Free Crescent City by Belva Plain Page B

And we did buy a bundle. We should have sent Maxim or Blaise to carry them home.”
    “Papa, I don’t need a servant to carry a few books. You know, I liked the man, didn’t you? He’s Jewish, isn’t he?”
    “I believe so. Yes.”
    “The People of the Book,” David said deliberately. He didn’t know what made him say it, what it was that made him keep leading his father back to the subject that only brought discomfiture to them both.
    For a moment Ferdinand made no comment. Then he said, “You know, David, I understand you, even though you may not think I do. Your religious feelings are entirely natural at your age. At fifteen one likes to feel virtuous! Even I did, though I must say for a much shorter time than most.” He spoke with a kind of amused tolerance. “You’ll outgrow it, very likely, now that I’ve gotten you away from village life. But if you don’t, that will be your affair. If only for the sake of your mother of blessed memory, I shall never interfere.”
    “I will not outgrow it.”
    “Well, time will tell. As I believe I told you once before, Heine himself said that Judaism is a misfortune. Why do you think that in the last ten years alone under Friedrich Wilhelm III more than two thousand Jews were baptized? Because it’s the only road to survival under an oppressor, that’s why. Fortunately here it’s not necessary to convert, and as I’ve also told you, I never wanted to. All I want is to be let alone.”
    “If they will,” David said.
    On Chartres Street Ferdinand exchanged bows with a stout young man in a rich black suit.
    “That was Judah Benjamin,” he whispered, “one of our rising young lawyers. A Jew, too, but he doesn’t keep to it, either. And here’s the St. Louis Hotel. Verygood dining here; I’ll take you to lunch one day soon. And they’ve got the biggest auction exchange in the city. You can buy anything from a ship to a house, a houseful of French furniture, or a thousand acres of land. Anything.”
    A placard on the wall caught David’s attention. He stopped. Carefully he spelled out the words.
    “Young Negro boy, not yet twenty, excellent gentleman’s valet, speaks English and French, can do some tailoring, honest, good appearance.”
    Something drew him on, a vague and dawning comprehension which at the very same time repelled him.
    “I’d like to go in,” he said.
    “Now? To watch the auction? All right. We have an hour to spare.”
    Chairs in concentric circles surrounded a raised platform on which stood an energetic man wearing a bright shirt. Ferdinand squeezed his way through rows of hats perched on broadcloth knees, nodding and greeting as he went. Men stood clustered in the aisles; conversation buzzed as at the theater before the curtain rises, or as at some village fair, David thought, before the start of the entertainment, the jugglers or the dancing bear. It was only when he was seated with a clear view of the platform that he saw the true nature of the event. Even with the handicap of language and in spite of the auctioneer’s rapid veering between French and English, he understood.
    They were selling human beings! A small assemblage waited at the side of the platform, waited mutely, like horses at those same village fairs. And David strained to see: a humped old man; three stripling boys; some fat women, one of whom wore a strange, ingratiating smile; a young woman, very light of skin—three-quarters white, he estimated—cryingwithout a sound. His eyes went to the man whose lively voice boomed out over the crowd.
    “Gentlemen, gentlemen! Quiet! We’re doing business, we can’t hear. How much am I offered for Lucinda here?”
    His hand rested on the shoulder of a handsome Negress in a neat green cotton dress. Tall and quiet, she stood as if oblivious to the hand or the voice. Her own hands were clasped at her waist. Her head was high. She seemed to be looking far beyond the spectators.
    The demand was repeated. “How much am I offered