Crescent City

by Belva Plain

  There was a cheerful bustle under the piazza where they were standing. Sisyphus was setting the great silver coffee urns in place, these being his special responsibility and pride; Chanute and Maxim carried in the last of the potted hydrangeas. Paper lanterns trembled in a mild breeze, and the orchestra, tuning, made the expectant sound that said that the curtain would shortly rise. Except for the absence of a bridal canopy, it was exactly like Miriam’s wedding scene. Having no wish to recall that scene, she turned away to inquire of Pelagie where Marie Claire might be.

  “In the guest bedroom with Mama. They’re all flustered. Some of the ruching came loose on her skirt and her own mother didn’t even notice it. Mama did, of course. You can trust her,” Pelagie said pridefully, “to be efficient about every last detail, can’t you? She really has put a great deal of effort into this party.”

  “It’s been two years since I saw Marie Claire.”

  “I haven’t seen her in a while, either, except for the week she spent at our place last summer. This has been a quick romance. Only three weeks.”

  “Really? Is she very happy?”

  “Oh, she never shows how she feels. I sometimes think she doesn’t feel much at all unless she’s at the piano singing. She accompanies herself, you know.”

  Miriam remembered a long, sober face. In spite of having seen it so seldom, it rose clearly before her eyes. And with it once more came a strange sensation that their lives would in some way cross.

  “She certainly ought to be happy now,” Pelagie resumed. “André’s charming. He’s of a good family. His mother’s Jewish and his father’s French. They’ve plenty of money, too.” And she repeated, “It really is remarkable that he’s marrying her with so little. Of course your father is being generous as always. He’s bought her silver and all sorts of nice extravagant things.”

  Miriam heard herself quoting Eugene. “My father can be too extravagant.”

  “You know, I’ll tell you something, but don’t dare repeat it. Marie Claire told me that this was her only chance to get to Europe to study voice. André has business there for at least a year. Do you suppose she would marry him just for that?”

  “I don’t know. I do remember feeling that there was something desperate about her.”

  “Desperate? She thinks too much of having a great career.”

  “Her voice is marvelous, Pelagie.”

  “Not as marvelous as having the right husband. She wants to study with Manuel García in Paris. She thinks she has a voice like Jenny Lind’s.”

  “Maybe she has. How will she find out if she doesn’t try?”

  “It all sounds very grand, I’m sure, but for myself I wouldn’t change with a hundred Jenny Linds. It always seems to me that each of my babies is more miraculous than the last My little Louie is already sitting up! And you should see how wonderful Felicité is with him, with all the little ones. Can you believe she’s twelve years old? Such a good-natured child, a little mother already. In a few years, just think, she will be a real mother. Oh, you’ve brought the children! They’re so sweet, Miriam. I think twins are so sweet.”

  The twins had appeared in the courtyard to stare at the musicians until Fanny should lead them away. Pink and clean, with their well-kept hair and starched sleeves, they belonged in a picture book.

  All I have in the world, Miriam thought fiercely, her eyes stretching as if to encompass and devour them.

  “Yes, Papa wanted to see them,” she answered, “so we’re letting them stay up late. He likes to show off his first grandchildren.”

  “First? Are you—?”

  “No,” Miriam said shortly. “I’m not.”

  “But, Miriam, the twins are already three.”

  “I know they are.”

  Dear Pelagie could be so exasperating! When Sylvain had bought a city house for the winter season, Miriam had been so glad, but sometimes she felt overwhelmed by Pelagie’s platitudes and hovering, kindly presence.

  “I’ve a headache,” she said abruptly. “I think I’ll go to the yellow guestroom to lie down for a few minutes.”

  Instead of lying down she confronted herself in the mirror. Earlier that day she had cried again. Now two pink spots glared on her cheekbones and there was a glaze on her eyelids which even the ice that Fanny had brought could not entirely dispel. A fleck of sawdust from the ice still clung to her sleeve. She could not remember why she had cried.

