by Belva Plain
How could one be sure of that? At home, in the village, one was never sure. When a peasant wanted to greet you, he spoke; otherwise he ignored you, passing as though you were part of the empty air. Unless, of course, he went on a rampage—for God only knew what reason—and killed your mother on the doorstep of her house .…
And his mind traveled back to that old dwelling, to the dim, low rooms, the sour smells of age and damp, the memory of sudden death, traveled back to the old fear, and forward again to this, as he tried to make a sane and plausible connection.
He stirred the food, moving it around his plate. Never had he seen such quantities of food, too great for even his young appetite. So much of it was forbidden anyway! There had been suckling pig, which of course he had recognized when it was carried to the table on an enormous silver platter, with its skin all crackled to a crisp. They had stuck a pipe in its pitiful snout: poor, filthy little animal, with its scanty eyelashes and its dead eyes! Then there had been something called vol-au-vent, a kind of pastry filled with oyster stew; this he had tried, not knowing what it was, and found it very tasty. But he had laid the fork aside as soon as he had been told what it was. At least there were quantities of vegetables. One could live very well on them alone if one had to, along with the good hot breads which were always on the table. Also, there was wine. Even at breakfast there was wine. But one had to be careful of overdoing that, especially in this smothering heat. A Jew must never be drunk.
Miriam was eating shrimp in a spicy red sauce. David had refused that, too. He no longer had any authority over his sister, however; from now on it was evident his father and his father’s wife would take charge of her. She was their child. Permissions would be granted or denied by them. He watched her now as she scraped the last of the sauce from the plate, licking her fingers when she thought no one was looking. She touched his heart, small as she was in the ornate high-backed chair, with the pleated lace collar almost engulfing her frail, childish neck.
Observing everyone around the table, missing nothing, he was aware that every woman there wore lace somewhere on her person. Aunt Emma—they had been instructed to call their father’s wife “Aunt”—Aunt Emma’s ruddy cheeks bloomed over a foam of black lace. He marveled that she was already on second helpings and yet had hardly stopped talking since they had sat down. The lace quivered under her chin.
“Yes, Sisyphus is a gentleman, an exquisite gentleman. Why, he taught manners to all my brothers when they were hardly old enough to walk.”
Sisyphus, an aging Negro with hair like a gray woolen cap, stood at the sideboard with a folded napkin over his arm, directing the young maids.
“Yes, Sisyphus is a faithful servant,” Aunt Emma went on as if he weren’t there at all. “Much more than only a butler. He has a talent for landscape gardening; he actually laid out the rose gardens at my father’s house. Have I ever mentioned that to you, Ferdinand? My brother Joseph would love to have him in Texas, but he can’t have Sisyphus, I won’t give him up! Joseph may have his fifty thousand acres of cotton, but he won’t get my Sisyphus.”
The resonant deep voice ran on uninterrupted. David’s ears closed themselves to the rush of words. Again he looked around the table as if to analyze or to memorize all the nuts and candies in their filigreed silver dishes, the candelabra, the flowers, still so fresh that one could see glossy drops of water on the stems. But most of all, as always, he watched faces and people. Never had he sat down to eat among so many. In this house the dining room was filled at every meal. Even at breakfast there were guests.
Now, catching David’s eye, Ferdinand gave a satisfied nod of acknowledgment, asking without words: You see? Isn’t it just what I told you? Everything I told you? How do you like it?
Across from David sat Pelagie, a soft young woman with a timid, curving, constant smile. Her thick hair swept back from her forehead; her eyes were turned always toward the husband who sat beside her. “Isn’t that so, Sylvain?” she asked after every observation, every slight remark: “Isn’t that true, Sylvain?” To which Sylvain, a severe young man with prominent features, a fashionable cravat, and perfect linen, would nod his approval. But then, David thought, she never says anything one could disagree with!
