The Salt Roads Read online

“Never mind,” I said. “Drineh, rub me down well with that sweet oil. Antoniou likes the slippery feeling.”

  She giggled. “Maybe I should collect your oil scrapings,” she said quietly, “and sell them to him.”

  The high ceiling sang my laughter back to me. “Yes,” I said, “I bet he’d pay for it too, like a rich woman buying gladiators’ used oil. I’m an athlete after all, aren’t I?”

  Drineh looked at me. I could see the question in her eyes.

  “Yes, I am.” I raised my voice and made it echo in the high-ceilinged room. “I’m the brave and fearsome Pretty Pearl; oxen-eyed as Hera; champion at making the beast with two backs! I could make you rich, Drineh!”

  Nefer and Eleni snorted at that. Drineh just shook her head and set about wielding her strigil on my body again. I leaned back to enjoy the pampering and a few more moments of peace before I got back to work. “You know what I’m going to do when it’s my turn next to draw drachmas from the pot?” I asked Drineh.

  “No; what?”

  “I’m going to buy a pallia from the market. One with a fringe.”

  Neuilly, France

  No. I don’t have enough, Joël.” Leaning on my cane I stumped over to the fire, took the poker and began stoking it. Joël followed me.

  “It’s not so much money, Lemer. Get it from your poet man, why don’t you?”

  I shooed Tati off the armchair by the fire. She looked scoldingly after me, went and lay near the fender. She’d become lean since Choux-choux died. She missed her friend. I sat down, slowly, using my cane the while. “Joël, did you hear what I said at all? I don’t have enough, and I’m not going to ask Charles. It’s your debt; you find work and pay it.”

  He scowled at me. “Find work? I moved all the way here to Neuilly to look after you, but I must work my black ass to the bone while you and your white man lounge off in this grand apartment and feed each other bon-bons?”

  I straightened. It hurt. I used my cane to drag the stool close to me. With both hands I lifted my lame leg up onto it. Madame Charlotte, my healer woman, said that would help the blood not to settle in my foot and poison it. “Joël,” I said, mouthing the words carefully around the numb side of my mouth, “how often must I tell you? Charles is not rich.”

  He grinned then, came and sat at my feet, heedless of the fine wool pants he was wearing. It’s my money paid for those pants. “Jeanne, I don’t mean to fret you. But it’s you who asked me to come.”

  Only the truth to that. So long I hadn’t seen him. And Charles always gone nowadays, lecturing.

  “You and me always looked out for each other, didn’t we?” said Joël. “You’re going to put me aside now that you have a fine lover?” He put his head in my lap.

  I stroked the strong bones of his jaw. Plunged my fingers into his thick black hair. “Sweet as cream you can be,” I said, “when you want to be.”

  “Mm,” he murmured, ignoring me. “Just a few little francs I need, and Caillou won’t be coming to the door day and night demanding his money, and I’ll find work and pay you back next week.”

  “Even if you get work, you’ll only gamble your pay away again.” I took my handkerchief from my sleeve and dabbed at my mouth. That numb side dribbled sometimes.

  “Lemer, don’t be so harsh with me.” He turned his head into the fork of my thighs and inhaled deeply. “You always smell so good; do you know that?”

  What a way that man could always make me juice up fast. I laughed and shoved his head away. “Forward man.”

  He sat back on his hands and looked up at me with that devilish smile. “But you like me so, don’t you?”

  I frowned. “It’s wrong, Joël.”

  “How do you know? You don’t even know if your mother was telling the truth.”

  “You’re my brother.” Perhaps. Half brother, and not even raised by my mother. I’d been fifteen before I met him, before I even learned of him. Up until then I’d thought Maman only had one other child, the stillborn one that she almost died from.

  So damp I was with longing for Joël. “Get away from me, before Charles finds you like this and challenges you to a duel.”

  Joël leapt to his feet, mimed sword-play. “Oh, yes; my blade against his Lordship’s sharp wit!” He jumped and leapt about in a mock fight. My cane clattered to the floor. I had to hold my sides with laughing.

  “Oh, Joël, stop. You’re so silly!”

