“Holler it out now! Out across the river!” the Redeemer said, his own voice cracking with excitement. “Holler so they can hear you back on Benjamin Grady’s land. Let them hear your name, Simon! Let them hear your name and know it!”
Bosun hesitated for the briefest instant—; then he smiled and sucked in an eager breath. “Simon Bosun Morelle!” he shouted, laughing as the raft spun slowly clockwise.
“ ‘And I am a free man!’ ” the Redeemer crowed, tapping Bosun on the shoulder.
“I a new-born child! A god-damn baby child!” Bosun yelled at the top of his voice. All hurt and weariness seemed to have left him. To my full and perfect amazement he brought his hands together and clapped. “Mr. Benjamin Grady! I be Simon Once-Was-Bosun and Morelle!”
“So be it,” the Redeemer said.
The next sound I heard was of Bosun’s backside crashing against the planks. The echo came after, by way of the far side of the river, turning over on itself and whipping against my forehead like a switch. The sound was loud enough to have come from a brace of cannon—; the weapon in the Redeemer’s palm, however, was no larger than a bottle of perfume.
I gaped at him a moment, then looked down at Bosun, heaving and jerking at my feet. Bosun, whom I had come across one day coming in quietly from the fields. “Merciful Jesus,” I said.
I passed the back of my hand over my mouth, then turned toward the Redeemer, fully expecting to be next.
“You asked me what became of them, Oliver,” he said, handing me the pistol.
Sweet bloodied world, I said noiselessly, pressing the barrel to Bosun’s temple. Sweet blood-besotted life.
OVER THE NEXT QUARTER-HOUR, still drifting with the current, we stripped Bosun of his clothes, ripped his belly open, and pulled the guts out of him so that he would sink. In the blink of an eye he was gone under the river. My new and vulnerable understanding was plunged into bewilderment yet again by the fact that the Redeemer was weeping freely. When I finally found the courage to ask why in heaven’s name he’d done it, he clucked and laid a finger to my lips.
“I’d meant for you to look, Oliver. Not to avert your eyes.”
“But why? Why kill Bosun, sir? What had Bosun done?”
“Bosun did well, God bless him. Bosun played his part.”
I waited the better part of a minute for him to say more. “What of us, then?” I asked, when I could stand it no longer. “Did we play ours?”
“We did, Oliver.” He sighed. “We gave our Simon the only freedom he could ever know.”
I let my head sink down against my chest, just as Bosun had done at his baptism. Even as I sensed that the Redeemer was speaking to me as though to a child or an idiot I believed his words implicitly. More than that—: I knew them to be true. The look on Bosun’s face as he sang out his name had not yet left my thoughts, nor would it ever. I myself was never to know such freedom.
“I suppose that I should choose a name, as well,” I said. I said it hopefully.
The Redeemer brought a finger to his lips and bit it. Then he gave a laugh.
“The one you’ve got works well enough, Oliver Delamare.”
Dearness
VIRGIL KEPT COMING, Clementine says. Regular as clap. Regular as my monthly worries.
He came in spite of Lieutenant Beauregard, who called on me now as well. He came in spite of all my regulars and happen-bys. I showed him no special care, made no great fuss over him, the R—’s poppet though he was. But he came every night that I allowed him. Every night that he wasn’t in Natchez, or Vicksburg, or up some back-alley of the river. He told me about his dealings when he came, but so did all the rest. All of them with their beloved and priceless secrets. Virgil paid Madame, same as anybody, before he came up to see me. Or he paid her after. But the things he told me he told no other soul.
Get used to listening, Madame said back at the beginning. Listening is part of it. And so I did. I listened to every caller that felt inclined. I discovered that I had a talent for it. I heard enough complaints and anecdotes and humorous asides to put a unit of infantry to sleep. I listened to Virgil no different than the rest—; I listened to him because of the Trade and the R—, and because I was used to listening. I listened the same way I carried myself straight and lady-like, or let my hips move side-wise when I crossed the room, or rouged my cheeks and nipples. Listening was money in my purse.
Telling, however, was different. Telling was not a part of it, I knew that. I’d have been caned for it, or worse—: burnt with match-tips, locked away, fed on sugar-water for a week. Telling was not a part of it. But I began to tell him just the same.
I told Virgil everything I knew. In the early morning hours that were my own I’d feed him scraps of what I’d heard or seen. What Beauregard had told me, and Kennedy, and the R—, and all the rest. I taught that half-blind bumbler his own business. I educated Virgil in the Trade.
I should have known, from that, that he was dear to me. I did. I’d have left him to his blindness otherwise. I’d have left him to it gladly. I’d have kept to my own counsel, and been well.
As it was, however, Virgil kept coming. He would come in the spring and bring cut peaches in a bowl—; he would come in the summer and take me out on promenades. He’d walk me down the levee pridefully. This is Clementine, my cousin, he’d announce to all and sundry. Down from Kansas on a visit. Many of the men had been to Madame Lafargue’s and knew me but they bowed to me just the same. “Charmed,” the men said. Or “delighted.” He would come in the winter, and bring me hot buttered rum from the bar. As the years went by I watched him prosper and grow clever. He was a gentleman now, in a proper suit of clothes. I saw to that.
He was dearest to me when I was bitter. I took comfort in him then, which made me bitterer still. Dearness had no equity in that house. I resolved to put an end to it, hoping to recover my fortitude of mind. I changed in my manner toward him. Directly he came in I’d put on my working face and commence to treat him coldly. I dealt with him more coldly than with callers I abhorred. I made the visits bitter for him, as bitter as I could, but he would not be turned aside. I adore you, Clementine, he’d say. I love you truly. His certainty was something to behold. His certainty was a marvel and he grew dearer to me still because of it and I grew ever colder. It was all very well, his loving. I knew what would come of it in the end.
Once a month the R— came and asked about his darling. Each time he came I expected to be punished, but the R— would only take me by the hand. Success has made me gentle, Clem, he’d say. Then the questions would begin. How does Virgil seem to you? Is he comfortable in his mind? How is his appetite? How is his spend? Is it copious, or scant? Does he make a great noise, or a sigh? Does he speak to you, or cry out? And so on, like a sheriff, or a grand inquisitor—; but also like a boy of fourteen years. Everything I told him he approved of. Sometimes he scribbled marks into a book. That boy is meant for great things, Clem, he’d say to me. Expect great things from that dear boy of ours. A fear would come over me at this and I’d go quiet, watching the R— scribbling and muttering to himself. Is that all? he’d say at the end of it, helping me out of my skirts. That’s all, I’d say. Capital! he’d say, and kiss me on the lips. If he knew Virgil was dear to me he took care not to show it.
After each of the R—’s visits I went colder than before. Have I offended you, dearest? Virgil would say, looking at me fit to die. His suffering gave me pleasure of a kind, as I was suffering over him.