Bayou Suzette

by Lois Lenski

  Suzette threw her hook into the water and tied the other end of the rope line to one of the wharf posts. Then she sat down to wait.

  It seemed strange without Papa Jules at home. Suzette remembered how it all came about. One day after the flood was over and they had moved back into the house again, Maman, Papa and Eulalie had dressed up in their best clothes. Maman had struggled into her corset with many moans and groans. Papa put on a stiff celluloid collar and a bright red tie, and Eulalie her dotted swiss with the blue sash. Together they left for Nonc Lodod’s.

  They stayed a long time. When they returned, Maman rushed indoors quickly and took off her corset, to be comfortable again, and Eulalie changed her dress. Then the exciting news came out. Papa Jules was to go shrimping in the Gulf with Nonc Lodod on one of his luggers. And not long after that, in early August, Suzette had watched the shrimp luggers sail down the bayou. They all hoped that Papa Jules would make his fortune.

  “A little piece of pepper

  In the gumbo made with fish,

  That a thing that’s good—

  That a thing delic’!”

  Suzette sang the silly song over and over. Marteel rested with her chin in the palm of her hand. The boys were pulling crabs to pieces to use for bait, when suddenly Felix yelled, “She’s got ’im!”

  Marteel looked lazily up to see Suzette pulling hard on her line. Something very heavy was on the end of it. Suzette untied the line, took hold of the post to steady herself and pulled harder. The line was very heavy.

  “Marteel …” she wailed. “En’t you gonna help me?”

  Marteel’s eyes brightened, but still she did not move.

  “She got a gar-fish! Suzette’s got a gar-fish!” cried the boys.

  Like a flash, Marteel was on her feet and her hands on the rope next to Suzette’s, both pulling with all their strength. The boys came running over and pulled too.

  “Papa Jules … I mean Nonc Lodod … I mean Nonc Moumout … come quick!” called Suzette.

  A great spiky head, showing a mouth, well-lined with teeth, in which the hook was inserted, moved slowly up out of the water at the end of the rope line.

  Just then a bicycle, which was coming leisurely down the bayou path, stopped suddenly and the owner’s cheerful whistling stopped too. “Tonnerre m’emporte!” exclaimed the young man. “W’at do I see!”

  The next instant he too had his hands on the rope. A few moments later, a seven-foot gar-fish lay on the wharf.

  Suzette backed away, her eyes popping. “Me, I ketched … a gar-fish!” she said, feebly.

  “You sure did!” answered the young man.

  “W’at I gonna do with it?” she cried. “It en’t no good to eat, and if I flip it back in the by’a, it gonna eat up all Nonc Moumout’s feesh and all our crab and river shrimp.”

  For answer, the young man picked up an axe and knocked the huge fish on the head. “Now he won’t eat nobody’s fish,” he said, quietly.

  “Oh … thank you for helping me,” said Suzette, breathless.

  “It not’ing, that. Me, I was stopping here anyway.”

  “Papa Jules and Nonc Lodod and Ambrose, they all gone away to the Gulf,” Suzette went on, “and Nonc Moumout, he not come quick when I call!”

  “A good t’ing I happen along then,” said the youth.

  “Marteel, she try, but she not strong enough either …”

  “Hardly,” said the young man, “even with the boys helping. That fish probably weighs more than you do.”

  Suzette looked up to see who she was talking to. “Oh!” she gasped, in dismay. “Jean Broussard! I en’t supposed … to talk … to you!”

  “You en’t supposed to ketch gar-feesh, either, are you?”

  “No,” said Suzette, “but there en’t nobody else to …”

  “So you did it yourself,” said Jean Broussard. “You got spunk and me, I like you. You remind me of your sister, Lala. By the way, where is she?”

  “Me, I don’t know,” said Suzette, lamely. “In the house, I guess.”

  She forgot her astonishment over the gar-fish as she stared, open-mouthed, at Jean Broussard. Leaving his bicycle beside the front gate, he strode boldly into the yard, walked up the front steps and knocked on the front door. Eulalie, dressed in her dotted swiss, as if expecting him, opened it. Jean Broussard entered and the door closed behind him.

  “Your ole gar-fish, he won’t eat crab and shrimp no more,” said Marteel.

  But Suzette did not hear. She flew round to the back door. She flew into Maman’s arms and scattered to the floor all the potatoes she was peeling.

