THE next night, I went at once to Jackson Square. The terrible norther had finally come down into New Orleans, bringing with it a freezing wind. This sort of thing can happen at any time during the winter months, though some years it happens not at all. I'd stopped at my rooftop flat to put on a heavy wool overcoat, delighted as before that I had such feeling now in my newly bronzed skin.
A few tourists braved the weather to visit the cafes and bakeries still open near the cathedral; and the evening traffic was noisy and hurried. The greasy old Cafe du Monde was crowded behind its closed doors. I saw him immediately. What luck.
They had chained the gates of the square, as they always did now at sunset, a dreadful annoyance, and he was outside, facing the cathedral, looking anxiously about.
I had a moment to study him before he realized I was there. He was a little taller than I am, six feet two, I figured, and he was extremely well built, as I'd seen before. I'd been right about the age. The body couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old. He was clad in very expensive clothes-a fur-lined raincoat, very well tailored, and a thick scarlet cashmere scarf. When he saw me, a spasm passed through him, of pure anxiety and mad delight. That awful glittering smile came over him and vainly trying to conceal his panic, he fixed his eyes upon me as I made a slow, humanlike approach.
Ah, but you do look like an angel, Monsieur de Lioncourt, he whispered breathlessly, and how splendid your darkened skin. What a lovely enhancement. Forgive me for not saying so before.
So you're here, Mr. James, I said, raising my eyebrows. What's the proposition I don't like you. Talk fast.
Don't be so rude, Monsieur de Lioncourt, he said. It would be a dreadful mistake to offend me, really it would. Yes, a voice exactly like David's voice. Same generation, most likely. And something of India in it, no doubt.
You're quite right on that, he said. I spent many years in India too. And a little time in Australia and Africa as well.
Ah, so you can read my thoughts very easily, I said.
No, not as easily as you might think, and now probably not at all.
I'm going to kill you, I said, if you don't tell me how you've managed to follow me and what you want,
You know what I want, he said, laughing mirthlessly and anxiously under his breath, his eyes fixing on me and then veering away. I told you through the stories, but I can't talk here in the freezing cold. This is worse than Georgetown, which is where I live, by the way. I was hoping to escape this sort of weather. And why ever did you drag me to London and Paris at this time of year? More dry anxious spasms of laughter. Obviously he couldn't stare at me for more than a minute before glancing away as if I were a blinding light. It was bitter cold in London. I hate cold. This is the tropics, is it not Ah, you with your sentimental dreams of winter snow.
This last remark stunned me before I could conceal it. I was enraged for one silent instant, and then I regained my control.
Come, the cafe, I said, pointing to the old French Market at the other side of the square. I hurried ahead along the pavement. I was too confused and excited to risk another word.
The cafe was extremely noisy but warm. I led the way to a table in the farthest corner from the door, ordered the famous cafe au lait for both of us, and sat there in rigid silence, faintly distracted by the stickiness of the little table, and grimly fascinated by him, as he shivered, unwound his red scarf anxiously, then put it on again, and finally pulled off his fine leather gloves, and stuffed them in his pockets, and then took them out again, and put on one of them, and laid the other one on the table and then snatched it up again, and put it on as well.
There was something positively horrible about him, about the way this alluringly splendid body was pumped up with his devious, jittery spirit, and cynical fits of laughter. Yet I couldn't take my eyes off him. In some devilish way I enjoyed watching him. And I think he knew