Madam: A Novel of New Orleans

by Cari Lynn

  Ferd played the name over in his head, mouthing it. “Yes, ma’am, I think Mistah Jelly Roll sounds like a right smart ragtime name. Gotta work on the surname, though.”

  Mary wanted to linger, but she couldn’t, not today. “Thank you,” she said. “We’ll talk again soon.”

  Ferd watched as she walked out, noticing the way she held herself and the measure of her gait, from the small of her back to her narrow hips. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he had the sudden urge to take this young woman to the French Opera House. He decided he would, indeed, do that someday.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The French Market

  Sidney Story sent the housemaid to the market with several dollars and instructions to get fine cuts of steak with all the fixings and a fresh-baked pecan pie. At six o’clock sharp, the candles on the dining table were lit and Story and his mother sat down to their New Year’s Eve dinner.

  “Why all the fuss, Siddie?” Mrs. Story asked as her steak was presented. “The new year is for praying, not flashy celebration.”

  Story took a sip of his iced tea, then blotted his mouth with an embroidered napkin. “Mother, we’re celebrating the achievements of your son,” he said. “At the stroke of midnight, your son makes national headlines for putting an end to the depravity that has been threatening our city.” His face turned dour. “I just hope they call it by the appropriate name.”

  Lines feathered across Mrs. Story’s thin lips as she pursed them.

  Story took a bite of his steak but could hardly enjoy it as he stared at her. He placed his fork back on the plate. “What, Mother?”

  She shook off her unpleasantness. “Oh, Siddie, my little lamb. You are indeed leading the flock. But you must be certain as to where.”

  “I do believe I am quite certain, Mother.”

  She dropped a sugar cube into her tea and stirred it with a dainty silver spoon. “Such a wide-eyed lamb,” she said. She took an audible sip. “But you know how dissolute males are. Men such as your own father, God rest his soul . . .” She stared forlornly into her teacup.

  “Yes, Mother, we need not be reminded.” They ate silently for some moments.

  “Now that you’ve sequestered vice, Siddie, you must consider how you will . . . manage it? The depraved tastes that many men have, especially for younger females?”

  Story looked at her quizzically.

  “I just feel for the poor young girls who will no doubt be forced to work in such a place. I really can’t bear it, Siddie.” She paused for effect, then clapped her hands. “Oh lamb, it’s your next calling! To protect underage girls in your district of vice.”

  He stared at his plate, stifling the urge to blurt out that he’d just fulfilled his calling and no, he did not need another one right now, thank you very much, Mother! But instead, his breath came forced and loud through his nose as he finished his steak.

  It wasn’t until the maid had served him a modest slice of pie that Story had calmed enough to consider Mother’s words. She did have a point.

  “As usual,” he said wearily, “you are right, Mother. My work is not done. God’s work is never done.”

  Mrs. Story smiled and reached over to cradle her son’s face. “My lamb, may Mother Mary guide your righteous work in 1898.”

  He nuzzled his cheek into her hand.

  Flashy celebration was an understatement for Lulu White’s New Year’s Eve party. Mahogany Hall sparkled with Chinese lanterns hanging from the trees and luminaria lining the walkway and verandas. No matter that Lulu had already thrown several Storyville inauguration parties; she spared no expense on fine Champagne and a buffet of caviar and seafood. The centerpiece: one of her girls, lying on her back naked (but for a strategically placed leaf), her body decorated with dozens of oysters that men could pluck—or slurp—off her.

  A brass band played loud and fast while circus performers ate fire, walked on stilts, and contorted themselves. Just before the stroke of midnight the guests rushed outside to wave sparklers, then gaze up to the sky, oohing and aahing as fireworks exploded over Basin Street.

  Next door, The Arlington was dark, but for a flickering candle high at the top of the cupola. Mary and Charlotte pressed their noses to the window. Their bellies were the fullest they’d been in years. Sheep-Eye had delivered to Mary a stipend of $15, saying it would be weekly until The Arlington opened. Mary had thought for certain that Anderson meant the $15 to cover the entire month while construction was still in progress. But Sheep-Eye insisted that she’d see him again next week with the same amount.

