Bayou Suzette

by Lois Lenski

  “Yes, Tante Céleste, but …” began Suzette.

  “Me, I hope them Injuns won’t start comin’ round sellin’ baskets again. They a worse plague than mosquitoes. Send her off.”

  “Mais non, Tante Céleste!” cried Suzette, in distress.

  “You en’t been to see your Tante Céleste for a long time, Susu,” her aunt went on. “W’y en’t you? You gittin’ proud?”

  “Me … me … I been takin’ care o’ my Papa,” said Suzette.

  “W’at! He en’t better? He en’t worse, no?”

  “No. He gone over to M’sieu’ Guidry’s for a rest,” said Suzette.

  “A rest from w’at, I’d like to know?” snorted Tante Céleste.

  Suzette gave her head a toss. “My Papa, he tired if he want to be, I reckon.” She clenched her fists behind her back.

  “So that how you take care o’ him—lettin’ him go ’cross the by’a to gossip with Monsieur Guidry! I see! Who rowed him over?”

  “He rowed hisself.”

  “He is better then?”

  “He tired, I say,” Suzette repeated. “He need a rest. He got pain all the time in his back and he say, it rest him to talk to a frien’.”

  “Well, it time you come in and pay me a visit,” said Tante Céleste. She made her voice sweet again. “I got some frosted gateaux just outa the oven. You want to taste one, yes?”

  “No, merci, Tante Céleste,” said Suzette, politely.

  But Tante Céleste had her by the hand. In desperation, she reached out the other to Marteel.

  “You can’t bring no dirty savage in with you,” said Tante Céleste, sharply. “She’d track up my floors.”

  “But, Marteel, she my frien’,—she my sister!”

  “W’at you talkin’ ’bout? You gettin’ crazy in the head?” Tante Céleste dragged her unwilling niece in through the gate, closed and locked it behind her. She turned on Marteel. “Go ’long back to the woods, you! Git ’way from here. Run! Run!”

  “Wait!” said Suzette, in a low voice.

  The Indian girl nodded.

  There was nothing to do but go inside with Tante Céleste. The house was small, but spotlessly clean. The doorstep was scrubbed, the kitchen floor was scrubbed, the kitchen table was scrubbed. Tante Céleste said they were clean enough she could eat honey off any place she chose.

  Tante Céleste led Suzette into the parlor and set out a chair. She untied Suzette’s sunbonnet, took it off and patted her head. She went to the kitchen, opened her “safe,” a neat cupboard painted green, with wire doors, and brought out a plateful of small cakes.

  “You like to taste my frosted gateaux, yes?”

  If anyone else had made them, Suzette would have eaten several with relish. Now she took the smallest one and it was all she could do to choke it down. This she must do for politeness’ sake.

  When Tante Céleste passed the plate a second time, Suzette shook her head and thanked her coldly.

  “W’at a pretty dress you got on!” said Tante Céleste. “But it torn. It must be old. Don’t you want me to sew you a new one?”

  “No, merci,” said Suzette. “Me, I like my ole clothes best.”

  “When you comin’ to live with me, Susu?”

  “I en’t comin’, Tante Céleste,” said Suzette.

  “You en’t comin’? W’y not?” asked Tante Céleste.

  “How can I leave my Maman? She en’t got no leetle girl but me. She need me to …”

  “Your Maman, she got Eulalie.”

  “I say, she en’t got no leetle girl but me. Lala’s most grown-up.”

  “Yes, I hear Lala, she started showin’ herself,” said Tante Céleste. “I hear Lala, she walkin’ out with young Jean Broussard.”

  “Mais non!” cried Suzette, passionately. “She don’t like him. She hate him. It Jean Broussard’s Papa w’at shoot our Papa in the back at the shootin’ match. En’t you remember that, Tante Céleste?”

  “Yes, I remember. It en’t nice w’at I tell you ’bout Lala,” Tante Céleste went on, with a smile, “but it true. I wonder w’at your Papa say when he know.”

  Suzette turned cold all over.

  “It en’t true,” she said, stubbornly. “My Papa, he won’t let Lala speak to Jean Broussard. He won’t let eny of us speak to eny Broussard. One time I speak to Elise, Papa he say he gonna whip me if I do it again.”

  “Well, Lala’s most grown-up,” said Tante Céleste. “Your Papa, he stay home all the time, but he don’t see everyt’ing.”

