“I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be a good idea if we checked out Nadyha’s stateroom before she gets here? Maybe have some flowers, and fresh peaches, and stuff? And everyone else’s room, too, of course.”
“Of course,” Denny said ironically. “I’m way ahead of you. It’s already done. And that reminds me, I forgot to tell you, if you think we’re fussing over her, Uncle Zeke’s got us both beat.” He sat down and puffed vigorously on his cigar, then started coughing.
“Ever thought about quitting?” Gage asked.
“I just started,” Denny said in a strangled voice, “and I enjoy it so much.” Finally he cleared his throat, carefully ground out the cigar, and was able to continue. “A. J. had already assigned the staterooms, but Uncle Zeke insisted that Nadyha be in the cabin right next to his. You know, his cabin extends the whole width of the boat, so obviously no cabin is on his left or right. But because of the design of Uncle Zeke’s stateroom, the two staterooms directly in front of his are about a foot wider than the other first-class rooms. He said that’s why he wanted to put Nadyha in one of them, and shuffle everyone around, which drove A. J. nuts. But I think that Uncle Zeke is really worried about watching over her, you know. I think he feels better with her safely tucked in right by his stateroom. Hervey’s always there, and most of the time the pursers or the engineers or the pilots or Captain Humphries are in and out, because he keeps so many of the records there and he meets with them all the time.”
“I think that’s a real good idea,” Gage said deliberately. “Good for Uncle Zeke.”
The Gypsy Caravan arrived at the docks at four o’clock the next afternoon, drawing the usual attention from passersby. Gage found that he was so nervous he hardly knew what to do with himself. His strongest impulse was to go grab Nadyha and look her up and down to see if she’d lost weight, if she was still pale, if her eyes still had that dull lost look they’d had when she left, and to fire a dozen questions at her to see what she was thinking. Of course, Gage could never do such a thing to any woman, especially Nadyha, so he tried to make himself calm down and not stare at her too arduously. She pulled the lead vardo up at their old Pavilion, the levee entrance by the French Market. Boldo’s head was stuck out the window, and he was wearing a sugarcane hat and waving. In spite of his agitation Gage grinned. “I see nothing much has changed in the last week. Hi, Nadyha.”
“Hello, Gage and Dennis,” she said, lightly dropping down from the driver’s seat. “No, nothing much has changed. Except that now I have two baby jooks, and all the time we’re afraid Baba Simza is going to have the apoplex.”
“Apoplexy,” Gage corrected her. She looked good, he thought, much like the old Nadyha. Her brown-green eyes were bright, her complexion was golden again instead of yellow ocher. Her greeting was certainly more lively and welcoming than her good-bye had been. Gage murmured, “You look beautiful, Nadyha. I’m so glad, I—we’ve really been worried about you.”
Lightly she said, “No need. I’m fine, really. So, are you two going to help us get everyone boarded or are you just here for decorative purposes?”
It took a lot of time to get everyone and their musical instruments and the luggage unloaded and then loaded onto the Queen. Nadyha said in an aside to Gage, “At least you don’t have to carry Baba Simza around this time.”
“I wanted to, but she said no,” Gage said. “Just like a woman, love ’em and leave ’em.” He watched Nadyha carefully to judge her reaction to this. It was the kind of joke he used to make with her that she seemed to enjoy, but after the near-rape she had recoiled with distaste from such things.
To his relief she smiled. Gage noted that it wasn’t the same free, easy, sparkling smile she usually had, but the sally amused her just the same. “Oh, well, this time she brought her table loom and two baskets full of yarn. I would guess you’ll be lugging all that into and out of the Moravian Salon and the Bohemian Room and my stateroom and the promenade and wherever else it enters her mind to go seven or eight times a day.”
After this exchange Gage felt overwhelming relief. He thought, Ho-kay! Maybe we can get back to where we were before . . .
Where were we before?
Now Gage grew confused again. His emotions concerning Nadyha had been such a whirlwind, so kaleidoscopic and baffling, that he had trouble now discerning exactly what the “normal” relationship with her had been. I was attracted to her, and I think she was attracted to me, but then there’s the gaje-Romany thing, and did she ever act any differently to me than she did to any of the other men standing around gaping at her? I know it started out differently, because of the bizarre way we met . . . and then I got tangled up with them, because of Denny . . . and then we all got tangled up with the Queen . . . but all along, was Nadyha falling in love with me, as I was with her?
