by John Farris
He ran into Leland Howard, who was on his way out.
Leland was making an eerie sound, high-pitched, a kind of whistling scream. It was the worst thing Bobby had heard from a human throat. There was blood on Leland's face from emptied eye sockets. He had a maniac's strength. With one gory hand he flung Bobby nearly ten feet.
Still making that unbearable keening sound, Leland wheeled around directionless on the platform, tripped himself up and fell back against the depot wall. His right hand opened on an egglike something. Bobby moved cautiously toward him. By the flashes of lighted train windows flying past them, Bobby realized that what dangled from Leland's fingers like an unlucky charm was one of his own blue eyes.
So Leland sat there screaming like a second Doppler effect of the diesel engine's air horn, his body twitching out of control. His hand clamped shut on the eye, Bobby making an effort not to vomit with the back of his neck cold from horror. He didn't think Leland would be going anywhere. He walked around him and into the depot waiting room.
By lantern light he saw a blue-steel .38 Colt on the floor and nearby Leland's other eye, bloody roots and all. Alex was lying much too still against the far wall.
The club car of the Traveler cleared the depot with a last wink of its crimson running lights, and the sudden quiet was unnerving. He didn't hear Leland Howard anymore; not much sound except for his own panicked breath as he kneeled beside his brother and tried to find a pulse. There was a steady flow of blood through the carotid artery; Alex's pulse was strong, and Bobby momentarily was light-headed from relief.
All Alex had on was a pair of shorts. He was lying on his red shirt, or so Bobby thought, but when he rolled the boy over saw it was a dress, fancy, tiny mirrors sewn to the bodice.
There were livid bruises on Alex's chest and stomach. When Bobby picked him up he was still holding fast to the dress. Four copper-jacketed .38 slugs fell out of the folds and rolled on the floor.
Now, what the hell?
"Is he shot?" Ramses asked as he came into the waiting room.
"Shot—yeah—I think—these bruises—but none of the slugs penetrated—I don't know what happened here! Alex is alive, that's all I care about. You better have a look at Leland Howard, he was screaming and screaming, I can't stand—"
"Mr. Howard is dead, Bobby."
"What?"
"Shock trauma, I would guess. His face is badly clawed. From the condition of his fingernails, I'm sure he did it to himself."
"Jesus! Why?"
"I think only Mally could answer that," Ramses said. He lifted one of Alex's eyelids, then the other, looking at Alex's pupils. "But she's not here anymore."
"Never was."
"Oh yes," Ramses said. "Mally was here, all right. I saw her. Why don't I tell you about that while you're driving? This boy is going back to the hospital as quickly as we can get him there."
Ramses hadn't been able to keep up with Bobby, and he waited until the Dixie Traveler was across the trestle before he trudged over the rails in front of the depot. A short run had used up another day of life and passion. His body now an adversarial creature of predestined design flaws. Testing his mettle with every breath and step he took beneath hotbeds of stars. He had a bloodbath fever.
As he was bending to the lifeless body on the platform (one fly already on the lower lip of Leland's silently shouting mouth), Ramses, in spite of fever, felt a chill like an arrow of ice in the humid, tarry night, as if another train were slowing down on the track behind him. The air he breathed turning storm-heavy, hovering, a weight on his chest.
Yes, another train—stopping at this crossing, ready for boarding now. Or was it the foment of his fever prompting this perception of the uncanny?
A tug like a child's hand caused him to turn his head. Fascinated, too old and debilitated to have fear.
So there was Mally, that sweet, pensive face. She wore a red dress with a scoop neckline and stars in their places: folderol but stylish, a holiday dress for celestial sight-seeing.
He saw his daughter elevated in stately drift, like an icon on a pallet in a religious procession. Certainly not altogether real to his eyes, yet she couldn't be called spirit.
