The Saint Louisans

by Steven Clark

  “Yes.”

  “Ok.” Saul raised his hands, “I confess to being an architecture freak. The mansion is one of the city’s best; hell, the country’s best. Margot wants it saved. It will revive a neighborhood. What’s not to like?”

  “I have to heal the family.”

  The sun beat down. Nearby, lichen-coated tombs were covered with ladybugs. It had to be a good omen. Ladybugs are like that. “Are we going to fight on this?”

  “Don’t deny yourself a reward.”

  I studied a ladybug. “What if it’s a temptation?”

  “Ah, what’s this? Your Presbyterianism coming home to roost?”

  “Well, Presbyterians are God’s frozen people, but if I was an angel … and I’m sort of one, now … I have to be impartial. Take the long view.”

  “Saving the mansion is the long view.”

  “Healing them.”

  We looked at each other.

  There was a rustling to our far right, like pages shuffling in a book. A few dozen yards off, a flock of turkeys streamed past the tombs and angels to wave around thick hickories and maples. The flock vanished in a wooded hollow dipping below us. Since the cemetery is off-limits to hunters, they thrive here. I studied Saul’s intelligent, handsome, and, for the moment, avaricious features.

  “I’ll help, Saul. Truly. First, let me talk to Margot.”

  A ladybug landed on my shoulder. The first long shadows of afternoon darkened my angel. Saul took my hand.

  “Sure.”

  “Talk to her about my father.”

  In the backyard of the mansion, Margot sat with a cashmere cardigan in brilliant russet draped over her shoulders. She was like a regal leaf resting in her metal chair. An acorn dropped onto the patio with a silent tap.

  “Ike was wonderful,” she said wistfully. “I met him at Lambert Field. Some kind of charity event the Women’s League sponsored for McDonnell Douglas, and since I was Veiled Prophet Queen, I was asked to attend. I expected it to be the usual sort of hobnobbing, but there was an air show. Ike flew a jet. A Sabre. It spun and looped,” she chuckled. “We met in the crowd, and he was so heroic and polite. We talked, and it lead to the can-I-buy-you-a-cup-of coffee? sort of thing.”

  My smile was more sly than nostalgic. “That was the line he used on Mom.” Mom. That was a loaded word.

  “Well,” I folded my arms. “I mean Lena May.” After an awkward pause, I leaned back and admired the grotto. “Why did it end? Were you married to Philip?”

  She gazed off, pained. “No, but Ike was married. It was adultery. He might have left her, but it wouldn’t have been right. He wasn’t Catholic, and didn’t care to convert. It mattered to the family very much.” She sighed. “And to me.”

  “What happened when you were pregnant?”

  Margot’s smile curved down. “I thought my life was over. Momma and Poppa were furious, but they recovered and started the ball rolling. I took a semester off from Fontbonne and went to New Orleans, to relatives who lived near St. Charles Street.” She paused, then offered a contented smile as she looked at her stomach. “As you grew, I bought a ring and told neighbors my husband was in the Air Force. It wasn’t a complete lie. So I thought.” She looked up at the maple. “I played being a pilot’s wife well, I suppose.”

  “Did you ever tell your husband?”

  She stared at the row of pansies, full of October bloom. “When Ike was shot down, Philip and I were on the Riviera. I read it in the International Herald Tribune, and it was on the radio; a minor international incident for a few days. I’d been on the beach, crying. Philip thought I was depressed over having Terri, but …”

  “You had to tell him?” She nodded. “And?”

  “He took it rather well, actually. Philip showed no anger or jealousy. He’d been in the Navy. He said these things happened, that none of us have a halo or wings.” She sighed. “Of course he was cheating on me at the time, and probably felt this justified it. Ike’s death must have been terrible, though, for you.”

  I recalled that day at the air base. Skipping home from base school, seeing the blue sedan parked in front. As I opened the screen door, two officers sat on the sofa facing my blank-faced mom.

  “Lee, sweetie: Daddy’s not coming home.”

  “Why?”

  “His jet was shot down by bad men.”

  “Bad men?”

  “Communists.”

  I, she, didn’t cry much. Lena obviously cared much less for my father than I knew, but we were also Air Force, and had to be strong.

  Blinking back to the present, I smiled. “It was sad. How was the adoption handled? Lena was compliant?”

