The Best Alternate History Stories Of The Twentieth Century Part 18

He snorted.

"A thoughtless remark, excusable only because automatic. How could I act differently? Like you, I am a prisoner of stimuli."

"How pointless to risk ruin and imprisonment as a member of the Grand Army when you can't change what's predestined."

"I can no more help engaging myself in the underground than I can help breathing, or my heart beating, or dying when the time comes. Nothing, they say, is certain but death and taxes; actually everything is certain. Everything...."

Tyss never tried to conceal the extent of his activity in the Grand Army any more than he attempted to indoctrinate me with its principles. One illegal paper, the True American, came from his press and I often saw crumpled proofs of large-type warnings to "Get Out of Town you Conf. TRAITOR or the GA will HANG YOU!"

I knew that Pondible and the others who bore an indefinable resemblance whether bearded or not came to the store on Grand Army business, and I knew that many of the errands I was sent on advanced, or were supposed to advance, the Grand Army's cause. Unwilling to face the moral issue of being, no matter how remotely, accessory to mayhem, kidnaping and murder, or the connected economic one of being unemployed, I simply refused to acknowledge I was aiding the underground organization, but looked upon my duties solely as concerned with the bookstore.

My distaste for the Grand Army bred in me no sympathy for the Whigs or for those who were generally considered to be their masters, the Confederates. My reading taught me conclusively that, contrary to the accepted view in the United States, the victors in the War of Southron Independence had been men of the highest probity, and the n.o.blest among them was their second president. But I also knew that immediately after the Peace of Richmond, less dedicated individuals became increasingly powerful in the new nation. As Sir John Dahlberg remarked, "Power tends to corrupt."

From his first election in 1865 until his death ten years later, President Lee had been the prisoner of an increasingly headstrong and imperialistic congress. He had opposed the invasion and conquest of Mexico by the Confederacy which had been undertaken on the pretext of restoring order during the conflict between the emperor and the republicans. However, he had too profound a respect for the const.i.tutional processes to continue this opposition in the face of joint resolutions by the Confederate Congress.

Lee remained a symbol, but as the generation which had fought for independence died, the ideals he symbolized faded. Negro emanc.i.p.ation, enacted largely because of the pressure of men like Lee, soon revealed itself as a device for obtaining the benefits of slavery without its obligations. The freedmen on both sides of the new border were without franchise, and indeed for all practical purpose, without civil rights. Yet while the old Union first restricted and then abolished immigration, the Confederacy encouraged it, making the immigrants subjects, like the Latin-Americans who made up so much of the Southron population after the Confederacy expanded southward, limiting full citizens.h.i.+p to posterity of residents in the Confederate States on July Fourth 1864.

My reading of history-and by this time I had found there was no other study holding the same steady attraction for me-together with my strong revulsion to Tyss's philosophy convinced me there had been a radical alteration in the direction of the world's progress during the past century. It seemed to me humanity had been heading for longer and longer stretches of peace, greater intelligence in dealing with its problems, more of the necessities and luxuries of life more evenly distributed. But with the War of Southron Independence the trend changed, not into immediate and obvious retrogression perhaps, but certainly away from the bright future which had seemed so a.s.sured in 1850.

Take the pervasive fear of imminent war which hung over the world, a fear which was interrupted only by the outbreak of the conflicts themselves-which ranged from skirmishes between civilized powers equipped with modern weapons of extermination and barbarians with nothing more lethal than a bow or a blowgun, to global belligerency. This fear hung, ever more lowering and insistent as it became increasingly predictable that the antagonists in the great clash would be the Confederacy and the German Union.

Both could date their impetus from 1864 when the North German Confederation beat the Danes. From then on the expansion of the two countries was parallel; while the Confederacy worked its way methodically toward Cape Horn and westward through the Pacific, the German Union absorbed the Balkans and made a close alliance with the suddenly rejuvenated Spanish Empire. In the Emperors' War of 191416 the Confederacy had the opportunity of stepping in and giving its rival a mortal blow, and the action would have been popular, for the majority of Southrons, like the inhabitants of the United States, were sympathetic to the cause of England, France and Russia. But for a variety of reasons the Confederacy stayed neutral, allowing the German Union to absorb Ukrainia, Poland and the Baltic States, northern Italy, western France and the Low Countries. The Confederacy took the reward of this course by annexing Alaska from Russia and attaching the crippled British Empire to its...o...b..t in close alliance, so that the two great powers were fairly balanced. The attraction of even so minor a country as the United States not only meant much to either side, but almost surely meant the war itself would be fought on the territory of this new satellite.

Because of all this I realized the Grand Army was in a position to play a much more important part than any similar illegal organization in another country.

Just how it was using its opportunity was something of which I became only gradually aware.

IV.