  She paused. “You won’t come, then?”

  “No, merci, my Papa, he need me.” Suzette hung her head and said nothing for a long time. Soon a tear rolled down her cheek.

  “I go on with my work then,” said Tante Céleste, “seein’ you won’t even talk to me.”

  In one corner of the room stood a four-post bed, so large that it touched the ceiling. The bed looked strange now, gaunt and bare, stripped of its usual trappings. Its shuck mattress, moss mattress, feather bed, feather bolster and pillows, sham straw pillows, mosquito bar, sheets and quilts made a great mountain, piled up high in another corner.

  Tante Céleste brought a pan of ashes, a bucket of water, a scrubbing brush and cloth. She set vigorously to work.

  “The bed, it must be scrub’, every inch of it, till it come nice and yellow,” she said. “When I get the bed done, I scrub the armoire, wardrobe, next. Then I scrub the floor on my knees, till the floor come yalla, yalla, yalla. I won’t have no knees left when I git through.”

  Suzette sat like a lump of wood and said nothing. She wanted to ask, “W’y you all the time scrub?” but she couldn’t. The water splashed and the brush moved rhythmically up and down the thick, tall posts.

  “You ever hear the story o’ this big bed, Susu?” asked Tante Céleste.

  Suzette nodded, but Tante Céleste’s back was turned. She did not see the nod.

  “You never hear ’bout the big hurricane?” went on Tante Céleste. “It was long time ago and my Grandmère—that’s your Great-grandmère—was sleepin’ in the bed with your Great-grandpère. Nobody come to tell them the storm was comin’—they didn’t have eny close neighbors. The wind it start blowin’ in the evenin’ and kept up all night. They feel the house rock. Grandpère, he got up and went to make coffee in the kitchen. He left Grandmère in the bed. He open the door to look out to see if the storm was gettin’ worse, and he let the wind come in.

  “The wind, it come in the door and lift the roof right off. It carry it half a mile away in the field. The house, it split in four pieces. Each wall, it fell out flat on the ground. And there was the bed left right in the middle—with your poor Great-grandmère in the middle of the bed. The bed, it hold the house down, Grandpère always say. If he not make it so big and heavy, the house woulda blew away, with poor Grandpère and Grandmère inside! That would have been sad, yes?”

  Suzette did not reply.

  “My Grandmère,” Tante Céleste went on, “she tell me the hurricane story over and over. When she come to die—I was leetle like you, then—she say, ‘Céleste, ma cherie, I want you to have the big bed, yes. I love you best of all my grandchildren. I know you take good care of it.’” Tante Céleste sniffled.

  Suzette had never heard this ending to the story. It was hard to think of Tante Céleste with a Grandmère who loved her enough to give her a big bed. It threw a new light on Tante Céleste.

  “That w’y you all the time scrub it?” she asked.

  “Yes, Susu,” said Tante Céleste, still sniffling. “My Grandmère, she say, ‘Scrub it, leetle Céleste, till it come yalla, yalla, yalla.’ So now I do like my Grandmère said, even if she dead.”

  It was difficult to imagine Tante Céleste as the obedient little girl she described, but Suzette did so. She understood better now Tante’s passion for keeping everything so clean, which had made life so trying for other people. She understood now why she didn’t want her floors tracked up. She was obeying her Grandmère.

&nb
sp; “Me, I all the time listen to my Grandmère,” said Suzette, “and I do w’at she say.” She slipped off her chair. “Me, I t’ink I go home now, Tante Céleste.”

  Tante Céleste wiped her hands on her apron and followed Suzette to the kitchen.

  “Please, Tante Céleste, I can have one frosted gateaux, yes?”

  The lump was gone now from Suzette’s throat. She felt sorry for her aunt, so she asked for a cake. She ate it and thanked Tante Céleste politely. They parted better friends than they had been for a long time.

  “I walk to the gate with you, ma cherie” said Tante Céleste. She picked up her broom to sweep off the doorstep.

  Afterwards, Suzette wished she had not offered to come. They might have stayed friends longer, except for that.

  It was when they came round the house that Tante Céleste saw Marteel on the front gallery. Marteel had her feet propped up on a spotless gallery post and she herself lay comfortably stretched out on the spotless gallery floor. Suzette had told her to wait and she waited.

