His heart thumped far too fast, almost hurting his chest.
This was the first time he had ever been here without Gabrielle present, out here with him, or inside with—
Max squeezed his eyes shut, but that only gave the memory a greater hold. He'd been torn that day, part of him hurt by the way Gabrielle had been avoiding him, and the other part worried for her. He'd thought he knew her, and this behavior was unfamiliar. Someone needed to check on her. So he'd gone over to the house and let himself in, quietly. He'd called softly, but no one answered. And yet the house lacked the sense of vacancy that existed in empty places. Someone was home.
He'd started up the stairs, and it was as he reached the landing that he heard the sounds he had come to recognize so well. Gabrielle sighed as she was making love, and groaned, and when she came her groan rose in pitch and volume.
Standing there, he heard Gabrielle giving those noises to someone else.
Max had not bothered keeping quiet then. He'd run up the narrow attic staircase and thrown the door open, and still they had not heard him. Gabrielle had been sitting astride a young black student from Max's class, a pleasant kid called Joseph, and her naked back and butt were slick with sweat, her hair damp and stringy. He'd watched for a while, feeling removed from the world. It was only when he'd turned to leave that they heard him.
The memory gave him pause. He took a breath, then stepped forward.
The house looked so ruined now, so empty, that even ghosts would never call it home. And the only indication that Gabrielle had ever been here was a sign spray-painted across the dormer: 1 IN ATTIC.One. One girl. One woman. One dead.
Even then they'd left her here to rot.
Max sank to his knees on the dirty road. Someone shouted in the distance, a car engine revved, but he was immune to the thought of danger. His head throbbed and his heart thumped, and he thought one must surely explode. The stink on the air was awful. He tried to believe it was muck from the flood or filth from the streets, and nothing else. He did his best not to smell death.
Why had she stayed here? Why not flee? She had told Corinne that it was the only place she'd felt safe, but safe from what?
Rising, he climbed onto the stolen bike, turned around, and started cycling away. On that day of his final visit, there had been nothing here for him; now there was less.
Even the ghosts were gone.
On Canal Boulevard, a group of half a dozen young men stood waving guns at the air, shouting, loaded with threat. They all seemed angry at something, but the target of their anger was not obvious. Maybe they were angry with one another, and just waiting for the first shot to be fired.
Max stopped and pushed his bike onto the sidewalk. He didn't think he'd been seen, but he wasn't sure. Though the men moved and gesticulated, poking the air with their guns, they all seemed frozen in time, waiting for someone to make the next move. There was a pile of trash in the gutter from a ruined shop, and he crouched down behind it, peering out across rusted metal shelving and bloated cereal boxes.
There were a few black guys there, and a couple of Creoles, and a skinny white youth with one arm heavily bandaged. Though they all carried guns, there were no alliances apparent. The rage and fury hung heavy in the air, like dynamite sweating in the sun.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” Max whispered to himself. As if startled by his voice, several huge rats scurried from the pile of rubbish beside him and ran across the street.
Three shots rang out, and spouts of dust kicked up from the road amongst the running vermin. None of them was hit, but laughter erupted from behind Max, replacing the anger but sounding no less threatening.
If they find me hiding here… He considered just jumping on his bike and riding by, but he honestly did not think he could ride straight. He might as well be wearing a sign that said Does not belong. He would feel a hot barrel against the back of his neck, and there would be another dead rat in New Orleans.
“Fuck fuck fuck!” He did not know this area at all. He'd always come down here with Gabrielle, straight to the house and then back out again. She hadn't liked the area, saying it stank of money and insensitivity, but now he suspected it was because some of her family lived here. She had never spoken about them.
There was a side road thirty yards back the way he'd come. He could take that and then ride like hell. But if it ended with a dead end? If it curved around back onto this main road? They'd know, and he didn't, and the risk was…
The map! Crazy Ray had insisted he take it, along with whatever that weird bottle had contained. Nothing, there was nothing in there. But he remembered drinking it, and the memory seemed to touch his tongue.
Max glanced around the pile of refuse. The men—little more than kids, really, teenagers—had gathered together now, and they were smoking and joking, anger apparently subdued for a time. He hunkered down and took out the map. That's just a tourist map of the city, he'd said, and Ray had replied, Look closer.
He looked closer.
Canal Boulevard was easy to find, but locating himself exactly was more difficult. He was sure he hadn't yet gone by Harrison Avenue, but if he took the side street he'd just passed, he could negotiate the blocks to find it. Then, once on the avenue, it was straight through to whatever was left of City Park and the golf course, then…
There it was, that blocked area on the map over the golf course. One of Ray's “moments.” Max sighed and shook his head, but as he brought the map closer he had a sudden, brief taste of pure, clear air, like the first breath of his life untouched by pollution or rot. He gasped, swallowed, and then the stink of New Orleans was on him again.
It had been like a feather touch on his tongue, a breath from that smashed clay bottle.
The First Moment:
Even Before the City, the City
Shows Its Heart
July 15, 1699
He had to pass within a block of the spot, to get where he was headed.
“Why not?” he whispered.
