Crescent City

by Belva Plain

  At the side-street gate, which was rarely used, someone lifted the creaking latch. Lazily, only half rising, she turned to see who was there.

  “I thought you might be here,” André Perrin said.

  She felt a chill fear of imminent crisis, a fluttering between heart and throat.

  “I am often here in the afternoon,” she answered coldly.

  He sat down on the other bench. She wanted to get up and run into the house.

  “I was passing,” he said, “and since we are finally going away next week—you know we are leaving for France on the Mirabelle?”

  “That’s the ship that brought me here, years ago.”

  “How strange! Well, I only—I wanted to say goodbye.”

  “I hope you have a good voyage and will be happy in France.” The stilted words fell dully into the oppressive air.

  “Thank you.”

  He was holding his hat, which lay on his knees. Now with his left hand he began to run a forefinger over the brim. Round and round it passed as she watched. In her own fingertips she could feel the smooth straw edge. Something in this trivial motion was asking for time, as if he were collecting himself for something else. His lowered head as he examined the hat looked helpless. She did not understand what was happening.

  Suddenly he looked up. “Yes, I came to say goodbye. But before I go, I wanted, I had to—”

  He got up. He stood over her. The tips of his boots stopped within an inch of her skirt’s hem, which lay on the grass.

  “For months, for this whole year past, I’ve been trying not to say it. I’m ashamed, Miriam. Ashamed and afraid of what you will do. You may never forgive me. And I wouldn’t blame you.” The words came rushing. “I have been thinking of nothing but you. Nothing. I don’t know what it means. Do I love you? I scarcely know you. Yet you fill my mind all day. Every day. You fill my mind.”

  She fastened her eyes on a hummingbird whose long beak was sucking deeply from a creamy flower on the trumpet vine. No larger than a grasshopper and as green, it flickered. Its iridescent wings were beating the air too fast for the human eye to see, and she held her gaze to the bird.

  “Are you very angry?” he whispered.

  She could not speak. She was afraid to speak. Perhaps, as she had feared it might happen, this at last was the moment of transition from reality to fantasy; speech would betray her and everyone would know. She had gone mad.

  “When I started to speak just now,” she said, “I thought in the very same moment that I must be crazy, and I wanted to stop, but it’s already too late.”

  She steadied herself, forcing her eyes away from the bird to look at him, forcing her mind into reality. His eyes were anxious, questioning, soft. His hand went out to touch most tentatively her own hand, which lay in her lap with the fingers weakly upturned.

  Then she felt her lips opening into a smile, felt her own warm tears.

  “Oh,” he said, “is it possible? You never spoke to me. I thought I had displeased you so terribly. You never spoke to me.”

  “I was afraid you would see,” she said very low. “I was afraid you would know.”

  His hand tightened on hers, the fingers intertwined.

  “Oh, God,” he said.

  Unashamed, she raised her face, letting him see the teardrops slide down her cheeks.

  “I thought of so many ways to meet you alone. Always it was at those dreadful dinners. I tried avoiding you. When I made plans, they came to nothing. I thought of what I could say to you. I understand about Eugene and you, you know.”

  “You can’t know,” she interrupted.

  “I know enough. Do you understand that I was afraid—am afraid—to begin this thing? Yet I can’t help it, can’t go away without speaking to you, and still it’s of no use, my speaking, is it?” And taking her other hand, he lifted it to his lips to kiss it.

  Her wedding ring, a wide band strong as a rope and solid as a stone wall, brushed his lips.

  He looked about desperately. “There’s no time, no place, and so much to say.”

  Above the splashing double cascade the little love goddess looked with her indifferent chalk-white gaze at the agitated lovers.

  “You married Marie Claire.”

  “We were guests at the same house for three weeks. At the end of the time we found ourselves engaged. I don’t know how it happened. I think our mothers decided it. I think Marie Claire was as surprised as I was.”

