Текст книги "Dominion"

Автор книги: Calvin Baker

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

When he married it had been from compatibility and a sense of duty, as he was very young and feared all those other footpaths the heart might follow. With her his duty was to his heart’s happiness and his desires. He could be content with that for a very long time, he knew, perhaps even so far as the end of his days.

“My heart did not know it’s true deepness before I met you,” he said, holding her naked breast. Their affection for each other had actually startled him, when he realized how simple and pure it was, but also when he recognized the profundity of that weightlessness.

She was exuberant when she heard this, for she had spared herself no sacrifice in order to take care of him and increase his gladness. Although she tried to be discreet, she knew it had already cost her her reputation, for everyone spoke of her as a dishonored woman. If love be dishonor, though, she was happy to be infamous, as they shared in that room on Catherine Street an ecstasy whose heat consumed all other fuel.

“Will you stay with me?” she asked him again.

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

“How long?” she begged, for she wanted him to be clear about what she offered him and what she needed.

“As long as can be told on all the clocks in heaven,” he answered. He fell back into her arms after that, until he began to forget about all else outside that room.

“And I will always be devoted to you,” she promised. “If you left me now I know I could not live.”

He was possessed then by her touch as she was by his words, and the two of them fell upon each other in lovemaking.

They were still awake late into that night, long after most of the city had already retired and was dreaming. Under the twilight that ebbed through the windows, they held each other still.

“Do you know what would please me more than anything else?” she asked him sleepily, as he held her about the waist.

“No, but I want to know nothing more.”

“I cannot ask it.”

“Tell me.”

“It is to have a house and children with you,” she said, telling him next how tired she was of living like a fugitive in their rented room, and promising how much happier she could make him if only they had a home of their own to be in together.

Caleum did not need to think about it very long before telling her that he would find her a house where they could be together. For he also missed having a home and knew that making one with her would bring him no end of pleasure. “I will buy you a house,” he promised.

He did not know about children, but he knew that after taking up with him for so long it would be impossible for her to go back to her people without disgrace, and he did not wish to see that ever happen to her – or that she should go wanting for anything, or beg favor of anyone else, even if he could not make her his wife. His honor required at least this much. He would give her a house.

He did not think then what it would mean for his intention of returning to his own home, as that place had grown very distant from his mind’s eye. He only thought about Christmas with Elissa, and what he should do for an income if he stayed on in that city – as his purse was not as full as it used to be and would be taxed very definitely by the purchase of a home.

five

He searched the city continuously during the weeks leading up to the holiday, until he found a place he thought would be suitable for the two of them. It was a respectable merchant’s house though not grand, built in the Dutch manner with a little store on the bottom floor and living quarters above it. When he presented it to her Christmas morning, she was overjoyed as she went through the rooms, planning out in her mind the function each would serve and how best to make them happy there.

When they moved in, he found everything in the house had been arranged around his needs and satisfaction, so that he never had to think of anything disagreeable while he was there and, in fact, marveled at how constantly pleasant his new house was and how untroubled he felt in its rooms.

For income, Caleum Merian set up a small concern in the shop on the first floor, selling wares that were much coveted but difficult to come by during the war. It proved very popular with the people of that city, as it was filled with delicacies, and on weekends he would share with Elissa those things he had hoarded for the two of them alone. Having scoured the wharfs for smuggled goods, there might be fine Irish lace or hats in the latest fashion from France, one of which he might present to her, reveling in the happiness it brought her. He also received things such as sets of silver from colonists whose means were stretched by the occupation, or even items in gold from the better families on the island, which always reached him by way of intermediaries, and he was always understanding and discreet.

He found himself becoming a true citizen of that town as his business grew, until he thought very little of wanting to be anywhere else in his life again. He was near thirty years old and found the new rhythm of his days quite agreeable, and the material pleasures of this life were such as he had not known existed before. Something had changed within him, but, however different he had become, he was at peace from his former self. Dear Elissa, who did not know him before, embraced the man he was instead of remarking on the changes that had taken place, as any from his old life surely would have. This was a liberation for him, and he always felt free with her to say whatever he thought and do as he wanted, with no burdens of any other sort to support.

