Rebels of Babylon (39 page)

MR. BARNABY, GOD BLESS HIM, DID NOT FOLLOW MY instructions. Rather than waiting at my hotel, he stood, anxious and shivering, just beyond the sentries at the wharves. Impatient as a child he was, for he had a tale to tell.

I did not spot him from the boat, of course. I was bedazzled as our paddlewheels fought the muscular river. The city glowed ahead of us, as if it were Jerusalem, not Babylon. Gas-lit, lamp-lit, torch-lit and finished with candles, New Orleans looked a miracle at night, a muster of stars that had deserted Heaven. How could it be that such a thing of beauty could bear our shabby, vicious, human selves?

As I debarked, after some last formalities, I heard two sailors speak of bought affections. They both looked forward to some hours of liberty, though one complained of discomfort from past forays.

And yet, I would be just. My purposes led me among the worst of mankind, not among the simple folk who doubtless live as quietly in New Orleans as they do in Merthyr Tydfil or in Pottsville. The vicious steal our attention and make the entire world seem wracked with sin. The reverent and kind attract less notice.

I had a good deal to do and as many questions to ask as a Dublin judge. I did not expect to encounter Mr. Barnaby as I wobbled along the wharf, refreshing my legs with the feel of solid ground.

I could not be a sailor for the life of me.

And there he was, unshaven still and bleary in the lamplight, a great, fat man whose strength was on the ebb. Ever dapper he tried to be, but now his features looked as frayed as his cuffs. The thing of it is, you see, that he was honest. Such men do not prosper during wartime.

“Major Jones!” the good man cried, “Captain Bolt ’as shot the moon and Marie Venin’s as dead as Napoleon Bonaparte!”

Twas more than I could take in at once in my weary, unsettled condition. I nearly cast humanity aside and demanded every detail of his news. But proud I am to say that I remembered myself. He wanted news himself. Of Magdalena.

I do believe that duty must come first. Yet, there are times when mercy asks pride of place.

“It is good news, see. Your … your acquaintance … has been rescued. She is as safe as barley in the bin.” At that the poor fellow’s face grew brighter than all the lamps and torches on the waterfront. “She will be fit and fine, but wants a rest,” I added.

He looked down at the mucky way and grew shy as a schoolboy. “I should like to see ’er, I should.” Twas barely a whisper.

In that regard, I had to disappoint him.

“In good time, Mr. Barnaby, in good time. Miss Magdalena is sleeping, see. One of the boat’s officers has given up his bed for the lass’s comfort. She must sleep the night through, for her health’s sake. She suffered some … indignities … and wants a proper rest to set her up.”

He grew alarmed to a point inviting ridicule. “But she’s … she’s all right? She isn’t … she wasn’t … she ain’t … that is—”

The truth is that I was not entirely certain of her condition. The medical fellow on the gunboat had assured me her basic health was sound. But as for matters beyond that, as for the final toll of all she suffered, even she herself could not yet know. The devils that enter us like to hide for years.

“You shall ask her yourself. Tomorrow,” I said briskly. “Now, you have had your news, and on to business. What was that you said of Captain Bolt?”

“’E’s bolted, Captain Bolt ’as. Shot the moon, and no one knows where to find ’im. I knows it because they’re ‘unting ’Im all over, rooting in cisterns and cellars and such until the entire city’s topsy-turvy. They say your General Banks is mad as a wild pig what’s been bothered at ’is dinner. ’E even sent the invalid soldiers to comb the streets and alleys. Though I shouldn’t think they’ll ’ave much luck at finding ’im.”

“Why is that, then?”

“Well, sir, begging your pardon, New Orleans swallows bad men whole and doesn’t spit ’em back out on command. It’s a marvelous place to be a wicked fellow. A rogue delights ’em far more than a preacher, though they lets on it’s the other way around. Why, even a bloke what’s been ’orrible bad won’t be given up at the first rap of the peeler. They likes things slow and savory down ’ere, sir. Even crime. But all’s one, sir, all’s one. I should think the captain’s taken ’imself right off, quick as Paddy’s pig. For ’e don’t understand New Orleans no more than you do. ’E’ll think it’s safer to run, which ain’t the case. Although it means your soldiers is wasting their time ’ere in the city.”

“Where would he go, man?”

