The Bride of Texas, page 43
“Good God!” said General Carlin. “I haven’t seen this kind of concentrated fire since Gettysburg.”
The lieutenant hurried over to the men who were left of his platoon.
General Meade dismounted and walked up the steps to the main platform, where the unkempt beard of the sergeant’s general was reflected in the new president’s top hat. Abe Lincoln had been buried for twelve days now, and this morning they’d taken down the black banners from the buildings and raised the Stars and Stripes to the top of the flagpoles. The sun shone on the flags flying in the hot late May wind, while a steel river of bayonets — Grant’s army — flowed past the platform where the sergeant stood with Cyril and Shake, a new medal glinting on a new uniform. Meade’s corps filed past in ranks of twelve, marching in regulation twelve-inch paces to the tune of “Yankee Doodle” coming from the polished horns of Meade’s big battalion band. There were wild cheers, fluttering handkerchiefs, glistening top hats, the rustle of bright ladies’ dresses under beige and pale blue hats, and suddenly the sergeant caught a glimpse of her. She had the countenance of a young, suffering Madonna, but what gazed out from under the shadow of her broad hat was hard defiance. In the brilliance of gay ribbons — white, blue, yellow, pink, and other festive colours — her white hat bore a ribbon of black, a ribbon of mourning. The defiance was hardened by humiliation, by repeated misfortune.
Such as when they’d been harvesting the corn. She was working in the field shoulder to shoulder with her father, her mother, Josef, and the two servants, Washington and Jefferson. Little Deborah was sitting on the edge of the field, throwing a stick for their dog, Spot. Lida was dressed in a coarse linen blouse and skirt, her hair stuck to her forehead. She was shiny with sweat, and she poked out her tongue to catch the salty drops of sweat running down her nose.
Whatever was going through her head?
She saw a gig moving lightly and noiselessly along the road, almost floating, as if made of nothing — shiny gloss on fine wood. It was driven by a black coachman who had a liveried black footman beside him with a supercilious manner, his arms folded and concealing his white-gloved hands. Unexpectedly, the gig stopped and the footman leapt down in his glittering uniform of red and gold, braid and buttons and buckles. He put a tiny stool on the ground, then reached out a strong gloved hand to help a young lady in a pale green dress with a pretty — no, a lovely — face, powdered in the noonday heat. Green eyes, green parasol. She stood at the edge of the road, surveying the cornfield, until her haughty gaze fell on Lida. Lida straightened up and brushed her hair out of her face. Their glances met. The green eyes looked Lida over thoroughly and mockingly, then looked at her father, who was already standing on the path asking, “Can I help you, ma’m?”
She examined him, her eyes contemptuous, even hostile, and she replied, “Perhaps.”
Then she turned, placed a hand on the Negro’s muscular arm, and gracefully got back into the delicate gig. Like a black and gold bird, the Negro flew back to his seat beside the coachman. The gig floated away with a clatter of hoofs.
Who was she?
Lida felt a suspicion, but the heat and the toil drove it out of her mind.
Cyril saw her too, that unfeeling, suffering face beneath the hat with the mourning ribbon. Whatever was going through her head anyway? Her husband, Baxter Warren II, wore the brand-new uniform of a colonel in the volunteers; his face was unclouded by any knowledge of complex realities, and radiant with the bliss of victory. He had passed through the war unscathed, just as he had passed through his entire life with only minor scratches, and now he had his lovely reward at his side. When he had cast a questioning glance at the black ribbon, she had replied coldly, “I know they took them all down today. But I’m not going to forget.”
He squeezed her hand, and he felt ready to burst with joy. His wife was not only beautiful and exotic, she was also a real American, a patriot who, amidst the excitement and cheering, couldn’t forget that tall, thin, homely man who had made this victory parade possible. Without Lincoln the Union would have split and the war would have been put off for twenty or thirty more years. But it would have happened in the end, because the country could not exist half slave and half free. And that war would have affected his sons, the sons his beautiful, exotic American wife would bear him.
“I hoped I could take care of it so you would never find out —”
“So my father had to tell me. Did you know your father invited him to talk about it?”
