Canaan's Tongue (21 page)

I turn from him and continue up the path. His last words were meant as a question, but I’ve no strength to answer it this morning. Perhaps another.

“Cruel, Oliver?” I say. Then, quoting from memory—: “ ‘Cruelty is a fable. Every act of violence is a vessel, sometimes clear, sometimes opaque, that carries its justification chaste within it.’ ” I grin at him. “I thought you knew.”

I’d meant for Delamare to recognize this citation, and he does not disappoint me. He curses and kicks at the gravel. “The way you ape his sermons like a smug fat apostle turns my
stomach,
Virgil. Don’t make a catechism out of him.”

I bow my head beatifically. I am trying to provoke him now. “I do view myself as an apostle,” I say. “He raised us up out of the mud.”

“He left you exactly as he found you,” Delamare spits out. “In the
filth,
the lot of you together. You were useful to him there.”

“The filth was changed, however, after he passed through it.”

“I’ll grant you that,” Delamare says grimly.

“Others of us he raised up rather prettily. You won’t argue that, I trust.”

He sucks in a breath. “What the hell are you getting at?”

“Clem’s not the only doxie in this house.” I look at him and wink. “We all have our little accomplishments—”

This proves too much for him at last. No sooner have I spoken than I’m splayed face-first across the gravel, red and yellow daisies blooming in my eye-sockets and my brain. Delamare’s image is there as well, fist out in front of him, face drawn tighter than a drum-head.

“You’ll do as you think best,” I say, rolling onto my back with a little groan.

“It’s unwise to speak to me that way, Virgil. That eye of yours holds no power over me.”

I push myself upright. “Evidently not.”

“He never raised me up, that dirty nigger-monger. He never made a gentleman out of
me.
” Delamare glares down at me, struggling for breath. “Just the opposite.”

“He taught you a few things—; you’ll not deny that,” I say, keeping my eyes on his fists.

“He took me from my home,” Delamare says. “That’s the only thing I’m grateful to him for.”

“Yes. Your ‘home’. I remember about that.”

But he’s already decided to forgive me. He reaches down a hand. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that whore of yours, Virgil. I regret it.”

I look up a moment, unsure of him, then take his hand. He helps me solicitously to my feet—; his anger is gone as quickly as it came. Soon I find myself endeavoring to console him.

“Don’t feel too poorly, now, Oliver. I had it coming.”

“That temper of mine is an awful thing, Virgil—: I know it is.” He looks at me contritely. “I shouldn’t have fired on those darkies, I suppose.”

“Nonsense! It was your duty as a Confederate squire,” I say, for some reason liking him better than I’ve ever done. I take hold of him by the coat and pull him onwards and upwards toward the house. “Come on along, now—; no more dawdling. The inquisition grows impatient.”

THE COLONEL CHOOSES to conduct his interview with Delamare in the parlor, flanked by book-shelves stripped to their paper backing, cracked picture-frames, and arm-chairs too heavy or hideous for the Yankees to bother carting away on their last sweep of the country. A bell-jar on an end-table—which once held a porcelain figure, perhaps, or a taxidermied bird—has been fashioned into a thermidor for the Colonel’s dwindling supply of snuff. The flock-paper hangs in great drooping folds off the walls, and the French parquet has been gouged in waxy arabesques, each looted heirloom leaving its testament in sawdust. It’s a tribute to the Colonel’s self-regard that he manages not to look more absurd among this mass of humiliated objects. Seeing him there on the hump-backed settee, dressed as always in his suit of cavalry gray, it’s hard not to shed a tear or two for the Confederacy. Any society that succeeds in producing so perfect a caricature of itself should, in a just world, flatter Providence no end.

“You boys sure took your Catholic time,” the Colonel growls, looking not at Delamare but at me. “Did you perhaps not understand, Mr. Delamare, that one of our number has been killed?”

“It took some time to find him, Colonel,” I mumble.

