Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (281 page)

“God have mercy on his soul,” he muttered at last. “Poor creature. He has liberated himself from the superstitions of religion in order to fall into superstition so abject no Christian can conceive it. Imagine to yourself”—he began to pace the floor—“time is circular, man is automaton, we are doomed to repeat the same gestures over and over, forever. Oh, I say to you, Hodge, this is monstrous. The poor man. The poor man.”

I nodded. “Yes. But what is the answer? Limitless space? Limitless time? They are almost as horrifying, because they are inconceivable and awful.”

“And why should the inconceivable and awful be horrifying? Is our small human understanding the ultimate measuring stick and guide? But, of course, this is not the answer. The answer is that all—time, space, matter—all is illusion. All but the good God Himself. Nothing is real but Him. We are creatures of His fancy, figments of His imagination.…”

“Then where does free will come in?”

“As a gift, naturally. Or supernaturally. How else? The greatest gift and the greatest responsibility.”

I can’t say I was entirely satisfied with his exposition, though it was certainly more to my taste than Tyss’s. I returned to the conversation at intervals, both in my thoughts and when I saw him, but in the end I suppose all I really accepted was his admonition to be skeptical, which I doubt I always applied the way he meant me to.

VII.

OF CONFEDERATE AGENTS IN 1942

To anyone but the mooncalf I still was in the year of my majority it would have long since occurred with considerable force that Enfandin ought to be told of Tyss’s connection with the Negro-hating, antiforeign Grand Army. And the thought once entertained, no matter how belatedly, would have been immediately translated into warning. For me it became a dilemma.

If I exposed Tyss to Enfandin I would certainly be basely ungrateful to the man who had saved me from destitution and given me the opportunity I wanted so much. Membership in the Grand Army was a crime, even though the laws were laxly enforced, and I could hardly expect an official receiving the hospitality of the United States to conceal knowledge of a felony against his host, especially when the Grand Army was what it was. Yet if I kept silent I would be less than a friend.

If I spoke I would be an informer; if I didn’t, a hypocrite and worse. The fact that neither man, for totally different reasons, would condemn me whichever course I took increased rather than diminished my perplexity. I procrastinated, which meant I was actually protecting Tyss, and that this was against my sympathies increased my feeling of guilt.

At this juncture a series of events involved me still deeper with the Grand Army and further complicated my relationship to both Tyss and Enfandin. It began the day a customer called himself to my attention with a self-conscious clearing of his throat.

“Yes sir. Can I help you?”

He was a fat little man with palpably false teeth and hair hanging down over his collar. However, the sum of his appearance was in no way ludicrous; rather he gave the impression of ease and authority, and an assurance so strong there was no necessity to buttress it.

“Why, I was looking for—” he began, and then scrutinized me sharply. “Say, ain’t you the young fella I saw walking with a Nigra? Big black buck?”

Seemingly everyone had been fascinated by the spectacle of two people of slightly different shades of color in company with each other. I felt myself reddening. “There’s no law against it, is there?”

He made a gargling noise which I judged was laughter. “Wouldn’t know about your damyankee laws, boy. For myself I’d say there’s no harm in it, no harm in it at all. Always did like to be around Nigras myself. But then I was rared among ’em. Most damyankees seem to think Nigras ain’t fitten company. Only goes to show how narrerminded and bigoted you folks can be. Present company excepted.”

“M’sieu Enfandin is consul of the Republic of Haiti,” I said; “he’s a scholar and a gentleman.” As soon as the words were out I was bitterly sorry for their condescension and patronage. I felt ashamed, as if I had betrayed him by offering credentials to justify my friendship and implying it took special qualities to overcome the handicap of his color.

“A mussoo, huh? Furrin and educated Nigra? Well, guess they’re all right.” His tone, still hearty, was slightly dubious. “Ben working here long?”

“Nearly four years.”

“Kind of dull, ain’t it?”

“Oh no—I like to read, and there are plenty of books around here.”

