A Twisted Ladder (20 page)

Ethan chuckled. “Oh, and the washboard is such a common instrument. Come on now, there idn’t any difference between Cajun music and zydeco.”

“Sure there is! Cajun music was influenced by Scotch. Irish. German. French.” He counted each on his fingers. “. . . American Indian. French.”

“You said French already,” Ethan pointed out.

“I know I said it, son, you ain’t listenin. French. Anglo-American. Afro-Caribbean. And French. That’s Cajun music. Now zydeco, that’s black Creole music, plain and simple. It’s bluuuesy.” Daddy waggled his fingers.

Ethan looked skeptical. “Bluesy. With a washboard. Because the washboard is such a sad, soulful instrument.”

Sheriff Cavanaugh winked at Madeleine.

Madeleine bent her head toward the sheriff. “Has Zenon done something wrong?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know he do somethin wrong, particularly, but he have a whole lifetime of not doin right. I got a call from some detectives in Baton Rouge, got their eye on him. He always gettin in trouble, baby.”

He took a sip of beer. “That Zenon is bad news. I knew his mama, mean as hell. She beat that boy all growin up. Then his daddy just disappear one day. His mama say he run off, but the gossip says otherwise.” Sheriff spread his fingers and smoothed them over the table.

Madeleine shifted in her seat. She’d heard all this before.

Nida refilled Madeleine’s tea and addressed the sheriff. “He just out there fishin, Keith. He may have had it rough growin up, but he got his own shop out there in Baton Rouge, got a nice normal life now.”

“Yeah, he got a shop,” Cavanaugh said. “Got a
gun
shop.”

“What’re y’all talkin about over here?” Daddy said.

“Zenon Lansky,” Sheriff answered with a dip of his head.

“Zenon Lansky. That kid used to live next door? Aw, now why don’t you leave that poor boy alone.”

Cavanaugh shook his head. “I have not harassed Zenon Lansky, I was just cautioning your daughter here to look out for him.”

“Maddy, why?” Daddy looked at her. “You see him lately, baby?”

She shrugged. “He was at the gala.”

“He was? I didn’t see him.”

She nodded, shifting uneasily. She recalled the intensity of the conversation, how quickly it had spun out of control.

Her father pursed his lips. “That young man’s had it rough, now honey. You probably better off making a wide circle when you see him. I know y’all was good friends growin up, it’s too bad.”

They sat quietly for a moment, and then Daddy turned abruptly to Ethan. “You know, zydeco means ‘green bean.’ ”

“Green bean!” Ethan said. “What language?”

“Creole.”

“That ain’t the French word for green bean. Green bean is . . . it’s . . .” He sighed. “Aw hell, Maddy, what’s French Creole for green bean?”

The entire table answered in unison:
“Haricot vert.”

“See?” Daddy said.

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure, now it all makes sense to me. Come on now, Daddy Blank, how in the hell you get ‘zydeco’ out of ‘haricot vert’?”

“Zydeco, ‘aricot, they sound the same when you pronounce’m like you s’posed to. Put a ‘les’ in front of it and there ya go. Zy-de-co,
les har-i-cots
.”

Cavanaugh gestured to Madeleine and lowered his voice. “Anyway you be careful. Glad you brought them with you today but I know sometimes you go out in that swamp alone.”

“I’ve been doing that forever. But I hardly ever go anymore.”

Cavanaugh grimaced and wiped the back of his neck. “Well if you do go out there and you see Zenon Lansky in that fishin cabin, I’d appreciate it you let me know. And it wouldn’t hurt you to keep that phone of yours close to you when you out in that swamp.”

She shrugged. “My cell phone doesn’t work too good out there. But I will tell you if I see him, if you think it’s that important.”

HAHNVILLE, 1912

H
ELEN KNELT IN THE
spongy soil and used her shears to snip a sprig of sage. Her fingers shook and her mouth was parched, and her wide-brimmed hat did little to combat the sun. The sage dropped through her fingers and fell soundlessly to the earth.

Chloe’s rich molasses voice floated from behind a curtain of sweet pea vines, and mingled with a soft, warm wind that rustled the leaves. The flowers’ scents infused the sultry air, perfuming the entire garden. Chloe bustled among the green bean topiaries and pretended not to notice Helen’s struggle, but instead practiced aloud the nursery rhymes Helen had taught her. She formed her lips around the words, “Ring around the Rosie,” working to improve her English pronunciation. She seemed to relish the pattern of rhymes.

Helen smiled as she listened to her chanting. Chloe’s accent embraced the Rs with soft whispers, carrying an “H” sound before the “R” in “hRing” and “hRosie.” Suddenly Helen hoped that Chloe’s English pronunciation would not improve. She wanted Chloe to stay just as she was, and to speak English in that whispery accent forever.

“Chloe,” Helen called, and the girl was at once by her side, lifting her off the ground and helping her to the stone garden bench.

“Sit there, Dearie Missus,” Chloe said. “I finish with the herbs.”

Helen obeyed and watched Chloe fuss over the small harvests in the garden, continuing where Helen had left off at the sage and spring onions. Helen raised her eyes to the privy beyond the path, estimating how long it would take her to get from the garden to the tiny building. She had no need to go at the moment, but when the urge did come it would be sudden and demanding, the same way the sickness itself had overtaken her.

