Feast of All Saints Page 6

  “About my essays, Madame,” he said without really hearing himself speak. “I was thinking perhaps that I could bring my work so that when the students begin to come…” He stopped. She was studying him, and she was frightening him. He did not want to admit this but it was true.

  “And when the students come…” she breathed softly, “…he would take you as one of them.”

  He found he was amazed that she had followed his line of thinking at all. “Yes, that’s it exactly, Madame. I want so much to be one of his pupils,” he said.

  She began to lick her fingers. The peach was gone. Only the rough kernel lay on the table, picked clean. And he was astonished, even embarrassed, as he had never seen a lady do this before, and he had never seen anyone, not even a child, do it quite like this. She licked the first finger, drawing it straight across her tongue, and then the second. Then holding her hand like a fan, her tongue found the nook between finger and thumb and sucked there. Gradually as he watched, she licked the whole hand as though it were only natural, and dainty, and then she rested her chin on her clasped fingers, elbows on the table. Her eyes had never left him once.

  “You want to go to the school,” she sighed. The gold hoops in her ears moved ever so slightly against the dark waves that hung down her back.

  “Oh, yes, Madame, more than anything. I want to try!”

  “Hmmmm…” she took a long breath. “And this is why he comes home, then,” she said in an expressionless voice that made her steady gaze even more unnerving…“not what he says in his letter at all.”

  “Oh, no, no, that can’t be true,” he said at once. “I’m sure what he says in the letter is true, Madame. He’s coming home because…because of you.”

  This was dreadful, he had been saying all the wrong things to her and didn’t know it. He saw her again as he had seen her when he entered the room, holding the portrait, and talking to it in a whisper.

  The only sound now was the sound of the breeze. Trees swelling, rustling against the glass, then dying back. Her dark eyes were fixed on him as they had been all along, and her narrow face had that youthful smoothness that was always hers. Not a line of care marked her forehead. Only some subtle softness around her eyes and around her throat betrayed her age.

  Then low, with the barest movement of her lips, her voice came again, “You are hot, cher?” she asked. “You are tired?” A snakelike arm extended across the table between them, and her long fingers played with the buttons on his vest. He had never seen a woman in his life as beautiful as she was; even the tiny lines around her eyes were exquisite, the flesh a little paler there, very soft perhaps to touch. He looked down suddenly with the first hint of shyness and found himself gazing at her breasts. The tips of the nipples showed through the silk, he could even see the dark circle of flesh around the nipples, and as her hand found the back of his neck, as her fingers actually touched his skin, he felt a tremor pass over him that contracted to a sudden forbidden excitement swelling uncomfortably, unmistakably between his legs.

  She was feeling his hair. He saw nothing before him for an instant, except the gathered silk of her sleeve where her arm pressed against the bulge of her breast. But he made up his mind to look into her eyes, to be the gentleman if he could not be the child she apparently thought that he was. However, she was rising now, and though she had let him go, she was beckoning for him to get up also. And he could still feel the touch of her fingers as if she’d never moved.

  A cloud passed over the sun. And then came another. The room was dim, and she was standing by the bed, drinking from a silver pitcher. She turned to him, holding it in both hands as she extended it. He walked toward her, his feet deafening on the bare boards and taking it from her, he drank. His thirst was far worse than he had realized, and in a moment the pitcher was empty. And when he looked up again, he was dumbfounded.

  A rapid explosion of rips that he had heard were the hooks of her dress. And she had stepped out of it, and held it loose, gathered against her naked shoulders. He could see the thin margin of her naked leg, the curve of her hip; the fixed expression of her dark eyes might have struck terror.

  But never in his life would he be able to describe the physical sensation that overcame him, the immediate grinding passion that obliterated every other sense, any scintilla of judgment. He knew he should run from the room, and he had no intention of doing so.

  And as she drew near to him, as her arm went around his waist, he became some single-minded thing that wanted nothing but to rip away that red silk dress. With a gentle tug she opened the buttons of his shirt.

