Child of the Storm

by R. B. Stewart

  “Yes ma’am. Same years as Hurricane David too.”

  Celeste nodded as if hearing the name of an old friend or adversary. “David never came this way. Stayed out in the ocean. Kept an eye on it though, you might say.” Then added, as if an afterthought. “We all did.”

  “That’s the way it is, living with hurricanes.”

  Celeste nodded, agreeing. “And you’re not from around here. From the Islands.”

  “Born in Dominica. Born the day David hit the island. But I don’t recall much about Dominica. Mother brought me to the U.S. when I was a baby.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Passed away last year. We lived in Savannah. I’ve been on my own since then.”

  “No other family?”

  “None that I know of. I never knew my father.”

  “It isn’t easy being on your own.”

  Gabrielle shrugged. “I do alright.”

  “What called you to New Orleans? You didn’t like Savannah?”

  “It was nice enough. It was fine.”

  Celeste said nothing more about it and the girl continued.

  “So would you know where I could find a place to stay? I can’t afford much. At least not for a while.”

  “I have a spare room here. It was my father’s room, though I hope that wouldn’t make you ill at ease.”

  “It wouldn’t make me ill at ease. How much would it be?”

  “Nothing. The house is my own and I’m comfortable. You could stay here for a while. Come and go as you please. You’d find I don’t impose, as long as you take care of picking up after yourself. We can share the cooking, as long as you’re any good.”

  A tempting offer. “I don’t like imposing either,” Gabrielle said. “But it would help to have a place to stay a while, until I can get established.”

  “It comes with a bicycle,” Celeste said. “An old bicycle, I’ll admit. It was mine and I put many a fast mile on it. Nearly died on it once, but that was me and not the bicycle.”

  So the arrangement went and Gabrielle moved into the spare room and rode the old bicycle to and from work at Dubois’, and wherever else she needed to go around the city. True to their words, neither imposed much on the other. Gabrielle was a good enough cook that Celeste let her take her turns at fixing meals for them.

  Most days Celeste was waiting on the front porch for her when she pedaled back from work and, though nothing was said, it seemed that this was where Celeste preferred to socialize when weather permitted. Gabrielle often washed up after work and returned to the porch, unless she had something else planned.

  That was how it went through spring. Until hurricane season began.

  Notions

  A fierce, hot Saturday, and Celeste was seated on her little yard chair as she called it, her back to the house, communing with her garden and the elements. It was uncommonly dry. Only the day before, Celeste had told Gabrielle how they needed a good soaking rain for the sake of the garden. Nothing from the spigot would do. The plants can taste the difference.

  So there Celeste sat with her garden; not planting or weeding—just sitting. Her broad brimmed straw hat shaded her thin body almost completely. So she sat for much of the afternoon and on toward evening, losing touch with time but keeping touch with the air and the light. The heat of the day was at its peak, just as the sun was edging down toward the rooftops when a lone cloud stole up from behind Celeste, loping up from the wet lands to the south and the Gulf beyond those. Its shadow was way off east, several streets away, so there was no warning. Even so, Celeste removed her hat and a moment later, the rain came down. A nice soaking rain that went on for over a quarter of an hour.

  As quickly as it had started, the rain stopped as if turned off. Celeste rose and returned to the house, only noticing Gabrielle as she opened the door and found her waiting just inside with a towel. She blinked the water out of her eyes, looking like a child more than a woman of nearly ninety years.

  “Got caught in a shower,” Celeste explained as she took the towel and began to pat herself dry. “Guess I should go get changed into something dry.”

  “Probably so,” Gabrielle said. “But at least you got that rain you wanted.”

  Celeste smiled at her. “Yes I did.”

  That night Celeste prepared dinner for them, and said nothing of the rain. But Celeste could sense there was something working on the girl; something wanting to be said but not allowed out. After all was cleaned away, Celeste suggested they retire to the front porch. The air was only a little cooler with the sun down, but even a little cooler was something, especially if there was a breeze, which there was. Celeste rocked in her chair and Gabrielle waited for Celeste to signal when it was time to talk.

  Celeste spoke first. “I’ve always loved the rain. Since I was a little girl living west of here outside a town smaller than this neighborhood, I’ve loved watching the rain and being out in it, provided there wasn’t lightning. That’s something I’ll watch from safe inside, but I do love watching it and hearing the thunder. And the wind is a lovely thing too. A breeze so gentle you can only feel it if you pay attention, or a good sturdy wind that sways the trees. Do you know why it is I’m drawn to these things?”

  “George told me you were born during a hurricane.”

  “Long ago, 1909, and the storm didn’t even have a name. That makes me an old woman.” She smiled at Gabrielle. “You were born during a hurricane too. Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “I did.”

  “Not a bad thing assuming it goes alright. But it seems to me there’s something on your mind.”

  Gabrielle shook her head slowly a few times, drew in a deep breath and then laughed. “Yes, ma’am there is, and you’ll laugh at me after I tell you. Probably means I’m in the middle of some inside joke. The kind people play on someone from the outside.”

  “Could be. Could be,” Celeste said, rocking gently in her chair and watching the colors come into the evening sky.

