The Last Rondeau De Gascogne
On Bastille Day
Louisiana had been returned to France from Spain and my gait had a new liveliness which could only be that of a lover. My fifty-year-old legs carried me down the colonial avenues of the French Quarter to the wharf where the schooner held my mystery woman. Though I’d never set eyes on her, the prospect of this woman fresh from the convent but ready to break her vow of chastity enthralled me.
And so before me, the schooner with sails furled beckoned with the passenger who was to be my wife. Like a Christmas present as yet unwrapped I held her in my mind. The gangplank was rolled out. With each disembarkee, my heart beat like a drum roll for my Francine.
Like a sunrise over summer in Bordeaux, she emerged onto the deck carrying her only luggage, a case which held her clothing. But when she entered my house I would dress her up like a woman freed from celibacy. And in her freedom, she would be liberated from customs which bound like an ill-fitted corset. She looked like a bewildered castaway, lost on a foreign shore. But I ran up the plank and bore her suitcase for her. With a half smile, she undid her ponytail and let her hair fall like spring rain down her shoulders. I refrained from touching her out of respect. As strangers, we told each other the stories of our lives.
She followed me down the narrow streets and into the new world of her home. She unpacked her clothes as I stood at a respectful distance.
I knew not if she was a churchgoer. So with polite deference, I told her, “I’m going to mass. But you are free to stay here if you like. After your voyage, you may want to rest.”
Francine said, “Monsieur Alistaire Dubois, you know I came from a convent. So please do take me to church. This land is so strange and church is something of my past which lives here. It will make me feel at home.”
I told her, “Please just call me Alistaire. I must say, there is something which feels subversive about taking you to church. I can’t define it. Though you were raised Catholic, there is heresy in your lilt. And I could easily grow enamored by what feels to me to be your pagan spirit.”
“Oh you tease, you do make me feel right at home. Now take your heathen bride to your place
of worship.”
Francine and I walked under a brilliant blue sky with puffy clouds floating lazily overhead. Immigrants walked by in herds making their procession. We passed through the crowd together on our own journey. As we approached Place d’Armes the sensual beauty of Francine in her tight floral print summer dress made me giddy.
For the first time, we touched each other. I put my arm around Francine’s waist as we walked toward St. Louis Church. Her body felt so warm and supple in my embrace. She was my dream, my destiny.
She told me of her virtue. “I was shipped from a Parisian convent. My virginity is guaranteed. I promise you to be your pride and joy among gents of old New Orleans.”
She cozied close to me in a church pew. With her ring finger, she parted my lips and we stole a naughty kiss during mass. We took great pleasure in the priest’s scowl.
Girls gossiped from way back in the pews where the priest couldn’t hear in this place of worship where the sisters of mercy prayed for her soul.
At Eucharist, her hip swank left a wake of watchful male eyes with the hiss of wives as they swatted their men’s legs. Upon pouring through a window depicting the temptation of Christ by the devil, and bathed in a mosaic of color, sunbeams turned into a winelight red which stained her décolletage.
We walked toward the bakery. We entered the store and I smelled the rich aroma of baking French bread, Camembert, and Roquefort cheeses. My mouth watered and I yearned to taste the savory cuisine. We ordered a loaf of bread dripping with cheeses.
As we sat eating, I gazed at her. I loved watching her devour the sandwich. She licked her lips and I longed to lick them for her. Everything she did, even eating, was done with such sensuality that I was bewitched. She reached across the table and brushed my hair from my forehead. Then she traced my lips with her fingertip. I sighed so passionately, I felt a tremor. I wanted her more
than life itself.
We passed in front of St. Louis Church where a fiddler played tunes from the old country. So in addition to the edibles, I got my ration of music. To my delight, Francine gathered up her skirt and danced to his jig. She sang a duet with his bow strokes on the violin. In her bounce were the stars over a Provencal vineyard in the boyhood which passed me by.
A week later at home, she summoned me with her finger to, “Come hither.” Her kiss strangely reminded me of Halvah, with its sweet sensation. She had a wry smile as she grasped my hand leading me to the bedroom.
We lay in the dark under a decorative crochet piece she told me her grandmother made for her. I wondered what her grandmother would think of this. Soon she was sound asleep with her head nestled against my shoulder. I could feel the rise and fall of her chest on mine. I kissed her lightly on the forehead and felt the arms of Morpheus embrace me.
I awakened from our chaste bed to her sunshine smile in the mirror. She said, “I got a job at the
Charity Hospital. I hope you don’t mind your wife working.”
“Two paychecks are better than one” I quipped.
She primped herself for work and bundled her charcoal hair into a ponytail. I gazed at her beautification. She’d make an exquisite study for an artist, I mused. She must have seen me gazing at her in the mirror because her reflection smiled.
She wrapped a skirt around her hips and buttoned up her blouse next came her heels. I wondered at how our gender roles might have seemed bizarre to an anthropologist from Betelgeuse. She donned her nurse’s hat and said, “Alistaire, how do you like me in my hat?”
“The hat is the cherry on top of the sundae.”
She said, “I do declare Alistaire Dubois, men are nothing if not predictable. But you gotta love em just the same.”
“Women are nothing if not unpredictable. But you gotta love em just the same.”
She turned around with an impish smile and replied, “Aren’t we a silly pair?”
I said, “But you know your gift of gab complements my shyness like marmalade on toast.”
“Oh yes, no breakfast is complete without foreplay.”
A strange scent, like vanilla transported us to an exotic land where birds of paradise warbled and the whippoorwill sang a lonely song.
In this café au lait dusk, we two souls sat on a lost colonial patio of New Orleans where we hung together like Spanish moss on a cypress bough under a Creole moon on Bayou Saint John where a lonely Chapitoulas’ Indian rowed his pirogue serenaded by a French swamp fiddler just as we Parisian lovers sought refuge in the quiet of our hearts.
There we shared King Cake bought from a French Quarter bakery where the sweet aroma of melted sugar was accented by the rosy scent of her perfume.
We found solace in the softness of touch and her Mona Lisa smile was the sign of an impending kiss. My longing to be anonymous in the aroma of steamed milk from our coffee turned into a lonely pigeon ready to nest in the belfry of her heart.
The French flag once more flew in the Place de’Armes of New Orleans. The Napoleonic Code was the law of la Louisiane Francaise. But unbeknownst to us the Stars and Stripes would soon ascend the flag pole of the Vieux Carre. My lady and I danced for the last Fête Nationale before we became Americans. I whispered a Rondeau de Gascogne into her ear as we waltzed across the ball room when the bells of St. Louis Church chimed in the midnight remembrance of the storming of the Bastille. She whispered the name Chartres a city in France where the Cathedral was a stained-glass dream. And here in our New Orleans, Rue Chartres was a street name in the French Quarter whose streets would be forever French.
Fantastic storytelling, John. With a lot of history and incredible imagery. Another great read my friend. Appreciate you.
Damian
Deeply grateful to you Damian for reading my story. Love how you picked up on the history and storytelling here. Very much appreciated. Appreciate you very much.
John