Baba Simza came back in, and behind her came a steward with the luncheon cart. A thin, earnest young man, he seemed to know that he was the only one of the crew that had been allowed in Nadyha’s stateroom for the last four days, because he bowed to Nadyha at least half a dozen times as he set the table. Nadyha gave him a polite nod, and Simza was relieved to see that she now accepted a more normal routine as a matter of course.
They had luncheon, although it was hard for Nadyha to sit still, she kept jumping up to look at the puppies, who had played until they had simply fallen over, asleep. “Nadyha, sit at the table, put the basket down by your feet if you can’t keep from hopping all over like a rabbit,” Simza ordered her. “And no! Don’t set the basket on the table!”
Niçu told them of Anca’s feeding that day. “Mr. Wainwright bought two sides of beef, just for Anca! I told him that if Gage could just get into some little patch of woods somewhere and shoot a couple of hogs she’d like it much better. But I don’t think Mr. Wainwright wants any of us to leave the Queen, ever. I think he wishes we’d all just move in and live here, like it’s all one big vardo.”
“But we’re not going to do that, are we?” Nadyha said sharply. “We’re going back to camp when we get to New Orleans, aren’t we?”
“Of course, bitti chavi,” Simza said, reaching over to pat her hand. “If that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do.”
Gage’s heart sank.
CARA CAME IN AND went straight to sit on the floor by Nadyha. “I’ve missed you,” she said simply. “I’m so sorry.”
Nadyha nodded stiffly. “Thank you. Look! See what Gage bought for me!”
“So I heard,” Cara said, picking up a wiggling puppy to hold him close. “We had dogs on the farm, and I always loved them.”
They talked about the dogs for awhile, and then Nadyha said, “Tell me about the Captain’s Ball. Was it pias, baro pias?”
Cara blushed, and her blue eyes shone. “It was. I had—so many nice gentlemen ask me to dance. And Dennis was so kind, he made certain that I was properly introduced to everyone. It’s so funny, and silly, so many of them ask me if I’m a real countess! Can you imagine that?”
“Yes, I can. And what do you answer?”
“I say no, of course. But some of them act like I’m really just being mysterious.” She smiled then. “Maybe I am, because of what happened—to me, with Captain Nettles, you know. But I’m sure not trying to make anyone think I’m a countess. Anyway, Dennis really made me feel comfortable. He has such a courtly manner, when he’s not being a silly show-off little boy. And he made sure that the gentlemen weren’t too—too—attentive.”
“Annoying, you mean,” Nadyha muttered. With an effort she said more lightly, “You call him ‘Dennis’ now? I’m surprised at you, Cara, such improper familiarity!”
She blushed. “I know, it seems silly to you, but it’s an important gaje rule, really. Young unmarried ladies don’t allow men to call them by their first names, and they don’t call young men by their first names. But Dennis said that when I called him ‘Mr. Wainwright’ he always looked around for his uncle, and it was really such a needless bother, considering. So, yes, I call him ‘Dennis’ and I gave him permission to call me ‘Cara.’ At first I said he could call me Countess Cara, but that didn’t go over too well with him.”
Nadyha smiled a little. “I think Dennis likes you very much, Cara. Maybe more than you realize.”
Cara looked down at the puppies and started petting one of them. “No, I realize,” she said soberly. “It’s just that nothing can come of it. Dennis isn’t a Christian man, you see. And besides that—we all know I may be in big trouble in Donaldsonville. Oh, I hope, I pray, that all of that is over when we get back! I miss my family so much. I even miss Mrs. Tabb.”
Cara kept talking, and Nadyha was thinking, Cara, she went through exactly what I went through! Well, maybe that captain that attacked her wasn’t as dangerous as Yargee, but she still must have been just as afraid as I was. And no one showed up to rescue her. And then that captain died, and that must have been so horrible anyway, and then she had to run, because she might have gotten into trouble, when she was the victim, she was the prey! She seems so innocent, so delicate—but she’s doing so much better than I am. What’s wrong with me?
“. . . Dennis said that he thinks I should do concerts, here, on the Queen,” she was saying. “I hadn’t really thought of it before, because I’ve been so happy with the play.”