  Mary, Charlotte, and the baby took a trip to the market and bought a chicken and sweet potatoes and eggs, butter, and fresh-baked bread, and a bottle of wine, plus a box of pastries for dessert that Charlotte picked out one by one, as excited as a child. They’d cooked up their meal, packed a basket and blankets, and, after a tour of The Arlington that had Charlotte too overwhelmed to speak, they picnicked in the top of the cupola.

  “Here’s to a healthy new year,” Mary said as the fireworks illuminated her face.

  “Oh, Mary. If only Peter—”

  “I know,” Mary interrupted. “I know.”

  One Month Later

  New Orleans, 1898

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  At the site of New Orleans’s Basin Street train depot, a tremendous crowd had gathered. Fathers in top hats took their sons to inspect the timetables and discuss in wonderment the workings of the steam train. Mothers in white gloves held the hands of their daughters as they marveled at drawings of what the glorious atrium of the future train station would look like.

  And to all of this, the Basin Street bordellos were the backdrop.

  Mayor Flower stood with his wife, a wisp of a woman oddly placed next to her hefty husband. “Petunia,” he said, “let me introduce you to the heads of the railroad.” He led her to three suited executives in top hats, and they nodded their introductions before moving to the large yellow ribbon wrapped around the depot post and bearing the Basin Street Station placard.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Flower called. “Today, as we stand at the crossroads of New Orleans, we are witness to what will forever change the face of our city. I ask the fine gentlemen from Southern Railway to have this honor.” The men snipped the ribbon to great applause.

  All heads then turned to watch down the empty track for the Sunset Limited to arrive. Only, not a speck of anything was in sight. One of the Southern Railway men nervously fidgeted with his very expensive gold watch.

  Some minutes passed and, still, all eyes were glued down the track—where, still, no train was in sight. After a while, the children became impatient, and the tightly corseted ladies began to fan themselves. At last, came a faint whistle from the distance. The crowd cheered. The railroad executives looked to one another with relief.

  “The four o’clock special!” Flower said, not realizing he was only calling more attention to just how tardy the train was.

  As the olive green Pullman cars finally chugged into the station, everyone marveled at the wonders of technology. Passengers disembarked, sucking in the Louisiana air. Children ran up and down the train steps, while the adults shook the conductor’s hand.

  At this point, Tom Anderson strolled confidently through the crowd, a stack of blue booklets under his arm. “Welcome to the finest city in the world!” he boomed. With a broad grin, he held up the freshly printed booklets. On the cover was an illustration of a smartly dressed woman holding a fancy paper fan and the title, Blue Book.

  “A guide for tourists,” Anderson said. “See the best sights New Orleans has to offer.”

  And as he pressed the booklets into men’s hands, he recognized that this was indeed all that he’d expected. The train created in folks an unmatchable enthusiasm—if they could travel the country, they were up for anything and everything! And it was anything and everything that Anderson was offering.

  A prim local woman reached for a booklet, and hooking her parasol onto the crook of h
er elbow, she opened the cover. Her eyes landed on an advertisement for:

  SUPER NO. 7

  A WELL-KNOWN REMEDY.

  YOU WON’T BE AWAY FROM YOUR GIRL LONG!

  The woman’s placid disposition quickly turned to confusion, and then to disgust. New Orleans natives didn’t have to think hard to realize they’d seen the Super No. 7 wagon making its rounds in the vicinity of the Alley.

  “Oh!” she gasped. “Vile smut!” Holding the booklet as far from her as possible, she marched up to Tom Anderson. “Take back your putrid, blasphemous drivel!” She dropped the Blue Book to the ground and quickly pivoted in the opposite direction.

  “It’s quite all right if it’s not your cup of tea, ma’am,” Anderson said jovially. “But you don’t have to be so rude about it. I have feelings too!” He broke into his infectious smile.

