by Gwen Roland
“Young’uns, this is Mrs. Barclay, who has been stranded by a logjam and will be passing time with us while she waits for her husband to send her passage,” Adam said, with a proprietor’s flourish. “Mrs. Barclay, meet my daughter, Loyce; my nephew, Fate Landry; and Valzine Broussard, first mate of the Golden Era.”
Val looked up from where he was putting away his squeeze-box. Always interested in what’s happening on the water anywhere, he and Fate took every opportunity to talk about boats.
“That’d be the logjam over around Plaquemine or Simmesport?” he asked.
“Uhhh,” Roseanne hesitated. Adam couldn’t tell if she was stalling for time or was overcome with the good smells rising up from the table. It did appear her corset strained with her trying to breathe them in.
Finally, she said, “Simmesport,” but her voice lacked confidence, in Adam’s opinion. No wonder, since Simmesport was north of Bayou Chene, opposite from New Orleans, where she had told him she was from.
“Yeh, that makes it a trial to get from Natchez this time of year,” Val said.
Natchez was the city above the Simmesport logjam. Adam saw that Val was too occupied with serving Loyce’s plate to notice the woman’s discomfort over her mistake.
“How about some of those English peas you spent the morning shelling?” Val went on, holding a spoon over Loyce’s plate. With the other hand he moved fringe from his vest out of the way. Val’s clothes were a little on the colorful side for Adam’s taste, but he appreciated the young man’s good-hearted attentiveness to Loyce.
“Since I did all the work of picking and shelling, give me a double helping, but wait till I put this biscuit down,” Loyce replied.
Val waited while she split a biscuit and placed it on one side of her plate. Then he covered the biscuit with tiny green peas and the sauce made with butter and pure cream.
Other dishes passed around the table in the same fashion, with either Val or Fate serving Loyce as needed. Along with the creamed peas and biscuits, their plates were soon heaped with the fried catfish, rutabaga chunks smothered in a brown roux, and leaves of wild spinach wilted with hot bacon grease and splashed with vinegar. The conversation flowed to the rhythm of their congenial dining. Adam noticed that the newcomer ate as heartily as the boys.
“Your Bayou Chene surprises me,” she said to the table in general. “I wasn’t expecting to see so many houses, picket fences, and even a store way out here.”
“Oh, cher, there’s nowhere else like it, for true,” Val answered. “I go up and down these rivers, and I know them all. The Chene, she got most everything except roads in and out.”
“How do you get around?” she asked.
“There’s paths on each island,” Val said. “Usually along the banks, sometimes across, depending on how close kin the families are on the other side. And everybody, they got boats for going to another island.”
Then Fate jumped in on his favorite subject. “We got boats for anything we want to do. Mostly we use push skiffs like you see tied up along the banks. You can stand up and see where you going for one thing, and a man can row a pretty good load by himself pushing on them long oars. Now, for tight places you can’t beat a pirogue—so light it can float on a dew. It’s narrow built and pointed at both ends so you can back up as easy as you can go frontwards. And believe me, sometimes backing up is the best thing you can do.”
“Like that time you talked me into toting that beehive over to Cow Island,” Val said, picking on him now. “I knew better than to put a hive of bees in a pirogue or any other boat, as far as that goes!”
“That should have worked!” Fate shot back. “The water was level with the bank, and it could’ve saved a lot of time and work to move it that way if we’d done it just right.”
“Well, slamming the pirogue up on the bank so sudden it knocked the hive over missed being just right by a long shot,” Val replied. “You backed up, all right, but you plum forgot about the pirogue, yes. Just jumped out and left me, enh!”
Adam noticed that Fate didn’t let Val sidetrack his education of Mrs. Barclay, whether she was interested in boats or not.
“The thing you got to remember about pirogues is they turn over faster than a frog can snatch a fly,” he went on. “You don’t want to try to carry a lot of stuff you care about, like fish or game or family. The push skiffs are wider than a pirogue, and the stern—back end—is flat, not pointed. A kid or two can hop around in that without turning you over. And you can get some traveling done in a hurry standing up pushing on both oars. Yessir, for plain old hunting or fishing or going down to the dock for a card game, give me a push skiff any day.”
