Nostalgia (33 page)

Softly, Walt says, “I’ll write to her again, dear boy, this very day.”

Casper raises his head briefly and then returns his eyes to the spot on the floor. He slowly allows his eyelids to drop. He whispers, “Will you tell her I’m sorry …” and, even while the others are still looking at him, dozes off.

After a moment, Burroughs turns to Walt and says, “His girl, I presume?”

“Fiancée,” says Walt, “though I must say, she doesn’t behave like one. Has so far sent him exactly one silly letter, mostly regarding itself—all about the letter paper, where she’d bought it and at what cost, and about the ink, which she’d made in her mama’s own kitchen, from copperas and nutgalls. Went on at length about the coming of horsecars to Providence, Rhode Island, and then urged Casper ‘to try not to be too dumpish.’ I’ve written her myself and received no reply.”

Walt pauses and brings his hands together below his lips—sadly, thoughtfully, as if he’s about to pray. He raises his head and looks searchingly at Casper, then says to Burroughs, “I regret you didn’t meet him before. Nobody asks my opinion, of course, but I think he’s about as ruined by remedies as by infection. What you see here is the vestige of a charming and witty young fellow—now brandy-fuddled, now drug-addicted—but once resilient … and handsome, though you would hardly know it.”

He sets aside his cane and lifts a bulging haversack from the floor; he places the jar of preserves inside and then takes out one of his scrapbooks, into which he scribbles a note. As he bends to put it away, and still leans forward, he says, “Look around you, John, and tell me what
you truly think. Now we see that General Grant evidently believes we can supply him an infinite store of young men for slaughter … does the price of victory not grow too great?”

He sits up straight again and adds, “You know there’s no keener advocate of union than me—I grasp, probably more than most, how democracy profits from a meshing of conflicts and contradictions … a play of cross-purposes. But shall we preserve it at a cost of five white corpses for each black slave freed? Ten for each? Twenty? Twenty-five? Where shall we draw the line?”

“I’ve heard he’s a good deal drunk, Grant,” says Burroughs, “though I doubt that distinguishes him among generals.”

Hayes detects in Walt’s face a hint of disappointment at Burroughs’s response, which has sought to join sides with him while neglecting his question. Burroughs, apparently detecting the same, says, “The world’s turned on its head nowadays, Walt—an effect that’s been a long time coming.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that,” says Walt, waving away Burroughs’s notion with one hand. “I even like to think myself a modest contributor. But look to the future. Our youth and our nation are the same thing—what we do to them we do to it. Seeing them—and by extension it—dismembered, disemboweled, cut down and left to rot in the open air … buried in an unmarked grave … that’s what troubles me.”

Burroughs appears to be contriving an addendum to his previous remark when Walt turns to Hayes and says, “Won’t you try the barred owl for us, my friend? I bet you could whistle it if you only tried. It would make me such a lovely birthday gift. Demonstrate it again, please, John.”

Hayes quickly shakes his head, overwhelmed by the confounding clamor in the ward; thinking
infinite store
, he imagines himself liquefied and poured through Major Cross’s knothole beneath the bed. When he turns his head to the side, the sunken-eyed Raugh, strangely awake, casts him a knowing smile, which he cannot interpret and which causes him to shudder. He thinks of his ornery and garrulous bunkmate, Truman Leggett, and how, at the end of the first day of fighting in the Wilderness, he’d sought him in the woods and sat next
to him on the ground for hours, under starlight, and of how neither of them had said a word.

“Never mind, my boy,” he hears Walt say now. “We don’t mean to upset you.”

The fetid smell of the canal wafts in through the nearest window, and Burroughs groans and covers his nose and mouth with a handkerchief. Walt looks at Hayes with eyes blurred by tears but immediately seems to shake himself.

“Do you know,” he says, a bit too blithely, “we saw no fewer than three dead cats floating in the canal on our way over here? It’s ghastly beyond words. We were nearly run over in the street half a dozen times, splattered with mud, and accosted by a crazy woman who took us for her father and brother. She delayed us considerably, and then we arrive to learn we’ve only just missed seeing Mr. Lincoln.”

He turns to Burroughs and adds, “It’s not fair, is it, my darling Bertie?”

