Redemption Falls

by Joseph O'Connor

  The remainder of the apartment was Dominican in its want of appurtenance, so that the effect of French frippery was to accentuate the severity. Puddle-stains were visible here and about on the floorboards; the worst had had sawdust haphazardly flung over them. Wind gusted coughingly through numerous apertures, some of which had been occluded with bungs of rag and other matter; but the drafts wavered the candle flames which tussled weakly with the shadows, and the room seemed to wheeze like a moribund. This was far from the Fifth Avenue, from the mansions of Manhattan; one might have wandered into the shack of some boot-chewing prospector. There was no rug or dresser, neither chest, clock or bookshelf (which deficiency surprised me, given the Governor’s literary bent, his celebrity as anhomme du monde ): nothing intended to supply more than frugal endurance. I formed the immediate intuition that here was a sanctum unsanctified by the recurrent presence in it of a lady.Ubi est , I wondered? Where was the beast’s belle? A sickening idea licked me – that she had died.

  The Governor was seated in presiding place at the board, his frockcoat draped untidily on the upright of his chair, at his hand a stone decanter and the remains of a repast. (The vittles had been toyed with, rather than consumed.) He had a wallet of papers opened before him on a little lectern, like a priest’s. These he appeared to be studying with engrossed attention. A heap, promiscuously assembled, was amassing itself by his plate, for when he had finished reading some, he would toss them there.

  For almost six minutes he perused, and some documents signed, and others impressed with wax and seal, bethumbing this, inscribing tinily on that, without condescending to glance at me even momentarily or otherwise concede my attendance. The man whose papers are of unavoidable importance – this was the attempted rôle. The performance did not surprise, far less offend me, self-abnegation being seldom encountered in persons of the political class. I have seen such overtures played out before, especially between men of relative power who do not know, as yet, which of them has the upper hand. One rather respected his efforts.

  ‘Whiskey or mezcal,’ he muttered bleakly, after a time. ‘We can’t get claret, which I’m sure you’d prefer.’

  ‘Thank you, I am content with a cup of watered beer.’

  ‘Be content with what you are offered. We have whiskey or mezcal.’

  ‘Nothing, then, thank you, sir. I do not use the spirituous liquors.’

  Now the eyes burned me again, baleful, inescapable. Here was the stare from which duelists had fled. One felt as a camphorized butterfly being skivered to a parchment. One could comprehend how men had marched into blizzards of cannonade at his directive; how striplings had bared breast to the foeman’s bayonet rather than rake their commander’s wrath. As well I could credit, which previously I could never, how the halls of our Republic had thrilled at his oratory in former times, how soberest burghers, neither sentimental nor susceptible, had stood up in parterres from Louisianne to the Pacific, the better to ovate his verbal firestorms. In short, he seemed possessed of lionly allure. It came clear to me why ladies had thronged at stage doors, there to plead a lock of his mane or a button of his weskit. And yet the metaphor is not quite an apposite figure, for cats slink subtly and thrive by outmaneuvering, whereas this Celt, if clever, has little craft. What he has is brute force, this grog-wrecked Vesuvius. Were the Governor a schoolmaster, he would not actually whip you; but the undeclared threat that he might change his mind would be violence enough to advance scholarship.

  ‘You are from?’

  ‘Boston, Governor.’

  ‘I said where are you from?’

  The fire was smoldering low in its grate. ‘I was born at Deptford near London,’ I allowed. ‘My father, a tailor, came over in ’49.’

  ‘And how does England and England’s queen?’

  ‘I am American,’ I said. ‘My country is Massachusetts.’

  ‘Empress of Ireland and India,’ he scorned. ‘I wonder the hag does not garb herself in a sari and Arans.’

  ‘Trust me, General, I am no admirer of monarchies.’

  His gaze was chilly as a beadle’s before a beggar. ‘Snow shall fall in the mountains of Hell before ever I trust an Englishman,’ he said.

