Marie Laveau

by Francine Prose

  He was lying on his side with his back to her when he began to laugh again—a childish giggle, the carefree laughter of a little girl. He rolled back toward her. “Play with me,” he whined.

  “Oh, Jacques ...”

  Jacques stuck out his lower lip. “You promised,” he pouted. “You promised to play with me.” He clenched his fist and flailed his big arms in the air, raining light punches on Marie’s shoulders.

  “Get away from me!” screamed Marie, shivering with terror and disgust. “Stop it!”

  The babyish face turned to a bitter frown. Jacques looked at her with the face of a middle-aged woman—a sad, heavy face lined with pain and disappointment. He began to cry.

  “You never loved me,” he mumbled huskily through his tears. “None of you ever loved me. You sent me flowers, presents, took me to bed. But you never loved me the way I wanted. You lied to me. You cheated me. You broke my heart. You left me all alone. You never cared.”

  Jacques kept sobbing, talking in the husky female voice, pouring out a history of betrayed love. After a while, Marie was crying with him. Burying her face in the pillow, she cried till she couldn’t cry anymore. In the stillness she could hear Jacques still crying.

  She’d get help—maybe Marie Saloppe could give her a root to quiet him. She got out of bed. She took a dress from her closet and put it on, then absentmindedly glanced in the mirror.

  Her heart stopped still. There in the mirror was the laughing young man with the dagger sticking out of his heart. She’d seen the image before—she recalled it from her bad time alone in the house. But now she realized: the young man was Jacques Paris.

  At that moment Jacques screamed. Marie spun on her heel, ran across the room, held him ...

  He was fast asleep. He lay on his back, one arm over his eyes, smiling peacefully.

  By morning Jacques had completely recovered. He awoke her with a kiss and they made love. Afterward they rested in each other’s arms.

  “Some wedding night,” he laughed. “I passed out cold. I guess getting married’s harder work than I thought.”

  Marie searched his face. He looked well rested. He didn’t seem to remember the terrible scene in the middle of the night. “Maybe it never happened,” she thought. “Maybe I was dreaming.”

  Holding her gently, Jacques turned her chin toward the light. “Your eyes are all red,” he said.

  “So it was a dream,” she thought with relief. “I dreamed I was loving you,” she said.

  They ate breakfast in silence, holding hands and smiling when their eyes met. “It’s the same as always,” said Jacques. “Marriage doesn’t change anything.”

  They were finishing their coffee when suddenly Jacques twisted around toward the window behind him. “Did you hear that?” he said. “Somebody calling my name?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “Somebody was yelling for me. Loud and clear.”

  “Nobody was yelling.”

  “Yes,” insisted Jacques, strangely agitated. “I’ll go see.” He ran out the door.

  Marie watched the steam rise from his coffee cup. The steam disappeared. The coffee got cold.

  He didn’t come back. Marie noticed he hadn’t taken his heavy gloves or his apron—he couldn’t have left for work. Maybe he was talking to someone on the street. She walked to the corner. Jacques was nowhere around.

  She followed his usual route to Hardwood Alley, but she didn’t pass him on the way. The shop was still closed. She ran all over town, asking every storekeeper, every tramp in the gutter. No one had seen Jacques go by. Struggling to stay calm, she went home to wait. She forced herself to clear the breakfast dishes, then sat down at the kitchen table.

  The clock struck nine. Seconds ticked away. Water dripped onto the courtyard. Her mind drifted.

  The clock struck ten. She thought: He’s not back yet. She got down on her knees and washed the kitchen floor, paying special attention to each tile.

  Twelve. She got up and lit two Desperate Prayer Candles to St. Jude, two more to the Virgin and Child.

  One. She heard every noise in the street. Every footstep made her heart beat faster. Her hands shook as the footsteps-died away. She listened to every voice, every word. She cursed the loudmouthed strawberry woman for making it hard to hear Jacques’s return.

  Two. She buttered some bread for lunch and couldn’t eat it. Three. She started preparing his dinner, slicing the onions so finely that each one took ten minutes. She set two places at the table. Six. The gumbo got cold.

