The Cottoncrest Curse (2 page)

Jenny waited a good while before daring to open the door a crack. She could see no movement in the hall.

Cautiously, she moved to the foot of the stairs. She looked up toward the second-story landing. It was worse than she feared. She jammed her knuckles into her mouth. She could not allow herself to scream, although that was what she wanted to do.

In the faint fingers of moonlight that crept into the hallway through the large windows, she could see dark splotches spreading from a few steps below the landing, crawling down the stairs, and dripping over the edges.

Blood. Blood pouring from two bodies.

It was the Colonel Judge. He must have shot himself. Just like his father. But this was worse. It was not only his blood. It was Rebecca's too. Both dead.

Jenny had no choice. She closed the door and hurried down a side passageway to the back staircase. Let Little Miss continue to sleep in her first-floor bedroom. Jenny had to reach the other two on the second floor. They would wake up soon, and if she didn't act quickly, it would be too late.

1961

Hank Matthews sat on a lawn chair in the shade of an oak tree, near the huge sign he had erected. The words
IMPEACH EARL WARREN
were printed in letters five feet high, clearly visible three quarters of a mile away to all who passed up and down the highway skirting the edge of what used to be the second section of sugarcane fields.

Fucking right, Hank Matthews thought, that a Supreme Court lawsuit trying to put blacks in the classroom would be called Brown.

Brown versus Board of Education.
Browns and blacks and all the other colors that weren't white. Fuck 'em all.

Petit Rouge Parish wasn't going to do anything different than it had been doing for the last fifty years, and no fool court was going to change that.

Washington, D.C., was far away. Things here were invisible from there.

Yet the sign next to the white mansion was not meant to be invisible. It was meant to be seen. Everyone could spot it looming above the overgrown fields sprouting spindly bull thistle and ugly Johnson grass.

Hank Matthews loved his old, rambling Cottoncrest mansion, even though it badly needed a paint job. Even though at least eleven of the forty columns that marched around the veranda were cracked and broken. Even though the front steps were sagging and the once-elegant wallpaper was turning dark with mildew. Even though weeds had long since overtaken the gardens and tendrils of poison ivy had climbed over the fences and up into the branches of the oak trees.

He had bought it to prove something. To himself. To the community. To flaunt in their faces what he had become.

He had wanted to share it all with his family. But Sylvia had died ten years ago, and his twin boys, Brett and Beau, had long since moved away. They wouldn't talk to him. They blamed him for their mother's death.

But that wasn't the result of any curse. It was just damned bad luck. And you made your own luck. Made it by working hard. And now here he was, president of the Citizens' Council and three-term member of the school board. Hell, he could be elected at the snap of his fingers to the Petit Rouge Parish Police Jury if he wanted.

He looked over with pride at the large Confederate flag hanging from the twelve-foot pole he had nailed to the frieze above the second floor. The flag told them damn fool northern meddlers that there was not going to be any meddling here. Not on his property. Not in his parish.

He knew he shouldn't have let that big-nosed, curly-headed kid onto the property. He had had a premonition. The kid had Jew written all over him, from his horn-rimmed glasses to his fancy words to the file folder he carried under his arm. Not only Jew, but northern Jew, the worst kind. Obvious from the moment the kid had opened his mouth.

Damn. Shouldn't have let him on the property. Shouldn't have listened to him. Shouldn't have let him open that folder and reveal its contents.

Well, they'll have something to talk about now, won't they? They'll say it was all a part of the Cottoncrest curse. But they'll never know the truth.

Hank took another long look at his house, leaned back in his lawn chair, and put the double barrels of his shotgun in his mouth. Stretching out his right hand, he pulled the trigger.

Today

The old man and the teenage girl were sitting on a bench in the herb garden. They hadn't followed the rest of those who had traveled more than an hour by bus from New Orleans to tour the beautiful antebellum home that bordered the Mississippi River.

“Sit here a minute with me in the shade. There's no need to go into the big house just yet. There'll be plenty of time to tour Cottoncrest later this afternoon, before the bus leaves.

“As I was saying, the question is not how Jake Gold, your great-great-grandfather, got to be called the Cajun Jew. That's the easy part. And the question is not how a boy who grew up in Russia speaking no En glish came to Louisiana and then ended up marrying New Yorker Roz Levison, who herself had come from Poland.

“I know you think you know the answers, but the answers you'll give are the simple ones your parents told you—simple answers that sufficed when you were younger. But the simple answer is as dry as a week-old loaf of French bread.

“The real question is how did Grandpapa Jake get mixed up with the Cottoncrest curse? Now that you're older than Jake was when he left Russia, you deserve to know his full story.”

1893

The sun cut through the scraggly pine tree, its green needles pointing aimlessly in every direction. Not much shade here around the small cabins on the edge of the Cottoncrest plantation. Perhaps a thick cloud would pass by. No matter. Concentrate on business.

Jake turned the wheel of his grinding stone, pumping the levers at his feet, and reached down for another knife. “Mrs. Brady,” he said, “I can get these good and sharp, but sometime you ought to try a really fine-quality blade, one that won't rust, one that will hold its edge without having to be sharpened every time I pass through.”

He spit on the whetstone and pumped harder, sparks flying as he painstakingly ground away, removing uneven sections that were barely visible, honing the edge of the dull metal to a gleaming point that, when he finished, would be fine enough to cut a strand of hair. That was the selling point. It always got their attention. He would politely ask the lady for a strand of her hair, and while she held it in her hand, dangling in the wind, he would take the sharpened knife and slice it in half.

