by John Brunner
“Do I take it you’re a medical man?”
“Denis Cherouen,” the other said, offering his hand. Introducing himself, Auberon shook it warmly. By all accounts this was one of the few truly progressive people in the city, ever alert to modern ideas. Report had it also that he was a sporting type, a connoisseur of quadroon girls, and was as ready to oblige the ladies as the gentlemen with his professional services when some unlooked-for consequence of obedience to the behests of Cupid needed rectification. On that score Auberon had so far escaped lightly. But there was, of course, another medical matter on his mind…
“You’re Parisian yourself?” he probed.
Smiling, Cherouen shook his head. “No, but my father’s father met his wife there, and they married before removing to the New World.”
“You’ve visited France?”
“Perhaps I shall one day. But currently there’s little to interest men of my calling at Paris or indeed elsewhere in Europe.”
Auberon looked puzzled. “Forgive a layman’s ignorance, but according to the press many significant advances have recently been made by European savants—Dr. Pasteur, for example.”
“Never believe what you read in the papers! The quacks now being so blatantly puffed adhere to the pernicious germ theory of disease. As though a vital organism could be reduced to its original clay by a process that amounts to nothing more than putrefaction! No, sir: the vital spark is forced out of the human frame by a far subtler and more aethereal enemy, the inverse—as it were—of the power which speaks to us from the skies and inheres in all organic matter. From the valiant fire of lightning to the sparks a comb may draw on a dry night, and as I predict astronomers will concede before the century is out from the very stars, including our own Sun!—from all these mute witnesses that the Lord has set before the eyes of the unseeing, the truth declares itself to those who are prepared to receive it! I’ve proved it over and over in my practice.”
As he spoke his voice had risen to a declamatory pitch; on the last sentence it dropped back to a matter-of-fact level.
This was precisely the kind of talk Auberon had dreamed of hearing for a year or more, since the increasing frequency with which he now coughed blood had driven him reluctantly to a series of European doctors, none of whom could offer him anything better than a bed-ridden life in a mountain sanatorium—the last way he wanted to spend his time on Earth. He had never heard Cherouen’s name mentioned in conjunction with tuberculosis, but that reference to putrefaction had struck home.
He ventured, “You think the European doctors are dishonest or just misguided?”
“A little of each,” Cherouen sighed. “Ah, but it’s inevitable, I guess. The stultifying impact of that ancient continent, where the very air must by now be saturated with the residue of outworn superstitions—this alone suffices, I submit, to explain the credulousness and bigotry of such people. They have elevated ordinary cleanliness—for who in his right mind would wish to go about in garments soiled with pus and sputum, let alone have it directly on his skin?—they have hoisted this simple natural principle on to a plinth of gold, and there made oblation to it like a pagan idol! Well was it said by Ambroise Paré, their humble and nonetheless brilliant predecessor, ‘I dress the wounds and God heals them.’ Would his modern successors had half his nobility of spirit!”
He shook his head lugubriously, then collected himself. A smile broke across his face.
“One of my besetting faults is to lecture strangers! Do forgive me. We are here to enjoy ourselves, not ponder matters of life and death.”
“Enjoy,” Auberon repeated thoughtfully. “Well, sir, to tell the truth I was better entertained the day I went to view the Paris morgue.”
Cherouen raised one eyebrow. “Perhaps I should revise my opinion of the air of Europe! In that remark I detect considerable insight.”
That came close to making Auberon bridle; he had had his bellyful of being patronized. But he bit back the reply he intended and looked a question instead.
“You’re correct in dismissing occasions like this as worthless,” Cherouen stated. “Why? Because they never give free rein to our basic impulses. Is a horse, that can gallop all day and jump great obstacles, a better horse for being broken to carriage harness, docked, put in blinders? Is a man better for being starved of what his wild ancestors took for granted, an active and dangerous existence punctuated by delirious bouts of such joy as no words could recapture?”
Cautiously, for this was a controversial subject, Auberon said, “You seem to accept the doctrine of the survival of the fittest.”
“How can any rational person fail to?” Cherouen cried. “And how can anyone fail to see how this sort of shallow pastime is undermining the vitality of our race? Did not the Romans establish mastery over their decadent neighbors by force of will? They had the right idea! They kept their people permanently at the sticking point by the shows and games they held in their arenas, to remind the populace that life and death are a hand’s breadth apart, and regaled themselves with orgies afterwards.” His voice had been rising again; once more it dropped to the pitch of confidentiality, and he turned to fix Auberon with magnetic eyes.
