I returned to the sofa warily and refilled her glass.

  “I love this room,” she declared. “So many memories.”

  No doubt I had a smutty mind, but since this was the apartment reserved for guests, I could not help but reflect on the propriety of Madame’s fondness for it.

  “A toast to beautiful memories,” she proposed and clinked her glass to mine. This time, I consumed my brandy in a single draft. She, on the other hand, barely sipped hers.

  “Why did you say ‘Lou-Lou’ when you answered the door, Sammy?” she suddenly inquired. My stomach turned a cartwheel. I sat there dumbly. “Tell me, did you expect him this evening?”

  “Well …” I racked my brain, “in a manner of speaking, yes. That is to say, he knocked on my door last night.”

  “Monsieur LeBoeuf mentioned something to that effect. Lou-Lou took you to his room?”

  “He begged me. I felt sorry for the poor boy.”

  “You felt sorry for him?”

  “Well, not for him so much as myself. I mean, he was somewhat tiresome. I was, er, glad to be rid of him.”

  “You think we should get rid of him? We are not monsters, monsieur. He is our ward.”

  “Of course—”

  “Perhaps a little slow-witted, but a person all the same.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, madame.”

  “And yet you suggest we cast him to the wolves! How cruel you are, monsieur.” She moved closer to me on the sofa. “Why, a Choctaw would have more heart.”

  “I think you misunderstand me, madame. I didn’t mean—”

  “Please, if we talk about him any more, I promise you I shall weep. Look, your glass is empty.”

  “So it is,” I agreed, though my head was already light and growing more so by the minute. She poured another double dram in my snifter.

  “A toast,” she proposed anew, “to the human heart.”

  I drank only half the measure.

  “And to its capacity for love,” she added, and I was obliged to finish the rest. She moved yet closer to me on the sofa. One warm, soft breast rested in the crook of my elbow. “Tell me, Sammy: do you find me attractive?”

  “I hadn’t really thought of you that way, madame,” I attempted to dodge the question.

  “What is there to think about?” she retorted. “Do I have a pretty face?”

  “Yes—”

  “Pretty hair?”

  “Yes—”

  “Pretty neck?”

  “O yes.”

  “Would you like to see my shoulders?”

  Without waiting for me to assent, she drew the robe down from her shoulders and wriggled them seductively.

  “There, you see?”

  “Beautiful, indeed.”

  “Oof …” she said as the silk robe slipped out of her fingers and fell to her waist, exposing her milk-white bosom. Rather than reach for the robe, she covered herself by crossing her arms. “How clumsy of me,” she said.

  I sat there stupefied.

  “Have you ever seen a naked woman, Sammy?”

  I nodded. The image of Bessie Bilbo came to mind and I had to blink it away.

  “You are a great seducer of women, then?”

  “No,” I shook my head vigorously.

  “You are an artist, though, with a knowledge of beauty, yes? I wonder if you would do me a favor and give me your opinion of my breasts.”

  Again, without waiting for me to assent, she revealed her flesh to me, gracefully uncrossing her slender arms so that her entire bosom was exposed. Though she was perhaps twice my age, had given birth to and nursed a child, she looked like a vision of Aphrodite. The room began to slowly spin around the sofa.

  “Well, what do you think? Are they in proportion?”

  “Y-y-yes.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “F-f-fairly.”

  “You look pale, Sammy. Here, hold out your glass.”

  I obeyed, yet an inner voice prompted me to say, “Madame, are you trying to make me drunk?”

  “I am trying to calm your nerves, monsieur, so they do not impair your critical faculties. There you are.”

  The room spun faster and faster.

  “A toast,” she said, “to art!”

  “To art.”

  “To beauty!”

  “To booty.”

  “To proportion!”

  “T’porshin (hic!).”

  “To you, my little voyageur!”

  I fell off the sofa and landed on the carpet with a thud. Madame stood up and readjusted her robe.

  “Perhaps tomorrow night you will come to my studio and see those watercolors, yes? For now, I must say adieu.”

  She flew to the door and threw open the latch.

  “Bonsoir, Sammy,” she said and blew me a kiss.

  “’swuh …” I maundered as the door shut behind her. The room reeled around my head. I did not have the strength to crawl into my bedchamber. No matter, for moments later I passed out.

  10

  In the morning, my head felt as though it were filled with passenger pigeons, and I spent the hour of dawn heaving my guts into a chamber p
ot. By the time Uncle awoke, I had washed and changed clothes, rediscovering the miniature portrait in the pocket of my breeches. But before I could show it to him, the servants came skulking about, so I decided to wait until our interview aboard the keelboat. We were conducted down to the courtyard garden, where breakfast and Fernand LeBoeuf awaited us. A Negro harp player strummed his instrument beside a whortleberry bush. The gentle music failed to soothe my raw nerves, while the mere shadows of winging warblers made me flinch.

  “Ready for another day of the hunt, Sammy?” our host inquired as the Indians filed in with our breakfast.

  “My eagerness knows no bounds,” I replied wanly.

  “Bon! Today, I shall accompany you. What do you say, William, mon ami?” Shall we all sally forth together in search of Gargantua?”

  “Delighted,” Uncle exclaimed.

  “On the way back, perhaps we can stop and inspect the slave quarters. You would like that, no?”

  “It should be instructive,” I agreed.

  “You are very curious how we keep our slaves, no?”

  “I am curious about the world in general.”

  “I admire your adventurous spirit, Sammy. At 19, I had barely ventured beyond the unknown corners of the world. My heroes were La Salle! Cartier! Champlain! Life is mysterious. Alors! Here I am. Had I an uncle like yours to take me around this wide world back then…. O, well. How do you like your breakfast?”

  It was a whitish flesh, bathed in a cream sauce redolent of tarragon, served over a split biscuit.

  “Very nice,” I avouched. “What is it? Turtle?”

  “Rattlesnake,” LeBoeuf said brightly.

  “Excellent,” Uncle declared, missing not a bite. “But ’tis like Chesapeake terrapin. More toothsome, perhaps.”

  “The Choctaw cook it in its own venom,” LeBoeuf informed us. I put my fork down gingerly. “It gives the flesh a piquancy like no other seasoning.”

  “Has it no ill effect?” I asked.

  “Evidently not. The poison must be injected into the bloodstream. Upon the digestion it has no effect but as a carminative.”

  “Was this cooked in its own venom?” I asked.