Iron Lace (10 page)

The church was still far away, but with every step they were drawing closer. Moments went by without the sound of the bell. Another skiff passed, and a man shouted something in their direction. The skiff was filled with passengers moving to a safer building, too.

The water inched downward to his waist. The lull had truly arrived now. The winds were quiet; golden moonlight warmed the terrifying landscape. He could almost have pre
tended the storm had been a dream, so suddenly had it ended. He wondered if the winds would come again, or if the stillness would last. He slowed his pace a little, stepping carefully, watching for landmarks, but it was as if the peninsula had been wiped clean and nothing he recognized remained.

He glanced behind him at the outline of Marcelite and the children and felt satisfaction that, at least in this, she depended on his goodwill. What choices did she have now? She was at the mercy of the storm, just as he was, and she needed his strength. What good were her threats, when her survival and her children’s were linked so closely to his? He wondered if she would remember this moment when the storm was over.

There were more screams and shouts in the night, but he hadn’t heard the bell for long minutes. Had it fallen at last, or was the wind so mild it could no longer lift the bell’s weight? He had counted on the sound to guide him. Now he realized he could be off course, perhaps even heading into the marsh. Confused and exhausted, he stopped to rest.

“What is it, Lucien?”

He didn’t have the breath to answer her.

“We must keep moving!”

He heard the fear in her voice, and his power to enhance it pleased him. He rested longer before he answered. “Must we? I don’t know where to go.”

“I’ll guide you. Please, keep going!”

“How can you guide me? Can you see what I can’t?”

“We aren’t far. Listen! Hear the bell ringing?”

The bell sounded again, closer than he had imagined the church to be. The sound heartened him. He looped the rope around his waist and tied it before he began to move forward once more.

“We’ll be there soon. Please, Lucien, don’t stop again.”

He felt a new surge of power. In this crisis Marcelite had no choice but to be all the things he had always believed her to be. Her very life depended on his whim. He turned his head to tell her so, and saw the most terrifying sight of his life.

Black clouds were massed to the west, made clearly visible now by slashing streaks of lightning. Thunder growled through the stillness, distant, but growing closer with every rumble. The wind picked up enough to ring the bell again, then again. As he watched, the clouds seemed to creep steadily closer, an army of death cloaked in black.

He turned and plunged forward, one hand on the rope still tied around his waist, one hand thrusting everything from his path. He couldn’t gauge how much time was left to reach the church, but he knew it wasn’t much. The lull had been just that. And behind it was a storm front so massive that what they had already lived through was as nothing.

He stumbled once, catching a foot on some unseen object, but he regained his balance and plunged on, jerking the skiff along behind him. The rain began again, lightly at first, then pelting him harder and harder. Lightning flashed so constantly that the midnight sky seemed lit by the sun. The shrieks of surviving animals who sensed death approaching merged with the fierce screaming of the wind. He plunged on, heedless now of anything except the bell.

At first he thought the flickering light in the distance was lightning. Only Marcelite’s shout made him realize it was a lantern in the presbytery window. Something close to elation charged through him. He was almost to safety. The storm was closing in with all the fury of hell, but he still had time—precious little, but time nonetheless.

He plunged toward the light, letting it be his guide. The bell was pealing in rhythm with the frantic pounding of his heart. Only a little way to go now. Just yards to go.

He was almost on top of the remains of someone’s house before he realized it was blocking his way. He jerked the skiff around, and for a moment he thought he had been in time, but the current pushed the skiff against the ruin and snagged the rope. He tugged, but it wouldn’t give.

The sky was so light that he could see where the problem lay. The problem was a small one, easily taken care of.

“Throw me the ax!” he screamed, coming to the side of the boat. “For God’s sake, the ax!”

He could clearly see the expression on Marcelite’s face. She was terror-stricken, and Angelle was clinging to her, screaming. Only Raphael seemed capable of movement. He crawled along the bottom of the boat and brought the ax to the side. His eyes met Lucien’s. Lucien saw terror there. Worse, much worse, he saw resignation.

Behind the boy, Lucien saw the storm rushing in, pushing a wall of water in front of it that was higher than anything still standing on the peninsula. A shout was torn from his own throat. He grabbed the ax and turned, heaving it frantically against the post that had snagged the rope. The post split. One more chop, only one, and the boat would be freed.

