Tansy

by Gretchen Craig

  She distributed a handful of pinto beans to each boy and had them draw circles on their slates. Inside their circles, they placed two beans. And then two more. How many beans was that? Everyone but David shouted out four. Did he not know it was four, or was he just too timid to speak up?

  Tansy put addition problems on the board and told them to use their beans to figure out the answers. David stared at the board and at his beans, his hands in his lap. Tansy pulled up a chair next to him. “How many beans do you have, David?”

  “I don’t know,” he murmured, his chin on his chest.

  “Can you count them?”

  David glanced at the beans. He began to rock slightly forward and back. “Fourteen.”

  “So you did know? Très bien.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know, but I do now.”

  He had glanced at the beans and counted to fourteen? Tansy saw he was protecting his pride, poor lad.

  “What if I gave you one more bean? How many would that be?” She’d never seen anyone rock like that, back and forth, back and forth in an odd sort of rhythm.

  “Fifteen.”

  “And if I gave you two more?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “So you know your numbers.”

  “I like numbers,” he said, so softly she barely heard him. “Especially eleven.”

  “You like the number eleven?”

  “And 233. I like that one, too.”

  Tansy sat back in her chair. She’d be willing to bet not another boy in the room had even imagined a number that big. “Can you add numbers that high?”

  David flicked a quick look at her and then lowered his gaze again. “Yes.”

  “What’s eleven plus eleven?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  She quizzed him all the way up 99 plus eleven. He never hesitated. “What about 856 and 449?”

  His answer was immediate. “One thousand three hundred and five.”

  Tansy wished she could talk to Christophe or Rosa. How unusual was it to have a nine year old so fluent with numbers? “Can you show Giles how you did that?”

  He hung his head. “I don’t know how I do it.”

  Giles had been doing the sums with his beans, his tongue between his teeth. He had heard every word though. “What’s six thousand eight hundred ninety-three plus fifty thousand eleven hundred,” he said.

  Tansy was quite sure Giles had no idea how to even write such numbers much less compute their sums. She was about to intervene to save David’s feelings when he muttered, “Fifty-seven thousand nine hundred ninety-three. If you mean fifty thousand eleven hundred is fifty-one thousand one hundred.”

  Tansy’s jaw dropped. Could he be right? She tried to compute it in her head, messed up, tried again, and decided 57,993 must be about right.

  “What an amazing mind, you have, David.” He wouldn’t look at her. Giles shrugged and went back to counting out beans to get eight plus nine.

  In the second hour, Tansy read to the boys and then asked them to draw a picture of something in the story. She walked around the room and saw a stick figure climbing a beanstalk into the clouds, an extremely long-necked goose, a giant with hairy arms. David drew a perfect oval in a corner of his slate.

  “Is that the goose egg?” Tansy asked.

  David gave her a quick look, then lowered his head again.

  “Is it an egg?” Giles said. “A golden egg?”

  David nodded his head.

  “It’s good.” Giles went back to drawing leaves on his beanstalk. Tansy could have kissed him for speaking to David as if he were, well, normal.

  “How many eggs do you think that goose laid?” Tansy asked.

  “Six.” He picked up his chalk and began drawing egg number two.

  She moved on to sit beside René and assured him that it was okay if his giant’s eyes were not exactly the same size. “In fact, he’s a monster, isn’t he? I bet monsters have crazy eyes, one huge and one tiny. What do you think?”

  “But they wouldn’t match,” René said, his voice rising with anxiety.

  “No, they wouldn’t! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  He wiggled in his seat. He bit at a fingernail. Then in one quick swoop, he erased the eyes and painstakingly drew one tiny eyeball and one huge one, so huge it was too big for the face.

  Marcus leaned over from his desk. “Look at René’s monster,” he called. Three other boys crowded round, making René shrink in his seat. Tansy held her breath. This was a lot of attention for René. She hoped he wouldn’t tense up and decide it was all too much for him.

