Orson Card - Heartfire

"They learn to put it into objects, or perhaps they find it there, I don't know. Since I've never done it myself, nor has Alvin, we could only speculate. Some things I've seen in Black folks' heartfires, though-- I could hardly believe it. Yet it's so. Arthur Stuart's mother-- she had extraordinary power, and by making something, she gave herself wings. She flew."

Balzac laughed, then realized she wasn't joking or even speaking metaphorically. "Flew?"

"At least a hundred miles," said Margaret. "Not far enough, not entirely in the right direction, but it was enough to save her baby, though her own strength and life were spent."

"This Arthur Stuart, why don't you ask him how the power of Black people works?"

"He's just a boy," said Calvin scornfully, "and he's half-White anyway."

"You don't know him," said Margaret. "He doesn't know how the powers of Blacks work because it isn't carried in the blood, it's taught from parent to child. Alvin learned the greensong of the Reds because he became like a child to Tenskwa-Tawa and Ta-Kumsaw. Arthur Stuart grew up with his power shaped into a knack, like Whites, because he was raised among Whites. I think Blacks have a hard time holding on to their African ways. Maybe that's why Fishy can't remember her real name. Someone took her name from her, took her soul, to keep it in hiding, to keep it safe and free. But now she wants it back and she can't get it because she's not African-born, she's not surrounded by a tribe, she's surrounded by beaten-down slaves whose heartfires and names are all in hiding."

"If they got all these powers," said Calvin, "how come they're slaves?"

"Oh, that's easy," said Balzac. "The ones who capture them in Africa, they are also African, they know what the powers are, they keep them from having the things they need."

"Blacks against Blacks," said Margaret sadly.

"How do you know all that?" Calvin asked Balzac.

"I was at the docks! I saw the Blacks being dragged off the ships in chains. I saw the Black men who searched them, took away little dolls made of cloth or dung, many different things."

"Where was I when you were seeing this stuff?"

"Drunk, my friend," said Balzac.

"So were you, then," said Calvin.

"But I have an enormous capacity for wine," said Balzac. "When I am drunk I am at my best. It is the national knack of the French."

"I wouldn't be proud of it if I were you," said Margaret.

"I wouldn't be sanctimonious about our wine, here in the land of corn liquor and rye whiskey." Balzac leered at her.

"Just when I think I might like you, Monsieur Balzac, you show yourself not to be a gentleman."

"I don't have to be a gentleman," said Balzac. "I am an artist."

"You still walk on two legs and eat through your mouth," said Margaret. "Being an artist doesn't give you special privileges. If anything, it gives you greater responsibilities."

"I have to study life in all its manifestations," said Balzac.

"Perhaps that is true," said Margaret. "But if you sample all the wickedness of the world, and commit every betrayal and every harm, then you will not be able to sample the higher joys, for you will not be healthy enough or strong enough-- or decent enough for the company of good people, which is one of the greatest joys of all."

"If they cannot forgive me my foibles, then they are not such good people, no?" Balzac smiled as if he had played the last ace in the deck.

"But they do forgive your foibles," said Margaret. "They would welcome your company, too. But if you joined them, you would not understand what they were talking about. You would not have had the experiences that bind them together. You would be an outsider, not because of any act of theirs, but because you have not passed along the road that teaches you to be one of them. You will feel like an exile from the beautiful garden, but it will be you who exiled yourself. And yet you will blame them, and call them judgmental and unforgiving, even as it is your own pain and bitter memory that condemns you, your own ignorance of virtue that makes you a stranger in the land that should have been your home."

Her eyes were on fire and Balzac looked at her with rapt admiration. "I always thought I would experiment with evil, and imagine good because it was easier. Almost you convince me I should do it the other way around."

Calvin was not so entranced. He knew that this little sermon was directed at him and he didn't like it. "There's no such secret that the good people know," said Calvin. "They just pretend, to console themselves for having missed out on all the fun."

Margaret smiled at him. "I took these ideas from your own thoughts of only a few minutes ago, Calvin. You know that what I'm saying is true."

"I was thinking the opposite," said Calvin.

"That's what you thought you were thinking," said Margaret. "But you wouldn't have had to think such thoughts if that was what you really thought about it."

Balzac laughed aloud, and Calvin joined him-- albeit halfheartedly.

"Madame Smith, I could have labored all my days and never thought of a conversation in which someone was able to deliver such a sentence and have it mean anything at all. 'That's what you thought you were thinking.' Delicious! 'You would not think these thoughts if you really thought what you think you thought' Or was it 'thought you think.'"

"Neither one," said Margaret. "You are already preparing to misquote me."

"I am not a journalist! I am a novelist, and I can improve any speech."

"Improve this," said Margaret. "You two play your foolish games-- Calvin playing at being powerful, Monsieur de Balzac playing at being an artist-- but around you here is real life. Real suffering. These Black people are as human as you and me, but they give up their heartfires and their names in order to endure the torment of belonging to other people who despise and fear them. If you can dwell in this city of evil and remain untouched by their suffering, then it is you who are the trivial, empty people. You are able to hold on to your names and heartfires because they aren't worth stealing."

With that she rose from the table and left the restaurant.

"Do you think we offended her?" asked Calvin.

"Perhaps," said Balzac. "But that concerns me a great deal less than the fact that she did not pay."

As be spoke, the waiter was already approaching them. "Do the gentlemen wish to pay in cash?"

"It was the lady who invited us," said Balzac. "Did she forget to pay?"

"But she did pay," said the waiter. "For her own meal. Before you sat down, she wrote us her check."

Balzac looked at Calvin and burst out laughing. "You should see your face, Monsieur Calvin!"

"They can arrest us for this," said Calvin.

"But they do not wish to arrest a French novelist," said Balzac. "For I would return to France and write about their restaurant and declare it to be a house of flies and pestilence."

The waiter looked at him coldly. "The French ambassador engages us to cater his parties," he said. "I do not fear your threat."

A few moments later, up to his arms in dishwater and slops, Calvin seethed in resentment. Of Margaret, of course. Of Alvin, whose fault it was for marrying her. Of Balzac, too, for the cheerful way he bantered with the Black slaves who would otherwise have done all the kitchen work they were doing. Not that the Blacks bantered back. They hardly looked at him. But Calvin could see that they liked hearing him from the way more and more of them lingered in the room a little longer than their jobs required. While he was completely ignored, carrying buckets of table scraps out to be composted for the vegetable garden, emptying pails of dishwater, hauling full ones from the well to be heated. Heavy, sweaty labor, filth on his hands, grime on his face. He thought last night's urine-soaked sleep was as low as he could get in his life, but now he was doing the work of slaves while slaves looked on; and even here, there was another man that they all liked better than him.