  He did not remember getting undressed. Except that he had never done it so fast, with so little regard. She had let the dress drop and slipped between the sheets. Sinking down beside her, he felt the breeze from the darkling windows cool on his arms and on his face. It stirred the tendrils of her hair.

  She kissed him on the mouth, and he felt at once clumsy and stiff in his passion, the blood pounding in his head as her hard tiny nipples pressed against his chest. It seemed then for one moment when he did not know how to proceed, that all the voices of his childhood were murmuring anxiously to him, commanding him to rise and go, to grab his clothes and flee. “This is without honor!” said the chorus. But over its slowing and predictable rumble, there came another voice echoing through the long halls of time that needed no vernacular to declare with a stentorian authority: Man, are you mad? Go to it!

  He had in his hand the gorgeous satin weight of her breast, the very contour that had driven him to distraction in his dreams, and pressing his lips there, he stopped breathless and afraid. Even the friction of the sheets against him might be too much. He could not hold back. But with a shift beneath him and the swift subtle movement of her hand, she guided him to the moist hair between her legs and into the place where he belonged. He clenched his teeth, moaning as he went in. Never had he even seen this place! And he did not see it now, only felt himself slide into the perfect pulsing opening, the embrace toward which he had been moving all of his life, and in a mounting rapture, all the fantasies of his childhood burnt dim, and forever went out.

  Then he heard her cry.

  She was blood-red and suffering, her breasts and face flushed, a low hoarse sound coming out of her as if she struggled for breath. She was dying in his arms! Yet when he struggled to free her, her hands held him fast, and the sudden sharp movements of her hips sent him straight to heaven.

  It seemed to go on forever.

  And then to be more over than anything he had ever known.

  On his back in the gloom, the breeze moving over him like water, he kissed her hair as her forehead pressed against his cheek. She was pleased; she lay still. And together they drifted off.

  It was a deep sleep at first that left no dreams to mark the length; and then he was conscious of loving her, of her arms around him, and that she held his back against her breast, her legs tucked beneath his, so that they slept tight together spoon-fashion and again he drifted off. He had never slept with another person that he could remember, not even when he was very small, and was ill, and this seemed luscious to him and natural and very sweet. But thin dreams came to him that were hardly dreams at all, in which he roamed the house, found gaping holes in the stairs, had the disconcerting vision of rats. And some time before the room grew dark, he knew the cistern was near, gaping by the leaf-shrouded windows. He opened his eyes once and saw her profile against the distant vines, and in sleep found her even more beautiful than she had been before. A dusky cologne emanated from her skin. He found himself savoring the scent it left on his finger-tips.

  Hours must have passed, he didn’t know. Only that at some point, when he was dreaming of the letters in the chest, and of trivial intruding things, he had turned over, very hot, and seen the flowers in a vase on the round table. Only they were enormous; the magnificent blooms one gets from florists, and vaguely he had thought my eyes are not actually open, I am dreaming this, these perfect roses and their mis
t of delicate fern. But all the room was there in the shadows, as sometimes happens between sleep and dream. And there were the flowers, white, all but luminous, and beside the table, there stood a man.

  A man.

  A man! Marcel sat bolt upright in the dark, the sheet sliding down to his lap, and stared straight ahead, his fists clenched in an instinctual protective fury.

  It was a man most definitely, medium of height, and apparently dressed in a smartly cut frock coat with a starched white shirt collar and something loose over his shoulders like a wool cravat. But his face was so dark that nothing could be seen save the barest glint of light in his eyes. And beside him, on the floor, stood a bulky valise.

  Juliet stirred, turning over and touching Marcel’s naked back. And rigid with alarm, he realized, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who this man was. All the air went out of him suddenly as Juliet cried out.

  He did not need for her to say the name as she snatched the sheet from his naked legs, threw it around her, and ran to the center of the room. “Chris!” she burst out, and “Chris!” over and over.

