Libre Read Free Page B

might have thought himself justified
under the circumstances in slipping poison into Marie-Therese’s
coffee himself, and kidnapping Zozo, guessing she’d go without a
fuss.”
    The young woman nodded. “I think that’s what
her mama fears.”
    “And if she didn’t take her jewels,” he
continued, “which are worth a thousand dollars, there’s no telling
when Nicholas might decide that once Marie-Zulieka has run off to
Mobile with him, she herself is worth fifteen hundred
dollars.”
    Dominique’s eyes widened. The thought had
clearly never crossed her mind. “Oh, no,” she breathed. “No, p’tit,
he wouldn’t …”
    “Don’t underestimate what a white man would
or wouldn’t do, when there’s money involved, and a woman not of his
own race,” said January quietly. “One more thing, and then we have
to get back to the ballroom. Is Nicholas Saverne here tonight?”
    Dominique silently shook her head.
     
    *
     
    “I don’t understand,” said Hannibal, some
hours later when next the Theatre musicians had a break. “Your
sister and her friends are free women, aren’t they? If Jules
Dutuille is such a blackguard – and I must say in the defense of us
devotees of Dionysus that a man needn’t be a drunkard to treat
women like cattle – Marie-Zulieka can say no. Her mother might put
up a fuss – God knows my aunts did when a cousin of mine refused to
marry a chinless Viscount who would have paid off my uncle’s
gambling-debts – yet there’s no way she or anyone can force her compliance.”
    January was silent for a few moments,
reflecting on the width of the gulf that even after several years’
residence, still separated the shabby Irish fiddler from the world
of New Orleans. Even Dominique, raised in the free colored
demimonde, was separated from the world of her brother and her
older sister Olympe, who remembered what it was to be slaves. The
narrow brick corridor to which they’d retreated – it led to the
kitchen quarters of the Salle d’Orleans – was at least warm. From
it, he and Hannibal could look across the rear courtyard to the
lighted windows both of the Salle and, beyond, to those of the
Theatre where the well-bred French and Spanish Creole ladies were
still pretending their vanished husbands and brothers were “out
having a smoke” or “down in the gambling-rooms.” Another world.
    Another universe.
     
    “Your cousin is white,” he said at last. “And
presumably lives in a land where law applies to everyone. Maybe the
law isn’t always just, and maybe it’s not enforced equally, but it
is recognized to apply. You have to understand, that nothing that
concerns the free colored here in New Orleans is legally clear, or
as it seems to be. Rules change with a few degrees difference in
the color of a woman’s skin. They shift from one hour to the next,
from one house to the next. It’s all the custom of the country, and
nothing that concerns us – slaves, or ex-slaves, or the children or
grandchildren of ex-slaves – is official or truly legal or truly
illegal.
    “Casmalia Rochier and her children are
legally free. But since she isn’t legally married to Louis Rochier,
he can make things far more difficult for her and her family than
your uncle could ever make things for your aunt. It isn’t simply a
matter of Uncle Freddy going to the spunging-house. Rochier has it
in his power to end the education of the boys, possibly to sell
Casmalia’s servants – the yard-man and the cook. If he’s angry
enough to cast Casmalia off it would be disaster for the family.
Free or not, there was no question of the girl not agreeing to
become the mistress of anyone her father ordered her to. And no one
who matters to him – none of his white relatives or acquaintances –
will think or say a thing about it.”
    The fiddler opened his mouth to say something
– probably along the lines of, Would a man do that to his own
children? – and closed it. The lights of the Salle’s