Marie Laveau

by Francine Prose

  “Did you name me after Jesus’ mama?”

  “No.” Delphine prayed for patience. “After Mary Magdalene.”

  “Tell me again,” persisted Marie. “Tell me about my baptism day, about when I was a little baby.”

  “Well... it was sunny, like today. Father Antoine said the prayers. I stole a little holy water and lit a candle for St. Lucy to fix your eyes. Then I came home to Victor.”

  “No.” Marie stared at her mother. Her thumb had stopped bleeding. “It wasn’t sunny. It was cold and drizzly; you kept waiting for John the Baptist to send down a thunderstorm. People were laughing at you in the street—you had to run all the way to church.”

  Delphine’s throat felt tight and dry. “How do you know so much?” she asked.

  “I dreamed it,” said Marie Laveau.

  The previous night, Marie had dreamed about her baptism day, in 1796. She’d dreamed that her mother was carrying a soft white bundle through a thick veil of gray fog.

  Everyone on Royal Street turned to stare. Creole men stopped dead in their tracks. Beggars cackled. “Soap and water!” screamed the urchins running behind Delphine. “Soap and water!” That was what they screamed at yellow women: soap and water would never wash them white.

  It was late afternoon. The colored ladies were napping under wads of perfumed cotton. Women were in their kitchens slicing okra into kettles of steaming gumbo, and the smell of gumbo was inspiring their men to finish work and get home. Delphine had waited until the quietest time of day, but it hadn’t made any difference.

  “There goes Makandal’s girl,” cried a white-haired conjure man with a cat’s skull suspended from his neck. “There goes the high priest’s daughter!”

  Marie’s dream changed. She saw a boat sailing away from an island shrouded in black smoke. The deck was crowded with distraught white families clutching the shards of prosperous lives. Among them was a plump pretty yellow woman she knew was Madame Henriette, her grandmother, who’d died before she was born. Marie saw her own mother, Delphine, curled up inside Madame Henriette, blind as a fish in the dark waters of her womb.

  As the ship neared Louisiana, its captain appeared beside Madame Henriette. “That’s where the Spanish governor spent six months knee-deep in water, waiting for his beautiful mail-order bride to arrive from Peru,” siad the tall Frenchman, pointing toward shore. Mopping her eyes with her black lace mantilla, Madame Henriette exchanged a long look with the captain, as if they alone shared some sympathy too deep for their insensitive shipmates to understand.

  At last they reached New Orleans. Praising God’s mercy, the refugees fell to their knees and dedicated themselves to Jesus. But an instant later they were spreading four bits of worldly gossip all over town: One: Madame Henriette was richer than the king of Spain. She’d imported a trunk full of diamonds, rubies, antique silver, gold doubloons and an orange parrot in a cage like a sultan’s palace. She’d bought a stucco house on Conti Street with rosewood floors, a courtyard paved with Spanish tiles, and its very own cellar.

  Two: Under that fancy mantilla, Madame Henriette was bald as an egg. Three: Madame Henriette, a free woman of color, was the former mistress of Makandal, the proud runaway slave who’d led the rebellion which had nearly destroyed Santo Domingo—the voodoo priest who’d survived his own execution, bursting from the flames and vanishing into the hills where the colonial soldiers would never find him again. Makandal had taught Madame Henriette the secret art of divining lost pirate treasure, led her over the hills and the turquoise ocean with the orange parrot, which squawked in the presence of buried gold.

  Four: Madame Henriette was six months pregnant. Her child would be born with dark voodoo blood running in its veins.

  Suddenly Delphine was a young girl of twelve and Madame Henriette was entertaining a few selected gossips in her parlor. “Since my daughter’s social future seems to be at stake,” she said, “let me make this clear. If I’d been Makandal’s woman, they’d have burned me at the stake in Santo Domingo. Or I’d still be with him in the hills. What would I be doing in New Orleans? Delphine’s father was the late Admiral Jean Michel, captain of the Bon St. Christophe, who personally arranged my passage during those troubled times.

  “Now, once and for all, if I hear another word about me and Makandal, I’ll make your hearts dry up like talcum powder. They’ll blow out of your chests with the first deep breath. Understand?”

