The Bride of Texas (18 page)

“Intercede for us!” responded the women, and from the first row
came Lida’s lovely soprano, though by “us” she only meant her and Vitek. If she was a believer at all, that is. But she probably was. The ways of the Lord are strange
.

Meanwhile, all but unnoticed, Vitek slipped out of the church and ran towards the railroad station in the district capital. Unfortunately the old soldier had exhausted his supply of gin, so he was sober and alert. He slipped out behind Vitek and followed him under the cover of the hedgerows that lined the road
.

God — or the Devil, depending on how you look at it — intervened once more, and almost saved the enamoured sinners. When Svestka discovered why Vitek had gone to town, he waited until the young man had left the little railroad station and started back to the church. Svestka himself was no longer in any hurry. He was no genius, but he could put two and two together, so he took a walk through the town. He had at least until dark
.

There were several taverns on the town square. As luck would have it, under the sign reading “The Horn of Plenty” stood retired Oberleutnant von Meduna, examining the menu posted in the window. Svestka’s high spirits — his discovery at the railroad station had sparked his sense of adventure and improved the prospect of an additional reward for a job well done — rose to dizzying heights as he remembered old campaigns, for military memory is always beneficently selective. He completely forgot how once, during the advance against Garibaldi, this very same Oberleutnant had had him put in irons. The only thing he could recall was the Oberleutnant’s Lombard mistress, the wife of his superior officer, whom he, as the Oberleutnant’s orderly, had successfully blackmailed. So he ran over to him, stood at attention, and clicked his heels. “Herr Oberleutnant, reporting for duty, sir!” The same kind of selective memory was operating in the Oberleutnant. His rank upon retiring had been so low because, having failed to find himself a suitably wealthy bride, he had led a life of restless desperation
that exceeded even the norms of promiscuity permissible to officers. He selectively forgot that he had caught his former orderly, who was now standing at attention before him, red-handed stealing cigars (the orderly was not a smoker, and had been selling the cigars to Feldwebels at half price), sneaking drinks of cognac and topping up the bottle with water, and in dozens of similar transgressions. All he could recall was how discreet the orderly had been in procuring women for him, and so he said, “At ease!” and took the old soldier into the tavern for goulash
.

They had more than just goulash, of course, but Svestka had plenty of time till sunset. He learned, in fact, that he had till dawn, because the first and only train to Vienna wasn’t due to arrive at the little railway station until halfpast four in the morning. He learned this from his Oberleutnant, who was planning to take the same train back to the imperial capital. Over brandy and gin, recollections unfolded of cannonades without casualties, painless injuries, and the glorious fallen, while in the church of the fortunate conception Father Bunata grew more ardent as Vitek secretly showed Lida their two tickets to paradise
.

They all had time till dawn
.

Madam Sosniowski stopped and looked at the sergeant. “Helldorf! How did you know?”

“I serv — I lived there for some time too. In ’48. Your husband was a doctor, I believe.”

“Did you know him?”

“Not personally. I used to see you in the park. You had two little girls.”

Madam Sosniowski smiled. They were walking past the last building on the outskirts of Atlanta. The street curved around towards an isolated white building surrounded by trees.

“Those little girls have become young ladies,” she sighed. “What were you doing in Helldorf?”

“I was stationed at the garrison there. Until the spring of ’49.”

She looked at him curiously. “And then you came to America?”

“Yes.”

“You deserted.” It wasn’t a question.

“I came in search of freedom.”

She was silent. A unit of Kil’s cavalry galloped past, pulling a small cannon behind them.

“My husband did the same,” said Madam Sosniowski. “He wasn’t deserting, of course. He wasn’t even in the army. At least not in Austria. But he didn’t want to stay there any longer, not after the revolution in ’48. When Bach came to power in Vienna, with his secret police and all — after what my husband had gone through — he decided it was time to leave.”

“But why are you here? Why did he come to the South?”

She looked at his regimental insignia. “Are you surprised that I’ve become a dyed-in-the-wool Southerner?”

He shrugged.

“I haven’t,” she said. “It simply troubles me — it sickens me, in fact — that your army doesn’t behave as one would wish if one were concerned about —” She fell silent again, almost as if she couldn’t bring herself to say the word “freedom”. “Did you hear those Negroes singing?”

“I did, but war is war,” he said, parroting his general. “We’re not here to be loved.”

“Is a war like this one still war?”

He felt a sudden desire to stand up for his drunken companions, because he’d walked all the way across Georgia with them, and they’d been together at Chickamauga and Spotsylvania. He repeated his general’s words: “War must be waged
effectively, or not at all.” He felt something like anger rising in him. “It can’t be waged to suit Southern ladies.”

Madam Sosniowski looked up at the sky, black with the smoke that swirled out of Columbia. Another of Kil’s squadrons galloped past them towards the city.

“I am not a Southern lady,” she replied softly, “and my husband was once a soldier too. An army doctor. But — you may be right. Once you see Sherman’s army, you lose your taste for war. Only, you know, there are some things you simply can’t accept. This is how the Cossacks behaved in Poland. My husband often spoke of it in Siberia. Of the brutality, but also of why different people wage different kinds of war.”

