Steve Erickson: Arc d'X

The winter after he’d come to Paris, Thomas received the news that Lucy, the last child born to his wife, had died of the whooping cough at the age of two. Not able to trust anyone else to keep at bay the grief he’d resolved never to know, he arranged for the passage to France of his other daughter, Polly. He sent word to his sister in Virginia that Polly was to come as soon as possible, in the care of whatever female slave seemed suitable.

BY THE TIME SHE was fourteen they called her Dashing Sally. She was tall with wide hips and round breasts; her smile was sweet and hushed, her voice watery and melancholy. She had brown eyes with flashes of green, and skin that was too white to be quite black and too black to be quite white. The dark hair that fell down her back she tied with a long blue strip she’d torn from the curtains that hung in the mistress’ bedchamber that fatal summer, after they’d been taken down and discarded. Some said that Sally was already the most beautiful woman in Virginia. As is true with any such beauty, it was lit from within by her obliviousness of it. It stopped men where they stood and pushed to the edge of violence the friction between husbands and wives. But her sexuality was still a secret, to no one more than herself.

Every several weeks the master’s sister would visit the plantation to see that everything was in order. With her she’d bring the master’s remaining daughter, who had been living with her since Thomas went to France. Polly liked these visits because she could play with the slave children; in particular she looked forward to seeing Sally, whose skirt she had clutched on the day of her mother’s death. Polly trusted Sally and felt secure with her, and was not displeased that she could sometimes order Sally and the other black children around. When Thomas sent for Polly it was assumed she would be accompanied on the voyage by either Sally’s mother or one of the other women of the household. Polly, extremely willful at the age of eight, had only dim memories of her father and sister; she had long since stopped missing them and had no interest in leaving Virginia. In protest she threw terrible tantrums.

When it was evident that nothing short of physical abduction was going to get Polly to France, a plot was hatched. All talk of the trip was dropped, time passed, and one day Thomas’ sister and Sally’s mother took Polly and Sally to look at the big ship docked in the Norfolk harbor. With the permission of the ship’s captain, the two girls were allowed to come onto the boat and play. For several hours Polly ran along the keel of the vessel from bow to stern, laughing and shouting until she collapsed on a bunk in one of the cabins and fell asleep. When she woke it was dark and the room was moving. She sat up and started to cry; Sally was on the bunk next to her. “Where are we?” asked Polly.

“We’re on the boat,” Sally answered.

“I want to go home,” the little girl said. She looked around her. “It’s dark.”

“I know. It’s night.”

“I want to go home.”

“Well, we’re going to see your father and your sister,” Sally finally brought herself to say.

“I don’t want to go to France!” Polly cried. She jumped up from the bunk and ran to the door of the cabin, flinging it open as the night sea sprayed her face. She looked up at the mast of the ship swaying in the dark above her. Sally tried to pull her from the door but Polly pushed her away. “You tricked me,” she screamed at the older one.

“Yes,” Sally admitted.

“I order you to make the ship go back. You have to. You’re a slave and I’m a Virginian.”

Sally walked across the dark cabin to close the door. By the bed she lit a lantern. “This isn’t Virginia,” she said, “this is the ocean.” She sat back down on the bed. “I’m sorry we tricked you. It wasn’t how they wanted to do it. They never wanted to send you away at all, it’s what your father wants. I didn’t want to go either.” Sally folded her hands in her lap and looked off into the corner, thinking of her brother James. “My mother’s not too happy about it.”

Polly didn’t care in the least about Sally’s mother. “You tricked me,” she repeated bitterly.

“I know,” Sally said.

As the ship crossed the Atlantic, however, Polly reconciled herself to the adventure. They sailed not to France but England, where Thomas was supposed to meet Polly in London and take her on to Paris himself. Sally, it was understood, would immediately return to America. But at the rue d’X it had become apparent to Thomas, over the course of the month, that a rare opportunity to see his lover Maria was about to present itself. When Polly and Sally got to London, Polly’s father wasn’t there to greet them. This left the little girl even more nonplussed; so, as well, were the American couple in London whom Thomas had alerted to take Polly in. After a few days, just as Sally was about to embark back to Virginia, word came from Thomas that he wouldn’t be traveling to London at all and the American couple were to send Polly along to Paris in the company of whoever had come with her to England. On general principles Polly threw the most spectacular fit of her eight-year life, though she was secretly pleased that Sally would be staying. The American woman, Abigail, was appalled. “It won’t do,” she said to her husband John one night, “that girl’s got to go back home on the next ship.”

John pretended to misunderstand. “She hasn’t seen her father in over two years,” he answered. “He should have come to London to meet her though. Inexcusable.”

“I’m not talking about Polly,” Abigail said impatiently, “I’m talking about the other one.” She didn’t look at her husband. “She’s rather useless. Why they sent her instead of an older woman—”

“I think they explained that,” John cut her off. John cut off people all the time, but he never cut off Abigail; they both realized it at once. “It was the only way they could lure Polly onto the boat. She was the only one who could have gotten Polly across the ocean at all. Give her that, at least.” He shrugged. “She’s not an unpleasant girl.”

“What do you mean,” said Abigail.

“I mean she’s not an unpleasant girl.”

“Don’t be disingenuous with me.”

“What the hell—”

“You know what he’s been like since his wife died,” she said quietly. “All those stories about his carryings-on in Paris—”

“Political enemies—”

“Yes, I know,” she said, “and I don’t doubt his enemies make it all much worse than it is. Listen, I think the world of him. I believe I’m closer to him than you are at this point. I’ve always thought there was something of the saint about Thomas—”

“Well,” John began to protest, “I don’t—”

“Yes, well, you two have had your differences lately. That’s politics, and I defer to you on politics. But I’m talking now about Thomas’ passions.”

“Do you suppose Thomas has passions?”

She was astounded. “Do you suppose he doesn’t?”

“I’ve never thought of him as a passionate man.”

Abigail stood in the doorway of the study looking down the hall, past the stairs, to the back quarters where the slavegirl named Sally slept. She folded her arms. “Thomas is the most passionate man I know,” she said into the dark of the hallway. When John didn’t answer, Abigail said, “She shouldn’t go to Paris.” She wanted to ask her husband if he thought Sally was beautiful, but it was a foolish question. The answer was obvious, and whether he told her the truth or a lie it was bound to hurt.

“She’s only a girl,” John finally said after an uncomfortable interval.