  He went to slivering at a hank of elk with what appeared to be a hunting or fisherman’s knife – it was at any rate a knife not invented for table-work – and tossing gristly scrags of it to the gulping dog, which had lain at his feet with its beard on the floor. At least, I assumed the hound the sole beneficiary of gubernatorial benevolence, but, as my eyes accustomed increasingly to the murk of the apartment, I was startled to perceive, in the shifting shadows of a corner,the figure of a hunkering child . Whether male or female I could not quite discern, for there was a strange girlishness about the features, so it seemed in the firelight. But the clothing was that of a boy.

  The child regarded me sleepily, blinking like a calf. The face was so emaciated, so pitiful of expression, that it might have been fathered by the pen of Maestro E.†But alas, since the War, we know only too well, such urchins may be noticed in every county and quarter. But now –mirabile dictu – this seemed no kind of orphan, but a miniature facsimile of my laconic host. The same dark complectedness, lack-luster demeanor, and worms of lank dirty hair. It occurred to me that the Governor had once sired a child, product (I refuse the usual word, for it is not the infant’s fault) of the Australian, the Aboriginal attachment. It could surely not be possible? But no. It could not. My watcher had that peculiar solemnity, that gravity of outward show, which one observes in the physiognomy of the criminal orders, also in certain varieties of mendicant, and in southern Italians, also cockneys. Grimy nightgown and cap. A bone in the hands. The feet were unshod, the wrists twig-thin. All about, on the floor, was a rough circle of papers, some of which were scribbled upon with a charcoal. Mute as a stockfish the child looked at my face, but not as the world habitually gapes on my repulsiveness. I conjectured that this might be an invalid, or perhaps an unfortunate idiot of the kitchens, for my gaze was given back with the disturbing innocence of such persons. It was entirely, in short, as though I were not there; or as though I were innocuous weather.

  All the while I regarded the apparition, and it regarded me, the Governor kept at his reading. I found myself wondering what foolscaps they were that so commanded his attention, but I feared that, did I inquire, he might fling them across the table in my face. The mastiff gave a start and growled resentfully at the hearth-light, as though some genie of the sparks had offended it. It padded into a corner, sniffing, slavering, and appeared to attempt copulation with a pillar. And soon it was performing an act upon a part of itself, which, if a man could do, he would do so often, that he would rarely egress from his rooms.

  ‘I hope I do not interrupt at an inopportune moment,’ I said at the last. ‘I took the liberty of calling several times in recent days; but you were always away. There was in any event no answer.’ And I added, I hope tactfully, though my eardrums were thumping: ‘Mrs O’Keeffe, I assume, was also away.’

  ‘The door is forbidden to be opened when I am not in the house. I have many enemies here. It is not like Washington.’

  ‘Oh, a man can make enemies in Washington, too, sir,’ I ventured, thinking a little levity might allay the somewhat Transylvanian ambience. He regarded me mirthlessly. ‘So I see,’ he said.

  ‘General,’ I recommenced, and I made to move toward him. ‘Where you are!’ he snapped drunkenly. ‘Do not presume to approach my person without a bidding, else by Christ, sir, I’ll school you in cleaner manners.’

  One found oneself adopting an attitude of erect concentration, as an unkempt private recruit before his bawling better.

  ‘Fasten the buttons of your coat, you insolent sloven.Is this how you present to a General ?’

  I did as he commanded, while he continued to regard me as something found under a rock.

  ‘Your purpose, Mister. And fast.’

  ‘I am come to make a reconnaissance for the mapping, Gene
ral,’ I told him. ‘My information was that you had been informed. Forgive me if there has been a misunderstanding. The endeavor is to commence in the springtime, when the Missouri is navigable again. I am to survey this whole Territory from Fort Galloway to theportage at Inundation Pass.’

  ‘Are you indeed?’

  ‘I and my men.’

  ‘What men are those?Stand straight when you address me !’

  ‘They will come in the spring. My letters explained it. Men – an entire brigade – and cartographical equipment. A battalion of sappers. It will be a very great undertaking.’

  ‘How valuable to learn, as Governor of this Territory, that our lords back in the States reckon us worthy of their admeasurement.’

