Nola is the sacred whore of Louisiana. We are first introduced to her at a bar on Bourbon Street by a guy called Jeff. He has been hanging out with her for some three months now, and is clearly taken in by her long legs and neon attire. In fact, he came all the way down here from some small town up north just to be with her. He tells us he has been across the States fifteen times or more, and trying to catch hold of his restless eyes we believe it to be true. He gestures nervously, and almost falls off his chair trying to sit still. Nola does this to guys who have not got a firm grip on themselves. She is a man-eater, and Jeff already looks halfway devoured. Before we know of it, he is back out on the streets, lured away by the tunes of a lone clarinet reaching across to our table from some dimly lit nightclub.

We walk home alone that night. Our hotel is the Intercontinental right in the middle of downtown New Orleans, just two blocks away from the famous French Quarter. At first it seems like the right place to be in a city renowned for its vibrant nightlife and colonial architecture. Past the revolving glass doors a huge carpeted stairway leads up to the lobby. A black guy in uniform is polishing away at the golden railings while soft Dixieland jazz plays from hidden speakers. A friendly Hispanic receptionist sets us up in a room on the sixth floor with all the amenities we might possibly need. Even the air feels pleasantly cool compared to the hot and humid climate outside. However, we are soon to learn that there is much more to the city than luxurious hotels and dazzling bright lights.

Nola throughout the ages

The next morning Nola greets us outside our hotel. She is of Creole descent, and carries the scars and attitudes of a long hard life. History has not treated her lightly. Born and raised on Native American soil by French and Spanish fur traders, she did not have a proper home until her parents settled down by the Mississippi River in the early 18th century. The area was always prone to raging storms and devastating floods, and she tells us that she bears the marks of every single one of them in places where most men would not even care to look. The soles of her feet are tough as leather from working the mud and walking the streets. Her back is bent and rutted with lashes from the whips of those who mistreated her. But still she stands up tall and strong. No wind can blow her from her feet, no surge of water wash her away from her native shores.

At the turn of the 19th century Napoleon fell in love with her, and bought her to be his mistress. He had just staged a coup d'état in France, and was already far on his way to becoming the most feared and admired man in Europe. It took a woman like Nola to fulfill the needs of a man like Napoleon. Only she would know how to coax him out of port and keep him at bay. They were both playing a dangerous game. Napoleon with Europe, and Nola with Napoleon. After three strenuous years of love and deceit, he sold her off to the recently constituted United States. He later went on to win some of the greatest victories and suffer some of the greatest defeats in the war history of Europe. Nola, on the other hand, continued her vagrant life in the embrace of yet another lover destined for world supremacy. As for France, it would always be part of her heritage, though she was never again to return there.

When the British came for her in 1815 she told them off with a volley of cannonball fire. For the next almost fifty years nobody dared touch her. Not until 1862 when she had been adopted by the Confederate States of America, and the Union marched on her with an offer she could not resist. Though in fact, she did resist it for awhile, like any other decent woman would resist the vow of a suitor before throwing herself into his arms. Tactfully, the Union spared her, which is one of the main reasons she has still got that strangely enticing colonial feel to her. The marriage proved a lasting one, and though she has always been quick to assert her independence whenever the United States tries to force her, she remains not only a loyal wife, but also the most radiantly beautiful the United States has ever known.

Perhaps this is why we do not hesitate - not even for a second - when she offers to be our hostess for the weekend. She promises to introduce us around, show us the sights, and tell us the stories that go with them. It is all we could ask for, and more. Flanking her on each side, we stroll down the street to experience for ourselves the true nature of Nola and her city.

Red stands on the levee that separates the Lower Ninth Ward from an artificial salt water lake. Stumps of deadened cedar trees rise from the surface of the lake like upturned roots. A slimy green layer of algae rolls lazily against the foot of the levee. A slight breeze blows from the Mexican Gulf, hidden from view somewhere just beyond the horizon. It is a calm day, but still you can sense distant storms brewing.

