broke into a wide, toothless grin. âAre you a loup-garou, come to place us under a spell so that we will buy your needles and thimbles and fabrics?â
âTante Odille,â Aimee said, throwing a pea at her aunt, âif you think he is a loup-garou, then youâd better get some gris-gris before the moon gets any higher.â
Jake called down from his perch on the porch. âI am no werewolf, but if you need a lucky charm to scare away a real loup-garou, then I think I have just what you need in my cart.â
âSee, my Aimee,â the old woman said, âwho was once my little Mimi who I held on my lap, you give that man a word, and he turns it into a way to sell you something. Besides, now I think he is too foolish to be a loup-garou. If he were a loup-garou, he would have in his cart some voodoo grease, and he would not use a big knife to do a boucherie and then sit and wait for his meat to be cooked. No, cher, he would bare his teeth and jump on a sheep and eat it down in one bite, yes?â
The small children who were trying to snatch pieces of the fried fish on the platter waiting to be handed out to the guests heard Tante Odille talking about sheep and started singing one of their nursery rhymes:
Mouton, Mouton, est ou tu vas?
Passer lâabattoir.
Quand tu reviens?
Jamais⦠Baa!
Jake understood it perfectly. Sheep, sheep, where are you going? To the slaughterhouse. When will you return? Never⦠Baa.
Just like Moshe would never return.
He and Moshe had left New York with such grand plans. The Cotton Exposition in New Orleans six years earlier, in the mid-1880s, had captured Mosheâs imagination, and he couldnât stop talking about it. Countries from all over, he had said, had come to New Orleans to trade and sell. There was rum, coffee, cocoa, and dyes. There were oils and fruits. There were goods from Guatemala and Venezuela and Brazil. Mexico had built the filigreed and domed Alhambra Palace just for the occasion and filled it with display cases crammed with gold and silver from Chihuahua, Zacatecas, and Sinaloa. Lace in the Belgium exhibit, furniture in Franceâs pavilion, machinery in Great Britainâs arena, and strange and unusual items and food in the exhibits run by China, Japan, Russia, and Siam.
And the money that was flowing. Opening day expenses, Moshe had said, time and time again, were almost two million dollars. Who could imagine such a sum? And that was just the expenses for one day alone! And over seven thousand exhibitors!
The wonders that were to be seen, Moshe had said, time and time again, the wonders we missed. President Chester A. Arthur, sitting in Washington, D.C., had opened the fair by pressing a telegraph key. An electric railroad had been built specially for the Exposition and ran constantly three miles around its perimeter, ferrying attendees from gate to gate, from one remarkable sight to the next. The Pilcher organ, the biggest ever made, was the backdrop of the vast stage on which more than 150 musicians played under the huge seven-tiered chandelier whose gas lamps illuminated the entire area. Even the Liberty Bell had been brought from Philadelphia to New Orleans for the Exposition.
Moshe had read all about it. He had saved the old papers, folded neatly and pressed flat in a book. Just think, Moshe had said, if we had been in New Orleans then, think of all the trading and selling we could have done. But itâs not too late. We can go, he had urged. We can still go to where the money is, where the woman flow as freely into your arms as wine flows into a glass, where a fortune can be made by two, like us, who are quick and smart.
âWhat is the matter, my friend, are your ears maybe sleeping while your eyes they are open?â
Jake looked up. Trosclaire was standing over him offering the jug.
âI said, will you do me the honor of drinking to my beautiful Jeanne Marie, who at the dawn will go to the church with
âTante Odille,â Aimee said, throwing a pea at her aunt, âif you think he is a loup-garou, then youâd better get some gris-gris before the moon gets any higher.â
Jake called down from his perch on the porch. âI am no werewolf, but if you need a lucky charm to scare away a real loup-garou, then I think I have just what you need in my cart.â
âSee, my Aimee,â the old woman said, âwho was once my little Mimi who I held on my lap, you give that man a word, and he turns it into a way to sell you something. Besides, now I think he is too foolish to be a loup-garou. If he were a loup-garou, he would have in his cart some voodoo grease, and he would not use a big knife to do a boucherie and then sit and wait for his meat to be cooked. No, cher, he would bare his teeth and jump on a sheep and eat it down in one bite, yes?â
The small children who were trying to snatch pieces of the fried fish on the platter waiting to be handed out to the guests heard Tante Odille talking about sheep and started singing one of their nursery rhymes:
Mouton, Mouton, est ou tu vas?
Passer lâabattoir.
Quand tu reviens?
Jamais⦠Baa!
Jake understood it perfectly. Sheep, sheep, where are you going? To the slaughterhouse. When will you return? Never⦠Baa.
Just like Moshe would never return.
He and Moshe had left New York with such grand plans. The Cotton Exposition in New Orleans six years earlier, in the mid-1880s, had captured Mosheâs imagination, and he couldnât stop talking about it. Countries from all over, he had said, had come to New Orleans to trade and sell. There was rum, coffee, cocoa, and dyes. There were oils and fruits. There were goods from Guatemala and Venezuela and Brazil. Mexico had built the filigreed and domed Alhambra Palace just for the occasion and filled it with display cases crammed with gold and silver from Chihuahua, Zacatecas, and Sinaloa. Lace in the Belgium exhibit, furniture in Franceâs pavilion, machinery in Great Britainâs arena, and strange and unusual items and food in the exhibits run by China, Japan, Russia, and Siam.
And the money that was flowing. Opening day expenses, Moshe had said, time and time again, were almost two million dollars. Who could imagine such a sum? And that was just the expenses for one day alone! And over seven thousand exhibitors!
The wonders that were to be seen, Moshe had said, time and time again, the wonders we missed. President Chester A. Arthur, sitting in Washington, D.C., had opened the fair by pressing a telegraph key. An electric railroad had been built specially for the Exposition and ran constantly three miles around its perimeter, ferrying attendees from gate to gate, from one remarkable sight to the next. The Pilcher organ, the biggest ever made, was the backdrop of the vast stage on which more than 150 musicians played under the huge seven-tiered chandelier whose gas lamps illuminated the entire area. Even the Liberty Bell had been brought from Philadelphia to New Orleans for the Exposition.
Moshe had read all about it. He had saved the old papers, folded neatly and pressed flat in a book. Just think, Moshe had said, if we had been in New Orleans then, think of all the trading and selling we could have done. But itâs not too late. We can go, he had urged. We can still go to where the money is, where the woman flow as freely into your arms as wine flows into a glass, where a fortune can be made by two, like us, who are quick and smart.
âWhat is the matter, my friend, are your ears maybe sleeping while your eyes they are open?â
Jake looked up. Trosclaire was standing over him offering the jug.
âI said, will you do me the honor of drinking to my beautiful Jeanne Marie, who at the dawn will go to the church with
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