The Witching Hour (172 page)

“Are they angry with me now? Have they turned away from me in my failure? Or do they accept that I tried, using the only tools I had, and do they see perhaps, what I see, that Rowan will return and that the story isn’t finished?

“I can’t know. But I do know that there is no evil lurking in this house, no souls hanging about in its rooms. On the contrary, it feels wonderfully clean and bright, just the way I intended it to be.

“I’ve been slowly going through the attics, finding interesting things. I’ve found all of Antha’s short stories, and they are fascinating. I sit upstairs in that third-floor room and read them by the sunlight coming in the windows, and I feel Antha all around me—not a ghost, but the living presence of the woman who wrote those delicate sentences, trying to voice her agony and her struggle, and her joy at being free for such a short time in New York.

“Who knows what else I’ll find up there. Maybe Julien’s autobiography is tucked behind a beam.

“If only I had more energy, if only I didn’t have to take things so slowly, and a walk around the place wasn’t such a chore.

“Of course it is the most exquisite place for walking imaginable. I always knew that.

“The old rose garden is coming back, gorgeously, in these warm days, and just yesterday, Aunt Viv told me that she had always dreamed of having roses to tend in her old age, and that she would care for them from now on, that the gardener only needed to give her a little assistance. Seems he remembered ‘old Miss Belle’ who had taken care of these roses in the past, and he’s been filling her head with the names of the various species.

“I think it’s marvelous, that she is so happy here.

“I myself prefer the wilder, less tended flowers. Last week, after they had put the screens back up on Deirdre’s old porch and I had gotten a new rocking chair for it, I noticed that the honeysuckle was crawling over the new wooden railing in full force, and on up the cast iron, just the way it was when we first came here.

“And outside, in the flower beds, beneath the fancy camellias, the wild four o’clocks are coming back, and so is the little lantana that we called bacon and eggs with its orange and brown flowers. I told the gardeners not to touch those things. To let it have its old wild look again. After all, the patterns are too dominant at the moment.

“I feel as if I’m moving from diamonds to rectangles to squares when I walk around, and I want it softened, obscured, drenched in green, the way the Garden District always was in my memory.

“Also it isn’t private enough. Today of all days, when people were trooping through the streets, heading for the parade route on St. Charles to see Rex pass, or just to wander in their carnival costumes, too many heads turned to peer through the fence. It ought to be more secretive.

“In fact, regarding that very question, the strangest thing happened tonight.

“But let me briefly review the day, being that it was Mardi Gras, and the day of days.

“The Mayfair Five Hundred were here early, as the Rex parade passes on St. Charles Avenue at about eleven o’clock. Ryan had seen to all the arrangements, with a big buffet breakfast set out at nine, followed by lunch at noon, and an open bar with coffee and tea all day.

“Perfect, especially since I didn’t have to do a damned thing but now and then come down in the elevator, shake a few hands, kiss a few cheeks, and then plead fatigue, which was no lie, and go back upstairs to rest.

“My idea of how to run this place exactly. Especially with Aaron there to help, and Aunt Vivian enjoying every minute of it.

“From the upstairs porches, I watched the children running back and forth from here to the avenue, playing on the lawn outside, and even swimming, on account of its being just a perfectly lovely day. I wouldn’t go near that pool for love nor money, but it’s run to see them splashing in it, it really is.

“Wonderful to realize that the house makes all this possible, whether Rowan is here or not. Whether I am here or not.

“But around five o’clock, when things were winding down,
and some of the children were napping, and everyone was waiting for Comus, my lovely peace and quiet came to an end.

“I looked up from
War and Peace
to see Aaron and Aunt Viv standing there before me, and I knew before they spoke what they were going to say.

“I ought to put on clothes, I ought to eat something, I ought to at least sample the salt-free dishes Henri had so carefully prepared for me. I ought to come downstairs.

“And I ought to at least walk up to the avenue to see Comus, said Aunt Viv, the very last parade of Mardi Gras night.

“As if I didn’t know.