Nadyha said, “Yes, we have been, haven’t we? Happy with the play . . . happy here. You know, Cara, I know that I couldn’t possibly do the play tonight. But please tell Dennis that we’ll be performing on Monday night, the night before we reach New Orleans.”
“Really?” Cara said excitedly. “Do you—do you think you’ll be all right, Nadyha?”
“I don’t know,” she said wearily. “But I’m going to try.”
ON MONDAY NIGHT, THE play commenced at nine o’clock that evening. Normally, during the Queen’s round trips, separate performances were given for first class, and then a second night reserved for second and third class. This time, because it was the only performance given on their return voyage, all of the passengers on the Queen of Bohemia were invited to attend. It was standing room only. Captain Humphries gave his usual warning for all of the audience to remain seated when the wild animals were on stage, but then the absurdity of it—there were about a hundred people standing up—hit him, and his granite face cracked into a smile. “Just don’t run up here and crowd them, people,” he finished in a deep grumble.
The audience was very quiet and still. No whispers, no fidgeting or even feet-shuffling from the people standing up were heard from the first moment the curtain rose, with the enraptured silence lasting all through Cara’s entrance and song.
And then the curtain opened on Nadyha and Anca. The entire room erupted into a noisy din. The first-class passengers who were seated rose to applaud, even some of the women. Both men and women shouted, “Nadhya! Nadyha! Brava, Nadyha!” Rowdy young men from third class stamped their feet and whistled.
Nadyha stood, slim and tall and dignified, her eyes great dark pools glinting in the dimmed light. Her hand rested on Anca’s head, who sat calmly by her, watching, motionless. The applause went on and on. Finally Nadyha crumpled a little, sank to her knees, and threw her arms around Anca’s neck. She faced the audience, and they could read her lips as over and over she said: Thank you.
AFTER THE SHOW, DENNY and Gage sat down in the empty Bohemian Room to talk to the Gypsies. “I can easily make arrangements for all of you, and all the animals, to get transported back to camp,” Denny told them.
Niçu was adamant. “We don’t want a bunch of gajes to know where we’re camped. The property is part of the Perrados plantation, and if that Major Wining finds out we’re camped there I’ll bet he’d just love to charge us about ten thousand dollars in taxes. Or throw us in jail. No, we’ve already talked about it, and we’ve decided that Mirella and I will double on Saz, Nadyha will ride Tinar, and we’ll go to camp. Then Mirella and I will bring two vardos back to get Baba Simza and the animals.”
“You can take Cayenne,” Gage said. “I’m going to be staying at the St. Louis for the next week, he’d be a lot better off with you anyway.”
Nadyha made it clear that she didn’t want a lot of attention as they left the Queen. “I just really would prefer to leave quietly, without having to deal with—” She made a vague waving gesture, in a peculiarly awkward manner, for her. She looked drained and utterly exhausted.
Niçu said, “Sure, Phei. We’ll wait until everyone disembarks, and by then the crew will be so busy they’ll probably hardly notice us.”
With relief Nadyha said, “Good. So, I’ll say good-bye for now, Dennis, Gage. Thank you for everything.” Then she got up from the table and left, her head and shoulders bowed.
The Queen of Bohemia came into New Orleans on Tuesday morning. It was a brilliant day. Even t
he Big Muddy glinted gold-splinters in the sun. But Gage felt little cheer. He stood on the Hurricane Deck as they docked. The wharves, as always, were a kaleidoscopic jumble of people, carts, and animals. The French Market was bustling. The usual hurly-burly of crews working to dock and passengers getting ready to disembark went on, down on the decks below him. He felt oddly alone and disjointed, as if he were watching a scene that he had nothing to do with, as if he weren’t really there, and didn’t belong there.
But this is my home, he thought despairingly. If I don’t belong here, then where do I belong?
Unbidden, the echoes sounded in his mind: With Nadyha . . . always and only with Nadyha.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gage looked around his room at the St. Louis Hotel. He found it rather shabby after the second-class stateroom on the Queen of Bohemia. The two wrought-iron beds were elegantly made and sturdy. The springs didn’t creak, the down mattress was thick, the bedlinens were of fine Egyptian cotton. But they were smaller than the beds on the Queen, and Gage’s legs were too long for the bed, and he had had a restless night.
