Джеймс Кейн - Mignon

In four or five days, call it a week after Mardi Gras, here came Marie, tapping on the door, saying she had to see me. I let her in, and she asked if Emil could “excuse him,” as “he feels very bad, and wants to be friends with you.” I said I’d accept his apologies through her, and she called in French through the crack.

“ Bon ,” she said. “He is gone — and feels better now.” She held my face to the light, and made little whistling noises. But when she sat down I asked her: “Yes? What do you want, Marie, that you ‘had’ to see me?”

“You might say you are glad I am here.”

“I might — if I was sure I am.”

“La-la. La-la.”

Actually I wasn’t, as those nights had warned me my success in the root-out operation had fallen short of what I’d assumed it was, and that all my bitter decisions weren’t so final as they might have been. Still, there was no doubt in my mind that they ought to be final at any rate, so I gave her a little pat. That wasn’t difficult; she looked most fetching in a little blue silk dress, red straw hat, red shoes, red gloves, and red shawl, obviously put on to please me. I said: “All right, I’m glad.”

“Guillaume, I have spent some dark nights.”

“With me, it’s been just the opposite — the bright days are what I minded, the way they lit up my face. By night I looked better.”

She went to a wall mirror, touched her chin with one finger. It had a black-and-blue spot on it where my fist had clipped her, though a dab of rice powder hid it. She said: “I too have a face, but at night one communes with the heart.”

“If I bruised that I didn’t mean to.”

“... Donc , you have not seen her.”

“Oh? You’ve been keeping track?”

“Keeping track, Guillaume, is easy for me in my business — I send Emil, he speaks with some night maid, he pays a bock, he learns what I wish to know... She sees Burke — much, every night.”

“It’s a free country, Marie.”

“Perhaps you have not lied.”

“Let’s not start that up again. I lied.”

“... Alors, alors . You lied.”

“But, my reasons were not unfriendly — to you, I’m talking about — and if you still feel friendly to me, then—”

I went over and lifted her face to kiss it, having by that time arrived once more in my mind at the inescapable conclusion that she meant salvation to me. But she pulled away abruptly, and I backed off, sitting down on the sofa. I said: “I’m sorry, Marie — I keep forgetting this face, and how unappetizing it must be.”

She took off her hat, shawl, and gloves, and tossed them on the table. Then she came over, knelt on the sofa beside me, took my face in both hands, and covered it with soft, quick kisses. She said: “The face could not unappetize me! I... I... I... loave your face.”

“Red-white-and-blue and all? And yellow?”

“And green.”

She kissed a spot under one eye.

“Hold still!” I said. “ I want some kisses, too! ”

“ Non, non, non! ” she whispered, holding me off at arm’s length. “Your kisses, petit , must wait. They must! It devolves!”

“Devolves? On what?”

“Many things — my heart, for example. And one must know — if one has business partner — in which case les affaires must prevail — or if one has something more — in which case—”

“An affair might be in order?”

“ Petit , it cannot be!”

“My mistake, it was just an idea.”

“After these dark nights I have had—”

“It devolves that we know where we’re at?”

“It is what brings me today, petit .”

“All right, but how?”

“... You received some invitation to the bal? ”

“ Bal? What ball?”

“That the General gives next week?”

“Oh — this Washington’s Birthday thing? To commemorate the election he’s holding that day? Yes — some kind of bid came in. Apparently I got put on the list by a friend before he decided my name was mud. It’s around here some place. Why?”

“ Alors . You ask me why?”

“You’d like to go? Is that it?”

“If you are ashamed of some demi-mondaine —” She got up, her face twisting, and started pulling on her gloves.

“ Will you stop talking like that? ”

I reached out, grabbed her arm and yanked it, pulling her back to her place on the sofa. I said: “How can you say such a thing?”

“You hesitate, pourtant? ”

“I certainly do — in the first place, I don’t dance very well, and in the second place, I don’t get the connection — what it proves, that’s all.”

“It is not that someone may turn me away?”

“How, turn you away?”

“From the door?”

“If so, he won’t live until dawn.”

Suddenly she folded me in her arms, pressed her mouth to mine, whispered: “One little kiss you may have!.. For this, one little kiss I must have!”

“Is that how we go about proving it? With pistols for two? In — where’s the dueling ground here?”

“No, petit , I forbid! You might hang, and this would be too much. But I love this spirit, that might kill someone for me.”

“All right, but get to the point.”

“She will be there, petit .”

“... Who?”

“Mignon. With Burke.”

“I see. I see. I see.”

“Already ice fills your heart, petit? ”

“No — I see what you mean, that’s all.”

“You may renege, if you wish.”

“Not at all. I think we’d better go.”

“This confrontation shall tell me.”

“To say nothing of me.”

So we did go. It was held in the French Opera House, a big theater in the Quarter, and everyone was there, not only the Union officers and their ladies, but New Orleans society too, especially the ones cozening up to the North — of whom there were more than you’d think. I went in full evening regalia, which Marie rented for me at a costume place on Poydras, around the corner from Lavadeau’s: clawhammer suit, puff-bosom shirt, cape, and silk hat. But from the way she was got up, no question could arise that she would be turned away. She looked like the Duchess of El Dorado in a white ermine cloak, scarlet satin gown, cut so low she was bare halfway to her navel, gold shoes, gold purse, and gold fillet on her hair. In addition, she wore diamonds wherever you looked — at her neck in a pendant, on her wrists in bracelets, and on her fingers with various rings. She glittered like an igloo in the midnight sun; I was proud of her in a way, yet I wanted to laugh. She caught my look, and instead of being angry, started to laugh too. “ Alors? ” she said, as our cab pulled away from the gambling house. “Am I grande dame now?”

“So grand I feel like a pigmy.”

“I hope I am creditable.”

What was causing my stomach to twitch wasn’t concern at her being thrown out, but who would be waiting for us once we were let in. For some time, though I searched the place with my eye, taking in flags, bunting, smilax, and the band up on the stage, I didn’t see her. We got into the receiving line and I had a bad moment when we came to Dan Dorsey, who was presenting the guests. He was in dress uniform, with epaulets, braid, sword, knots, and white gloves, and when he saw Marie his face turned to stone. But he didn’t hesitate, and sang out loud and clear: “Mr. William Cresap, Miss Marie Tremaine!” The General’s lady, I imagine, had never heard of Marie; she smiled graciously and offered her hand. Marie, after dropping a graceful, comic little continental curtsey, took it. I took it. We shook hands with the General, passed on, and that was that. “ Voilà , I am in!” said Marie, pleased as a child.