Ray's story had been fantastic, and probably ridiculous. But there had been truth about him, and a sense of brutal honesty that could hurt as much as heal.
Max took a deep breath, stretched his limbs, and jumped onto the bike. As he pedaled hard along the debris-strewn sidewalk, hoping that the buildings would offer him cover, he waited for a shout, or the cool kiss of a bullet.
But none came. He reached the side street and swung straight out into the road, not bothering to look or listen for anything coming the other way.
Max rode hard. The street was narrow, and abandoned cars and piles of debris from gutted buildings formed obstacles for him to steer around. He had to concentrate, and that did something to allay the fear that the display of pure aggression had planted in him. He was away, and the feeling of having avoided a confrontation felt good.
There were no signs of life, but plenty of death, spray-painted on buildings above that terrible tide mark.
He followed the street for a while, then took the third turning right, the second left, right again, and he was on Harrison Avenue. He was so close to City Park that he could see its wall and railings at the end of the avenue.
Something called him. He wanted to taste that pure, fresh air again, wash away the stink of death and disaster. The First Moment, Ray's strange map said. And, Max supposed, the least he could do was give it a chance.
chapter
3
Max had strolled through City Park perhaps four or five times in the half year he spent living in New ‘ JL Orleans. Only once had he gone there with Gabrielle. They'd had a picnic, which he'd been the one to suggest, only to have her take over all planning and preparation. She wouldn't even tell him what was in the basket until they arrived at the park and he spread the blanket on the grass. It had been warm that day, but not so hot that they sought a shady place. Gabrielle liked the sun, and he supported anything that would make her smile.
The picnic had been an odd assortment of po'boys, corn bread, blac
k bean salad, and locally brewed root beer. For dessert she'd made a good attempt at Max's favorite, key lime pie, though she'd never even tasted it before.
They'd ridden the carousel and strolled the Botanical Garden, and then, walking along a path, she'd taken him by the hand and led him off the trail. Behind a thick oak tree, Gabrielle had shushed him with a kiss, undone his belt, and crouched down to perform the most extraordinary fellatio of his life.
She had become all things to him in so short a time that she seemed almost like a dream, a construct of his imagination. Sweet, kind, and funny, she could be self-conscious and shy one minute, and the next a creature of lust and mischief. Falling in love with her had been the easiest thing he'd ever done.
He tried to keep those memories close to his heart and in the forefront of his mind as he rode the bicycle into City Park. From the slant of the daylight and the dimming of the eastern sky, he knew it must be late afternoon, the time of long shadows. Night was not far off.
Yet as he rode into the park from Marconi Drive, Max faltered. The place had come through better than he expected. There must have been mud everywhere at one point, and downed trees and branches, but whatever organization saw to the care of the place had marshaled their forces far better than the city, state, or federal government. Many of the live oaks had obviously been stripped of leaves, but already some were showing new growth.
Max rode on, soon discovering that not all of the park had recovered so quickly. The salt water that had flooded the area had killed all of the grass. Some roads and paths seemed to have been cleared, but dried mud still dappled the trees and benches. The carousel was closed, and Story-Land looked in need of repair. He paused several times to consult the map that Ray had given him, trying to figure out precisely where, in the park, this First Moment was supposed to be located.
There were people in the park, though they kept to the areas that had been restored. He saw several couples walking hand in hand, and a few mothers pushing baby carriages. These were stragglers, brave and determined people who refused to surrender the lives they had before Katrina.
Max stopped the bike and watched them for a while, hoping that in time they would find that they had been prescient, but fearing that one day they would think themselves fools for holding on to such hope. The park might be in the process of its resurrection, but the city would take much longer.
Gormley Stadium looked a thousand years old. He rode through the Botanical Garden and then north, right up through the heart of the park. Then he worried that he'd gone too far and stopped to consult the map once more. It took him a moment to realize where he was headed: Scout Island, an area of the park surrounded by water. He'd been a history professor at Tulane, and had talked plenty about the city of New Orleans. He knew a little about City Park, but not enough to know if Scout Island was natural or man-made. Probably the latter.
He rode on. The park was three miles long, and Scout Island just west of center, so it took him a while to find it and make sure he was in the right place. He found a bridge and hid the bike in its shadow, glancing around to make sure nobody was paying him any attention. He needn't have worried. There were very few people in the park, and nobody in shouting distance now. With a frown, he hesitated. There might be trouble here after dark, and dusk was coming on fast.
Then he realized how foolish that was. The streets were full of trouble. He'd likely be safer here than anywhere else in New Orleans. Still, he hesitated another moment before starting over the bridge, trying to figure just why he'd come here. But curiosity and whiskey had the better of him. Walking away now would only make him feel more foolish than he already did, so he crossed the little stone bridge.
The moment he set foot on Scout Island he shuddered. A wave of disorientation passed over him and his stomach gave a twist, as though vomit might not be far behind. Yet the taste in his mouth was not whiskey or sickness, but a strangely sweet kind of nothing, more like the scent of subtle flowers than any real flavor. Max blinked, trying to clear his head.
He took two more steps…
…into the pouring rain.