“No, I didn’t.” Étienne was surprised.
“You probably weren’t home,” she said scowling. “You were either in bed with the perfume factory or off somewhere with your fancy fiancée.”
“No, Linda, I swear —”
“And do you know what he wanted?”
“My father’s a fool.”
“No, I’m the fool,” said Lida. “The way she looked me over.”
Little clouds drifted over Bentonville, white and sad. Lida’s hands were clenched in her lap and Cyril, his left arm bandaged to the shoulder, puffed on a corncob pipe, letting the hatred inside him cool. All that was left was fear for his tea-rose.
Old Toupelik couldn’t imagine why Mr. de Ribordeaux had summoned him, or why he had sent a carriage to pick him up — not the light gig, but a formal black box of a coach with a liveried coachman. Half an hour later, he was sitting in the big parlour again, with the naked woman rising from the seashell over the mantelpiece and the fleshy faces of people in lace collars peering down at them. This time they were not served by the yellow girl; Mr. de Ribordeaux himself poured him a cognac in a brandy snifter. Toupelik took a sip right away. Clearly this summons did not augur well, but it took him a while to realize that this had happened to him once before, in the old country, and then there had not been a child. And this was America.
“Oh no, Mr. Ribordeaux.” He shook his leathery head — and what was going through it? “I can’t tell Lida what to do. One time I —” He wanted to explain how he had once helped kill his daughter’s fortune — or was it her misfortune? If it was, he hadn’t been responsible. “And then I — she —” He wanted to say that he had bartered the bride and brought her all the way to Texas, not for the slaves Mr. de Ribordeaux was offering him now, because farmer Mika had had none, but for the fare to America and Cyril’s freedom. In short, it had been a good deal. What was going through his head? It had been good for him, good for his family, and he thought it had also been good for Lida, for there was a procession of suitors, not just from Cat Spring but all the way from Dubina, Hostyn, and the nearby German villages. To these men the illegitimate child didn’t matter. They were in America now. But she had turned them all down, and now, over a glass of cognac, he finally knew why. History was repeating itself. “Oh no, Mr. Ribordeaux! And you let them be too!”
“Étienne,” said Mr. de Ribordeaux from under the canopy of smoke rising from the big cigar, “is engaged to be married. Scarlett is the daughter of my good friend Delatour. They’ve know each other since they were children. They grew up” — Mr. de Ribordeaux hesitated — “if not together, then at least both on plantations.”
History was repeating itself. With one difference that old Toupelik was not aware of. “Well,” he said, “until the priest has bound them together, such engagements can always be —”
De Ribordeaux rose, thought for a moment, and refilled the other man’s glass to the brim. He took a fresh cigar out of the humidor, sliced off the tip, and lit it with the waxed end of a wood splinter that he ignited from the candle.
“Think about it,” he said. “There’s a war on. The Confederacy needs soldiers.”
So history was indeed repeating itself. In the old country he had been prepared to use subterfuge, connections, bribes. Here he found these measures repugnant. “You mean Cyril?” And he also felt fear for his son. “He’s a young man, not twenty-six yet,” he said. “We came here to the American republic, not the Confederacy.” His defiance was rising like bread dough. “We have no slaves — just the two Mr. Carson lent us.”
“The South acted on its constitutional right to secede,” declared old de Ribordeaux. “You are now citizens of the Confederacy. As for slaves” — he corrected himself — “I mean servants, most citizens of the Confederacy don’t own any. They just know that this conflict is about our inalienable rights. The right to own servants is simply one of those many rights. If that were the only thing we were after —”
Toupelik knew he was lying. What else could they be after? Was anything else being taken away from them? He too stood up. “Leave them alone. If they love each other —” He looked up to see a distinct sneer on de Ribordeaux’s face. He suddenly understood more than he wanted to. He understood that his daughter, being who she was, could hardly be in love. He looked around the parlour. It reeked of gold and the smoke of fine cigars. And they were in America now. “— then leave them alone!”
“If they love each other,” said de Ribordeaux sarcastically, as if to confirm Toupelik’s realization. “Are you so sure that both of them — that they truly love each other?”
