Ran Away (29 page)

‘And leave his family as targets for the rest of New Orleans to shoot at.’

‘That,’ said Shaw, and he spat again, ‘we have been told, ain’t none of our business no more.’

TWENTY-ONE

‘
I
know the Consul.’ Hüseyin Pasha leaned against the rusted filth of the cell bars, tired resignation in his voice. ‘Like everyone whom the Sultan appoints these days, he sees me as  . . .  old-fashioned. Obstructionist.’ He sighed and rubbed at the fresh cut beside his left eye. ‘Nevertheless, he knows me. I can only hope that he will not assume – as will any men here who would make up my jury – that I would simply murder two members of my family out of jealousy  . . .  and certainly not that I would be so stupid as to pitch them from the front window of my own house.’

There was a sharp rattle of wings and a three-inch roach buzzed across the room; the Turk struck it out of the air with an exclamation of disgust, crushed it underfoot. ‘I suppose I should be glad of this,’ he continued wearily. ‘At least the man Breche will not come to Constantinople and babble his fantasies before the judge.’

The stink of the cell nauseated January, even where he stood in the icy corridor outside. The cold did a little to damp the fetor, but through the bars he could see that, despite it, the straw underfoot crept with insect life. Some of the wards of the Hôtel Dieu in Paris had smelled just as bad during the cholera, but at least the roaches had been smaller.

‘Will it be safe for your family to follow you there?’

‘The Sultan is not a man to kill the family of one whom he condemns.’ Hüseyin unwrapped the package that January had brought him as he spoke: in addition to paying a call on the Valentine children, January had set forth that morning with a package from Rose, wrapped in clean newspapers: bread, cheese, apples and bottles of ginger beer. ‘I suppose I should be grateful, that this is not the modern way, the Western way. But there is the chance that my goods will be confiscated and my beautiful Jamilla, and my son, left destitute. Moreover,’ he added, ‘it is clear to me that I was  . . .  How do you say it in this country? That I was “set up”, maneuvered into this position, though by whom I do not know  . . .’

‘Is there any chance,’ asked January quietly, ‘that your enemy Sabid is behind this?’ For a moment he had what felt like a memory, of Ayasha’s voice –
So, do you think it was Sabid?
– and the ache of something lost  . . .  ‘Where is Sabid?’

‘Until two weeks ago, I had thought him in Germany.’ On the other side of the cell, two of the other prisoners shouted at one another over whether or not someone named Violet was a whore; a third prisoner yelled for them to shut up. Down the corridor, in the white men’s cell, a thin, frantic voice screamed:
Get ’em off me! Get ’em off me!
January wondered if Dante had ever spent time in a prison before writing about the sounds and smells of Hell.

‘I have friends, naturally, who have kept me apprised of Sabid’s movements. He has never regained his position at the Sultan’s court, and he holds me responsible for this.’ Hüseyin finished the cheese, drank the ginger beer thirstily and wiped the droplets from his mustache. ‘Thus at least I do not need to fear him if it comes to trial. At the end of last month I received word that Sabid had left Munich; my correspondent knew not his destination. Believe me –’ the Turk’s mouth quirked sidelong – ‘this is a thought that has crossed my mind as well. Yet it sounds as if my poor Noura had begun to plan her sins well before Sabid could have reached this country, if it was indeed he. And how would he have known of their intentions?’

January shook his head. ‘And it seems very – very
elaborate
– for something which could be done as easily with a rifle some afternoon when you rode in the country.’

‘This is so. As for the man Smith – yes, he could have been paid to arrange with me that the house would be cleared. Looking back on it, I should have been more on my guard. But he was not the first, you understand, to ask for a quiet audience with me. Nor the first to ask that no one be in the house to see him come and go.’

‘Was the letter he sent you in English, or in French?’

‘French. But that is something which anyone in the city could have told him of me,’ he added, as if even in the intense gloom of the corridor he could see the thoughtful look that narrowed January’s eyes. ‘He was doubtless friends with any of a thousand businessmen here. What he said to me – that, within a year or two, cotton prices would recover and all men would clamor for loans to buy new land – is what everyone has said, at every party and
ziyafet
since I have come here.’

