John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

I lulled myself to sleep that night by withdrawing into the most private recesses of my mind and gazing in calm fascination at the chaos Morelle had wrought there. My understanding of the Trade, of the country, and of my place within both had changed so drastically since my last visit that I wondered whether Clem would even know me. The shambles Memphis had made of me were terrible to behold. My allegiance to Morelle was shattered, my sense of right and wrong perverted past all remedy. The most fatal change of all, however, remained hidden from me still. My rationalism, which had been faltering for years, had been unseated in a single stroke. I had witnessed things in Memphis that would have sent Descartes himself scrambling for his rosary.

Thus, as Providence — or chance — would have it, Morelle’s influence over me doubled when I took him for my enemy. Reason was useless against him—; that much was clear to me after Memphis. To revenge myself on the Redeemer I’d have to enter, naked and half-blind, into the Redeemer’s world of symbols.

I awoke that night to a shape unlike any I’d seen with my blighted eye before. A glittering, scintillating sphere, the color of obsidian, revolved above me in the dark. Its surface was cut into facets, and all manner of images danced across them—: ramparts of smoke, rows of sallow, bearded faces, scores upon scores of boot-prints filling up with rain. The shape spoke in a language of trills and clangs and stutters, like the sound of valves opening and shutting in a boiler. Try as I might, I couldn’t understand a word of it, but I understood the pictures perfectly. I was being presented with the future—: not harbingers of the future, not abstract portents, but the future itself, in body and in blood. I needed no charts to make sense of what I saw.

It was war.

I sat up in my berth at half-past six, wide awake and grateful for it. To all appearances I was still aboard the Hyapatia Lee. I passed a hand over my face, trying to recollect my vision, then looked warily about the cabin. The shape had shrunk to the size of a chestnut, but it persisted in the far corner of the room, throwing off chiaroscuro sparks. Do what I might, it stubbornly refused to vanish. It kept me company all the way to New Orleans.

The change in me had now become impossible to ignore. For the first time since the start of the Trade, I’d made sense of a vision unassisted. But that was not all. I’d done more than simply make sense of what I saw—; I’d done something stranger still, more remarkable, more dreadful.

I’d believed in it.

IT WAS IN FULL EXPECTATION of calamity, then, that I made my way up the levee to Madame Lafargue’s. I moved through the Quarter as if through a stage-set to an opera which, having finished its run, might be struck at any moment.

I entered through the niggers’ door on Lime Alley — a trick Morelle had taught me on my very first visit — and slipped up the filigreed iron steps. Clem’s door was unlocked, and I pushed it open. She lay fast asleep under her tent of netting, her hair spread over her precise white features like a courtesan’s in the Arabian Nights Entertainments—; best of all, she was alone. I eased myself down onto the powder-and-wine-stained coverlet. Her eyes opened and fixed on mine.

“It’s you,” she said. She seemed relieved.

“Were you expecting someone else?”

She kept her eyes on mine, steady and unsurprised, and let the sleep drain out of them. When finally she chose to return my smile it was with a gentleness I’d despaired of ever seeing in her. I bit back the pleasantry I was about to give voice to—; my tongue thickened in my mouth and my lips went dry as parchment. Something had happened to Clementine while I was gone.

“I dreamt about you just now.” She stretched herself and yawned into her sleeve. “That’s how I knew to expect you.”

I brushed her hair aside with my finger-tips, looping it carefully behind her ears. I ached for a kiss but was afraid, as always, to touch my mouth to hers.

“Did you do me justice in your dream, Miss Gilchrist?” I said. “Was my waist-coat elegant? Were my stockings clean?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t tell, Aggie. It was dark. And you were tucked away in bed.”

“Were you tucked away beside me?”

She shook her head. “I was spinning above you in the air. We were in a steam-boat cabin.”

My hand must have made a subtle jerk, because her eyes darted toward it. “What is it, Aggie?”

I took up her hand and kissed it. “I’ve missed you, darling. Terribly.”

Her eyes were clear now and she was looking at me closely. “Is that all?”

“I’m tired.”

“They work you hard, poor boy.”

I bowed to her. “We Jews are like the olive, Miss Gilchrist, as the Talmud says. We’re at our best when we are being crushed.”

She said nothing for a time, holding tightly to my arm. I savored the pressure of her thin, determined fingers at my wrist.

“How long has it been, Miss Gilchrist? Seven weeks? Thirteen?”

“You know how long exactly.” She pressed her knuckles to my temple—: they were cool and white as pianoforte-keys. “To the hour and the minute, you poor crushed olive.”

“I can’t deny it.” I kissed her hand again. “Tell me, darling, how you’ve lived.”

She turned away from me, not unkindly, and pressed her face into the cushions. “Come to bed now, Aggie.”

The change had been clear to me as soon as her eyes had opened—: the simple, unbegrudging welcome I’d dreamt of since our first encounter had finally been bestowed. I could think of no earthly reason why—; but I found, to my surprise, that I had no need of one. The fact of it was enough.

I stood and let my coat fall to the floor. My shyness had passed, and I was suddenly in a fever to possess her. She’s convinced, I thought. After all this time. I knelt and cupped her face in both my hands.

She gazed up at me sternly. “Your hands are filthy, Aggie! Go and wash them.” But as I rose from the bed she caught hold of me by my shirt. “We’re pieces in a puzzle,” she whispered. “We fit into each other. Did you know?”

“Yes, Clem. Something new is made when we come together,” I murmured, running a hand along her ribs.

She gave a quick, shrill laugh and brought the bed-sheet to her mouth. “If you only knew what ! Run along now, Mr. Ball! Go on!”

I shuffled bemusedly over to the basin. She’d come to a decision of some kind, I knew, but my thoughts went no farther than the fact of her on the bed. There’ll be no great change, I told myself, with a sudden pang of joy—; only in her manner toward me and in my entire way of living. I did a very poor job of washing and came directly back to bed. She did not seat me at her feet — my usual station — but laid me close beside her, her eyes meeting mine in a frank, approving way that made the teeth rattle in my skull. The blood roared so emphatically behind my eyes that it was all I could do to keep from crying out. I’d never known such a violent and total happiness.

“I want to leave this place,” she said, pulling the netting closed around us. “I want to leave this place tonight.”

“We can go straight-away, miss,” I answered. “Get your garters on!”

“This is no promenade, Virgil.” Her voice was hushed and urgent. “We can’t simply walk outside, like two children playing at courting.” Her eyes moved past me toward the door. “I don’t mean to be dragged back to this pit once I’m gone from it. Not ever.”

As if by the sudden turning of a corner from sunlight into shadow, the air went cold around me and every object in the room was edged in a clear, transparent light. Clem was not at liberty. Fool that I was, the thought had never crossed my mind—; I hadn’t dared to conceive of her running off at all, much less running off with me. But she could not run off. The Trade owned this house, this room, this bed. Owned her.