“I know. But I didn’t want to make you sad.”
That was the moment for her to ask: Then why did you leave? How could you go when we were so happy? How could you let the spirits take you so easy? But the levee restrained her and the moment passed.
Jacques reached into his shirt pocket, then held out his fist. “Look,” he said. “I don’t want you to be sad. I’ve got something for you—a birthday present.”
“You’re late. My birthday was last fall.”
“Save it for the next one,” shrugged Jacques.
“What is it?”
“More amber.” Jacques was staring at the base of her neck. Realizing she was still wearing the pendant he’d given her so long ago, Marie flushed with embarrassment, as if she’d been caught weeping over old love letters.
“That’s all right.” Jacques smiled. Opening his fist, he offered Marie his gift—a tiny fish carved in yellow amber. It was the golden fish Jacques had caught from the depths of her dream—where it had promised her anything but the power to make their wild love last forever.
Marie shook her head violently. Now she recalled the times when Jacques had read her mind and divined her dreams before she’d even awakened. Her hands trembled as she turned the amber fish in the light. “No, thanks,” she said, offering it back to him.
“That’s not polite,” he said. “It’s a birthday present.” He spoke the words just as he had that first time in her bed at dawn, rolling toward her across an angry space no wider than the gap between them now.
“No, thanks,” she repeated. Putting the amber in Jacques’s hand, her fingers brushed his palm. It was the first time they’d touched. The rest came flooding back: their bodies making love in the sunshine, resting in God’s handprint. She remembered it clearly, something that happened to her.
The levee broke. Fighting back tears, she twisted away from him. By the time she turned back, he was gone. She ran to the door, but he’d vanished as completely and mysteriously as before.
“It could have been worse,” she told herself. “We could have wasted the whole visit telling each other how happy we’ve been since we parted. At least I’ve got my solitude back. I can rest.”
But her solitude was gone, replaced by a roomful of bad air, by the acrid smell of loneliness. Marie began to cry the kind of tears she hadn’t shed since the first time he’d left, but heavier and more bitter, salted with surprise and contempt for herself, a grown woman who knew better. Yet she kept on crying, mourning for the simple way her life should have gone.
It was almost noon when Marie dried her eyes. Then she rolled up her bed, pulled down her bundle, and softly shut the broken door of Franklin Midnight’s shack behind her.
CHAPTER XXIX
ON THE NIGHT after the big dance on Bayou St. John, two street sweepers noticed a light in Marie’s window. By dawn fifty people were lined up outside her door. Marie got right back to business—hundreds of consultations each day—surefire fixes, healings, spectacular deathbed recoveries every Sunday in Congo Square.
Gradually her clientele began to change. The sick still came to be cured, the brokenhearted to be comforted. But more and more of her clients seemed to be telling the same story: trouble with the law. They asked her to help with property suits and inheritance tangles, to get the police off their trail and their relatives out of jail. It was real trouble—more serious than noisy neighbors or footloose boyfriends. They were ready to pay enormous fees.
Of course they had no idea how easy it was. Legal work was much less draining than healing, less discouraging than prescribing love potions for hopeless romances. It was as easy as this: judges had wives who had hairdressers like Sister Delilah. Lawyers had clerks who had doctors like Marie. Prisoners had news about the crimes their old friends were pulling off.
And Marie had her mirror. Sometimes, in particularly hard cases, she’d ask the mirror to show her the real culprit. Then she’d piece the story together and tell in closed sessions with Judge Henry Morton. Often she cracked baffling mysteries which were ruining the police department’s already tarnished reputation, settled suits which had been dragging on for months. Grateful for her help, the officials returned the favor by throwing an occasional case her way.
Marie preferred saving the innocent; she was easier on poor clients; there were some cases she wouldn’t touch. But once she agreed to help, Marie could do anything. A thousand dollars bought a visit to Judge Morton. For two thousand, she’d go over his head to fix a frayed rope or broken gallows—courtesy of one of her most devoted clients, the hangman.