  Evidently, our encounter was going to continue difficult. Soon I wished that I had contrived our introduction to take place during daylight, for it was plain that any discussion under the present head would eventuate in discord, and I was very tired, and sick. But once into a scrape, we must press to the close. I could not depart the house without at least some news of her. Yet how to ask it without seeming to. My trade.

  ‘There is the question of the outlaw depredators,’ I took up. ‘It was thought, by the Government, that you might require assistance in the matter. With the savages, also. The Government wishes you to enjoy its help.’

  ‘Does it indeed? A Damascan conversion.’

  ‘There is concern. That is, a feeling.’ I stopped and began again. ‘This character McLaurenson – this “Thunders” by soubriquet – is causing disquiet in high places since the piracy of theHarrison . His maraudings must be punished. The plunder must be recovered. It was thought that the existence of a comprehensive map must make the writ of the law run cleaner.’

  ‘I have hunted that robbing rat whithersoever he rides in this Territory. Run him down into Kanzas and over to Nebraska. Perhaps the Government would care to come here and see for itself that our criminals seem averse to present themselves for the gallows. Neither do they present for election.’

  ‘I will emphasize your efforts in my report, sir, I assure you.’

  ‘What report?’

  ‘Why, nothing, sir. Nothing. My report to the Government.’

  ‘Is it maps you scribble, Captain, or reports to the Government?’

  ‘General, I – ’

  ‘Speak it out, Mister. Spare me evasions. You are come here to find my enemies a hemp for their noose.’

  ‘I am not, sir,’ I insisted peacefully. ‘I know nothing of such matters. My interest is only in the lie of the land.’

  ‘How many men have you killed?’

  ‘None, sir,’ I told him.

  ‘I suppose you served in the War? In which campaigns?’

  ‘I had not that honor, General. The injuries you see unfitted me. A substitute went in my stead.’

  He gave a disdainful scoff and stabbed at the roast meat before him. And I thought I heard him imprecate, but could not discern his words.

  ‘The man was well paid,’ I insisted on saying. ‘He was a poor man, an immigrant. He needed the wherewithal.’

  ‘More than he needed his life, do you reckon?’

  ‘I am not in a position to say what became of the man. Whether or not he fell, I mean.’

  ‘Men do notfall in a war, sir. They die! Do you mind me?War is not a map. It is real .’

  The volume, but more the wolfishness of the snarl quite shocked me. A string of saliva moistened his goatee and he wristed it away desultorily.†

  For a moment I was beaten as to know how best to respond. As though detecting my indecision, he spoke again, loathsomely, talking himself the while into a profundity of anger, which seemed, as often happens, to generate no relief in the speaker but merely to stoke itself harder. To reproduce the obscene soliloquy would require several paragraphs, but I do not intend here to record the locutions, a good number of which did not comport with the decorum of his office, and in truth I should like to forget them. It is not a fair thing to put down the spewings of a man when he is under the influence of a regrettable indulgence. It will suffice to note that their conclusion was the following couplet, which was delivered as though to some long-detested foe; not to a fellow servant of the United States government whose wisdom, after all, had placed both of us in that room.

  ‘A cancer, you and your ilk of Catholic-hating cowards. To think I sent boys to the shambles in the name of such trash.’

  It was then that I saw into the depth of his unhappiness. And I resolved to grope beyond the venomous fruit of his slight, to whatever execrable root bore it. My dossier has made it clear that he was raised under the dominion of popery, as are by far the greater number of his unfortunate countrymen. And yet, as we know, they love this Republic fiercely, and are not unintelligent, be they quick to emotional eruptions. Any fair-minded man can conceive how bitter their fate has been: to have had to flee their birth-land, from starvation and despotism, from that same hideous tyranny of hereditary princelings which once held our own fathers in bondage.

  Unhappy Ireland. Her unhappy sons. Where ever should we be without them? Moreover, one can but imagine the pain of such a man as the Governor, the thoughts which must have tortured what was then a taut mind as in chains he watched the mountains of her receding coast. It was in this spirit that next I spoke, as placably and comradely as I could in the circumstance, for sometimes it is necessary to bite on an insult, the better to eat the bread of fellowship again.