  As the train whistle blew, Anderson turned around to face Basin Street. On cue, Lulu’s girls leaned from the windows and balconies of Mahogany Hall, waving and blowing kisses as the locomotive departed.

  Then, Anderson turned to look at The Arlington. It was quiet and dark—until a lone bottle rocket launched over the roof of its cupola, exploding in the sky. Then another launched, and another, so that all heads were trained on the mansion just as the French doors flung open and a crowd of girls in ballroom dresses flooded onto the veranda, unfurling a large red, white, and blue banner over the rails that read, JOIN US TONIGHT! THE DAZZLING DEBUT OF THE ARLINGTON!

  They loudly began to sing:

  Yankee Doodle keep it up,

  Yankee Doodle dandy,

  Mind the music and the step,

  And with the girls be handy.

  As the grandfather clock in The Arlington’s Turkish parlor struck eight, the house was already bursting with suited men doted upon by pink-cheeked girls. After interviewing and carefully choosing each and every girl, Anderson had assembled what he deemed “a sporting house’s dream brigade.” Although he had asked Mary to accompany him to the interviews and weigh in on the choices, she had declined, offering up that a man’s opinion was far superior in these matters. But the truth was, Mary couldn’t stomach the thought of deciding girls’ fates. Besides, she’d never had girlfriends and had never placed her trust in a woman other than Charlotte—she didn’t know if she’d take pity on each and every girl and say yes to them all or if she’d feel wary and threatened at every turn. So she entrusted Anderson with the task, even though, other than Peter she’d never placed her trust in a man.

  Up on the second floor, in the Forbidden Parlor, as Anderson called it, a smaller but no less fancy crew of black girls sashayed about, sharing cordials with suited black men. From under a dashing headdress of feathers and jewels, Beulah held court. The guests would never know that Beulah had hardly recognized herself in the mirror after the beautician had been at her for over an hour. “My, oh my,” she’d gasped at her painted lips and cheeks and her tamed, slicked hair. “Lord, oh Lord!”

  But one person was conspicuously missing from the festivities. Up on the fourth floor, Mary stood in the cupola, her flushed cheek pressed against the coolness of the window. She didn’t know what she’d expected to feel on her inaugural night, but it wasn’t this unsettledness that made her stomach churn.

  She’d chosen to wear an emerald hue, feeling it was the color of new beginnings, so Paulina had sent to Paris for an emerald dress made to Mary’s measurements by the House of Worth. The dress was the loveliest Mary had ever seen, and yet it took two others to hook and cinch her into it, pulling her corset so tight she couldn’t take a full breath. The dress’s satin was thick and hot, and the crinoline beneath was stiff and scratchy. The neck extended up to Mary’s chin, and she felt her skin inflame from the rigid lace. She wouldn’t be able to sit, and she’d try not to drink anything, even though she was surrounded by fancy indoor toilet rooms. She even worried over her gorgeous emerald earrings, fearing the heavy jewels would tear right through her newly pierced earlobes. She was fulfilling her long-standing wish of getting all dressed up, complete with velvet gloves—yet in her daydreams, she hadn’t been a prisoner in her outfit.

  In her hand, she gingerly held the printed photograph that the funny little man had taken, and she pressed it against the window to study it. There she was, back in that dank crib, in her tattered chippie and the torn striped stockings she’d taken from the trash. If only she could go back in time and tell that girl everything would be all right—and plenty more than all right. But then it occurred to her: that girl in the picture, the Mary of the Alley, she had such a look of composure, such a presence as she toasted herself with her splash of Raleigh Rye. Only now, as Mary was able to look back on her Alley life from this perch in what seemed another world, did she realize she’d been all right all along. It made her sad to think she’d so often dreamed of being someone else. This woman in the photo, this was the stuff of who she was. She wasn’t these fancy clothes, or this makeup, or these jewels. She wasn’t who she was because she was a madam.

