Our Blissful Bayou Beginnings
Page 4
Chapter Five
Ma Bichette and I crept towards our bedroom in the darkness of the house. The coffin was still where it was left. Everything had worked out. I opened the door, intending to change out of my bloody outfit.
“Well, now what have we got here?” said a voice in the darkness.
Ma Bichette yelped and then covered her mouth. I should have known better, really, than to try and deceive Father. I sighed.
“Bricks.” He said this casually and then turned up the wick on the oil lamp on the table he was sitting next to. He coolly took in my blood stained appearance and my resurrected love.
“Mademoiselle, it is a pleasure to finally see you in the flesh,” Father continued, seemingly unfazed. “I took to wondering, what sort of beauty had tortured my son so? So I snuck a peek after I had retired. I see now that his infatuation was not undue.”
“I can explain,” I said. I couldn’t really, at least not without lying, but I was mighty sick of lying.
“Mon canard, you cannot-”
“Silence yourself,” Father barked. “You have already gotten my son in enough trouble.”
“I have done no such thing!” she protested. She was not used to being treated like an inferior, which unfortunately was the way that Father treated people of color. “Your son, he has done all of these things himself.”
“Silence yourself,” he said again. He looked to me. “What sort of trouble did you get yourself into? What sort of insanity has befallen you? I cannot, for the life of me, understand what is going on here, and I will not be deceived any further.”
“For the life of you!” Ma Bichette shouted from behind me. “That is what it will cost you, old man, if you keep demanding things which are not yours.”
“Control your pet, Rémi, or I will. Now tell me, what in the name of God have you been up to tonight.”
It all came out of me before Ma Bichette could stop me. She glowered at Father with distaste from behind me, narrowing her beautiful brown eyes at him as I covered the whole unlikely ordeal. Father’s face never once registered shock or surprise, even when I ended the tale with the story of what had transpired at the Honore household. What can I say? My options were to either kill Father or tell him the truth, and had previously mentioned, I did want to tell someone.
“Right.” He stood up and addressed Ma Bichette. “You there, you seem clever enough. Is this a shared delusion or are you just going along for the ride?”
Ma Bichette tossed her head at him. She stepped to the front of me, opened my jacket, and slipped my dagger out of it’s sheath. “It will only hurt for a second, mon canard,” she murmured, then plunged the blade into my chest.
I tried to be a man about it and made little to no sound. Father, however, finally shed his cool indifference. He leapt up and violently tore Ma Bichette from me. “You’re mad, the both of you!” He threw Ma Bichette on the bed, where she rolled a few feet and sat up.
“Come on, mon canard, just show him, alright?” she said to me.
Father turned his attention to me. Since I was doused in the blood of Monsieur Honore it was not apparent that I was unharmed. “Father, look, I am perfectly alright,” I said quickly, lest he advance on Ma Bichette. There, of course, was nothing he could do to her, but I did not like to see her in any sort of distress. I quickly pulled off my jacket and then unbuttoned my shirt and opened it, tearing the fabric on the knife still caught in my flesh.
“Nonsense, that’s impossible!”
The brief pain had long since faded and I felt just dandy, physically at least. I yanked the dagger out and made an effort not to gasp, instead gritting my teeth. “See Father? Nothing.” I wiped my skin with the shirt the best I could.
Father forgot about Ma Bichette and approached me. “It’s a trick, a false blade, a slight of hand-”
“We could do this all night, we could go and get knives from the kitchen and the neighbors and pistols and, oh, whatever you’d like, Father.” I gave the knife to him. “Inspect it. It is real.”
He dully inspected the blade. “It is impossible. This is impossible. All of this.” He shook his head. “No. I do not believe it.”
“Your opinion doesn’t matter,” Ma Bichette shot from the bed. She and Father had gotten off on a bad foot. “Believe whatever you want, it won’t change the fact it’s true.”
Father ran his finger over the blade several times. “What have you done?” he asked me softly, terror dawning in his eyes.
“He just told you,” Ma Bichette chirped from the bed. She rolled off the bed and went to my wardrobe.
“I couldn’t not do something,” I answered Father, ignoring Ma Bichette’s unpleasant attitude towards him. “I can’t just concede to a fate I don’t want. Now, I will make my own.”
“You’ve become a murderer! How can you say that you’ve mastered your own fate! You are now controlled by evil! You killed an innocent man!” Father reasoned. He had a point, although I wouldn’t agree with him completely.
“Life wasn’t fair to me or to her, there’s no reason why anyone else should except different,” I quickly replied. I had been thinking about that on the walk home. Life was not fair, and I refused to follow it’s rules anymore. Having eaten that heart changed me in a way. My natural softness and affinity towards non-violent resolutions had been blasted away by such an act. No longer could I pretend that I was a genteel academic. I crave the blood and flesh of mankind, and that isn’t something that can be reconciled with humanist philosophies and dew-eyed idealism. Not that I don’t believe these things don’t have their place in society anymore, but I can not retain those paradigms. It would make me world class hypocrite.