A small cherry tea table sat underneath the window, with two armless slipper chairs upholstered in blue satin damask, but one of the chairs had a very noticeable stain on the seat. Since the St. Louis didn’t have bathrooms en suite, a serviceable marble-topped oak washstand with pitcher and bowl was provided. Gage missed the fine bathroom on the Queen.
So now I’m a nimby-pimby gentleman of discriminating tastes, he thought acidly. He set his Bible on the table but found that he couldn’t sit still and concentrate. Rising to stare out the window onto St. Louis Street, which was already busy just after dawn, he wondered what in the world he was going to do with himself for the next week. The Queen of Bohemia was scheduled to leave next Tuesday, August 1.
So I’m wondering about this week? Lord, what am I going to do for the rest of my life? Go back to being a clerk at Urquard’s Sugar Refinery? The idea of spending his life as a clerk was anathema to him. How could he go back to such a dreary life? After the war, after living with Gypsies, after the Queen of Bohemia . . . after Nadyha?
Roughly shoving the thoughts of her out of his mind, he tried again to read and pray, but found that he simply couldn’t calm down. He was so restless that his body almost felt chafed, a sort of skin-crawling itch such as he got when he drank too much strong coffee. He started pacing, which usually helped him to think, to figure things out.
At first his thoughts were just a jumble tumbling over and over in his head—sugar clerk, Gypsies, sharpshooter, Nadyha singing, the Queen, Nadyha and Anca, Nadyha and the puppies, the river, the fog of his future, the weary look on Nadyha’s face as she had said her listless good-bye to him.
By nature Gage was a disciplined man, and eventually he was able to wrench his thoughts away from Nadyha. He thought of the Queen of Bohemia, how much he had enjoyed the last two weeks, how exciting it had been, how traveling on the river had been just as thrilling as he’d always imagined it would be, on those long-ago days before the war when he spent so much of his leisure time down at the docks. Slowly he realized that, regardless of his previous criticism of the very fine St. Louis Hotel, it really didn’t have anything to do with comparing the hotel to the trappings of the Queen.
It dawned on him: I loved being on the river. So now instead of a hoity-toity gentleman I’m a river rat?
The thought was alien to him. Gage recalled his life before the war, and how he had been such a loner. Even his single courtship of one woman in his life had really been just going through the motions because, he thought, I have to get married. Everyone gets married. He realized now that he had never seriously considered it, and obviously she must have known that. No wonder she married someone else as soon as he was gone. It hadn’t really bothered him very much.
And what about all of those longings after the surrender, to be alone again, to be solitary again? On the Queen of Bohemia, as large and roomy as she was, Gage had been cheek-by-jowl with people all the time. That’s how it would be, working and living on a riverboat. Could he truly be seriously considering such a life?
It was true; he was. Gage had gotten to know all about the steamer in their two-week voyage. He had made a nuisance of himself, he suspected, with the Chief Engineer and the Chief Fireman, down in the boiler room and engine room asking hundreds of questions. He had found it fascinating that, once he understood the mechanism, the steam engines that drove a steamboat were actually less complicated than the boilers and engines necessary for refining sugar. He found everything about the boat interesting: how the engines drove the paddlewheel, how the firemen gauged the steam necessary to drive the engines, how the pumps worked for the fountain, how the galleys obtained fresh milk, how big the paddlewheel was, where the cleaning supplies were for the chambermaids.
Could I actually work a riverboat? Is that—possible, feasible, Lord? What would I do? It takes a special kind of training to be a fireman, to really understand the boilers, it seems like that only comes with experience. Engineer, now . . . I could do that, the engines are really pretty simple. But there are a hundred engineers on every dock in every port that have been on the river all of their lives. Could I be content just starting out as a crewman on some little freight crawler?
He didn’t know the answer to that question. Already weary at seven o’clock in the morning, he realized the hard truth: any future without Nadyha was bleak and dreary to him.