January was silent, turning this over in his mind. A man who disguised himself, to call on someone who had never seen him before  . . .  A letter written in French  . . . 

‘What is your advice, my friend?’ The prisoner wrapped the last of the cheese and bread in the newspaper, set them aside. To purchase the goodwill of his cell mates, January guessed. ‘Think you that my son and Jamilla will be in danger, once I am gone and this
nuti
of a journalist can gain no more readers for his newspaper by slandering me?’

‘I think they will be safe,’ January replied slowly. ‘They can take a smaller place in the Marigny quarter and live quietly. It is a district of foreigners: Germans and Russians and Italians. I will put myself at your lady’s disposal, to help with arrangements. When public feeling has died down I’ll introduce her to friends in the French Creole society, who can help her.’

‘Good.’ Hüseyin ran a hand over the graying stubble of his hair. ‘Since I am to be taken away, I think it a better use of your time, my friend, if you would be so good, to look after
Sitt
Jamilla for me, and my son, and our servants who have been so faithful to us. After all, if this Mr Smith would cover his face with a beard and lie about his name to see me, he will hardly go to Constantinople to speak for me.’

‘But he will send his affidavit,’ said January firmly. ‘As will the Lieutenant, regarding the distance from M’sieu Breche’s balcony to the window. As will I, and my friend the fiddler Sefton, asking whether, if you had killed those unfortunate girls because of their theft, you would not have put the gold back in your chest. All these can you show your judge—’

‘And my judge will say,’ said Hüseyin with a bitter smile: ‘
Here is a man who wishes to keep the old ways of Islam strong in our Empire, rather than turn its rulership over to politicians who see only law, and not into the hearts of men
. Just as they say here:
Here is a man who does not worship the Christian God – he must have done this evil thing
. Or:
Here is a black man
. Or:
Here is a woman
. And of course there is a very good chance that my judge will not be able to read French. If Allah wishes me to survive, he will guard me and keep me, my friend, and all that the Sultan can do will fall away. If Allah does not wish me to survive, all that
you
can do will not preserve my life. Care for my family.’

When January descended the stair and crossed the Cabildo courtyard to the watch room, Shaw solemnly handed him a wrapped-up bundle of umbrellas. ‘Your friend at Hüseyin’s house said he’d need these.’

January took them with a nod. It was illegal for a man of African descent to carry a weapon of any kind, even a walking stick. He guessed, by the length and weight of the bundle, that it contained a rifle, which he duly delivered to Hannibal at the house on the Rue Bourbon. As the woman Lorette conducted January up the stair to the second-floor parlor, he heard the sweet fantasias of Hannibal’s fiddle, drifting down from the floor above, and guessing what was going on, he asked Lorette, ‘Is the Lady Jamilla ill?’

‘Yes, sir.’ A great deal of her haughtiness of Monday was gone. She looked tired and strained – and who would not, January reflected, with rumors going around among the slaves, and the near-certain knowledge that she, and they, would all be sold, to God knew where, in a wretched market? ‘Sweating, and sick, and wanting him beside her, poor lady, just to talk – an’ that nasty beast Ghulaam sitting right there with his sword, like he didn’t trust either one of them  . . .  What the hell’s the matter with those people?’

January paused in the door of the parlor, and shook his head. ‘What the hell’s the matter with
any
people, m’am?’

The woman sighed, her wide mouth setting for a moment in wry agreement. ‘You got a point there, sir. I’ll fetch him down.’

January returned to his own home to find Rose beneath the house with two new ‘visitors’, a young man named Del and his wife Peggy. Surprisingly, Peggy had a child with her, a girl just under two. It wasn’t usual for slaves to escape with children that small: ‘—but our master gone off to New Iberia for three days, an’ we had the chance  . . .’

‘It’s all right.’ January prayed silently that it would in fact be all right. ‘I’ll see what we can do.’ With Baby John in the house at least no one would question it, if a child’s cries were heard  . . . 

‘But the last thing we need,’ he sighed as he undressed that night, ‘is for people to be coming around here looking to collect the bounty on escaped slaves.’

‘I shall speak to your sister in the morning,’ promised Rose, taking off her spectacles, ‘and have her put curses all over this house.’ And, when January rolled his eyes: ‘Some people are never satisfied.’

