Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball

by Lynn Shurr

  ****

  Wearing yet another of last year’s white dresses and a straw hat trimmed with a pink grosgrain ribbon and a silk rose she’d clipped from another outfit, Roz attended Easter services at the Methodist church where the air was filled with the scent of the potted lilies that bedecked the altar. The boarding house stood empty when she returned, each of her friends having gone to have dinner with family, or in Bernard’s case, to meet Faye’s family in Crowley. Ignoring Roz’s outcast status, Loretta had invited her to dine. She wasn’t sure she could endure an entire afternoon with Loretta’s oldest daughter, but the prospect of thick slices of ham, fresh green beans, fluffy biscuits, pecan pie and the inevitable plate of deviled eggs drew her to accept. The telephone in the hall rang as Roz prepared to leave for the feast.

  Emmaline St. Rochelle called to wish Roz a happy holiday and tell the story of the dynamiting at Caernarvon. On Good Friday, her parents had taken a picnic lunch along for the noon event, joining a parade of cars, carriages, and boats venturing out to watch the destruction of St. Bernard Parish. They waited until past two p.m. for the show to begin. At last, the charges were set and fired. The earth heaved and settled back into place. A trickle of water flowed through a six-foot wide gap. More dynamite exploded. Divers went underwater with charges. Finally, thirty-nine tons of dynamite created a rift big enough to relieve the pressure of the river against its banks.

  “Very anti-climatic, my dear,” Madame St. Rochelle told her daughter.

  “Very tragic for the small farmers and trappers. Sheriff Meraux said his parish was publicly executed, according to the newspapers.”

  “Meraux is a well-educated bootlegger and power-monger. Everyone knows that. He’s angry because his trade has been interrupted. There’s two million dollars set aside for reparations. Do you want to guess who will get most of it?” her mother asked in an irritated voice.

  “I suppose you’re right. I’ve been working with people who make their living off the land. They have so little. It doesn’t seem right to take their livelihood.”

  “Cajuns and Negroes, you mean. They’ve always lived that way. It doesn’t bother them, but I don’t know how you could sink so low. Yes, I heard you took your classes with coloreds. Several people called to tell me. Perhaps, we should have let you join a nursing order if you wanted to care for the poor. That would be more respectable than what you are doing now.”

  “Yes, Mama. I would have made a great nun,” Roz replied with an edge of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Give it up, Rosamond.”

  “And return to Buster?”

  “Of course not. Apply for an annulment, and when the scandal dies down, remarry and be what you were born to be. If you continue to act outrageously, society will not accept you again.”

  “Perhaps, that’s not what I want. I have clients now. You won’t starve me out, Mama, even if you cut off the pittance I get from the bank. I can make my own way in life.”

  “You were always defiant, Rosamond. Keep consorting with lowlifes, and you’ll never be able to return to New Orleans.”

  “Mama, the only reason I’d want to return now is to see you and Papa and Roxie and Uncle Laurence.”

  She rendered her mother speechless for a moment. The silence didn’t last. “We love you, Roz. We only want what’s best for you. Happy Easter.”

  “Give my love to everyone, Mama. Call again soon.”

  As she hung up the phone, Roz recalled how the nuns had taught the War Between the States. At the first battle, Manassas, residents of Washington had gone to view the fighting in their carriages with packed cold lunches in baskets. As the slaughter went on and on, the civilians fled back to the city and were overtaken by retreating Federal troops. The Yankees had committed a sin of pride, the nuns hinted, in regarding a tragedy as amusement. Maybe that’s why the war had gone on and on, a sin of pride on both sides.

  The next day, the Glasscock levee broke on the west bank of the river, bleeding off the floodwaters into the Atchafalaya Basin. There had been no need to inundate St. Bernard Parish at all.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  One by one, the levees popped under a renewed deluge of floodwaters and endless rain. The Cabin Teele crevasse poured out over northern Louisiana seventy-five miles to the town of Monroe on May third. On May thirteenth, the levee at Bayou des Glaises melted away. The town of Melville, Louisiana, was totally destroyed by floodwaters at six a.m. on May seventeenth. Roz read the newspapers and wept.