  When Eugene was in a mood, he made no effort to conceal it. He spoke to her with contempt.

  “The soup at dinner last night wasn’t fit to eat. Can you not supervise your servants any better than that?”

  She had made a dignified resolve not to let his words touch her.

  “Speak up! I can’t hear when you mumble, especially with that German accent.”

  She tried to keep herself immune, removed and above him, so that her response to these attacks was to make no response. Unfortunately, she was not always able to control her eyes, which could brim on the instant to overflowing while she kept lips and forehead steady.

  “Oh, my God, crying again!” he would say. “Tears, tears, the woman’s weapon.”

  If only she did not have to share a room with him! If only there were one place in that large house to which a woman might go and be alone with herself! Only in the morning after Eugene had left for the day could she be certain of a time alone, pretending to sleep so that even Fanny would not disturb her until she rang. And she would lie there watching the pink light creep across the floor, thinking about nothing and everything.

  Now he knocked on the door. He was irritable. He had been looking for her.

  “Come. What are you doing in here? Your father’s asking for you. Turn around. Yes, the dress is good enough. The color suits you for once, puts color in your face. Can you manage a smile? There are important people here, the cream of the city’s business.”

  “I’m coming,” she said softly. Her voice sounded to her ears like a sigh. But then it seemed to her that wives’ voices often did. She had begun to notice such things. Even Pelagie, who was so much in love with Sylvain, seemed to speak in a tone of submission. And she followed Eugene’s tall broadcloth back downstairs.

  The hall was filling, as if everyone were arriving at once. It was like looking down into a kaleidoscope in which buttons and pins and scraps of bright cloth can be made to whirl into fantastic shapes. Across the hall a dozen candles, casting a ruby glow, had turned the red room into a jewel box. Around the piano Ferdinand’s chosen string quartet had grouped itself to play and sing the old French folk songs, familiar to the house.

  Ferdinand kissed his daughter. “Come, you’ve not met Marie Claire’s fiancé. This is André Perrin. My daughter, Mrs. Mendes. You’re acquainted with her husband.”

  Perrin bowed. “Yes, certainly. A brilliant man, Mrs. Mendes.”

  She saw first the top of a head of strong fair hair, then a lively, frank young face with laugh lines radiating from the eyes.

  Emma came bustling from the dining room, where she had been inspecting tables.

  “André! Where’s your bride? I’ve been looking for her. Ah, there she is! Marie Claire, how are you, my dear? But you look adorable”—as though she had not herself been upstairs only a few minutes before attending to the girl’s dress.

  Marie Claire gave her earnest smile. She had not changed. Her tight curls were still the color of pale sand and she wore an unbecoming dress of the same dull color. She is so plain, Miriam thought with sudden pity, and he’s so flashing.

  The engaged pair was drawn away and the party began to split into groups. Old ladies, the married and the widowed, collected around the buffet tables. Why were old people so hungry? Miriam stood outside herself observing. When I was young, she thought, four years ago when I was young, I was inside things; now I am outside watching. There’s Sylvain, being chivalrous with Eulalie on his arm. There’s Pelagie’s Felicité with budding breasts and long, still-childish hair. Eugene has disappeared to seek the
most important of the important people who are here this evening.

  She stood alone in the swarm. Then it occurred to her to look for David. She saw him too seldom. But a physician’s hours were full. She understood, but wished there could be some long private times with him, uninterrupted; then perhaps she might talk to him about herself, talk as she could to no one else. And sometimes she fantasized about the two of them, taking the children and running away, running north to free air, released from every burden, every obligation .… Fantasy, indeed!

  She found him in the small library, sitting over a carafe of wine with Gabriel and Rosa, who was at ease in the company of cigars and men.

  “Come sit with us,” David said. “We are having a friendly argument about the future of Judaism.”

  “I’m only saying,” Gabriel explained, “that so many of the petty laws and superstitions of the Orthodox are not original elements of the faith. In the last three thousand years there have been more years when we didn’t live in ghettos than when we did.”

