“You know it is,” she said. “You were right about him, Papa.”
Panditji sighed. “I predicted that he would complain of feeling suffocated,” he explained to Anita. “He had the mark of Kambu on his left hand, the little mark by the fingernail on his little finger; sure enough, he complained that he had no freedom, no home of his own. I told him he and Reki would have this house and my land as soon as Chennamma and I were old, but it was not enough. Not for him.”
“So when Chennamma found her bangles missing, you assumed it was Moonu getting ready to run away,” Anita said.
“I couldn’t get the mark of Kambu out of my head,” Panditji said.
“But you were right!” Reki said. “He meant to leave me! He had other women!” She burst into deep, painful sobs.
“And so you killed him,” Anita said. “I found the massage oil, Reki, and I have been to the timber yard and seen the small cans of carbon tetrachloride. It is used for degreasing equipment at the yard,” Anita explained to Panditji. “Mix it in with massage oil in high concentrations and anyone would succumb to coma and death. Did you get him drunk first?”
Reki looked frantically from her father to her mother.
“We can test the massage oil in the pantry, Reki, and on the body,” Anita said.
“He was always drinking,” Reki said. “He liked to sneak out when he thought no one would notice. Off to the arrack shop and his other women and then skulking back home. Did he not see how I cared for him?”
“The police will be here soon,” Anita told Panditji. “And they will not take you instead of your daughter.” Panditji slumped to the ground.
The tears streamed down Chennamma’s face as she stumbled after her daughter and the constable. Poota tried to bring her back to the house. When that failed, she stood with her on the path gently holding her while the old woman stared at the empty road where her daughter had been driven away. Panditji sat on the veranda, crying softly.
“You will have to tell her,” Anita said. “You both have many debts.” She wanted to lay her hand on his shoulder and say, Don’t worry, everything will work out. But that would be a lie. Things were going to get much worse. She took a deep breath and let her gaze wander over the compound and little house. Here she had learned to listen to her own instincts, to judge people for herself. Sitting beside Panditji as he read palms and analyzed his customers’ characters, she had discerned his gift and found her own. Here she had learned to be astute, wily, silent, compassionate. And here she would learn one more lesson.
“The bank will take it all, won’t they?” he said.
She nodded.
“It will not matter. My wife and I are the last of our family. I knew it would come to an end when no child was born at the end of their first year of marriage. I think Reki knew too. We will begin our wanderings, the end of our life.”
“I think this will be good-bye for us too,” Anita said, wishing it weren’t so.
The Heart Has Reasons
by O’Neil De Noux
For two days she came and sat under the WPA shelter in Cabrini Playground with her baby, sometimes rocking the infant, sometimes walking between the oaks and magnolias, back and forth. Sometimes she would sing. She came around nine A.M., and around lunchtime she’d reach into the paper bag she’d brought and nibble on a sandwich. After, she would cover her shoulder with a small pink blanket and nurse her baby beneath it. Around five P.M. she would walk away, up Dauphine Street.
On the third morning, the newspaper said to expect showers brought in by an atypical autumn cold front from Canada, which would finally break the heat wave that had lingered through the sizzling summer of 1948. When the rain swept in, it was one of those all-day New Orleans rainstorms that started suddenly and built into monsoon proportions. I grabbed two umbrellas and found her huddled under the shelter.
“Come on,” I told her, “come get out of the rain.” I held out an umbrella. When she didn’t take it immediately, I stood it against the wall and stepped away to give her some room. She looked younger up close, nineteen or eighteen, and stood about five two, a thin girl with short, dark brown hair and darker brown eyes, all saucer wide and blinking at me with genuine fear.
I took another step away from her, not wanting to tower over her with my six-foot frame, and smiled as warmly as I could. “Please. Come take your baby out of the rain.” I opened the second umbrella and handed it to her.
Slowly, a shaky white hand extended for the umbrella, those big eyes still staring at me. I took a step toward the edge of the shelter. A loud thunderclap startled us both to jump and started the baby crying.
I led the way back across the small playground, the umbrellas pretty useless in the deluge, and hurried through the brick and wrought-iron fence to Barracks Street, having to pause a moment to let a yellow cab pass. She moved carefully behind me.
At my building, I held the door open for her. I closed the umbrellas and started up the stairs for my apartment. “I’ll bring towels down,” I called back to her, taking the stairs two at a time.
Moving quickly, I grabbed two large towels from my bathroom, lighting the gas heater while I was in there, and pulled the big terry cloth robe I never wore from the closet, draping it over the bathroom door before leaving my apartment door open on the way out. She was standing next to the smoky glass door of my office, rocking her baby, who had stopped crying. She gave me another frightened look when I came down and extended the towels to her.
“Top of the stairs, take a left. My apartment door’s open.” I reached into my suit coat pocket and pulled out a business card. “That’s my office behind you. The number’s on the card. Go upstairs. The heater’s on in the bathroom. Lock yourself in and take your time. Call me if you need anything.”
I shoved the towels at her and she took them with her free hand. I pressed the business card between her fingers as she moved away from my office door. She took a hesitant step for the stairs, then stopped and watched me with hooded eyes.
Stepping to my office door, I said, “I’m Lucien Caye,” nodding at my name stenciled on the door. “I’m a detective.”
Her lower lip quivered, so I tried my warmest smile again. “Go on upstairs. You’ll be safe up there. Lock yourself in.”
The baby began to whine. She took in a deep breath and backed toward the bottom step. Glancing up the stairs, she said, “First door on the left?”
“It’s open,” I said as I stepped into my office. “I’ll start up some eggs and bacon. I have a stove in here.” I left the door open and returned to the row of windows overlooking Barracks Street where I’d been watching her. A louder thunderclap shook the old building before two flashes of lightning danced over the rooftops of the French Quarter. The street was a mini canal already, the storm washing the dust from my old gray 1940 DeSoto coach parked against the curb.
“Bacon and eggs,” I said aloud and turned back to the small kitchen area at the rear of my office. I had six eggs left in the small refrigerator, a half slab of bacon, and milk for the coffee. I sniffed the milk and it smelled okay.
I telephoned my apartment before going up. She answered after the sixth ring with a hesitant “Yes?”
“It’s Lucien. Downstairs. I’m bringing up some bacon, eggs, and coffee, okay?”
I heard her breathing.
“I’m the guy who got you outta the rain. Remember? Dark hair. Six feet tall. I brought an umbrella.”
“The door’s not locked,” she said.
“Okay. I’ll be right up.” When she didn’t hang up immediately, I told her, “You can hang up now.”
“All right.” I brought up a heaping plate of breakfast and a mug of café au lait. I’d left my coat downstairs, along with my .38 revolver. Didn’t want to spook her any more than she was already.