by Frank Yerby
Again Selada waved a hand.
Hercule sprang to his feet and tore off his clothes until he was naked except for a loin cloth. Never had Odalie seen such a man. He dashed to the corner of the room and came back with a serpent. He held it aloft, allowing it to twine around his gigantically muscled arms. He talked and whispered to it, putting it upon the floor at the foot of the throne and squatting before it. At every word the snake swayed back and forth, sticking out its swift, lambent tongue, matching every undulation of the big man’s body.
Then at last he stood fully erect, and caught up the reptile. The two drummers increased their mad beat. Two men, as if by a signal, came in with an iron cylinder, blazing with fire.
“Voudou!” Hercule shouted, “Voudou Magnian!”
“Voudou,” the worshippers screamed in echo, “Voudou Magnian!”
With a roar like that of an enraged lion, Hercule hurled the snake into the fire. The reptile twisted and writhed in anguish.
The snake worshippers shrieked.
The quadroon girl sprang to her feet. There was the sound of cloth tearing and she stood before Hercule clad only in a chemise. With both feet planted firmly on the ground, her perfect legs spread wide apart, she began to undulate, her body moving only from the hips up, her young breasts moving under the thin garment, in a dance so sensual that Odalie could feel with her hand the pounding of her pulse in her throat.
Hercule advanced toward her until they were standing inches apart and matched her every movement. Suddenly he put forth his hand and snatched away the chemise. The girl stood there washed in the flickering yellow light of the fire, and the muscles of her abdomen rolled independently. The young, proud, up-thrusting breasts made semi-circles in the air, and the little cherry teats were visibly pointing. She threw her head back and her lips parted a little, allowing the breath to come sighing through. Hercule moved closer.
Odalie could feel her own breath coming out in short, sharp, gusts.
Hercule was running his huge black hands over the girl’s body now, caressing her lightly as a breath, up over the sweetly curving hips and waist and breasts, moving like great black spiders on the creamy flesh. Then as they tightened, drawing her to him, Selada gave a signal and the drums crashed into silence. The girl hung limply in Hercule’s mighty arms. He picked her up as lightly as a leaf and walked through the doorway into the dark.
“Enough,” Selada said. “Enough!”
Then she was coming down from the throne, a little glass vial in her hand. She gave it to Odalie.
“A little in his wine or his coffee,” she said. “But only a little. It is ver’ strong gris-gris. Too much might harm him.”
Odalie was fumbling in her purse for money, but Selada raised a hand.
“Later,” she said. “You may send it by Tante Caleen. One word more. Love is an art. For the woman it must be all giving, nothing held back. Remember that. Your husband, Madame, turned to another woman—why? Was it not because Madame did not come with eagerness to him, but with fear, and trembling and misgivings of heart?”
“Yes,” Odalie whispered. “That was it.”
“Why, Madame, why?”
“It all seemed—so disgusting somehow. I never knew—I never expected . . .”
“Ah,” Selada said, “ ‘twas Madame’s thoughts that were wrong. Such were the means for the making of life set by the good God. If Madame could once forget herself, if Madame could for once want Monsieur—instead of passively submitting—then Madame would learn that love is the most wonderful gift of God, in which fierceness and tenderness are so entwined that never can they be separated, and abasement linked with exaltation, and pain with ecstasy! Good night, Madame.”
Caleen touched her arm and they went back through the doors, through the inky hallway into the cold rain-lanced night.
Could a woman be too good? Was it then this pale reserve, this withholding of self that drove men like Stephen to the dark and sultry passions behind the highwalled courtyards of the little white houses on Rampart Street? What was it then that he shared with a dark mistress that she, his wife, could never know? Mistress. What was a mistress? A quadroon. A woman with a little black blood in her. Not much—just enough to retain the savagery. Did Stephen want savagery? Did he want a woman who matched mood for brutal mood as the yellow dancer had matched Hercule step for step in that wild dance?
She looked at Caleen.
