Take One Candle Light a Room

by Susan Straight

  The rapid double notes, the mysterious hesitations and then whirling responses. Nicolas Perroy. The pianist I’d had a crush on in France, during my semester abroad.

  It was the first piece I’d ever written. Not an essay, not a story. He played in a stone church, in a tiny village above Valreas. Nicolas Perroy’s long black bangs had fallen into his face, and I’d realized that was part of the pianist’s trademark—the movements of his head and back, his hair dancing, his cheekbones slashing through the light. I wrote about the walls of the church, the candlelight, the cherubim, the music. But I knew feux follets from Louisiana, from the woods where Moinette had lived, where Glorette and I had heard stories from Aunt Almoinette, the dangerous lights in the cypress swamp that wanted to lure you to drowning or madness.

  I wrote about the sound of the piano notes as the moving mysterious lights in the trees. Then the reception, with dark red wines and bread and cheese and truffles harvested from the white oak grove a few miles down the road.

  Professor Stiegal called me into his office. “You made me fall in love,” he said, his lowered glasses like clear spoons resting on his cheeks when he looked across the desk. “I’m going to send this to my friend at the Los Angeles Times right now.”

  My first check. One hundred dollars.

  A black Jeep Cherokee pulled into the last space, two over from mine. My car was dark inside, but the parking lot light illuminated me. I rolled up the window, and waited to see who was in the Cherokee. The couple from the breakfast room got out, and stood there arguing quietly. She leaned with her hands on the hood for a moment.

  It was eleven here. Nine p.m. at home. I dialed Cerise, and started to get out of the car. She answered before I could close the car door.

  “Why the hell you ain’t told us what happened?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Your maman told me come down to the box houses with her. I ain’t seen her like that in years. So we go stompin down there, and she has the key. She busts on in and Bettina got that dude up there. Fool from the swap meet.”

  “Dahani.”

  “Yeah. Your maman gives him the look. The one could burn wood. She says, ‘Get out.’ That man like to run outta there. Then your maman told Bettina she better talk. Said your papa told her Victor got shot. Bettina start whinin about ain’t nobody called her, and her son said, ‘Yeah, Fonso called. He said they goin to On-Ri.’ ”

  On-Ri? I closed the car door and leaned my butt against it, trying to hear her. “What?”

  “Your maman said, On-ri too old for that foolish. Said he live in Sarrat. The old Sarrat.”

  Was there an uncle Henri?

  Cerise whispered, “Your maman told Bettina get out tomorrow morning.”

  The couple walked around the other car, and the woman stopped dead when she saw me.

  “Hold up a second,” I said, low, to Cerise.

  “I thought this motel was decent.”

  She gave me that look, and immediately I knew what it was. Damn. My hair was an explosion like Spanish moss, curling around my forehead. “Who’s she supposed to be—a low-rent Halle Berry?”

  “You’re a little drunk,” he said to her. “This isn’t appropriate.”

  “This ain’t Seattle, Gavin. You’re not from here. What—she’s setting up an appointment?”

  I put my palm over the phone, smiled and raised my voice. “Actually, I’m doing a stock trade.”

  “At eleven?” She held up her wrist. Wow. She had a watch. What a victory. Then she stumbled into her man.

  “In Tok-yo,” I said, enunciating as if speaking to a small child. “That would be Ja-pan. It’s daytime there. Excuse me.”

  I turned away and walked toward the cement base of the motel sign.

  I said to Cerise. “Tell Maman we’re probably close to Sarrat. Tell her Papa’s fine. He’s in the motel watching the Weather Channel.”

  I put the key in the lock and said, “Papa, it’s me,” as quietly as I could.

  A different gun was on the round plywood table. A short-barreled shotgun. He was cleaning it, with a flannel and a vial of oil and shells nearby.

  My father had showered and shaved. I smelled the shaving cream. The room was dank and cold and wet. He wore different clothes, and his boots were laced loose again.

  “They’re in Sarrat,” I said. “At Henri’s house. Maman found out from Bettina.”