  Now he mimed being Charles, mincing about and flapping a handkerchief in a free hand. I nearly pissed myself to see him playing the dandy. He grinned at me and pretended to be routed. “Oh, please, sir!” he squeaked. “Not the nib! Anything but the nib!” He cowered from the deadly quill of an invisible Charles. My head hurt, I was laughing that hard.

  A low cough came from the doorway. Charles stood there, scowling. Quickly, Joël and I composed ourselves to look more seemly. Joël picked up my cane and handed it to me.

  “Lemer,” Charles said, “has there been a letter from my mother?”

  Before I could answer, Joël leapt to the doorway, took Charles’s hand and shook it vigorously. “My eminent sir,” he said, “how are you this fine day? Are you well?”

  Charles looked confused. “My head hurts, frightfully. And I’m vomiting again. Uh, and you?”

  “Oh, brilliantly good, brother-in-law. As ever. I laugh at my troubles and spit in the eye of God.”

  Charles had already turned away. “I am pleased to hear it,” he muttered. “Lemer? Did the mail come?”

  “Yes.” I creaked to my feet, got over to the cabinet. I took the key from my bosom. Almost I could feel Joël’s keen gaze on it. I opened the door, took Charles’s mail out, and handed it to him. He flipped through the envelopes and picked one.

  “Why didn’t you tell me there was a letter from the publisher?”

  “Couldn’t make out the handwriting.”

  He shook his head. “Jeanne. You really should work on your reading, you know. I keep telling you that I will teach you to be better at it.” He tore the envelope open.

  “Never you mind me. I manage. I can write a shopping list.”

  I glanced at Joël. He was pouting, like he used to do when we were young. His shamed face. Couldn’t read a word, Joël couldn’t. I asked Charles, “What do they say?”

  He was smiling. “It’s a bank note. Payment for my poems.”

  At that, Joël stepped forward. “Ah, Mr. Baudelaire, sir . . .”

  “Hush, Joël,” I said. “I’ll see to it.”

  Charles looked from Joël to me. “See to what? What is it?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I patted my mouth with the kerchief. “It’s nothing.”

  But Joël wouldn’t remain quiet. “I was asking the loan of a few sous, sir.”

  “Joël!”

  “Don’t fret yourself, Jeanne,” said Joël. “This is between us men.”

  Charles frowned at him. “You want me to give you money?”

  “A loan, sir; only a loan. I, uh; I have a bill come due.”

  “You want me to pay your bills for you?”

  Joël’s face got angry. He stepped a little closer to Charles. “It’s not as though you’ll miss it, you being a gentleman and all. Only for a few days.”

  Charles stood taller. “Are you mad? Are you insane?”

  Joël put a big hand on Charles’s shoulder. Charles brushed it off. Oh, please don’t let them fight. “I,” Joël replied, “am not mad. Sir. I am the brother of the lady you’re keeping in debauchery in your house. I have come here to make this house seem respectable. You owe her, and you owe me.”

  Charles was laughing, low and nasty. “Really.” He sat on the stool I had got up from. “Respectable. From debauchery.” He grinned up at Joël, a sharp-toothed smile. “I’ll have you know that I take care of Jeanne. I give her all I can, and more. It is my obligation, gladly undertaken, but it ends with her.” And now he was serious again. “Pay your own debts, Monsieur.”

  Joël stood there, his fist
s clenched. They were the size of turnips. He glared at Charles. Then he turned to the door. “Later, Jeanne,” he growled. He left.

  Charles just sat there, calm like a statue, reading his blasted letter from Mummy. “Did you have to shame him so?” I said.

  “I shame him? That man is shame walking on two legs.” He looked up from his letter. “Why is he here, Jeanne?”

  I could feel my face flushing. “He is my brother.” I wiped my mouth. “He looks after me when you are away.”

  “Your brother, is he? Why did I never hear of him before I brought you to Neuilly? Why does he spend all his time with you in your room?”

  “He tells me stories, keeps me entertained. It is so dull here.”

  “Helping to look after you, is he? Does he pay any of your bills?”

  I looked at the floor.

  “Does he? Does he pay for the noxious potions you have Laetitia buy for you from that hideous old witch woman?”

  “That old woman was a friend of my mother’s.”

  “Never mind that. Is Joël giving you money for his upkeep?”