  Louis suggested he add streaks so the eyes looked bloodshot. René’s left knee jiggled. His fingers gripped the chalk till his knuckles were white. And he added streaks!

  The boys made enthusiastic ugh sounds and went back to their desks. René stared at the gruesome monster face. Suddenly, he turned a smile on her. The first smile she’d seen! Was this the first time he had let go of perfection and tried something new? She knew how exhilarating that could be. Coming to school every day was the first new thing she’d done in … such a long time. Since she read that first book Christophe had given her.

  ~ ~ ~

  There never seemed to be enough time, Tansy thought. At Rosa’s invitation, she had joined the Women of Color Society, a group who took food baskets to families in need, and two mornings a week, if Valere had not stayed overnight, she took her turn in the little storeroom off the Ursuline Convent stocking the charity baskets. Add to that, Valere now visited her almost every evening. She had no chance to talk with Christophe about books, and she missed it.

  Before she left school Friday afternoon, she stopped at Christophe’s classroom. He held a taut length of string stretched in a triangle between his hands to show the boys how he could manipulate the angles by shifting his fingers. A man of many parts, Christophe. Here in the classroom, he focused totally on his boys and you might think teaching was his life. In the orchestra, the fiddle seemed a part of him, and surely music was his life. But those fine hands shuffled cards with great finesse, and rolled a cigarette with equal surety.

  His hands still held up to show the boys his triangle, he stepped over to the door and raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “Will you come for a picnic with Alain and me? Tomorrow?”

  For a moment, he looked comical with his triangle hands suspended in the air, his face turned to the side looking at her as if she’d spoken Greek. “You know. A picnic. Food, grass, trees. I’ll make your favorite strawberry tarts.”

  She tilted her head to look at him. Such a strange blank expression on his face.

  “All right,” he said.

  “Tomorrow, then. One o’clock.”

  That night Valere came to her early enough to spend a few minutes with Alain who again had his soldiers arrayed in straight lines facing each other. “This is the battle of Waterloo, Papa,” he explained.

  “Waterloo, eh? That’s where old Boney beat back the British, you know.”

  “Maman?” Alain called her to come from the kitchen. “You had it wrong, Maman. Papa says Boney beat the British at Waterloo.”

  Tansy glanced at Valere who looked very pleased with himself to have produced this nugget of information. She pursed her lips. She could explain it to Alain later. “Is that right?”

  “Surely you did not think the British ever beat Napoleon,” Valere said.

  “I suppose not.” Did Valere think then that Napoleon still ruled France? Had never been sent to St. Helena? “Put your soldiers away, sweetheart. Time for bed.”

  Once Alain fell asleep, Tansy took Valere to bed. They made love. Valere fell asleep. She lit a candle and curled up on the settee in her bedroom with a book about the French Revolution. Liberté, égalité, fraternité were stirring words, but Paris was not New Orleans. Her own world was one of slavery and caste. No wonder free young men of color escaped to Paris, to study, to make a life in a world without Louisiana’s obsession with skin color.

&n
bsp; Christophe might have done just that if his father had held on to his wealth. So many sons of placées studied at the Sorbonne or at the Université de Montpellier medical school in the south of France. But Christophe had done very well on his own. She wondered whether he had dreamed of becoming a lawyer or a physician. And she wondered if, now Napoleon was gone, the newly restored monarchy remembered liberté, égalité, fraternité. She would talk to Christophe about it tomorrow.

  Valere rolled over, his arm reaching across the empty bed for her. He raised his head and blinked at the candle light.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Only reading.”

  He seemed to think about that a moment. “Don’t do that. I want you with me.”

  She swallowed a sigh. She wasn’t sleepy. She placed the ribbon in her book, blew out the candle, and climbed back into bed.

  In the morning, Valere was insatiable. She indulged him, of course, then tried to get up — she heard Alain stirring in the next room — but he pulled her back and took her again. He didn’t expect her to pretend to climax, for which she was grateful. And also resentful, she realized. Did it not occur to him that she might not want sex again so soon? She tamped it down. Maybe all men were like this. Probably they were. She was fortunate that Valere often did want to pleasure her as well as himself.

