Part 10 (1/2)

”Disturbing the peace, fighting in public and on the Sabbath,” said the little officer, slapping January's papers down on the sergeant's desk in the Cabildo's stone-flagged duty room. The corner chamber of the old Spanish city hall faced the river, across the railed green plot of the Place des Armes and the rise of the levee, and the late sunlight visible past the shadows of the arcade had a sickly yellowish cast from the ever-present cloud of steamboat soot.

”No ticket to be out and claiming he's free, but I'd check on these if I were you, sir.”

The desk sergeant studied him with chilly eyes, and January could see him evaluating the color of his skin as well as the coa.r.s.eness of his clothing.

In French, and with his most consciously Parisian att.i.tude of body and voice, January said, ”Is it possible to send for my mother, the widow Levesque on Rue Burgundy, Monsieur? She will vouch for me.” His head felt like an underdone pudding and his stomach was even worse, and the damp patch of vomit on his torn trouser leg seemed to fill the room with its stink, but he saw the expression in the sergeant's eyes change. ”Or if she cannot be found, my sister, Mademoiselle Dominique Janvier, also on Rue Burgundy. Or...” He groped for the names of the wealthiest and most influential of his mother's friends. ”If they cannot be found, might I send a message to...to Batiste Rodriges the sugar broker, or to Doctor Delange? The papers are genuine, I a.s.sure you, though the mistake is completely understandable.”

The sergeant looked at the description on the papers again, then held them up to the light. There was sullen doubt in his voice. ”It says here you're a griffe.” He used one of the terms by which the offspring of full blacks and mulattos were described. In January's childhood, the quadroon boys had used it as an insult, though generally not when they were close enough to him to be caught. His mother and his mother's friends had a whole rainbow of terminology to distinguish those with one white great-grandparent from those with two, three, or four. ”You look like a full-blood Congo to me.”

The papers also said very dark. very dark. January knew, for he had read them carefully, resentfully, furious at the necessity of having them at all. Behind him, two officers dragged a white man through the station house doors, paunchy, bearded, and reeking of corn liquor and tobacco. January knew, for he had read them carefully, resentfully, furious at the necessity of having them at all. Behind him, two officers dragged a white man through the station house doors, paunchy, bearded, and reeking of corn liquor and tobacco.

”You stinkin' Frenchified pansy sons a hoors, I s.h.i.+t better men than you ever' time I pull down my pants! I'm Nahum s.h.a.grue, own blood kin to the smallpox and on visitin' terms to every gator on the river! I f.u.c.ked an' skinned ever' squaw on the Upper Missouri an' killed more men than the cholera! I chew up flatboats and eat grizzly bears and broken gla.s.s!”

One of the guardsmen loitering on the benches gestured to the prisoner and said something to another, and January caught Lieutenant Shaw's name. Both men laughed. The sergeant jerked his head toward the ma.s.sive oak door that led to the Cabildo's inner court. January's papers stayed where they were on his desk.

The central courtyard of the old Spanish city hall ran back almost as far as Exchange Alley, flagged with the heavy granite blocks brought as ballast by oceangoing s.h.i.+ps and surrounded on two sides by galleries onto which looked the cells. As the guardsmen led January to the stairway that ascended to the first of these galleries, they pa.s.sed a st.u.r.dy, stocklike construction of stained and scarred gray wood, and January realized with a queasy contraction of his stomach that this was the city whipping post.

No, he thought, quite calmly, pus.h.i.+ng all possibility from his mind that his own neck might feel that rubbed tightness, his own arms and ankles be locked into those dirty slots. No. They don't just keep people here indefinitely. Someone will send for Livia or Dominique. In any case nothing will be done without a hearing. No. They don't just keep people here indefinitely. Someone will send for Livia or Dominique. In any case nothing will be done without a hearing.

The knot of ice behind his breastbone did not melt.