Elissa was finally confident in their home together, and although her own family worried for her that she was not married but living with a man who was, they accepted it as a better situation than her being merely some passing soldier’s fancy. To her, though, there was no difference than if they had exchanged vows in church, because, she thought, marriage is sanctified first in the heart above all other places.

When he stopped speaking of his farm and his children, she knew he was with her completely and intended to remain. No one could fault her that another woman had gotten to him first, but the two of them were together now and that was also meant to be. Nor could anyone reproach her treatment of him, it being such as any man would desire and covet in life.

All of this fortunate domestic routine was at last interrupted one day when an ancient sailor came into Caleum’s shop with a set of finest china, which he offered for sale. As Caleum examined the wares, his customer looked at the name stenciled on the glass window and again at Caleum behind his counter.

“Strange name, Merian,” he said casually. “I once knew a fellow called that. Aye, I knew his entire family.”

“I would comment on your name too, friend,” Caleum remarked coolly, “but I do not know ye, so keep my mind and tongue to myself.”

“The son would have been around your age,” the stranger continued on, undaunted by the rebuke. “They lived near the quays in Providence, but were originally from a place called Stonehouses it was that I did visit on a journey once.”

“I will give ten shillings for the china,” Caleum offered, ignoring the rest the old man said and walking to his strongbox to get the money. As he went across the room, the sound of his wooden leg striking the floor resonated through the shop and was the only thing that could be heard, as the other man watched him silently. A curious thing about his leg: Either because of it or his growing status in the commercial life of the city, whenever men looked on it, even white men, they deferred to him almost instinctually. If it was a man of very high station, he would always make a little nod of the head, as if wishing to bow but being forbidden that ritual due to caste. In time Caleum had grown used to all this, until he seemed indifferent to anyone else’s regard entirely, and they in turn lent him wide berth. Not so the stranger, who let the money remain on the counter and resumed speaking, looking Caleum directly in the eye and not allowing him respite or quarter from his old gaze.

“The man’s given name was Purchase, and he was quite a fellow in his day, though I don’t think anyone would much recognize it now. He stood near tall as that doorframe, and there wasn’t a woman who ever met him who didn’t fall squarely in love. Since the first time he knew her, he only had eyes for one, and it was she he gave his whole life to, though happiness was elusive for them.

“They had a little boy, whose name escapes me just now, and the father one day asked that I deliver the boy to his family’s place down the coast. As he was my true friend, I obliged him.

“On the way there a storm met us off one of the capes, and I’ve never seen anything like the boy’s lack of fear during that gale. Every man on board was white or gray, depending on his original self, but the boy stood at the edge of the railing staring right out into it. Someone said he spied a ghost ship, which were known to run off that coast, though no one I knew had ever seen one. Whatever the case, when he left the railing the storm abated and we reached land safely.

“He was just as impervious to fear when we set out overland to his people’s house, which, when we reached it, was one of the most comfortable places on this earth I ever laid down my head.

“Purchase had a brother, called Magnus, who was almost as tall as he, and their father, who stood somewhere between the two. He was named Jasper Merian, I remember, he was a man in the old style and paid me in gold for delivering his son’s boy safely to their door. All of them had the same habit of paying for whatever they got in ready cash, and rarely an argument about the price.

“The other brother had a wife, Adelia, if my mind is still sound, and she was the kindest maid of the country I ever met. She doted on the boy, and I remember thinking, though I was only there a short while, his life was something blessed that he should be so loved by so many people, as I myself had none by then but my wife who loved me – and she died not long after that trip. In any case, those were the Merians I knew in my day. You would not happen to have heard of any of them?”

With each word the old man said and everything he described, Caleum felt a peeling away of the hardened membrane around his memory and recalled a little bit more with each word, until he could recognize the man before him. Rennton had changed very little since then, having turned gray and a bit more wrinkled, but otherwise being obviously the same – as some boys do not metamorphose so much from youth to manhood, so some men receive their true face early in life, which deviates very little from then until their last days.

