by Noah Gordon
“It’s over, the company is no longer my responsibility,” she said. She told him the lawyer had done an excellent job of preparing the necessary documents, and most of the receipts of the sale already had been placed in trust for Hattie and Joshua.
“Well, we must celebrate,” he said, and the gray mood that had been established by his morning activities was banished.
They took the first hansom carriage in the line at the curb in front of the hotel. Shaman didn’t want to see the concert hall or the new stockyards. Only one thing about Chicago interested him. “Show me the places you knew when you lived here,” he said.
“But that will be so dull!”
“Please.”
So Rachel leaned forward and gave directions to the driver, and the horse moved off.
At first she was embarrassed as she pointed out the instrument shop where she had bought strings and a new bow for her violin, and had had the pegs repaired. But she began to enjoy herself as she identified the shops where she had bought her shoes and her hats, and the shirtmaker’s where she had ordered some dress shirts for her father’s birthday present. They rode for twenty blocks, until she showed him an imposing edifice and told him it was the Sinai Congregation. “This is where I played with my quartet on Thursdays, and where we came to services Friday evenings. It isn’t where Joe and I were married. That was the Kehilath Anshe Maarib synagogue, where Joe’s aunt, Harriet Ferber, was a prominent member.
“Four years ago, Joe and a number of others broke away from the synagogue and founded Sinai, a congregation of Reform Judaism. They did away with a good deal of ritual and tradition, and it created an enormous scandal here. Aunt Harriet was furious, but it didn’t cause a lasting rift, and we remained close. When she died a year later, we named Harriet after her.”
She directed the driver next to a neighborhood of small but comfortable homes, and on Tyler Street she pointed out a house of brown shingles.
“There is where we lived.”
Shaman remembered how she’d looked then, and he leaned forward, trying to fit the girl of his memory into this house.
Five blocks away there was a cluster of stores. “Oh, we must stop!” Rachel said. They left the carriage and went into a grocery that smelled of spices and salt, where a ruddy-faced white-bearded old man, fully as large as Shaman, came toward them, beaming as he wiped his hands on his grocer’s apron.
“Mrs. Regensberg, how good to see you again!”
“Thank you, Mr. Freudenthal. It’s good to see you too. I want to get some things to carry back home to my mother.”
She bought several varieties of smoked fish, black olives, and a large square of almond paste. The grocer cast a keen glance over Shaman.
“Ehr is nit ah Yiddisheh” he observed to her.
“Nein” she said. Then, as if an explanation were called for, “Ehr ist ein guteh freind.”
Shaman didn’t have to understand the language to realize what had been said. He felt a flash of resentment, but almost as quickly he realized that the old man’s question was part of the reality that came along with her, like Hattie and Joshua. When he and Rachel had been children in a more innocent world there had been few dissimilarities to deal with, but now they were adults, and the differences had to be faced.
So when he accepted her packages from the grocer, he smiled at the old man. “Good day to you, Mr. Freudenthal,” he said, and followed Rachel out of the store.
They brought the packages back to the hotel. It was time for dinner, and Shaman would have settled for the hotel dining room, but Rachel said she knew a better place. She took him to the Parkman Café, a small restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. It was unostentatious and moderately priced, but the food and service were good. After dinner, when he asked her what she would like to do next, she said she wanted to walk along the lake.
The breeze blew in from the water, but there was a reversion to summer warmth in the air. The sky held bright stars and the last phase of the harvest moon, but it was too dark for him to see her mouth, and they didn’t talk. With another woman this would have made him anxious, but he knew Rachel took his silence for granted in the absence of visibility.
They walked along on the lake causeway until she paused beneath a street lamp and pointed ahead at a pool of yellow light. “I hear wonderfully bad music, lots of cymbals!”
When they reached the lighted place they saw a curious sight, a round platform, large as a milking parlor in a barn, on which painted wooden animals were fixed. A thin man with a seamed and weathered face turned a great crank.
