Marie Laveau Page 5

  “And St. John?”

  “Oh, John the Baptist.” Flattered by his rapt attention, Marie nodded. “He gets drunk and mad and throws down the thunder. But that’s nothing compared to St. Peter. He’s the gambler’s friend, and if you don’t give him his five percent and a glass of beer, he’ll burn your house down around your ears. And that’s nothing compared to St. Blackhawk ...”

  “St. Blackhawk?”

  “He’s the Indian chief who met Jesus. He’s been nasty since the day he was born. There’s no way you can satisfy him.”

  “That’s very interesting,” murmured Father Antoine. “What else do you know about the Scriptures? What about Adam and Eve?”

  “Adam was the father of us all,” parroted Marie. “Eve was the temptress, the mother of sin.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No.” Marie found herself surprisingly anxious to impress this priest, who—with his long, flat snout, low forehead, forked red-brown beard, and enormous hands—reminded her of a gorilla. “There’s more. Adam and Eve were born black. Cain was the one who turned white. After he killed his brother, God’s voice scared him so bad he got pale as a ghost ...”

  The priest’s expression stopped her. Had she said something wrong? “Then there’s Adam and Eve root,” she added quickly, changing the subject. “It’s good for crazy people.”

  “I don’t care about roots. Tell me about Adam and Eve.”

  “Well... they were born blind.”

  “Blind?”

  “Blind. It was the snake who taught them to see.” She stopped. Father Antoine was giving her a strange look.

  “That’s the wildest story I ever heard,” he said. “Who told you those outrageous lies?”

  Marie blinked back tears. She’d tried so hard to please him, and now he was accusing her of lying. “A friend of mine,” she said sullenly. “Someone lots smarter than Mother Therese.”

  Father Antoine smiled. “Is your friend smarter than I am?”

  Marie thought about Marie Saloppe working twenty-four hours a day, losing all her money at the Wheel of Fortune, betting on frog’s croaks and an old man’s snores. Then she thought about Father Antoine making thousands and living like a pig farmer. “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “In that case, you can give me an equal chance as a teacher. Come here every morning for the next few weeks? We’ll work together. It’ll be more fun than Mother Therese’s class. Later you can go back to school. And I promise: there won’t be any more trouble.”

  Father Antoine kept his promise. For two months he spent his mornings reading from the Bible, telling Marie astonishing tales of saints who soared like eagles, saints who lived in tombs, on top of stone pillars, alone in the desert for forty years.

  Eventually he sent her back to school. And there was no more trouble. Father Antoine had given her the power to get along. But it wasn’t the power of the holy word.

  By the time Marie returned to class, everyone knew she was Father Antoine’s favorite. On visits to school he always stopped at her desk to chat. She spent hours in his confessional. Every female in the convent would have traded her mortal soul to fill Marie’s shoes.

  “The ways of God certainly are mysterious,” said Mother Therese, like a woman trying to understand her husband’s passion for some unworthy rival. “Maybe there’s more to this girl than God’s granted me to see.”

  So she tried to see more. If Marie daydreamed all day, Mother Therese recalled that her namesake St. Theresa had neglected her lessons. Annoyed by Marie’s know-it-all manner, she reminded herself that Baby Jesus had lectured His teachers.

  Marie’s classmates weren’t so open-minded. They couldn’t forgive the lanky yellow girl for worming her sneaky way into Father Antoine’s heart. So they called her “Mean Marie.” They said her freckles made her look like the smelliest leopard in Serior Caetano’s Traveling Menagerie. They wet their fingers and touched her, then jerked away as if her skin were a red-hot iron. They composed cruel little jingles implying she’d somehow bewitched Father Antoine. Usually some brave girl could be double-dared into singing her the newest verses:

  Please, Marie, keep away from me

  I don’t want no thunderstorms thundering on me.

  So please, Marie, don’t put a spell on me

  I don’t have the time to teach you ABC.

  Marie knew the white girls were jealous. But what mystified her were the times they stopped taunting her and befriended her, letting her taste what she was missing. She listened to them discussing hair, clothes, fingernails, exchanging endless gossip about the Creole boys—which ones they liked, which ones they’d marry—deciding what they’d wear on their wedding nights, how many children they’d have, what wines they’d serve their husbands for dinner.