  “Maman!” she cried, in a shocked whisper. “You know who is visitin’ with Lala right now in the front room, in this very house?”

  Maman showed no surprise, nor did Grandmère sitting beside her, calmly shelling beans.

  “Maman! It Jean Broussard!” Suzette’s heart pounded wildly. “Maman! You en’t let him come, while Papa Jules he gone away?”

  Slowly and deliberately Maman nodded her head. Then she explained.

  “You ’member the day when Papa and Maman, they go visit Nonc Lodod to fix up ’bout Papa goin’ shrimpin’ on Nonc Lodod’s boat? You ’member Lala went along too? Well, Nonc Lodod, he had Claude Broussard there and Claude Broussard and Papa Jules, they talk …”

  “’Bout the bullet in his back?”

  “No—the bullet it en’t even mention’ that day,” said Maman, smiling. “Your Papa, he forgot all ’bout it. They talk ’bout Jean and Lala, and ’fore we come home, Papa Jules he tell Claude Broussard they can be friends.”

  “And Papa Jules, he say Jean he can come here to visit Lala in the front room?” asked Suzette, in astonishment.

  “Yes, that just w’at Papa Jules he say,” said Maman. “Then they shook hands, Papa Jules and Claude Broussard.”

  “Papa Jules shook hands with Claude Broussard?” cried Suzette, incredulous.

  “Yes,” said Maman. “Now they good friends again, like they used to be long ago.”

  Suzette was silent for a few moments to take it all in. A great turmoil went on inside her and it took her a while to get used to the new idea. She remembered Mardi Gras and how seeing Jean and Lala together was all just a part of the fun. She remembered the days long ago when Elise and Ellen Elaine had been her best friends. Then she was glad that Papa was not mad at Claude Broussard any more.

  Maman took Suzette in her arms and gave her a big hug and so did Grandmère. If Maman and Grandmère approved, it must be all right.

  When Jean Broussard came out the front door, Suzette was waiting by the gate. She looked up at him.

  “You find Lala?” she asked.

  Jean nodded. “She was waitin’ for me.”

  “My Papa Jules, he not mad at your Papa no more,” said Suzette. “Elise and Ellen Elaine, they mad at me?”

  “No,” said Jean. “They never been mad at you at all.”

  “They talk to me now? A Broussard can talk to a Durand, yes?”

  “Yes,” said Jean. “All that foolishness, it over now. Lala and me, we make an end to it. Our Papas, they shake hands again, and they let their children speak together again.”

  As he started off on his bicycle, whistling happily, Suzette felt a wave of happiness come over her.

  Jean looked back. “He was a good fighter, yes?”

  At first she couldn’t think what he meant. Then she remembered the gar-fish. Rushing to the kitchen again, she announced her catch, and Maman and Grandmère hurried out to the wharf to see it.

  “Ugh! Ugly ole t’ing!” cried Maman. “Bad as a shark.”

  The gar-fish’s nose was long and pointed. His back was covered with tough diamond-shaped scales, and his tail was flat. His head resembled an alligator’s, but his body was that of a fish.

  “W’at I gonna do with him, now I ketch him?” asked Suzette.

  “Nonc Moumout, he skin him,” said Grandmère. “He slice the good meat in thin slabs and salt and dry it. Th
e rest he use for crab and fish bait.”

  Nonc Moumout came at last and towed the fish away.

  That evening, Suzette washed herself with care and brushed and combed her hair. She put on a fresh clean dress. She washed and combed Marteel and Marteel put on a clean dress too. Together they started out.

  “Papa Jules, he not mad at Claude Broussard no more,” Suzette explained. “Now a Durand can talk to a Broussard, yes.”

  Marteel, walking beside her, said nothing.

  Elise and Ellen Elaine were sitting on the bayou bench in front of their house. At the back of the bench a chinaball tree, covered with hanging clusters of hard, green berries, thrust up its stiff branches like an umbrella. A bright red lizard crawled across the top board, and the girls were poking at it with small twigs.

  “Lizzie, Lizzie,

  Show me your blanket

  Or I’ll kill you!”

  cried Elise. The lizard immediately puffed out the bright red fold beneath his chin.

  “Now you don’t have to kill him,” said Suzette.

  “No,” said Elise, looking up with a smile.

  The little animal scampered off onto the tree trunk and disappeared.

  “Me, I ketched a gar-fish,” announced Suzette, casually.

