The Spy on the Tennessee Walker (2 page)

PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE

VICTORIA, OCTOBER 1941
VICTORIA, OCTOBER 1941

OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI

       
“My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.”

— William Faulkner in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature, December 10, 1950

I have been in county jails and I have been in prison. I thought I knew confinement. But there is no confinement like old age. When the bars that held me were iron, I knew with certitude that there would come a day when I could walk through the door and be a free woman again.

Today is my ninety-ninth birthday, and my days of walking through my door or any other are diminishing with alarming speed.

But today I can and will walk through the door. My great-granddaughter, who carries my middle name as her given name and shares my birthday, is coming to visit. We will go for a walk together, out to the square, and sit in the autumn sun. Sometimes we run into people we know. Our mayor always stops to greet me, and ask what scandalous novel I'm reading. And we often encounter that young
writer, Mr. William Faulkner. I have read two of his books and liked them very much, but not enough people pay attention to him. And I believe he and his wife, Estelle, his boyhood sweetheart, are a little too fond of their cocktails. What's more, soon no one will call him a “young writer.” He will not see forty again. He always gives my Alma an admiring glance, and passes some foolish compliment about how much we resemble each other.

Two people could not look more different, and still be alike. We both have green eyes. In that we are alike. But she is one-and-twenty, and has a head full of red curls corralled at the nape of her neck with a black velvet ribbon. My hair is whiter than picture-postcard snow, and I can no longer manage to pin it up by myself. Alma will do that for me when she arrives.

We are alike. We are both nurses. But my darling Alma was trained in school and in clean, fitted-out hospitals. I learned my trade (and it was a trade then, not a profession) in terrible places: the battlefields at Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, and Manassas, and in hospitals like Chimborazo, home to the Confederate wounded. And I also cared for Union boys, at Lincoln and Armory Square in Washington, DC. But it was those sad battlefield rides I remember most vividly, though I have spent more than seventy years trying to forget. Even today, I can recall the precise stinking chemistry of the battleground smell: blood, terror, hopelessness, grief.

I would ride in on my Tennessee Walker, a proud and
handsome horse, some sixteen hands high. His name was Courage. It was good one of us had that name. I would dismount with my kit bag, and I would make that awful walk from fallen man to fallen man, while we awaited the wagons transporting the living to hospital. I had so little to offer: rudimentary skills, some precious laudanum, and bandages. Clean, cold water to slake thirst and bring fevers down. “Oh, thank you,” they would say, gentlemen and tenant farmers and paupers alike. Mud and blood are great levelers of men. And when I could walk no farther, I would sink to the ground and hold the hand of the nearest dying man. “Tell me your dearest's name,” I would whisper. And whatever I heard, “my wife, Margaret”; “my sweetheart, Esther”; “my little sister, Marie”; “my mother, Virginia,” I would spin a fine tale around that name. About beautiful Esther who would greet her love when the war was over with plum-colored ribbons in her blond hair; about loyal Marie, who would be hanging on the garden gate, grown up but still worshipping her big brother; about Virginia, the mother who would somehow have laid hands on butter and sugar to bake her boy's homecoming cake. And the men would die with those words in their ears. Lies, all lies, but better medicine than anything I could offer.

My memory is unreliable these days. Sometimes I feel the way I do when I go to the moving-pictures with Alma. If it's a beautiful scene, I will want to hold onto it. But it slips away and I can't even recall what I loved so much on the screen. When I close my eyes at night, I still see moving-pictures.
I don't always know what happened where or when, but I see so much as clear as day. A smile I loved. A song. An embrace. An adventure: going high in the sky in a balloon or the terrible sound of cannons or the crack of a rifle. I no longer have the energy to puzzle things out in a linear way, nor the courage to face all my memories. I could, I suppose, re-read my journals, but I am happier letting memories drift in for a visit and then vanish again. Most are good. Not all, certainly. But enough.

Now Alma will need some courage of her own. She is coming to tell me her news, but her mother and grandmother have spilled the beans already. Alma is enlisting in the Army Nurse Corps, and though our United States is not yet at war, many think that time is coming very soon. Alma's mother, Jessamyn, and her grandmother Hester are distraught. They think I should interfere with Alma's decision. And while I do not like for one moment to contemplate dear Alma, the great-grandchild of my heart, being in harm's way, I will not withhold my blessing.

