The Saint Louisans (9 page)

“How prescient. Yes, much like the Nile. It's got that goddess thing. You must have been a whiz in geography.”

We began to walk down the mound. “All of us nurses took the same class. We called it ‘gender geography.' Cassie Stollen was the main articulator of this when we jived in the lounge. She'd look at a map and go bawdy. ‘Hey Europe: eat my Florida!'”

Doc laughed. “What would she say about South Africa. It's very penile.”

I raised an eyebrow. “If I was Antarctica, I'd worry.”

He helped me down, and I felt his sweat on the small of his back, exciting me. “Lee: you like to travel, do you?”

“I luxuriate in travel.”

“We should go to Mexico. See the pyramids there. Compare notes.”

“Sure. A doctor and nurse together. What better way to fight Montezuma's revenge?”

His laughter was like a massage. “It's not easy with my passport,” he said. “Many countries won't take a South African passport. We call it ‘the Green Mamba.'”

Doc was every Cole Porter song come to life. He was my reward after the follies of wanting to be Veiled Prophet queen. That night, we caught a film at the local art house cinema on Delmar. Then I bribed the babysitter to do an overnighter while Doc bedded me. Between his sheets, I wondered if becoming Mrs. Pickwick was a possibility.

I stuck the album back on the shelf.

Oh, Christ, Doc.

Art Hill. In St. Louis, it's a place, not a person.

After dark, if you drive west toward Washington University on Lindell Boulevard, a street lined to the north with stately mansions boasting great, Midwestern front yards, and to the south with the rolling walks and woods of Forest Park, you will see the glow of a lonely palace perched high on a hill. The Saint Louis Art Museum.

Like Cahokia, it is a kind of ruin.

The 1904 World's Fair, St. Louis's one time of magic and greatness took place in Forest Park and the building that is now the art museum dates from those glory days. Plaster palaces, pavilions, and exhibits clustered. Electric lights dotted a now darkened park like glowing sequins on a gown. The museum is the one pavilion whose plaster was made into mortar and stone. The darkness below the long sloping hill that feeds into a fan-like basin once brimmed with cascades of water. When our snowfalls are thick enough, it becomes the sledding center of the city. Yet at night, it's darkness is stark as the side of the cliff, and The World's Fair is like a ghost wrapping it's arms around the place in a wistful embrace. But tonight it was a fundraiser cum backslapping event to celebrate the new exhibit on Cahokia.

Inside the museum, its marble hall tinkled with echoes. A band tootled away Scott Joplin's “The Cascades,” its notes bubble and gurgle like the waters once did down to the basin. I wore my favorite blue frock. Saul, classy in his black evening dress, nudged me.

“There's the mayor.” Saul jerked his head toward the pleasant, medium frame of Hizzoner hobnobbing with urban swells. It was an election year, so he listened carefully to all comers, a man whose Mediterranean/German mix made him look like a
maitre'd
.

Saul rolled his shoulders. “Time to put in a good but subtle word for the mansion.” We took flutes of champagne from the table and watched well-tailored waves part as a new guest approached Hizzoner.

I noticed new banners proclaiming the next exhibit: THE WORLD OF CAHOKIA. ANCIENT DISCOVERY. Cahokia was suddenly everywhere, variations on a theme that would simply not let go of me.

“We should stroll in the gallery once I'm finished hobnobbing,” Saul said as he gave a wistful glance to the main gallery. “I'd like to take a look at you again. Among the madness, fish, and puppets.”

I gave him a high, tinkly laugh. “Why, that was the best pickup I ever had.”

Saul lapsed into Groucho. “And you've heard plenty.”

This patter referred to our first meeting. The museum has a rich collection of works by Max Beckmann, the German expressionist painter who fled the Nazis and who, after the war, spent a couple of years in St. Louis. Three years ago, when there was a retrospective of his work, I strolled along his visions of madness and dislocation to peruse
The Dream
. It's a canvas of fools and cripples doing mindless tasks that make no progress and was seen by critics as a symbol of Berlin in the twenties, war-weary and unstable, waiting not for Godot, but for Hitler. All blinded and mad except for a blonde girl in the center who looks beyond the chaos, blue-eyed and naive. She offers her hand, but none take it. She is sanity, untouchable in her openness.