“In Siberia?” he asked, astonished.

Still the flakes of burning cotton drifted down on the Congaree River.

The old veteran twitched in his sleep and woke up with a start. He could see the spring stars overhead, and each one had a twin. He didn’t know what had woken him up, and didn’t know where he was, but he was lying in a hedgerow between two fields, shivering with cold. Then he remembered. He jumped up and ran towards the church, its four steeples towering against the double stars like a black reproach. That night, instead of sleeping in barns, the pilgrims had bedded down in the convent refectory
.

He ran, his heart skipping beats. He arrived at the convent gate and rushed inside, then into the dining hall. One of the straw mattresses was empty. He surveyed the room in alarm. In the moonlight, the clock on the wall showed five to four. He panicked. He ran to the mat closest to the door, where Father Bunata lay moaning softly. He shook him
.

“Reverend Father! Wake up!”

The priest opened his eyes wide. He too had forgotten where he was
.

“They’re trying to run away to Vienna together!”

“What? Who?”

The priest sat up on his straw mat, still not quite awake
.

“The Toupelik girl and young Mika!”

“What?” The priest was returning from a paradise of inappropriate dreams to the waking world, a world that was suddenly falling apart. “Little Lida Toupelik?”

“Yes, yes! Hurry! We may be too late already!”

They ran together towards the dark town. The priest’s boots were untied and his cassock was unbuttoned; the old soldier was as sober as he could remember ever being, though he was short of breath and kept falling behind the clergyman — for the priest was young and strong, and driven by an undeclared love. Looking like a big black rooster, he raced ahead with his skirts flying, so that by the time Svestka reached the town square, gasping for breath, the priest’s cassock was just flapping out of sight around the corner at the far end. The old soldier’s strength gave out and he stumbled and fell, and then, by sheer force of will, he scrambled back to his feet, with his heart in his throat, and dragged himself to the little railroad station. He staggered through the waiting room, but he didn’t fail to notice the sign on the wall. “DELAY:” and beside it, in chalk lettering on a black background, “30 minutes”. It was exactly four-thirty. He heaved a sigh of relief and opened the door onto the platform
.

Father Bunata was sitting on the ground, blood streaming from his nose. Lida Toupelik was standing behind Vitek, whose fists were clenched, but it was Oberleutnant von Meduna who was wiping his right hand with a handkerchief. A gendarme in a plumed hat was pounding down the platform towards them. As Svestka ran out onto the platform, Lida said something to the Oberleutnant. Von Meduna bowed and replied
, “Frauendienst ist Gottesdienst —
to serve a lady is to serve God.”

“Das ist Gotteslästerung!
That’s sacrilege!” wailed the downed priest, holding his hand to his nose. The gendarme ran up, helped the priest to his feet, and asked, in German, what was the matter
.

The priest rummaged under his cassock for a handkerchief, forgetting that in his haste he had neglected to put on his trousers. The Oberleutnant gallantly offered a handkerchief of his own
.

“What’s going on here?” the gendarme repeated, in Czech this time
.

“He’s going to take her away!” exclaimed the old soldier
.

“What business is it of yours, Svestka?” the Oberleutnant snapped
.

“But she’s not even seventeen!” the old veteran said feebly
.

“Since when are you so moral, you old fool?”

“It’s not that I — but I was supposed to keep an eye on him.”

“You were supposed to what?”

“Keep an eye on him,” replied Svestka miserably. “They almost got away. It’s your fault, sir, for pouring all that liquor into me.”

“Me? You poured it into yourself!” roared the Oberleutnant. “You were so drunk they had to throw you out of the tavern!”

The old soldier couldn’t remember. But beyond the black hole in his mind, he did remember being paid to keep an eye on Vitek Mika — and what he was paid to do, he did. Not for the credit that came from a job well done, but because, in his experience as an orderly, a job well done meant a bonus
.

“I’ve got to make sure he gets home!” he whimpered. “His father ordered me to!”

Now Vitek spoke for the first time. “My dad can’t tell me what to do. I’m of age!”

“But she’s not!” old Svestka whined, pointing at Lida. In the murky light of the approaching dawn, her blue eyes were as cold and inscrutable as a basilisk’s
.

“Go to hell, Svestka!” said Vitek. “She’s my wife, or she will be before the day is out.”

Now the gendarme entered the discussion. “The Fräulein is under age,” he declaimed officiously. “In the absence of parental consent this constitutes abduction.”

“No one,” declared the Oberleutnant righteously, “has the moral right to stand in the way of young love.”

“The parents do,” said Svestka, determined to fight for his bonus to the very end
.

In the distance they could hear the clanging of an approaching locomotive. The priest gently pushed the gendarme away, took the handkerchief from his nose, and said heavily, “Parents have the moral responsibility to prevent a sin from being committed. Sins may be forgiven” — blood began dripping from his nose again and he caught it in the handkerchief — “but they mustn’t be condoned or concealed, or actively aided and abetted. Lida, dear —” He turned to her, and it sounded like a plea for forgiveness
.

“Leave me alone!” snapped Lida
.

The priest turned pale and shrank, as though he’d been struck a mortal blow
.

“Polizei!”
cried the old soldier desperately. “Do your duty!”