Andersonville (60 page)

Which report, came the grating voice of Elkins, who was no longer tempted by the illusion of justice, will be filed in the nearest chamber pot?

I fear as much. Nevertheless, what does one do?

Proceed according to the orders at hand!

Harry took up his residence at the Claffey place once more. Chandler went to live beyond the Sweetwater branch, where he was shrugged at by Henry Wirz (behind his back) and scorned by the Winders.

Harry had built his return to this region into an accomplishment: a savoring of all that was reassuring or noble. In common with those who dream too pleasurably in advance of an event, he suffered a letting down. His later warmness with Lucy had been constructed on paper; now, confronted with each other, the two young people remained aloof. But Ira offered affection and hospitality . . . Elkins felt himself received properly. Nevertheless there was a weakness, a lack of fulfillment here. The plague of Veronica’s insanity pervaded the household as did the odor of Andersonville. Harry sat by the woman’s bedside, was horrified but not too surprised at her shrinkage. He recognized fever, he felt the age-old perplexity of the physician who observes shadows of death merging, and feels that there is necessity in the approaching death; yet has sworn to hold it off as long as he may. In the end Elkins could recommend nothing but the hope that gruel and milk and soft eggs might be forced between the wooden jaws. He hoped the sufferer might be deluded into coöperation with those who would help her. Then he went to the prison hospital, he turned ghastly when he saw the prison hospital. He stayed for an afternoon and the following night; he slept heavily the next day, and was returned to the hospital before sunset.

 XXXV 

T
hey tortured Veronica through the night, cooking her on the griddle of her bed. Veronica wished to be free of the griddle and of Them. Who They were she did not know, but They were many; some were white, some colored, They had hands and voices, They did annoying things like sponging the shred which was her body, putting spoons to her lips. She would set her jaws, spill the contents of the spoons, laugh because she had tricked Them again.

Ninny, rouse yourself.

The servant grunted, sighed, rolled her head against the padded chair-back.

Ninny. I’m speaking to you! Rouse softly.

Eyes opened at last, the kinky head shook. Yas, Miss Lucy.

Lucy whispered intently, I’m falling asleep myself, watching so. It is after one by the clock, so I must snatch an hour’s sleep or I’ll be fit for nothing. Hear me now: the master is with Jem, doctoring the Blackberry cow again, trying to save her. Should he come into the house he is not to watch by my mother’s bed, but also must rest. Hear?

Yas’m.

You can’t tell time, mused Lucy unhappily. (She had tried to teach Ninny to tell time, she had taught Extra when they were small; Ninny could not be taught.) Do you come over here to the clock, Ninny. Now, watch with care. This large hand moves faster than the small one. It will go slowly around—like this—and will pass the small hand; then when it reaches
here,
you are to come to my room and awaken me. Understand?

Yas’m, whispered the black woman, bored and frightened by the soft ticking wooden clock.

Veronica heard low conversation, heard it unheeded. I won’t, she told herself stubbornly. Definitely I shall not. They cannot compel me. She lay with eyes closed, dry lips hanging apart and revealing a protrusion of her small beautiful teeth.

Later there was no sound in the room but that conversational clock and the easy snoring of the slave who again had fallen asleep a few minutes after Lucy left. Through coarse cloth fastened across open windows in lieu of mosquito netting came the vile odor and an audible medley of birds or children. . . . Her children? No. Safe. Asleep and must not be routed out. They’re gone to war. In the ground. The taller are dead. Nay, it is the smaller ones who are dead. Indeed, yes, Mrs. Ladshaw, Sutherland is still at Oglethorpe but this is his final year, commencement will occur in July. Moses has gone boating on the Flint with the McWhorters. Arwood lies sickly again, we fear for him.

She was ruled not only by craft of the demented but also by slyness of the cooked and dying. A deep resounding voice said, Come in, so she must respond to it as always. She’d heard the voice often in recent hours but, when she attempted to leave the pan in which she lay parching, certain creatures restrained her.

Miss Veronica, you must pretend to be tractable, pretend that you are submissive. With quiet leer and calm you must accept the heat over which They are baking you, even though you stick to the pan.

