Crescent City (12 page)

She was aware of greeting and being greeted as she mounted the stairs between Ferdinand and Emma and took her seat in their box. Yes, all was falling into place; one had only to sit with head up, smiling, patient, and wait for the great thing to happen. She was conscious of the hard, steady thrust of her heart.

“Look,” whispered Emma, “that’s Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s father. One of the best Jewish families in the city. The son’s a musical genius, you know. He’s been sent to Paris to study. And there are your friends, the de Riveras. She does manage always to look so smart, she must spend a fortune on her clothes.”

Miriam asked about the screened boxes opposite, the inhabitants of which were invisible to the rest of the audience.

“Those are the
loges grillées.
Women in mourning and ladies who are—expecting—can see in privacy without being seen.”

Ferdinand leaned across Emma. He winked at Miriam. He was proud of her, of her dress, and the diamond earrings which he had brought to her that afternoon in a black velvet box. And she was sure he was remembering, as all at once she remembered, that first night in Europe when he had sat by the stove and promised her great things. Now they were here.

“After the performance, of course, we’ll go to Vincent’s for pastry and chocolate,” he said.

The curtain rises now on a stony square in front of the cathedral, far larger and more grand than the one on the Place d’Armes. The music rises with the shimmering of angelic voices; the man’s throbs like the lowest notes of a cello, the woman’s is firm and pure as birdsong. The story unfolds, an old story of love and hatred, of pogroms and death. There is a Passover feast:
O God, God of our fathers,
they sing. So familiar and yet so strange and sad! How can they make an entertainment about death? And yet they can. The music soars and trembles, it thunders and weeps.

Miriam looks about in the darkness and wonders whether anyone beside herself is moved to tears. In the next box people are whispering, not hearing the music; they have come for other reasons, to see and be seen—which is why she’s come, isn’t it? But no more, not now. She is transported. Her heart breaks over the love, the passion, the death.

During the intermission people come to the box and are introduced. She has barely had time to wipe her eyes, and hopes that her nose isn’t red. She bows politely, but does not remember any names, she has forgotten why she is here.

“Rachel.” A man’s voice speaks. He seems to be speaking to her, but she does not understand.

Her father recalls her to reality. “Mr. Mendes called you, Rachel. He pays you a compliment. He thinks you resemble Halévy’s heroine.”

She comes back to the present and thanks the man. She knows she has seen him somewhere before.

“You don’t remember me,” he says.

The tea-colored eyes seem not to blink, so steady is the gaze. They are the most important feature of this face; they are what one would remember about it.

“I said I would see you again when you were sixteen, Miss Miriam.” His voice has authority, it is intense and commanding, like his eyes.

She remembers the afternoon at the bayou and the look of him swinging down the bank, his hand raised in a slight wave as he moves off in the skiff.

“You have grown even more beautiful than I expected you would, Miss Miriam.”

Of course she is pleased. It is the first time a man has spoken to her like this. Yet she finds his words extravagant. She has quite shrewdly analyzed herself: She is supple and graceful, her features are very pleasing, but she is not a beauty. One has only to look over at the adjoining box where the Frothingham sisters sit, they with their masses of golden hair, their Valkyrie faces, to see beauty.

But she smiles in polite acknowledgment just as the curtain is about to rise again. Papa has barely time to remark, once Mr. Mendes is out of hearing, “A distinguished young man. He will go far.”

Fanny said, “If you count all the gray horses you see up to a hundred, you’ll be sure to marry the first man you shake hands with after that.”

Miriam laughed. “That’s silly, Fanny. Who told you such a thing?”

“Miss Eulalie told me, but everyone knows it anyway.”

Beneath the window where the streetlamp threw a circle of fuzzy light into the spring mist stood an open carriage drawn by a gray horse.

“Can you count the same horse over and over or must it be a hundred different horses?”

“You laugh, but it’s true,” replied Fanny, evading the question. “And he’s so tall. I like a tall man.”

Eugene Mendes had been coming to the house for
two weeks past, ever since the night at the opera. In the front parlor he played dominoes and drank port with Papa. Or else, when there were other men present, they played cards. In the back parlor the women played bezique or did macrame. Then over coffee the two groups joined briefly and ended the evening.

