"No. They"re right there," Holt said, pointing off between the trees. "If you look carefully, you can see their fires."
Nickelberry looked. The fires were indeed visible; flickers of yellow in the enveloping night.
"Lord, look at that. I would have walked straight into their arms." Any lingering reservations he might have had about the captain"s allegiances were plainly allayed. "So which way we goin"?" he said.
"The way I"ve reckoned it," the Captain said, "our best hope is to head south toward the Goldsboro Road, and then make our way from there. I want to head home to Charleston."
"Then I"ll come with you," Nickelberry said. "I ain"t got no better place to go."
ii None of what I"ve just recounted found its way into the pages of Holt"s journal. He did not write in it again for almost two weeks, by which time the battle of Bentonville was long since over.
This is what Rachel read, as the cab carried her down Madison Avenue: We came into Charleston last night. I can barely recognize the city, such is the violence that has been done to it by the Yankees. Nickelberry kept asking me questions as we went, but I had not the life in me to answer.
When I think of how this n.o.ble city stood before the war, and the way it is laid waste now, such despair rises in me, for truly all that was good seems to me to have pa.s.sed away. This city, which was so fine, is now a kind of h.e.l.l: blackened by fire and haunted by the dead. Entire streets I knew have disappeared. People wander the rubble, their faces blank, their hands b.l.o.o.d.y after turning over brick upon brick upon brick, looking for something by which to remember the life they had.
We went straight way to Tradd Street, expecting the worst, but found a strange thing. Though much around in the street lay in ruins, my house was almost whole. Some damage to the roof,windows blown in, and the gardens all withered of course, but otherwise intact.
But, oh, when I went inside, I almost wished a volley had blown it to smithereens. My house, my precious house, had been used as a place for the dying and the dead. I do not know why it was so chosen-I cannot believe Adina would have allowed this; I must a.s.sume it was done after she had departed for Georgia. I only know that every room seemed to contain some sight more sickening than the one before.
The living room had been stripped of furniture, but for the mahogany table which had been fetched from the dining room and used for a surgeon to work upon. The floor around it was black with old blood, the table the same. And all around the room, the remnants of the surgeon"s craft: saws and hammers and knives. The kitchen had been used to make poultices and the like, and stank so badly that Nickel-berry, who I may say has a stronger stomach than most, vomited. I did the same, but I went on from room to room despite Nub telling me I should not.
Upstairs, in what used to be the bedroom in which Adina and I slept-the bedroom where Nathaniel was conceived, and Evangeline and Miles-I found an empty coffin. The bed had gone; looted, I presume, or used for firewood. And in the other bedrooms filthy mattresses, blankets, bowls and all the accoutrements of the sickroom. I cannot bring myself to write further what vile signs I found of the souls who had pa.s.sed their last there.
Nickelberry kept urging me away, and finally I went with him. But before I left I said I wanted to go out into the garden. He begged me not to; said he had come to like my company on the road and was fearful for my sanity. But I would not be persuaded to depart until I had seen the place where I had sat in the years before the war, and taken such joy. Somehow I knew that the worst would be there; and I would not be finished with this business until I had laid eyes upon that worst, whatever it was.
I know of no place that proffered such fragrances as that little plot of ground: jasmine and magnolia, tea olive and banana shrub; all lent the air a sweetness that could make my head swim on summer nights. And now, despite the harms all around, nature was still doing its best to grace the air. Some of the smaller trees and shrubs had survived the destruction, and their branches were budding. There were even a few flowers underfoot.
But these little victories could not compete with the terrible sight that lay in the middle of the garden. The surgeons" accomplices had dug holes there, to bury the gangrenous parts hacked from the wounded. They had done their job poorly. Upon their departure dogs had come and dug up this horrid meat, and picked it clean. Here, where my children had played, and my darling Adina walked in love, were human bones in their many dozens. I think my coming out had disturbed some of the animals, because in places the dirt was freshly turned, and as yet undevoured trophies lay. A leg, its foot still booted. An arm, severed at midbicep. Much else I could not make sense of, nor wanted to.
have seen every kind of misery in these three years, and endured everything as best a man may beexpected to endure such horrors. But to find sights that rank with the worst I have witnessed in this place, where my children played, where I spoke words of devotion to my wife, where-in short-I made my heaven, is nearly more than I can bear.
Were it not for Nub, I should now surely be dead by my own hand.
