“A man is but a candle-stick
A woman is the holder…”
“The Light in the Cove” is a ribald ballad in English about an old woman lusting after the ghost of a young man. Everyone on the island knows both the melody and the words, though few respectable women or wise children will admit to it.
It was originally a wistful native song called “Elaro.”
But that’s forgotten.
… Longstaffe was a rebellious young aristocrat or a conscience-stricken slaver or a pirate whose brutality and ruthlessness made Henry Morgan himself shake his head in appalled disapproval.
He was hanged for defiling a well or he was slain and eaten by the Tomami or he was slain and eaten by his shipwrecked mates because they were hungry or perhaps just because he was unpopular and they were trying to make a point. Or he became a hopeless drunk and was found dead from Paresis on the sands of Sanctuary Strand.
The only consistent part of his legend is his virility and his paramour, Deep Gertie.
“‘What is this Theodosia?’ demanded Gwennoelle.
‘Why, Madame,’ The man bowed to her slightly. ‘It is a little town on the east side of the island. Very pretty place, with its own market, and lovely cottages, newly built and ready for newcomers like you. It’s where many of our workers live.‘”
The Island Council is especially proud of the “workers’” cottages that cluster around plantations throughout Theodosia, freshly painted in red and white and each with their own small vegetable plot. This housing is prominently pictured and described in advertisements for plantation workers in ports like New Orleans, Naples, and Dublin, their sturdiness and comfort extolled, along with the availability of schooling for children.
The heat, the uncovered cisterns, Yellow Fever, and the houses’ actual tenants are not mentioned.
“Oh, aye, I see this one around sometimes. One of them Dudays. Things go missing when he turns up.”
Telesphore “Tel” Fortune Duday is not the eldest living Duday child. That would be Laurette, his sister who was born one hour before him in Fourche in 1873. He is, however, their eldest living son, and the one Maman considers the most promising. Her Telesphore is clever and energetic. She likes the way his eyes meet hers when she explains something to him. One can almost hear the ticking of his brain as he thinks. He plainly draws his own conclusions, but he is a wise son, and never contradicts or questions his mother. Once he is fledged and comes into his talent, who knows how far he will go?
Tel’s piercing, fiery-blue gaze will become legendary on the island, and his adult reputation as a sorcerer will surpass his mother’s, though he will be considered much more approachable and engaging than “herself.” He has a broad, humorous smile, and the knack of making the person speaking to him feel like the only person in his world at that moment.
Those who love him will call him “charming.” Those who don’t will call him “insidious.”
ANDREA AND HER PLANT
Yesterday was gloriously sunny, and at last I took a spin on the Ferris wheel at Fisherman’s Wharf. SkyStar, it’s called. It used to be in Golden Gate Park, but I think this location is far better, more in the thick of things.
A friend I met along the way came along. The Ferris wheel has become a landmark visible from quite a distance, so we simply walked down the hill towards it, my friend pausing to rescue a bedraggled Elephant Ear plant she found abandoned on a curb. Nobody, either in the line for tickets, or the line to board, commented on the drooping potted plant she held in her arms. “Everyone assumes old women are crazy anyway,” was her explanation.
The cars are small, enclosed, glassy lozenges rather than open, rocking benches in the sky, which I would have found more thrilling. I suppose it’s a question of both safety and comfort. The winds off the bay can be pretty cold. We took our seats, and began to rise slowly, pausing as each car was loaded. Once everyone had boarded the wheel turned, steadily, slowly, rising, offering views of Fisherman’s Wharf and the Bay, downtown San Francisco, and a beautiful mackeral sky rippled with clouds glowing in the afternoon sun. If I looked over my shoulder I could see Pier 39, dark with crowds, the sea-lions, who seemed shy that day, a little black clump on the corner of one of the docks.
The wheel rotates three times after loading, very slowly, with a minimum of rocking. For San Francisco residents our age, it’s quite reasonably priced, though they did take our picture and try to sell it to us for $46. We politely declined.
My friend walked home with her new pet. I plunged into North Beach in search of a cafe that sold wine by the glass. The one I found was cash-only, so I settled for a bar, the Comstock, where I sat at a little marble table, happily sipping a rose and alternately reading a novel and the latest New Yorker. I haven’t enjoyed reading so much since the days when I would curl up on my parents’ couch with a book and a plate of bacon sandwiches.
One is Erasure, by Perceval Everett, the novel the movie American Fiction is based on. Everett is a graceful and witty writer, and so far the book is entertaining in the tradition of literary parodies like Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm and Charles Simmons’ The Belles Lettres Papers. More like the latter, actually, because Everett skewers, not just fashionably bad prose, but the pretensions of the current literary establishment.