“How debased is the man of today in comparison with his ancestors! Then, the supreme combination of brawn with brain created its own reward—gratification of the physiological necessity which since time immemorial has corresponded to, and in the course of evolution resulted in, longevity and ascendancy. I allude, you realize, to the frequent discharge of the seminal vesicles, which in our ancestors’ case answered to possession of the greatest number of females, hence to the maximum number of progeny. It cannot be otherwise than beneficial, even today, to copy the example which our forebears set, particularly when we are besieged and beset by members of a patently inferior species following the very course I’m recommending! Is it a secret that when Dr. John and Marie Laveau seduced ladies of respectable family into joining their beastly ceremonies, what they hoped to do was plant the inferior seed of Africa in competition with the European strain?” Cherouen drained his glass and added savagely, “It’s happening! Happening all about us! Out in California the Chinese are at it and have been for a generation. Soon enough the Indians will be given their chance too! Men of our race will have rendered themselves decadent, like the last Romans, thanks to prissy ‘morality’ and devitalizing ‘good manners’! And our women, or rather what should have been our women, will give themselves willingly to the stronger and more virile barbaric races. When I witness a spectacle like this”—he made a large gesture with his empty glass—“I don’t look at it, I look past it. I foresee doom for the white race in America, because the vacuous ceremonial it took Europeans millennia to develop is being imported ready-made, saving us the trouble of being the instruments of our own downfall. I don’t know why I decided to come tonight. I wish I hadn’t.”
A strange and heady excitement was taking possession of Auberon by now. Even before leaving for Europe he had heard of the teachings of the Comte de Gobineau; during his travels he had again and again encountered reference to them. Many Frenchmen and Italians, sympathetic to the Southern cause, had sorrowfully shaken their heads when thinking of the difference it might have made had followers of Gobineau been able to put the “peculiar institution” on a proper scientific basis, therewith to defy the North and the world at large. Combined with Darwin’s, his ideas…
Auberon looked covertly about him. There seemed a fair chance of slipping away unnoticed.
“I wonder,” he said sidelong, “whether you would care to—ah—remove to a more stimulating environment.”
Cherouen’s lips parted in a broad grin. “A place where—shall we say?—a white man may plant his seed on the fertile ground of an inferior race?”
“Precisely.”
“Then let’s go.”
In the city ruled by revelry there were many who did not join in. Some could not afford to. Some held that carnival was a device of the devil, and ostentatiou
sly headed for the cathedral or one of the countless other churches. Some had devotions of their own to attend to; that dark faith which ran like a subterranean Mississippi through the lives of so many Orleanians shared its holy days with the Christian calendar, and several of its saints and patrons too.
And some were simply too unhappy.
Caesar had been sacked.
So far this year things had gone tolerably well for him. True, his increasing prosperity had aroused the jealousy of the others lodged under the same roof, whom he had begun to think of as friends for want of anybody closer, so he had been obliged to move out, but the white man whose stand-in he had been for so long had taken to uttering hints about getting a better post and leaving Caesar half, instead of a quarter, of his pay. Thus encouraged, he had found himself a chambre garnie in a house owned by a Creole landlady who before the war had been kept by a rich white man—but he had died of a Union bullet.
At first she had been reluctant to take in Caesar, with his dark skin and “bad” hair, but the prospect of regular rent persuaded her. He had had no difficulty keeping up his payments, even though the promised increase had not yet materialized. Apart from a few drinks at a weekend, and a woman when the need became unbearable, he spent little on himself. Most of what he earned, he saved. To what end? He often wondered. Vaguely he imagined renting a small house where he could set up as a machinery repairman. Now and then, too, he thought of remarrying. But the urge to raise children had left him long ago, and while there were whores willing to take his money, that was enough.
But last payday his unofficial boss had failed to show up. His diffident inquiries among the white men who also worked on the wharf provoked scornful laughter; didn’t he know that Ed’s cousin had fixed him a plum job on a brand-new boat, so he wouldn’t be coming back?
Furious, but hiding the fact behind a meek expression, he decided he had nothing to lose by presenting himself to the paymaster and pointing out that he had been running Mr. Williams’s crane longer than Mr. Williams himself, so he deserved his wages. The paymaster was not an unreasonable man.
But luck was against him.
In the office he found one of the firm’s northern directors, who had come to New Orleans partly on business, partly to spend Mardi Gras here. Caesar, not knowing who this stranger was, explained his case—and the northerner exploded with rage. That one of their expensive modern cranes had been left in the care of a nigger was disgraceful! Get rid of him right now and find a white engineer by Monday!
There was nothing that could be done.
Miserable in his neat lodging house, where the other tenants would not acknowledge his existence even by being rude to him, he had moped away the weekend, knowing it was pointless to look for other skilled work until the holiday was over. Tonight he could stand it no longer. He had drawn on his savings and set out for the place where he had formerly lived. Perhaps those who had driven him away might be in a better mood, pleased to see him again. Or if not him personally, then his money. It should be enough for a barrel of beer and a quart of whiskey and some po’boys. And maybe someone would mention a job he could apply for.
Bribery, Caesar thought bitterly.
But how else could one survive in this sick world? Not by fighting; that had been shown. At least money was a kinder weapon than a gun.
Single-handed, all afternoon Eulalie Lamenthe had been making the house ready: stripped the beds and turned the mattresses, drawn the curtains, covered mirrors, and shut away anything else that might give back a reflection, as the blade of a knife or the bowl of a spoon, for fear an uninvited witness might behold what was to pass.
She had two servants; they had leave to join the merrymaking. There remained a risk they might have overheard something she let slip. To silence them she laid on a platter an ox’s tongue surrounded by grass plucked from a grave and drove a nail through it, muttering the while something between a curse and a prayer.