She is a Cardworthy woman, and we go where we are called.

Ah, I hear her key in my door. And so her adventure begins.

CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1

MAGGIE, 2014
MAGGIE, 2014

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

Sometimes you walk in the front door and there's something awaiting you other than the chaos of a one-dog, one-cat, two-boy, one-husband household. Sometimes, there are sounds and smells of dinner cooking (ten percent of the time); sometimes the younger, non-teenage member of the household, that would be Zach, age ten, will be lying in wait to deliver a bone-crushing hug and an “I love you, Mommy” (fifteen percent of the time, though dwindling as the teenage years draw ever closer); and sometimes there's a nice surprise: banana bread from a neighbor, flowers that Michael has sent for some mysterious husbandly reason, or — very, very, very occasionally — a piece of interesting mail (five percent of the time).

It was a five-percent evening. A large box sat on the dining room table, addressed to me, Mrs. Michael Fiori, in a hand I'd known since childhood, the elegant swoops and swirls of my mother's youngest sister, Aunt Phoebe. Oxford, Mississippi, was the return address.

I am a sucker for a package, especially one sent by an actual person and not an anonymous fulfillment picker at an unnamed Amazon warehouse. I kicked
off my shoes, padded into the kitchen, was shocked, shocked, shocked to find the scissors precisely where they were supposed to be, and within a few minutes, had snipped and ripped my way into the box. On top was a note from Uncle Beau, Aunt Phoebe's husband and the family genealogist.

Maggie, dear, I thought you might like a reminder of how the generations unfolded on your mother's side.

Below his note was a string of names, starting with my great-great-great-grandmother Victoria Cardworthy, 1841–1942, and ending with me.

       
Victoria Alma Cardworthy Stern, 1841–1942 (Maggie's great-great-great-grandmother)

       
Victoria's daughter Hester, 1867–1948 (Maggie's great-great-grandmother)

       
Victoria's granddaughter Jessamyn Alma, 1897–1965 (Maggie's great-grandmother)

       
Victoria's great-granddaughter Alma, 1919–2012, married to Morris (Maggie's grandmother)

       
Victoria's great-great-granddaughter Isabella, 1945– (Maggie's mother)

       
Victoria's great-great-great-granddaughter, Maggie Stern Fiori, 1974–

Underneath the note was a carefully bubble-wrapped double frame. I tore off the bubble wrap and touched my finger gently to the glass. Two women faced each other in a hinged frame. On the right, my glamorous Grandmama Alma. She was waving to someone and laughing in sheer delight. I wasn't sure of the year, but she already had captain's bars on her olive uniform, so
it had to be late in the war. Funny how Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have all done their terrible damage, but I still think of World War II as “The War.” It was my grandparents' war, and both Alma and Morris served in the military. When Grandmama Alma was buried two years ago, her casket had been draped in a flag. Until then, I had seen that sight only in the movies or on television, but there it was, in real life. And I'd watched my boys, sitting on either side of me clutching my hands, wondering at what they were seeing. We sat in silent witness as two sober-faced, handsome young men in uniform folded the flag in a precise triangle and presented it with great reverence to my grandfather.

I had an album and a thumb drive full of photos of both Grandmama Alma and Papa Morris, but I'd never seen this photo. And now Papa Morris's grip on his memory was slipping away. I think the best part of him was already wandering the world, looking for Alma and longing to be together again.

In the facing frame was a daguerreotype of a serious woman astride a horse. She had on a long skirt, and I could see rugged, rough-and-ready boots in the stirrups. And it looked as if she'd just come to a stop. Her bonnet had fallen back on her neck, held on with a tattered sash tied under her chin.

“Mom, is that you? Were you dressed up for some weird costume party? Or Halloween?” I jumped. I hadn't even heard Josh, not the quietest of galumphing fifteen-year-olds, come into the kitchen.

“Hi, honey,” I said, putting the frame down. “How was your day?”

He shrugged. “You know. The usual. Blah blah blah.
Boring, boring, boring. Here's the big news: Somebody finally snitched about Mr. Avery's little dope enterprise.”

“What? The French teacher? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Everybody knew. Like he went to Morocco for every vacation on some pathetic teacher's salary? He was running a fine little
j'ne sai
excellent-shit import-export operation out of there.”

“Mr. Avery?!?”