  Marcel watched petrified as they embraced. It seemed Christophe turned her around and around in his arms, his laughter coming soft and rich and low under her gasps and cries. She was kissing him all over the face and neck; she was beating gently on his shoulders with her fists.

  Suddenly her cries slowed, became deeper, and an awful sorrow broke loose in her voice. Christophe sat slowly in the wicker chair at the table and folded her against him so that she buried her head in his neck.

  “Maman,” he said to her softly, stroking her as she sobbed against him, saying over and over, as if with a broken heart, “Chris, Chris…”

  Marcel pulled on his pants and his shirt at once. There was no time for his vest, watch, comb. Jamming his unfastened cuffs into his jacket sleeves, he turned around, shirt open at the throat and saw the man’s large dark eyes fixed on him in the gloom. Juliet cried still, and Christophe’s hand patted her gently. He looked down at her, much to Marcel’s relief, and lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. The light fell on his profile, gleamed for an instant on his forehead as he said to her, “Maman…” as if that word alone conveyed all the eloquence that he might need.

  She was feeling his face, kissing his cheekbones, then his eyelids.

  Shaking and on the verge of tears himself, Marcel pulled on his boots, and shoving his socks down into his jacket pockets turned toward the door.

  “But who is this?” Christophe asked. Marcel froze.

  “Oh, yes…” Juliet wiped at the tears on her cheek with the back of her hand. “Oh, yes, come here, cher, it’s Christophe…” and when she said her son’s name again her voice broke. She appeared to shudder, to kiss him again and then hold him tightly. Marcel was utterly miserable. But then she said, “Come here, cher, come come come!” and held her hand out toward him.

  Marcel’s legs were trembling so violently that he could only make himself approach the table by a severe act of will. And when he felt Juliet’s hand slip into his and clasp it, he looked deliberately into Christophe’s eyes.

  It was the face he’d only just seen in the little picture, of course. A somewhat square face, the tightly curled hair making a neat frame for it with a straight line across the forehead and carefully trimmed side-burns. It was a common enough face where Mediterranean and African blood combine, the features small, the skin a light brown and supple, the jaw square, the whole effect being one of evenness, the kind of face which in later years is often rendered powerfully distinguished by its frame of graying hair, and the grizzled line of a mustache.

  But the expression of that face was hardly the lifeless rendering of the portrait. It had rather a fire to it that seemed all but menacing in the twilight, something of mockery or absolute rage.

  Marcel withered.

  “This is a smart boy,” Juliet said. She was crying still, and in another burst of excitement she kissed Christophe again. He was holding her firmly in his right arm, as if she weighed nothing on his lap, and with his left hand now he smoothed back her hair.

  “I can well imagine,” he said under his breath as he glanced up at Marcel, but his mother did not appear to hear.

  “He read your letter to me, told me you were coming home, of Paris papers saying this, that you were coming home,” and again she began to shake with sobs.

  But Christophe was gazing levelly at Marcel, and he raised his eyebrows dramatically, pretending to study him with interest.

  “These boys, they worship you, they put letters under the gate,” she said excitedly, “But this one, Cecile’s son, he came to me like a gentleman! No peeping at the windows…”

  Cecile’s son. It was like feeling the noose slip around his neck. How in the hell could she have known he was Cecile’s son! She seemed not to know the time of day, the day of the month, the month of the year! And yet she knew he was Cecile’s son! Her words went on, but Marcel did not hear them. For one vain moment, it occurred to him there might be something to say, some magnificent explanation. But it died before it was born.

  “And this school, he talks of this school…” she was saying. “And wants to meet you so, of course…”

  A short ironic laugh came from Christophe’s lips, and with an icy smile, he extended his hand. “Indeed? And so we meet.”

  Marcel took his hand mechanically. It felt powerful and somewhat cold. Perfect enough, Marcel was thinking and convulsively he drew back too soon while Christophe let his hand drop rather slowly again to his mother’s waist.

