Iron Lace #1

CHAPTER FIVE

R aphael Cantrelle stood high on a sand dune, one hand shading his eyes as he looked out to sea. In the distance there were pirate ships with billowing sails and masts so tall they speared the black clouds and carved a corsair’s route to heaven.

They were coming for him.

Raphael felt inside the pocket of his pants. His hand stayed there a moment, savoring the feel of his tiny store of treasure. He had a section of rope, a chunk of bread and smoked fish wrapped and tied in a piece of cloth, a shard of glass finely polished by the sea, two shells, and a piece of driftwood shaped like a dagger. The pirates would be proud to have him on board. Jean Laffite himself would beg him to sail on the biggest and finest of the ships.

He would have to say no.

As he watched, the ships disappeared, one by one, until there was nothing left but a clouded stretch of sea and sky and two fishing boats coming into port. He recognized one of the canots, with its red lateen sail and green body. It belonged to the father of étienne Lafont, a boy his age with whom he played when étienne could sneak away from his family.

Next to Juan Rodriguez, étienne was his best friend. étienne wanted to be a pirate, too, but Juan was a pirate. Juan could teach him everything he needed to learn until the day when his mother no longer needed him and Raphael would sail away with Dominique You and Nez Coupé. And if they really were dead, as étienne insisted, then he could sail away with someone else.

He wanted to leave the chénière. He knew of no other place to live, had never even crossed the pass to Grand Isle. But he knew that somewhere there had to be a village where no woman would call his mother names, where no man would tell his children they couldn’t play with him.

Only recently he had discovered that he was different from other boys. He was not the only child on the chénière without a father. From time to time, the Gulf waters took their toll, and boats washed in to shore, empty and battered by storms. But other fatherless children had families to see to their needs. Uncles and cousins, grandfathers and godfathers, brought them fish and game, milk and fresh vegetables from their gardens. Their mothers were welcomed into homes all through the village.

Raphael had learned from étienne, just last week, that he had a family on the chénière, too, an uncle who was able to provide for Raphael’s mother. But no one brought her fish or milk. She mended nets and washed clothes to buy the fish she didn’t catch herself. Whatever else she needed, she bought with the coins she received from M’sieu Lucien or with the pretty gifts he gave her, traded to the storekeeper in the village, who sent them to New Orleans to be sold.

étienne had taken Raphael to see his uncle’s house. It was one of the finest on the peninsula. Anchored on a slight inland ridge, it rose high above the ground and the other houses surrounding it. étienne had told him that the house was made of bousillage-entre-poteaux, and that it was so sturdy it would still be standing on Judgment Day.

Raphael had found his way there half a dozen times since. He had twice seen the man who was his uncle. Auguste Cantrelle was tall, twice as tall as Juan, with a chest as wide as a lugger’s sail and curly dark hair like Raphael’s own. The second time, Raphael had stepped out of the shadows. Auguste Cantrelle had looked at him; then, with an angry face, he had hurried away.

He hadn’t asked his mother about the tall, tall man. Once he had asked her about his father, and she had told him that he had no father, that he had no family other than her and Angelle. After all, they were enough family for anyone, were they not?

Neither had he asked her about the boys who couldn’t play with him, the mothers who shielded their children when he passed, the bad names they called softly after him. He had seen that some people spoke to his mother and some did not.

Raphael’s hand slid into his pocket again, and this time he lifted out the packet of bread and fish. It had been some time since the noon church bell had tolled the Angelus. His belly told him it was time for food, but he didn’t want to eat too early. His mother had told him to stay away this afternoon. M’sieu Lucien was coming to visit, so there was no hope of begging more bread from her. He wasn’t supposed to go home until the sun was almost to the horizon, and if he disobeyed, he would go to bed hungrier than he was now.

He solved the problem by eating half the contents of the packet, then carefully retying the string and saving the rest of the rations for later. Feeling better, he went to find Juan.

Juan’s house was far away, a long trip across the settlement, even though Raphael walked as fast as he could. Juan lived by himself in a house much like Raphael’s own, but there were no neighbors to share his marshy land. When the twilight breeze blew from the direction of Juan’s house, it always carried mosquitoes with it. He had asked Juan about them, and Juan had said that mosquitoes were kinder than people. Mosquitoes stung once or twice and took what they could, but people, they kept after you until every drop of blood was drained from your body.

