The Saint Louisans (12 page)

So, in Margot's kind, patrician voice, war was declared. I needed to peel away the layers of the angel noire and get to the bottom. Another acorn fell from above and tapped on the patio.

My bathroom resembles a jungle. A row of ferns flank the windowsill, a philodendron hangs from the curtain rod. Betwixt loo and tub (which sounds like a British comedy team), stands a Boston fern that was a Walmart reject, but I nursed it to where it looks like it belongs on a New Orleans balcony, full, lush, sweeping. A Madagascar dragon is under the sink. When I bathe on a sunny day without my glasses on, the walls blur with the green, and it's Tahiti with porcelain instead of sand. Now, I closed my eyes, sank into the tub, twirled a glass of Merlot, and tried to sort things out as I enjoyed the steam.

I used to write letters in the tub, and more than once Pierce compared me to David's
Death of Murat
, except that I lack Murat's debilitating skin condition, bloody knife on the floor, mortal wound to one side. Nor do I have a political agenda. Until now.

Saul rang me up to confirm Vess Moot was having a rally at City Hall to pump for Juneteenth Towne. Pierre, my new half-brother, was planning to speak in its favor. I promised I'd meet with him, and try to mend the family. My family. Wow, that sounds weird.

A chill under my ass made me turn on the hot water, savoring the warm tickle going from toes to nethers, swirling my back, and I couldn't help but remember when bath time with little ones was … an adventure. Especially with Jama.

I remember her dipping her mouth into the tub, coming up, looking at me so innocently, and then spitting water at me. “You'll get soap in your
mouth,” I always warned, and she'd giggle in that mischievous way of hers. She had been a happy child, and I could picture her: a towel wrapped around her slim seven-year-old body, hair lank and plastered behind her ears and thin shoulders. I could see her kneeling on the floor squeezing the rubber elephant she always played with in the tub. At seven, she was already a handful.

“Which is for the best,” I'd say, “since you've got a potty mouth.”

“I don't,” she said in her who … me? voice, “I just say what other kids say. Like ‘bitch. And shit.'”

“Let's watch that, okay?”

Jama's blue eyes would sparkle when she tried to put on a good show, when she was in her usual mood for testing limits. Her shoulders were girly skinny, but I saw where they'd blossom. Kiddo, you're going to be a heartbreaker.

“That's what you say. And Daddy.”

“Let's all try to be better. Okay?”

She climbed up on the sink and wiped the mirror clean of steam and primped. “And … ‘cunt.'”

Jama!”

“It's what Daddy calls Cori.”

I sighed at the memory, and turned the hot water off. Cori had been a fellow nurse on the floor. Sky thought she was too big for her britches, as I suspected he thought I was, too. Our marriage was unraveling with the speed of toilet paper rolls tossed over treetops at Halloween. That night, as Jama studied her face in the mirror, I said, “Look, kiddo, I'm not cracking the whip, but please. Watch. Your. Language.”

Of course Jama didn't fight back. Not yet. She outflanked larger prey. Her gaze of prepubescent rationality made her eyes worldly-wise. I changed the subject.

“What about the elements? You're learning them, right?”

“Yeah.” Jama leaned back, her boring stuff slouch. “There's hydrogen. Oxygen.” She cups water and drops it. “Tungsten.”

“Tungsten? That's way up there.”

“Yeah. It's also called wolfram. I like it 'cause it reminds me of were-wolves.” Her jaws open and she fangs me. Jama looks up and frowns. Knocking came from behind the door.

“Daddy! Mommy's nekkid!”

Sky laughed on the other side, sounding more country and western the older he got. Jama got the dialect from his family, who aren't Hoosiers but real hillbillies down in Iron County. It's a step up, but not much. “I know Mommy's nekkid,” Sky said. “One of the things I like about her. I heard both of you talking dirty.”

“One of us wasn't,” I said as Jama ducked. “You know, Cori isn't all that bad.”

“Sure, just ask her,” Sky said with a laugh.

When we dated, Sky was an orderly who had a paperback of Camus stuck in his back pocket, a man who gave me an extraordinary view of life for someone who barely graduated from high school. As our marriage deteriorated, he seemed to slip back into hillbilly. Impatient with printed matter, unless it was military history or under one hundred pages, he mocked my pretensions to travel, culture, enlightenment.