And he amused himself with silent appraisals as his eyes moved down the row. That bored old man, now, he was someone you would like! He twinkled. The woman in blue looked as if she had been crying; no doubt her husband was nasty, he looked it. Eulalie, Aunt Emma’s elder daughter, now, she—no, I don’t care about her at all. She had angry eyes, two black lumps under a high forehead rounded as a dome. Her dress was hideous; he knew nothing about clothes and cared little, but he could feel color in his soul, and the violent green of this woman’s dress was terrible. A lumpy necklace collided with her collarbone. Catching his concentration on her, she stared back angrily so that David had to lower his eyes. He rested them on her white, bony knuckles. We do not like each other, he thought, but it’s she who began it. I might try to like her if she would try, but she will not. He had known that on the very first day, in the first hour in that house. He didn’t know why; he had done nothing wrong. Was it because she did not like Jews? Naturally, that was the first thing experience had taught one to think of.
It was astonishing: He had never in his life been in the company of so many people who were not Jewish. To be exact, he had never sat down to eat with anyone who wasn’t Jewish, not even once. The peasants at home never invited you into their houses, and he knew no one else. The man and woman between whom he now sat were the only other Jews at the table. They were Henry and Rosa de Rivera, she the sister of his friend Gabriel from the Mirabelle. Papa had invited them to this Sunday dinner.
Beneath the louder flow of Emma’s voice Rosa de Rivera murmured, “You’re very like my brother, I think, a serious young man. Old for your age. Although, I don’t know, I haven’t seen Gabriel for three years.” She had a lively, amused expression and the familiar, vivid, heavy-lidded eyes of her people. Amber jewels swung from her ears and glistened at her wrists. “So thoughtful. Of what are you thinking this minute, may I ask?”
“How strange all this is. I don’t know what to say to these people, what they expect of me.”
“Expect? Just smile and mind your manners. They don’t expect anything more than that.”
“But,” he stammered, “I’ve lived in a different world, so small, shut in—”
“Then, this will be good for you. Just be yourself. You’re very keen. You’ll get along.”
“You and your husband are the only Jews here .…”
“There’s Marie Claire Myers, the little girl sitting with her mother. They’re visiting from Shreveport.”
“That’s her mother? But she’s wearing a cross.”
“Her mother is a Catholic.”
“Then she can’t be Jewish.”
“She’s Jewish.”
“She can’t be! That’s the Law and has been since Moses,” he protested.
“I know. But it’s different here.”
How many more times would he be told that things were different here?
“Her father, although he married her mother in the cathedral, wanted their children to be reared as Jews.”
David regarded the girl. Three or four years older than Miriam, she had a long freckled face and a mass of pale curly hair. He felt confusion. A Jewish girl whose mother wore a cross!
“We’ve had to make our own rules here,” Henry de Rivera explained. “Our synagogue’s only ten years old, Shanarai Chasset, Gates of Mercy. Thirty-four of us men got together and started it. Manis Jacobs—he was the first president—had a Catholic wife, but he didn’t want his children excluded, so he had the synagogue’s constitution read that no Israelite child should be barred on account of the mother’s religion. No one minded, because most of the men were married to Catholics, anyway.”
David shook his head. “Strange.”
“Not as strange as it used to be. Remember, we had no tr
ained rabbi and still haven’t got one. We’re a thousand miles away from any center of Jewish life like Charleston or Philadelphia. We’ve nothing at all like that. Why, we only needed five thousand dollars for a building, yet you can’t believe how hard it was to raise it! There were so few of us.”
A question came to David’s lips. First he swallowed it down, then asked it. “My father—did he give?”
Henry de Rivera smiled. “He gave. Rather more generously than some, although I must admit he never did set foot in the place after it was built. But,” he added, “that’s a man’s privilege if he so chooses. And there are many in this city who do so choose.”
He will commit himself to no opinion, David thought. He’s a lawyer, and prudent, risking no offense.
Rosa spoke. “New Orleans is not a religious city for Christians, either. Oh, the women go to church, but the men don’t really care much. There’s easy living here, as Henry always says. One makes money quickly, one wants to spend it …” She shrugged. “Anyway, you must come see us. You may go to the synagogue with us if you like. And Miriam must come. We have two baby boys. Little girls always like to play with babies.”
