Madam (25 page)

As she watched the gravediggers shovel stones, she wondered how it would be possible to feel anything other than this pain. Would she ever again be able to smile at a simple pleasure, like picking lilacs or relaxing into a hot bath? How could she want to tap her feet to some rollicking piano music from a handsome player? Her heart couldn’t flutter like that anymore, she was sure of it. She lay back and closed her eyes, wanting the ground to swallow her up and spit out her bones.

The stones hit the coffin with an echoing thud. It seemed the worst sound she’d ever heard. But at that, she forced herself up and grabbed a shovel. She needed to do anything other than just let this happen.

C
HAPTER EIGHTEEN

Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1

N
earby, but seemingly a world away, another kind of funeral was occurring. Ferdinand, along with a crowd of worshipers, moved in a sprawling mass to the gates of Saint Louis Cemetery Number One.

The mourners were dressed to the nines. The women wore wide-brimmed fancy hats or carried colorful parasols, and they all fluttered oriental fans against the stale air. The men donned three-piece suits with bow ties and decorated themselves with sashes promoting the Young Men Olympians. Ferdinand was properly suited, with a bright blue handkerchief he carefully folded then fluffed to display from his jacket pocket.

To black Creoles, there was no such thing as a gloomy funeral, especially when the deceased had lived as long and colorful a life as Tanglefoot Robichaux. It was only fitting that a musician of his stature have the grandest of musical funerals. A large brass band had already escorted the family and close friends from their home to the cemetery and now was playing dirges until after the burial, when the tempo would pick up. Ferd spotted Buddy Bolden paying his respects through his cornet, alongside other characters he knew from hanging around the back doors of honkatonks, like Buddy Zulu on bass trombone and Blind Freddie on the clarinet.

A large woman sidled up to Ferd. “Did you know Mistah Tanglefoot?”

“Not personally, ma’am. But I wanted to be in the second line today to honor him.”

“He played that piano right up to the end,” the woman said with an impressed shake of her head. “May he rest in peace in the marble orchard.”

As they moved closer to the cemetery gates a craggy old man with an Olympians sash nudged Ferdinand. “This will be how we all rejoice for you,” he said. “If you’re a member.”

“Gee, sir,” Ferd said with a flinch. “I’m not long out of short pants.”

But the man pressed a knotty finger to Ferd’s chest and studied him with filmy eyes. “Ain’t never too soon to consider such matters.”

The man’s intenseness sent a shiver through Ferd. “I’ll think on it,” he replied, inching away. Fortunately, the crowd began parting to allow the huddle of relatives to walk through, and Ferd maneuvered himself to the other side, away from the Olympians man. The band played a slow, mournful version of “The Saints,” and Ferd joined in the singing:

Lord, how I want to be in that number,

When the saints go marching in.

As he sang, his eyes fell on a young boy, about six years old, whose face was painted in Voodoo makeup to look like a skull with hollow eye sockets, shadowy cheekbones, and jagged teeth drawn over his lips. The boy had climbed up onto a ledge and was clutching the cemetery gate as he sang with the crowd. And then, as if the boy felt Ferd’s gaze, he deliberately turned his head. His blacked-out eyes instantly found Ferd, fixing on him. He sang:

And when the moon, turns red with blood,

And when the moon turns red with blood

Lord, how I want to be in that number. . . .

Ferd suddenly felt queasy. The crowd seemed to be closing in around him. The singing grew muffled and drifted off as his own heartbeat became louder and louder in his ears. Only it wasn’t his heartbeat—it was the pounding of an African drum. And Ferd was no longer amidst the funeral crowd but hovering somewhere near Congo Square. Flickering candles lit the square as Eulalie Echo, in a multicolored African caftan, bells dangling from her wrists and ankles, danced around the boy in Voodoo makeup. But the little boy wasn’t ardent and steady like the one staring from the cemetery gates. Instead, he was scared and trembling and tried to run, but Eulalie grabbed him and held her hand on his head to keep him still. Her eyes rolled back as she chanted: “
Eh! Eh! Bomba hen hen!
At great cost I ask this of the Gatekeeper of Hades, whose powers are many, that he will bestow to this child a gift of great worth.”

From the trees of Congo Square stepped an African man, holding a writhing sack. He pulled from it a live chicken. The boy began to whimper. The drumming grew louder and more intense as Eulalie danced around and around. She chanted, “
Danga moune de te!
” The chicken shrieked, a loud
baKAW
that sent the little boy wincing. He turned his head away just as there was a sharp cracking sound, and the chicken was silenced. Blood splattered across the boy’s cheek.

Ferd jumped. An Olympians man next to him put a hand on his shoulder. “You all right, fella?”

Catching his breath, Ferd looked around. The band had stopped playing, and the grand marshal was consoling Tanglefoot’s relatives. There was no sign of the Voodoo boy. Ferd desperately searched the crowd, turning himself around in a complete circle, but still nothing, no sign of any child with the face of a skeleton. Silently, Ferd cursed himself for having such ridiculous, dark thoughts at someone’s funeral.

