Heartsong (28 page)

He will be missed, thought René. The house will have an empty place in its heart. But as he set the tray on the table, he said,
“Voilà!
I hope you like Armagnac, Monsieur Bell. It is all I could find.”

“It will do very nicely, Monsieur Soulas.” Bell watched the small man pour a generous amount of the brandy into two snifters. He noticed that the bottle had no label. “And how is the fish-selling business? Okay? Not so good? I seem to see more fish in the markets these days.”

“Still not perfect, but getting better by the day I have been in this business since I was a child helping my father, and I have not seen such a bad winter. Wind, wind, wind. Rough seas, lots of storms. Its a wonder more fishermen were not killed.” René handed a glass to Bell. “I know of seven boats that were lost between here and Toulon this winter, three in one storm—all hands lost, no trace. There will be more ex-votos in Notre Dame de la Garde than one would like.”

“It is a tragedy, certainly. You can be sure my government mourns the loss of these brave souls.
Á votre santé.”

René lifted his glass, but the words of the vice-consul struck him as odd—and a little annoying. What did it matter to the widows and children, the mothers and fathers of the fishermen that the Americans mourned their loss? The Americans would go about their business while the widows would grieve for the rest of their lives. René himself made it a point not to get too close to the fishermen, although he would see the same lot of them every morning or every other morning. Theirs was a dangerous occupation. Over the years, he had come to the Quai des Belges too many times to discover that one of the regular boats was missing—usually one of the small skiffs that fished the reefs for bass and hogfish. René shivered slightly as he imagined the water filling boots and lungs, the slow sinking to the bottom of the quiet sea, the white blind eyes, the raging winds and tumultuous waves above. The rare nightmares he had usually centered on such images.

“Well, monsieur, I'm afraid I don't bring good news for you.”

René blinked rapidly to rid himself of the images. Then it is bad news, he thought. He was almost glad he had expected it. Even though Madeleine and the children weren't around, he felt fortified by his fatalistic expectations. “And so you have come to take away our guest.”

“Yes, exactly so. We will not burden you any longer. You can't
imagine the gratitude of the consul general for your kindness these past few months. He asks me to offer you a modest compensation for your and madame s unconditional generosity in taking care of Charging Elk. We understand he was quite happy here.”

“Then he is to go back to America, to be with his own people.” René tried to imagine how it would be for Charging Elk to be reunited with his tribe, with his parents. Did he have brothers or sisters? Grandparents? René was saddened to think he knew so little of Charging Elk's past life. But he was so close to learning of it. Mathias had been teaching the young
indien
many words of French, and it seemed only a matter of time before Charging Elk would be able to open up his world to them. What a great deal he could say to them!

“It's still a bit sticky,” the vice-consul was saying. “There has been a preposterous amount of bureaucratic folderol—insanity, I should say, if you promise not to repeat it—regarding the repatriation of Charging Elk. I won't bore you with all the ins and outs, but it seems your government considers him as dead as yesterday's news. It's beyond belief, Monsieur Soulas.”

René was still stuck on the word “folderol,” a word he had not heard before, and so it took a few seconds for the latter part of the vice-consul's sentence to reach his consciousness. Now he looked up at the American and said slowly, “Dead?”

“Yes, I'm afraid so. Something of a foul-up, I would say. There was another Peau-Rouge in hospital at the time Charging Elk was admitted. This other
indien
, a man named Featherman, died of consumation just about the time Charging Elk came to live with you.” Bell shook his head, his lips stretched beneath the mustache into more of a grimace than a smile. “It's a pity, really. This Featherman could speak my language. It would have been so much easier if he had lived.”

“But I don't understand this—what has the death of this
Featherman got to do with Charging Elk? He is alive—he goes to work each day, he plays with my children, he eats at my table ...”

