A Moment in the Sun (24 page)

For the people of America

We’re marching in the van

And will do the work before us

If the bravest sailors can

We will drive the despot’s forces

From their strongholds to the sea

And will live and die together

In the Army of the Free—

It is a yankee war song, of course, but Harry can feel the audience downstairs loosen to it as they hear the altered lyrics. Who does not want to be a part of the Army of the Free? A few of the colored sports in the balcony are singing along, and it is a stirring moment. As he sings, the tenor exchanges his navy jacket for a torn shirt and places a battered sombrero on his head, climbing from deck to floor on a rope ladder. His Captain sings the final verse alone, an audible gasp of amazement from the audience as the massive white hull of the
Maine
suddenly melts into a green and brown tangle of jungle—

We will shield our steadfast brothers

Neath the Flag of Liberty

And will live and die together

In the Army of the Free!

The tenor swings a machete and walks in place as the jungle behind him moves in the opposite direction, creating the illusion of travel, the pianist creeping along suspensefully on the bass keys.

A shot rings out, the tenor beginning to run in place as the orchestra leaps into a breakneck snatch of the overture from Rossini’s
William Tell,
the bows seeming to ricochet off the strings, a stirring, galloping chase motif as two Spanish sentries appear from the wings in pursuit. The jungle behind is nearly a blur now and Harry realizes it must be some manner of diapositive projection that can be twirled at varying speeds, operated behind the translucent hull of the “ship.” One of the Spaniards raises his rifle and fires again and the tenor, wounded in the leg, drops to the ground.

The jungle scenery jerks to a halt, the sentries catching up to take Ensign Tom prisoner.

“Ay, Señor,” says one of the sentries, “soon ju will weesh ju was never born.”

Jessie has read all the books. The ones her tutors have insisted on, Miss Alcott and Mrs. Stowe, and the ones Alma gives her that she keeps hidden beneath the mattress—Charlotte Brame, Metta Victor, and her favorite, Laura Jean Libbey. There are no young ladies of color like her in the books, only a few dusky parlor maids meant to portray someone of Alma’s station, but as she reads she imagines herself in the position of the heroines and by the end of the tale Nell Lestrange or poor Minnie Taylor or Little Rosebud are no longer so pale.

It is from the books and from Alma’s chatter and from the cautionary lectures with which her mother describes the world that Jessie has learned there is but one great adventure open to women.

And that hers has begun.

It was true! What her brother had said was true! He was not above teasing her, despite the moustache he had so recently grown her brother was still a boy in many ways, with a boy’s fondness for pranks and mischief. But when he had said of his handsome fellow soldier “He inquires of you constantly,” her hopes had been raised, and when the young man stood in their parlor, shy and self-effacing, her pulse had quickened so alarmingly she was afraid it would betray her, that her father, with his physician’s skill of diagnosis, would at once sense her infatuation. And she felt a fool, cheeks burning with shame, for at first the young man seemed barely to recognize her presence, exchanging polite conversation with her father, hat at rest in the crook of his arm, stiff with a military bearing that only enhanced his good looks. But his words at their parting—

“I hope to see you again.”

He had said that, he really had, looking straight into her eyes when he took her hand and bowed slightly to say goodbye. Junior was worried about missing the transport and Mother was in tears to see her boy go off possibly to war and Father was cramming in every last bit of advice, which gave them, Royal and Jessie—it makes her flush now, lying back on her bed, just to intertwine their names in her thoughts—gave them an almost private moment. He held her hand much longer than you would if she was wrong about it and he squeezed it, he did, she wasn’t fooling herself about that. Yes, he was saying with that squeeze, you are right. I am too.

They had been children together, he a few years the elder and wonderful in her eyes, sitting bareback high up on their coach horse Boots while his uncle dealt with the harness straps. He let her play with his jacks and his marbles, and pet the field animals he found and cared for awhile, and never taunted her the way some others did for being female or for her manners or for her abrupt departure from their games when it was time for the day’s lesson. And then one day it was over, Mother explaining that she was a young lady now and must learn to dwell in a more prescribed environment, to leave that easy camaraderie of bare feet and imaginary battles behind. Sometimes she would look off from her piano bench, out the window to the side yard, and he would be there, watching her. His clothes were threadbare but always clean, his shoes no doubt several generations removed from their original owner, but there was a dignity in him, calm and kindly, that stirred her in the genteel prison of her parents’ fine house.

Junior says he’ll send an address as soon as they’ve got one and that Royal will send his own letters through Alma. Without Alma she would be lost. Father has his ideas of what is right for his daughter and he means the best for her but it is
her
adventure, her only one, and she knows from the books and from Alma’s lurid stories what happens to girls who ignore their heart and think only of what is sensible. His chest looked massive in the blue uniform, his arms thick and muscular, his hands—she has always loved his hands, loved to watch them at work. Once he let her help him and his brother Jubal groom Boots after a long day’s riding and they had barely spoken, just the sound of the brush on the animal’s coat, the smell of horse strong in her nose and them standing close together, hot in the crowded stall and she thought her thumping heart would explode. Jessie thinks of his arms around her and rolls over onto her front and wonders if this is wicked, wonders what it must be like to be Alma, whose life has been so filled with men, so filled with adventure compared to Mother’s placid account of her brief season of availability, married at seventeen with not a ripple of excitement between courtship and contract.

When she touches herself, or presses her body hard against the bed, she imagines she is Alma. Alma can do what she pleases, so little is expected of her. But Dr. Lunceford’s daughter—

“
Every eye is upon you
,” he has told them, Junior most prominent under his judging gaze but Jessie just behind and included in the statement. “
Your actions reflect on us all
.”