Raphael had met the old man one morning outside Picciola’s store. Raphael had been waiting in the shade for his mother, chasing chickens to pass the time, when he noticed Juan coming toward him. The old man had walked like a crab, with swift little steps that veered to one side until he stopped, straightened, then veered to the other.

Juan was small and bent with age, although he carried no cane. Instead of a hat, he’d worn a red scarf, knotted and tied over one ear. No one had spoken to him as he wobbled his way toward the store, but Raphael had seen people move to one side, as if they were determined not to get in his way.

There’d been little reason to worry. Juan had avoided them with even more determination, preferring to stumble into the shade, rather than take a chance on the crowded path. But Juan had misjudged, and his foot had become entangled in the roots of a chinaball tree. He would have fallen if Raphael hadn’t sprung forward and braced him until he recovered his balance.

The old man’s swarthy skin had flushed with embarrassment, but he’d mumbled a merci. Then he’d reached inside his pants and retrieved a small silver coin, pressing it into an astonished Raphael’s hand before he started back toward the store.

On the way home, Raphael’s mother had listened to his story, then taken the coin to keep with her own. In return, she’d told him that Juan Rodriguez was the son of a man who had sailed with Jean Laffite, and that some on the chénière believed Juan himself had sailed with pirates, too. Juan’s mother had been a bayou girl, and at Juan’s birth she had moved to the chénière to wait, always wait, for her husband to return from his journeys.

Raphael knew how hard his mother worked. There was little time for storytelling in her busy life, but on that rare day, with Juan’s silver coin jingling happily in her pocket, she had told him about others who lived on the chénière.

The Barataria region, she’d said, had once been the haunt of pirates. Some of the people who lived here now were their descendants. He’d listened eagerly as she told more stories of the mélange of people who dwelled there, stories of people from Italy, Spain and Portugal, stories of people from Manilla and China who dried shrimp on tall platforms in Barataria Bay and danced over them until the shells fell off to be swept away by the currents. But it was Juan’s story he’d begged to hear again. He had gone to sleep that night promising himself that the next stories he heard would be from Juan himself.

At first Raphael had been afraid to go to Juan’s house alone. It was far from his own house, and étienne had frightened him with stories about ghosts who haunted the marsh. But after a while he had found his way there.

Juan hadn’t spoken to him that first day, or the next. But after Raphael had visited for a week, carrying fresh water in a bucket from the well and helping Juan weave more palmetto into the thatch of his house, Juan had finally begun to talk.

Now Raphael visited Juan every day he could. Sometimes the old man was out in his boat and Raphael returned home without seeing him. But on lucky days, Juan was sitting outside, ready to tell stories. Raphael lived on these tales of conquest as surely as he lived on the bread his mother baked in her mud oven.

Today, when Raphael arrived, Juan was nowhere in sight. His boats were there, however, both the pirogue that he used in the marsh behind his home and the skiff he sailed into the Gulf.

Raphael knocked on the door of Juan’s hut, and when no one answered, he pushed it open a few inches to peer inside. The hut’s interior was more primitive than Raphael’s own. The floor was mud and the furniture nothing more than stumps of trees. There was a shrine in the corner, like the one Raphael’s mother kept, but no statue of the Blessed Mother presided over the simple wooden cross and the stubs of two candles.

Raphael closed the door and backed away. From the distance, he heard a clap of thunder. He didn’t want to be caught outside if the rain started again, but he knew better than to enter the hut without Juan’s permission. Just as he was turning to run back toward the village, he saw the tall sedge beside Juan’s house part in a rippling wave. As Raphael watched, terrified, the old man materialized in the mists rising from the marsh.

“Hey! ’Zat you, Raphael?”

Raphael swallowed hard. For a moment, his voice was locked in his throat, as if the ghosts he’d envisioned had wrapped their boneless fingers around his neck. He swallowed again, successfully. “I’z me.”

“You don’ see the storm comin’, cher? You don’ worry?”

Raphael shook his head and watched Juan stagger crab-like toward him. “It’s jus’ rain,” he said bravely, like a good pirate.

“ Non. Mais, I wish you was right.”

“It’s goin’ away.” Raphael squinted as Juan drew closer.

“She goes ’way, then she comes back. Boom! Like that!” Juan clapped his hands.

“How do you know?”

