by Frank Yerby
“I doubt that ye could kill me, Andre. I studied the small swords under Raoul Robert in Paris.” He smiled suddenly and put out his hand. “Ye’re right, lad,” he said. “I’ll go slowly.” One of the fair eyebrows, fine as spun gold against the white skin, arched impishly. “But I’ll wager ye a thousand dollars that I’ll marry the girl!”
“Done!” Andre said. “Then we’re friends again? I had a feeling a moment ago that my life was in danger!”
“It was. But it never shall be again from me, no matter what ye say.”
They shook hands, and Andre turned back to the Square where the eloquent Bernard de Marigny was describing the valiant aid that the great soldier of France had brought to the infant republic of which Louisiana was now a part.
Stephen turned his back to the crowd and studied Odalie with half-closed eyes. She seemed to be completely captured by the most eloquent spokesman of New France. But the pink of her clear, shell-like ear lobes deepened. The color mounted to her face. Still Stephen stared.
Andre turned to him.
“Please, Stephen,” he said. Stephen turned away to the Square, where the old soldier who had brought the gift of Liberty across the sea was rising to acknowledge his welcome.
“For my part,” Andre whispered, “you’ve chosen the poorer one. The younger sister, Aurore, is more beautiful. You don’t see it at first, nobody does. She is so much softer and sweeter that you don’t notice it. Odalie with her imperious ways overshadows poor, gentle little Aurore; but the beauty is there—and it’s from the heart.”
The speaking was done now, and the welcoming party had borne Lafayette away to the booming of cannon and the cheers of the crowd. Stephen and Andre made their way back through the multicolored throngs, whites and octoroons, quadroons and mulattoes, ragged blacks, and sober merchants, and the sombre-gowned priests and nuns moving quietly off like dark strands in the patterns of bright colors. As they passed the landaulette, Andre lifted his hat. Stephen bowed. Odalie nodded stiffly, but Aurore both inclined her head and smiled so that the soft brown cluster of curls waved about her ears.
“What on earth are you looking at?” Odalie demanded, as the younger girl half turned in her seat, looking in the direction that Stephen and Andre had taken.
“Oh, nothing,” Aurore said.
“Tell the truth, Aurore!”
“That—that man with Andre. He was so fair—like the sungod that Marie told us the Indians worship in Mexico . . . . and he kept watching you so.”
“That Kentuckian! Home, Roget! Quickly!”
“There is one other thing I want you to see,” Andre said to Stephen as they left the Square.
“Why? Now I’ve seen everything.”
“I disagree. Mademoiselle Arceneaux is indeed something, but everything—no. We turn here.”
They came around the corner into another square, as crowded as the one they had left. But this time the people were Negroes—a solid mass of black humanity, laughing, chattering, jostling one another. On the edges of the crowd, the hawkers of refreshments cried out their wares, moving around with great trays suspended from their necks with leather straps. Other vendors, women, sat under cotton awnings and displayed their pies, lemonades, ginger beer, and mulatto’s belly to the public—and the flies.
Stephen could see the huge Negro crouched over a cask, which had been fashioned into a sort of a drum by stretching a skin over the open head. There were several white persons present, standing aloof from the blacks and watching them with amused smiles.
Suddenly, a policeman stepped forward and raised his hand. The slaves moved forward, forming a solid square. The big Negro came down on the drum with two great beef bones and a shout went up from the crowd.
“Bamboula! Danse Bamboula! Badoum!”
The bones were moving against the dog skin so fast that almost they were a solid blur. The drum gave out a steady beat, never changing, never louder, never softer, a sound out of Africa, with centuries of dark magic in it. Stephen could feel the beat crawling along his body. It awoke a response in him—made him uneasy. Now the men were leaping into the air, the shells and bits of tin tied to their ankles matching the beat of the bamboula with their thin clatter.
Their movements were curiously stiff and angular: a strutting, stiff-kneed walk, shoulders thrown well back, necks arched, faces turned skyward. This was formula; this was a pattern full of ancient, hidden meaning that talked to sleeping senses, not to the conscious mind. Even when they leaped into the air and shouted: “Badoum! Badoum!” Stephen. could see that they were doing something that had been done thousands of times before in exactly the same way. The words had changed: Creole patois had replaced the guttural dialects of Africa; but everything else was the same, even the fluttering, gaudy rags of their masters’ castoff garments became, to the half-closed eye, the ostrich plumes and cowie shells of the dark, half-slumbering land.