“Could a woman,” she whispered, “want to do things like that?”
Caleen’s eyes widened at the question.
“Unless she do—until she do, she ain’t no woman, her. Here the coach. Maîtresse come.”
XVIII
ODALLE sat before the mirror between the twin silver candlesticks. I am afraid, she told herself; but the image in the mirror looked back with serene unconcern. Caleen stood behind her, the outlines of her lean frame wavering off into the darkness there in the feeble candleglow. Now she was parting Odalie’s hair and brushing it back and down like a nightblack cloud over her mistress’ shoulders. Against it, Odalie’s face and neck and shoulders were pearly.
“Maîtresse one gran’ beauty, her,” the old woman said.
“Am I? Truly, Caleen, am I really?”
“No woman so pretty like maîtresse, no. Except maybe Mamselle Aurore and she don’t count, her.”
“Still, Caleen . . .”
The old woman’s black face split suddenly into one of her rare smiles. The yellow, fanglike teeth gleamed dully.
“We fix that us,” she whispered. “You watch!”
“Yes,” Odalie said. “But how?”
Caleen went on with her brushing.
“Maîtresse do what Caleen say?”
Odalie half turned and looked up into the old woman’s face.
“Yes,” she said doubtfully. “Yes, Caleen.”
Instantly the old woman was swirling the heavy masses of hair up on top of her mistress’ head, and pinning them there with ivory hairpins, so that Odalie’s neck and shoulders were bare. Then she drifted off in the darkness and was back in no appreciable lapse of time with her mistress’ robe.
“Maîtresse come?”
Odalie’s eyebrows rose, but she followed the old woman out of the room and into the little chamber where the tiny, slipper-shaped bathtub, brought from France at great expense at Stephen’s order, stood. It was just big enough for an adult to sit rigidly upright in.
“Maîtresse disrobe,” Caleen said. “I be back in a minute, me.” Slowly Odalie took off her garments until she stood naked, and shivering a little, despite the warmth of the little room. Then Caleen was grunting up the stairs, bending backward under the weight of an immense oaken tub of scalding water. She poured it into the bath, and went back for more. This time, satisfied that she had enough, she bent and tested the water with a horny finger. Then, straightening up, she brought forth a small gourd from the folds of her apron. With one jerk, she pulled the cork out of its neck and spilled the deep violet-colored powder into the bath. Instantly it steamed up in a great cloud, and the whole room was filled with the perfume.
Odalie’s black eyes widened. Never, in all her life spent in a country where perfumery was a great art, had she encountered a scent like this. It was not heavy and sweet, but elusive to the point that the senses were unsure of its existence. And yet, apparently, it lingered with quiet persistence, piquing the mind to awareness, insistently. She leaned forward over the tub, drawing it in with deep breaths. Then she stepped back, looking at Caleen. This—this was like wine, slowly, insidiously intoxicating, working in silence so that one was not quite sure at what point one took leave of one’s senses. But dimly she sensed how it would affect a man, arousing him slowly, surely, persistently, with a lilting, mocking, unceasing provocation until all the centuries of civilization would be shed like a cloak, leaving only pure brute, pure savage.
“This,” Odalie said, “this is a scent for a harlot! Caleen, where on earth . . .”
“Maîtresse f
ight robber with bare hands, her? Or . . .”
“Or what, Caleen?”
“Or with a gris-gris that works?”
“Like that other, Caleen? The one Selada gave me? It only made him sick!”
The old woman shook her head.
“Maîtresse trust Caleen,” she said, “I never fail, me.”
Odalie’s creamy shoulders bowed in assent. She lifted one dainty foot, and tried the water with a toe.
“It’s too hot,” she wailed.
“Maîtresse get in, her!” Caleen said sternly.
Odalie stepped at once into the tub, and sat down, although the water steamed up around her in a cloud. Caleen knelt beside her, and began to bathe her, laying her all over with a soft cloth, rubbing very firmly. Then afterwards she let Odalie relax in the tub, leaning back against the high slipper back, while the perfume rose up past her nostrils.