  “Who does these things to us?” Miriam cried. “Why do we allow them to happen? Eugene and I—we’re all wrong for each other.” And she withdrew her hands, clasping them in a kind of supplication. All the long sorrow, the senseless injustice, and now this intoxication overwhelmed her.

  André took her face in his hands, turning it into the glaring light. Fearlessly she let him examine it; whatever flaw was there, he must see and accept, the eyebrows too close together, a little white scar on the chin, any and every flaw. Then his mouth came down on hers, the lips fitting together as though they had been molded that way, so pliant, so perfect … Her arms went up to pull him closer.

  A door slammed in the house and they sprang apart. They waited, but no one came.

  “There’s no place to go,” André said again.

  “It would be no use anyway. You’re going to France.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  “When? How long?”

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps only a year.”

  “Only a year. And then?”

  “There’ll have to be something, some way. I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know, either.”

  A flock of pigeons came swooping over the wall, attacking the crumbs the children must have dropped on the gravel path. They surrounded the bench just as on crowded Sunday afternoons in the public parks they always surround young lovers who seek in vain for a private place.

  And suddenly, not caring who might see, knowing how mad this defiance was, Miriam drew him back to her, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, and his mouth over and over, making little cries; then her head went to his shoulder and he stroked her hair, murmuring. All she felt was a need to press closer and never stop, never—

  She heard her son’s voice. “Mama? Where are you? Are you out here?”

  She sprang up, calling, “Yes, I’m here, darling.”

  The child came around the shrubbery. His cheeks were flushed from his nap; his hair, freshly parted, still held the babyish curl around his neck. Helpless, tender … What am I doing? she thought, in sudden fright.

  But she said brightly, too brightly, in a shaking voice, “Eugene, you remember Mr. Perrin. He is going to Europe. He has come to say good-bye to us all.”

  “I’m going to go to Europe, too,” the boy said confidently.

  “I’m sure you will someday,” André told him.

  Over the child’s head he looked at Miriam. His eyelashes fell like curtains, then rose on a look of despair which plainly said: We can’t end this, I can’t leave you like this.

  She was cut in two. The halves were straining apart, she was in agony. She saw herself caught between the man and the child, felt them pulling her, each one with all his strength, yet neither was touching her.

  Piteously she appealed to her son. “Will you go inside to play, Eugene? Just for a little while, please. Then I’ll come to be with you.”

  “But I’ve been inside! It’s half past three and Fanny said you promised to read to Angie and me.” The shrill voice ended in a wail.

  Now Angelique came from the house with Fanny.

  “Here we are, Miss Miriam,” Fanny said. “It’s half past three.”

  They were not to be dislodged. Miriam gave a hopeless shake of the head. And André, having no choice, picked up his hat.

  “Shall you be coming again to say good-bye to Eugene?” The words were formal, but the voice implored.

  He shook his head. “I can’t,” he said miserably. And he stood there already half departed, unwilling to go the rest of t
he way.

  “I can’t,” he repeated, as if to say, The next time will be unbearable.

  She understood. “Well,” she said, “I suppose you’ll write to us?”

  “I am not very good at writing, I’m afraid.”

  She understood that, too. A proper, stiff letter would be the only permissible one, and that would be worse than none at all.

  “Mama, read!” demanded Angelique, screwing up her eyes.

  “I’ll go,” André said. “Remember me to the rest of the family.”

  Her face burned; her hands were cold.

  “I’ll remember,” she said, and turned away.

  So she did not see him go, only heard his footsteps on gravel and the click of the gate.

  “Mama, shall we get the books?”

  “Yes, get them, do. Go upstairs and get them.”

  And she sat down again to wait. Two or three pigeons were still pecking at Aphrodite’s feet. A ladybug in its spotted red shell alighted on the back of the bench. A wren took a bath in a dusty puddle. Heedless little creatures, crawling and flying, foraging for their simple sustenance from one day’s end to the next! Only man had such longing, such confusion in his heart.

  To have been given in one incredible moment one’s heart’s impossible desire! To have been given it, and then to have it as quickly taken away!