In an effort to clear his muddled mind, he trained himself on the grand marshal, who was stepping up to address the crowd.

“Dear family and friends, as the official grand marshal of the New Orleans Young Men Olympians, I ask that y’all join the main line in celebrating the joyous release of Mistah Tanglefoot Robichaux’s beloved soul to heaven.”

A lively tune of “Didn’t He Ramble” started up, and any hint of mournful tone vanished as everyone began to dance. Still dazed, Ferdinand was swept up like a rag doll in the crowd as a line began to form, turning the funeral procession into a full-out parade. Everyone sang as they jubilantly danced on down the street.

Didn’t he ramble? He rambled,

Rambled all around, In and out the town.

Ferd forced his feet to shuffle and his lips to move as he joined in, even though his mind was still whirring over such a devilish vision.

The crowd sashayed and stomped, and anything that could be waved was gleefully thrust in the air—handkerchiefs, umbrellas, hats, banners, all bouncing on down the street. They would parade around the neighborhood until arriving at the reception, where table after table would be overflowing with potluck dishes. Ferd had planned on stuffing himself silly on sandwiches and gumbo, corn bread and corn on the cob, sweet-potato cakes, and pralines. That was, if his stomach would quit doing flip-flops. He focused on the music, the rhythm, one foot in front of the other, don’t think, just sing.

Didn’t he ramble? He rambled,

He rambled till the butchers cut him down.

Suddenly, the music trailed off, and, with people almost toppling one another, the Creole parade slowed to a halt. Everyone craned to see what was going on. At the head of the line, the Olympians’ parade had been met by another parade, coming from the opposite direction. As the mourners caught sight of the other side’s banners and sashes, a communal groan spread through the crowd. It was the Olympians’ nemesis: the Freedmen’s Aid Society. The Olympians were Creoles; the Freedmen, Africans.

“Good ole Tanglefoot always did love a boundary war,” sighed a man near Ferd. Both parades knew what was in store, and on each side the women and children pushed toward the back, shaking their heads with disappointment. In turn, the men puffed up their chests and closed in the gaps.

Ferdinand felt dizzy enough that he wished he could move back with the women, but he knew the craziness in his head did not justify acting like a crazy and that shirking a boundary war wasn’t something a man could live down. So he steadied himself, rooting his feet to the ground.

“Listen here, this be our line today,” the Olympians’ grand marshal called out. “We’re honoring a great musician.”

“This ain’t your line to cross,” the Freedmen’s grand marshal replied.

And then, a shout came from the Young Men Olympians’ crowd, “Says who?”

A shout back from the Freedmen’s crowd, “Y’all a bunch of Johnny
Crapauds
!”

The Freedmen’s marshal stepped up close to the Olympians’. “Cross this line, it’ll be your Frenchy ass.”

Ferdinand felt himself break out in a cold sweat. Didn’t anyone else see what was going on here? As if Jim Crow weren’t bad enough on its own, here was dark skin against dark skin. Was he the only one who knew that the rest of Dixieland made no such distinction? He wanted to step up and shout: We should be aligning against everyone out to get us all! And for a second, he considered actually doing it, but his head was so muddled with chants and visions that he wasn’t sure he was in his complete right mind.

He would be no use in a boundary war, especially not today. Praying no one would notice, he inched his way from the crowd, and when he felt he was as much in the clear as possible, he dashed toward home, repeatedly checking over his shoulder to see if the Voodoo boy was following him.

Mary couldn’t bring herself to return home after the burial. Tearstained and muddy, she walked alone, up and down streets, with no destination and hardly any awareness of where she was. A light rain fell, but she didn’t care, the coldness felt good on her hot cheeks, reminding her that at least she had some feeling left in her body. She found herself on Basin Street, picking her way through the rubble. She lingered as she passed the Countess’s bordello.
Let the fire-haired madam come out here and shout at me, what does it matter? What does anything matter anymore?

Her eyes fell upon the neighboring Victorian, and she was compelled toward it. Beneath years of abandonment—the peeling paint, rusty hinges, and crumbling stone—was a unique beauty of a house. She marveled at the castle-like cupola, rising five stories high, and wondered what the view of the city must be like from up there. Raindrops dribbled down the cupola’s leaded windows, creating tiny prisms of light, and she envisioned herself looking out from the highest window, just as a princess might.

From her pocket, Mary retrieved the postcard of the Arlington Hotel. She’d been carrying it since Peter died. It made her think of Mama, and she’d wanted it close to her. She held up the postcard, framing the picture of the hotel with the house in front of her. They bore an uncanny resemblance, right down to identical cupolas. Inexplicably, she felt a sense of peace.

But it wasn’t until she stepped closer, up the walkway and to the boarded front door that she looked up and saw her: the woman of the house, smiling down upon Mary with the gentlest of faces. It was as if this house had been expecting her.