I took the Volkswagen across the bridge to Gretna on Wednesday afternoon. Richard couldn’t get off work, so I went alone. I felt so hopeful, I bought a paper and went early to look for apartments.
Eddie was right about the rents being cheaper—except that the rents for houses and apartments were all more than we were paying for our tiny room. Everything I saw cost more than we could afford. First and last rent in advance, and deposits for cleaning and security—I’d have to ask Dad for money, and I didn’t want to. I decided to talk to Martin anyway. We had to start somewhere.
His address turned out to be in an old neighborhood near the levee. His house was a raised cottage with a long stairway leading to its porch.
When the door opened, I peered through the screen at the place I expected to see a face. I was looking a couple of feet too high. A man smiled at me from his wheelchair as I adjusted my gaze. How’d he get up those steps? He had navy blue eyes and curly black hair—“Black Irish,” my dad would have said. He looked about thirty-five.
“Martin?”
“You must be Kathy.” He pushed the screen open and I edged through. “Come on in. You picked a good time—my wife’s taken the kids to the zoo. Have a seat on the couch there—push some of their junk aside.”
His living room looked like it might be a zoo. Toys were everywhere. Unusual, beautiful toys, almost all handmade. Ornate building blocks, wooden animals, and dolls—not one of them from a factory, as far as I could see.
I elbowed out of my jacket and sat down, moving a carved horse carefully to the coffee table. “It’s beautiful.” A block palace filled most of the table. Each block was exquisitely carved and painted. Martin laughed as he saw me taking it all in.
“My wife’s an artist, and we’re both puppeteers—and of course, we’re getting started in business, so we have to economize. And the boys are twins, so we need twice as many of everything. We make all their stuff.” If this was economy, I felt sorry for rich kids. And better about Richard and me.
“So, you and your boyfriend want to work for us. We need help with everything, almost. I don’t suppose you’ve ever done anything with puppets before?”
“No, we haven’t. But we’ll work hard, I promise. I’m sure we can learn.”
He smiled. “We can teach you. We don’t really expect experience. We work long hours, though, and you’ll also have to practice on your own to be any good. Where do you live?”
“We’re in the Quarter now, but we want to move. Do you know of any apartments for rent in this neighborhood? I looked around this morning, but I didn’t see anything we could afford.”
“Well, one of the neighbors, Francine Boudreaux, has a mother-in-law house in her backyard. A while back, she was talking about renting it, but she couldn’t advertise since it’s not zoned for rental. Maybe she still wants to—I doubt she’d charge much. It’s just one big room, and it’s not fancy.”
“Can I look at it?”
“I happen to know she’s not at home at the moment—in fact, she’s with my family at the zoo. She and my wife are friends—they like to speak French together.”
“Is your wife French?”
“No, Vietnamese. Francine’s a Creole. I sometimes wonder what kind of French they could have in common, but if their rate of talking is anything to go by, it must be quite a bit. Anyway, when they get back, I’ll ask Francine about the house.”
“Richard, my boyfriend, is a Vietnam vet.” Is your wife angry about the war? I think I’d be.
“Eddie told me,” Martin said. “I’m not a vet, but I was a journalist over there. That’s where Thu and I met. We left in ’68 when I got injured.”
Pretend he didn’t say anything about his injury. Change the subject. “Eddie said you’re from Australia.”
“I am. Yes. We came to the United States for medical treatment for me. But we decided to stay for a while.”
“Do you do puppets from Vietnam?”
“There and everywhere. Would you like to see some?”
“Oh, yes.”
He showed me to a workroom at the back of the house. Puppets of all sorts were everywhere, even some figures that didn’t look like puppets at all. There was an odd little flat man like a big paper doll, with a curly red stocking cap. At the tip of the cap was a small light.
“What’s this one?” I asked.
“That’s Beberuhi. He’s Turkish. The light is to help him search for truth.” He laughed. “Frankly, I’d think you might need a brighter one to find it. He never does—maybe that’s why.”
