Drum (26 page)

"Then you'll send Drum to me tomorrow?"

"He's nothing to wear except his work clothes. But he\ done enough work for me during the last five years. I cai dress him up for you."

"It is your suggestion, Dominique. I have not aske* you, but if you are going to dress him, dress him as well a: Bastille Croquere, the quadroon fencing master. They say he*; the handsomest and best-dressed man in New Orleans. FroD now on, Drum should have that distinction."

"Agreed, but give me a week to have his clothes madd I'll guarantee you that he'll outshine Bastille." He offered he his big hand and she heaved herself up from her chair. Thei with her arm around his waist, she walked with him to th door.

"I'll grant the week. Wurtzbourg will have to wait fc

dram

185

Onesime. You've been a good friend, Dominique, since those first difl&cult days when I arrived in New Orleans from Havana." ^

"I'd have married you then, Alix, if you'd have had me.

"And lucky for you I didn't. You'd have had one hell of a life with me as Madame You." She squeezed his hand and saw him out.

chapter ii

Onesime awoke with a start. The bright, mid-morning sim was flooding his tiny room in the garconniere —^that two-story wooden structure which stood in every courtyard to house slaves below and bachelor sons above. He looked questioningly at the bell which was even now jangling faintly on its coiled spring. Who could be ringing madame's front door bell—the small bell in his room was hooked to the big bell in the porte-cochere—at the imgodly hour of ten o'clock in the morning? Tradesmen and slaves always came to the rear door and nobody, certainly nobody in all New Orleans, would be a customer at this hovu-. Not one of tiie girls would be up and madame would just now be having her morning chocolate. Aie! what a night last night! He was glad madame had sold him. He just couldn't satisfy any more, try as he might.

He rolled out of the narrow cot and grabbed the cotton trousers which were in a heap on the floor. Onesime was a big man, darkly negroid but handsome in a brutish way. His once flat belly was already showing a layer of fat and his years at the Academy of Music had creased his face with heavy lines and given him puflfy bags imder his eyes. Without waiting to put on shirt or shoes, he slipped out the "I door, down the narrow flight of wooden stairs, which he had to negotiate sideways, because of his wide shoulders, and across the courtyard, choosing the side where the sun had dried and warmed the flagging for his bare feet. Oncel again the bell pealed out and he saw Rachel's prim black dress, approaching the second-floor balcony.

"Answer that bell, you lazy nigger," she called down, her own curiosity making her voice petulant. "We're not getting rid of you any too soon. Hurryl Movel Shake the dead lice oflTn you."

He glared up at Rachel with whom he had carried on a feud of long standing. "Shut up, you ol' black crow," he

muttered, but quickened his step and passed into the cool shadows of the deep porte-cochere, the carriage entrance that led from the street to the courtyard. For a moment he fumbled with the bolts of the little door in the carriage gate. When he got it open, he was surprised to see an extremely handsome, young, bright-skinned mulatto, dressed in the height of fashion, standing outside.

"What yo' want, boy?" On6sime lapsed into Gombo—that colloquial French patois which the slaves had so bastardized that it had very little relation to its parent language.

"And what do you think I want, you goddamned griffe?" The answer came back in perfectly accented French. "When a man rings the bell, he usually desires admittance, hein? And stop speaking Gombo to me. You know French."

"Niggers like as yo' go roun to de back do'." On^sime cast a disparaging look at the yoimg fellow, making a quick note of his light-bronze color. Onesime being a griffe with less white blood than a mulatto enjoyed any opportunity to insult one whiter than himself, "TapS court" he continued in Gombo and jerked his thumb down the street while he made a motion to close the door. But the toe of a varnished boot made an entering wedge and a fist in a lemon-colored kid glove shot out, catching the unsuspecting Onesime just under the jaw. He fell, and the young mulatto stepped over him, inside the porte-cochere, and closed the door behind him. The varnished boot caught Onesime in the groin and he sat up, howling.

"Niggers like you better keep a civil tongue in their heads,'* the young fellow grinned, caressing his kid-gloved right hand with the left. "Now get up, stop your bawling and announce me to madame. Shame on you! Does she permit you to go around here half dressed?"