"I been born and raised in the Lower Ninth Ward," Red says, pulling his cap down a little tighter over his head. "I've been here some sixty odd years and I've seen the hurricanes and the floods a-coming and a-going. Sixty-five was a bad year, I tell ya. That's when the water came in and killed off the cedars. They never cared to drain it back out into the sea. Some folk say it was the flood did it, some folk say the government did it all on purpose. I don't know. All I knows is that we got hit pretty bad and nobody really minded it too much. Every time we get flooded them engineers just rebuild the levees. They don't make 'em any stronger, they don't make 'em any higher. They just rebuild 'em, and wait for another disaster to happen."


The jealousy of Katrina

"We got down here some six or seven months after Katrina," Will explains as we dig into our jambalayas at the Deja Vu café - not to be confused with the Deja Vu strip bar just a couple of blocks down the road. "We only thought we were gonna be here a couple of weeks, and now it's already been two years. I don't know if I'm ever going back to Kansas City. The food is simply too good." Will laughs out loud, and all of his 250 pounds seem to laugh with him.

Jeanne and Andy are two other volunteer relief aid workers sitting at our table. Jeanne knows Will from back home, and alternates her time between working up there, and helping out down here. She used to load up her truck with supplies, and do the 14 hours from Kansas City to New Orleans in one go. With more than 1.6 million aid workers through the city since Hurricane Katrina, it sometimes felt like a drop in the ocean trying to keep them all fed and clean. "But sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. When the government can't handle its own trouble, the people gotta step up and do it for them. That's the way I see it, anyway."

Andy agrees with Jeanne on that one. He is a tough-looking ex-marine from Lima, Ohio. His body is scarred with surgery from several stress-related medical conditions due to post-Katrina relief work. He had been involved with the Red Cross for fifteen years when the hurricane struck, but when he told them that he wanted to go down and help out, they replied that it would be some seven or eight months before they were ready to sent him. But Andy knew that the New Orleanians did not have seven or eight months. They needed help, and they needed it now. So he joined up with the volunteer organization Common Ground, and just plain took off. Four days after arriving he was assigned to be the one of the organizers of the volunteer center. He worked non-stop for two years, and has only just gotten back from his first vacation since he arrived. He did not ask to take it - he was ordered.

"The things I saw coming down here, the places I went, the people I talked to," Andy says, looking up from his breakfast meal of coffee and cigarettes, "I just couldn't believe this was my country. It was like a bubble bursting, like I had been wearing blinders all my life. One day the police even arrested me when I was working with my crew on a house in one of the black hoods. They told me I was trespassing even though the guy who owned the house was in there with me. The government just wanted to demolish the whole thing, and build a nice white residential area instead. That's how you get rid of poverty around here. It's ridiculous, and it isn't my country. It really isn't."

The Common Ground Collective that Andy joined was formed by a former Black Panther member called Malik Rahim. It started out as an initiative to provide basic aid such as food, water, and shelter to the poor black communities that had been most severely affected by the storm. The Ninth Ward where Andy is assigned was one of them. He tells horror stories of people trapped on roof tops in flooded houses, having to dive down through the water to pull dead or dying family members back up with them. But since Common Ground was heavily influenced by anarchist philosophical views, the government did not do anything in way of supporting them. Rather, they obstructed them to the point of holding guns to their heads, telling them to back off from the flooded areas. Ironically, most of the members of Common Ground were young white volunteers from out of town. Just like Andy.

"Bush has been a great inspiration to us all," Will joins in with the rest of the choir. "He has made people think that if he could make it to President, they can make it to anything. There's even a joke among some of the volunteers on how we could use him to help rebuild the city. All we gotta do is declare New Orleans an independent state, and start spreading rumors that we've got weapons of mass destruction. That will make Bush come down and bomb the hell out of us - and then build it all back up again." Like so many other times that afternoon, Will's big laugh shakes the walls of the Deja Vu.