“He's got you. To a T.”

I'd turned and there was Saul, his eyes on the girl. Her oval face and nose resembled mine. Even the blonde hair falling to my shoulders. I spoke.

“People generally say I look like Cybill Shepherd,” I'd responded, “but I do see the resemblance. The folk around her certainly remind me of past wards.”

“You're a doctor? No, nurse.”

“The latter. I compliment you on your pick-up line.”

Saul shrugged, mixing triumph and relief now that he'd hooked me. “I was hoping for nurse.”

“Doctors out of your league?”

He ignored this. “Doesn't it remind you of Schopenhauer's idea of the world as theater? All of those people playing instruments and doing tasks in a closed room? Crippled and shattered.”

“I was thinking of Plato's cave. Or maybe, Plato's combo.”

That's how it had started, Saul and me.

We made our way toward the mayor, who politely smiled at us, letting Saul in to his inner circle.

“Saul,” he said genially, “good to see you. And Nurse Lee. Always my favorite lady in white.” He smiled. “Even though you've gone to scrubs.”

“I'm still keeping up being a lady, scrubs notwithstanding. And alas, my fame has dimmed.” Many years ago, Barnes hooked up a radio P.R. campaign called the “Medical Moment,” giving brief, easily digested medical advice to the listener, and I had a brief celebrity as Nurse Lee. Occasionally at the supermarket or wherever, someone hears my voice, recalls those days, and smiles ensue. Some even ask for me to do a bit. So, sometimes my stint on the ether helps Saul.

The mayor nodded agreeably. “I've heard about Mrs. Desouche. Sorry about her situation. She's a fine woman.”

“Look, about Juneteenth Towne … do you have to commit yourself to it?”

“Right now, Saul, I commit myself to what is best for the city.”

“Come on,” Saul replied, “it's not going to help.”

“That's not what we want to hear. Look, we'll talk about this later.” The mayor strolled off to a thatch of bigwigs.

Saul's face registered disappointment as he watched the mayor greet said bigwigs. “He can't turn his back on Margot and see the mansion torn down.”

“You were lucky he was amiable.” I sipped. “You did call his friend an asshole.”

Not in a mood to apologize, Saul focused on the band. “He had it coming. Besides, I did say it graciously.”

“I never realized there was a gracious way to say that, but I'm sure you'll enlighten me.” His eyes moved from the band to a trio of men whose eyeglass frames and slouchy garments meant they were architecture nerds. Saul hungered after them like a yard dog watching a roving pack.

“We need to drift to that circle. They were at the recent urban zoning conference. I've got to trade notes.”

“Go on. I can mingle.”

“It's not like I'm trying to get rid of you.”

“Look, sweetheart, you told me you were a teen who preferred reading Mumford's
The City in History
to Salinger.”

Saul offered a weak smile. “It's just that Mumford has more pictures than Salinger.”

“Go thy way and hobknob aplenty.”

When Saul left, I wandered around, looking at the art and people watching. There were the usual mix of political and social types crowding the hall, and a camera flashed. It was Jarvis, a photographer who did some P.R. for Barnes back in the day. He was probably snapping folk for the next edition of
Ladue News
, our fair city's social register, Ladue being home to the pearl necklace and portfolio set of St. Louis. By Neptune's fountain, I saw a woman drinking alone. Her hair was raven black; her jacket and skirt, in a sleek Paris cut, was equally ravenesque. Her skin was almost tallow, reminding me of figures in paintings by de La Tour. She looked about her with all the severity of a hanging judge. I kept moving until I came upon a man's familiar broad-shouldered back. I heard his voice, saw his black skin, and started to move away. He happened to turn, eyes meeting mine.

“Nurse Lee,” he boomed. “Long time.”

I was gracious to Vess Moot. “Staying out of trouble?”

“You know trouble is what I have to make. You here with Saul, I guess?”

Vesuvius, or Vess, a nickname matching our local soft drink, is one of St. Louis's most powerful black politicians. His career started in the sixties, when CAP, his Coalition Against the Prophet, surged into the streets to demand the Veiled Prophet be disbanded, if not offed.

We met when I was on duty in the ER and paramedics rolled him in with two gunshot wounds. The shooting had a Rashomon of explanations, from the KKK to a drug bust gone sour. Even the Veiled Prophet Society was brought in. The shooting was never solved.

