“You could teach me,” I said. I said it the way I might have said—: You could bring me my lousing-powder from the cupboard. But I said it just the same.
He went quieter than before. “Have you never learned at all,” he said at last.
I rolled my eyes.
“But you speak elegantly,” he said. “I wish I could speak half as elegantly as you.”
“I’m not half-witted, Mr. Ball.”
“No! Decidedly you aren’t.” He grinned.
He said nothing for a piece after that and when he did it was with the voice he’d used when he’d first stepped in. Could we have another try, he asked me, and of course I let him. But I wasn’t to be fooled. Something had started him to thinking. He was thinking on it all the time he was having his way and when at last he’d spent, more properly this time, he still hadn’t done with it.
We were lying just as we’d been before. From the hall came sounds of the whist room being readied for the R—.
“Why bring his fancy friends here?” I asked. “There’s many finer accommodation-shops in the Quarter.”
Virgil opened his good eye. “Ask me no questions, miss,” he said. I cursed him. “You’ve got no idea yourself,” I said, hoping to shake an answer from him. “Your sweet R— hasn’t told you jack-all.”
He looked at me sharply. “Why ask me, then, if you know his ways and means so well?”
I sat up very straight. “You have no idea? Really?”
He shook his head.
I laughed at him. “I see the kind of gang you’ve got. Does he tell you anything at all?”
He didn’t answer straightaway. The noise of a trap and harness carried brightly up from the street. “It’s me who tells him things,” he said at last.
“What’s that, Mr. B?” I laughed again. “Are you his privy counselor?”
“Look here,” he said, and held his blighted eye open. “Closer.” He took me by the shoulder. “This is how.”
I looked into the eye, or what little I could see of it—: most of it was tucked under the lid. It peeped out at nothing like a new moon, jet-colored and set. I was in Tennessee once, where there was snow on the ground, and the meat of that eye was that very same color—: snow over a dark, empty rabbit-hole. I looked closer and saw my own pale face reflected.
“How like a piece of glass it is,” I said. “A fine black aggie.”
“That’s what he keeps me for, miss,” he said, giving me a wink. “I’m his champion marble.”
I kept quiet and let him tell it.
“Once a day the R— sends for me. He takes me somewhere dark, strikes a match, and holds it to my eye. When the match goes out I tell him what I see. I have to tell him straight off, without an instant’s pondering. That’s all. Once I’ve told him he goes off.” Virgil rolled onto his side. “That’s why he always keeps me by.”
I stared at him. “And you believe in that? In what he puzzles out?”
Now his face did a funny turn—; I suppose he was trying to look dignified. “I’m a rationalist, miss,” he said. “I have no faith in witchery.”
But I was more curious about the R—. “The R— tells you nothing?”
“Nothing I can use.” He let out a breath. “I write things down for him—; he never learned to cipher.”
“What sort of things?”
“I’ll be in the whist room tonight,” he said. “Taking the minutes.”
It was my turn to give a crafty look. “So will I.”
“The pox you will!”
“The whist room is my room on Thursdays.”
“The R— asked you?” His hand ran nervously along the coverlet.
“That room is mine on Thursdays, Mr. Ball. Your R— comes here often enough to know.”
But he wasn’t to be quieted. “I wouldn’t think we needed to be waited on, at this particular meeting,” he said in a careful voice.
So he knows more than he tells, I thought to myself. He looks a fool but isn’t.
“The R—’s not declined my services before,” I said.
“He comes here often?” His voice went thick. “He comes to you?”
I smiled. “Why, Aggie? Would you mind?”
He straightened on the bed. “I don’t mind dividing your attentions with — with the rest,” he said. He rolled over to face the wall. “But I’d prefer—not to share you — with that particular man. I would prefer not to. Uh—”
“You’re nothing but a horse-thief’s opera-glass, Mr. Ball. You’ve no call to dictate anything to anybody. Least of all to me.”
He got up fumblingly from the bed. “You understand me, I see,” he said. His voice was flat and bloodless.
I felt pity for him then. I should have taken that for a sign. I should have known already.
“I’m sure I don’t,” I said. “Not yet.” I held my arms out to him. “Come along back, Aggie, and explain.”
He looked hard at me for a spell. Then he passed a hand over his face and sat down on the bed. We stayed like that a while, listening to the bustle from the street—; I might have fallen into a nap. When I opened my eyes he was watching me like a dog would watch a plate of marrow. A look like that ought to have riled me—; instead it made me feel as light as flax. Another sign. I found that I was pleased to have him by.
“How long have you been with the R—, Aggie?”
He smiled. “How funny that you call him by that name.”
“We call him by whatever name he wants,” I said.
“Yes, miss. So does everybody.”
I laughed. “We get well paid for it.” I gave him a coquettish look. “Can you say the same?”
He only sighed.
“How does the R— make his money? Is it only horses?”
Virgil gave me a thoughtful look. “No,” he said. “Not only horses.”
The skin on the back of my neck prickled in a way that has never done me any good. “What else, then?” I said.
My eyes were closed but I could hear him fumbling for his shirt. “The whist room is yours?” he said.
I nodded. “That’s where I receive my callers. If they don’t ambush me, Aggie, in my private chambers.”
“And you’ll be receiving there tonight.” The bed-springs squeaked as he got up.
I opened my eyes and watched him go. “I will.”
He stood an arm’s-length from the door, buttoning his shirt with slow twists of his thumb. “You’ll have your answer soon enough, then, Clementine.”
Asa Trist
IN THE BEGINNING AMERICA WAS EMPTY, God said. There were no horses, God said. There were no cabins, God said. The air was quiet. The land was stupid — there were no noises in it, God said. There were no corn-fields, God said. There were no rice-fields, God said. There were no niggers.
There were no Asas, God said, to own them.
There were no women, God said. There were no horse-flies, God said. There was a quiet all around. There were no steam-boats, God said. There were no skiffs. There were no fathers, God said. There was this quiet, Asa. It was very black.
There were no armies, God said. There were no sparrows, God said. There were no serpents, God said. There were no catfishes in the river. The river was there, but it flowed quiet. The comings and goings were not in it. The air was stupid, God said. There were no sounds in it. It was a dead air, God said. And it was very sweet.
Sweet, I said. Yes! It was very sweet!
Then came the Asas, God said.
The Whist Room
I GOT MY ANSWER THAT NIGHT, says Clementine. But not the way Virgil thought I would.