‘So what have we got here now?’ said the torturer.
‘Photographers, sir,’ Gilbert said. ‘We follow the armies around and take pictures of the men. So that they can send them back to their parents, sweethearts, that kind of thing.’
‘Is that right?’ said the torturer, in a way that Gilbert found particularly unpleasant.
‘Yes sir,’ said Gilbert.
The torturer looked him up and down. Then he indicated Roberto.
‘Your friend there. He foreign?’
‘He’s from Italy, sir. Come to live in America.’
The torturer continued to stare at him, digesting this information.
‘What’s in the wagon?’
‘Photographic equipment, cameras, chemicals.’
‘No guns, or anything like that?’
‘No guns,’ said Gilbert.
‘Runaway slaves?’
‘No sir. You’re welcome to look for yourself. You’ll see that what I say is true.’
‘Signore’, Roberto suddenly said.
Gilbert glanced round at him. Sweet Christ, what was Roberto going to do now?
‘Signore,’ Roberto said again. ‘Is okay if I give these peoples something to drink?’
Roberto indicated the negroes.
‘Oh Jesus, Roberto, will you leave it?’ said Gilbert in exasperation.
‘What’d your friend say?’ asked the torturer.
‘Nothing, sir,’ said Gilbert. ‘It was nothing.’
‘Something about water,’ said the fat man, not letting it go.
‘He wants to know if he can give your negroes some water. It’s okay. He’s Italian. They do things differently over there.’
‘Hell, I don’t mind,’ said the torturer. ‘Save me doing it. Go ahead there Mister Eye-talian.’
Roberto thanked him, jumped down and went to the back of the wagon. He returned a few moments later with a stoneware crock of water and a cup. One by one he went down the line of negroes giving them a drink. They gulped the water down and when Roberto had finished he went back down the line a second time. This time, when he came to the woman, he pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, folded it into a pad, wet it and gave it to her.
‘You hold it on your eye,’ Gilbert heard him say.
‘Got any food?’ asked the younger one.
Gilbert looked away from what Roberto was doing and back towards the one he had thought of as the village idiot.
‘Afraid not. Met some cavalry a ways back and they took all we had.’
‘Cavalry? How far back?’ asked the torturer.
His face remained unchanged but there was no mistaking the anxiousness in his voice. Gilbert suddenly realized that this was his way out.
‘About half an hour,’ he said. ‘They were heading this way. Surprised you didn’t bump into them already.’
‘Blue or gray?’
‘Gray.’
‘Let’s get out of here, Hays,’ said the younger one, both his voice and the expression on his face showing his fear.
‘In a moment. Just go have a look in back of that wagon first, Leroy.’
‘Oh let’s leave it. Let’s just go.’ said Leroy.
The voice sounded high pitched, like Leroy was going to burst into tears.
‘Do it Leroy.’
Hays’ voice was quiet and menacing. Leroy jumped down. Handing the reins to the nearest negro, he ran to the rear of the wagon. Gilbert heard the canvas being thrown back. The wagon bobbed as Leroy climbed into it. They heard boxes being opened and things being moved around. Finally, the wagon bobbed a second time and a few moments later, Leroy returned.
‘It’s just as he says,’ he announced.
‘So if you’re happy with that then, we’ll just be on our way,’ said Gilbert.
Hays ignored this. Instead, he said, ‘You could be spies. With equipment like that you could be spies.’
It was Roberto who spoke. He had finished giving the water to the negroes and was walking back to the wagon with the crock.
‘Yeah, sure we a spies. And this is just the equipment that spies would use. We spies boss, ain’t we?’
‘Shut up, Roberto, will you?’ said Gilbert.
‘We spies,’ Roberto continued. ‘We lookin’ out for soldiers. When we see ’em I say, “eh, you mind waitin’ twenty minutes while I unpack my camera and set it up”.’
‘Roberto, just leave it,’ said Gilbert.
But Roberto was in full cry.
‘”Then gimme another ten or fifteen while I get a plate ready. Then you gotta all stand really still while I take your picture.” Sure, we spies. That’s just the kinda thing spies would do.’
Roberto finished with a loud exhalation and a very theatrical look up to heaven.
‘Testa di cazzo,’ he added.
‘Your friend there gotta big mouth,’ said Hays.
Gilbert smiled weakly.
‘He’s Italian. They get pretty excited about things over there.’
‘Could land him in a lot of trouble,’ said Hays. ‘Mouth like that could end up gettin’ him killed.’
‘Can we just get out of here?’ said Leroy and his voice had edged up another notch.
Hays looked like he was considering whether to use his gun or not. Finally he said, ‘Go on. Get the hell out o’ here before I decide to kill you. And you better hope we don’t meet again, because the next time I will.’
‘You heard the man,’ said Gilbert.
The crock was stowed and Roberto got back up onto the seat. The wagon pulled away. Gilbert wondered whether at any moment he would hear a gunshot and that that would be the last sound he would ever hear. He was tempted to look back but thought better of it. It was only after fifteen or twenty minutes of traveling in complete silence, when they had turned a bend in the pike, that he thought it safe to look round. With relief he saw that the road behind them was empty.
