House of Rougeaux
Page 10
Rosalie likes those syrupy love songs like “Walking in the Rain” and “Cry Baby,” that Junior doesn’t go in for. She harbors a sensible but romantic heart. She has never been on a date, but there have been three or four boys from school or the neighborhood who have caught her attention, and starred in more than a few soft-focus daydreams.
They glimpse the Catskills and the Adirondacks, and the lush pastures and changing forest along Lake Champlain, with its wide expanses of water and snowy peaks that sometimes appear in the distance. Virginia has packed far more lunch than they need, and three tired-looking men traveling to Utica gratefully relieve them of some of the extra hard boiled eggs, pickles, bread rolls with cheese, and green apples. One of the three men lets out a whistle. “Holy Jesus, potato chips too.”
Late in the day, at a place called Plattsburgh, the conductor comes through the car joined by a uniformed officer with a cap bearing a crest and “Canada Customs” in gold letters. Virginia grows more and more nervous as he comes closer, checking tickets and asking passengers if they are carrying fresh fruit. Rosalie looks over at Junior, who puts his finger to his lips.
“American citizens?” asks the officer.
“Yes sir!” Virginia blurts out. “We’re going to Montreal to my baby cousin’s wedding.” She hands them their tickets. “It’s going to be beautiful, you know, she has the dress all picked out and everything!”
The officer nods, and moves on.
“My, oh my…” breathes Virginia, sliding down in her seat. Junior mouths, “smooth” and Rosalie giggles with relief.
Not two hours later they arrive at Windsor Station, grand stone archways and all, in the heart of their destination, the city of Montreal. Cousin Martine’s son Marc-Pierre, forty-five years old and balding, but otherwise the picture of his mother, picks them easily out of the crowd. He shakes hands warmly with everyone and directs them outside to his blue and white Edsel, where he hefts their three suitcases into the trunk. A short drive later they arrive at a block of familiar-looking brick row houses. Flower boxes overflowing with pink and purple blooms perch on the stoop of number six. Dusk is taking over and the buildings and walkways stand in shadow. A few moments after ringing the bell, Martine is waving them inside, exclaiming “It’s them!” to the other sister, making her way heavily up the hall. Cousin Martine, in a neat green dress and grey hair held back with combs, looks them over between embraces and further exclamations. Cousin Elodie, or Didi, is decidedly older and stouter, and dressed in navy. What’s left of her white hair clings to her scalp in thin plaits, but this does nothing to diminish the air of authority about her that is immediately evident. The children will call them Auntie. Marc-Pierre apologizes for having to leave right away, but says he’ll see them again soon.
Auntie Didi pats down Junior’s arms and murmurs something to Martine.
“She says you’re sweet,” Martine says in her lovely, lightly accented English.
Didi next stands before Rosalie, taking her face between her leathery old hands. Her milky eyes bore into Rosalie’s with an unexpected intensity. Rosalie would be unnerved if she did not perceive them emanating kindness. “She has the Rougeaux eyes, that’s for sure,” pronounces Auntie Didi. “And she is made of fine cloth.” When Rosalie looks puzzled Martine explains that means a person listens and speaks with a special sensitivity. Rosalie isn’t sure what to make of this but feels flattered just the same. She looks over at Junior, who just shrugs and smiles.
In front of Virginia, Elodie frowns. She takes the younger woman’s hands, squeezes them, and then exchanges a look with Martine. “My dear, you are not well at all,” Didi says.
They are all a bit unnerved, but Martine smoothes things over. “We’ll speak of that later,” she says. “Right now let’s get you settled in.”
Rosalie and her mother will stay in Martine’s room. Martine will bunk with her sister and Junior will sleep on a pallet in the parlor, as the sofa is too short. They eat an early supper of pea soup with bacon, stewed greens and a baguette that Martine slices into chunks on the table. The Aunties inquire about Rosalie’s schooling, and cluck their approval over her summer job in the doctor’s office. They want to know if Junior works hard and if he attends church regularly with the family.