  Seven. She undressed and got into bed. His smell pervaded the sheets. She found a few of his hairs on the pillow and pressed her face against it as if his hairs were a magic charm to draw him back.

  Eight. She shut her eyes. If only she could sleep, time would disappear. The hours would fly by. She’d wake to see Jacques’s smile. She tried to imagine his kiss, his first words.

  The clock struck ten. She couldn’t sleep. She lay awake worrying, missing him, hating him for waking her up from their good dream of love. Midnight. She went into the kitchen and drank half a bottle of dark rum, then stumbled back to her room.

  The clock struck six. She awoke sick and hung over. Jacques was still gone.

  “You’ve got to help me,” she said, pacing Father Antoine’s cottage. “This never would’ve happened if we hadn’t gotten married.”

  “Bridegroom’s nerves,” said Father Antoine. “Don’t worry. Believe me: I’ve heard plenty of stories. I know. Marriage makes men nervous. They do funny things. They get temperamental. They stop eating. They flirt with other women. Sometimes they even disappear. But sooner or later they adjust. It takes time. He’ll come back.”

  “No,” said Marie. “He’s not just another nervous bridegroom. This is different. I’m scared he’s in bad trouble.”

  “Is there something you haven’t told me? Why do you think he’s in trouble?”

  Marie chewed on a ragged cuticle. She didn’t want to tell him about their wedding night. She couldn’t describe it. Even if she could, he’d never understand.

  “I don’t think anything,” she said. “I feel it in my bones.”

  “Oh, love,” said Marie Saloppe. “It’s a hard case to fix. Your bones are telling you right—he’s in trouble. That business in the middle of the night sounds bad. I don’t know how we’re going to fix it.

  “Now, wait: have you told me everything you remember from that night? How ’bout those accidents before the wedding? How ’bout your dreams? You dream last week? How ’bout your wedding night?”

  “I told you. I dreamed he was marrying another woman.”

  “And later? When you went back to sleep. You dream then?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Try and remember. If you get any new dreams, come tell me right away. Meanwhile let’s see what we can do.” Marie Saloppe pursed her lips. “Listen: see if you can find a couple of his hairs around the house. Braid the hairs and put them in a green bottle. Put the-bottle on the left side of your doorstep. Then draw a picture of him—the best likeness you can do. Hang it upside-down over your doorway. Burn three red Deliver Me Candles to St. Anthony, three days and three nights. Let me know the minute he comes back.”

  Marie went home and searched the house for curly hairs which she painstakingly braided into a long strand. She put a green perfume bottle on her doorstep and spent six hours drawing Jacques’s portrait. She hung the picture, lit three candles and sat down to wait for him.

  She waited three days and three nights. Nine pools of red wax lay before St. Anthony, but Jacques was still gone.

  “I don’t know what it could be,” said Marie Saloppe. “Maybe somebody put a fix on you—some Separation Powder, some Triple Cross Oil, some War Water, Four Thieves Vinegar, Get Away Drops—any of those could’ve done it. I don’t know.

  “Here. Try this. Here’s Goddess of Love Root, some French Love Powder, some Come Back to My Arms Oil. Mix two tablespoons of each with a little Jockey C
lub Cologne. Dab a drop of it in every comer of your house, and while you’re doing it, call his name. Then go down to the cathedral and burn a three-cent church candle to St. Expedite. Ask him to help you quick. Ask St. Mary Magdalene—she knows about runaway men. Take some of this Valerian Root to calm your nerves—’cause you need to keep hoping. You need to believe. You need to expect him back.”

  Marie kept hoping. She dabbed the gluey mixture in the comers of her house and called Jacques’s name. But she didn’t expect him back.

  Her insomnia disappeared. She began to sleep all day. Sleep made the time go faster. She prayed for visions of Jacques, though it seemed he’d even vanished from her dreams. Rum helped her stay asleep; she drank a bottle a night. One afternoon she bought a gram of opium from the one-armed Chinaman on the main wharf.

  Neither the rum nor the opium could take her mind off Jacques. But they helped pass time and numbed her so she could sit still, listening to voices outside, footsteps, dripping water, the ticking clock. After a while, she noticed that the clock had learned a new word.