  He nodded. “Henri. Claudine uncle.” Then he said, “Cinq-heure,” as if it were one magical word. Five hours from here? “Sunrise 6:23. We leave 7.” He rubbed the oil from his hands with the hotel washcloth. “They don’t hunt matin, no.” Not in the light of morning. Whatever had happened to my father in Texas, it had happened at night.

  “I’m going to call him one more time,” I said. “I’ll be right out here.”

  On the floor of the hallway, fluorescent and long as a tiled freeway tunnel in Switzerland, I dialed, and he said, “Yeah.” The voice was rough and deep.

  “Victor?”

  “You still in Paris?”

  Not Victor. “Yes. I won’t be home for a few more days.”

  “This ain’t him. This is JZ.”

  I kept my voice steady and cheerful. “You get your braids redone?”

  “Hilarious. VP already told me you know what’s goin on. Said you heard on the news about that fool. Before you left for Paris.”

  He actually believed I was in Paris? “Where are you?”

  “Where we need to be.”

  “Where’s Victor?”

  “Sleep.”

  “Jazen. What happened in Burbank?”

  “We Westside Loc Mafia. He needed to know.”

  I said, “Jazen. Loc is short for loco. A Spanish word. Popularized by Tone Loc, remember, the rapper? And Mafia is an Italian word. Southern Italy. Are you crazy? You’re from the Westside—about forty blocks of the city of Rio Seco. None of that’s worth dying.”

  “I ain’t dyin.”

  I had to stifle the anger. “This isn’t time to play games. You need to drop my nephew off at a hospital and someone will come get him.” I looked down at the carpet underneath me, the soda or beer spills near my feet like sullen dark clouds.

  He laughed. “Oh, you in a fancy-ass hotel in Paris, and you worried about Victor? You don’t give a shit. But you send your brothers to come get him, right? I heard about them. Hard motherfuckas back in the day. This is the night.”

  “Victor wasn’t even involved.”

  Jazen laughed—one deep bark. “In-volved? You a writer and think you know all the fuckin words? He was with the nigga pulled the trigga. That’s all they care about. And you ain’t his mama.”

  “I’m his marraine. Godmother. Same thing now.”

  He laughed again. “Don’t seem like it to me. You in Paris. Sisia told me one time, said you act like some white chick. But that’s cool—ain’t no real niggas in Paris, so nobody bust you.”

  I leaned against the wall. “You know who I see in Paris? On the subway? Rappers that look like you and Alfonso. Maybe from Algeria or Morocco. Maybe born in France. There’s plenty of brothas in France.”

  “They ain’t keepin it real cause they don’t know what real is,” he said, and his voice was suddenly light. I could hear him moving, hear a screen door slam shut, and then a car door open. “Here,” he said, his voice distant now. “Your crazy-ass family.”

  “Hey.” Victor’s voice was weak. The screen door slammed again. He must be outside.

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “You in Paris.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “Victor, I’m in Texas.”

  “Whatever.”

  “We’ll catch up with you tomorrow, if you’re in Sarrat. You’re at Uncle Henri’s house. When we get close, I’ll call you, and you can take a walk, or go to the store.”

  “We at some old man’s house. But with a guy looks kinda like Tony Soprano.”

  I tried
to picture that. A door opened at the end of the hallway and the same drunk woman came out and looked both ways. Then she walked toward the stairwell, and I heard the ice machine like a frozen waterfall. She gave me a distant dirty look, and then she tripped. The ice bucket dropped. Ice like diamonds along the carpet. She said, “Well, shit,” and went back inside.

  “Whatever. I gotta take the fall.”

  “What?”

  “Jazen already did time. Fonso been in. They said I gotta do it. First offense. Do about two years. Three hots and a cot.”

  “Why are you talking like this?”

  “I got a bullet in my arm.”

  “What?”

  “It’s still in there. But I can’t go to the hospital cause then they’ll take out the bullet and call the cops to see where it came from. They can ID the bullet and see it’s from that dude’s gun. Then they’ll arrest us.”

  “We’re taking you to the hospital as soon as we get there,” I said.

