Crescent City (48 page)

“They fled by our house that morning. I wonder where they went.”

“Can’t imagine where.”

The silence thickened like fog. The horse’s hooves went whispering now, as the track turned sandy. And enveloped again by the silence, they rode on steadily,
tensed and without being aware of it, leaning forward with the motion of the horse as if to hasten him home.

Out of the underbrush a woman thrust herself, with the force of a hurled stone, into the road. The horse’s neigh blared his terror, as though he had seen a snake, but before he could gather himself into a gallop, the woman jerked the reins at his mouth and pulled him to a stop.

She lowered a rifle toward Ferdinand and Miriam.

Ferdinand rose in his seat.

“What the devil do you want?” he cried,

“What do you think I want? Money.”

Ferdinand groped for the pistol. He had never fired one in his life, and certainly Miriam had not; they were no match for this attacker. And Miriam slid the pistol out of reach.

Ferdinand, as though he were not taking the threat seriously, sputtered. “Scalawags! Jayhawkers! Decent citizens can’t even travel the roads—”

Miriam cried sharp warning. “Papa! No!” She lowered her voice, struggling to keep it even. “We have no money. We’d like to have some, too.”

The woman came closer. The rifle was an extension of her skinny arm and her ragged sleeve. With them it lifted and trembled.

Now Miriam’s heart shook under her ribs.

“I’d be obliged if you’d point that thing away from us. If you kill us, you’ll surely get nothing.”

“You went to the store. You must have money.”

“We passed the store. It was empty. As empty as our house.”

Under the poke bonnet was a young face, sunken and toothless. The blue eyes were mad.

“I know you,” Miriam said in sudden recognition. “You used to come for food before the war when my husband was alive. We always gave it to you.”

“Why not? You had more than you needed.”

“That’s true. But we surely don’t have it now. Between the two armies we’ve had to go without.”

“Time you knew how, then. You and your niggers that keep good men from getting work. You and your fancy children that never knew hunger.”

Miriam wondered, looking at this woman probably no older than herself, standing there holding that gun in desperation, how a woman like herself must have appeared in those times of splendid pride, riding behind her coachman, holding not a gun, but a ruffled parasol.

“Maybe it is time,” she said. “But killing me isn’t going to feed your children.”

The gun was lowered. Not far away in the swamps those pinch-faced, ragged children must be hiding from the southern draft with their father.

The suspicious, mad eyes searched the empty carriage.

“Killing you mightn’t, but burning your house down might smoke out what you’ve got hidden away in it.”

Jüst don’t let her find these coins, Miriam thought. These I must hold on to. Without them I should be totally helpless in the world.

“Listen,” she said. “Do you think I want your children to starve? I’m a woman, a mother. If you need some potatoes and meal, come to our place, come in peace, and I’ll give you some.” A surge of courage strengthened her voice and straightened her posture. “But I warn you, if you come to steal or burn, I will report your husband and all his friends to the Confederate authorities. And if you send your men to steal or burn, I’ll have them shot. Do you understand me?”

“I’ll come this evening. No tricks, now. If I don’t
come back safely, my bus—some others will come and make you pay.”

“You will go back safely. With food. Come tonight.”

The woman moved back into the underbrush; it closed behind her without a mark. Ferdinand began to whip the horse into a gallop.

“No, Papa. Slow down to a walk. Don’t show any fear, that’s the worst thing you can do.”

By the time they reached their lane, Miriam’s momentary courage had passed, and she was shaking from the encounter.

A semicircle of expectant faces waited for them in the house.

“We’ve brought nothing. The man in the store had nothing.”

“Oh, he must have had!” Eulalie’s mouth was bitter with disappointment. “You probably didn’t offer him enough. They always keep their goods hidden, that sort, they always do.”

Miriam’s nerves were as sore as though they had been scraped. She almost shouted.

“Who does? What sort do you mean?”

“We don’t need to go into that,” replied Eulalie, slicing each word carefully as one slices a thin loaf.

Miriam followed her out of the room, caught up with her in the hall, and grasped her elbow.