Now the women had joined the dance. Standing with their feet flat against the ground, they moved their bodies from the hips up, swaying from side to side, writhing their loins in broad, erotic movements. And as they danced, they chanted a dirge-like song, so slow and deep and sad that, to Stephen, the warm April air became suddenly laden with chill.
“ ‘Tis fay,” he muttered to himself. “ ‘Tis the scream of the banshees.”
“They’re enjoying themselves,” Andre laughed. “Look at that old black with the big nose. . . .”
“Let’s go,” Stephen said suddenly.
“Why?”
“ ‘Tis evil,” Stephen said. “Apes and demons! Come.”
They turned away from the square, walking toward Andre’s house. Ahead, the street narrowed, the overhanging galleries almost meeting, so that the light was dim. Andre and Stephen walked without speaking, now and again falling back to let some tradesman, or old woman, or even an occasional nun, pass on the narrow banquette.
Suddenly, Stephen halted. Before him, a diminutive show window was jutting out halfway across the banquette. It was enclosed by window glass on three sides, and was only slightly wider than a man. In it were displayed rings, pins, pendants, ornamented duelling pistols, a rapier with a silver hilt, and snuff boxes galore. Stephen’s eye wandered upward to the sign “Mont-de-piété,” which swung on a green shingle in letters of tarnished gold.
“Why do you stop?” Andre asked.
“No reason,” Stephen said. “I remembered something. Would ye mind proceeding without me? I’ll join ye in half an hour.”
“Yes,” Andre said. “I mind very much. You’re a stranger. You do not know New Orleans. And most of all, you’re my guest.”
Stephen laughed suddenly.
“Think ye I’d come to harm without ye here to guide me?”
“No. It’s not that. Only it seems inhospitable of me to . . .”
“Forget it, lad. I have things to do and plans to make—some of them not fit for your young eyes.” He grinned wickedly, looking at Andre. “Ye see, I value your good opinion. I’ll join ye within the hour—truly.”
“If it’s money you want,” Andre began, “I’d be glad . . .”
“Ye wish to quarrel with me again? From ye, not a picayune! I only fleece my enemies. Now be off with ye like a good lad.”
Andre bowed a little, very stiffly.
“If Monsieur wishes,” he said.
“Monsieur wishes,” Stephen said flatly. “And now must I ‘make a leg’ to complete this little comedy?”
“No. I’ll leave you. Pawn your back teeth if you like!” Stephen stood looking after his new friend’s retreating back. “A very funny people, these Frenchies,” he mused and he turned into the pawnbroker’s.
Inside, it was close and the air had a musty smell. The pawnbroker was a fat little man, swart and oily of skin, wearing the huge powdered wig of the last century.
“I see by your sign,” Stephen said, “that ye are a loan banker.”
“Well,” the broker began, “one has the necessity to live, Mont-de-piét�
�—pawnshop. The difference is slight anyway. M’sieur wants something?”
“Still there is a difference,” Stephen persisted. “And this is . . .”
“A pawnshop. The sign, she is for the effect. M’sieur understands . . .”
“Very well. For this pearl—how much?”
He loosened the spring-catch setting of the stick pin. The huge, milky pearl caught the light, and spun it into a rainbow Glancing at it, Stephen remembered how it looked the night he had won it, gleaming against the green plush surface of the gaming table.
“One hundred dollar,” the pawnbroker was saying.
“Ye’re a thief,” Stephen said calmly. “ ‘Tis worth all of twenty thousand and ye know it.”
“Five hundred? Cinq cent dollar?” the broker said hopefully. “One thousand,” Stephen said. “And ye’re not to sell it for thirty days. Agreed?”
“ ‘Tis my life’s blood,” the pawnbroker wailed; “perhaps M’sieur would take eight hundred . . .”
“One thousand.”
“Name of the name of God!”
“One thousand.”
The broker waved one hand weakly in assent. He waddled to the back of the shop and unlocked a heavy brass-bound chest. When he came back, his hands were filled with banknotes.
