Feast of All Saints (60 page)

“So, so, Michie,” said the old slave. He did not turn to look Vincent in the eye.

“What’s wrong, then?” Vincent asked almost irritably. He was dead tired. But nothing more could be gotten out of Nonc Pierre. And Vincent entered the house wearily, knowing there would be some unpleasant surprises for him in the morning when he stepped into the office and tracked that overseer down. Nothing out of the ordinary, he thought grimly, and Philippe gone for the week, no doubt.

Aglae was waiting for him in the big parlor, a wood fire blazing strongly beneath the high mantel. He could see she had been studying the plantation ledgers, which were always kept under lock and key. The sight of these bulky books annoyed him. He would have liked to change clothes before sitting opposite her, but she gestured for him to come in.

There was a wasted look to her as she poured his brandy, the firelight harsh against her sharp features. The brief ruffle at her neck, her only ornament, did not soften her but rather served to emphasize the heavy lines of her narrow face, the inevitable evening shadows under her eyes. And her countenance didn’t brighten with affection as it so often did when he came home. Instead, she merely produced a letter from a packet of letters, all neatly opened, no doubt by the small ivory handled knife in her hand.

“Read it,” she said.

He hesitated. Clearly, it was addressed to Philippe. But she said again, “Read it,” and he did.

“Mon Dieu!”
he whispered. He folded the letter and gave it back to her. There was nothing of overt alarm in her slim, pale face. Her eyes held him steadily.

“Did you have any idea he had mortgaged
so much?”
she asked.

“That’s incredible!” he whispered.

“No, not incredible,” she answered simply, “not if after years of negligence, one has consolidated a series of older outstanding notes.”

I
T WAS THE WORST
of days for Rudolphe, there was never any denying it, and certainly never any accepting it, and in fact, Grandpère’s quiet acceptance of it, and Richard’s complete dismissal of it only served to torment Rudolphe so that now at five o’clock in the evening on this balmy June day he did not wish to seek the refuge of his own home. Yet everywhere that he walked he saw the lines before the polls. Lines of men who owned property such as he owned, men who paid taxes such as he paid, men who shared with him a concern for the political and economic issues of the day, men who had much in common with him in all respects save one: he was colored; they were white. They could vote; he could not.

“Monsieur, take your mind off of it,” Suzette would say with that maddening aristocratic calm at supper tonight. And Grandpère would discuss the elections, newspaper in hand, as if nothing were amiss, as if no monstrous injustice separated the prosperous
gens de couleur
from their fellowmen.

Of course the battle was over for Grandpère. It had been fought bitterly in the early years of the Territory of Louisiana when the
gens de couleur
had struggled to be fully enfranchised citizens under the new flag. In the year 1814, it seemed General Andrew Jackson had all but promised full citizenship to the members of the colored battalions who had gone with him to vanquish the British below the city on the battlefield of Chalmette. And this when certain white Creoles were grumbling behind closed doors, afraid that Jackson was fighting “a Russian war,” and would burn New Orleans as the Czar had burned Moscow rather than surrender it to a foreign power.

Well, the war had been won with the lives of colored soldiers fighting valiantly side by side with white, and the hopes of the
gens de couleur
for the franchise had been utterly lost.

In the years that followed it was clear that the Anglo-Saxon American despised and distrusted the “free Negro,” and the colored battalions had been deceived and used. The new government had never really planned to strengthen and maintain these proud fighting units, which had existed for years under the Spanish and the French, because it feared the very sight of armed Negroes, and the State of Louisiana, denying them the vote, had put more and more restrictions on her people of color than they had ever known.

Yes, the war was won and the battle lost, and Grandpère would never pit himself against the white Anglo again.

There would be an air of grim superiority about him tonight if Rudolphe were to mention the election. And Richard, deep in his studies, would not even acknowledge the subject at all. No, hot and tired and angry as he was on this Tuesday evening, Rudolphe did not wish to go home.

And if there was any man whom he did wish to see, it was Christophe, though why he was not entirely sure. Certainly Christophe didn’t share his anxiety over the state of the
gens de couleur
and never had. Shortly after his return from France Christophe had told Rudolphe simply that such matters did not concern him; he had made peace with all of this, and had he not made peace he would never have come back. The incident of Bubbles in the classroom did not weaken Christophe’s commitment to his students, he had accepted its outcome with an amazing equanimity, never broaching the subject again.

But there was something beyond resignation in Christophe’s manner. It was not the same as Grandpère’s bitter silence or Richard’s genteel disdain. Christophe was not wounded by the inequities around him. Though eminently successful in day-to-day life he appeared, nevertheless, to exist on a different plane. Yet he had always respected Rudolphe for his concern, respected Rudolphe even for his honest opposition to bringing a slave into the schoolroom, and at other times uttered sympathy for Rudolphe’s frustrations in the face of what he was powerless to change.

And Rudolphe felt that if he could talk with Christophe tonight, the man would listen, offer understanding and ultimate solace to Rudolphe’s soul.

But unfortunately other matters came first. It was Dolly Rose whom Rudolphe had to see now on a matter that could not be postponed nor delegated to anyone else. It concerned the grave of Dolly’s daughter, Lisa, for which a magnificent statue had been ordered without Dolly’s knowledge by the wealthy and somewhat condescending Vincent Dazincourt. For months, Narcisse Cruzat, Rudolphe’s finest sculptor, had been at work on this monument, now it was ready, and Dolly of course must be told.