“Well, you see, this is the foul-up—excuse me, complication—I lapse into
anglais
—the doctor who signed the death certificate used the wrong name. Since both
indiens
were in the hospital together and Charging Elk escaped, I suppose he had no record of Charging Elk's being discharged. So when an
indien
died, he must have assumed it was Charging Elk, who as far as he was concerned had remained in the hospital until he died.”

René sat in stunned silence, watching his hand twirl the snifter on the tabletop. He understood only about half of what the vice-consul had said, but he knew that somehow someone or everyone thought that Charging Elk was dead. He looked up at Bell. “But don't they read the newspapers? Was it not Charging Elk who was being held at the Préfecture? I saw his name in
Le Petit Marseillais
myself.” Or did I? René thought. It seemed so long ago that he and Madeleine had joined Father Daudet and the other parishioners on the steps of the Préfecture. What was it—January? And now it is May. Four months.

René felt a small flash of guilt run through him as he thought of the happiness he had felt in those four months. And further—of the hope he had felt in the past couple of months that somehow Charging Elk would be forgotten by the Americans, that he would remain with the family, perhaps forever. But the guilt René really felt was that he didn't want Charging Elk to go home, even though he knew that the
indiens
family must be heartsick over their lost son or brother.

René forced himself out of these thoughts, but not before he resolved to confess his selfishness to the priest this very Sunday.

“Yes, of course I presented those newspaper articles to the officials at the Mairie and the Hôpital de la Conception. But you see, I'm the one who identified Charging Elk when he was being held in
the Préfecture—and before that, in the hospital—and now these bureaucrats say I must have been mistaken.” Bell let out a puff of exasperation, followed by a quick swallow of the brandy. “Here's the—what, kicker, joker—I don't know what you say in French—now they say there was no
indien
at the Préfecture on Christmas Eve. Can you imagine that? Chief Vaugirard—your chief of police—has no recollection of Charging Elk's ever being there! As far as your government is concerned, there is no Charging Elk.”

René thought for a moment. He looked at his geraniums and imagined that he saw little slits of red in the green buds. He glanced up at the clear blue sky above the rooftops across the inner courtyard of the buildings. The clusters of orange chimney pots were lovely against the bright blue. He imagined them filled with geraniums, all of the chimney pots filled with geraniums—all over Marseille. He looked at Bell, a thought growing in his mind. “Then who is living in my house?”

Bell laughed, and it was his genuinely hearty laugh. “No one, Monsieur Soulas, absolutely no one. Forget the big fellow who plays with your children, who eats at your table—he is nonexistent, a ghost you might say.”

René waited politely for the American to finish his bout of perverse humor. Then he said, “And what about this Featherman? Is he nonexistent too? Is he too a ghost?”

Again Bell laughed. “Most certainly, monsieur! He is a real ghost—buried in Cimetière St-Pierre on the seventh of January, the day after Charging Elk came to live with you.”

“I must plead my ignorance, Monsieur Bell. If this Featherman died in January, wouldn't the officials know it was him and not Charging Elk? I don't understand how such a catastrophe could take place. It seems quite simple even to me, poor fishmonger that I am.”

Bell looked at the little Frenchman for a moment, a measuring
gaze as he tried to decide how much he should tell him. He probably should tell him nothing, since he would have Charging Elk out of the Soulases' lives forever in a day or two. But the fishmonger had been so good about everything, so patient, he deserved an explanation.

“I won't mince words with you, my friend. My government suspects that the authorities here are covering up a monumental mistake, that they mistook Charging Elk for Featherman. The
acte de décès
that was filed in the archives in the name of Charging Elk should have been that of Featherman. The doctor who signed the certificate made a mistake. Simple as that.”

“But now they could correct it, yes?”

“In a way they have—just a little over a month after Featherman died, his death certificate quietly showed up in the records. So he is on record now. Trouble is, so is Charging Elk. According to your government, both are now dead. And as far as they are concerned, that is the end of the matter. I suppose you could say they corrected it in a way that would allow them to save face. We know that they engaged in this deception but we are powerless to prove it.” Bell leaned forward, his eyes firmly on René. “Unfortunately, we still have a very real
indien
on our hands.”

