Chapter III: Part 3

I was drawn to him more and more; I’m not sure why he interested himself in me, unless there was a reason in the remark he made once: “Ay, we are alike, you and I. The books, always the books. And for themselves, not to become rich or famous like sensible people. Are we not foolish? But it is a pleasant folly and a sometimes blameless vice.”

I wanted anxiously to speak of Tirzah, not only because it is an urgent necessity for lovers to mention the name at least of their beloved a hundred times a day or more, but in the nebulous hope he could somehow give me an answer to her as well as to her question. I approached the topic in a number of different ways; each time our conversation moved on without my having told him about her.

Often, after I had delivered an armful of books to the consulate and we had talked of a wide range of things—for, unlike me, he had no self-consciousness about what interested him, whether others might consider it trivial or not—he would walk back to the bookstore with me, leaving a note on his door. The promise that he would be “Back in 10 minutes” was, I’m afraid, seldom fulfilled, for he became so deeply engrossed that he was unaware of time.

The occasion which was to be so important to me sprang from a discussion of non-resistance to evil, a subject on which he had much to say. We were just passing Wanamaker & Stewarts and he had just triumphantly reviewed the amazing decision of the Japanese Shogun to abolish all police forces, when I became conscious that someone was staring fixedly at me.

A minibile, highslung and obviously custom-built, moved slowly down the street. Its brass brightwork, bumpers like two enormous tackheads, hub rims like delicate eyelets in the center of the great spokes, rococo lamps, rain gutters and door handles, was dazzling. In the jump-seat, facing a lady of majestic demeanor, was Tirzah. Her head was turned ostentatiously away from us.

Enfandin halted as I did. “Ah,” he murmured; “you know the ladies?”

“The girl. The lady is her employer.”

“I caught only a glimpse of the face, but it is a pretty one.”

“Yes. Oh yes....” I wanted desperately to say more, to thank him as though Tirzah’s looks were somehow to my credit, to praise her and at the same time call her cruel and hardhearted. “Oh yes....”

“She is perhaps a particular friend?”

I nodded. “Very particular.” We walked on in silence.

“That is nice. But she is perhaps a little unhappy over your prospects?”

“How did you know?”

“It was not too hard to infer. You have been concealed from the mistress; the young lady is impressed by wealth; you are the idealistic one who is not.”

At last I was able to talk. I explained her indenture, her ambitious plans, and how I expected her to end everything between us at any moment. “And there’s nothing I can do about it,” I finished bitterly.

“That is right, Hodge. There is nothing you can do about it because—You will forgive me if I speak plainly, brutally even?”

“Go ahead. Tirzah—” what a joy it was just to say the name “—Tirzah has told me often enough how unrealistic I am.”

“That was not what I meant. I would say there is nothing you can do about it because there is nothing you wish to do about it.”

“What do you mean? I’d do anything I could....”

“Would you? Give up books, for instance?”

“Why should I? What good would that do?”

“I do not say you should or that it would do good. I only try to show that the young lady, charming and important as she is, is not the most magnetic or important thing in your life. Romantic love is a curious byproduct of west European feudalism that Africans and Asiatics can only criticize gingerly. You shake your head with obstinacy; you do not believe me. Good, then I have not hurt you.”

“I can’t see that youve helped me much, either.”

“Ay! What did you expect from the black man of Haiti? Miracles?”

“Nothing less will do any good I’m afraid. Now I suppose youll tell me I’ll get over it in time; that it’s just an adolescent languishing anyway.”

He looked at me reproachfully. “No, Hodge. I hope I should never be the one to think suffering is tied to age or time. As for getting over it, why, we all get over everything in the end, but no matter how desirable absolute peace is, few of us are willing to give up experience prematurely.”

Later, I compared what Enfandin told me with what Tyss might have said. Did the responsibility of holding Tirzah lie with me and not with both of us, or with fate or chance? Or were events so circumscribed by inevitabilities that even to think of struggling with them was foolish?

I also asked myself if I had been too proud, too hypersensitive. I had tried to make her see my viewpoint by arguing, by fighting hers; might it not be possible, without giving up essentials, to approach her more gently? To divert her, not from her ambitions, but from her contempt for mine?

Full of resolves, I left the store after eight; eager walking brought me to our meeting place in Reservoir Square early, but the nearby churchbells had hardly sounded the quarter hour when she said, “Hodge.”

Her unusual promptness was a good omen; I was filled with warm optimism. “Tirzah, I saw you this afternoon—”

“Did you? I thought you were so busy with Sambo you would never look up.”

“Why do you call him that? Do you think—” “Oh for Heavens sake, don’t start making speeches at me. I call him Sambo because it sounds nicer than Rastus.”

All my resolutions about trying to see her point of view! “I call him M’sieu Enfandin because that’s his name.”

“Have you no pride? No, I suppose you havent. Just some strange manners. Well, I can put up with your eccentricities, but other people wouldnt understand. What do you think Mrs Smythe would say?”

“Never having met the lady, I havent the faintest idea.”

“I have, and I agree with her. Would you like me to be chummy with a naked cannibal with a ring in his nose?”

“But Enfandin doesnt wear a ring in his nose, and you must have seen he was fully dressed. Maybe he eats missionaries in secret, but that couldnt offend Mrs Smythe since appearances would be saved.”

“I’m serious, Hodge.”

“So am I. Enfandin is my only friend.”