I’ll have to write to Rose
.

The thought came to January suddenly as he sat in the window watching the last of the thin spring sunlight on the rooftops of Paris. Birds skimmed above those mossy tiles. The sweet, clear question of the bells of St Séverin, answered by the reassuring bronze voice of Notre Dame.

Happiness at being home again, which made him want to weep.

Ayasha, sewing in the last of the daylight; she sat in the other side of the window’s aperture, black hair bundled up carelessly into a crest on the crown of her head, stockinged feet tucked against his. Her gold thimble flickered against the silver needle, the delirious waterfall of blue-and-white silk that streamed from her lap to the floor. It was his turn to cook supper, and he’d been turning over in his mind what was in the cupboard and if he’d have to go down all seventy-two steps to Renan’s to get bread—

—and then the thought came to him:
I’ll have to write to Rose
.

Guilt and horror and a terrible confusion flooded over him as he realized he didn’t even remember how long he’d been back in Paris, or whether he’d told Rose he was coming back here  . . . 

John! What about John?

The thought that he’d left his son – even for Ayasha – turned him sick.
How could any woman walk away from her child?
Ayasha had asked him as they returned home from the L’Ecolier house on that Sunday afternoon in 1827, and January knew she spoke true. So how could he have left Baby John? How could he have left Rose  . . . ?

I’ll have to go back to them
 . . . 

Yet the beauty of this place, this city – this world where white men didn’t call him
tu
like a dog, and where he could walk any street in the city, and risk murder, perhaps, but not enslavement. The thought of leaving it twisted at his heart  . . . 

Someone knocked at the door. ‘Uncle Ben?’

Waking was like dropping a yard down into darkness.

‘Uncle Ben?’

Gabriel’s voice. The panicked confusion of his dream left him disoriented. He felt Rose move beside him, heard the clack – saw the blinding spark – of flint striking—

From the parlor Zizi-Marie screamed, ‘
Uncle Ben
!’ and there was the crunching rip of nails pulled from wood, the thunk of a window thrown open.

January came out of bed fast and silent, shot through the door into the parlor past his nephew, caught up a chair – thank God for Rose’s ability to light a candle, to give him that fragment of golden light  . . . 

The rear gallery and the high walls of the yard kept any light from silhouetting the men in the French doors of the rear parlor, but one of them had a bullseye lantern. January charged them, flung the wooden chair full-force to disrupt their aim if they had a gun, caught up another chair and shouted.

The men turned and fled, back through the French door, out on to the gallery.

Hollers, cries, and a woman’s voice yelling: ‘Damn you snot-suckin’ thieves!’ Peggy and Del, from under the house.

January sprang through the French door – where the light of Rose’s candle didn’t penetrate, and the thieves had dropped their lantern – grabbed a handful of somebody’s jacket. A fist scraped his jaw in the dark. He struck back, his blow connecting meatily with the side of someone’s head. He tried to sling the man against the door jamb, but somebody kicked him hard in the knee and he stumbled, cursing. Peggy had not once stopped swearing nor repeated herself. Under the house, her little girl Alice screamed in terror.

Someone fell down the gallery steps to the yard, and Del yelled, ‘God damn it!’

Footfalls rattled on the stair.

Then light as Peggy set up the fallen lantern and yanked off the slide. At the same moment Rose appeared in the French door with two more candles, backed up by Gabriel with the fire poker.
Thank God he didn’t come out earlier and start swinging that thing
.

‘I heard them on the gallery.’ Zizi-Marie came out behind her brother, the quilt from her bed wrapped around her over her nightgown. When Rose’s school had had nearly a dozen students, they’d slept in a dormitory in the big old house’s attic, but because of the cold, January had moved two of the beds downstairs, so that Gabriel could sleep in one of the former classrooms downstairs, and his sister in the other.

‘Me, too,’ agreed the boy.

‘We heard ’em go up the steps,’ corroborated Del as Peggy darted down the gallery steps – which, being old, creaked and clumped like a cord of wood dropped out of a cart – to fetch up tiny Alice. Inside the dark house behind them, January heard Baby John wailing. Rose shoved one of the candlesticks into his hand and hurried back inside.