“You’re not eating anything, David.” Emma’s voice, interrupting her own monologue, rang across the table.
“I’m eating what I want. Thank you,” he answered, remembering to be gracious.
“It’s this heat You’re not eating because of the heat Monroe, move closer to M’sieu David with that fan.”
A black boy in bare feet approached with a large palmetto fan. David recoiled.
“No, not for me. I don’t need it.”
For an instant Emma looked vexed, then as quickly her small frown vanished. She is a woman who doesn’t want to be troubled, David thought.
Her husky voice, a proper voice for a fat woman, resumed. “M’sieu Ferdinand is ready for his coffee, Sisyphus. Have some of Serafina’s marvelous little cakes, Miriam my dear. Langues de chat, cats’ tongues, they’re called. Ridiculous name for anything so delicious.” Emma’s mouth lingered like a cat’s tongue on the syllables of “delicious.” “Do move closer to me with that fan, Monroe, I’m perishing with heat.” And indeed her color had gone from pink to deepest plum. Circles of sweat darkened her dress as she raised her arms to smooth the lace at her neck. “I’m perishing with heat,” she repeated, not ill-naturedly.
“Never mind, you will soon be at the Pass,” Ferdinand consoled her, explaining to Miriam and David, “Pass Christian’s our seaside place. Wonderful breezes, good bathing and boating. We’re late starting this year because of my traveling to Europe.”
“The best people go there. You will see the best young people,” Emma said, addressing her husband’s children. “Don’t you think, Mr. Raphael, that David in particular ought to be meeting young men of influence?” And without waiting for Ferdinand’s reply, “We have such a delightful house there. My first husband’s father, Mr. Leclerc, built it years ago. Of course it’s nothing compared with some you will see, but very nice all the same.”
Rosa whispered to David, “The Leclercs were enormously rich! The grandfather came here before the Louisiana Purchase and made a fortune!”
Emma was saying, “He used to go to Paris every year—every year, mind you! And brought home such marvelous things: tapestries, gold plate, and—”
“Some say he was involved with a bit of piracy,” Sylvain interrupted, his mischievous tone unfitted to his strict bearing.
Emma dismissed the comment lightly. “For goodness’ sake, they say that about half the population of the city!”
“And it’s probably true about half the population, too,” Sylvain retorted.
He must be very rich, David thought, fancying his own shrewdness, or else he would never dare speak to his wife’s mother like that.
Since early childhood David had observed and weighed the life around him. One of the facts he had first learned was that the possession of wealth allows liberties which are denied to people who do not possess it.
Yet he liked Emma. He saw that she was boastful and foolish, but she was also kind. Sylvain made him uneasy, he did not know why.
“Well, I can’t tell about other people’s ancestors, but I know about mine, and there were no pirates among them, just honest German country people,” Emma said. “Lived on the German Coast just north of here. Farmers, you know, and very poor, didn’t even own a cow, they say. Oh, how they worked, those people! Then they married among the French and died out. French blood is strong, you know. They even changed their names to sound French. Yes, it’s a long way from the corn husk mattress and the Acadian farmhouse. Sisyphus remembers, don’t you, Sisyphus? He was only a child when he came with my mother and two or three other servants, all she had brought with her when she married my father. My mother came from a much simpler home, you see. Simple, but refined, the best stock. De la fine fleur des pois, the first blossom of the sweetpea, we call ourselves, we old Creoles. The best blood. Blood tells, I always say.”
Blood, David thought. Blood and money. That’s all they’ve talked about since we sat down to eat. He stared uncomfortably, wanting to get up.
Miriam was yawning. She had brought the yellow-haired doll to sit with her. Now she was fingering a narrow gold bracelet, given by Emma as a token of welcome. It would be good for the child in this house. She would be safe here, cared for, cherished.
At last chairs were pushed back and everyone stood up.
Emma asked brightly, “Shall we have some music?”
“Perhaps Marie Claire will sing for us,” Ferdinand suggested.