“Is it a music box?” Rachel said.
“Non, it is un carrousel. One chooses an animal and rides upon it, très drole, très plaisant,” the man said. “Each ride twenty cents, mistaire.”
Rob sat on a brown bear. Rachel rode a horse painted an improbable red. The Frenchman grunted, turning the crank, and at once they began to whirl.
In the center of the carrousel a brass ring hung from a pole, beneath a sign that said that a free ride would be awarded to anyone able to seize the ring while seated on a steed. Doubtless it was well out of the reach of most riders, but Shaman stretched his long body. When the Frenchman saw Shaman trying for the ring, he turned the crank faster and the carrousel speeded up, but Shaman snatched the ring on his second try.
He earned several free rides for Rachel, but soon the proprietor called a halt in order to rest his arm, and Shaman got off his brown bear and took over the turning of the crank. He cranked faster and faster, and the red horse went from a canter to a gallop. Rachel threw her head back and screamed with laughter like a child as she passed him, her white teeth flashing. There was nothing childlike about her attraction. It wasn’t only Shaman who was spellbound; the Frenchman stole fascinated peeks as he busied himself, preparing to close down. “You are the last customair of 1864,” he told Shaman. “It is finis for the season. Soon will come the ice.” Rachel stayed on for eleven rides. It was obvious that they’d kept the proprietor late; Shaman tipped him when he paid, and the man presented Rachel with a white glass mug on which a cluster of roses had been painted.
They got back to the hotel windblown and smiling.
“I had such a good time,” she said at the door of Room 306.
“So did I.” Before he could do or say anything else, she had kissed him lightly on the cheek and her door had opened and closed.
In his own room he lay on his bed for an hour, fully clothed. Finally he got up and walked down the two flights of stairs. It took her a little while to respond to his knock. He almost lost his courage and turned away, but at last the door opened, and she was there in her robe.
They stood and looked at one another. “Shall you come in, or shall I come out?” she said. He saw she was nervous.
He went into her room and closed the door.
“Rachel—” he said, but she covered his mouth with her hand. “When I was a young girl, I used to walk down the Long Path and stop at a certain perfect place where the woods dipped away to the river, just on my father’s side of the boundary between our lands. I told myself you were going to grow older quickly and build a house there and save me from having to marry an old man with bad teeth. I pictured our children, a son like you and three daughters to whom you’d be loving and patient, allowing them to go to school and live in their home until they were ready to leave.”
“I’ve loved you all my life.”
“I know,” she said, and as he kissed her, her fingers worked on the buttons of his shirt.
They left the lamp on, so she could talk to him, and to see one another.
After making love she fell asleep as easily as a cat taking a nap, and he lay there and studied her breathing. At length she woke and her eyes widened to see him.
“Even after I was Joe’s wife … even after I was a mother, I dreamed of you.”
“I somehow knew. That’s what made it so bad.”
“I’m afraid, Shaman!”
“Of w
hat, Rachel?”
“For years I’ve buried any hope of this … Do you know what an observant family does when someone marries out of the faith? They cover the mirrors with cloths and go into mourning. They say the prayer for the dead.”
“Don’t be afraid. We’ll talk to them until they understand.”
“And if they never understand?”
He felt a stab of fear, but the question had to be faced. “If they don’t, you’ll have to make a decision,” he said.
They looked at one another.
“No more resignation to life, for either of us,” Rachel said. “Correct?”
“Correct.”
They understood a commitment had been made, more serious than any vow, and they came together and clung as if each was a life raft.
The next day, on the train traveling west, they talked.
“I’ll need time,” Rachel said.
When he asked how much time, she said she wanted to tell her father in person, not in a smuggled letter. “It shouldn’t be long. Everyone feels the war is almost over.”
“I’ve waited for you a long time. I can wait longer, I guess,” he said. “But I won’t meet you in secret. I want to call for you at your home, and take you out with me. And I want to spend time with Hattie and Joshua, so we can come to really know each other.”
