Marie Laveau

by Francine Prose

  “Father Antoine? I can’t imagine—”

  “I can. ’Cause I knew him on that first trip to Louisiana. The holier they roll ... He started killing holdup victims, unnecessary murders which brought out the vigilantes. The Templars had been suspicious from the start. Eventually they started wondering if he was a secret agent ...

  “So they tied him up in a dark cave infested with bats and left him to die. Three months later he showed up in Barcelona—”

  “It’s all wrong,” said Marie. “Now I remember him talking about that time, how it changed his life, how Jesus found him—”

  “Jesus must’ve found him on the way to Barcelona. ’Cause he came back to the Church a changed man—meek as a lamb, ready to scrub floors in his old seminary.”

  “How do you know all this? There’s no way.”

  “At two hundred, I’m old enough to know it first hand. Besides ... I got plenty of Spanish friends.”

  “And that was the secret that fixed Father Antoine?”

  “That’s right. I went and told him I knew. Threatened to tell everybody. And it fixed him. It made Baron Cemetery hurry up.”

  “But why did he care so much?”

  “You’re smarter than that. Don’t you see? He’d worked so hard for a little peace. And there I was threatening to make a scandal ...”

  “No one would’ve cared. All that happened forty years ago.”

  “Father Antoine cared. You should’ve seen his face. The minute I saw it, I knew. Sometimes he didn’t really believe in Jesus’ mercy—thought He was nothing but a hardhearted hoodoo doctor. Sometimes he was sure God would never forgive his sins. I told him I could see his point.

  “ ‘Father,’ I said, ‘If I’d sinned like you, I’d get ready for an eternity of demons driving spikes through my head in the fourth circle of hell.’

  “That was what fixed him.” Doctor John smiled proudly. “His time was on the way. But my secrets made Baron Cemetery that much hungrier.”

  “Why did you bother?”

  “For you, Miss Marie. I told you. I wanted you to see my face in that mirror and know I mean business. I’ll fix you like I fixed Father Antoine if you don’t get smart.”

  The snake was waiting when Marie got home. Its green light glowed in the foyer. She brushed past it and sat down in her yellow chair. The cobra coiled at her feet.

  “It worked when I was sixteen,” Marie told the snake, though her words were really meant for Doctor John. “He told me what I’d done to Victor and Delphine, and it fixed me so bad I spent years staring in the mirror, not knowing where I was. Now he’s trying it again, telling me about Father Antoine. But I’m too old for that now. I’ll get him ...”

  The snake twisted closer to her chair, then arched and rested its hood on her knee—a gesture of comfort as steadying as an old friend’s arm around her shoulder. It glided up her neck, swayed against her face.

  “Yessss,” it whispered. “It’s time.”

  On Sunday, the first of April, 1830, Marie led the dance in Congo Square.

  Even the tourists who’d come for the “Fabulous New Orleans Voodoo Dance” knew something was happening when the dancers stopped following the tall black man and turned toward the garishly dressed yellow girl. But they didn’t know what it was. Their guides had told them that the dances were just resuming after a two-month recess in memory of Father Antoine; perhaps it had something to do with that. Or perhaps the turnaround was a local April Fool’s trick.

  The dancers and musicians knew what was happening. Yet even they wondered if April Fool’s had put the sudden capricious coup into Marie’s head.

  But it wasn’t sudden. Every Sunday Marie had joined the women’s line to practice the bamboula, the calinda, the banda, the juba, unlearning the studied grace of the waltzes and quadrilles, learning from the slave women to loosen her spine and move from the hip. Every Sunday she’d been seeing more of her clients among the dancers and musicians. And it wasn’t capricious: Marie had been planning that dance for years.

  At three in the afternoon, Marie put on her new dress. Not the plain gray hairdressing cottons she’d always worn to the dances, but the gown she’d sewn herself with an orange velvet bodice, a full skirt ringed with blue and purple taffeta bands. She tied Jacques’s amber around her neck, then piled on all the gold and silver jewelry she’d gotten from the boys at the quadroon balls. She undid her kerchief, shook down her hair and brushed it till it shone. She wiped the last traces of powder off her face and rubbed her red eyes. Then she picked up the snake, wrapped it around her neck like a heavy stole, covered it with a thick mass of hair.

