Whispers of the Bayou (18 page)

Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his fiddle,
Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon de Dunkerque,
And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the music.
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances
Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows;
Old folk and young together, and children mingled among them.

On an ordinary evening, in an ordinary situation, the boudin festival would have been delightful. As it was, the longer we trudged around and flashed the drawing and tried to find out something, anything, the more I just wanted to go home, curl up into a ball, and cry.

Tess tried to be a trouper, but she was at the end of her rope too, cycling through pouts, tantrums, and tears at will. Just to keep her quiet and distracted and moving, I bought her whatever she wanted, every treat, every souvenir. The praline candy with a snowball chaser was not my finest hour as a mom.

Not one person recognized the symbol or the fellow in the drawing or knew the Cajun myth of the bell, though many of them looked at me strangely when I asked. One man patted my shoulder kindly and said that if he spotted the guy in the picture, he’d be happy to snap a coon trap ’round his ankle and keep him there until he paid me every red cent of the
child support I was owed. Taking my cue from him, I made that my story whenever Tess wasn’t listening, until half of the people on the fairgrounds thought I was a poor, abandoned single mom with a no-account runaway ex-husband. That led to several good-natured passes from eligible men and one short, stout lady to quip, “Honey, husbands usually leave their wives for women who look like you, not the other way around.” I wasn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.

The fact that no one recognized the sketch was only half the problem. Making matters worse was the slow realization that although boudin was a Cajun sausage and a fais do do was a Cajun dance, the place wasn’t exactly crawling with Cajuns—at least not from what I could tell. I didn’t hear a trace of French spoken, and every booth or display that had the word “Cajun” in it seemed to be using the term merely as a brand or marketing tool, not a description of its vendors. Serving at the counters were mostly all-American teenagers or helmet-haired steel magnolias.

Near the bandstand I finally found a clump of old men speaking a guttural French among themselves, and when I asked if by any chance they were Cajun, one gentleman, the accordian player, acknowledged that yes, they were indeed. Excited, I tried to strike up a conversation, but his answers were mostly monosyllabic, and none of the others would even look me in the eye—not even when I said I was a transplanted Cajun myself, descended from the Saultier line.

They hardly glanced at my drawing. Ignoring me, they began tuning up their instruments, getting ready to play for the dance, so finally I decided they were distracted and busy with that and not in a position to have a conversation with a stranger. I told them to break a leg and walked away, rejected by my own kind. Only when their music began a few minutes later was I able to shrug off my hurt. Their zydeco beat was infectious, the strange combination of washboard, accordion, and fiddle positively electrifying. I stood and listened, wondering if the music was tapping into something deep in my soul handed down through the generations. But then I looked around at the crowd and realized that everyone else had the same stupid smile on their face that I did. It was the music itself, the universal language of a delightful art form, regardless of heritage.

The songs lightened our step for a while as we continued to make our way around the fairgrounds, the moon rising on this hot sticky night. Eventually weariness once again overcame us. When Tess and I finally reached the face painting booth, I told her that it would be our last stop and then we could leave. I was exhausted and frustrated, so while Tess got in line to get a butterfly on her cheek, I sat at a picnic table nearby and just let my eyes scan the crowd, wishing I had some way to look into everyone’s mind and find that one person who might give me the answers I was looking for.

It wasn’t a regular habit, but I was very near praying for help when my eyes landed on a booth just ten feet away. It was a nice display, professionally designed, with an elaborate header advertising the Louisiana Museum of Art and Culture. Two women were manning the booth, both of them in their forties and, judging by their elegant clothes and jewelry, obviously moneyed. Keeping one eye on Tess, I went to the counter where they were giving away free literature and struck up a conversation, asking if their museum had any information about Cajun myths.

They were both very nice, saying that yes, there were indeed several resources at the museum that I might find helpful. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be open on Sunday, but I could come and take a look first thing Monday. I asked how I would get to the museum driving from Serein Highway in Oak Knoll.

“Is that where you live?” one of them asked, her head snapping up.

“Um, well, my family home is there.”

“Get out of town,” she cried with a smile. “That makes us neighbors.”

It didn’t take long to figure out that not only were we neighbors, but her house was next door to Twin Oaks. Once that connection was made, I received the distinct impression that I had just earned a best friend for life—whether I wanted one or not.

“Honey, you gotta take over here,” she said to her coworker. “This lady and I are going to the food court to have ourselves a cup of coffee and a long chat.”

“Actually,” I said, “my daughter’s in line to get her face painted.”

I pointed out Tess, and the lady gave her a wave and squealed at “such a lovely, lovely child.”

“I’m not surprised she’s such a beauty,” she added with sheer Southern flattery as she extricated herself from the booth. “Her mama’s pretty enough to be a model.”

The woman suggested we sit at the picnic table instead, and she brought along two bottles of waters from her booth. As we got comfortable, she introduced herself as Olivia West Kroft.

“You can call me Livvy,” she added.

“I’m Miranda. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Conversation flowed easily, though I was disappointed to learn that Livvy hadn’t known my family. She was from Vicksburg, Mississippi, and had only lived on Serein for two years. She called her husband Big Daddy and said that he had swept her off her feet and brought her down here to live at his estate, “Little Tara.” She now had two stepdaughters, Melanie and Scarlett, which right there kind of told me everything I needed to know about life with Big Daddy.