“You may be above appearances and considerations of decency but I’m not. If you ever appear in public with him again you can stop coming here. Because I won’t have anything more to do with you.”

“But Tirzah ...” I began helplessly, overwhelmed by the impossibility of coping with the irrelevancies and inconsistencies of her stand. “But Tirzah....”

“No,” she said firmly; “you’ll simply have to grow up, Hodge, and stop such childish exhibitions. Only friend indeed! Why I suppose if he appeared here right this minute, you’d talk to him.”

“Well naturally. You’d hardly expect me to—” “But I do. That’s exactly what I’d expect. You to act like a civilized man.”

I wasnt angry. I couldnt be angry with her. “If that’s civilization then I guess I don’t want to be civilized.”

I detected astonishment in her voice. “You mean, actually mean, you intend to keep on acting this way?”

Grandfather Backmaker must have been a stubborn man; I had my mother’s word I possessed no Hodgins traits. “Tirzah, what would you think of me if I turned on my only friend, the only thoroughly kind and understanding friend Ive ever had, just because Mrs Smythe has different notions of propriety than I have?”

“I’d think you were beginning to understand things at last.”

“I’m sorry, Tirzah.”

“I mean it, Hodge, you know. I’ll never see you again.”

“If you’d only listen to my side—” “You mean if I would only become a crank like you. But I don’t want to be a crank or a martyr. I don’t want to change the world. I’m normal.”

“Tirzah—” “Goodbye, Hodge.”

She walked away. I had the irrational feeling that if I called after her she might come back. Or at least stand still and wait to hear what I had to say. I kept my mouth obstinately closed; Enfandin had been right, the responsibility was mine. There were things I would not give up.

My heroic mood must have lasted fully fifteen minutes. Then I hurried through the little park and across the street to the Smythe house. There were lights in the upper floors, but the basement, as always, was dark. I dared not knock or ring the bell; her admonitions were too firmly impressed on my mind. Instead, in a turmoil of emotions, I paced the flagged sidewalk until the suspicious eye of a patrolman was attracted; then I fled cravenly.

I couldnt wait for the next day to write a long, chaotic letter begging her to let me talk to her, just to talk to her, for an hour, ten minutes, a minute. I offered to indent, to emigrate, to make a fortune by some inspired means if only she would hear me. I recalled moments together, I told her I loved her, said I would die without her. Having covered several pages with these sentiments I began all over and repeated them. It was dawn when I posted the letter in the pneumatic mail.

Sleepless and tormented, I was of little use to Tyss next day. Would she telegraph? If she answered by pneumatic post her letter might be delivered in the afternoon. Or would she come to the bookstore?

The second day I sent off two more letters and went up to Reservoir Square on the chance she might appear. I watched the house as though my concentration would force her to emerge. On the third day my letters came back, unopened.

There is some catchphrase or other about the elasticity of youth. It is true it was only weeks before my misery abated, and weeks more before I was heart-whole again. But those weeks were long.

The subject of Tirzah did not come up again between Enfandi and me. He must have sensed I had lost her, perhaps he even guessed his connection with the break, but he was too tactful to mention it and I was too sore.

I don’t know if the episode precipitated some maturity in me, or if, as a result of grief and anger I tried to turn my mind away from the easy emotions and shield myself against further hurt. At any rate, whether there was a logical connection or not, it is from this period that I date my resolve to center my reading on history. Somewhat diffidently I spoke of this to him.

“History? But certainly, Hodge. It is a noble study. But what is history? How is it written? How is it read? Is it a dispassionate chronicle of events scientifically determined and set down in the precise measure of their importance? Is this ever possible? Or is it the transmutation of the ordinary into the celebrated? Or the cunning distortion which gives a clearer picture than accurate blueprints?”

“It seems to me facts are primary and interpretations come after,” I answered. “If we can find out the facts we can form our individual opinions on them.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps. But take what is for me the central fact of all history.” He pointed to the crucifix. “As a Catholic the facts are plain to me; I believe what is written in the Gospels to be literally true: that the Son of Man died for me on that cross. But what were the facts for a contemporary Roman statesman? That an obscure local agitator threatened the stability of an uneasy province and was promptly executed in the approved Roman fashion as a warning to others. And for a contemporary fellow-countryman? That no such person existed. You think these facts are mutually exclusive? Yet you know no two people see exactly the same thing; too many honest witnesses have contradicted each other. Even the Gospels must be reconciled.”

“You are saying that truth is relative.”

“Am I? Then I shall have my tongue examined, or my head. Because I mean to say no such thing. Truth is absolute and for all time. But one man cannot envisage all of truth; the best he can do is see a single aspect of it whole. That is why I say to you, be a skeptic, Hodge. Always be the skeptic.”

“Ay?” I was finding the admonition a little difficult to harmonize with his previous confession of faith.

“For the believer skepticism is essential. How else is he to know false gods from true except by doubting both? One of the most pernicious of folk-sayings is, ‘I could scarcely believe my eyes?’ Why should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Believe your mind, your intuition, your reason, your feelings if you like—but not your eyes unaided by any of these interpreters. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, as easily as the actual scenery. Your eyes will tell you nothing exists but matter—” “Not my eyes only, but my boss.”

“Ay? What are you saying?” For all his amiability Enfandin enjoyed interruption in mid-discourse no more than any other teacher. But in a moment his irritation vanished and he listened to my description of Tyss’s mechanistic creed.

