Orfeo (9 page)

“That’s the place,” Baptiste told her. Before he could take a lead she had gone ahead of him and pulled at the grille covering the door. She appeared unsurprised that it was unlocked, though Baptiste already had some idea of the kinds of activities that took place in the building.

They were assaulted by the greasy smells of stale oils and human habitation, and there appeared to be loud sounds coming from a nearby room where music was playing, presumably from a radio. The noise was raucous and for a few seconds Ardyce looked confounded: music had so long been a sign of Orfeo that she instinctively moved forward, but the racket that flooded the hallway where they stood was nothing like that of her lover. Likewise, the laughter and shouting that they heard was coarse, adding further to the confusion that she felt as she stood among the peeling paint and rotten boards of the entrance way.

“Come on,” Baptiste said, squeezing past her. “Follow me.”

As she did so, a door opened and the bellowing noises exploded into the narrow confines of the hall, accompanied by the chaotic smells of life. A young black woman, probably still in her teens and very beautiful, slipped from the door and stood there. She was dressed in a short skirt and a top that covered her small breasts, leaving her waist and navel exposed, and her thick, curly hair was tied back so that her broad forehead shone in the light of the bulb that swung slightly overhead. Though she was only a slight figure her heels made her appear much taller. Her makeup was thickly applied and as she lifted a cigarette to her red lips, concentrating on lighting it, she did not notice them for a while. Before the door closed, the two visitors glimpsed men seated around a table, other women sitting beside them in similar dress as they gambled.

Her cigarette lit, the tip glowing an infernal red, the young girl looked up and frowned as she saw Baptiste and Ardyce. Baptiste continued to move forward but for a few seconds Ardyce appeared to be frozen to the spot. Seeing this, the other woman gave a leer, revealing large, white teeth with a gap at the front.

“You’re here for him, ain’t ya,” she said. It was not a question and Ardyce merely nodded.

Gesturing with the hand that held the cigarette to the stairs behind her, the girl said: “He’s up there. We wondered when you’d come.”

“You know him?” Ardyce asked at last.

“Oh, we all know Orfeo,” she replied. Her look was clear and shrewd, like a trader evaluating a purchase. “Not bad,” she said. “Not bad at all.”

Ardyce was infuriated at this, but Baptiste continued to push past her in the narrow hallway, his chest touching against her shoulders. The young woman lifted up a hand and held him by the lapel of his jacket.

“He’ll be expecting
her
,” she said, her smile more lascivious now. “But I don’t think he’ll take so kindly to
you
. Why not join us, pops? My name’s Janine and I’m sure I can find some fun way for you to while away the time.”

Shaking his head not unkindly, though a little embarrassed, Baptiste declined the offer. “No, thank you. I’ll wait for her.”

The girl frowned and let her hand fall. “What’s wrong with you, man? You queer or something?”

“As a matter of fact,” Baptiste said, tipping his hat in her direction, “my predilections do run that way.”

At this, Janine shrugged, confused by his words and crestfallen by his refusal only for a moment. Then she raised her head and smirked at Ardyce. “You enjoy yourself, sister.” She then opened the door, letting the chaos of the room flood around them for a few seconds before slipping inside.

Ardyce said nothing as she climbed the stairs after Baptiste, seething to herself at the thought of the prostitute linking the two of them in any way. Her anger, however, began to subside after they had climbed two flights of stairs. A third extended up ahead of them and now, as the noise downstairs faded away, she could hear more clearly the sound of a solitary guitar and a voice that she knew so well. Hearing it, she pushed past Baptiste and led the way.

Invisible fingers slid across the frets of the guitar to moan sweetly in a twelve bar blues progression, a sound that was earthy and melancholy at the same time. Orfeo’s voice, emanating unseen from behind the battered red door ahead of her, was deep and rich, sad but also resigned to the music he was creating.

