The Devil in Canaan Parish

by Jackie Shemwell

  I took the pitcher of warm water and began trudging back up the narrow staircase. By the time I got to the top I was winded, and so I stopped to catch my breath for a moment before I turned the light back on. The garconniere was dark now. The sun had gone down and the crickets and bullfrogs were beginning to warm up for their nightly concert. The only light came from the little lamp on Melee’s bedside table. I could see the foot of her bed, and the window in her room, cut out in the frame of her doorway. At that moment, she walked into view, and turned to look out her bedroom window, rubbing a towel through her wet hair. She was naked.

  Her skin was pearl white. It had a pale pink hue to it and seemed to glisten in the light. Perhaps it was just the rain she was toweling off, but the effect was bewitching. The muscles in her back rippled as she moved the towel through her hair and twisted her neck to get a good view of the sky. I was surprised that someone so small and delicate could have such powerful musculature. I imagined it was from the years of hard work in a cabin back in the woods where she would have carried water to wash and scrub the clothes in an old tub, chopped wood, cleaned fish, and lifted heavy cooking pots on and off the stove. Her strong shoulders and back dipped into a tiny waist and she had two dimples in the place where her back met her buttocks, round and firm.

  I suddenly became aware that I had been there past the point of an honest mistake and now was becoming a voyeur. I sucked in a breath, hoping to reverse down the stairs and then walk back up, this time turning on the light and making enough noise so that she’d know I was coming, but she turned around before I could. I cringed, waiting for the scream, the slamming of the door, and the mortified tears, which should be the usual result of surprising a woman in the nude. Instead she moved the towel in front of her and stared at me with eyebrows arched in surprise. She did not seem the least bit embarrassed or confused. She just stood silent, expectant, waiting for me to speak.

  “I, uh, brought you your water,” I said, feeling ridiculous. Like a guilty child I held the pitcher up to show her.

  She still did not move, and so I edged toward her, through the attic, holding out the pitcher in front of me, and trying not to meet her gaze. She backed up against the wall near the window, still holding the towel and still not showing the least sign of fear or humiliation. When I reached the little stand, I poured the water from the pitcher into the basin. I could feel my hands shaking, and concentrated on controlling my vision, staring straight down and watching the water slosh into the bowl.

  “I expect you’re hungry,” I said. “You’re welcome to come down to the kitchen and have something to eat. I believe we have some bread and some things for sandwiches.”

  I could feel my voice wavering in embarrassment. I felt idiotic, standing so close to her, feeling the warmth of her, and pretending that I didn’t. I wondered why she was acting as if nothing were out of the ordinary. I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks, and quickly turned away so she wouldn’t see me blushing. Then I walked out the door and closed it behind me.

  When I reached the kitchen, I felt a madness coming over me. I knew that at that moment she must be dressing and getting her things together to leave. She had to be. I paced back and forth across the linoleum for a few minutes, wondering what I could say or do to excuse myself. I decided that the least I could do would be to drive her home. I was sure she must have come a long way. She might have started walking this morning. She had to live several miles south along the route of Bayou Teche, down past the town, past the Bottoms and out into the woods and swamplands. I wasn’t even sure if my car could even take her as far as her house, some of the Cajun folk used pirogues to travel to their little shacks.

  I crept to my bedroom door and cracked it open, hoping that my wife would be asleep. She was. The bottle of valium sat on her nightstand next to a glass of water. From the sound of her snores and the drool on her pillow, I knew that she had taken at least two. I would be safe to drive Melee as far as I needed to tonight and return without my wife ever knowing I’d gone. I gently pulled the door closed again, and returned to the kitchen. Not knowing what else to do, I poured myself a glass of milk and then sat at the table waiting for Melee to come down and then tell me that she wanted to leave.