  “You know what I think of this school?” she was saying, wiping at her eyes with the edge of the sheet. She had loosened it slightly over her breasts. Marcel looked away. “I think this is the reason you have come back here, this school. Not your mother, I am not the reason…”

  “Ah, Maman!” he said, shaking his head. He kissed her. It was the first spontaneous thing that he had said, and he looked at her now as if he were seeing her for the first time. And then taking her in his arms he held her as if he were doing this for the first time.

  Marcel murmured quickly that he should take his leave. And had started for the door when she said “I’ll talk to him about the school, cher. Christophe listen to me, he wants to go to your school.”

  “He seems a bit precocious for school,” came the rich-voiced sarcastic reply beside the upturned innocent gaze of the mother.

  “Ah!” she waved away words she didn’t understand. “Go cher, come tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yes, do come again,” said the man with a purely malignant smile.

  Marcel could feel the tears just behind his eyes. But again, as he turned, she reached out for him, and tugging him gently close to her, she put her cheek against his chest.

  He broke away slowly and with a gentlemanly murmur, went swiftly through the dark house, clattering down the hollow stairway and blundering out into the shadowy street. The sky was red with the sunset over the river, and he was crying now, so that as he reached the banana grove inside his gate, he stopped and choked back his tears, resolutely refusing to let them flow any longer, to let anyone see them, to let anyone know where he had been and what he had done.

  V

  IT WAS DARK. The breeze was damp from the river and carried with it the scent of rain. All the day’s heat was lessened now, and the long loose lace curtains rose and fell against the back window of Marcel’s room, and the sounds of the evening meal below were just past. The lamp on the desk flickered dimly. Then there came Lisette’s familiar steps up from the kitchen, and he heard her quick tread along the porch.

  “Better eat something, Michie,” she coaxed lightly in the Creole French. “Come on now, Michie, open up this door.”

  He lay still staring at the shadowy ceiling. She had moved to the window. So let her try to see him through the blinds, he didn’t care.

  “All right, then Michie! Starve to death!” she shouted at him and was gone.

  “Mon Dieu!” he sighed, his tee
th biting into his lip. He was going to cry again if he didn’t get a hold on himself. His mother had flown at him as he ran up the stairs to his room. She had beat against his door while he stood inside, his hand trembling on the bolt. “How could you do it, how could you do it!” she had shrieked until he covered his ears. It had taken him a moment to realize that she couldn’t have known what he had really done, any of it. It was the school that mattered to her. He’d been expelled, so be it. And now Lisette shouting at him as if he were a child. She’d burn his bacon in the morning and serve his coffee cold. He was becoming completely furious about it when he realized with a dry laugh that he was very shortly scheduled to die.

  And then that familiar oppression descended upon him, that dull misery that had been with him all evening, more bleak perhaps than almost any depression that he had ever known. He’d ruined himself utterly with Christophe, and Christophe, if he did not kill him, would surely beat him within an inch of his life. He had thought it over from every vantage point and was sure of this beating if nothing else. And there would be dreadful humiliation afterwards and all the questions which he would never answer. And soon the world would know what he already knew, that he was shut out from Christophe’s new school forever, shut out, in fact, from Christophe’s world.

  He rose suddenly as he had done a dozen times that evening, and holding the backs of his arms he paced the room.

  The pungent atmosphere of Juliet’s bed enveloped him, and he felt again her nakedness, that musky perfume, and warm hands that pulled him close so that he shuddered violently at the obscenity of it, was almost sickened, and the entire soft debacle was a rape. She was mad, everyone knew she was mad, he knew she was mad, had he ever heard so much as a smattering of the gossip about her without that word, mad? And oh, how miserable she had been, how forlorn as she had sat at that table gazing at Christophe’s portrait. No, he’d taken full advantage of her distress, abused her in her loneliness and her distraction, and Christophe had caught him, was going to kill him, and he deserved to die.