  “Look! Look!” cried Tante Céleste, waving her broom in the air. “Look at that leetle savage with her two dirty feetses on the post of my gallery. En’t I pound brick dust and scrub ’em till they come yalla? En’t I shoo that savage off and tole her to run?”

  Marteel calmly put her feet down, jumped off the gallery and stood by Suzette’s side. But she did not run.

  “Marteel, she my frien’,” said Suzette. “Marteel my sister, now.”

  “Your frien’? Your sister?” cried Tante Céleste. “That dirty leetle savage?”

  “Marteel, she clean,” said Suzette. “My Maman, she give her a bath.”

  “Your Maman? A bath?” gasped Tante Céleste.

  “Marteel, she live by me, to my house,” Suzette went on. “My Maman, she make her a beautiful bed with a mosquito bar.…”

  “A mosquito bar?” echoed Tante Céleste.

  “And she give her a dress of Lala’s to wear,” said Suzette.

  “A dress of Lala’s?”

  “And my Papa, he say Marteel, she don’t never need to go back to the woods, she got all the time a home with us.” Suzette gave her head a haughty toss.

  “W’at the matter?” cried Tante Céleste, as soon as she got over her astonishment. “Your Maman and your Papa, have they took leave of their senses?”

  “My Grandmère, she say, if Marteel got no family to go to, she can stay by me and be my frien’. Marteel, she my sister now. She listen to my Grandmère and do w’at she say—like me.”

  “But w’y … but w’y … your Maman and your Papa and your Grandmère, they do all that?” cried Tante Céleste.

  Suzette walked off down the path, her arm round Marteel’s waist. She looked back with a smile and replied, “Because Marteel, she save me from the ole alligator who want to eat me up!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Graveyard

  “HÉ! HÉ! Somebody’s cow been here again!” cried Grandmère Durand. “She break down the pickets, she tear down the wire, she trample all over the graves.”

  “Mebbe the man from Minnesota been here diggin’,” suggested Felix. “Mebbe he t’ink Lafitte’s gold is buried in the grave with him.”

  “He won’t come in my graveyard,” said Grandmère.

  Grandmère came to the graveyard every day to clean and keep it in order. Today there was to be a special cleaning and the children, Ambrose, Felix, Jacques, Suzette and Marteel came along to help. They carried a pile of wooden pickets, a roll of wire, several brooms, a hatchet, a bucket of whitewash and a brush.

  Felix whispered in Suzette’s ear: “This evenin’, go home by the big field back of Theo Bergeron’s house, where the three oak trees are. Wait under the one nearest the graveyard—you and Marteel, yes. Ambrose and me, we show you big gold pieces.”

  Grandmère went off with the boys to mend the fence in the corner. Suzette picked up a broom and handed another to Marteel.

  “My Grandpère, he tole me before he die,” said Suzette, “the Injuns make this big hill outa shells. I don’t know where they got ’em all, me.”

  Marteel’s eyes lighted up. “They eat plenty clams, the Injuns.”

  “You en’t got no Grandmère? No Grandpère?” asked Suzette, sweeping vigorously.

  Marteel shook her head.

  “No Great-grandmère and no Great-grandpère in the graveyard?”

  Marteel shook her head again.

  “I sorry for that, me,” said Suzette. She leaned on her broom and looked sad. “Then you can’t come with us.”

  “Come with you? Where?” asked Marteel. “Me, I go everywhere.”

  “Not this time, you can’t,” said Suzette. “Not on All Saints’ Day you can’t.” She went on to explain. “My Grandmère, she take good care of her graveyard. She get it ready for All Saints’ Day.”

  “W’y she sweep in the graveyard?” asked Marteel.

  “She take care of my Grandpère, of course! And ray Great-grandpère and my Great-grandmère,” explained Suzette. “They sleepin’ there in their tombs.”

  She pointed to the sturdy, well-made brick tombs a short distance away. Grandmère Durand had left the boys fixing the fence and come back. She was hard at work with the brush, whitewashing the first tomb. Up and down she lifted the brush slowly and carefully.

  “W’y your Grandmère, she put white on ’em?” asked Marteel.