Rachel smiled and nodded. “Yes,” she said, and took his hand.
She was being met in Rock Island by Lillian. Shaman left the train in Moline and went to the stable and claimed his horse. He rode upriver thirty miles and took the ferry across the Mississippi to Clinton, Iowa. That night he stayed at the Randall Hotel, in a good room with a marble mantel and hot and cold running water. The hotel had a marvelous five-story brick privy, accessible from all floors. But next day the purpose of his visit was a disappointment, when he went to inspect the Inman Hospital. It was small, like the hospital that was planned for Holden’s Crossing, but it was filthy and badly run, a lesson in what not to do. Shaman escaped as soon as possible and paid money to the captain of a flatboat to take him and Boss downriver to Rock Island.
A cold rain began to fall during his ride to Holden’s Crossing, but he kept warm by thinking of Rachel and the future.
When finally he was home and had seen to his horse, he let himself into the kitchen to find his mother sitting very straight at the edge of her chair. Obviously she had been waiting eagerly for him to come back, because the words spilled from her as soon as he entered the door.
“Your brother is alive. He is a prisoner of war,” Sarah said.
65
A TELEGRAPH MESSAGE
A letter from her husband had been delivered to Lillian Geiger the day before. Jason wrote that he’d seen the name of Corporal Alexander Bledsoe on a list of Confederate prisoners of war. Alex had been taken by Union forces on November 11, 1862, at Perryville, Kentucky.
“That’s why Washington hasn’t answered our letters asking if they had a prisoner named Alexander Cole,” Sarah said. “He used my first husband’s name.”
Shaman was exultant. “At least he may still be alive! I’ll write straight off, to try to find out where he’s being held.”
“That would take months. If he’s still living, he’s been a prisoner almost three years. Jason writes that conditions are terrible in prison camps on both sides of the war. He says we should try to get to Alex right away.”
“Then I’ll go to Washington myself.”
But his mother shook her head. “I read in the newspaper that Nick Holden is coming to Rock Island and Holden’s Crossing, to speak in favor of Lincoln’s reelection. You go to him, and ask his help in finding your brother.”
Shaman was puzzled. “Why should we go to Nick Holden instead of to our congressman or senator? Pa despised Holden for helping destroy the Sauks.”
“Nick Holden probably is Alex’s father,” she said quietly.
For a moment Shaman was struck dumb.
“… I always thought … That is, Alex believes his natural father is someone named Will Mosby.”
His mother looked at him. She was very pale, but her eyes were dry. “I was seventeen years old when my first husband died. I was all alone in a cabin in the middle of the prairie, on what is now the Schroeder farm. I tried to keep on homesteading by myself, but I didn’t have the strength. The land broke me quickly. I had no money. There were no jobs, and very few people hereabouts, then. First Will Mosby found me. He was a criminal, he’d be gone for long periods, but when he came back, he always had plenty of money. Then Nick started coming around.
“They were both handsome, charming men. At first I thought neither one knew about the other, but when I got pregnant, it turned out both of them knew, and each claimed the other was the father.”
Shaman found it difficult to speak. “They furnished you no help at all?”
She gave him a bitter smile. “Not so you’d notice. I think Will Mosby loved me and would have married me, finally, but he led a dangerous, reckless life, and he chose that moment to get killed. Nick stayed away, although I’ve always thought he was Alex’s father. Alma and Gus had come and taken the land, and I suppose he knew the Schroeders would feed me.
“When I gave birth, Alma was there, but the poor thing gets addled in an emergency, and mostly I had to tell her what to do. After Alex came, for a few years life was very bad. First my nerves went, and then my stomach, and that brought on kidney stones.” She shook her head. “Your father saved my life. Until he came along, I didn’t believe there was such a thing in the world as a kind and gentle man.
