The Bride of Texas (83 page)

“You slapped his face?” the little girl asked, astonished. “What did he do to you?”

“Nothing personal, Terezka,” said the sergeant. “But —” He had just received a letter. Paidr had died in the veterans’ home in Racine. Two sentences, that was all. The sergeant glanced at Houska’s clock, the wooden band started playing, Lincoln leaned out of the window like a cuckoo and waved the starry flag nine times. The sergeant recalled his old buddy Paidr, one name in a wreath of names that included Gettysburg, the Army of the Cumberland, Chattanooga, Wauhatchie, Lookout Mountain. The clock played other names in his head too. Kabinus — had he ever gone back after the war to the girl whose age the chaplain listed in the marriage certificate as sixty? He had lost a hand at Resaca. He was a man of few words, a friend. Kennesaw Mountain, Vojta Houska, Yazoo River, Stejskal, the Twentieth Corps of the Army of the Cumberland, the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin, Svejkar, Zinkule, Fisher, Javorsky, Kakuska —

“No, he did nothing to me personally, Terezka. Now read some more to me. You read so nicely.”

“Oh, sure I do,” said the little girl, and she picked up the book and, in a mechanical voice, started reading where she had left off
.

“And General Sherman, having averted a general battle, waited at Bentonville until Schofield’s boats delivered the accoutrements so desperately needed after the long march through the Carolinas, the frequent and brutal skirmishes and ultimately the final intensive encounter at Bentonville having demanded their own, and Sherman’s army, albeit victorious, resembling for the most part a pack of scarecrows in ragged dress, bare-chested and in many cases barefoot (though with weapons spotless), arrived at the Neuse River, where, only a month later — when on April 18th General Johnston finally laid down his arms — the war finally ended in glory for General Sherman’s brave troops.”

“Hadn’t he waited for her?” Bozenka asked, disappointed, glancing over at the handsome doorman. Two silhouettes appeared behind the frosted glass, and the Negro opened the door. It was raining. A man with a rough, weather-beaten face walked in, slipped the cape off his shoulders, and handed it to the doorman. He was followed by a second man, shorter, with hunched shoulders and a large nose. The rain continued falling. The brass lantern roofs clattered like little tin drums.

“You’re on the right track,” said Mr. Ohrenzug. “She was too trusting. It was a long way to go — all the way to South Carolina by train, right after the war — and when she finally got there, her fellow was long gone. A week earlier, on the next plantation, the owner’s daughter had turned up with her own chambermaid. She’d married an ink manufacturer who later
became a general in our Union army, and the chambermaid, whose name was Bee, was a wedding gift, but in Chicago her slave status hadn’t lasted; either she was given her freedom, or else everyone just ignored her lack of it. When the war broke out the ink manufacturer became a colonel, and after the battle on Little Round Top, where he lost an eye but kept on fighting, he was promoted to general. In the meantime Bee had become her former owner’s confidante and best friend. In fact, they had always been close, since they’d grown up together. So the two of them arrived at the Cooper’s Ferry plantation, which was half demolished and deserted, for the funeral of the lady’s widowed father. They came without the general, who had gone back to manufacturing ink and loved to brag about his glass eye in cities both north and south. They stayed at the plantation only a week, but that was enough. The general’s wife returned to Chicago with her chambermaid, a new footman, and a new cook. The following day the bride from Cincinnati arrived at the plantation next door, and never even unpacked her wedding dress. She caught the next train back.”

“But there was a happy ending,” Bozenka reassured herself, glancing at the famous author. The Negro woman in the iridescent silk was still talking and gesticulating eagerly.

Mr. Ohrenzug hesitated. “It’s all in how you take it. She had the footman’s mother on her side, the one who’s responsible for the dishes making your mouths water,” he said, looking around the table.

Shake declared, “The lady’s cooking is beyond reproach. What I don’t understand, though —”

“She gets it straight from God,” Colonel Ohrenzug interjected hastily. “You don’t need schooling for that. In fact, you can’t learn to cook like this in any school.”

Shake looked him firmly and silently in the eye. In a nervous tone, the colonel asked, “Would you like some more?”

“Did I hear you say this Jasmine opened a restaurant?” asked Shake.

“So to speak.”

“And you also said the footman’s mother is on her side?”

“I did,” admitted Mr. Ohrenzug, and stopped short.

“What I don’t understand, then,” said Shake, without taking his eyes off the colonel, who lowered his gaze, “is why the mother stayed with you when her daughter-in-law opened a restaurant and her son waits on tables there.”

“He’s really a bouncer,” Mr. Ohrenzug explained. “What I mean to say is, it’s not all that fancy a restaurant.”

“Are you saying that your cook refused to work in a low-class place?”

“That’s what I’m saying. She resents it that Jasmine is —” He halted.

Shake was still looking into his eyes. He asked, “Where is this place?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Some place between Dearborn and Clark.”