"Are you all done, darlings?" the waitress asks, and puts a hand on each of our shoulders. She takes away our half-eaten jambalayas, and seems to wink one of her eyes at Nola. Throughout the entire conversation, Nola has just been sitting there, all quiet and keeping to herself. She only knows too well about the damages Katrina inflicted on the city. But she also knows that Katrina was not the first to do so, and that she most certainly will not be the last. Nola does not say so herself, but we are not long to guess that it is her charm and personality - not to mention her looks - that do it. Anyone like her is bound to leave a trail of jealous wives and rejected lovers in their wake. There was Betsy in '65, Camille in '69, and Georges in '98. Just to name a few of the most infamous.

Nola's silence on the matter does not mean that she takes it lightly. She feels greatly indebted to her chivalrous rescuers, and knows that if it was not for them, she probably would not be sitting here. And neither would the rest of us. We would just have passed through, taken a few pictures of her crawfishing voodoo shack in the swamps, and been on our way.


Guardian angels

In a parking lot on the outskirts of the city, we chance upon some of Nola's oldest soulmates. They have been around almost as long as she has, some say even longer. Rumor has it that their line of descent dates back to the original settlers, and that generations ago their forefathers formed a brotherhood to built the streets and temples where Nola came to be worshiped by love-crazed strangers. When asked about it, they insist that they never intended for it to be like this. They consider Nola a peer to themselves, not an object to be desired beyond all rhyme and reason.

The many churches around the city is their proudest work - the shrines that shed the light reflected by Nola’s almost perfect beauty. As such they deem themselves the guardians of her innermost secrets, the preservers of her soul. They do not indulge in the senseless intoxication that Nola begs, nor do they participate in the almost ritualistic dancing and debauchery in the streets. But they do love her, and they have long time since made a promise never to leave her.

Nola calls over an inconspicuous group of youngsters - the latest offspring of the brotherhood, she tells us - and without hesitation they invite us to spend the day with them. They say they are going to hang out and have some fun, and all they need to know is how we feel about trespassing. We tell them that to be honest we do not feel so good about it. After all, upon entering the US we did sign a piece of paper relinquishing our rights to trial if the police cautches us messing about. In fact, they can deport us back to Denmark anytime they feel like. But the leader of the gang - a big guy called Eddie - just chuckles, and tells us that where we are going people do not call the cops. They throw you out themselves, head and foot.

Twenty minutes later we drive up in front of a gated entry to an apartment complex. It has been sealed off as if to protect its residents from the constant lure of Nola. If only they knew we had her in the car with us, all hell would probably break loose. But Eddie and his more athletic-looking twin brother Tom have a trick or two up their sleeves as well. They park at each side of the entry, and tell everybody in the cars to keep quiet. A few minutes later a resident returns to the complex with his car full of shopping bags. He unlocks the gate, and drives in. Just before the gate closes, Eddie and Tom speed in on the grounds, immediately splitting up to avoid raising any suspicions.

Behind a couple of apartment blocks, in the dead center of the complex, we find a nice little oasis with lush grass and a sand court for beach volley. The guys are ecstatic. They jump out of the cars, and run ahead, sports items in their hands. Nola has a hard time suppressing her laughter. She knew what they were up to all along, and she even confesses that she enjoyed our every nervous twitch and anxious glance.

Unfortunately one side of the court is completely flooded from last night's heavy rain. We tell the guys that we are sorry that they had to through all that trouble just to end up with this. "You just watch us!" Tom says, and gets them all organized. Water is one thing they are used to around here, and it takes more than a puddle to scare off a bunch of old blood New Orleanians. Before we know it, they have dug a canal from the court to the lawn, and with the help of a rake and a couple of buckets they quickly manage to drain of 90 percent of the water. We all end up having a great afternoon playing beach volley in the sun.

