‘It was,’ Gilbert agreed.
‘When you do the right thing, you’re gonna be okay,’ said Roberto.
Was it true? Had he done the right thing with Sarah, Gilbert wondered. Had he ever done the right thing? In the end none of it had helped. What should he have done differently? Surely there were other things he could have done, other choices he could have made and paths he could have taken that might have led to a different ending?
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Gilbert. ‘I’m sure all those men up the road there’ – he indicated the direction of Gettysburg with a nod of his head – ‘feel that they’re doing the right thing. But half of them have got to be wrong.’
They stayed on the balcony until they got the first hint of dusk. By then the smell of roasting meat was in the air, wafting round from the kitchen at the rear of the building. Roberto had just asked Gilbert if he was hungry when they saw two riders coming up the road from the direction of Frederick City. As they got closer there was still sufficient light in the sky for Gilbert and Roberto to recognize the two men. They were the sheriff’s deputies who had been escorting Hays and Leroy with the intention of handing them over to the Union army.
‘Where do you suppose those two Rebels are?’ wondered Gilbert aloud.
‘Maybe they’re in the jail in Emmitsburg,’ said Roberto. ‘Or maybe they find some blue soldiers and they gave them to them, like they say they were going to do.’
‘Maybe,’ said Gilbert, unconvinced. ‘But we didn’t see any blue soldiers.’
‘Dunno,’ boss,’ said Roberto.
Anyway,’ Gilbert said, with a deep sigh. ‘Let’s go eat. I’m starving and that meat smells delicious.’
The blonde woman gave them a table by one of the two front windows of the dining room. It was still very warm and the windows were open. Bugs flittered around the candle on the table. They had roast beef, boiled potatoes, two types of greens and corn on the cob, washed down with several glasses of beer each. A while after they began eating, the sheriff’s two deputies came into the dining room. If they recognized Gilbert and Roberto, they made no sign of it and instead sat at a table near the rear wall. They were the only four people in the dining room. Gilbert had a bad feeling about them being there but it faded away as the beer flowed. They ate thick slices of cherry pie for dessert.
‘My compliments to the chef, ma’am,’ said Gilbert, as he wiped his mouth with his napkin.
‘I’ll tell him,’ she smiled. ‘Somehow he managed to find a tree with a few cherries that the soldiers hadn’t eaten.’
The deputies ate more or less silently, occasionally exchanging the odd sentence or two. When they had finished, they got up and clumped upstairs to their rooms. Gilbert and Roberto lingered over their coffee. Gilbert remembered meals he had shared with Sarah. Every one had been an adventure. When they sat down to eat – especially in restaurants – there was no telling where it would lead. She loved food and eating and talking. They would watch the people around them, speculating about them, imagining lives for them. They would talk and laugh endlessly. Once, in a particularly stuck-up restaurant, with a particularly obnoxious waiter, Sarah had thrown small bits of broccoli at him when his back was turned. She had been so full of fun and life.
‘So how long you married, boss?’
Gilbert looked across at his companion in the yellow candlelight.
‘Not long. Got married last Christmas Eve.’
‘And when did your wife die? You don’ mind me asking?’
Gilbert shook his head.
‘No, I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘It’s probably good for me to talk about it. She died on March third.’
‘She had an illness, boss?’
‘No. Well, yes, she did. I suppose it was what killed her in the end. But that wasn’t how she died.’
Roberto looked puzzled.
‘She fell down the stairs and broke her neck.’
36
And so it happened one night just as he had feared it would. She had been in a rage for the three previous days, she had been drinking and Gilbert had gone to sleep in the other room. He had fallen into a dead sleep, exhausted from all that had been going on between them. During the night he got up and looked in on her, just to make sure she was okay. The bedclothes were thrown back and she wasn’t in the room.
With a rising sense of alarm, he turned back out of the room and hurried down the stairs in the darkness. About halfway down he became aware of a white shape on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Had she fallen asleep there? But then as he got closer he saw the pool of blood beneath her head. It was a large pool. As he knelt beside her there was a faint smell of her perfume. As soon as his hands touched her cold skin, he knew that she was dead.
37
‘She had an illness that in English is called melancholia. I don’t know what you’d call it in Italian. She was a really, really happy person. She loved life, simple things, simple pleasures. But sometimes she became unbelievably sad. And when she became sad, she became angry. Really angry. And when she was sad and angry she drank. She’d had a lot to drink one night and missed her footing on the stairs.’
Roberto shook his head.
‘That is so sad, boss. I so sorry, boss.’
Gilbert nodded.
‘It was like she was two separate people. When she was melancholy, she was angry and full of rage. She said terrible things. Sometimes she hit me.’
‘And so why you stay with her, boss?’
‘Because once I discovered this was an illness, there was nothing else to do. I wanted to take care of her. I thought I could cure her. I thought that by loving her I could cure her; that my love would be more powerful than this terrible sickness. What a fool I was.’
‘You not a fool, boss. This is what a good man does.’
‘Before I met her – there was not much in my life. I had come to Washington – a bit like you – a new city, a new start. But apart from my work there wasn’t really much in my life. Then she came along.
