Harry Turtledove - A Different Flesh

Not far away, down a winding side street, stood a dilapidaoed clapboard building with a sign nailed to the front door. The sign was hard to read because it needed painting, but the words, at least, made sense: ALFRED P. DOUGLAS, ATTORNEY AT LAW.

Jeremiah was about to pass on by when he remembered Caleb Gillen's talk about lawyers and how important they were. Maybe an important man would have work for him.

And if the important man got too nosy, well, important men tended to be fat, and he could probably outrun this one. He walked up and knocked on the door.

"It's open," someone with a deep voice called from inside. He sounded important. Jeremiah turned the knob and walked in.

The man rummaging through the pile of books by his desk was fat, but that ended his resemblance to anything Jeremiah had imagined. He was about thirty, with a straggling mustache and a thick shock of greasy black hair.

His breeches had a hole in the knee; one shoe had a hole in the sole.

His shirt was no cleaner than Jeremiah's.

Whatever he was digging for, he must have decided he wasn't going to find it. He made a disgusted face, looked up at Jeremiah. "And what can I do for you today, sir."

Jeremiah almost fled, as he had from the straw boss. No white man had ever cal ed him sir, even in mockery. This did not sound like mockery.

He took a chance, stayed. "I'm looking for work from you, sir."

"I'm sorry; I don't need a clerk right now." Douglas muttered something to himself that Jeremiah did not catch.

"I didn't mean that kind of work, sir." Jeremiah tried to keep his mouth from fal ing open. The fel ow thought he wanted to study law under him! "I meant cleaning, cooking, straightening up'." He looked around. "You'll excus me for speaking so bold, sir, but this place could do with some straightening up."

Douglas grunted. "You're right, sir; as I said just now", that must have been the mutter, "what I need is someone to make sense of this mess. You'll not be able to do that, I promise, if you have no letters."

"I can read, sir, some, and write a bit," Jeremiah said, and then had the wit to add as an afterthought, "Mr. Douglas."

Douglas grunted again. "You slave or free?"

Ice ran down Jeremiah's back. "Free," he answered, and got ready to bolt if Douglas asked for papers to prove it.

All the lawyer said, though, was, "Good. I'd sooner line your pockets than your master's. What do I call you."

"Jeremiah." Realizing a second too late that if he was free he should also have a surname, he gave the first one that popped into his head.

"Jeremiah, uh, Gillen."

Douglas showed no sign of noticing the slip. He plopped his bulk into an overstuffed armchair. The springs groaned in protest. "All right, Mr. Gillen, I'l try you, damn me if I don't. Put that stack there into some kind of order and I'll take you on."

The stack was the one the lawyer had been pawing through.

Jeremiah knelt beside it. He almost gave up at once, for the books'

titles were ful of long, incomprehensible words: legal terms, he supposed. But before panic st in, he remembered the ABC Caleb Gillen had drilled into him, and the way Caleb's father kept the books in his library. If he arranged these alphabetically by author, he could not go far wrong.

"Here you are, sir," he said a few minutes later. He held out a handful of coins. "And here are the, uh, ninety-one sesters mixed in with the books."

Douglas stared, then burst into laughter. "Keep them, my friend, keep them! I'd say you've earned them, the more so as I'd long since forgotten they were there. It was honest of you to offer them back, but then who wouldn't be honest with a prospective employer watching?" That last so perfectly summed Jeremiah's thoughts when he found the money that he eyed Douglas with fresh respect.

The lawyer took more care inspecting the books than he had over the coins. He had to correct a mistake Jeremiah had made, and the black's heart sank for fear he would be turned down. But al Douglas said was,

"Be more careful next time. Three denaires a week suit you."

"Yes, sir!" The wage was a long way from kingly, but Jeremiah did not feel sure enough of himself to bargain. If he bought fresh food and did his own cooking, he thought he could scrape by.

Then Douglas went on, "You cook, you say?" At Jeremiah's nod, he broke into a grin that turned his heavy features boyish for a moment.

"Then board with me, why don't you? I've rattled round my house since the swamp fever took my Margaret two years ago." The memory made him somber again. "Help me keep the place neat, and I'll buy supplies for both of us. You deal with them then: if I'm not the worstcook in the commonwealth, he's not been born yet. Do we have a contract?"

"A deal, you mean? Yes, sir!" Jeremiah clasped Douglas's outstretched hand. The lawyer's grip was soft but strong. Jeremiah felt like turning handsprings. With room and board taken care of, three denaires wasn't bad money at all.

Jeremiah spent the rest of the day getting things off the floor so he could sweep it clean of crumpled papers, dust, apple cores, nutshells, and other garbage. Douglas's indifference to filth left his fastidious soul cringing.

He found another denaire and a half in loose change. The lawyer let him keep that too, though he warned, "Bear in mind my generosity doesn't extend to gold, if there is any down there." The thought of coming across a gold piece made Jeremiah work harder than ever; only later did he think to wonder whether that was what Douglas had had in mind.

He had gotten down to bare wood in a few places when Douglas had a visitor, a tall, lean, middle-aged man who wore a stovepipe hat to make himself seem even taller. "Ah Mr. Hayes," Douglas said, setting aside the document he had been studying. "What can I do for you, this fine afternoon? "

Hayes glanced at Jeremiah. "Buy yourself a nigger? Doesn't seem like you, Alfred."

"He's free; I hired him," Douglas said, his color rising. "Mr. Hayes, Jeremiah Gillen. Jeremiah, this is Zachary Hayes." Hayes nodded with the minimum courtesy possible and did not offer to shake hands. Jeremiah went back to work. He was not used to respect from whites, and so did not miss it.

"I came on a gamble," Hayes said, turning away from Jeremiah with obvious relief. "I daresay you own the most law books in the city, and keep them in the worst order Have you a copy of William Watson's Ten Quodlibeticai Questions Concerning Religion and State and, if so, can you lay your hands on it?"

"The title rings a bel , having heard it, how could one forget it?"

Douglas said. "As for where it might be, though, I confess I have no idea. Jeremiah, paw through things and see what you come up with, will you?"

Hayes made a sour face and folded his arms to wait plainly not expecting Jeremiah to find the book. That scorn spurred him more even than Douglas's earlier mention of gold. He dove under tables, climbed on a shaky chair to reach top bookease shelves. On one of those, its calfskin spine to the wall, he found Watson's tome. He wordlessly handed it to Hayes.

"My thanks," Hayes said, not to him, but to Douglas. "I'l have it back to you within a fortnight." He spun on his heel and strode out.

Douglas and Jeremiah looked at each other. They started to laugh at the same time. "Don't mind him," the lawyer said, clapping Jeremiah on the back. "He thinks niggers are stupid as sims. Come on; let's go home."

The house almost made Jeremiah regret his new employment. Douglas had spoken of needing help to keep the place neat; only someone with his studied disdain for order wou}d have imagined there was any neatness to maintain. The house bore a chilling resemblance to his office, except that dirty clothes and dirtier pots were added to the mix.

The only thing that seemed to stand aloof from the clutter was a fine oil painting of a slim, pale, dark-eyed woman. Douglas saw Jeremiah's eyes go to it. "Yes, that's my Margaret," he said sadly; as Jeremiah would learn, he never spoke of her without putting the possessive in front of her name.