Looking back, Gage honestly couldn’t figure it out. He had been so absorbed in his own dilemma that now he thought he had never really had any insight into Nadyha’s feelings. Maybe all along she had just been grateful to him, because he’d helped Simza, and Simza had encouraged her and Niçu and Mirella to accept him into their so-exclusive circle.
Gage got tired of this mental overwork, and managed to put it out of his mind as he went to bed. Two weeks, he thought. I have two weeks. By the end of this trip, I’ll know.
GAGE WONDERED IF NADYHA would fall back into their old routine and come down in the mornings to attend to the horses. With great trepidation he went down to the cargo deck at dawn, and found Nadyha already there, mucking out Saz’s stall. “Lazy gaje,” she teased.
“Hm . . . I seem to remember . . . somewhere back there . . . was it you? Yeah, I think you were the Gypsy that promised not to call me a gaje anymore,” he reminded her as he led Tinar out of his stall and tied him up.
“Oh, yes, I was that Gypsy, wasn’t I? Sorry. I forgot.”
“I forgive you.” Gage heard little whining sounds coming from Anca’s empty stall, and looked over the door and grinned. “I see you brought Big and Little.”
“Yes, I haul them everywhere,” Nadyha said as she vigorously shoveled hay. “And that basket is just so heavy, and awkward to handle. But they’re still too little to walk very far. I can’t take them out on the promenade, so just to get them out of the stateroom I’m going to bring them down here in the mornings.”
It made Gage very happy to hear her say that she’d be coming down every morning. “You know, if you’d like, I think I can fix up a canvas bag for them, with a shoulder strap. I’d make the bottom of it flat and solid, with pasteboard, maybe, so it wouldn’t sag.”
“Would you? That would be wonderful. Chubby little jooks, I won’t be able to carry them for long. But maybe by that time they’ll be big enough to be able to walk some.”
“Yeah, and then I guess it’ll be time for the gold leashes. Your pets have better jewelry than most women.”
“Hmph. Gaje women. All Gypsy women have galbés, they’re passed down in families from mother to daughter.”
“Galbés, is that those coin necklaces that you wear? I thought those were just trinkets that Niçu made.”
“They are. We hardly ever wear our real galbés, just for special things like when we have parties to celebrate the birth of a child.”
“And weddings?” Gage said in an offhand manner.
“Yes, weddings too,” she murmured. Then, in an artificially bright voice very unlike her own, Nadyha asked, “And so? Do you still want me to help you with yours and Niçu’s show tonight? Or did Countess Cara do so well with the last one that I’ve lost my job?”
“Huh? No! I mean, of course Cara did fine. But I really want you,” Gage blurted out.
She looked over the stall wall at him and smiled, her eyes flashing. “Oh? Maybe you’d better come to breakfast with us. We’ll see if Cara and I have to fight it out.”
It was the last time Nadyha invited him to breakfast. It was the last warm and personal conversation that Gage and Nadyha had the entire trip.
&
nbsp; IF GAGE HAD FELT entangled by Monique Dobard on the last trip, on this trip he was positively swarmed by the Chalmers sisters.
Denny called them “The Three Graces” and not because of their grace. Their mother, Grace Steptoe Chalmers (of the Virginia Steptoes, as she told everyone), was a blonde, blue-eyed coquette and her three daughters could have been handmade copies of her. Lavinia was the eldest, nineteen years old, and slightly taller than her mother and sisters, but she had the same exaggerated, prettified manners as her mother and her sisters Josephine and Flora Louise. Josephine was seventeen, but it was Flora Louise, who was only fifteen years old, that made Gage extremely wary. She was spoiled and flirted outrageously with Gage, and her mother and sisters did nothing to curb her behavior. Their father, Boothe Chalmers, was a bluff, black-haired, big man whose family had made a fortune in shipping. He seemed to spend most of his time trying to avoid his all-female family, and so he seemed barely aware of what went on with his wife and daughters.
