Marie Laveau

by Francine Prose

  The snake took possession of the house. As soon as Marie locked the door behind her, it slithered out between the slats of the huge orange crate Doctor John had given her for carrying it. It glided onto the floor and traced the edges of the straw mat in the foyer, then headed straight for the parlor.

  Marie followed, lighting the lamps to watch it writhing in the pile of the French carpet, twisting across the rug to the yellow silk chair where she liked to sit and think. It raised its hood and swayed slightly, staring at the chair. Then it turned toward the brown leather armchair Doctor John had claimed on his first visit. After a while it lowered its head and moved into the kitchen.

  Gliding over the smooth blue tiles, it circled the table at which she’d courted Jacques. It hopped up onto a chair, then onto the tabletop, where it snatched a large green pepper from a bowl. It swallowed the pepper whole. The ruby on its forehead flashed.

  At last it slid down from the table, across the kitchen and over to a warm dark spot behind the stove where it coiled up and promptly fell asleep.

  “That’s only natural,” said Doctor John. “Snakes sleep all winter. They don’t wake up till spring. But I thought you knew that. I thought that man of yours taught you animal ways.”

  “That’s a cobra,” said Marie. “Cobras don’t sleep so long.”

  “That’s no cobra. It just looks like one. It’s its own kind of snake. Cobras are poisonous. And I wouldn’t give you no poisonous snake.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You are suspicious. You were born under that scorpion. There’s no need being scared of that snake. It’s no proper cobra—it’s a little of every kind of snake. And it's no proper girl or boy snake—it’s a little of both, like the Twins. That’s why it’s so special. That’s why you got to treat it with respect.”

  “Can I turn it back into a walking cane?”

  “That ain’t respect. No, you got to feed it hard-boiled eggs, Texas whiskey and beer, champagne, white chicken meat, and milk for its stomach. You got to keep it company when it eats. You got to get a nice alabaster box for it. You got to listen politely when it talks.”

  “When’s it going to start talking?”

  “When it wakes up,” said Doctor John. “In the spring.”

  That night Marie gambled Fifteen Aquarius on the St. Julian Hotel wheel and made two hundred dollars which she paid a man on Stonemasons’ Row to carve her a big alabaster box like an Egyptian palace. She bought a large supply of eggs, whiskey, beer, champagne, chicken, and milk and left it near the stove. She watched the red ruby gleaming in the darkness and waited for the snake to awake.

  One rainy Monday evening, Marie returned home from Doctor John’s and knew that the snake was awake. She didn’t have to look behind the stove—she could feel its presence in the silent house. She searched for the cobra until she realized it would find her. So she sat down in her yellow chair to wait.

  An hour passed. She forgot the snake and%egan thinking back on her visit with Doctor John, remembering his talk of showmanship, how the weekly spectacles in Congo Square were helping business ...

  Suddenly she caught a glimmer of green light shining down from the top of a tall cupboard, growing brighter, revealing a sharp red heart of light. Bathed in a phosphorescent green aura, the snake slithered down from the cupboard.

  It stopped in front of Marie, coiled its tail, arched its back and raised its hood until its red eyes stared into hers. The light from its eyes merged with that of the ruby into one red beam piercing. Then the cobra hissed—in a cracked ancient voice full of blisters and bubbles.

  “Senselesssss,” it said.

  “What’s senseless?” Marie heard herself whisper like the snake.

  “What’s in your mind. Is senseless. He’s got nothing left.”

  “Who’s got nothing?”

  “Doctor John has nothing to teach you.”

  Marie stared at the ruby. She felt light-headed. Her eyes watered and burned. “Whoa,” she said. “You certainly are direct.”

  “I can’t waste wordsss,” it hissed. “The water rots my voice.”

  “What should I call you?”

  “Many names ... My names change every day ... Right now, it’s ‘Champagne.’ ”

  “ ‘Champagne?’ ”

  “That’sss right.” Its tongue flicked suggestively in the air.