“He’s flat,” I said.
“A shadow puppet. He’s held up between a light and a screen, and the audience sees his shadow on the screen from the other side. Traditionally, shadow puppets are opaque, but I’ve modified him with colored bits, kind of a stained-glass effect. Also, it’s not traditional to have a real light on his cap.
I picked up a carved wooden puppet that wasn’t strung yet. “Who’s this?”
“He’s not actually a folk puppet. He’s a conventional marionette for a character in an Arab folktale. It’s sort of a mixed approach. They wouldn’t use a marionette in those countries.”
“Why not?” I couldn’t see anything wrong with the puppet.
“In some Islamic countries, it’s unacceptable to make images of living creatures. It varies. We use traditional puppets like the shadow puppets if we can, otherwise we adapt them.”
“Why would you have to?”
“So the puppets won’t seem too odd at first. When Thu and I came here, we noticed that most Americans don’t understand other cultures. We thought that might be one reason for the war, so we started the puppet project. In fact, the main group sponsoring us is a peace organization.”
“Where do you perform?”
“Mostly in schools now, but we’d like to found a permanent theater for the public. Maybe have a puppetry school or at least some classes.” His voice was wistful, filled with his dream.
He pushed his wheelchair away from the worktable and led me back to the living room. “When can you start work?” he asked, as I picked up my purse and coat.
“Monday.”
“Good enough. I’ll talk to Francine tonight. Call me tomorrow and I’ll let you know. You can move in over the weekend if she says yes—and if you like the place, of course. I’m looking forward to having some help. This thing is starting to get out of control.” The satisfaction in his voice belied his words.
I headed back across the bridge to New Orleans. Everyone’s going home, but that building downtown is blinking awake with lights. Switch on the car lights to see me home, turn on the lights, exactly like the puppet looking for truth.
* * *
“Oh, Richard, it’s great!” I burst into our room, leaving the door open behind me. Richard, sitting on the bed reading, looked up with a smile.
“They have all these puppets from all over the world, and they make their kids’ toys, and there’s even a place for us to live. . . .” I realized I was being incoherent. I turned and shut the door and started over.
“They’re starting a puppet theater to teach kids about other cultures. Martin’s Australian, well, you knew that. He’s in a wheelchair. I didn’t meet his wife and kids—she’s from Vietnam. They met over there.”
“She’s Vietnamese?” Richard asked. His hands fumbled at the book, his expression startled, stiffening. “Hold on, Kathy. No way I can do this. No way.” The book dropped on the floor with a bang that made Richard jump. He looked like a cornered animal.
I was stunned. “What do you mean, you can’t do it?”
“I can’t face her. I can’t, not after the war. Why don’t you see that? We’ll find something else.” He wouldn’t even look at me.
“Like what? Sorting screws for the rest of your life, so you won’t meet anyone inconvenient? No. I won’t live like that.”
“I can’t do it.”
“You can talk to them once, anyway. If she’s angry or hostile, we w
on’t do it. But if not, I don’t see why you’d have a problem. I mean it, Richard. You have to give it a try, at least. You owe it to the baby.” Not fair, and I don’t care.
Richard opened his mouth and then shut it. We didn’t say another word about it all evening. In fact, we hardly said anything at all.
When I called Martin the next morning, he suggested that we come over and look at the house.
“There’s a kind of problem,” I told him. “Richard doesn’t think he can face your wife, on account of the war.”
“Oh. That problem. That one’s happened before. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him. Come over about seven?”
Richard was still giving me the silent treatment when it was time to go to Gretna. He plopped himself into the passenger seat of the car and gazed out the side window. I thought he was sulking. But as I turned onto the bridge, he reached to turn on the car’s heater and I saw his hand was shaking. Shaking as it had on Thanksgiving, his face as closed and scared as it had been that day.
I love him, but it isn’t going to be enough. We have to get away from the war. He has to stop this. And I can’t make that happen all by myself. What do I say now? He probably thinks I’m sulking too.