“God have mercy on his soul,” he muttered at last. “Poor creature. He has liberated himself from the superstitions of religion in order to fall into superstition so abject no Christian can conceive it. Imagine to yourself—” he began to pace the floor “—time is circular, man is automaton, we are doomed to repeat the same gestures over and over, forever. Oh I say to you, Hodge, this is monstrous. The poor man. The poor man.”

I nodded. “Yes. But what is the answer? Limitless space? Limitless time? They are almost as horrifying, because they are inconceivable and awful.”

“And why should the inconceivable and awful be horrifying? Is our small human understanding the ultimate measuring stick and guide? But of course this is not the answer. The answer is that all—time, space, matter—all is illusion. All but the good God Himself. Nothing is real but Him. We are creatures of His fancy, figments of His imagination....” “Then where does free will come in?”

“As a gift, naturally. Or supernaturally. How else? The greatest gift and the greatest responsibility.”

I can’t say I was entirely satisfied with his exposition, though it was certainly more to my taste than Tyss’s. I returned to the conversation at intervals, both in my thoughts and when I saw him, but in the end I suppose all I really accepted was his admonition to be skeptical, which I doubt I always applied the way he meant me to.

_7._ _OF CONFEDERATE AGENTS IN 1942_

To anyone but the mooncalf I still was in the year of my majority it would have long since occurred with considerable force that Enfandin ought to be told of Tyss’s connection with the Negro-hating, anti-foreign Grand Army. And the thought once entertained, no matter how belatedly, would have been immediately translated into warning. For me it became a dilemma.

If I exposed Tyss to Enfandin I would certainly be basely ungrateful to the man who had saved me from destitution and given me the opportunity I wanted so much. Membership in the Grand Army was a crime, even though the laws were laxly enforced, and I could hardly expect an official receiving the hospitality of the United States to conceal knowledge of a felony against his host, especially when the Grand Army was what it was. Yet if I kept silent I would be less than a friend.

If I spoke I would be an informer; if I didnt, a hypocrite and worse. The fact that neither man, for totally different reasons, would condemn me whichever course I took increased rather than diminished my perplexity. I procrastinated, which meant I was actually protecting Tyss, and that this was against my sympathies increased my feeling of guilt.

At this juncture a series of events involved me still deeper with the Grand Army and further complicated my relationship to both Tyss and Enfandin. It began the day a customer called himself to my attention with a selfconscious clearing of his throat.

“Yes sir. Can I help you?”

He was a fat little man with palpably false teeth, and hair hanging down behind over his collar. However the sum of his appearance was in no way ludicrous; rather he gave the impression of ease and authority, and an assurance so strong there was no necessity to buttress it.

“Why, I was looking for—” he began, and then scrutinized me sharply. “Say, aint you the young fella I saw walking with a Nigra? Big black buck?”

Seemingly everyone had been fascinated by the spectacle of two people of slightly different shades of color in company with each other. I felt myself reddening. “There’s no law against it, is there?”

He made a gargling noise which I judged was laughter. “Wouldnt know about your damyankee laws, boy. For myself I’d say there’s no harm in it, no harm in it at all. Always did like to be around Nigras myself. But then I was rared among em. Most damyankees seem to think Nigras aint fitten company. Only goes to show how narrerminded and bigoted you folks can be. Present company excepted.”

“M’sieu Enfandin is consul of the Republic of Haiti,” I said; “he’s a scholar and a gentleman.” As soon as the words were out I was bitterly sorry for their condescension and patronage. I felt ashamed, as if I had betrayed him by offering credentials to justify my friendship and implying it took special qualities to overcome the handicap of his color.

“A mussoo, huh? Furrin and educated Nigra? Well, guess theyre all right.” His tone, still hearty, was slightly dubious. “Ben working here long?”

“Nearly four years.”

“Kind of dull, aint it?”

“Oh no—I like to read, and there are plenty of books around here.” He frowned. “Should think a hefty young fella’d find more interesting things. Youre indented, of course? No? Well then youre a mighty lucky fella. In a way, in a way. Naturally youll be short on cash, ay? Unless you draw a lucky number in the lottery.”

I told him I’d never bought a lottery ticket.

He slapped his leg as though I’d just repeated a very good joke. “Aint that the pattrun,” he exclaimed; “aint that the pattrun! Necessity makes em have a lottery; Puritanism keeps em from buying tickets. Aint that the pattrun!” He gargled the humor of it for some time, while his eyes moved restlessly around the dim interior of the store. “And what do you read, ay? Sermons? Books on witches?”

I admitted I’d dipped into both, and then, perhaps trying to impress him, explained my ambitions.

“Going to be a professional historian, hey? Little out of my line, but I don’t suppose they’s many of em up North here.”

“Not unless you count a handful of college instructors who dabble in it”

He shook his head. “Young fella with your aims could do better down South, I’d think.”

“Oh yes; some of the most interesting research is going on right now in Leesburg, Washington-Baltimore and the University of Lima. You are a Confederate yourself, sir?”

“Southron, yes sir, I am that and mighty proud of it. Now look a-here, boy: I’ll lay all my cards on the table, face up. Youre a free man and you aint getting any pay here. Now how’d you like to do a little job for me? They’s good money in it; and I imagine I’d be able to fix up one of those deals—what do they call em? scholarships—at the University of Leesburg, after.”

