John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

“I suppose that I should choose a name, as well,” I said. I said it hopefully.

The Redeemer brought a finger to his lips and bit it. Then he gave a laugh.

“The one you’ve got works well enough, Oliver Delamare.”

VIRGIL KEPT COMING, Clementine says. Regular as clap. Regular as my monthly worries.

He came in spite of Lieutenant Beauregard, who called on me now as well. He came in spite of all my regulars and happen-bys. I showed him no special care, made no great fuss over him, the R—’s poppet though he was. But he came every night that I allowed him. Every night that he wasn’t in Natchez, or Vicksburg, or up some back-alley of the river. He told me about his dealings when he came, but so did all the rest. All of them with their beloved and priceless secrets. Virgil paid Madame, same as anybody, before he came up to see me. Or he paid her after. But the things he told me he told no other soul.

Get used to listening, Madame said back at the beginning. Listening is part of it. And so I did. I listened to every caller that felt inclined. I discovered that I had a talent for it. I heard enough complaints and anecdotes and humorous asides to put a unit of infantry to sleep. I listened to Virgil no different than the rest—; I listened to him because of the Trade and the R—, and because I was used to listening. I listened the same way I carried myself straight and lady-like, or let my hips move side-wise when I crossed the room, or rouged my cheeks and nipples. Listening was money in my purse.

Telling, however, was different. Telling was not a part of it, I knew that. I’d have been caned for it, or worse—: burnt with match-tips, locked away, fed on sugar-water for a week. Telling was not a part of it. But I began to tell him just the same.

I told Virgil everything I knew. In the early morning hours that were my own I’d feed him scraps of what I’d heard or seen. What Beauregard had told me, and Kennedy, and the R—, and all the rest. I taught that half-blind bumbler his own business. I educated Virgil in the Trade.

I should have known, from that, that he was dear to me. I did. I’d have left him to his blindness otherwise. I’d have left him to it gladly. I’d have kept to my own counsel, and been well.

As it was, however, Virgil kept coming. He would come in the spring and bring cut peaches in a bowl—; he would come in the summer and take me out on promenades. He’d walk me down the levee pridefully. This is Clementine, my cousin, he’d announce to all and sundry. Down from Kansas on a visit. Many of the men had been to Madame Lafargue’s and knew me but they bowed to me just the same. “Charmed,” the men said. Or “delighted.” He would come in the winter, and bring me hot buttered rum from the bar. As the years went by I watched him prosper and grow clever. He was a gentleman now, in a proper suit of clothes. I saw to that.

He was dearest to me when I was bitter. I took comfort in him then, which made me bitterer still. Dearness had no equity in that house. I resolved to put an end to it, hoping to recover my fortitude of mind. I changed in my manner toward him. Directly he came in I’d put on my working face and commence to treat him coldly. I dealt with him more coldly than with callers I abhorred. I made the visits bitter for him, as bitter as I could, but he would not be turned aside. I adore you, Clementine, he’d say. I love you truly. His certainty was something to behold. His certainty was a marvel and he grew dearer to me still because of it and I grew ever colder. It was all very well, his loving. I knew what would come of it in the end.

Once a month the R— came and asked about his darling. Each time he came I expected to be punished, but the R— would only take me by the hand. Success has made me gentle, Clem, he’d say. Then the questions would begin. How does Virgil seem to you? Is he comfortable in his mind? How is his appetite? How is his spend? Is it copious, or scant? Does he make a great noise, or a sigh? Does he speak to you, or cry out? And so on, like a sheriff, or a grand inquisitor—; but also like a boy of fourteen years. Everything I told him he approved of. Sometimes he scribbled marks into a book. That boy is meant for great things, Clem, he’d say to me. Expect great things from that dear boy of ours. A fear would come over me at this and I’d go quiet, watching the R— scribbling and muttering to himself. Is that all? he’d say at the end of it, helping me out of my skirts. That’s all, I’d say. Capital! he’d say, and kiss me on the lips. If he knew Virgil was dear to me he took care not to show it.

After each of the R—’s visits I went colder than before. Have I offended you, dearest? Virgil would say, looking at me fit to die. His suffering gave me pleasure of a kind, as I was suffering over him.

Yes, Aggie, I’d say to him. You’ve offended me. Come to bed.

THE NEW VIRGIL BALL was seven years in the making, Virgil says. But it took a single trip to Memphis to destroy him.

Seven years, to the day, after helping the Redeemer with his boots — and four after my first night with Clementine — I was steaming up the great brown muck-a-puddle on board the Vesuvius, the third steam-boat ever to clear the whole run of the river and still the most gaudy of the old “floating palaces.” I was a made man now, dandified and whiskered. If the nature of the wares I traded in disquieted me now and then, the fruits of my position quickly put my mind at ease. I was a courier of other people’s goods—; no more than that. The fleet of barges I managed might have carried barrels of beer, or barleycorn, or even pocket Bibles. I’d never once had to raise my voice, let alone fire my pistol. The Trade watched over me like a mother hen. I had no faith, as such, in my sooth-saying eye—; but I couldn’t deny that the Redeemer had made good use of it. The proof was all around me. Slowly, steadily, like a wine-stain working its way through wool, belief was colonizing me.

As the stream of flat-boats, rafts, and tar-bottomed pirogues slid by, I’d doff my hat, if I happened to be on deck, with all gentlemanly sympathies. Occasionally I’d catch sight of the odd colleague or share-holder in the Trade—: the greeting might be a slight nod, or — if the boat passed close by — a bar or two of “City of the Sun,” a shanty-town hymn that the Redeemer favored. It was easy at such moments, standing in the sun and the wind on the open deck, to think of myself as Fortune’s darling. I was the Redeemer’ s darling, after all.

Only once did anyone catch me at my game—: a well-fed Calvinist from New England, round as a river-buoy, who passed the hours pacing the deck and swilling great jarfuls of quinine-water. Just below Island 30, less than an hour from my port of call, he cornered me against the starboard rail, his face a veritable milk-jug of fraternity—:

“Allow me to congratulate you, sirrah, on the architecture of your waist-coat!”

I stopped in mid-whistle and returned his bow—; the raft I’d been signaling passed quietly down-stream. “My waist-coat?” I replied.

“Yours and none other,” said the man. “A properly detailed waistcoat, to a man of refinement, is as a draught of cool water on a summer’s day.” He squinted at my belly. “Dibbern & Alexander, Jackson Square?”

“Chez Restoux, Paris,” I said, regarding him coolly. The quality of my wardrobe had done its share, in recent years, to offset the particulars of my face—; but I was unused, even now, to being addressed by strangers. Most people avoided me as they had always done, albeit with more civility. This plump little Yankee, however — who introduced himself as Barker — seemed to find my lack of politeness scenic.