My glib statement relieved Father not one iota. He gaped at me. His staring was making me uncomfortable. I felt like a butterfly pinned under glass. My eyes darted away and I gazed at her. She was idly taking off her dressing gown and pulling on a nightgown.
“Now, listen here, Old Master Toupinier,” Ma Bichette began as she wiggled her divine body into the nightgown. At some point along the line she had completely exhausted modesty and had no reservations about changing with Father in the room. “He is right, it isn’t fair. But I haven’t got a choice now, have I? And you’ve got even less of a choice. The choices that I suggest you make is that you turn your buckra self around, go back out that door, forget that you sneaked a peak at my brick body, forget that you discovered our horrible little secret, and that you go back home.”
Maybe it was a good thing that Ma Bichette and I could never marry because she and Father never would have gotten along. Her tone, rich in disrespect, archaic slurs for white people, and her typical haughty rejection of authority (oh, how the rebel in me loved her so) stirred Father into action. “How dare you speak to me like that?” Father angrily said to her.
“Papa,” I said and pulled him out into the hallway before Ma Bichette could escalate the drama further, “what do you want? This is what happened-”
“No!” Father pulled my hand off of his shoulder. “It didn’t just happen, you decided to do this! You chose this! You bring shame to me and to your mother!”
I glowered at him. “Oh, how would you know? She’s been dead for twenty-five years. Not like the opinion of a woman ever mattered to you anyway.” I want to believe that if Mother had been all the things Father had claimed her to be she would have understood. Father was right, of course, but even more obviously I did not want to hear it.
Father hadn’t laid a finger on me since I was about nine or so, thus my surprise as he clocked me square in the jaw. “You’ll keep your mouth shut about your mother!”
The brief pain was nothing compared to my shock. “Did you just hit me?” It was a solid punch, I honestly didn’t know the sixty-year old man still had it in him. I was a touch impressed.
Father started down the stairs. “You’re weak, Rémi, you always have been. You are weak in spirit and in flesh! I always knew you would come to a bad end, but I hoped it wasn’t true!”
“That! That is exactly what I mean!” Father tore through the hall closet, searching for his coat. “You are a soft creature, your heart so fragile it can be corrupted by any harlot which has designs on you!”
“You will not call her that!” I yelled from the balcony.
“Never darken my door again!” Father yelled as he slammed the door behind him.
Ma Bichette cautiously opened the bedroom door. “Are you all right?”
How could I be? I turned towards her slowly. “Yes.”
She smiled at me sadly. “You do not need to lie to me, mon canard.”
“It will be all right.” That had become my mantra.
She took my hand gently and pulled me back into the bedroom. “Come and sleep, you’ll feel better. You’re tired, we both are.” I must have looked more despondent than usual.
“I can’t, I need prepare the paperwork.” Alava was due to come in a few hours. I had nearly forgotten my deal with her in the hustle and bustle of the last day.
She made some light disparaging noises. “You are just covered in blood, at least take that off.”
I sat down on the bed and started to undress. Ma Bichette busied herself by searching for the little metal box in which I kept all important papers, deeds included. “You know, I was thinking, there really is no ceiling to this. We do not really have to hide, no one can stop us, no one can kill us,” she said and she slipped my shirt off.
“You have got to be joking,” I answered. My incredulous concern at her suggestion was never to slacken. Even now sometimes she brings it up. “That is the last thing we would want, having everyone know what we are.”
“Why?” she pointedly asked. “Why hide it? We cannot change anything now. Why not live like gods?”
I turned to stare at her. “Because…” I was at a loss for words. Of all of the reasons why not, the first and foremost in my mind was what Father had delineated for me. I had made the choice to be a monster, and while nowadays that would be quite hep, two-hundred years ago it was not the sort of things that got you invited to nice diner parties. Of course, I would no longer be invited to them in New Orleans anyway, but I held out hope that eventually I may begin to reintroduce myself to society, if for no other reason than to make hunting my unworthy prey easier. Secondly, it certainly would make it harder to function in day to day affairs if everyone knew we were damnable ghouls. I honestly feel I don’t need to list all of the ways that our curse should be kept secret.
“Why though?” she smiled with her thoughts of domination over her supposed superiors. “No longer would I have to step aside for them, no more waiting until everyone else has been helped,” she clasped my hands in excitement. “Let’s stay here, mon canard, and tell them all what happened. And then let’s get married! Let’s see them try to stop us!”