“I had a tall boy once,” Fanny said. “I was only thirteen. But he was for me. Then I lost him.”

“That must have been when you came here.”

“Yes, they sold me away, me and Blaise. But I was glad to go, more glad than sorry.” Suddenly Fanny seemed compelled to talk. “My father was a white man, a bachelor, and my mother was a maid in the house. A grand house, too, all brick. But when my mother died my father married a lady, and she hated having me and Blaise around, so she made him sell us. But that was better for us because she was mean. That was one mean woman.”

“Why haven’t you ever told me all this before?” Miriam had thought she knew everything there was to be known of Fanny’s simple life. Fanny was just always there, someone who was kind and to whom you were kind in return.

“Because. You were too young, too innocent. Innocent white child.”

She felt now almost as she had felt at
La Juive,
a piercing sorrow over human pain.

“But that’s so terribly sad, Fanny. To leave your home and your father—”

“He never was a father and the house wasn’t mine. How could it be, how could it be?” Fanny frowned. Then she brightened. “Anyway, they were all Baptists there, and Baptists don’t allow music, they have no dancing. It’s much better for colored people to be Catholic. Blaise doesn’t like being Catholic because the priests don’t allow shouting in church, but I do.
There, your hair’s done. You’d better go downstairs. It’s time.”

As always, Miriam was to spend the first night of Passover at the de Rivera house. Each year Ferdinand received his proper invitation, and each year he found a plausible reason to refuse. Tonight he had not had to stretch his imagination for an excuse, since it was Emma’s birthday.

“Very kind of Mr. Mendes to be calling for you,” he said now as he came upstairs. His eyes sped over his daughter from head to foot.

“Yes,” she said. “Very kind.”

“He’s a religious man. A benefactor-to his fellow Jews.”

She thought ironically, And you forgive him that?

Her father kissed her. “You’re a lovely girl, Miriam. Always feel sure of that.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

“Enjoy yourself.”

“I will, Papa.”

A varied group encircled the table. Gershom Kursheedt, black bearded, with serious eyes, was a biblical figure, an ascetic prophet, if only in appearance. The red-haired Jewish merchant visiting from France with his fashionable, vivacious wife was a figure of worldly assurance. The poor German Jew who taught Hebrew to little boys for a living wore a shabby jacket and an innocent smile. Two Catholics were neighbors and old friends. There were prosperous cousins and lonely strangers, invited because it is required that those who have share with those who have not: “Since we were strangers in the land of Egypt …”

And there was Eugene Mendes, sharing with Kursheedt the center of attention. Miriam was relieved and also disappointed that he was at the other end of
the table. It would be worrisome to make conversation with him all through dinner, holding the conversation exactly right, amusing and witty, yet not too much so. Emma always warned that men don’t like prattling women. Of course, the married ones prattled all the time, but by then probably the man was used to it, or was perhaps so busy talking to other men that he didn’t even hear. So that was a relief. On the other hand, had he not told her, was he not the first and only man who had said: “You are even more beautiful than I expected”?

The ceremony of the Seder moved in orderly progression, for
Seder
means
order.
The host’s amiable face smiled on the company while candle flames made spots of light dance on his spectacles.

“We praise you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe,” he prayed. “You have kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season. Amen.”

The blessings were chanted and everyone raised the first cup of wine. Always at this point came a feeling of warmth, of closeness and peace in this ancient community of Miriam’s people. Thoughts of her mother were interwoven with thoughts of Eugene Mendes. An outstanding citizen …

Rosa whispered, “I met your Aunt Emma on the street She mentioned that Eugene Mendes has been calling.”

“He has been calling on Papa.”

“But surely you must have talked to him. Do you find him agreeable?”

“I hardly know him.” She took a sip of wine.

And the service proceeded. “Let all who are in want come and celebrate the Passover with us.”

Two candles stood tall in the old Spanish silver menorah. The Seder foods, the charoseth, the bitter herb, the shankbone, and the greens were set forth on silver.

Rosa whispered again. Like Aunt Emma she was unable to hold her tongue still for more than a minute.