  It occurred to her as he labored over her the second time that morning that Valere visited her more often now than he had before his marriage. He made love with more vigor than he had since their first weeks together. Perhaps making love was the source of trouble with his new wife. He had likely not taken the trouble to initiate her into sex, to help her relax and accept what his body and hers could be together. A white society belle, she certainly would not have been prepared as Tansy had been. Maman’s lessons had been embarrassingly explicit, humiliatingly personal. Tansy had already understood a man’s arousal, and her own, before Valere had taken her virginity.

  He climaxed in a desperate, straining groan, then collapsed on her, pressing her into the mattress. Tansy stroked his back, his hair. She loved it when he erupted so fully. Though they had no bond before the Church, she felt an ownership of him, a union with him.

  Finally, she whispered, “Valere, I can’t breathe.” He rolled off her and closed his eyes. She slipped on her négligée and went to see if Alain were awake. He was in his bed, Aesop’s Fables open before him, telling himself the story of Fox and Grapes. She leaned on his door jamb. “Bonjour, Alain.”

  “Shall I read to you, Maman?”

  She climbed on the bed with him. “Yes, please.”

  He turned back to the first page of the story where there was a drawing of a very sour looking fox walking away from a luscious cluster of grapes. “On a hot summer’s day,” Alain said. He traced his finger along the line of print for all the world as if he were reading.

  When he’d finished, he handed her the book. “Now it’s your turn.”

  They spent a happy half hour with Aesop, then Tansy got him washed and dressed. She made coffee and sliced oranges, waiting for Valere to waken. She’d feed him and he’d be off. She didn’t keep up with the horse races, but no doubt there would be one somewhere on a Saturday morning.

  He padded barefoot into the little kitchen area where she sipped coffee and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

  “Bonjour, mon fils,” he said to Alain who was spreading jam on his bread.

  “Bonjour, mon père.”

  Tansy squeezed Valere’s wrist, pleased he’d called Alain “son.” He had never ever denied Alain, but he seldom bothered to acknowledge him either.

  He pulled out his chair and frowned slightly. He picked up the book on the seat and tossed it in a corner where it skidded across the floor. Tansy drew a shocked breath, as if Valere had thrown a fragile Chinese vase, or a kitten, or a baby. Of course that was silly, but she picked the book up carefully, with both hands, as if it were bruised. Gently, she placed it on the parlor shelf.

  He sipped at the steaming cup of Cuban coffee she poured him and sighed over the rich aroma. “Why don’t you come with me to the races this morning?”

  “Horse races? In Metairie?”

  “It’s perfectly acceptable for a man to take his placée to the races. Wives never come. Or rarely. Mine certainly will not.”

  “But.” She couldn’t think what to say next. But she had planned a picnic in the park with another man? Of course there was nothing improper about it. Christophe was an old friend, a colleague. But she didn’t say it.

  “But what?” He reached a hand across the table. “You don’t have to be anywhere else.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Of course not,” she said. Sweat broke out on her upper lip. She felt slightly queasy. She’d drunk too much coffee on an empty stomach. She should eat something.

  She withdrew her hand from Valere’s and gripped her other in her lap. Christophe would be waiting for her and Alain in the park. She’d promised him strawberry tarts.

  “Don’t you have a new tignon?” Valere asked.

  “I do. The bronze silk.”

  “Wear that. I’ll fetch my carriage while you dress.”

  As soon as she’d helped him with his cravat and seen him out the door, she stepped quickly across the connected courtyards to tap on Martine’s back door. And tap again. At last Martine emerged from the bedroom in her négligée, her hair mussed and her feet bare.

  “The house better be on fire,” she said when she opened the door. She peered at Tansy with squinted eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need a favor.”

