Drum (43 page)

Alix ipoved only from her baire-draped bed to her baire tented chair and back again. Titine and the other girls sewec' gossiped, told and retold stories of their patrons, and mar aged—quite successfully while Rachel was out—to entic both Drum and Blaise into the shelter of their protected bed; But Drum was not as easily influenced as Blaise; Calind was sleeping regularly in his bed now. Fearing the poisonou effluvium which was supposed to exude from the ground, h brought Calinda and Drumson up from the closet off th kitchen to his room, and he refused to let Blaise sleep on Hi pallet on the ground floor. Now all four—Drum, Calind: the baby and Blaise—occupied the tiny upstairs room in ih gargonniere with the door and window tightly closed. Druiu

and Calinda had the protection of the mosquito baire which Alix had left there, while little Drumson, who slept beside Blaise on the floor, shared with him a tattered baire which Alix had discarded and Calinda had patiently mended. Rachel, disdaining the protection of a baire for herself or her two girls, claimed that no mosquito had ever bitten her yet, but she did keep a smudge fire burning in an iron pot in the doorway of the kitchen.

Life at the Academy of Music had lost all its carnival gaiety. Days and nights had become a furtive defense against the entry of death, eked out with scanty rations, marred by petulant clashes of temper, and punctuated by plenty of hard work for all. Except of course Alix, who, like a lump of white, unbaked dough, luxuriated in the shelter of her bed, sipping her rich chocolate and eating the delectable omelets and the caramel fians which Rachel prepared for her alone.

After a few days of rest for his bruised limbs, Drum was up and about as usual. The swelling of his face had gone down and the broken nose, although flattened and far from the adornment that it had previously been, did not disfigure Jiim too badly. The chewed ear, to be sure, could never be repaired, but at least the tattered ear and the flattened nose branded him as a fighter, and with these identifying marks of his profession he added a bit of swagger to his walk. He was still champion and now, mon Dieu, the world would not mistake him for a fancy man. But he must keep in training. Fortunately he had Blaise to work out with. Morning runs were out of the question, so they worked out in the courtyard, skipping rope among the hens and cursing their foul droppings when they stepped in them.

It was pleasant working in the cool of the morning, when the gargonniere side of the courtyard was in shadow. They were up before the rest of the house was astir, and down the narrow stairs to the courtyard, damp from the continuous rains, where they fought, wrestled, boxed and pimimeled each other until the sweat ran down their backs in rivulets. Then they doused each other with bucketfuls of water and scrubbed themselves with Rachel's homemade soap. After a rubdown with one of Alix' old towels, they were ready to go into the smoky kitchen for Rachel's breakfast—^there was always plenty to eat even though it might be nothing but strong black coffee to wash down hot cornbread and blackstrap molasses. Always before they reached the end of their practice, they could smell the tantalizing aroma of coffee being

boiled and hot breads being baked. To be sure, there might not be ham or bacon but coffee and bread made a good breakfast and it was a lot more than many in the city had.

"That's enough, Blaise boy." Drum stood still, panting from the spirited opposition Blaise had been giving him. "But you've got to keep your head down. If you come sailing in with your head all cockalorum, you'll get the goddam thing knocked off. Could have done it two or three times this momin'. But keep on and you'll make a pretty good fighter some day. Might even whip me," he said with a wink, cuflBng Blaise.

"Don't want to be a champion. Drum. Like to fight with you, but doin' want to fight anybody else. Don't likes hurting people."

"Didn't mind killing Babouin or Bouc-noir that day,' Drum reminded him.

Blaise reached down furtively, rippling the muscles in his arms like a cat. Before Drum could see what he was doing, he had picked up one of the buckets of water and splashed the contents over him. The cold water made Drum yelp and he dived for Blaise, catching him around the neck. Slowly, and mainly because Blaise did not resist too much, Dnmi forced him to his knees and pushed his head down into the other full bucket. He held it there for nearly a minute, then released him, and as the snorting Blaise straightened up. Drum grabbed the bucket and flung the contents over him.

"Didn't mind killing those varmints." Blaise shook himself like a spaniel. "Had a hard time keeping my hands off that Big'un nigger t'other night. Knew you'd whop him, though.

"I knew it, too, but almost didn't." Drum threw the soggy, towel to Blaise. "Come on, boy, let's eat. Hope Maman's got something besides pone and coffee this morning. I'm hungry."