Again, it all happened after Gage and Niçu’s show. Mr. Chalmers had escorted his family to see the show, but immediately afterwards he fled back down to the Lusatia Cardroom, where he spent most of his time. Mrs. Chalmers and her three daughters, however, lingered and buttonholed Denny to wrangle introductions to Gage. As soon as they were introduced, Lavinia locked arms with Gage, so tightly that he could barely move. A very small sort of scuffle ensued between Josephine and Flora Louise to try to snatch Gage’s other arm, and Flora Louise won. Gage was so entangled and baffled, that, again he didn’t see Nadyha slip away. This time she didn’t linger by the rail and watch them, she hurried off the Hurricane Deck. He never would have imagined that she was crying.
The inevitable insistence that Gage have dinner with the Chalmers came, and Gage was sadly puzzled as to how to refuse. The invitation was extended to Denny, and the six of them had what to Gage was an interminable torture. The girls, and even their mother, giggled and simpered and gazed coyly up at him from beneath their eyelashes. By the time the dessert course had arrived, it seemed that Josephine had taken a slight bent toward Denny and some of the attention was diverted from Gage, but it wasn’t enough. He still felt positively smothered.
As soon as dinner was over, Mr. Chalmers said heartily, “I believe I’ll have a brandy and cigar in the Lusatia. Would you two gentlemen care to join me?”
Gage almost knocked his chair over jumping out of it. “I’ll join you, sir,” he said hastily.
Denny smirked at him as he, too, rose and took his leave of the ladies. Gage never went into the saloons on the Queen. As they made their way to the hallway Gage stepped close to Denny and muttered, “Help me. Hide me.”
“Sorry, buddy. Like I told you, goes with the territory.”
The first performance on this trip of The Countess and the Gypsy Queen was scheduled for the next night. After a very quick mineral water and no cigar, Gage excused himself to Mr. Chalmers. “We have to do some special grooming of two of the horses the night before the play,” he explained.
Mr. Chalmers said, “Oh? What do you mean?”
“We put a conditioner on their manes and tails and braid them and leave it overnight. It takes a long time, so if you’ll pardon me—” Gage’s voice faded as he hurried to the door. Again, he had high hopes that Nadyha would come help him, she always had before.
This time his hopes were dashed.
The next morning, Nadyha was again down in the cargo hold before Gage arrived. She had half-finished mucking out Saz’s stall, and she seemed to be in a tearing hurry. She hadn’t brought Baro and Bitti this time. Gage tried to talk to her, but her responses were short and barely polite, and after awhile they worked in silence. When they finished she said in a distracted manner, “Niçu said he’ll come down to help finish Tinar and Saz for the performance. I’ll see you tonight.”
What have I done? Gage thought. She’s angry, I can tell. What have I done to make her mad at me? Despairingly Gage realized that he had lost all insight into Nadyha. It seemed as if they had somehow become completely disconnected from one another. He really had no idea any longer what she wanted, what she was thinking, how she felt, even who she was.
The play got the same enthusiastic reception as it always did. The Chalmers ladies were the first people backstage, and they latched onto Gage like leeches. He didn’t see Nadyha backstage at all.
This time, because second class wasn’t full, Gage and Denny had separate staterooms. But they were next door to each other, and Gage met Denny in the hallway late that night. Following him into his stateroom he said, “Look, I don’t think I can eat three meals a day with those Chalmers females,” he said with frustration. “I know you want me to be in the Bohemian Room all the time, acting like some big goof, talking up the passengers. But unless the Three Graces give me a little room, that’s not going to happen anyway. The only passengers I’ll be talking up are Lavinia and Josephine and Flora Louise.”
“Probably true,” Denny agreed with his habitual grin, which at the moment Gage found truly maddening. “So, you’re going to eat down in the Sumava? That’s where they all eat, you know.”
Gage was downcast. “I didn’t think of that. No, guess that won’t work.”
Curiously Denny asked him, “Gage, what is going on with you and Nadyha? How has she been with you?”
“I don’t know. Yesterday morning we seemed to be doing fine, we were laughing and joking like we used to do. But now she seems upset with me, and I don’t have any idea what I’ve done.”