  David took up the argument. “Yes, and the years when we lived in ghettos and observed what you call those superstitions and petty laws were the very years when we held on to our highest moral standards. The world around us was beset with bloody wars, but in the orthodoxy of the ghetto there was peace.”

  “You sentimentalize that life, David. These are different times. I would rather remember the free learned Jews of Spain than the imprisoned Jew of the Polish ghetto, in spite of all his piety and virtue.”

  “Perhaps,” Rosa said, “if you had ever seen our services in Charleston, David, you would—”

  “I know about them. You’ve simply thrown out the very structure that for centuries has held the family and the whole people together. That’s what you’ve done.”

  “Not at all—” Gabriel began, and was interrupted by Ferdinand, who, carrying a drink, stopped at their table.

  “What? What kind of a conversation is this? Young people, you ought to be dancing. You’re all too serious.”

  “Oh,” David said lightly, “I’m sure there are plenty of conversations about the stock market going on in the house right this minute. Isn’t that serious, too, Papa? Or horse racing at Metairie? You can lose a fortune there, and surely losing money is a serious matter!”

  “Or poker, or faro. Yes, yes, you’re right,” Ferdinand replied, only half hearing. And he progressed to the next group, doing his duty as a host.

  A moment later Eugene came into the room. By the speed of his walk it was evident that he was on a search. When he saw them, he stopped.

  “I’m looking for Judge Ballantine. I daresay he hasn’t come yet You look very comfortable here.”

  “We are. Please join us,” Gabriel said.

  Can he really like Eugene? Miriam wondered as Eugene sat down. And suddenly remembering He cannot take his eyes from you, she wanted to get up, but was imprisoned now between her husband and Gabriel Carvalho.

  The latter now resumed the interrupted discussion. “Resistance to the new is understandable, of course. When Moses Mendelssohn translated the Torah into German, how the Orthodox attacked him! They forgot how sixteen centuries earlier the sages had translated it into Arabic and Greek. No, David, it is some measure of reform that will save Judaism for many who would otherwise abandon it.”

  “The way it’s been saved here in New Orleans? What have you got? Shops open on the Sabbath, synagogues three quarters empty …”

  “But we haven’t modernized yet here. That’s my point! What we have here is just a handful of Orthodox leaning a trifle in the direction of change. And the rest of the people are nothing at all.”

  “Like my father,” David said.

  “Don’t be too hard on your father.” Gabriel spoke quietly. “He has no choice here, as I’ve just said. And he won’t accept the old ways anymore. The old ways remind men like him of Europe. What does he remember? Suffering and brutality. Humiliation and—”

  David interrupted. “You’re more tolerant than I.”

  If only David would learn not to interrupt so rudely, Miriam thought. Forgetting her embarrassment in his presence, she wanted to hear what Gabriel had to say.

  “More tolerant of everything around you,” David said emphatically.

  Something compelled Miriam to speak. Part boldly, part shyly, her words came forth. Without looking directly at him, she was addressing Gabriel. “Things don’t seem to have changed much since Josephus wrote. The problems were the same almost two thousand years ago.”

  “My wife is a reader,” Eugene said.

  He was angry that she had spoken. He himself was too prudent to offer an opinion on a controversial subject. One never knew which potentially useful person one might offend.

  “There’s my son,” he said abruptly.

  Children and nursemaids were passing through the hall. On seeing his father, little Eugene came running. The father took the boy on his lap.

  “What’s this, what’s this on your arm?”

  “It’s a bee sting. Blaise put mud on it.”

  “A bee sting? This time of year? It happened just now?”

  “It happened yesterday,” Miriam said.

  “You didn’t tell me!”

  “It didn’t seem that important.”

  “Well, well, since it’s all right—but I should be told.” And, as if doubting the wholeness of the boy, Eugene carefully examined his face, his neck, and his fat knees.

  For a moment conversation stopped. All were expected to give their attention to little Eugene. And he was a handsome child in his kilt, his badger sporran, and Glengarry bonnet with its sprig of heather, all à la mode. Eugene had ordered the outfit from Scotland.

