Cara watched with such longing as she’d never felt in her life; she thought that she could gobble up every single one of those muscadines in two mouthfuls. She licked her parched lips. Feed . . . the boy for a penny? she thought dazedly.
Then, to her surprise, she found herself seeing, instead of the bright colors before her, an expanse of hot blue sky. Unaccountably the sky was darkening—why was that? And Cara Cogbill fell down in a dead faint.
CHAPTER NINE
Gage Kennon came home on June 29, 1865, after four long, hard years. He was utterly shocked when the Gypsy Caravan, as he had privately dubbed it, drove onto Esplanade Avenue at the outskirts of New Orleans.
First it was because of the smell. Gage hadn’t been in any large city during the war. He must have been accustomed to it when he lived here, because now he recoiled from the stench of 175,000 people all smushed together in hot, wet swampy lowlands right on the banks of Ol’ Muddy. And too, he realized that he’d been living in what could only be called a scented bower for the past couple of weeks. Nadyha had explained to him that the mint she’d planted on the campsite grounds kept away all kinds of bugs, and even—most important to Baba Simza—the dreaded frog. Several kinds of plants that repelled insects were planted behind the wagons and around the edge of the camp, and the vardos’ windows all had boxes with aromatic herbs and plants for that reason too. Until now Gage hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d grown to the scent of mint with faint airs of rue and lemongrass and marigolds. Riding beside Nadyha’s wagon, she watched him with amusement. He must be making a face, and somehow, feeling disloyal, he arranged his features to look impassive.
The other thing that bothered him were all of the Union soldiers. He’d known they were here, of course, because New Orleans had been occupied since May of 1862. New Orleans was the center of the Federal martial area defined as the Department of the Gulf, and at any one time there were between twelve thousand and fifteen thousand Union soldiers in the city. Still, it brought up some of the old anger in Gage to see bluebellies all over the place, just walking or riding around, talking, laughing, shopping, going into saloons, just living there. They didn’t belong there, they never had. To Gage that had been the whole point of the war.
As they paraded down Esplanade the Gypsy Caravan drew an immense amount of attention, even in this thoroughly cosmopolitan town. Passersby, on foot and in carriages and on horseback, stopped to stare. Gage noted that most all of the well-dressed women glared, while the not-so-well dressed (literally) ladies of the streets waved and grinned. The men, except for those accompanying the scowling ladies, grinned and whistled and catcalled and waved. Three Union soldiers ran right in front of Nadyha’s vardo and then came to lope along beside her, for they were moving very slowly.
“Nadyha, Nadyha!” one of them called, grinning like an imbecile up at her. “I’ve missed you, my Gypsy queen!” He looked about twenty years old, with a shock of curling brown hair under his kepi and a very thin, pitiful mustache.
Enraged, Gage started to pull Cayenne up to intercept them, but Nadyha turned to him and shook her head. She smiled down at them coolly and said, “Dinili gaje, Gypsies don’t have queens.” Making a snicking noise with her mouth, she flicked the reins and Tinar walked a bit faster.
“I’ll see you tonight, Nadyha,” the boy soldier called. “Wouldn’t miss the Gypsies for nothin’!” Slowing, he elbowed one of his companions in the side and said, “Tonight we make market, boys.” It was the peculiar New Orleans manner of saying “we’re going grocery shopping.”
Gage rode past them, so close that Cayenne almost brushed against the boy. What was Nadyha thinking, flirting with the riffraff? He thought he would have to caution Nadyha about things like that.
But he cheered up as they passed through uptown and then into the French Quarter, seeing that the proud old city was fully intact. Gage was sick of seeing towns and small cities and countryside ravaged by war, pretty little towns like Fredericksburg looted and burned, Petersburg turned into one big slum by a year of siege, Richmond shelled to a haggard ruin. No battles had been fought here, for Admiral David Farragut had overrun two forts downstream, sailed into New Orleans with his battleships, and demanded the city’s surrender. There was some resistance, but not much. With typical Gallic practicality, the citizens of New Orleans had accepted the inevitable. Gage was fiercely glad. With piercing poignancy he looked down Dauphine Street, toward his old home, and wondered who lived there now. Probably Union soldiers.