He says we should leave the city tomorrow. I have agreed. For tonight, we are sleeping on the steps of St. Michael"s Church, where I am presently writing this. Nub has gone off to beg or steal some food (which he"s very good at doing) but the thought of what I saw this evening makes me so sick to my stomach I doubt I shall eat.
iii The little club where Danny had arranged to meet Rachel was thronged with the late-night crowd, and she had to search it for several minutes before she located him. She felt strangely dislocated, as though she"d left some part of herself behind her in the pages of Captain Holt"s journal. There was nothing in her experience that remotely approached the horrors he had described, but the fact that she was holding in her hands the book which he"d had in his pocket when he"d walked into his house on Tradd Street made the vision he was evoking all the more immediate. It was the crowd before her which seemed unreal; their alcohol-flushed features smeared in the murk.
Even Danny, when she finally located him, seemed remote from her, viewed through smoke- thickened gloom.
"I was beginning to think you weren"t going to come," he said. His voice was a little slurred with drink. "You want one?"
"I"ll have a brandy," Rachel said. "Make it a double, will you?"
"Why don"t you go sit down? I"m sorry about the crowd. I guess somebody"s having a birthday party. Do you want to go somewhere else?"
"No, I"ll just have a drink, and give you the stuff, then-"
"-you don"t have to lay eyes on me again," Danny said. "That"s a promise." He didn"t wait for Rachel to protest, which she would have done out of politeness, but headed off into the midst of the birthday celebrants.
Rachel went to an empty table at the back of the room, and sat down. She was sorely tempted to take out the journal again, though this was scarcely an ideal place to be reading it. The lights were so dim she probably wouldn"t be able to make sense of it, she told herself. To distract herself she looked for Danny. He was still at the bar, waving a bill to attract somebody"s attention.Without consciously planning to do so, she reached into the envelope and pulled out the journal again. At a nearby table a group of drunken partiers had started to sing a birthday song. Several of them attempting vainly to harmonize. The cacophony troubled her as far as the end of the first sentence. Then she was back with the deserters, in the silent city.
I am writing this two days after we came into Charleston, and I am not certain 1 know how to describe what has taken place since my last entry.
Best to keep it plain, I think. Nub came back to St. Michael"s a little before dawn, and he not only brought food, good food, the best I"d seen in many months, he also came with news of a strange encounter he"d had.
It seemed he"d met a woman whom he"d first taken to be some kind of apparition, she was, he said, so perfect in this ghostly place, so beautiful, so graceful. Her name was Olivia, and she was apparently so charmed by Nickel-berry, and he so enamored of her, that when she invited him halfway across the city to meet a friend of hers, he went.
By the time he came back to see me he had not only met this friend, who goes by the strange name of Galilee- Rachel stopped reading, as though struck. She looked up. The crowd was wild around her. The singers were up from their table, reeling around, the unlucky focus of their attentions still sitting, dumbfounded by drink. Danny had secured a gla.s.s of brandy, along with something for himself, and was working his way back towards Rachel"s table, but he was having difficulty weaving between the partiers. Before he could catch Rachel"s eye, she looked back at the journal, half expecting the words she"d seen there to have disappeared.
But no. They were there: -this friend, who goes by the strange name of Galilee- It couldn"t be the same man, of course. This Galilee had lived and died in an earlier age; long before the Galilee she knew had been born.
She had a few seconds before Danny reached her. Long enough to quickly scan the next few lines: -but had tasted some generosity of his which had changed him in a fashion I cannot quite describe. He said to me that we had to go together to meet this man, and that when we "d met I would feel to some measure the hurts I had suffered in this city undone- "What are you reading?"
Danny was setting the drinks down on the table. Holt"s words were still in Rachel"s eyes- -the hurts I had suffered in this city-"Oh it"s just an old diary."
"Family heirloom?"
"No."
-undone- Danny sat down. "Your brandy," he said, pushing the gla.s.s in Rachel"s direction.
"Thank you." She picked up the brandy and sipped. It burned a little against her lips and on her tongue. "Are you all right?" Danny said.
"Yes, I"m fine."
"You look a little shaken up."
"No... I"m just... these last few days..." She could barely put a coherent sentence together, she was so distracted by what she"d just read. "I don"t want to seem rude-" she said, making a concerted effort to be articulate. The sooner this conversation was over, the sooner she"d be back with the journal, finding out what awaited the captain. "I"ve just got a lot on my mind right now.
This is what I found at the apartment." She handed Danny the envelope containing letters and the photographs. He glanced around to see if anybody was looking his way, and then, a little tentatively, reached into the envelope and slid out the contents.
"I didn"t count them," Rachel said, "but I a.s.sume it"s everything."
"I"m sure it is," Danny said, staring down at the evidence of his romance. "Thank you so much."
"What are you going to do with it all?"
"Keep it."
"Just be careful, Danny." He glanced up at her. "Don"t talk to anybody about Margie. I wouldn"t want... you know..."
"You wouldn"t want me to be found in the East River."