  “Good-bye,” it said. “Good-bye.”

  “I was dreaming last night.”

  “I know,” said Marie Saloppe. “Your eyes are all red underneath that powder.”

  Marie was annoyed. “You want to hear about it or not? Will it help me get Jacques back?” Marie Saloppe nodded. “Then listen,” Marie went on. “It was a dream I’d had before, as a little girl. I think we won money on if—maybe you remember. But I hadn’t had it for a long time—not till last night.

  “It was that same dream about Mankandal’s bull sacrifice. But this time I didn’t wake up when he kissed me. I started to cry—but I kept on dreaming.

  “When the priest saw me crying, he reached out and held me against his chest. ‘It’s your soul that’s making you cry,’ he whispered. ‘You need to be cleansed. You need the saints to clean your soul. You need to be renewed.’ Then I woke up.”

  Marie Saloppe made her repeat the entire dream, quizzing her on the details, doing rapid computations on a thick strip of bark. At last she put down her pen and smiled.

  “Now you’re talking,” she said. “Now we’re going someplace.”

  Marie Saloppe was going to Santo Domingo. She’d finally won the Grand Jackpot at the Wheel of Fortune Room. The gossip was all over town.

  It was the second Grand Jackpot in two weeks. The first had involved the strange case of a slave named Old Ezekiel who’d stood pat on five numbers before anyone realized he was dead in his spot. His son came in from the plantation to collect.

  And then one Friday morning Pinhead Helen showed up with a tattered strip of bark. She’d stayed by the Wheel for fifteen hours, reading numbers off the bark, making sure her numbers were played. By midnight Marie Saloppe was a rich woman and Clement Moevius was out of business.

  “I’m a gambler,” he said, lovingly packing the wheel into a wooden crate. “I know when my luck’s turned sour. If I were really lucky, Marie Saloppe would be taking me with her.”

  But Marie Saloppe had enough company. She was already taking Grandpa Joel, Pinhead Helen, and her pet toad. “Grandpa Joel’s my lucky charm,” she told the customers who came to say good-bye. “I couldn’t have done it without him. He deserves some good island rum. And I couldn’t leave Helen or Dr. Brown. I couldn’t live without their good advice.”

  The cottage was crowded but Grandpa Joel slept on. Marie stood beside his mattress, inhaling his alcohol breath and watching Marie Saloppe’s friends file through, like mourners come to see the governor’s body in state.

  “My back hurts something fierce,” they told Marie Saloppe. “My belly pains me every time I eat. Who’ll fix me when you’re gone?”

  “Keep taking the same prescription,” she said. “You can refill it at the Crackerjack Drugstore.”

  “The Crackerjack Drugstore can’t heal us like you can,” they argued. “You can’t go.”

  “I got to go. I’m getting old. My medicine’s getting tired. It’s time for me to use some of that good medicine on myself. I need to lie on the warm beach and let the fruit drop into my mouth.

  “Pray to the saints and loas,” she advised her customers, pouring each one a last cup of herbal tea. “Come and see me off Wednesday at the dock.”

  Marie waited until everyone left. Then she sat down at the kitchen table just as she’d done for so many years. Now, though, the table was bare. All the bottles, mortars, pestles, packets, and powders were gone. Except for some furniture, there was nothing in the room but dirty teacups and three fancy new trunks in the center of the floor.

  “You can’t leave,” said Marie.

  “Not you too,” said Marie Saloppe. “I’ve heard the same—”

  “It’s not the same,” Marie insisted. “You said you were my friend. I’ve known you all my life. It was my dream that gave you the combinations to win that money. And now you’re leaving when I need you most. You know how bad I’m hurting. How I’m still suffering over that man. You know my heart’s still broken. That he's my double—there’ll never be anyone like him. You know I can't stay awake and I can’t sleep, can’t do anything but think about him ...”

  “Don’t fret, baby. I’ll still be helping you. I’ll be working on your case even when I’m lying on the beach. I’ll be asking the saints and loas to do their magic. Maybe that boy will come back. If not ... you'll get over him. You don’t need me here to see to it.”

  “I do need you,” Marie pleaded.

