Saints (38 page)

It was not possible, John learned, to remain detached for long. Bennett was too strong a man to be at table with you and merely be observed. Several times John found himself almost believing what Bennett said; more often, he genuinely liked the man. It only became too much for John when Bennett started praising the joys of married life; too much for him when he realized how Charlie was hanging on every word the hypocrite was saying. Not that John minded a lie. John Kirkham could stand and lie with the best of them. But he didn’t try to pass himself off as a great divine. And so John was provoked.

“I just realized why you look so familiar,” John said.

Bennett, interrupted in mid-sentence, looked at John in mild surprise. “I didn’t know I did.”

“Last night I saw you.” John paused a moment, searching Bennett’s face for some sign of fear. Ah well; it was too much to hope for. Enough to have stopped him from spouting pieties and making a fool of Charlie. “I was on my walk. We both had made some use of one of the most trafficked roads in Springfield.”

Bennett smiled winningly. “Even the biggest streets of this town must be cowpaths compared to those wide-open roads of London.”

“London’s roads,” John said, “are only good for getting to the end of the journey. In Springfield, the road itself is worth the trip.”

“You are an admirer of the beauties of America?”

At this, poor Charlie, who understood nothing but the bare surface of what was being said, intruded himself into the conversation. “I don’t think my father has a very high opinion of anything American.”

“It’s a shame if you don’t,” Bennett said to John. “There’s a lot around here to make a man stand right up.” Then he turned the conversation to safer ground. “I hear you met our local secretary of state, Stephen Douglas. Clever little fellow, isn’t he?”

“Didn’t get a chance to know him very well,” Charlie said.

“All we know is that he doesn’t much like Honest Abe,” John added.

“Abe Lincoln? Well, I wouldn’t expect him to. Lincoln stole the little man’s woman, took her right away. Mary Todd.”

“What a choice for the lady,” John said.

“Between a stump and a beanpole. I reckon she’s betting on size over vigor.” Then Bennett grinned to show that all innuendoes were intentional. It was plain that Charlie didn’t get it, but John did, and laughed aloud. He couldn’t help it, Bennett simply could not be disliked. He was a criminal of the most contemptible kind, and yet John could only chuckle and watch the man in awe as he did whatever he wanted with Charlie—and, for that matter, with John himself. Well, then, if Bennett could not be frightened and would not be antagonized, John might at least reach accommodation with him.

The conversation soon turned to Bennett’s dream of Nauvoo. Here, at least, there could be little doubt that Bennett was sincere. He wanted Nauvoo to be the Boston of the West. “There are cities and cities,” he said. “New York is a cesspool with aspirations of someday, with luck, becoming a sewer. But Boston—it was founded by people of God, and they’ve never forgotten. Nauvoo can do that. It’s not in a place where trade will corrupt it. I see a city of universities, of churches, of museums, of grace and beauty. Carriages on cobblestones.”

“And all of it yours,” John said.

Bennett grinned. “As much of it as possible, anyway. A man’s a liar if he says he doesn’t want to possess things. But
I
at least want to possess beautiful things, and if there aren’t any, why, I’ll build them. And find others who can help me. Like you, Charlie. If I had ten like you I could build another Paris. A hundred like you, and I could build another Rome.”

Charlie went bashful for a moment, unsure what to do with his face while Bennett smiled at him so paternally. Looking on, John found himself getting angry. He didn’t much like Charlie most of the time, but the boy
was
his son, and while that was a relationship that held little advantage for Charlie, it was better than letting the boy be under the influence of a bloody abortionist. “It’s too bad,” John said, “that Charlie’s already taken.”

“Oh?” Bennett asked.

“Well, he didn’t come here on his own. Charlie’s been helping Don Carlos Smith with the newspaper, and you recall that it was the Prophet who sent him.”

“Oh, I hadn’t forgotten. Brother Joseph asked me to have a look at him, to see if he was of any use. Joseph and I have the same dream, you see, and whoever helps me, helps him.”

John wondered, fleetingly, if it was true—if there really was no difference between Joseph Smith and this man. It raised questions, certainly. If Smith was a prophet, why didn’t he know what Bennett really was? And if Smith was not a prophet, then Bennett could well be right—he and the Prophet might have been cut from the same cloth.