The train (but one couldn't name it exactly that, just as "Silver Ghost" in Alex Gambier's fifth-grade story was something more than mere horseflesh). Supernatural, to be sure. Mally was aboard already, maybe the only soul traveling from here this night. An overdue soul; when she turned her eyes on him for the last time, he felt pity overwhelmed by a surge of exaltation.
"A red dress?" Bobby said. "With little mirrors on it? Like the one Alex had a grip on, bullets fell out of it when I lifted him off the floor of the depot?"
"I don't remember seeing it," Ramses said. He was in the back of the station wagon, holding Alex's head immobile while Bobby raced them to the hospital.
Cecily Gambier found Bobby asleep in a porch swing when she came outside with Brendan to take advantage of what coolness would be available to them that day in Evening Shade. Seven in the morning and the neighbors waking up and Bobby slumped over with an empty beer bottle in one hand. She gently took the bottle away, and he reacted with a startled jump, then smiled sheepishly at his wife.
"Why didn't you come to bed last night?"
"Last night?" Bobby shrugged and looked around at a calm August morning on West Hatchie Road, the folded paper on the porch, bumblebees browsing through their roses. "I just drove home a little while ago." He yawned. "No point in going to sleep, it's bound to be a hell of a busy day. Brendan's on formula now?"
"I told you he was. We started last night. He had a tantrum. But Dr. Yost said it was already past time to wean him."
"Yeah. Did you ever notice that sometimes when you were breastfeeding him he'd get a hard-on?"
"Bobby! Don't be telling me things like that."
"Well, he seems to be guzzling the stuff now."
"That's good, because Mom needs a break before the next kid shows up. Want to finish giving Brendan his bottle?"
"Sure." Bobby sat back on the swing and took Brendan from her. Brendan opened his eyes and looked up at his daddy, that look of purity and complete trust only seen in the youngest eyes. "Your mom okay?" Bobby asked.
"No, she's in a snit. Sure was a lot of fun around here last night. Bobby, how's Alex?"
"He may have some bleeding into the brain. But he was semiconscious and responsive around five a.m. Ramses got a colleague who is supposed to be the best in the south, a neurosurgeon, to drive down here in the middle of the night."
"A Negro doctor?"
"No. But what difference would that make as long as he was good?"
Cecily gave him an appreciative look and said softly, "Why, Bobby."
Bobby looked at her, perplexed, then smiled. Brendan pushed the nipple of the nearly empty bottle out of his mouth and wriggled.
"I didn't understand half of what you were trying to tell me on the phone from the hospital," Cecily said, sitting on the top step of the porch. "What happened to Leland Howard?"
Bobby was a long time answering her. He stood Brendan up on the porch, holding him by one hand. Brendan looked at him. Bobby said, "You're gonna take your first steps any day now. I don't want to miss that. So why don't you just walk over there to your mom right now? You need changing anyway." And he let go of the boy's hand.
Rhoda was getting out of her husband's car at their front gate.
"Wait a minute!" she called. "Let me fetch the camera."
"It's on the refrigerator, Rhoda," Cecily said, and held out her hands to Brendan. He hadn't moved yet, but he looked steady on his feet. Knew very well that he was the center of attention and that big things were expected of him right now.
"Cecily, I have to write my investigative report this morning. I plan to keep it simple. But all any of us can do is speculate. So officially what happened was, Leland Howard was out for a drive by himself, suffered chest pains, pulled over at Cole's Crossing, and made his way to the depot there, maybe
thinking he'd find a phone to call for help. Got into a panic trying to pull some boards away from the depot door so he could get inside. Injured himself doing it and brought on a fatal heart attack."
"What sort of injury?"
"Messed up his eyes pretty bad. I understand they can fix that at Hicks and Baggett before his funeral. You don't bury anyone with their eyes open anyhow."
"Of course not. What else will be in your report?"
"That's about all. I happened to be driving Ramses to visit a cousin of his, and we came across the Pontiac sitting empty on the road near the Southern's main line. I'm paid to be curious about such things, so that's how we found him."