"Yes, man." Onesime wagged his head. "Sometimes I all dressed, sometimes I dressed like this, sometimes I buck nekkid. I 'nounce you." He struggled to his feet and took a closer look at the stranger. "I knows you, manl You Druml How come you all dressed up so pretty like and what you mean hittin' On^ime? Man, I dandled you on my lap when you nothin' mo' dan a skinny li'l runt. How come yo' so danm uppity now? Yo' nothin' but a slave same's me. Yo* want to see yo' mama o' yo' wan' see Madame Alix?"

"Madame first, then my mother," Drum pulled a white linen handkerchief from his sleeve to flick the dust from his boot. But as it seemed this might soil the kerchief, he re-

placed it and calmly proceeded to rub his boots up and down Onesime's cotton-clad legs. "Whew! You're damn musky, man. Don't you ever take a bath?"

"Didn't get to bed till five this mornin', then you wakes me at ten. No time to wash me. Tape court. You knows de way here, you Uve here long 'nough when you's a boy. You allays was a mean bastard, Drum."

"And always will be, I reckon," Drum grinned.

The voices had brought Rachel down the stairs and into the courtyard. Now, as Drum stepped out from the obscurity of the passage into the full sunlight, she recognized him and ran across the flagging, her arms outstretched to welcome him. Tall as she was, she came only to his shoulders.

His air of bravado disappeared as he hugged her, lifting her feet from the stones and swinging her until she beat his chest with her hands.

"Drum! Drum boy!" Rachel proved that she could smile and even laugh. "Put me down, put me down! Whatever would the girls here think if they saw me being hugged by a handsome young fellow like you?"

"Not until I kiss you, maman" which he proceeded to do, "and kiss you again. Oh, it's so good to see you, maman, and to know that I'm going to be with you now. Just seeing you for a few hours once a month hasn't been enough." He lowered her to her feet and leaned down to whisper in her ear, "How's the old hell-cat?"

"Sh-h-h." she cautioned, looking up at him, pleading with her eyes. "Oh, Drum boy, do try to get along with mad-ame. She's good, really she is, and if you just try to get along with her, it will be much easier. You used to aggravate her so before she sent you to Dominique. I was always so afraid she would have you whipped."

"She's an old bitch and you know it, maman. She sits up there and gets fatter and richer all the time while you do all the work and what do you get out of it—one black dress a year."

Rachel laid one thin hand tenderly against his cheek. "Drum boy, remember one thing. I am her slave and so are you. She's a woman of many faults and a violent temper but you can handle her if you make it a point always to agree with her. Don't oppose her. She would as soon send you to the whips as look at you and"—she cautioned him to be quiet—"she can do it if she wants to and there's nothing in the world you can do about it. You shouldn't have

come to the front door this morning; you shouldn't have hit Onesime; you shouldn't feel, because Dominique You has dressed you up, that you are a free man of color. You aren't. Drum boy, you're just a slave like your mama and if madame wants to, she can sell you tomorrow, just as she has already sold Onesime."

Drum turned to where Onesime was still standing.

"She's sold you, Onesime?"

"She sho has, Drum. I gettin' out jes' as soon as de new masta, M'sieur Wurtzbourg, come to town fur me,"

Drum was all repentance. His gloved hand rested for a moment on On6sime's bare shoulder. He spoke softly without his usual bravado and to show his feelings, he spoke in Gombo.

"Mo triste. I'm sorry, Onesime. Do you hate to go?"

"Oui, Drum. Some ways. I bin here ten year and this my home, but maybe glad to go. Ev'y nigger buck in N'Orleans envious of me 'cause they thinks I lay de white whores ev'y night. M'sieur Wurtzbourg nice man, he is. I mix plenty drinks for him. He say, Onesime, you come by my plantation, you mix drinks, I get drunk all-a time."

"Rachel!" Alix' strident voice called down from the bedroom on the second floor. "What is all this fuss? Come here at once and tell me what's going on."

"We better go, Drum. Madame's all flittery and when she get flittery, all hell to pay." Onesime started back to his own quarters.

Rachel stood back the better to admire Drum. She straightened the heavy black silk stock, brushed a wisp of his hair back from his forehead and then motioned to him to follow her up the flight of wooden stairs along the balcony to the door of Alix' bedroom. They stepped from the brightness of the balcony to the darkness of the room.