  “You don't.” Marie Saloppe sighed impatiently. “Oh, honey, you’ll never listen, not even if I stayed here till I had to tell you from the other world. Everything will be all right. You can take care of yourself. You’ve got the spirits to take care of you.

  “That’s what I said all along. That’s what I told your mama. But neither of you would listen. If you’d only heard me right, you could’ve saved yourself a lot of trouble.

  “It doesn’t matter now. What matters is, the spirits want you to do their work. They’ve picked you from the start. They’ll make sure you keep going. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. You won’t get any peace. You won’t get any rest—the loas will see to that. But you’ll have the power—the power to make them do your work.

  “Once you have the power, you won’t even remember this boy. All your pain will vanish like a bad dream. You’ll have that power, baby. You don’t need me to give it to you.

  “The spirits are looking out for you already. They’re talking in your dreams—telling you what to do better than I ever could. Just do what they say.

  “Listen to that voodoo priest. Listen to your grand-daddy talking through your dreams. If you want to get over that boy—if you want to get over your pain—you need to be cleansed. You need the saints to clean you. You need to be renewed.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Marie said bitterly. “How do I do it? Where do I go?”

  “Go to Doctor John,” said Marie Saloppe. “He’ll help clean your soul. He can heal you. He’s got the power.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  MARIE KNOCKED ON Doctor John’s door.

  A tall white woman parted the orange beaded curtain. Her pale skin, ice-blue eyes and wavy hip-length blonde hair reminded Marie of the Angel Gabriel in the fresco at church.

  “You got an appointment with the doctor?” asked the angel in a thick foreign accent.

  “I’ve got a personal invitation,” said Marie, her yoice as cold as the woman’s eyes. “Tell him Marie Laveau’s here.”

  The angel’s pale lips curled with distaste. Tightening her short green kimono, she disappeared into the back of the house. “Come on,” she said. “The doctor’s busy but he’ll make time for you.” Her manner was a little friendlier, but her eyes were just as cold. “My name’s Sweet Medicine.”

  The large room was lit by seven white candles. Red curtains covered the windows. Adjusting to the darkness, Marie made out the forms of several black women sitting against the walls. A tiny b
rown baby crawled across her path, rolling a huge conch shell.

  Marie stepped over the baby. Sweet-smelling steam rose from a charcoal stove. Piles of junk spilled from the tables onto the floor—glass jars, liquor bottles, rattles, holy pictures, playing cards, bones. Several wooden crosses hung from the ceiling bearing crucified toads with an unsettling resemblance to Marie Saloppe’s Dr. Brown.

  Sweet Medicine pointed toward a back corner. Marie inched foward until her feet found a clear spot. She sat down and was soon joined by Sweet Medicine, carrying a lit candle. “Did the lepers bother you?” she asked.

  Marie shuddered. “They were all over me. Just trying to get a touch of something healthy.”

  “That’s why the doctor makes us live on Lepers’ Row. He says it’s good for business. When his clients sed" how bad off the lepers are, they feel better before they get here. There’s no reasoning with him—he’s a Leo.”

  “It didn’t make me feel better.”

  “I know it. He says the lepers keep the half-breeds away ’cause yellow hates its own kind.”

  Marie flinched. “You don’t talk like a white lady yourself,” she said. “Where you from?”

  “Norway.”

  “How’d you wind up working for—”

  “I’m his lawful wedded wife. Married in church with a ring. ” She displayed a gold band coiled up to her knuckle in the form of a snake. “Them too.” She indicated the women in the shadows. “Six of us. And five babies.”

  “Six wives?”

  “That’s how he wants it.” Sweet Medicine shrugged. “And you? You going to be seventh? He always talks about wanting seven.”

  “Not me,” said Marie. “You can bet money on it.”

  “I didn't think he’d marry a yellow girl.” Sweet Medicine seemed to relax. “It’s an easy life. I like doing nothing. That’s why I came to America. Back home in Norway it’s work work work. Here I can just polish my nails, take walks, do a little cooking, a little whiskey, opium ... All I want is a nice house. The doctor’s promised us a nice house. And we believe him. He’s going somewhere, and we mean to go with him.”