Blaise mopped himself as dry as he could with the wet towel and slipped into his pants as Drum tied his own single garment around his waist. "Goddam those hens," he cursed, as some fresh droppings squeezed between his clean toes. "I'll wring their goddam necks some day."

But when they reached the kitchen, there was no welcome aroma of coffee, no smell of freshly baked croissants. The kitchen was dark and cool inside. The charcoal fire was out in the stove, and there was no sign of life, except a quiet i sobbing from the comer of the room.

"Maman!" Drum cried out as he ran over to the pallet where Rachel was still stretched out, "Maman!"

Yvette, who was kneeling on the floor beside Rachel, looked up with eyes reddened from crying. She struggled to her feet, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"She's sick, she is, M'sieur Drum. Awful sick, Rachel is. Cain't wake she up. She won' talk, neither'll Marie."

Drum took a step backward, treading on Blaise's toes.

"You mean. . . ." He was afraid to ask.

"Bronze John done come heah." Yvette, now that she had an appreciative audience, was wailing loudly. "Bronze John done come heah and tooken our Rachel an' Marie."

"She's not dead?" Drum's momentary fear of the disease had departed.

"Dunno, M'sieur Drum. I jest woken. She's eyes closed and she out'n her haid and she fearful hot. She been a-raving. So's Marie, only she worsen Rachel. She a-pukin' blood all ovah de floah."

Rachel and Marie were" stretched out on the pallet, Rachel decently clothed in a " Idpg white nightgown, Marie as naked as the wailing Yvette. Drum cursed himself inwardly. Even in his feaf and anxiety, he could not but notice how Yvette's young breasts hung down and he ached to touch them even before he laid a hand on his mother's forehead. He dismissed the temptation. Maman was sick! What a cur he was, even to think of playing with a wench's titties when his own mother was dying. Yes, his mother was dying! He knew it. Suddenly the whole bottom dropped out of his world.

"Maman." He flung himself on the floor beside her, pushing Yvette back. Her body had the same stovelike heat that Big 'un's had had. Her eyes were closed and there was a drool of bloody saliva at the corner of her mouth. The skin of her face was blotched with large red stains, the veins distended as if about to break. Each breath was painfully drawn through gaping purple lips as though it were an ordeal of heavy labor. The girl beside her was in the same condition, lying senseless in her own vomit.

"Get busy," Drum jumped to his feet and slapped the wailing Yvette to bring her to her senses. "Call Calinda!" Then he wondered why he wanted the girl to get busy. There was nothing she could do. But surely someone could do something to save his mother. "Start the fire and get something for breakfast. Make coffee! And you, Blaise, go to one of the empty rooms on the second floor and take down the bed.

Bring bed and mattress down here and set it up over in the comer. I'll not have my mother die on the floor."

"Madame?" Blaise questioned.

'To hell with Madame!" Drum was impatient. "It's my mother that's sick."

"Cain't cook nothin'." Yvette was trying to kindle a firef with Rachel's tinder box. "She's allays a-done it. Don' know* how."

"Well, goddam it, leam, and put on some clothes."

"Madame want she's breakfus'." Yvette's hands managed a flame which caught onto the charcoal. "Chocolate she's a-wantin'."

"Then let the old bitch come down and get it herself. Let her keep on ringing till her goddam hand falls oflf. Go up to my room and wake Calinda. She knows how to cook."

Yvette and Blaise collided in the door, bent on their separate errands. As they met, Blaise, no longer fearful of Rachel, lifted her in his arms, swimg her around and kissed her before he set her down. She squealed and tried to fight him off but Drum did not notice. With the fire burning, he put a kettle of water on to heat. From the line which hung over the stove he grabbed a dish towel, soaked it in cold water and tenderly sponged Rachel's face, wringing out the towel and dipping it in the water again and laying it across her fore head. Slowly she opened her eyes.

"Tamboura!" She gazed at Drum with eyes that mingled hatred and fear.

"What you say, maman?" Drum bent low to hear her, "Yes, Tamboura—Drum, that's me, maman. Oh, maman you're going to be all right. You've got to be!"

