City of Masks

42

Hiram's Mattock had fallen silent, and neither Cree nor Josephine said anything as they hobbled back toward the house. Now that the wind had died, the afternoon heat hung under the trees in suffocating layers. The silence felt strange, charged by the buzz and fizz of flies and the distant rush of cars on the highway.

It had cost Josephine a lot to tell the story. Cree realized that the old woman, for all her determination, was not well; she seemed fragile, hollow, like something made out of straw or reed.

"I got to tell you about Temp Chase," Josephine said. " 'Fore we get where Hiram gone hear us."

"We don't have to do it now. You're tired. I'm tired, too, maybe we should wait – "

"No." Josephine shook her grizzled head decisively. "No time to wait."

"Then let's at least go inside, get out of the sun, get something to drink. You didn't drink your tea."

So they went on. Hiram had quit the sun, too, and now sat in one of the chairs on the back porch, drinking water out of an Army canteen. Nobody said anything as Cree helped Josephine up the steps, but as Josephine passed through into the kitchen she said, "You do good work, Hiram. Yo' great-auntie's thankful."

The big man nodded dourly, eyes on Cree.

Josephine got her tea and ran a glass of water from the tap for Cree and they went into the living room. It was hot here, too, the air unmoving, but the relative darkness was a relief. Josephine lowered herself into a chair and shut her eyes, recharging. Cree sat nearby, tasting her water, waiting, feeling little rivulets of sweat move under her clothes. The blind eye of the television screen reflected back the motionless room in miniature.

"Reverend Huggins," Josephine rasped after a time. "He always been sayin' how we got to come clean before Jesus. Tells us the only way you gone do that is confess yo' sins to all you's injured, try to atone. Says you got to take the consequences here on Earth, or you gone take them on Judgment Day – and you know which gone go easier for you! And I b'lieve he right. He right about that, no question."

Cree nodded. The terminology was not what she'd use, but the basic philosophy mirrored her own.

"So right 'bout then, this's two years ago, I get a scare. Doctor says I got breas' cancer, it gone kill me. And my sins come back to me, knowing I's goin' to die. The cancer, later I got a operation and chemo, thanks to Reverend Huggins doin' a collection for me. But the sins, they stay with me."

"Sins like helping kill Bradford."

"Killin' Bradford, oh yes." Josephine leaned forward, eyes hardening. "But worse is, knowin' it was a sin and knowin' I'd do it again today! Knowin' I got that in my heart. Rememberin' how good I feel when he go still – that just sit there in my heart like a devil. I got that in my heart." She leaned back, appalled at herself. "An' I di'n't want to come before Jesus with that contamination."

She knew that Richard had died not long after she'd left the Beaufortes' – a heart attack, the newspaper said. She was fairly certain that Richard had never told Charmian her role in Brad's death, because Charmian had never taken it up with her, and that woman surely would have. But now, thinking she was dying, Josephine knew she had to tell her. She welcomed the idea of receiving Charmian's rage, taking whatever punishment might be her due, if that's what Charmian wanted. She knew she owed. She had failed to protect Lila. She had killed Brad. She had exulted in killing him.

And, something she'd never admitted to herself before, she had savored her primacy in the children's lives, having their affection and denying it to Charmian. She had a rotten place in her soul, and it must be cut away; she would take what Charmian gave her. Only remotely did she hope she might receive her understanding and forgiveness.

She was still driving then – the old Ford in the driveway that Hiram used now. So she drove up to New Orleans for the first time in many years. She went to Beauforte House, knocked on the big old door, and waited in an agony of expectation. She was brimming with the need to confess and atone, overflowing with it.

But it wasn't Charmian or even one of the Beauforte kids who answered. It was a man, and she recognized him: Temp Chase, the TV newsman. She'd watched his show several nights a week for fifteen years, even back when he was just the weatherman. When she told him who she was, he welcomed her and explained that the Beaufortes still owned the house but that Charmian had had a stroke and now lived over in Lakeside Manor. Lila was married to a man named Jack Warren and lived out by the lake; Ron lived downtown, still single.

Temp's wife was out, but he would be happy to make her some iced tea if she'd like to come inside for a spell. Josephine was tired from the drive and the anticipation she'd been living with, and flattered to be talking to this celebrity. She accepted his invitation.

They sat in the front parlor she remembered so well. Though the furniture was different, there was an air in that old house, unchanged from all the years she'd spent there. The memories rushed back upon her, made her want to weep. It was as clear and painful as if it had all happened yesterday.

Temp was very respectful and kind. They made pleasantries for a time, and then Temp put down his tea and asked, "So what prompted your visit today? After all this time?"

"Just been a long time," Josephine told him warily. "Just wan tin' to know how… things ever turned out."

Temp was very understanding. He smiled at her and said he was a very close friend of the Beaufortes. When Josephine raised her glass to her lips, her hands shook so badly that the ice cubes rattled, and Temp cocked his head slightly. "You have something on your chest, don't you?" he asked. "Something you'd like to talk about."

"Talk 'bout with Miz Charmian," she specified.

"I think I know what troubles you," he said, looking concerned for her. "But you're welcome to talk about it with me, if it will make you feel better. If there's any way I can be of help. I have a deep personal loyalty to the Beauforte family, as you can imagine." He gestured at the familiar room, then knit his hands in a patient gesture. "I know Charmian wouldn't mind your telling me. She has told me the whole story herself, and I assure you, she feels much as you do. I suspect you two are on the same page here."