  “Jean, he tole us,” said Elise. “You must be purty strong.”

  “Marteel, she help me first,” Suzette explained. “But we couldn’t never have pull’ it up if Jean he not come when he came.”

  “Jean, he say it a whopper,” said Elise.

  “Jean, he thay it the biggeth gar-fith he ever thee!” lisped Ellen Elaine.

  Suzette basked in the warmth of friendship. It was just as if Elise and she had always stayed friends. The long silence made no difference at all.

  Beulah Bergeron and Doreen Dugas came strolling along.

  “Chere chandelle!” cried Beulah, stopping suddenly in her tracks and pointing with her finger. “Look w’at I see! Suzette Durand talkin’ to Elise Broussard!”

  “Ma bonté!” cried Doreen, staring. “The world, it comin’ to an end. A Durand has speak to a Broussard!”

  Beulah and Doreen came nearer.

  Suzette pulled Elise close beside her on the bench and Ellen Elaine close on the other side. “We good friends again,” she announced.

  “Suzette, your Papa he en’t mad at Claude Broussard no more?” asked Beulah, unbelieving.

  Suzette shook her head.

  “Elise, your Papa he en’t mad at Jules Durand no more?” asked Doreen, astonished.

  Elise shook her head.

  Beulah and Doreen sat down on the outer ends of the bench. “Tell us about it,” they said.

  Suzette was in the middle of the story when Tante Céleste walked up. She looked as if she were coming from Pére Eugéne’s store, for she had a basket on her arm, filled with groceries.

  “Suzette!” she cried, in astonishment. “W’at you doin’? Holdin’ arms with two Broussards and talkin’ to ’em when your Papa, he forbid you to? En’t you shame’ yourself, to disobey your Papa like this just when he gone away and can’t watch you? Me, I gonna tell your Maman and I reckon she take a strap to you.…”

  Suzette lifted her chin. “My Maman, she don’t never take no strap to me for not’ing, Tante Céleste.”

  “She do it this time, sure, when I tell her.” Tante Céleste smiled as if in delight at the prospect.

  “My Maman she tell me to put on a fresh clean dress,” said Suzette, with pride. “And Marteel too.”

  “W’at for?” asked Tante Céleste, puzzled.

  “To wear when I come visit Elise and Ellen Elaine,” said Suzette. “She tell me to visit them. She tell me I can speak to any Broussard any time I want to.”

  “But even if your Maman she crazy, w’at your Papa gonna say when he come back from shrimpin’ and find out?”

  “My Papa, he be ver’ please’,” said Suzette.

  “Please’? You make one big mistake, Susu. Angry is w’at you mean,” said Tante Céleste.

  “He be ver’ please’,” Suzette went on, “that Jean Broussard, he come every week to visit Lala in the front room by our house.”

  “He visit Lala?” gasped Tante Céleste. “In the front room?” Clearly this was more serious than sitting holding hands on the bayou bench. Her eyes opened wide.

  Suzette nodded. “Yes, ’cause Papa en’t mad at Claude Broussard no more.”

  “They on kissin’ terms now? Jules, he has forgot the bullet in his back, I suppose!” cried Tante Céleste.

  “Yes,” said Suzette. “It not a bullet at all. It only rheumatiz. That w’at Maman been tellin’ him all along. Papa, he believe it too and he go shake hands with Claude Broussard just ’fore they go off shrimpin’ together on Nonc Lodod’s boat. And when they come back, there gonna be a wedding. One Durand and one Broussard, they gonna git married!”

  Elise’s and Ellen Elaine’s faces broke into broad smiles. Beulah and Doreen smiled happily, too.

  “Married, bah!” cried Tante Céleste. “How your Papa pay for a wedding when he can’t even pay for his groceries, when he already got big debt by Pére Eugéne? Your Papa, he never no good to make a living for his family.”

  Suzette’s cheeks flushed. She stood up and clenched her fists at her side. It was hard to keep on being polite to Tante Céleste, but she knew she must. “My Papa, he gonna help Nonc Lodod bring home a big catch of shrimp and make plenty money so Lala can have her wedding. My Maman, she tell me so. They gettin’ ready.”

  “Huh! They won’t git married,” scoffed Tante Céleste. “Your Maman, she keep hopin’ for the best, but it never come. Your Papa, he keep hopin’ for a boat of his own but he never git it. Somet’ing it all the time happen—a bullet in his back, rheumatiz, bad weather, bad luck—all the time the same ole story.”