When they reached the French Market, right by the levees of the Mississippi River, Gage finally remembered what it was like to really belong to a city. His own flat with the little courtyard, the Market, and the docks were Gage’s favorite places, and he knew he’d never find anything quite like them anywhere else. He couldn’t help but smile as they drove around one end of the old open-air arcade. It looked exactly the same, except for the men in blue uniforms, but even they faded into obscurity in the kaleidoscopic panorama of New Orleans’ French Market.
It was about six o’clock, and in the west the setting sun sent slanted crimson sunlight-bolts throughout the scene. From the river came the huffing of the ’scape pipes of the riverboats still fired up; Gage always thought the sound was exactly like a gigantic animal breathing. But above it all rose the din from the Market. French butchers from the Halles des Boucheries called out their wares; from the fruit vendors came loud, indignant Italian and Spanish exclamations as they haggled; German vegetable vendors shouted with Teutonic energy; here and there one could see Chinese, Hindu, and Moors hurrying by with carts piled high with goods. Everywhere was the babble of French, Creole patois, half-French and half-English, translations of French into English with a French accent, and Spanish with all of the same variations. Upperclass white people dressed in their finery, ill-dressed and loud laughing prostitutes, haughty Creoles, blacks in every shade from African black to octoroon gold, the gens de couleur libres ladies with their colorful tignons all mingled together without apparent constraint or ill-feeling. With a start, Gage realized now that all of the blacks were free people of color; the age-old New Orleans term was redundant now.
Nadyha guided the vardo in a circle along the old Spanish cobblestone street that ran just by the Market, and Niçu followed her. Gage dismounted and hurried to help Nadyha down. She just gave him a disgusted glance and climbed down herself. Already some people were coming to stand around the wagons, staring at the Gypsies.
Niçu, Mirella, Nadyha, Gage, and Denny met in a loose circle to organize. Niçu said, “The first thing we have to do is get Baba Simza out of that wagon, or you’ll be able to hear her hollering over in Algiers. Gage?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Gage said with amusement. Niçu had made Baba Simza a walking cane of the lovely blond tupelo wood, and he had carved the handle in the shape of a bear’s head. Apparently since Nadyha had talked with Gage about the status of animals before the fall and had discussed it with her grandmother, Simza had realized that bears, since they were basically vegetarians, were “in balance.” She’d been paying much more attention to Boldo since then, talking to him, singing to him, petting him (though she flatly refused to kiss him as Nadyha did), bossing him, scolding him. As for the cane, Baba Simza liked it and was very spry with it, but many times she demanded that Gage carry her. It seemed to tickle the vinegary old lady, particularly as it obviously irritated Nadyha so much.
So Gage brought out Baba Simza’s chair, and then Baba Simza herself, and got her settled, with a cup of lukewarm chicory tea. Denny came up to him and said, “Hey, Gage, I gotta go. I’m pretty sure my Uncle Zeke’s here. Do you care if I take Cayenne?”
“No, go ahead,” Gage said easily. “See you later.” Denny hopped up on the horse and took off at a spirited trot.
Now Gage, Nadyha, Niçu, and Mirella set up what Gage called the Gypsy Pavilion. They unhitched Saz from the rear wagon and dismantled the harness tongue. Then, because the vardos were so well-made and delicately sprung,
the four of them were able to push it up close to the back of Nadyha’s vardo and lower the front steps, which were curved, painted sky-blue, and had delicate hand-carved detailing on the sides.
Briefly Niçu explained to Gage how they set up their site. Eight-foot-high iron rods were unloaded from the top of Niçu’s wagon and screwed into big, heavy, circular bases. Big bolts of canvas, brightly painted in rainbow stripes and then varnished to make them waterproof, were attached to the top of the pole with grommets, and then they raised the poles, making a canvas roof on each side of the wagons and in the front. Gage and Niçu unloaded twelve braziers, wrought-iron stands with a wrought-iron bowl atop, and lined them up on the cobblestones along the big square defined by the canvas tent-tops. Nadyha and Mirella started unloading the cut-to-size small logs that fit into the braziers and loading them up.
By now a sizable group of watchers had gathered. They had crowded around them at first, until Gage and Niçu got the braziers set up. Then they respectfully stepped back behind them. Gage reflected it was an odd mind-set of humans that they instinctively respected boundaries, no matter how loosely defined. Even the ragged children of all ages that impudently darted around every street in the city, most of them looking for or making trouble, stayed back.