A scholarship at Leesburg. Where the Department of History was engaged on a monumental project—nothing less than a compilation of all known source material on the War of Southron Independence! It was only with the strongest effort that I refrained from agreeing blindly.

“It sounds fine, Mr—?” “Colonel Tolliburr. Jest call me cunnel.”

There wasnt anything remotely military in his bearing. “It sounds good to me, Colonel. What is the job?”

He clicked his too regular teeth thoughtfully. “Hardly anything at all, m’boy, hardly anything at all. Just want you to keep a list for me.”

He seemed to think this a complete explanation. “What kind of list, Colonel?”

“Why, list of the people that come in here steady. Especially the ones don’t seem to buy anything, just talk to your boss. Names if you know em, but that aint real important, and a sort of rough description. Like five foot nine, blue eyes, dark hair, busted nose, scar on right eyebrow. And so on. Nothing real detailed. And a list of deliveries.”

Was I tempted? I don’t really know. “I’m sorry, Colonel. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Not even for that scholarship and say, a hundred dollars in real money?”

I shook my head.

“They’s no harm in it, boy. Likely nothing’ll come of it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Two hundred? I’m not talking about yankee slugs, but good CSA bills, each with a picture of President Jimmy right slapdash on the middle of it.”

“It’s not a matter of money, Colonel Tolliburr.”

He looked at me shrewdly. “Think it over, boy. No use being hasty.” He handed me a card. “Any time you change your mind come and see me or send me a telegram.”

I watched him out of the store. The Grand Army must be annoying the mighty Confederacy. Tyss ought to know about the agent’s interest. And I knew I would be unable to tell him.

“Suppose,” I asked Enfandin the next day, “suppose one were placed in the position of being an involuntary assistant in a—to a....” I was at a loss for words to describe the situation without being incriminatingly specific. I could not tell him about Tolliburr and my clear duty to let Tyss know of the colonel’s espionage without revealing Tyss’s connection with the Grand Army and thus uncovering my deceit in not warning Enfandin earlier. Whatever I said or failed to say, I was somehow culpable.

He waited patiently while I groped, trying to formulate a question which was no longer a question. “You can’t do evil that good may come of it,” I burst out at last.

“Quite so. And then?”

“Well.... That might mean eventually giving up all action entirely, since we can never be sure even the most innocent act may not have bad consequences.”

He nodded. “It might. The Manichaeans thought it did; they believed good and evil balanced and man was created in the image of Satan. But certainly there is a vast difference between this inhuman dogma and refusing to do consciously wicked deeds.”

“Maybe,” I said dubiously.

He looked at me speculatively. “A man is drowning in the river. I have a rope. If I throw him the rope he may not only climb to safety but take it from me and use it to garrote some honest citizen. Shall I therefore let him drown because I must not do good lest evil come of it?”

“But sometimes they are so mixed up it is impossible to disentangle them.”

“Impossible? Or very difficult?”

“Um.... I don’t know.”

“Are you not perhaps putting the problem too abstractly? Is not perhaps your situation—your hypothetical situation—one of being accessory to wrong rather than facing an alternative which means personal unhappiness?”

Again I struggled for noncommittal words. He had formulated my dilemma about the Grand Army so far as it connected with giving up my place in the bookstore or telling him of Tyss’s bias. Yet not entirely. And why could I not let Tyss know of Colonel Tolliburr’s visit, which it was certainly my duty to do? Was this overscrupulousness only a means of avoiding any unpleasantness?

“Yes,” I muttered at last.

“It would be very nice if there were no drawbacks ever attached to the virtuous choice. Then the only ones who would elect to do wrong would be those of twisted minds, the perverse, the insane. Who would prefer the devious course if the straight one were just as easy? No, no, my dear Hodge; one cannot escape the responsibility for his choice simply because the other way means inconvenience or hardships or tribulation.”

“Must we always act, whether we are sure of the outcome of our action or not?”

“Not acting is also action; can we always be sure of the outcome of refusing to act?”

Was it pettiness that made me contrast his position as an official of a small yet fairly secure power, well enough paid to live comfortably, with mine where a break with Tyss meant beggary and no further chance of fulfilling the ambition every day more important to me? _Did_ circumstances alter cases, and was it easy for Enfandin to talk as he did, unconfronted with harsh alternatives?

“You know, Hodge,” he said as though changing the subject, “I am what they call a career man, meaning I have no money except my salary. This might seem much to you, but it is really little, particularly since protocol says I must spend more than necessary. For the honor of my country. At home I have an establishment to keep up where my wife and children live—”

I had wondered about his apparent bachelorhood.

“—because to be rudely frank, I do not think they would be happy or safe in the United States on account of their color. Besides these expenses I make personal contributions for the assistance of black men who are—how shall we say it?—unhappily circumstanced in your country, for I have found the official allotment is never enough. Now I have been indiscreet; you know state secrets. Why do I tell you this? Because, my friend, I should like to help. Alas, I cannot offer money. But this I can do, if it will not offend your pride: I suggest you live here—it will be no more uncomfortable than the arrangements you have described in the store—and attend one of the colleges of the city. A medal or an order from the Haitian government judiciously conferred on an eminent educator—decorations cut so nicely across color-lines, perhaps because they don’t show their origin to the uninitiated—should take care of tuition fees. What do you say?”