“Yes, he's chatting with some architects while I peruse the art.”

“Chatting about the horrors of Juneteenth Towne, I suppose.”

“As you can imagine,” I said, “Saul's not in favor of the project.”

“A lot of people aren't, Nurse Lee.” Vess sipped his Bacardi. “But they're the right enemies.”

Vess will never be king, but he's a kingmaker. I saw the mayor nod to Vess, not gladly but politely. Vess recently accused Hizzoner of racism, a habitual
charge when he doesn't get his way. But everyone shrugs and accepts, because Vess does have a gritty charm. And votes.

“You bandy the word ‘enemy' about so easily. It's always war for you, isn't it?”

“Sure,” Vess was reveled in being a gadfly. “War's what everyone does, right? Oh, they call it other things, but in this city, it's always a grab for what's needed over what's luxurious.”

“The mansion isn't a luxury.”

“Ah, the voice of Saul. You do stand by your man.” Two of Vess's aides, broad shouldered men who looked like they'd just come out of final season with the NBA, created a gentle break in the crowd around the mayor. “If you'll excuse me now …” Vess said and moved away.

The combo shifted from Joplin to “Meet Me in St. Louis,” the “Marseilles” of our fair city. There was that woman again. I noticed a canvas bag dangled by her side, at odds with her couture. Who was she?

I looked to one side and inwardly groaned. “Villain at eight o'clock,” I muttered to no one.

Dan Smatters, porky and red cheeked, beamed like a hippo bearing down on a canoe. Fortunately, he didn't know me, so I was breezed past, allowing me to catch a whiff of his mints and cologne. Dan Smatters. I sighed and sipped. The realty czar of St. Louis. Billboards throughout both county and city bear that relentlessly grinning face, a cross between the man in the moon and Alfred E. Newman. His bulldozers ravage any wood around to replace bucolic splendor with vinyl siding, MacMansions, and connector roads to the mall
de jour
. He reeks of the vulgar, and sounds it in his pure, unadulterated St. Louis accent. The billboards and TV spots proclaim: Your Home Matters to Dan Smatters.

Dan is part of our paint-by-numbers local canvas, like the brick flats or toasted ravioli and gooey butter cake that is St. Louis's contribution to the national cuisine. I was feeling very superior as one does when comparing oneself to Smatters. As one does when feeling the champagne. I headed for the refreshment table, deciding I needed some finger food before I had another glass and got too rambunctious.

There, two feet away from me, was the woman, sampling the wine. I decided it was time to talk to a raven.

“I haven't seen you around,” I said.

“I am a stranger here. Of course you wouldn't see me around,” she said. Or perhaps I should say, pecked in a French accent. So I had the couture right. I was pleasant.

“No, I suppose not. I'm Lee Bridger, by the way.”

She sipped, took me in with all the charm of a process server, then spoke like a marquee. “I am Sonia Sauvage.”

Her name was familiar, and her tone implied the longer I paused, the worse tip I'd get. “What brings you to St. Louis?”

“I am in St. Louis to study its mounds.” She pronounced it
Sant Lew'ee
.

The archaeology babe. I remembered a PBS special. Articles in the
Smithsonian, Vanity Fair
, usually in a waiting room and dog-eared.

“There aren't any mounds in St. Louis.”

“Not any longer,” Sonia almost sneered. “Destroyed by colonialism and racism. Mounds that were part of one of the great spiritual centers in all of the Americas.” Sonia frowned at the wine in her glass. “This is a weak vintage.”

I was kind. “You must be here for the exhibit?” Sonia raised her nose. “I am its main attraction,” she said modestly; or as modestly as one can say something like that.

“So, Madame Sauvage, what do you hope to find?”

Sonia wheeled away in Gaullic disdain to hook up with two faculty types in black suits and shirts, sporting fashionably unshaven faces. I sighed, thinking that at times,
la belle
France becomes
le bete
. Sonia was quite the
femme fatale
, and as I munched on a shrimp puff pastry, trying to envision Sonia out of her black outfit and in khaki shorts, trail boots, and sun helmet, whisking away the sands of time somewhere east of Kipling, I wondered why this
femme
was here, and what she was trying to
fatale
?