After the game, Nola goes off to do her thing down on Bourbon Street. We decide to follow Eddie and his friends back to his house about half an hour's drive from the city center. It is a quiet residential area with wide streets and friendly neighbors. He bought the house because he was engaged to be married, but then they called the whole thing off, and now he makes do by subletting a couple of rooms. Most of the guys soon occupy the living room to continue the afternoon's sports exploits on the Xbox. We go out on the porch for a bit of fresh air, and are soon joined by Eddie and his old friend Drew who has come down for a short vacation from his studies in economics and communication at Louisiana State University.

We sit down in the low chairs with slanting backs that are common to most southern porches, and start asking questions about what it is like to be a native in a town where most people just stop over for the weekend. Eddie is not much of a talker, but he does get a point across about the diversity of the city, and how it tends to make everything from food to politics uniquely New Orleanian. Anyway, we shift the focus back to ourselves, only to find that when it comes to listening, Eddie is one of the best. There is something about the way his eyes light up when we speak to him, the way he squints and winks in approval or disapproval whenever we express an opinion. It is clear that he holds a lot of his own, but perhaps our open-mouthed approach seems somewhat overwhelming to him. He is not the kind of guy to take serious matters lightly, and we sense that his religious beliefs go a lot deeper than your average Danish Lutheran's. Later, Nola tells us that such are the ways of the brotherhood.

Suddenly one of his neighbors comes up the driveway, and drops off a cooler stuffed full with crawfish, corn, potatoes, and other assorted New Orleans specialties. We are especially fond of the crawfish. It seems to be a mixture of lobster and shrimp, and it sure requires a great deal of skill to peel it. But Drew quickly comes to our aid, and shows us the ropes. Five minutes later we are even down to the business of "sucking the head", as they call it when you draw the juices from the empty shell. It is all incredibly delicious, and certainly something far removed from the chain food meals we are used to having out on the highways.

The thing that strikes us the most about these guys is their strong values. They may be tied up to religion, but they reveal themselves more like a code of ethics. Eddie and Drew are not invasive about their views, they just do not seem all that hyped up about Bourbon Street and the rest of the French Quarter. Their immediate mentality is the same happy and carefree one that we have met elsewhere in the city, but still they allow themselves to be critical. Going out on the town and having a bit of a ball is not the problem. They too like to kick back and relax with a few beers every once in a while. What really gets to them is the idea of the visitors that as long as you are in New Orleans anything goes.

"During Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest and Southern Decadence, and what have you, the entire city just goes bunkers," Drew says, and throw yet another crawfish shell into the bin. "People have to be way drunk and eccentric just because they're in New Orleans. Walking naked in the middle of the road, and having overt sex in the streets, that's what it's all about. I guess its tied down to the history of the city somewhere back along the line. But there are other sides to New Orleans as well, you know."

We still are not sure where Nola fits into all this, but since Eddie and his crew are willing to defend her virtues, we guess the answer has to be out there somewhere. People do not just stand up for stuff they do not agree with without a reason. And apparently that reason is Nola. Riding back to the hotel with Eddie that night, we agree to try to get hold of Nola one more time before we leave. It is not much of an agreement, though, and we know it. You do not contact Nola. Nola contacts you.

Red turns away from the lake, and looks to the other side of the levee. An old railroad track passes by just beneath it. Beyond that there is nothing but death and destruction. Nature has reclaimed the Lower Ninth Ward, and a few ramshackle houses are all that go to show that this was once a vibrant neighborhood. Today it appears more like some unsettled wilderness in the swamps of Louisiana. But if you look carefully you can see the concrete foundations of the houses that once stood there. Stone steps leading into air, rusted scraps of moss-grown metal halfway buried in the ground.

"When Katrina hit, and the levee broke, the water rose to some twenty or twenty-five feet. Cars washed down the streets. Houses were torn from their foundations, and went afloat. Too many of us black folks were still down there. Warnings come out too late, and nobody had no money to go live somewhere else, anyway. Still they ask us why didn't we just leave. So I ask them back how could we? Everything I owned was down there. My whole life was down there. Some things you just don't run away from, I tell ya."