  No one spoke. The gossips were afraid to breathe. Then their faces became the leering faces of the spectators cat-calling as Delphine hugged her month-old daughter to her breast and ran toward St. Louis Cathedral in the rain. “There goes Makandal’s little girl,” they cried. “She’s got voodoo blood in her veins.”

  Marie awoke with her red-rimmed eyes full of cold tears. It was early; even Venus the cook was still asleep. She tiptoed through the house to the kitchen where, without the slightest hesitation, she took the bread knife and sliced through the soft flesh of her thumb.

  That was Marie’s dream. This was what Delphine remembered:

  After the baptism, she’d wanted to leave the church by the back door, the way she’d entered. Only corpses left in a different direction, pointed feet first. It was bad luck. But by the time she’d lit her candle to St. Lucy, Father Antoine had started mass—she couldn’t ask him to unlock the back gate. Wrapping the baby’s blanket tighter, she crossed herself twice and walked through the main entrance onto the Place D’Armes.

  It was twilight, foggy and cold. In the gloomy light of the street lamps, four wooden gallows cast black shadows on the dust. The square was deserted except for two women squatting on the ground, warming their hands over hot coals. Delphine recognized them and edged away. But before she reached the corner, a gravelly voice like a frog’s croak carried across the distance:

  “Hey, Miss Delphine! I hear you had a hard, hard labor. I hear you were screaming about God and Mary and Jesus. You shouldn’t have bothered with Mary and Jesus, Miss Delphine. They’re too high up to listen. You should’ve called on the Twins, St. Rita, the good loas. They’re the spirits who pull those babies down. You should’ve untied the knots, raised the windows, picked a rose of Jericho so the baby would ease out when the petals opened. ‘Cause I hear that labor took nine hours and nine minutes exactly. What do you think about it taking just that time?”

  Delphine kept walking.

  “What do you think of that baby?” persisted the voice. “Born under that scorpion, that old poison-death spider. What do you think about her being born on All Saints’ Day when the air was thick as molasses with dead souls? Well, if I’d had that baby in that time on that day, I’d take her to somebody who could read her palm and tell you what to do. ’Cause the spirits will be bothering that baby so bad, they’ll make her eyes red. Wait and see.”

  Delphine stopped. Then she headed across the square toward Marie Saloppe and Pinhead Helen.

  Every day for years, Marie Saloppe and Pinhead Helen had sat in that same spot by that same charcoal stove, selling rice fritters. Marie Saloppe worked from seven in the morning till seven at night. Then she went home and worked till dawn.

  She was a root doctor. She had powers. She could read the future, heal the sick. All evening, clients brought her their complaints. After they left she stayed up making grisgris. “Between her two businesses,” went the saying, “Marie Saloppe never sleeps.”

  Marie Saloppe was an ex-slave, a pureblood Congo and a smart lady who’d learned her business from an old conjure doctor named Two-Headed Alexander. The rest was anyone’s guess: Where had she come from? What did she do with her money? Why did she keep that fat toad, Dr. Brown, hopping around her cottage like he owned it? And that lazy husband, Grandpa Joel, who spent his life drinking rum and sleeping it off?

  And what did she see in that freak, Pinhead Helen, with her bloated pale body and tiny head? Once someone told Pinhead Helen about Helen of Troy. Since then she’d occasionally confused herself with the woman whose beauty had destroyed
an empire—especially during the Great Fire of ’88, when she’d moved through the panicked crowd apologizing for her face having set fire to the city.

  Marie Saloppe insisted that her friendship with Helen was based on mutual respect. “Helen’s the smartest woman in New Orleans,” she said. “Now that Madame Henriette’s gone.”

  Marie Saloppe and Madame Henriette had been close friends. Often Delphine had returned from the dances to find the conjure woman drinking coffee in her mother’s kitchen. She’d fallen asleep to the sounds of their laughter and the cards slapping softly against the table.

  Delphine had never understood their bond. “Marie Saloppe knows something,” Madame Henriette had explained. “That’s more than I can say for your friends. She and I are the only ones with the sense to keep our own secrets. We’re the only mysteries in New Orleans where everyone thinks they know everything.”