Adam could see Mrs. Barclay’s interest was waning. When Fate started yammering about boats, it was hard to fetch the conversation back in line. The conscientious host was still trying to break into the stream of talk when Loyce took control.
“Is this your first trip south of Natchez?” she inquired.
Adam settled back in his chair. If anyone could head Fate off, it was Loyce, and boats didn’t rank high with her for conversation.
Then Adam noticed the question made Mrs. Barclay choke on a bite of biscuit and reach for her handkerchief, fine lawn with a little tatting around the edges. A dollar a dozen if he remembered correctly. He couldn’t let her stumble like that and ruin her meal, so he spoke up for her.
“I do believe Mrs. Barclay told me she lives in New Orleans but just happened to be visiting relatives in Natchez, is that right?”
“That is so, Mr. Snellgrove,” she nodded from behind her handkerchief. “And I must say I have not had a better meal in the finest establishments of either city. How did you learn to cook?”
That was as smooth a subject change as anyone could pull off, Adam thought. He acknowledged her skill with a nod. Cooking always made good conversation in his opinion.
“Well, ma’am, after my wife, Josie, died, I didn’t care whether I ate or not, but I had those two young’uns and Mame out there depending on me, so I just kept tasting and trying until things came together. Learning to cook was a necessity, but I didn’t realize it would also be a comfort. Turns out I even enjoy reading cookbooks. Did you ever read that Fannie Farmer book from up north? They eat some different things from us, and I can’t say I’ve cooked much out of it, but it makes good reading all the same. Sort of like taking a trip without having to leave home.”
He took another helping of fish and passed the platter to her. She looked interested but shook her head.
“Thank you, but I can barely breathe as it is.”
He noticed her seams did pull ever so slightly more than they did earlier, so Adam didn’t press the offer.
“Keep that coming ’round this way,” said Fate. “This is just the size I like best, the ones too small to sell.”
“Talking about people eating different,” Val spoke up. “On the Monongahela last trip a buyer come aboard looking for scale fish. Says whole communities up there won’t eat catfish. Got to have fish with scales. They’re Jews, just like in the Bible.”
“Jews!” Fate said. “I thought they were all gone like the Philistines and such. You mean they still around and living here in the United States?”
“Mr. Landry, Jews live all over the United States, including right down the river in New Orleans,” said Mrs. Barclay. “All the big cities along the East Coast have sizable Jewish populations, and their faith prohibits them from eating fish that are bottom-feeders such as catfish.”
“Now, if a fella could just come up with a way to get loads of worthless buffalo fish to them, he could make some money!” Fate said.
Adam knew what was coming next.
“There you go again, just as predictable as a squawking hen who’s just laid an egg,” Loyce jumped in.
Talk about predictable, Adam thought. Did Fate say things like that just to rile her? He could tell by the pitch of her voice she was winding up for a long spell of it.
“All you can think of is how
many pounds mean how much money. You don’t give a thought to how much work that fella would have to put in hauling those buffalo out of the river and then how he’s going to get them to those big cities.”
“Loyce got a point,” Val chimed in. “A load of buffalo would be a powerful weight to row any distance, for true, and they don’t live in a fish cart like catfish will.”
By then even Adam had to break in with his opinion.
“Depends on the time of year, for sure. A powerful lot of water pours down the ’Chafalaya in the spring. Back in ’82, when those surveyors came to measure the rivers around here, they said Bayou Chene was thirty feet deep in places. Alcide claims he’s fished places in the ’Chafalaya that’s a hundred and fifty feet deep. You won’t row upstream long in high water, that’s for sure. But what I don’t understand is how can someone not eat catfish? I just can’t seem to get past that notion. Why would God make a creature as tasty as catfish and then tell people not to eat them?”
Then he noticed the newcomer. She appeared exhausted amid the heated opinions about boats and fish. Adam nodded to her.