  Roz visited Cherie Arton. Her surly, unshaven husband sat at the table drinking coffee and playing bouree with Ursin while Roz examined his wife in the bedroom. His own truck, even older than Ursin’s, sat parked on the levee, but Claude hadn’t wanted to waste the gas driving the midwife to and fro.

  His boat was tied to one of the stilts, the water level so high he could jump into it easily. Roz heard the dark flood lapping inches from the floorboards and suggested Cherie spend the last week or so of her pregnancy in town.

  “You’ve dilated three fingers. The baby will be coming soon. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

  “Claude is here. Da water too high. All his traps, dey wash away. If da house flood, we go over to da backside of da levee.”

  Roz took her plea to Claude Arton. “Monsieur Arton, with the weather so uncertain, I think you should bring your wife into town until the baby comes.”

  Claude took a deep swallow of coffee and wiped the ends of the bushy moustache that topped his stubble free of condensed milk with the back of his hand. He looked at the midwife with eyes as small, dark, and feral as the muskrats he trapped, rattled off some rapid Cajun French and shrugged.

  “Speak l’anglais, Claude, to da midwife. She comp’ny,” Cherie shouted from the bedroom.

  Claude threw down his cards and shouted back. The ever-mellow Ursin translated. “Claude say if da road’s too bad, he bring da baby like he done all the res’. Cherie, she don’t need no fancy midwife. She jus’ being tetu, stubborn, ’cause her sister is spoiled by me, Ursin.”

  More rapid French flew back and forth between the rooms. Finally, Claude stomped out on his wooden leg, jumped into his boat, and cast off, the putt-putt of the small engine fading into the distance. Cherie still shouted at him from the small window in the bedroom.

  “She say she don’t care if he never come back, but he will,” Ursin continued.

  In the corner, the girl, Elise, cowered, holding the toddler against her thin chest. Cherie Arton came into the room. Her face was flushed with yelling. She drew a hand down over her belly where the baby kicked furiously, making the front of her flowered dress look lumpy. “Café?” she offered as if nothing unusual had taken place.

  “Not today, thank you. I have a meeting with another expectant mother in town. Perhaps, you know her, Marcelle Begnaud.”

  “Oui, cousin to Ursin and Pierre.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that. If your pains begin or your water breaks, have Claude come for me at once, day or night.”

  Cherie nodded and walked them to the door of the cabin. Roz crossed the plank to the levee, and Ursin followed, the board bowing under his weight. In the truck, Roz interrogated him. “Is Pierre sending me clients? I don’t need his help.”

  Ursin gave his favorite answer, a shrug. “Dere’s lotsa Landrys to go ’round. One woman get somet’ing special, dey all want it, eh.”

  “Claude obviously doesn’t want me here.”

  “Claude, he not so bad mos’ times. He make good money. ‘Rat hides going for t’ree dollars each right now, but he like to gamble. He take his pelts into town, get paid, stop at da Barn on da way back, and come home with nuttin’.”

  “Why on earth did Cherie marry him?”

  “Claude, he raised in da swamp. Never went to no school. Jus’ come to town to find a wife. Cherie, she t’ink she tame da wild man, yeah. Instead, he take her off into da Basin. Dey come back wit’ a boatload of kids a few years later. Least now, he can sign his name and speak some
of da English.”

  “He’s a terrible man. Why doesn’t she leave him?”

  “Wit’ going on six kids and a fort’ grade education? Where she go? Mos’ women, dey got to lie in da bed dey make. Not too many can get up out of it and run off. Besides, Claude, he yell, but he don’t hit her.” Ursin raised his eyebrows, and let that information sink in.

  Roz remained quiet for the rest of the trip. As they parked before the boarding house, she was startled to see Pierre Landry and an older man sitting in the porch rockers. Both rose as she got down and thanked Ursin for the ride.

  “Roz, let me introduce you to Dr. Leonard Spivey, home from the desert and fully recovered, he claims. This is the midwife I was telling you about, Len.”

  “I longed for lazy brown bayous and bearded oaks, my dear,” Leonard Spivey said. Even in old age, he stood taller than Pierre but just as spare. His hair had gone white, but his blue eyes twinkled with mischief. He possessed the elegant, concerned manner that Pierre had adopted as his own.

