The Value Of Rain Read online

  Did I think it, or say it. His eyes opened and came to my face, begging for me to let him go.

  *****

  Caufield was the only other person at the funeral. Like me he looked on in quiet contemplation at the death of a man he hardly knew.

  “Now what?” Caufield asked after it was done and we stood over the gravediggers as they tamped the earth over Henry’s casket.

  I looked at the trees, the blue sky, and the stones that surrounded us and shrugged. The coldness of my own detached emotions frightened me.

  “New Orleans,” I told Caufield. The question Henry would not answer still burned inside of me like a cantankerous tooth of curiosity that I had to have answered. “Something happened there that made him leave Charlotte when they got back to Connecticut. I need to know what.”

  Caufield shook his head, saddened by my response. “Let me tell you something Charles. Henry Rathborne had no purpose left in his life until I made the call that got you out of the Birch Building. The last task he gave himself was your psychological freedom from Charlotte.”

  He turned toward the road and stood watching the traffic go by, his back to me. “I’m sorry to see that he failed, because that means I failed too,” he said and walked off.

  Chapter Ten

  July 1982

  It took several months to get Henry’s estate settled, and several more to build up enough confidence to go anywhere except the supermarket and the lawyer’s office. Necessity brought me to government buildings and other public locations, and finally forced me into a guise that almost passed for composure.

  It wasn’t, but I survived anyway. And, in truth, Caufield helped me much more than I would like to admit. Though there was no end to his strenuous objections when I reaffirmed my intent on sniffing out Charlotte’s secrets in New Orleans.

  “Goddamn it, Charles, let it go!” he yelled as he pounded on the desk in the office of his house.

  I drew in a deep breath of salty sea air. The ocean was close but could only be seen in the upper most rooms of the house. “I can’t.” I told him.

  “No!” he raged. “I won’t allow it.”

  I looked up at him. “You’re going to stop me?”

  He put his head in his hands and put his elbows on the desk, cupping his chin as he looked at me. “I can’t and you know it.” He stared at me a moment and reclined back in his chair as he looked up at the ceiling. “I learned a long time ago that I can’t save everyone.” He chuckled slightly. “It was one of those hard rude lessons they told us about in college but which you never quite believe until you lose your first client.”

  “Regretting that you got me out?” I asked him.

  His head snapped back in my direction. “Never. You weren’t meant for that Charles. If it wasn’t me, someone else would have come along.”

  “Eventually,” I replied.

  I saw sadness suddenly descend on him like a veil; a soft fluid tension that crept in around his eyes. “Go seek your answers then, Charles. If that’s what it takes.”

  I stood. He looked up at me but didn’t move. “You’re not going to wish me luck?” I asked.

  He studied me for a moment. “Good luck, Charles.”

  I nodded and turned toward the door.

  “Make me one promise, Charles.”

  I paused without turning back to him.

  “Come see me when you get back. Before you go get your revenge on her, come see me.”

  It was not a promise I could make, so I left; hearing a sigh escape him as I closed the door.

  *****

  Sunlight tumbled through a thick mass of purple grey clouds when I finally arrived in the Vieux Carre. It was hot, the damp sticky heat of the subtropical climes pushing me to attempt some Creole in one of the many air conditioned cafes that dotted the old cityscape.

  I wondered what Carnival must be like; all the noise, the waft of ripening garbage, the sweat of people trying to meet or exceed the demands of the crowd around them. I looked around me as I walked but couldn’t envision it. I shook my head. What I needed was food and an escape from this heat.

  Just as a rain that would not end until I left New Orleans began, I spotted my destination. I took the matchbook out of my pocket and compared it to the sign out front. It was the same. I had found it amongst the belongings Henry had left behind, the only clue in his entire estate as to what Charlotte’s secret might have been.

  Nana’s was quiet, a few people scattered here and there amongst the aroma of exotic herbs and fresh crayfish. A scarred unfinished floor, hardscrabble chairs and old world Impressionist art gave the place an unyielding feeling of age and romance, which was fine, until a young Spanish girl came over and stunned me silent with her beauty. As the spice of her female scent scattered my senses I pointed at the jambalaya instead of the red beans and rice I had wanted.

  She smiled at me without a word and turned away, giving me the distinct impression that I had not been the first so affected by her. I shook her from my nostrils, dragged my hands across my face and stared out at the rain. Idiot! I thought to myself; somewhat shocked at my own reaction.

  She came back with a small tic of a smile, a hushed voice and a massive steaming plate that seemed entirely too large for her delicate fine boned hands. She smiled fully and put it before me, her eyes wandering to the rain I’d been studying. I turned, expecting something in the window and felt her breath on my neck, the honeysuckle of her voice seducing my eardrum.

  “Liquid sunshine,” she said.

  I glanced back at her quickly, but she was still standing; a silent inquisitive look of expectancy crossing her face. “Anything else?”

  “No thanks.” I mumbled as she smiled and wandered off to her other tables.

  Had I imagined that? Between the heat, the rain and my rumbling stomach I wasn’t quite sure. I shook it off and dug in, the spicy concoction of rice and sausage grounding me firmly in my temporary environment.