Looking at him, Caleum remembered that journey they made together with a clarity that illuminated his interior mind like a fire, and he felt then like Adam the first time God called and he refused to answer his Maker, knowing himself finally to be naked.

“Aye. The man was called Rennton who carried me home.”

“I did not think you cared to remember,” Rennton said.

“How should I ever forget?” Caleum asked, regretful of his earlier arrogance toward the man. “Please, you must be my guest at dinner tonight,” he said. “It would be an honor for me.”

“Aye,” Rennton agreed, remembering the hospitality and good fellowship he had known from Merians in the past and extending to the son the bond of friendship and alliance he had shared with the father.

Caleum wanted to embrace the man who had saved him from orphanage and certain death as a boy, but fearing this would be too familiar, he took Rennton’s hands in both of his and pumped them warmly. “We live above the shop here,” he told him. “Dinner will be at six, if that suits you.”

“I will be there promptly,” Rennton answered.

After he left, Caleum closed the shop and went upstairs to tell Elissa they would be having a guest for dinner, which for them was a rarity. In his good mood he also suggested that she invite who she wanted, as they had not entertained a proper party since moving into their home together.

“Maybe your sister would like to come,” he said, knowing how her family shunned her since she began living with him.

“I do not think so, but I will send word to her,” she replied. “I had better hurry now before the markets close, if we are to make a dinner for so many.” She was elated as she left the house then, for she saw how jubilant he was and was in her turn glad to open their home to friends.

When Rennton arrived that evening, he saw Caleum had spared no expense on the meal and had even gone so far as to hire a group of musicians to entertain them. He thought then how much like the father the son had become. He was also was very stirred when Caleum stood to toast him, giving him credit for saving his life.

The house that evening was filled with Caleum’s acquaintances from the city, who were all curious to ask questions about Caleum’s life before, for it seemed he had just showed up among them with no ties to any place before that one. Elissa at first did not want to hear about Stonehouses and Caleum’s family, and she herself was always careful not to wake the memory in him, but she was certain about their life together by then and let her curiosity draw her near to listen.

Rennton for his part was happy to answer what questions he could, but he was also curious to hear what had happened to Purchase’s son since he last knew him.

“Tell me how you ended up here?” he asked finally, when the two of them were alone, sharing a glass of port in Caleum’s study. “If I had a place like yours I would never venture forth from it, although your father did the same.”

“He was drawn out by love,” Caleum answered. “I left for duty and the war.”

“But you chose to stay here instead of returning?” Rennton asked.

“That is what happened,” Caleum said, for he could suddenly no longer remember his reason for staying. He looked across the room just then, and saw Elissa in the doorway, and knew again why he had remained so long. When he first came to her he was broken. Only he did not think he could tell Rennton such.

As Elissa watched him talking to his old friend, she saw both how much she did not know about him and that he was very far away in his thoughts. She went over to him and tried with her touch to bring his mind back to where it had been before.

Caleum felt like a stranger in the house that evening, and everything around him seemed foreign. Although he knew the rooms and the things in them to be his own, he could only think how they were not the rooms he had grown up in or shared with Libbie and their children. How he was not at Stonehouses. He longed profoundly in that moment to be there. When she stroked his arm, he reciprocated her touch, but only lightly on the hand.

When Elissa turned and left, to attend to their other guests, Caleum asked Rennton when he was sailing out and what port he was calling on next.

“I am leaving in the morning, but I’m headed eastward,” the old mariner said to him, “but there is a frigate, called the Enki, docked off Wall, sailing for southernmost waters at the end of the week. If you are set on going there, the captain is a friend of mine, and he will get you to your home port safely. He is a peculiar man, though, and you must be careful not to upset him.”

Rennton had once made the same offer to Caleum’s father, on an occasion when his wife had left him and he was despondent over it.