  “Truthfully, he heard about the flooding in Louisiana and came back to help. The Red Cross is setting up a camp on the ridge above Spanish Lake. More flooding is expected, and people are being called to evacuate the lowlying areas. They need medical personnel. We wanted to know if you would join in the effort. Stressful situations seem to bring on the births, you know.”

  “Doing me another favor, Pierre? I understand Marcelle Begnaud is your cousin.”

  “I don’t think living in a tent in a muddy campground is doing you a favor, Roz. You could be of great help if you choose to be. The Red Cross will see you get paid.”

  “I’m not concerned about getting paid. I’m worried about being confined in a small area with you.”

  “I’m sure we’ll both be too tired to follow our inclinations.”

  “I didn’t know you still had any toward me. You keep your distance well enough.”

  “As do you!” Pierre’s dark eyes flashed like the lightning in the rain clouds.

  However, Leonard Spivey’s eyes twinkled. “The one that got away, Pierre? The one from New Orleans I was supposed to save you from, and here she is. Just shows old doctors shouldn’t meddle. I told Gilbert St. Rochelle moving my retirement up wouldn’t stop that freight train from rolling and now here we are, all parked in the same roundhouse.”

  Pierre turned on him. “You faked your retirement!”

  “No, boy. I’m sixty-five years old, and I was exhausted. I might have exaggerated the weak ticker to get you here in a hurry, but I badly needed the rest. My apologies. Gilbert made it sound as if you were being pursued a by married woman who would give you nothing but grief, not a hard-working colleague.”

  “Thank you for calling me a colleague, Dr. Spivey,” Roz said stiffly.

  “She has given me nothing but grief,” Pierre Landry said.

  “Then stop looking after me. Stop being there for me. I’ll take care of myself.”

  “Young people, please.” Doc Spivey held up his hands. “We came to ask for your assistance in the camp, Miz Roz. Will you come?”

  “If I can be of use, certainly. I have an appointment this afternoon, but after that I’ll notify my landlady and pack a few things. Could you arrange transportation for me, Dr. Spivey?”

  “I’ll take you out to the camp, Roz. It’s only a few miles from town,” Pierre said wearily.

  “I wouldn’t want to cause you any more grief, Pierre.”

  “I’ll take you to the camp as a professional courtesy, Midwife Boylan.”

  “Then, I accept your offer, Dr. Landry.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Dozens of conical white tents with straight dropped sides blossomed on the hills above Spanish Lake as if some strange new tribe of Indians had taken over the area. Evacuated coloreds were housed lower down the slope in Camp McGlade, and below them, six-hundred head of stray cattle and lost mules tore at the rain-soaked grasses quickly turning pasture to mud. Around this haven from the flood, the National Guard patrolled on foot or rode fully armed on horseback.

  Red Cross nurse, Judith Strictland, welcomed Roz and assigned her a tent and a cot. A sign affixed by the flap opening read, “Midwife Services.” Below those words, Pierre wrote Chasse-femme, though those who couldn’t read English probably couldn’t read in French either. Considering, he drew an awkward line sketch of a cradle holding a bald-headed infant next to the words.

  “Bravo!” Roz clapped.

  “Another of my amazing talents.” Pierre bowed. They smiled into each other’s eyes.

  Nurse Strictland looked from one to the other. She cleared her throat and thinned her unpainted lips. “Midwife Boylan, I think we should take a tour of the camp. I have a list of all the pregnant women admitted and their approximate due dates. We’ve tried to persuade those farthest along to evacuate to the maternity ward being set up at Southwestern Louisiana Institute in Lafayette where they can give birth in a clean, dry environment, but these Cajuns are remarkably stubborn. No matter how loudly I shout, they simply shake their heads and pretend not to understand.”

  Nurse Strictland’s plump, ruddy cheeks grew redder at the thought. She led the way in sturdy brown shoes because in no way could she keep her white footwear clean in the muck. She wore her white veil bearing its signature red cross pulled down over her forehead, not a wisp of hair showing. Judith Strictland’s hands were broad, short-nailed, and totally competent. Nearing forty, she had thickened around the middle and thighs but still gave off an aura of boundless energy. She bore no wedding ring and reminded Roz of some of the sterner nuns at the Academy.