He turned back toward the storm and saw Raphael watching him. Rain plastered the boy’s curls to his head and ran down his cheeks like a thousand tears. Behind Raphael he glimpsed Marcelite. In his power. Completely in his power now.

He brought the ax down once more, but not on the post. The rope tore free exactly where the ax had struck it. In seconds the weight of the skiff was gone. He whirled and saw
it careening in the current, spinning farther and farther away from him. He heard screaming, and didn’t know whose throat it had come from. In seconds the skiff was gone.

Head down, he turned back to the light in the presbytery window and, half swimming, half wading, fought his way there alone. Inside, he crawled up the stairs to the second story.

As the bell rang, a sobbing Father Grimaud welcomed and embraced him. The bell continued to ring until the only sound Lucien could hear was the bell. Louder than the screams of the dying. Louder than his own screams.

The bell rang, and even when it was finally silenced in the last hours of the storm, it still rang for Lucien’s ears alone.

T
here were eight little girls in Belinda’s living room when Phillip returned from Aurore Gerritsen’s house. He recognized Amy and her little sister, but the others were strangers to him. Each child had a sheet of newspaper spread out in front of her, with a lump of rust-colored modeling clay in the center.

Belinda stood at the opposite end of the narrow room, wearing a long, flowing robe of bright blue and green. A green turban bound her hair.

She flashed Phillip a wary smile, but otherwise ignored his entrance. Obviously she had just begun a lecture. “We don’t know a whole lot about the people of Nok, ’cause African history’s never been a big concern of the white man, but we do know that way back before the Romans and the Jews were fighting each other over the teachings of Jesus, about five hundred years before, in fact, the Nok people were sculpting statues of terra-cotta, kind of like that clay you’ve got in front of you there.”

“When we be making something?” one of the little girls in the front asked.

“After you mind your manners and listen awhile. First, I want one of you to come up and point out Nigeria on this map.” Belinda stooped and reached behind her, and when she straightened she held up a large map of Africa.

No one stirred.

“None of you knows?”

Amy raised her hand. Belinda nodded, and Amy got up and went to stand in front of her. She frowned, then poked her finger in the center of the map.

Belinda didn’t shake her head. “Amy’s got the right idea. She’s real close. Thank you for trying, Amy. Are you proud of yourself?”

“I’m proud,” Amy said.

“Good.”

Amy went to sit back down.

Phillip watched the rest of the lesson unfold. The little girls giggled and whispered occasionally, but clearly Belinda had captured their attention. For this afternoon, at least, they had become part of a culture with an ancient and honorable heritage, and Belinda was their role model.

“What do you think these people ate?” Belinda asked as the lesson wound to a close.

“Giraffes?” Amy’s little sister asked shyly.

“Oooh… Now that’d be a long, tall meal, wouldn’t it?” Belinda’s smile made it clear that she was glad the little girl had answered. “But the truth is, we think they ate a lot of the things that you like, things like beans and corn and yams, and they liked to season them with lots of red pepper, just like we do here in New Orleans. Fact is, some of your favorite foods
came from Africa. They were brought here by slaves who passed them on to the white masters. When you’re eating red beans and rice on Monday nights, you’re eating the same kind of thing the people of Nok ate. You’re eating African food, and don’t you forget it.”

“We won’t forget it,” they chimed together on cue.

“Now we’re going to make statues, like the ones I talked about before,” Belinda said. “Archaeologists—that’s people who study civilizations from a long time ago—have found statues just this high.” She held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “And they’ve found some as big as real people. There are two things most of the statues have in common. First of all, they’ve got pierced ears. Second, their eyes are hollowed out. We don’t know why. Not yet, anyhow. But when you make your statues today, I want you to try to make them like those Nok statues. Hollow eyes and pierced ears. I’ve got some pictures you can look at. Can you do it?”

“We can do it,” they chorused.

“Then get busy. I’ll help, and so will Phillip. You all know Phillip, don’t you?”

Phillip immediately edged toward the door and escape, but eight little pairs of eyes stopped him.

He didn’t like children, particularly. His experience with anyone under the age of ten was limited, and that was the way he had planned to keep it. But he had been thinking about children when he walked through the door—a boy named Raphael and a baby girl named Angelle. And their story, as well as Aurore’s, was still with him.

