Ran Away Read online

  ‘I want husband with honor,’ said Shamira after a moment. ‘Hüseyin Pasha was kind to me as a master kind to his slave. Me, I want household, children. I want . . . sit in synagogue among wives, see my son’s bar mitzvah, my daughter wed with honor to good man. M’sieu L’Ecolier say he will see this so.’ And turning her eyes again to Ayasha, she added, with a nod at January, ‘I want this what I see you have. Husband. Life.’

  And again Ayasha said: I understand.

  Shamira led her to a small desk between the windows, which looked down on to the little town garden behind the house; took a quill from the holder, paper from the drawer.

  ‘Please.’ She held them out to Ayasha. ‘Write for me.’

  January and Ayasha returned to that house on Sunday, in company with Hüseyin Pasha. This time in that airy parlor, with its stylish furniture of carved mahogany and its discreet bronze and marble statuettes, Shamira sat with her kinsman, the banker Jacob L’Ecolier himself, and his bird-like little wife, as well as the black-clothed chaperone. In her high-waisted dress of gray silk Shamira looked every inch the daughter of a wealthy Jewish household, and January caught the glance that passed between the kindly-faced Madame L’Ecolier and this newest kinswoman to come under her wing: friendship, warmth, and care. When Hüseyin Pasha was shown into the parlor, the banker’s wife squeezed Shamira’s hand: Don’t be afraid, dearest . . .

  Shamira did not get to her feet for her former lord. Only held out her hand, as a well-bred French lady should.

  This distinction wasn’t lost on Hüseyin Pasha. His heavy, simian face remained impassive, but January saw the smallest of rueful twinkles in the dark eye. He said something to Shamira in a gentle voice, almost jesting; her chin came up. In careful French, she replied, ‘I am French now, M’sieu.’

  In the same language he replied, ‘So I see.’ And sighed.

  ‘My niece bears you no ill will, M’sieu,’ said L’Ecolier, when his visitors had seated themselves. ‘Please understand that. My kinswoman Rachel bint-Zipporah had no business negotiating with you the contract by which Shamira came into your household. As her kinsman, and head of the family, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for treating her well and with indulgence. But I hope you understand that whatever my niece will have said to you at the time, the match was not made with her free consent.’

  ‘I understand that there is consent, and there is free consent.’ The Turk folded his coarse, square hands upon his crimson silk knee. ‘Yet what woman ever gives her free consent to a match made for her by her parents? Particularly to a business partner who is forty-four years old and ugly as a horse’s backside, eh? And how many girls are there who take unto themselves lives of poverty and misfortune, because they come hand-in-hand with a handsome face or a voice beautiful in song? Yet I am glad to hear, Shamira –’ he turned to her and inclined his head – ‘that you bear me no ill will. One thing only I ask. That you give me my son, when he is born.’

  Shamira took a deep breath, glanced at the black-clothed chaperone, then nodded. In a perfectly steady voice she said, ‘Yes.’

  Hüseyin Pasha had clearly come prepared to have to make his case; and, just as clearly, knew enough not to make any reply at all. He only took her hand and gently kissed it.

  Shamira went on, halting a little on the words, ‘It is best so,’ and glanced at her kinsman. January saw her fingers tighten on Madame L’Ecolier’s. This was something, he guessed, that they had spoken of already. What young gentleman in the Parisian circles of Jewish bankers, merchants and financiers would wed a young widow – for he already guessed how this lovely girl would be introduced to the family social group – if she came with an infant who was obviously the child of a Turk? Easier to say: She was wed in the East, but her baby died . . .

  Certainly, given Jacob L’Ecolier’s wealth, easy enough to arrange.

  It would avoid, too, whatever feeling she might carry against that child, when she bore others to that ‘husband with honor’ that she craved.

  And yet . . .

  ‘My niece will send you word, M’sieu,’ said Madame L’Ecolier, ‘when the child is born.’

  ‘You have given me treasure beyond my deserving,’ replied the Turk quietly. ‘And I swear to you, Shamira, that your son will never want for education, or guidance, or whatever else lies within my power to give.’

