Cat People (4 page)

As Paul drove in toward the city, Irena sat forward in her seat, looking around, trying to find something familiar.

"What do you think of the old home town?" Paul asked. "If we can call it that."

"It's like I'm seeing it for the first time."

"That's not surprising. We never did spend a lot of time here, and you were just a toddler the last time the family was all together. Just three years old, I guess."

"The city looks so ... so new."

Paul laughed. "A lot of it is. Mostly on the north side, or Uptown, as we call it. A lot of new houses there. Then on the river there's the new International Trade Mart. All the big hotel chains have new buildings here—Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott. We also have high-rise apartments and condominiums. Yes, New Orleans has a skyline now."

"I hope they didn't destroy all the old things to make way for the new," Irena said.

"Oh, no, the city is still a mixture of the old and the new. Tomorrow I'll take you on a tour of Downtown and show you some
really
old New Orleans. The Vieux Carre, the Old Square."

"Is that the French Quarter?"

"Right. Founded in 1718 by Sieur de Bienville. I guarantee you'll get your fill of local history there."

"I'll enjoy that." Irena looked off to her right. "What's that huge thing? The one that looks like a grounded flying saucer?"

"That's the Superdome, home of the Sugar Bowl. Someday we hope to have a professional football team to put in it. Until then we have to make do with the Saints."

Irena looked blank.

"Local joke," Paul explained.

They drove in on broad, busy Canal Street, lined with office buildings and hotels. In minutes they had left the modern, bustling city and were cruising along St. Charles Avenue, between the elegant old houses set back on sweeping lawns. The late-aftemoon sun dappled the graceful mansions as it filtered through stately elm trees.

"What a lovely street," Irena said.

"Our house isn't quite as impressive as these," Paul said, "but it's a whole lot better than living in a trailer."

After another mile Paul brought the car to a stop. Across the sidewalk from them was a tall, spiked iron fence. Beyond the fence, partially hidden by untrimmed elm trees, stood a two-story brick house with a pillared portico at the end of a short walk. A balcony with a wrought-iron railing extended across the entire upper floor. The windows Irena could see were clouded. The yard needed tending. The place had a remote, lonely look, as though nobody lived there.

"Does the old place stir any memories?" Paul asked.

Irena shook her head. "I guess I was too young to form memories. It does look like something I've seen in my dreams, though."

"Maybe that's the same thing."

They got out of the car, Paul once again effortlessly lifting the heavy bag. He held the gate for her and they walked through the fence and up the path to the front door.

Paul reached past her and pushed the heavy oak door open. Irena walked in and stood looking around. The high-ceilinged entrance hall with the filtered sunlight made her think of a cathedral. There was a musty, old smell to the place, and beneath that something else. Something raw.

"What do you think?" Paul said, startling Irena out of her reverie.

"It's ... impressive. You don't live here alone, do you?"

"Oh, no. In fact, sometimes I feel like I'm just a boarder here, the way Femolly takes charge of things."

"Femolly?"

"Unless I'm mistaken, you're about to meet her."

Somewhere in the rear of the big house a door opened and closed. Paul nudged Irena and turned expectantly in that direction. Through the archway leading to the dining room came a tall, regal woman wearing a long, full skirt, a silk blouse, and a colorful scarf on her head. Her skin was a flawless caffe au lait, her eyes black and shiny. She stopped in front of them, planted her hands on her hips, and examined Irena from head to foot.

"So! Here's the little girl come home at last. Only not so little any more, hah?"

Paul said, "Femolly, this is my sister, Irena."

"Who else could it be?" the tall woman demanded. "With those eyes—those Gallier eyes. You are your mother all over again, child. Only prettier, I think. Yes, definitely prettier."

"Thank you." Irena said, feeling uncomfortable under the woman's scrutiny.

"Femolly doesn't fit the usual image of the faithful family retainer, does she?" Paul said.

Irena smiled but couldn't think of anything to say.

"Just don't let her start bossing you around, or she'll be insufferable."