“There are a thousand ways that Charlie can be a great man in a great city,” John said quietly. “But you should count on this, Brother Bennett. Charlie won’t belong to any man. He stands on his own.”

Bennett lifted his glass; just before sipping, he said, “Like you?”

The blow struck home. John saw the absurdity of what he had been saying. He avoided looking at Charlie, out of shame at having played the father’s part so ineptly. Instead he only raised his own glass, and offered his bargain. “I’m my own man, yes. What I am is what I made of myself. I’m only a painter, and if there’s a public for my work, God knows I’ve never found it. But Charlie has his mother in him. And he
will
be great, by any measure.”

“Well, Brother Kirkham, you don’t have to worry about Charlie. He’s proved his value already, and he won’t go unnoticed. My guess is that once he gets well acquainted in Nauvoo he’ll be too busy to fasten his pants after pissing.”

They all laughed at that—though, to John’s amusement, Charlie was a little offended at the crudity. Be offended, my virgin son, my young Galahad, be offended but use this man for every advantage you can get from him.

“So you’re a painter,” Bennett said.

“After a fashion.”

Charlie, who had been silent when the conversation was about him, spoke now. “I remember,” he said, “that father painted woods and meadows that made you believe in heaven.”

Startled, John looked at his son. “I didn’t think you were old enough to remember.”

Charlie was talking to Bennett, however. “And he put people in them that made you believe in hell. I remember a painting of a boy prodding a cow with a stick. I always thought the boy was trying to kill the poor animal, he had such hate in him.”

“It sounds like you’re a remarkable painter,” Bennett said.

“Charlie last saw it when he was only four or five. Memory changes things.” Still, though he denied it, John was deeply touched at this. Charlie remembered. Charlie, who had never really known his father, Charlie remembered a painting, and not just a pretty scene. He remembered it as a thing of power. To John’s surprise, he realized that he just might love his son.

“Are you doing any painting in Nauvoo?” Bennett asked.

“They’ve had me doing carpentry. I’m a damned bad carpenter.”

“Would you do my portrait?” Bennett asked.

You wouldn’t like what I’d do to you, John said silently. I know too much about you. There would be casual murder in your face.

Bennett saw his hesitation. “Oh, don’t worry about it now. I’ll tell you what.” He paused, leaned back, and gazed steadily into John’s eyes. “Since it’s plain you’re a quiet man, and don’t go about telling people all that you might tell them, I’ll just have to do it
for
you.” It was the bargain. He had understood what John Kirkham was asking, and he was going to do it. “I reckon by the time I get through talking you up, Brother Kirkham, you’ll have a hundred people begging for your services as a painter. Can’t build the city I dream of without artists, can I?”

“I’d be in your debt,” John said. And so the bargain was sealed: John’s silence about Bennett, in exchange for Bennett’s help in establishing him as a painter. Not bad, for one night’s work. Perhaps Providence even likes me, John speculated, letting me get a hold over Bennett.

The conversation went innocent again, without the hidden meanings; the food came, good coarse American food with far more bulk than flavor; and at last Bennett declared the supper over by getting to his feet, patting his waist, and then offering his hand to Charlie. “Would you come by my hotel in the morning on your way out of town? I’ll have a letter or two for you to take to Brother Joseph.”

“Of course,” Charlie said.

“We’d better call it a night, then,” Bennett said. “I have three more meetings tonight, and you’ll need to get plenty of sleep for an early start tomorrow.” Then Bennett cocked his head and smiled at John. “Of course, at your age you probably get to bed pretty early
every
night.”

John laughed in recognition of Bennett’s parting shot, and then he and Charlie got their coats and headed out into the night. The wind was sharp, and they hurried through the cold-hardened dirt streets.

They were near their cheap hotel when Charlie suddenly asked, “Do you really think I can stand alone, Father?”

“Mm,” John said. “Do you really remember that painting?”

“I sometimes see it as clearly as when I was a child. I always see it very high, way out of my reach.” Charlie laughed.

“Funny. I don’t remember that one at all.”