The hours of the evening merge with the rivers of bygone days, aided by two heavy black-paper photograph albums. The sisters point out who is who and who did what. Here is a picture of their own father, Dax’s oldest brother. Do they know why Papa Dax left Montreal? Virginia knows it had to do with seeking a job, but it wasn’t something her father ever spoke too much about. And did they know he was named for his grandfather, a free man here in Montreal, who married a girl who was born into slavery on an island in the Caribbean? And that one of her forbears was known to be a great healer? That sort of thing runs in the family, don’t you know, and the second sight too. Nelie, thinks Rosalie. The second sight. She never thought of it that way before, but it makes sense now. All those visitors asking her advice all the time. The Aunties seem very matter-of-fact on these last points. Their words carry no greater embellishment than they do when remarking on who was a farmer and who worked in what industry.
As for Virginia’s father, Papa Dax, what happened was he got into some trouble when he was a very young man, working with the railroad unions for labor reform. There was a situation one night when a gang of company men came in to break up a union meeting. One thing led to another, one of the company gang ended up dead and three union boys were indicted for murder. Dax was one of those boys. The family knew Dax didn’t stand a chance against the company lawyers and so under the cover of night they sent him packing. He was just about Junior’s age, says Martine. By the time the constables came to arrest him he was gone. He went to New York first, where he had a sister.
“Your Great-Aunt Eleanor Higgins,” Virginia told the children.
“The musician?” asks Junior.
“That’s right.”
Papa Dax then continued on to Philadelphia to work in the shipyards. A few years later he became a union steward, a position he maintained all his working life. Rosalie is entranced, but ever so tired. Auntie Didi smiles at her, as she tries to stifle a yawn, and orders everyone to bed.
In the morning, the Aunties are in a hurry to discuss some business with Virginia. Martine gives Rosalie and Junior a few heavy Canadian coins and a hand-drawn map of their district, Little Burgundy, showing the Rue St. Antoine and the Rue St. James, and the Canal-de-Lachine. They shoo the children out the door, telling them to go look around. The day is crisp and brilliant. Being a weekday the streets are quiet at this hour. Rosalie is enchanted with the French street and shop names. They find the Canal and walk over a bridge of old industrial steel. A lonely freighter laden with lumber chugs along at a distance. They stop into a diner and eat some kind of mess called poutine, that is not wholly unlike certain dishes fixed by ladies from church back home.
Hours later they return to the Aunties’ house where Martine and Didi are in the kitchen making sandwiches. Junior is always ready to eat again, but Rosalie isn’t hungry. She leaves Junior in the kitchen and goes to find her mother in the bedroom.
Rosalie is met with a pungent smell when she opens the door, and the sight of her mother lying in the bed, covered up with a heap of blankets.
“What’s going on?” Rosalie asks, confused. Momma seemed just fine this morning. “You ain’t sick, are you?”
“Oh, Honey, this is some voo-doo or other,” says her mother drowsily. “ Auntie has me wrapped up under here with oil and leaves and God knows what all. I couldn’t say no.”
“Yeah, okay,” says Rosalie, not knowing what else. Spotting something that draws her in, she steps over to the chest of drawers. A small framed photograph of her sister Azalea sits there, together with a flickering candle inside a white votive. Her mother opens her eyes just barely.
“I sent that picture to Auntie Martine after Azzie was sick,” she says. “Auntie Didi broug
ht it in for my dreams. I do believe I’ve been seeing my little girl…” she trails off, but then says to Rosalie, “I’ll just be a little while, you go on. The truth is all this is making me kind of sleepy.” Two or three seconds later Virginia is snoring to beat the band. In fact she sleeps the rest of the afternoon, rises briefly to take a little supper, and goes off to bed again.
The next day is similar, with the Aunties eager to get Rosalie and Junior out of the house. Marc-Pierre has taken an hour or two off work to show them the sights. Rolling along in the Edsel, he gestures generously in all directions, pointing out all sorts of historical landmarks: the Basilique Notre-Dame, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the Oratoire St-Joseph, the Place d’Armes. They take a short walk through the Jardin Botanique, vibrant with autumn colors. He leaves them back at the house with a wave. “You will feel at home here soon,” he says to Junior. “I promise.”