He frowned. “Should think a hefty young fella’d find more interesting things. You’re indented, of course? No? Well then you’re a mighty lucky fella. In a way, in a way. Naturally you’ll be short on cash, ay? Unless you draw a lucky number in the lottery.”

I told him I’d never bought a lottery ticket.

He slapped his leg as though I’d just repeated a very good joke. “Ain’t that the pattrun,” he exclaimed; “ain’t that the pattrun! Necessity makes ’em have a lottery; puritanism keeps ’em from buying tickets. Ain’t that the pattrun!” He gargled the humor of it for some time, while his eyes moved restlessly around the dim interior of the store. “And what do you read, ay? Sermons? Books on witches?”

I admitted I’d dipped into both, and then, perhaps trying to impress him, explained my ambitions.

“Going to be a professional historian, hey? Little out of my line, but I don’t suppose they’s many of ’em up North here.”

“Not unless you count a handful of college instructors who dabble in it.”

He shook his head. “Young fella with your aims you could do better down South, I’d think.”

“Oh yes, some of the most interesting research is going on right now in Leesburg, Washington-Baltimore, and the University of Lima. You are a Confederate yourself, sir?”

“Southron, yes sir, I am that, and mighty proud of it. Now look a-here, boy; I’ll lay all my cards on the table, face up. You’re a free man and you ain’t getting any pay here. Now how’d you like to do a little job for me? They’s good money in it; and I imagine I’d be able to fix up one of those deals—what do they call ’em? scholarships—at the University of Leesburg, after.”

A scholarship at Leesburg. Where the Department of History was engaged in a monumental project—nothing less than a compilation of all known source material on the War of Southron Independence! It was only with the strongest effort that I refrained from agreeing blindly.

“It sounds fine, Mr.—?”

“Colonel Tolliburr. Jest call me cunnel.”

There wasn’t anything remotely military in his bearing. “It sounds good to me, Colonel. What is the job?”

He clicked his too regular teeth thoughtfully. “Hardly anything at all, m’boy, hardly anything at all. Just want you to keep a list for me.”

He seemed to think this a complete explanation. “What kind of list, Colonel?”

“Why, list of the people that come in here steady. Especially the ones don’t seem to buy anything, just talk to your boss. Names if you know ’em, but that ain’t real important, and a sort of rough description. Like five foot nine, blue eyes, dark hair, busted nose, scar on right eyebrow. And so on. Nothing real detailed. And a list of deliveries.”

Was I tempted? I don’t really know. “I’m sorry, Colonel. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Not even for that scholarship and say, a hundred dollars in real money?”

I shook my head.

“They’s no harm in it, boy. Likely nothing’ll come of it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Two hundred? I’m not talking about Yankee slugs, but good CSA bills, each with a picture of President Jimmy right slapdash on the middle of it.”

“It’s not a matter of money, Colonel Tolliburr.”

He looked at me shrewdly. “Think it over, boy. No use being hasty.” He handed me a card. “Anytime you change your mind come and see me or send me a telegram.”

I watched him go out of the store. The Grand Army must be annoying the mighty Confederacy. Tyss ought to know about the agent’s interest. And I knew I would be unable to tell him.

“Suppose,” I asked Enfandin the next day, “suppose one were placed in the position of being an involuntary assistant in a—to a…”

I was at a loss for words to describe the situation without being incriminatingly specific. I could not tell him about Tolliburr and my clear duty to let Tyss know of the colonel’s espionage without revealing Tyss’s connection with the Grand Army and thus uncovering my deceit in not warning Enfandin earlier. Whatever I said or failed to say, I was somehow culpable.

He waited patiently while I groped, trying to formulate a question which was no longer a question. “You can’t do evil that good may come of it,” I burst out at last.

“Quite so. And then?”

“Well…That might mean eventually giving up all action entirely, since we can never be sure even the most innocent act may not have bad consequences.”

He nodded. “It might. The Manichaeans thought it did; they believed good and evil balanced and man was created in the image of Satan. But certainly there is a vast difference between this inhuman dogma and refusing to do consciously wicked deeds.”

“Maybe,” I said dubiously.