Charlie shrugged. “You’ve painted so many, I suppose.” What he didn’t say was, “So many that I never saw.” That easily, and the moment of affection could have been turned into a reproach, a reminder of the years of abandonment. It meant more to John than he would have expected, the fact that Charlie stopped short of reminding him of his past sins.

Then they were inside, shedding scarves and coats. “What do you think might come of this, if Bennett recommends me?” Charlie asked.

“Perhaps they’ll hire you to help Don Carlos.”

Charlie laughed. “There’s not much money in the newspaper.”

“There’s not much money anywhere,” John said. “Except banks and rich men’s pockets.”

Charlie shook his head. “No, Father. That may be where the money ends up, but it comes from dreams and work. Nauvoo is all dreams right now. And the money will grow out of the ground in wheat, or come out of factories covered with laborers’ sweat. But it’s a circle. If we’re going to build the dream of Nauvoo, we need money. And to get money, we have to
make
something. Make something exist that never existed before.”

Then, because it was a night for frankness, John added, “It has to be something that other people want.”

Charlie shook his head. “The only thing people want from me is clerking. I’ve always been just a clerk to them. I don’t mind, though. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than be the Prophet’s secretary. Write his letters, keep his journal, run his messages. That would be building Zion, too.”

“What about working for Bennett?” John asked.

Charlie grimaced.

John was genuinely surprised. “I thought you liked him.”

“Oh, I do. He’s a great man.”

“But you don’t want to work for him.”

Charlie shrugged. “It wouldn’t be so bad. But I came to America for the Prophet’s sake, not John Bennett’s.”

“Bennett doesn’t think there’s much difference.”

“I think there is.”

John could not help but be pleased that Charlie knew it. “Bennett’s as religious as the next man, I would think.”

“Bennett? No. Not really, Father. Maybe I’m making it up, but it strikes me that Bennett—that he’s only
wearing
the gospel, and it isn’t quite a fit.” Charlie smiled sheepishly at his father. “Who am I to judge? He’s working miracles here. But they’re all—”

“All what?”

“All political miracles. He has a smile that would bring coons right out of the trees.”

John laughed aloud. Maybe Charlie was quicker-witted than John had thought. Maybe he had better eyes than it sometimes seemed. Even this aberration of being such a damnably pious Saint—maybe even that was smarter than it looked to John Kirkham. It’s the young who have the gift of believing. We older ones, we lose faith and think that makes us wise.

As if to disprove all his father’s new opinion of his wit, Charlie completely misunderstood why John was laughing. “Coons out of the trees! I can’t believe I said that. I’ve been spending too much time with Don Carlos, I even talk like him now. You don’t think I’ll become an American, do you?”

He said it with mock horror, but John understood how much the idea really appealed to the boy. “You’re more than half there already. What are Americans, anyway, but Englishmen with brains enough to leave?” And for once, John almost believed his own opinion.

In the morning, before dawn, they stopped at Bennett’s hotel. Bennett only left one letter at the desk for them to take. He hadn’t sealed it, either, just folded it over. It was an open invitation to read it. Of course, Charlie would never consent to such a thing. So John made sure the letter ended up in his own coat pocket, an easy enough thing to manage, since Charlie was pretending he didn’t much care about the letter anyway. Charlie was so sure it was a letter of recommendation that he had even talked of not bothering to pick it up, all as a show of modesty. John argued that it was their duty, however, and Charlie acquiesced willingly enough.

As John expected, they weren’t halfway home when Charlie became completely lost in his own thoughts and drifted ahead on the frozen road. You could always count on a dreamer to dream. John remembered that once he, too, had walked or ridden along so oblivious to other people that he could have been robbed and wouldn’t have known it. All John’s dreams had been pictures, though, and he had watched the scenery. Charlie watched nothing at all. Probably he dreamed of words and numbers, riding along endlessly adding or conjugating or whatever it was a clerk dreamed of. There’s much of me in Charlie, John thought, but too damned little of my art.

While Charlie dreamt, John ungloved his hands and pulled Bennett’s letter from his coat. He nearly froze his fingers, holding the letter so tightly in the breeze, but it was worth it to know what Bennett had to say. It
was
a letter of recommendation, of a sort.