“I see you’re finished eating, and you must be thinking about stretching out. Let’s go see what we can do with that room before dark. The young’uns’ll take care of the cleanup.”
He led her to the breezeway and held open the screen door. He noticed she stopped on the threshold, just like she’d done in the kitchen. That woman had a problem with doorways.
“What happened?” she finally said, her voice breathless and tinged with wonder. Adam chuckled when she pulled her skirt closer as if to protect it or maybe herself.
“Well, it’s a little untidy, now that you mention it,” he said. “Things just sort of got out of hand after my wife, Josie, died.”
He led the way, kicking boxes, boots, and unpacked inventory aside until they reached the stairs.
“Hadn’t been much call to go up here for a while since Mame and Fate moved onto the houseboat, but I think once we get a path opened up, we’ll find it has weathered the years.”
“Who’s Mame?” she asked, breathing close behind his back as if afraid of going astray in the jumble.
“My mother-in-law. Loyce and Fate’s grandma. She went daft after her children, Josie and Lauf, drowned.”
He told her more about it while picking their way around the packages on the stairs. She followed, holding up her skirt to keep from tripping. The room looked just the same as it had for years. A little bed with a moss mattress set headfirst against the outside wall. A cedar robe and a sewing rocker from the Landry side of the family were on the near side of the bed. On the far side a crockery basin and pitcher waited on a small table. The emptiness of the room made it look larger than its counterpart downstairs.
Adam watched her eyes toting up the lack of carpet, curtains, upholstered chairs, gas lamps, or other nice things she was used to back home in New Orleans or Natchez or wherever she was really from.
“I believe at one time Elder Landry stored extra goods up here, but since the plantations never came back after the war, there’s no cause to keep that much stuff on hand,” Adam offered, by way of explaining the bareness. “But we should be able to keep you comfortable until your husband sends for you.”
Suddenly he stopped trying to raise the window and looked hard at her face from the side. She was peering into the armoire, sniffing as if a score of rats had died inside.
“He won’t be coming, will he, Mrs. Barclay?”
Without looking up from the empty armoire, she said, “I don’t know, Mr. Snellgrove, I just don’t know.”
6
Roseanne woke the next morning to the screech of nails being pried from a shipping crate in the store below. The sun was high. Several conversations floated up through the plank floor. She could make out the voice of that gray-haired gentleman, Mr. Snellgrove. Despite his backwoods appearance, there was something courtly about him. The way he tilted his head and looked directly at her brought to mind a good priest holding an audience.
Of course, he looked just as attentive when the young ones were playing and singing. The young man with the curls had as pure an Irish tenor as she had ever heard. The dark one—Fate—had stage presence, if nothing else. Whether he was playing, singing, or just standing there, he drew all the eyes in the room. And Loyce, where did she learn to play violin like that when she couldn’t even see to read music? How many more surprises did this Bayou Chene hide from the world?
She stretched one more time. The sheets were rough—muslin maybe? And the mattress made crunching sounds whenever she moved or even blinked. It smelled good, though. How had she slept so soundly, when sleep was usually elusive? It must have been the long walk, she concluded. Roseanne Barclay wasn’t accustomed to physical exertion and certainly not while carrying her own valises! Someone had always been around to take care of her needs.
Just before collapsing in front of Mr. Snellgrove, she felt perspiration beading on her face, pooling in the crook of her elbows, which were locked against the weight of the valises. How humiliating, even if he was old enough to be her father! It was unseemly for a lady to perspire, and she knew from a lifetime of living in New Orleans that any exertion between April and October would have sweat running down her corset seams and between her thighs, which were encased in long drawers tied over the corset and beneath the corset cover. Stockings, two petticoats, the ankle-length skirt, and long-sleeved blouse completed her informal everyday costume. If she went out, a jacket covered the blouse, no matter the temperature. Even in bed she wore a sleeping corset beneath a high-necked nightgown.