  As they approached the mess tent, Nurse Strickland bemoaned the lack of local hygiene and abysmal dietary habits. “Perhaps, you could assist with lessons on toothbrushing. We are giving every child and adult a new toothbrush, but the way they stare at them, I’m afraid they’ll use them to polish their boots. We have the children line up with a container for milk every day, and provide three meals, but all we get are complaints. Oh, no! Here they come again, and I can’t understand a word of their jibber-jabber.”

  Like hornets from a disturbed nest, women swarmed from the opening of the mess tent and buzzed angrily in Cajun French at the nurse. One held out a bowl containing a lump of cooked rice and a watery roux in which chopped wieners floated. The loudest of the women shoved the bowl under Roz’s nose. “C’est merde!” she exclaimed.

  Roz took two steps back. “She says it’s sh—not tasty.”

  “I know the word merde. I served in France. Heard it all the time over there. You tell them that is perfectly good wiener gumbo. They can’t expect chicken under the circumstances.”

  Appalled herself by the idea of gumbo made with hot dogs, Roz did her best to translate using her nun-instilled Parisian French and words she had picked up from Pierre’s relations. The women were not appeased.

  “They say if you will give them the rice and flour and let the children catch some crawfish, they will make you a good gumbo or a nice courtboullion with catfish from the lake. They cannot eat this sh—food.”

  “Explain that the water might be polluted, that the fish could be contaminated.”

  “L’eau, c’est mal. Le poisson ne bon,” Roz managed to get out before the angry wives buzzed again.

  “They say they will cook the fish until it is good to eat. They are not stupid. Oh, and they want cornmeal to make bread and coush coush for breakfast and syrup to put on it, bigger coffee rations, and tobacco for the old folks.” Ros hastened to remember all the demands.

  “Coush coush? Whatever is that?” Nurse Strictland’s face was growing redder by the minute.

  “Fried cornmeal, sort of like a breakfast cereal.”

  “We are serving healthy bowls of oatmeal, and they keep demanding cornbread and syrup. No wonder half of them are toothless.”

  “But, you have to admit they do make a wonderful gumbo.”

  “That burns out the lining of my stomach. I’ve been going into New Iberia for
chocolate malteds at the drugstore merely to survive.”

  “Perhaps, the cayenne pepper kills the bacteria in the meat and seafood. I’m so used to the taste that other foods seem bland.” Roz took another look at the wiener gumbo and smiled sympathetically at the women.

  “Very well. I’ll give them an opportunity to cook. We’ll see how they manage.”

  “Oh, I think you’ll be surprised. No one can stretch food like a Cajun and still make it taste good.” Roz conveyed the excellent news to the crowd. The women gave her three rousing cheers, and the crowd dispersed.

  “With your fair skin and light eyes, you’re not one of them, are you?”

  “My fine old Creole family would be outraged if you suggested I was a Cajun.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed you had Negro blood either.”

  “Creole—as in founding French families, Nurse Strictland.”

  “Then, when we have a free moment we will have to see if my ancestors got to New York before yours arrived in New Orleans.”

  “You’ll have to meet Catherine Emory. I believe her family came over on the Mayflower, but please remember the Cajuns arrived here in the 1750s and have survived very well without our help. Keep that in mind and things will go more smoothly, I believe.”

  “Catherine Emory is a legend among public health nurses.”

  “She taught me my skills.”

  “Then, you have my regard. Now, that Dr. Landry, he looks like a Cajun.”

  “He is, the first of his family to go to high school and college.”

  “Those dark-eyed Frenchmen can get between your legs before you know what’s happening—just a word of warning from someone who served at Marne and the Somme. In a camp such as this, we must set the moral example. You will see that I am right.”

  “I’ve promised myself to keep my knees together where Pierre is concerned.”

  “Good. I’ve observed far too much mischief of a sexual nature going on in the camp already without having to worry about the staff. Take those three girls who showed up yesterday and claimed a tent right by the boundary where the boys from the National Guard patrol. I intend to keep my eyes on them. No one fleeing high water has the time to have their hair freshly bleached or dyed that bright shade of red. None of them seems to own a dress without a hem six inches above the knees and a low dip across the chest.”