When evening came, he used a little more hot water, this time for a shave. He scraped his chin and cheeks with a straight razor he'd been using since before the turn of the century. None of these newfangled safety razors and blades for him. He stropped the razor on a thick, smooth piece of leather before it touched his face. If his shave wasn't smooth, he had only himself to blame, not some factory down in the United States.
He dressed in clothes he might have worn to town: dark trousers, clean white shirt, and his least disreputable hat. The overcoat he put on had seen better days, but overcoats always got a lot of use in Quebec. Whistling a tune he'd heard on the wireless, he went out to the Chevrolet.
"I want no trouble from you," he told the auto, as if it were the horse with which he'd had so many philosophical discussions over the years. The Chevrolet was old, but it knew better than to argue with him. It started right up.
Despite the snowplow and the rock salt it had laid down, the roads would still be icy. Galtier drove with care, and made sure he kept plenty of room between himself and other motorists-not that many others were out and about. He didn't miss the traffic. He knew he wouldn't be able to stop in a hurry.
He left the paved road and bumped along rutted dirt lanes till he came to the farm where Йloise Granche lived. The dim, buttery light of kerosene lamps poured out through her windows; she still had no electricity. He stopped the engine, wagged a finger at the Chevrolet to remind it to start up again, and went up the steps and knocked on the door.
"Hello," she said with a smile. Then she was in his arms and they kissed hungrily for a long time.
Still holding her, he said, "When we do that, I want to forget all about the dance."
"We can, if you want to," she answered. "Would you rather just stay here?"
Regretfully, Galtier shook his head. "That would be a lot of staying for not much staying power, I'm afraid. If I were half my age, I would say yes."
"If you were half your age, I wouldn't want anything to do with you-not for that, anyhow," Йloise said. "We'll go to the dance, then, and we'll come back, and who knows what will happen after that?"
"Who indeed?" Lucien kissed her again, then led her out to the motorcar.
That wagged finger did its job. The auto started up again without any fuss. The dance was at Pierre Turcot's, not far from the little town of St. Modиste. A rowdy sprawl of motorcars and wagons and buggies surrounded Turcot's barn when the Chevrolet pulled up. Lucien handed Йloise out of the motorcar. They went in side by side.
People waved and called their names and hurried up to greet them. By now, they'd been together long enough that all their neighbors took them for granted. They might almost have been a married couple. Lucien's son Georges was already out on the floor dancing. He waved to Lucien and blew Йloise a kiss.
"Georges can be very foolish," Йloise remarked. She eyed Galtier. "I wonder where he gets it."
"I haven't the faintest idea," he answered with such dignity as he could muster.
The fiddlers and drummer and accordion player took a break. Pierre Turcot wound up a phonograph and put a record on it. The dancing went on. The musicians on the record played and sang better than the homegrown talent. Lucien had noticed that before. He wondered if the problem would kill off homegrown talent after a while. But once he started whirling Йloise around the floor, he stopped worrying about it.
They danced. They snacked and drank some of the potent punch Pierre had set out and danced some more. People talked about politics in the city of Quebec and the price of potatoes and who was fooling around with whom. Lucien didn't think he and Йloise were high on the gossip list these days. Why get excited about old news?
Somewhere between ten and eleven, Йloise turned to him and said, "Shall we go?"
He smiled. "Yes, let's."
They went back to her house in companionable silence. When they got there, he got out first so he could open the door on her side. "Such a gentleman," she said. "Would you like to come in for a little while?"
"Why not?"
They drank some applejack. One of Йloise's neighbors had cooked it up. It was a good batch, almost as good as if it weren't bootleg. And then, as they had a good many times before, they went upstairs to her bedroom.
Everything was dark in there, but Lucien knew where the bed was. He sat down on one side of it and got out of his clothes. When he was naked, he reached out. His hand found Йloise's bare, warm flesh.
They kissed and caressed each other. Lucien's heart pounded with excitement. Heart still pounding, he rolled onto his back. Йloise straddled him. She liked riding him, and he found it easier than the other way round.
"Oh, Lucien," she whispered.
He didn't answer. As his delight mounted, so did the thudding in his chest. He could hardly breathe. He'd never felt anything like this, not in all his years, not with Marie, not with Йloise, not with anyone. Pleasure shot through him. So did pain, pain in his chest, pain stabbing up his arm. Pain… He groaned and clutched at Йloise. In an instant, the darkness in the bedroom became darkness absolute.
"Lucien?" Йloise exclaimed. He never heard her scream, or anything else, ever again.
Scipio might have known it would happen one of these days. Hell, he had known it might happen one of these days. The Huntsman's Lodge was the best restaurant in Augusta. No other place even compared. If Anne Colleton ever came to town, this was where she'd have dinner.
And there she sat, at a table against the far wall, talking animatedly with several local big shots. Scipio hadn't seen her for twenty years or so, but he had not the slightest doubt. She'd aged very well, even if he wouldn't have called her beautiful any more. And she still sounded as terrifyingly self-assured as she ever had, maybe even more so.
As befit its status as a fancy place to eat, the Huntsman's Lodge was dimly lit. Scipio didn't think she recognized him. He was just another colored waiter, not one serving her table. He thanked heaven he hadn't let Jerry Dover talk him into taking the headwaiter's post. Then he would have had to escort her party to the table, and she would have been bound to notice him.
Even now, he wasn't sure she hadn't. She always held her cards close to her chest. He didn't want to go anywhere near that table. He didn't want to speak, for fear she would know his voice. He spent as much time as he could in the kitchens. The cooks gave him quizzical looks; he didn't get paid for roasting prime rib or doing exotic things with lobster tails.
His boss knew it, too. "What the hell you doing hiding in there, Xerxes?" Jerry Dover demanded indignantly. "Get your ass out and wait tables."
"I's sorry, suh," Scipio answered. "But I gots to tell you, I's feelin' right poorly tonight."
Dover didn't say anything for a little while. His eyes raked Scipio. "You know," he remarked at last, "there's niggers I'd fire on the spot, they tried to use that kind of line on me."
"Yes, suh," Scipio said stolidly. Firing was the least of his worries right now.
"You ain't one of 'em, though. You never tried shirking on me before," the restaurant manager said. He astonished Scipio by reaching out to put a palm on his forehead. "You don't have a fever. At least it isn't the grippe. You need to go home? Go on, then, if you've a mind to."
"I thanks you kindly, suh." As he had years before with John Oglethorpe, Scipio needed to remind himself that white men could be decent. He found it especially remarkable now, with the Freedom Party in the saddle for the past seven years. Things were set up to give whites every excuse to be bastards, and a lot of them didn't need much excuse. "Somehow or other, I finds a way to pay you back." He felt like the mouse talking to the lion in the fable. But the mouse actually had found a way to do it. How could he?