  Marie hurried into the kitchen, opened a fresh bottle of champagne, and poured two glasses. Back in the parlor, she set one down before the snake. It lowered its hood; its tongue darted in and out of the bubbles.

  “Cheersss,” it hissed, emptying the glass. “Call me ‘Good Angel’—that’s my favorite name. Tell folks it’s ‘Mojo Hand’—that’s what they want to hear. And there’s a secret name scratched on the underside of this ruby, pressed tight against my forehead.”

  As the snake spoke of it, the ruby’s light grew stronger. The red beam glared into Marie’s eyes, making her dizzy. The cobra swayed back and forth. At last it bared its fangs in the semblance of a smile.

  “Secretsss,” it hissed. “Keep the secrets to yourself.”

  Marie dreamed she was drinking Garden of Gilead tea in Marie Saloppe’s kitchen. Suddenly Dr. Brown hopped from its birdcage onto the table. Marie Saloppe grabbed the toad and slowly licked it all over. Then she popped it in her mouth and swallowed it whole.

  A moment later she spat it out. Dr. Brown jumped indignantly across the room. Smiling, Marie Saloppe leaned toward Marie.

  “Now do you recognize me?” she said.

  “How are you and that snake getting on?” asked Doctor John.

  “Fine,” said Marie. “We’re getting real close.”

  “I knew it,” said Doctor John. “If you can’t have a man, you might as well have a pet snake.”

  “It’s more than a pet,” said Marie, ignoring his mean allusion to the fact that she hadn’t had a lover since Jacques left. She didn’t need one, she thought. For one thing, she was too busy. Exhausted every night, she fell asleep the minute she got into bed. And then there was the nature of her work—she’d have to keep a million secrets from her man, or else find one who could keep them for her. “That snake’s my friend.”

  Over the past months, Marie had grown fond of the snake’s company. Like her, it seemed to prefer the darkness. It lay coiled up, perfectly still, emitting its soft green glow; somehow she knew it was thinking. Like her, it preferred to be left alone. Whenever the poultry-and-egg woman came to the back door, it stayed out of sight. It even had the sense to keep its distance when Marie returned from Father Antoine’s, her heart full of true Christian light from a world where snakes had lost their voices in the Garden of Eden.

  Once the snake had retired to its alabaster palace and not emerged for a month. Sometimes it spent nights out of the house, moving secretly through the city, peering into windows. Marie never saw it come or go; but one night on her way home, she’d looked up at the mouth of a drainpipe to see a faint but unmistakable green glow, invisible to anyone who didn’t know the signs ...

  “Good,” said Doctor John. “I hope you listen to your friend. ’Cause you stand to learn a lot.”

  “Like what?”

  “Lots of things. Like bluffing. Too bad those magic snakes are so damn smart, adapting to a house so fast, eating from the kitchen. Too bad we know about serving them chicken and champagne—you should watch them do their own killing—dancing around, feinting, pulling back. You could watch them for a lifetime and never know when they’ll strike. They can bluff. Watch them.”

  But Marie was watching Doctor John, wondering if he knew the snake was warning her to get strong and leave his service? If he knew, why had he given it to her in the first place? She laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Doctor John.

  “Nothing.”

  “Look at you. Everything’s written on your face—I can read you with my eyes closed. You better learn from that snake—learn to bluff. Get yourself a good line. Get a bluff like my s
tory about turning into an albatross and riding the winds from Africa.”

  “Then all that was a lie?” asked Marie, thinking: Of course it was a lie. Only a god could turn himself into a bird and live two hundred years. And Doctor John was plenty human. She’d seen him snap at Sweet Medicine and the babies like any overworked husband. Still, even if he were a fraud, he kept the truth a good secret. She couldn’t guess at it. Besides, his power and wealth proved something . . . And he didn’t seem to age. He was as limber and smooth and black and handsome as the night she met him....

  “Not a lie,” he said. “A bluff.”

  “I don’t need a bluff.” Marie rose to leave. “The truth’s strange enough.”

