So Helen carried guilt too. Helen saw deep under deep, and felt deep under deep. I could see why my son loved her.
“Moreau went for many reasons,” I said. “You came to the mill for many reasons.”
“I worry,” she said simply. “I want everything to be perfect.”
“Amen,” I said, wondering if anything could be the same.
We were quiet again.
“You get what you want, Mr. Salisbury.”
“So do you, Miss Warriner. And I’m glad for it.”
61
January got harder. Moreau was physically better, though in pain. Now he battled sadness. I don’t know how else to put it. Helen had been right to worry. Deep in the night we heard screams. He suffered restless sleep and bad dreams. He was irritable. We knew he would live and we were thankful, but he had sorrow and anger. Was it the child? His dead comrades? Guilt about being alive when Merrick was dead? Anger at me? His anger was triggered by mundane, unintentional acts. A spilled glass. The smell of mutton. The question, “How are you?” was a provocation. Lord knows he was entitled to his moods, but we wondered, Why now and why us? I knew his secret, but didn’t understand his agony. It couldn’t be just that. He had Helen and Mother and me. He was home.
Helen sat by the bed in the room off the parlor and felt, palpably felt, the truth that sets men free, but her man wasn’t free. In January She began to worry that the debt hadn’t been paid, and that raised the question of what debt or debts, and how they might be paid. I feared our Intended began to suspect that love has its limits.
There was talk President Lincoln might declare the old Pilgrim holiday of Thanksgiving a national holiday, but he didn’t. Few thought the country had much to be thankful for. We kept our thankfulness at home out of respect for grieving families. Many [had] lost sons and never recovered their bodies. Men disappeared into the war. We were grateful, but privately. Mary slept through the night, and sometimes during the day. Her health was breaking. She had given everything. Helen bathed her soldier now, but she did not string. Mary forbade it. She was trying to keep Helen innocent of bloody needles and bloody silk. Mary wanted someone to remain innocent. We needed an innocent.
Mary saw the change in Moreau and said, “God brought us this far. He will bring us farther.” Her voice, if not her faith, was at the point of exhaustion. If she meant, “I can do no more,” I didn’t contradict her. Mary gave all she could give, and if that wasn’t enough, God help us.
Helen was troubled and hurt. Why was Moreau angry and distant? Was it her? What wasn’t she doing? What hadn’t she done? Did he doubt her love? She would never, never, doubt his, so this must be her fault. Moreau deserved to be happy. She deserved to be happy. They had earned it, and she was doing everything she could, but… Sorrow. Troubled nights. Vacant days. Irritation.
Moreau slept, day in, day out.
He said it wasn’t Helen.
What then?
Me?
He wouldn’t say.
There were fine moments. Helen enjoyed washing him. When had heating water ever been such heaven? Helen touched him and what she hadn’t touched, she’d seen. The expression “big man” brought a smile to her lips. Mary told me. Helen had a sly smile that seemed to say, I don’t have to be good now. In February, that smile disappeared.
Had they done something they shouldn’t have? No one on earth would say they shouldn’t, but was that troubling them? Had something of the flesh come between them? I couldn’t say.
It was best when Moreau was asleep. Awake was difficult. He was frequently in pain. Mary still forbade Helen to see the wound cleaned. Helen was glad she didn’t have to watch. She said she could do it, but watching would be difficult. Moreau drank morphine, so the stringing didn’t hurt. Mary did it, and afterward he slept.
One morning I watched Mary arrange Ro’s hair as he slept.
“Children,” she said, “are beautiful when they sleep.”
It was lovely, watching her watch him. Moreau would always be her child. She had worried, nursed, prayed, seen Merrick die, cared for me, and now, lost, hurt, and angry, Moreau was hers again. A fine thing. The only thing. His mother could bear all.
“They fuss and fuss when they’re awake,” Mary said. “Our reward is their sleep.”
Helen smiled. “Father says anyone who’s raised a two-year-old understands devils and angels.”
“Devils and angels,” Mary said, her smile bright. “That’s God’s truth.” Mary patted my shoulder on her way out. I hoped she was going to sleep, as she often didn’t at night.