Defiance crumpled his brain like a ball of paper.
“Leave them alone, Mr. Ribordeaux!” he shouted. “I —” He looked around at the dull lustre of the walls of the parlour impregnated with the smell of money, at the unattractive faces in the pretty lace collars, and his eyes came to rest on the shameless girl on the seashell. “I have nothing to talk about with you.”
He ran out of the parlour, out of the hall, out of the big house. He waved off the Negro in livery and walked, almost ran, towards the north-west, where his still poor but now beautiful farm was located.
As he went, de Ribordeaux’s words kept running through his head: “The Confederacy needs soldiers.”
“When I think back on it, I finally understand. It was awful! Awful! Awful!” Only afterwards did she see herself as she thought Scarlett in the shiny gig would have seen her, a drudge in a coarse skirt and a sweat-stained blouse, obviously stinking of labour and probably — or so the young lady whose own odours were masked by perfume would have thought — of other, worse things. “Awful!” she yelled. “How could you do this to me?”
“I intended to tell you about it after I’d taken care of everything, Linda darling —”
“Awful!” She was weeping convulsively. He had never seen her this way before. He thought he knew why she was weeping, but he didn’t.
The previous evening, she had walked into the sitting room at home and found her father at the table over a glass of last year’s home-made slivovitz. “Sit down,” he said.
“What is it?” Her spine was tingling.
“Sit down.” Then he told her everything. He saw her turn pale. “Have a drink,” he said.
She hadn’t expected this. That bastard Étienne. She had known it wouldn’t be smooth sailing, but she hadn’t counted on this. But she would settle it right away. And she’d settle Dinah right away, too. Cyril would find his happiness, or whatever. And so will I. That is, I’ll get what’s coming to me. He’ll crawl like a worm. Like a worm.
Suddenly, like a red-hot dagger in her heart, came the memory of the sweaty afternoon on the field, and the gig —
Étienne. The bastard.
She was being perfectly honest. There was nothing to pretend any more — not now that Vitek was dead. Nothing at all. So Cyril knew everything. He sat resting his wounded arm in its white bandage, and sad little clouds drifted over Bentonville.
She took a drink and poured herself another. Her father didn’t stop her.
“Do you really love him?” he asked.
Whatever was going through her head?
“He loves me,” she said.
“Then why didn’t he tell you about the other one?”
She laughed. He had, in fact, told her about the other one. It was the third one he hadn’t told her about, the third person in their tangled pentangle.
“He was probably too afraid to,” she giggled.
Her father hesitated. Then he took a sip.
“And do you think —”
“What?”
“That he won’t jilt you?”
“Him?” She laughed again. “Don’t worry, Father. I’ve got him tied to my apron-strings!”
She was an American now.
Cyril didn’t know that for a time she thought he had lost his fragrant beauty. That night they were awakened by horses’ hoofs, then a banging on the door, then the shouting of wild interlopers.
Father burst into the room. “Cyril!”
Cyril sat up in bed.
“It’s the Rangers!” Father exclaimed hoarsely. “Out the window, quick! Head for the woods! I’ll bring you some clothes tomorrow.”
By then Cyril was halfway out the window, in his drawers and undershirt. The door was broken open and their mother started screaming.
The girl was reading faster than before. She was getting interested in the story now. The author had shifted from describing tactics — which he had studied after the war as a colonel — to an account of the battle he had witnessed first-hand, as a lieutenant. She was no longer stumbling over words, and the pleasant cadence of her voice spoke to the sergeant of his old comrades.