  “Yes. She adored Ike, although the gloss was coming off. She apparently had the eye for other men. Lena was paid well by my parents, and she wanted the money. You know, Ike was considered quite a catch. She did like him. So I was told.”

  I thought this explained why Mom got rid of me so easily. Lena May Sikes had indeed married well, and after my father died, she had her widow’s pension to reinvent herself. All she needed to do was dump me in St. Louis with the Seven Dwarfs. As it was, she remarried a major and ended up a general’s wife. Happy ending. For some of us.

  Margot took my hand. “I like it how we resemble each other. I’d seen pictures of you. I see some of Great Grandmother in you.”

  Another nod from me. My fairness is certainly more Desouche than Taylor, and there is a faint resemblance to the young Margot of the portrait. The Seven Dwarfs muttering about my not looking like the clan had some basis in fact. Margot looked at me.

  “Lee, you will take the estate. It will be my gift to you for what you’ve suffered.”

  I thought: Suffered what? Not having a silver spoon in my mouth? I led a good life, and was brought up well enough by Aunt Mary and Spud. When I fucked up marrying Len, well, he was my fuck-up. I thought of the deeper problem: the wound between parent and children.

  “Margot, I don’t want to take the wealth away from your—” I paused. “From my brothers and sisters.”

  “No.” Margot shifted from caring to vengeful that quick. “Those two will destroy the mansion and the estate. Make no mistake of it. You’re a Desouche. The one who must preserve. My little girl, who will fight them for this family’s heritage.”

  So, in Margot’s kind, patrician voice, war was declared. I needed to peel away the layers of the angel noire and get to the bottom. Another acorn fell from above and tapped on the patio.

  10

  Water and Gesshoji

  My bathroom resembles a jungle. A row of ferns flank the windowsill, a philodendron hangs from the curtain rod. Betwixt loo and tub (which sounds like a British comedy team), stands a Boston fern that was a Walmart reject, but I nursed it to where it looks like it belongs on a New Orleans balcony, full, lush, sweeping. A Madagascar dragon is under the sink. When I bathe on a sunny day without my glasses on, the walls blur with the green, and it’s Tahiti with porcelain instead of sand. Now, I closed my eyes, sank into the tub, twirled a glass of Merlot, and tried to sort things out as I enjoyed the steam.

  I used to write letters in the tub, and more than once Pierce compared me to David’s Death of Murat, except that I lack Murat’s debilitating skin condition, bloody knife on the floor, mortal wound to one side. Nor do I have a political agenda. Until now.

  Saul rang me up to confirm Vess Moot was having a rally at City Hall to pump for Juneteenth Towne. Pierre, my new half-brother, was planning to speak in its favor. I promised I’d meet with him, and try to mend the family. My family. Wow, that sounds weird.

  A chill under my ass made me turn on the hot water, savoring the warm tickle going from toes to nethers, swirling my back, and I couldn’t help but remember when bath time with little ones was … an adventure. Especially with Jama.

  I remember her dipping her mouth into the tub, coming up, looking at me so innocently, and then spitting water at me. “You’ll get soap in your mouth,” I always warned, and she’d giggle
in that mischievous way of hers. She had been a happy child, and I could picture her: a towel wrapped around her slim seven-year-old body, hair lank and plastered behind her ears and thin shoulders. I could see her kneeling on the floor squeezing the rubber elephant she always played with in the tub. At seven, she was already a handful.

  “Which is for the best,” I’d say, “since you’ve got a potty mouth.”

  “I don’t,” she said in her who … me? voice, “I just say what other kids say. Like ‘bitch. And shit.’”

  “Let’s watch that, okay?”

  Jama’s blue eyes would sparkle when she tried to put on a good show, when she was in her usual mood for testing limits. Her shoulders were girly skinny, but I saw where they’d blossom. Kiddo, you’re going to be a heartbreaker.

  “That’s what you say. And Daddy.”

  “Let’s all try to be better. Okay?”

  She climbed up on the sink and wiped the mirror clean of steam and primped. “And … ‘cunt.’”

  Jama!”

  “It’s what Daddy calls Cori.”

  I sighed at the memory, and turned the hot water off. Cori had been a fellow nurse on the floor. Sky thought she was too big for her britches, as I suspected he thought I was, too. Our marriage was unraveling with the speed of toilet paper rolls tossed over treetops at Halloween. That night, as Jama studied her face in the mirror, I said, “Look, kiddo, I’m not cracking the whip, but please. Watch. Your. Language.”