“Gold,” Stephen said quietly. “I have no use for your skin-plasters. Gold, or I go elsewhere.”
“Name of a consumptive horse! M’sieur asks too much!” Stephen held the pearl higher. Now it was milky, now like snow; now it was seafoam breaking white on the crest of a long green wave; now it was moonmist riding the face of the river.
“M’sieur is right,” the broker mumbled. “A thousand dollars . . . in gold!”
Stephen took the little canvas sack, heavy with gold pieces, and strode from the shop, his fair brows knitting into a frown.
“I’ll have ye back,” he muttered, “and soon!”
Andre was waiting when Stephen returned, his dark face still and unsmiling. Stephen looked at him and grinned.
“Ye’re as finicky as a wench!” he laughed. Then soberly: “I meant no offense, Andre. What I had to do was painful, even to me. Ye’ll forgive an old boor?”
“It’s nothing,” Andre said, taking the offered hand. “Ma foi, but you’re a trying one!”
“And now ye really can help me,” Stephen said. “I’ll need rooms . . .”
Already Andre was picking up his hat and cane.
“I know a charming place,” he said, “in Royal Street. You’ll come now?”
“Right,” Stephen said. “And send me your tailor. And a manservant, if ye can purchase a good one.”
“Dieu! Your ship from the Indies has arrived, no doubt?”
“No,” Stephen said slowly, “No, Andre, the voyage has just begun.”
Andre pushed open the door and the two of them went out through a shaft of falling sunlight into the street.
III
THE street sounds drifted up through Stephen’s window and awakened him. He opened one eye lazily, blinking at the brilliant autumn sunlight that was glistening through the morning haze. Outside, the iron scroliwork of the gallery cast curious, lacy shadows against the window. Stephen stretched out his legs luxuriously and yawned. In a few moments now, Georges, his newly acquired manservant, would be tiptoeing into the room with a whispered “Good morning, maître,” bearing the early prebreakfast cup of black coffee. Stephen didn’t like black Creole coffee at first, but he was fast learning to. Georges was quietly, gently insistent. That any gentleman should do without his wakeup cup was clearly unthinkable.
Stephen smiled, remembering how he had discovered Georges’ tremendous pride in his handsome young master. Georges and Ti Demon, Andre’s valet, had almost come to blows in a quarrel over the merits of their respective masters. Only the timely intervention of the subjects of the quarrel had prevented fisticuffs. Stephen’s discipline, never very rigorous, had slackened ever since. It was Georges who preserved the formalities that custom demanded.
From the street below, far away in the next block, the cries of the women street vendors drifted up to him faintly. “Belle des figues! Figues clestes!” Idly his mind translated the soft gumbo French: “Beautiful figs! Clesto figs!” “Bons petit calas—tout chauds! Good little rice cakes all hot! Boules des Tic Tac! Pop corn balls!
Listening, Stephen felt the first faint pangs of hunger. Where the deuce was Georges?
As if in answer, a soft knocking came from the door.
“Come in,” Stephen called; and Georges was crossing the room, his black face lit with a pleased smile.
“Good morning, maître,” he said, putting the black coffee down on the little bedside table. “The cheese woman she come this morning, so I go down and git you some, me.” Then he exhibited his prize, a tiny heart-shaped cheese, covered with thick, fragrant cream, smelling faintly of claret.
“Thank you, Georges,” Stephen said, taking the delicacy; “but for the love of Saint Peter hurry my breakfast. I’m starving!”
“Yes, maître, I go bring heem right now.”
Stephen ate the cheese and looked out of the window. The sunlight was growing stronger. From outside came the cackle of geese, and Stephen knew, without even looking, that they were being driven to market afoot by a man and a boy, armed with long poles to keep them in line. Sipping the scalding coffee, he tried to define the quality of this, his city, but even now, although it was six months to the day since he had stepped ashore from Mike Farrel’s flatboat, it eluded him. French to the core, it reminded him of Paris. Reminded him—that was all. The buildings with their overhanging galleries and their wrought and cast iron ornamentation were more Spanish than French; yet New Orleans had nothing of the quality of Seville or Madrid or Valencia. It was French in many subtle and definite ways: the housewives haggling over bargains, the swift play of gesticulation, the rapid, sibilant speech, for all its Creole softening. Those geese now—that was Normandy pure and simple. But the bouillabaisse in the cafés was Marseilles.