"Don't you listen to that brother of yours, child," Femolly said. "He's just a lot of fancy talk. You should have seen him moping around here the last couple weeks just like a little boy, waiting for his sister to come home where she belong."

Irena smiled at her.

"Don't you worry, child, you and me gonna get along just fine. Won't neither of us take any foolishness from this preacher-man brother of yours."

Femolly made a point of turning a disapproving frown on Paul, but Irena could not miss the deep affection the woman felt for her brother.

"I'm sure we'll do just fine," Irena said.

The tall woman beamed at her.

"Femolly," Irena tried the name experimentally. "I've never heard the name before. Where does it come from?"

"It comes from the state of Louisiana, I guess. See, when I was born my momma died, and there wasn't no daddy around to claim me, so on the birth certificate they just put down Child, Female. Now, the woman who brought me up, rest her soul, she couldn't read English that good, so she thought you said it to rhyme with tamale. So that's who I been ever since. Female ... Femolly."

"I think it's a beautiful name," Irena said.

"Thank you, child, it's done all right for me. You run along now and wash up. We gonna have us a real New Orleans dinner."

"See what I told you about her getting bossy?" Paul said.

"I don't mind a bit," Irena said. She followed the tall dark woman to the downstairs bathroom.

Femolly served dinner to Paul and Irena, who sat across from each other at one end of the long table in the dining room. Irena wondered idly if the other end of the table were ever used.

The aroma of the food soon chased idle speculations out of her mind. From a heavy china tureen Femolly ladled out steaming plates of thick gumbo with big chunks of white crabmeat and tender oysters in it. For dessert there was a sinfully rich pecan pie with a pot of hot chicory-flavored coffee to wash it all down.

Irena pushed back from the table with a long, contented sigh. "How on earth do you stay so slim with this kind of food?"

"Exercise," Paul said. "I try to run every day. And I ride a bicycle."

"Do you swim?"

Paul's face clouded. "No. I don't like going in the water."

Irena was surprised by his change of mood. "I've never been a swimmer either," she said. "I suppose we'll find a lot of things we have in common."

Paul's good spirits returned. "I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, we'll have lots of time to learn about each other now. What are your plans?"

"I want to start looking for a job."

"There's no hurry about that, is there?"

"I just feel that after you put me through art school, it's time I started paying my way."

"Don't worry about it," Paul said. "It was something I wanted to do. I wanted to bring you home sooner but, well, there were complications here that prevented me from even coming to see you."

Irena was touched by his sincerity. She reached across the table and pressed his hand. "Never mind, brother, we're together now."

"Yes," he said, "and we've got a lot of catching up to do." He cocked his head and looked at her. "Apparently we both survived the years in foster homes without any serious damage."

"It was never a lot of fun," Irena said, "but we could have had it a lot worse. I'm just sorry we had to be separated all these years."

"It won't happen again," Paul told her. He looked over at the six-foot grandfather clock tick-tocking sedately in a corner of the room. "I suppose you're tired after the plane ride."

"I am, a little, but I'm much too excited to go to sleep yet."

"There's no rush. We keep pretty liberal hours around here. Come on upstairs and I'll show you your room."

While Femolly cleared away the dinner dishes, Irena followed Paul up the broad stairway to the second floor. Irena slowed to look at the paintings that were hung along the staircase wall. They were strange primeval landscapes of jungles and desert, with misty mountains in the distant background. The paintings were heavy with shadows in which living things seemed to lurk just out of sight.

"Are you coming?" Paul called from up on the landing.

Irena pulled her gaze from the paintings. "Right behind you."

He was waiting for her in front of an open door along a short hall. Irena went past him into a small, immaculate room. There was a wardrobe chest and a bureau with plenty of drawer space. A big window looked out on the balcony at the front of the house. A fresh breeze stirred the white gauze curtains.

"I love it," Irena said.

"You'll probably want to decorate it to your own taste once you're moved in. Feel free to make any changes you want."

"Paul, I'm not sure I'll be staying here that long," she said.

The shadow crossed his face again. "Not staying here? What do you mean? This is your house as much as it is mine."

