The Devil in Canaan Parish

by Jackie Shemwell

  Contents

  Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Acknowledgement

  This, my first novel, is lovingly dedicated to my husband, D. Wade, my sons Zachary and Joshua, and everyone who has ever encouraged, supported and believed in me. Most importantly, I thank God, who has kept me in his loving hands and always keeps his amazing promises.

  Chapter One

  She looked like she had already drowned, the first time I saw her. It was something about her expression. Dead. Devoid of emotion, she stared through you like the dead do, her gaze like one’s own reflection in black glassy water at the bottom of a barrel. I could not see the color of her eyes, eclipsed by her pupils, and the water seemed to pour out of her like from a corpse just pulled from the river. It fell in giant droplets from her ridiculous straw hat and ran from her long stringy hair, down her pale cheeks, and through the mottled blue fabric of her faded cotton dress. It pooled in the folds of her nylon socks, once white knee-highs, now muddy red and bunched around her ankles. She clutched a small carpetbag in front of her, her shoulders stooped forward, either from its weight, or in an attempt to shield herself from view. She gazed somewhere behind me, I thought, or perhaps her eyes saw something that was not there. She stood just inside the doorway, careful to keep herself over the floor mat where the water dripping from her small, shivering frame was forming a large puddle around her.

  I did not notice the old man until he began coughing. He was standing next to her, further inside the store, his clumsy felt hat held between his fingertips in front of his chest as if it were a fragile china plate. He seemed made of mud, dressed in monochromatic brown from head to toe, the dirt of months without bathing caked in the folds of his skin from his furrowed forehead to his double chin. He was dressed in what must have been his only suit, perhaps the one he was married in, some thirty years ago from the look of it. He appeared sixty, but was most likely fifty. The life of the swamp folk was hard and unrelenting. The sound of his raspy wheezing cough made me think he would not have to endure it much longer. His enormous gut shook with the effort of breathing, and in attempt at decorum, he pulled a dripping handkerchief out of his pocket and hacked into it.

  I opened my mouth to speak and was startled when the voice that came was not my own. My father-in-law had appeared in front of me, and I could see the light reflecting off the top of his fat, balding head.

  “May I help you folks? We were just about to close with the storm coming and all, but we’d be glad to stay open for a few more minutes if there’s something we can get for you. Some cough syrup, maybe?”

  I could tell how his face would look without even seeing it -- the eyes wide behind his gold-rimmed glasses and a practiced smile curling the edges of his lips. Salesmanship flowed through his veins. He was the third generation owner of the only drugstore in all of Canaan Parish: Bordelon’s.

  “No sir. We was jest, I mean, pardon me sir, I’m Mouton. Allain Mouton,” said the man, in a thick Cajun accent, jamming his hat and handkerchief into his left fist and extending the fat stubby fingers of his right hand out to my father-in-law.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir. I’m Charlie Bordelon. This is my son-in-law.”

  Mouton nodded toward me and I returned the gesture. I was not important enough to have a name.

  Bordelon examined Mouton. I watched as he quietly wiped the man’s moisture from his hands onto his apron, pure white and starched so stiff it hung like armor from his chest down past his knees. His impeccable shoes glistened like a shiny new coin, and he stood with his heels cemented together. Sometimes it seemed as though his spinal column were also starched, his posture was so rigid and unyielding.

  “How can I help you, Mr. Mouton?”

  Mouton glanced over his shoulder at the girl and cleared his throat.

  “This here my daughter, Melee. She a real good cook. Real good. She good cleaning in the house, too you know. She do the laundry, she can even press and starch your shirts.”

  “My well, that’s wonderful, Mr. Mouton. I’m sure you’re very pleased with her,” said Bordelon, the sweet syrup of his voice taking on just a hint of sour, a delicacy lost on the visitor. Instead he became more relaxed, breaking into a wide smile.

  “Oui, bien sur, I am. But uh, you see I ain’t got no more use for her, you see.”