  Lelia had fallen to the ground. She picked it up, riffling the pages. A life like that might befit George Sand, that fearless, extraordinary soul. But Miriam Mendes was not George Sand. She was neither fearless nor extraordinary. And this was America, not Paris.

  Take the children and go north, putting everything, even André behind her? For what good could ever come to them? Let him return here and not find her! It would be better that way. In due time he would forget—or almost forget—and she would, too, men and women being what they are. She had seen and read enough of life to know that much.

  She would have to ask Papa for the money to go away, since she had, of course, none of her own. Her dowry was the possession of her husband. A woman had always to ask. Nothing was hers by right. Ask Papa? she repeated. He would be horrified; she could see him slowly removing the cigar; his mouth would make a circle of dismay. She could hear his admonition: Go back to your husband; remember that you’re a mother; you have responsibilities and a position to keep.

  “Here’s the book,” said Angie, placing it on her mother’s lap. The beloved fairy tales had been read so often that the pages were beginning to fall out. Unerringly, the stubby little finger went to the favorite picture, the favorite tale.

  Miriam moved the book to make room on her lap for the little girl. For a moment she laid her cheek against Angle’s warm fragrant hair. She was almost choked by her surging love for the child and by the crisis of the last hour.

  “I always like this story because it has a happy ending, Mama.”

  “Ah, yes, that’s a very good reason,” Miriam replied. And in a clear, controlled voice, she began to read.

  “Once upon a time …”

  Often from the glass in the bedroom a hopeless face stared back at her, a pinched face with dry lips. The dark hair, loosened for the night, gave her a wild look of desperation. The old fear of madness returned. Perhaps some night she would smash the mirror, letting the shards fly. Her lungs would strain from a scream of outrage; then the wind would carry her scream through the walls of the house over the ocean, and into the racing currents of the upper air, as far as Europe, where perhaps André might hear her cry.

  13

  It was a matter of some pride to Ferdinand Raphael that he had weathered the long-ago panic of 1837. The English cotton market had fallen like a stone, and like a stone tossed into a pond, the panic had rippled across the ocean to engulf New Orleans in a wave of failures. Banks defaulted their bonds, credit was withdrawn, and some of the most prestigious business houses in the city fell into ruin. But the House of Raphael had come through unscathed, one of the very few which had survived. Somehow Ferdinand had maneuvered his way around all the hidden reefs and dangerous currents of the times; he had even been able to come to the aid of friends.

  “Experience,” he liked to say by way of explanation. “Caution. And a bit of daring, too. Yes, certainly a bit of daring.” And his youthful smile would brighten his cheeks up to the temples.

  So it was with a shock of sudden thunder that the House of Raphael collapsed.

  The city had long ago climbed back out of depression. Ships laden with cotton and sugar crowded the port again and wealth from the seven seas flowed in. Christmas week was being celebrated with eggnog, poinsettias, and cathedral bells. The Raphael house was filled. Emma’s aunts and uncles from Shreveport and her cousins from Mobile, with their nursemaids and children, filled the guestrooms, while the overflow was housed at the St. Louis Hotel.

  “We shall have to take the children to visit for Christmas,” Miriam said. “They know quite well it’s not their holiday, but Papa has presents for them and it would be cruel to refuse.”

  “Very well, then, you take them,” Eugene said as she had known he would.

  The opulence of the Raphael house that year was dazzling. Christmas roses drooped their luscious heads in every room. Handsome gifts were given and received: Persian shawls, gold chains, Belgian lace, cashmere dresses, and Meissen porcelains. A new star sapphire glittered on Emma’s hand.

  After the collapse Miriam likened it to a fireworks display, the last explosion always being the loudest and the highest, the boom deafening and the stars shooting far over the trees, only to blaze and fall into a little heap of cinders.

  She had walked home through holiday streets with the children. It was a slow walk. They had to stop to peer at every lighted tree, to admire every wreathed and garlanded door. The children, entranced with the music and color of Christmas, could not help but enfold their mother in their delight. So in high spirits they reached home.