“Me, I seen it before. The gulls go; and the pelicans. The cows, they go up to the ridges.”

“Why?”

“So they die slower.”

Raphael took a step backward. “It’s jus’ rain.”

“ Mais non, cher. Is win’, too. Big win’.” He spread his hands wide. “Lights in the sky, this morning. I saw them lights. I know.” Thunder sounded in the distance once more. He dropped his hands to his side, as if his point had been made for him. “Hein?”

“What can we do?”

Juan’s expression didn’t change. Slowly, he shook his head.

Raphael felt a thrill of alarm. He had experienced many storms in his seven years. He knew what it was like to be wet and miserable because his house leaked. But he could sense there was a difference between that and what Juan was saying. He tried to imagine a big wind blowing over the chénière. He couldn’t.

“The win’, she’ll take your house.” Juan turned toward his own house. “She’ll take mine, too, that one, and twist it to little pieces.”

Raphael thought of the few things he owned that weren’t in his pocket. Most important was a pair of leather shoes that M’sieu Lucien had brought all the way from New Orleans. He seldom wore them, but now that he was old enough for short pants instead of the cotton dress he had worn until summer, the shoes were important. He couldn’t let them blow away. School was to start the day after tomorrow, in a brand-new building that had just been erected. Although his mother hadn’t yet promised he could go, he still held out hope. And he would need shoes.

There was also his rosary, and a tiny pirogue that he had whittled from a soft tree limb, along with a little man who sat in it. And there was Angelle’s doll. That last thought made his eyes widen. “Angelle, will she blow away, too?”

“You mus’ tell your maman to take you and Angelle to Picciola’s store when the win’, she start ’a blow. If she don’…” He shrugged.

Raphael nodded solemnly. “My nonc, Auguste Cantrelle, he has a big-big house.”

“That one.” He spat out the words. “He won’ take you in.”

Raphael thought about it, and decided Juan was right. “When does this storm come?”

“Who knows? Maybe soon, maybe later.” Juan moved forward and cupped Raphael’s chin in his hand. The old man stared at him long enough to make Raphael wish he could wiggle away. But he stood as still and tall as he could, and waited.

“Your papa, he was a good man.” Juan dropped his hand. “You didn’ know him, but me, I did. He was good, strong. Les autres? Those who say differen’?” He spat on the ground.

Raphael was affected by Juan’s words. He wanted to ask more, but he was spellbound by the revelation that Juan had known his father. Suddenly he was no different from the other boys on the chénière. His father had been a good man.

“Come, I show you somethin’.” Juan turned and started back the way he had come. Raphael was too excited by all he had heard to be frightened now of the marsh. He stumbled after Juan.

Juan parted the grasses, just like before. Raphael followed, noting their route as best he could. The path was both solid and liquid, and in places the sedge was taller than he was. He followed Juan’s zigzag steps, glancing from time to time at a thicket of moss-draped trees in the distance.

They were almost at the ridge where three trees perched when Juan sank into water that came to the top of his boots. He turned and held out his hand to the boy. “You follow?”

Raphael looked at the water. He thought of what his mother would say when he returned with his pants wet and dirty. He thought of what Juan would say if he didn’t continue. Juan, who had known his father. He stepped in and sank to his chest.

Juan nodded his approval, then started forward.

The mud oozed between Raphael’s toes. His feet, as tough as shoe leather, still felt the prick of shells and roots. He thought of all the water creatures who could be lying in wait.

They were on land again in a minute. Juan held out his hand and lifted him up. “Wha’ you hear?”

Raphael listened. The marsh was strangely silent. He frowned. “Nothin.’”

“Tha’s righ’.” Juan started toward the trees. “Nothin’. What birds didn’ leave, they listen, too. N’est-ce pas? ”

“They listen for the wind?”

“Mais oui.”

Raphael stared at the trees as they got closer. From a distance, he hadn’t been able to tell that they were dead, but now he saw that they were mere skeletons of living trees, draped with mosslike funeral shrouds. He didn’t want to get any closer. The trees were dead, and he didn’t want to think about them.

“Come, I show you somethin’,” Juan said.

Raphael had little choice but to follow. As carefully as he had watched their route, he knew he might never find his way back to Juan’s house or the village.

He followed two steps behind the old man, veering from side to side, just as Juan did. Juan stopped at the edge of the vague shadow cast by the middle tree. “Can you fin’ the sun?”

