‘Sometimes she entertains,’ said Danni, uncomfortable, ‘and we help out.’ When Jocundra pressed her, Danni became angry but finally said, ‘We sleep with the bigwigs she brings out from New Orleans! Okay?’ Ashamed, she refused to meet Jocundra’s eyes. ‘Look,’ she said after a petulant silence. ‘Otille’s a terrific actress. Bein’ taught by her, it’s… well, I’d sleep with the Devil himself for the chance. You learn so much just watchin’ her! Here.’ She affected a pose Jocundra recognized as a poor caricature of Otille. ‘Baron!’ she snapped. ‘Bring Downey to me at once. If he’s not here in ten minutes, I’m not going to be responsible!’ She relaxed from the pose and grinned perkily. ‘See?’
The hierarchy of the pets was, according to Danni, the main subject of study among the ‘friends’; they spent most of their energy trying to associate themselves with whomever they believed was in the ascendancy. Going to bed with Otille’s favorite was the next best thing to going to bed with Otille herself: a rare coup for a ‘friend,’ so rare it had been elevated to the status of a myth. Clea was currently much in demand, and Papa, because of the reliability of his gift, was always ranked first or second. Simpkins was scarcely more than a ‘friend’ himself, and Downey, due to his star quality, could have his pick regardless of hisstatus in Otille’s eyes. Even Clea had a crush on him. And as for the Baron, he was apparently neither ‘friend’ nor pet and Danni was of the opinion that he had some sort of hold over Otille.
‘I used to be Downey’s girl,’ said Danni one day while they were having coffee in Jocundra’s room. ‘I used to live right down the hall. Otille even invited me upstairs a couple of times. Boy, is that gorgeous! But then’ - she made a clownishly sad face - ‘she took a fancy to him again, and I got kicked back down to the cabins.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘That could be what happens to you pretty soon, at least the way I hear it.’
‘I know Otille’s after Donnell,’ said Jocundra. ‘But I doubt she’ll succeed.’
‘You’d better not doubt it,’ said Danni, ‘Men don’t stand a chance with Otille. She’ll have him doin’ lickety-split before…’ She gave herself a penitential slap on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just used to dealin’ with the others, and you’re so nice and all. I shouldn’t be talkin’ to you like that.’
‘I’m not offended,’ said Jocundra. ‘I admit I worry about it.’ She sloshed the dregs of her coffee. ‘We’re in a difficult position with Otille.’
Danni took her hand and said it would probably be all right, that she understood.
Despite the difference in their backgrounds, Jocundra enjoyed Danni’s company. Having a girlfriend made the wormy atmosphere of the house easier to bear, and Danni, too, seemed to enjoy the relationship, taking special pleasure in helping Jocundra search for clues to the estate’s history among the crates and cartons. One morning, while digging through a dusty crate in a downstairs closet, they found an old book, a diary, embossed with the gilt letter A and bearing another gilt design on the foreleaf; this last, though wormtrailed beyond recognition, was obviously the remains of a veve.
‘I bet that’s, you know, what’s his name…’ Danni banged the side of her head. ‘Aime! Lucanor Aime. The one who taught ol’ Valcours his tricks.’
The initial entry was dated July 9, 1847, and graphically described a sexual encounter with a woman named Miriam T, which sent Danni into fits of giggles. There followed a series of brief entries, essentially a list of appointments kept, saying that the initiate had arrived and been Well received. Then Jocundra’s eye was caught by the words les Invisibles midway down a page, and she went back and read the entire entry.
Sept. 19, 1847. Today I felt the need for solitude, for meditation, and to that end I closed the temple and betook myself to the levee, there spending the better part of the afternoon in contemplation of the calligraphy of eddies and ripples gliding past on the surface of the river. Yet for all my peaceful reverie, I could not arrive at a decision. Shortly before dark, I returned to the temple and found Valcours R waiting in the robing room…
‘Valcours!’ breathed Danni. ‘I don’t know if we should be lookin’ at this.’ She shuddered prettily.
… his noxious pit bull at his feet, salivating on the carpet. Suddenly, my decision had been made. As I met Valcours’ imperturbable stare, it seemed I was reading the truth of his spirit from his wrinkled brow and stonily set mouth. Though by all he is accounted a handsome man, at the moment his handsomeness appeared to have been remolded by some subtle and invisible agency, as by a mask of the clearest glass, into a fierce and hideous countenance, thus revealing a foul inner nature. Without a word of greeting, he asked for my decision..
‘No,’ I said. ‘What you propose is the worst form of petro. I will not trifle with les Invisibles.’