  That night she thought it over: Lately she’d been telling Doctor John just as much good gossip, just as many blackmail secrets. But he wasn’t telling her a thing. It had been years since he’d mentioned the loas, the powers, the secrets, the tricks. Now all he talked of was money, showmanship, stories, bluff ...

  She looked up to see the snake staring her in the eye. “Businesss,” it hissed. “Start your own business.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  “TAKE IT SLOW,” counseled the cobra. “Give yourself time.”

  Marie took it slow. She knew she was ready to work for herself, to get rich and strong; if Doctor John could do it, so could she. But she couldn’t shake her old fear that Doctor John knew more secret powers than he’d ever taught her.

  So she learned to bluff. She’d always had a knack for keeping secrets. Now she was learning to start her business so slowly, so secretly that no one noticed.

  She began withholding information from Doctor John, skipping over regular customers so he’d have to ask her what such-and-such a lady was doing. Refining her deceptions, she’d omit the one essential piece of gossip necessary for the rest to make sense.

  “I don’t get it,” said Doctor John. “Someone’s been stealing face powder from Emma Sands’s dressing room but you don’t know who?”

  “That’s right. Neither does she.”

  “But you always know. What’d you see in the mirror?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You always see something. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Sometimes it didn’t seem worth the trouble—she was tempted to knuckle under and confess. Why not tell him she’d seen Richard Sands stealing the powder to cover his ashy opium-gray skin? Sometimes she wondered if she wanted the business. It was so much work, so much responsibility—so many people needing help, so many shows to put on, so many secrets to remember. Besides, it was dangerous. Having seen what the spirits could do, she wasn’t sure she wanted to do business with them. She could just keep hairdressing. It wasn’t a bad life. She could go on like Sister Delilah ...

  Then she’d picture Sister Delilah wandering through her mazelike corridors complaining about the price of avocados and the meanness of men. And she’d consider Doctor John’s house, the red crystal plums on the chandelier, the silver tiger on Sweet Medicine’s robe. She’d recall the Sunday dance in Congo Square, Doctor John jumping, shouting, strutting through the crowd like the high priest of some powerful tribe ... And she’d lie once more, telling him she’d seen nothing in the mirror.

  But she did see things. And slowly she began to use what she saw to start her own business.

  The fifteenth of May, 1827. 7:55 A.M. Broiling hot already on the way to her first appointment, Marie smelled the florist’s, the butcher’s, the wet lettuce rotting in the vegetable man’s yard. She imagined the grease, sweat and oil waiting in her customers’ hair.

  8 A.M. Lucie Raphael, who never slept well on Sunday nights, was particularly grouchy and irritable. “It’s not the heat,” she told Marie. “Don’t bother with the drying lotion. It’s Armand—he’s impossible. This time I don’t know what it is.”

  Looking in the mirror, Marie saw a tableau from the Nativity pageant at the Ursuline School with Clarisse Recamier in the role of Virgin Mother. Armand played one of the shepherds, kneeling in adoration ...

  “Maybe it’s another woman,” said Marie.

  “Impossible. Armand’s not the type.”

  “If I were you,” Marie went on without quite knowing what she was saying, “I’d get nine lemons and nine grains of salt and put them in a jar for three days. I’d burn a red Get Him Back Candle to Mary Magdalene every night for three nights. Then if you’re lucky, the other woman’s power will leave him.”

  “I’ll do it. But I can’t believe it’s another woman.”

  “Do what I tell you,” said Marie. “And don’t tell anyone else.”

  9 A.M. The damp made Madame Adele’s back ache. This morning it hurt so badly she couldn’t tell an octaroon from a quadroon, a griffe from a mulatto. She kept crossing bloodlines, forgetting people’s great-grandmamas’ names, cheating her neighbors of their rightful share of black and white.

  She squirmed in her chair, until Marie could hardly work. Finally she put down her antimony jar and pressed both palms beneath Madame Adele’s right shoulder blade. She closed her eyes and concentrated on moving the power up from her legs, through her thighs, her heart, out through her fingertips into that helpless spot on Madame Adele’s skinny back.

  “Is that better?” she whispered at last.