He scratched his forceful belly, then re-settled his hat on his head, gestures that seemed to ease the process of thought. “Well, if ’e was a fool, ’e’d set off north and try to pass the lines into the Confederacy. Such of it as remains. But Bolt ain’t a fool, not in that sense, so I suspects ’e’s waiting out in the swamps for things to settle. Until ’e can find ’im a berth on a ship putting out for the Spanish isles. That, or ’e’s already ’eaded west for Texas. Which might not be as friendly as ’e expects.”

“Find him.”

He looked nonplussed. “I … I would if I could, sir, begging your pardon, but—”

“I do not mean you personally. Employ the negroes. By whom you are befriended. Excite them, rouse them. Raise the negroes, since they seem to be better intelligencers than our agents. Remind them of what has been done to them by Captain Bolt and his colleagues. And tell them there is at least one
Union officer they can trust in this rancid matter. Ask them to find Captain Bolt for us. Otherwise, he may not come to justice.”

He let a sigh so great it might have bulged a clipper’s sails. “I shall ask ’em, sir. Ask ’em I shall. But that’s all I can do, for they’re most particular. I doesn’t say they won’t do what you’re asking. But I can’t say as they will, not ’til I asks. For they’ve been bothered and bruised, sir. In ways white men can’t imagine. They doesn’t trust the same as you nor I, sir, and when they ’as the liberty to say no, sometimes they does. For every fellow likes to enjoy ’is choosing, even when it ain’t to ’is own benefit.”

That was too convoluted a doctrine for me.

“Do your best,” I begged him. “Please. Persuade them. Tell them that we must bring Bolt to justice. For what he and his like have done to them. Convince them, Mr. Barnaby. And what is this about Marie Venin? Dead, is it?”

“Dead as Holofernes! Dead as poor, old Chatterton! Dead as General Johnston ’imself upon the field of Shiloh in ’is glory!”

He spoke with such glee you would have thought him a colored fellow himself, avenged at last on the woman who feigned secret powers to re-enslave her race.

“What happened? Are you certain?”

“I can’t say as I’ve seen it with my own eyes, but the negroes are certain as greed on Tchoupitoulas. They say she was last seen alive at the crossroads out by the Metairie Cemetery, crawling about on ’er ’ands and knees, and foaming at the mouth. Snapping like a dog what’s in its death throes. They all believes the devil come up to collect ’is bills with interest, but I suspects she was slipped a draught of poison. The way she almost done you in ’erself. They’re wonderful poisoners, every one of the
voudouiennes
.”

“What about the corpse, then? Is there any proof that she is dead?”

“They tell me she’s still lying there, in the middle of the crossroads, for there ain’t a colored person between here and Africa what’s willing to touch ’er.”

You see now how a criminal scheme comes undone. One day it appears unassailable, perfect in its arrangements and successful in its defiance of the law. And overnight their plan unravels, leaving them lying about their stage as if Mr. Shakespeare had written their final act.

For all his breathless talk, Mr. Barnaby had not alluded to the query with which I had left him.

“And did you learn anything at all of the relations between Mrs. Aubrey and Mr. Champlain?”

He took on a damped-down look and hardly met my eyes. Like a lad who has left his daily chores unfinished.

“I can’t say as I’ve found out anything much, sir. Nor nothing at all, to tell it to you honest. That is, I asked ’em, sir. Them what should know. And not just among the household Negroes. I even asked the
gens libre de conleur.
And no one could draw a single line between ’em, sir. Not a single connection. Excepting the normal doings of society. And even in society, they kept apart. Of course, given as
Pére
Champlain don’t leave ’is ’ouse and ’asn’t done for years, that ain’t surprising. Folks almost forget that ’e exists, they see ’im so little these days. Withdrawn ’e ’as, withdrawn. Although Mrs. Aubrey ain’t half so retiring, for ’er part. She lends ’er name to charitable causes … although she don’t give anything ’erself.”

He paused, reviewing all the day’s encounters. “The queer thing, sir, is that I think you’re right. It’s the old negroes what gives me cause to wonder, the ones what lived so long they know that most things are best forgot. Oh, the young folks would ’ave told me, if they knew. For the young do love to let us know ’ow wise and worldly they are. But nothing they ’ad to say was anything much. Speculation, sir, worthless speculation. But the old ones, now … they knows something, they do. Whatever the connection was between the Widow Aubrey and
Pére
Champlain, it’s buried in the past, sir, dead and buried.”

If Mr. Barnaby was right that I did not know New Orleans, I had observed enough to grasp that nothing was ever quite buried in the place. Not even the dead, who rest above the
ground. I knew no other place outside of India where the past was so determined to be present.

