she said, doing up the buttons down the back, ‘look at you. Never seen nothing like this in my life. You could be at the American Museum. Do you mind?’ She stroked her hands across Julia’s shoulders then down her back, following the hairy downward-pointing arrow.
‘I don’t mind,’ said Julia. Solana used to stroke her when she was small, but stopped when she got bigger.
‘It’s like stroking a bear,’ said Delia.
The portrait was to be done in the front parlour of the house.
The artist was no more than a boy, frail and smooth-faced. ‘Oh my saints,’ he whispered, gazing, ‘Oh my saints and angels,’ as Julia settled herself in the over-stuffed button-back armchair. After this, the boy remained silent, working diligently away with his pencils and pens and inks. The clock ticked loudly. She went into a trance, gazing straight ahead. From here she could see the side-board, with its bowl of jasmine and the framed daguerreotype of a dignified militiaman with sad eyes. That must be Monsieur Soulie, she thought. I wonder what happened to him. She wondered what the precise state of things was between Mr Rates and Madame Soulie. Rates was too smug and bloated, and he had no lips. I wouldn’t have him, she thought, and couldn’t help smiling. Poor man, rejected by the bear woman. The bear woman’s choosy.
‘Don’t smile please,’ the boy said softly.
‘Sorry.’ For the rest of the sitting she contemplated the darting eyes of the young artist, whose gaze was now fierce but remote. She scared him and it couldn’t be helped. Some never got through it, some did. And more to meet. Soon, rehearsal at the New Saint Charles, onstage, with a band. People at the theatre. You chose this, girl, she told herself. You could have stayed home. She worked herself up for the rest of that sitting, and the one after, with so much time to do nothing but sit still and think. She’d fail, she’d fall over, be sick. But the time came closer and she didn’t run, and suddenly she was there in the peculiar backstage land of stairs and doors and voices, and soon there was the stage, and the band below her, all staring up. And it was all right. These musicians had seen everything and adjusted quickly. Even so, they were quietly shocked in those first moments. No escape. They struck up a polka. She danced, forgetting all about them and pretending she was alone. She was dancing in the patio after everyone else had gone to bed. Like before, they cheered when she finished. Relief flooded her, and she smiled and ran to the front of the stage. I’ll give them a good look, she thought, leaning down, saying, ‘Thank you! I’ve never sung with a band before.’
The musicians beamed and gawked, knowing they were getting a treat.
Then the violin played the sighing first notes of ‘I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls’, and she sang. It poured like cream, perfect.
‘Take a bow,’ said the leader.
Madame Soulie, big bust heaving contentedly, played on the air with her fingers. ‘He’s got power. You look in that man’s eyes and he sees you.’
‘But to turn me,’ said Julia, ‘would be a miracle.’
‘Well, of course, one mustn’t expect too much.’ The carriage rumbled into Bayou Road. ‘But I don’t see the harm in trying. We only live once.’
‘I agree.’ Julia looked out of the window.
‘He knows about you anyway,’ Madame Soulie said. ‘I’ve told him some. Oh, here we are!’ She was jolly, as if they were on a jaunt.
There were some fine big houses on Bayou Road. Dr John Montanee’s was low and set back a little. A muted red glow came from the windows. There was a lantern on the porch and red dust on the threshold.
‘We’re lucky he could fit us in at such short notice,’ Madame Soulie whispered, rapping on the door and adjusting Julia’s collar as if she was a child, ‘he’s so busy. They all go to him, everybody. I’ve seen it when they’re standing in line a mile away.’
A woman with tired eyes and a long oval face opened the door and motioned them in, placing one hand on Madame Soulie’s sleeve in a familiar way as she did so. ‘Bonsoir, chérie,’ she said, her eyes sliding towards Julia. ‘Bonsoir, Madame.’
‘Here we are.’ Madame Soulie swept grandly into the room, ‘and here is she. Julia dear, come in, come in. Marie, how are you?’
‘Seen many a better day,’ said the woman wearily, ‘and a few worse.’
The room was warm and dim and cluttered with furniture. Lizards sat about on the backs of sofas and arms of chairs, and the walls were hung with desiccated things, toads, scorpions, chickens’ feet. Skulls grinned from the top of a high cupboard. A fire burned low. Two girls lounged almost vertically in easy chairs, drinking wine and looking at Julia with no apparent interest. Deep in the room, standing in front of a red curtain was the Doctor himself, a tall grey-bearded African man in an expensive black suit with a frilly white shirt front. She’d never seen a rich black man before. His cheeks were slashed, three big gashes each side. A python coiled around his waist and neck, its face hovering peacefully in front of his chest. ‘Miss Julia,’ he said, his voice deep and heavily accented, ‘come on in’, indicating that she should follow him behind the curtain.
‘Go with the Doctor,’ said Madame Soulie. ‘I’ll be right here. Go on.’
The Doctor adjusted his snake as if it was a scarf. ‘Come on in here,’ he said. ‘Come on now, nothing here to be scared of.’
Behind the curtain was a short passage, another door, a small dark room with a picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall and an elephant’s tusk in the corner. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling, white candles burned tall and straight on an altar, and the air was smoky and rich, heavy with a dark soporific perfume she could not place. He motioned for her to sit in one of two chairs drawn up close beside a small table spread with shells and straws, sat down himself in the other, took the snake’s thin head gently between the fingers of his right hand and settled its brown and yellow coils more comfortably. It turned its face to look up at him. Behind him on the shelf was the skull of something small and delicate.
‘He’s beautiful,’ Julia said.
‘This here’s a lady,’ said the Doctor, smiling.
The snake’s round black eye was still.
‘What do you want?’ the Doctor asked.
‘Madame Soulie said she told you about me.’
He nodded.
‘I might be cursed,’ she said.
He nodded again.
‘My nurse said it was because my mother walked out in the dark of the moon. My guardian said that was nonsense. But no one has ever told me what I am.’
He sat rubbing his beard for a long time.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
‘I’m twenty-one,’ she said.
‘Let me see you.’
She took off her veil, and he sat looking at her without any movement for so long she wondered if he was trancing her. His eyes were soft and bloodshot but very penetrating. He winked suddenly, and she smiled. ‘Answer my question,’ he said. ‘What do you want