‘They gone, boss?’ asked Roberto.
Gilbert nodded.
‘Yeah, they’re gone.’
‘I thought you told me all the slaves were free now, boss.’
‘I thought you were going to get us killed,’ said Gilbert angrily.
Roberto ignored this.
‘The slaves, boss. The slaves. They free now, right?’
‘Yes, they are. What those guys are doing is illegal. They’re slave catchers. I presume they came up here with the Confederate army but then decided they’d go off and do a bit of private business. They’ll take those negroes back to the South and return them to their owners or sell them. They’ll make a lot of money.’
‘So those black men aren’t really slaves. They’re free men.’
‘They’re free up here,’ said Gilbert. ‘In the South they’re slaves.’
‘And did you see that woman, boss? They’re doing bad things to her.’
‘We were lucky to get away alive,’ said Gilbert. ‘When you said that about giving them water.’
Roberto looked at him.
‘Boss, I gotta tell you that I only did what a good American would do. From now that’s what I gonna do. I gonna be a good American.’
Gilbert decided there was no point in talking any further about it. The sun had nearly set and he was feeling hungry. It must have been all the traveling and fresh air – he was so unaccustomed to it all.
‘We near any town or anything?’ he asked Roberto.
‘Next town is Urbana, boss.’
Roberto seemed distracted.
‘So we’ll stop there and find a place to stay the night. Get some food.’
Roberto said nothing.
‘You hungry, Roberto?’ Gilbert asked.
Roberto turned to look at him.
‘Boss,’ he said, ‘we gotta free those black people.’
20
There had been a day when Gilbert thought he had solved the riddle.
They had a bust up. They were in a restaurant and suddenly, from out of nowhere, she said that she didn’t trust him.
Then she began to pile it on. The usual stuff – all of his failings, why he had nothing to offer and that no woman would want to be with him. It remained reasonably discrete – the people at the adjacent table might have known that there was a row going on, but nothing worse than that. Gilbert feared it would escalate though. He couldn’t move the wine bottle completely out of her reach but he put it where he could grab it before she could. If she made a move for her glass he was ready to grab that too or at least spoil whatever she might do with it. But in the end there was nothing physical. She just got up and walked out.
Wearily, Gilbert finished his food and the bottle of wine. He left the restaurant and found a bar. He felt like getting drunk and the wine was a good start. He sat at the bar and ordered a brandy. He downed it and ordered another.
‘Lady trouble?’
The voice came from a man who sat beside Gilbert. He was maybe in his fifties, bearded, bespectacled, portly and had the appearance of a genial uncle.
‘She’s kinda moody,’ said Gilbert, returning to his drink.
He didn’t want to speak to anybody. But the man didn’t go away.
‘Illogical? Unreasonable? Unpredictable?’ he asked.
Gilbert lifted his glass and looked at it. He didn’t want to be rude but neither did he want this conversation.
‘She’s all of those, sure enough. But then I guess that’s women for you,’ he said lightly, and took a swig.
‘Doesn’t care what the effect of her behavior on other people will be?’
Oh, go away, thought Gilbert. He laughed and said, ‘You two must have met.’
He turned to see what the effect of his little joke had been. But the man wasn’t laughing or even smiling.
‘So what happens?’ he asked.
Suddenly Gilbert thought it would be good to unburden himself.
‘Maybe it’s me,’ he began. ‘I always seem to say or do the wrong thing. It antagonizes her. But I love her. When she’s not like this we have the most beautiful times together.’
‘Does she get angry?’
‘Angry?’ said Gilbert. ‘Anger straight out of the Old Testament. You know when somebody does or says something to you, and afterwards, you think of some vicious and wounding thing you could have said to them? Something that is just right, just perfect?’
The man nodded.
‘But it’s always afterwards, right? You never think of it at the time.’
‘Sure.’
‘Well, she can think of it at the time. And not just one thing. Streams of them. Insults, abuse. I keep telling her she should have become a lawyer.’
Gilbert laughed a sour laugh and emptied his drink.
‘That’s not moody, Mister –– ?’
‘Owens. Gilbert Owens.’
‘That’s not moody, Mister Owens. That lady’s suffering from melancholia.’
There was something about the word that caught Gilbert’s attention. He had been about to gesture to the bartender with his empty glass but now he lowered it.
‘You’ll forgive me for asking, sir,’ he said. ‘But are you some kind of doctor?’
‘That’s right. Scott, Ben Scott. I’m a doctor that specializes in melancholia.’
Oh great, just what I need, thought Gilbert. A quack. A snake oil salesman.
‘And before you jump to conclusions, this isn’t some kind of quackery.’
‘Never even crossed my mind,’ said Gilbert.
They shook hands.
‘You know what you said just there about always saying or doing the wrong thing,’ said Doctor Scott.
Gilbert nodded.
‘Well, you can forget about that for starters. First thing you need to realize is that, by and large, what you do or don’t do, say or don’t say, doesn’t make a blind bit of difference.’
‘No?’
‘No. None whatsoever.’
‘And so what?’ asked Gilbert. ‘What is it – this melancholia exactly?’
He had forgotten about the brandy.