  The plate cleared, my appetite more than sated, I asked for coffee and sat back to watch the rain again. Maybe in another dimension my alter ego was living the life I had missed in this city. A descendant of the du Clerque’s brought up on gumbo, wild turkey and alligator meat; the distinct differences between Spanish colonial and French colonial architecture immediately apparent, even when it was buried beneath Spanish moss and the scent of magnolias.

  I sighed; my coffee had a hard nutty roast to it after the spice of the jambalaya. The waitress surprised me again; producing a second cup of coffee and placing it, and herself, across from me. I stared at her, my cup half way to my mouth; unsure of how I should react.

  “I’m done,” she said. “Do you mind?”

  I put my cup down. “Uh, no. but you should know that I’m gay.”

  She laughed. “I promise I won’t contaminate you.”

  I flushed instantly. I had questions I had wanted to ask but they all went out of my head instantly.

  She put her hand over mine, a light touch that melted away as soon as she caught my eye again.

  “I’m sorry. You looked like you needed company and I usually wait here for my brother.” She nodded toward the rain outside the window.

  “Let‘s start this again. I’m Charles.”

  “Julia,” she answered.

  We shook, nodded and sipped our coffee as her golden brown eyes drifted to the rain. I watched her and could not help but comment on her beauty. Her eyelashes flashed once in shy response and we both turned back to the hot rain. It seemed without my noticing that we had become the only two people in the café.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Siesta,” she replied. “Or making love.”

  A smile caught the edges of my mouth. “In this heat?”

  She winked. “The best time. La pluie de l’amour. The rain of love.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments. Was she trying to convert me? Her eyes twisted away and watched a figure dash through the rain toward the café door. “Ah, my brother.�
�� She stood and looked down at me. “Would you care to come home and explain why you’re so lonely in the city that care forgot?”

  Because I am its child, I thought instantly. But the café door opened and her brother stepped in, her masculine twin. My eyes flew to her face; a small tight smile and an arched eyebrow questioning my appraisal of him.

  “You’re just his type,” she assured me quietly, her hand upon my shoulder, urging me upward with a gentle pressure.

  He had a lovely Spanish curl of dark hair and the voice of a clandestine lover; husky and moist, like the heavy downpour outside. “You’re ready?” he asked her.

  Julia held up a finger, grabbed our cups and disappeared into the kitchen while her brother and I studied each other with open interest.

  “Manuel, Charles. Charles, Manuel,” Julia said when she returned. “Shall we go?”

  “But what about the café?” I asked.

  “There’s a buzzer in the kitchen if the doors open,” she answered vaguely.

  I looked at them and could not think of a single viable excuse not to go. We stepped out into the rain and I noted the difference immediately. This was not the stagnant iron dripping of my childhood. This rain smelled of life, growth; a musty dampness of corrosion and creation all in one. It was a vibrant electricity, or was that my pulse reminding me that this was liquid sunshine, la pluie de l’amour?

  As we dashed through the puddles I worried each footstep with the concern that some small harpy would suddenly appear and crush me to the ground with a whisper to these two about my previous lodgings; the secret past I’d stashed away like moth balls in a closet.

  We stopped at an L shaped two story house with iron grill work on the balconies and elongated eaves that hung out over them. We slipped in through a side entrance, through an inner patio, and finally into a pale yellow high ceilinged room with French windows that ran to the floor.

  “Nana’s home,” Manuel said as he pointed to the candles and peeled off his shirt. My pulse quickened and I forced my eyes back to the candles.

  Despite the intricate chandelier in the center of the room, there was an abundance of wicks flickering unhesitantly from atop tables and a baby grand in the corner. Manuel admitted that Nana was not partial to electricity and insisted that their home be filled with the soft light of wax. “Especially when it rains,” he said. “’When the damp noise is married to the soft flame,’” he quoted her.

  I smiled. Were even the simple things like rain and candles always so romantic here? Or was this what happened in a house filled with obvious love?

  Julia put her umbrella in a rack by the door and gave Manuel a disapproving glance as he began to shed his jeans. I heard her whisper snidely before she escorted me to a bathroom.

  “There’s towels and a robe,” she pointed out. “When you’re finished, I’ll put your clothes in the dryer,” she said as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  “Wait. I, uh… . Do you do this often?”

  “What?”

  “Drag men home from the café for your brother.”

  She smiled. “No.”

  “I’ll bet,” I muttered as I began to free myself from the sopping constriction of my clothes.

  She knocked ten minutes later. I was sitting on the toilet wrapped in a white robe thick enough to be a mink.

  “Are you decent?” she asked through the door.

  I opened it and stood in front of her. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Relax. Nana’s gone up for a siesta. Come on,” she motioned me out. “It’s just the three of us.”

  I sighed and followed. What else could I do; sit and listen to the souls of my old lovers thrash about inside of me and deliberate over the value of the deluge outside? I had looked up the rainfall for New Orleans before I left; 64 inches a year. I began the protracted subliminal calculations as we walked but knew, before I even got passed the living room that these two would dredge my tale of woe from me. My guise as a disinterested tourist was too shallow; too unobscure to diffuse the rage and rejection hovering behind it.