  Bordelon cocked his head to one side.

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked.

  “Oh, well I going marry soon. You see? Her mother, you know, she been dead a long time, and now I going marry again. You see? So I uh, going have a new wife soon. And you know it no good with two women in one house.”

  Bordelon said nothing in return. I began to enjoy the exchange, although I kept watching the girl. At the mention of her domestic virtues, she hung her head and began staring instead at the muddy tips of her dilapidated Mary Janes.

  “So, you see,” Mouton continued, “I need to find a new place for her, and I come here.” He ended with a nod and a slight bow, relieved that his long-prepared speech was finally delivered.

  “Well, uh, Mr. Mouton,” my father-in-law began, “I appreciate you bringing your daughter, but we really have no openings here in the store. We have all the staff we need at this time.”

  “Mais non, mais non!” said Mouton. “No I mean, not here. Not for the store. She don’t know nothing about shops and such. I mean, I heard you was looking for a hired girl.”

  “Me? I’m not sure where you got that from.” Bordelon was shaking his head, his brow furrowed and lips pursed.

  “Perhaps he means me. That is to say, perhaps he means Sally.” I spoke up.

  My wife Sally was Bordelon’s first and favorite daughter of three. We had been married for almost ten years, and had been through twice as many maids. The most recent one lasted two weeks before she ran out of the house in tears after my wife threw a frying pan across the kitchen, shouting that the girl’s cooking was inedible.

  “What?” said Bordelon, turning his head and removing his glasses. He was unused to the spontaneous sound of my voice.

  “Sally. She wants a new girl. The last one didn’t work out. I guess she’s been telling the women at Church and the Ladies Auxiliary. I’m sure word must have gotten around by now.”

  Bordelon turned away from the visitors’ view and squinted his eyes at me. I knew I had said something that displeased him.

  “Mr. Mouton, will you excuse me and my son-in-law? We’ll be right back with you.” He motioned me toward the back of the store, and I turned and went with him close on my heels down the narrow aisle filled with salves, ointments, bandages, syrups, and gauze. When we got to the lunch counter, I turned and waited for him to speak.

  “Palmer, what the hell is going on over in your house? That was the third girl my wife sent over to you in four months.”

  “I know sir.” I said. “It’s Sally. She’s just . . real particular.”

  “Mmm hmm.” He said, eyeing me up. I said nothing more, accepting my fate. No matter what was going on or how badly Sally behaved, it was always going to be my fault.

  “Well, I don’t know about this girl,” he said. �
�I don’t think my Sally wants any Coon-ass in her kitchen. Why don’t you get another nice clean colored girl?”“Sir, I don’t think there are any nice clean colored girls left in Louisiana who haven’t already worked in our home. Maybe a white girl would do better.”

  “White trash, more like.” he said. “But, I guess it’s not my place to decide this. You should tell her to come round tomorrow and have Sally look her over.”

  I swallowed back the desire to laugh. When had anything not been ‘his place’ to decide? ‘Daddy’ was still Lord and Master to Sally, and I felt his dominion even under my own roof. But, the social theater of South Louisiana was founded on “knowing one’s place”. From the wealthy white descendants of plantation owners, to the poor black sons of slaves, creoles from the black islands of the Caribbean, to the Cajun swamp folk who scratched a living from fishing and hunting, those outcasts from Acadia, all of us played a particular role on life’s grand stage and there was no room for extemporization. One missed cue, one slipped line, and the entire production would be cast into chaos.

  “That’s probably a good idea,” I said. “But I’d hate to send her back home this evening. I mean, they probably walked all day to get here, and that storm is going to be fierce.” I wasn’t sure why I was contesting him -- perhaps only because I had the slightest chance to do so, which never happened.

  He cocked his head to the side again, as if thinking of a retort, another reason why I shouldn’t take her home with me, another reason why he was right and I was wrong, but at that moment a great thunderclap broke overhead, rattling the shelves and causing some of the medicine bottles to clink together.