Most people misunderstood her work. They talked of her fixing judges and juries, attending trials with John the Conqueror Root in her pocket and chili peppers under her tongue—stories which had no bearing on her secret methods. But her power was no secret.
So Marie let them talk.
No punishment is cruel enough for Samson Moses Charles, [editorialized the editor of the Louisiana Mirror ]. Hanging is too merciful for the “Nat Turner of New Orleans, ” the self-styled slave messiah convicted in last week’s bloody murder of Harlan Lester of St. James Parish.
Like Nat Turner, Charles perverted the words of the Holy Bible to justify the shedding of innocent white blood. Like his savage predecessors, Charles refuses to repent, claiming even now that the murder was an honorable way of “settling an old debt.”
The Mirror commends Judge Morton ’s decision to hang Samson Charles next month. Our only regret is that hanging is our cruelest punishment.
“What do you know about Samson Moses Charles?” asked Marie’s new client.
“Just what I read in the papers,” said Marie.
“And you believe it?”
“Why not? Only ... they say he had an army of five hundred slaves. I can’t figure out why I didn’t hear about that.”
“Because there were no five hundred slaves. The papers made that up. Samson was acting alone. He was settling an old debt. He was innocent.”
Marie took another look at her new client—a tall saffron-colored mulatto sitting straight in his chair, dignified as a cavalry officer on horseback. His white linen suit and white shirt were slightly rumpled but obviously expensive and carefully chosen. His almost-Arab features, neat black moustache and goatee had a colored aristocracy look. A thick jagged scar ran from the left side of his forehead to his jaw.
His name came back to her: Christophe Glapion. He ran a bookstore near the square—cheap editions for students, fine bindings for rich whites. He’d been a war hero in 1812. Suddenly she recalled her first sight of him, riding in Andrew Jackson’s victory parade. He was the first person she’d seen after she’d escaped from her mirror all those years ago.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Last week I was reading in Congo Square when I ran into an old army acquaintance, the public defender, Benjamin Ray. Poor Ray was beside himself. Samson Charles was, his client, the trial was days away, and he couldn’t get the man to say a word. ‘You’re an intelligent man,’ he told me. ‘And you’re colored. Please—maybe he’ll talk to you.’ So I followed him to the filthiest cell in Parish Prison—”
“Fourteen?” interrupted Marie, wondering why she was so eager to show him how much she knew about the jail.
“I think that was it. Anyway, Samson talked for three hours—and completely convinced me of his innocence. Here’s his story: He was born on Harlan Lester’s plantation. The Lester family had owned his for three generations. Samson Moses worked beside his daddy in the kitchen. His granddaddy, Old Ezekiel, drove to New Orleans every Friday to buy provisions and feed his gambling habit. Remember the old Wheel of Fortune Room?”
Marie nodded. She knew what was coming next. “That’s where he played. The master knew all about it—it amused him, especially when Old Ezekiel had to work overtime in the main house to earn the money to play.
“ ‘You’ll never win a penny, boy,’ said Harlan Lester’s daddy. ‘That Wheel of Fortune's crooked as a nigger
’s hair. I bet you a gold pocket watch you never win a cent.’
“One day when Samson was fifteen, Old Ezekiel won the Grand Jackpot. The old man died at the wheel—that tall tale come true. But his bet was good—Samson’s daddy came into town to collect. He gave Lester two thousand dollars—freedom for himself, his wife and Samson Moses. Then he requested the gold watch.
“ ‘You’re joking,’ said Harlan Lester’s daddy. ‘You’re lucky I’m not taking that money and keeping you here where you belong.’
“ ‘I mean to collect,’ said Samson Moses’ daddy.
“That’s how Samson Moses tells it. On his deathbed, his daddy made him swear he’d get that watch from Harlan Lester’s son. That’s why he went back to the plantation—he didn’t mean to shoot. Lester got scared and shot first. It was self-defense.”
“And the five hundred slaves? The rebellion?” “The reporters invented that to sell papers. I’m convinced Samson Moses is innocent. That’s why I came to you. My old friend Bastile Croquere suggested ...”