  Of course Jama didn’t fight back. Not yet. She outflanked larger prey. Her gaze of prepubescent rationality made her eyes worldly-wise. I changed the subject.

  “What about the elements? You’re learning them, right?”

  “Yeah.” Jama leaned back, her boring stuff slouch. “There’s hydrogen. Oxygen.” She cups water and drops it. “Tungsten.”

  “Tungsten? That’s way up there.”

  “Yeah. It’s also called wolfram. I like it ’cause it reminds me of were-wolves.” Her jaws open and she fangs me. Jama looks up and frowns. Knocking came from behind the door.

  “Daddy! Mommy’s nekkid!”

  Sky laughed on the other side, sounding more country and western the older he got. Jama got the dialect from his family, who aren’t Hoosiers but real hillbillies down in Iron County. It’s a step up, but not much. “I know Mommy’s nekkid,” Sky said. “One of the things I like about her. I heard both of you talking dirty.”

  “One of us wasn’t,” I said as Jama ducked. “You know, Cori isn’t all that bad.”

  “Sure, just ask her,” Sky said with a laugh.

  When we dated, Sky was an orderly who had a paperback of Camus stuck in his back pocket, a man who gave me an extraordinary view of life for someone who barely graduated from high school. As our marriage deteriorated, he seemed to slip back into hillbilly. Impatient with printed matter, unless it was military history or under one hundred pages, he mocked my pretensions to travel, culture, enlightenment.

  “Look,” he said, “I’m going over to Wayne’s. He’s got to get that carburetor fixed, and I’m going to bail him out.”

  Jama shouted at the door. “Take Mommy. She can fix them.”

  Sky laughed. “That was a fuel pump, not a carburetor.”

  “Let that be my epitaph. ‘She fixed her own fuel pump, but thought it was a carburetor.’”

  “Want me to pick up Pierce?”

  “He said Doug’s father would drive them home after practice. Maybe stop at Steak ’n Shake.”

  “I wanna go!”

  “Like hell,” Sky said. “Stay here and prune with Mommy.”

  Jama frowned. “Let’s go to Imo’s. I want pizza.”

  “Hey,” I raised my voice to Sky, “the language?” I heard him put on his jacket.

  “Imo’s!” Jama said with arms wide, as if auditioning. Sky talked from behind the door.

  “You and water. You gonna stay in there all night, turning into the old ladies?”

  Jama and I both loved our baths, and I had taken my love of water to work. Sky’s remark was half-mocking, but I had started doing water therapy with several of my patients, much as I did an experiment in poolside birth, where midwives delivered a baby into the water, easing pain and discomfort. I assisted and thought it beautiful. Sky thought it was crackpot. He thought much the same of water therapy. White-haired, slattern-fleshed women doing exercises in the pool to soothe arthritic limbs or replaced hips that made them move like turtles on land, but once immersed, became guppies. I especially helped Dotie Winders.

  Her doughy skin and drooping cheeks contrasted with my firm body, but Dotie gripped like Jama when we exercised, sparkling light reflecting off the ceiling and walls. She sniffed chlorine and grinned.

  “So much fun.”

  “Sure. Let’s grab our ankles and float.”

  Dotie did, and floated like a jellyfish. “So good. Let’s do something else, Lethe.”

  I took her in my arms and we did a sidestroke. Alzheimer’s wiped out Dotie’s mind, and swimming was when she came to life. She malaproped my name from Lee to Lethe … those waters of Hades where one drank, forgot the past, and dissolved into oblivion. I took Dotie’s wrists.

  “We’ll go backwards.”

  “I’ve never gone backwards before.”

  We’d go backwards every time we did therapy. To Dotie it was always fresh, new, childlike. Four months later, she became bedridden. Then the deathwatch began.

  We came from the sea. Our sperm swim into the uterus to make life. Thales, one of the earliest Greek philosophers, said all things originate from water. Dotie happily mistook me for Lethe as she enjoyed the pleasure of water. Margot will become like that, losing her memory and life as she dies. Now, I am her family, and must cleanse the mistakes of her children before her own Lethe begins.

  The water in the tub cooled again. I was relaxed and pruny enough, I decided. I reached for the towel.

