Now Let's Talk of Graves by Sarah Shankman Read Free Book Online

are men with businesses to run, professions, families. Which is why the city’s never moved out of the Stone Age.”
    “It’s true.” Ma Elise nodded. “But don’t ever tell anybody we said so.”
    “Sure, it’s a lot of fun,” Kitty continued, “but it’s also why everything’s gone to pot. We can hardly compete with the state of Mississippi, for chrissakes, much less the Japanese, because all our energy goes into making parties, riding floats, fluffing up our ballgowns.”
    But now as Sam smoothed the skirt of her own deep turquoise gown and looked around this magnificent ballroom, she was glad these people had gone to all the trouble. The women were done up to a fare-thee-well in satins and ermines and bugle-beads, jet, and jasmine, and lace which had blinded more than one Belgian nun—puffed bouquets of ladies dressed by Lacroix, Saint Laurent, Chanel, and de la Renta—joyfully overdressed, overjeweled, and overperfumed. It was quite wonderful, this fantasyland of white and silver, Comus’s theme this year being The Winter’s Tale. Crystal chandeliers showered thousands of points of lights down on the costumed crowd. Masses of snowy lilies and roses, narcissi, and forced magnolias perfumed the waltz-filled air.
    It was a spectacular explosion of diamonds and pearls, woodwinds and brass, a swirl of sound and illumination.
    For the moment Sam put it out of her mind that Comus and this ball were a throwback to all that was snobbish, discriminatory, racist, and exclusionary.
    Kitty and Ma Elise had talked about that last night too, explaining and bemoaning, yet in some ways justifying.
    “The old-society, old-money version of Carnival has nothing whatsoever to do with what the public sees,” Ma Elise explained. “Nothing to do with the hoi polloi, the nouveaux, and certainly nothing to do with blacks or Jews. I’m not saying that’s right. I’m saying that’s the way it’s always been. Except that, you know, the very first Rex was a Jew named Louis Salomon, and, in fact, the organization of Rex has always had some Jewish members. But a Jew could never be Rex. Rex must call on Comus, don’t you know, at the end of their two balls, and except for a very few spectators at the Comus ball recently, well, it’s just not done—”
    “That’s—” Sam started.
    “Ridiculous. I know. But that’s how it is. Now, as for blacks, just like the gays, they have their own krewes, their own parades. In fact, Zulu is the first parade to roll Mardi Gras morning, throwing coconuts as favors. And did you see the black Indians?” Sam shook her head. “Oh, my dear, you must. Tribes like the Wild Tchopitoulas with the most fantastic costumes. Beading and feathers—and they dance. It’s quite wonderful. And Comus still uses black flambeaux carriers to light the parade route. But that’s all street business.”
    The real Carnival, Kitty explained, the one that counted, the one that the Lees knew, took place behind closed doors. The real Carnival traced its lineage back to the 1850s. It was controlled by private men’s clubs like the Pickwick, the Boston, and the Louisiana, who in turn were the power behind the old-line Carnival organizations. Boston Club was mostly Rex. Pickwick numbered many of the Mystick Crewe of Comus. It was these clubmen’s debutante daughters, like Zoe, who filled the courts of each year’s balls. And those balls—which were conducted with all the formality and secrecy and protocol of the court of Louis XIV—were closed to everyone except that tiny, tight fistful of New Orleans’s white elite who passed the torch from father to son. The real Carnival couldn’t be broached, the keys not bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen.
    And only occasionally was an outsider like Sam allowed a peep.
    “Quick,” said Kitty, a powder puff in pink and gold, “we’ll grab those two seats.” She pushed Sam right past the boutonniered committeeman who was trying to help them to chairs near the stage