Raphael thought that was a funny question, since the sun was well hidden by thick black clouds. But he squinted into the sky, then pointed at the spot where he thought the sun should be.

“Good,” Juan said. “Remember.” Juan took eight perfectly straight steps forward, then turned so that his shoulder faced the trees. He took eight more steps, also straight. Here the almost imperceptible shadows of two of the trees intersected. He turned again, at an angle to the third tree, and took eight more steps. Then he stopped and pointed to the ground. “Here.”

Raphael ignored his fear of the trees and went to stand beside Juan. “What?”

“Here. You dig. Here.”

“Dig?” Raphael looked down. The ground looked no different from that surrounding it. He looked up at Juan. “Why?”

Juan put his hands on Raphael’s shoulders and pushed. “Go back. Try again, hein? ”

Perplexed, Raphael turned and walked back to the edge of the shadow of the middle tree. When he faced the trees again, Juan had moved away. “Now,” Juan said. “Again.”

Raphael did everything Juan had done, even lengthening his steps so that they were as long as the old man’s. He ended up in what he was certain was the same place.

“Non!” Juan came over to him and pushed him back to the spot where the shadows intersected, then turned him at a sharper angle. “Wha’ d’you see?”

Raphael squinted. Far in the distance, exactly facing him, was a wide gap in the trees lining the horizon. He pointed. Juan nodded. “Oui. Now fin’ the spot.”

This time Raphael ended up where Juan wanted him.

Juan bent so that his face was only inches from the boy’s. “You can fin’, hein? ”

“Oui.”

“If this win’ takes me,” Juan said, “you come back, you dig. You tell your maman to take you far ’way from this place, far ’way where no one knows you, no one knows your papa. Vous comprenez? ”

Raphael didn’t understand, exactly, but he knew he wanted to obey. Hadn’t he dreamed of leaving the chénière himself?

“If this win’ don’ take me…” Juan shrugged. “Someday, somethin’ will.”

“What will you do when the wind comes?”

“I’ll get in my boat.”

“And sail away?”

The old man smiled. It was the first time Raphael had ever seen his expression change. “ Mais oui, cher. An’ sail away.”

Lucien had stayed too long. Rain was falling by the time he made his way back to his boat, and dark clouds masked the fading daylight. The beach was deserted except for a small boy struggling to pull the boat farther ashore and out of the reach of the waves slithering toward its hull.

“Raphael!” Lucien hurried toward him, watching as the boy’s thin arms strained with the weight. Affection filled him. “Don’t worry, mon fils, I’m taking it back now, anyway.”

Raphael straightened and turned. A smile gleamed white against his dark skin. “I was afraid it’d wash away.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen.” Lucien ruffled Raphael’s black curls. He had always thought Raphael a handsome enough boy, although he had the vaguely heathen look of some of the natives of the chénière and Grand Isle. Marcelite had told him that her family had come from Italy and Portugal, as well as France. Of Raphael’s father she had said little, only that he had left her before the boy’s birth, never to return. Lucien didn’t care to know more. He tolerated Marcelite’s past and even felt affection for her son. There was much he could overlook for what he received from her.

“You’re leaving now?” Raphael asked. He licked his finger and held it up. “The win’, she’ll take you quick.”

“You’re right.” Lucien ruffled the boy’s curls once more, then dropped his hand. “Maybe quicker than I’d like.”

“Juan Rodriguez says a big win’ is coming.” Raphael threw open his arms. “Big, like this. We’ll all blow away.”

The rain fell harder. Lucien had to bend to peer into Raphael’s face. He saw excitement, but not one trace of fear. He suppressed a smile. “You mustn’t believe everything the old man tells you, mon fils. It’s too late in the year for a big storm. Don’t worry your mother with stories. Promise?”

Raphael frowned. “Juan says if the big win’ comes, we should go to Picciola’s store.”

“There’s not going to be a big wind. I don’t want you making your mother upset.”

Raphael nodded, but his eyes were mutinous.

“Good.” Lucien took off his shoes and socks and threw them in the boat, along with his hat. Then he rolled up his trousers. “I won’t be back for a while. You must take good care of your mother while I’m gone.”

Raphael nodded again.