The plastered walls of the cell looked like they had been whitewashed sometime around the Declaration of American Independence, at which time the straw in the mattresses of the cots had probably been changed, though January wouldn't have staked any large sum on it. Both cots were already occupied, one by an enormously fat black man with hands even bigger than January's-although January suspected that spanning an octave and a half on the piano was not what he did with his-the other by a scar-faced mulatto who sized January up speculatively with cold gray-green eyes, then turned his face away with an almost perceptible shrug. Another mulatto, elderly and gray-haired and incoherent with drink, was fumbling around trying to reach the bucket in the corner in time to vomit. Three other men, two black and one white, were seated on the floor. Roaches the length of January's thumb scampered over the sleeper and in and out of mattresses, bucket, and the cracks in the walls.

”You heave in that bucket, Pop,” said the mulatto on the bed, ”or I'll make you lick it up.”

The old man collapsed back against the wall and began to cry. ”I di'n' mean it,” he said softly. ”I di'n' mean nuthin'. I di'n' know them clothes belonged to n.o.body, settin' out on the fence that way. I thought some lady throwed 'em away, I swear-”

”-said I was impudent. What the h.e.l.l 'impudent' mean?”

”It mean twenty-five lashes, is what it mean-or thirty if you 'drunk an' impudent.'”

No, thought January, putting aside the dread that had begun to grow like a tumor inside him. Not without seeing a judge. It won't happen. Not without seeing a judge. It won't happen. His palms felt damp, and he wiped them on torn and dirty trousers. His palms felt damp, and he wiped them on torn and dirty trousers.

The white man spat. Daubs and squiggles of expectorated tobacco juice covered the wall opposite him and the floor beneath. The sweetish, greasy stench of it rivaled the smell of the bucket.

From beyond the strapwork iron of the door, m.u.f.fled by the s.p.a.ce of the court or the length of the gallery, women's voices rose, shrilly arguing. From further off came a scream from the cells where they kept the insane: ”But they did all conspire against me! The king, and President Jackson, they paid off my parents and my schoolmasters and the mayor to ruin me....”

A guard cursed.

The light in the yard faded. Voices could be heard as the work gangs were brought in from cleaning the city's gutters or mending the levees, a soft shush of clothing and the clink of iron chain. The splash of water as someone washed in the basin of the courtyard pump. The cell began to grow dark.

Half an hour later Nahum s.h.a.grue was dragged along the gallery, stumbling, head down, fresh blood trickling from a scalp wound he hadn't had when he'd been brought into the duty room. Mercifully, he was locked in another cell.

About the time music started up in Rue Saint Pierre below the narrow windows in the cell's opposite wall, a youth came along the gallery carrying wooden bowls of beans and rice, gritty and flavorless, and a jug of water. The guards came back with him to collect the bowls afterward. The man who had been 'impudent' smashed a roach with his open hand and cursed drunkenly against someone he called 'that stinkin' Roarke.' The white man continued to chew and spit, wordless as an ox. Outside it began to rain.

The bells on the cathedral struck six, then seven. At eight-full dark-the cannon in Congo Square boomed out, signaling curfew for those few slaves who remained abroad, though the rain, January guessed, would have broken up the dancing long ago.

He wondered about the woman he'd followed from the square and where she lived, and if he'd have to go through this again next Sunday to locate her.

If he wasn't on a boat by that time, he thought bitterly, wedging his broad shoulders against the stained plaster of the wall and drawing up his knees. The man next to him grumbled, ”Watch your feet, n.i.g.g.e.r,” and January growled tiredly, ”You watch yours.” There were advantages to being six feet three and the size of a barn.

On a boat and on his way back to Paris, where he wouldn't have to worry about being triced up in that h.e.l.lish scaffold in the yard and lashed with a whip because some chaca jack-in-office thought he was darker than he should have been. Jesus! Jesus! he thought, lowering his throbbing head to his wrists. Maybe he couldn't get work as a surgeon in Paris, and maybe the government taxed everything from toothbrushes to menservants, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about carrying papers around certifying that he wasn't somebody's property trying to commit the crime of stealing himself. he thought, lowering his throbbing head to his wrists. Maybe he couldn't get work as a surgeon in Paris, and maybe the government taxed everything from toothbrushes to menservants, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about carrying papers around certifying that he wasn't somebody's property trying to commit the crime of stealing himself.

And Ayasha? something whispered in his heart. something whispered in his heart.