“Aaron stood quiet all this time saying nothing, and then he ventured that maybe it would be good for me to see the parade after all these years, and sort of dispel the mystique which had built up around it and of course he would be there with me the whole time.

“I don’t know what got into me but I said yes.

“I dressed in a dark suit, tie, the works, combed my hair, thrilling at the sight of the gray, and feeling uncomfortable and constrained after weeks of robes and pajamas, I went downstairs. Lots of hugs and kisses, and warm greetings from the dozens of Mayfair lolling about everywhere. And didn’t I look good? And didn’t I look much better? And all those tiresome but well-intentioned remarks.

“Michael, the cardiac cripple. I was out of breath from simply coming down the stairs!

“Whatever the case, by six-thirty I started walking slowly towards the avenue with Aaron, Aunt Viv having gone ahead with Bea and Ryan and a legion of others, and there came those drums all right, that fierce diabolical cadence as if accompanying a convicted witch in a tumbrel to be burned at the stake.

“I hated it with all my heart, and I hated the sight of the lights up there, but I knew Aaron was right. I ought to see it. And besides, I wasn’t really afraid. Hate is one thing. Fear is another. How completely calm I felt in my hate.

“The crowds were sparse since it was the very end of the day and the whole season, and there was no problem at all finding a comfortable place to stand on the neutral ground, in all the beaten-down grass and litter from the day-long mayhem, and I wound up leaning against a trolley line pole, hands behind my back, as the first floats came into view.

“Ghastly, ghastly as it had been in childhood, these mammoth quivering papier-mâché structures rolling slowly down the avenue beyond the heads of the jubilant crowds.

“I remembered my dad bawling me out when I was seven.
‘Michael, you’re not scared of anything real, you know it? But you gotta get over your crazy fear of those parades.’ And he was right of course. By that time, I had had a terrible fear of them, and been a real crybaby about it, ruining Mardi Gras for him and my mother, that was true. I got over it soon enough. Or at least I learned to hide it as the years passed.

“Well, what was I seeing now, as the flambeau carriers came marching and prancing along, with those beautiful stinking torches, and the sound of the drums grew louder with the approach of the first of the big proud high school bands?

“Just a mad, pretty spectacle, wasn’t it? It was all much more brightly lighted for one thing, with the high-powered street lamps, and the old flambeaux were included for old times’ sake only, not for illumination, and the young boys and girls playing the drums were just handsome and bright-faced young boys and girls.

“Then came the king’s float, amid cheering and screaming, a great paper throne, high and ornate and splendidly decorated, with the man himself quite fine in his jeweled crown, mask, and long curling wig. What extravagance, all that velvet. And of course he waved his golden cup with such perfect composure, as if this wasn’t one of the most bizarre sights in the world.

“Harmless, all of it harmless. Not dark and terrible and no one about to be executed. Little Mona Mayfair tugged at my hand suddenly. She wanted to know if I would hold her on my shoulders. Her daddy had said he was tired.

“Of course, I told her. The hard part was getting her on and then standing back up, not so good for the old ticker—I almost died!—but I did it, and she had a great time screaming for throws and reaching for the junk beads and plastic cups raining upon us from the passing floats.

“And what pretty old-fashioned floats they were. Like the floats in our childhood, Bea explained, with none of the new mechanical or electric gimmicks. Just lovely intricate confections of delicate trembling trees and flowers and birds, trimmed exquisitely in sparkling foil. The men of the krewe, masked and costumed in satin, worked hard pitching their trinkets and junk into the sea of upthrust hands.

“At last it was finished. Mardi Gras was over. Ryan helped Mona down off my shoulders, scolding her for bothering me, and I protested that it had been fun.

“We walked back slowly, Aaron and I falling behind the others, and then as the party went on inside with champagne and music, this strange thing happened, which was as follows:

“I took my usual walk around the dark garden, enjoying the
beautiful white azaleas that were blooming all over, and the pretty petunias and other annual flowers which the gardeners had put into the beds. When I reached the big crepe myrtle at the back of the lawn, I realized for the first time that it was finally coming back into leaf. Tiny little green leaves covered it all over, though in the light of the moon it still looked bony and bare.