“Look,” he said, “I'm going over to Wayne's. He's got to get that carburetor fixed, and I'm going to bail him out.”

Jama shouted at the door. “Take Mommy. She can fix them.”

Sky laughed. “That was a fuel pump, not a carburetor.”

“Let that be my epitaph. ‘She fixed her own fuel pump, but thought it was a carburetor.'”

“Want me to pick up Pierce?”

“He said Doug's father would drive them home after practice. Maybe stop at Steak 'n Shake.”

“I wanna go!”

“Like hell,” Sky said. “Stay here and prune with Mommy.”

Jama frowned. “Let's go to Imo's. I want pizza.”

“Hey,” I raised my voice to Sky, “the language?” I heard him put on his jacket.

“Imo's!” Jama said with arms wide, as if auditioning. Sky talked from behind the door.

“You and water. You gonna stay in there all night, turning into the old ladies?”

Jama and I both loved our baths, and I had taken my love of water to work. Sky's remark was half-mocking, but I had started doing water therapy with several of my patients, much as I did an experiment in poolside birth,
where midwives delivered a baby into the water, easing pain and discomfort. I assisted and thought it beautiful. Sky thought it was crackpot. He thought much the same of water therapy. White-haired, slattern-fleshed women doing exercises in the pool to soothe arthritic limbs or replaced hips that made them move like turtles on land, but once immersed, became guppies. I especially helped Dotie Winders.

Her doughy skin and drooping cheeks contrasted with my firm body, but Dotie gripped like Jama when we exercised, sparkling light reflecting off the ceiling and walls. She sniffed chlorine and grinned.

“So much fun.”

“Sure. Let's grab our ankles and float.”

Dotie did, and floated like a jellyfish. “So good. Let's do something else, Lethe.”

I took her in my arms and we did a sidestroke. Alzheimer's wiped out Dotie's mind, and swimming was when she came to life. She malaproped my name from Lee to Lethe … those waters of Hades where one drank, forgot the past, and dissolved into oblivion. I took Dotie's wrists.

“We'll go backwards.”

“I've never gone backwards before.”

We'd go backwards every time we did therapy. To Dotie it was always fresh, new, childlike. Four months later, she became bedridden. Then the deathwatch began.

We came from the sea. Our sperm swim into the uterus to make life. Thales, one of the earliest Greek philosophers, said all things originate from water. Dotie happily mistook me for Lethe as she enjoyed the pleasure of water. Margot will become like that, losing her memory and life as she dies. Now, I am her family, and must cleanse the mistakes of her children before her own Lethe begins.

The water in the tub cooled again. I was relaxed and pruny enough, I decided. I reached for the towel.

St. Louis City Hall sits at the corner of Tucker and Market streets, the hub of the government quarter. It is an imposing burgher's fortress of native red granite and French Renaissance features. Flanking it are the federal
and civil courts buildings, all solid, twentieth-century stabs at the neoclassical. Across the street, the box-like simplicity of Soldier's Memorial. All tombstone gray facades of pillars and civic dignity. Before City Hall came shouts.

“Juneteenth! Juneteeneth! The people for Juneteenth!”

Saul and I watched the crowd parrot Vess Moot as he raised his fist and cried into the bullhorn. As always, his sartorial habit was one of expensive cuff links and rings matching his cries. If voices could glow, Vess was shiny brass, leading his people, the Coalition for Urban Transformation. CUT.

“No more standing in line! No more back of the bus!”

“No mo'! No mo'!”

“This is our moment! This is our glory! Tell the story!”

“This our glory! Tell the story!”

Vess broke from the circle to greet the news folk, mics ready like electronic lollipops to be licked. Saul sung the joyous crusade song from
Les Miz
under his breath, sarcastically making youthful hope Brechtian as he guided me around the circle to City Hall and right into Sonia Sauvage. She wore a heavy coat that enhanced her stern and majestic bearing. It was like bumping into fate. Saul frowned back.

“Sonia. Surprised seeing you here.”

She tossed her hair and nodded. “Are you? Then you know nothing of my importance. The Cahokia exhibit is partly due to my insistence.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, “taking the credit for everything, as always.”