"I"m not saying-"
"I know what you"re saying," he replied. "And thank you. But you don"t have to worry about me.
Really you don"t. I"m going to be fine."
"Good," she said, draining the last of her brandy. "Thank you for the drink."
"You"re going already?""Stuff to do."
Danny got up, and somewhat awkwardly took her hand. "I know it"s a cliche," he said, "but I don"t know what I would have done without you." He looked, suddenly, like a lost twelve-year- old. "You took some risks, I know."
"For Margie..." she said.
"Yes," he replied, with a sad little smile, "for Margie."
"You keep well, Danny," Rachel said, hugging him. "I know there"s good things ahead for you."
"Oh?" he said doubtfully. "I think the best times went with Margie." He kissed her on the cheek.
"She loved us both, huh? So that"s something."
"That"s a lot, Danny."
"Yeah," he said, trying to put on a little brightness. "You"re right. That"s a lot."
X.
A bout the time Rachel caught her cab back uptown, and opened the journal to pick up Captain Holt"s story where she"d left off. Garrison was pouring his fourth Scotch of the night, slipping the bottle down beside the high-backed armchair set before his dining room window. He wasn"t alone in his liquored state. Mitch.e.l.l was sitting in front of the fire, which he"d insisted be lit, in a worse state of intoxication than he"d been in since law school. Two maudlin drunks, talking of how their women had betrayed them. They"d poured out their hearts tonight, as liberally as they"d poured the Scotch: confessed their indifference to the labors of the marital bed, and their weariness with their adulteries; promised that their only loyalties lay with one another, and that whatever betrayals there might have been, they were a thing of the past; and most significantly, debated in detail how their dealings had to be handled from now on, now that they knew how isolated they were.
"I know it"s no good looking back..." Mitch.e.l.l slurred.
"No it isn"t..."
"But I can"t help it. When I think of the way things were."
"They weren"t as wonderful as you remember. Memories are lies. Especially the good ones."
"Were you never happy?" Mitch said. "Not once? Not for an afternoon?"
Garrison grunted as he thought about this. "Well now you mention it," he said finally. "I do remember that dayI dumped you in the yard with the fire ants, and you got bit all over your a.s.s. I was pretty d.a.m.n happy that day. Do you remember that?"
"Do I remember-"
"I got beaten black and blue for that."
"By Poppa?"
"No, by mother. She never left it to George when it came to something important, because she knew we weren"t scared of him. She beat me within an inch of my life."
"You deserved it," Mitch.e.l.l said, "I was sick for a week. And you didn"t give a s.h.i.t."
"I didn"t like that you got all the attention. But you know what? When I was moping around, p.i.s.sed off that you were being pampered, Cadmus said to me: see what happens if you make people sorry for someone? I remember him saying that, plain as day. He wasn"t angry with me.
He just wanted me to understand that I"d done a stupid thing: I"d made everybody lovey-dovey with you. So I didn"t try and hurt you after that, in case you got the attention."
Mitch.e.l.l got up and went to fetch the bottle from Garrison.
"Speaking of the old man-" Mitch.e.l.l said, "Jocelyn told me you kept him company last night."
"I sure did. I sat by his bed for a few hours when they brought him back from the hospital. I tell you, he"s tough. The doctors didn"t think he was going to come home."
"Did he tell you anything?"
Garrison shook his head. "He was raving most of the time. It"s the painkillers they"ve got him on.
They make him delirious." Garrison fell silent for a long moment. "You know what I started to wonder."
"What?"
"If we took him off the medication..."
"We can"t-"
"I mean just took his pills away."
"Waxman wouldn"t allow that."
"We wouldn"t tell Waxman. We"d just do it."
"He"d be in agony."A tiny smile appeared on Garrison"s face. "But we"d get some straight answers from him, if we had the pills." He shook his fist, as though it contained the means to Cad-mus"s comfort.
"f.u.c.k..." Mitch.e.l.l said softly.
"I know it"s not a very pretty idea," Garrison said, "but we don"t have a lot of options left. He"s not going to hang on forever. And when he"s gone..."
"There"s got to be some other way," Mitch said. "Let me try talking to him."
"You can"t get anything out of him. He doesn"t trust either of us any more. I don"t think he ever did. He didn"t trust anybody but himself." Garrison thought on this for a moment. "Smart man."
"So how do you know all this stuff exists?"
"Because Kitty told me about it. She was the only one who ever talked to me about the Barbarossas. She"d seen the journal."
"So at least the old man trusted her."
"I guess he did. At the beginning. I guess we all start out trusting our wives..."
"Wait," Mitch said. "I just had a thought-"
"Margie."
"Yeah."
"I"m there before you, brother."