  There being nothing more to stay for, the visitors rose. Ayasha and Shamira embraced, tears again glistening in Shamira’s eyes in the cold autumn light from the windows. From the little garden below, January heard the voices of children, and stepping back, he looked down, to see half a dozen boys and girls, in stair-step sizes, all clothed in black. It was unlikely that the tired-looking chaperone would ever be anything but what she was, with that brood in tow. Still, he reflected, it was a mark of L’Ecolier’s kindness, that he would take them in. The girl Shamira would be in good hands.

  She rose as the banker opened the parlor door himself, to see his guests away. In a small voice she said, ‘Kassar Allah hairak, M’sieu,’ which January knew to mean thank you. ‘The blessing of God go with you.’

  ‘And with you, Shamira. You made me very happy.’

  Turning, Hüseyin Pasha passed through the door and down the stair, a great gorgeous bird-of-paradise in his crimson salvars and his crimson turban and his long red-and-blue coat trimmed with fur. And all the little chaperone’s black-clothed children, under the supervision of an older boy who had to be – by his round snub-nosed face – her brother, clustered at the bottom of the stairway to watch him pass, in silence and in awe.

  And thus it was that Benjamin January knew, to the bottom of his heart, that Hüseyin Pasha would not – could not – be the man who had strangled his two concubines and pitched them out the attic window on the night of December tenth, 1837.

  December 1837, New Orleans

  Within fifteen minutes of his mother leaving the house, January was walking down Rue Esplanade in the direction of the Place des Armes. The day was gray and raw, and the air smelled like burned sugar; it was the end of the roulaison, the grinding season. For a hundred miles up the Mississippi, and as many downriver, every plantation worked full stretch, twenty-four hours a day, hauling cane to the cogged iron wheels of the grinding house, hauling wood to feed the hell fires under the boiling kettles. Gritty smoke always in the eyes, aching muscles, the numb exhaustion that makes for terrible accidents if you happened to have a razor-sharp cane-knife in your hand.

  The plunge in cotton prices might have triggered the demise of banks and businesses across the United States, but the world could never get enough sugar.

  The levee at the bottom of the Place des Armes was the most active that January had seen it in months. A dozen steamboats lay at the wharves, though compared to other years it was nearly deserted. Kaintuck farmers and flatboatmen, newly come downriver with their loads of pumpkins, corn, and hogs, prowled in disconsolate fury from buyer to buyer of the few brokers still in business, and as he crossed toward the Cabildo beside the Cathedral, January could hear voices harsh with anger: What the hell you mean, two cents a bushel? At two cents a bushel I coulda dumped the whole load into the river an’ saved myself a trip . . .

  The old man who used to sell pink roses from a basket on his head was gone.

  No one had the money for roses.

  The few shops still open around the square were half-deserted. Passing the head of Gallatin Street, he’d seen the bar rooms and gaming houses were all still open, but the sound of the street was different. The gaiety that tinged the sounds of drink and play had been replaced with a harder note, a threat of violence.

  It was as if, along with the smell of burned sugar, the air was alive with the stink of anger, frustration, and fear.

  Lieutenant Abishag Shaw was at his desk in the big stone-flagged watch room of the old Spanish headquarters of law and justice in New Orleans, patiently writing the accounts of two flatboatmen, a gambler, a sailor and three whores concerning an alterc
ation at Alligator Sal’s. Only the gambler was sober. Shaw had a cut over his left eye, and on the bench next to where January took a seat, one of the other City Guards was patching up another with sticking plaster and bandages.

  ‘Goddam Irish bastard started it!’

  ‘Who you callin’ bastard, you dog-friggin’ Whig whoreson?’

  ‘I’m callin’ you bastard, an’ cheat besides!’

  Through the open doors at the rear of the watch room came the crack of a whip, then a man’s scream of agony, from the courtyard where disobedient or insolent slaves were sent by their owners to be whipped, at fifty cents a stroke. A man stood next to the doors waiting his turn at the whipping post, holding a girl of fourteen by the arm in an iron grip and casually smoking a cigar as he watched.