She was trembling. The import of what she had done was starting to weigh upon her mind. When she first consented to accept the burden of Athalie’s knowledge, she had thought of little save her son, whom she could surely protect if she possessed such magic, although she had not forgiven him for defying her and becoming a pilot. The Marocain brothers were going from success to success, and ironically among their latest triumphs was the financing of the Nonpareil, which everyone said would break all records and become the most profitable steamer on the Mississippi. If only Fernand had dug his heels in, then with the help of his mother’s new powers he could by this time have recovered his proper share of the bank, perhaps broken away and founded a firm on his own. Instead he had opted for a career as chancy and rock-strewn as a rapids.
Moreover, he mocked at her beliefs.
But they were founded in reality. With every new scrap of information she acquired from her cousin, Eulalie became more convinced of it. And one terrifying truth above all obsessed her now.
She had been assured, when she made her pact with Athalie, that she had already paid for her learning. Her man—her two daughters—what more could be required?
But there were those who said that the god known to his followers as Damballah was the same Christians called Satan. And everybody knew what Satan charged for the making of a witch. To have given souls before the event was not enough. One must be surrendered afterward as well.
She had dismissed Cudjo for making too many suggestions about another offering. For all she could tell, he might have gone over to the intruder nobody knew, Mam’zelle Josephine. She half hoped he had, for that would imply he had lost interest in furthering her own power.
Fernand had rebelled against her. He had insulted her. And was still her son!
Some said he was involved with a woman—a servant, pretty, but besmirched with a bastard that luckily had not lived. Very well; most men had affaires before marrying. But a marriage was the least she wanted from her boy! He must live long enough to father a family, and never mind who his wife was!
Yet she had sworn to Athalie she would carry on her work. That meant confronting Josephine. To battle her would call for all Athalie’s skills and maybe more. Therefore there could be no question of evading the full price.
The dilemma was giddying. Sometimes she thought her head would burst apart.
From the front door came a startling knock. She froze like a deer at bay. Suddenly she felt trapped by her clothes, by her body, as though her spirit wished to shed all impediments and flee. It was too soon for callers to arrive! The tall clocks and the small ones agreed; there were many in the house, that she was about to stop because their ticking might disturb tonight’s ceremony.
So who could it be?
Her breathing grew easier. Perhaps some Mardi Gras prankster? Perhaps there was no one on the threshold now, the person having run off—
But the knocker rapped again.
In darkness she braved the journey and let the door gape on its security chain. Alphonse had ordered it fitted; he prized his mistress.
On the threshold was a very thin high-yellow girl, her eye whites enormous in her shadowed face. At the side of the street waited a carriage, its driver statue-still with whip and reins poised.
“Who are you?” Eulalie whispered.
Convulsively the girl thrust toward the narrow opening a magnificent white lily. By reflex Eulalie took it, though she knew she might be making a dire mistake.
“From Mam’zelle Josephine,” the girl said. “Your cousin Athalie is dead.”
She spun on her heel and fled toward the carriage. Eulalie was left immobile, in her hand the flower and in her mind a vision of unspeakable disaster.
Of late Parbury had taken to embracing Dorcas before parting from her at his destination, with many protestations of fondness and dependence. She suffered that, and would have to do so for a while yet. Tonight, though, infected with carnival spirit, he not only embraced but kissed her, and but for a prompt turn of the head would have made it on her lips.
> She disengaged gently, reminding him that this was a public place, and wished him a pleasant evening with his friends. It looked probable; Martineau’s was ablaze with light, and strains of lively music drifted from it.
A doorman appeared and greeted Parbury, and Dorcas was able to hurry away in vast relief. Leading Parbury to believe she felt affection for him had rendered her life infinitely more bearable, for now he took her side automatically in any dispute with his wife. But the risk was growing that one day he might assail her virtue, and she was revolted by the idea of a blind man old enough to be her father taking pleasure from her body.
On the other hand, Fernand…
The moment she rounded the corner she transformed herself from the meek person the Parburys knew into the other Dorcas, the version reserved for her lover. A few months ago she had bought from a second-hand dealer a man’s opera cape of fine black gabardine with a lining of red silk. With the help of Fibby she had altered it into a wholly reversible cloak. Mrs. Parbury, who had only seen its dark side, had grudgingly approved her servant’s economy.
A twitch sufficed to turn it inside out, and it was rich red with black border and collar. Several men whistled at the effect, and she favored them with a smile before setting out for the corner near Griswold’s where she and Fernand regularly met.
His face lit up at the sight of her. Casting her arms around him, she kissed him shamelessly, drawing back at last to say in a near-gasp, “Here’s your scarlet woman again, Mr. Lamenthe!”
With a laugh he took her arm.
“Where shall we go? What shall we do? There’s so much to see tonight!”
“All I want to see is you,” she said, her tone suddenly intense. “Oh, Fernand, I wish we didn’t have to wait so long to get married! And even if we do—yes, I know, I know!”—checking him before he could recite all the reasons—“I wish we could go somewhere and make love. Real love. Total love. My darling, I so much want to be all yours!”