  Just as the bells tolled four, she took one last look in the mirror and left the house.

  As Marie pushed through the already-crowded square, people turned from the dance to stare. Three-quarters of the crowd wore full black in mourning for Father Antoine. The dancers and musicians wore white. Marie was the bright splash of color. When she reached the center, the musicians and dancers stared just as hard: Their voodoo doctor had emerged from her cocoon. She had the power.

  The women’s line quivered and broke to make room for her, then re-formed, charged with her magic. The men jumped higher, stamped harder, surreptitiously watching Marie like lovers seeking their sweethearts in crowded rooms.

  They were still following Doctor John. But they were watching Marie. Doctor John noticed Marie’s dress and the fact that the dancing got twice as fast when she joined. But Marie wasn’t looking for his reaction.

  She fixed her eyes on the performers, one by one: the flute player who’d paid her a penny to fix his master’s howling cats; the banjo-picker who’d paid her three dollars to fix his neighbor’s daughter; the drummer whose harem formed the bulk of her love potion business; the slave woman who couldn’t dance till Marie cured her bad leg ... Marie caught them all in her steady gaze, trapped them with the power of their own secrets, held them so tight they couldn’t turn their heads.

  At that moment the cobra slid from her hair. It swayed to the right, the left. The crowd saw its soft aura bathe Marie’s face in eerie green light. They saw the snake’s red eyes and its ruby, three red lights merging with the hypnotic beams from Marie’s eyes.

  A shudder jolted the musicians. The dancers felt the shock. They were dancing in two rows, men opposite women. Now the lines buckled as Marie’s eyes drew them like a fisher reeling in a catch. Marie stepped forward between the rows, stamped a fast calinda, tossed her head so that her hair floated out in the late afternoon sun. She turned and the snake turned with her, fixing the dancers with its red beam.

  The rows were in order again but now they followed Marie past Doctor John, who was left dancing alone at the edge of the clearing. Though his head still rose above the audience, his body was hidden by the crowd; no one could tell precisely when he stopped dancing. A few people saw him remove his top hat and mop his forehead. Others saw him scowling, waving his cane in some futile signal to the oblivious musicians. Still others turned to watch him leave the square.

  Everyone else watched Marie, who was too busy dancing to notice Doctor John’s exit. She was lost in the dance, lost in a dream of a warm island where a priest with an orange parrot was sacrificing a bull. She felt the music flow through her arms like the power of healing. She knew the musicians were playing for her, the dancers were following her lead. She heard the snake hissing in her ear, “It’sss time, Marie, you’re learning the dance,” but she couldn’t see its bright scarlet heart for the spirits and shapes in the darkness behind her eyes.

  Then she felt an unmistakable sensation—warm blood trickling down her thighs. She hadn’t expected it so early. She was afraid the blood would stain her new skirt. But soon she relaxed and let the blood run, knowing it was part of the dance, her own secret teaching her new steps.

  The energy in Congo Square was building. The drummers’ hands became dark blurs. The crowd pressed forward for a look at the new voodoo queen; the tourists congratulated themselves for
having picked such a good day.

  A woman in the front row shrieked as the snake coiled full-length around Marie’s body like the rings of some imaginary planet. Then its hiss cut through the deafening drumbeat. “Yesss,” it whispered. “It’sss time. Open your eyes.”

  Marie saw a blur of whirling dancers and gawking faces. Her attention was drawn out into the crowd where one face came into focus—the homely moon-face of Elspeth Nedermeyer Harris, whose husband Martin had dragged her to Congo Square so he could stare at all the pretty colored girls.

  “Stop!” cried Marie, raising her fist high. Surprised when the music actually stopped, she looked around with the bewilderment of someone shooting a gun for the first time. A path appeared through the audience and she followed it directly to Elspeth and her husband.

  It took Elspeth a good two minutes to recognize her hairdresser. Too shy to trust her English, she was relieved when Marie spoke first.