  “When George—Mr. Bledsoe, talks about you it’s like you’re some sort of…”

  Celeste interrupted her with an upraised hand. “Oh, this is about some notion of George’s is it? I know what George thinks. He’s like a little brother to me, but he’s an old man now, and maybe you know about old men and maybe you don’t. Old men can be marvelous to have around or they can be stiff and tiresome. Fortunately, George is of the former sort, but even so, like many an old man, he can get some of the most outlandish notions in his head. Mind you keep that grain of salt with you when you listen to George. He’ll have you thinking I’m some sort of magic lady, like a Voodoo Queen who sends hurricanes dancing this way and that. But he’s a dear and means no harm. Don’t think he’s playing a joke on you. It’s just old man notions. Harmless enough if you see them coming.”

  Gabrielle laughed softly; maybe at herself, and let the matter rest for a while, but Celeste could sense her thoughts circling back to it. She waited to see how it would show itself.

  “Do you believe in Voodoo?” Gabrielle asked. “It’s just that you mentioned it and you could find it around Savannah. No one I knew, but always wondered about it. Guess I’m curious about such things.”

  “Things like religion? Can’t really help you there, though I did have a dear friend who was a Voodoo Queen. That’s true! Never learned much about Voodoo and she never learned to bake a decent loaf of bread. She helped me and I helped her. That’s how it was. A simple thing of friendship, and I like things to be simple, but not because I’m simple. You went to school?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Would like to go to college too, but it may need to wait.”

  “I missed out on formal schooling, but I had a stern teacher just the same. I call her my Great Aunt, but turns out she wasn’t kin at all. Odette just took an interest in my family and saw that we learned to read. Guess once she started, she couldn’t let go. She had us read a big wall of books. George has them now. I’ll show you sometime if you’d like.”

  “I�
��d like that.”

  “I read novels and poems. Some I liked and others not. Some stuck and others didn’t. I was good at math but some of that was doing the books for so many years. I can add in my head, but don’t trust it until I see it written down. Learned French because my father knew it from his mother. Island French. Comes easier to me than what Odette called proper French, like they speak in Paris. That’s where she learned it, so that’s what she taught me. That and science. You know about Darwin. I guess they teach about him in school.”

  “They do.”

  “Smart man to figure out such a grand but simple thing. All from connecting up what he saw.” She paused, savoring connections she was feeling at that very moment. “Simple isn’t stupid and it isn’t so easy to find. Takes hard work to find that simple thing at the heart of something, but you can’t stop short. Just think of us sitting here now. There’s you, there’s me, and there’s whatever connects us—like George and bread and hurricanes. Simple enough.”

  They watched the stars come out and spin through a bit of the night until Celeste decided it was time for bed.

  “You can sit up as long as you like,” she said, as she always did.

  Gabrielle answered as she always did in return. “I won’t be up much longer. I’ll be up early. Always something to do.”

  Georges

  By the fall of ‘98, Gabrielle was still living in Celeste’s home but the old bicycle spent most of its days chained to the porch while Gabrielle drove her little blue car to work. That was Celeste’s idea, and she helped make it possible, arguing she might need to impose on her for a ride, and at her age, she’d prefer not do that on the back of an old bicycle. It wasn’t a glorious La Salle, but it would serve its purpose, especially since La Salles weren’t around anymore.

  They were almost to the end of September when a storm entered the Gulf, passing over the islands after being born out of the desert of Africa and nursed into strength across the Atlantic. Hurricane Georges fed on the warmer waters of the Gulf, and having found them, there could only be one end. A hurricane might come in through the neck of the bottle, but it wouldn’t go back out that way. The older folks in New Orleans would remember Betsy well enough. The question was whether Georges would follow in her footsteps. It was beginning to look that way, even if Georges lacked the strength of a Betsy or Camille, but Celeste wasn’t inclined to take chances.

  “They’re talking evacuation,” Gabrielle told Celeste one evening after work as Georges prowled the Gulf. “We closed up shop and boarded things up, just in case the storm doesn’t go by us on one side or the other. George was in the shop today, maybe because of the storm. He asked if I’d be heading out of town or staying with you. It struck me odd that he just assumed you’d stay and didn’t ask if I would take you inland.”

  “George knows I don’t leave when the storms come, even though I’d prefer it if others did.”

  Gabrielle nodded. “I pressed him on why he thought that way and he said you couldn’t bring yourself to leave because you felt responsible. Responsible for what?”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “He wouldn’t say anything else. Just smiled and said he’d tell me another time. What do you think he meant by it?”

  Celeste tapped herself on the temple and smiled. “Just what I told you before. Old men get notions, and they don’t have to be sensible notions to keep them happy. Maybe this storm won’t be any more sensible than he is. George and Georges. Maybe two of a kind, I hope. Awkward but no big trouble. We’ll see.”

  Later, while Gabrielle was inside, Celeste sat on the front porch, dozing in her rocking chair, her face turned slightly into the light wind. Soon, the bear joined her and placed her head very close to Celeste’s right hand.