  Mary moved to the bureau that had been Mama’s—the only piece she’d brought with her from her former life. Opening the top drawer, she removed the A-B-C train cigar box. She propped the lid to reveal a roll of cash. She liked the box to feel heavy with her own money. In it, she set the photograph next to the postcard of The Arlington Hotel. She brushed the hair from the back of her neck and burrowed underneath the lace to unfasten Mama’s locket. She kissed it before dangling it into the box, next to Peter’s broken watch. She cradled the watch for a moment, clicking open its cover then snapping it shut just as he would do. She replaced it and closed the bureau drawer.

  From downstairs, she could hear the spirited piano music rising up through the raucous din. She straightened her back, pressed her shoulders down, and lifted her chin.

  Mary Deubler left the room and locked the door. Madam Josie Arlington descended the staircase.

  EPILOGUE

  New Orleans, 1997

  As I write this I feel like a schoolgirl again. I had drudged up this dear diary from a box in the attic—dare I say the last entry was from 1945, on V-Day, noting the momentous occasion! And now I am noting another occasion, momentous to only one person, and hardly so: it is the eve of my one hundredth birthday. Who would have ever thought? Certainly not I. It is an unsettling feeling to have outlasted every human being I know. I feel, in a way, like the frozen caveman who, in a rather cruel experiment is thawed and revived, only to realize that the world is unrecognizable.

  This part of the world admires age, but not the person; that is to say, other than superficial awe at one’s ability to have withstood time, people are, for the most part, cold and unfeeling toward the elderly. At least that has been my experience; then again, perhaps I brought this attitude upon myself. Perhaps the seeds I’ve sown were not always those of love and devotion, and this is how my final crop will be reaped.

  It is true, my past is flawed, and not necessarily by circumstance but by deliberate choice. My choices. It is long past time I make amends, but, alas, I will, in the time I have left, see that things are put right. Dare I say I was blinded by anger at the tender age of seventeen and did the unthinkable: turned against my own blood. Had my mother been able-minded, surely she would have shaken some sense into me, but dear Charlotte Deubler had suffered a stroke and had lost many capacities before passing several years later, may her soul rest in peace.

  It was on my aunt Mary’s deathbed, her premature deathbed, brought upon by her own will it seemed, that she revealed to me her true identity—for I had been so sheltered as to not know that my dear, kind auntie, who had funded the best education for me in the most revered convents of Europe, made her fortune by sins of the flesh.

  I will never forget the moment she told me. I was at her bedside in her lovely home on Esplanade. I held her hand, which was unusually cold, despite her fever.

  “I must tell you the truth. All of it,” she said, her breath labored. I couldn’t believe my ears as she tol
d me that she was known by a different name for reasons that were unsavory. I recall gasping, cursing her for lying. But this was only the beginning of the truths she insisted on revealing, even though I begged her not to. I didn’t want to know, I truly didn’t. I loved Auntie with all my heart and couldn’t bear the thought that she was a sinner.

  “My livelihood,” she said, her chest heaving, “was made on Basin Street, in Storyville.”

  I knew very little of Storyville, other than the mutterings I’d hear about debauchery, immorality, the Devil’s plot. It took me some moments to even process what she meant by this, that is how sheltered and naive I was.

  “I am known as Madam Josie Arlington,” she’d said. It all seemed a cruel joke.

  “That’s impossible. You’re Mary Deubler,” I insisted, forcing the frail woman to repeat herself again and again: “I am known as Madam Josie Arlington, one of the most notorious, wealthy, and feared madams.”

  I collapsed into tears and it became she who was trying to console me. But I would have none of it. I cursed her. Yes, cursed her given name. Dare I say I even spat at her bedside. I ran from the room, and that was the last time I saw my aunt. I can only imagine that I hastened her already untimely death. And I am positive it was I who created the cardinal sin: I disrespected her passage, not showing my face at her funeral, not honoring her memory.

  Please, dear God, please forgive me.

  Many years later, I came across a note of Auntie’s, which I kept in my own files all these decades. She wrote:

  “No woman’s innocence was taken on the grounds of my establishment. I was responsible for no woman’s entry into the profession; each woman lived and worked within The Arlington house of her own free will.”