“Again, monsieur, forgive my ignorance, but couldn't you just take Charging Elk to the proper bureaucrats and show him to them? Surely they would know that he is a Peau-Rouge and that he was a member of the Buffalo Bill show. How many
indiens
could there be in Marseille and how else could they have gotten here?”

Bell sighed. He was beginning to like the fishmonger more and more. For the first time since he had come to Marseille, he felt he was making a real human contact with a Frenchman, that they had something in common besides selfish interests. He reached for the bottle of brandy. “Do you mind?”

“No, no, please, Monsieur Bell. Forgive me.”

Bell poured them both a healthy splash of the amber liquid. Then he sat back and again measured the Frenchman with a long gaze. Something was happening here. Bell was getting a feeling that things might work out—if he judged this man right. “Two things about that worry me.” Bell had unconsciously thrown off the mantle of the company man, the pretext that anyone in the consulate cared about the Indian but himself. “One, I'm quite sure they would refuse to acknowledge that the man standing before them was Charging Elk, or even an
indien
. And two, I'm afraid that if by chance they did acknowledge him, they might just throw him back in jail. So, you see, damned if you do, damned if you don't.” Bell wondered if he had phrased the last part right, or if it even made any sense in French.

But René had been doing some thinking even as he listened to the American. “So what will become of Charging Elk?”

“Well, at this point I am trying to make arrangements with our embassy in Paris. I would like to see them make an international fuss about this. As you see, we seem to get nowhere on the local level.” Bell finished his brandy in one swallow. “But the important thing right now is to resituate Charging Elk. We have imposed on you and your family far too long already, for which we will remain in your debt long after this is over.”

“But where would you put him?”

“We have made arrangements for a small room not too far from us. Now that the weather has warmed up, he can do odd jobs on the consulate grounds. I'm confident we can clear up this matter in a few weeks. Then we can send the poor devil home—or at least to rejoin the Wild West show, which is now in Germany or Austria.” Bell stood up and took a last look at the geraniums on the stucco wall. The Armagnac had given him a slight headache. Without looking at René, he said, “God, what a mess we bureaucrats can create.”

René had heard the distance in his voice and he felt a little sorry for the man, who clearly had a good heart. “If you please, Monsieur Bell, my family would be only too happy if you let him remain with us until it is time for him to leave Marseille.”

Bell turned, his eyes suddenly bright in the casting shadows of late afternoon. “Are you certain you want him?”

“Of course! It is no problem. My children are quite fond of him, and even now, my wife is knitting him a sweater for next winter. He works with me and my helper at the stall. He walks in the afternoon. He is used to this life we lead, that he leads. To put him in a room by himself—he might as well be in the jail.” René's voice had begun to rise in alarm at the thought of Charging Elk living alone. How would he eat? What would he do alone at night? The man needed a family. “We take good care of him,” he said, and he was surprised at the tone of defiance in his own voice.

Bell continued to look at the small man without speaking. He seemed to be weighing the Frenchman's sincerity, but gradually his lips broadened into a smile. “I was hoping you would say that,” he said. “Yes, he is clearly better off here with you.” But the smile tightened a little too much and the brow furrowed over the clear blue eyes. “But I feel I must warn you, I really don't know how long this business will take—a couple of weeks, maybe more. There is the matter of proving he exists, getting him papers—he has no birth certificate, no passport. I just don't know.”

This time René smiled. “Time is of no importance, monsieur. I know how these bureaucrats are. You must take your time and do it correctly. He will be at home with my family.” He thought he heard movement in the kitchen and wondered if Madeleine had been home all the while, listening. She had come to accept Charging Elk, but he didn't know how much longer her goodwill would last. He had lied about the sweater. “We are the only family he has at the moment,” he said, hoping he didn't sound too
presumptuous. “Relieve your mind, Monsieur Bell.” René poured another splash of Armagnac into their glasses. “Rest assured.”