What could I say? That I did not deserve his generosity? The statement would be meaningless, a catchphrase, unless I explained that I’d not been open with him, and now even less than before was I able to do this. Or could I say that bare minutes earlier I had thought enviously and spitefully of him? Wretched and happy, I mumbled incoherent thanks, began a number of sentences and left them unfinished, lapsed into dazed silence.

But the newly opened prospect cut through my introspection and scattered my self-reproaches. The future was too exciting to dwell in any other time; in a moment we were both sketching rapid plans and supplementing each other’s designs with revisions of our own. Words tumbled out; ideas were caught in mid-expression. We decided, we reconsidered, we returned to the first decisions.

I was to give Tyss two weeks’ notice despite the original agreement making such nicety superfluous; Enfandin was to discuss matriculation with a professor he knew. My employer raised a quizzical eyebrow at my information.

“Ah, Hodgins, you see how neatly the script works out. Nothing left to chance or choice. If you hadnt been relieved of your trifling capital by a man of enterprise whose methods were more successful than subtle you might have fumbled at the edge of the academic world for four years and then, having substituted a wad of unrelated facts for common sense and whatever ability to think you may have possessed, fumbled for the rest of your life at the edge of the economic world. You wouldnt have met George Pondible or gotten here where you could discover your own mind without adjustment to a professorial iron maiden.”

“I thought it was all arbitrary.”

He gave me a reproachful look. “Arbitrary and predetermined are not synonymous, Hodgins, nor does either rule out artistry. Mindless artistry of course, like that of the snowflake or crystal. And how artistic this development is! You will go on to become a professor yourself and construct iron maidens for promising students who might become your competitors. You will write learned histories, for you are—havent I said this before?—the spectator type. The part written for you does not call for you to be a participant, an instrument for—apparently—influencing events. Hence it is proper that you report them so future generations may get the illusion they arent puppets.” He grinned at me. At another time I would have been delighted to pounce on the assortment of inconsistencies he had just offered; at the moment I could think of nothing but my failure to mention the Confederate agent’s visit. It almost seemed his mechanist notions were valid and I was destined always to be the ungrateful recipient of kindness.

“All right,” he said, swallowing the last of his bread and half-raw meat; “so long as your sentimentality impels you to respect obligations I can find work for you. Those boxes over there go upstairs. Pondible’s bringing a van around for them this afternoon.”

Ive heard the assumption that working in a bookstore must be light and pleasant. Many times during the years with Roger Tyss I had reason to be thankful for my strength and farm training. The boxes were deceptively small but so heavy they could only have been solidly packed with paper. Even with Tyss carrying box for box with me I was vastly relieved when I had to quit to run an errand.

When I got back he went out to make an offer on someone’s library. “There are only four left. The last two are paper-wrapped; didnt have enough boxes.”

It was characteristic of him to leave the lighter packages for me. I ran up the stairs with one of the two remaining wooden containers. Returning, I tripped on the lowest step and sprawled forward. Reflexively I threw out my hands and landed on one of the paper parcels. The tight-stretched covering cracked and split under the impact; the contents—neatly tied rectangular bundles—spilled out.

I had learned enough of the printing trade to recognize the brightly colored oblongs as lithographs, and I wondered as I stooped over to gather them up why such a job should have been given Tyss rather than a shop specializing in this work. Even under the gaslight the colors were hard and vigorous.

Then I really looked at the bundle I was holding. ESPAÑA was enscrolled across the top; below it was the picture of a man with long nose and jutting underlip, flanked by two ornate figure fives, and beneath them the legend, CINCO PESETAS. Spanish Empire banknotes. Bundles and bundles of them.

I needed neither expert knowledge nor minute scrutiny to tell me there was a fortune here in counterfeit money. The purpose in forging Spanish currency I could not see; that it was no private undertaking of Tyss’s but an activity of the Grand Army I was certain. Puzzled and worried, I rewrapped the bundles of notes into as neat an imitation of the original package as I could contrive.

The rest of the day I spent casting uneasy glances at the mound of boxes and watching with apprehension the movement of anyone toward them. Death was the penalty for counterfeiting United States coins; I had no idea of the punishment for doing the same with foreign paper but I was sure even so minor an accessory as myself would be in a sad way if some officious customer should stumble against one of the packages.

Tyss in no way acted like a guilty man, or even one with an important secret. He seemed unaware of any peril; doubtless he was daily in similar situations, only chance and my own lack of observation had prevented my discovering this earlier.

Nor did he show anxiety when Pondible failed to arrive. Darkness came and the gaslamps went on in the streets. The heavy press of traffic outside dwindled, but the incriminating boxes remained undisturbed near the door. At last there was the sound of uncertain wheels slowing up outside and Pondible’s voice admonishing, “Wh-whoa!”

I rushed out just as he was dismounting with slow dignity. “Who goes?” he asked; “Vance and give a countersign.”

“It’s Hodge,” I said. “Let me help you.”

“Hodge! Old friend; not seen long time!” (He had been in the store only the day before.) “Terrible sfortune, Hodge. Dri-driving wagon. Fell off. Fell off wagon I mean. See?”

“Sure, I see. Let me hitch the horse for you. Mr Tyss is waiting.”

“Avoidable,” he muttered, “nuvoidable, voidable. Fell off.”

Tyss took him by the arm. “You come with me and rest awhile. Hodgins, you better start loading up; youll have to do the delivering now.”

Rebellious refusal formed in my mind. Why should I be still further involved? He had no right to demand it of me; in self-protection I was bound to refuse. “Mr Tyss....”