You are crying before a cupboard, you have shuddered down into a pile. This gown belonged to Baby Peggy, you have your face buried in it. . . . Move spectrally, or They’ll put you back into the skillet and build blazes higher.

Remotely birds and children made incessant mild tumult, closer at hand the Yellow Smell walked. It surrounded the bed as if curtains were drawn to hold it in; but curtains were not drawn. Veronica had her eyes opened at last (hard scheming burning eyes) and could see that it was true: curtains were caught up. She could look past the foot of the bed and see that solemn clock on its table, and the frizzled head of a servant lolling. Snoring again, said Veronica. Abominable sound. She should be broken of the habit, but how?

Please to recite the statistics concerning Macon, Miss Veronica.

Macon, Bibb County, has a population of two thousand, six hundred and thirty-five souls, according to the census of 1830. Of these there are whites to the number of one thousand, four hundred and fifty-two; blacks to the number of one thousand, one hundred and eighty-three.

Correct, Miss Veronica. Well done.

Had she said Well Done On the Whole, had Miss Benham said something about beetles? No, she spoke of sarcophagi.

There was a vacant mummy-case awaiting Lucy.

Come in . . . deep voice echoing through the hill. The stranger pointed with his cane. Best to tread in the direction indicated.

She slid from bed, making no noise as she went but the light whisper of skin-and-bone gliding over a sheet and out from under another sheet, stealthy murmur of sheets folded to allow her to pass from their prisoning. Her white hair clung heated on her shoulders, fire in her shoulders must set it to crackling. At least the bed, the griddle, claimed its suffering prey no longer. She was free but frying. She found annoyance in this realization—snarled about it, drawing back lips until the full pearliness of her teeth shone. Even this sound did not rouse Ninny. Veronica swept from the room, holding up the long crushed muslin of her gown daintily. She paced over shadowy air of the hall, walked on a cushion of air. . . . Ah, who’d left that candle at the head of the stair? It might cause a conflagration: she’d extinguish the candle.
Puff.

There was a pool . . . spring . . . pool where slippery green frogs were captured by the boys. Always a cool pool. Could she find that pool she would lave herself in it, splash her face, wash off the scorching, expunge patterned streaks which the grid must have branded upon her.

Stay, twas a pan.

But wash off the burning.

Quietly, quietly down the stair, hands pressing the rail, bare foot after bare foot seeking the next lower step; how many feet did she possess? As many as a caterpillar owned, and each pair of delicate adhesive feet cushioned on a single segment. But, Badger, child—you are to fetch no more live worms into the house! I know, I know—twill make a butterfly in time—but do you go to your father, and he can grant you space for your treasures in one of the sheds—all for your own. Shall you call it the Claffey Museum? Ah, indeed, a Museum of World-Wide Wonders? A splendid designation; and I shall be delighted to view it when you have your specimens in place.

Empty pin, waiting for Lucy.

Quietly, quietly—turning of the knob after the bolt is drawn—quietly, quietly. They shall not hear me and pursue, I shan’t let Them pursue. It is incredible, but They might harm the children as They’ve sought to harm me.

Come in.

There was a star above stolid black heat, more stars yonder . . . tilt your head wisely and observe the combined low lamp of stars. They’ll guide you to pool and coolness. Softly, easily, walking on empty cotton of the air, feeling nothing, nothing underfoot.

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt, burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
So said Ophelia, so said Ira Claffey in the game they played. Your turn is next and you must identify it, so name the hour and minute of Shakespeare: easy to do so, since Ira has used that quotation frequently in the past. Now, then:
eye,
and your own line must begin with an E. Inculcate lessons for the children, since they sit rapt and listening.
Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.
There, younguns—tis Proverbs, Twenty, Eleven—but I’ll not tell you. The burden is yours, the guess and reckoning and bickering are yours also. A raw cold wet evening outside, and Christmas approaches—what a time that will be for all!—and the eldest boys home from school, and Moses shall enter when he is sixteen. Now they are rioting, the two eldest demanding more of the peach cider. Lucy, daughter, do not guzzle it; of course tis not fermented—but a trifle at the most: Ira has reassured me—but drink demurely, my daughter, drink demurely. Mere sips, the token of jollity, the barest token.

