Nostalgia

by Dennis McFarland

  Hayes holds up three fingers.

  “Third Division,” says Casper. “That would be … I don’t recall, maybe General Mott. And what brigade, please?”

  Hayes holds up one finger.

  “Ha, you see!” cries Casper. “Second Corps, Third Division, First Brigade. What do you think of that?”

  “Oh, that’s very good, Casper,” says Walt. “You’ve narrowed it to about two or three thousand possible names. Now all we have to do is request the necessary rosters, presumably from some office at the War Department … and providing they can be had, after several months of bureaucratic faineancy … we’ll start reading the names aloud and Mr. X will nod to us when we hit the right one. Brilliant—and what fun!”

  Walt chuckles softly, takes a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and wipes his eyes.

  Casper is silent and only straightens himself in his bed and lowers his chin. After a moment, he says, “Why is there never any satisfaction to be found in this stinking place? I thought it was brilliant. I thought …”

  The flag nearest them stirs and snaps in a sharp breeze coming through the window. Walt puts away his handkerchief, and then, shockingly, it becomes apparent that Casper is quietly weeping as he strokes his stump.

  “My own boy!” Walt cries and is up and out of the chair. His cane falls noisily to the floor, and next he’s cradling Casper’s head in the crook of his arm. “I’m ever so sorry … I never meant to—”

  Now he stops and lays a hand over Casper’s brow. “My dear,” he says, “you’re positively burning with fever.”

  DUSK, yet too early to light the lamps. Poor Jeffers still struggles for each breath, but having lost more ground, he now makes only a sound of forced air, a repeated weak gasp followed by a sigh. The wind outside has died completely, and most of the visitors have departed for their suppers. Walt, too, has disappeared, though minutes earlier Hayes heard him tell Casper he would spend the night at the hospital if Casper wanted. At Casper’s bedside, the corpulent and dour Dr. Dinkle, the ward surgeon, has tied a cloth over the bottom half of his own face to assuage the effect of the foul odor that arises from the unbound amputation wound. He is assisted by a diminutive man Hayes has never seen before, a Dr. Drum, clad in a black suit rather than a uniform and holding a white handkerchief to his mouth and nose. To Hayes’s surprise, Matron has been summoned as well—evidently against her will—and stands on the opposite side of Casper’s bed, ashen, perspiring, disconcerted. The two physicians, whose backs are to Hayes, confer in clinical tones with their heads tilted at each other, almost touching, the taller Dr. Dinkle bending toward the wound site and the small Dr. Drum standing straight.

  “Altogether drier than desired,” says Dr. Drum, “yet what secretion there is … watery, quite thin, do you see?”

  “Yes, and mind the flaps,” says Dr. Dinkle. “They were much better than that before.”

  “No sign of ligatures,” says Dr. Drum.

  “The last came away more than a week ago,” says Dr. Dinkle. “And with no secondary hemorrhaging. He was properly healing … beautifully healing.”

  “Scorbutic diathesis the probable culprit,” says Dr. Drum. “In my—”

  “His diet’s been the same as all the rest of his kind and condition,” Matron pipes in, indignantly.

  “Steady, Matron,” says Dr. Dinkle, his own tone unaltered. “No one’s blaming you.”

  “Though one would hope the abscesses on the boy’s torso might not have gone undiscovered this long,” says Dr. Drum.

  “You see!” says Matron. “He does blame me! I don’t know how in heaven’s name I can be expected—”

  “All right, Matron,” says Dr. Dinkle. “Beef tea and brandy from now on. Brandy ten or twelve times a—”

  “I should think as much as thirty ounces a day,” says Dr. Drum.

  “I was going to suggest about thirty-two,” says Dr. Dinkle.

  “Thirty-two ounces!” says Matron. “He’ll be intoxicated.”

  “We’re only trying to keep him alive, Matron,” says Dr. Dinkle.

  Hayes notices that Matron’s hands shake, and now she squeezes them together at her waist in an effort to control them. Her bulging eyes leak tears, and beads of sweat dot her upper lip.