Josephine felt a little relief to hear that and was flattered by his solicitousness, but she shook her head. "Miz Charmian don't know all of it. She don't know I's the one really killed Bradford. Mister Pdchard never tol' her."

If Temp Chase's interest quickened, he hid it well. He didn't prod or pressure her. He just nodded gravely, the picture of journalistic integrity and compassion, and waited.

Maybe she trusted him because she'd watched him so many times, presenting the news or interviewing important people, so sober, wise, dignified. Maybe it was that he treated her as an equal in this house where she'd always been a servant, and that he was part black, what her mother used to call octaroon, and could sympathize. Whichever, Josephine found herself confessing her crime to him. It overflowed out of her, she did so want to purge that devil from her heart, the words she'd held in for so many years just came pouring out. Of course, she admitted, Richard had his share of responsibility, too. But it wouldn't be right to condemn him, any father would do the same after what Bradford had done to Lila. Couldn't blame him.

"And no one could blame you, either," Temp reassured her. He took her hand in his two big hands and held it firmly, reassuringly. "Josephine, you mustn't blame yourself any more. You loved her like she was your own child."

Yes, yes I did, Josephine wept, grateful to him.

By the time Josephine left Beauforte House, she felt better. Temp Chase's understanding and sympathy helped. Releasing the secret from the place where she'd hidden it for so long was like a purification. Reverend Huggins had been right.

But of course her task wasn't complete until she'd talked to Charmian. So she went to the address Temp had given her, that retirement place for rich people.

Charmian was shocked to see her. In the instant she opened the door, Josephine saw it all on her face: She still had not forgiven Josephine for being so close to her children. Nor for knowing the dark secret about the Beaufortes.

She told Charmian that she'd been to the old house and had gotten her address from Temp Chase. She told Charmian she was here to tell her something about what had happened back then, to ask for her understanding..

Charmian brought her into her living room but didn't invite her to sit She walked with a limp now, but Josephine could see that the years had done nothing to abate her scorn for her social inferiors.

"What are you here for, Josephine? Money?"

Josephine was deeply insulted. "No, Miz Charmian. Just the doctor says I's prob'ly dyin'. I got to come clean for my redemption."

"Come clean about what, precisely?"

When Josephine told her about her role in Brad's death, Charmian was enraged; clearly, Richard had never revealed that Josephine had a hand in it. And when Josephine said she wanted to go talk to Ron and Lila, too, Charmian took her arms so hard her nails made bloody crescents in her skin.

"You old fool! You shut your black face about this. You want to confess your sins? You don't even know what your sins are! You don't know half the damage you've done! You killed my husband, too! Telling my children stories of your darkie potions and superstitions – "

"What you mean?" Josephine gasped.

Charmian worked her nails in deeper. "I've done my best to accept that Bradford deserved to die," she hissed. "And I've told myself that you couldn't have knowrn Lila would someday use your stories to kill her father. I think I have forborne admirably, Josephine, all these years. But I won't forgive your coming here and stirring this up. Lila has truly forgotten, and Ronald and I have done our best to. If you ever try to contact Lila, and she learns the truth, I will not forgive you. Do you understand?"

The truth about Pdchard's death shocked Josephine. She tore her arms from Charmian's taloned grip and fled in fear for her life.

Now her conscience was doubly, triply burdened. Charmian was right: If Lila found out she'd killed her father wrongly, that'd be the worst thing. After all she'd been through. That baby girl didn't deserve that. No one could live with that.

Josephine hated herself. In her selfish quest to seek forgiveness for her sins, she'd sinned again, worse than ever. Like some dumb country nigger, she'd spilled her story to Temp Chase. He'd lied when he said he was a friend of the Beaufortes, that he knew the story already; he'd used his wiles to get her to talk and she'd fallen for it. Now the truth was no longer completely buried. If Temp ever spoke of it, reported on it, Lila might remember and have to face the terrible mistake she'd made. What Charmian would do if she found that Josephine had told Temp was the least of her worries. In her vanity and weakness, her selfish concern for her own salvation, she had done the last thing she would ever want she'd put Lila in danger.

Now Lila needed to be protected.

So before she left New Orleans for good, she performed some hoodoo craft her mother had taught her long ago: She cut little sticks of hackberry tree and notched them twice, one notch for Temp and the second for his wife in case he'd told her, and left them at Beauforte House. Some practitioners used the technique to induce craziness in an enemy, but Mama had always prescribed it for making people forget, like if a woman knew someone had seen her with her lover and wanted them to forget so they couldn't tell her husband. She put one hex at each corner of the grounds, then waited until no one was home and used her old key to get inside and put one under the mantelpiece. She looked up Lila's address and left hexes at the Warrens', too.

She thought it was probably just superstition, an old woman's foolishness, but her mother had always sworn it would work.

And anyway, there didn't seem to be anything Jesus could do about this.

As for herself, she no longer sought forgiveness. She didn't feel she deserved it. Oh, she did pray to God for Temp to forget, for Lila to keep forgetting. She went on her knees every day and pleaded for that. But when she heard on the TV news that Temp had been murdered, not two weeks after her visit, she knew that neither God nor Jesus nor hoodoo nor anything else on Earth or in heaven was going to stop Charmian Beauforte from remembering and from protecting her family however she felt she had to.