“Now what?” Gage asked Niçu.
Niçu nodded toward the crowd, grinning. “What do you think?”
Gage looked over the people. They were excited. They’d been shouting to the Gypsies the whole time, such things as, “Will you tell my fortune, Old Mother? Nadyha, Nadyha, where’s your mountain lion? And the bear, we want to see the bear!” Gage now saw the three soldiers they’d seen on Esplanade, and the one who’d impudently spoken to Nadyha stood so close to the brazier that he was touching it. “Nadyha, you’re going to sing and dance tonight, aren’t you? C’mon, you’re the Queen of the Gypsies, you’ve got to dance for us!”
Gage sighed. “Guess Anca, Boldo, and singing and dancing are the plan.”
“Right,” Niçu said. “We don’t set out our goods until in the morning. Tonight we’ll just give them a little taste, so they’ll come back tomorrow.”
Nadyha and Mirella started the fire in all of the braziers, for it was now full dark. Gage was astounded to see that they talked to the people, responding good-naturedly to their calls and entreaties, smiling, laughing. “You—it doesn’t bother you that Mirella acts like that?” Gage asked Niçu as they brushed and curried Tinar and Saz.
“Like what?” he said evenly.
“I don’t know, like talking to people she doesn’t know, laughing and stuff,” Gage said lamely.
“Mirella doesn’t act like a gaje because she’s not. She’s Romany, and she’s my wife, and I’m proud of her. Personally, I think that gaje women act like stupid little mice, with their heads bowed and looking up at you from under their eyelashes or peeping from behind their fans, or acting like you’re invisible because you haven’t been properly introduced. Of course, it’s no wonder they don’t have energy enough to move or talk, the way they dress, with about three hundred pounds of clothes on.”
“Uh—yeah, I see what you mean. Guess I never thought of it like that.”
Now they set up another brazier in the center of the pavilion. It was a big round iron bowl, flat-bottomed, with thick two-inch-high legs. When a fire had been built in it, it made a good likeness to a campfire. As ordered, Gage moved Baba Simza and her chair closer to it.
Nadyha began to bring out the animals. When she opened her vardo door, Matchko shot out like a black artillery shell and immediately ran to Tinar. Springing lightly, he jumped all fourteen hands to Tinar’s back, sat down, wrapped his tail around his front paws, and stared at the crowd beyond the brazier light. Many laughed, some called “Kitty, kitty,” and Matchko, with his one yellow eye and one missing ear, gave them a gargoyle’s malevolent glare.
Boldo’s black head stuck out the door, then he shambled out on his hind legs. Nadyha held his paw as if he were an oversized child as they walked down the steps. Gage thought that that was quite a trick for the bear, and the crowd seemed to agree, for they oohhed and aaahhed. Nadyha led him to the braziers and said, “This is Boldo, the great ferocious black bear!” Some flinched a little, but then Boldo placed one arm across his chubby middle and gave a clumsy bow. Seeming to love the ensuing laughter, he bowed all around, then lumbered over to Baba Simza. Niçu had already put out his cushion next to her chair.
Next Nadyha came out of the wagon with Anca, and Gage was surprised to see that she had on a collar with a length of chain. The collar was of deep brown leather, and it had dozens of Niçu’s coins hanging from it, but these coins were big and heavy and made a solemn, deep, clanking sound when she moved. The chain was slender, with light links, with the coins suspended from every other link. The crowd grew quiet as Nadhya took Anca to the far corner of the pavilion and very slowly walked her along the line of people. “This is Anca,” Nadyha told them, “and she is the real queen.” Anca, as if she were conscious of the fearful admiration directed at her, held her head high and kept looking at the people with her great glowing golden eyes, pacing majestically. Nadyha walked her back and forth a couple of times. Finally someone called, “Nadyha, can we pet her?”
Nadyha’s chin came up. “Tomorrow you can,” she answered in a ringing voice, “if you pay. And if you dare.”
Applause greeted this sally.
When Nadyha finished displaying Anca, she brought her over to her wagon. Anca, too, had a cushion for coming to town, only it was so enormous it was the size of a full bed, and so thick it looked like it was overstuffed with down. But it wasn’t. With amusement Nadyha had told Gage that the herb growing under her wagon was catmint, and that it had a calming, sedative effect on some cats, including Anca. Her cushion was stuffed full of it. Gage took Anca’s chain from Nadyha and asked, “Do you keep her chained up? I mean, this pretty little necklace wouldn’t stop her for a second if she decided to take off.”