“Maîtresse get out now.”
Obediently, Odalie stood up, and Caleen wrapped her in the big towels. Even after she was dried, the perfume lingered. Then, clad in robe and slippers, she went back to the bedroom.
“Take off the robe,” Caleen commanded. “Lie down on the bed, yes!”
Odalie stretched herself luxuriously on the bed and closed her eyes. She heard Caleen moving away; then again she was coming back toward her.
“Maîtresse drink this?”
Odalie sat up and took the glass; it was a wine that gleamed like amber. Without question, without hesitation, she drank it down and sank back upon the bed. Then suddenly she could feel Caleen’s hands, cool and dry as parchment, moving over her body. She opened her mouth to protest, but the wine was curling warm within her, leaving a faint taste of ash and woodsmoke on her tongue’s tip, and all her limbs were loosening. She sighed and turned her head aside.
This wrong, Caleen thought. Should sprinkle her with blood from young poulet, too, yes! Got to leave that out, that part, or maîtresse know. But the oil, I use that, me.
She dipped her fingers into an earthenware jug. They came out dripping. The oil was very thin, and it had the same scent as the perfume. Caleen rubbed it gently until it disappeared into the pores of her mistress’ skin, working from head to heel over the entire lovely body. Then she began to massage the flesh, kneading it firmly until Odalie glowed all over. She lingered over the breasts, caressing them lightly with the tips of her old fingers until they were proud and pointing.
“Should use feather from rooster,” she muttered. “Point ‘em up so. So we give bride in marriage in the dark hills of San Domingo. And she go to her man no more a green girl, scared; but a woman, proud, her, with fire in her limbs, yes!”
She bent to her task.
Selada right, but she don’t know maîtresse, her. Never from her own mind, could maîtresse change. But I change her, me, by Dambala, by the Virgin, by all the saints!
She leaned close to Odalie’s ear.
“Maître a good man, him,” she whispered. “But him more. He a devil-saint with blood like fire. You cannot tame him, he only beautiful when wild. He kiss like fire, kiss back like fire. Stay with him, ride wild and free over all the world with him, yes; reach up your hand and touch the blazing sun. You do this, yes; he come back to you!”
Then she was gone, like a gaunt black ghost, guttering the candles as she went.
After she had gone, for a little time, Odalie lay still. Then, like a sleepwalker, she got up and crossed to the mirror, lighting the darkened candles. Her eyes peered back at her from the mirror, black and lightless and velvet soft. Sitting there entirely nude, she began to brush down her hair. Leave it like this, she thought, he likes it loose, he likes . . .
Then she was picking up her clothes from the chair. They were new, every one of them—a white dress with a bodice like a silver sheath, and satiny skirts that billowed endlessly, catching each tiny candle flicker in their glossy folds. And they—the dress, the chemise, and every one of the numerous petticoats—held in them the faint, elusive scent of that perfume. Slowly she began to dress, drawing on the silken stockings, the white slippers, the spray of white lilacs for her hair. Then at last she was almost done, fastening the massive triple string of pearls, with the heavy golden catch, about her neck. She stood back, gazing at herself in the mirror.
The dress fell away from her shoulders, leaving them bare, and her hair rested like a cloud of darkness upon them. She smiled at herself, feeling the warmth stealing slowly and subtly along the hidden surface of her flesh. Then she turned and left the room.
“Pray God he has not gone,” she whispered as she crossed the hall. “Pray God . . .”
She stood for a long time before his door. I did this once, she thought, and I failed. I must not fail him, now; no, never again must I fail him—never in all our lives. Then she twisted the doorknob firmly.
Stephen was standing by the window, gazing out over his darkened acres. His fair brows were knit together in a frown, and in the glow of the candles the scar on his temple gleamed redly. He stood there clad in a rich green dressing robe, a long time, unaware of her presence; then at last the scent of her perfume stole into his conscious mind. Slowly he turned, and his pale eyes widened, looking at her.