The afternoon is spent at the house. The Aunties get Junior to try fixing the kitchen clock, which is inconveniently slow, and Rosalie spends a couple of hours studying French and reading in the parlor. Their mother, it seems, is back in the bedroom full of strong-smelling vapors, fast asleep somewhere under all the blankets. When she finally wakes that evening she shuffles back to the kitchen for some of Martine’s chicken soup with chives and dumplings. “I don’t believe I have ever slept this much in my life,” she says, declaring the obvious. Rosalie and Junior exchange a look, but Auntie Elodie brushes off her hands like everything is in order, ushering Virginia back to bed.
The next morning is notably cooler, what with the changing of the seasons. Rosalie is awake first, and gazes at the lace curtains and the pale blue sky as her dreams recede. She rises quietly, dresses and sets about combing and pinning her hair into her usual ‘do. Leaning forward toward the small mirror atop the chest of drawers, she catches her mother’s image stirring into wakefulness. Virginia yawns and sits up. She stretches. Rotates her wrists and flexes her fingers.
“I don’t know what’s come over me,” she says in wonder, really awake now for the first time in three days. “I feel miraculous.”
* * *
This is Friday and the Aunties’ marketing day. They load up Junior with packages from the butcher, the fishmonger, the fruit-seller, the grocery. Virginia has more energy than the children have ever seen in her. Her usually wind-bent frame has sprung up straight like a sapling. She wants to go in every shop and exclaims over every curiosity. Auntie Didi smiles with particular satisfaction, while Martine shows her the specialties of each locale. Rosalie and Junior look on as if their mother had suddenly sprouted a pair of wings.
Later on at home Virginia chatters up a storm with the old ladies. She wants to know the secret behind the broth from last night’s soup, and she’d like to make a special preserves pie for after supper. While they eat, every funny story in their family history occurs to her, and she laughs louder than anyone. She looks repeatedly at the kitchen clock, now running perfectly thanks to Junior, and exclaims every few minutes, “Still right on time!” By nightfall she quiets down and begins to yawn again, though still radiant with this new energy.
That night after the Aunties retire, Virginia unrolls Junior’s pallet and plumps his pillow. She kisses her son and tells him not to stay up too late. After tomorrow night he’ll have the bedroom, she reminds him, and a proper bed. The train will be waiting to take her and Rosalie back to Philadelphia on Sunday, so soon. Their mother goes off to take her time in the bath and Junior couldn’t care less about the bed.
He stretches out on the pallet, still dressed, and folds his arms behind his head. Rosalie lies back on the sofa and the two of them stare at the shapes in the whorls of plaster on the ceiling. “See anything?” asks Rosalie.
Junior is quiet, but then says, “You going to write to me?”
“You know I will,” says Rosalie. “You going to write me back?”
“You know I will.”
* * *
An hour later Rosalie and her mother are in their night clothes and have settled into their reading. There’s a soft knock at the bedroom door. It’s Junior, edged in the dim lamplight from the parlor. He steps into the room with a grave face.
“Momma,” he says.
Virginia opens her arms and he collapses into them, his muffled sobs filling the room. Rosalie sits down on the bed on his other side and wraps her arms around them both. Her tears go down the back of Junior’s collar.
Soon enough Junior is quiet and Virginia strokes his cheek. “You’ve got your whole life now,” she says. “Things happen that we don’t expect. And that’s what we can expect.”
There is such tranquility in her voice that it takes over the room. It ripples across her children and soothes them like her lullabies when they were little.
Junior sits up and wipes at the back of his neck. “Girl, you made a mess on me!” Rosalie apologizes. She’s still the sloppy baby, always was.