  I waited for what felt like a terribly long time. The crickets in the yard and the frogs out in the bayou had now worked themselves up to a full-blown roar. I watched a moth whirl and circle over my head, every now and then smacking into the kitchen light, flying back, whirling around and then smacking it again. He seemed to be trying to get inside it. I wondered what drove him to do it. What was it about the light that compelled him to keep trying, despite the hopelessness? Somehow to get inside and be encircled in the warmth and the light, to be a part of it, rather than just admire and appreciate it from afar, but the glass of the bulb repelled him, over and over. The most he could hope for was the pain and the blindness that ensued. When I looked away, the light bulb was still burning in my eyes, and I closed them to try and take away the image. When I opened them, Melee was standing there in front of me.

  She was wearing an old nightshirt. It seemed like it could have been her father’s, it was so long and bulky. The sleeves were rolled up over her elbows and all the buttons were done up, except the top two. I had a view of the hollow in the front of her neck where a silver chain and pendant dangled. Her wet hair was combed and pulled back away from her face and her feet were bare. She did not at all act like she was expecting to leave. Instead she glanced from me to the ice box and back again, and I realized that she was hungry and was expecting to eat the sandwiches I had promised her.

  I jumped up from my seat, and motioned for her to sit down, the disappointment washing away and being replaced by a feeling of joy and excitement. She was staying! At least for tonight and maybe tomorrow, and maybe for a while even. I wrenched open the ice box and stood staring at the contents for several minutes, trying to clear my brain enough to think of what I might need for a sandwich. I decided on ham and pulled an opened tin out, along with some mayonnaise and placed them on the table. I grabbed the bread from the breadbox and began slicing it. I pulled two small plates from the cupboard and put the bread on them and returned to the table. She took a plate from me and I waited as she smoothed some mayonnaise on each slice and placed a thick piece of ham between them. I then assembled my sandwich, and the two of us ate in silence. I could tell she was very, very hungry. She was trying to take small bites, but she ate quickly, taking big gulps of air between each mouthful. I offered her a glass of milk and she accepted, swallowing that down too. Then I pulled out a pound cake and cut two thick slices off. I put one on her plate and one on mine and sat back in my chair to watch her finish eating. She was eating more slowly now, enjoying the taste of the pound cake – taking several bites and then a swig of milk. The pound cake crumbled on the tips of her fingers and the milk oozed from the corners of her lips. When she was done, she licked the crumbs off and wiped her face on the back of her hand.

  “Tank you for the food, Mr. Palmer,” she said.

  “Please, call me Bram,” I smiled, taking the plates and putting them in the sink.

  “Here, I do dat,” she said, standing up.

  “No, no,” I said. “It’s alright, you’re not officially employed yet. Tomorrow morning you can start with the duties around the house. Tonight you’re simply my guest.”

  Melee’s face twisted in confusion. It occurred to me that she might never have been anyone’s guest before. Might never have spent a single day without working. She glanced from me to the sink and then to the stairs, as though she were thinking perhaps it best she go to bed if she wasn’t required to do the dishes.

  “Please,” I said, motioning to the chair. She sat back down, clasping her hands tightly in front of her on the table and biting her lip, a quiet snort escaping her nostrils.

  “I guess you were pretty hungry after your walk today,” I said cheerfully, hoping to start a conversation.

  “Yes.”
r />   “How far did you come?” I asked.

  “Dono,” she shrugged, “maybe five or six miles. I can’t tell. It was raining so hard, you know.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  “Well,” I said, hoping to put her at ease, “I do hope you’ll be happy here.”

  “Tank you, Mr. Bram,” she said.

  “No, just Bram,” I reminded her. She didn’t answer.

  “So how did you find out that we needed a new maid?” I asked.

  “I din,” she answered.

  “Excuse me?” I was surprised by this.

  “I din know you need a new girl. My papa saw de store and just decide to go der and axe. Der was no one else around when we got to town, de storm was so bad.”

  “Ah.” I said. I was trying to deal with the impact that this had on my mind.

  “Mr. Bram, do you mind if I go to bed now? I’m very tired,” she said, with an exaggerated yawn.

  “Oh, not at all,” I answered, distracted.