  He laughed a little, like his old self. But then he said, “No need. I’m gonna die. Somebody’s gonna shoot me again. Every time we go to a 7-Eleven for some food they want to shoot us. Three niggas. That’s a gang. Dude behind the counter darker than me and got his hand under the counter. I see his piece. I’m like, Where you from, man?, and he’s all suspicious and says Madras and I’m like, Cool, The Outsiders. Cause Marcus Thompson gave me that book and the rich white kids wear Madras shirts, which is crazy cause that’s like, from India.”

  I tried to picture the house. “Are you in a driveway?”

  “Yard. I guess that’s cane all around us. Must be a levee around here,” he said. “Led Zeppelin could come by.”

  “Is there someone named Henri?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did they give you some rum again, for the pain?”

  “Somethin they call lean. Purple drank. Sweet like candy. Snoop Dogg and them all have these fancy cups for their drank. Like kings. Like the wrestler’s cup.”

  A battered face, misshapen ear and lumpy nose, cruel mouth.

  “Where’s the Constable? The River Dedham?”

  “The Huntington,” I said. “We’ll go.”

  “I got a 7-Eleven cup right here,” he said dreamily. “I’m worth savin now cause you think I’m smart? I’m inculcated with value?”

  “Knowledge for the sake of knowledge. A flaneur,” I said desperately.

  “You thought I wanted to be you? A writer?”

  “What?”

  “Said you have a present for me.”

  The messenger bag. It seemed so useless now. “I do. It can hold a new laptop.”

  “Cool,” he said, faintly. “But I wanted to be Zelman. And some Thompson mixed in. Not you.”

  Wanted? Past tense?

  “A brotha could be goofy back in the nineties. Like Humpty, or De La Soul. But now don’t matter how I look. So don’t even think about me comin to LA. Don’t matter if I’m bald or got a fro or dreads. It’s all gangsta.”

  “Kanye’s allowed to be funny.”

  “But he called you a mutt.”

  “Me?”

  “Half girls.”

  “After all these centuries, how are we still gonna be exactly half?”

  No joking. He was breathing harder. Then he said, “You eat good in Paris?”

  “She made it?” Alfonso said near him. “Tell her bring me—what they got in Paris? What I want?”

  His voice was expansive, generous. No big deal. We shot somebody and now we’re on a road trip. Everyone’s on a road trip. It’s summer. Not April in Paris. August in Louisiana. Too bad I couldn’t bring him a young woman from an outlying Parisian banlieu who wanted someone’s hand on the small of her back.

  Alfonso said, “Bring us some Chanel. Case we meet some ladies.”

  Victor whispered, “You know what I’m playing on the iPod? The Stones. You never told me why you hate the Stones.” He sang, “ ‘Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste.’ ”

  “I saw the Montesquieu quote. In your notebook.”

  “You hate the Stones.”

  “I hate one song. ‘Brown Sugar.’ ”

  “Wait—that’s what it says on her picture.”

  “Yeah.” I listened to him breathe heavily. “She’s right here.”

  He was quiet for a long time. “Jazen, man, his measure of pleasure is he can read a person in one heartbeat. Like—uh. Remember every name in Rio Seco and every dollar they owe.”

  “And what about Alfonso?”

  “He’s just—he’s just so pretty, he really wouldn’t have to do anything if he had the right woman. But he’s so pretty, fools are always steppin to him, or testin him.”

  “And he’s got the gun?”

  “Both of em,” Victor whispered slowly. “But Fonso do the do, yeah. JZ ain’t never shot nobody.” Alfonso did the shooting and Jazen always got off, I thought.

  “A bullet in your arm.” I winced. The soft part. I held up my own arm, bent it, tried to see.

  His voice broke. “Makes me real. A real nigga.”

  We breathed in the quiet.

  “Don’t go,” Victor said. He was close to crying. “When I listened to your messages, it was like talking to you. Like we were in LA. In the kitchen.”

  My heart pounded against my breastbone again. This was how they got you. Children. They made you feel like no one else in the world would compare. Pure need.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m in a fancy hotel in Paris,” I said. “Marble floors and gold leaf on the chandelier.”

  But then I heard voices down the hall. The guy said, “You can’t just leave it here. That’s so irresponsible. It’s bad for the carpet. It’s how mold develops.” He bent to his knees and moved along the floor, scooping up the ice and dumping it into the bucket.