I parked on Martin’s street, and we trailed single file up the stairs to his house like a couple of strangers who’d just happened to arrive at the same time. The door was answered by a toddler who ran away to get a grown-up, leaving us on the porch. Martin let us in.
“Hi, there,” he greeted us. “Meet Dominic.” The little boy peek-a-booed from behind Martin’s chair. “He has a twin brother, Joss. They’re identical, but you’ll learn to tell them apart before long. Go get Mommy, please, Dom.”
Martin held his hand out to Richard. “Martin Yates,” he offered. “I’m glad to meet you.”
“Richard Johnson.” Richard shook Martin’s hand, but his voice sounded perfunctory. “Martin, I need—”
He broke off as Thu came into the room, both children tagging after. She was thin and dark, about my height. She must have been cooking—a blue denim chef’s apron was wrapped around her, tied in a half-bow at the front. Her long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She smiled at us, preoccupied by the children dancing behind her.
“Thu, I’d like you to meet Kathy and Richard—they’re going to work with us on the puppets,” Martin said.
Richard turned to Thu and extended his hand politely. “I’m happy to meet you, Thu.”
She looked down. After a second’s hesitation, she shook his hand. Richard looked like he’d been slapped.
“Come on out the back way,” Martin broke in. “We’re going to see Francine’s house, honey. Back in a few.”
He led us out through the kitchen, down a ramp to the driveway. “Couldn’t stand to mess up the house with a ramp in front,” he said. “So, now the kitchen door has turned into the front.”
We followed him down the drive to the street.
“I can’t do this, Martin,” Richard burst out as soon as we were a few steps from the house. “How could I work with Thu? She didn’t even want to shake my hand. Not that I blame her.”
Martin rolled on a moment without speaking. Camphor trees leaned over the sidewalk, their roots making the pavement crooked and pitched. In the summer, they would be a shade tunnel—now they were black sticks.
“My wife doesn’t even know you were a soldier,” Martin said. “I haven’t discussed it with her yet. All she knows about you is that you’re going to help us with the puppets.”
“What do you mean, she doesn’t know? She wouldn’t even look me in the eye!”
Martin laughed. “It’s not the custom in Vietnam to look people directly in the eye. Shaking hands isn’t the custom either, especially for women. Of course, Thu knows it’s what we do here, but it’s not second nature to her yet. ’Scuse me.” His chair darted down a driveway, crossed the street in the intersection, and returned to the sidewalk on the other side.
We scrambled to catch up with him. “This is a bummer,” he grumbled, waving back at the too-high curb. “The funny thing is, people are so uncomfortable talking about it that it’s hard to get anything done. I get a double whammy ’cause I was injured in the war and no one wants to hear about that either.”
Richard winced. “You’re a veteran?”
“Not me. I was a journalist until the Tet Offensive.”
“At Tet, huh? Where were you?”
He’s opening up a little—still cautious. But two men talking about their war. He’ll at least give this a chance.
“Hue,” Martin said. “I was wounded by ‘friendly fire,’ they called it. Didn’t feel too damn friendly, tell you the truth.”
“At least you weren’t in the army. That’s why I’m worried about Thu. How could anyone forgive that?”
Martin looked up at Richard. “In the army or out, nobody’s innocent. War does things to people, even the ones who never get near the fighting. Maybe my project can teach a few people to enjoy different cultures rather than fear them.
“Anyway, I hope you won’t let us down. We need help, and Eddie said you’d be perfect. And Thu wouldn’t think you were an enemy. You ought to talk to her sometime.”
He turned toward a Victorian cottage, where a dumpy little woman was silhouetted against the porch light. “Hi, Francine. Richard and Kathy are here.”
“Hey there,” she called, clinging to the gingerbread railing as she picked her way down the steps. Up close, she looked like a grandmother in a children’s book—gray hair worn in a scraggly bun, sweet brown eyes. Is she black, or what? She was neatly dressed in dark, old-lady clothes, except her shoes were four-inch red heels. She walked in them with teetery caution as she led us up the driveway to a house in the backyard.
