R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

Hartmann looked away himself then. Perez was right, and despite the horrors that Hartmann had listened to, despite the violence and bloodshed that Perez had both instigated and condoned, there was something about the man that seemed to command an element of respect. Abhorrence and repulsion had in some small way become supplanted by a degree of acceptance. For all that had been done, Perez had never pretended to be anything other than himself. Unlike Ducane, unlike even Feraud, Perez had worn his heart on his sleeve; he had shown his colors; he had cheated and deceived and murdered, but never failed to recognize that that was what he was doing. Even his wife had been aware of the man he was, and though they had never spoken openly of his life he had never directly lied to her.

Perez looked across the table at Hartmann. Hartmann looked back. There was silence between them for some seconds, but that silence was neither awkward nor tense. It seemed, after all these things, that each had accepted the other. This thought did not disturb Hartmann. He did not question his allegiances nor his feelings. It was what it was. Perez had spoken the truth, and for this, perhaps this alone, he had earned Hartmann’s respect.

‘So,’ Perez eventually said, his voice clear and precise. ‘Let me tell you what happened when I came home to New Orleans.’

And so at last I had come full circle.

Ouroboros: the snake that devours its own tail, finally to disappear.

Here was everything I was, everything I became, everything I would ultimately be. Here was the beginning of every thought and deed, every action, every dream that soured and died some quiet and lonely death in the darkened shadows of my mind.

I arrived in New Orleans 6 April, 2000. The Mardi Gras was bursting the streets at their seams. The Vieux Carré was alive and throbbing with the sound of music and voices, the fireworks of color along rues d’Orléans, de Toulouse, de Chartres, de Sainte-Anne, de Sainte-Philippe, de Bourbon and de Bourgogne, the Halls of Preservation and Dixieland: the rolling syncopations of jazz blended with deep Southern gospel blues, and amidst all of this, my memories…

St James the Greater, Ougou Feray, the African spirit of war and iron. Serpent and cross in the same cemetery on All Saints’ Day, the spirited festival of Vyéj Mirak, the Virgin of Miracles, and her voodoo counterpart Ezili, the goddess of love. They drank to feed the spirit. Sacrificing white pigeons to the Petro loa. All Souls’ Day, Baron Samedi, loa of the dead…

Carryl Chevron, gold and diamonds in his teeth, a car filled with wisdom – Aardvark through Aix-La-Chapelle to Canteloupe – and somewhere, perhaps even now, a brassy act in high heels with too much rouge and too little class, who waited hours in a dusty roadhouse asking herself whatever might have happened to the trick that never showed…

The smell of the swamps and everglades, the canal intersections, the wisteria and hickory and water oak; Chalmette District, the edge of the territories, the edge of the world perhaps…

The Havana Hurricane, his red-raw face imbued with alcohol and rage and the madness of sex alight in his eyes.

And she whose name I could even now barely utter without feeling the tension of grief in my throat…

And somewhere out there, in a world I had left believing I would never return, was my own son.

There – in a hotel on Lafayette Street, standing on the first floor veranda, behind me on the bed Victor’s clothes scattered as if he had rushed to dress, to leave, to fill himself with the sights and sounds of this place – I stood quietly, my thoughts there for noone but myself, and I wondered how this would end. Seemed to me I had run from every place I had been; there had always been a reason to escape, behind me the deaths of people I had known and those I had not. Pietro Silvino, Giancarlo Ceriano, Jimmy Hoffa, Constabulare Luis Hernández; the dealers and druggies, the pimps and murderers and rapists and psychopaths. People whose lives had meant something of significance, and those whose lives had meant nothing at all.

I asked myself about my own life: if it had been something of value, or if I had truly been no better than those whose lives had been swiftly and expediently despatched. I had never been one to rationalize and introspect, and understanding that nothing would be gained by such thoughts I closed them down quietly and stowed them away. Perhaps those thoughts would surface some other time, perhaps not. It did not matter, what was done was done, and there was nothing I could do now to change it.

I stepped back into the room to get a cigarette and returned to the veranda to smoke. I looked down into the crowd of swelling people, bodies pressed against one another with no spaces in between, and I knew I would not see Victor until he was ready to return. He was a young man now, seventeen years old, headstrong and determined and full of life. There was nothing I could do to contain his energy and élan and neither would I try. He was my son, and so there would be something of me within him, but I prayed – once more to a God I hardly believed in – that he had taken from me only those things of worth. Some sense of loyalty, a respect for those who understood more of life than I did, an appreciation of the importance of family, and the knowledge that truth could be found no matter how much it might hurt.

I closed my eyes. My head filled with the sound of music, with the sound of the world and all it had to offer, and I smiled. I had been someone . That most of all: I had been someone .

I slept like a dead man that night, despite the noise, the heat, and the sound of the real world beneath me, and when I woke and put on my gown and walked through to the adjoining room, I saw Victor lying there on his bed, still fully clothed, beside him a girl, her skirt up around her thighs, her tee-shirt twisted almost to her neck. They were absent from this world, their faces flushed, their hair tangled from sweat, and I stood silently for a little while. Victor had not come back alone, and though my heart felt for him and I was in some way happy that he had found someone here, I also knew that this was the first sign of losing him. He was almost a grown man, and he would have his own dreams and aspirations, his own vision of how his life would be. And once he discovered that life, he would – inevitably – no longer be a part of mine.

I closed the door quietly behind me. I went back to the bathroom, I showered and shaved, and when I called down for breakfast to be sent up I once again returned to Victor’s room to see if he and his friend had woken.

My son was still collapsed on the bed, but the girl was seated in a chair by the window. In the moment that she turned, the way her hair fell across her shoulder, the brightness in her eyes, she could have been Angelina. For a split second she looked surprised, afraid even, and then it was gone in a single, simple heartbeat. She smiled. She was someone different, and I wondered how I could have imagined she looked like anyone I had known.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘You must be Victor’s dad.’

I smiled and stepped into the room. ‘I am, yes,’ I replied. ‘And you are?’

She rose from the chair and walked towards me. She had on her skirt and tee-shirt, but her feet were bare, dirty from where she must have walked along the street, perhaps dancing, living life, loving all that New Orleans represented in this most passionate season.

‘Emilie,’ she said, and then she spelled it for me. ‘Emilie Devereau.’ For a moment she looked a little awkward. ‘I met Victor last night. We were a little drunk.’ She laughed, and the sound was beautiful, a sound I had perhaps heard too little of in this life of mine. ‘I live upstate, quite a distance away. I was going to get a hotel room… we went everywhere but they were all filled up to bursting. Victor said it would be okay if I just crashed here-’