Part 34 (2/2)
Suspicious glances flitted about the circle of faces. Was this some sort of charlatan, a fraud?
”Your son, when he asked me to deliver this letter, thought that perhaps you were still in New Orleans, but I inquired and learned you were not.”
”Beast Butler forced us to leave.” Ferdinand said coldly.
Dr. Zacharie smiled. ”I understand your feelings.”
”Tell what you can about my brother, please,” Miriam asked with polite impatience.
”Oh, he has been in the thick of battles, he told me, but he seems to have survived pretty well. We really hadn't much time to talk. Both of us happened to be in the city for a couple of events, when the facilities of the Jews' Hospital were offered to the government for wounded soldiers. And then again at the Sanitary Fair, a day later. Raised over a million dollars for war relief. When he heard that I was bound for New Orleans-well,” Zacharie said delicately, ”I have brought some things. I happened to mention to Rabbi Illowy in New Orleans that I was coming here, and he suggested that possibly-the devastation ... There are a few things in the carriage.”
Directing Sisyphus to carry in an armful of blankets and quilts, Miriam thought, Gifts come from strange sources these days-first from Queen, and now from this peculiar man. But G.o.d knows they are welcome.
When she came back into the parlor, the man was saying, ”Yes, my family is in Savannah, and it's a terrible hards.h.i.+p to be away from them. But if there is anything I can do to bring peace about, I will go to any lengths to do it.”
Emma grasped the arms of her chair. Her pink flesh drooped; she had lost many pounds and her eyes were heavy with anxiety. Pelagie's third son had now gone away to fight. As yet there had been no casualties in her flock, but each day increased the likelihood of one.
”Just how will you do that?” she asked skeptically.
Dr. Zacharie waved a hand, dismissing the question.
”With all respect, madam, these are official matters, highly confidential, of which I can't speak. Oh, I can tell you that I have something to do with readjusting exchange rates between the Union currency and the local, but that's a small matter, and common knowledge anyway.” He lowered his voice. ”Unofficially, though, I can tell you that I've made myself very helpful to many Jews-I am one myself, you see-both northern Jews caught in New Orleans and southern Jews who have left the city for the Confederacy. In dire straits, they are, because they refuse to take the oath.”
”My G.o.d, how long will this go on!” cried Miriam.
”Too long. But the longer it lasts, the more certain the Union is to win. Well, you asked me,” Zacharie apologized.
”Yes, go on, please.”
”We all know the Confederacy hopes to gain the support of France and England, but their missions, supposed to be secret, have all failed.”
Andre ... Then, where is he now?
”For one thing, England found new sources of cotton in Egypt and India, and for another, the laboring cla.s.ses, both of France and England, are so against the inst.i.tution of slavery that their governments wouldn't dare at this point to do otherwise. It has become a moral issue, especially in England.”
”A moral issue!” Rosa exclaimed. Her shattered nerves, now gradually piecing themselves together, had given her voice a grating tone. ”Yes, for the Confederacy it is indeed a moral issue to protect ourselves against a foreign invader! You have attacked our homes .... You have only to look! My brother, sir, a lawyer, a student of affairs, a just-minded man as all who know him will attest to, even he always said it is not a question of morality in the North; it is money! Consider the wealth they get from our cotton, far more than we get, who raise it! Their banks thrive on the slavery they prate about!” she finished pa.s.sionately.
Miriam was embarra.s.sed. ”Dr. Zacharie has come on an errand of kindness. Let's leave these subjects.”
”I've come and I must go,” the doctor said with unruffled good nature. ”I have a thousand errands back in the city.”
”What did you think of him?” asked Ferdinand when he had seen Zacharie out of the house.
Miriam considered. ”He is either a clever imposter, or a high-minded benefactor. Take your choice.”
Emma said disconsolately, ”He seems sure we are beaten.”
”Never believe it,” Ferdinand argued. ”Our forces will be back. You will see the men in gray ride up this lane again before very long. Mark my words.”