And she knows the “us all” goes beyond the Luncefords, beyond even the proper colored community here in Wilmington. But Alma, when she is Alma she can be every thrilling thing she might imagine.

There will be a war. Her brother is sure of it, all Father’s friends look forward to it, the newspapers seem to ache for its commencement. The thought of those brave boys on the field of battle, suffering under the enemy’s fire, the thought of many of them never to return—but he will survive, he will return. The mortal danger only deepens her resolve to discover a method, first, to communicate her love to him, and then to win Mother and Father to her design. Or, failing, to throw herself into the hands of Fate.

The melodrama continues.

Ensign Tom, horribly tortured by the cruel Dagoes, is warned of their monstrous plot, then helped to escape by a dusky Cuban girl. The stage is black for a moment, then a spotlight catches the beaten, bloodied tenor crawling to freedom across the ground as a single cello echoes his plight. He reaches the wings and the light fades up again on the
Maine
, a single Jack Tar walking the deck on watch, as below, out of his sight, a sinister pair of Spanish saboteurs row out and attach a device—it looks like a metallic limpet—to the prow of the anchored ship. The sailor does not seem to hear the loud warning from the audience, Harry perhaps loudest of all, nor the call from the bedraggled Ensign who has only just arrived at the shore, does not see the sinister boatmen row away into the wings leaving their infernal machine, does not sense anything but the gentle rocking of the great vessel and the orchestra’s sweet lullaby until—

KABOOM
!

Harry levitates with the rest of the audience, his bottom lifting completely out of his seat at the shock of the explosion, black smoke filling the stage, the white hull of the great ship suddenly engulfed in leaping red and orange flames! Many have risen to their feet in the audience, a few already bolted into the aisles, before they realize it is only another illusion, powerful stagecraft, the conflagration nothing but colored celluloid and projected light. The waves beneath the ship are churning, faster, higher, and there are at least a dozen poor sailors flailing within them, crying out for help that will not come. Harry thinks of the stage direction at the end of the one theatrical he has had a hand in producing—
Tumult with all.

The smoke clears, some of it drifting out over the first rows, and the hull of the
Maine
is now a verdant field sown with the white crosses of the dead, the rows trailing off in a forced perspective as the strings in the pit weep. The Ensign, back in uniform, and his sweet Aura Lee have been reunited, each with a black band of mourning on their arm. They stroll solemnly along, regarding the simple stone monuments. A small girl with a bouquet of white gladiolas in hand turns and sees them, and tugs at the arm of the naval man. It is the lovely assistant Rose again, dressed in pinafore and sun hat, and it seems that she can sing as well—

My father was a sailor just like you

My father was a sailor and wore a coat of blue

My father was a sailor and I’ll ne’er see him again

My father was a sailor sir, a sailor on the
Maine

As always it is the innocents who suffer. Harry feels that his cheeks are wet and is glad that Niles is not here to kid him for being a sap. Handkerchiefs flash among the seats ahead. Captain Sigsbee appears then, beginning to speak to the Ensign and Aura Lee, but then turning to face the audience and address them directly. An offstage chorus softly hums a familiar melody.

“We will not allow these brave men to have died in vain,” says the Captain. “We will snatch up the torch of liberty from their fallen hand and raise it, raise it on high over that poor, benighted island that lies below our southern shore. We will battle the forces of greed and cruelty, we will rout the decadent European from his imperial lair and bring the shining light of freedom into this dark corner of the world—”

Harry recognizes the melody now, as the voices humming it grow louder—it is
The Stars and Stripes Forever
that Sousa has made such a hit with.

“For we are A
mer
icans—north and south, east and west—and Americans will not long allow the iron boot of tyranny to trample upon their hemisphere! The sacrifice of these brave men shall be repaid in blood a hundred times o’er, heroes arising from all corners of our great land to strike fear into the hearts of despots everywhere!
Cuba Libre
! Down with treachery! REMEMBER THE
MAINE
!”

Every piece in the orchestra is a part of it now, drums pounding, brass blaring proudly, fifes trilling above it all, and the players, all of them, march onstage in uniform, no blackened faces among their ranks, singing out as the cemetery view gives way to their country’s banner, enormous, red, white, and blue—

Hurrah for the flag of the free!

May it wave as our standard forever

The gem of the land and the sea

The banner of the Right

Harry is weeping with pride now and can see he’s not the only one. Somehow they have done it, have brought all of Thalian Hall to tears by hoisting the yankee flag. Maybe it is a dream the others have kept quiet in their hearts the way he has, that something could bring the sections together, that they could march shoulder to shoulder once more on some gallant quest, could live up to the fine words of their common Fathers and clear the foul stain of contention from their souls. He wishes Niles was here to see this, to
feel
this. People are on their feet on the ground floor and in the balconies, clapping and stomping time and singing along in full voice—

Let despots remember the day

When our fathers with mighty endeavor

Proclaimed as they marched from the fray

That by their
might

And by their
right

It waves forever!

Niles is halfway to Dock Street when the pony gig pulls up beside him. It is Bramley Dupree, and he is smiling.

“The reports of your death have been premature.”

“Wishful thinking, I suppose,” says Niles, looking as penitent as possible.

“Hop in.”

Bramley is a game one, always up for high times, and probably made those threats purely for the sake of form. One’s sister is one’s sister, after all, and not to be trifled with. Niles sits next to him and he switches the pony into motion.

“If you’re headed to one of the coon houses,” says Bramley, “you’ll have to direct me.”

“
Touché
.” For a time the lads had taken to calling him Nigger Niles because of his predilection, but as it was the kind of thing which would eventually reach the Judge’s ears he had curtailed the habit. “Actually, I was just taking a stroll.”

“Searching for poor girls to dishonor.”

Bramley is still smiling, watching ahead as they turn onto Dock.