  “It seems to me you might have thought of keeping him alive a bit sooner than this,” she says. “You might have thought to check him yourselves for abscesses. Pyemia brought on by scorbutic diathesis, is it? Pyemia brought on by amputation, more likely. The only certainty I see here is the certainty of your uselessness to save anyone from anything!”

  For a moment, Matron seems stunned by her own outburst, and then she turns to go, but Dr. Dinkle calls out to her, “Please be kind enough to bring some lint and cerate, Matron. And fetch me the dispensing steward. We’re going to want opium.”

  She stops and appears to shudder from top to bottom. She inclines a trembling head a few inches forward, toward the doctors, and says, “Fetch your own lint. Fetch your own cerate. And fetch your own dispensing steward. Why, you put me in the mind of my own wretched father!”

  She stalks away, into the flow of traffic in the wide aisle.

  The two surgeons look at each other briefly and then turn back to the patient.

  After a moment—as if Matron’s flare-up and insubordination never occurred—Dr. Drum says, “And dilute sulfuric acid, don’t you think?”

  “Hmmm,” says Dr. Dinkle. “I might prefer quinine.”

  Now Hayes sees Walt emerge from the aisle, holding a tumbler of amber-colored liquid. He assumes Matron’s former position on the far side of Casper’s bed. To Hayes, he looks broken in spirit, and when he speaks to the surgeons, his voice is childlike, hardly more than a whisper.

  “I’ve found some punch,” says Walt, and tries, unsuccessfully, to smile.

  “Careful, careful,” Dr. Dinkle says, presumably to Casper, for next Hayes hears Casper for the first time since the examination began: “Oh, yes,” says Casper dreamily. “Let’s have lots of punch.”

  TWICE WALT HAS DROPPED OFF to sleep, awakened, and resumed reading, as if no interim had transpired. Twice he has fallen into a fit of coughing, so severe the night watcher came over and urged him, to no avail, to go home. Deep under the sway of whatever mix of potions the surgeons have administered, Casper appears to sleep with eyes unclosed. For some time, he has gazed in silence at Walt as Walt reads from Hayes’s book—attentive but uncomprehending, seemingly beyond desire or complaint. Even when Walt dozed off, Casper only continued watching him, apparently unchanged.

  “ ‘As they walked on in silence,’ ” Walt reads, “ ‘he could not but see how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along the streets. The very children scarcely noticed him.’ ”

  Hayes thinks the reading brings Walt comfort, though it surely brings none to the man’s throat, which, judging by the weak rasp of his voice, has grown sore and dry. Hayes only half listens and has lost track of the narrative—his mind wanders and returns, only to wander again, usually to the past, often to Brooklyn. Some character has been arrested and is being escorted under guard through the streets. But which character? And which streets? London or Paris, he doesn’t know for certain.

  “ ‘A few passers turned their heads,’ ” Walt reads, “ ‘and a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison was no more remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes should be going to work.’ ”

  WHEN SUMMERFIELD APPEARED at the kitchen door, Jane placed herself in between the two brown-and-white goats, taking them by their rope collars, and then all three looked at him with what seemed the same precise blend of thrill and trepidation. “They was standing by the front steps when Sarah came home from the school,” Jane explained, “just like they was waiting for her. She said I might bring ’em in the garden and give ’em some oats and molasses. I had ’em tethered by the shed, but as it’s so bitter cold I let ’em come inside for a
spell.”

  It was just past four o’clock in the afternoon, a Friday. He’d walked all the way from the Fulton Landing and nearly frozen to death. Mrs. Bannister’s supper aromas had greeted him in the chilly hall when he came in, and then a sound of bleating, so he’d gone down to the warm kitchen to inquire.

  “But where did they come from?” he asked now. “Where do they belong?”

  “No one knows,” said Jane. “Like I said, they was just waiting at the front steps.”

  “Well,” said Summerfield, moving forward and scratching one of the goats between its gray horns. “Be sure to keep a close eye on them, Jane. You know they can make a real mess of things.”

  “Oh, I will, I will,” said Jane, “don’t you worry.”

