The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,42

detour so he could pass by Saint Louis Cemetery. He knew he was too pressed for time to linger. Despite all the years that had passed, the impulse that directed him there was the same one that had guided his steps as a child. His internal compass was fixed forever on his parents’ graves.

Two cemetery employees were up on ladders at either side of the gate, taking down the canvas banner advertising guided tours. One of them noticed the man observing them. “We’re closing, mon ami!”

He was sure they’d mistaken him for a laggard tourist. “Just for a minute. Want to make sure the family tomb’s going to stand up to the storm.”

The employee brushed off his uniform and gave Dupree a suspicious look. “What family that?”

“Famille Dupree-Sabrier,” he said calmly.

“Oh! Of course, monsieur.” The man stepped aside.

Dupree went left and all the way to the back. The cemetery was strangely different from his childhood memories of it. Even so, he felt the same familiar dejection as he passed along the rows of stucco-covered tombs. Many had settled into the marshy ground and now were well below street level. He could hardly make out the names of those sealed inside. He cast about at the back wall and eventually located the family tomb.

The sight left him desolate. He remembered a white edifice five feet high with a marble plaque bearing the names of his parents. The side walls of the structure were now in such disrepair that brown brickwork showed through the stucco coating. Their broken plaque was propped against the front corner of the niche. Damp rising from the ground had stained the walls with mold. Filth covered every surface, and moss obscured the names, making them illegible to an outsider. He rubbed his fingertips along the grooved letters. He stood contemplating those names in silence, as if they were indeed indecipherable—even though they meant the world to him.

The cemetery employee rattled the heavy metal chain against the iron gate to remind him it was closing time. Having nothing else to offer, Dupree squatted, picked up a gray stone fragment that had fallen from the mausoleum itself, and placed it beneath his parents’ names. He hurried to the gate and thanked the employees on his way out.

Dupree walked past a succession of multicolored houses on his way to the lower part of the Treme quarter. Night was falling and streetlamps were coming on, but most of the windows along the streets were dark. Archways had been stripped of hanging ferns, potted vines, and the metal supports that had held them up. Chains and padlocks secured shutters where inhabitants hadn’t nailed boards across the windows. He saw people making last-minute escapes, their cars loaded with the things they couldn’t bear to leave behind.

That’s when he got to her house, one of the most eye-catching on the street. The place looked much smaller now than when he was a child. Nana had kept it carefully maintained. The walls were yellow, the window frames bright white, and the shutters were dark green. The two-storied house had four broad windows that looked out onto a narrow porch not much deeper than a balcony in the French Quarter. The space had been dedicated to a little front garden bordered by a low white picket fence. He pushed open the gate, marveling at the strings of Mardi Gras beads hung between the fence posts and swaying in the breeze. Nana preferred green, gold, and purple beads, representing the justice, wealth, and faith of her city.

He went up the steps onto the narrow porch, empty now of flowerpots and furniture. He saw no light inside, and when he tried to pull open the shutters across the front door, he found someone had nailed them shut. He crossed the front yard and took the alley to the back. He walked toward the kitchen, feeling the damp earth spongy beneath his feet. When he reached the back door, he heard a low wooden rumble, almost inaudible, followed by a distinct creak. Then another. He recognized the sound of furniture being dragged across the floor. He carefully put down the sack Meire had prepared for him and took out his pistol. He eased off the safety, slowly turned the copper doorknob, and felt the door give way. Someone yanked it from the inside and it flew open.

“Mon cher petit cœur!” she exclaimed and flung out her arms.

“Nana!”

“Al! I knew it was you, my Al. Ever since you were little