“She won’t,” Nadyha said carelessly. “It’s just for looks, so the gaje won’t be scared. Just let it trail, it’s all right, she’ll probably just crawl right onto her cushion and go to sleep.” She went inside her wagon and Gage sat down cross-legged by Anca’s mattress. Anca did lie down but laid her head on Gage’s lap, as she often did now. He started stroking her head, and again was amazed that the big cat actually purred like a housecat. Except it sounded like a muted roar.
Niçu played a violin solo, and then Nadyha and Baba Simza played guitar and Mirella played the recorder for one song that Nadyha sang. Mirella and Nadyha only danced one time. The crowd began to beg them for more, but Nadyha made an imperious wave to quiet them and said loudly, “Tomorrow! Come buy our goods, if you spend enough money, we’ll sing and dance all night!” With loud grumbles the crowd began to disperse.
Now Mirella laid a big iron grillwork across the campfire brazier and placed a big pot of stew on it. Gage had hunted for several days before they’d left camp, bringing in lots of rabbit, birds, turkeys, and two boars. Niçu had built a smokehouse, and they had smoked most of the meat to preserve it for their five-day stay in New Orleans. Some of it they simply salted, for Anca. On the previous day Gage had shot a boar and then brought Anca to it, out to her feeding ground. She had taken pieces, like tidbits, from him before, but he was unsure if she would accept the boar. She was a hunter and he thought she might be disdainful of a fresh kill from a human. But she accepted it with a will, and he’d left her to it. Since she had eaten the day before they left, she wouldn’t need to eat large amounts for several days. When Nadyha had found out what Gage had done, she’d said with great sincerity, “Thank you for feeding Anca, Gage.”
“You’re very welcome,” he responded, pleased.
After they ate, Gage asked Nadyha, “I’m so glad to be here, I’ve just gotta take a look around. I want to go get a café au lait at one of the coffee stands in the Market, and then I’m going to take a walk along the docks. Would you do me the ho
nor of accompanying me, Nadyha?”
She considered, then nodded. “I was going to walk the docks myself. But I guess you can come along.”
“Gosh, thanks,” Gage said dryly.
She did consent to let Gage buy her a café noir. Along with his café au lait it cost him forty cents, which now meant that Gage had exactly forty-three cents left to his name. But things like that didn’t really bother him. Somehow he had a feeling that the Lord had something in store for him, and he knew that that feeling, though it was vague, was strictly scriptural. A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps, he thought as he carelessly gave the coffee vendor, a beautiful young mulatto woman, four ten-cent pieces. With a half smile he thought, I wonder if I’m ever going to get my head out of Proverbs as long as I’m around Baba Simza?
He watched Nadyha. She had on an orange, yellow, and green striped diklo with the coins dangling low on her forehead. Her green-tan eyes were bright, her face lit up and glowing, as she hungrily watched all the comings and goings in the French Market. People stared at her, certainly; but she seemed not to care, or even to really notice. Gage had the most curious reactions to her being so oblivious to the intense raking stares. He thought it was extraordinary, he thought she should pay more attention, he thought she was either blind or amazingly naïve though he knew she was neither, he resented it and he completely understood why everyone did it. He stared at Nadyha a lot himself.
When they finished their coffees they went out and slowly started walking down the century-old, famous New Orleans docks. Every kind of watercraft imaginable was there, from crude flatboats to Indian canoes to pirogues to little fishing boats with sails, and, of course, the riverboats. Cheap little packets, tidy little cargo-haulers, mid-sized steamers that hauled both cargo and passengers, and the big ones, the luxurious mostly passenger steamships. As in the Market, all kinds of people crowded the wharves: roustabouts, crews, passengers, couriers, tradesmen, woodmen, pickpockets, thieves, drunks, whores. Horses, carts, drays, wagons, carriages, buggies, and hacks rumbled up and down. It was impossible to keep a distance from Nadyha as they walked side by side, and Gage tried very hard not to brush up against her, as he knew how much she disliked invasions of her space. Now, however, she seemed not to notice. It was a good thing, too, because in the rush and rumble people and sometimes horses ran against you or even into you, if you weren’t careful.
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