“No, my sweet papa,” answers Burroughs. “Not at all fair.”

“That’s what the crazy woman kept calling us,” says Walt to Hayes, “darling Bertie and sweet papa.”

He sighs and continues, “I suppose fate means to deprive me of ever meeting Mr. Lincoln … only to come near but never to meet. We nod to each other from opposite sides of a road, lock eyes across a grand portico, wave as he passes aboard a carriage … but alas, I expect we shall never exchange a word. A cosmic omission if you ask me.”

Hayes peers again at Raugh, who is so clearly sound asleep it makes him think he only imagined the chilling smile. Beyond, a few beds away, a man with a grotesquely swollen face and protruding tongue weeps as he catches in a tin the river of saliva that flows from his mouth. Hayes wishes he could ask Walt what illness could cause such a hideous symptom.

“It’s probably just as well,” says Burroughs, pulling a watch from his vest pocket and checking the time. “With all your reverence, Walt, meeting him would likely be a letdown.”

“How do you know my reverence mightn’t be deepened?” asks Walt.

“First, I don’t think that’s possible,” says Burroughs, laughing. “And second, I believe most of our heroes benefit from a polite distance.”

“Yes, well, you also believe Shakespeare’s plays were written by Francis Bacon.”

“I believe no such thing,” says Burroughs. “You confuse me with your friend O’Connor!”

“Oh, yes, yes, foolish me,” says Walt. “Sorry.”

“Walt, are you all right?”

“Obviously not,” says Walt. “I imagine it’s the bad air at my new accommodations, my moldy boardinghouse.”

“Most unfortunate, your having to move,” says Burroughs. “Sixth Street was altogether better for you … and farther from the canal. I say, what
is
that incessant caterwauling?”

“Why, that’s the Songbird of the Washington City Hospitals,” answers Walt. “Our treasure, Mrs. Duffy. The Source of All Things Annoying.”

Walt now smiles at Hayes benevolently, as if he would remind him of their short sweet history, and with this smart appraisal of Mrs. Duffy, bind them together once and for all. The hammer-and-nails of the rain on the roof stops sharply, causing Hayes to catch his breath. A fresh and genuine desire hatches in his mind, fancifully assuming the mental image of a silver-blue fish that wriggles at the end of a line, spokes of sunlight flashing from its scales. He looks first at Burroughs, then at Walt, and says, “Is there any way you can make her shut up?”

Dearest Sarah, these will likely be the last words you have from me, for I can see no road that takes me back to you alive. I confess that I am weak in mind & body. For a long time I have been a patient at a military hospital in Washington City. As foreseen, I survived the battlefield in the month of May, but I cannot discern God’s design in my survival
.

I regret the air of self-pity
.

I cannot see God’s design in my survival unless it is punishment. Now that the whitewashers have removed the oil lamp from over my bed—a measure, I believe, meant to undo me further—I have found this new device to be steadying in a similar way—mentally composing letters to you that will never be written down or sent. Sometimes, as now, as another dawn approaches & I’m unable to sleep, I think of you at home & long to see you
.

I am quite wasted, from a persistent lack of appetite
.

I consume a bare minimum of food & drink, for food & drink here—I am convinced—are the agents of poison & debilitating drugs. As a result, I am wasted, I fear, beyond easy recognition. In Virginia—oh, so long ago—Dr. Speck said that if I should find myself in a hospital, I should avoid drugs to the
degree possible. I count among my modest achievements here that I have managed to avoid any that have not either been forced upon me or administered covertly
.

My dear Sarah, these will likely be the last words you have from me, for I cannot see my way back to Hicks Street. Every day brings a new danger
.

Down toward the wardmaster’s room, somebody whispers with the night watcher at his small table. Clouds of tobacco smoke surround the two figures. Across the way, there is a flag with a crooked hem—on the wall above the window some sort of pastoral scene in a triangular frame, & a brown stain upon the plaster the size & shape of a horse’s head
.

In the Wilderness, I saw a horse, struck by a bullet—its front legs buckled, & its rider (a lieutenant colonel I didn’t know) rolled headfirst over the poll. Leaves, propelled by the fallen animal’s breath, skittered across the ground
.