“I stood under the tree for a few minutes, looking towards First Street, and watching the last stragglers from the avenue pass the iron fence. I think I was wondering if I could chance a cigarette out here with no one to catch me and stop me, and then I realized that of course I didn’t have any, that Aaron and Aunt Viv, on the doctor’s orders, had thrown them all away.

“Whatever the case, I was drifting in my thoughts and loving the spring warmth, when I realized that a mother and child were rushing by out there, and that the child, seeing me under the tree, had pointed and said something to the mother about ‘that man.’

“ ‘That man.’

“It hit me with a sudden jolt of hilarity. I was ‘that man.’ I had switched places with Lasher. I had become the man in the garden. I had now taken up his old station and his old role. I was without question the dark-haired man of First Street, and the pattern of it and the irony of it made me laugh and laugh.

“No wonder the son of a bitch said he loved me. He should. He stole my child, my wife and my lover, and he left me here, planted in his place. He took my life from me, and gave me his haunting ground in exchange. Why wouldn’t he love me for all that?

“I don’t know how long I stood there smiling to myself, and laughing quietly in the darkness, but gradually I got tired. Just being on my feet for any length of time tires me out.

“And then a brokenhearted sort of sadness came over me, because the pattern seemed to have significance, and I thought maybe I’ve been wrong all along, and there
are
real witches. And we are all damned.

“But I don’t believe that.

“I went on with my nocturnal wanderings, and later said goodbye to all the lovely Mayfairs, promising to visit, yes, when I felt better, and assuring them we’d have another big party here on St. Patrick’s Day in just a very few weeks.

“The night grew quiet and empty like any other night in the Garden District finally, and the Comus parade, in retrospect, became ever more unreal in its prettiness and gaudiness, like
something that couldn’t have taken place with all that pomp and seriousness in a grown-up world.

“Yes, conquered that old beast I did by going. Silenced those drums forever, I hope and pray.

“And I don’t believe that it was all patterned and planned and destined. I don’t.

“Maybe Aaron in his passivity and his dogmatic open-mindedness can entertain the idea that it was planned—that even my father’s death was part of it, and that I was destined just to be a stud for Rowan, and a father for Lasher. But accept this I do not.

“And it isn’t only that I don’t believe it. I can’t.

“I can’t believe it because my reason tells me that such a system, in which anyone dictates our every move—be it a god, or a devil, or our subconscious mind, or our tyrannical genesis simply impossible.

“Life itself must be founded upon the infinite possibility for choice and accident. And if we cannot prove that it is, we must believe that it is. We must believe that we can change, that we can control, that we can direct our own destinies.

“Things could have gone differently. Rowan could have refused to help that thing. She could have killed it. And she may kill it yet. And behind her actions may lie the tragic possibility that once it had come into the flesh, she couldn’t bring herself to destroy it.

“I refuse to judge Rowan. The rage I felt against her is now gone.

“And I choose of my own free will to stay here, waiting for her, and believing in her.

“That belief in her is the first tenet of my credo. And no matter how enormous and intricate this web of events seems, no matter how much it is like all the patterns of flags and balustrades and repetitive cast iron that dominate this little plot of earth, I maintain my credo.

“I believe in Free Will, the Force Almighty by which we conduct ourselves as if we were the sons and daughters of a just and wise God, even if there is no such Supreme Being. And by free will, we can choose to do good on this earth, no matter that we all die, and do not know where we go when we die, or if a justice or explanation awaits us.

“I believe that we can through our reason know what good is, and in the communion of men and women, in which the forgiveness of wrongs will always be more significant than the avenging of them, and that in the beautiful natural world that surrounds us, we represent the best and the finest of beings, for
we alone can see that natural beauty, appreciate it, learn from it, weep for it, and seek to conserve it and protect it.

“I believe finally that we are the only true moral force in the physical world, the makers of ethics and moral ideas, and that we must be as good as the gods we’ve created in the past to guide us.