He looked at me speculatively. “A man is drowning in the river. I have a rope. If I throw him the rope he may not only climb to safety but take it from me and use it to garrote some honest citizen. Shall I therefore let him drown because I must not do good lest evil come of it?”

“But sometimes they are so mixed up it is impossible to disentangle them.”

“Impossible? Or very difficult?”

“Um…I don’t know.”

“Are you not perhaps putting the problem too abstractly? Is not perhaps your situation—your hypothetical situation—one of being accessory to wrong rather than facing an alternative which means personal unhappiness?”

Again I struggled for noncommittal words. He had formulated my dilemma about the Grand Army so far as it connected with giving up my place in the bookstore or telling him of Tyss’s bias. Yet not entirely. And why could I not let Tyss know of Colonel Tolliburr’s visit, which it was certainly my duty to do? Was this overscrupulousness only a means of avoiding any unpleasantness?

“Yes,” I muttered at last.

“It would be very nice if there were no drawbacks ever attached to the virtuous choice. Then the only ones who would elect to do wrong would be those of twisted minds, the perverse, the insane. Who would prefer the devious course if the straight one were just as easy? No, no, my dear Hodge, one cannot escape the responsibility for his choice simply because the other way means inconvenience or hardship or tribulation.”

“Must we always act, whether we are sure of the outcome of our action or not?”

“Not acting is also action; can we always be sure of the outcome of refusing to act?”

Was it pettiness that made me contrast his position as an official of a small yet fairly secure power, well enough paid to live comfortably, with mine where a break with Tyss meant beggary and no further chance of fulfilling the ambition every day more important to me? Did circumstances alter cases, and was it easy for Enfandin to talk as he did, unconfronted with harsh alternatives?

“You know, Hodge,” he said as though changing the subject, “I am what they call a career man, meaning I have no money except my salary. This might seem much to you, but it is really little, particularly since protocol says I must spend more than necessary. For the honor of my country. At home I have an establishment to keep up where my wife and children live—”

I had wondered about his apparent bachelorhood.

“—because to be rudely frank, I do not think they would be happy or safe in the United States on account of their color. Besides these expenses I make personal contributions for the assistance of black men who are—how shall we say it?—unhappily circumstanced in your country, for I have found the official allotment is never enough. Now I have been indiscreet; you know state secrets. Why do I tell you this? Because, my friend, I should like to help. Alas, I cannot offer money. But this I can do, if it will not offend your pride: I suggest you live here—it will be no more uncomfortable than the arrangements you have described in the store—and attend one of the colleges of the city. A medal or an order from the Haitian government judiciously conferred on an eminent educator—decorations cut so nicely across color lines, perhaps because they don’t show their origin to the uninitiated— should take care of tuition fees. What do you say?”

What could I say? That I did not deserve his generosity? The statement would be meaningless, a catchphrase, unless I explained that I’d not been open with him, and now even less than before was I able to do this. Or could I say that bare minutes earlier I had thought enviously and spitefully of him? Wretched and happy, I mumbled incoherent thanks, began a number of sentences and left them unfinished, lapsed into dazed silence.

But the newly opened prospect cut through my introspection and scattered my self-reproaches. The future was too exciting to dwell in any other time; in a moment we were both sketching rapid plans and supplementing each other’s designs with revisions of our own. Words tumbled out; ideas were caught in midexpression. We decided, we reconsidered, we returned to the first decisions.

I was to give Tyss two weeks’ notice despite the original agreement making such nicety superfluous; Enfandin was to discuss matriculation with a professor he knew. My employer raised a quizzical eyebrow at my information.

“Ah, Hodgins, you see how neatly the script works out. Nothing left to chance or choice. If you hadn’t been relieved of your trifling capital by a man of enterprise whose methods were more successful than subtle, you might have fumbled at the edge of the academic world for four years and then, having substituted a wad of unrelated facts for common sense and whatever ability to think you may have possessed, fumbled for the rest of your life at the edge of the economic world. You wouldn’t have met George Pondible or gotten here where you could discover your own mind without adjustment to a professorial iron maiden.”