He held up his hands. “Do these look like the hands of a man who knows anything about making statues?”

“Kids’ll teach you everything you need to know,” Belinda said.

He realized that more than eyes held him in place now. One of the littlest girls, her hair neatly sectioned and clipped with pink plastic barrettes, had clasped her arms around his waist. He was a captive.

An hour later, he had red clay embedded under every fingernail and a little girl wearing a dress meant for a larger child embedded on his lap. He had tried unsuccessfully to remove her half an hour before, but she was as tenacious as the woman teaching the class. Four feet away, Belinda was in the midst of promising the children an authentic Nigerian meal at their next session.

“Now scoot,” she said, clapping her hands. “And don’t you forget what you learned here today. Some of you may even come from those Nok people. You can be proud of everything they did. Are you proud?”

“We’re proud,” they chorused.

The room cleared quickly. In a moment, nothing was left of the giggles and the whispers except eight little statues drying on Belinda’s front windowsill.

Belinda put her hands on her hips and stared insolently at Phillip. “Well? Go ahead and say it.”

“Say what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking.”

He didn’t know what he was thinking. He hadn’t known about Belinda’s after-school classes. She hadn’t discussed them with him, or asked for his advice. She hadn’t even warned him.

Belinda stood in front of him, proud and indisputably magnificent. Phillip had been to Africa on assignment. He had interviewed African leaders, covered hideous tribal massacres, eaten from wooden bowls in tiny villages and silver plates in capital cities. He had lusted after dark-skinned women as
beautiful as any in the universe. But he had never felt precisely what he was feeling now.

“What made you decide to do this?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“You don’t know what it’s like for these kids. You went to boarding school in Switzerland. You graduated from Yale. You write about civil rights, and sometimes somebody bars a door you want to waltz on through, but you don’t know what it’s like to be raised somewhere where nothing you ever do will be good enough.”

“Because you’re a Negro.”

“Because you’re black.”

“Are you angry at me because my life’s been different?”

She sighed, and some of the starch seemed to go out of her spine. “I’m not angry. You want the truth, I’m glad it was different for you. I’m glad it can be different for somebody. I just don’t want you laughing at me, Phillip. I don’t want you laughing at what I’m trying to do here, ’cause what I’m doing’s important. These kids have a right to know who they are. Until they’ve got a past, they’ve got no future.”

He stood and crossed to Belinda. The fabric of her robe was as fine as silk, and he savored it as he ran his fingertips up her arms. “They ought to be teaching African history in schools. You shouldn’t have to be doing it here, in your own home. But I’m glad you are.”

She tossed her head. “You think there’s any chance the school board would listen and let me teach it where it belongs? I got in trouble last week for playing jazz records while my babies were taking their rest time.”

“You’re trying to change the world. Do you really think anybody who’s in charge now is going to like it?”

“Then you don’t think this is silly?”

Belinda seemed oddly vulnerable at that moment. She was a woman of supreme confidence, but Phillip saw just how much his approval meant to her. “That’s the last word I’d use.” His hands slid to her shoulders, then to her neck. He cupped her face and kissed her.

She relaxed against him one inch at a time. Belinda was nearly thirty, and as independent as he was. Sometimes he thought it was a miracle that they had found each other. They were two souls who had never expected to find soul mates, yet here they were in each other’s arms, with more between them than merely the promise of sexual fulfillment.

He understood the true beauty of the African robe when it pooled at her feet after only a little coaxing. His clothing was more difficult to remove, but he and Belinda proved themselves up to the challenge. Belinda wasn’t a woman to be scooped off her feet and carried to bed. She led him there, and the movements of her slender, graceful body were a promise of the pleasure that was to come.

Their lovemaking had often been hot and hurried. Today it was a languid exploration of the curve of a breast, the taut muscles of a thigh, the levels of elation that a man and a woman could reach before they exploded in a frenzy of satisfaction.

When he held her tightly against him afterward, he thought about the seed he had spilled inside her, seed that would not fall on fertile ground since, as always, she had taken precautions. For the first time in his life, he wondered what it would be like to father a child.

“You’re awful quiet,” she said.

The words were not an indictment. Belinda seemed to have no expectations of him. She was not a woman with hidden agendas. Phillip knew she was merely pointing out that if he wanted to talk, she was ready to listen.