“Why don’t you look me in the eye when you ask me a question, Wheezy?” Delamare says.

The Colonel heaves an indulgent sigh. “You’ve always been an arrogant little coon, Oliver, ever since Kennedy emancipated you out of that mash-hut he found you in. No doubt the Redeemer was right, at the time, to encourage your airs—: the runaways you dealt with must have been bedazzled by them.” He grins at us, showing his snuff-colored teeth. “At
this
point, however—as you must surely be aware— the Trade has been suspended, and the Redeemer, God rest him, has been sent down the privy. So let’s share an honest word together, you and I.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” I say, turning to go.

“Not at all, Virgil! You stay on for a spell.” The Colonel’s watery eyes dart back to mine. “We may have need of you to mediate. Isn’t that so, Mr. Delamare?”

I curse them both silently. “I’m not sure how useful I’d be, Colonel. Mr. Delamare only recently boxed me on the jaw.”

The Colonel nods. “You stay on a while, Virgil.”

I shrug and sit on the floor beside Delamare, facing the Colonel across a tea-table set on three cracked, palsied-looking legs. Over the next hour Delamare’s whereabouts on the night of the murder are gone over in insufferable detail, exactly as in a legitimate inquiry—: one might almost fancy the Colonel to have served in the military police. I can’t help but admire his delivery. Clearly he was paying close attention at his court-martial.

The technique is not without effect on Delamare, either. In no time at all he’s gone skittish as a doe. “No-one voted you chief god-damned constable,” he mutters. “I know the
Redeemer
never did.”

“You owed Goodman Harvey money, did you not?”

“Everyone owed that little badger money.” Delamare shoots me an accusing look. “I owed him less than most.”

The Colonel keeps his eyes fixed on Delamare’s cravat, as though his face—and his answers, for that matter—were but a tiresome distraction. “Did you owe Goodman Harvey money, Virgil?” he asks.

“No, sir.”

Delamare snorts. “Virgil doesn’t enter into relations with his fellow human beings, grandfather. I thought you knew.”

I clear my throat. “That’s not entirely true, Oliver. I lent you five dollars just last Saturday.”

The Colonel gives an arid laugh. Delamare stares back at him with a look of mute expectancy that puts me in mind of a nigger at auction. On Delamare, however, the look has a very different meaning. Leaning back on the stool, he says softly and melodiously—:

“The Redeemer said as much, before Virgil did him under. He predicted this whole vaudeville, you know.”

The Colonel says nothing for a time. Then, blinking his eyes slowly, as a heifer might do to discourage a gnat, he leans stiffly forward. “The Redeemer—spoke to you about the future?”

Delamare nods and points at me. “He could read it, Colonel. From Virgil’s smoky eye.”

The Colonel’s face jerks toward mine, but I remain as I am, looking evenly at Delamare.

“Is this some manner of minstrel-theater?” the Colonel says. “A comedy production of some kind?”

Delamare shakes his head politely. “He said that after he was gone you’d begin to drop, one after the other, like bull-frogs after a spawn. Those were his words, not mine. You’d be pared down, grandpappy. Pared down to the marrow.”

“Virgil?” the Colonel says. His voice is pricklish as a pin.

“First I’ve heard of it,” I say, truthfully enough. “Who’d be pared down, Oliver?”

Delamare yawns. “All of you, Virgil. The entire Trade.”

“You were part of the Trade yourself, as I recall it,” the Colonel says sharply. “An
integral
part. Have you forgotten?”

Delamare says nothing. The floor-boards along the inner wall creak subtly—: someone is listening at the door.

Knowing who it is, I rise. “This puts me in mind of another question,” I say, gesturing toward the hall. The Colonel nods—; he’s heard the sound as well. By the time I’ve crossed the room and opened the door she’s moved off to a table topped by a vase of bone-dry marigolds. But she makes no show of being busy with them.

“Hello, Clementine,” I say, testing the door to make sure it’s shut behind me.

Clementine says nothing.