Rhoda appeared with their Brownie camera just as Brendan took four full steps across the porch and fell laughing into his mother's arms.
"Did you get that, Rhoda?" Bobby said.
"Yes, sir! I got the pictures."
"Wish we had a movie camera," Cecily said.
"Someday." Bobby blinked and ducked his head. Tears.
"What about Alex though? Where did you find Alex last night? Bobby, he wasn't with Leland Howard, was he? I mean—it wasn't one of those things going on?"
"Hell, no."
"But there was something going on with Alex. Bobby, I had a call from Dunkel's late yesterday afternoon. Our charge account is over the limit because Alex has been going there and buying a lot of things. Including a red dress that cost ninety-eight dollars!"
"A red dress. What do you know?"
"Well, did he tell you anything about—"
"It was a gift for Mally Shaw," Bobby said, leaning back and clasping his hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling of the porch.
"Mally Shaw!"
"You don't like ghost stories, do you, Cecily?"
"No. They scare me to—" She looked sharply at him. Bobby was smiling. "Is this something that's not going into your report?"
"We'll just pay the charge at Dunkel's," Bobby said. "It was worth every penny."
Alex Gambier was out of danger and awake when Ramses paid his last visit of the day, shortly after four p.m. that Friday afternoon.
"I'm driving back to Nashville with Dr. Wallace this evening. I'll be in touch with the floor nurses here until you're discharged." Ramses sat on the edge of the bed. "Now, I'm not saying good-bye, you understand. But if it should happen that we don't see each other again . . ."
Alex frowned.
Ramses fished some coins from a pocket of his jacket and put them into Alex's hand, lying open at his side.
"Quatre francs," he said. "Enough to buy two glasses of Bordeaux at a boîte that has long been a favorite of mine. On Rue de Bièvre near Place Maubert. A small street, an alley anywhere else. Some of the more interesting streets of Paris are those you have to make an effort to find. Couderc's isn't far from where you'll be living while in Paris. I'll write it down, but all of the Left Bank will be familiar to you in no time. As will the language. You'll learn it quickly because you want to write fiction, and every writer of fiction should know intimately the great French novelists."
Alex looked at the coins in his hand. He passed his other hand across his throat, a question.
"I have every confidence," Ramses said. "The wine, you see, will be in the nature of a celebration. A glass for each of us. Please remember me to Madame Couderc when you stop by. Tell her how sorry I am not to be there on this splendid occasion."
The muscles in Alex's throat tensed. He turned his face aside on the pillow. He closed his eyes, and after a little time passed he felt Ramses get up slowly from the bed. When he opened his eyes again, tears fell. He could barely make out Ramses in the doorway. Looking back. He seemed to be smiling.
A lifted hand, farewell; he was gone.
EPILOGUE
TUESDAY DEC 2 1952
Miss Francie Swift
RR #4
EVENING SHADE TENNESSEE
Hi Francie
The good news today is Dr Martorell says the vocal cord grafts he did are both "near 100 percent." The bad news (maybe) is I found out that the "donor" was a 23 year old Algerian woman (Yvie says she was murdered by a jelous lover but that is the kind of story shes always coming up with). So wonder what I will sound like if I ever do get to say anything. Haha.
For now I am not allowed to make a sound and theyre worried I could catch a cold (everybody in Paris has a cold this time of the year) and screwup the works. But in a week Im supposed to begin "exercises" with a vocal coach who works with famous stars of the Paris Opera. Maybe before I leave here I will be singing the tenor part from "Manon." (Haha again)
The last couple of letters I wanted to tell you something really strange that happened but every time I try it turns into a ghost story. Another ghost story. But you liked the first one and so Im counting on you not to blab this one either which would make me look like an idiot.