  What were they talking about? Everyone knew that white boys grew up into white men like Victor who found yellow girls at the dances and spent their lives with them. “Maybe Marie Saloppe’s right,” she decided one day. “Maybe I am a freak.”

  Marie felt lonely. She had no one to talk to. The two older quadroon gids in school were colder than the whites. She never spoke openly to her parents. She couldn’t explain it to Father Antoine. Marie Saloppe might understand, but Father Antoine had called her a heretic; he’d be furious if he spotted the two of them together in the square.

  Late one night Marie sneaked out of her house and headed toward Marie Saloppe’s. In all their years of partnership, she’d never visited the conjure woman’s cottage. She crossed and recrossed muddy Treme Street for half an hour before she found the shack behind a cluttered brickyard.

  “Hey there, baby.” Marie Saloppe waddled over to meet her at the door. “I been expecting you. You been having any big dreams?”

  “No, thank God,” said Marie. “If I walked into school with that rash around my eyes ...” She was interrupted by two loud croaks.

  “Dr. Brown.” Marie Saloppe pointed to a fat brown toad perched on a jar of preserved lizards. “And Grandpa Joel.”’ She pointed to an old man on a mattress in the corner, snoring in time to the frog’s croaks. “I’m tired,” she said, her gold tooth catching the lamplight as she yawned. “But come on in and sit down.”

  Marie followed her to a table littered with roots, bones, dried ferns, bottles and paper packets. “ ’Scuse me while I finish. I’ve only got till dawn.” She emptied the contents of her mortar into a blue bottle and looked up. “Hands of Time Powder,” she said. “What’s new?”

  “I hate school,” Marie blurted out. “Except for Father Antoine, they’re all fools. I can’t take it any more.”

  “Including Father Antoine,” said Marie Saloppe. - “But you better keep taking it. Like I told you: take everything you can get. You’ll need it.”

  “But I’m lonely. I haven’t got one friend.”

  “You’ll have all the friends you want someday. Meanwhile I’m your friend. Here—drink this Garden of Gilead tea. Have a rice fritter. That’ll help. Come here any night you want—late, after my clients go home. Drink my Garden of Gilead tea. You’ll be all right.”

  Marie accepted the tea and the advice. She kept going to school. Whenever she felt lonely she sneaked off to watch Marie Saloppe prepare her gris-gris.

  While she worked, Marie Saloppe kept up a steady stream of stories, aphorisms, household hints. She taught Marie about omens—death-crickets, lights, bubbles, shadows—about names, symbols, colors, tokens, charms. She taught her to understand the secret language of cats and snakes, to recognize the evil eye, to cure people—cobwebs for bleeding, bay leaves for bellyaches, garlic for fits. She taught her about the compounds which fixed and unfixed: Wonder of the World Water. Eternal Love Drops. Pal-o-Mine Lotion. Red Devil Juice. Go Away Powder. Venus Draw.

  And she taught her to read minds. “Keep your eyes open, baby,” she said. “That’s all you need. For a girl with second sight like yourself, it should be easy.”

  One night as Marie Saloppe was picking the lens from a rattlesn
ake’s eye, she pulled Marie around beside her. “Look.” She pointed at the dissecting mirror. “There’s another world in there. That’s where our souls live. It’s the world of the crossroads, the spirits, the doubles. You were born into that world, honey. Born to see behind the surface of the mirror with your second sight.”

  Marie glanced into the mirror. A bright red blur, like a smear of fresh blood, shot across the glass and disappeared. She looked again and saw only the reflection of her own frightened face.

  “I told you not to talk like that!” she said. “I told you I never wanted to hear that second-sighted crap again!”

  “Such language,” murmured Marie Saloppe, pouring another cup of tea. But Marie pushed the teacup away and ran out. She didn’t return all summer. By September, though, she had to go back.

  The blood had started flowing—two months in a row. Once again there was no one to talk to. She didn’t believe Delphine bled, couldn’t imagine her staining her snow-white petticoats. She certainly couldn’t mention it to Father Antoine. And she’d heard how the convent girls giggled and called it “The Curse.” She needed to consult Marie Saloppe. “I call it ‘the dancing lesson,’ ” said Marie Saloppe.