“Yes?”

Two weeks would see me free of him, but nothing could wipe out the debt I owed him. “Nothing. Nothing,” I murmured and picked up one of the boxes.

_8._ _IN VIOLENT TIMES_

He gave me an address on Twenty-Sixth Street. “Sprovis is the name.”

“All right,” I said as stolidly as I could.

“Let them do the unloading. I see there’s a full feedbag in the van; that’ll be a good time to give it to the horse.”

“Yes.”

“They’ll load up another consignment and drive with you to the destination. Take the van back to the livery stable. Here’s money for your supper and carfare back here.”

He thinks of everything, I reflected bitterly. Except that I don’t want to have anything to do with this.

Driving slackly through the almost empty streets my resentment continued to rise, drowning, at least partly, my fear of being for some unfathomable reason stopped by a police officer and apprehended. Why should I be stopped? Why should the Grand Army counterfeit pesetas?

The address, which I had trouble finding on the poorly lit thoroughfare, was one of those four-storey stuccos at least a century old, showing few signs of recent repair. Mr Sprovis, who occupied the basement, had one ear distinctly larger than the other, an anomaly I could not help attributing to a trick of constantly pulling on the lobe. He, like the others who came out with him to unload the van, wore the Grand Army beard.

“I had to come instead of Pon—” “No names,” he growled. “Hear? No names.”

“All right. I was told you’d unload and load up again.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I slipped the strap of the feedbag over the horse’s ear and started toward Eighth Avenue.

“Hey! Where you going?”

“To get something to eat. Anything wrong with that?”

I felt him peering suspiciously at me. “Guess not. But don’t keep us waiting, see? We’ll be ready to go in twenty minutes.”

I did not like Mr Sprovis. In the automatic lunchroom where the dishes were delivered by a clever clockwork device as coins were deposited in the right slots, I gorged on fish and potatoes, but my pleasure at getting away for once from the unvarying bread and heart was spoiled by the thought of him. And I was at best no more than half through with the night’s adventure. What freight Sprovis and his companions were now loading in the van I had no idea. Except that it was nothing innocent.

When I turned the corner into Twenty-Sixth Street again, the shadowy mass of the horse and van was gone from its place by the curb. Alarmed, I broke into a run and discovered it turning in the middle of the block. I jumped and caught hold of the dash, pulling myself aboard. “What’s the idea?”

A fist caught me in the shoulder, almost knocking me back into the street. Zigzags of shock ran down my arm, terminating in numbing pain. Desperately I clung to the dash.

“Hold it,” someone rumbled; “it’s the punk who came with. Let him in.”

Another voice, evidently belonging to the man who’d hit me, admonished, “Want to watch yourself, chum. Not go jumping like that without warning. I might of stuck a shiv in your ribs instead of my hand.”

I could only repeat, “What’s the idea of trying to run off with the van? I’m responsible for it.”

“He’s responsible, see,” mocked another voice from the body of the van. “Aint polite not to wait on him.”

I was wedged between the driver and my assailant; my shoulder ached and I was beginning to be really frightened now my first anger had passed. These were “action” members of the Grand Army; men who regularly committed battery, mayhem, arson, robbery and murder. I had been both foolhardy and lucky; realizing this it seemed diplomatic not to try for possession of the reins.

I could hear the breathing and mumbling of others in back, but it didnt need this to tell me the van was over-loaded. We turned north on Sixth Avenue; the street lights showed Sprovis driving. “Gidap, gidap,” he urged, “get going!”

“That’s a horse,” I protested; “not a locomotive.”

“What do you know?” came from behind; “And we thought we was on the Erie.”

“He’s tired,” I persisted, “and he’s pulling too much weight.”

“Shut up,” ordered Sprovis quietly. “Shut up.” The quietness was not deceptive; it was ominous. I shut up.

Speed was stupid on several counts. For one thing it called attention to the van at a time when most commercial vehicles had been stabled for the night and the traffic was almost entirely carriages, buggies, hacks and minibiles. I visualized the suspicious crowd which would gather immediately if our horse dropped from exhaustion. There was no hope that consciousness of an innocuous cargo made Sprovis bold; whatever we carried was bound to be as incriminating as the counterfeit bills.

Disconnected scraps of conversation drifted from Sprovis’ companions. “I says, ‘Look here, youre making a nice profit from selling abroad. Either you....’”

“And of course he put it all on a twenty-dollar ticket even though....”

“‘ ... my taxes,’ he says. ‘You worry about your taxes,’ I says; ‘I’m worried about your contributions.’”

A monotonous chuffing close behind us forced itself into my consciousness; when we turned eastward in the Forties I exclaimed, “There’s a minibile following us!”

Even as I spoke the trackless engine pulled alongside and then darted ahead to pocket us by nosing diagonally toward the curb. The horse must have been too weak to shy; he simply stopped short and I heard the curses of the felled passengers behind me.

“Not the cops anyway!”

“Cons for a nickel!”

“Only half a block from—” “Quick, break out the guns—” “Not those guns; one bang and we’re through. Air pistols, if anybody’s got one. Hands or knives. Get them all!”

They piled out swiftly past me; I remained alone on the seat, an audience of one, properly ensconced. A few blocks away was the small park where Tirzah used to meet me. It was not believable that this was happening in one of New York’s quietest residential districts in the year 1942.