  “And don’t think they can stay in the kitchen overnight, cold or no cold. They’ll tear the place apart while we’re sleeping.”

  “Oh, no, of course not,” she said. “I’ve made a nice bed for ’em in the garden shed. I only brought ’em in for a little warmth and to keep me some company. I would never suppose they could sleep inside the house.”

  She leaned over and addressed the goats directly now, as if to disabuse them of any hopes they might have along these lines. “I surely wouldn’t ever imagine we might keep ’em for our own either,” she said. “I know they’re only our temporary guests.”

  He asked about supper, and Jane told him there would be her sister’s German chicken stew and biscuits and a berry pie.

  Back upstairs, he hung his hat and coat in the hall and peeked into the parlor, where he found a good fire but no people. The light outside was already fading, and so he adjusted up the parlor’s bracket lamps, then returned to the hall and climbed the stairs to the second floor. To his surprise, the door to his parents’ room stood ajar.

  “Oh, it’s lovely,” he heard Mrs. Bannister say, from inside.

  When he stopped at the door, he saw candles glowing at their mother’s dressing table, where Sarah sat with a shawl draped over her shoulders. Behind her stood Mrs. Bannister, both women admiring Sarah’s image in the large mirror.

  “It was one of her favorites,” said Mrs. Bannister. “Her birthstone, you know.”

  Not wanting to startle the two women, he decided to clear his throat rather than rap on the door.

  Sarah turned and looked at him from across the room. “Summerfield,” she said, rising quickly, as if he’d caught them at something. “You’re early, are you not?”

  He pushed open the door and stepped inside. “What are you doing in here?” he asked.

  Mrs. Bannister said, “Oh my, I’d no idea it was so late, I must see to supper,” and glided past him and out of the room.

  Sarah came to the door and closed it, then faced him, entirely composed if a bit flushed. The drapes in the room had been opened, the shades raised, and a good deal of soft gray light still entered from the tall windows. She wore a gold necklace with many dark red stones, which caught the candlelight from the dressing table. “You frightened Mrs. B,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “You sounded as if you were scolding.”

  “I only asked what you were doing in here.”

  She returned to the dressing table, sat on the stool, and began putting away some things into the little drawers—combs and brushes and other pieces of jewelry. “Well,” she said, “since you scared her away, you’ll have to help me with this clasp.”

  He moved behind her. Beneath the cream-colored shawl, she wore a blue-plaid dress he’d seen often. The tortoiseshell combs in her hair were studded with pearls. “My fingers are cold,” he said.

  “Then tread lightly,” she said.

  He easily undid the closure, pulled the necklace from around her neck, and dropped it into her waiting palm. “What are these stones?” he asked.

  “Garnets,” she said. “Are you aware that tomorrow’s her birthday?”

  He turned away and looked at the wallpaper, a familiar but forgotten pattern of gold trellises and vines, sparrows and red blossoms. He moved to the round table near the middle of the room and sat in one of the chairs. A white cloth lay over the tabletop, which was otherwise clear. The dark green bed curtains were drawn. He recognized the room’s old red-and-green carpet as the same one that had been used years earlier in the parlor. His father’s embroidered smoking cap lay on the nearby chaise longue. At last he caught sight of Sarah, who sat watching him in the mirror.

  She swiveled on the stool and looked at him with sympathy. “Summerfield,” she said, “we can’t make it into a museum. It’s nearly three years. We have to sort it out eventually.”

  “I know we do,” he said. “I just didn’t expect … I was taken by surprise, that’s all.”

  “You were surprised because you’re home early,” she said.

  “It’s awfully cold in here,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” she said, standing. “Let’s go downstairs by the fire.”

  She blew out the candles and moved to the chaise longue, where she picked up the smoking cap. Just then he discovered that a drawer protruded a few inches from the table’s edge. He drew back the cloth and opened the shallow drawer, where he saw a plain brown-covered book, which he took out and held up at an angle to catch the light from the windows. He opened it to the title page and read aloud: “The Lover’s Marriage Lighthouse: A Series of Sensible and Scientific Essays on the Subjects of Marriage and Free Divorce and on the Uses, Wants, and Supplies of the Spiritual, Intellectual, Affectional, and—oh …”

  He closed the book and started to return it to the drawer, but Sarah was already at his side, laughing and taking it from his hands. “ ‘Intellectual, affectional, and oh’?” she said.