  ‘Forgive me, General, if I someway offended you. Your service during the War was exemplary, and that of your countrymen. All of us who love liberty owe you a debt. If I may say so, it is an honor to be able to thank you in person. You and of course Mrs O’Keeffe.’

  Nothing to my maggot. The shark did not nibble. I heard a party of roisterers pass by in the lane. They were singing a mocking song.

  ‘As to creed,’ I continued (hoping to overlie the scornful serenade), ‘my father was a Methodist; my mother’s people were Northumbrian Quakers. They tried to assist Ireland in her years of hunger. I know that many of your motherland’s patriots were of the reformed tradition, as are many of your friends, who write and speak of you admiringly. They speak of a man without a grain of bigotry. They speak, if one may say so, of a hero.’

  He answered me not. Perhaps he knew – I think he did – that some of what I had said was more obsequious than accurate. Indeed, had his command not been terminated under difficult circumstances, probably he would not be sitting in this forlorn Territory tonight. None of this I mentioned to him, naturally enough. I did not wish to wrench the poultice from the wound of his ambitions. Few of us, truly, would survive that experience. I, for one, would be destroyed by it.

  ‘Permit an apology, Captain,’ he said, never uplifting his countenance. ‘I should not have spoken as I did. I disgust myself, always.’

  ‘Sir, I beg you, please do not speak of – ’

  ‘I am loathsome. I ought to know it. In the War, I was nothing. I let thousands who trusted me die. I should have told them to go home. You will have heard the talk at Washington. The talk of my failure and removal.’

  His words were louchely slurred, and I felt sorry for him, I own it. It is wrenching to see a large-bodied man in distress, as awful as to see a frightened child. My conscience was ashamed for the wrongs I had done him – nigglingly ashamed – a glow-worm’s light – and for the graver robbery yet to be committed. I could see, when she came away with me, that it would murder what was left of him; and I wished some other denouement were possible.

  ‘My prayer, sir, like yours – my sincerest hope – is that children such as our companion, that little one by the hearth, will be spared the terrible experience, for all their lives, of war between American brothers.’

  No reply he offered. No clue as to the fire-elf’s identity. And I played a rather reckless hand.

  ‘Your child is a credit, if I may say so, sir,’ I said. ‘Possessed of the father’s bearing.’

  He ga
zed up at me as though I had spat upon him, his features distended by pain. And I was harrowed to see those insensate eyes, whose pitiless stare had so recently disconcerted me, now dampened by an excess of feeling. ‘Brute,’ he spoke bleakly. ‘How is my child here?’

  ‘Why, there, sir –,’ I began, but now the Governor lurched from his seat. A moment passed. I felt rather afraid. The flagon of liquor he dashed from the board, his whole body shaking with the mute vehemence of despair.

  ‘My child is not here, sir. No child of mine is here! I shall never behold that innocent face. Never! Never! Never!’

  And now – I cannot explain it – but a perplexing thing happened. For I turned about, and nobody was there.

  The fire burned low, the wind bellowed in the eavesdrops [sic]; but in the place where I had seen our cohort but a moment erewhile was only a swirl of turbid shadows. One felt as a miser who seeks his burgled gold, rubbing his eyelids, knowing the trove must be there, but anyway not seeing it, so staring the harder. The child must have stolen away from us while I engaged with the Governor; and yet, I heard no door unlatch, nor even the faintest of footfalls. Were one tended at all toward weakness of mind, one might have fallen foul of girlish suspicions that the tattlers of the town had wisdom in their gibberish; that forces praeternatural (malicious, et cetera) were ruling that reportedly Faustian roost.

  ‘I implore your pardon, sir, truly,’ I said. ‘I am not well, I think. My wits are upset.’

  He had crossed to the hearth and had sunk onto a bench before it, quivering with anguish, burying his face in his hands. A log fell in two with a fizzle of scarlet sparks. ‘Get out,’ the Governor said.