“I think we do need to go into it. Here and now. Of course I know what you meant about the storekeeper. Jews, you meant.”

“Well, if I did, I’m not the only one who means it.”

Miriam was almost breathless, tasting blood in her own mouth. “For your information, the storekeeper is a Scotsman. Now, listen, Eulalie, there’s no sense going on like this. We’re both here with no other place to go. I’ve got a son and a daughter, to say nothing of my
father and your mother, neither of whom is any use at all” And as Eulalie’s mouth opened in astonishment, Miriam countered: “Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it? I love them, but they’re helpless. Facts are facts, and this surely is a time to face them, if ever there was one. So you see, there’s enough to do around here, and it would be a whole lot easier to do it if we could keep our feelings buried. I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. You despise Jews, and you’re shocked at what you call my sin.”

“Oh, dear Heaven,” Emma interjected tearfully from the doorway. “This is terrible, everything falling apart! I don’t know what you could have said, Eulalie, but it’s all so ugly. Everything is so ugly. I’ve tried, God knows I’ve tried, to bear up under one blow after the other. But is there no end to it? Can’t we at least try to live in peace? I never thought I would live through such times.”

Poor Emma! It was too late for her. She was too old. Her best years had been lived in a sunny garden.

“It’s all right, Aunt Emma,” Miriam said. She patted the quivering shoulders. “It’s just talk. We’re all overwrought. I know I am, and no wonder. It’s been a horrible day. But it’s all right. Now I’m going outside for a while to see Simeon at the barn.”

When she came back Eulalie was in the dining room cutting the rug with a pair of long shears. Pelagie was horrified.

“An Aubusson! Eugene’s fine Aubusson cut up for blankets! What can you be thinking of?”

“Eulalie is right,” Miriam said calmly. “The nights are very cold and we have no blankets.”

She was half out of the room again before Eulalie spoke. She did not look at Miriam.

“Your maid Fanny. You said she’s sick. I have some blackberry root cordial. It might relieve her trouble.”

“Why, that’s kind, Eulalie. I thank you.”

“Eulalie,” Emma cried, “have you remembered to give Miriam her letter?”

“I forgot. I have it here.” And Eulalie drew an envelope from her pocket.

“A man on horseback brought it while you were gone this morning,” Emma said. “I hope it’s not bad news.”

Two crisp sheets rustled in Miriam’s hands. “It’s from André, from Mr. Perrin—” At once she was silenced by the shock of the opening lines.

“Oh, call Papa! Papa, where are you? Listen! It says David is terribly ill … oh, dear God, desperately ill!”

She read aloud.

“ Out I am hoping that by the time you get this letter he will be on his way northward in a prisoner exchange. It is very hard to arrange, but I have been promised-’

“Papa! Imagine! André—Mr. Perrin—has probably got David out to a military hospital in Washington, he says. Oh, bless him for it! God bless his goodness!”

Ferdinand seemed not to have heard. His pallid face looked green, and he swallowed as though a large piece of food had lodged in his throat.

“He’s been in Georgia, a terrible prison in Georgia.”

Her eyes returned to the letter. This part she read silently.

She felt the charm, the promise, of these beautiful hopeful words. Yet she had to know more about David and, speeding to the end, read aloud:

“‘My friends, the Douglas Hammonds, in Richmond, will help you and will have information about your brother.’”

She put the letter down. “Papa, I’ll have to go. I’ll have to get there!”

“It’s impossible! You can’t go. It’s dangerous, it will take weeks, a month.”

“I don’t care. I’m going to Richmond. And from there to Washington, if David’s really there. I don’t know how I’ll get there, but I will. God only knows what’s happened to him!”

“Mama, don’t,” Angelique pleaded. Her face was so thin and white!

“You’re afraid something will happen to me, too,” Miriam said gently. “But it won’t. I shall be very careful, I promise.”