  “Why yes.” Madame Adele blinked with surprise. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said Marie. “Don’t mention it to anyone.”

  11 A.M. Elspeth Nedermeyer Harris had moved around the comer from her mother’s into the house her parents had bought when they’d learned their daughter’s American fiance had been disinherited. Marriage hadn’t made Elspeth prettier or smarter; it hadn’t improved her English. But she was smart enough to know her husband Martin never stayed home two nights in a row. She didn’t need English to understand why his neck twisted around whenever he passed a pretty girl.

  Gradually her sad bovine patience had turned to patient bovine sadness. She’d developed a despondent interest in her appearance on the hopeless chance that her own face might someday turn her husband’s head.

  Looking in the mirror, Marie saw Elspeth nursing a fat blond baby. “I know what’s in your mind,” Marie said. “But don’t do it. A baby won’t help. Not yet. It didn’t help Leah get Jacob, and it won’t help you.”

  The morning was growing hotter. As Elspeth’s hand flew to her mouth, a strong smell emanated from the damp spot beneath her arm.

  “What... will ... work?” she stammered.

  “I don’t know,” said Marie. “But I’m working on it. I’m working on your case.”

  11:55 A.M. Over in the American Quarter, the sun was cooler, the breeze a little fresher. But the air in the hot, stuffy houses was just as bad.

  12 Noon. Abby Dobbs Vail wasn’t feeling well. She’d been suffering fainting spells ever since the party she and her doctor-husband Harlan had given a few nights before.

  “What kind of party was it?” asked Marie.

  “A lovely party,” said Abby. “For my birthday. All the nicest men gave me the most exquisite presents. You should’ve seen their wives’ faces ...”

  Marie noticed a silver necklace around Abby’s throat. Suddenly her mirror image changed into the big oval face of Elspeth Nedermeyer Harris—wearing the very same necklace, the bright German silver from her trousseau.

  “It’s that necklace,” said Marie. “It’s bad luck—that’s what’s making you sick. Give it back to Martin Harris.”

  “How did you know where I got it?” asked Abby, feeling one of her dizzy spells come on.

  “I just knew,” said Marie. “Give it back and don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell anyone I know.”

  1 P.M. Emma Sands’s husband Richard had been lost in an opium dream for five years, but Emma, who could spot a stormy marriage from miles away, was oblivious to the bad weather at home. Richard’s complexion was a powder-covered gray. He hadn’t seen daylight for months. Last week he’d fallen asleep at their
own party, an elegant dinner in honor of the new director of the City Opera.

  Looking in the mirror, Marie saw a crypt in Saint Louis One. On top of the mausoleum was a long Chinese pipe and a pair of spectacles with smashed lenses. “You’re very pale, Mrs. Sands,” she said.

  “I know,” said Emma Sands. “I’ve been out of sorts—can’t imagine why. What does one do for pallor?”

  Marie pulled five small cards from her apron pocket—each decorated with an ink drawing of a Chinaman, the same one-armed Chinaman who’d sold her opium after Jacques disappeared. “These are Chinese good-luck cards,” she said. “Leave them around your house where folks can find them. I don’t know if it’ll work. But it might be the first step toward a cure.”

  “For pallor?” Emma Sands sounded doubtful.

  “Yes,” said Marie. “But don’t tell anyone what the cure is for.”

  2 P.M. Lucinda Brown had always been Emma Sands’s equal. Now her pallor matched her neighbor’s—but once again it came from a different source.

  She had a female complaint. Like rude guests, her periods had outstayed their proper time. Now, at this late hour, they were causing grotesque swellings and racking cramps lasting the better part of each month.

  As a pharmacist’s wife, Lucinda Brown knew many drugs could help. But her life had convinced her that no one did anything but watch what people bought at pharmacies. To Lucinda Brown, the simple act of getting medicine for her female complaint at her husband’s shop seemed as public and revealing as flying the bloody napkins from the cathedral spires. So she suffered in secret.

  A wounded black crow appeared in the mirror, its feathers sticky with blood. Marie watched it hop down from the cemetery gate and limp away.