I learned so much from her. She just wanted to enjoy life. She didn’t want to be rich or powerful. She just wanted to have fun. So I learned about life and pleasure and sybarism –’
‘Sybarism, boss?’
‘It means – or at least what she meant by it – was devoting your life to pleasure.’
‘Ah, si, si, we ’ave this word in Italian.’
Then he added with a smile, ‘We know about this in Italy’.
‘Pleasure,’ Gilbert continued. ‘But not in a way that hurts anybody else. Just taking pleasure in food, wine, the sunset, birds, just anything really.’
Roberto smiled.
‘She woulda made a good Italian, boss.’
‘Maybe she was Italian,’ said Gilbert. ‘She wanted to go there – to Venice. Have you ever been there?’
‘No, never boss. You know ’ow it goes. If you live there you probably never see the things that the visitors wanna see.’
‘She was too young to die,’ said Gilbert, and he could feel his eyes beginning to smart. ‘But it seemed like the pain she felt eventually became too great and she couldn’t take it any more.’
‘The Chinese man – the one who teach me fighting without weapons – ’e tell me people choose when they wanna die. But ’e also say that they don’ really die. Oh sure, their body die, but their – ’ow you say – anima –’
‘Soul?’ asked Gilbert.
‘Si, I think so – soul; that their soul goes into a new body and comes back again.’
‘That would be nice to think. I don’t like to think of her cold and in the ground.’
‘An’ ’e say – this Chinese man – that when the people come back – they better people.’
‘Well, maybe that means she’ll come back and just be able to sybarize and enjoy life which was all she wanted to do. Maybe she’ll come back to Italy. That would be nice. I think she’d like that.’
Gilbert paused and looked into the candle flame.
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‘I failed her. I wasn’t able to save her. At the end of the day I failed her.’
‘No boss, I think you saved her life. At least for a few years. I think she would ’ave gone much quicker without you.’
‘She fought so hard. And after all that struggle – it was for nothing. She died anyway. And now she’s gone like she never existed. What was the point of it all?’
‘No, it wasn’t for nothing, boss. She experience great love – your love. She knew that she was loved by you. You loved ‘er, you cared for ‘er and it sounds like when you both were ‘appy you ‘ad a little paradise of your own. It seem to me that she was full of ‘appiness and maybe even she overflow thanks to you.
And you know boss, it sound to me like she was tired of struggling, of fighting. She went to a place where she would be ‘appier. A better place.
It was ‘er destiny, boss. But she lives on. She’s remembered. Eh, even I feel like I remember ‘er and I never meet ‘er.’
Gilbert smiled and they were silent for a while. Roberto emptied the coffee pot into their cups.
‘An’ now, boss – you. What now for you?’
Gilbert shook his head.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I came – that I came along on this – but what happens after, I don’t know. I feel that everything good is in the past; that nothing will ever be as good again as the time I had with her. That the rest of my life – that I just want it to pass now.’
‘Maybe you just need time, boss, like I say before.’
Gilbert shrugged.
‘Who knows?’ he said.
His eyes settled on the candle flame. They went silent. Then, Gilbert suddenly thought of something. He looked at Roberto.
‘You know that thing – when we were in Washington – about the pictures of the girl and the police closing us down?’
‘Si’
The faintest of smiles played around Roberto’s mouth.
‘It was all hogwash, wasn’t it?’
‘Hogwash, boss?’ said Roberto with a bit too much innocence.
‘Not true. You just made it up, didn’t you?’
Roberto shrugged, holding his palms upwards.
‘Eh, boss – how else was I to get you outta there?’
‘But why?’ asked Gilbert. ‘You hardly knew me.’
‘You gave me a job, boss.’
‘That was hardly a good enough reason. You could have gone off by yourself. Got the wagon fixed up, taken the photographs, kept all the money. You could have been keeping all the money you were making anyway. I wouldn’t have known. Why didn’t you?’
‘I owed you one, boss.’
Gilbert shook his head.
‘There was more to it than that.’
Roberto put his hands up palms outwards in a stop gesture.
‘Hey, I no fancy you, if that’s what you mean, boss.’
Gilbert laughed.
‘No, that’s not what I mean. But there was some other reason. What was it?’
‘Maybe I learn something from you.’
‘Learn something? About photography, you mean?’
‘No, boss – about life.’
‘About life? From me? What did I have to teach you about life? I was drinking myself to death.’
‘But you ain’t now, boss. You pulled yourself out of it.’
‘And so?’
‘And so … and so, I guess I learn that there’s always ‘ope.’
‘’ope?’
‘’ope. ‘ope that today will be a good day. That something wonderful, miraculous will ‘appen today. I always try to think this when I wake up. Anyway, it wasn’t good what you were doing to yourself, boss. Somebody ‘ad to do something. It was the only thing to do. It was the right thing to do.’
‘Do you always do the right thing?’ asked Gilbert.
‘Who knows what the right thing is, boss? But I always try to do what my ‘eart tell me to do. Same as you, boss. Just the same as you.’
38
‘So tomorrow, boss – what we do?’ asked Roberto.