  “For All Saints’ Day,” explained Suzette. “Each year she paint ’em white. The priest, he come and bless the candles. We put them on the graves of Grandpère and Great-grandpère and Great-grandmère and little Tit-tit. We come at night, plenty people from the by’a, all in a long procession, with candles in our hands. It look purty. The candlelight, it shine on all the painted crosses on the graves. It too bad you can’t come, Marteel. It nice, that—to burn candles for the dead.”

  “W’y I can’t come?” asked Marteel.

  “’Cause you en’t got no Great-grandpère in the graveyard, of course!” said Suzette, dropping her broom. “Come, I show you where Tit-tit sleeps.”

  The graveyard lay on a point of land that jutted out into the bayou at the junction of Bayou des Oies with Bayou Barataria. Formerly it had been a large Indian mound of heaped-up clam shells. The mound itself loomed up, a high hill, in the background. On a lower level space before it were the Durand family tombs, with a flat grave in the center, marked by a hand-wrought iron cross. Farther toward the shore were other graves, some above and some below ground. Some were fenced in, some were marked by wooden crosses and others by shadow-boxes in which were placed artificial flowers, saints’ statues or objects connected with the deceased.

  Marteel followed Suzette along a narrow path toward the shore. It was quiet there, with no sound but the lapping of the bayou waters on the clam-shell beach, several feet below the steep embankment. They came to a small grave inside a white picket fence. At its head stood a gabled shadow-box, about two feet high, with a cross at its peak. The front was enclosed with glass. Inside, a bunch of paper roses filled a blue glass vase, and a china-headed doll, dressed in a calico dress, sat staring.

  The girls leaned over the low fence and peered through the glass.

  “That Tit-tit’s doll-baby,” explained Suzette, in a whisper. “Before she die, she all the time play with it. Maman, she put it in the grave-box, so Tit-tit won’t get lonely, when she sleep in the graveyard.”

  Marteel’s eyes opened wide. “The Injuns, they do the same like that,” she said, her eyes glued on the doll. “Me, I not know the white people do it too.”

  Suzette picked up a big branch which had fallen across the grave. She walked over and threw it into the bayou.

  “Suzette! Suzette! Suzette!”

  It was Grandmère calling. Suzette and Marteel ran quickly back to the Durand tombs. Grandmère looked at them, frowning.

  “W’y you drop your broom and leave your work, Suzette? W’at you been doin’?”

  “I find a big branch on Tit-tit’s
grave, yes,” answered Suzette. “I throw it in the by’a, me.”

  Grandmère kept on frowning. Now she was looking at the Indian girl as if she had not noticed her before.

  “W’at Marteel want here today with us?” she asked, crossly. “W’y she not stay home and fish? Me, I don’t want Injuns comin’ in my graveyard.”

  “She won’t hurt not’ing, Grandmère,” said Suzette, picking up the brooms again and handing one to Marteel. “She sweep good. She help me sweep.”

  “W’at you take her off yonder for?” asked Grandmère.

  “She only want to see where Tit-tit sleep,” explained Suzette. “I show her.”

  To Suzette’s great surprise, Grandmère reached over and snatched the broom from Marteel’s grasp. “Me, I don’t want savages sweepin’ in my graveyard.”

  “But Grandmère,” protested Suzette, “she sweep good. She won’t hurt not’ing. I t’ink, me, you like Marteel, Grandmère.”

  “Not in my graveyard,” repeated Grandmère. She glared at the Indian girl. “You go ’way! Don’t come near my graves.”

  Marteel went obediently off toward the water’s edge and sat down. She leaned her back against a tree, listened and watched.

  Grandmère went on with her whitewashing. She was working on the second large tomb. Now and then she glanced in Marteel’s direction, but seeing the girl sitting quietly, said no more. The boys had finished the work on the fence and gone away.

  Suzette worked industriously, sweeping up small branches and the tiny, dead, dry oak leaves which littered the ground.

  Grandmère began to speak. “Suzette, I want you to all the time remember this is where Jean Lafitte lies buried.” She pointed to the iron cross. “I take care his grave, the same like Grandpère’s.”

  “Yes, I know, me,” said Suzette. “I all the time remember.”

  “On All Saints’ Day,” Grandmère went on, “the ghost, she come and stay here long time. She pray and she pray and she put candle on Lafitte’s grave. She thank me ’count of how good I take care of it.”

  “You not ’fraid the ghost, Grandmère, when she come?” asked Suzette. “I be ’fraid, me.”