Hello to the Cannibals

by Richard Bausch

  4

  THREE HOURS from New Orleans, in the little town of Harker’s Bend, Mississippi, she stopped for something to eat. She carried the baby in the car seat into a truck stop called Dorsey’s, and set her, still lying in the car seat, on the table in a booth. Mary was half awake, opening her eyes and then closing them again, complaining softly, and then settling back.

  The waitress was a lean, pale young woman with long straight black hair and cloudy blue eyes. When she turned them in Lily’s direction, Lily saw a pronounced flaw in the iris of the left one, and a deeper recession of the eye itself in its socket.

  “I’ve got four myself,” the waitress said. “My husband says that’s the best way, leaving them in the car seat like that, and I think so, too. He works for the highway department at night, so he’s got them during the day.”

  Lily nodded.

  “What’s your husband do?”

  After the slightest delay, she answered: “Sells cars.”

  “Must be nice. They get new cars to drive around, right? I had a brother-in-law who sold Lincolns.”

  She ordered scrambled eggs for Mary and a sandwich for herself. And while waiting for these things to be brought to her, she thought about the fact that she had felt the need to lie about her husband. Something in the waitress’s expression had made Lily sense that saying the truth would be awkward, or would make the other feel awkward. She was so weary of untruth. She came close to calling the waitress back.

  Instead she waited, and kept still, watching Mary begin to wake up.

  The waitress brought the food, and said nothing else. Lily couldn’t help looking at the one strangely caved-in eye. There was a husband, and people forgave each other their mutual imperfections in love.

  She caught herself crying a little, eating her sandwich and feeding the eggs to the baby, who wasn’t interested in them, and thinking about Buddy Galatierre, Tyler, the events of the past weeks. Two men came in and ordered Cokes and sat drinking, talking low. They kept looking over at Lily and the baby. The taller of the two tipped his hat, and smiled.

  “Are you all right, Miss?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Everyone was so kind. She hadn’t expected this desolate sense of aloneness; the fact of it surprised and demoralized her. She paid the waitress, then lifted Mary in her seat and made her way, sniffling, to the car.

  In New Orleans, she would have to face this; she would have to contend with the efforts of others to care for her. And she was not nearly prepared for any of it. She knew she was a long way from being over what had already happened. She was going to need time to recuperate, time to gain back some sense of the life she had been trying, and failing so miserably, to lead. Going into Violet Beaumont’s house in this wounded and distressed and panicky condition seemed a selfish thing to have agreed to, and it occurred to her, heading south, that she had known that was so, had made her decision to go there in the full knowledge of the self-centeredness of it: she could not be very good company in this state of mind. And while Dominic, even in the circumstances, was making a big fuss over the fact that she was coming, he also knew what her feelings were. She was one of the walking wounded, and her stay in New Orleans would be a convalescence more than it could be anything else. And it was, of course, entirely possible that, where Dominic was concerned, she was bringing bad news—trouble, complexity he could not want, responsibility he would hate.

  By the time she pulled into New Orleans, thunderstorms had rolled in from the west and gone on. The rain had missed her, but the streets were wet, shimmering with sunlight. She took the exit ramp toward Canal Street, past a graveyard full of enormous, washed-looking stone mausoleums, like a crowded complex of ornate city buildings, Gothic cornices and facades in vague profusion. She pulled into an Exxon station. There was a warm wind, and the thunder cracked, far off. She saw a tremendous tendril of lightning strike across from one cloud bank to another in the distance. Here was brilliant sunlight, and sharp shadows in the cemetery’s sprawling miniature city on the other side of the overpass. She thought of Mary Kingsley on a steamer in the middle of the ocean, with her belongings in a portmanteau, and her whole existence dependent on the rough strangers around her.

  She was in the self-serve island. She backed up, and pulled the car around to the pump marked “Full serve,” and one of the men sloshed through the puddles in the lot and around the front of the car to stand at her window. Everything depended on knowing where to be. This struck her as being quite funny, much funnier than she might ever be able to explain. She had begun to laugh. It was like an attack of nerves. His size and shape alarmed her, and she felt panic, even as the laughing erupted from her throat. She rolled the window down and then couldn’t speak right away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, striving to gain control. “Can you fill it up?”

  He didn’t speak. Mary began to fuss, and Lily, still trying to stop laughing—and feeling at the same time as though she were beginning to weep—reached back to give the child a rattle, her hand trembling. The baby held it, pulled at it, and dropped it. The rattle fell to the floor of the backseat and Lily felt this as a catastrophe; her mind raced. She was having trouble drawing in air. Off in the scoured Southern sky she saw skyscrapers, and the torn shapes of clouds scudding across in front of them. She endeavored to catch her breath, and keep from passing out.

  The man came to the window to collect for the gas. She couldn’t find the money in her pockets or in her purse; her fingers wouldn’t work. At last she found it, and passed it through the window to him. She spent a few seconds looking at Dominic’s directions, trying to collect herself.

  “You want anything else?” the attendant asked her. “You need directions?”

  “I’ve got it,” Lily said. “Thank you.”