Another side of Nola

Our last evening in town Nola meets us all dressed up and ready to party. She has let down her hair, and hiked up her skirt well above decent. Her perfume is sweet and fragrant, enticing even, and she wears an array of the kind of pearl necklaces that we have seen guys on balconies in the French Quarter throw to girls while yelling for them to show their titties. Still, we kindly decline her offer, telling her that Bourbon Street is not exactly our idea of a good time. We are too old for the teenagers, and too young for the desperate housewives. In between, it is just boozing and a one-way trip from sidewalk to gutter.

"Come on, do I look like somebody who'd take you to Bourbon Street! That place ain't good for nothing but money." Nola throws back her head, and brushes a lock of hair from her naked shoulder. She looks away for a moment, waiting for us to begin mumbling excuses. She cuts us off before we are even halfway through. She explains that Tipitina's is one of the best jazz venues in town with a history of grand performers like John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, The Neville Brothers, and Bonnie Raitt. "Tonight the Rebirth Brass Band is on. They used to do a lot of benefits for Common Ground. We're all aboard the same sinking ship around here, you know."

The cab ride to the corner of Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas seems to take forever. The Indian driver is constantly on his cell, and as we enter a dodgy warehouse district, we begin to wonder if it is a setup. Nola is in the front passenger seat, gazing out the window. We discreetly try to get her attention, but she is absorbed by the darkened streets, the big empty buildings, and the homeless people crowding under the fly-overs. All this is a part of her city, too, and she seems determined not to forget it. The mayor might hide away the homeless in big hotels during Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, but it does not make them go away. There were 6000 of them before Katrina dropped by, now they are up to 12000. And still some 30 to 40 percent of the pre-Katrina population has not made it back home yet.

The cab pulls up in front of Tipitina's, and we all get out. A wrist band and a fluorescent stamp on the hand later, we are inside. Nola orders a round of Abita Turbodogs at the front bar before taking us further into the den. The place is packed with people of all ages and from all walks of life. A kind of New Orleanian microcosm, you might say. Only the stage is still empty. The band is already an hour and a half late, but nobody seems to pay it any mind. The south is notorious for its slow life-style. Up north, that is. Some even call it lazy, but we have come to appreciate it as a lesson in making the very most of the very least. So we just stand back, and take in the scenery.

"This is my friend Bridget," Nola says, pointing somewhere into the crowd. "I'll get you acquainted." She slips by a couple of old guys with cowboy hats and band shirts. They look like they have been standing around forever. Next to them a group of college kids circle a dancing couple. They encourage them with cheers, while slamming Liquid Cocaine shots and shouting insider jokes at them. The dance floors begin to heat up, and people gather at the overhead balconies to get a better view of things. Suddenly a loud roar tears through the room. Some ten black guys wearing baggy trousers and white shirts down to their knees enter the stage. They carry all sorts of horns and trumpets, and the tuba player keeps revolving about himself as if trying to pick up a signal from outer space with his huge instrument. Moments later, Tipitina's is alive with kick-ass brass music like they do not make it anywhere else. The rhythm quickly grabs hold of our bodies, and before we even know it, we are in the midst of a Category 5 party. All exits are barred by happy dancing people making the most of it before the roof comes off.

When Nola reemerges from the spontaneous insanity of the dance floor, we can tell why we did not spot Bridget when she was pointed out to us. Not only is she slim, fragile, and clad in black - she is also just five feet tall. "New Orleanians tend to be smaller than other Americans," she later confide to us. "Some even think that we aren't of the same breed, that New Orleans isn't really part of the US. The things you find down here, you won't find anywhere else in the States. The people, the houses, the food - the partying!" She hands us a strawberry beer, and dares us to taste it. It refreshes our mouths after all the dark lager and cigarette smoke that seem to go with Tipitina's. Our only objection is that it tastes more of strawberry than of beer. "But that's the whole point!" Bridget screams up at us through the music. "It'll get you drunk, and you won't even notice it!"