  “No.”

  “None, Jeanne?”

  “No. He’s not working any more.”

  “When did he stop?”

  “When I met him again, when he came to Paris. Before I got sick and went into the sanatorium.”

  Charles came and took my chin. Cold, his hand was. I looked up into his face. He was aging, my Charles. Headaches all the time, and those fits of malaise he had, where he could do nothing but lie abed. The clap can make you so. Perhaps the same would happen to me.

  “Jeanne,” he said softly, “are you supporting that man with the money I give you?”

  “He is my brother.” I reached up and patted my damp mouth dry. He let my chin go, pity on his face. Used to be he would look at me with longing.

  “He’s using you,” he said. “An old, sick woman. He’s despicable.”

  I am not old! “He loves me, Charles. Yes, he has his faults. Do you love me, Charles? You used to.”

  “I can’t afford to keep both him and you.” He had busied himself with his letters again.

  Sadness pinned me where I sat. He hadn’t answered me. “I know. I will ask him to leave us and return to Nantes.”

  I must ask Laetitia to get another physic from the herb woman for me. One to make Charles love me again.

  Drink

  So much I had longed for this. Dreamt about it nights. Saw it days in my mind’s eye. Feared that I was too ugly now for him to want me. I looked up at Joël; dared to face what I saw in his eyes.

  Kindness. Desire? He grazed his thumb over my lips, and I felt my nipples point hard at him; you, you.

  Yes, just so, my Jeanne. We are made to be loved, you and I.

  Joël’s eyes looked on me as they had done when I was whole. Grateful, wanting, I opened my ruined mouth and took his thumb in. It tasted of salt, of molasses and tobacco. I sucked on it.

  “Yes,” he murmured. “Do that.”

  The numb side of my face, never quite recovered, couldn’t hold. Mouth water began to leak from the corner of my lip. Ashamed, I made to pull away.

  “No,” he said, “Stay.”

  Listen to him, Lemer.

  With his free fingers, Joël wiped the moisture from my chin. “I like it, the wetness. Fifteen when I met you, remember? And you still sucking on your thumb at night like any baby. Suck, Lemer.”

  I groaned, licked the length of his thumb, took it deep down my throat. He put his index finger into my mouth beside the thumb. Then the middle finger, then the ring one. He was stretching my mouth, and I longing for more.

  “Go on,” he said. “Make them wetter.”

  I pulled away, rubbed my face against his shirt, leaving a trail of damp there. I pressed against him, anxious to feel his body on mine. He was hard inside his pants. I began to unbutton and unbutton the endless buttons of the damned house dress. Little whimpering noises I was making. My own moisture making the cleft between my thighs damp. The sores had been gone from my cunny some weeks now. I thanked the heavens I was better down there. I got the dress open, dropped it to the floor. I sucked again on his fingers, opening my mouth wide and taking them deep into my throat.

  He brushed his other hand over one of my breasts. I gasped, mouth water-slick around his fingers. He slid that free hand down my belly, found the opening in my pantalettes and spread it. I leaned on his shoulder for support. Spraddled my legs for him. I could smell my own heat rising up from me.

  He took his fingers from my mouth, leaving it lonely, but as he held the pantalettes open with one hand, he pushed the wet fingers of the other, slow and insistent, into me through the opening. I could feel every inch enter. I nearly screamed for the pleasure of it. “Joël,” I begged.

  “Yes. Yes, Lemer.”

  Yes, Lemer. Just so. Feel how you flow, and I with you.

  My lame leg was aching with the effort of holding me upright, but what did I care for that? I started riding his fingers, reached for his hard prick. He breathed out, hard. I put my wet mouth up for a kiss.

  A low cry came from the doorway. With my clumsy leg, I had to lean on Joël to turn and look. Charles stood there. I tried to leap away from Joël, and the leg finally collapsed me. I tumbled to the floor, heavy. And just lay there, looking to the doorway. Charles. White, his face was. Bloodless. Tatiana slipped in the door behind him and came and jumped into my lap. I held her, stroked her thick fur. Charles hadn’t moved. Joël just smiled at him and held himself tall. He put his fingers into his mouth and licked them clean of my juices, still looking at Charles. Like a man struck blind, Charles turned, stumbled into the doorframe, then left.