“Where did you sleep last night?” I take a slow step toward her. “It’s important, darling, that I know.”

She moves away as I approach, keeping an armful of reproving air between us. She’s dressed in a shift left behind by one of the maids, billowing in great loose folds from her rail-thin body, black at the hem with the dust of countless floors. That filament of beauty which is left to her is more than enough to make the blood run backwards in my veins. She looks at me in a way I find myself utterly unprepared for—: not hatefully or fiercely, but with a steady, desperate interest, an interest which for a moment I misjudge and which quickens my heart in its envelope of tired flesh.

“Clem,” I whisper. Is my long wait at an end?

Something in her look, however, stops me in my tracks. It’s an expression I’ve seen before, but never on Clementine’s proud face. In the next instant I’ve recovered myself and understood her look for what it is.

“You’re not
afraid
of me, Clementine?”

“I’ve always known it when you told a lie,” she answers. Her voice is dull as cloth. “It gets into my ear and fusses. Like singing false notes in the choir.”

I take a step toward her. “Have you ever once known me to sing on key?”

She stands her ground. Her eyes are fully open, her fists are rigid at her sides. “You were lying just now,” she says. “Lying to the Colonel.”

“Nonsense,” I say quickly. “I barely—”

“All this time,” she says. “You never guessed that I was watching, did you? You thought that I was long past seeing you. But I
was
watching, just the same—: watching, and comparing what I saw with all the fine things I remembered. All the fine things I remembered about you, when you were still a living, breathing man.”

“Clem—” I say, but nothing else emerges. I’ve forgotten how to speak to her.

“Here I am, Aggie. Just as you’ve been hoping. Face to face with you—; close enough to see.” She sucks in a frightened breath. “Tell me what you did to him. Was there pain?”

“Who?” I say. My head begins to shake.

“Don’t play the fool with me, Aggie. I won’t tell Parson or the others.” She hushes, then says almost soundlessly—: “He deserved what he got, after all.”

A green crescent drifts across my sight, turning to the left and sparking.

“Let’s not speak of this, Clem, I beg of you. Not here.”

She studies me a while, then twists her neck sharply to one side and spits. Her proud unbending neck, that once reddened and inclined toward me. Her brown incriminating eyes. The spittle glistens stupidly against the floor.

“You’re a coward yet,” she says in a quavering voice. “Even now, with every last thing taken from you.”

Each time we’re alone the moment arrives, whisperingly and unbidden, when I forget all that’s happened since I first beheld her. I speak at such moments without thinking.

“If I’ve told lies—” I hear myself stammer, the words rattling in my mouth like cracked seeds in a gourd—“I told them to keep you close to me—; to clear the others out, to hollow out a place for you and I—”

She draws herself up at this and lets me look at her, rewarding me for my foolishness as she has always done. Her face comes near to mine, lit along its left side, and I’m allowed to leap-frog over entire years, and only see—: the wide-set eyes, the narrow freckled shoulders, the Catholic mouth. Her skin has become papery at some point without my noticing but it’s still lit as if from the inside, and I know that it’s hot to the touch, like the shade to a paper lamp. That is what I remember best—: Clementine lit by a red Chinese lantern on her left side, her arms lifted toward me, her small immaculate body glowing like a lamp itself.

I raise my right hand and she allows it to settle on her shoulder, stricken and hapless, curled in upon itself like the carcass of a bird. Her entire body deadens at its touch. She lets out a breath. The last breath she draws will have that sound—: infinitely calm, infinitely bitter.

“You killed Goodman Harvey, Virgil Ball.”

Clementine, at least, believes in me.

The Inquiry Proceeds.

CONDUCTED BY COL. ERRATUS D’ANCOURT, L.P., M.M.D.C.
GEBURAH PLANTATION, 12 MAY 1863. VIRGIL BALL—: MINUTES.

COLONEL
—Mr.
Kennedy. Good of you to come so quickly. Another round of
interviews, I’m afraid.