  “But she’s an ex-slave,” Delphine had argued. “Way beneath us. It makes people gossip. It’s hurting our social position.”

  Actually no one disapproved except Delphine—who hated the disapproval she saw in Marie Saloppe’s own eyes. Most people’s stares demanded to know who Delphine thought she was. But the root doctor’s stare implied she was nobody at all.

  Since Madame Henriette’s death, Delphine had spoken to Marie Saloppe only twice. Both times she’d been in desperation. Both times Marie Saloppe had given her bad advice.

  Yet that evening, crossing the dark square, Delphine was drawn to the conjure woman as if her baby’s welfare were really at stake.

  Marie Saloppe ate two rice fritters for every one she sold. Her skin was deep brown with black patches. Her mouth held only one tooth, crowned with a gold star. Her hair was close-cropped, and her flat breasts hung to her belly like the teats of a fat old man.

  Delphine knew she was younger than she looked. Once, high on wine, Madame Henriette had confessed that her friend had dyed her hair and knocked out her teeth to give herself the authority of ancient wisdom. She’d done well; as Marie Saloppe reached up to draw her down, Delphine smelled the stale odor of age.

  Reluctant to dirty the dress which had just arrived from Paris, Delphine held back. At last she bent so the root woman could see her by the light of the coals. She flinched when Marie Saloppe touched her cheek.

  “How come the labor was so hard?” asked the conjure doctor. “I bet you let someone fix your hair when you know a pregnant lady shouldn’t let anyone touch her hair.”

  Delphine nodded. “I had to let Old Marinette do it. I can’t fix it right myself. And I couldn’t let Victor see me looking like an owl’s nest.”

  Pinhead Helen laughed a low chuckle. “And I bet I know something else,” Marie Saloppe went on. “I bet you kept buying those three-cent chocolates when you know a pregnant lady shouldn’t be counting out threes. You should’ve bought my fritters. I would’ve sold them to you for two cents and saved you those labor pains.”

  “I would’ve sold them for a penny,” said Helen.

  “I craved those chocolates,” said Delphine. “It was the baby crying out for them.”

  “This baby will be crying for a lot of things if you don’t bring her here.” Marie Saloppe folded back the blanket. “She’s pretty. But look at her eyes—the spirits are bothering her already, making her eyes red. Here’s some Slippery Oil to put on them. Wash them well with something clean. And keep her away from mirrors. Understand?”

  Delphine nodded. “Now let me see her palm.” Marie Saloppe examined the tiny hand, then gazed off into the fire.

  “What does it say?” asked Delphine.

  “You had a hard labor,” said Marie Saloppe. “But her work’ll be much much harder.”

  “What do you mean? What should I do?”

  “Baby, I don’t work for free. Not even for Madame Henriette’s daughter.”

  “For Madame Henriette, yes,” explained Helen. “But not for her daughter.”

  Delphine glared at her, then turned back to Marie Saloppe and took a handful of coins from her purse. “What do you know?” she asked.

  “I know a story,” said Marie Saloppe. “About a pretty yellow girl who liked to dance at the quadroon balls with white boys hunting colored mistresses. A story about a mama, two daddies, and two unlucky boys.”

  “I know that story,” said Delphine. “That’s not what I’m paying to hear.”

  “I’m the one who knows. You keep quiet and wait till I’m through.

  “Now this girl in my story never knew her daddy’s name. Some said he was a French sea captain. Others said a black voodoo priest. Her color was the same as her mama’s—she couldn’t tell that way. So she never knew—her mama wasn’t the kind she could ask.”

  “Her mama wasn’t the kind who’d answer,” added Helen.

  “The girl suspected the sea captain. That’s what she told her dancing partners. But whenever she wanted to win a boy’s heart she told him ‘the truth’: her daddy was a magician and she’d inherited all his secret powers.

  “It never failed. The boys fell under her spell. She knew the spell was in their minds—nothing ever made her think she’d inherited voodoo powers. But she wasn’t about to tell them.

  “So she used both daddies and always got her way—until one night she met a handsome white boy fresh off the boat from Santo Domingo where he’d lost his fortune in the slave revolt. The minute she saw him, the girl fell in love. But the boy planned on acquiring a fine white Creole bride as soon as he got enough money. Meanwhile he couldn’t be bothered with colored girls. ‘My tastes are my tastes,’ he told her. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s how I am.’