He could see the same sadness settled over Caleum now. It was not for him to say where a man belonged or not, but only in his power of friendship to help him get to where he wished to be.

They feasted throughout that night, and it felt to many like a wedding banquet, as it kept expanding until it encompassed the whole house, and the mood among the guests was merry. Elissa alone worried that it seemed like a good-bye feast.

She tried to block this from her thoughts, and when he came to her in bed that night she made no mention of her worries. He was as loving as he had ever been with her. Nor did he mention any other home, or a desire to go away – until she became calm again and no longer heeded her first fears.

He had determined to leave at the end of the week, however, and told himself that it would be best to spare her feelings, not wishing to draw out or increase her sadness. It was the best of noble reasons; however, as sometimes happens, the opposite is what occurred.

He harbored his intentions secret in his breast the entire week, going about as if all were normal. When the day of the ship’s sailing finally arrived, he woke up before sunrise, before Elissa had stirred, to leave from out the house undetected. He did not take anything of his life in that town with him, and nothing to remember her by or otherwise knot his memory. He carried instead the same little trunk he had hauled around with him for the last four years. Nor did he wear his fine clothes, but took from a corner in the bottom of the trunk his old coat with Libbie’s embroidery inside.

The picture was faded almost entirely and the coat looked even shabbier than he remembered, but it is what he covered himself with as he set out for the docks, leaving all else behind, no matter how precious. His sword he had not seen since he left the battlefield at Saratoga, nor did he miss it, but he carried its memory still, as it was carved deep. And this was all he had in the world, but what was at Stonehouses.

It was still dark when he arrived on the wharf, and fog covered the entire southern tip of the island. He had forgotten the ship’s berth and was forced to ask around for the Enki until he discovered her and made his way aboard.

“So you made it,” said the captain, when he saw him arrive.

Caleum, who had booked his passage earlier in the week, was the only one still missing from the passenger list, and the captain, having been so long in port, was anxious to sail. He had the second mate show Caleum to a tiny cabin and told his crew to be ready as soon as the fog lifted.

Caleum was guilty and heavy-hearted as he waited belowdecks for the ship to begin its journey. When it began to grow light out, he went up above to see why they had not yet sailed. The city was still shrouded in a ghost-white fog, and the captain, a very powerful-looking man with a face like a gigantic angry baby, refused to set out. He looked perturbed, and everyone hastened to get out of his way as he paced the deck.

Remembering what Rennton had told him, Caleum went to the other side of the ship, lest he raise the man’s ire. It was about six in the morning, and he knew Elissa would awaken soon and discover his absence.

He hoped the gift of the house would ease her hurt and make her feel less poorly used. Though he knew he had caused her pain, but it was never his intent. It was only that God, He had other plans for him.

At seven o’clock they still had not left port, and Caleum knew Elissa was awake and about by then. He knew as well she would think he had only gone out on errands, or else for a morning constitutional. Still, he feared she might somehow find him there and thwart his journey, and so hid himself below like a smuggler.

An hour later, as they continued to wait, he began to have second thoughts and wished profoundly that he could see Elissa one last time.

At eleven that morning the low cloud over the water finally burned away, and the captain weighed anchor. When they finally set out, all the passengers crowded to the railing, and looked either backward toward Manhattan – and what they were leaving behind – or else forward toward the open sea and the place they was going. Caleum looked first to one and then the other. Toward Elissa, who had loved him so dearly, and then to the destination he had been trying to reach for so long.

Elissa awoke with a start and sensed immediately that Caleum was not in bed where he was supposed to be. Although the emptiness of their room was the first thing she noticed, she did not make much of it. Instead, she dressed, then went down to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, thinking he had been called out early on business and was certain to have an appetite when he returned.

When he did not show up, she left his breakfast warming for him in the stove until about eleven o’clock, after which she threw it out behind the house for the stray dog that sometimes wandered in the alley back there. She knew it bothered Caleum that she sometimes fed it, but even a stray dog deserved not to starve in the streets.