KENNEDY
—That’s
all right, Colonel. You can get stu fed.

COLONEL
—Were
you out at the privy just now? Is that where Virgil found
you?

KENNEDY
—Why
don’t you ask huh!—huh!—him?

COLONEL
—Out
there all morning, were you? (PAUSE)—Touch of the
binds?

KENNEDY
—You
can go and get worked, you god-damned—

COLONEL
—You
might not think it important that I know where you’ve been
keeping yourself, Mr. Kennedy, but it’s of great and pressing interest to us
all. (QUIETLY) One of our number has been taken in the night, you see.

KENNEDY
—Is
that a fact, you old gasser? And weren’t I there in Harvey’s
room to see it? (PAUSE)—What was it? Something that he ate?

COLONEL
—Answer
my question. Four to eight o’clock this morning.

KENNEDY
—Either you tell me cause of death, you old wig-licker, or I’m back
on that privy quicker than you can part your nose-hairs.

COLONEL
—Most
likely that’s where you’ll do us the most good. (PAUSE)—
It was poison, near as we can judge. (PAUSE)—Harvey himself was our
physician, so you see the difficulty. The lay of the body, however, and what
we know of Harvey’s character tend to rule out self-murder—

KENNEDY
—Ha!
That’s what you boys reckon. If you was to ask Stuts
Kennedy—

COLONEL
—I’ve
asked you a question already. Kindly answer it.

KENNEDY
(PAUSE)—Got up somewhere about six. Couldn’t lie right.

COLONEL
—What
then?

KENNEDY
—Puh!—puh!—put
my uppers on. Had a look about.

COLONEL
—At six o’clock this morning?

KENNEDY
(NODS)

COLONEL
—Well?
Where did you go, Mr. Kennedy? And what, pray tell us,
did you—

KENNEDY
—Saw
your Parson.

COLONEL
—Where?

KENNEDY
—In
the kitchens. (PAUSE)—He come in from the field.
(PAUSE)—Gardens.

COLONEL
—You
saw him come into the house at six o’clock this morning?

KENNEDY
—Six-thirty.
Sun-up.

COLONEL
—Was
there anyone else about?

KENNEDY
(SMILES)—No, Colonel. Just your Parson.

COLONEL
—Did you exchange words?

KENNEDY
(NODS)—I goes up to him where he were suh!—suh!—standing
at the bread-box and says—: Come down from the tree-tops are you, you
barbary ape? And he goes queer as always and guh!—guh!—gives me the
regular song-and-dance.

COLONEL
—That’s fine, Kennedy. In other words—

KENNEDY
—No
by Christ I mean for you to hear this, you damned tea-sipper.
Parson puh!—puh!—puts a biscuit in his gob, pleased as piss with himself
and all of his transactions. Tell me Stutter, he says, taking hold of me by
the arm. What might your philosophy be?

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—Well?

KENNEDY
—To
get by, says I. (PAUSE)—Yes, he says. But how are you going
to get by, Stuts? Let me explain something to you. There’s two languages
spoken in this country—: the language of livestock and the language of
Canaan. I speak both fluently, and I’m going to learn you something of
their ways. Listen cuh!—cuh!—closely and attend. (PAUSE)

COLONEL
—Go on. Well?

KENNEDY
—For
him who speaks the language of Canaan, Parson says, the
hid-away life of the world becomes plain. He clucks at me. You’ve heard,
of course, of the miracle of the milk?

COLONEL
—The
which?

KENNEDY
(SHRUGS)—I’m not much of a one for scripture, Your Bristliness, says I. (PAUSE)—He laughed at that.

COLONEL
—And
what was his reply?

KENNEDY
—Trying
to remember it just right. No, no, Stuts, says he. Nothingout of that fine book. I’m referring to the elephant-headed god
Ganesh and his drinking up of all the milk in London. (PAUSE)—
You’re off your lemon, you hairy-faced old fright, says I. He tightens his
muh!—muh!—monkey-grip on my shoulder. I know you, Stutter
Kennedy, to be a Catholic buggerer of tombs, he says. For this reason I
trust you better than most.

