He was an off-putting sight with his alligator trophy, his mirrored dark glasses, and his camouflage fatigues—more like a mercenary or right-wing, backcountry militia person than a Cajun boat captain.
"Do these boats run at night?" I asked timidly, after tapping him on the arm.
He ignored me and pointed out a small shack and tottering pier passing by on our right. I knew that he had heard me, so I waited for my answer. He pointed out a wide-nosed alligator, which looked as if it might slide into the water and head our way. The sight of such an ugly, dangerous creature sent a shiver up my spine.
As we passed a narrow outlet, clogged with fallen branches, I repeated my question about night tours. The captain turned slightly in my direction, mouth grim. "No ma'am. Da Gator Belle don't cruise at night."
"Do any of the swamp tour boats?" I persisted. How had Julienne planned to photograph the swamp at night if no boats ran and she could get no one to accompany her?
"Nothin' to see. It's dark," he muttered. Then he pointed out a snake undulating in our direction. As it was the same color as the water, it could only be detected by the path it cut.
"The boat could have a headlight," I pointed out.
He turned into a narrow passage where the river branched.
"Dis swamp is huge, lady. You live here all your life, you might not know all da passages. So you think someone's gonna take tourists in where dey cain't see nothin' an might git 'em lost an' ... " He shrugged, disgruntled, and began to talk about the creatures, other than man, who lived in the swamps—alligators, egrets, black bear, feral hogs—
My imagination took off at the mention of feral hogs. Were they akin to wild boar? I could hardly forget the terrifying depictions of wild boar, snarling, viciously tusked, hair bristling, as they were pictured on medieval tapestries. And Julienne wanted to go out among such creatures? At night?
"Herons, beaver, deer, osprey—"
"What if someone wanted to take pictures here at night?' I asked him.
"Dey'd be a damn fool," he said shortly. Other tourists were beginning to mutter because I kept interrupting the lecture.
"But if someone did? How would they go about it?"
"Rent a boat, but don't do it, lady. You'd never come back. Only a tourist would think up such a damn fool—"
"This lady is a native," I said hurriedly. "And she wanted to. And now she's missing."
"Raised up in da swamp?" he asked after a few comments on swamp owls.
"In New Orleans."
"New Orleans don' make you're no swamp rat. If she's missin', she's pro'bly dead."
I must have looked distraught. Indeed, I was biting my lip to hold the tears back.
"Check da boat rental places," he advised reluctantly.
"Where are they?"
He gave me a few names and directions, which I scribbled on the back of the directions to my camera, the French version. "But if she's a native, she wouldn't be stupid enough to do it. She'd need someone to run da boat, someone who knew da swamp, an' still she'd be in trouble. Now go up front, will ya, lady?" And he began to lecture again as he took us deeper into territory that was more vegetation-choked and more sinister looking. Obediently, I strolled toward the front of the boat, from which I saw more alligators, one actually nosing the boat as we idled in a side channel while the captain talked about raccoons. Somehow or other, raccoons were a comfort to me. We'd had raccoons knocking over our garbage cans when Julienne, her family, and I vacationed at their cabin on the shores of a lake north of home.
Sweet days. Fishing from an old rowboat, gathering wildflowers, giggling over boys, setting off fireworks that burst in dazzling showers above the lake waters, taking home a bear cub. Oh lord, that had been Julienne's idea. Always chasing the wild and dangerous—that was Julienne. Her father had been furious when the equally furious mother bear had torn down his shed to retrieve the cub stowed there by Julienne. In fact, because he was in one of his fierce moods, Mrs. Delacroix had to talk her husband out of shooting the mother bear. If anyone had the audacity to penetrate these eerie swamps at night for photographs, Julienne would. She had taken pictures of the cub, and then of the mother bear battering the shed, and even of Mr. Delacroix, rifle in hand. I'd have to canvass renters of boats.
As I left the Gator Belle to catch the van back to the city, the captain called after me, "Your friend wouldna been dat dumb."
