House of Rougeaux(30)
Auntie Didi pats down Junior’s arms and murmurs something to Martine.
“She says you’re sweet,” Martine says in her lovely, lightly accented English.
Didi next stands before Rosalie, taking her face between her leathery old hands. Her milky eyes bore into Rosalie’s with an unexpected intensity. Rosalie would be unnerved if she did not perceive them emanating kindness. “She has the Rougeaux eyes, that’s for sure,” pronounces Auntie Didi. “And she is made of fine cloth.” When Rosalie looks puzzled Martine explains that means a person listens and speaks with a special sensitivity. Rosalie isn’t sure what to make of this but feels flattered just the same. She looks over at Junior, who just shrugs and smiles.
In front of Virginia, Elodie frowns. She takes the younger woman’s hands, squeezes them, and then exchanges a look with Martine. “My dear, you are not well at all,” Didi says.
They are all a bit unnerved, but Martine smoothes things over. “We’ll speak of that later,” she says. “Right now let’s get you settled in.”
Rosalie and her mother will stay in Martine’s room. Martine will bunk with her sister and Junior will sleep on a pallet in the parlor, as the sofa is too short. They eat an early supper of pea soup with bacon, stewed greens and a baguette that Martine slices into chunks on the table. The Aunties inquire about Rosalie’s schooling, and cluck their approval over her summer job in the doctor’s office. They want to know if Junior works hard and if he attends church regularly with the family.
The hours of the evening merge with the rivers of bygone days, aided by two heavy black-paper photograph albums. The sisters point out who is who and who did what. Here is a picture of their own father, Dax’s oldest brother. Do they know why Papa Dax left Montreal? Virginia knows it had to do with seeking a job, but it wasn’t something her father ever spoke too much about. And did they know he was named for his grandfather, a free man here in Montreal, who married a girl who was born into slavery on an island in the Caribbean? And that one of her forbears was known to be a great healer? That sort of thing runs in the family, don’t you know, and the second sight too. Nelie, thinks Rosalie. The second sight. She never thought of it that way before, but it makes sense now. All those visitors asking her advice all the time. The Aunties seem very matter-of-fact on these last points. Their words carry no greater embellishment than they do when remarking on who was a farmer and who worked in what industry.
As for Virginia’s father, Papa Dax, what happened was he got into some trouble when he was a very young man, working with the railroad unions for labor reform. There was a situation one night when a gang of company men came in to break up a union meeting. One thing led to another, one of the company gang ended up dead and three union boys were indicted for murder. Dax was one of those boys. The family knew Dax didn’t stand a chance against the company lawyers and so under the cover of night they sent him packing. He was just about Junior’s age, says Martine. By the time the constables came to arrest him he was gone. He went to New York first, where he had a sister.
“Your Great-Aunt Eleanor Higgins,” Virginia told the children.
“The musician?” asks Junior.
“That’s right.”
Papa Dax then continued on to Philadelphia to work in the shipyards. A few years later he became a union steward, a position he maintained all his working life. Rosalie is entranced, but ever so tired. Auntie Didi smiles at her, as she tries to stifle a yawn, and orders everyone to bed.
In the morning, the Aunties are in a hurry to discuss some business with Virginia. Martine gives Rosalie and Junior a few heavy Canadian coins and a hand-drawn map of their district, Little Burgundy, showing the Rue St. Antoine and the Rue St. James, and the Canal-de-Lachine. They shoo the children out the door, telling them to go look around. The day is crisp and brilliant. Being a weekday the streets are quiet at this hour. Rosalie is enchanted with the French street and shop names. They find the Canal and walk over a bridge of old industrial steel. A lonely freighter laden with lumber chugs along at a distance. They stop into a diner and eat some kind of mess called poutine, that is not wholly unlike certain dishes fixed by ladies from church back home.
Hours later they return to the Aunties’ house where Martine and Didi are in the kitchen making sandwiches. Junior is always ready to eat again, but Rosalie isn’t hungry. She leaves Junior in the kitchen and goes to find her mother in the bedroom.
Rosalie is met with a pungent smell when she opens the door, and the sight of her mother lying in the bed, covered up with a heap of blankets.
“What’s going on?” Rosalie asks, confused. Momma seemed just fine this morning. “You ain’t sick, are you?”
“Oh, Honey, this is some voo-doo or other,” says her mother drowsily. “ Auntie has me wrapped up under here with oil and leaves and God knows what all. I couldn’t say no.”
“Yeah, okay,” says Rosalie, not knowing what else. Spotting something that draws her in, she steps over to the chest of drawers. A small framed photograph of her sister Azalea sits there, together with a flickering candle inside a white votive. Her mother opens her eyes just barely.
“I sent that picture to Auntie Martine after Azzie was sick,” she says. “Auntie Didi brought it in for my dreams. I do believe I’ve been seeing my little girl…” she trails off, but then says to Rosalie, “I’ll just be a little while, you go on. The truth is all this is making me kind of sleepy.” Two or three seconds later Virginia is snoring to beat the band. In fact she sleeps the rest of the afternoon, rises briefly to take a little supper, and goes off to bed again.