When he was not back for the midday meal, she began looking around to see if he had left any sign to tell her where he had gone. By evening she was worried enough that she swallowed her pride and went to her sister’s house, not knowing where else to turn.

Her sister counseled her to be patient, though in her own mind she wondered whether a man who had appeared so suddenly out of nowhere wasn’t bound to be off just as quickly.

To pass the time she stayed on and had dinner with her sister’s family and, when she left, told herself Caleum would be there with a good explanation when she opened the door, and all would be well.

He was not, though, for the first time in the year they had been together. She went to bed early that night – but stayed awake until it was almost dawn, listening for his footfall on the stairs. When she awoke and felt the cold space around her again she grew angry, which was very rare for her. It was the first night he had spent away from home since they became a couple, and she grew wrathful at how he had hurt her. Still, he did not come. When she got up from bed and checked his closet she saw his trunk was missing. Her anger then began to dissipate and was replaced again by worry, until she became miserable again. She ate alone that night and, when her sister knocked on the door, she pretended to be out, not wanting visitors.

Nor did she want to leave the house the next day but was forced to in order to buy groceries at the market. As she walked through the stalls, she did her best to avoid coming into contact with anyone she knew. At the produce stand, though, Mr. Miller called out to her and came to her side. “It is so good to see you, ma’am,” he said. “I have some winter squash today at a good price, I think you might be interested in.” She was in no mood to haggle, but took two medium-sized vegetables from him all the same.

“By the way”—he chatted on, as was his nature—“if you don’t mind my asking, where was Mr. Merian going off to the other morning?”

“What do you mean?” she asked thinly.

“Early Friday he was down at the wharf and boarded a ship that left going south.”

“He is only off to visit relatives. Is that a crime?” she answered curtly, then began walking away as fast as she could, forgetting the gourds. Her heart pounded in her chest and she could feel its beat in her throat, as the taste of blood was brought to her mouth, and she hurried to get home.

Her breathing was going rapidly, and she tried her best to control it, but when she arrived back at her house she was drawing in air faster than she could exhale it. She locked the door soundlessly and stood in the hall a long time trying to regain control of her breath. Once she had managed this, she went out to the kitchen and made a cup of tea for herself. She drank it down quickly and was soothed by its warmth.

“So he has gone away,” she said to herself. And no matter what other reasoning she tried to give herself, she knew he would not be back.

When she finished the tea she washed the porcelain cup out in the sink and put it away. She then took a lamp from the cupboard and lit it at the stove. She placed a handful of long wooden kitchen matches in her apron, and set out through the house.

In the living room she torched the curtains, taking a match and holding it steadily, until they began to burn. As they went up in flames she walked to the dining room, then each of the other rooms of the house, setting them all alight. When at last she reached the bedroom she had shared with Caleum, she lay down on the mattress and folded her arms, waiting for the fire to reach and consume her. Nor did she regret it at all, being determined in her plan. She had been cast aside and was without any way to return to her family or anything she had known before. He had left her an exile from his affections and all others as well.

The flames came under the door slowly at first, burning copper and specked with a red the color of old wine. After the door gave way it came for her mercifully swift, and she was waiting for it. Outside the house, though, and as far away as the next three blocks, her cries could be heard – whether from the pain of death or heartbreak or hotness of love no one ever knew. But all who heard her that morning felt an immense sympathy, and any who could have saved her from that fate would have done so, for it was unbearable to hear.

In the street in front of the house the neighbors all gathered, but it was impossible to enter the building. They could only hope to keep the ones around it from burning as well.

When her cries finally died away it was after twelve o’clock and all was silent in that street for a very long time, outside the sound of a dog’s barking, as the building continued to burn well into the day.

Finally they tore themselves away and returned to their lives, taking care to avoid that place as best they could in the days afterward. Those who did walk that street in the days following, and indeed far into the future, claimed to hear the sound of a woman wailing, and it did strike them cold for a moment before they could continue their journeys. The one who caused it, however, never knew any of it, or her final agony, as she lived on in his memory the way he had known her, long into the future and even till his own final days.