  “I know who you are. I know what your pain is. I know why you’ve come and I know Marie Laveau can heal you. From this day on, your pain will be gone. Everything will be all right.”

  The crowd was silent as the voodoo queen unwound the cobra from her neck and offered it to the blonde young woman, who took the snake and cradled it in her arms. At last she returned it. Marie buried it in her hair.

  Then for the first time Elspeth turned to her husband Martin and saw him looking at her with new eyes. With pride. His wife had been singled out by the voodoo queen. His wife had fearlessly accepted the giant cobra. He wondered why he’d never perceived her bravery before. Elspeth’s husband, who’d never loved her, was looking at her with love.

  No one knew what the blonde woman’s illness had been. But her bright smile convinced everyone she’d been cured.

  “Now you know what my power can do,” announced Marie. “Now you know I’m Marie Laveau and my power can do anything. HI be waiting at my house on Royal and St. Ann. I know who you are and I’m expecting you.”

  “That was an easy one,” thought Marie, returning to the center. The music and dancing began again and kept on for three hours. Everyone was amazed when the cannons sounded the nine o’clock curfew. Thanking Marie like party guests, the slaves found their masters and left Congo Square. The crowd dispersed.

  Finally Marie was alone. Standing very still, she felt the music drain out of her. She was soaked with sweat. Her thighs were stiff with caked blood. She was too tired to enjoy her triumph. All she wanted was a hot bath and her own soft bed. Moving with great effort, she forced herself toward home.

  Just as she turned onto Royal, someone jumped out ^f the shadows behind her and grabbed her shoulder. She wheeled around to see Doctor John glaring at her, his face shiny as lampblack in the weird aura of the gas street-light. His teeth were bared, his body taut with violence. “Why did you do it?” he hissed. “Why did you steal my show?”

  “I didn’t steal anything. It was mine.” Terrified, stalling for time, Marie tried to think of something....

  Doctor John drew back and slapped her face so hard her neck twisted around. “What was that for?” she asked, fighting tears.

  “That was a challenge. I want us to fight a duel.”

  “What kind of duel?”

  “A duel of magic. Let’s see who’s got the power.”

  “I just won our duel,” said Marie. “Back in Congo Square.”

  “That was nothing—a show for the tourists. I’m talking about the secrets, the magic, who knows more—”

  “Okay,” interrupted Marie. “I’ll fight any duel you want. The loser leaves town and lets the winner be.”

  “That’s the terms,” said Doctor John.

  “I need some time to get ready,” said Marie, already regretting her haste, remembering her suspicions that he knew more than he’d ever said. “I need to practice my tricks.”

  “Fine. I could use some practice myself. So I’ll give you sixteen-months. I’ll meet you near Franklin Midnight’s shack on Bayou St. John, at midnight the night before St. John’s Eve. August twenty-second, the summer after this. The stars say that’s a good night for our little duel. ” He shook Marie’s hand gravely and turned to leave.

  “Where you going?” Marie called after him.

  “Home to practice my tricks,” said Doctor John, leaving behind a sharp unfamiliar odor: A delicate blend of French Sandalwood Essence and the animal-fear smell of the wolf cage in Senor Caetano’s Traveling Menagerie.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  BASTILE CROQUERE, the dueling master, was the fanciest dresser in New Orleans. He had a different gold pocket watch for every day of the week, a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with chinchilla pompoms, high-heeled alligator boots, balloon-sleeved shirts, an array of suits colored like fine brandies so that his closet resembled an expensive liquor cabinet. He collected rare cameos—big coral rings figured with Greek goddesses, enormous brooches with the profiles of Italian monks, little pendants he wore around his neck like holy medals. He never appeared in public without two or three cameos and a boutonniere always exquisitely dyed to match his silk ascot.

  “I’ve got to look my best,” explained the handsome mulatto. “The way I live, death could take me any minute.”

  Actually, Bastile’s chances of meeting sudden death were no greater than anyone’s and less than most. He never fought serious duels. No one ever challenged him. White men claimed their code of honor forbade them to fight a mulatto. The truth was that he was too good.