  “Look!” cried little Eugene. “See what Grandpa gave me.” With Miriam’s help he brought in a heavy music box on which carved horses rode a carousel. “He gave Mama a new bracelet, and Angelique a—”

  Eugene laid the newspaper down. “Allow me to say that your father is a spendthrift and a fool.”

  Unwilling to reveal her own unquiet doubts, Miriam defended him. “He’s a wealthy man and has always been generous. It’s his pleasure.”

  “Generous he is, but he is not wealthy anymore. His house of cards is about to collapse.”

  “What do you mean?” she cried.

  “That he will be going through bankruptcy very soon.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “You can believe it. Rumors have been all over the city for weeks. He’s been reorganizing his companies to stave it off, but it’s too late, it won’t help.”

  Miriam put her hand to her mouth in horror. “I don’t believe it!”

  Shortly before noon on the second day of the new year, the Bank of New Orleans called its loans to the House of Raphael. Whisper to whisper at first, then louder and surer, from the tables at Victor’s to the wharves, the news was spread. By evening there was not a house in the Vieux Carré which did not know of the disaster.

  For once unaccompanied by guests, Eugene came home to confirm the news. “Well,” he said, “this is what happens when a man gets to thinking he’s infallible.” His tone was somewhere between commiseration and superiority.

  Miriam sat on the sofa. They were in the front parlor, the stiff, gilded room. Her voice was harsh with pain.

  “What happened? Why did it happen?”

  “He was gullible, for one thing. He endorsed bad notes for his so-called friends. Wanted to be liked, I suppose. A common enough story. And for another, he simply spent too much. And for a third, he speculated, building pyramids like Pharaoh. Only Pharaoh’s lasted longer.”

  “Pyramids? I don’t understand.”

  “Mortgaging your properties to get money to buy more property. Take the cornerstone out and th
e pyramid falls. You see?”

  Standing against the daylight, Eugene was a powerful dark presence. One hand jingled coins in his pocket. The gesture spoke of easy assurance. This sort of thing will never happen to me, it said.

  “I have no mortgages on any of my properties, nor did I ever speculate in cotton futures. Why do you think Judah Touro came through the panic unscathed? Because he was prudent.”

  “You mean Papa has nothing at all?”

  “What do you think bankruptcy is? No, there is nothing left. Not of his, nor of Emma’s either.”

  “Of Emma’s?”

  “He had enlarged Emma’s plantation, bought three thousand acres adjoining it by mortgaging the original land.” A bunch of keys in the other pocket now made their separate jingle. “Next comes the sheriff’s sale: the schooner, the office and warehouses, all the baled cotton waiting for shipment, the slaves, the house on Conti Street—”

  “Not Papa’s beautiful house!”

  Now pity came into his voice, as if suddenly he had seen that she was crushed. “Yes, it will go, I’m sorry to say.”

  She stood up. “I’m going to Papa now.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Eugene said immediately.

  She didn’t want him—with all that power and competence. “You don’t have to. I’ll go alone.”

  “It’s my place,” he said firmly: “I’m his son-in-law.”

  Yes, she thought as she followed him, it’s your place. There are people who go to funerals because it’s their place, but really it’s to congratulate themselves on being alive.

  In his front parlor Ferdinand was reading a newspaper. Over his head hung a portrait of young Emma in her Empire gown, with her bouquet and the affable gaze of a person who has never known any trouble. He had been reading the Deutsche Zeitung, which, wanting so much to be American that he was ashamed to be seen with a German newspaper, he had always read in secret. He made no attempt to hide it now.

  “Well, Papa,” Miriam said, kissing him. Stroking his forehead, she felt the forked vein on the temple throb under her fingers.

  He murmured something and she drew away, pitying his embarrassment, should he be seen with tears in his eyes. But he was not weeping. Instead he wore a look of surprise, as if to say: I do not—no, I do not understand how this could have happened to me. To me!