Among customers to whom I frequently delivered parcels of books there was a Monsieur Rene Enfandin who lived on Eighth Street, not far from Fifth Avenue. M. Enfandin was Consul for the Republic of Haiti; the house he occupied was distinguished from its otherwise equally drab neighbors by a large red and blue escutcheon over the doorway. He did not, however, use the entire dwelling himself, reserving only the parlor floor for the office of the consulate and living quarters; the rest was let to other tenants.

He had an arrangement with Tyss whereby he turned back most of the books he bought for credit on others. I soon saw that if he hadn't, his library would shortly have dispossessed him; as it was, books covered all the s.p.a.ce not taken by the essential paraphernalia of his office and bedroom with the exception of a bit of bare wall on which hung a large crucifix. He seemed always to have a volume in his large, dark brown hand, politely closed over his thumb, or open for eager sampling.

Enfandin was tall and strong-featured, notable in any company. In the United States, where a black man was an irritating reminder of a disastrously lost war and Mr. Lincoln's ill-advised proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation, he was the permanent target of rowdy boys and adult hoodlums. Even the diplomatic immunity of his post was poor protection, for it was believed-not without justification-that Haiti, the only American republic south of the Mason-Dixon line to preserve its independence, was disrupting the official if sporadically executed United States policy of deporting Negroes to Africa by encouraging their emigration to its sh.o.r.es or-what was more annoying-a.s.sisting persecuted blacks to flee westward to the hospitality of the unconquered Indians of Dakotah and Montana.

Although I was somewhat shy of him at the first, I was drawn to him more and more. Nor was this entirely because he was as avid for reading as myself or because his excursions into learning were more systematic and disciplined. He had a quick and penetrating sympathy that was at times almost telepathic. Beginning with perfunctory interchanges when I delivered his books, our conversations grew longer and more friendly; soon he was advising me and I was learning from him with an eagerness I had never felt for Tyss's proffered erudition.

"History, but certainly, Hodge," he had no discernible accent but sometimes his English was uncolloquial, "it is a n.o.ble study. But what is history? How is it written? How is it read? Is it a dispa.s.sionate chronicle of events scientifically determined and set down? Or is it the trans.m.u.tation of the ordinary to the celebrated?"

"It seems to me that the facts are primary and the interpretations secondary," I answered. "If we can find out the facts we can form our own opinions on them."

"Perhaps. Perhaps. But take what is for me the central fact of all history." He pointed sweepingly at the crucifix. "As a Catholic the facts are plain to me; I believe what is written in the Gospels to be literally true: that the Son of Man died for me on that cross. But what are the facts for a contemporary Roman statesman? That an obscure local agitator threatened the stability of an uneasy province and was promptly executed in the approved Roman fas.h.i.+on, as a warning to others. And for a contemporary fellow countryman? That no such person existed. You think these facts are mutually exclusive? Yet you know that no two people see exactly the same thing, too many honest witnesses have contradicted each other. Even the Gospels must be reconciled."

"You are saying that truth is relative."

"Am I? Then I shall have my tongue examined, or my head. Because I mean to say no such thing. Truth is absolute and for all time. But one man cannot envisage all of truth; the best he can do is see one aspect of it whole. That is why I say to you, be a skeptic, Hodge. Always be the skeptic."

"Ay?" I was finding the admonition a little difficult to harmonize with his previous confession of faith.

"For the believer skepticism is essential. How else is he to know false G.o.ds from true except by doubting both? One of the most pernicious of folk-sayings is, 'I cannot believe my eyes!' Why particularly should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Believe your mind, your intuition, your reason, your emotion if you like-but not your eyes unaided by any of these interpreters. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, as easily as the actual scenery. Your eyes will tell you nothing exists but matter-"

"Not only my eyes but my boss." I told him of Tyss's mechanistic creed.

"G.o.d have mercy on his soul," muttered Enfandin. "Poor creature. He has liberated himself from the superst.i.tions of religion in order to fall into superst.i.tion so abject no Christian can conceive it. Imagine it to yourself"-he began to pace the floor-"time is circular, man is automaton, we are doomed to repeat the identical gestures over and over, forever. Oh, I say to you, Hodge, this is monstrous."

I nodded. "Yes. But what is the answer? Limitless s.p.a.ce, limitless time? They are almost as horrifying, because they are inconceivable."

"And why should the inconceivable be horrible? But you are right. This is not the answer. The answer is that all-time, s.p.a.ce, matter-all is illusion. All but the good G.o.d. Nothing exists but Him. We are creatures of His fancy, figments of His imagination..."

"Then where does free will come in?"

"As a gift, of course-how else? The greatest gift and the greatest responsibility."

I can't say I was entirely satisfied with Enfandin's exposition, though it was 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 all I really accepted was his original adjuration to be skeptical, which I doubt I always applied in the way he meant me to.