“What’s in it for you?” asked Marie, wondering exactly what Bastile had told him.
“I like to do the right thing,” said Christophe. Then he smiled—a wide-open boy’s grin which brought such life to his face that Marie saw the proud young soldier on his black steed in the victory parade. “That’s the kind of world I want to live in,” he said. “Someplace where everyone does the right thing.”
“He’s a saint,” thought Marie. “Or simpleminded. Or both.” She found herself staring at the scar on his cheekbone and wondering how it felt to trace its crooked length. “I must like simpleminded saints,” she thought.
“I’ll take your case,” she said. “But I won’t make any promises. It’ll take time—two weeks at least.” Christophe smiled again. “There’s a month till the hanging.”
“No promises,” she repeated. “And you’ll have to help. There’s candles to light. Get here every night at midnight and we’ll light twelve Desperate Prayer Candles to St. Damian.”
“I’ll be glad to help.” Christophe looked slyly at her. “If it’s really a matter of candles.”
“It is. Be here tomorrow night.”
“Thank you.” Rising to leave, Christophe stood tall, erect, the leader of Andrew Jackson’s Ninth Native Regiment. “By the way,” he added, halfway out the door, “what’s your fee?”
“I won’t charge you in advance,” said Marie. “That’s how little hope I got for this case. I’ll let you know when it’s time to pay.”
Twelve candles every night: Nine Desperate Prayer Candles asking St. Damian to work on Samson Moses’ case. And—though Christophe never suspected and Marie'herself didn’t yet know why—three Make Him Love Me Candles she was burning on him.
“Tell me about yourself,” she said when there were forty-eight burnt-out candles before St. Damian’s headless trunk.
Christophe laughed. “There’s not much to tell,” he said in his soft slow way. “My daddy was a white man with a conscience. He gave my mama five children. All night we’d hear them carrying on like dogs in heat. ‘Try to do the right thing,’ he’d tell us every morning, patting our heads. ‘And do it as hard as you can.’
“He was as good as his word. He supported my mama in high style, sent us boys to Catholic schools, dueling lessons—”
“Is that how you got such a good commission in the regiment?”
“That was how. But not why. I fought that war with my whole heart. It seemed like the right thing to do—America couldn’t survive unless we showed our exmasters we were free. So I fought hard. I got this scar. I got captured and did four months in solitary on a British prison ship.
“Until then I’d always been too busy to think. But four months in solitary gave me time to get suspicious ... Still, I didn’t know for sure till I got home, till a few days after the victory parade—long enough for the white folks to forget my face.
“I hadn’t been doing right. I’d fought my master’s ex-master. But I wasn’t free. A yellow man’s world in New Orleans just wasn’t the place I wanted to live.
“It took you long enough to find that out. What did you do then?”
“I tried to imagine a better world.”
“He’s a good man,” thought Marie. “He’s a hero to himself. No one can touch him.” And silently she watched the Desperate Prayer Candles burning for Samson Moses Charles, rotting away in jail.
“How’d you get into the book business?” she asked when there were eighty-four candle stubs on the altar.
“I always read a lot,” said Christophe. “When I got back from the war, it was all I could do. My daddy told me I could be anything—a stockbroker, a businessman, I could start my own magazine. But I told him it didn’t seem right. So he sent me on the grand tour—fourteen months in England and France.
“I came home from Europe for my daddy’s funeral and inherited enough so I didn’t need to do anything but read. I was a regular customer at the bookstore near the Ursuline convent. One day the owner told me he was sick of this dirty ignorant city. He asked me if I wanted to buy his shop. ‘Sure,’ I said, fast as that.
“The store makes money. Rich people like those Moroccan leather bindings—they don’t care what’s inside. The students like my cheap editions. It may not be the right thing to do but I’m pretty certain it’s not the wrong one. Does that answer your question?”
“I guess.”
“How did you get into the voodoo business?”