COLONEL
(LAUGHS)—He was having you on, dear fellow. Nothing more.

KENNEDY
—Goodman
Harvey tasted of that milk, Parson says, looking dead
into my eyes. He spoke Cuh!—cuh!—cuh!—

COLONEL
—Easy,
Mr. Kennedy.

KENNEDY
—Cuh!—

COLONEL
—Give yourself a moment.

KENNEDY
—Canaan’s
tongue, he said. Goodman Harvey spoke Canaan’s
tongue sure enough, just before he died.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—I see.

KENNEDY
—There
you have it, you bed-piddler.

COLONEL
—Sit
down, Miss Gilchrist. Have you been apprised?

CLEMENTINE
—Not for some time now, Colonel. (SMILES)

COLONEL
—Strike
that, Virgil. (PAUSE)—Have you any notion, miss, as to
why I’ve called you in?

CLEMENTINE
—Parson
told me Harvey’s been put under.

COLONEL
—Parson
told you! When?

CLEMENTINE
—Early
this morning, before the rest of you were awake.
(PAUSE)—Why are you looking at me that way?

COLONEL
—Have you been eaves-dropping from the hall? Answer truly!

CLEMENTINE
—Yes.
Is that the best question you can think of?

COLONEL
—Strike
that, Virgil. (PAUSE)—What was the cause, Miss
Gilchrist, of your hatred of Goodman Harvey?

CLEMENTINE
—Hatred!
Of that little milk-sop?

COLONEL
—You
were heard to say, this morning, that Harvey deserved
his end. Had he been troubling you, miss? Persistent, perhaps, in his
affections?

CLEMENTINE
—Goodman
Harvey? (LAUGHS)—He was the only one who
wasn’t. Excepting you, of course, Colonel. I imagine you can’t be.

COLONEL
(SMILES)—I thank heaven for it daily. At what hour did you
leave your room this morning?

CLEMENTINE
—I don’t know. Five-thirty? Six? I went out to the verandah.

COLONEL
—Normally
Mr. Delamare is on the verandah at that hour.

CLEMENTINE
—Well
he wasn’t there this time. Perhaps he was too busy snip
ing Yankees.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—Yankees? How do you mean?

CLEMENTINE
—Haven’t
you told him, Virgil? Didn’t you note it in your
minutes?

COLONEL
—Virgil
is not free to converse with you, Miss Gilchrist. If you
have an anecdote to tell, you’d better tell it straight to me.

CLEMENTINE
—Well.
I certainly wouldn’t want to keep anything from you,
Colonel. But if Virgil hasn’t told you I’m just not sure. It might still be a
secret.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—Miss Gilchrist. No doubt you have a power of
admirers in this house—; but I am not among them. I’m a bandy-legged old
man, you see. At my age one thing interests me at a time, and that only if
I bring my full attention to bear upon it. All trivialities must be
excluded—banished utterly—for my dried-up brain to function. And
most everything becomes a triviality, from my point of view, when one of
our number has been assassinated. Especially the details of your divers
fornications. Do you follow?

CLEMENTINE
—Well.
I’d hate to seem trivial to you, Colonel, I’m sure.

COLONEL
—Good.
What interests me now—to the exclusion of all else—is
the identity of the person who compelled Goodman Harvey to eat
permanganate of potassium between midnight and six o’clock this morning.
(PAUSE)—You see, I can’t help but wonder, miss, whether I might not be
next.

CLEMENTINE
—You’re
free to leave this house any time you like, Colonel.
Virgil and I will miss you, of course. Won’t we, Virgil?

COLONEL
—You
take me quite aback, Miss Gilchrist. Have you no fear of
being visited by this avenging angel?

CLEMENTINE
—None at all. (PAUSE)—I leave my door open for him at night.