Frequently he became so interested in our talk, which ranged widely, for he thought it no frivolity to touch on any subject engaging either of us whether it might be considered trivial or not, that he walked back to the bookstore with me, leaving a note on the door of the consulate to say he would be back in ten minutes-a promise I'm afraid seldom fulfilled.

More and more as I came to know him better I felt I ought to tell him of Tyss's connection with the Grand Army, an organization strongly prejudiced against Negroes. Timidity and selfishness combined to keep me quiet; I feared he might buy his books elsewhere and I should lose the benefit of his companions.h.i.+p.

I suppose I had known Enfandin for perhaps a year when I became better acquainted with some of the activities of the Grand Army. 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 that hung down behind 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 a.s.surance so strong there was no necessity to b.u.t.tress it.

"Why, I was looking for..." he began, and then looked at me sharply. "Say, ain't you the young fella I saw walking with a Nigra? Big black buck?"

I felt myself reddening. "There's no law against it, is there?"

He laughed. "I 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 um. 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 friends.h.i.+p with him and implying that 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?"

"Over three years."

"Kind of dull work, ain't it?"

"Oh no-I like to read, and there are plenty of books around here."

Without apparent effort or management he drew from me the story of my ambitions and misadventures since leaving Wappinger Falls.

"Going to be a professional historian, hay? Little out of my line, but I don't suppose they's many of um up north here."

"Not unless you count a handful of college instructors who dabble at it."

He shook his head. "A young fella with your aims could do a lot better down South, I'd think."

"Oh yes. Why, some of the most interesting research is going on right now in Leesburg, Was.h.i.+ngton-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, not indented, you said, 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 them? scholars.h.i.+ps-at the University of Leesburg, after."

A scholars.h.i.+p at Leesburg! Where the Department of History was engaged on 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. I just want you to keep a list for me. List of the people that come in here regular. Especially the ones that don't seem to buy anything, but want to talk to your boss. Their names if you know um-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 scholars.h.i.+p and say, $100 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?"

"It's not a matter of money, Colonel Tolliburr."

He looked at me shrewdly. "Think it over, boy-no use being hasty. Any time you change your mind, come and see me or send me a telegram." He handed me a card.

"Suppose," I asked Enfandin, "one were placed in position of being an involuntary a.s.sistant in a- to a..." I was at loss for words which would describe the situation without being too specific. I could not tell Enfandin about Tolliburr and my problem of whether to tell Tyss of the colonel's espionage without revealing Tyss's connection with the Grand Army, and were I to say anything about the Grand Army he would be quite right in condemning my deceit in not warning him earlier. Whatever I said or failed to say, I was somehow culpable.

Enfandin 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.

He nodded. "Quite so. But are you not perhaps putting the problem too abstractly? Is it not maybe that your situation-your hypothetical situation-is one of being accessory to wrong rather than face an alternative which means personal misery?"

Again I struggled for words. He had formulated one aspect of my dilemma regarding the Grand Army, but... "Yes," I said 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. No normal man 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 hards.h.i.+p or unhappiness."

I said nothing. Was it pettiness which 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 would mean dest.i.tution and no further chance of fulfilling the ambition every day more important to me? Did circ.u.mstances 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 is called a career man, which merely means I have no money except my salary. This might seem much to you, but it is really little, especially since protocol insists I 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, on account of their color, they would be happy or safe in the United States. Besides these expenses I make personal contributions for the a.s.sistance of black men who are-how shall we say it?-unhappily circ.u.mstanced in your country, because I have found the official allotment is never enough. (Now I have been indiscreet-you know government secrets.) Why do I tell you this? Because, my friend, I should like to help you. Alas, I cannot offer you 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 go to one of the colleges in the city. A medal or an order from the Haitian government judiciously conferred on an eminent educator will undoubtedly get you free tuition. What do you say?"

What could I say? Tell him I had not been open with him? That his generosity deserved a more worthy recipient? I protested, I muttered my thanks, not too coherently, I lapsed again into brooding silence. But the newly opened prospect was too exciting for moodiness; in a moment we were both rapidly sketching plans and supplementing each other's designs with revisions of our own.

After some discussion we decided I was to give Tyss two weeks' notice despite our original agreement making such nicety superfluous. Enfandin meanwhile took it upon himself to discuss my matriculation with several professors whom he knew.

My employer raised a quizzical eyebrow at my information as we were eating our breakfast of bread and half raw meat near the printing press. "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 subst.i.tuted a wad of unrelated facts for common sense and whatever ability to think you might 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."

"I thought it was all arbitrary."