He made a current universal teenage gesture, pantomiming taking a pill and swallowing it down. “Chill pill, Mom. I wasn't one of his customers.”

“Oh, good,” I said faintly. “So reassuring to know.”

He picked up the frame. “Seriously, what's the deal? Did you get a new app to make yourself look like Annie Oakley?”

I pointed at the woman on the horse. “You think that's me?”

“It is you,” he said. “Same eyes, same hair. And by the way, even if you're on horseback for some lame reason, you need some product in that hair.” He looked thoughtful. “I could get Lexie to help you.” Lexie. The Cupcake. The one Michael called the strumpet-of-the-month. She dressed like catastrophe with a capital C and it stands for cleavage, but she was Josh's crush, so I had to hold, bite, imprison, and otherwise restrain my tongue.

“That would be nice,” I said carefully. “I'd love to hear what product Lexie uses on her hair. It's certainly very….”

“Hot. Even her hair looks hot.” Josh sighed. He was smitten.

“Well, honey,” I said. “I hate to break to it you, but your mom just may never have hot hair, whatever that is.” I heard myself sounding like a killjoy. “I could try Lexie's product,” I said, brightly. “You know, give your dad a thrill to be hanging out with someone who has ‘hot hair.'” He winced.

I turned back to the mystery photo, the one that Josh identified as me. “And sorry, that's not me. I'm not sure who it is, but the other photo is definitely your Great-Grandmama Alma.”

“She was hot,” he said, “in her day. Papa Morris told me. Plus, remember what great kreplach she used to make? Plus, man oh man, she had good stories about World War II. All that shit.…”

“Perhaps a different word.”

“Yeah, well, all that
stuff
about smuggling whiskey across the border in perfume bottles….”

“You remember those stories?”

“Yeah, of course. She had
adventures.
She went to war and she saved people's lives. And she was, you know, like a big shot for that time. She was a captain.”

I stared at Josh. Surprises every day. “I had no idea you were so interested in Grandmama Alma's stories.”

Josh sighed, “I'm
interested
in stuff that's interesting,” he said with the long-suffering patience of a teenager who has to deconstruct information for dimwitted adults. “Ninety percent of which does not happen at school.” He picked up the double frame again. “You're sure you're not that lady on the horse, huh? Like it was a costume and you just forgot you dressed up like that? She's your doppelglanger.”

“Nice vocabulary,” I said distractedly, “but the word
is actually
doppelganger.
Definitely the right idea, though. Doppelgangers are ghostly versions of ourselves, and whoever this woman is, she must be a ghost by now.”

I put my arm around Josh again and we looked at the photo together. Mr. Standoffish tolerated me for a minute, then I could tell he was looking to shrug me off. “I do see what you mean,” I said. “Whoever that woman was, we do look as if we could be twins.” In fact, looking at the mystery woman on the very tall horse was a little like looking into the mirror.

“Call Aunt Phoebe,” said Josh. “Maybe Uncle Beau knows. He's into all that genealogy stuff.”

“Splendid idea.”

“All my ideas are splendid, Mom. Like how this summer Lexie and I should climb Half Dome.”

“Splendid idea, but the answer is no,
non, nyet, nein
.”

“Really? 'Cause Dad says he's open to a conversation.”

“As am I. Open to conversations about almost anything — world peace, hair-care products, Mr. Avery's illegal entrepreneurship, emerging economies, all the many ways I approve of Justin Timberlake. Just not a conversation about you, Lexie, and Half Dome.” I could see Josh deciding if this was the moment for sweet-talking, negotiation, or sullen retreat. He gave me an appraising look, turned on his heel, and headed upstairs. Another triumph of inept teenage parenting. Was there a manual somewhere?

I put the framed photos on top of the carved mahogany sideboard. The sideboard had been Grandmama Alma's, and the photos looked right at home. I
gathered up the papers to take out to recycling, then stopped. There was something else in the package, I shook it gently, and a small, soft, leather-bound book slipped onto the table. I picked it up and it rested perfectly in my hand. Dark, mottled red cover, with a tarnished gold-stamped oval and the words “Drum-Taps” inside the oval. On the flyleaf I read, “To my friend and fellow wound-dresser, Victoria Alma Cardworthy. We are bound forever by love, blood, and grief.”

“Walt Whitman,” I said aloud. “Walt Whitman inscribed this for my great-great-great-grandmother.”