“So you came here?”
“It’s as good a place to die as any, I think.”
“The fire will kill you before the plague does.”
He only shrugged at that.
“What about you, Magnus?” I asked. “You’re sitting there right next to him—aren’t you afraid of getting sick?”
“In all likelihood I already am,” he said, “but thank you for asking, Adam. I mean to stay with Julian as long as I have the strength in me.”
It was a saintly thing to say. Julian took the hand of Magnus, and stretched himself out on the pew, moaning a little at the pressure on his sores, and rested his head in Magnus’s lap.
I had always hoped Julian would find a woman who loved him, so he could experience some of the pleasures in life that had been granted to me and denied to him. That didn’t happen; but I was consoled that he would at least have his friend Magnus beside him in his extremity. He might not have a wife to give him solace, or to smooth his dying pillow; but he had Magnus, and perhaps in Julian’s eyes that was just as good.
“I missed the third act curtain,” Julian said wistfully—I think his mind had begun to wander. “Was there applause?”
“Applause, and cheering, and plenty of it.”
It was hard to tell in the dim light, but I think he smiled.
“It was a good show, wasn’t it, Adam?”
“A fine show. None better.”
“And I’ll be remembered for it, do you think?”
“Of course you will.”
He nodded and closed his eyes.
“Is it true,” I asked him, “what you told the Deacon about his daughter?”
“She’s safe in Montreal on my orders.”
“That was a noble act.”
“It offsets the stink of war and death. My own small offering to Conscience. Do you suppose it’s good enough?” he asked, turning his feverish eyes to Magnus.
“Conscience isn’t particular,” Magnus said. “He accepts most any offering, and you made a generous one.”
“Thank you for coming, Adam,” Julian said, and I could see that he was tiring quickly. “But you had better make for the docks now. The Goldwing won’t wait, and the flames are spreading, I expect.”
“The wind carries embers over the canal. This very building will be on fire soon, if it isn’t already.”
“I expect you’re right,” said Julian.
But neither of them moved, and I couldn’t turn away.
“I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good President,” Julian whispered.
“But you were a good friend.”
“See to that baby of yours, Adam Hazzard. Do I hear her crying? I think I’d like to sleep just now.”
He closed his eyes and paid me no more attention. I thanked Magnus for his kindness and left without turning back.
In the hot and cindery air outside the building I said my goodbyes to Lymon Pugh. Lymon took my hand a final time, and said he was sorry about Julian, and wished me well in “foreign places.” Then he rode away uptown, a lone horseman on a vacant street all strewn with windblown embers.
I made the docks by midnight. I took the saddlebags from my breed-horse and donated the animal to a passing family of Egyptians, to whom it probably represented the wealth of Croesus. The Goldwing had not sailed. I came aboard and found my cabin. Calyxa was there, tending Flaxie in her crib. Calyxa was impatient over my absence, and wanted to know where I had been; but I didn’t explain myself, only took her in my arms and wept against her shoulder.
10
The Goldwing left harbor at dawn, ahead of the flames. She came through the Narrows and anchored in the Lower Bay to wait for a favorable breeze. A bright December sun was shining.
We could see the smoke rising from the city. The fire took lower Manhattan almost up to the Palace grounds before the wind turned the blaze back on itself. The smoke rose in a wide canted column, up to where the upper air caught it and fanned it over the ocean. I had the macabre idea that this cloud of ash and soot contained— must have contained, by scientific reasoning—particles of what had once been my friend Julian. His own atoms, I mean, transfigured by fire, and cleansed of disease, and finally allowed to rain down over an indifferent ocean.
The thought was painful; but I supposed Julian would have approved of it, for it was Philosophical in nature, or as close as I could come.
By mid-day the captain of the vessel elected to get under way. This was not a single act, but involved the raising of anchors and the setting of sails and the rotating of winches and several such actions as that. (The Goldwing had only a small boiler-engine, for close navigation. At sea she was a schooner and at the mercy of the wind.) Calyxa and I left Flaxie with a nurse and came up on the aft deck to watch the sails loft, and we found Sam and Julian’s mother already there, and the four of us fell together in a group—not saying much, for we shared a grief that was literally unspeakable.
The captain’s orders were shouted down the chain of command in serial echoes, and the results reported back in reverse order.
“Ship the capstan bars!” dinned about our ears, and “Heave in the cable to a short stay!” as the anchor was brought apeak. Sunlight heated the planked deck and made it steam.
Sam went to the taffrail to look back at the burning city. We joined him there, keeping out of the way of the busy sailors. The topsails were shaken out, sheeted home, and neatly hoisted. The Goldwing gave a little stir, like an animal turning in its sleep.
Sam turned to Emily. “Do you think it would be all right,” he asked, “— appropriate , I mean—if I said—well, a prayer—?”
“Of course,” she said, taking his good hand in hers.
“One of my prayers, I mean.”
“Yes, Sam,” she said. “There’s no Dominion here to punish you for it, and I imagine the crew have heard stranger things—half of them are European heathens.”
Sam nodded, and began to speak the prayer for Julian, which he must have preserved in memory from distant childhood. The nautical shouting continued over his solemn chant. Saltwater slapped the vessel’s wooden cladding, and gulls cried out above us.
He lowered his head. “Yit gid-all, ” he began, “va-yit ka-dash —”
“Man the jib and flying halyards!” came the next command relayed from the captain by the mate. Sailors swarmed the high rigging.
“— Smay ra-bah balma div-ray—”
“Hoist away! Avast, and pawl the capstan! Cat and fish the anchor there!”
“— Hero-tay ve-am-lik mal ha-tay —”
“ Port the helm now!”
The Goldwing began to move through the water, briskly.
“— Bu-chaw yay honey vi-ormy chon —”
“Man the outhaul! Cast off the brails and loose the vangs!”
“— Of chay-yed whole bate yis-royal by agula you viz man ka-reef —”
“Man the fore and main braces! Let go and haul! Haul, now, haul hard, HAUL!”
“— vim roo ah-main,” said Sam; and “Amen,” said Emily; and Calyxa said “Amen”; and so did I.
Then we stood at the rail and watched America slip away over the western horizon.
EPILOGUE
SPRING, 2192