Oscar Hijuelos - Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

But I remained careful: The gains I had made, since my days on the Windermere , had precipitated in me a great cautiousness about life, one that has served me well. I had few indulgences — food, I am afraid to say, being one of them. And in those days I was greatly tempted to see a play, my interest having been piqued by a production of Hamlet put on by Ben DeBar’s theatrical troupe, its theme of patricide vaguely interesting me (I did not go, as I was afraid of squandering my money, and besides, Mr. Stanley had given me a copy of the play to read). On the Fourth of July, there had been a spectacular display of pinwheeling fireworks that lasted for hours. Dense, boozy crowds gathered along the squares and sidewalks in awe, as the skies above went ablaze with a bursting conflagration that could be seen from many miles away, but even then I chose to spend the night up in my attic room at Mrs. Williams’s, reading my books.

I suppose I believed that I did not want to tempt fate by any departure from routine, for I counted myself very fortunate in those days. But the future, seemingly so secure in one moment, I learned, could be swiftly disrupted.

IN THIS INSTANCE, I MUST RECALL the newspaper article I had read aloud to Mr. Stanley when we first met. In it, the health officials of the city had warned of the possibility of a yellow fever epidemic, and by midsummer, it had come true, though I was surely among the last to have noticed. Even when I had heard Mr. Richardson declare one morning, with some concern, that an unhealthy time had descended upon New Orleans.

I had observed for some days that my employer, Mr. Speake, was looking a little more drawn than usual, that his brow was often covered with perspiration, and that he seemed too short of breath for a man so thin of body — just walking across the sales floor seemed to exhaust him. All kinds of worrisome lines had begun to cross his face, which, I surmised, had come from some disappointment, perhaps in business. Though it was not my place to do so, as one of his more valued employees, I had been tempted to suggest to Mr. Speake that he see a doctor. As this had already been suggested by Mr. Richardson — Mr. Speake, refusing to do so, had called his low physical state a “passing thing”—there was not much any of the clerks could do but attend to our usual duties. But then there came a day when Mr. Speake did not arrive at the warehouse, a message having been sent by his wife, Cornelia, that he was resting at home. That was followed by three more days of his absence. Then one morning, as the clerks were just settling down to work, there came a second message: Mr. Speake, like his former partner, Mr. McCreary, was dead.

A crisis within the warehouse ensued. The slaves were sent home, the doors closed, and the clerks and I headed that very morning to Mr. Speake’s residence, which was on the corner of Girod and Carondelet Streets, to comfort his grieving widow. We spent most of the day in her company, speculating among ourselves, with some anxiety, about what might happen to the warehouse. When a respectable amount of time had passed and we had prepared to leave, she, by way of according me some special honor, asked that I spend the evening in her company. This I did not refuse. When my fellow clerks had gone off, I remained behind with the widow, who had touched me deeply by weeping in my arms — that I hardly knew her didn’t seem to matter.

“The poor dear man had been suffering from nightmares — as if he already knew what awaited him. He was only forty-seven,” she added, to my surprise. “And he had often spoken of you as his successor.”

I thought about what Mr. Stanley would have done in such circumstances and found myself quoting from the Psalms to soothe her.

“You are very kind,” she said. “God bless my husband’s soul.”

We said some prayers, then she asked me, in the way that grieved persons do, “You do believe in the eternal nature of souls?”

“Of course, ma’am. Surely as Jesus rose, then will he.”

That was hardly a comfort to her, given her sadness, but she was greatly touched and, sitting near me, reached for my hand and held it for a long while. Then, as it was getting late, and just when I was beginning to wonder about what kind of accommodations his widow would offer me that night, she, in tears, led me from that room toward a large salon. Through the door we went; it was then that I saw the defunct Mr. Speake resting, at the far end of that salon, in his coffin.

“I cannot bear to do so myself, but as I do not want to leave the poor man alone, would you, Master Rowlands, sit up with the casket tonight?”

What choice had I?

I passed that night uneasily, and in the morning, I joined the funeral procession, along the streets of the city, to St. Roch’s for his interment.

IT TURNED OUT THAT WITHIN a few weeks Mrs. Speake decided to move to St. Louis to live with some relations, and the firm was put up and sold at auction. A different partnership, headed by a certain Mr. Ellison and Mr. McMillan, became the new owner. Mr. Richardson and several of the other clerks found work elsewhere, but as the partners had heard about my efficient ways and my reputation as a “walking inventory,” I was retained, though, to my discontent, at a lower wage: Far from making me feel that I had a certain future in the warehouse, my new employers made it clear that I was expendable. No one was irreplaceable. Expecting much of me, they doubled my responsibilities: Suddenly I was an inventory man, a bookkeeper, a shipment manager, all at once. My work was so compacted that, despite my youth, I left each evening feeling fairly exhausted.

AFTER I RELATED MY UNPLEASANT situation at the warehouse to Mrs. Stanley, she had written her husband about it, so that he, upon his eventual return, would, on my behalf, and using the weight of his importance in the mercantile district, have a word with these gentlemen, with the aim of improving my circumstance. But it seems that I was to be hounded by bad luck. Not a week after we had spent a most pleasant Sunday, marked by a memorable dinner in the evening, I arrived at her door on St. Charles Avenue to learn from her Irish maid, Margaret, that Mrs. Stanley had herself fallen gravely ill. She had come down with severe dysentery, one of the diseases that, with yellow fever, had proliferated in New Orleans that summer. This great lady had taken to her bed in a state of such dehydration that when I ventured to her bedside, I saw the skeletal form of a sainted woman about to enter into heaven.

By then, Margaret had been tirelessly by her side since Friday and seemed so exhausted that I felt it my duty to offer my assistance. And so it was that I spent that day and night by Mrs. Stanley’s door, alerting Margaret whenever Mrs. Stanley, waking from her sleep, cried out, in a weak voice, for those medicines that would relieve her pain.

That Monday morning I reluctantly took my leave but promised to return within the hour, as I thought to solicit a few days off from the warehouse, a request that did not sit well with Mr. Ellison. Ruddy-skinned, and somewhat obese, he had been eating an apple when I entered his office and barely seemed to care about some “old lady in her last throes.” Perhaps a spirit of independence, entirely new, had been aroused in me by my days in New Orleans, but I found myself telling Mr. Ellison that, indeed, whether he believed me or not, and whether he wanted me to or not, I would be taking time off, and that no job, however important it may seem to those who rank profits over human life, could keep me there.