  Suzette turned cold all over.

  “This time, it gonna be different, Tante Céleste,” she said, in a feeble voice.

  Tante Céleste walked on, swinging her basket at her side. Suzette looked after her and a tear rolled down her cheek. Marteel, who had sat on the ground through it all and said nothing, jumped up suddenly and put her arm round Suzette’s waist.

  “Come,” said Beulah. “We go by Père Eugène and buy candy balls and sugar hearts. My Papa, he give me six pennies—enough for all.”

  The girls started off, their arms entwined. As Suzette walked with them, in her heart a great fear began to poke up its ugly head.

  Would Papa Jules’ catch be a good one?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Home at Last

  It was evening along the bayou. After supper, Grandmère and Maman came out to the bayou bench in front of the house. The air was close and hot for October. There was little breeze to stir the leaves of the chinaball tree, and only a soft, gurgling movement of gentle waves against the shore.

  Joseph and Jacques built a smudge fire at the edge of the levee and kept feeding it with branches and twigs, and smothering it with damp weeds. The smoke blew lazily off the bayou and hung in the still air, discouraging mosquitoes.

  As Grandmère began to talk, the children crowded round and listened with respect—all but Marteel. She went off by herself to the end of the wharf and sat there, cross-legged and hunch-backed, fishing.

  “Papa Jules, he eat only one good meal a day when he out shrimping,” said Grandmère, “after his breakfast of black coffee and hard tack. The men, they work hard from dawn till nightfall. When a showing of shrimp appear, out go the anchor lines and down come the sails. The men, they jump in the skiffs and go out to lay a quarter of a mile circular net or seine around the school of shrimp. Then, to haul in the seine, when it full of shrimp—how hard the men gotta pull! It hard work, that!”

  “Papa Jules, he come home again soon?” asked Suzette.

  The question was in everyone’s mind, but Grandmère did not answer it. “Two boats, they work together,” she went on. “Your Papa, he go on one out to sea to haul in the seine. Nonc
Lodod, he use the other for ice, to pack the shrimp so they will keep. At night, the men eat a big supper, and when the luggers come in to some port along the Gulf, go to bed in their bunks, dead tired.…”

  “Jules, he gone six week now,” said Maman, sadly, “and we never know w’at happen out there in the Gulf. And Ambrose—it hard work for a boy.”

  “Ambrose, he strong enough to stand it,” said Grandmère. “Out there in the Gulf, the sun it shine, the wind it blow, the black clouds and storms they come, the waves dash high and lift the boats up and down—then the storm it pass and all is calm again. The same t’ings happen before to all the other Durands when they went to sea.

  “It hard work, yes, but exciting, too, the excitement a man loves when he wins his daily bread at terrific odds. Even when the sea it against him, he still the master, he win in the end.”

  Suzette, leaning against Grandmère’s shoulder, looked up. “He bring home a good catch then?” But again, the question was not answered.

  So intent was the little group under the chinaball tree, they had not seen or heard a sailing lugger coming slowly up the bayou. Only the Indian girl, alone on the wharf, raised her eyes and watched it come closer and closer, its orange-colored sail half-hauled.

  As Grandmère’s voice droned on, Marteel saw the men on board tugging at the ropes. She saw the sail fall to the deck, catching highlights from the setting sun. The lugger slid closer now, then it shivered and with a jolt, stood still. A man on board seized a “gaff” or push-pole and leaned over, trying to push the boat free from the mud-flat on which it was apparently stuck.

  Marteel’s eyes brightened. She glanced toward the group under the chinaball tree, but they were still listening to Grandmère. Marteel smiled to herself. Then she saw that the lugger was grounded. She frowned as she listened to the men’s voices.

  The man on the deck jabbed the push-pole into the mud-flat again and again. The boat swerved slightly and the pole went deeper into a hole. The man lost his balance and fell overboard.

  Marteel jumped to her feet. The sun was gone now, but her eyes were sharp even in darkness. She saw and heard no motion in the water, she saw no figure climb up on the levee bank—the man had not come ashore. She saw the other men, five or six figures still busy on the deck and she knew they had not noticed the man’s plight. What had happened to him? Marteel stared intently. Only for a moment did she hesitate. Then she dove into the water and swam as fast as she could toward the boat.