She wondered what Loyce’s nightclothes were like. Probably another version of the ugly sack thing she was wearing yesterday—a shapeless cotton housedress vaguely held in place by an apron, which probably would have clashed with the color of the dress if they hadn’t both been faded to a muddled gray. Who knows, maybe her day and night dress were the same garment? It was wrinkled enough to have been slept in. Maybe blind women could dress however they liked, or maybe it was the swamp. After all, who would ever see her to care what she wore? Just thinking about it made Roseanne’s nose convulse.
Then she sniffed again, on purpose this time. Cream, butter, and vanilla—three of her favorite fragrances—wafted through the cracks in the floor and enticed her out of bed. Even though her stomach growled and she rushed through her morning toilette, it was nearly an hour before she felt presentable enough to go down the stairs. A night of hanging in the armoire had not taken the wrinkles out of her most casual outfit—a blue and black plaid linen skirt with a dark-gray blouse closely buttoned at cuffs and collar. She smoothed the fabric as best she could with her hands, but her nose still jerked when she looked in the armoire mirror. To make up for the dishevelment, she took extra care coiling her hair and securing it with additional pins. Roseanne’s spine was also straighter than usual as she descended the stairs, trying to pull the wrinkles out of the clothes with her body.
Mr. Snellgrove had finished with his customer and returned to the kitchen. “Mrs. Barclay, you’re just in time for a fresh batch.” He greeted her with a wave of the spatula he was wielding over an iron skillet, where four pieces of French bread sizzled in butter.
She knew the bread had been soaked in sweetened cream and beaten eggs, giving the breakfast dish the name “lost bread,” or pain perdu among the French Creoles of her hometown. Some people said the name came from the fact that the recipe reclaimed stale bread that would otherwise be lost, or thrown away. Roseanne preferred to imagine the dry crusts losing themselves in the rich custard, transformed until they were unrecognizable—truly lost bread. Her stomach growled once more as she watched the bread puff until it doubled in thickness.
Roseanne was always hungry. Her heavy, form-fitting clothes discouraged eating more than a few spoonfuls at a sitting, and she rarely left a table feeling satisfied. Even so, she was constantly having to cut back on what she ate. Once she turned thirty, it seemed that every meal
added another inch to her waist and hips. Now that she was thirty-five, every meal left her looking more like her mother’s side of the family. So said her trim stepmother, Clothilde.
“Thank you, Mr. Snellgrove, I will have a piece,” Roseanne said as casually as she could muster with those fragrances swirling around, confusing her thoughts.
Clothilde’s sharp features and nagging voice faded from her mind as she settled into the chair pulled out for her. Once seated, she surveyed the kitchen table made of cypress planks worn smooth by years of dishes sliding across it. Her chair was in front of a small clearing just large enough for the plate and a cup of coffee. The rest of the table was littered with a milk bucket, spools of twine, several wooden shuttles, a few unopened tins of fruit, two boxes of fishhooks, five dirty coffee cups. She sniffed and flicked her handkerchief ineffectually at dried spills.
Without asking how she took her coffee, Adam set a sugar bowl and small pot of scalded milk next to her cup. “You just help yourself, Mrs. Barclay. I hear someone across the way,” he said, and was gone through the screen door.
Even though she always took coffee black, the scalded milk and the bowl of sugar had been put out just for her. She didn’t want to offend her generous host. It was the first meal she had ever eaten alone. There was no one to supervise her choices. Darting a furtive glance right and left without moving her head, she quickly stirred in a generous spoon of sugar. Then she watched the rich milk swirl the black coffee into a caramel color. She lifted the cup to her lips. It was a different drink from the bitter brew she had known all her life.
Purposefully, deliberately, Roseanne Barclay turned to the lost bread. Instead of the one piece she had asked for, Adam had set the entire platter in front of her. She slid one slice onto her plate. Her fork broke through the brown crust into the golden center of custard-soaked bread. The next thing she knew the platter was empty.
This would not do. Clothilde said the Garnier women always kept their figures, no matter what. In fact, it was rumored that Roseanne’s cousin Celestine Garnier nearly died from surgery that removed her bottom ribs so her corset could tighten another fraction of an inch.