Schools over for the day (I actually understood most of a lecture I heard this morning) the wether's drery and Im sitting here in my usual haunt (there I go again) by the window of the cafe on Quai Montebello I already told you all about (easy to locate on the map I sent—across the Seine from Notre Dame cathedrel and on the Ile St Louis I can see the building where Im staying with the Martorells and Yvie-the-Brat—I dont understand how twins can be so different because Max is a great guy and I dont beleve Yvie has a crush on me which is your thery. As you can see Im trying to improve my speling haha. I spell better when I type believe it or not. Anyway the twins will be here in a few minutes. Max has foils after classes on Tues. and I could care less what Yvies up to. Meanwhile let me try again.
Remember I told you Dr Valjean died the first week in Oct.? Before then he wrote me suggesting some places I ought to visit that were old favorites of his such as "Shakespeare and Company" a bookstore a few streets from here where all the famous writers like Hemingway used to go (hope you have read A Farewell to Arms by now). And the last thing Ramses put in his letter was "Dont forget to stop in at Coudercs."
Well I guess I forgot all right. In fact I didnt know what he was talking about. What was "Coudercs?" I wrote it down for Max who wasnt sure either but thought it might be a bistro he had gone past a couple of times. He said it might be in that maze of narrow streets between the quais and Saint-Germain.
I think it must have been a week later that I had a dream about Coudercs. I saw the place as if I was actually standing outside about thirty years ago. Thats what the clothes everybody had on looked like, around World War One. All the men were real "dandies." And Ramses Valjean was with them. Wearing a high collar and a derby. I saw the name above the door, Coudercs, and also the address.
Dr Martorell did his first surgery a few days after I had the dream so I couldn't go outside for a week after that. Which I hated because I love to walk in Paris. Then we had some beautiful days at the end of October and it was okay for me to go back to school.
Usually I walk home after classes with Max and a couple of his friends who are a little on the snobby side like they put down anything if it isn't French but you just have to ignore that here. Although the afternoon Im telling you about I was by myself so I thought I would see if Coudercs bistro was where it had been in my dream.
It was. And just the same, the sign over the door with a lantern on each side, half shutters in the window, two small metal tables and wire-back chairs and a polished brass horse hitch on the banquette. That's sidewalk in French.
The door stood open, but they werent doing any business in the midle of the afternoon.
I didnt think about going in. I had my school books with me (but Ive grown another inch and Yvie says I look like I could be studying at the Sorbonne instead of the Ecole St. Peres. The crucial fact was, I didnt have any money. Even though I was thinking I could really go for a glass of vin rouge.
While I was thinking that my hand was going through my coat pockets as if it didnt get the message how broke I was. And I found some coins in a torn place of the lining. Four francs to be exact!
I was about to leave when I saw an old woman coming down some stairs behind the bar. There was a partition or it might have been a folding screen so I didnt actually see the stairs, just her from the shoulders up, her hair pure white and done up in what French women call a chignon. She was looking at me in the doorway as if—I don't know. From the expresion on her face she had been expecting to see me with four francs in my hand. She was at least eighty. Not a tooth showing in her smile. But smiling big all the same. And she motioned for me to come in.
It was chilly in the bistro, a morning kind of chill before the fire gets going. Not a gloomy place even though it was on a side street where they didnt see much of the sun except for an hour or two each day. But the best seats in the bistro were those in the carved wood booth, the sides curving up and over to make a little roof. Next to the fireplace. That had been Ramses favorite spot, I knew that before she gestured for me to sit down there.
I put my four francs on the table and looked at her. Because I cant talk usually when I go into a place I point to something behind the counter or on the menu or, like here where they know me they just bring coffee without asking.
I knew she must be the Madame Couderc that Ramses told me about when I was in the hospital in Evening Shade and really groggy the last time I saw him.
She nodded when she looked at the coins but left them on the table. Then she shuffled behind the bar and took her time looking for a bottle she might have put away years ago but couldnt remember where. Muttering to herself like real old people do. Then she found the bottle and brought it with a corkscrew and two glasses back to the booth.
Like she knew she was supposed to, that I was expecting him. But she probably couldnt have known that Ramses died.