  “The dancing lesson?”

  “The dancing lesson. It means you’re just starting to learn the dance.”

  “What dance?”

  “You’ll find out.” Marie Saloppe chuckled softly. “You’ll find out as soon as you learn to do it.”

  The next morning Marie daydreamed through her classes, trying unsuccessfully to decipher Marie Saloppe’s meaning.

  That night Marie stayed home to get some sleep. She awoke at dawn and picked up the hand mirror from her night table. Her eyelids were as red as the blood between her legs. Then as she looked into the mirror she recalled a nightmare from her childhood which she’d never remembered before.

  CHAPTER V

  BREAKFAST AT DELPHINE’S: Morning sunlight in a yellow room the color of Venus’s perfect omelets, of Delphine’s silk gown and Victor’s brocade waistcoat. Pale yellow linen and china. Daffodils and jonquils in a cream-colored vase. The darkest things in the room were Venus’s face and the strong black coffee she poured from an earthenware pot. The dullest were Marie’s gray school uniform, her blank eyes, and her parents’ soft talk of the news Victor rose early to read. They discussed world events to cover Marie’s cold silence. At dinner she consented to answer their questions. But nothing could break her rtioming quiet—not the coffee nor the omelets nor even the news that another sea war with Britain was imminent.

  “It’s a phase,” Delphine reassured Victor. “All fourteen-year-old girls get moody spells. She’ll outgrow it.”

  “That’s no moody spell,” he answered. “She doesn’t trust us—that’s why she won’t talk. We’ll be lucky if she says amen at our funeral.”

  But this morning was different. This morning she talked. “Listen to this dream I had last night,” said Marie. “Tell me what it means.”

  Her parents looked up—Victor smiling because Marie was finally outgrowing her silence, Delphine staring disconsolately at the faint rash around her eyes, half-covered with face powder she’d probably gotten from that filthy Marie Saloppe.

  “I was at a dance hall,” said Marie, as naturally as if she’d been prattling away every morning, “just like you described the ballroom, Mama—chandeliers, shiny floors, fancy gentlemen and ladies. Except that the gentlemen had no faces. Imagine: their faces were perfectly smooth like the silk on rag dolls—without even the button eyes.

  “Maybe that was what made me so queasy. Thinking food might help, I found the banquet table. Turtle soup, curried prawns, ladyfingers, brandied figs—the food looked wonderful, but I couldn’t taste it. I kept eating but my stomach stayed empty.

  “Then I heard a voice behind me. ‘What’s wrong, Miss Marie? I haven’t seen anyone feed like that since I landed in jail with a condemned killer eating his way through his last night.’

  “I turned and saw a skinny little man—the only one with a face. An ugly spider-face—dark-skinned, snag-gle-toothed, with a greasy pencil moustache and beady eyes. He was smiling at me, but he kept checking back over his shoulder like somebody was chasing him. He looked like a crazy man, but I liked him right away.

  “ ‘Miss Marie,’ he said. ‘Might I tempt you away from this feast? Dancing is the doctor’s orders. A good fast dance will cure you.’

  “I began to dance with him—a mazurka, like the girls practice at school. He couldn’t do it. Taking four steps for every one of mine, he kept tripping—it made me laugh. Stumbling around in his thin little arms, I laughed the butterflies out of my stomach.

  “Next thing I knew we were out walking. He was talking, making me laugh so hard there were tears in my eyes. I couldn’t see where we were going till we stopped right outside the door.

  “ ‘This is my house,’ I said.

  “ ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s mine.’

  “ ‘I know my own house,’ I said. ‘Even in a dream. ’ “He kissed me hard on my mouth. He put one arm around me and moved the other up under my dress. I leaned against him while he touched me. ‘My knees feel weak,’ I said. ‘I need to lie down.’

  “ ‘Come inside,’ he said. ‘We can lie down together.’ Glancing over his shoulder, he unlocked the door with a huge key. I followed him in—I was dizzy and I didn’t know where else to go. I waited in the foyer for him to light the lanterns. ‘We don’t need light,’ he said, guiding my hand to the front of his breeches. ‘Growing things love the darkness.’ He kissed me again and asked me to come to his room.