“Hair burning red, as red as a flame,

and eyes so green, as deep as the sea,

your skin so pale I cannot tame—

I burn and I drown when you come to me.”

Both she and Baptiste had paused on the stairs, looking ahead to the door and the scored textures of its wooden frame. Glancing back toward her companion, she saw him suppressing a smile as he stared up at her. “Red hair and green eyes,” he remarked quietly. “I wonder who occupies our friend’s thoughts.”

After giving him a warning frown, she turned her attention back to the door. The music had stopped, and they heard occasional, slightly dissonant noises as though the instrument was being tuned. Although there was part of her that wished to stay here on these steps and listen to that soft baritone and the sliding guitar, Ardyce knew that she had to speak to Orfeo at once. Stepping forward, she rapped sharply on the door.

They both heard a shuffling sound from within and a few seconds later the door was opened. Orfeo’s tall, dark figure filled the doorway and he looked astonished when he saw Ardyce standing before him, Baptiste a few steps below her. He wore only a pair of jeans, his feet long and bare, the toes finely shaped, while his torso rose from a tight V at his waist to his broad shoulders and poised, muscled arms. Because they had surprised him, the elegant features of his face bore an almost childlike quality of innocence, his wide lips parted slightly and his eyes staring at Ardyce with such confusion that she wanted to reach forward and kiss him. Instead she paused and asked quietly: “Can I come in?”

His confusion did not dissipate immediately and he glanced backwards to the room in which he lived with an expression of shame on his face. Ardyce’s heart swelled at this and she placed a hand on his chest very softly. “It’s okay,” she reassured him. “I need to talk to you.”

He nodded at this, still without speaking, and stood to one side to allow her to enter. As he gazed back at Baptiste the older man tipped his hat with a chuckle, his thin moustache rising on his lips as he smiled. “That’s okay, sir,” he remarked. “I’ll wait outside so you two can discuss things together in peace.”

Going into the room Ardyce took in its details with a single, sweeping glance. The place was small, a garret tucked away in the eaves of the house and with a single window that looked out on the street below. The walls were almost bare, paint flaking from them like scars, and a single bed was placed beneath the window. Across from this was an old table against which leaned Orfeo’s guitar, as well as a mismatching chair. His clothes were hung from a single cord which ran across one corner of the room above a basin and mirror, yet though the chamber was poor it was also clean and uncluttered.

Yet Ardyce didn’t care about any of this. As she moved forward into the room while Orfeo closed the door behind her, her attention was drawn to an alcove above the table. A pair of candles guttered within it, their light shining on the surrounding flowers and two charms made from bones, nails and pieces of semi-precious stone. Behind this paraphernalia leaned a photograph in a plain, black frame, showing a beautiful black woman, her eyes looking out toward the camera kindly.

“I’m sorry,” Orfeo said. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have found somewhere else to meet.”

She waved this away and instead gestured toward the photograph. Something about the image affected her strangely and she suddenly realized that she was filled with a faint sense of jealousy. “Is this a woman you loved?” she asked, somewhat more bitterly than she had intended.

He looked at her face intently then, as though he could read her thoughts, he smiled and turned his gaze back to the picture. “My mother,” he said, and with this he could not hold in his deep, low laughter any more. Ardyce blushed and dipped her head.

“But why are you here?” he asked at last, lifting his hands to her shoulders and gently removed her coat. “I would have come again tonight.” He looked around him ruefully. “Xanadu’s a much better place than this hovel.”

By way of response, she turned as he held her coat and threw her arms around him, lifting herself up on her feet and seeking out his mouth with hers. Her kiss was long and urgent and desperate, searching out his spirit and drawing it into herself.

When at last she released him, she let herself down onto her feet again, her arms resting more softly now around his waist. Once more his look was so dumbfounded that she could not help but laugh. “If only you could see yourself now,” she remarked, not unkindly.

“I bet I look a real cooyon,” he muttered.