Well, not Paris, then. But there were other places in France. Places where every cobblestone and gargoyle and chestnut tree didn't say her name. Or England. The world was filled with cities....

He wondered who were the men who'd attacked him.

And why.

He stifled the rising panic, the fear that n.o.body would come for him, n.o.body would come to get him out of this, and thought about those men. One at least had been in the square. Probably both. They'd clearly followed him.

Why?

Coa.r.s.e clothing, but he thought their shoes looked better than those given to slaves for wintertime wear. In the tangle of the fighting he hadn't had a chance to observe their hands or their clothes, to guess at what they did.

Stay out of barrooms, the official on the docks had said. They's enough cheats and sc.u.m in this city...you'd find yourself pickin' cotton in Natchez before you kin say Jack Robinson.... They's enough cheats and sc.u.m in this city...you'd find yourself pickin' cotton in Natchez before you kin say Jack Robinson....

'Impudent' means twenty-five lashes, is what it means.

NO. It will not happen.

Why hadn't Livia come? Or Minou?

The clock on the cathedral chimed eleven.

The sergeant hadn't sent for them. Was the sergeant being bribed to turn over likely blacks to Carmen and Ricardo or Tallbott, or any of those others who owned the pens and depots and barrac.o.o.ns along Banks' Arcade and Gravier and Baronne streets?

Sitting here in this stinking darkness, it seemed hideously likely.

January closed his eyes, tried to calm the thumping of his heart. Along the gallery, female voices rose again, arguing bitterly, and a man's bellowed, ”You hoors shut up, y'hear! Man can't get no sleep!” Other voices joined in, cursing, followed by the sounds of a fight.

I was a fool to return. He wondered why they all didn't leave, all who were able to-all who were still free. He wondered why they all didn't leave, all who were able to-all who were still free. And how long And how long, he wondered, would that freedom last, with the arriving Americans, who saw every dark-skinned human being as something to be appropriated and sold? would that freedom last, with the arriving Americans, who saw every dark-skinned human being as something to be appropriated and sold?

It won't happen to me. I'll be let out tomorrow. Holy Mary ever-Virgin, send someone to get me out of here....

Abis.h.a.g Shaw appeared at the cell door shortly before eight.

January wasn't sure he had slept at all. The night blurred together into a long darkness of intermittent fear; of deliberately cultivated memories of Paris, of Ayasha and of every piece of music he'd ever played; of the p.r.i.c.kle of roach feet, the scratching scamper of rats, and unspeakable smells. In the depths of the night he'd fingered his rosary in his pocket, telling over the beads in the darkness, bringing back the words and the incense of the Ma.s.s he'd attended that morning before his ill-fated expedition to Congo Square. The familiar promise of the prayers, the touch of the steel crucifix, had comforted him somewhat. At seven, voices in the yard gashed his meditations, a man reading out sentences: ”Matthew Priest, for impudence, twenty lashes...”

And the smack of leather opening flesh, punctuated by a man's hoa.r.s.e screams.

”I am most sorry, Maestro,” said Shaw, leading the way swiftly along the gallery and down the wooden steps to the court. As usual he looked like something that had been raised by wolves. As they came to the flagstone court he glanced around him warily, as if expecting an Indian attack. ”I been on another detail these two days, chasin' after complaints about rented-out slaves roomin' away 'stead of stayin' with their masters. 'Course everyone does it-that whole area round about the Swamp's nuthin' but boardinghouses and tenements-but the captain got a flea up his nose about it all of a sudden, and I been talkin' to lodgin' house keepers who look like they'd sell their mothers' coffins out from under 'em. I wouldn't even be back here now, iff'n I hadn't gone by your ma's lookin' for you....”

”Looking for me?” They stopped by the bra.s.s pump in the courtyard that allegedly provided for the hygienic impulses of the Cabildo's prisoners. January scooped water onto the stiffened filth on his trouser leg, and sponged at it with a handful of weeds pulled from between the flagstones. His whole body was one vast ache and his head felt as if it was half-filled with dirty water that sloshed agonizingly every time he turned it. Every muscle of his arms and torso seemed to have turned to wood in the night. He'd checked his clothing before leaving the cell but couldn't rid himself of the conviction that it still crawled with roaches.