  He went back into the building. She put the car in gear and drove on, into the wet streets, the cataracts of water running in the gutters and drain spouts, and the distant rattle of thunder, her heart pounding, a headache coming on, and panic racing through her. The baby was fussing now, and crying. She couldn’t read the street signs, or find where to look for them at some intersections. It felt like sheer accident when she reached Canal Street. She took it, and began watching the signs for the crossing streets. The sidewalks were crowded. Restaurants with tall windows that looked open to the air lined the street, and on every porch and balcony there were dozens of plants, palm leaves and flowers in profusion, all of them dripping with the recent rain. She saw row upon row of double porches, with the look of lace in the woodwork. There were beautiful churches, and Victorian fronts with chairs ranged across the verandas. She couldn’t remember if she and Tyler had walked this part of the Quarter.

  Tyler.

  She slowed, holding tight to the wheel and peering through the glare of the windshield in the racket Mary was making. It was crying, and then it was play, and then it was crying again. She, too, had begun to weep. Cars behind her were honking their horns.

  “All right,” she said, as if anyone but Mary could hear her. “Jesus.”

  She pulled over to the curb and let the cars go by her. People turned their faces to glare, or to smile gratitude, or simply to see, but she scarcely looked back. They came past, and she saw it all in the corner of her eye. When there was an opening, and she had gotten her breath, wiped her face, and, using the rearview mirror, wiped the mascara from her cheeks, and patted new makeup around her eyes, she pulled the car back into traffic and went along slowly, almost benumbed now, reading the street signs and seeing little else on either side of her.

  By the time she pulled up in front of Violet Beaumont’s tall house, on the corner of Burgundy and St. Phillip, the whole sky was sunny, cloudless. The thunder was far off, now. She got out of the car and was removing Mary from the backseat when Dominic came out onto the porch and called to her. “Cher,” he said, in a bad imitation of a Cajun accent. He came down and wrapped his arms around her, and she felt herself crying into his shoulder. It was on
ly a moment, but he held tight, patting her shoulderblades. Manny had come down, too, and was getting Mary out of the car seat, cooing at her and murmuring her name. “So happy to see you, little one,” he said.

  “Let me see her,” said Dominic, letting go of Lily, who stood there, drying her eyes, and watched them make a fuss over the baby.

  They insisted that she go ahead into the house with the baby, while they unpacked the car, so she went ahead up the steps and into the foyer of the house, where she waited for them. Somewhere in the rooms she heard the strains of jazz. She was reluctant to look very far, and kept her attention on the street. For some reason, she felt that it wouldn’t be appropriate to go exploring the place by herself, and besides, the panic was coming back. Quite suddenly all of this felt like a horrendous mistake.

  In the living room, someone coughed, and she knew Violet Beaumont was just on the other side of the wall. She wanted to walk in there and ask the old woman to hold her. It was absurd.

  Dominic came up the stairs with a suitcase and a box of her books.

  “Go on in,” he said. “Aunt Vi’s napping.”

  “I’m awake,” came a rich alto voice. “Come in.”

  Dominic put the suitcase and the box of books down in the hallway, then walked her, with Mary, into the room and presented Violet Beaumont; it was almost a gesture of unveiling.

  Lily set the car seat on the floor and reached to shake the thin proffered hand. Aunt Violet had the softest grip, surprisingly firm, but light, too, a friendly pressure. She was lined in every part of her face, neck, and upper chest, her lower arms and hands—deep lines, like cracks in an old painting, and her skin was the color of arid ground. The eyes were light brown, and the hair was wispy and white, parted in the middle and framing the rather handsome features. Doubtless, this woman had been very startlingly beautiful when she was young, and she was quite striking now. She looked at Manny, coming into the room with more boxes. “That’s my spiritual nephew,” she said. “You’ve met?”

  “Yes,” said Lily.

  Violet Beaumont turned her brown eyes on the baby in her car seat. “Pretty child.”

  “Can’t get over it,” said Dominic.

  “I don’t—I don’t know how long we’re staying,” Lily said.

  “A thoughtful child,” said Violet.

  Lily smiled at this, uncertain as to the level of irony in it. The old woman had a wry little grin on her face.

  “You might not be staying?” said Dominic.

  “I just don’t know for sure if I’ll be able to stay,” Lily told him.

  The old woman waved this away. “Me, too, cher. Me, too. Been like that since I was thirty years old, more than sixty years ago.”

  The baby sent up a sudden cry, and began to fuss.

  “Life just got more complicated,” Violet Beaumont said, winking at them.

  5

  THAT EVENING, they all went to a small Cajun place called Daddy’s. It was little more than a square room with tables covered with checked tablecloths, and a glass counter through which you could see plastic containers of the gumbo and crawfish and other foods that were prepared on the premises. Daddy’s was owned and run entirely by the black family named Rachambois, and there were pictures on the walls of famous jazz musicians who had been patrons. The pictures were signed with flourishes of affection for Daddy Rachambois, who, Dominic explained, had died only the year before. His son was running the place, now. Their waitress was a lovely, tall, cinnamon-hued woman with tight, burnished black curls and long nails the color of blood. Aunt Violet introduced her as one of Daddy’s nieces. Violet called her by name: Felicia. Felicia took their orders, and leaned down to look at the baby.