He sat back down at the table and turned to Psalm 119. With a great mental effort he made himself read. Whenever Gage couldn’t concentrate, he knew he could always read Psalms. Soon he was absorbed in this, the longest psalm.
When he finished, he prayed, and it was as if he were some sort of imbecile, sitting there mumbling to himself. But he prayed just the same. Gage had been a Christian since he’d been eight years old. He knew that even if it seemed that God wasn’t there, He really was. Gage knew that if he prayed and asked God for answers, he’d get them. They may not be as fast as he preferred, and they may not be the answer he wanted, but He would always answer. By the time he’d finished it was time to meet Denny for breakfast.
Down in the Grand Rotunda, Gage eyed all of the Union soldiers milling around with a jaundiced eye. “This place is crawling with bluebellies,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, all of the hotels are,” Denny said. “Quit complaining, Johnny Reb, you’re lucky I got us a room here. It’s only because Uncle Zeke is such good friends with General Banks, you know. Anyway, how about Madame Borski’s Russian Tea Room for breakfast?” They went outside and Denny instructed an attendant to summon them a hackney cab.
“Are you kidding? I’m hungry, really hungry. I don’t want watery tea and little poom-poom cakes for breakfast. We’re going to Tujague’s. They serve a man’s meal there.”
Tujague’s was a small café down in the French Quarter by the docks. They served only breakfast and dinner, mostly to rivermen and French Market vendors. The place was crowded, the atmosphere was steamy, the conversations always at a constant low roar. But the food was outstanding.
“Have Guillaume’s Creole Casserole,” Gage advised Denny. “It’s my favorite.” The dish was a rich, hearty egg casserole made with German sausage, bell peppers, onions, garlic, and thickened with clotted cream and cracker crumbs. Tujague’s always served fresh-baked French bread and sweet cream butter, and of course, all of the strong black coffee you could drink.
As they were finishing up Gage asked, “So, what do hoity-toity gentlemen of leisure do with themselves all day? I sure don’t know.”
“My, we are irritable this morning, aren’t we?” Denny said. “Oh, we just fritter around. Today we’re going to go to Corbette’s Hair-Cutting and Shaving Saloon, and then we’re going to Bustamente’s Turkish Baths. That’ll take most of the day. After that we’ll just fritter around until we figure out where to have dinner.”
“Supper, I still call it,” Gage said. “And I want to go to Antoine’s. I’ve
never been there.”
Denny’s eyes brightened. “As it happens, Uncle Zeke—”
“Yeah, yeah. He’s Antoine’s long-lost cousin, or Antoine owes him ten thousand dollars, or something. Great, as long as you can get us in. So what is a Turkish bath, anyway?”
Gage felt better after he got a haircut and a professional shave. But he enjoyed the Turkish bath more than anything. He had heard of them, of course; there were at least four Turkish baths that he knew of in New Orleans. But he’d never had the money to indulge before.
First was the “warm room,” where the bather sat in a room that had small hot fires in front of the vents, to dry the air, so that the bathers had a purifying sweat. Attendants stood in front of the vents and fanned so as to circulate the air. Next was the “hot room,” which had a big coal-fired kiln in the middle that heated up rocks. Attendants poured water on the rocks so that the room was filled with hot steam. Next was a room with several fountains spouting ice-chilled water, and the bathers leisurely splashed themselves all over. Then came the baths, and one could choose between cool, lukewarm, or hot; Gage chose lukewarm. The water was exactly the temperature of his body, so that he felt he was submerged in fine liquid satin. He reveled in it for half an hour. Then he got a massage by a huge black man that was so thorough and soothing that Gage felt every lingering bit of tension in his body just melt away.
Denny, sensing Gage’s mood, hadn’t tried to talk to him much during the baths. But as they were getting their massages on stands right next to each other, Gage started talking to Denny. “You know, I was thinking this morning, life on the Queen of Bohemia is great, but it’s not real life. It’s just one big party, really.”
“Yeah, to the passengers. But to owners, running a riverboat is hard work. And it is a lucrative, legitimate business.”
The River Palace: A Water Wheel Novel #3 Page 29