  She thanked me again for the sandwiches and then turned to go back upstairs for the night.

  Chapter Four

  My mother named me Amy Lee. I think it’s a pretty name. It’s sad that I never heard the sound of her voice calling me that. In giving me life, she lost her own. I was the only girl. The last child of six : five sons and one daughter. I was the daughter she never had, but that she had always wanted.

  The midwife took me to her home after my mother died. I called her Marraine. Marraine was ancient, as old as the cypress trees that towered over her tiny shack. She called them her “ladies,” and they did look like tall slender women with long wavy hair and wide skirts. She said the trees were her friends, and the little animals that lived in them -- birds, raccoons, possums, and squirrels – were her children. She was a small, stooped woman with charcoal skin and curly gray hair. Deep wrinkles encircled her dark eyes that could flash like lightening in her brief moments of anger, but were most often crinkled up in laughter. She had no teeth, but never seemed to care and smiled easily just the same. She wore a dingy housedress and slippers almost every day but Sunday when she would dress in bright purples and oranges and wrap her hair up in an elaborate tignon with long feathers. She was Creole, and she knew the mysteries of natural medicine. Her little hands, gnarled with arthritis, possessed extraordinary powers, but they touched me with tenderness.

  Marraine was always traveling around, tending to sick people, helping women give birth and sometimes acting as a preacher for a wedding now and then. She took me everywhere with her, calling me her little helper and teaching me all that she could. Folks would pay her with dried beans, rice, cornmeal, chickens, eggs, whatever they had. Marraine would take this food and make meals every day for the family and friends who came to see her. We would take it out to the porch to eat with plates on our laps. After supper, someone would pull out an accordion and a rub-board and then they’d play Zydeco and we’d dance until very late until Marraine would have to say, “Get on home, now!”

  On quieter nights, I would crawl up on her warm lap and snuggle into her arms as she sat in her rocking chair, sometimes snapping beans, sometimes sewing a little, and telling stories to those gathered there on her porch. I remember well the stories that Marraine told. They would help me to fall asleep, something I was afraid to do, because I had terrible nightmares. Every night, I dreamt that I was drowning.

  Marraine told me that it was because of my sadness. She told me that the pain was drowning me. On night after I had woken up screaming, she came to my little cot and pulled me into her arms.

  “Tite Melee,” she smiled, “I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a story about a family who lost a little girl, right about your age.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked, drying my tears.

  “Well, petite, she died.”

  “Like momma died?” I whispered.

  “Yes, like your momma died,” Marraine pulled me closer to her, and I lay my head against her chest. “Shush now, and let me tell you the story.” I got very quiet.

  “After the little girl died, her family was very, very sad. They cried. Almost all the time, they cried. Until one day, the mother had a vision.”

  “What’s a vision?” I interrupted.

  “Oh, a vision, that’s like a dream you have, except when you’re awake.”

  I thought about that for a moment.

  “So, the mother, she had a vision. She saw many little children marching, all dressed in white and each one holding a candle. At the very end of that line of children, she saw her own little girl who was holding a candle too, but her candle was not lit. She was the only one who had a candle that wasn’t lit.

  So, she went up to her little daughter, and she asked her, ‘Sweetheart, why isn’t your candle lit?’

  And the little girl looked at her, and she said, ‘Momma’ she said, ‘you’re always crying for me. The Good Lord doesn’t like for you to cry for me. You have to accept that the Good Lord took me. Every time you cry, your tears put out my candle.’”

  “Is that what the stars are, Marraine?” I asked. “Are the stars the candles of all the people who have died and are up there with the Good Lord?”

  “Ooo-yie!” Marraine chuckled. “Now, I never thought of that, Tite Melee, but you might be right. You might be right. Now, you gonna shush and let me finish this here story?”

  I pressed my lips together and nodded, eager for her to continue.