“Now, this isn’t fancy at all. I don’t know if you’d want it or not. My Tante Beatrice lived here for years when my parents had the place. You two go on in and take a look. I want to talk to Martin.”
The little house was two steps above the yard, with a porch running all along the front. The door opened into a big room with a small kitchen in one corner. That was it, except for the bathroom and a big closet. The furniture was sparse and dowdy—a bed with a chenille bedspread and a doily-covered chest of drawers. No sofa or armchairs, and no space for them, either—not if we put in a crib and a bookcase.
But it was bigger than our room in the Quarter, and it had lots of windows and a yard for the baby. I looked at Richard and he shrugged and then smiled and put his arms around me. We hurried out into the yard where Martin and Francine were waiting.
“It’s perfect,” I told them.
Francine bent down and pulled a weed. When she straightened up, she laughed, a little awkwardly. “Doggone weeds. They spring up overnight, I swear.” She dusted off her hands. “I never rented this before, you know. Would seventy-five a month be too much?”
Seventy-five a month was cheap. I could have hugged her for being so kind. My voice wouldn’t work for a minute, so it was Richard who said, “That’s fine, Mrs. . . . .”
“Call me Francine,” she told him. “But make out the check to Francine Boudreaux.”
Richard pulled out his checkbook and started writing. “How do you spell Boudreaux?”
“B, o, u, d, r, e, a, u, x. You mean, you’re not Creole?”
“No, we’ve been living in Baton Rouge, but my family’s Army. I grew up all over the country. Why?”
“Oh. I thought you looked sort of Creole. Never mind. When do you want to move in?”
“Would tomorrow evening be too soon?” I asked.
“I’ll get it cleaned for you.” She handed me a key.
“See you then. Good night,” I called as we headed down the drive, ambling alongside Martin’s chair. Francine was working on the weeds again. No doubt they’d come back the next time it rained, but at least for now, they had met their match.
Wish I could turn her loose on Richard’s nightmares.
&n
bsp; ~ 15 ~
January 1975
San Pedro
Lacey
I was knitting a Fair Isle afghan that winter, working on it in the evenings while Willis sat in his recliner and watched TV. I had to lay the colors out along the couch to keep from getting tangled like a fly in a spiderweb.
We usually talked for a while before we put the TV on—told how it went that day, that kind of thing. Sometimes I’d tell Willis about the office, and he’d get a good laugh out of George’s dumb antics. But when I told him about Eddie’s phone call, he didn’t think it was funny.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing at all, honey,” he complained, pulling his hand back from the television knob. Its blank screen reflected us, as if we were the entertainment that evening. “What is it, you going through the change or something?”
This was not the way to get on my good side. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to mean I think you’ve lost your mind. Phone calls to Louisiana—you some kind of investigator now? Sneaking off to The Mystic Eye, pumping Marilu Collins for whatever she might know. Which is what, exactly? You think this girl pals with her nutty landlady?”
I knitted a little faster. “I got Kathy’s old address in Gretna,” I said. “And her sister’s address and phone number in Baton Rouge.”
“Yes, and then got five bucks added to the damn phone bill. For what? None of this is any of your business.”
“Just walk by on the other side, is that what we’re supposed to do?” I finished with the white, picked up the green, and started again.
“It’s not your business, Lacey. Ever since Angela went up to Berkeley—no, ever since she said she was going—you’ve been acting like a crazy woman. You’re just messing around with Kathy as a replacement for mothering Angie. Maybe you’re even mad at Angela, getting back at her for moving out. I think you ought to see a doctor or something. This empty-nest stuff is getting out of hand. Angela was floored when she came home and found she’d been kicked out of her room.”
Tears rushed to my eyes. “She wasn’t kicked out. She moved out. I was the one who got pushed out.”
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