“You can’t promise.” Eugene corrected his mother. “How can you keep a bullet from striking through a train, or—”

“I know, I know. But tell me, Eugene, if, Heaven
forbid, it were Angelique who was ill and alone somewhere, wouldn’t you go to her? Or she to you? Well, then, this is the same! David and I …” Miriam’s voice quivered.

There they stood, solemn and fearful, these two, still young enough to be in need of a mother. And there, far off, lay David, if he were still alive.

“He cared for me,” she said, “from the time I was born. He was only a little boy, but so old for his years! He saw our mother die, I have told you how that was, how the looters and killers from the universities came down upon us! Violence, always violence and war!” Now it was her turn to plead. “Will you understand, please? Will you try to understand why I must go?”

Ferdinand cleared his throat again. Eugene laid a hand on Angelique’s shoulder, a touching gesture meant to give his mother the assurance that she could depend on him. He had outgrown his clothes, so that his narrow, knobby wrist was bare. His hand had outgrown the rest of him; it was callused and brown, a large, manly hand attached to a still-childish wrist. The sight of it made her want to cry.

There was a deep stillness in the room. Ravaged, chilly, and comfortless as it was, it was still home. Wherever her son and daughter were, there would be home. She did not want to leave it, did not want to undertake a long, hard journey. And still she knew that nothing and no one could stop her from going.

Presently Rosa broke into the stillness.

“Will you try to learn something about my Henry and about Gabriel, if you can?”

“And my boys?” added Pelagie.

“How will we manage this place while you’re gone?” Emma complained.

“You will have to manage until I come back. You can. You will have to.”

Slowly the train moved northward and eastward into winter. Jolting over a crumbling roadbed and shaky bridges, it moved seven or eight miles farther with each passing hour. Occasionally it halted in the middle of a desolate landscape, assailed by a fierce, icy rain, and Miriam’s eyes, bloodshot and strained from the dust that sifted through the broken windows, could observe the life of the countryside: overladen wagons, the mules up to their bellies in mud; and cattle lashed as fast as they could be driven; and a farm family sitting on a pile of ramshackle furniture, the mother holding a baby, the littlest daughter holding a struggling cat.

Women, always women, she thought. How many widows would there be when this war ended?

She sighed, murmuring aloud, “One could almost walk faster to Richmond,” and hugging herself against the clinging cold, sank deeper into the folds of her shawl.

An old man and an old woman, strangers to one another, had struck up a conversation some time before. The old man gave out scraps of information.

“Look at those half-starved cows! They’ll be the last meat the army will be eating, I’m thinking. I hear most of the troops only have one day’s bread supply at a time.”

The woman, who wore a widow’s cap, clucked for the tenth time in dismay.

“I hear,” the man went on, “the Cabinet in Richmond is debating whether to melt down some of these locomotives for cannon.”

The woman stopped clucking, apparently too discouraged by his dismal enumeration to respond. Leaning across the aisle, she caught Miriam’s attention just as the train, with a shattering jolt, began to move.

“You going all the way to Richmond?” And, as Miriam nodded, she said, “The city’s jammed, they tell me. One can hardly find shelter. Even the worst dirty room costs as much as a night in a palace.”

“I have friends to stay with—or friends of a friend, I should say.”

“Lucky for you, then. It’s terrible, my cousin wrote me that people are trading their valuables, wedding rings, anything, right out on the street for cow-peas or rice.” And like the old man whom she had just shunned, she recited her own litany. “My cousin says eggs are five dollars a dozen, if you can get them. And butter five dollars a pound. For us on the farm it’s not been that bad. I’ve managed to keep a few hens, so we’ve had eggs, at least. But medicines, no. My cousin says quinine costs a hundred fifty dollars an ounce. Her baby died for lack of it. Sinful, that’s what I call it. Sinful.”

Miriam nodded again, and turning her head toward the window with eyes half closed, pretended to need sleep. The landscape, drear as it was with the rain blowing and the trees lifting bare old arms toward the iron-gray sky, was not as gloomy as the talk inside the car.

The train crawled north.

“You must be frozen, poor dear,” said Mrs. Hammond. “You know, this is the worst cold in our history.”