  “Well now, where was I? Oh yes! That little girl, you see, pointed to the other children, walking ahead of her and she said, ‘the others, their parents have accepted their deaths.’ And she said to her momma, ‘Their parents don’t cry, and so their candles stay lit. So, you mustn’t cry for me like that. You must accept that God wanted to take me. He wanted me. I belong to God now.’ And she said, ‘He took me when he was ready, and so,’ she said, ‘you must accept this cross to bear.’”

  When Marraine had finished the story, she petted my head for a while in silence, then she leaned in and whispered softly,

  “Tite Melee, you must accept that God took your momma. You mustn’t cry for her. If you do, you will put out your mother’s candle and she won’t have any light there in the after life.”

  I thought about my mother, alone in the dark. I decided to no longer cry for her. We sat in silence for a while longer. The fire in the chimney crackled and hissed. Finally Marraine reached into her pocket and pulled out something bright and shiny that sparkled in the firelight.

  “Here,” Marraine said, “This is a keepsake from your mother.”

  It was a silver necklace with a simple braided chain and an oval pendant. Engraved on the pendant was the face of a woman, her bent head covered with a scarf, her eyes closed.

  “Your mother was wearing this when you were born. She prayed for you, up until the end of her life. I took this necklace after she died. It’s yours now. You can wear it, and like that you will always have your mother with you.”

  She put the necklace around my neck, and I have worn it ever since.

  When I was five years old, my father came and took me away from Marraine. I remember how I cried and clung to her, and she said “Shush, now,” and wiped my tears with her apron and wiped her face with the back of her hands. She told me that she’d see me again real soon and that I mustn’t cry. I needed to be a big brave girl and go see what it was like in the city and bring her back a present. She held me real tight for a moment and kissed my head and then she let my papa pull me away and put me in his truck.

  My father drove me to Lafayette to live with my grandmother, my mother’s mother. She lived in a big, fine house. I was scared and excited as we drove up to it. I had never seen a house so big. When we arrived, my grandmother came running out to the truck to meet me.

  “Thank the Lord!” she cried, “Oh, darlin’ I’ve been waiting so long to see you! Oh my, how pretty you are! How you do look like your momma!”

  Grandmother held my hand and walked with m
e back to the house. She twirled me around and fussed over me.

  “My goodness!” she laughed, “That dress is frightful! We need to get you some new clothes, child! We’ll go shopping tomorrow.”

  She gave me a slice of lemon pie and a tall glass of sweet tea, and she chattered away to me as I sat across from her at the big kitchen table. I understood most of what she said, though my English wasn’t very good then. Gladys, her maid, was busy washing some okra in the sink and she turned around and smiled at me from time to time.

  “Gladys, doesn’t she look just like her momma!” Grandmother cooed.

  “Yes ma’am. I believe she do!” said Gladys. “She just so pretty!”

  The next day, Grandmother took me to town and bought me several new dresses with matching hair ribbons and two pairs of shiny new shoes: one black pair and one white. I had my own room, with a pretty poster bed, a little white dresser, and a vanity with a mirror. It used to be my momma’s room, and her old doll cradle and rocking horse were still there in the corner. Grandmother would brush my hair each night and wrap it in curlers and it was at these times that she would tell me about my mother.

  “Your momma was so beautiful, and so smart!” she’d say. “She was the smartest one in her classes. She always wanted to be a schoolteacher, you know. She’d take her little dolls and her stuffed animals and she’d line them up and pretend to teach them their letters and numbers. It was just so cute! She would have been a good teacher.”

  I wanted to be smart like my momma, and so when Grandmother put me in school, I worked very hard. I went to the local Catholic school, and my little friends would meet me in front of my house and we’d walk there together, all dressed in our starched white blouses, plaid skirts and knee socks. Gladys made a lunch for me every day, and I’d carry my little lunch pail and books in my arms. At school I learned how to read and write English. We weren’t allowed to speak French. There was one other little girl who spoke French like me, and sometimes she’d whisper to me across the aisle. I tried not to answer her, but it was just so good to be able to speak freely the language that I knew best. One day Sister Margaret caught us and gave us three sharp raps across our knuckles. After that, I never spoke it in school again.