“Racism is the crown of thorns St. Louis chooses. A crown of justice is our right.” Vess's voice boomed over the bullhorn.

Sonia looked at me. “You are the woman. At the museum. And now the mansion.” Pattering applause and ‘hallelujahs' came from the crowd. I had to say something to Sonia as she studied Vess.

“Guilty as charged. What do you think of St. Louis?”

Nose in the air, she looked around with a continental shrug. “It reminds me of downtown Warsaw.”

At least it was somewhere in Europe, although her tone indicated it was definitely Hoosier Europe. Saul closed in.

“Sonia, why are you here?”

“I am here to speak with Mr. Moot on matters historical. You are not invited.” She turned and walked away, joining the crowd around Vess.

“The people, u-nited will ne-ver be de-feated!”

There, flanked by Moot's aides and a news babe, was Pierre. I crinkled a smile. “Time to talk to my bro.”

Saul nodded. “Yeah, he might be open to reason. Look, I gotta go. That meeting on Bohemian town is in fifteen. Call me.”

We squeezed hands, then parted, Saul entering City Hall to do battle for truth, justice, and the zoning laws of midtown. I made my way to Pierre. He was twelve feet from Vess, and turned to see me.

“Fancy meeting you here,” I smiled.

Pierre was cordial and only moderately surprised. “I'm sorry about last night with Mother.” His contrition was modest. “We weren't at our best. It was a hell of a surprise. She likes surprises. Especially when she's giving them. Hitler was like that too, you know.”

“We need to talk. Just for the record, are you supposed to talk to me?”

Pierre's smile weakened, but still held on. “Probably not, but you're right. We should.”

“But there are those of the white power structure who understand. Who have heard. Who wish to build.”

Pierre looked at Vess. “I'm on.”

“After the speech?”

“Sure.”

“Where?”

Pierre gave the location, then it was his turn to speak. I heard his first remarks, one of gentle … genteel, perhaps … ways of reconciliation, unity, friendship, then I walked away.

Here and there, homeless men pushed cast-off shopping carts that bulged with black plastic bags. Nearby shadows from the quarter grew long and dramatic. Chirico would have been proud.

Tennessee Williams thought Union Station a “curiously designed structure of gray stone,” but it was my childhood portal where Lena, who I thought was my mother, handed me to the Seven Dwarfs to begin my gestation into a Veiled Prophet Queen wannabe. An imposing Romanesque castle whose facade of gray Indiana limestone reminds one of a medieval gateway, Union
Station boasted one of the city's most beautiful bars. As Pierre and I sat in the lounge of the Grand Hall, I soaked in its visual grandeur; a sixty-five foot tall ceiling plastered and sculpted in
beaux arts
glory, electric lights whose orange glow complimented the vast green interior. A man at the piano bar tinkled Sondheim as tourists lounged over drinks. The bar, with its polished walnut front, began to fill up.

Pierre, settling for a mild Chernay while I did a Beaujolais, spoke of the East.

“I was in Tibet last year,” his eyes twinkled. “It was my fourth trip, and after meditating with the monks, I hiked in the mountains.”

“Searching for God or the abominable snowman?”

He cautiously smiled at my flippancy. “Snow leopards. They're becoming extinct, you know. I wanted to see one, to … become one with it. Like that book Mathieson wrote.
The Snow Leopard
.”

I nodded, having skimmed through the book in my hippie phase. “And you can't wait to get back?”

Pierre shifted his gaze to the stained glass window above the main entrance. His eyes were distant. He seemed absorbed in its depiction of three women, muses seated in regal majesty in red, gold, and blue robes representing San Francisco, St. Louis, and New York, the three great rail centers. Our muse, St. Louis, serenely in the center, arbiter of east and west. He fingered his glass.

“You could end this, Lee.”

“By bowing out?”

“Terri and I could make it worth your while.”

I sipped. “How much is my while worth?”

The idea of wanting a price saddened and stirred him. “I didn't think you were going to cave.”

I smiled. “Curiosity is not caving.”

He gave a long look at the stained glass. St. Louis stared back, serene and unflappable. Pierre blinked and turned to me.

“The estate was to be divided between me and Terri. I'm really not into affluency and all that, and certainly not the Desouche thing.”