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edition
of Don Quixote and a text on the stars that had been much
talked of in Paris when he was there a few years ago. Inside the
cover of each was marked, A. Vouziers, 12 Rue de la Petit Monaie
– that address was crossed out, along with two others he
recognized as being in the same maze of ancient streets behind the
Louvre in Paris, and then , — 53 Rue Marigny.
    He said, “Then we can be sure it will bring
Zozo good luck as well.”
     
    *
     
    “I consulted with my sister,” said January
that evening to Hannibal Sefton, at a break during the dancing in
the Théâtre d’Orleans while the guests made serious inroads on the
buffet and the musicians sorted through their music and flexed the
cramp from their hands. “She says she didn’t sell Zozo Rochier
anything to make Marie-Therese Pellicot sick, but the symptoms
sound like hellebore of some kind. My aunties back on the
plantation would give the children something of the kind, when we
got worms. I hope Agnes didn’t force Marie-Therese out of bed to
come to the ball.”
    His eyes strayed across the dance-floor that
had been raised over the backs of the seats in the pit, to the wide
double doors that led through to the lobby. From the lobby a
discreet passageway existed to the building next door – the Salle
d’Orleans – where a ball was going on for the ladies of the free
colored demimonde, the plaçees and their daughters.
    M’sieu Davis, who owned both buildings, was
careful to stagger the intermissions so that the husbands and
brothers of the respectable ladies attending the ball at the
Théâtre could sneak back in good time to have a cup of punch with
their wives, after dancing with their mistresses next door.
    “Surely she wouldn’t.” Hannibal set his
violin on top of January’s piano, unobtrusively collected two
champagne glasses from the tray of a passing waiter, and led the
way to the lobby. It wouldn’t do, for the musicans to be seen
drinking the same champagne as the guests. “Even Agnes...”
    “Agnes Pellicot is living on investments that
have gone down in value and has three daughters besides
Marie-Therese to bring out.”
    Needless to say, the sister January referred
to was not the lovely Dominique but Olympe, his full-blood sister
who’d run off with the voodoos at the age of sixteen.
    They traversed the passageway to the upstairs
lobby of the Salle, and emerging, January scanned the room for
Dominique: cautiously, because a black musician who was perceived
as “uppity” – that is, attending a ball designed for white men in
some capacity other than that of a servant – was just as liable to
be thrashed on this side of the passageway as on the other. Music
still flowed like a sparkling river through the archways that led
from the ballroom, and with it the swish of skirts, the brisk pat
of slippers on the waxed floor, the laughter of the ladies and the
rumble of men’s talk. Impossible to tell whether his sister would
be able to gracefully slip from her protector – or whether she’d
remember to do so. In ten minutes he’d have to be back...
    A moment later, however, Dominique appeared
in the archway, a fantasia of green and bronze, calling back over
her shoulder, “Darling, if I don’t get some air I’ll be obliged to
faint in your arms and that would simply destroy the flowers
you gave me—”
    January took his untouched champagne glass,
picked a waiter’s silver tray from a corner of the buffet in the
lobby, and carried the glass to her with the respectful air of one
who knows his place. “Would madame care for champagne?”
    “How precious of you, p’tit! What I’d really
like is about a quart of arsenic to give to Eulalia Figes – such a
witch! She said my dress…”
    “Were you able to find out about Nicholas
Saverne?” January had learned years ago that if one truly needed
specific information, ruthlessly interrupting Dominique’s
digressions upon her friends and acquaintances wsa the only way to
get