The truth is that Mr. Barnaby had done a yeoman’s work during my absence. And however dubious his late wife’s attributes may have been in certain respects, the ties she had allowed him to forge with the negroes of the city had aided me greatly. The world is not as simple as we wish it.

And clear it was that his wife had made him happy, while she lived. He mourned her still, as suited the best of Christians, and I did not think the appearance of the servant girl had changed his heart, except to give him hope. Loathe I am to say such a thing, for it insults true religion, but I wonder if virtue always must be perfect?

“All right,” I said. “You have done well, Mr. Barnaby. And I am grateful, see. But I must ask you to forego your rest a while longer. Until you have set the negroes after Bolt. As best it can be done so late in the evening.”

“Oh, the dark’s the perfect time for communications, sir. With the colored folk, I means. Once the master’s drunk ’is draught of Madeira and the lady of the ’ouse is dozing off to dream of all the
beaux
she declined and wishes she ’adn’t, that’s when they ’as a bit of time for themselves, the serving classes. And then there’s some what ain’t in service at all. The sort what comes out at night, if you take my meaning.”

“To it, then, Mr. Barnaby. And Godspeed. Call on me in the morning, at the hotel. I have a bit of business to do myself before I sleep.”

“Off to call upon the Widow Aubrey, sir?”

His insight perplexed me. “How did you know that?”

“Oh, it’s only ’ow you does things, Major Jones. You’re like a terrier, begging your pardon, what won’t let go even when you take a stick to it. And when the answers you want don’t come to you, you go straight for ’em, whether they likes it or not. And Mrs. Aubrey still ain’t answered up.”

“Well, I will tell you what comes of my visit tomorrow.”

I meant for him to take himself off. Midnight had caressed the dying day. But the good fellow hesitated, shifting about from foot to foot and not quite meeting my eyes. He even doffed his hat and stood before me truly hat in hand.

“Begging your pardon, sir.” Even in the torchlight, he looked flushed. “But if Magdalena needs a bit of nursing … or even if she don’t, she’ll still need a home. I mean, a safe place to recover and then get on, sir. For she’s all but defenseless, she is. She doesn’t even speak the local talk, sir, and couldn’t ’ardly get ’erself a loaf without a gentleman’s assistance. There’s ’ardly anyone left ’ere who speaks Spanish, sir, and even fewer what speaks the Spanish creole thick as ’erself.”

The fellow had briefly met my gaze, but looked away again. “I shouldn’t want you to think of me as a sponger, sir. Or as any sort of bounder, not Barnaby B. Barnaby. It’s only … it’s only as I’m utterly out of funds, sir. I’m bust. I doesn’t even possess a Confederate dollar. Not a nickel. That cab man put upon me this afternoon and swore you ’adn’t paid ’im. And he swore more than just that, sir. I gave ’im the last coins from my pocket, not that it made ’im ’appy.”

He summoned all his manly resolve and met me eye to eye. “It ain’t for me, sir. Or I shouldn’t never ask it. But … if you … Lordie, I’m so ashamed to even ask. ’ow the mighty are fallen, as they say. But if you could see your way, per’aps … that is, despite you being a Welshman and all … if I could prevail upon you for a loan, sir, I’d—”

The truth is that I should not have let him speak as long as I did. The poor fellow was sick with humiliation, for he had a peculiar pride he never lost. I should have put a quicker end to his suffering. Twas only that I am awkward in such matters. But the Good Lord did provide an inspiration.

“Mr. Barnaby, you embarrass me.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to do that, sir, I—”

“No, no. I did not mean your request, see. I spoke of my own negligence. I forgot to tell you, there is true. The moment you began to assist me, I put you down on my special agent’s payroll.
At … at ten dollars the day! Including Saturdays. And the Lord’s day. Look you … with a fair advance on expenses … would a hundred dollars be of some assistance?”

Yes, I know. I told a lie. But that is on my conscience, not on yours. Nor did I intend to lay a charge to our government. I meant to pay the fellow from my own funds.

I will admit it pained me. But what is the purpose of wealth on this earth if not to help the deserving? What progress, if any, would I have made without his able assistance?

Still, I will admit to wondering whether I should have offered him fifty dollars and not an entire hundred. Generosity must not become indulgence.

“I … I didn’t realize … didn’t know … I mean, I wasn’t ’elping you for wages, sir. It was all for Lieutenant Raines, for Master Francis. Although I shouldn’t like to refuse what’s proper.”