I have lost the ability to speak. Though my tongue is uninjured, there seems to be a defect in the nerves. I have spoken a single sentence since my arrival here, a question, & so shocking it was that Walt collapsed upon the floor—by my count, nearly three weeks ago, on the occasion of his birthday
.

Walt stood—evidently thrilled & stunned to hear me speak—laughed heartily, & fainted dead away—in truth, not the effect of my speaking, but of the illness that provokes the doctors to urge him home. I regret to say that I’ve seen less of him since then, & each time he has come lately, looking pale & played-out, I wonder if it won’t be the last. Due to overcrowding, the guard now turns away many visitors at the door. I cannot tell how they determine whom to allow in & whom to turn away
.

Tents have been erected outdoors to accommodate the ever-mounting number of sick & wounded arriving from Virginia. If I could get myself transferred to a bed in one of these tents, an escape might be more manageable. The question is, Escape to what?

Walt’s friend Burroughs has come by a couple of times on his own, bearing gifts from Walt for Casper & me. I find Burroughs a bit inscrutable (one of Papa’s
favorite words, do you remember?). While he’s affable enough, I’ve come to think he exercises some supernatural control over my nerves—it was he who caused me to speak that first & only time, he who prevents me from speaking further now. How utterly cracked … supernatural control! If I do indeed end up in the asylum, it will be no wonder
.

A commission of surgeons & officers has come through, determining the various fates of us in the beds. By their prescript, I’m to be removed to the Asylum for the Insane until I’m improved, though I’ve the distinct impression that people do not improve at the Asylum for the Insane. I’ve no idea how long it will be before this prescript is enforced, but I am hoping to gain back my power of speech—or at the very least my ability to hold a pencil … then make my case for returning to the front. I don’t see why muteness should disqualify me. Except for my being wasted, a condition that could be remedied with generous portions of untainted food, I’m fit in every other way. Still, seeing how I’m perceived by the staff here, I suspect that even if I were to explain the real circumstances that brought me here—recount my being abandoned in the field on orders of a drunken sergeant—no one will believe me. As you can see, my dear Sarah, it’s a muddle. I hope this letter finds you disposed favorably toward me in general. I must say I think it was unworthy of you to use our mother’s feelings against me as you did those last days in Brooklyn
.

H
E HEARS
a low rumble of laughter, turns his head to the side, and sees Raugh through the two layers of mosquito curtain. Raugh looks back at him, grinning, eyes wet and shiny in the dim light of near dawn.

“I’m defeated,” says Raugh, softly, “defeated, see?”

He holds Hayes’s undoubtedly baffled gaze for a moment and laughs again. He points toward the end of the bed and repeats, “De … feated.”

The ward is sweltering and still, pervaded by tobacco smoke. Hayes cannot think what Raugh means—they are each of them in some way defeated, after all, and surely there’s nothing amusing about it. He looks over at the man again, who eyes him as before and points toward the end of the bed.

“De … feated,” he says, and Hayes, seeing the abrupt curve of
Raugh’s stumps beneath the bedsheet, understands at last. He manages a smile, even as a wave of nausea heaves through him.

Raugh grins and nods, his eyes brimming with tears; he sighs and rights his head on the pillow, looking up into the rafters. “Poor Randall Abner Raugh,” he whispers. “De-feeted at Spotsylvania Court House.”

Here’s a riddle you will like from our chaplain’s little gazette: Why is the pupil of the eye to be pitied? Because it is continually under the lash!

Casper’s raving has become so intolerable they keep him now in a drug-stupor night & day. The man down the way who sometimes wept as he endeavored to catch the river of saliva that poured from his mouth has been removed at last to the deadhouse. Most of his hair & teeth had fallen out. Three days before the man passed, Burroughs was here with Walt, & observing the sorry spectacle of the poor man with his tin cup, Burroughs said to Walt,
You see, that’s what comes of stubborn doctors & their heroic dosing
. His remark seemed to carry a warning & indeed Walt replied,
Don’t worry, John, I’m not taking any calomel
. Burroughs, quite disgusted, went on to say he knew for a fact that the Surgeon General had banned this drug last year & he, John, couldn’t see why it was still allowed. I know nothing of the calomel or its uses, but I pray that none has been slipped into my food or water
.