“By accident,” said Marie, lighting another Make Him Love Me Candle for good luck.
Ninety-six lumps of red wax. As they lit the last candle, Marie’s hand brushed Christophe’s arm—surprisingly strong beneath the soft linen. Neither spoke. The tense silence answered the question Marie was asking herself for the eighth night: Why don’t I treat him like those musicians at the tavern? Why not ask him if he wants to spend the night with a voodoo queen?
“Want some coffee?” she asked.
“I’d appreciate it,” said Christophe. “I can’t remember when I’ve had so many late nights.”
She liked the way he drank his coffee—not gulping it down like medicine the way some men did, not slurping it like soup. Christophe sipped slowly, tasting it like wine. “It’s good,” he said.
“Thanks,” said Marie, toasting his coffee cup with her own. “To Samson Moses Charles.”
“To our success,” he said.
One hundred eight burnt-out candles. “What do you learn from all those books?” asked Marie.
“Different things. There was an Englishman who wrote about the natural world where everyone lived in harmony, like Eden with room for more than just Adam and Eve. Later I learned a Chinaman had described the same world centuries before. So I knew it was true. I thought: That’s the place I want to live.”
“Me, too,” said Marie. “How do we get there?”
“I wish I knew. Nobody knows—not those poets who used to collect in my store, nor those journals from up North telling us how we’ll all love each other once we abolish slavery, nor those boys at the Young Colored Men’s Lofty Ideals and Moral Conduct Circle, trying to find some nice way to say they like slavery ’cause it keeps them off the bottom with the black folks. None of them have the answers.”
“Where does voodoo fit into this perfect world of yours?”
“I’m not a fool.” Christophe’s eyes went narrow as a cat’s. “I know we’re not living in that world now. We’re right here in New Orleans where an innocent man named Samson Moses Charles is about to be hanged. Bastile Croquere told me your voodoo power was the only way—so it’s the right thing for me.
“What have you learned from your voodoo?” he asked after awhile.
“Different things,” murmured Marie, studying his left temple, sweet, warm blood pulsing under the skin. “Aren’t you curious about my power?”
“No,” said Christophe. “That’s your business.”
One hundred fifty-six candles had burned dow
n. “How come you never married?” asked Marie.
Christophe blushed. “I never found the right woman.”
“Impossible.”
“It’s true. I had plenty of chances. I was considered a good catch for a deserving colored girl. Mamas were always bringing their daughters by my shop. But think about it: By the time a colored girl gets to me, she’s on her way down. Except for a few whose mamas wanted them married in church with a ring, all the girls I met wanted rich white boys from the quadroon balls. I was the next best thing. And that wasn’t good enough for me.”
“And children? Don’t you want them?”
“I ... suppose,” stammered Christophe. “Often I wondered about bringing them into this world. Sometimes, though, I’d imagine reading my babies to sleep ...” He sighed.
Marie got up and walked around to the stove, then leaned over Christophe’s shoulder. “More coffee?”
Christophe didn’t answer. A charged aura surrounded his body. The coffeepot shook in her hands. “Is something wrong?” she asked, thinking she knew what that something was. He did want her—she could tell. “Something on your mind?”
“Tonight’s the thirteenth night,” he said. “Tomorrow we light the last candles. I can’t help asking—what about Samson Moses Charles?”
“I haven’t forgotten,” said Marie, though for that instant she had. “I’m working on the case. And there’s one more night to work.”
That night Marie dreamed of her grandmother. Beneath the black mantilla, Madame Henriette’s hair was snow-white. She sat at Marie’s kitchen table, sipping Garden of Gilead tea.
Madame Henriette produced a pack of cards from her bodice. Without a word, they began to play poker. But there were no bets, no stakes. At last they showed their hands. Each held a pair of aces.
“Aces,” said Madame Henriette, throwing down her cards in disgust. “No damn good. You can’t do a thing with them. That’s why you need twos, threes. The magic needs somewhere to go. It doesn’t want to die out.”
Marie Laveau Page 26