He gathered her a little closer. The room was warm enough, but he didn’t want to lose the intimacy of their lovemaking. “Do you want children of your own? You’re so good with other people’s.”

“Not if it means raising them by myself.”

“I guess you’ve seen a lot of that.”

Her family had been poor, her education and independence hard-won. He knew Belinda spoke from experience and close observation.

“I used to think I wouldn’t want them at all,” she said. “Why should I bring a child into a world where he’s a second-class citizen?”

“No child of yours would be anything less than first-class.”

“What about you? Do you want children?”

“I don’t live the kind of life where having them makes any sense.”

She didn’t question him further. She had never pushed him toward commitment. She lay relaxed and replete beside him, the give-and-take of her breath warm against his shoulder.

The talk of children made him think about something she had said earlier. Belinda believed that the girls she taught wouldn’t have a real future unless they understood their past. His thoughts slid to Aurore Gerritsen, and he wondered if that was part of the reason she was telling him her story.

But by establishing the facts of her past, just whose future was Mrs. Gerritsen trying to assure? Her own? At her age, that
seemed like an exercise in futility. Her son’s? From what he knew about Ferris Gerritsen, it seemed unlikely.

“My session with Aurore Gerritsen didn’t go the way I expected it to,” he said after a while.

“No?”

He realized that he wanted to tell her what he’d heard. It was a weight in his chest that talking might ease. “Her story is nothing like I expected.”

She pushed herself aloft so that she could see his face. “What kind of story is it?”

Phillip found himself repeating what he’d learned, drawing the picture of those few days in 1893, much the way Mrs. Gerritsen had. He had been surprised by the richness of detail. At first he had wondered if this was just a classic case of an old woman with a remarkable long-term memory. He had seen that before. People who couldn’t remember what they’d had for lunch could still tell you every detail of the dress or suit they’d worn to a dance sixty years ago.

But as Mrs. Gerritsen continued, he had realized that the detail was forever imprinted in her mind because the story, even the parts of it that had happened to others, was so tragic. He had interviewed World War II veterans who remembered every shot that had been fired at them more than twenty years before, every blade of grass on the battlefield, every tragic moment their comrades had endured, and this was much the same.

Belinda was silent for some time after he finished. “Why?” she said at last. “Why did she tell you?”

“I have no idea.”

“None?”

“I can only guess that she’s trying to right a wrong. How
she’s going to do it is still a mystery to me. She’s going to use this manuscript somehow, when it’s finished.”

“But why you? Why did she ask you to be the one to write it?”

“Guilt, I think. Her father cut that woman and her children loose and sent them to die in the storm primarily because of Raphael’s race. That’s what it all boiled down to. Maybe Mrs. Gerritsen likes the irony of telling a black man. Maybe she thinks some sort of justice has been done now.”

“And that was all she told you?”

“More tomorrow.” He turned to his side and smoothed her hair. He loved the way it felt, like velvet against her beautifully shaped head. “You didn’t mind me telling you?”

“Mind?” She seemed perplexed.

He realized how seldom he had shared his work or any other part of himself with a woman—so seldom that afterward he’d had to seek reassurance. But inside, where it really mattered, he felt cleansed.

He wondered what it would feel like to lie here beside her when they were old, sharing the details of their days. “Thanks for listening,” he said.

“I like listening to you.”

And since she was a woman who never lied, he had to believe her.

Aurore had chosen the library for her second session with Phillip. The day was cloudy, and the view from the morning room was dismal. She’d had a small fire laid in the fireplace and the pale green drapes drawn to shut out the gloom. The Sheraton writing table in the corner had been readied for him.

They exchanged greetings when he arrived, and chatted comfortably as he set up his tape recorder.

“I think I’d rather sit over there,” he said, pointing to the love seat beside the sofa where she’d made herself comfortable. I don’t need a desk to take notes.”

“That’s fine.” She was secretly pleased. She had enjoyed watching Phillip closely yesterday. He maintained a nearly impassive expression, but his eyes weren’t as well schooled as he might like.

“I have some questions about what you told me yesterday,” he said, after he had settled himself on the love seat.

“I assumed you would.”

“I’ll start with the obvious. How did you discover what your father had done?”