Tarnished Gold

me.

Mama said I shouldn't count on any of Daddy's promises.

'One day he'll dig into his pocket, see how much money he's got buried under his cigarette paper, and go off on a bender to gamble and drink away his hard-earned profits. I try to take as much from him as I can, claiming we need more for this and more for that, and I hide it because I know that rainy day is coming, Gabrielle. Storm clouds are looming just on the other side of those trees,' she predicted.

Maybe she was right, I thought, and tried not to dwell on New Orleans. And then, one afternoon, I took my usual walk along the bank of the canal. It was a beautiful day with the clouds small and puffy instead of long and wispy. The breeze from the Gulf gently lifted the palmetto leaves and made little ripples in the water, now the color of dark tea. There seemed to be more egrets than ever. I saw two great snapping turtles sunning themselves on a rock, not far from a coiled-up water moccasin. White-tailed deer grazed without fear in the brush, and my heron glided from tree to tree, following me as I ambled along, really not thinking of anything in particular, but just pleased by how well everything in Nature seemed to coexist and enjoying this relatively untouched world of mine.

Suddenly I heard my name. At first I thought I had imagined it; I thought it was just the low whistle of the breeze through the cypress and Spanish moss, but then it came again, louder, clearer, and I turned. At first I thought I was really looking at an apparition. When he had left, Pierre told me to watch for him where I would least expect to see him. Well, there he was poling a pirogue my way, something I would never have anticipated.

Shocked, I stood with my mouth agape. He wore dark pants and a dark shirt with a palmetto hat. He poled very well in my direction and then let the canoe glide to the bank.

'Bonjour, mademoiselle,' he said, scooping off his hat to make a sweeping bow with laughter around his eyes. 'Isn't it a fine day we're having in the swamp?'

'Pierre! Where did you come from? How did you . . . Where did you get this pirogue?'

'I bought it and put it in just a little ways up the canal,' he said. 'As you can see, I've been practicing, too.'

'But what are you doing here?'

'What am I doing here? Poling a canoe in the canal,' he said as casually as he would if he had been doing it all his life. 'I just happened to see you strolling along the bank.'

I could only laugh. His face turned serious, those green eyes locking tightly on mine.

'Gabrielle,' he said. 'I've been saying your name repeatedly to myself since the day I left. It's like music, a chant. I heard it everywhere I went in the city; in the traffic, the tires of cars were singing it; from the streetcar, in the rattle of its wheels; in the clatter of voices in our fine restaurants; and of course, at night in my dreams.

'I've seen your face a hundred times on every pretty girl who's crossed my path. You haunt me,' he said.

His words took me on wings. I saw myself gliding alongside my heron, and when he stepped up to me and took me in his arms, I could offer no resistance. Our kiss was long, our bodies turned gracefully in to each other. When we parted lips, his lips continued over my eyes and cheeks. It was as if he wanted to feast on my face.

'Pierre,' I pleaded weakly.

'No, Gabrielle. You feel toward me exactly how I feel toward you. I know it; I've known it all these weeks during which I suffered being away from you. I thought I would try to stay away, but that was a foolish lie to tell myself. There was no hope of that. I could no more stop the sun from rising and falling than I could stop myself from seeing you, Gabrielle,'

'But, Pierre, how can we . . .'

'I've thought of everything,' he said proudly. 'And I've gotten it all accomplished before I came poling down this canal searching, hoping to see you along this bank. I must confess,' he added, 'I've been here before, waiting for you.'

'You have?'

'Oui.'

'But what have you thought of, planned? I don't understand,' I said.

'Do you trust yourself, or me, for that matter, enough to get into my canoe?'

I looked at it suspiciously. 'And then?'

'Let it be a surprise,' he said. 'Come along.' He took my hand and helped me step into his canoe. Then he pushed off from the bank and turned the pirogue to begin poling away. Someone had taught him well. His strokes were long and efficient. In moments we were gliding through the water. 'How am I doing? Will I make a Cajun fisherman yet?'

'You might,' I said.

As we continued he described some of the work he had been doing since he had left the bayou, but how his mind always drifted back to me and to this natural paradise.

'And my cook loved your mother's herbs. She says your mother must be a great traiteur.'

'She is,' I said. 'Pierre, where are we going? I don't . . .' I paused when he turned the pirogue toward shore. There was a small dock nearly completely hidden in the overgrown water lilies and tall grass, and beyond it, what I knew to be the old Daisy shack, deserted ever since John Daisy had died of heart failure. He had been a fisherman and trapper. After he had died, his wife had moved into Houma to work and married a postman.

Pierre docked the canoe. 'We're here,' he said. 'Here? This is the old Daisy place,' I said.

'Not anymore. I bought it a couple of weeks ago.'

'What? Are you serious? You bought it?'

'Oui, ' he said. 'Come see. I had it fixed up a bit. It's no New Orleans apartment, but