  “Aw hell,” he said waving his hand at me. “I don’t care what you do. If Sally don’t like her I guess that’s your problem.” He turned and walked back to his office to finish up the day’s accounts, slamming the door on our conversation.

  A thrill went through me. I was giddy that in some small way I had won. For the first time in years I wasn’t irritated that my father-in-law did not trust me to do the accounting. Every morning he counted out the cash drawers and every evening he locked himself in his office to go over the receipts. He would question me over a penny, squinting up sideways at me through those gold-rimmed glasses, perched at the end of his nose. Tonight, as every night, I was free to go as soon as I’d swept the floor and locked up, and tonight I was actually glad to be going home.

  I walked back to the front of the store where Mouton was twirling a display of postcards near the door. He straightened up when he saw me coming, holding his hat in front of him again, in silent supplication. The girl had not moved, but the puddle around her had grown quite large and the dripping had nearly stopped.

  “Mr. Mouton, I’d like to take uh, Melee to my home tonight to meet my wife, Sally. I think that she’ll be pleased to see her. We’ve been without a maid for a few weeks now and my wife has been quite anxious about it.” I said, speaking to him, but watching the girl, who was still studying her shoes.

  “Well, Melee, you hear dat? C’est bon, n’est pas?” Mouton asked his daughter. She glanced up at him and nodded, then turned her head toward me.

  I stifled a gasp when I saw her face, this time tilted up into the light. Her eyes were the color of Spanish moss, deep-set, with indigo circles under them. Her nose, like the rest of her slight frame, was thin, which made her high cheekbones even more pronounced. Her heart-shaped face ended in a tiny, bony chin, but it was her lips that surprised me: deep red and succulent, they reminded me of ripe plums, plump and ready for picking. The lower lip was jutted out in a slight pout. She raised her dark lashes, still wet from the rain, and peered at me through them. The effect was devastating. I felt my knees begin to buckle, and I reached into my pocket to grab my handkerchief and wipe the moisture from my upper lip.

  “Miss Mouton,” I said. “I’m Bram Palmer. Would you like to come to my house to meet my wife?”

  “It’s Melee,” she whispered.

  Her father turned toward her. I saw the muscles in his hand flex and the slightest flinch of her shoulders away from him. I realized that he was exerting an enormous effort to restrain himself from cuffing her, and the dejected way she hung her head made me know that she was used to it.

  “Oh, yes, well Melee, would you like to come?” I asked, trying to collect myself.

  “Yes sir,” she answered.

  “And you’re old enough, right?” I said, suddenly remembering to ask.

  “Yes sir, I’m eighteen.”

  “And you’ve been a maid before?”

  “No, sir,” she shook her head.

  “Now, that don’t mean nothing do it?” Mouton asked, anxiously. He stepped slightly forward into my line of sight.

  “Well, it would be preferable,” I replied. “But if she’s a good worker, and respectful, I think she’ll be fine.”

  Mouton sighed. “C’est bon, c’est bon! Tank you, Mr. Palmer,” he said, extending his hand to me.

  I shook it and nodded. “Not at all.”

  “You take good care of my Melee, now,” he forced a smiled.

  “Of course,” I assured him, turning again toward the girl. She was staring through me again, at that spot somewhere behind my head and beyond the store itself. There was no indication of any emotion from her about the news that she would be coming with me to my home, perhaps to work for my wife and I for quite some time. She seemed indifferent to her fate.

  “Adieu, Melee,” said Mouton. He leaned forward to attempt to embrace her, and she turned her cheek toward him. He gave it a quick peck, and then replaced the hat on his head.

  “Adieu, Papa,” she murmured, not moving her eyes from that far-away spot.

  Mouton turned with a grunt, and hurried out the door, perhaps afraid I would change my mind. The cowbell hung from the door-handle made a noisy clang after his departure. I followed behind him, removing the key from around my neck, and locking the door. As I peered through the glass, I saw no sign of him. The dark slanting rain had already swallowed him up. I flipped the “Yes, We’re Open!” sign over to “Sorry, We’re Closed”, and then turned back to the silent figure beside me.