Georges was back with his breakfast in a surprisingly short time. As usual there were several kinds of meats, cooked à la grillades, also as usual. That is to say, they were cooked in a deep skillet with a lid, and covered with a sauce of flour browned in lard, the whole thing being seasoned with onion, pepper, and garlic, and simmered with tomatoes at the last. These meats, Stephen felt, were enough to feed an army; but Georges had also brought biscuits, and steaming piles of pain perdu—slices of bread dipped in beaten eggs and milk and fried in deep fat.
Stephen looked at Georges.
“My God, man,” he growled. “Is it that ye’re fattening me for the slaughter?”
“The good maître should eat well,” Georges said stiffly. “Ti Demon says that Monsieur Andre . . .”
“So,” Stephen said, “I am yet a pawn in your quarrel with Little Devil! By our Lady, Georges, if ye bring me this much food again for my breakfast, I’ll send ye up to the calaboose and have ye whipped! I’m not a Frenchman; I have not an elastic belly!”
“I will take it away, maître,” Georges said sorrowfully. “It is only to me a shame that the good maître should not be well-fed. So now I cannot lift the head amongst the black boys, me.”
“Damn!” Stephen groaned.
Georges was approaching the little serving table, his head bent, his steps slow.
“Leave it,” Stephen snapped, “and get out of here before I murder ye!”
Georges fairly flew from the room, his white teeth gleaming in a pleased smile.
While Stephen ate the huge breakfast, his mind was busy with a thousand schemes. So far, everything had gone well. Slowly, cautiously, he had begun to make his pile, utilizing the one skill he possessed. Certainly he had come to the right place: New Orleans was a gambler’s paradise. Everyone played: callow youths, striplings, men in their midyears, grandsires. And they played every known game, the Creoles being particularly fond of vingt-et-un and écarté, while the Americans played poker, f
aro, roulette, and the new game which Baron de Marigny was credited, erroneously perhaps, with having introduced. It was played with dice, and the Americans called it craps, a name shortened from the contemptuous appellation, Johnny Crapaud, which they gave to all Frenchmen.
Stephen, however, did not often play with the Creoles. When he did, the stakes were small, and he lost more often than he won. He pursued this same odd behavior with the more prominent Americans also, and succeeded to some extent in creating the very impression which he wished to implant—that of a gentleman sportsman who played for the love of the game.
There were others in the city, however, who had cause to know better. They were generally transients: steam boat captains, commercial travelers, merchants and the raw German immigrants from the section known as the German coast. With them, Stephen could afford to be merciless. They were people of no import in the city, their fates not likely to be noised abroad. So, always the stacks of silver dollars grew behind the lean fingers holding the fanned cards. The crisp green banknotes fluttered across the table, bright under the oil lamps, for all the blue haze of tobacco smoke. And Stephen pocketed them smiling, saying apologetically, “ ‘Tis the run of the cards. Better luck next time!”
He had redeemed his giant pearl from the pawnbroker, and Lagoaster, the celebrated quadroon tailor, had turned out for him several outfits: coats, waistcoats, trousers, richly ruffled white silk shirts, and stocks to be wound about his throat, all of a quiet elegance that commanded respect. Yes, he had done well. From now on, his moves could become bolder.
He rang for Georges, after having eaten the huge breakfast with surprisingly good appetite, and dressed with the aid of the manservant. Then he went down the stairs and out into the street. He walked slowly, his mind weighted with conflict. John Davis, one of the many refugees who had escaped the murderous uprising of the blacks of Saint Domingue, was planning to build two palatial gaming houses, the first of their kind in the city. Already a friend of the brilliant gallicized Englishman, Stephen had a chance to invest in the venture. Or should he rather buy an interest in the new railroad to Lake Pontchartrain, whose construction was also under discussion? Of the two, the railroad was by far the more respectable, but it was also much more risky. The gambling houses, due consideration being given to Creole temperament, were a sure investment. Still while the Creoles laughed and jested with gamblers and cheerfully lost fortunes to them, they did not invite them to their houses. And the Mademoiselles Arceneaux were Creoles in the best sense of that much abused term. . . .