O heat, dry up my brains!
There is too much heat, too persisting and head-twirling heat, so find the dark pool with dispatch . . . leaf mould making a cup above the soil, tiny scrolls of plants which swim and grow in their swimming, and Ira declared them to be algae. Unglimpsed, naturally, in this darkness and faint lamp of stars. But find the pool for its clamminess. The heat shall fade.

Halt, rang the changing voice of a young boy. Halt! Who goes there? His voice was a chicken-cry when he spoke so abruptly, he had the throat of a rooster.

What is a picket? I heard Them talking of pickets when They had me trapped in the pan. Once indeed there was mention of a war. . . . I have called, Mrs. Ladshaw, to pay my respects to you and to your husband, to offer what sympathy we may. We heard that your noble son gave a splendid account of himself before—before—

Someone else!

Yankees killed Moses. Yankees killed Suthy. Yankees killed my—my— Sally and Courtenay. They were but infants; the Yankees took them to the army and so they too—

Halt!

Sudden scratch of orange in the night, the singing and rush of some narrow pointed force close at hand.

Veronica continued walking the thick piled mass of dark air, her feet were unhurt by the pillow they trod. How strange that one foot should feel as if it were cut by a scrap of thrown-away metal or a splinter of wood, when her feet were swimming her forward to the pool and touching nothing, nothing.

Godsakes, Allie. What was that?

Me. Shot at something.

I heard you give a challenge. Who—?

Just seen something white. It kept a-moving and truly scairt the piss out of me.

Think you hit anything?

Didn’t hear no yell. Must have missed.

Better reload, cause the Captain of the Guard will—

I’m reloading right now. They any white mules around here?

I seen a gray one tother day. Might have been that, but I don’t see how you could have missed a mule.

Sure as hell I did miss. Else I kilt him dead.

Heat, dry up my brains.
For the sake of pity do not keep pounding them. Do not continue your scourging, Heat. Above all do not continue your ringing of bells and pushing of coals within me; and do not continue your dryness, dryness, dryness, my hands are dry.

Explosion of that gunpowder, contained within a musket barrel and booming free on the slope east of the Claffey house, brought Lucy upright in bed. Oh, blame, she thought, probably another guard has shot another prisoner. I’m positive it was a shot which disturbed me, seems I can sense its echoing, echoing. Is it too late, have I overslept, did Ninny fail to obey orders? Or perhaps Poppy has come into the house at last and sits nodding by that bed yonder— Poor thing, he should be asleep. Poor Poppy, he must sleep— In light gown and wrapper she trotted along the hall, and a moment later was cuffing Ninny savagely.

You black
wretch.
You— Where
is
she, where
is
she?

Ninny blubbered, Mistess, I done know! She—she gone from her bed—

Run, get my father. Hear me?
Run!
Lucy swung the palm of her hand, her hand grazed Ninny’s hair and ear, the servant howled and went rushing. Through night below the rear windows Lucy could hear Ninny groaning her rapid way past cabins toward the cow shed, her cries of Mastah,
Masss
tah
growing more prolonged and growing in volume. Lucy ran from room to room, she lighted a candle here, a candle there, lighted a lamp. She dropped down to look into threatening space below each bed in turn. Even Harrell Elkins’s bed; it had not been made since he slept in it; she saw the creases his male body had put upon the sheet. . . . There were no closets in the house. Houses like the Claffeys’ were never built with closets; but Lucy banged open doors of every wardrobe which might have contained the shape of her mother, that desiccated form gone to eighty pounds or less. She held a frantic notion that her mother might have sought to immure herself in one of those chests dedicated to the dead children; she beat fists against the chests; they were locked. Veronica was not above stairs. As Lucy sped down into the lower hall she heard Ira Claffey open the rear door with a crash. She floundered to meet him.

She’s gone, Poppy!

Not in one of the other bedrooms?

No, no, I’ve searched all. That shiftless wench was dozing, and Mother left her bed— Poppy, Poppy! I should never have lain
down
!