The enthusiasm in her voice was hard to say no to, but I suppose I must begin somewhere. “Ma Bichette, that really is not the best idea. Alava might not be happy, for one, and she could probably destroy us if she wanted. Imagine if everyone found out that it was possible? After a while everyone would be like us or eaten. And hunting won’t be easy if people are barring their windows.”
Her smile fell. “Yes, I suppose,” she admitted. She has never been as discrete as I am with her hunting. I think a part of her wants to get caught just so that she can lord her superior traits over the common folk, but out of respect for me she does not come out and expose herself to the world.
I took my pants off and went to the bath room to wipe the blood off. When I came back to bed Ma Bichette had my lap desk waiting for me. Oh, writing used to be a sheer ordeal. Fountain pens and dip pens wouldn’t be available for a while yet so I still used a quill pen. As opposed to having a pen you had the pen and all the accessories that went with it-an ink bottle, blotting powder and little sharpening tools for the quill itself. The act of writing was much more annoying, since the ink would only flow out of the quill in a certain way and you had to take care not to make any abrupt movements. You are all spoiled, with your cheap ballpoint pens and keyboards and texting. I say this without jealousy but with the desire to educate-everything, from writing to lighting a cigar (remember, the humble match had yet to be invented in 1811) to major things like transportation and agriculture, was much more difficult than it is today. Just the effort required to make white sugar is monumental. White sugar used to be a luxury, which is why back so few people were land whales. You didn’t just put it in everything, you savored the infrequency of which you used it. I had plenty of it, of course, to put in my coffee and make cakes with, but most people used it sparingly.
The reason I am going off on this little tangent here is to remind you that probably everything within your immediate radius is an unimaginable luxury to the general populace of two centuries ago. Eating meat every day or most days was hallmark of the upper class. Books and newspapers were expensive since paper itself was expensive, not to mention some poor bastard had to line up the letters by hand. Glass was hand blown and very difficult to get perfectly flat, and as such our window panes were a bit bumpy. For goodness sake, I rode a damn horse not because I was a horse hobbyist, like so many people are today, but because that was how you got around. You had this massive beast which had to be fed and watered and brushed down and shit everywhere and oh yes, it might just decide to die of disease or infection or it might die because God only knows why. Why in the name of all that is holy and unholy would people still want to muck about with these unpleasant things when someone has gone through all the trouble of making a car I can’t fathom. You cannot imagine the inconvenience in which we led our lives, but to us? It was normal. God forbid I had been a woman, the clothing alone would have been enough to drive me to murder.
Although Ma Bichette was functionally illiterate (she is not now, of course, and should you suggest such a thing to her she will rip your heart out even if it isn’t either of her times of her month) she was trying to learn, but legal documents are not really the best place to begin. She had a slate upon which she’d practice copying out whatever it was I was writing, so instead of the simple sentences about dogs running or cats eating or whatever simple sentences that lend themselves to learning, she practiced forming letters with phrases such ‘force majeure’ and ‘travaux préparatoires’. Tonight was no exception and while I sat up in bed, carefully wording out my part of the arrangement, she sat next to me and studiously practiced her words, occasionally interrupting me to ask on the specification of pronunciation or some such. This little ritual served to calm her and brushed her vengeful thoughts of domination away.
I had a fitful sleep that night since I was expecting Alava and her lawyer to come in a few hours. Ma Bichette slept well though, her perfect little body curled against mine the whole time. Things were beginning to settle back into normal. This was to be last night we slept in this room, however, since as soon as my business was concluded with Alava we would leave. I wanted to hold on to those hours of peace for as long as I could. I shut my eyes tight and squeezed Ma Bichette and spent all my mental energy committing that sensation to memory. This is why I had done it, I told myself and soaked up her warmth and smell and the slight movement of her breathing. No matter what would and could ever happen, I would have that memory which I could take out and huddle around for warmth.
About half an hour before dawn I heard the stirring of the city. It was a sound that I rarely heard as I tended to sleep late. I was about to wake Ma Bichette when she awoke herself. She sleepily turned to me and opened her mouth to say something, but what it was replaced by the pounding of the front door. Since I had freed the servants yesterday there was no one to answer it.
Ma Bichette leapt out of bed and peered out the window, quickly followed by me. The predawn glow gave a silhouette of young lady in a nightgown. “Rémi! Rémi! Rém
i!” she screamed as she pounded. “I must talk to you!”
I had supposed it was her anyway. I didn’t expect Alava to make her entrance via something as mundane as a door. I laid back in bed. Let her make a spectacle of herself in front of the neighborhood. Maybe it would give all the busybodies something to talk about other than me.
Ma Bichette continued to observe her though, taking care to keep hidden behind the curtain. “She’s frantic,” she said with joy in her voice. “Oh, she believed me! I was worried she wouldn’t.”