“Come on and help me get the boat in.” Lucien slung the rope over his shoulder. Then he started toward the water, dragging the boat behind him. He felt the thrust as Raphael lent his weight. Lucien climbed aboard and let the tide carry him out before raising the sail. He looked back and saw Raphael watching him. As the boy grew smaller and smaller, Lucien waved his last goodbye.

As the boat drew near to the opposite shore a short time later, a larger figure watched him. At first Lucien thought it was Mr. Krantz, assuring himself that his guest had returned safely from his sail, or perhaps one of his employees. The figure grew more familiar until he realized that the man who waited so patiently in the rain was Antoine Friloux, his father-in-law.

Apprehension gripped him. Antoine wasn’t expected. Indeed, Lucien had left him only last night in New Orleans. Antoine must have come on a steamer he had hired himself.

But for what purpose? Antoine was not a man who relished physical discomfort. Yet now he stood in the steadily increasing rain. He made no move to assist Lucien as he waded in and pulled the boat to the beach; he just stood sternly, arms folded.

“Antoine?” Lucien shielded his eyes with his hand.

“Surprised, Lucien?”

Lucien moved closer. “Shouldn’t I be?” He studied his father-in-law, trying to find a clue to his behavior. Antoine Friloux was a tall, slight man with the pale skin of his daughter and granddaughter. His dark hair and mustache were always perfectly trimmed, and his collar was always crisply starched. Even now, with rain dripping off his overcoat and hat, he looked distinguished.

“I’ve had certain surprises myself in the last few days,” Antoine said.

“Is Claire—?”

Antoine waved away the question. “Claire is fine, as fine as a woman can be with a husband who plays her for a fool.”

Lucien couldn’t think of a response. He fell short of perfection, but what man didn’t? He labored to provide all that a woman could desire. He performed his social obligations as a man of his standing was required to; in public and at home he displayed the good manners and breeding of his class. In what way had he harmed his wife?

“Do you know what I mean, Lucien?” Antoine asked.

Lucien glanced up at the sky. It was quickly growing darker. “Shall we discuss this under shelter?”

“I’ve taken the cottage nearest the dining room for the night. We can talk there.”

Lucien nodded. He knew better than to show either irritation or dread. Antoine might be fifty, he might appear frail to one who didn’t know him, but his appearance was deceptive. The reins of both his family and his business were tightly twisted around his spidery fingers. His slightest whim could effortlessly change the course of either.

Thunder boomed in the distance as they made their way along the track past the dining room to Antoine’s cottage. Krantz filled the doorway of the dining room and nodded as they passed. Lucien was cold and wet enough to wish for either coffee or some of Krantz’s excellent brandy, but he knew better than to stop.

The cottage, formerly a slave cabin, was simple, attractive in the summer, like all the others, with wisteria vines blanketing the gallery railing and beds of flowers scenting the air. Now, with the hotel nearly deserted and rain battering the shingled roof, the cottage looked as desolate as a much-sought-after belle when the last waltz of the ball has ended.

Both men took off their coats and shoes at the door. Someone had laid a fire in the fireplace, and Lucien went to stand in front of it. Antoine crossed to the table, where a decanter waited, and poured himself a drink. He didn’t offer one to Lucien.

“Rather a poor afternoon for a sail, wouldn’t you say?” Antoine asked, when his drink was half finished.

“It wasn’t bad when I left. Then the time got away from me. When I realized the weather was worsening, it was too late to do more than bare my head to the rain.”

“Did you consider stopping on the chénière to take shelter? I’m told the people there are quite hospitable.”

“I didn’t consider it. I knew Claire would be concerned if I didn’t come back tonight.”

“Quite the conscientious husband.” Antoine toasted him with the remainder of his drink.

“What’s this about, Antoine? I made the trip to Grand Isle at Claire’s request. I saw nothing wrong in going sailing this afternoon as a small compensation.”

“Small compensation?” Antoine laughed. “Oh, I think it was more than small, wasn’t it? From what I’ve been told, when you visit Grand Isle, your compensation is abundant.”

Lucien didn’t like the direction of the conversation. There were certain things all men did, but rarely discussed. That Antoine would come so dangerously close to mentioning his son-in-law’s mistress was unthinkable, the violation of a gentlemen’s code. Lucien didn’t know how Antoine had found out about Marcelite, but he didn’t see how Antoine could fault him for taking pleasure where he found it, not unless Claire was mistreated.