  “I was curious to see which bedroom he’d taken. But he led me into the kitchen to the trapdoor. He lifted the boards and motioned for me to climb down first. Too scared to move, I squeezed his hand hard. ‘Is that where you sleep?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Yes,’ he said. I could feel him peeking over his shoulder in the dark. ‘In the basement.’

  “ ‘It’s wet down there,’ I said. ‘Nothing but water and spiders and rats.’

  “ ‘That’s where I sleep,’ he said. ‘Beneath the water.’

  “ ‘It’s cold,’ I said.

  “ ‘I know it. Sometimes the water seeps through my cloak and I shiver for months.’

  “ ‘How do you sleep?’

  “ ‘I don’t. Mostly I’m so restless I have to go out and dance till I drop. By now you think I would’ve learned to sleep underwater.’ “That’s when I started crying. Crying for myself—I liked that little man so much, I’d liked how he touched me, I wanted to follow him and I couldn’t. I was crying for him, too—he seemed so sad, sleeping so long in the cold, dirty water. I cried until I’d cried myself awake. Now isn’t that an odd dream? What could it mean?”

  Marie looked up from her plate. Her parents had stopped eating. Victor’s hands shook; sweat plastered his foppish spitcurls to his forehead. Delphine was ripping the petals off a jonquil. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I do know this: it’s not the kind of dream a nice young girl should be having. Now go get ready for school.” The dream was never discussed again. But from that morning on, strange accidents plagued the house. The kitchen fire wouldn’t burn. The pump ran dry. Venus cut herself with a bread knife.

  Marie noticed a change in her parents. Each day they grew more distant and distracted. They rarely looked at each other or at her. At night the laughter and conversation no longer sounded from their bedroom. Victor’s bald spot expanded. Delphine lost her appetite. “You’re not touching the jambalaya I almost lost a finger over,” Venus scolded her. “You think it’s easy with the fir^not lighting, the pump busted. . . ?”

  Old Marinette noticed too. “Your hair’s a mess,” she told Delphine. “I fix it every day and it’s a rat’s nest by morning. It’s getting brittle, cracking in the comb. And graying—those roots look like somebody’s dirty laundry. Want me to darken them with a little coffee?”

  Lacking the heart to answer, Delphine just stared into the
mirror as if she could see something far beyond its surface.

  Late one night Marie found Marie Saloppe sifting through a pile of dried hummingbirds and Spanish moss. “Hey, baby,” said the root doctor. “Guess who stopped by the square this afternoon? Your mama—the last person I expected to see. But there she was, sweet as sugar, asking me to help.”

  “How?” Marie asked uneasily.

  “She’s not well. Her and Victor—seems they’ve been sickly. They can’t eat. They never feel like going out.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “She blames some bad oysters they ate a while back but she’s not sure. That’s why she came to me. But you must’ve known they were sick. How come you never mentioned it?”

  Marie had watched her parents decline since that morning she’d described her dream. But she hadn’t told Marie Saloppe. Marie Saloppe had never stopped bothering her for those dreams. “They’ll win us the Grand Jackpot,” she repeated over and over. “I need that money to get out of this filthy city—hot all summer, cold as death all winter long. I want to retire to Santo Domingo, where it’s always warm. I want to lie on the beach and let the mangoes and papayas drop into my mouth.”

  Marie didn’t want Marie Saloppe to hit the jackpot and leave. And at the back of her mind she believed that her dreams might help her win. So she’d concealed her parents’ illness for fear that Marie Saloppe might guess the truth.

  “I knew,” she admitted. “I guess I thought you wouldn’t care.”

  “I can see how you might think that. Your mama and I never did get on. But the sight of her today nearly broke my heart. She looked terrible—thin and dried out like a little old lady. The whites of her eyes were yellow as egg yolks.

  “Those eyes gave it away. ‘Miss Delphine,’ I said, ‘Somebody’s fixed you and your man good.’ I asked if she had any suspects—I couldn’t undo that fix without knowing who cast it.”