  He was the king, the unchallenged champion. People took him at his word and passed it around the cafes, through the crowds which followed him down the street, to the men and women from all levels of society who visited Croquere’s Dueling Academy to watch him work.

  He was a genius at fencing—strong, graceful as a leopard, dead-accurate. The best fencers in the South attended his classes, but no one had ever put a scratch on that smooth face.

  His fans adored him. Elegant women flocked all the way from Memphis to wait at his door like star-struck teenagers. Bastile escorted them to dinner and the theater, three and four at a time, but always ended his evenings at home with his wife, a young woman of good Catholic mulatto blood like his own.

  Five mornings a week, Bastile held classes in his sawdust-covered studio on Exchange Alley. Afternoons he gave private lessons to rich Creole and American boys. After six months of study, his students promptly went out and got into fights from which they returned with bandages and ugly scars. Sometimes they didn’t return at all. But mostly Bastile’s pupils outlived their opponents.

  At the end of every lesson, Bastile insisted on changing into his good clothes and bidding each student a personal good-bye at the door. “Go with God,” he’d tell them, crossing himself so fervently that the chinchilla pompoms bobbed around the rim of his stylish hat.

  That year Marie studied the art of dueling with Bastile Croquere.

  One evening Marie pushed past three well-dressed ladies waiting on Exchange Alley and climbed the stairs to the second-floor studio. Bastile was preparing to close, straightening the mirrors and the racks of swords and wire masks. Spotting Marie, he ambled across the room, bowed, then softly kissed her hand—one of many such gestures which kept the ladies waiting at his door.

  Though still sweating from his last lesson, he wore street clothes—a Benedictine-colored linen suit, shiny brown boots, a black and ivory cameo in one lapel and a wine-red rose in the other. Marie’s eyes were drawn to his open shirt collar where a small onyx rested against his golden neck.

  “Hey,” he said in a soft pleasant voice. “Miss Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen. I’m mighty pleased to meet you. I caught your act Sunday in Congo Square and I said to myself, ‘There’s a lady who can dance as good as I can fight.’ ”

  Marie smiled. Bastile offered her the only chair in the bare, mirrored room. Adjusting his cuffs, he sat on a high tabletop and dangled his long legs over the edge. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I want to learn about duel
ing,” said Marie.

  Bastile chuckled. “I never had a lady ask me that before. But I guess a voodoo queen’s no ordinary lady, right?” He cast a cool businesslike look at Marie’s body, cramped in the narrow chair. “You got the legs for it,” he said. “And I saw you dancing—you’d be good. But why do you want to learn fencing?”

  “Not fencing. Dueling. I’ve got to fight a duel and I need to learn how to do it.”

  Suddenly Bastile imagined the quiet voice of a priest whispering through a wooden confessional, reminding him that she was no ordinary dancer, that she was a voodoo woman dabbling in black devil magic. “What kind of duel?” he asked suspiciously.

  “A righteous one,” said Marie. “I promise, I’ll be fighting the good fight. I swear it on St. Michael,” she added, recalling a Memphis lady who’d come for a love potion and confided that the fencer was especially fond of the warrior-saint who’d killed a hundred dragons with his sword.

  “Well...,” said Bastile, “I know you wouldn’t swear false on St. Michael. Not even a voodoo—you’d be scared he’d come stab you. If you swear you’re not doing Satan’s work, I’ll teach you what you want. It’d he my pleasure to teach Miss Marie Laveau,” he added with a smile. “But if you don’t want to learn about fencing, what...?”

  “Dueling,” repeated Marie. “You know—the secret tips you tell your students. Not sword-fighting itself, but the extras which help them win.”

  Bastile peered at Marie, then chuckled again. “lean see you’ll be a good student. There’s not much to teach, but I’ll teach you. Provided you swear you’ll be fighting the good fight.”

  “I swear,” said Marie.

  So Bastile Croquere taught her the art of dueling. He showed her how to walk like a fighter, to radiate confidence to the point of boredom, to use her eyes, her mouth, the tilt of her head. He taught her some tricks: Staring down. Intimidation. Feigning. False moves. Attacks and defenses. Thrusts and parries.