“You kept walking through the crowd. I wanted to call out, but I was afraid it wasn’t you.”
“I thought you were in Spain or someplace.”
“I was. What are you doing here?”
“I’m not sure. I was leaving when I saw you,” he said.
“Don’t leave.”
“I’m not.”
“Let’s go outside. It’s too loud in here.”
“I’ve tried. Couldn’t make the door.”
“We can go out through the kitchen,” she said.
They went out through a back door that opened onto the balcony over the courtyard. The air was cool, and the moonlight fell on the tile roofing of the buildings.
“I didn’t believe it was you. You look changed,” she said.
“You look good,” he said. She really did. She had never looked so good.
“It’s been awfully long since we’ve seen each other.”
“Did you like Spain?”
“I loved it.”
“Are you living here now?”
“Over on Dauphine. Another girl and I rented a studio. You have to see it. It’s like something out of nineteenth-century Paris.”
They sat on the stone steps leading down to the court.
“I’m one of those sidewalk artists you see in Pirates Alley,” she said. “Daddy was furious when he found out. He said he would stop my allowance.”
“He won’t.”
“I know. He always threatens to do it, and then he sends another check to apologize.”
He looked at her profile in the darkness. She kept her face turned slightly away from him when she talked. The light from the paper lanterns caught in her hair. He wished he had not drunk as much as he had. He was trying very hard to act sober.
“I came with some fellow named Wally. He put a drink in my hand and I never saw him again.”
“How in the world did you meet Wally?”
“He was broke. I lent him a dime.”
“One night he went down Bourbon asking donations for the Salvation Army.”
“What happened?”
“He used the money to buy two winos a drink in The Famous Door.”
A couple brushed past them down the steps. Others followed them. Part of the party was moving outside. Wally came out on the balcony and called down.
“Who in the hell would read a bunch of Russian moralists?”
“Let’s go to the Café du Monde,” Suzanne said. “They have wonderful pastry and coffee, and we can sit outside at the tables.”
“What about the people you’re with?”
“I’ve been trying to get away from them all evening. They come down from L.S.U. to see the bohemians.”
They left the party and walked towards the French Market through the brick and cobbled streets. They passed the rows of stucco buildings that had once been the homes of the French and Spanish aristocracy, and which were now gutted and remodeled into bars, whorehouses, tattoo parlors, burlesque theaters, upper-class restaurants, and nightclubs that catered to homosexuals. They could hear the loud music from Bourbon and the noise of the people on the sidewalk and the spielers in front of the bars calling in the tourists, who did not know or care who had built the Quarter.
“I didn’t find out what happened to you until I came back from Spain,” she said. “I’m very sorry.”
“It’s over now.”
“I couldn’t believe it when Daddy told me. It seems so unfair.”
“I did a year. They might have kept me for three.’
“Was it very bad?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I wish I had known. I was enjoying myself, and you were in one of those camps.”
“I’m finished with it now.”
“It makes me feel awful to think of you in there.”
“You’re a good girl.”
“It must have been terrible.”
“It was worse for some of the others,” he said.
“I couldn’t bear thinking about you in a prison.”
They walked across Jackson Square through the park and crossed the street to the Café du Monde. They sat outside at one of the tables. There was a breeze from the river. The waiter in a white jacket brought them coffee and a dish of pastry.
“We never wrote to each other after my first year in college,” she said. “I wanted to write but anything I could say seemed inadequate.”
“I wasn’t sure you wanted to hear from me.”
“You know I did. It all went to nothing over such small things.”
“I passed out on the beach in Biloxi.”
“I wasn’t angry. It just hurt me to see you do it to yourself.”
“I felt like hell when I saw the way you looked the next morning,” he said.
“I didn’t sleep all night. I was so worried over you.”
“You were always a good girl.”
“Stop it.”
“You were always damn good-looking too.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Avery.”
“Did you see those men turn and look at you in the park?”
“You’re being unfair.”
“Why are you so damn good-looking?” he said.
“I want to show you my apartment. Can you come over tomorrow evening for supper?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Can you come?”
“All right.”
“I cook beautifully. My roommate refuses to eat with me.”
“Good. Tell her to leave.”
“What were you drinking tonight?” she said.
“I thought I fooled you.”
“Your face was white. I was afraid to light a cigarette near you.”
“Tell your roommate to leave, anyway.”
“You’re still tight.”
“Dago red leaves me like this for a couple of days.”
“It’s good to be with you again, Avery.”
“Let’s walk home,” he said.
Book three
When the sun begins to shine
Toussaint Boudreaux
They were clearing a field of stumps the day he escaped. Toussaint waited with the team of mules while Brother Samuel cut the stump from its roots with a chain saw. The field looked flat and bare with the trees cut down. Pieces of splintered wood were strewn over the ground. The air was loud with the knock of the axes and the whine of the saws. There was a big pile of brush burning on the edge of the field. Samuel put down the saw and chopped the remaining roots loose with an axe. His mud-colored face was slick with heat. He rested on one knee and swung the axe down over his shoulder. Toussaint backed up the mules and fastened the chains around the stump. Easing the mules forward, he let them tighten against their harness, then slapped the reins down on their backs; they strained for a moment and then pulled the stump free. He and Samuel took up their axes and split it in pieces to put in the wheelbarrow.
“You ain’t talking today,” Brother Samuel said.
“Got something on my mind,” Toussaint said.
Most of the gangs were working at the other end of the field. Evans was the only guard close by. He stood off to the side of the burning brush, from where he could see all his men. The fire was very hot. Toussaint rolled the wheelbarrow past Evans and began throwing pieces of the stump into the flames. He looked back across the field. It was almost time for lunch and the other guards were taking their gangs back to the road to wait for the food truck.
The fringe of the woods was just behind the brash pile. Toussaint left a thick piece of tree limb in the bottom of the wheelbarrow. Evans stood about thirty yards away in his khaki uniform and cork sun helmet. He took off his helmet and wiped the inside of it with his handkerchief. Toussaint knew that once he was past Evans he could get across the short span of ground into the safety of the trees before the other guards realized anyone had escaped. He looked back across the field again. None of the other guards was looking this way. He pushed the wheelbarrow along the rutted ground until he was opposite Evans. He let the wheelbarrow drop on its side, and knelt with his back to the guard and wrenched the rubber tire from the wheel.