She had awoken one morning with abdominal cramps and the need to rush to the water closet. Fortunately, Rémi had outfitted the Terrefleurs main house with full indoor plumbing, and the bathroom lay just opposite the ladies’ parlor. The sickness that had gripped her that morning had prevented her from returning to the tent city to help with the relief effort, a routine she had begun after missing the train to join her mother. She had helped administer inoculations in the tent cities, but had never actually inoculated herself. Foolish in retrospect. At the time, she’d thought she was naturally protected from any flood sickness—workers’ sickness. Now, a week later, she was still confined to Terrefleurs, and growing weaker by the day.

The privy outside the garden was a holdover from the time before Terrefleurs had indoor plumbing, only a few years ago. Helen was now ever so grateful that it had not been torn down, otherwise she would not have dared venture outside at all.

A wave of nausea hit her, dampening her brow and causing her to sway on the bench. The garden dimmed, and she had a sensation of falling but could not stretch out her arms to steady herself. Suddenly, strong, gentle hands hooked under her elbow and she realized that Chloe was at her side again.

“Dearie Missus. Enough, it is too hot. Time we go inside now, eh?”

“You’re right Chloe. It’s just too hot.”

She tried to look directly at the girl, but the broiling sun injured her vision, and the garden looked silvery-gray and full of ghosts. “Give me just a minute, though, all right?”

Chloe dipped a handkerchief into a watering can and knelt before Helen, dabbing at her face with the cool, damp cloth.

“Do not to worry, Dearie Missus. The oak gall I give you, it make you feel good health soon.”

Her face was smooth and confident, but Helen wondered if her voice belied a twinge of deep concern. Helen had been taking the oak gall all week, but the sickness only worsened.

“Chloe,” she said, pondering the pasty substance the girl had been administering as medicine. “What exactly is an oak gall?”

“It come from the oak tree,” Chloe said. “It hang on the oak sticks, in little balls.”

She curled her fingers to demonstrate, her back straight and her chin lifted.

“Oh,” Helen said, somewhat relieved. “Sap?”

Chloe shook her head. “No, not the sap. Not the blood of the tree.”

She bit her lip. “It hang on the oak tree, but it do not come from the oak tree. The insect make it. How you say? It make the sting?”

Chloe made a buzzing sound, and fluttered her fingers like wings.

“A bee?” Helen said.

Chloe pursed her lips. “Mmm, bee? I think.”

“It comes from bees? So oak gall is a kind of honey.” Helen smiled at the pleasant remedy.

But Chloe pinched her brows. “No. Not honey. Not the bee. What is insect like a bee? It is long, and bigger?”

“A wasp?” Helen offered, puzzled.

“Yes, that is it. The wasp. She make the oak gall. The oak gall is her baby, inside the case, before the baby is born. It is like the egg.”

Helen blinked.
“Larvae?”
She stretched out the word in alarm. “You’ve been giving me the larvae of a wasp?”

Chloe cocked her head. “Hmm, I do not know this,
larvae
. That is the wasp baby before she is born?”

Helen answered dully, “Yes.”

Chloe brightened. “OK, so that is it!”

Helen frowned, and the wave of nausea returned. She tried not to think of the paste of wasp’s larvae working its way through her digestive tract. She had complete confidence in Chloe’s healing abilities, and she had seen the girl tend the sick with more efficacy than the doctor in the area. Nevertheless, Helen wished she hadn’t asked the origin of this particular remedy.

Suddenly, Helen burst out laughing. “Chloe, you are a dear.”

Chloe smiled, clasping her dark hands around Helen’s frail white ones.

The gardener’s son, the harelip boy named Laramie, turned at the sound of Helen’s laughter. He was grinning with his split smile, an innocent dove with enormous eyes. Too young and sweet to be aware yet of his deformity.

Helen closed her eyes as a breeze lifted black wisps of hair that had escaped from the knot beneath her hat. The wind rustled the garden vines, and further beyond, it played among the magnolia and acacia and oak.

When Helen opened her eyes, she could see that Chloe’s head was bowed, and that the garden still looked silvery-gray, as if it lay under moonlight and not full sun. And she knew.

“Chloe,” she said, stroking her face, and feeling wetness on the girl’s cheek. “You’ll look after Rémi for me, won’t you?”

Chloe sank to her knees and buried her face in Helen’s lap, sobbing. Helen stroked Chloe’s thick, rough hair, tied in large florets on either side of her head like beautiful, exotic flowers.

“Promise me, Chloe.”

She could see the welt that crept from the girl’s back and along her neck. She was so young and bright and beautiful and strong. Had endured so much. Helen could only wish to be that strong. What made her think she could help those shocked, desperate people at the tent city, and then walk away unharmed?

Chloe’s weeping subsided. She raised her head. Helen gave a start at the girl’s expression: flat, dead.

Chloe said, “I promise. I will look after him.”

Helen closed her eyes. She felt herself recede under a tide, a beautiful, exhilarating drift. A sensation like she was on a barge on the Mississippi River, only the motion of it was freer, flying on a channel of air, not water. She could hear Chloe shouting at someone but she sounded very distant. And then Helen felt hands encircle her. She forced her eyes open again and saw Rémi. He was lifting her. She reached up and curled her arms around his neck. He carried her through the garden, to the stairs, into the house.