“That you do, that you do. But none of this matters,” she gestured toward the room with one pale hand. “I don’t care where we find ourselves, as long as you’re here.” She paused and her eyes fell, looking toward the floor anxiously. “Xanadu’s no longer safe for you,” she said.

Orfeo did not speak but simply nodded his head. For a while, both of them were silent until, finally, he said: “And is it safe for you?”

Ardyce gave a slightly nervous smile. “Of course. I don’t worry about Earl—he won’t harm me. He wouldn’t dare! But... but...” her lip began to quiver and tears started to well up in her eyes.

Full of concern, Orfeo guided her to the chair. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked as she sat down.

Suddenly the grief she felt could no longer be repressed and her tears began to stream down her face. “You’ve got to leave, you’ve got to get out of here.”

In response to this, his own face became as hard as stone, carved from rock as he looked down on her. Silently, he shook his head.

“Please!” she pleaded, grappling him with her slender fingers, feeling so weak and powerless but knowing what had to be done. “He’s going to try and find you, and when he does... when he does, he’s going to kill you! I know it!”

Stiffly, Orfeo stood up and looked toward the photograph in its alcove. Unconsciously, he raised one hand and made the sign of the cross over forehead, chest and shoulders, an action which appeared to calm him. When he looked back at her, his face was still resolute but she also saw that his eyes gleamed with a determination that sent a thrill through her.

“I won’t go,” he said, very quietly. “I won’t leave, not with you here.”

Ardyce’s heart felt as though it would burst and she stood out of the chair, looking around her frantically as though searching for something that would convince him of the urgency of her plea. “You must!” she told him. “For me, you must.”

Before she could move too far from him, he reached out a long arm and grabbed hold of her wrist, preventing her fleeing from him. His hand was warm and strong and immediately it calmed her. Carefully, he pulled her back to where he sat on on its threadbare cushion, his dark eyes watching her gently.

“Come with me,” he said softly.

Yes!
she cried out silently, but immediately a thousand doubts beset her. Her home, Xanadu, the city—she had never known anything else. Instead of affirmation, fear filled her mouth. “I can’t,” she replied weakly.

He nodded at this, without speaking, looking up instead at the photograph of his mother. “Then I can’t either,” he said at last.

Ardyce was torn between fear, anger and frustration—fear for Orfeo’s life, anger at his stubbornness, for she could read immediately on his handsome face his sense of resolution, and frustration that she lacked the eloquence to move him.

“I’ve known men like Earl all my life,” he told her, still looking at the picture in its alcove. “Do you know why he calls his men
loa
?” he asked suddenly, throwing her with the arbitrariness of his question.

Confused, she nodded her head. “He told me once. They’re his messengers, his spirits or something. They do his bidding, like voodoo gods.”

Still gazing at the photograph of his mother, Orfeo replied. “The
loa
aren’t gods. They’re intermediaries for the Bondye, the
bon dieu
. There’s nothing good about Earl, and his followers aren’t
loa
. They’re just men.”

“Men with guns and worse!” Ardyce howled, moving rapidly toward him and grabbing hold of his shoulders to shake him. “And if you don’t leave they’re going to kill you!” He refused to be moved by this so she blurted a lie in the hope it would drive him from her: “They’ll kill me too, don’t you understand?”

He stared up at her as she leaned across him, his face unfazed, his gaze clear and unflinching as though he had seen through her words, understood entirely why she spoke. “Come away with me,” he whispered.

Still the fear wouldn’t leave her. “I can’t,” she wept. “I want to, but I can’t!”

She had to make him leave here but she had no idea how. And in that instant it occurred to her that if she succeeded she would never see him again, and between her fear and her grief at the impending loss that must follow she felt that her heart would indeed break in two completely. Crying, she bent her head down to his, lifting his with a gentle finger beneath his jaw. Kissing him so that her tears ran down his cheeks, her lips became faster and harder on his, bruises mixed with the salt that fell from her eyes.