  ‘How can I help you, Maestro?’ Shaw uncoiled his tall height from behind the desk as the whole squad of the accused were herded, still shouting, from the room. He looked, as usual, like a badly put-together scarecrow, greasy blondish hair hanging to his bony shoulders, inches of knobby wrist projecting beyond frayed and dirty sleeves.

  ‘What are the chances I might speak with Hüseyin Pasha? I knew him in Paris—’

  ‘If this man is permitted entry to the cells,’ cried a rich, slightly gluey voice from behind January – ‘a mere Negro from the wharves, you can have no excuse for keeping the man sequestered from the licensed representatives of the Fourth Estate, sir!’ January was unceremoniously elbowed aside by a very large, very fat, very unwashed and unshaven man, in a blue frock-coat only a degree less grimy than Shaw’s stained green jacket and a pair of checked trousers in an alarming combination of mustard and cinnamon hues. He recognized the man as Burton Blodgett of the True American – until recently the Louisiana Gazette – the chief English-language paper of the city. ‘My readers have a right to know the facts of this shocking crime, sir! And not all the gold which this verminous Infidel has showered upon the officials of this city to cover up his misdeeds can erase the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to my readers, to know the truth!’

  ‘Maestro –’ Shaw stepped past the journalist to January’s side – ‘walk with me a spell. Mr January,’ he added as Blodgett determinedly thrust himself in front of them on the way to the watch room’s rear doors, ‘far from bein’ a mere Negro from off’n the wharves, is Mr Hüseyin’s personal physician, here to bring him news about his wife.’

  ‘Wife?’ Blodgett struck an attitude like Mark Anthony at Caesar’s funeral discoursing upon the honor of Brutus and Cassius. ‘And which of his wives is that, sir? Has he many left?’

  ‘Just the one. Sergeant Boechter,’ added Shaw, with a gesture to the officer at the desk, ‘would you make sure Mr Blodgett don’t wander off an’ get hisself lost? If’fn you knew Hüseyin in Paris, Maestro, I would purely like to have a word with you.’

  TWELVE

  ‘Janvier.’ Hüseyin Pasha raised his eyes as Shaw and January came opposite the barred wall of the cell.

  Privacy was a scarce commodity in the Cabildo. What had been adequate cell-space in the days of the Spanish governors not quite forty years previously had been long outstripped by the growth of the town once the Americans had taken over the territory, and the Americans’ recent insistence that white drunks, murderers, robbers and rapists not be required to share their facilities with blacks had not helped the situation. A year ago the city had been divided into three ‘municipalities’ – each with its own courts – and this had eased the crowding somewhat. The new jail in the process of completion a short distance away on Rue St Peter would, January knew, help in time, but it hadn’t yet.

  At the moment, with Burton Blodgett ensconced, loudly protesting, in the watch room, the only place available to meet Hüseyin Pasha was either in the infirmary, in the makeshift morgue below the ground-floor stairs, or in the dirty corridor outside the cell itself.

  The cell which was hallowed to the incarceration of slaves and free blacks, not whites.

  Anger stirred in him. Evidently a Turk did not count as a white man.

  ‘Sayyadi.’ January inclined his head, and the Turk’s thick, ugly lips bent in a wry smile.

  ‘So the wheel turns again, my friend. And here I did not think to see you until next Wednesday, when you were to play at my reception.’

  January returned both the wryness and the smile. Hüseyin Pasha had greeted him joyfully back in November, when January had been playing for a ball at the wealthy Widow Redfern’s, though few words had been exchanged. It did not do – they both understood – for one of the guests of honor to speak overlong with the musicians. Subsequent meetings had been equally brief, usually under similar circumstances. Once the Turk had asked, ‘Is your beautiful lady with you?’

  January had replied, ‘She died in the cholera, in thirty-two. Two years ago I remarried, and my wife has just borne a son.’

  Hüseyin’s sympathy had been genuine and warm.

  Now January asked, ‘What happened, sir? For I know you did not do this thing; and I know there must be a way to find who did.’

  ‘You are the only man in this city who believes me, then, Janvier.’ Hüseyin Pasha had removed his turban – which he still affected, along with the rest of his Turkish dress – and January saw that the stubble on his scalp, like his heavy mustache, was now shot with gray. ‘As for what happened, that I do not know. The two poor girls – Noura and Karida – had fled from my house on Friday night . . .’