“Yes, well you did sort of eviscerate her father now, didn’t you?”
Ma Bichette shot me a look. “Who did what now?”
“Ma bichette, you are the horrible vengeful ghost. I’ve been here in bed all night. Grieving.”
She threw a pillow at me. “You are horrible,” she said with a smile. “Look at you, ignoring your fiancé when she is in such dire straits.”
I am sure I had some snarky little remark to give in return, but at that moment a rather heavy rock was thrown through my bedroom window, nearly hitting Ma Bichette. “Rémi!” Louisa shouted again and again from the street.
“Looks like you made her crazy,” I mumbled as I sat up. May as well get dressed, Alava would be there before too long.
“I think she was already crazy,” Ma Bichette said over the increasingly high pitched yells from Louisa. “Good thing you found out about this before the wedding.” She dressed in what I had bought from Bess.
“Rémi! It killed Father! It’s coming for you!”
“Now, I don’t think she listened to me at all. Why would I kill you? I haven’t got anything against you,” Ma Bichette mused. “What did you like about her again?”
“Oh, come on, give her a break, you’ve clearly scared the daylights out of her.”
Another rock sailed through the window and broke a mirror. Alava was not going to be pleased about that. Oh that’s another thing, mirrors were ridiculously expensive. I bought Ma Bichette a little pocket mirror in a case with her initials engraved on it for her birthday some two-hundred years ago and I was gratified last time I saw her to see that she still uses it.
“Maybe you’d better do something. Isn’t Alava coming by soon?”
I shrugged. “Let her scream all she wants. I am sure Alava can get in here if she wants without using the front door.”
“Indeed I can,” Alava answered from behind me.
Just amazing. The bedroom door didn’t even open. “Uh, welcome,” I managed to stammer out.
She nodded at Ma Bichette and I. “Since I’ve already seen both of your unmentionables I decided that there wasn’t any more harm that could be done by coming right into your bedroom.” Alava almost seemed disappointed that we had dressed. Oh, I do not mean in a sexual way, I think she just would have enjoying catching us off guard. “My lawyer is waiting downstairs though, of course.”
“I will pack some things,” Ma Bichette said. “No clothes though.”
Alava eyed her. “Well you can keep what you are wearing. And what is that racket? Obviously she wants to talk to you. Go down there and shut her up, it’s much to early to listen to this.”
“Uh, well, it’s complicated,” I started to explain but I suddenly heard Alava in my head again.
I just looked at your memories, it’s quicker than you explaining, she thought at me. Very well then, it’s your choice. So you shouldn’t have a problem with this. Alava took out a small polished stone from a roughly sewn reticule, rubbed it on the back of her hand in a counter clockwise motion several times. Louisa suddenly stopped squealing.
The little rock in Alava’s fingers shimmered for a moment, then she noticed me watching her and placed it against her neck. “Oh, how could you, mon chéri, how could you go to that nasty old witch?” Alava said in Louisa’s voice. It was startling, to say the least.
Ma Bichette grinned at my discomfort. “Wonderful!” she commented in a low voice, less anyone hear her now that Louisa could not drown her out.
Alava tossed it at her. “Keep it. I’ve got dozens.”
Oh, the fun Ma Bichette would have with that in the decades to come. For years it hilarious to her to press it against her neck and proposition me in terms so vulgar I cannot bring myself to repeat them. She got quite the thrill out of debasing her rival like that, but after the first hundred times it got annoying.
Downstairs her lawyer was waiting at the dining table. His Acadian accent was thick and quite the contrast to my and Ma Bichette’s humid drawl. I wondered exactly who he was. Was he like us? He must have been in the know to some degree since he had relatively few questions as he reviewed my documents. Several signatures later I was officially homeless and debt free.
“It was a pleasure,” Alava said after her lawyer handed her the papers. “I want to move in today. When are you leaving?”
“As soon as she’s done packing.” I was going to miss my home, where I had spent what was undoubtedly the happiest year of my nearly two hundred and twenty seven. It still stands, although I believe there has been some flood damage. It was even on the market not too long ago and for a wild moment I thought about buying it back. But that was a pipe dream. I could never have any of that back. Louisa may have killed Ma Bichette and set all of these things into motion, but I was accountable for this catastrophe in a lesser capacity. I’ve ruminated upon it earlier, but choices I had made had led to this. Ma Bichette had been the only innocent party in this whole tragic affair, a fact that would be pointed out to me time and time again by her.
However, that would all be hashed out later.
At that moment the only thing we had to put a damper on our spirits was the gruesome business of, well, you’re well aware. We had each other, we had forever, we had perfect invulnerable bodies. We assumed that that would be enough to sate us forever. But forever is a very long time.