An uneven, distorting light emphasized the abnormal speed of the incident that followed, making the action seem jumpy, as though the participants were caught at static moments, changing their attitudes between flashes of visibility. The tempo was so swift any possible spectators in the bordering windows or on the sidewalks wouldnt have had time to realize what was going on before it was all over.

Four men from the minibile were met by five from the van. The odds were not too unequal, for the attackers had a discipline which Sprovis’ force lacked. Their leader attempted to parley during one of those seconds of apparent inaction. “Hay you men—we got nothing against you. They’s a thousand dollars apiece in it for you—”

A fist smacked into his mouth. The light caught his face as he was jolted back, but I hardly needed its revelation to confirm my recognition of Colonel Tolliburr’s voice.

The Confederate agents had brass knuckles and black-jacks, Colonel Tolliburr had a sword-cane which he unsheathed with a glinting flourish. The Grand Army men flashed knives; no one seemed to be using air pistols or spring-powered guns.

Both sides were intent on keeping the clash as quiet and inconspicuous as possible; no one shouted with anger or screamed in pain. This muffled intensity made the struggle more gruesome; the contenders fought their natural impulses as well as each other. I heard the impact of blows, the grunts of effort, the choked-back cries, the scraping of shoes on pavement and the thud of falls. One of the defenders fell, and two of the attackers, before the two remaining Southrons gave up the battle and attempted escape.

With united impulse they started for the minibile, evidently realized they wouldnt have time to get up power, and began running down the street. Their moment of indecision did for them. As the four Grand Army men closed in I saw the Confederates raise their arms in the traditional gesture of surrender. Then they were struck down.

I crept noiselessly down on the off-side of the van and hastened quietly away in the protection of the shadows.

_9._ _BARBARA_

For the next few days reading was pure pretense. I used the opened book to mask my privacy while I trembled not so much with fear as with horror. I had been brought up in a harsh enough world and murder was no novelty in New York; I had seen slain men before, but this was the first time I had been confronted with naked, merciless savagery. Though I believed Sprovis would have had no qualms about despatching an inconvenient witness if I had stayed on the van, I had no particular fear for my own safety, for my knowledge of what had happened became less dangerous daily. The terror of the deed itself however remained constant.

I was not concerned solely with revulsion. Inquisitiveness looked out under loathing to make me wonder what lay behind the night’s events. What had really happened, and what did it all mean?

From scraps of conversation accidentally heard or deliberately eavesdropped, from the newspapers, from deduction and remembered fragments, I reconstructed the picture which made the background. Its borders reached a long way from Astor Place.

For years the world had been waiting, half in dread, half in resignation, for war to break out between the world’s two Great Powers, the German Union and the Confederate States. Some expected the point of explosion would be the Confederacy’s ally, the British Empire; most anticipated at least part of the war would be fought in the United States.

The scheme of the Grand Army, or of that part of it which included Tyss, was apparently a farfetched and fantastic attempt to circumvent the probable course of history. The counterfeiting was an aspect of this attempt which was nothing less than trying to force the war to start, not through the Confederacy’s ally, but through the German Union’s—the Spanish Empire. With enormous amounts of the spurious currency circulated by emissaries posing as Confederate agents, the Grand Army hoped to embroil the Confederacy with Spain and possibly preserve the neutrality of the United States. It was an ingenuous idea evolved, I see now, by men without knowledge of the actual mechanics of world politics.

If I ever had any sentimental notions about the Army they vanished now. Tyss’s mechanism may not have been purposefully designed to palliate, but it made it easy to justify actions like Sprovis’. I had no such convenient way of numbing my conscience. But even as I brooded over the weakness and cowardice which made me an accomplice, I looked forward to my release. I had not seen Enfandin since his offer; in a week I would leave the bookstore for his sanctuary, and I resolved my first act should be to tell him everything. And then that dream was exploded just as it was about to be realized.

I do not know who it was broke into the consulate or for what reason, and was surprised in the act, shooting and wounding Enfandin so seriously he was unable to speak for the weeks before he was finally returned to Haiti to recuperate or die. He could not have gotten in touch with me and I was not permitted to see him; the police guard was doubly zealous to keep him from all contact since he was both an accredited diplomat and a black man.

I did not know who shot him. It was most unlikely to be anyone connected with the Grand Army, but I did not know. I could not know. He _might_ have been shot by Sprovis or George Pondible. Since the ultimate chain could have led back to me, it did lead back to me. If this were the Manichaeism of which Enfandin had spoken, I could not help it

The loss of my chance to escape from the bookstore was the least of my despair. It seemed to me I was caught by the inexorable, choiceless circumstance in which Tyss so firmly believed and Enfandin denied. I could escape neither my guilt nor the surroundings conducive to further guilt. I could not change destiny.

Was all this merely the self-torture of any introverted young man? Possibly. I only know that for a long time, long as one in his early twenties measures time, I lost all interest in life, even dallying with thoughts of suicide. I put books aside distastefully or, which was worse, indifferently.

I must have done my work around the store; certainly I recall no comments from Tyss about it. Neither can I remember anything to distinguish the succession of days. Obviously I ate and slept; there were undoubtedly long hours free from utter hopelessness. The details of those months have simply vanished.