Dumb? No. But venturesome? I was afraid she might, or maybe not. Maybe she had been testing Torelli, seeing how far she could push him. That would be- like her, too. I remember the Thanksgiving holiday when we were sophomores in college. She was after her father to raise her allowance and suggested that if he didn't have the money, maybe he should play the stock market and get rich. The first two times she made that suggestion, Mr. Delacroix ignored her. He'd been virtually silent during that vacation. The third time, after he'd begun to perk up, Mr. Delacroix got an unholy gleam in his eye and said "Good idea, Twin-kletoes."
Julienne and I had taken ballet lessons as children, and for years afterward she had to put up with that paternal nickname. Whereas, I don't think my father ever realized that I was about to put on toe shoes and become the next Maria Tallchief when my mother finally agreed to free me from the hated classes.
But I digress. Three months later, by dint of buying futures, taking out stock options, and other risky ventures, Mr. Delacroix was rich, and Mrs. Delacroix was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I felt better for having remembered that incident. Julienne had tested her father's courage, with marvelously lucrative results. Perhaps she'd tested Torelli's courage, as well, found him wanting, and left. So who was she testing now by staying away? Me? I hoped not.
Because the van wasn't scheduled to leave for ten minutes and I didn't care to sample any of the uninteresting food offered by vendors in wharf shacks, I stood out of the crowd at the edge of the pier, leaning against a pole and studying the bayou. I could understand Julienne's fascination. There was an otherworldly quality to the brown landscape with its twisted, bearded trees. I had just raised my camera to take one last picture when I was so rudely jostled by a passing tourist that my desperate attempt to grab the pole did not serve to keep me on the boards. Down I plunged into the brown water, my panic-stricken mind conjuring up all the snakes and alligators I had seen on the tour. When I surfaced, slimy, rotting swamp greens, a salad from hell, trailed from my mouth, and I was still clutching my camera in one hand, flailing wildly as my clothing dragged me under again.
17
Potato Galettes
German immigrants, lured to New Orleans with promises of paradise by the financial scam artist John Law, settled down to farm and were soon feeding the less agriculturally inclined French settlers. Often they intermarried with the French or adapted their German names to the local language. One of the ironies of New Orleans cuisine is that its famed French bread and pastries were baked then and are now by German bakers. At La Madeleine, with a bite of luscious cream puff melting in my mouth, I found myself wondering whether Madeleine had once been Minna or Gretchen.
Carolyn Blue, Eating Out in the Big Easy
I fought desperately to the surface, where I heard shrieks and a foghorn voice shouting, "Tourist in the water." Then a life preserver splashed down beside me, and I was saved— at least if I could get out before the hungry swamp creatures attacked. I went under, bobbed up, spit out more slimy growths, and hooked an arm through the ring.
"Hang on," the foghorn roared. I clung for dear life and, trailing nasty, rotting fronds, was dragged through the water to rickety steps that had been nailed haphazardly to the wharf poles. Grasping the first crossbar with one hand, I maneuvered to stuff my camera into the handbag that hung from my arm. Now wasn't that foolish? Here I was trying to save a camera that would never function again, when an alligator might even now be cutting a path in my direction.
Arms and legs trembling, dripping liquid mud, I began to climb. W
hen I felt a crossbar tilt under my foot, I almost fainted, but by then a sturdy Cajun on the wharf had grasped my arm. Not waiting for my clumsy efforts, he hauled me to safety, where he proceeded to lecture me in an angry voice. I assume he blamed me for my mishap, but his accent was very thick, so I couldn't be sure.
"I was shoved," I announced, incensed. He paid no attention but dragged me toward the waiting van.
"I cain't take her. She'll ruin my seats," said the driver, a tough-looking woman wearing rolled socks and a skirt far too short for a woman with legs as burly as hers.
"I want the police called," I snapped.
A noisy argument erupted among captains, van driver, ticket sellers, po'boy vendors, and tourists, who didn't want to ride with anyone who looked and smelled as bad as I did. As they quarreled, I shivered. I was cold, and I was wet and miserable, and I wanted to go back to the hotel. In fact, I wanted to go back to my own house in El Paso and never return to this benighted state again. "If you don't take me home immediately, I'll sue."