  “Such a prutty chile.”

  The baby made a smacking sound with her lips and then said, “No.”

  They all laughed. It was a lovely moment, with this stranger, who went on to say that she had a nephew, not one year old yet, who could walk. They chatted for a moment about precocious children. Lily noticed that Violet Beaumont’s movements were rather startlingly fluid and graceful for someone almost ninety-two.

  But she was beginning to see that a long stay with Dominic and what was now his family might not be workable, after all. Manny and Dominic both worked all day; Violet had her rounds to make in the Quarter. What little money Lily had wouldn’t last long, and she didn’t want to impose on anyone—not her parents, and certainly not these good people, who seemed to be scraping by as it was.

  But there was still the problem of telling Dominic what she had come to tell him. She looked across the table at him, and felt lost.

  The conversation went on. Violet introduced Lily as a friend who had come from Oxford and was new to the Big Easy.

  “You love it here already?” Felicia asked.

  Lily nodded.

  “You all right? You look a little pale.”

  “She’s got the jitters, cher,” Violet Beaumont said. “I know them when I see them.”

  “New surroundings.”

  Violet nodded.

  “Well, don’t you worry,” Felicia said, smiling brightly at Lily. “You’re with friends here. And you have that prutty chile to love.”

  “Thanks,” Lily said. “Yes.”

  A moment later, Manny walked over to see what was on the jukebox to play, and Aunt Violet strolled across to the counter to say hello to Daddy Rachambois’s son. Dom and Lily were alone at the table. He leaned across the table and said, “It’s gonna be okay, Lily. You’ll see.”

  The baby made a sound, laughed and made it again, playing with her hands.

  “I have to find a baby-sitter and a job,” Lily said.

  He leaned close. “I won’t dwell on it—but I can’t believe it about you and Tyler.”

  “You told me that,” Lily said. “Over the phone.”

  “I still can’t believe it. I mean, there’s no chance of any change?”

  “Nothing’ll change, Dom. It’s over. I’m alone with the baby and I’m afraid we’re on your hands for the time being.”

  “That’s okay with us.” He smiled, and nodded as if to emphasize the remark.

  She drew in a breath to tell him—and couldn’t. Not here, not in company. She looked at the baby and spoke a few soft endearments. Mary was getting cranky. Violet came back to the table and, before she sat down, tottered a second; the slightest pause, but it drew everyone’s attention.

  “I’m not dead yet, cher,” she said to Dominic, who had come to his feet.

  She sat down and gazed across the table at Lily. “You look so sorrowful.”

  “I’m a little tired.”

  “Divorce,” said Dominic. “I bet that can sap your energy.”

  “Nobody ever gets married planning to make unhappiness,” said Violet. “Everybody thinks it’s the glorious beginning of being happy, even knowing how much disaster there is out there.”

  Dom kept his gaze on Lily. “It was Buddy’s death that did it, wasn’t it.”

  “Partly,” Lily said, realizing, perhaps for the first time, just how hard it was going to be to tell him the whole truth.

  “Dominic,” Aunt Violet said, “can’t you see she doesn’t want to talk about it now?”

  He kissed Violet’s leathery cheek, and sat back. Manny rejoined them. He had a pleasant, almost serene expression on his face. Aunt Violet began describing her history with Daddy’s. She had been coming here for fifty years. She had known Daddy, and she had known Daddy’s father, who first opened the place, under the name Tap House, back in 1925. Prohibition was in full swing, and you couldn’t get into Tap House unless you knew someone, or were expressly invited by Daddy’s father. Billie Holiday had sung here, once, early in her career. Aunt Violet had seen her. Aunt Violet had seen almost everything, she said. Or she felt like it, anyway. She knew Manny through his mother, Inez, who had come to this country with her two younger sisters to get away from an abusive father and two fierce, troublemaking brothers, in 1949. She didn’t speak a w
ord of English, and went to work for Violet just after Violet’s retirement from teaching school that year. But Violet had met her before this, back in 1946, on a stay in Santiago during one of her summer trips. Crossing the street in front of her hotel, she had dropped her valise, and papers had fallen out. The girl had helped her collect the ones that blew away, and Violet insisted on buying her dinner at the hotel. The two struck up a friendship, and saw one another several other times over the next two weeks. As Violet was getting ready to leave the country, Inez showed up outside the hotel with two ragged looking-toddlers, her sisters, and asked Violet with tearful passion to hide them both away and take them with her to America; she wished for them to escape their moody and violent father. The self-sacrifice in this touched Violet so deeply that she sought a way to bring all three of them with her. It was, of course, out of the question. Violet and Inez exchanged addresses and promised tearfully, upon Violet’s departure, to correspond. But no letters were exchanged, and Inez became a tender and aching memory.

  Until three years later, when Inez showed up on her doorstep. Her younger sisters had remained behind, but were being raised by an aunt, now, after her father’s demise from alcohol. It turned out that Inez had never wavered from her intention to seek her American friend, as soon as she was of age.