COLONEL
—No
use in looking to Virgil, miss. He can’t call an end to this
inquiry, much as he might prefer to.

CLEMENTINE
(PAUSE)—I’d like to help you, Colonel. I would.

COLONEL
—You
neither saw nor heard a single thing worth relating?

CLEMENTINE
—I
never said that. I saw your Parson.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—Ah. Where and when, exactly, did you see him?

CLEMENTINE
—As
I left my room. I saw him from the window.

COLONEL
—Which
window? On the landing?

CLEMENTINE
(NODS)—He was crossing the lawn. He’d been off in the
woods.

COLONEL
—As
I recall it, that window looks out over the river. How could
you know where Parson had been?

CLEMENTINE—He was carrying an axe, Colonel. And a sack over his shoulder.

COLONEL
—A
sack?

CLEMENTINE
(NODS)—Or something wrapped up in a sheet. (PAUSE)—
Perhaps that’s what it was. I called his name as he came upstairs and he
blinked at me a moment, then passed me by without a word. Not in a
hurry but business-like. I waited till I heard the attic door open and
shut—; then I went downstairs the way that he’d come up. Something
had fallen from his sack. A hair-tonic bottle.

COLONEL
(LAUGHS)—Hair tonic? For Parson? I’d say the man has quite
enough—

CLEMENTINE
—There
was no tonic in it, Colonel. It was—

COLONEL
—I see. An empty bottle. Which you imagine might, at some time
in the past, have held—

CLEMENTINE
—It
wasn’t empty at all. There was dirt inside of it.
(PAUSE)—Dirt, and a few pine-needles.

COLONEL
—Pine
needles, you say. In a hair-tonic bottle.

CLEMENTINE
—You
see? He was coming from the woods—; I’m sure of it.

COLONEL
—You
assume that he was coming from the woods. You haven’t—

CLEMENTINE
—Do
you want to hear about the sack, Colonel?

COLONEL
—The
sack. Of course. But you seem to think it might have been a
heap of linen.

CLEMENTINE
—I said no such thing. You note that down, Virgil! (PAUSE)—
There was something in that bundle. The size of a tom-cat. (PAUSE)—
A bit smaller than that, possibly. (PAUSE)—A baby.

COLONEL
(LAUGHS)—Is Parson stealing babies now, Miss Gilchrist?

CLEMENTINE
—You
tell me something, Colonel. When you’ve finished questioning the rest of us till the blood runs out our ears, will you condescend
to interview yourself?

COLONEL
—Certainly,
miss. Perhaps I’ll do that now.

CLEMENTINE
—No.
Not now. I haven’t finished yet.

COLONEL
—By
all means! Disburden yourself entirely.

CLEMENTINE
(PAUSE)—I took a walk with Goodman Harvey yesterday.

COLONEL
(LAUGHS)—Is no-one safe?

CLEMENTINE
—You’d
do well to listen to me, Colonel. (PAUSE)—I was
surprised when Harvey asked, of course, as he’d never once shown an interest. A walk through the orchard, he said. It was after supper. Something
in his manner made me curious. (PAUSE)—We walked to the far fence.
He didn’t once look me in the eye, or anywhere else. At the gate I said—:
Mr. Harvey, why did you invite me out? Then he turned and looked me
over. Mith Clem, you know I am a Mormon by faith, he said. I nodded.
He gave a little laugh. That’th why he thelected me, he said. Meaning
the R——. (MAKES SIGN OF CROSS)

COLONEL
(FROWNS)—The Redeemer, you mean?

CLEMENTINE
—Who
else?

COLONEL
—Note
“R——” as the Redeemer, Virgil.

CLEMENTINE
—Shall
I go on? (PAUSE)—What’s why, Mr. Harvey? I
asked. And Harvey said—: Because he knew the thtrength—

COLONEL
—Miss
Gilchrist! The fact that Harvey spoke with a lisp does not
obligate you to do so. We are not upon the stage.