“The thing is, I had sinned. When you lost your hearing, I knew I was being punished and it was my fault, and I couldn’t hardly go near you. I loved you so much, and my conscience hurt me so bad.” She reached out and touched his face. “I’m sorry you’ve had such a weak and sinful mother.”
Shaman took her hand. “No, you’re not weak and sinful. You’re a strong woman who needed real courage just to survive. For that matter, it took courage to tell me this story. My deafness isn’t your fault, Ma. God doesn’t want to punish you. I’ve never been so proud of you, nor loved you more.”
“Thank you, Shaman,” she said, and now when he kissed her, her cheek was wet.
Five days before Nick Holden was due to speak in Rock Island, Shaman left a note for him with the chairman of the county Republican Committee. It said that Dr. Robert Jefferson Cole would deeply appreciate an opportunity to talk with Commissioner Holden about a matter of great and urgent importance.
On the day of the first political rally, Shaman went to Nick’s large frame house in Holden’s Crossing, where a secretary nodded when he gave his name.
“The commissioner’s expecting you,” the man said, and showed Shaman into the office.
Holden had changed since Shaman had seen him last. He was stout, his gray hair was thinning, and webs of veins had appeared in the corners of his nose, but he still was a fine-looking man, and he wore assurance like a well-tailored suit of clothes.
“Well, by God, you’re the little one, the youngest son, ain’t you? And now you’re a doctor? I’m certainly glad to see you. Tell you what, I need me a good country meal, you come along to Anna Wiley’s Dining Room and let me buy you a Holden’s Crossing dinner.”
Shaman had read his father’s journal recently enough so that he still saw Nick through Rob J. Cole’s eyes and pen, and the last thing he wanted was to break bread with him. But he knew why he was there, so he suffered being driven to the boardinghouse dining room on Main Street in Nick’s carriage. Of course, they had to get out at the general store first, where he waited while Nick shook hands with each man on the porch, like a good politician, and made certain everyone there was acquainted with “my good friend, our doctor.”
In the dining room Anna Wiley made a fuss over them, and Shaman got to eat her pot roast, which was good, and her apple pie, which was ordinary. And finally he got to tell Nick Holden about Alex.
Holden listened with
out interruption, then nodded. “Been a prisoner three years, has he?”
“Yes, sir. If he’s still alive.”
Nick took a cigar from his inside breast pocket and offered it. When it was refused, he bit off the end and lighted it for himself, blowing thoughtful little puffs of smoke toward Shaman. “Why’d you come to me?”
“My mother thought you’d be interested,” Shaman said.
Holden glanced at him and nodded. He smiled. “Your father and I … You know, when we were young men, we were great friends. Had some high old times together.”
“I know,” Shaman said dryly.
Something in his tone must have warned Nick away from that topic. He nodded again. “Well, you give your mother my warmest regards. And tell her I’ll take a personal interest in this matter.”
Rob thanked him. Just the same, when he got home he wrote to his congressman and his senator, asking their help in locating Alex.
A few days after their return from Chicago, both Shaman and Rachel told their mothers they had decided to keep company.
Sarah’s lips thinned when she heard, but she nodded without surprise. “You’ll be very good with her children, of course, the way your pa was good with Alex. If you have children of your own, will they be baptized?”
“I don’t know, Ma. We haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“I would talk about it, were I you two.” It was all she had to say to him about the matter.
Rachel wasn’t that fortunate. She and her mother quarreled often. Lillian was polite to Shaman when he came to her house, but showed him no warmth. He took Rachel and the two children out with him in the buggy whenever possible, but nature conspired against him, for the weather turned mean. Just as summer had come early and hot with almost no spring, so winter fell upon the plains prematurely that year. October was frigid. Shaman found his father’s skates in the barn; he bought the children “double runners” at Haskins’ store and took them skating on the frozen buffalo slough, but it was too cold for long enjoyment. There was snow by election day, when Lincoln was easily reelected, and on the eighteenth of the month a blizzard struck Holden’s Crossing, and the ground had a white cover that would last until spring.