“All lives are made up of duty and occasional reward,” Lucien said, when the silence had stretched too thin. “Mine is no different.”

“No? And what happens when the reward becomes a duty, too?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“It’s very simple, really.” Antoine poured himself another drink. “Suppose something from which you take great pleasure becomes a burden. What do you do?”

“That would depend on what it was.”

“Let’s make it simpler, then. Suppose a man has a woman whom he loves. The woman is not his wife, but he has a wife and a duty to her. Now, let’s say that he must leave this woman because, if he doesn’t, he will lose everything he has worked his entire life to achieve.”

Despite the fire, Lucien shuddered with a sudden chill.

“I see you begin to understand,” Antoine said. “Let me proceed, then. So the woman, who was once a pleasure, is now a burden. Sadly, the woman is not the only burden. There are children, too. They, of course, are the reason he must leave the woman. The sanctity of his legitimate family cannot be breached. No chance can be taken that his bastards will inherit anything that belongs to the man, or his wife’s family.”

Lucien moved closer to the flames. There was no longer a point in denying anything, or in pretending that he didn’t understand. He could save himself only with a promise, but as he made it, his voice sounded shaken, even to himself. “Marcelite Cantrelle’s children will never inherit anything that belongs to the Friloux. You have my word on it.”

“Your word? Of what worth is the word of a man who consorts with the whore of a slave?”

Lucien could feel color draining from his cheeks. He faced Antoine. “What?”

“You profess not to understand?”

“I don’t know what you mean!”

“You’ve seen the whore’s child, yet you’ve never seen the obvious?”

“Raphael?”

“Close your eyes and search his face in your mind. What do you find there?”

“Marcelite would have told me!”

“Not unless she’s a fool.” Antoine’s lip curled in disgust. “Would she tell you that the boy’s father was born into slavery, the son of a plantation owner and his house servant?”

He raised his hand to keep Lucien from interrupting. “Or would she tell you that when she became his lover, her own family drove her away to live alone and bear his child? And if you asked about her nigger, would she admit that he disappeared one night, never to be seen on the chénière again? Or that some say he was murdered by her brother?”

“No!”

“Yes,” Antoine answered. He swished what was left of his second drink, but he didn’t take his gaze from Lucien’s face. “When a pleasure becomes a burden, there should be much thought about how a man rids himself of it.”

Lucien stared at him, but his eyes were focused somewhere beyond Grand Isle.

“Neither your family nor mine has ever been touched by tainted blood. They can’t be touched now,” Antoine added, when Lucien didn’t respond.

“Even if what you say about Raphael is true, my daughter’s blood has no taint.”

“Can you trust a woman who gives her body so easily? What blood runs through her own veins, do you suppose? The people on the chénière are pirates, smugglers, fishermen. Do they care if a tinge of color darkens their skin? No, they care if the next breeze blows, the next ship comes by, the next fish bites. Can you say for certain that your Angelle’s blood is pure?”

Lucien turned paler still.

Shaking his head, Antoine set his drink down and moved toward the fire and Lucien. “I have watched my daughter fail to give you a healthy child. I am an old man. I may not live to see a grandchild who will grow to adulthood, but I have a brother, and he has children. I will not allow you to give everything I am, everything I have, to your bastards.”

“They could not inherit, they—”

“They could inherit if you chose to make it so! And if Claire died, and you married this Marcelite, then they could inherit it all.”

“That would never happen!”

“That will not happen.” Antoine faced him. Their eyes were level. “I don’t know how, Lucien, but you will end your relationship with this woman, and you will end it now. If you do not, I will destroy you. I will ruin your life in ways you have never dreamed of, but I will start by blackening your name in society and destroying you financially. When I am finished, you’ll have nothing left to pass on to your bastard children.”

“And Aurore? You would ruin her name along with mine?”

“I don’t think Aurore will live long enough to be a consideration.”

“Dear God…”

“A curious plea, under the circumstances.” Antoine pulled his watch from his pocket and tipped it toward the flames. “Dinner is at seven. You should change.”

“I need time to consider how best—”

“You have tomorrow. There will be no more time after that. We leave Monday morning for New Orleans, and when we do, you will leave behind all memories, all thoughts, of the chénière and your pleasures there. And if you don’t?” He slid the watch back in his pocket. “Then you will know what it means to be sorry, and I will know what it means to be heartless. Perhaps you can spare us both those fates?”