"Who was making all that commotion?" Alix was propped up in bed, sipping her chocolate from a tall cup, the crumpled sheets of L'Ami des Lois, New Orleans' most scandalous newspaper, on the floor. She peered through the mosquito baire to see the two silhouettes in the doorway—the emaciated form of Rachel and the tall broad shoulders of a man behind her. "Who is it, Rachel? Whom are you bringing here? Mon Dieu, and me in bed with my hair in curlers."

"It does not matter, madame. It is only Drum."

"Drum? Since when does Drum come ringing my front door beU?"

"Since today, madame." Drum came into the room, a protective arm around Rachel. "The alley behind the house is a foot deep in dust and it hardly seemed fitting for the new clothes that Dominique You gave me to be soiled on the first day I wore them,"

"Drum, is that you in all that elegance?" Alix parted the mosquito netting. "Rachel, open the shutters. I must see him."

Rachel crept out from under Drum's arm and ran to the other side of the room. As the shutters opened, Alix pulled back the baire entirely. The light of the sun fell full on Drum.

Alix had not seen her son in several months. The last time she had glimpsed him, sitting in the kitchen on one of his monthly Sunday afternoon calls on Rachel, she had hardly noticed him, occupied as she was in raging against the cook. She had been aware that he was a big fellow, with more than average good looks, but in his coarse cotton shirt and baggy breeches, he had failed to impress her. Now, vraiment, here was a dififerent fellow. The picturesque raiment Dominique had chosen for him lifted him far above the ordinary.

He wore a bright green broadcloth coat, cut square across the waist, dropping in two long tails behind, almost to the backs of his knees. Its high rolled collar and broad reveres were of pale yellow satin, parting to show a spotless linen shirt. Around his neck was wound a high black silk cravat, tied in a bow in front and embellished with a cameo. Pale-yellow broadcloth trousers, enclosing his legs like the skin of a sausage, were strapped under the instep of high-heeled boots which lifted his height another two inches above the six feet two he stood in his stocking feet. A handkerchief protruded from the cuff of one sleeve and a bracelet of cameos, each the size of a silver dollar, showed on the other wrist. Despite the gay colors and feminine accouterments, there was no doubt of his masculinity. The broad shoulders of the coat had needed no padding, the black cravat was strained around the thick neck and the sash, pulled as tightly as it was, caused no bulge over its top.

Albi looked from the clothes to the face. Once again she saw Tamboura in the short nose, the wide black brows and the sensuous lips, but it was a refined Tamboura with smaller nostrils, narrower lips more prominently curved and, most noticeable of all, glowing skin which approached the color of amber instead of the darker hue of the father. Where Tamboura's kinky wool had separated into tiny peppercorns

all over his head, Drum's hair was longer, straighter, and instead of a dull dead black it was lustrous and shining. It grew low on his forehead, and in accordance with the mode of the day he had allowed it to grow far down at the sides, shaving it precisely so that the sharp points extended out onto his cheeks. As Alix studied his face, she was appalled to see a ghost of herself mingled with Tamboura. The high cheekbones of the father were missing and in the contours of Drum's face there was a suggestion of hers. She wondered if anyone else would notice this almost hidden resemblance. It was not probable.

"Come closer. Drum." Alix signaled to Rachel to prop her up higher in the bed with pillows and handed the chocolate cup to her. "Come closer. Stand here where I can get a better look at you. Dominique has kept his word. You are better dressed than Bastille Croquere and, I vow, better looking."

"My clothes were made by Bastille's own tailor." Drum reached out his arm. "I've even got one of Bastille's bracelets and one of his pins. Dominique bought them for me."

"You're goddamned elegant." Alix nodded her head in approval, making a mental calculation of how much she had saved by letting Dominique dress him. "But don't get any notions into your head, Drum. You're here to work. Understand?"

"Oui, madame." Drum bowed correctly from the waist.

"And don't get big-headed just becuse you're dressed like Bastille Croquere and think you're a free man of color Uke him. You're not. You're not a fencing master and you're not free. Let's be perfectly clear about this, boy. You're a slave and you belong to me. Is that understood?"

"Oui, madame." Drum bowed again.

"Rachel." Alix pointed to the door. "Go to On€sime's room and get a clean pair of pants and a shirt. They ought to fit Drum even though he's bigger than Onesime. Bring them back here."

"Here, madame?" Rachel questioned.

"Herel You heard me. Now go, and on the way, go up and stop at Titine's room. Wake her and tell her to put on a robe de chambre and come here."