Of course, given the knives most of his customers had, they'd be dull again in a few weeks. But more and more of them were starting to buy the Freimer blades he sold. German made with exquisite precision, they held their fine-honed edge far longer than the knives the locals used.

Even after his customers bought a Freimer blade, they still would use their old knives. Yet when they saw how his retained a keen edge while their knives quickly dulled, they were all the more anxious for him to come around. To visit. To sharpen once again their old blades.

When he was sharpening, there was plenty of time to talk. And when there was time to talk, there was time to sell. Pans. Pots. Needles and thread. Rough loom fabric and pieces of fine lace. A few yards of French silk taffeta. Cotton silk printed to look like brocade. Less-expensive weaves with bouquets of bluebells, roses, and tulips scattered among pale stripes the color of spring leaves. Percale-weight toile with cherry-red wreaths and garlands. Even a few scraps of velvet and tapestry fabric, perfect for cuffs or collars. You had to ease into it, however. Let the customer ask. Don't push. If you did it right, the customers sold themselves, and then they even thanked you.

Mona Brady worked the butter churn with slow, even motions. Her thin calico dress was damp with perspiration from her efforts. It was early October, and the first cold snap had not yet occurred, although the weather at this time of year could change abruptly.

Mona was worrying silently about all of her problems. Tee Ray and the kids were out in the fields, but the crop wasn't going to yield much. They'd never get out of debt at the Cottoncrest store. Tee Ray and the kids wouldn't be back until late, and then they'd be hungry. Got to get the butter ready, then shell the peas and make the cornbread. And the garden still had to be weeded.

“Oh, Mr. Gold, we can't afford none of your fancy blades.”

Without looking up from his work, Jake responded, “I'm not trying to sell you a knife, Mrs. Brady. No, not at all. I just want you to try one. Hold one in your hand. Cut something with it. Of course, you need to save your money. These are tough times.”

Mona Brady thought about what he was saying. He was right. She had to save her money. Of course, there wouldn't be any harm in just trying out one of the Peddler Man's knives. Just to see how it cuts.

Today

“Even though your great-great-grandfather's death certificate read ‘Jake Gold,' that's not the name he was born with.

“Yaakov Gurevich. Now,
that
was a name. Jake remade his name, just as he remade himself. Yaakov Gurevich. Jacob Goldenes. Jacques Giraudoux. Jake remade himself time and time again.

“Jake used to say that it was all the blood that drove him from Russia. The blood from the cattle. The blood from the chickens. The blood from the sheep. The blood from the Jews.

“Jake—or Yaakov, as he was known then—grew up in a small village not too far from Bialystok. Yaakov's father was a
shochet,
a butcher. The job of a butcher was critical to the life of a Jewish community back in those days. The laws of
kashrut
had to be observed strictly if you were to keep a kosher home, and of course, everyone kept a kosher home.

“Now, your mother and father have never kept kosher. I know they serve shrimp at parties and order lobster bisque at those fancy restaurants, so you've never been to a kosher butcher.
Kashrut
requires that not only the death of the animal be as painless and quick as possible but also that the blood be drained.

“After being quickly killed,
shechitah,
with a single knife stroke across the windpipe and the esophagus, right through the jugular, the animal is hung head down so that as much blood as possible will drain from its body. The cutting must be as quick and as painless as possible for the animal, and the laws of
kashrut
require that the knife be sharpened each time it is used.

“The
shochet
carries out a
bedikah
—an examination—to make sure that there is no defect in the animal, for a defect, such as missing or defective organs or broken or fractured bones, will prevent the animal from being declared kosher.

“You know why the blood is drained? It's in the Torah, right in Leviticus. You know the phrase, he that eats any blood, ‘his soul will be cut off from his people'? You don't know it? Well, it's there. Look it up. Not only does the blood have to be drained, but the remaining blood has to be drawn out, either by salting or roasting it over an open flame.

“Little Yaakov was intimately involved in the process. He helped tie up the animals. He held them so that his father could kill them. Every morning and evening he used buckets to help his father clean up the blood that came from that day's butchering.

“As a little boy, Yaakov learned the laws of
kashrut
and all the tools and methods of a
shochet.
How could he not, living in that house? But he didn't like to kill the animals, and he didn't like all the blood. He much preferred to work with his father's customers, the ones who brought their cows or sheep or chickens in for butchering, or with the ones who came to buy a cut of meat for a family meal or a chicken for a Shabbat dinner.

“So, Yaakov became adept at negotiating with customers. He was smart. When he was ten and eleven, he could figure all the angles. He instinctively knew when to push for a higher price, when to give in to an offer, and what goods to take in exchange for the butchering job. In fact, Yaakov was so good at negotiating that sometimes he helped his Uncle Avram out at the tailor shop. While Yaakov's father dealt only with other Jews, Avram had not only Jews but also Cossacks as customers.

“Yaakov had a quick mind and a quick ear. Yaakov didn't ‘sound Jewish' when he spoke Russian. He could talk to peasants like a peasant and to Cossack officers with the accent of one raised in a Cossack home. For his classmates he would mimic the rebbe's talks in Hebrew. That always got him into trouble, for the rebbe would walk in and find the boys laughing at Yaakov's antics rather than studying. Even at home, Yaakov was a chameleon. His sisters would hear their mother calling them to stop lounging around the garden and come into the house immediately to complete their chores. Once inside, however, they would find that it was only Yaakov, who, with pitch-perfect intonation, had fooled them.