Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

‘Well, of course, one mustn’t expect too much.’ The carriage rumbled into Bayou Road. ‘But I don’t see the harm in trying. We only live once.’

‘I agree.’ Julia looked out of the window.

‘He knows about you anyway,’ Madame Soulie said. ‘I’ve told him some. Oh, here we are!’ She was jolly, as if they were on a jaunt.

There were some fine big houses on Bayou Road. Dr John Montanee’s was low and set back a little. A muted red glow came from the windows. There was a lantern on the porch and red dust on the threshold.

‘We’re lucky he could fit us in at such short notice,’ Madame Soulie whispered, rapping on the door and adjusting Julia’s collar as if she was a child, ‘he’s so busy. They all go to him, everybody. I’ve seen it when they’re standing in line a mile away.’

A woman with tired eyes and a long oval face opened the door and motioned them in, placing one hand on Madame Soulie’s sleeve in a familiar way as she did so. ‘Bonsoir, chérie ,’ she said, her eyes sliding towards Julia. ‘Bonsoir, Madame.’

‘Here we are.’ Madame Soulie swept grandly into the room, ‘and here is she . Julia dear, come in, come in. Marie, how are you?’

‘Seen many a better day,’ said the woman wearily, ‘and a few worse.’

The room was warm and dim and cluttered with furniture. Lizards sat about on the backs of sofas and arms of chairs, and the walls were hung with desiccated things, toads, scorpions, chickens’ feet. Skulls grinned from the top of a high cupboard. A fire burned low. Two girls lounged almost vertically in easy chairs, drinking wine and looking at Julia with no apparent interest. Deep in the room, standing in front of a red curtain was the Doctor himself, a tall grey-bearded African man in an expensive black suit with a frilly white shirt front. She’d never seen a rich black man before. His cheeks were slashed, three big gashes each side. A python coiled around his waist and neck, its face hovering peacefully in front of his chest. ‘Miss Julia,’ he said, his voice deep and heavily accented, ‘come on in’, indicating that she should follow him behind the curtain.

‘Go with the Doctor,’ said Madame Soulie. ‘I’ll be right here. Go on.’

The Doctor adjusted his snake as if it was a scarf. ‘Come on in here,’ he said. ‘Come on now, nothing here to be scared of.’

Behind the curtain was a short passage, another door, a small dark room with a picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall and an elephant’s tusk in the corner. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling, white candles burned tall and straight on an altar, and the air was smoky and rich, heavy with a dark soporific perfume she could not place. He motioned for her to sit in one of two chairs drawn up close beside a small table spread with shells and straws, sat down himself in the other, took the snake’s thin head gently between the fingers of his right hand and settled its brown and yellow coils more comfortably. It turned its face to look up at him. Behind him on the shelf was the skull of something small and delicate.

‘He’s beautiful,’ Julia said.

‘This here’s a lady,’ said the Doctor, smiling.

The snake’s round black eye was still.

‘What do you want?’ the Doctor asked.

‘Madame Soulie said she told you about me.’

He nodded.

‘I might be cursed,’ she said.

He nodded again.

‘My nurse said it was because my mother walked out in the dark of the moon. My guardian said that was nonsense. But no one has ever told me what I am.’

He sat rubbing his beard for a long time.

‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m twenty-one,’ she said.

‘Let me see you.’

She took off her veil, and he sat looking at her without any movement for so long she wondered if he was trancing her. His eyes were soft and bloodshot but very penetrating. He winked suddenly, and she smiled. ‘Answer my question,’ he said. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You want me to make you like everybody else?’

‘Yes.’

‘No,’ he said, leaning forward and speaking sharply, ‘that’s not what you want. Think again.’

She thought he was scolding her and spoke too loudly in self-defence, ‘Can you lift the curse?’

‘Ha.’ His smile was sudden and brilliant. ‘Can’t do a thing for you.’ He reached across and took her hand. ‘That’s no curse. I can give you some gris-gris though. What you want? A man?’

She was shocked.

‘I pray to Saint Jude,’ she said.

‘What’s he say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Take off your glove.’

She did. His two big hands closed around her cold hand. ‘Close your eyes,’ he said.

They sat in the dark, which darkened more, as if the candles were going out one by one. It was like falling half asleep. He took his hands away. He was burning herbs, moving around, shaking something that whispered, saying softly: Papa Legba, Papa Legba, Papa Legba, over and over again. She thought she could hear someone else nearby singing along, a woman’s voice or maybe more than one, but it seemed unlikely and she didn’t want to think about where it was coming from.

‘Will I ever be loved?’ she asked.

The Doctor gave her a drink, straight into her mouth, his big warm hand on top of her head. ‘You’ll be loved,’ he said, ‘Within a year.’

He moved away. Through her eyelids she could see the flickering of candlelight and heard the rattle of shells and bones falling.

‘Open your eyes,’ he said.

Two bowls, white powder and dust.

‘Someone’s watching out for you,’ he said, sitting across from her, studying the bones. ‘Your mama’s watching.’

‘She gave me away,’ said Julia. Her voice came out double, vibrating. Her eyes fell upon the small neat skull on the shelf. A cat, she decided, and her eyes filled up. Poor puss.

‘She’s watching over you anyway,’ he said. ‘And she’s not the only one.’

‘You said I wasn’t cursed.’ He wasn’t going to help her, it was obvious. How could she ever have thought it? ‘Can’t you tell me anything?’ she said. ‘I wanted you to tell me what I am. I don’t know.’

‘No curse to lift,’ he said. ‘And what you are? You’re a strange girl, that’s all. Hush.’ He closed his eyes and sat silent for a while. ‘You’re going across the sea,’ he said, ‘you’ll keep moving.’

‘Me?’

‘Just moving, always.’ He opened his eyes and looked at her. ‘Something’s coming,’ he said, ‘big something.’

‘Bad or good?’

‘Both.’

She laughed. ‘That means nothing.’

‘No,’ he said seriously, ‘that means everything.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘No matter.’

What did you expect, she thought. Wave his arms? Say the right words? Lo! A miracle. ‘But there are curses,’ she said, pulling on one of her gloves.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I can fix a curse. I can lift a curse. Whole lot I can do, but I can’t lift a curse that isn’t there. Can make you feel better though.’

‘What about what my nurse said? How my mother walked out in the dark of the moon and that’s why I’m like I am.’

‘Your nurse don’t know what she’s talking about,’ he said. ‘Your mama can walk out any old moon she likes long as she’s careful.’

He was back there in the chair opposite her, leaning on one elbow, frowning, his snake advancing from his left shoulder into the air before him.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, ‘it just seemed wrong. Why the baby gets the curse for what the mother did. And maybe she didn’t even know she was doing it.’ She looked down at her hands, one gloved, one hairy. ‘Madame Soulie says there’s a devil baby running about on the roofs. I was so scared. I couldn’t get to sleep that night for thinking about him.’ She pulled on the other glove. ‘Poor thing. Running about all night across the roofs and down the alleys all on his own and everybody running away from him and all because of something his mother did.’