‘Well, I guess the first thing I have to say, is that we don’t really know. Don’t know where it comes from. Is it hereditary? Some kind of chemical imbalance in the body or the brain?
But the symptoms are all too familiar. Anger is probably a good place to start. They get angry with themselves and the world. Why isn’t the world the way they know it ought to be? They try to make the world, life, people just as they would like them to be. And of course they get nowhere with this, this just makes them feel frustrated and of course, all that does is make them more and more angry.’
‘What else?’ asked Gilbert.
‘They are manipulators, sir – arch manipulators. They can be a street angel and a house devil. Charming and polite to other people, mean to you, belittling you, critical of you.
These people feel that they are bad, valueless. When you love them they feel they don’t deserve that love. They feel that sooner or later you will realize that and you will reject them. So they reject you first or they behave so badly that they force you to reject them. Better the pain of rejection than the agony of waiting. So love to them means not happiness but desolation, fear and guilt.’
Gilbert felt like a great light was coming on; a door was opening.
‘It’s an illness, but a terrible one. You know sick people – they can be querulous and difficult. But they usually don’t turn on you and say cruel and hurtful things – especially if you are giving them extra love and comfort. Most sick people aren’t impervious to reason. They don’t demand that you never leave the house but then refuse to speak to you. Or contrary-wise ask you to leave when you know they could be a danger to themselves. Nor do they sit in a moody silence, brighten up when a neighbor comes in and lapse back into the hostile silence when that person is gone. Having somebody sick in a house can disrupt the routine of the family. But it doesn’t create a continual atmosphere of anger, mistrust and uncertainty. No matter how serious an illness is, you can come to understand it; you can see the pattern. And even if you can do nothing you know that, in all probability, the illness will run its course.
It’s all different with melancholia. It never runs its course. Being with a melancholic can be a very difficult and sometimes, a dangerous business. And if you are the kind of person who feels that you are competent and say, good at helping people, then you can be made to feel completely incompetent and worthless.’
At last, thought Gilbert. At last, now here was somebody who could help, who could help him sort out this thing that kept driving he and Sarah apart. He couldn’t believe his luck. It felt as though the hand of fate had brought him here tonight.
‘Can I buy you another drink, doctor?’
Doctor Scott held up his glass as though noticing for the first time that it was empty.
‘Yes, that’d be nice,’ he said. ‘Irish whiskey.’
While the barman refreshed the drinks, the question was forming in Gilbert’s head – the only question that mattered now. When the barman had gone he asked it.
‘So you’ve got to tell me – what’s the treatment for this, Doctor Scott?’
The doctor took a sip of his drink and then placed the glass back on the counter. He looked into Gilbert’s eyes.
‘Young man,’ he said. ‘I wish I knew.’
Gilbert felt crushed.
‘Oh, there are treatments alright. That’s if you can call immersing people under water for as long as possible without actually drowning them, a treatment.’
Gilbert looked at him in horror.
‘Or there’s the spinning stool. The idea is that by inducing dizziness it will rearrange the contents of the brain into the correct positions. Our own Ben Franklin had an idea – a kind of electric shock therapy. Horseback riding, special diets, enemas, vomiting – sir, the list of quackeries is almost endless.’
‘So there’s nothing can be done?’ said Gilbert.
‘Oh, there’s plenty can be done – both by you and the person involved.’
&nb
sp; Doctor Scott took another sip of his drink.
‘This is fine whiskey,’ he said.
He continued.
‘This person that you love. She would have to come to me. And all she would have to do is talk.’
‘Talk?’
‘Talk. About how she felt – felt about herself mainly. By her doing this, I would try – actually, she would try – to understand what causes her to feel this way. The next step would be to see if she could find peace within herself. With that she can start to put her trust in others. If she has you in her life then the first person she begins to trust can be you.’
Gilbert could feel himself getting excited. He began to imagine what life could be like if that blackness that Sarah carried with her could be lifted from her.
‘I shall tell her about this,’ he said. ‘I shall tell her about you, Doctor. She must come and see you.’
‘But there are a few things I need to say to you too, young man; a few things you need to be aware of.’
‘Okay,’ said Gilbert.
‘Perhaps the most important thing is that you try to understand that this is an illness. When she is angry towards you or belittles you or threatens you or frightens you, try to understand that it is the illness – not her. The woman you love is still there, despite all this.’
Gilbert acknowledged this. He could see already how this was going to make a difference.
‘Next is that people with melancholia can be dangerous – to others but also to themselves. Many melancholia victims die by suicide or in accidents. Remember that you are the one who is well, they’re the one with the illness. There may be times when you have to stop them from doing things that could be harmful to themselves.’
He would. He would. Now that he understood it would all be different.
‘And having said that, you are not your brother’s – or in this case, your sister’s keeper – people have to be responsible for their own actions.’
It made sense.
‘What else?’ asked Gilbert.
‘Sometimes you may have to be cruel. At least she will see it that way.’
‘Cruel? How?’
‘A person with melancholia is capable of almost any behavior.’
‘I know,’ said Gilbert with a smile. ‘I could tell you some stories.’
Sunlight (The Four Lights Quartet Book 2) Page 10