“Father says the devil is not paid with smiles,” Helen said. “Do you believe in the devil?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe in Hell,” Helen said. “If such a place exists, it’s empty. Jesus didn’t come so people might be thrown into fire. Men make Hell. Men must get out of it.”
“My brother’s there now,” I said.
“The terrible battles,” Helen said. “The wounds. That’s hell enough.” Her voice trembled. “If we love God, and keep Jesus’ words, we needn’t fear.”
“Thy will be done,” I said.
Helen stroked her sleeping soldier, and smiled a smile that might bribe the angels.
It wasn’t angels that needed to be bribed.
62
Mary and I didn’t visit Lorenzo in January or February. Catherine said he didn’t want visitors. I thought he didn’t want to see me. Lorenzo was fighting and Lorenzo fought alone. We would wait. The ground was too frozen to bury Merrick. The casket remained in the barn. Whatever peace my brother would make, he would make with Merrick.
“Lorenzo will be all right,” Catherine said.
Then one brutally cold February day, word came from Catherine that we must come. She didn’t have to say why. I wanted to believe my brother was indestructible, but I’d thought that about Merrick.
We hitched John Brown to the sleigh and drove into a cold, snowy afternoon.
Wind whipped snow off the drifts and raised glistening clouds in the fields. I made John Brown go faster. It was a long hour.
Catherine ran out to meet us, apron flying in the wind. She had been watching from the kitchen.
“He’s in the barn. He won’t come out. He’s got that damn gun.”
The barn door stood open. Snow blew sideways in a colder wind, crossing lake, fields, town, and woods.
Mary got out of the sleigh. She muttered, “I’m coming. Damn it, I’m coming.” I had never heard her swear before.
I followed her into the barn. Lorenzo knelt in front of the casket. The short-stocked shotgun leaned against the casket, which sat on two sawhorses. Cows shivered. A horse whinnied. Chickens hopped and a sparrow flew into the barn. The day was freezing, the light dying.
Mary went to Lorenzo—all the tears she couldn’t cry over Moreau came to her eyes. “Stop this, Lorenzo! You have a wife! A brother!” She sat next to Lorenzo and put her arms around him.
Lorenzo didn’t move. He didn’t look at her.
She tried again. “We loved Merrick. We all did. But you have to go on living. All of us together. Are you listening, Lorenzo?”
Lorenzo didn’t move.
“I was there when he was born and I was there when he died. Damn it, Lorenzo, we love you!”
She was angry. My angel wife. With the suddenness of a rope snapping, She slapped Lorenzo. He closed his eyes.
A strange, full minute passed. The wind hurled gusts of snow into the barn.
Another minute. Mary cried silently. My brother didn’t move.
I picked up the shotgun, unloaded it, walked to the barn door, and swung it against the jamb. I swung again and again. Wings rustled in the rafters and a dozen, then a hundred, then a thousand sparrows fluttered and flew out of the stable in a dark, chattering cloud. The gun broke. I dropped the stock and said, “It’s over.”
Lorenzo pushed Mary away and came at me. I thought he’d kill me. My brother—the stronger, meaner man. In
stead he stopped and looked me in the eye for the first time since Merrick died. Then he laid his head on my shoulder and wept.
63
One night, Mary heard Moreau’s screams through the February wind. She was up first. I lit a lamp and followed her down the stairs.
“My gun! Where’s my gun!” Moreau sat, grabbing at darkness. Helen, who’d been dozing in a chair, tried to put her arms around him. “Rebs!” He pushed her, flailing his arms, hitting her with dull thuds. I stood in the doorway with the lamp, not sure whom to help or how.
Mary put her arms around Moreau. “It’s Mother.”
“Sentry! My gun!”
“Mother. Mother.”
He shook all over. I gave Helen the lamp and held Moreau’s arms. He couldn’t wake. I held tight. It was a struggle. Like holding a drowning man. I felt sweat, ribs, fists. I felt terror. Felt the war.