* * *
It’s Saturday, the last full day for Rosalie and her mother. Didi has declared she will be doctoring Virginia one more time. “What more could she do to me?” Virginia says as she walks the children to the door, eyeing the forty-pound sack of salt a young man delivered during breakfast. Rosalie and Junior step back out into the neighborhood, to roam around again and see what they can see. Junior says he wouldn’t mind getting some more of that poutine. Rosalie wants to go to the dime store on Rue Notre-Dame and buy some stamps and postcards to send to folks at home. Maybe a little something for Baby Lea. Marc-Pierre will be coming by that afternoon, with his wife Pauline, to talk about what Junior might do for work. Until then, the bright morning spreads out before Junior and Rosalie. They still have plenty of time.
At supper Martine tells them they are expecting some special visitors afterward. Rosalie supposes there will be some more relatives, maybe from Auntie Didi’s late husband’s side, or maybe elders from their church. Martine goes to answer when the bell rings. Rosalie and Junior are helping to clear the table, while Didi is at the sink and Virginia makes coffee. But it isn’t any church elder who enters the room following Martine, as Rosalie is startled to see. It’s two girls in stylish dresses and a tall boy in a suit with a skinny tie. More relatives, yes, on that point she was right. Estelle and Berdine are Marc-Pierre’s daughters, Martine’s granddaughters, and Jean-Louis, who reminds Rosalie of Nelie’s husband Cal, is a cousin on their mother’s side. “We thought you young people might like to go out for the evening,” says Martine with a knowing smile.
Virginia glances anxiously at Rosalie, but Junior, who has perked up considerably, says, “I’ll look after her for you, Momma.” And Didi adds that these are good children, Very good children.
The new cousins say a respectful goodnight to their elders and whisk Rosalie and Junior down the stairs, and out into the night. Berdine clutches Rosalie’s arm. She’s an inch or two shorter, but she’s twenty-one and miles more sophisticated. “We’re going to show you the real Montreal,” she says, and the three of them break into sparkling laughter.
“Here’s our taxi,” says Jean-Louis at the curb, opening the doors of Marc-Pierre’s blue and white Edsel. “Girls in the back!” He shoves Junior into the front seat and jumps behind the wheel.
“Café Villenueve, first,” says Estelle. “It’s still early.”
“Our cousins are American,” cries Berdine. “We’ve got to start them off slowly.” Which causes everyone to giggle and guffaw all over again. Jean-Louis flips the car into gear and pulls away more than a little too fast. If this is slowly, thinks Rosalie, squeezed between Berdine and Estelle, I can’t wait to see what’s next!
* * *
The place is alive with soft jazz and conversation, tinkling glasses, cigarette smoke, and all the glamour of a Harlem nightclub. Rosalie notices, as she will the whole night, faces of many colors mixed in together. Even the band, with its beautiful lead singer, has a white drummer. Berdine leads the way to a table where they’ll sit and get acquainted.
“Coca-Cola, s’il vous plait,” she squeaks and everyone bursts out laughing again. Jean-Louis and Junior are soon engaged in a conversation about automobiles. Estelle and Berdine want to know everything about life in Philadelphia, though they turn out to be extremely well-informed. Friends of theirs pass by to say hello, whom they greet easily in English or French, always introducing Rosalie and Lionel, their American cousins. The band plays a captivating version in French of that popular new song, “The Girl from Ipanema.”
Before long they’re off in the Edsel to another club, a bigger one, close enough to the first place that it hardly seems worth it to drive. This is the place for dancing. The hour grows later and the crowd denser. The music swirls around them, intoxicating. A young man asks Estelle to dance and they take the floor, followed by Berdine with Junior and Jean-Louis with Rosalie. The young man Estelle is dancing with leans over to say something close to her ear. Estelle smiles and shakes her head. He says something else and she laughs. Rosalie wouldn’t mind if Jean-Louis paid her that kind of attention, or if somebody else nice did, but that familiar pang of disappointment is soon washed away by the thrill of the music.
“Look at Little Sister!” shouts Estelle, noticing Rosalie’s moves. Berdine claps and Jean-Louis shouts out “Ouais!” Rosalie feels as though she could go on dancing forever. If only tomorrow didn’t ever have to come.