  “Go and get him, Joël! Tell him . . .”

  “Tell him what, Lemer?” He looked down upon me. “He’s seen all he needs to know. I’m sorry. We should have been more careful.” But the look on him was triumph, not sorrow. And I felt it too. I smiled at him. My love for Charles was gone these long years. I should leave my life with him, too. Go with Joël. He would get work as a stevedore. I would mend the torn knees of his serge work pants. Charles and I could be friends, not a man and his mistress locked in a demented affair.

  Play out the game first, Jeanne.

  A knocking came at the front door, loud. Charles? Asking permission to enter his own residence? Tati leapt down from me and ran, yipping, towards the front door. “Help me up, Joël. If it’s him, it should be me who answers the door. He might temper his behaviour if it’s me.”

  Joël drew me to my feet and helped me button my dress back up.

  Ah. It begins. Will you have the wit to see what I am doing for you? At least I can give your mind peace.

  I should have been more frightened. What was Charles going to do to us? But I was calm, so calm. “Hand me my cane,” I said to Joël. He gave it me, and I stumped to the doorway. He was still knocking, getting louder this time. I opened the door.

  A black man stood there. A wiry little slip of a man with a foolish grin on his face, there in our doorway in Neuilly. He wore baggy work clothing and an old cloth cap. How the neighbours must be staring. This house was become a regular nigger carnival.

  “Yes?” I said, frowning. Where was Charles?

  “Pardon, Lady,” he said. His voice rumbled low; odd in that small body. “Is this where . . . I mean to say . . . Joël told me that I could find him here?”

  “Moustique!” Joël came behind me, his hand on my shoulder. “Come on in, man!”

  I backed clumsily away from the door to let the little blackamoor in. He grinned at Joël, bobbed his head to me. I didn’t give him my hand. “Who is this, Joël?”

  He clapped the man’s hand in between the two of his, and chuckled. “It’s only Moustique, the most disreputable lout in all of France! So glad to see you, Mous!”

  Moustique grinned back, put a hand on Joël’s shoulder. “Man,” he said. “What are you doing in this little country town? Begging your pardon, ma’am.”
He glanced at me, bobbed his head, then turned his smile on Joël again. “The train took hours to get me here! And then a lumpy carriage, with this great talkative turnip of a man driving, you should have heard him! Why are you all the way out here, Joël? Were we in Nantes so dull that you had to leave?”

  Joël smiled. He reached for my hand. I limped over to take his. “I’m looking after my sister here,” he told Moustique. “Have to make sure that her lover keeps her well.”

  “Joël!” I said. “Mind your manners!”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Lemer. Moustique and me been friends for so long. I can talk frank when he’s around.”

  “Joël, you’re embarrassing your beautiful sister. Come; you don’t offer a thirsty man something to drink?”

  So. He was well-spoken, for what he was. “Well, Monsieur Moustique,” I began, but Joël interrupted, laughing:

  “Monsieur! You don’t have to ‘monsieur’ him; he’s just old Moustique!”

  “Ah, to you I am. But the lady can be told my given name.” He bowed in my direction, playing courtly. “Madame Lemer, my mother was pleased to name me ‘Achille’ at my birth. My friends only call me ‘Moustique’ because I’m of small stature, like the brave mosquito. But so honoured I’d be to hear my real name come from your lips.”

  Why, the smooth-tongued charmer! I found myself smiling and inclining my head to him, like I was some grand lady. Joël just stood there, hang-mouthed. Despite my doubts at having one of Joël’s wastrel friends come to visit, I told him, “Please join us in the parlour, Monsieur Achille. Let us all take a beverage there together, yes?” I escorted them in and fetched a bottle of Charles’s favourite Rhenish wine. Achille’s face brightened when he saw it.

  “The gentleman of this house has a fine palate, I see.” He rose and took the bottle and glasses from me. Out from his back pocket he fetched a corkscrew! Was the man ready for drink at any hour, then? He used it to pull the cork from the bottle, so deft. He poured little bit into one glass, which he presented to Joël. Confused, Joël put the glass to his mouth. “No, my friend,” Achille said to him. “Smell it first.”