  Suddenly I saw Les Raboteurs de Parquet. The first print I ever bought. A salon or ballroom with white-and-gold-paneled walls, three men on the wood floor, scraping off the old finish with crude tools. The dark varnish shone in the light of the painting. Like irrigation water. I’d stood there before it. Gustave Caillebotte. The men’s arms ropy with muscle, the curled shavings collected in a pile. One man speaking, one listening. A grievance, a woman, a meal.

  The man raked his forearm to pile the ice and then pushed it into the plastic bucket. He stood up heavily and looked at me for a long time. I looked away. The door closed.

  My hair twirling and waving around my face. My nails longer than usual. Fur and claws. That’s what Moinette taught Marie-Therese, who taught her daughter, Anjanae, who told me when I was in Azure. Only difference between humans is fur and claws and skin. Same blood inside.

  “I’m a nigger right now,” I said to Victor. “A high yellow nigger. Neither fish nor fowl. Quadroon. So what are you?”

  “Black cracka.” He hesitated. His voice was still slow and syrupy. “Last fall, I was in the quad, and football players come up, and one of em was like, Yo, brotha, you got some shoulders. Why you ain’t playin ball? I was like, I’m too busy. And then he started laughin. What’s your major and shit? He was a big brotha. Frontin for his boys. I said, English literature and history. Double major. He was like, Oh, you a black cracker?”

  The hallway hummed. “A what?”

  “Brotha was talkin all Alabama or Louisiana, and I bet he was born in Rio Seco.”

  “Maybe he was Cleveland,” I whispered, thinking of Grady trying so hard.

  “I was like, You know where the word cracker comes from? Being so poor you gotta eat crackers instead of bread.”

  “Did that work?” I said.

  “Mayeli walked up then, and this brotha was like, Ay, shawty, you don’t want him—he majorin in English and I already speak that language.”

  I said, “Gotta give him some.”

  Victor laughed weakly. “You gotta hear Mayeli. She sounds like she’s from England sometimes. She was like, I speak English, too, growin up in Teakettle, speak the K
ing’s English, speak Creole. But not cracker, nuh, man.” He tried to imitate her Belizean accent, and I laughed, too.

  “I can’t wait to meet her,” I said.

  “But you won’t. I ain’t gon make it back to Cali.”

  “You’re a Picard. I’m an Antoine. You got your grandpère’s toughness—that man saved my father’s life. And my father’d be pissed off if he heard you.”

  “He lived by the river. He had a boat,” Victor murmured.

  “Yeah—you want to talk niggas? Every day, my father and these other men would go to the docks where the oystermen kept their boats, and they’d say, I need one nigger.”

  “What?”

  “The oystermen were guys from Yugoslavia. It was after the war, the 1940s. That’s what they said. He told me, Every day he was one nigger.

  He shoveled the oysters on deck and loaded them into burlap sacks and then unloaded them at the dock. For four years. And then some old man died, and he didn’t have sons, and Papa bought his boat. He’d been saving his money, living with his aunt. It was a little boat, he told us. And on the side, the name was Anna. For the dead wife of the old man. My father painted it over and then put One Nigger. That’s what he named the boat. He knew it would piss everybody off. White or black, they were mad. And he just smiled.”

  “What happened to the boat?” Victor said, softly. A bedtime story. Nice.

  “It’s still down there, I guess,” I said. “I don’t know who has it now. I haven’t thought about it for years.”

  “My treasure,” he whispered. “From Lafitte’s dude. He was Picard. My moms told me. It’s for me. Not you.”

  “What?”

  “I’ma crash now.”

  What did he mean—I wasn’t descended from the pirate? What had Glorette told him?

  My father sat on the bed, fully clothed, boots laced loosely. The gun was hidden. The storm whirled on TV.

  The knock on the door was gentle, secretive. My father moved only his eyes, so I said, experimentally, “Must be the lady from the front. She was nice.”

  I went to the peephole—what a strange name to still call it. The husband from down the hall stood there, his head bent so I could see the sunburn inside his part. Seattle. Scalp like pink yarn. He said in a low voice, “Are you free now?” He knocked again, gently, two more times. I stood there, frozen. He whispered, “I’m not interested in the mask. All that.”