  “Soon you will be going to school,” he said, dandling his son.

  “You’re sending him to France?” inquired Rosa.

  “Oh, not yet, but when he’s older, of course.”

  No, Miriam thought fiercely, you will not do that to me. And although she knew the answer perfectly well, she pursued the question. “What about Angelique? Shall you send her to France, too?”

  Eugene shrugged. “If you wish, but it’s not essential.”

  She had not spoken to him so directly for a long time, if ever. But now she was driven by the sight of him holding her child, as if he alone were responsible for Eugene.

  “Oh, I know it’s thought that a woman needs no education,” she said in a low, rapid voice. “Education will only make her discontented and unfit to keep a household! Yes, that’s what’s said.” She stopped. It was no use.

  Eugene put down the boy, who scurried away, then turned to David. “Tell me, is it from you that my wife gets these unusual tastes?”

  “Not at all. Miriam has her own tastes.”

  “These discussions lead nowhere.” Eugene stood up. His tone touched the edge of mockery, as if he were saying: What do ideas matter anyway? We all know they don’t.

  “Down with discussions, then,” David said.

  The group dispersed and Miriam found herself enclosed with Gabriel behind a wall of people.

  “Your brother and I have our differences, as you see. I like to think they keep our friendship lively.”

  “Your differences are very small, I think. You don’t disagree on principles. And they’re really all that matter, aren’t they?”

  “Do come, they’re making a toast!” someone cried, and Miriam was pushed forward in the general movement toward the dining room.

  “So you have been reading Josephus,” Gabriel said, hurrying beside her.

  “Over my husband’s objections.”

  He did not comment. Instead he asked gently, “How is the dog getting on?”

  “Oh, he has got his land legs. You were so kind, I don’t know whether I thanked you enough.”

  “You did,” he said.

  He had brought the dog, complete with a basket and blanket, one Sunday afternoon. Rosa had put a red bow on its head; the wobbling bow had fallen over one eye, so that
the little thing had seemed to be winking. Miriam had laughed with delight.

  “Gretel the Second! She’s almost exactly the same! It’s so good of you, Gabriel, such a beautiful surprise!”

  “Very thoughtful,” Eugene had added. “I daresay if you’d brought her a basket of diamonds she wouldn’t have been as pleased.”

  And Gabriel had stood there on the verandah watching the event, saying no more, but watching as he was doing right now, with a gaze so intense, so serious, that in her confusion she could only pretend to fix the clasp of her bracelet, which did not need to be fixed.

  Earnestly, as if to draw her attention away from the bracelet, he said, “I had planned to replace your Gretel as long ago as last winter. It took too many months to make the arrangements.”

  He can’t take his eyes away from you, Eugene had said.

  In the dining room a bald gentleman with raised glass was saying something about blessings on the young couple, on the friends, on the house, on everything.

  Ferdinand spoke jovially into Miriam’s ear. “You see what a brotherly spirit we have? All for one and one for all.” He was not a drinking man and he had already had two glasses of champagne.

  “This party must be costing a fortune,” someone remarked in Miriam’s other ear. She recognized the voice of Sylvain, who was hidden behind a pair of broad shoulders. “It’s rumored that Raphael’s overextended himself most awfully. Of course, it may be only a rumor. I hope so for the sake of my mother-in-law.” And as the broad shoulders moved away, he caught sight of Miriam. “Ah, Miriam, I want to introduce the bridegroom. You must meet André. Everyone admires him.”

  “I have met him,” she objected, but had already been drawn away by Sylvain’s arm to a group around another small table upon which a single supper plate had been laid. There sat old Lambert Labouisse, enthroned and erect; his expression under a crown of immaculate white hair was severely regal. A discussion of politics had apparently been going on around him.

  “My son, Alexandre, is five years old,” said Sylvain, at once joining in, “and I predict that he will grow up to fight in a war.”

  “Let us hope not,” Gabriel answered soberly.