Her words were hard to understand and her language was so garbled that half of her sentences were unintelligible. She was somewhere far away, certainly not on the floor ir Alix' kitchen. It dawned on Drum that the reason he coulc not understand some of the things she was saying was thai she was talking in a foreign language. From the few words h€ knew, he thought it might be Spanish.

"Don't talk, maman, save your strength." Drum raised hei head a bit to smooth the pillow beneath it. As he did, ht noticed that the girl beside her was no longer breathing. She was dead. As Drum raised Rachel's head, she retched, tht vomit staining her nightgown. Drum heard a footstep behinc him and looked up over his shoulder to see Calinda. He mo

tioned to her to come to him and pointed to the dead girl beside Rachel.

"She's dead." His voice was nonconmiital, "Cover her up and see if you can get that stupid Yvette to make some cofifee. Might do maman good."

"Nothin' gonna do her no good, mon cher. Bronze John taken her." Calinda had never been overfond of Rachel. She pretended no grief. "But I am not afraid. I'll nurse her."

Blaise lumbered through the doorway with the heavy mahogany headboard of a bed.

"Madame sure is raising holy hell. She says what's going on in this house of hers."

"Tell her Rachel's sick with yellow fever. That'll shut her up."

Blaise left with the message and to get the remainder of the bed. By the time he had carried it all downstairs, and set it up, Alix, still in her nightgown, appeared in the kitchen.

"Who told that ignoramus to burst into one of my rooms and take down the bed?" she demanded.

"I did." Drum matched his tone to hers.

"Don't get too biggity," Alix reminded him. "I can have you stripped down, remember that."

"Strip me down if you want to." Drum pointed to Rachel. "Maman's sick. She's slept on a pallet on the floor all her life and if she's going to die, she's going to die in a bed, even if it's a whore's bed."

"Hold your tongue! Don't sass me." Alix came hesitatingly across the floor. "Rachel, oh, Rachel!"

The familiar voice penetrated the dark eddies of Rachel's unconsciousness. She opened her eyes and this time Drum knew that she recognized them. She was back in New Orleans.

"Madame." She was speaking French and her words came with difficulty, "Your breakfast will be late this morning. I will get it soon. Please go back to bed and I will bring it up to you."

"It's all right, Rachel," Alix said tenderly. "You just stay there. Calinda'll get it for me."

Drum and Blaise lifted Rachel from the pallet and placed her on the bed. Alix followed them and with *& peremptory ■nod of her head she dismissed Blaise, who went over to the far side of the kitchen to stand beside the stove with Calinda and Yvette.

Rachel closed her eyes wearily.

"Maman," Drum cried out, "maman, don' leave me."

Slowly the sick woman's eyes opened. Her hand struggled to move. She could not lift it more than a few inches.

"Not . . . your . . . mother, Dnmi." The words came slowly. The hand resolved itself into a pointing finger. "She's . . . your . . . mother." The finger pointed to Alix.

Drum turned quickly to stare at Alix.

"You?"

Alix came and stood beside him, and reaching down, lifted Rachel's hand.

"Rachel's dead, Drum." Alix was crying. He had never seen her weep before. He had not thought it possible.

"But she said you were my mother."

"Dying people often say strange things, Drum."

"But they do not lie. Tell me, madame, tell me the truth, or by God, I'll choke you." He jumped toward her, hands outstretched.

Her brief sobbing was over and she cowed him with a glance.

"Don't threaten me. Don't touch me. Don't forget what you are—a slave. Your father .forgot and he was whipped to death."

"Whipped to death? Because of you?" Drum lost all fear of the fat white woman and her threats. He stared straight at her. The widespread fingers of his hands were trembling.

Alix was frightened. She sensed that his underlying hatred of her was inflamed by his sorrow. Her hand went up but instead of brushing^ his away, she laid it tenderly on his cheek.

"If you kill me now. Drum, the whole world will say that Alix de Vaux was murdered by her nigger slave. Yes, that's what the world will say, but only you and I will know that Alix de Vaux was murdered by her own mulatto son."

Drum's hands dropped to his sides.

"Then it's true! You are my mother!"

"Yes." She took refuge in tears, hoping to gain his sympathy, although she sensed that the moment of danger had passed.

"And my father?"

"Tamboura. Your father would have been a king in Africa and he was the handsomest man, black or white, that ever Uved."

Drum dropped to his knees beside the bed. His hand sought that of Rachel's, still warm.