Moreau fought to wake. Mary touched his face, saying, “Mother. Mother.” Over and over. Her voice or touch or smell slowly woke him. Calmed him. He was sweating, shaking. He said, “I’m sorry,” and fell back.
The dead were rising.
Mary wiped his brow and sweat-slicked face and hair. She held him. Moreau stopped shaking and said, “I’m all right, Mother. Please go to bed. Let me be.”
She kissed his forehead and said, “I shall go. Mason can stay in the parlor.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
Mary went out and up the steps. They had a sort of agreement. She knew when to withdraw.
“I’ll be in the parlor,” I said. Moreau nodded. He did that for Mary. At least I thought he did. I sat on the sofa and trimmed the lamp to a tiny, clear light. The wind rattled the windows and rustled the curtains.
After a few minutes, Helen said, “You hit me quite hard.” She said it in a firm, caring voice. I expected a caring response.
“I told you not to stay,” he said. “I don’t sleep well.”
“I want to be near you.”
“What good’s that?”
“I love you,” Helen said.
“Whores took better care of me.”
I felt her shock. I don’t know what hurt her more, the fact of whores or that her soldier threw it in her face.
“There aren’t any whores here.” Her voice trembled. “Only your family.” Helen glanced at the parlor.
Moreau laid back, his strength gone. She tried to kiss him. He pushed her away. “You don’t know love.”
“I may not,” said Helen, “but I love you.”
“You’re ignorant. Foolish. You don’t know how.”
“Show me,” she said.
“Can’t.”
“Why, Ro? I love you.”
“Love don’t help. We know that.”
“What would?”
“A whore.”
Helen shuddered, perhaps imagining what she hadn’t imagined before. Confronting a man she’d never seen before.
“Take what you want,” she said in a whisper. “I give it.”
“I don’t want it.”
The lamp went out. I don’t know if they saw or cared. I loved my son, but I cared for Helen. A daughter, a comfort to Mary—and they were clawing at each other.
“I know the devil,” said Moreau. “When he comes, you’re alone, no matter who loves you.”
“No,” said Helen. “You’re never alone. Jesus is here. He’s here now in this sad room.”
“If He’s here, He don’t give a shit.”
“Moreau, the Lord doesn’t come to you. You must go to Him.”
“I went,” he said. “Didn’t like what I found.”
“You answered the devil, Ro. You fought to free men.”
“No man is free.”
“That’s saying no man has a soul,” said Helen.
“Mine’s gone.”
Moreau. My son. Did he believe even less than I did?
Helen faltered. “What about Gib, Ro? What would he say?”
“Gib ain’t here.”
“Wars end, Moreau. Even this one.”
“Only the dead have seen the end of war, Helen. Where’s the damn yellow bottle? I want to sleep.”
Her voice finally broke. “And your letters? Those beautiful letters?”
Moreau turned away from her, his voice muffled by the pillow. “It’s different now. Don’t you know that? Let me sleep.”
64
Winter wore on and Moreau was sinking, going away, as he got stronger. He would not talk about what was wrong. My son had a pact with silence that reminded me of my brother. Not-telling was important and he had much not to tell. More, I’m sure, than I knew. Not-telling was not showing pain and Moreau wouldn’t show pain. Maybe it was a way to hurt us, like he’d been hurt. Maybe it was guilt. The women couldn’t imagine why Moreau would hurt them. I wondered if my son couldn’t forgive himself, as well as me.
Maybe he can’t forgive the war?
Was it the child?
Something he did?
Something between him and Helen? Something in the dark?
Moreau would not give in. To us, to pain, to anything, except silence. He was giving in to that. He was fighting—fighting us. And himself in some brutal, proud way we didn’t understand. We were proud of him. Was that what he hated? We tried to understand. Did he hate that?
Moreau did the cleaning now. We asked what we should do. All of us gave him love and respect, but Moreau was going where love and respect couldn’t follow. Maybe he was already there. I’d seen this before. He knew it hurt us. Mary bore this as she bore all Moreau’s troubles, with strength, prayer, and love. Mary believed love would cure him and worried only that she didn’t have the strength to give it. Helen couldn’t believe Ro could love her so much, and then stop. I had thought Moreau needed someone far from the country of mother, but now he needed no one—unless it was someone to hurt. What country did he need now? A country, it seemed, neither his mother, nor Helen, nor I, could enter.