  “The girl swallowed all her famous pride and chased him. Her boyfriends wondered where her magic had gone. Her mama took it hard.

  “One night her mama called me to her house. We’d been friends thirty years, but I never heard her wail like she wailed that night. ‘Marie,’ she cried, ‘my daughter’s ruined herself over an idiot—’ ”

  “Why did she call Victor an idiot?” interrupted Delphine.

  “I’m not naming names in this story,” Marie Saloppe reminded her. “But since you ask—she called him an idiot ’cause he was an idiot. Now hush. Let me go on.

  “It was hard for me to comfort that poor lady. ‘Ain’t nothing you can do,’ I told her. ‘The eyes of love can’t see a fool. She’ll recover. Even if she doesn’t, it’ll be all right. Sometimes magic skips a generation. Maybe your granddaughter will be the one to pay off.’

  “She began to howl like a baby. ‘Hey, now,’ I said, ‘I’m joking. That won’t happen. Things won’t go that far.’

  “I didn’t believe it and neither did she. Right then she started making herself sick—thin, pale, yellow. My roots couldn’t do a thing. A month later I went back to her house. I stopped the clocks and turned the mirrors to the wall. That poor lady had willed herself to death.

  “Her crazy daughter never noticed. All she thought of was that boy. She sent him fancy invitations—he never answered. She asked him to tea—he never came. She cooked him dinners, chicken in wine sauce, Santo Domingan style. She ate it alone.

  “By April, though, her luck had changed. Her man had gotten rich. He invested his last penny in a ship bound for Africa—it came back full of diamonds. He bought a cane farm outside town—the price of sugar tripled. He got a house in the Quarter—some Yankees offered him a fortune sc they could build a hotel.

  “His friends teased him about the girl helping him with her magic. The girl knew different. Yet, when he asked her, she just batted her eyelashes. ‘My secrets are my secrets,’ she told him. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s how I am.’

  “He began to change his mind about sleeping in her fine bed. Some mornings Helen and I would see him leaving her house, smiling like a cat creeping out of a chicken coop. ‘I guess she got her man,’ Helen would say.

  “‘You watch, Helen,’ I’d say. ‘That boy doesn’t love her—never has, never will. Stupid as she is, she’s inherited enough
sense from her mama to see that.’

  “Sure enough, I was right. That same week she came begging me to fix it so he’d love her.

  “ ‘Here’s some Cock’s Comb Powder,’ I told her. ‘Sprinkle a little on your doorstep. But I won’t even take your money. ’Cause I don’t think it’ll work.’

  “A month later she was back. Her man was marrying the Creole bride he always wanted—a little baby chicken never flown her mama’s nest. The girl nearly lost her mind. It was a pity to see her crying on the street, crying at my kitchen table.

  “ ‘Suppose I make him jealous?’ she said. ‘Will that help?’

  “ ‘No way,’ I said. ‘You can’t fix spoiled gumbo with more hot pepper. ’But she wouldn’t listen. ‘I will make him jealous,’ she insisted. Soon the story was all over town: She’d picked up a boy at the ballroom and brought him home. One look at the boy she’d picked and everyone knew why she did it. They called him ‘Black Widow’ ’cause he looked like an ugly little spider. Spanish-looking—no one knew his people. He was the nervous type, always peeking over his shoulder. Grimy spider hands with dirty nails.

  “She didn’t bring him home for true love—not that her regular man would’ve cared. But that didn’t stop people slandering his honor—and he liked to think he prized his honor more than gold. Besides, he was getting married—he wanted his name to shine.

  “So he challenged Black Widow to a duel.

  “It happened behind the church on a cold January dawn. Herman showed first. Black Widow came later, half-dead already, shivering in a big brown cloak. The referee held up the pistols. That poor scared boy just grabbed the closest one. Her man picked the other and they shook hands.

  “The referee counted the paces. The men turned.

  “Now, Black Widow always seemed so crazy, no one thought he could hold a gun. They were surprised when he shot first. Witnesses saw the flash—then they saw the bullet bounce off his opponent’s chest.