The other book I’m reading — slowly — is Alberto Angela’s tre giorni di Pompeii. I could find no English editions, or even one in French, which I could manage on my own, so I am chipping my way through it by dint of Kindle’s Bing translator. Which is why I am reading it at bedtime, when I want something that will make my eyelids heavy after ten minutes.
Erasure I am enjoying in the form of an actual book, one that doesn’t require occasional recharging. Now that I’ve retired, I’ve rediscovered my old pleasure of reading books in cafes. San Francisco has lots of those, and every afternoon I’m trying one out. Thursday it was Saint Frank’s (decaf) on Polk Street. Very bright, very clean, good coffee. I was the oldest person there, and the only one reading something that had a cover and actual pages. Everything in Saint Frank’s seemed white and smooth, the floor, the walls, the air… The smooth white counter is near the front, part of the decor, so you can watch the smooth, white young barista make your coffee with the smooth white equipment. All the other customers there were, if not white, then smooth, young and pretty and staring at screens. I felt like I was in a Kubrick movie.
Royal Grounds (short cafe au lait), on Friday, seemed older in every sense. Dark, small and a bit cluttered, the counter shoved into the back instead of proudly displayed as part of the decor in the front. At least one other customer, in her twenties, had a book open, even though it looked like college textbook and she was consulting it in between typing into a device. Another customer was a gray, slightly frayed Asian gentleman who looked to be in his fifties, scowling at the screen of his laptop.
This afternoon, I’ll try to track down a cafe that serves wine by the glass. North Beach is my best bet.
By now, they could clearly hear the nightwalkers, voices, drums and cymbals, singing a braided song. The first part had a steady, almost menacing beat, while the second part twined about it a long wail. It took Amadeo a moment to recognize the tune as one he’d sometimes heard in New Orleans.
Only when the line of torches turned onto the Gilmartin’s carriageway could he make out the words:
“Hi, ho,
Nobody home,
No eat,
Nor drink,
Nor money have we none.
Ye-et, we willllll, be me-e-eery,
Hi, ho…”
“No, I don’t believe the spirit of Gran’ Lamen guards his land.”
Ballou chuckled. “Do I look like a fool? I did not mean that.” He stared down at the tip of his cigar. “I meant the story of Gran’ Lamen and the hanging tree.”
Both men reflected for a moment.
Gran’ Lamen had been one African among many chained in the hold of the slaver Mary Donahue when it foundered off Pittime. He broke loose and freed his fellows before the ship sank. Not one white man made it to shore alive.
It was said that in the wars with the natives, Gran’ Lamen wielded a club that could kill twenty savages at one swing. It was said he was eight feet tall and he had twenty-five adoring wives of every color. This harem cooked his enemies and fed them to him by hand in bloody, rare morsels, while some of his fifty children sang and the rest fanned him with palm fronds.
It was said that when the Island Council voted seven to six in 1808 to give slave smugglers a port in return for a cut of the profits, all seven members who had voted in favor were found hanged the next morning from the live oak in the main square. Gran’ Lamen, who by then was not one day under sixty, stood beneath the dangling bodies, placidly smoking his pipe. Nobody asked questions.
Amadeo and his guest contemplated this. “I would like to think it was true,” Amadeo said. “Wouldn’t you?”
“This ‘Main Room’ was a close, shadowy, cluttered chamber. The first thing Amadeo noticed was the elegant bar, the second, what was plainly the room’s presiding spirit hanging behind it, a brightly colored portrait illuminated by two lamps. Amadeo stopped for a moment to stare.
The painting depicted a decapitated man seated at a table and toasting the room with a tankard made from a human skull. This convivial gent’s head lay on its side in a pool of blood on the rough boards at his elbow. The artist had done a fine job of making the eyes of the head alive and intelligent, its smile white, its sodden black beard tied into strands with blue ribbons, and tangled like the arms of a squid in the crimson puddle.”
(To see The Captain — if you really want to — you must click the link on his name and enter the toast “tothecaptain.”)
“I am so stupid sometimes,” she said. “I believe one day I will drink the wrong cup of tea. I will utter the wrong word. I will take the wrong step. And it will kill me. Or it will kill you. Or it will destroy everything. Life is like that, Amadeo. It only takes one mistake to…”
His arms around her had tightened, and he’d kissed her. “Oh, Hortense. You must not think such things. I would never allow that to happen.”
As if it were all up to him.
Pam Troy 