"It's just that I might want a place of my own. A little apartment, maybe. This house is so big."

Paul dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. "There'll be plenty of time to talk about it." They walked back into the hall together. "My room is two doors down, on the other side of the bathroom. Now, since you're not ready to go to bed, I want to show you the playroom."

"Playroom?" Irena repeated.

"That's what I call it." Paul started toward the rear of the upper story. "Come on, I think you'll enjoy this."

He led her into a large, high-ceilinged room that was lit more brightly than the rest of the house. The walls were covered with wildly colored circus posters in styles that ranged from the early years of the century to the mid-1960s. Hanging from wall hooks were glittery circus costumes and clown suits. Everywhere there was circus memorabilia—an antique popcorn machine, the garish front of an old ticket booth, a side-show banner featuring a bearded lady, a lion tamer's whip, a pedestal for a performing animal, a wire-walker's parasol.

"Isn't this something?" Paul said.

Irena gazed around the room in wonder. "How did you ever get all these things together?"

"When I was old enough to move back here into the house I wrote all over the country asking people who might know what happened to the old Gallier Family Circus equipment. After Mother and Dad died all of it was sold off to pay the bills. Most of it is gone forever, of course, but whenever I could trace down a piece from the circus I'd buy it and have it shipped back here. For this room. I think the folks would have liked it." He broke off and looked at Irena sharply. "You don't mind my talking about them, do you?"

"No, it's all right. I know all about how they died, but I don't remember it. I suppose you'd call it a psychological block."

"I'd call it a blessing," Paul said. He looked around the room, his eyes glowing. "I really love it. The circus, I mean. I was training to be a performer, you know."

"No, I didn't."

"Oh, yes."

Without changing his expression, Paul suddenly flipped over backwards. Irena gasped in surprise. He hit the floor with the flat of his hands, flexed, and bounced catlike back to his feet. He grinned at her boyishly.

Irena laughed and clapped her hands. "That's wonderful."

"I think I would have made a pretty fair acrobat, don't you?"

"If that's an example, you'd have been terrific," Irena said.

"Oh, I have lots of other tricks, but I'll save them. There's no sense doing the whole show out in front, as Dad used to say."

Irena picked up a photo album from a table along one wall. It fell open to a picture of a handsome young couple—the man in whipcord breeches and boots, the woman in spangled tights. Irena showed the picture to Paul. "Is this our mother and father?"

"Yes. Notice how much they look like us?"

Irena studied the photograph. It was true, especially around the eyes. Allowing for differences in hair style and makeup over the past twenty years, the Phillip and Nora Gallier in the picture could have been their own son and daughter.

Irena flipped past several pages. She stopped at a faded old photo from which a heavy-browed man with a luxurious moustache gazed out at her with the dark Gallier eyes.

This must be Grandfather," she said.

Paul nodded. "Henry Gallier. That picture was taken around 1910 when he started the circus. Even at its peak it was never what you'd call a big show, but Grandfather really started small. One wagon, an elephant that had seen better days, a couple of clowns who doubled as roustabouts. Oh yes, and one cat."

Paul reached out and flipped over the album page. Irena stared at the photo of a huge black leopard. Its fangs were bared, its golden eyes held her hypnotically. When she looked up she saw Paul waiting for her reaction.

"Fierce-looking creature," she said.

"Of all cats, the black leopard is the most difficult to tame," Paul told her.

He held Irena's eyes for a long moment. Finally she turned away, trying to make it casual.

"I think I'm ready to go to bed now," she said.

"If you want anything, you know where I am," Paul said. "Just pound on the door."

"Thank you, Paul." She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

He held her for a moment. Irena could feel the heat of his hands on her back, through the material of her dress. It made her vaguely uncomfortable.

As though he sensed her uneasiness, Paul stepped back and smiled at her easily. "Good night, little sister. I'm glad you're home."

"Good night, Paul," she said. "I'm glad too."

Irena went to her room and found she was even more tired than she thought. She took a nightie from her suitcase, and decided to save the rest of the unpacking until tomorrow. She climbed into bed and sank gratefully into the yielding mattress.