“What the hell?” he muttered, looking up and wiping water from his eyes. The rain came down so hard it hurt, pelting at his arms and the back of his neck. He shook his head and droplets flew from his hair. Impossible. The sky was clear. Dusk coming on, and the sky was clear.
Impossible or not, the storm raged. The wind blew, though not too fiercely, and the rain battered the trees around him. Worst of all, though, in the seconds during which he had been blinking, trying to clear his mind, it had gone from late afternoon to full-on night.
He bore the pummeling rain for a few seconds more to stare at the low, heavy clouds, seemingly lit from within by the dull glow of promised lightning. Thunder cracked like a whip, then rolled, like mountains rising up to war.
Max shook the rain from his hair again, but he was really trying to shake off the impossible. He turned to flee back over the bridge, hoping to find temporary shelter while the worst of it went by, but he'd become confused. The bridge was no longer behind him. He spun around, but all he could see were oaks and cypress trees.
Then he stopped, breath coming hard and fast, because something was very wrong. Different. He could see the edge of a marshland, and the grass and trees were a massive tangle of vegetation. The branches around and above him were heavy with leaves. The air had grown hot, despite the darkness and the rain.
A question bubbled up to his lips and was born before he could stop it.
“Where am I?”
He hated the question. Thoughts of that little gray stone bottle and its cork stopper rose in his mind. The whiskey couldn't have helped, but it wouldn't do this. It had to be a hallucination. Even if he'd blacked out and woken up after dark, even if the rain had come in while he'd been out of it, drugged by whatever Ray (that crazy fuck!) had given him, what about the marsh? He'd never seen a marsh in the park, and there was no way these trees had been through Katrina. No way.
And just when he thought he might scream, he heard a rustling, something more than the noise of the driving rain, and he turned. Something moved, there in the storm and the dark.
A man.
Like Alice following the rabbit, he pursued that silhouette. Lost and confused in the storm, heart rising into the back of his throat, panic clenching his fists, he gave chase. Thoughts of attack filled him. He'd tackle the guy and demand answers. But he raced amongst trees, shoes sinking into muddy earth that sucked at his feet, and he began to slow.
The man was not running.
By the time Max emerged at the edge of the marsh, the shadow had stopped. The water was high, thanks to the storm, and surrounded the bases of the trees nearest the marsh. The marsh had begun to spread.
The man crouched in several inches of water, hiding himself behind the high grass. Even in the dark and the storm, his clothes seemed anachronistic. Other than a half glance backward, revealing a long, thin mustache, he kept his back to Max, seemingly unaware that he was being followed. The man's attention had been caught by movement out across the marsh, and Max peered through the rain, trying to make out what unfolded there.
He moved north along the edge of the marsh, skirting a tree, trying to get a better view without giving himself away. A pale figure stood fifty yards away, and Max had to step into the water and part the high grass before he began to make sense of what he saw. Three canoes were drawn up onto the far bank, and seven or eight people stood beneath the trees, some hiding beneath hanging cypress branches, all of them hard to see in the dark and the storm. Their clothes were rough, their hair long and slicked by the rain.
Only when the pale figure—shirtless, hair in braids— lifted something toward the thunder clouds did Max realize that they were Indians. For a moment he felt a queer dislocation, and then he told himself this must be some strange tribal thing conducted by a local group.
But moments ago, it had been a cooling fall afternoon, and now it was night and the s
torm had risen from nowhere. His mind tried to rationalize, but there were simply too many things to explain.
Lightning flashed across the sky and he saw the granite features of the Indian who stood in the marsh, and got a clearer look at the bundle he held up toward the storm.
It squirmed in his hands.
Thunder boomed across the sky. When its roar had diminished, another sound could be heard over the constant patter of rain. A baby had begun to cry—a frightened, angry bleating that grew into a wail.
Max held his breath. Off to his right, the guy with the mustache rose slightly, leaning forward. But Max only glanced at him for an instant before returning his focus to the shirtless Indian standing in the marsh. From the squirming bundle he held aloft, the baby's arms emerged, fists beating the air. A terrible suspicion grabbed Max; perhaps this wasn't any kind of baptism or blessing at all. The woman on the opposite edge of the marsh watched, but wasn't as impassive as he'd first thought. Her shoulders shook with quiet sobs. The rain swallowed her tears.
The Indian holding the baby began to chant in his own language, and immediately the others joined in. Their voices came together not in harmony, but in a unified, prayerlike rhythm.
Something flitted through the dark above the marsh. Trees rustled and branches shook, and then birds took off from the crooks where they'd been hiding from the storm and began to circle like vultures above the Indian and the wailing infant. The chanting grew louder. The mother shouted and stepped into the flooding marsh, but one of her tribesmen grabbed hold of her arm and would not let go.
The chanting ceased.
“No,” Max said, for he could feel something awful coming.
The man in the marsh lowered the baby ever so gently, resting the swaddled infant atop the water's surface. And then he let go. Blanket already soaked through with rain, the baby sank in an instant, the water closing over it. The crying ceased abruptly, leaving only the shush of the rain.
The Map of Moments Page 5