Of course Dolly herself did not go to the cemetery. On the Feast of All Saints last November she had come into the shop to make arrangements for the flowers, her hands trembling, her face shimmering from drink. Rudolphe who was still thoroughly angry with her for the affair of Christophe and Captain Hamilton would have shunned her had duty allowed for it, but she was frail then in her grief. “You take care of this for me, Michie Rudolphe,” she had said without guile, the voice soft, stripped of its flamboyant cynicism and contempt. She had a charm in those moments, the charm of the young Dolly who had come so often to the Lermontant house in days past to visit with Giselle. Dolly simply being Dolly, not the wild
belle dame sans merci
bound to be the tragic heroine of a glamorous and sordid life.

Well, grief did that to people. And Rudolphe himself had tended little Lisa’s grave.

But he had no illusions now, some seven months later, of how he might find the grieving mother, if indeed, he could speak with her at all. The house in the Rue Dumaine was infamous, carriages stopping all evening before the doors, as champagne by the case went up the back stairs, and the white gentlemen callers paid lavishly for their refreshments, sums adequate for entertainment and companionship should they so desire. Neighbors were outraged, but Dolly’s clientele was the richest, and this was the “old city,” what could be done?

But Rudolphe who had never used a servants’ entrance in his life was contemplating using one this evening with relief.

Five-fifteen. The clock over his desk struck just as he opened the shop door. Antoine was deep in conversation with a white woman from Boston who had only just lost her brother and wanted two score pair of black silk gloves made for all the mourners which they might then keep. It could be done, anything could be done, that is, if the seamstresses worked night and day. Rudolphe surveyed the merchandise quickly, swept dust from the counters, set the clock in accordance with his infallible watch, and left for the stoneyard a block away.

It had been too long since he had spoken with Narcisse, his young colored sculptor, and besides he was longing to see the completed monument for little Lisa’s grave himself.

Narcisse was the best of them.

Twenty-five and the son of a freed slave woman and a white father, he had already sprinkled the cemeteries of the First Municipality with astonishing funereal art, fresh, delicate, and exquisitely crafted, so that people were coming to the Lermontant yards to place their orders from all over the city and even the parishes beyond.

And Rudolphe, brimming with admiration for young Narcisse, felt a profound interest in him, his talent, the scope of his life. It was time to bring the young man to his house for supper, to present him socially
as his gifts had merited and not stand upon ceremony and custom with the old families, as aloof and exclusive as they were. Rudolphe’s social world, of course, was composed of such people, the LeMonds, Vacqueries, Rousseaus, and lately, the Dumanoirs. Naturally enough, the prosperous and respectable quadroon women were included, those whose white connections brought their children breeding, education, wealth. But rarely if ever was this
cordon bleu
atmosphere challenged by the inclusion of humbler men, and in the case of this brilliantly talented young sculptor, an exception must be made. His was a natural gentility, something inevitable in such a sublime sensibility, resonating fully with the God-given ability in his hands.

And when Rudolphe, entering the work yard behind the shed, laid eyes upon the new monument, his breath was literally taken away. It was just getting dusk. Lanterns burned beneath the nearby roof, and the sky above was perfectly lavender behind the darkening trees. But the light of the sun was not yet gone, and in fact, at this moment seemed to pulse from all the color that it could yet find. The red bougainvillea that clung to the weather-beaten fence, the wild lilies in clumps behind the small cistern, the grass beneath Rudolphe’s feet. And in this radiant twilight moment, softened by the balm of the summer air, Rudolphe saw the marble angel, gleaming and white, its head bent as its arm descended to embrace the small figure of a child. Sorrow marked the angel’s face, seemingly inexplicable sorrow. And the child, her gown descending in classical folds, turned inward beneath the angel’s wing, her eyes closed.

Only little sounds came from afar. It seemed Rudolphe was alone in this place with the angel and the little girl, and the pair before him on the high wooden pedestal was alive. He took a step forward, strangely conscious of the crunch of the grass beneath his boot, and gently, gently, he extended his hand. It hurt him to look at the expression of the angel, he felt anguish at the slope of the child’s neck. And standing there, quite lost in this unexpected experience, he did not hear Narcisse come from the shed.

Slowly Rudolphe shifted his gaze. The young mulatto in work sleeves, a small hammer jutting from his vest pocket seemed altogether unreal. And Rudolphe had the disconcerting sensation that he had lost complete track of time.
“Eh bien
, Narcisse,” he whispered. But his eyes returned to the angel, the lowered lids of the stricken face, the mouth half open in its cry.
“Eh bien
, Narcisse,” he whispered again.

Narcisse was smiling at him. His dark brown skin was covered with a fine film of dust, and the large African mouth yielded easily to a serene expression of pleasure in what he perceived in his employer’s eyes. Rudolphe worked every day of his life with monuments, with
graves, with sorrow, and yet he stood all but speechless at the angel’s feet.

And then, as if wrenching himself loose, Rudolphe turned and made a small slow circle about the yard. He was thinking, rubbing his chin.

Narcisse meanwhile had taken a receipt from his pocket, his roughened fingers opening it easily for Rudolphe to see. “He paid for it in full today, Monsieur,” he said in very proper French, eschewing the Creole “Michie.” “He was pleased.”

“Indeed he should have been,” Rudolphe was nodding, surveying the pair from afar. The sun had left the flowers. The trees were shapeless in the dark. But the statue, some five feet in height and perfectly polished, had become itself a source of light.

He was barely conscious of Narcisse speaking to him, of Narcisse telling him there was some matter he must take up with him now. The French was decorous, slow, the boy uneasy, a little sad. At last Rudolphe pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, made a small shrug, and said almost irritably, “But what…?”

“…that we have at last raised the money, Monsieur, my mother, my uncles, our Craftsmen’s Society, it’s been done. I could be leaving any day, Monsieur, that is, when it is best for you, Monsieur, that I take my leave, when you will permit…”