A number of the combatants stopped talking, but not the tourists.
I narrowed my eyes at the van driver. "I'll get an attorney and just... just sue the socks off the lot of you."
She glanced uneasily at her socks, as if I planned to demand that she hand them over immediately in reparation.
"And I'll file police charges."
People began to back away from me.
"And write to the newspapers about the dangers of this tour." A few more threats of that sort, which warmed me up and evidently alarmed the swamp entrepreneurs, earned me a solo ride to the door of my hotel. I didn't tip the sock lady, either. I was still furious.
And even more furious when the hotel personnel tried to keep me from going upstairs. They didn't believe anyone as disreputable looking as I could be a paying guest. Well, too bad about them. I'd probably caught some horrible disease from that disgusting swamp water, so I didn't care if I dripped mud on all their precious antiques as long as I got to my room and washed myself clean. I even called the desk and demanded that a bellhop come to carry away my sopping, muddy, swamp-rot-fronded clothes, which I threw out into the hall. I never wanted to see them again. I couldn't imagine that any washing machine would be equal to the task of making them clean enough to wear safely.
Then I spent perhaps an hour under hot water in the shower washing my body, my hair, even the inside of my mouth. Once sufficiently clean and dry, I considered whether or not I needed a preventive antibiotic to protect me from dangerous tropical diseases. It was then that I noticed my most immediate need: food. I was starving.
Forgetting the microbes and parasites that might be attacking me internally, I used the hotel hair dryer on my stringy hair, donned clean clothes, the wearing of which completely ruined my carefully planned wardrobe schedule, and set out for Jackson Square. There is nothing like a terrible fright to make one ravenous, and it took only a glance at my list of eateries that needed visiting to settle on La Madeleine.
It was a good choice. The ravishing French bakery smells were wonderfully comforting to a person in my traumatized state. Nonetheless, I knew that I needed something more nourishing than pastry, so having dragged myself away from the tempting breads, croissants, cream puffs, tarts, eclairs and so forth displayed in the glass cases up front, I bought a potato galette, a salad, and a glass of white wine. Then I sat down by a window to eat, regain my equilibrium, and consider my options.
My galette was unbelievably good—a crispy, thick pancake the likes of which I could eat every day for lunch if I had the opportunity. Unfortunately, I probably never shall. I liked it enough that I even tried to reproduce it at home, but the results were disastrous. I produced a galette that was de-liciously brown and crispy on the outside, but inside an unappetizing combination of raw egg and crunchy, uncooked potato bits turned even my husband away from the table. Perhaps I'll find a recipe one day and overcome my aversion to cooking enough to try again. I may well have been so distracted by my terrible experience on the swamp tour that I completely misinterpreted how the dish had been made.
That's quite possible, but I did manage to calm down enough to reject the idea of going home with my tail, figuratively, between my legs. Also I had had an idea, an idea that should have occurred to me much earlier. I would call Diane, Julienne's daughter, at boarding school. If Julienne had contacted anyone, it would be her child. No matter what Nils said about my friend's lack of maternal instinct, I knew that she loved Diane and that Diane loved her. Perhaps Julienne had left New Orleans and flown to see her daughter. Oh, I hoped so. I could forgive her for having caused me so much anxiety if only she was safe.
And there was nothing dangerous about making one long-distance telephone call. I couldn't be mugged or drowned while doing so. I couldn't even be bruised by crazy voodoo priestesses. In fact it seemed to me, on reflection, that an undue number of dangerous situations had befallen me during my short stay in the Big Easy. Easy indeed. Easy to run afoul of the crazy, the rude, and the criminal! Should I call Lieutenant Boudreaux to tell him that I had been pushed off a pier?
Well, probably not. I didn't want him to think I was paranoid. Or disaster prone. People tend to avoid the disaster prone, and I might need his help if I ever uncovered any evidence of Julienne's whereabouts.