  His voice hesitated as Shamira’s shadow seemed to pass between them.

  ‘I was angry,’ he admitted. ‘They took with them not only the jewelry that I had given them, but also my wife’s as well. Yet I did not wish to make of myself a spectacle for the newspapers in your city, and so I spoke of their flight to no one. I see now that I should have done so. And indeed I feared for them, for they spoke only slight French, and no English at all. Three men had already offered me money for them, without ever seeing them.’ The heavy flesh of his face hardened, and under the ape-like brow his dark eyes glinted with anger.

  ‘They were not dark like Negroes, yet I have seen slave women in this country even more fair of complexion, and being foolish girls, how could they judge whether a man’s intentions were honest or not? I should have spoken.’ He sighed, angry, January could see, at himself . . .

  And who would believe him, when he only says, ‘They were not in the house,’ after he is accused of their murder?

  Only someone who knows him well.

  January understood that he himself was the only man in the city who did.

  ‘Tell me about Sunday night. Was anyone else in the house with you?’

  Under the thick mustache, Hüseyin’s mouth quirked again, at the bitter jests of Fate. ‘I was to meet a man of business named Smith that night, who had said that no one must learn of his presence in New Orleans. Given the anger over the failure of the banks, this did not seem unreasonable to me. I gave my son’s tutor leave to take my son to the theater, and with them all the other servants as well, saving only my wife’s woman.’

  ‘Would that be Ra’eesa still?’ January smiled. ‘After all these years?’

  ‘You could not send her away at gunpoint.’

  ‘We been inquirin’ after Mr Smith.’ Shaw’s voice was dry over that most common of names. ‘Mr John Smith. Business unknown, address unknown – nobody in no hotel in town by that name ’ceptin’ a former director of the Mobile an’ Balize Commercial Bank that don’t look a thing like Mr Smith’s description, even if he had been wearin’ dark spectacles an’ false whiskers.’

  ‘What did Smith look like?’

  ‘A man of girth and strength, like myself,’ provided Hüseyin. ‘A little taller. As the officer says, with dark hair and a full dark beard, and spectacles on his eyes.’

  ‘French or American?’

  ‘That I cannot say. We spoke French, but whether he spoke it as a true Frenchman would, I am not so familiar with the language that I could judge. The beard may indeed have b
een a false one – M’sieu Shaw tells me that it is not common for men in this country to wear beards, as it is in mine. By the light of candles, it is not so easy to tell.’

  ‘Had you met him before?’

  ‘No. He sent me a letter, introducing himself, saying that he wished to speak to me of investment. Much to my advantage, he said, but needing the capital of my gold. Again, I have had many men come to me in the city, offering me the opportunity to invest my gold.’

  For weeks January had amused himself at receptions, balls, entertainments – at the Opera and the Blue Ribbon Balls of the demi-monde – watching the businessmen of the city swarm around the Turk: Now, don’t you be deceived, Mr Hüseyin, the Carrollton Bank’s sound as a rock – as a ROCK, sir! Just needs a little capital to get through this rough time . . . Banks, pshaw! Nuthin’ like land to turn over a profit in this country . . . Now, a score of men – not a score, three dozen, easy! – have come to me offerin’ to partner me in this new cotton-press, but I didn’t trust a one of ’em, not a one! But I’ll give YOU the opportunity . . .

  Nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit, as January’s friend Hannibal had whispered irreverently on one such occasion. There is no fort so strong that it cannot be taken with money.

  ‘He arrived shortly after eight – just before the rain began,’ went on Hüseyin after a moment. ‘I let him in myself. As you know, my house has two entrances: the great door out on to Rue Bourbon, and the carriageway that lets on to Rue des Ursulines. We went upstairs to my study, where there was a good fire. We talked for perhaps two hours. At the end of that time we were interrupted, by the crash of something falling past the study windows. I sprang to my feet and listened – he caught my arm and said: It must not be known that I am in town, or something to that effect. Then there was a second crash, and men began to shout in the street.’