We are in an impossible crouching position to talk with Bridget when we get up to straighten our backs and discover that Nola is gone. We criss-cross around the dance floor, and even pour our beers into plastic cups to be allowed upstairs and search for her. When the band finishes their second set - which also amounts to their second song - we still have not found her. We hang out by the door, and watch people stream out like a flood breaking through a levee. But still we do not see her. As magically as she appeared out of the touristy limelight on Bourbon Street, she has disappeared back into the local lower watt light bulbs in Tipitina's. It is almost as if she was never there. Or rather, as if she has been here the whole time since we first rolled into New Orleans. Nola is gone, and somehow we know that we will never see her again. Only in our dreams, and between the lines of our writing. A fleeting glimpse making a lasting impression, she is no more a person than a soul is a body.

Outside rain is pouring from the night sky, rushing along the gutters, and into the sewers. We hail a cab, and climb into the back seat. As if we still expect Nola to turn up, and get into the front. As if she was already sitting there. We ride home in silence, listening to a long tirade from our Algerian cab driver. He emphasizes all the blood, sweat, and tears he put into his business. He owns five cabs now, and dreams of retiring, of for once being able to hitch a ride in the passenger's seat. We do not pay him much attention, though. He leaves us hanging on to his story for several more minutes after pulling up in front of the Intercontinental. We give him a big tip, and finally he lets us out.

The grandeur of the hotel seems to have faded. The immigrant workers look tired and worn-out in their shiny uniforms. The escalator in the hall takes forever in getting up to the lobby, and the lift is even slower in climbing to the sixth floor. Exhausted, we collapse on our separate queen size beds. Our internet connection has been shut down, and it will cost us another ten dollars to get it back up again. We postpone checking our emails and updating our website. It is time to sleep. It is time to forget about Nola. It is time to leave New Orleans.

"I'm dumb as a cat in the woods," Red says, and grins his toothless grin, "but I sure knows more than they do. I'm not sayin' that I could be the mayor or anything, I'm just plain sayin' that what they did was never enough. And now they're goin' over to Japan to do big business - and who'll be paying for their trip? Red 'ill, I tell you. This city ain't never recovered from nothing. Well, the French Quarter might have, but 'em folks never got hit too bad up there. Just a bit of wind damage and six inches of water. Didn't even flood their goddamn sidewalks. I knows I don't make as much money as they do, but whatever I make it's still my money, and I still pay taxes. See, that's the thing - why pay if you ain't gettin' any?"

The sun has started to fall from the sky, taking the heat out of the air. Red gives out a couple of firm handshakes, and follows us down the stairs from the levee. He has been talking for almost an hour straight, and we can tell he is having a hard time letting us go. As we walk across the rough grass to our car, he calls out to us.

"I'm not on about that whole black and white thing, you know. You guys been a-reading the paper today? There's a white family in one of them mighty fine hoods, the city council wanna plain tear down their house. Ain't nothing wrong with it or anything. It's just that them white folks are a bit mental, you know. Can't keep the house all neat and good like they want 'em to. So now they're bringing in the bulldozers to do a bit of cleanin' up for them. That's no way to treat decent folks. I don't care if they're black or white or mental, just ain't no way of treating folks. Not the way I see it, it isn't."

We turn around for a final goodbye. "Thanks for sharing your opinion with us," we tell Red across the open field. "Yeah, I talk too much," he tells us back. "And as for opinions, they're just like assholes. Everybody got one, you know." He lets out another of his toothless grins, then walks back up the stairs to the levee. We get into the car, and drive off down through the wilderness that used to be the Lower Ninth Ward. As we look back one last time, we can see Red's silhouette cut out against the open sky like a stump of deadened wood. Then we are gone.