Nor can I say precisely when it was my despair began to lift. I know that one day—it was cold and the snow was deep on the ground, deep enough to keep the minibiles off the streets and cause the horse-cars trouble—I saw a girl walking briskly, red-cheeked, breathing in quick visible puffs, and my glance was not apathetic. When I returned to the bookstore I picked up Field Marshal Liddell-Hart’s _Life of General Pickett_ and opened it to the place where I had abandoned it. In a moment I was fully absorbed.

Paradoxically, once I was myself again I was no longer the same Hodge Backmaker. For the first time I was determined to do what I wanted instead of waiting and hoping events would somehow turn out right for me. Somehow I was going to free myself from the bookstore and all its frustrations and evils.

This resolution was reinforced by the discovery that I was exhausting the volumes around me. The books I sought now were rare and ever more difficult to find. Innocent of knowledge about academic life I imagined them ready to hand in any college library.

Nor was I any longer satisfied with the printed word alone. My friendship with Enfandin had shown me how fruitful a personal, face-to-face relationship between teacher and student could be, and it seemed to me such ties could develop into ones between fellow scholars, a mutual, uncompetitive pursuit of knowledge.

Additionally I wanted to search the real, the original sources: unpublished manuscripts of participants or onlookers, old diaries and letters, wills or accountbooks, which might shade a meaning or subtly change the interpretation of old, forgotten actions.

My problems could be solved ideally by an instructorship at some college, but how was this to be achieved without the patronage of a Tolliburr or an Enfandin? I had no credentials worth a second’s consideration. Though the immigration bars kept out graduates of foreign universities, no college in the United States would accept a self-taught young man who had not only little Latin and less Greek, but no mathematics, languages, or sciences at all. For a long time I considered possible ways and means, both drab and dramatic; at last, more in a spirit of whimsical absurdity than sober hope, I wrote out a letter of application, setting forth the qualifications I imagined myself to possess, assaying the extent of my learning with a generosity only ingenuousness could palliate, and outlining the work I projected for my future. With much care and many revisions I set this composition in type. It was undoubtedly a foolish gesture, but not having access to so costly a machine as a typewriter, and not wanting to reveal this by penning the letters by hand, I resorted to this transparent device.

Tyss picked up one of the copies I struck off and glanced over it. His expression was critical. “Is it too bad?” I asked despondently.

“You should have used more leading. And lined it up and justified the lines and eliminated hyphens. Setting type can never be done mechanically or half-heartedly—that’s why no one yet has been able to invent a practical typesetting machine. I’m afraid you’ll never make a passable printer, Hodgins.”

He was concerned only with typesetting, uninterested in the outcome. Or satisfied, since it was predetermined, that comment was superfluous.

Government mails, never efficient and always expensive, being one of the favorite victims of holdup men, and pneumatic post limited to local areas, I dispatched the letters by Wells, Fargo to a comprehensive list of colleges. I can’t say I then waited for the replies to flow in, for though I knew the company’s system of heavily armed guards would insure delivery of my applications, I had little anticipation of any answers. As a matter of fact I put it pretty well out of my mind, dredging it up at rarer intervals, always a trifle more embarrassed by my presumption.

It was several months later, toward the end of September, that the telegram came signed Thomas K Haggerwells. It read, ACCEPT NO OFFER TILL OUR REPRESENTATIVE EXPLAINS HAGGERSHAVEN.

I hadnt sent a copy of my letter to York, Pennsylvania, where the telegram had originated, or anywhere near it. I knew of no colleges in that vicinity. And I had never heard of Mr (or Doctor or Professor) Haggerwells. I might have thought the message a mean joke, except that Tyss’s nature didnt run to such humor and no one else knew of the letters except those to whom they were addressed.

I found no reference to Haggershaven in any of the directories I consulted, which wasnt too surprising considering the slovenly way these were put together. I decided that if such a place existed I could only wait patiently until the “representative,” if there really was one, arrived.

Tyss having left for the day, I swept a little, dusted some, straightened a few of the books—any serious attempt to arrange the stock would have been futile—and took up a recent emendation of Creasy’s _Fifteen Decisive Battles_ by one Captain Eisenhower.

I was so deep in the good captain’s analysis (he might have made a respectable strategist himself, given an opportunity) that I heard no customer enter, sensed no impatient presence. I was only recalled from my book by a rather sharp, “Is the proprietor in?”

“No maam,” I answered, reluctantly abandoning the page. “He’s out for the moment. Can I help you?”

My eyes, accustomed to the store’s poor light, had the advantage over hers, still adjusting from the sunlit street. Secure in my audacity, I measured her vital femininity, a quality which seemed, if such a thing is possible, impersonal. There was nothing overtly bold or provocative about her, though I’m sure my mother would have thinned her lips at the black silk trousers and the jacket which emphasized the contour of her breasts. At a time when women used every device to call attention to their helplessness and consequently their desirability and the implied need for men to protect them, she carried an air which seemed to say, Why yes, I am a woman: not furtively or brazenly or incidentally but primarily; what are you going to do about it?

I recognized a sturdy sensuality as I recognized the fact that she was bareheaded, almost as tall as I, and rather large-boned; certainly there was nothing related to me about it. Nor was it connected with surface attributes; she was not beautiful and still further from being pretty, though she might have been called handsome in a way. Her hair, ginger-colored and clubbed low on her neck, waved crisply; her eyes appeared slate gray. (Later I learned they could vary from pale gray to blue-green.) The fleshly greediness was betrayed, if at all, only by the width and set of her lips, and that insolent expression.