Unimpressed, Tess assumed the street needed dark and neon to disguise its seediness. Tess only half-listened for much of the walk and took occasional cell-phone photos, but she did not feel she was really capturing the essence of the Vieux Carré with her pictures.
The Quarter was a fascinating study in time and timelessness, she decided. In most U.S. cities, the past was constantly swallowed, digested and repurposed into the foundation of the next generation of urban growth. Maybe Europeans or Asians were used to city architecture that incorporated millennia, but, as an American, she experienced the Quarter’s static survival as both time-defying enchantment and eerie mummification.
Pretty flower-bedecked balconies and bright Mardi Gras trinkets certainly did not disguise more than 200 years of heat, humidity and abuse. The faded paint, eroded brick, sagging roofs, and heaving sidewalks were undeniable proof of decay. Yet in spite of, or because of, time’s erosion, the fine bones of the city emerged, like an aging but still beautiful courtesan. It made the place mysteriously seductive. She could not imagine either her bland grandmother or hard-charging mother in this exotic setting. They had obviously left it behind in every way.
Tess peeked curiously into a fortuitously open carriageway arch as the tour group strolled obliviously past. She caught a glimpse of the interior courtyard of a private home—and stopped in surprise. She had been instantly overcome by a strange sense of recognition. There was something familiar yet disturbing about the place, like a half-remembered dreamscape.
Through the portal, she could see a portion of brick paving and one faded gray-white stucco wall draped in a shawl of dark leaves starred by white jasmine. The vine had crawled upward to twine around the tattered iron-lace balustrade of a balcony. The jasmine’s sweetness combined with the dank tang of moss-covered brick to create a strangely erotic scent. A faint breath of this pe rfume brushed Tess’s cheek coyly as she stood momentarily transfixed in the sunlit street.
Although Tess could feel the sun’s heavy warmth on her head and shoulders, cool shadows beckoned under the courtyard’s balcony, and long black-shuttered windows created a withdrawn, secretive aura. In the middle of the court was a large stone fountain, its basin rest ing on four time-eroded, winged beasts. Water rose in a weak arc from a central spout, its burbling fall absorbed into the dark glisten of an obsidian pool.
Slightly melancholy at the sun’s zenith, the courtyard would become downright sinister by moonlight, Tess mused. The damp, cloying perfume that beckoned in the day’s heat would shiver the flesh like a tomb’s sigh. The thickened darkness would stir and whisper with the lingering energy of generations of past lives.
She felt a shudder of apprehension, but she immediately rejected the inexplicable malaise and hurried to rejoin the group. As she arrived, Casey was cheerfully suggesting the visitors try a “haunted history” or voodoo tour of the city, or one of the “excellent cemetery tours of our ‘cities of the dead.’” Tess ruefully acknowledged how easy it was to embrace the gothic romanticism the city seemed to inspire.
“Superstitious idiocy.” Her personal ghost was oblivious of any irony.
As the tour group began to disperse in front of the 1850 House Museum, someone asked Casey a question that Tess had been too shy to pose: “Why are you carrying an umbrella?”
“Good question,” Casey replied unfazed. “You see, nearly every day at this time of year, we get a violent thunderstorm, usually at about 3 p.m. Invariably, it catches me on my way home, so I come prepared,” he smiled. He saluted with the umbrella and departed, calling back a jovial “Have a pleasant day in the Crescent City.” Tess wrongly assumed it was the last she’d see of Jack Casey.
As soon as Tess entered 1850 House, Mimi Walker began waving
The Quarter was a fascinating study in time and timelessness, she decided. In most U.S. cities, the past was constantly swallowed, digested and repurposed into the foundation of the next generation of urban growth. Maybe Europeans or Asians were used to city architecture that incorporated millennia, but, as an American, she experienced the Quarter’s static survival as both time-defying enchantment and eerie mummification.
Pretty flower-bedecked balconies and bright Mardi Gras trinkets certainly did not disguise more than 200 years of heat, humidity and abuse. The faded paint, eroded brick, sagging roofs, and heaving sidewalks were undeniable proof of decay. Yet in spite of, or because of, time’s erosion, the fine bones of the city emerged, like an aging but still beautiful courtesan. It made the place mysteriously seductive. She could not imagine either her bland grandmother or hard-charging mother in this exotic setting. They had obviously left it behind in every way.
Tess peeked curiously into a fortuitously open carriageway arch as the tour group strolled obliviously past. She caught a glimpse of the interior courtyard of a private home—and stopped in surprise. She had been instantly overcome by a strange sense of recognition. There was something familiar yet disturbing about the place, like a half-remembered dreamscape.
Through the portal, she could see a portion of brick paving and one faded gray-white stucco wall draped in a shawl of dark leaves starred by white jasmine. The vine had crawled upward to twine around the tattered iron-lace balustrade of a balcony. The jasmine’s sweetness combined with the dank tang of moss-covered brick to create a strangely erotic scent. A faint breath of this pe rfume brushed Tess’s cheek coyly as she stood momentarily transfixed in the sunlit street.
Although Tess could feel the sun’s heavy warmth on her head and shoulders, cool shadows beckoned under the courtyard’s balcony, and long black-shuttered windows created a withdrawn, secretive aura. In the middle of the court was a large stone fountain, its basin rest ing on four time-eroded, winged beasts. Water rose in a weak arc from a central spout, its burbling fall absorbed into the dark glisten of an obsidian pool.
Slightly melancholy at the sun’s zenith, the courtyard would become downright sinister by moonlight, Tess mused. The damp, cloying perfume that beckoned in the day’s heat would shiver the flesh like a tomb’s sigh. The thickened darkness would stir and whisper with the lingering energy of generations of past lives.
She felt a shudder of apprehension, but she immediately rejected the inexplicable malaise and hurried to rejoin the group. As she arrived, Casey was cheerfully suggesting the visitors try a “haunted history” or voodoo tour of the city, or one of the “excellent cemetery tours of our ‘cities of the dead.’” Tess ruefully acknowledged how easy it was to embrace the gothic romanticism the city seemed to inspire.
“Superstitious idiocy.” Her personal ghost was oblivious of any irony.
As the tour group began to disperse in front of the 1850 House Museum, someone asked Casey a question that Tess had been too shy to pose: “Why are you carrying an umbrella?”
“Good question,” Casey replied unfazed. “You see, nearly every day at this time of year, we get a violent thunderstorm, usually at about 3 p.m. Invariably, it catches me on my way home, so I come prepared,” he smiled. He saluted with the umbrella and departed, calling back a jovial “Have a pleasant day in the Crescent City.” Tess wrongly assumed it was the last she’d see of Jack Casey.
As soon as Tess entered 1850 House, Mimi Walker began waving
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