One night, as the wind beat against the house and snow raced by the icy windows, I said, “What’s wrong, Moreau? Is it the stringing?”
“No.” His eyes flashed. “I enjoy stringing.”
“I’m sorry I can’t do it,” I said.
“No matter.”
“What does matter, Moreau?”
“Nothin’,” he said quietly.
“Your mother? Helen? Gib? Something else?”
He looked into the dark.
“You’re cruel to Helen,” I said. “Does it make you feel better?”
“Makes me feel worse.”
“Why do you do it?” I asked quietly.
“Want to feel worse.”
“Be cruel to me,” I said. “Don’t be cruel to the women.”
“Winter will pass,” he said.
“Winter?”
“The winter of our discontent.” He smiled.
“Are you all right, Moreau?”
He looked at me. “I’ll think about what you said. Let me sleep.”
The next day, I tried again, sitting at his bedside. “I think you made a deal. I didn’t let them cut, so you don’t complain about stringing. You don’t complain about anything. Even me.”
“I thank you for not letting them cut,” he said formally.
The day’s stringing was done. Moreau drank from the yellow bottle. The irritation, goading, the sense we owed something we couldn’t pay, was gone. He wouldn’t have to string for another twenty-one hours.
“Do you want me to clean your wound?” I asked.
“Hell no.”
“Do you hate me for sending you to war?” I asked.
“Ain’t about you.”
We were quiet. I didn’t believe him. “The stringing gets you.”
“It don’t,” he said quickly.
“Something’s got you.”
“It ain’t that.”
“I sent you to war,” I said. “I cannot take that back. I cannot take back what it did to you. I wanted you to go for my ambition. My car
eer. I wanted you to fight for me. It was cowardice. And wrong. That’s why I won’t stand for reelection.”
“It isn’t you. Not then. Not now.”
“I didn’t understand the part of you that went to seminary,” I said. “I never understood the part that dreamed of the heads or talked to God. Or went to war. The best parts.” I took his hand. I tried to make him listen. “Let the doctor string you. Talk about what bothers you. Let me string.”
He turned away. He wouldn’t listen.
The days went deep into February, got colder, and we were frightened. Moreau treated Helen better, at least overtly. He said stringing in the morphine-deadened mornings made him happier than the rest of the day. I didn’t believe it. I think words could not bridge the distance between what Ro had seen and what he felt about what he’d seen. Maybe he was thinking about his child. Maybe he had other secrets.
What scared me was not that he wouldn’t tell, but that he thought it wouldn’t matter if he did. None of us pretended to know how he felt and that was right. I knew that was right. We all did right, but…Moreau drifted in and out of but. I kept thinking he hated the mornings. I asked. He said no. He said it from the other side of the world.
Numbness. Pain. Fits of anger. Moreau suffered. Every day he pierced and strung in awful, solitary dawns. He did it in the stable. He limped eight paces on a crutch from kitchen to stable through the killing cold. He did this every morning, but would not, did not, ask for help. I admired his courage and his courage scared me.
On a day when ice coated the windows in the room off the parlor, I asked if he talked to God in the mornings.
“Why would God talk to me?” he said.
“Maybe you talk and He listens.”
Moreau shrugged.
“Don’t you thank God you survived?” I said.
“No.”
I thought about mentioning the child, but only as a last resort. I was sure that was part of it, but I thought my son used the child to punish himself. Why did he punish himself? It was mixed up with those awful battles, of course, but I believed Moreau thought he should be able to make peace with the war, with himself and with us, but couldn’t. I knew he didn’t trust me, and my mentioning the child might end what little trust there was. My telling his mother would be unforgivable. Telling Helen might drive her away. Telling Moreau might bring absolute silence. I was glad he hadn’t mentioned the child when he quarreled with Helen. He hadn’t said the meanest thing he could. He hadn’t destroyed Helen’s love.
No Common War Page 18
