The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories (49 page)

“I don’t think you understand,” Grant said, recovering some part of himself that had begun to drift off through the mystical fog in which the Indians always veiled themselves. He must do something concrete to counteract so much vagueness. “I’m speaking of a business venture. A partnership.”

“I hear your words. But I see something deeper in you. Something that sleeps in all men. They come here seeking what is lost, looking for freedom and a cause. But all they find are the things that went wrong. Why are you so out of balance, eh? You stumble and crawl, but you always end up here with that same empty look in your eyes. I’ve seen you before. A dozen just like you.”

“I’m an art dealer,” Grant said. “Not a - a pilgrim. If you can show me more work like this, I’d be grateful. Otherwise, I’m sorry for wasting your time, and I’ll be on my way.”

Suddenly he was anxious to get away, and this seemed a reasonable excuse. But the jeweller now seemed ready to accommodate him.

“Art, then,” he said. “All right. I will show you the thing that speaks to you, and perhaps then you will understand. Art is also a way to the soul.”

He slipped down from the stool and moved towards the door, obviously intending Grant to follow.

“I’ll show you more than this,” the Indian said. “I’ll show you inspiration.”

* * * *

After another dizzying walk, they entered a derelict museum in a district that stank of danger. Grant felt safe only because of his companion; he was obviously a stranger here, in these oppressive alleys. Even inside the place, which seemed less a museum than a warehouse, he sensed that he was being watched. It was crowded by silent mobs, many of them children, almost all of them Negro or Indian. Some sat in circles on the cement floors, talking quietly among themselves, as though taking instruction. Pawnee, Chickasaw, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Comanche . . . Arnoldsburg was a popular site for tourists, but these didn’t have the look of the ruddy middle-class traveller; these were lower-class ruddies, as tattered as the people in the street. Some had apparently crossed the continent on foot to come here. He felt as if he had entered a church.

“Now you shall see,” said the jeweller. “This is the art of the patriots. The forefathers. The hidden ones.”

He stopped near a huge canvas that leaned against a steel beam; the painting was caked with grease, darkened by time, but even through the grime he could see that it was the work of genius. An imitation of da Vinci’s
Last Supper,
but strangely altered ...

The guests at Christ’s table wore not biblical attire, but that of the eighteenth century. It was no windowed building that sheltered them, but a tent whose walls gave the impression of a strong wind beating against them from without. The thirteen were at table, men in military outfits, and in their midst a figure of mild yet radiant demeanour, humble in a powdered wig, a mere crust of bread on his plate. Grant did not recognize him, this figure in Christ’s place, but the man in Judas’s place was recognizable enough from the numerous busts and portraits in Arnoldsburg. That was Benedict Arnold.

The Indian pointed at several of the figures, giving them names: “Henry Knox, Nathaniel Greene, Light-Horse Harry Lee, Lafayette, General Rochambeau—”

“Who painted this?”

“It was the work of Benjamin Franklin,” said his guide. “Painted not long after the betrayal at West Point, but secretly, in sadness, when the full extent of our tragedy became all too apparent. After West Point, the patriots continued to fight. But this man, this one man, was the glue that held the soldiers together. After His death, the army had many commanders, but none could win the trust of all men. The revolution collapsed and our chance for freedom slipped away. Franklin died without finishing it, his heart broken.”

“But that man in the middle?”

The Indian led him to another painting. This was much more recent, judging from the lack of accumulated soot and grease. Several children stood gazing at it, accompanied by a darkie woman who was trying to get them to analyse the meaning of what was essentially a simple image.

“What is this?” she asked.

Several hands went up. “The cherry tree!” chimed a few voices.

“That’s right, the cherry tree. Who can tell us the story of the cherry tree?”

One little girl pushed forward. “He chopped it down and when He saw what He had done, He said, ‘I cannot let it die.’ So He planted the piece He cut off and it grew into a new tree, and the trunk of the old tree grew too, because it was magic.”

“Very good. Now that’s a fable, of course. Do you know what it really means? What the cherry tree represents?”

Grant felt like one of her charges, waiting for some explanation, innocent.

“It’s an English cherry,” the teacher hinted.

Hands went up. “The tree!” “I know!” “It’s England.”

“That’s right. And the piece He transplanted?”

“America!”

“Very good. And do you remember what happened next? It isn’t shown in this painting, but it was very sad. Tinsha?”

“When His father saw what He had done, he was very scared. He was afraid his son was a devil or something, so he tore up the little tree by the roots. He tore up America.”

“And you know who the father really was, don’t you?”

“The . . . king?” said Tinsha.

Grant and his guide went on to another painting, this one showing a man in a powdered wig and a ragged uniform walking across a river in midwinter - not stepping on the floes, but moving carefully between them, on the breast of the frigid water. With him came a band of barefoot men, lightly touching hands, the first of them resting his fingers on the cape of their leader. The men stared at the water as if they could not believe their eyes, but there was only confidence in the face of their commander - that and a serene humility.

“This is the work of Sully, a great underground artist,” said the jeweller.

“These . . . these are priceless.”