18
Chocolate Eclairs
I didn't resist that pastry counter after all. Before I left La Madeleine, I gazed longingly through the glass and decided that I might need more sustenance to get me through another afternoon of investigation. Therefore, I bought a chocolate Eclair and carried it back to the hotel, where I put in the first of several calls that yielded surprising information.
A very Boston-sounding lady at the prep school attended by Julienne's adopted daughter reluctantly agreed to call Diane off the soccer field to take an "extremely important long-distance call." That's the way I put it to Ms. Ivy League. Where had she gone to school? Radcliffe? Mount Holyoke? She'd probably majored in something delightful like medieval history, as I had, but she'd been offered jobs while I'd been asked how many words a minute I could type and if I took shorthand. Medieval history wasn't seen as a marketable commodity in the Middle West when I graduated.
But then would I have wanted to teach in a girls' school instead of marrying Jason and raising Gwen and Chris, then beginning this new career to fill my "empty nest"? Career in mind, I took a bite of the chocolate eclair and made relevant notes while I waited: "real cream whipped to a thick, rich froth ... smooth, dark chocolate shining on lighter-than-an-angel's-wing pastry ..."
"Hi, Aunt Carolyn. What's up?"
My weight, I thought in silent answer to Diane's question. She sounded out of breath and cheerful. Hurriedly, I swallowed my second delectable bite (although it was a crime not to savor every smidgen) and greeted Julienne's child. "Is your mother visiting you, Diane?" I asked.
"No. Is she planning to?"
"Well, have you heard from her this week? Or anytime since Saturday?"
"Not a word, but she promised me a neat present from New Orleans before she left. Hey, I thought you were there, too."
What should I say to that? I didn't want to alarm Diane, and she didn't seem to have any information on Julienne, which was disappointing.
"Boy, everyone's looking for Mom. Is she hiding out or something? Did she meet some gorgeous hunk and elope?" Diane giggled.
I wondered if Julienne's daughter had suspicions about the relationship between Julienne and the missing Professor Torelli.
"Dad called Monday night asking if I'd heard from her, and I said, 'Like hey, Daddy, haven't you heard from her?'"
Like hey, Daddy? Was Diane rooming with some valley girl from California who was having an unfortunate influence on her speech patterns?
"And you know what? I don't think he answered. Aunt Caro, I hope you're not going to tell me they're fighting again. I told them I absolutely would not tolerate a divorce in the family. I mea
n it. I'll run away from home. Well, from school, and I've got a bunch of tests coming up, so that would really screw up my chances of getting into a good university and ..."
It was interesting that Nils had called asking about his wife. Did that mean he wasn't responsible for Julienne's disappearance—at least in any physical way? Or was he concocting an alibi for himself? "I didn't do anything to her," he'd say. "Ask our daughter. I called trying to find Julienne."
"And then Uncle Philippe called," Diane was saying. "When was that? Saturday, I think. Weird as usual, of course."
Philippe had called? "What time?" I asked.
"What time what? Was he weird? He's always weird."
"Did he call?"
"I don't know. Afternoon. Before we drove over to Exeter for the dance at Phillips Academy."
So Philippe had called before Julienne disappeared. What for? Weird in what way? Just because he rarely spoke to me and never seemed to like me when we were young didn't make him weird—just not my favorite person.
"Actually, now that I think of it, I left a message for Mom at her hotel. I told her what he'd said. I'll bet she got a laugh out of that."
"When did you leave the message?"
"Saturday night," Diane replied. "Eight o'clock or so. Kind of pathetic, don't you think, that my date was so boring I could take time out to call my mom and never worry about missing a thing?"
Had Julienne received that message later? Obviously, she'd still been at Etienne's—or somewhere else—when Diane called. Or possibly she hadn't answered in the room because she thought that her husband was at the other end of the line. But Julienne might well have picked up the message when she left the hotel with the camera she'd come for. I'd have to check. "Tell me about Philippe," I suggested as I tried to put everything together.
Fairbanks, Nancy Page 13