  “You’re weighing that storm, aren’t you,” said the bear. “Seeing if you need to do something about it.”

  “He isn’t at all strong. Not strong like he could be. Still…” Celeste fell silent, considering. “Still…better to show him the way around. Better to send him on his way. Liable to make a mess of things otherwise.” Celeste tipped her head to the other side as if listening.

  The bear departed, leaving Celeste to slip up out of her doze to find Gabrielle in the other chair.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Gabrielle said.

  “Oh, it was only a little nap after dinner. You know, it would be fine if you wanted to leave town for a day or two, what with the storm out there. I could ask around for someone with room to put you up.”

  Gabrielle shook her head. “No, I’ll be fine right here.”

  “That’s for you too say.”

  “We could keep each other company, unless you think I’d be in the way.”

  “Why would I think you were in the way?” Celeste tipped her chin up to catch some meaningful movement of air.

  “Well,” Gabrielle began hesitantly, “it’s just that when I came out here just now, you were talking in your sleep, and talking about sending someone around so there wouldn’t be a mess, or something of the sort. I wasn’t trying to pry…”

  “Can’t call it prying if someone just talks aloud while you’re sitting beside them. Easier for the one to close her mouth than for the other to close her ears.” Celeste giggled at herself.

  “Just sounded like you might be talking about the hurricane. Like you meant to wait on the storm and send it on around. Taking care of the city.”

  “If someone could do that, don’t you think that would be the thing to do?”

  “If I could do that, then I would,” Gabrielle said.

  Celeste nodded and turned her head away. Gabrielle understood that was an end to it.

  Celeste woke in the morning and rose to look at her watercolor study of Georges, and thought how well it matched what she and the bear had fashioned on the other side in convincing Hurricane Georges to stay clear. She had her painting table set up beside her bed, not wanting to stir up notions that might find their way back to George. It was early still, and there was no sound of Gabrielle up and about. She felt rested, and knew the challenge hadn’t been like that with Camille. She rubbed her eyes and chuckled. “Anyone looking at this would think I’d lost my senses. Wouldn’t look like anything at all to them. But means a lot to me.”

  She went to the kitchen to make coffee and it was only the clink of cups that finally roused Gabrielle.

  “Did I wake you?” Celeste asked as Gabrielle emerged, bleary eyed from her room. “I was trying to be quiet.”

  “I needed to get up. Any news on Georges.”

  Celeste smiled and waved a hand toward the east as if bidding someone a fond farewell. “Sailing off toward the panhandle. Going to cry himself out along the beaches.” A dismissive tone.

  “So we’re out of the woods?”

  This struck Celeste as funny somehow. “Out of the woods. I guess I’ve been out of the woods since I was nine. But we’re safe from Georges, yes ma’am. And better still, no one should have too much trouble with him.” She poured coffee and sliced up a long loaf of bread for them to share. “Day old bread but it should still be good, considering where it came from. Maybe Dubois’ will open up soon and get something coming out of the ovens.”

  Map

  Two days after the passing of Hurricane Georges, Celeste rode in to work with Gabrielle, just to pay a visit. As it happened, George was paying a visit as well, and he had his map with him, spread out on an unused table. He was bent over it with pencil, rule and a fat, red pen. Celeste came up beside him, shaking her head and clicking her tongue reproachfully.

  “Looks like his poor wife sent him out of the house for the day to let her get a little peace,” she said to Gabrielle over his back as he finished drawing his line and marking it in red.

  “Didn’t I hear that you’ve been tracking the hurricanes on some map?” Gabrielle asked him. “Would this be it?”

  “Ever since Betsy,” he said straightening himself, one fist dug into the small of his ba
ck. He groaned a bit. “I knew a man who showed me how to plot the location of a storm from the coordinates they send out; those who track them from planes. So I’ve put down the path of any that looked like they might hit New Orleans. There’ve been a few since Betsy.” He pointed to the neat pencil lines on the map, clearly labeled lines across the Gulf of Mexico. He called them out, tracing each in its turn.

  “Start with the scariest first,” he said. “Camille in 1969. A wicked one that had ‘em all fooled for a while. Had most of them fooled, I should say.” His finger traced the line again from where it started, but stopped a distance out from land. There was a red circle around the spot. “This is where she finally turned north. If she’d kept going on that line, or not been turned when she was, we might have been hit, and hit hard. She might have wiped us off the map.”

  “We had a breather for a few years until Carmen strolled across the Gulf, cut across the Yucatan Peninsula and turned north. Looked like she was heading for us for a time.” He pointed to another red circle and traced the path as it bent away west of New Orleans. “Turned away in time to miss us. Then the next year, Eloise looked like she would do about the same thing. She was down below hurricane strength when she ran into Mexico, but picked herself back up as she turned north and made our way. See here? Went around us on the east this time. Landed in between Fort Walton and Panama City.”

  He moved to another line. “This is Frederic. Same year you were born; 1979. See?” He pointed to another red circle. “This is where he turned away from a track that could have brought him in too close for comfort. Hit Alabama instead. Nearly scrubbed Dauphin Island off at the water line.”