  She opened the book, found the place where he’d left off, and continued, “… Uses, Wants, and Supplies of the Spiritual, Intellectual, Affectional, and—ha!—Sexual Natures of Man and Woman, Being a Key to the Causes, Prevention, Remedies, and Cure of Mental and Physical Uncongenialities Pertaining to the Indissoluble Matrimonial—why, Summerfield … you look as if you might swoon.”

  She closed the book and laid it inside the drawer. “Here,” she said, smiling, and placed the smoking cap on his head. “We’d best have Mrs. B sort things out for us first on her own.”

  She left the room ahead of him, and as he followed her down the stairs, she said, “I was passing by their door on my way to the parlor, and it was as if something called to me from inside.”

  “A sense of duty?” he said.

  “Oh, no, not that,” she said. “It was more like an irresistible urge to snoop. By the way, Summerfield, we have goats now. Two goats in the garden.”

  He held open the parlor door for her. “Actually,” he said, “they’re in the kitchen. Jane thinks it’s too cold for them outside.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Sarah, taking a seat on the sofa. After a moment, she said, “Then you’ve seen them?”

  He nodded, sitting at the opposite end of the sofa. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands together close to the grate. “They were bleating as I came into the house.”

  She laughed, and he asked her where they’d come from.

  “I found them standing at the front stoop when I arrived home,” she said. “It was as if they were anticipating my arrival. I must say they gave me the most soulful look when I said hello. And then they followed me right up the steps. I asked Jane to give them something to eat and to put them in the garden. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You could have left them to find their way home,” he said.

  “You’re right, of course, I could have,” she said. “But you didn’t see the way they looked at me, Summerfield … with those lovely little rectangular pupils in their eyes. It really was as if they fully expected me to take charge. ‘We’ve lost our way,’ they said. ‘But you, nice lady, you’ll know what to do.’ I simply didn’t have it in me to reject them. I suppose we’ll have to put an announcement in the newspaper.”
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  “I suppose.”

  “You look very handsome in Papa’s hat.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So, tell me,” she said, pulling the shawl tighter around her shoulders, “why are you home early?”

  “You know,” he said, “upstairs just now … I wasn’t about to ‘swoon,’ as you put it.”

  “I shouldn’t have teased you,” she said. “It was bad form and I apologize.” She started to get up, saying, “I think you’ve caught a chill—wouldn’t you like coffee?”

  “No, wait, Sarah, there’s something I must tell you,” he said, and she sat back down.

  “All right,” she said, and just like that her eyes filled with tears. She took from the sleeve of her dress one of the handkerchiefs he’d given her for Christmas and cautiously wiped the corners of her eyes.

  All the way from the Fulton Landing he’d steeled himself in the cold, but it seemed that things at home had conspired to undo him, and now, seeing her busy with the handkerchief, he felt the last vestige of his resolve melt away. He said, “I can see you’ve already guessed what it is.”

  Now she looked up at him dry-eyed and changed, as if her natural self had quit the room and she’d left this brittle shell for him to deal with further. “Really, Summerfield,” she said, “must you turn everything into a game?”

  “That’s not my intention,” he said.

  Impatiently, she said, “You’re home early today because you left the shipwrights’ after dinner and went somewhere to execute a bit of business. I regret that my clairvoyant powers aren’t quite sufficient to provide every detail.”

  “I took the ferry to New York,” he said.

  “You took the ferry to New York,” she said, without feeling. “And in New York you visited a certain office.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve enrolled with the Fortieth New York Infantry, on furlough and staying in the Park Barracks. They’ll soon depart for Fort Schuyler, where I’m to join them.”

  “Fort Schuyler?” she said. “Where’s that?”

  “The Bronx.”

  “Oh, only the Bronx,” she said. “Not very far.”