The Indian shrugged. “If they were lost tomorrow, we would still carry them with us. It is the feelings they draw from our hearts that are truly beyond price. He came for all men, you see. If you accept Him, if you open your heart to Him, then His death will not have been in vain.”

“Washington,” Grant said, the name finally coming to him. An insignificant figure of the American Wars, an arch-traitor whose name was a mere footnote in the histories he’d read. Arnold had defeated him, hadn’t he? Was that what had happened at West Point? The memories were vague and unreal, textbook memories.

The jeweller nodded. “George Washington,” he repeated. “He was leading us to freedom, but He was betrayed and held out as an example. In Philadelphia He was publicly tortured to dispirit the rebels, then hung by His neck after his death, and His corpse toured through the colonies. And that is our sin, the penance which we must pay until every soul has been brought back into balance.”

“Your sin?”

The Indian nodded, drawing from the pouch at his waist another of the shrivelled icons, Christ - no, Washington - on the cross.

“We aided the British in that war. Cherokee and Iroquois, others of the Six Nations. We thought the British would save us from the colonists; we didn’t know that they had different ways of enslavement. My ancestors were master torturers. When Washington was captured it fell to them - to us - to do the bloodiest work.”

His hands tightened on the figure of flesh; the splintered wood dug into his palm.

“We nailed Him to the bars of a cross, borrowing an idea that pleased us greatly from your own religion.”

The brown hand shook. The image rose to the golden mouth.

“First, we scalped Him. The powdered hair was slung from a warrior’s belt. His flesh was pierced with thorns and knives. And then we flayed Him alive.”

“Flayed ...”

Grant winced as golden teeth nipped a shred of jerky and tore it away.

“Alive . . . ?”

“He died bravely. He was more than a man. He was our deliverer, saviour of all men, white, red, and black. And we murdered Him. We pushed the world off balance.”

“What is this place?” Grant asked. “It’s more than a museum, isn’t it? It’s also a school.”

“It is a holy place. His spirit lives here, in the heart of the city named for the man who betrayed Him. He died to the world two hundred years ago, but He still lives in us. He is champion of the downtrodden, liberator of the enslaved.” The jeweller’s voice was cool despite the fervour of his theme. “You see ... I have looked beyond the walls of fire that surround this world. I have looked into the world that should have been, that would have been if He had lived. I saw a land of the free, a land of life, liberty, and happiness, where the red men lived in harmony with the white. Our plains bore fruit instead of factories. And the holy cause, that of the republic, spread from the hands of the Great Man. The king was dethroned and England too made free. The bell of liberty woke the world; the four winds carried the cause.” The jeweller bowed his head. “That is how it would have been. This I have seen in dreams.”

Grant looked around him at the paintings, covered with grime but carefully attended; the people, also grimy but with an air of reverence. It was a shame to waste them here, on these people. He imagined the paintings hanging in a well-lit gallery, the patina of ages carefully washed away; saw crowds of people in fine clothes, decked in his gold jewellery, each willing to pay a small fortune for admission. With the proper sponsorship, a world tour could be brought off. He would be a wealthy man, not merely a survivor, at the end of such a tour.

The Indian watched him, nodding. “I know what you’re thinking. You think it would be good to tell the world of these things, to spread the cause. You think you can carry the message to all humanity, instead of letting it die here in the dark. But I tell you ... it thrives here. Those who are oppressed, those who are broken and weary of spirit, they are the caretakers of liberty.”

Grant smiled inwardly; there was a bitter taste in his mouth.

“I think you underestimate the worth of all this,” he said. “You do it a disservice to hide it from the eyes of the world. I think everyone can gain something from it.”

“Yes?” The Indian looked thoughtful. He led Grant towards a table where several old books lay open, their pages swollen with humidity, spines cracking, paper flaking away.

“Perhaps you are right,” he said, turning the pages of one book entitled
The Undying Patriot,
edited by a Parson Weems. “It may be as Doctor Franklin says ...”

Grant bent over the page, and read:

Let no man forget His death. Let not the memory of our great Chief and Commander fade from the thoughts of the common people, who stand to gain the most from its faithful preservation. For once these dreams have fad’d, there is no promise that they may again return. In this age and the next, strive to hold true to the honor’d principals for which He fought, for which he was nail’d to the rude crucifix and his flesh stript away. Forget not His sacrifice, His powder’d wig and crown of thornes. Forget not that a promise I can never be repair’d.

“I think you are right,” said the jeweller. “How can we take it upon ourselves to hide this glory away? It belongs to the world, and the world shall have it.”

He turned to Grant and clasped his hands. His eyes were afire with a patriotic light. “He brought you to me, I see that now. This is a great moment. I thank you, brother, for what you will do.”

“It’s only my duty,” Grant said.

Yes. Duty.

* * * *

And now he stood in the sweltering shadows outside the warehouse, the secret museum, watching the loading of several large vans. The paintings were wrapped in canvas so that none could see them. He stifled an urge to rush up to the loading men and tear away the cloth, to look once more on that noble face. But the police were thick around the entrance.