Hard slants of rain started drumming against the roof as they dressed. In the front room a broad-beamed man was gazing out the window. Dark green palmetto fronds lashed up behind him, blurred by the downpour. He turned, and Jocundra gasped. It was Papa Salvatino, a smile of Christian fellowship wreathing his features. He wore a white suit of raw silk with cutaway pockets, and the outfit looked as appropriate on him as a lace collar on a mongrel.
‘Brother Harrison!’ he said with sanctimonious delight and held out his hand. ‘When I heard you was the wonder-worker down on Bayou Teche, I had to come and offer my apologies.’
‘Cut the crap,’ said Donnell. ‘You’ve got a message for me.’
It took a few seconds for Papa to regain his poise, a time during which his face twisted into a mean, jaundiced knot. ‘Yes,’ he said. “Deed I do.’ He assessed Donnell coolly. ‘My employer, Miss Otille Rigaud… maybe you heard of her?’
Mr Brisbeau spat. Jocundra remembered stories from her childhood about someone named Rigaud, but not Otille. Claudine, Claudette. Something like that.
‘She’s a wealthy woman, is Miss Otille,’ Papa went on. ‘A creature of diverse passions, and her rulin’ passion at present is the occult. She’s mighty intrigued with you, brother.’
‘How wealthy?’ asked Donnell, pouring a cup of coffee.
‘Rich or not, them Rigauds they’s lower than worms in a pile of shit,’ said Mr Brisbeau, enraged. ‘And me I ain’t havin’ their help in my kitchen!’
Papa Salvatino beamed, chided him with a waggle of a finger. ‘Now, brother, you been cockin’ your ear to the Devil’s back fence and listenin’ to his lies.’
‘Get out!’ said Mr Brisbeau; he picked up a stove lid and menaced Papa with it.
‘In good time,’ said Papa calmly. ‘Miss Otille would like the pleasure of your company, Brother Harrison, and that of your fair lady. I’ve been authorized to convey you to Maravillosa at once if it suits. That’s her country place over on Bayou Rigaud.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Donnell; he sipped his coffee. ‘But you tell her I’m intrigued as well.’
‘She’ll be tickled to hear it.’ He half-turned to leave. ‘You know, I might be able to satisfy your curiosity somewhat. Me and Miss Otille have spent many an evenin’ together, and I’ve been privy to a good bit of the family history.’
‘Don’t bullshit me,’ said Donnell. ‘You’re supposed to tell me all about her. That’s part of the message.’
Papa perched on the arm of the sofa and stared at Donnell. ‘As a fellow professional, brother, you mind tellin’ me what you see that’s givin’ me away?’
‘Your soul,’ said Donnell; he stepped to the window and tossed his coffee into the rain. At this point his voice went through a peculiar change, becoming hollow and smooth for half a sentence, reverting to normal, hollowing again; it was not an extreme change, just a slight increase in resonance, the voice of a man talking in an empty room, and it might not have been noticeable in a roomful of voices. ‘Want to know what it looks like? It’s shiny black, and where there used to be a face, a face half spider and half toad, there’s a mass of curdled light, only now it’s flowing into helical patterns and rushing down your arms.’
Papa was shaken; he, too, had heard the change. ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘you wastin’ yourself in the bayou country. Take the advice of a man who’s been in the business fifteen years. Put your show on the road. You got big talent!’ He shook his head in awe. ‘Well’ - he crossed his legs, leaned back and sighed - ‘I reckon the best way to fill you in on Otille is to start with ol’ Valcours Rigaud. He was one of Lafitte’s lieutenants, retired about the age of forty from the sea because of a saber cut to his leg, and got himself a fine house outside New Orleans. Privateerin’ had made him rich, and since he had time on his hands and a taste for the darker side of earthly pleasures, it wasn’t too surprisin’ that he fell under the influence of one Lucanor Aime, the leader of the Nanigo sect. You ever hear ‘bout Nanigo?’
Mr Brisbeau threw down the stove lid with a clang, muttered something, and stumped into the back room, slamming the door after him. Papa snorted with amusement.
‘Voodoo,’ he said. ‘But not for black folks. For whites only. Valcours was a natural, bein’ as how he purely hated the black man. Wouldn’t have ‘em on his ships. Anyway, ol’ Lucanor set Valcours high in his service, taught him all the secrets, then next thing you know Lucanor ups and disappears, and Valcours, who’s richer than ever by this time, picks up and moves to Bayou Rigaud and builds Maravillosa.’ Papa chuckled. ‘You was askin’ how rich Miss Otille was. Well, she’s ten-twenty times as rich as Valcours, and to show you how well off he was, when his oldest girl got herself engaged, he went and ordered a cargo of spiders from China, special spiders renowned for the intricacy and elegance of their webs, and he set them to weavin’ in the pines linin’ the avenue to the main house. Then he had his servants sprinkle the webs with silver dust and gold dust, all so that daughter of his could walk down the aisle beneath a canopy of unrivalled splendour.’
The wind was blowing more fiercely; rain eeled between the planking and filmed over the pictures and the walls, making them glisten. Jocundra closed and latched the shutters, half-listening to Papa, but listening also for repetitions of the change in Donnell’s voice. He didn’t appear to notice if himself, though it happened frequently, lasting a few seconds, then lapsing, as if he were passing through a strange adolescence. Probably, she thought, it was just a matter of the bacteria having spread to the speech centers; as they occupied the various centers, they operated the functions with more efficiency than normal. Witness his eyes. Still, she found it disturbing. She remembered sneaking into Magnusson’s room and being frightened by his sepulchral tone, and she was beginning to be frightened now. By his voice, the storm, and especially by the story. Fabulous balls and masques had been weekly occurrences at Maravillosa, said Papa; but despite his largesse, Valcours had gained an evil reputation. Tales were borne of sexual perversion and unholy rites; people vanished and were never seen again; zombies were reputed to work his fields, and after his death his body was hacked apart and buried in seven coffins to prevent his return. The story and the storm came to be of a piece in Jocundra’s head, the words howling, the wind drawling, nature and legend joined in the telling, and she had a feeling the walls of the cabin were being squeezed together and they would be crushed, their faces added to the collection of pasted-up images.
‘Valcours’ children spent most of their lives tryin’ to repair the family name,’ said Papa. ‘They founded orphanages, established charities. Maravillosa became a factory of good works. But ol’ Valcours’ spirit seemed to have been reborn in his granddaughter Clothilde. Folks told the same stories ‘bout her they had ‘bout him. And more. Under her stewardship the family fortune grew into an empire, and them-that-knowed said this new money come from gun-runnin’, from white slavery and worse. She was rumored to own opium hells in New Orleans and to hang around the waterfront disguised as a man, a cutthroat by the name of Johnny Perla. It’s a matter of record that she was partners with Abraham Levine. You know. The Parrot King. The ol’ boy who brought in all them Central American birds and set off the epidemic of parrot fever. Thousands of kids dead. But then, right in the prime of life, at the height of her evil doin’s, Clothilde disappeared.’
Papa heaved another sigh, recrossed his legs, and went on to tell how Clothilde’s son, Otille’s father, had followed the example of his grandparents and attempted to restore the family honor through his work on behalf of international Jewry during World War II and his establishment of the Rigaud Foundation for scientific research; how Otille’s childhood had been scandal after scandal capped by the affair of Senator Millman, a weekend guest at Maravillosa, who had been found in bed with Otille, then twelve years old. Donnell leaned against the stove, unreadable behind his mirrored lenses. The storm was lessening, but Jocundra knew it would be a temporary lull. July storms lingered for days. The damp air chilled her, breaking a film of feverish sweat from her brow.