He gave me a reproachful look. "Arbitrary and predetermined are not synonyms, Hodgins, nor does either rule out artistry. And how artistic this development is! You will go on to become a professor yourself and construct iron maidens for promising students who might become your compet.i.tors. You will write learned histories, for you are obviously the spectator type. The part written for you does not call for you to be a partic.i.p.ant, an instrument for-apparently-influencing events. Hence it is proper that you report them so future generations may imbibe the illusion they are not puppets."

He grinned at me. Instead of pointing out his inconsistencies, I again suffered the pangs for deceitfulness, this time wis.h.i.+ng I'd told him of the Confederate agent, Colonel Tolliburr, and warned him that he was evidently under surveillance and suspicion. It almost seemed as though his mechanistic notions were valid and I was destined always to be the ungrateful recipient of kindness.

"Now," he said, swallowing the last of his breakfast, "we've work to do. Those boxes over there go upstairs. Pondible's bringing a van around for them this afternoon."

I suppose there are people who imagine employment in a bookstore is light work, not realizing the heaviness of paper. Many times during the years I was with Roger Tyss I had reason to be thankful for my farm training and muscular const.i.tution. The boxes were deceptively small but they seemed to be packed solid with paper. Even with Tyss carrying up box for box with me I was vastly relieved when I had to quit to run an errand.

When I got back Tyss left to make an offer on someone's library. "There are only four left, and the last two are wrapped in paper. I didn't have enough boxes."

Appreciative of his having left the lighter packages for the last, I almost ran up the stairs with the first box. Returning, I tripped on the lowest step and sprawled forward. Reflexively I threw out my hands and landed on one of the paper-wrapped packages whose covering split under the impact. Its contents-neatly tied rectangular bundles-spilled out between the limp twine.

I had learned enough of the printing trade to recognize the brightly colored oblongs as lithographs, and I wondered as I stooped over to gather them up that such a job should have been given Tyss rather than to a shop specializing in such work. Even under the gaslight the colors were hard and vigorous.

And then I really looked at the bundle I was holding. "ESPANA" was enscrolled across the top; below it was the picture of a man with long nose and jutting underlip, flanked by two ornate figure fives, and beneath them the legend, "CINCO PESETAS." Spanish Empire bank-notes. Bundles and bundles of them.

I needed neither expert knowledge nor minute scrutiny to tell me there was a fortune here in counterfeit money. The purpose in forging Spanish paper I could not see; that it was no private undertaking of Tyss's but an activity of the Grand Army, I was certain. Puzzled and apprehensive, I rewrapped the bundles of notes into as neat an imitation of the original package as I could contrive.

For the rest of the day I cast uneasy glances at the mound of boxes. Death was the penalty for counterfeiting United States coins; I had no idea of the punishment for doing the same with foreign paper but I was sure even so minor an accessory as myself would be in a sad way if some officious customer should stumble against one of the packages.

Tyss in no way acted like a man with a guilty conscience or even one with an important secret. He seemed completely unconcerned with any peril; doubtless he was daily in similar situations, only chance and my own lack of observation had prevented my discovering this earlier.

Nor did he show anxiety when Pondible didn't arrive. Darkness came and the gaslamps went on in the streets. The heavy press of traffic outside dwindled, but the incriminating boxes remained undisturbed near the door. At last there was the sound of uncertain wheels slowing up outside and Pondible's voice admonis.h.i.+ng, "Wh-whoa!"

When he entered the store in slow dignity it was immediately manifest that he was extremely drunk. His, "Dri-driving wagon. Fell off. Fell off wagon, I mean. See?" was superfluous.

Tyss took him by the arm. "Start loading up, Hodgins. I'll get him to lie down. You'll have to do the delivering."

Rebellious refusal formed in my mind. Why should I be involved? Then I remembered how much I owed to him, and that two more weeks would see me free, and I said nothing.

He gave me an address on 26th Street. "Sprovis is the name. Let them do the unloading. I see there's a full feedbag in the van; that'll be a good time to give it to the horse. They'll load another consignment and drive with you to the destination. Take the van back to the livery stable. Here's money for your supper and carfare back here."

Driving slackly through the almost empty streets, I was less nervous of being stopped by a police officer than resentful of the casual course of events. I continued to be perplexed as to why the Grand Army should counterfeit Spanish pesetas on a wholesale scale.

The address, which I had trouble finding on the poorly lit thoroughfare, was one of those four-storey stuccos a hundred years old, showing few signs of recent repair. Mr. Sprovis, who occupied the bas.e.m.e.nt, had one ear distinctly larger than the other, an anomaly I could not help attributing to a trick of constantly pulling on the lobe. He, like the others who came out with him to unload the van, wore the Grand Army beard.

I began to explain Pondible's absence but he shut me up quickly. "No names! Hear? No names."

I slipped the strap of the feedbag over the horse's ears and started toward 8th Avenue.