One passed through folding doors from the first parlor into the second. In the first the blinds were always drawn against the sun. How, in the evening, a grave blue light came through the slats, touching gilded chair frames and yellow silk, crystal bric-a-brac and mirrors, enhancing their dignity and worth. In the second parlor the piano, the harp, and the bookshelves made a more lively setting.
“Pelagie, will you play for Marie Claire? Marie Claire has a wonderful voice,” Ferdinand explained with kindly pride. “I’m told that her singing master has great hopes for her .… But look here, David, I don’t know whether I’ve pointed out Emma’s picture. It’s by Salazar, the famous portrait artist.”
Between two doors in an oval frame hung a painting of a slender young woman wearing a thin white shift gathered under small breasts. Pensively she contemplated a spray of lilacs.
“Of course, the Empire style was ridiculous, although I must say one did feel free, almost naked! But it’s a good likeness, don’t you think so?” Emma asked eagerly.
“Very,” David said, not seeing even the remotest resemblance to the lady beside him.
“Well, now.” Ferdinand rubbed his hands. “Shall we begin? What have you two decided on?”
Pelagie had taken her seat at the piano, while Marie Claire stood in its curve.
Pelagie answered. “We’ll start with some Irish songs, we thought. ‘Kathleen Mavourneen.’ It’s quite new and very popular.”
Her hands moved on the keyboard with a caressing touch, so that the notes lingered like sobs. The sound was sentimental, like Pelagie herself. But the girl Marie Claire sang without sentiment. Her unadorned, pure emotion caught at David. He knew nothing about either music or voices, yet he was certain that this was a woman’s voice in a child’s body. He was totally absorbed in the sound and in the radiance of Marie Claire’s plain face, when Emma leaned toward him to whisper.
“Do look at what Eulalie’s doing. It’s called macrame. She has such talent with her hands, she made those portieres.”
Obediently he looked to where the somber one—for he had mentally bestowed that name upon Eulalie—was making elaborate motions with a length of string.
“Very nice,” he murmured, smiling inwardly at his own newfound suavity. I am learning, he thought, returning to the music.
After a while his mind began to wander. His eyes moved from Pelagie’s floating skirt to the ca
rpet’s arabesques, then to the red silk draperies, splashed pink by candlelight. Down the depths of the house, across the hall, he could see the dining room, where servants were still clearing the long table. Beyond that, he knew, stretched a verandah from which one stepped down into the courtyard, the garden, the stables, and the kitchen, where the true life of the great house was carried on. There in the cellars, the wash-house, and quarters the work was done. His room faced in that direction, and last night he had heard servants’ voices talking and arguing, heard shrill female yapping and resonant male rumbling. He had heard singing, too, rich, passionate song, different from any he had ever experienced, and it had touched him as he lay in bed, touched him with a strange nostalgia, a strange yearning. But yearning for what? Nostalgia for what? Surely not for home. He never wanted to go “home.”
Ah, such confusion in his young heart! That the comfort of this room, at this moment, with the chairs so soft, with stomach so filled, and the gauzy light, the drowsy fragrance—that these should seem so wrong! There was a surfeit in them. Something cloyed in this house. There was too much food, too much silk, too many flowers—
Sisyphus, entering on soundless feet, was murmuring something to Emma. He caught the words “Blaise and Fanny.” Emma stood up just as the music was coming to a close and the evening ending.
“David and Miriam, come with me. Blaise and Fanny have arrived,” she explained as they climbed the stairs. “I’ve sent for them from the country, or rather bought them from a dear friend of mine who has no need of them anymore. They are sister and brother and very well recommended, naturally, or I wouldn’t have taken them. Well, here we are.”
In the upstairs hall a young girl waited. She was possibly twelve or thirteen years old. Her skin was almost white; her black hair, straight as Miriam’s, hung in two braids down her back.
“This is Mam’selle Miriam, Fanny.”
Fanny curtsied.
“And this, Blaise, is M’sieu David.”
He was a boy of David’s age. His light-gray eyes were startling in his dark face, so many shades darker than his sister’s.