‘Can’t say I know really,’ said Gilbert, scratching the back of his head. ‘I’ve never photographed a battlefield before. I guess we just get to Gettysburg, find out where the battlefield is and get cracking. Should be pretty obvious I’d have thought.’
‘I ‘ope the battle is over,’ said Roberto.
‘Jeez, I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Gilbert. ‘Well, I guess all will be revealed tomorrow.’
They went upstairs and said goodnight at the head of the stairs, before going to their rooms. Gilbert pulled his boots off and lay on the bed. He had been exhausted earlier. Now he wasn’t tired at all. He thought a nightcap might do the trick. Pulling on his boots again, he went downstairs. There was a small bar across the hall from the dining room and he went in to find the blonde woman polishing glasses by lamplight.
‘Don’t you ever sleep, ma’am?’ asked Gilbert.
‘When I get a chance,’ she said, and he thought that her face looked weary in the light. It was still beautiful but looked like it could do with about two day’s sleep.
‘Can I get you something to drink, Mister Owens?’
‘A whisky’d make a nice nightcap, ma’am.’
‘I have some very good Scotch whisky, Mister Owens. I hid it before the soldiers came calling. Just a moment and I’ll get it for you.’
‘Oh, don’t go to any trouble, ma’am.’
‘No trouble,’ she called over her shoulder as she went out the door.
She returned a few minutes later with the bottle, amber in the lamplight. Gilbert sat on one of the tall stools. As soon as she took out the cork, the aroma of the whisky filled the air.
‘That smells like good stuff,’ he said.
She poured him a glass, he smelt it and then took a good mouthful. It tasted smoky and earthy.
‘Mighty fine, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Mighty fine. Could I offer you something to drink yourself, ma’am? Would you care to join me? A glass of wine, perhaps?’
He was being out of line. After all – the woman had a husband. It had been so long since Gilbert had been in any kind of social situation that it seemed like he had forgotten all of the niceties. Before she could answer, he said, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to be forward. Perhaps your husband would care to join us … me, as well.’
‘Oh, you mean the gentleman on crutches – Stephen – he’s not my husband, Mister Owens.’
She glanced down and then looked at him again.
‘You know,’ she said. ‘I think I will have that glass of wine, after all.’
She produced a bottle from under the counter, pulled out the cork and poured herself a glass of crimson liquid.
‘Cheers, Mister Owens,’ she said, clinking his glass.
She took a sip, placed the glass on the counter and then looked at him again.
‘My husband was killed in the first summer of the war – at Bull Run.’
‘Oh, ma’am,’ said Gilbert. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She nodded and smiled weakly. Bull Run. Gilbert remembered the time before the War. Before Sarah. Painting. Life had all been so uncomplicated then.
‘He had been in the army,’ the blonde woman continued.
She seemed eager to talk. He suspected it had been a long time since she had.
‘He was an officer but he left the army in 1859 and we bought this place. It was a bit of a wreck but it was something we both wanted to do. We redecorated it and spent pretty much all of our savings on it. It was still struggling when the War broke out.
George said he would have to re-enlist, that it was the right thing to do. And anyway, that the money would make a real difference. He only went in for ninety days. Said that the war would just be one battle and that would be that – the South would be beaten. And with his experience he said he’d be working on the staff – far away from the battlefield.’
She took another sip of wine.
‘He
went away in May. He wrote every day. And then … in July … I got the last letter from him, the evening before Bull Run.’
Her eyes had become moist.
‘I knew he was dead. I just knew. I felt it. I got a letter a couple of weeks later. Then in September, Stephen – the man with the crutches – that you saw today, brought news. He had served under my husband. Stephen had one of his legs destroyed by an artillery shell. He said that he’d seen my husband killed soon after the battle started.
Stephen had traveled all the way here on those crutches and was in a bad state. I gave him a bed for the night and a meal and I guess … I guess he just ended up staying. He used to be a cook before the War and that’s what he does here. I don’t see how I could manage without him.
And when those soldiers came earlier this week … if he hadn’t been here … well, I think it could have been a lot worse.’
She looked at him. She looked like she was going to cry.
‘I’m so sorry, ma’am. It must be very hard with a child.’
‘It’s very hard on the child, Mister Owens. She’s three now. She was a little over one when her daddy went away. She never knew him.’
Gilbert felt a bottomless sadness. He didn’t know what to say.
‘She’s been a blessing for me though. I’ve had to take care of her, get her up, feed her. She’s needed me. If it hadn’t been for that, I can’t say what I’d have done. I’m pretty sure I’d have gone off the rails.’
Gilbert had a momentary picture of how he had gone off the rails.
‘I really feel she saved my life, Mister Owens. And of course, she looks so like her father.’
She smiled.
‘So I’m always reminded of him. Though sometimes that brings its own pain.’
Gilbert was afraid that if he spoke he would burst into tears. She looked into his eyes.
‘I guess grief is the price we pay for love, Mister Owens. And this war has brought an awful lot of grief to an awful lot of people.’
He took a gulp of the fiery whisky.
‘And you, Mister Owens. You said you’re on your way to Gettysburg. Are you with the military or the government in some way?’
Sunlight (The Four Lights Quartet Book 2) Page 16