“Ye’re very beautiful, my dear,” he said. “Do ye know, I’d almost forgotten that?”
She did not answer him, but stood there, just inside the door, both hands behind her, leaning against the knob. Stephen raised one eyebrow questioningly.
“And ye wear your hair loose. ‘Tis a long time since ye’ve done that. Why? And that dress. Is there a ball?”
“No, Stephen,” she said; “there’s no ball.”
Stephen crossed the room to where she stood, his face half frowning. When he was close, he lifted her chin with one hand and looked into her eyes.
“What is it, Odalie?” he asked gently. Then he stopped. The perfume came up from her hair, from her shoulders, from the deep vale between her breasts. Puzzled, he bent closer. That perfume—but was there a perfume? There must be, still—how beautiful Odalie is!
Then suddenly, unexpectedly, her arms were sweeping up and around his neck. Her body arched upward against his; blindly, her eyes closed, she sought his ups. Just for a moment, Stephen was lost in amazement; just for a moment, then the perfume was all around his head in a cloud. He kissed her achingly, softly, tenderly. But her hands were locked behind his head, and her fingers were fierce suddenly in his fiery hair. Her mouth burned upon his, the lips slackening, parting. For another long moment Stephen was limp against her, then his arms tightened around the slim waist, until her body ground against his.
Then he broke her grip and stood back, looking at her, his pale eyes dancing. Odalie swayed there at his finger tips, her eyes still closed, and the great tears diamond bright at their corners. He drew her in again, gently against him, her dark head pillowed against his chest.
“I love you, Monsieur my husband,” she whispered, “so much I love you—so very much!”
Stephen bent down and swept her up into his arms. Crossing the room, he laid her gently upon his own narrow bed. Then he knelt down beside her, kissing her eyes, her lips, her throat. Odalie’s hands were urgent suddenly, drawing him to her. He drew away a little, rubbing his bare chest where his dressing gown had parted.
“Those pearls,” he said. Odalie’s hands fumbled briefly at the catch. It wouldn’t work. Then both of her hands swept up suddenly and caught at the triple strings. Slowly, with Stephen’s eyes full upon her, she drew them out and down until they broke. The pearls scattered over the bed, over the floor. There on the rug they picked up the candle glow: tiny blue-white mounds gleaming in the darkness . . .
First in the morning, after the sun was up, the waters of the river were golden. Then the light worked its way across the bayou road, dispelling the mist as it went. It lingered a little over the fronds of the palmetto, then moved onward up the alley of oaks tangling itself like pale fire in all the trailing streamers of Spanish moss. A few minutes later, it
washed Harrow with sunglow, so that the great house blazed like a jewel among the somber oaks.
It was the light itself that awakened Stephen, falling across his face through the open window. He lay quite still, blinking owlishly at the strengthening glow. On the floor, between him and the window, there were little points of light, scattered wildly about with a solid iridescence all their own. Stephen studied them carefully. Yes, there was no doubt about it, they were pearls; but how on earth . . .
His arm felt numb. He tried to move it, only to find he could not. There was a weight upon it, pressing it firmly to the bed. Slowly he turned his head, and his fair brows flew upward. There beside him, her head cradled into the hollow of his shoulder, her full weight resting upon his arm, Odalie slept. Looking at her, Stephen smiled a little, remembering. He made no attempt to move his arm, although it ached confoundedly from remaining so long in one position.
“So,” he whispered. “Ye came to me at last! Ye came and loved like a hot-blooded young savage and there was no reserve in ye, none at all. Saints and satyrs, what a transformation! I wonder what under heaven caused this? Ye wanted to compete? To win me back? Aye, that was part of it; but what cracked the ice and let the spring floods through?”
He looked out over the disordered room, half-covered with the garments she had discarded.
This was all planned, he decided; even down to that devilish perfume she used. I’ve been tricked, he told himself; but, by heaven, I like such trickery!