  That arranged, Tansy sent Alain to Martine and dressed herself. It had been ages since Valere had taken her anywhere. Even at the balls, she got herself to and from. Not long ago, she would have been thrilled to go to the races with him. Not that she cared two figs whose horse ran the fastest, but she would have been on his arm, doing something together besides rutting in the bed. She put her fingers over her lips. What an unlovely way to put it. She shook her head and buckled her shoes.

  ~ ~ ~

  Christophe claimed a patch of shade under a catalpa tree and sat back against the trunk. Fresh spring leaves and a balmy breeze — a perfect day for a picnic. When he spotted Alain skipping along, he rose to his feet. He squinted. That was not Tansy with him.

  “Bonjour,” Martine called.

  Alain ran for him. Christophe caught him under the arms and lifted him high in the air. When he put him down, he kept one hand on Alain’s shoulder and looked at Martine, waiting for an explanation. She merely smiled at him, teasing him. She made him say it. “Where is Tansy?”

  She set her basket down and spread out a blanket. “Unexpected event,” she said. “But she sent you your strawberry tarts.”

  “She’s not coming?”

  “No, Christophe,” she said gently. “Sit down. Let’s have our picnic.”

  He opened the two bottles of ginger beer he’d brought, and a bottle of limeade for Alain. Acid bubbles burned his stomach. Where the hell was she? Her own goddamn picnic. She’d asked him, he hadn’t asked for a goddamn thing.

  Martine tucked a napkin into Alain’s collar and unpacked her basket. She paused, her hand on a linen wrapped bundle. “Christophe,” she said, looking at him. “Can we not have a nice time?”

  He schooled his features into what he meant to be a pleasant expression. “Of course.” He raised his bottle. “Bon appétit.”

  They talked of people they knew, the balls, the news. And about Tansy’s new role as teacher. “She has a natural talent,” Christophe said. “She makes work feel like play for a whole room full of wiggly boys.”

  “I never thought she’d step out of Valere’s orbit. I don’t think she expected to either, but she loves teaching. You did a fine thing, opening that door for her.”

  He scratched at the ginger beer’s label with his thumbnail. “She walked through it on her own.”

  They watched Alain play with another boy. They chased t
he child’s dog, the mutt bouncing and running just out of reach. If he got too far ahead, the clever dog slowed down or doubled back. The boys’ shrieks shattered the peace, and Christophe grinned. Nothing like a child’s glee to brighten a mood. He wrapped his arms around his knees. “So, Martine. You and your Monsieur DuMaine?”

  Martine laughed. “Tansy hasn’t scared him off yet. But she may have scared him. He is to sign the contract with Madame Bouvier Monday morning. And then he will be mine.”

  He sipped his ginger beer. No, he thought. You will be his, Martine. “You’re very pleased with yourself.”

  “I am more than pleased. I’m … ” She searched for the right word.

  “Ecstatic?”

  She laughed again. Martine had a lovely laugh. He was glad to see her happy. She had looked increasingly hard the last year or two. Now her face had softened, and she looked younger. She looked … ecstatic.

  They were quiet a moment. Without looking at Martine, he said, “Where is she?”

  He didn’t know why he asked. He knew where she was. With Valcourt.

  “He took her to the races at Metairie.”

  He nodded, his eyes on the dog running circles around the boys. Martine began packing the picnic basket, slowly, quietly.

  “It seems harder for you now than it did five years ago.”

  Five years ago he’d believed he’d get over losing her. “Of course not. Come on, I’ll buy you an ice on the levee.”

  Alain and his friend collapsed on the grass, writhing and giggling as the dog licked first one face and then the other. Christophe hated to break up the fun, but he could not sit here any longer with Martine’s damned sympathy.

  The three of them strolled toward the river, Alain holding hands between them. To anyone who didn’t know them, they’d look like a family. Prosperous gens de colour libre. The beautiful woman, the beautiful child, and the school teacher. He swallowed the bitterness, tried to ignore the hollowness in his chest. He had everything. His music. The school. Musette. Why couldn’t that be enough?