A spurt of rain struck the windowpane, followed by a flight of wind that rattled them in their frames. The autumn storms had come. Rain and mud will hold up the fighting, Miriam thought with grat.i.tude.
But Ferdinand had just said that the men in gray would be back. And that meant more fighting, more deaths of young men.
Also quite possibly, could it mean that Andre might be back, too? If he were still alive ... and it seemed to her that to be told she would not see him for ten years, or even never again, would be the hardest thing to bear; but to be told that he was dead would be unbearable.
Dear Sister [David wrote], and Papa, too, if he has forgiven me enough to hear my letter. Since I have not heard from you in so long, I must a.s.sume that it is because your letters have not reached me. I only hope this reaches you through the good offices of Dr. Zacharie. I have been moving about the country and covered more territory than I would have thought possible in so short a time.
After the battle at Corinth I was sent northward to the Memphis area, where I have been tending the wounded again. It is a kind of work to which I shall never become accustomed. Pray G.o.d I will not have to do it much longer and that this war will end, because the suffering I see, unlike disease, is not a natural phenomenon but man-made, to man's everlasting disgrace.
And then there are the wounds to the spirit. Are they, perhaps, even worse? I'm thinking of Grant's infamous Order Number Eleven, expelling all Jews from the Department of Tennessee. I take for granted that you've read about it and read as well the good news that Lincoln once more came to the rescue and has had it rescinded.
Maybe you couldn't believe it when you first learned of it; I know I couldn't. But it was true. I myself saw an old couple, a traditional, bearded Jew and his shabby little wife, being bullied and bustled by soldiers onto a train. The woman was weeping so- Miriam put the letter down. Her heart raced. The women were weeping. So went the story, heard a hundred times over, of her mother's death. And she read on.
In case you don't know what it was all about, I'll tell you. There's been a scandalous traffic across battle lines, speculation in cotton, bribing and taking bribes for permits. Some of the people doing it are Jews, as some are not. But Grant punished only the Jews-and all Jews, not just the guilty (mes! And who was, who is, the most guilty, and the richest of all? Jesse Grant, the general's own father!
I still see that poor old couple, hardly able to totter about, much less run around gathering a fortune in cotton! It hurts me to see such brutality on my side of the war.
Now here's something that will surprise you. The very next day after I saw all this, one of the majors here offered me a connection with a man down near Vicksburg who has enough cotton on his place to supply a mill for a week. We could slip it out on one of our gunboats, he said; it's done all the time, which I know. And he said the man was a ”real southern aristocrat”; the name was Labouisse. I must have looked startled because he asked me whether I'd ever heard the name before. Heard the name! Miriam, it will haunt me for the rest of my life.
The son, dead at my hands, and the grandsons, fighting for what they believe in, while the grandfather, the aristocrat, sells to their enemy!
And do you know, after Grant expelled the Jewish traders, the trade got bigger? Whom could he blame it on then? I'll tell you, as Opa used to say, it's a strange world!
Do you often think about Opa? I didn't used to, but now I find myself remembering that old life so clearly-I suppose because I'm so far from anything at all familiar. I suppose it's only natural, when you're afraid, to remember home. I think about that day when Papa arrived in the coach, and I have to smile at myself: I thought then that he looked like a prince! And how strange our village must have seemed to him after his years in America! I wonder whether at some time in our lives you or I may ever go back to see it again. I don't even know whether I want to ....
My thoughts are jumbled as I write here in the half-dark; it's late and in a few hours I shall have to get up, for we expect an ambulance train around dawn. How I long for a wholesome practice again, doing sane, good things like, for instance, bringing healthy twins into the world!
How are my healthy twins? I keep a calendar in my mind to estimate their progress. Eugene ought to be getting a good deal taller than Angelique about now. His voice must have changed .... I know you are now mother and father to them. It was a cruel thing for them to lose their father, and in such a frightful way.
But I know, too, that you will manage, and they will grow up well. Tell them how I love them. Tell them not to forget me.
For the present the war continues, and I with it. I am expecting to be transferred to the east, somewhere in Virginia, I think.
May we all survive and be together again.
Your brother,
David
25.
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