Chapter Thirty-Four

Only the all black Nebo Volunteers came to turn their hoses on Chateau Camille. The Chapelle firefighters had their hands full trying to save their two-hundred-year-old church. Only the charred timbers of both landmarks remained by the time help arrived from neighboring communities, but the Nebo men had a tale to tell that rivaled the one about Father Ardoin going into the church to save the cypress carving of the Virgin. They swapped the stories in some of the neutral meeting places around Chapelle, the post office and the bank.

“There she was on the balcony, this old, old white lady in a fancy nightgown, sitting in a desk chair, her lap full of little brown books. She threw them books out in the bushes away from the fire. ‘Why, that’s the old librarian, Miss Lilliane, I sez.’ Before we could get a ladder up there, she uses that chair to push herself along the walls and back inside.

“She wouldn’t come out wit’ us ’til we took the rest of them books, too, so we did. The whole time she was gasping and choking and between coughs, telling us not to get water on the ones she threw in the bushes. Well, we got her down the ladder and slapped a oxygen mask on her. Did the best we could. I was real sorry to hear she didn’t make it, a tough old lady like that, willing to die for her books. Lungs jus’ gave out, I guess.

“Had to take Mr. Bob to the hospital in Lafayette, he bled so much. I’d a thought we were gonna lose him, too. Sent him off with Miss Laura and T-Angelle, ’cause he wanted them by his side just in case. But he made it, yes, he did.

“The police caught that crazy bitch, Vivien, out in the cattle barns trying to set fire wit’ no matches. They took her off to the nut house, and she won’t never get out this time. Yessir, this is a story to remember.”

****

The entire community remembered Miss Lilliane and Pearl Segura on Sunday at a special Mass. Baptists and Methodists also attended, black and white, small children ordinarily sent to the nursery during services and old people taken from the rest homes for the day. The Baptists provided the folding chairs set up on the green beneath the sheltering oaks. All the chairs were taken and some small children perched on the low-slung branches while their parents leaned against the broad trunks.

Three people in the front row gave up their seats next to Ruby Senegal and her husband when the LeBlancs arrived from Lola Domengeaux’s old house where they stayed until they could rebuild. The three of them wore clothes so new none had been washed yet because, of course, they’d lost everything but a box of little brown books in the fire.

On the edge of the crowd stood a tall black woman in a yellow and brown patterned sheath. With her hair wrapped in a turban made of the same material and large hoop earrings hanging to her shoulders, she appeared to be one of those African-American types, a big city reporter maybe, definitely not a local.

Father Ardoin stood before the crowd between two statues. On his right sat the cypress Virgin, her tawny skin blackened by smoke, on his left, the effigy of St. Francis pried from its spot near the ruins of the church. Potted Easter lilies, already being sold at the K-Mart, surrounded the Virgin, and St. Francis’ bowl held coins, dollar bills and checks. Father Ardoin had a new majesty about him. He wore the cassock singed by the fire.

“Dear people of Chapelle, we come together this day to remember two women, one white, one black, who directly or indirectly, fell victim to the flames which have ravaged our heritage. They were human and had their flaws, but in the end, they were strong. So we must be strong. Our church will be rebuilt on this site, and our own unique Virgin of the Flames, symbol of our past, will be housed again within it. St. Francis shall have a special shrine in our new building, because at his feet a living woman bearing within herself a child that is a symbol of our future was pulled from the fire. The sacrifice of Pearl Segura spared yet another child.” Father Ardoin rolled on, loving the moment in the present as colorful as anything in Chapelle’s past. Laura smiled very slightly remembering her first meeting with the verbose priest.

Robert sat with one arm around his daughter and his other hand clasping hers. Absently, he rubbed her silver and garnet wedding band. She worried about him. He still looked gray beneath his usual tan and heavy close-shaven beard. She fretted about Angelle who gave them no rest at night with the violence of her dreams. Yet, Laura felt strong as if the toughness of Miss Lilliane and the vitality of Pearl Segura had been seared into her. She would be able to care for the ones the flames had damaged. She leaned toward Robert, and he leaned against her.