  “Well, I’ll just collect my things, and then we’ll go, alright?” I announced, not sure why I felt the need to ask her permission. She nodded, still not stirring from her strange trance.

  “Follow me.”

  She floated behind me down the aisle and waited next to the lunch counter as I removed my apron and hung it up. I grabbed my raincoat and hat from the coat rack and put them on. Then I went to the light switch and shut them all down. The only light in the building now shone through the crack around the office door where I knew my father-in-law would be staying for at least another hour, finishing up the day’s receipts.

  “Good night then, sir,” I called. I heard him mumble something in reply.

  I opened the back door and held it wide, beckoning for Melee to come. Awoken from her reverie, she stiffened her shoulders and walked toward me. The rain was pounding outside, spraying my face through the open doorway. I had my umbrella with me, and I opened it, while holding the door open with my elbow. I didn’t need to direct her. She joined me under the umbrella, and I turned and slammed the heavy door.

  My car was a few short paces away in the parking lot, a 1948 metallic green Buick Roadmaster. Bordelon had given it to my wife as a wedding gift. It was brand-new then, top of the line. “Nothing but the best for my Sally,” Bordelon had crowed. He gave her the keys at our reception, and she shrieked and ran outside in her wedding dress to see it. She was crying and hugging him around the neck, over and over, as all our guests came outside and gathered around to admire it. For the rest of the reception Bordelon strutted from table to table, high on the congratulations he was receiving. It was one of the most ostentatious displays the town had seen since before the Great Depression. It was a sign that better days were ahead.

  The car was also a means for my father-in-law to briefly escape
from the shadow of his father-in-law. The Bordelons were not wealthy. The drugstore had provided them with a comfortable living, but they still had to work for it. Charlie Bordelon’s real money came from his wife, Alice Landry. The Landrys had a large sugar cane plantation and owned much of the land around Techeville before the civil war. This land had been sold off over time, and the family plantation was now producing only a token amount of sugar, but the Landrys still lived there in the Grande Maison. Mr. and Mrs. Landry, my wife’s grandparents, were Lord and Lady of the tiny kingdom of Techeville in Canaan Parish, Louisiana. My father-in-law may have given us the car, but it was Old Man Landry who slipped the deed to our house into my dress coat pocket as he was leaving the reception hall, something he would do for all sixteen of his married grandchildren.

  Ironically, Sally did not know how to drive and never learned, thus the car became mine by default. I opened the passenger side door and held it for Melee. She looked awkward in the front seat, as though she wasn’t quite sure how to ride in an automobile, and her shaking hands pulled the hem of her skirt down over her legs and then folded in her lap. Grabbing her bag from her hand, I tossed it into the back seat.

  I walked around to the driver’s side door and slid inside. I was dripping wet, but the heat of the July evening kept me from feeling chilled. Rain in South Louisiana was warmed by the heat of the Gulf. It never refreshed you. It felt more like jumping into a hot bath on a summer day. It made you drowsy and weak, and it fell hard, pounding the muscles in your arms, your back, your legs, pummeling the top of your head until you gave up trying to shield yourself and just let the abuse come. It was hurricane season, and so the rain was slamming down sideways, propelled by the high winds of a tropical depression.

  I started the car, and cursed under my breath at the immediacy with which the front windows fogged up. It would be difficult to see my way home. I turned on the lights and the windshield wipers and backed out of the parking lot. Pulling into the town square, I drove around the courthouse and then proceeded up the road to my house. My car could have driven itself. It was a ten-minute drive at most, and I had done it every morning, noon and evening for the last ten years. That thought, and the fact that no one would be braving the storm, made me fairly confident I could make it home without crashing the car. As we drove north out of town, the First Baptist Church with its massive neoclassical columns and white painted steeple, towered over my left. To my right loomed the levee, keeping the Bayou Teche in check.