Denny hesitated. He had seen Nadyha hurry off the Hurricane Deck after he had introduced the Chalmers to Gage after the show, but he hadn’t seen her face and had no idea that she was weeping. He did know that on the last trip Nadyha had seemed very jealous of Monique Dobard, but that had been then and this was another time and another place. Denny knew very well that her jealousy then might have been the result of just a passing infatuation; it happened to everyone, he thought, and for all he knew now Nadyha might not care one whit about Gage Kennon.
Finally he said heartily, “Oh, come on, Gage, who knows with women? She’s a hot-tempered girl, but she gets over it fast. You know they’ll all be glad to have you eat with them. I’ve tried to get Cara to start eating in the Bohemian, but she says she’s more at home with the Gypsies. And so you will be too.”
But Gage just was not the kind of man to intrude where he may not be wanted. What if she really has no feelings for me, and has come to find my company tiresome? That sure seems like what’s happened . . . Oh, Lord, no, please, could she feel about me like I do about those stupid Chalmers girls? No, no, I can’t bear that thought . . . I can’t just show up at the Sumava, knowing Baba Simza and Niçu and Mirella and Cara would insist that I join them. I would never do that to Nadyha. I’ll just have to see . . . if she keeps avoiding me . . .
And so she did, and so Gage became convinced that he was right. Nadyha cared nothing for him, and she had sensed that he had fallen in love with her, and she found it wearisome. The only times he saw her were in the mornings, and even then she had gotten into the habit of coming down to work on the horses earlier than he, so their time together was shorter. He saw her during the play, and she continued to be his assistant in his show, but they never shared a single private word before or after. He knew that Nadyha and the others stayed out on the Salon Deck promenade a lot, and he began to avoid it, and go down to the rowdy third-class deck promenade. His sole consolation in this was that the Chalmers ladies would never let their satin slippers touch the third-class deck.
As promised, he did get Niçu and a crewman, a former sailor that was clever with sewing canvas, to help him with making a bag for Baro and Bitti. It was long enough for the two dogs, but not so wide that it couldn’t be carried on the shoulder comfortably. When it was finished Niçu said, “Why don’t you bring it up to Nadyha’s stateroom? We haven’t seen you in days!”
“No, you take it to her,” Gage said. “Tell her I hope it suits Big and Litt
le.”
The days, along with the ports of call, went by. Zedekiah Wainwright had done what Denny suggested, and made arrangements for Nadyha, Niçu, and Cara to “parade” with Anca, Tinar, Saz, and Cayenne in Baton Rouge, Natchez, Vicksburg, Memphis, Cairo, and St. Louis. Word of the Queen of Bohemia’s colorful entertainers had spread on the river, and also Wainwright had shrewdly posted playbills in every shipping office along with the Queen’s schedules.
Denny asked Gage to join their parade, but he refused. “You don’t need me to go tramping around with you. It works really well to have Nadyha and Niçu leading on Tinar and Saz, with Anca, and then you leading Countess Cara on Cayenne. What would I do? Lumber along behind with funny ol’ Boldo the Bear?” He had been so vehement that Denny said nothing more. When they came into port, Gage stood on the Hurricane Deck alone, watching them leaving the Queen, usually to much fanfare on the docks. Once, in Memphis, Nadyha had turned and looked up at the Hurricane Deck, and Gage thought she might have been looking for him. But she turned away so quickly that he decided he was mistaken—again.
The last performance of the play was on Sunday, August 13, the night before they would reach their home port of New Orleans. By this time Gage was so disheartened and low that he was barely polite to all of the people from second and third class that came backstage. As usual, Nadyha, along with Boldo and Anca, had disappeared as soon as the performance was over. Overwhelmingly grateful that the first-class people didn’t attend the performance—he hoped he had seen the very last of the Chalmers women at dinner that night—he fled up to the Hurricane Deck for some solitude.
Nadyha was there. She stood on the starboard railing, staring out at the bayou country they were passing. There was a perfect half moon, hanging low and glowing orange-yellow in the starry sky. The dim light glinted on the coins on her diklo and around her neck, and lit her face with a mysterious glow, and Gage thought he had never seen such a beautiful sight in his life. She turned, startled. “Oh, Gage. I—I didn’t know you came up here—after—anyway, if you’ll excuse me—”
The River Palace: A Water Wheel Novel #3 Page 32