  St. Louis City Hall sits at the corner of Tucker and Market streets, the hub of the government quarter. It is an imposing burgher’s fortress of native red granite and French Renaissance features. Flanking it are the federal and civil courts buildings, all solid, twentieth-century stabs at the neoclassical. Across the street, the box-like simplicity of Soldier’s Memorial. All tombstone gray facades of pillars and civic dignity. Before City Hall came shouts.

  “Juneteenth! Juneteeneth! The people for Juneteenth!”

  Saul and I watched the crowd parrot Vess Moot as he raised his fist and cried into the bullhorn. As always, his sartorial habit was one of expensive cuff links and rings matching his cries. If voices could glow, Vess was shiny brass, leading his people, the Coalition for Urban Transformation. CUT.

  “No more standing in line! No more back of the bus!”

  “No mo’! No mo’!”

  “This is our moment! This is our glory! Tell the story!”

  “This our glory! Tell the story!”

  Vess broke from the circle to greet the news folk, mics ready like electronic lollipops to be licked. Saul sung the joyous crusade song from Les Miz under his breath, sarcastically making youthful hope Brechtian as he guided me around the circle to City Hall and right into Sonia Sauvage. She wore a heavy coat that enhanced her stern and majestic bearing. It was like bumping into fate. Saul frowned back.

  “Sonia. Surprised seeing you here.”

  She tossed her hair and nodded. “Are you? Then you know nothing of my importance. The Cahokia exhibit is partly due to my insistence.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed, “taking the credit for everything, as always.”

  “Racism is the crown of thorns St. Louis chooses. A crown of justice is our right.” Vess’s voice boomed over the bullhorn.

  Sonia looked at me. “You are the woman. At the museum. And now the mansion.” Pattering applause and ‘hallelujahs’ came from the crowd. I had to say something to Sonia as she studied Vess.

  “Guilty as charged. What do you think of St. Louis?”

  Nose in the air, she
looked around with a continental shrug. “It reminds me of downtown Warsaw.”

  At least it was somewhere in Europe, although her tone indicated it was definitely Hoosier Europe. Saul closed in.

  “Sonia, why are you here?”

  “I am here to speak with Mr. Moot on matters historical. You are not invited.” She turned and walked away, joining the crowd around Vess.

  “The people, u-nited will ne-ver be de-feated!”

  There, flanked by Moot’s aides and a news babe, was Pierre. I crinkled a smile. “Time to talk to my bro.”

  Saul nodded. “Yeah, he might be open to reason. Look, I gotta go. That meeting on Bohemian town is in fifteen. Call me.”

  We squeezed hands, then parted, Saul entering City Hall to do battle for truth, justice, and the zoning laws of midtown. I made my way to Pierre. He was twelve feet from Vess, and turned to see me.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I smiled.

  Pierre was cordial and only moderately surprised. “I’m sorry about last night with Mother.” His contrition was modest. “We weren’t at our best. It was a hell of a surprise. She likes surprises. Especially when she’s giving them. Hitler was like that too, you know.”

  “We need to talk. Just for the record, are you supposed to talk to me?”

  Pierre’s smile weakened, but still held on. “Probably not, but you’re right. We should.”

  “But there are those of the white power structure who understand. Who have heard. Who wish to build.”

  Pierre looked at Vess. “I’m on.”

  “After the speech?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where?”

  Pierre gave the location, then it was his turn to speak. I heard his first remarks, one of gentle … genteel, perhaps … ways of reconciliation, unity, friendship, then I walked away.

  Here and there, homeless men pushed cast-off shopping carts that bulged with black plastic bags. Nearby shadows from the quarter grew long and dramatic. Chirico would have been proud.

  Tennessee Williams thought Union Station a “curiously designed structure of gray stone,” but it was my childhood portal where Lena, who I thought was my mother, handed me to the Seven Dwarfs to begin my gestation into a Veiled Prophet Queen wannabe. An imposing Romanesque castle whose facade of gray Indiana limestone reminds one of a medieval gateway, Union Station boasted one of the city’s most beautiful bars. As Pierre and I sat in the lounge of the Grand Hall, I soaked in its visual grandeur; a sixty-five foot tall ceiling plastered and sculpted in beaux arts glory, electric lights whose orange glow complimented the vast green interior. A man at the piano bar tinkled Sondheim as tourists lounged over drinks. The bar, with its polished walnut front, began to fill up.