As she talked I realized that in a way this woman was a caricature of a wealthy Southerner, from the immoveable, perfectly frosted hair to the tiny magnolia blossoms that had been hand painted onto the tips of each of her fingernails. Still, there was something likeable about her. From her precisely tailored appearance, I would have expected her to be uptight, but instead she was relaxed and gossipy and dangerously funny.

As Tess finally reached the front of the line and her face painting began, I steered my conversation with Livvy to where I wanted it to go by saying that I was hoping to do some genealogy research while I was in town, particularly on the Cajun line that had come down through my grandmother.

“The whole reason we came to this festival tonight was to meet some real Cajuns,” I said, “but there don’t seem to be very many around.”

“No, I guess not,” she replied. “Cajun country is at least two parishes west of here—and a few more than that to get to the heart of it.”

“I thought Cajuns were everywhere in Louisiana.”

“Well, sort of, but you’d have to look at a map to understand. There are about nine parishes that are densely Cajun. Once you get outside of those, they’re more scattered. We have a few Cajun scholars who do research at the library, but that’s about it.”

“That’s a shame,” I said, my heart sinking. My bright idea for getting some Cajuns to tell me the myth of the angelus was going to be more trouble than I thought. “I tried talking to the guys in the band, but they weren’t very friendly.”

“Cajuns never are.”

I looked at her wide eyed over the bottle as I took a sip of water.

“I mean, you’ll never meet a more decent, hardworking group of people,” she added, seeing the surprise in my face, “but they don’t let outsiders in easily. It’s a whole mentality, you understand. The way it has been explained to me, Cajuns usually judge folks by their character, not by appearances or social graces or wealth or prestige. Once they see your character, once they understand you’re a good person, then you’re in. When that happens, you’ll find them to be very warm and welcoming. It’s just not an instant process.”

“Even if they know I’m part Cajun myself?”

She shrugged.

“It’s less about the blood pumping through your heart, hon, than it is about how that heart leads you to conduct yourself toward others.”

“I see,” I said softly, understanding now why I had been rejected by the band; it was nothing personal, just a cultural thing.

Still, this news made my search even more difficult, considering that I needed to get into a Cajun “inner circle” as soon as possible, to find out about the myth. I said as much to Livvy, and she suggested that I go the friend-of-a-friend route.

“We’ve got a couple of Cajun families in our church,” she said. “I’d be happy to introduce you. They’d probably be glad to help you with your genealogical research.”

“That would be great,” I told her, watching from the corner of my eye as Tess wiggled impatiently, getting the last finishing touches on her facial art.

“In fact,” Livvy added, “we could probably get them to do lunch tomorrow. Where are you going to church?”

Not
are
you going to church but
where
are you going to church. So Southern. Stifling a smile, I hedged a bit, saying I wasn’t sure yet.

“Oh, honey, then why don’t you come with us to ours? I’ll round up a group afterward, and we can all go out to eat at the Firelighter. You can pick their brains to your heart’s content.”

“Do you think your Cajun friends will come along?”

“Are you kidding?” she laughed. “No self-respecting Cajun would ever turn down a good meal and good company. They’ll be there, for sure.”

Sitting through a boring church service seemed a small price to pay for the right conversation. I agreed to go but declined on her offer for a ride and wrote down the directions instead.

Tess came running up to us just as I finished, a bright blue-and-purple butterfly shining from her cheek. I introduced Tess to Livvy, who seemed utterly captivated by my adorable child. Excited by the face painting, Tess forgot to be cranky for a few minutes, so I decided to seize the opportunity and get out of there before she ruined a good first impression.

I reached out to shake Livvy’s hand as we parted, but she merely pushed my hand aside and swept me into a hug instead.

“Oh, Miranda, I’m just so tickled to meet you. You have no idea,” she said in her charming Southern drawl. I wasn’t sure whether she really meant it, but her words certainly sounded sincere.

Our visit made a nice end to a rotten evening, so much so that by the time Tess and I joined the stream of people moving toward the parking lot, I realized I was smiling. There was something to be said for a warm welcome from a stranger—especially when that stranger quickly became a friend.

The smile faded from my lips as I remembered other strangers who had recently come into my life: the man who had invaded my home and my work, the thugs who had mugged me in the alley. Looking nervously around, I pulled Tess close and began to move faster.

When we were almost to the car, I felt a hand at my elbow, but when I spun around, ready to strike, I realized that it was the accordion player from the Cajun band. He was leaning close as if to whisper something in my ear.

“That symbol you been showing around?” he said in a low, raspy voice. “All them questions you got? I wouldn’t do that no more if I was you. It ain’t safe.”

“But I need answers,” I said in return.

“Let the wicked fall into their own nets,” he said cryptically. Then, just as quickly as he had appeared behind me, he disappeared again into the crowd. Feeling chilled despite the warm night air, I gripped Tess’s hand tightly in mine and jogged the last few steps to the car. My heart didn’t stop racing until we were buckled in and on the road.

Let the wicked fall into their own nets?

What did that mean? Was that man a friend, trying to help me? Or an enemy, attempting to throw me off course?

I didn’t know, but all the way back to Oak Knoll I kept a diligent eye on the road behind us, my white knuckles gripped around the steering wheel like a vise. In the backseat, Tess was awake but too tired to talk, the butterfly resting motionless on her cheek.