“We are lucky to have Gershom Kursheedt and to have got rid of Rowley Marks. Such a disgrace. You know Kursheedt is a great admirer of Mr. Mendes. He has great respect for him.”

She wished Rosa would stop whispering. Raising her eyes over the rim of her wineglass, she met Eugene Mendes’s glance. He was talking to the Frenchwoman who had also been looking at Miriam. What could they be saying about her? She looked down at her dress, to the red velvet neckline above her breasts. There was nothing wrong. She touched her earlobes where the little diamond buttons were still safe. No, there was nothing wrong.

Little Herbert, the younger of the de Rivera boys, had now got safely through the Four Questions. The host broke off a piece of matzoh and held it up to lead the blessing. “We praise you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe. You have sanctified us through your commandment that ordained that we should eat unleavened bread.”

Through the general murmur of prayer the voice of Eugene Mendes was distinct, not louder, but vibrant and full, a voice one would remember. And Miriam, taking another swallow of wine, felt her head grow light.

“Schulchen aruch.
The table is set,” Henry said. “Dinner is served.”

Two servants brought in a great tureen and began to ladle out the soup.

Rosa had turned to people on her other side. “Yes, I came overland from Charleston as a bride. It took four weeks by carriage and horseback. Oh, it was a great change, coming here. My family founded the temple in
Charleston, you know. I had so many friends, such deep roots,” she sighed.

“And admirers,” Henry said, overhearing.

“Only one that I ever cared about until you came along, Henry. But he was a Christian,” she said frankly. “And of course I would not marry him. I am like Rebecca Gratz. Her closest companions all her life were in the Christian community and the man she loved was a Christian. But she always said that the members of a family should be of the same faith, and therefore she would not marry him. She remained an unhappy, spinster. As for me, I am glad I did not remain a spinster.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Henry said. “I am glad, too.”

“Rebecca Gratz,” Miriam said shyly, “isn’t it said that she was the inspiration for Rebecca in
Ivanhoe?”

Eugene Mendes caught her question. “Yes, Miss Miriam,” he called out. “It was Washington Irving who told Sir Walter Scott how kindly she had nursed Irving’s fiancée when she was ill.” His smile praised Miriam. “And did you know that Rebecca Gratz warned her brother when he went to New Orleans that it was a godless city, that we Jews here had all lost our faith? But it wasn’t quite true, as you see.”

“Certainly not true of people like yourself, Mr. Mendes,” Gershom Kursheedt affirmed.

Eugene replied, “You do me too much honor.”

“I was referring to your valiant efforts to get Judah Touro to do something for our people, Mr. Mendes.”

“They’ve not come to very much so far. But one tries. He’s an interesting man, at any rate.”

“He would be even more interesting,” Kursheedt observed, “if he would return to his beginnings. You’ve all heard, I suppose, that he’s bought the Christ Church rectory on Canal Street? Gave twenty-five
thousand dollars for it, far more than it’s worth. He might as well have made an outright contribution and been done with it. This in addition to the thousands he gives to the Presbyterians.”

“And when you think,” remarked Henry, “that when we were organizing Shanarai Chasset, he gave practically nothing. And what was worse, didn’t even join.”

Like Papa, Miriam thought, feeling a flash of shame.

“Well,” said Eugene Mendes, “no one denies it’s a fine thing to give charity to all. It’s his not giving to his own as well that rankles.” And he went on, “He’s had quite a history. Arrived here from Boston in 1802 with nothing in his pocket. New Orleans was under Spanish rule then and still under Bienville’s Black Code. Catholicism was the only religion to be tolerated in Louisiana.”

Miriam was engrossed. This conversation was so much more absorbing than Aunt Emma’s trivia at the Raphael table. All heads were turned with respect toward Eugene Mendes, who spoke well in rapid, sparkling sentences.

“Got his wound under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. The man’s been a fighter from the start. Worth a fortune today, of course. Shipping, West Indies rum, tobacco, horses—there’s nothing he doesn’t touch.”

“You’re describing yourself, too,” the host said graciously.

“No, no, I’m hardly in the same class. A long way from Judah Touro.”