“The carnage that erupted in Hardee’s rear lines forced him temporarily to set aside the order to storm Carlin’s division. Morgan’s units, which had circled around Hardee’s corps, now attacked him from the flank. The battle-scarred Rebel veterans fought hand to hand and forced us back to our hastily constructed defences. We advanced again, and the enemy, gaining his second wind, once again quelled our attack. General Hardee, intent on improving the even odds, ordered cannon moved from the forward line, whereupon the men, fighting for their lives, experienced a hail of shrapnel, which mowed them down and ripped the needles off the evergreens like a merciless tempest. During a lull in the fighting brought on by the exhaustion of the men on both sides, our company could look up and see nothing but bare pine trees, trunks and branches stripped even of their bark. During that lull, I looked out at the field of battle, covered with dead and wounded, rifles dropped by men as they fell, knapsacks and caps riddled with bullet-holes, but also many other less predictable objects. For example, I spied a leather-bound book, although I am not certain it was a Bible. Nearby I saw a jar of preserves undisturbed by the rain of shrapnel and shining in the sunbeams like a warning light; a wooden flute; a pipe with smoke still rising from it; a lady’s pink garter.…”
The girl stopped reading. “Garter?” She turned her eyes, a forget-me-not blue, to the sergeant.
“Mmm, that,” said the sergeant, quickly trying to think of a way to explain such a human object in such inhuman surroundings, “that must be a mistake of Colonel Bellman’s.”
“It’s not a mistake,” said the girl. “It says right here: ‘a lady’s pink garter’.”
“No, it must be a mistake,” said the sergeant. “In a battle like that, you can think you see things you don’t,” he said. “A battle is like a bad dream, and memory mixes things up too. After years go by, you don’t know what really happened to you and what you just imagined. Soldiers have bad dreams too, you know, Terezka? Once I dreamed —” he said, and he became so caught up in the memory that he almost forgot he wasn’t telling stories to a bunch of his buddies around a campfire but to a child, though she was a farm child and accustomed to seeing a hog killed with a blow to its head or her mother slitting the throat of a terrified chicken, and one morning she had even seen their tomcat crawling home from the woods on its two front legs, having lost its hind legs in some nocturnal forest tragedy, and he had had to shoot the cat with his old army pistol and she had been inconsolable. “It was before Atlanta — I cut the heads off three Rebel officers with a single stroke of my sword, and during the entire assault those three heads rolled along behind me, yelling the Rebel yell and snapping at my heels.” The girl was staring at him, horrified, and he realized that he shouldn’t be telling her a story like this, even if it was God’s truth. “You see, Terezka, it was just something I imagined. It was a bad dream. And yet now, years later, I sometimes get the feeling that it actually happened. Sometimes, before I fall asleep, I even believe it.”
“But what if it really did happen, Daddy?” asked the girl, fearfully.
He smiled. “It didn’t,” he said.
“How do you know, if you’re not sure yourself?”
“Because I was only a sergeant in the war, child,” he said. “I didn’t carry a sword. Only in my dreams.”
The little girl looked up at him doubtfully.
“Don’t worry, Terezka,” he said. “Your daddy never cut anybody’s head off. I just shot a rifle, and the last time I did that was at Collierville in ’62. After that, I was with General Sherman’s staff, and from then on I never fired a shot.”
Reassured, the child turned back to the book, but she didn’t resume reading right away. She looked at her father, obviously thinking things over.
“Well, but that’s different,” she said, “bad dreams. But why has —” But thinking and expressing complex ideas in Czech was too hard, so she switched to English. “Why did Colonel Bellman dream about a lady’s garter?”
“It —” he began in Czech, but, unable to come up with something sensible to tell the child, he finally said, “I really don’t know. Stop asking questions and keep on reading!”
“Well,” she said, “what if all the rest of it was just a dream too?”
“Just read, please!”
“All right,” said the child compliantly, and she began reading military jargon and style in a halting voice. “At four-thirty in the afternoon, General Braxton Bragg’s battalion joined the fray on the battlefield and the battle resumed with renewed fury.”
But the sergeant wasn’t listening any more. The memories drifting through his mind were of things and events he could never tell his daughter about. Memories of the books in Corporal Gambetta’s private lending library, with pictures handled so often that the ladies on them were actually clothed again, in grubby fingerprints. And reminders of women, both remote and agonizing. His mind wandered all the way to the little house on Gottestischlein — and he felt a wave of shame. He felt even guiltier than Zinkule had when the sergeant once caught him staring at a piece of lace torn from a petticoat. Zinkule had blushed and stuck the lace in his pocket. “Okay, Franta, just wait, you’ll get your chance,” he had said.