  My mind wondered out of its solitary calculations as I entered the kitchen with Julia. Manuel was sitting at a dinette with a steaming mug of mocha coffee in a robe that matched my own. Julia took a stool and sat me opposite him. There was a scent of jasmine in the air mingled with some other spice that I could not quite name. And still the rain fell like small sunlit crystals escaping the clouds.

  Manuel studied me as Julia put a mug in front of me. “Whose demons are you chasing?” he asked me.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  They both nodded; conspirators little convinced by the precise façade I had erected.

  My mouth opened and snapped shut. For the first time in my life my head felt as empty as my soul. Where did I start? What would I say? And why would I divest myself of my bitter treasures to these anonymous strangers?

  But I knew why. Because already my seasons had become dry and bitter; years had died away while I gripped my secrets. If I allowed myself, I would camp in this stunted oasis and feel their eyes pick at me for the truth. I needed sun warmed dirt, hot rain and languid amours squeezed tight on one of these slave scrolled balconies. I needed a refuge where my gray sight could pierce the dewy rustle of mockery Charlotte had impressed upon me. But was this the place?

  “It’s fruitless,” Julia told me. And she was right.

  As the words tumbled from my mouth like pebble scarring fresh fallen snow, Charlotte’s eyes seemed less cruel; her words less brutal; her demeanor not as uncompassionate. But there was no laughter in my voice; no sharp childish crack of tinkling ice. They could not mistake my words for love. Or sorrow.

  The lazy fan above us whispered the only sound when I finished. Disgrace and shame rimmed my mug like pieces of broken chocolate. I’d been talking for an hour, maybe more; and yet, there still seemed so much had been left unsaid.

  “So you’ve come to dig her secret bones out of our alluvial soil?” an abrasive voice asked from behind me.

  We turned and parked our eyes on Nana’s cross armed scold.

  This was Nana. In her words she was much too young to be addressed as Missus, and I was not even close enough to an age that I could address her as anything but Nana. Later Julia and Manuel would assure me that she harpooned all their take home strays in such a gruff manner, if only to show them the strength of her back. But to me, at that moment, she looked only formidable and I was ready to bolt.

  She was a stout woman, dark skinned, with dark eyes and hard working-woman hands. She looked like a scrapper; a hard bit of tough gristle chewing back at the mouth that dared consumption. I became as silent as I was before I started this tale and could only shrug.

  She looked at her grandchildren with a sigh of resignation and began peppering them with questions about the café; consciously lifting the burden of conversation off of me.

  Eventually, after business and banalities were settled, Nana turned her mind back to me as her hands busied themselves around the kitchen. Suddenly she smiled and started tossing plates of food on the counter between us. “Hot date tonight,” she said.

  Julia and Manuel glanced at each other, got up and quietly abandoned me in the kitchen with her. A quick pat on the back as I looked at them in bewilderment was as close to an explanation as I got.

  Nana turned with another platter from the fridge, noted the two empty stools and smiled at me. “Works every time,” she said as she poured herself coffee.

  “What?”

  She motioned toward the door her grandchildren had escaped through. “They think I’m too old to play the sexually liberated woman.” She laughed lightly. “It shakes up their misconceptions about what a woman my age should be doing.”

  I looked at the countertop, my face reddening. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  Her face took a stern look of disapproval as I looked up. “I heard. But you revered your grandfather, no? You want to keep him in this cocoon of veneration you’ve bu
ilt around him?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess?” She chuckled again as she picked through the array of food between us. “Youth. So much time; so little real knowledge.” She turned serious again. “Bitterness is man’s invention, Charles. Satan brought darkness, but it was man that filled it with its many hues. The only light you allow to burn within you is a stinking black candle of bitterness, regret and cynicism. You’ve become your mother’s twin.”

  “I know,” I said as I studied the counter between us.

  “You know but you don’t act. Care hasn’t forgotten you, you’ve forgotten care. That’s why I’m going to help you,” she determined.

  I looked up at her. “How?” I had completely forgotten the matchbook.

  “Nana knows everyone. Whole generations have been raised at my café.”

  I waited for more but realized that she would not allow such easy lessons. She turned back to the subject that had chased off her grandkids and talked as though their embarrassment and protests still littered the counter top between us.

  “The penis is not a tool…,” she began. This insistence was used against one of her previous lovers and my ensuing laughter saved me from losing the meaning of her words in the mire of my despair. But it wouldn’t be until after I had gathered Charlotte’s secrets that I would realize how wholly inept I was at putting Nana’s lessons into action.

  When she finished with her anecdotes, Nana began putting away the snackery and leftovers that we had munched on. Manuel and Julia slipped back in, as if on cue, rubbed the siesta from their eyes and sat in quiet coffeed silence as Nana readied herself for her date.

  Julia disappeared to return to the café and left Manuel and me alone to curl around the fire in the living room with the rain still crying on the patio stones outside.

  My clothes had long since dried and I sat staring into the flames when I felt Manuel’s hand slip over mine and urge me up. The whole day had gone by and I barely remembered its soft flow passing me by.