Houska, who was busy cleaning his plate, looked up as though he wanted to say something. But Mr. Ohrenzug, with considerable effort and forced levity, quickly changed the subject: “Things looked pretty dim for the girl,” he said, nodding towards the booth where the famous author was shaking hands with the man with the weather-beaten face. The Negro woman had stopped gesturing and was gazing at the man as though he were the president. “To that fool over there” — the colonel nodded towards the handsome doorman — “the Chicago chambermaid seemed like a better match. Both girls were good-looking, both were pale yellow, and both were chambermaids. Bee was employed by a general’s wife. The two girls got into a fight over him, and Bee whipped Jasmine. Trounced her! Almost tore one of her ears off. She’d have lost it for sure if Dr.
Walenta hadn’t sewn it back on. Meanwhile, the general’s wife started planning a wedding.”

The sergeant noticed Bozenka frowning at Ohrenzug. “For Bee and Hasdrubal?” she asked.

“Yes. For Bee and Hasdrubal.”

“So Jasmine can’t be the Carolina Bride,” Bozenka remarked sadly.

“She was some Bee!” chuckled the colonel. “She should have been called Hornet! The big fight happened the night before the wedding. The general was off on one of his frequent business trips, bragging about his glass eye somewhere in Albany, and the wedding dress was laid out on the double bed he shared with his wife. Jasmine’s dress couldn’t compare. The general’s wife and Bee were as close as sisters. And what do you think happened?”

In a shed in the courtyard where Gospel had put her, Jasmine was thinking of poison and considering suicide, but a sudden outburst in the general’s home made her prick up her good ear. It was female voices screaming in the master bedroom — the general’s wife and Bee. “Pandemonium broke loose,” continued Mr. Ohrenzug. “Twice a male voice grumbled something amid the female screams, but each time Jasmine could hear a resounding slap. Bee has a nasty temper.”

“So what was wrong?” asked Vojta Houska. All three women looked at him as if they couldn’t believe their ears. Padecky tried to comment but couldn’t; his mouth was full of sauerkraut.

“It’s obvious,” said Shake.

With a painful gulp Padecky swallowed the sauerkraut and went into a rage.

“As close as sisters? She was an officer’s slut!” he yelled. “But what can a fellow expect from women? Vipers is what they are, each one as bad as the next!” He seemed to be responding to
some profound experience, rather than sounding off for the sheer pleasure of it as he normally did.

“Calm down, Padecky!” Ruzena scolded him.

“Why should I calm down?”

“Not every woman is a bitch,” said Molly.

“That, from you, who —”

“She doesn’t mean herself,” Bozenka tried to help out. “I mean to say —”

“— a merry widow?!” Padecky roared.

“
Was sagt er?”
Schroeder asked.

“Who was she?” asked Shake.

Padecky looked startled. “Who was who?”

“The one,” said Shake, “who makes you damn the whole female race.”

Padecky stiffened. “You knew her?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Shake. “I haven’t the faintest idea who she is.”

“So why are you asking? And why don’t you mind your own business, dammit? And why am I getting so excited if you don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You’re shouting,” said Shake. “It’s upsetting the customers.”

“What customers?” Padecky looked around. The people looking at them seemed more interested than upset.

“So will I ever find out what the fight was about?” asked Houska.

Almost softly, Padecky said, “You? Probably not.”

The door opened to the drumbeat of rain. The sergeant turned and saw a tall, straight figure with a gigantic general’s moustache, but it was just Stejskal, who had made sergeant too by the war’s end and had become one of General Williams’s bodyguards. Beside him was a tiny, wiry fellow who also wore an immense moustache. They approached the table and joined them.

“But there was a happy ending, wasn’t there?” insisted Bozenka.

In the booth, Jasmine was pouring a drink for the man with the weather-beaten face, from a carafe of lovely liquid that gleamed in the candlelight.

“It depends on how you take it,” said Mr. Ohrenzug. “Bee packed up that very night and left by carriage. A week later she came back for her wedding dress. Now she’s married to some consul in the Republic of Haiti, they say. Dr. Walenta fixed up the general’s wife — he was already experienced in that kind of thing — and Hasdrubal got off unscathed. When he saw that things were getting serious, he didn’t hang about for a third slap in the face.”

For a while no one spoke. Then Houska said, “Aha!”

They all turned to look at him, but Houska didn’t notice. He said, “But it’s odd she married him, if he cheated on her like that.”

“Don’t you know women, stupid?” exclaimed Padecky.

“I don’t,” said Houska. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“Maybe she’s the Carolina Bride after all, then,” said Bozenka. “They don’t say love can move mountains for nothing.”

The sergeant took a swig of his beer. He had secretly poured a shot into it from the little bottle he’d refilled at the bar earlier, and now he allowed his thoughts to flow back and forth through time. Ursula, Josef, burning turpentine forests, Vitek.

It was Martin Touska who spread the news back in Lhota. Vitek’s neighbour Vantouch brought it back from town, where he’d gone to the mill. Touska sat in the driver’s seat of the buggy, his empty right sleeve pinned up, but it didn’t matter. Lida had long since been “out of sight”, but the rest of the proverb didn’t apply to Vitek. He had almost made up his mind, but his father wasn’t letting him have any money. The fellow with one arm was like a sign: an idea, a possibility, opened up. Vitek ran away. The crimps were
in the district capital. A month later Vitek was in the Tyrol, in two he was on a ship, in half a year he was undergoing trial by fire in Matamoros, in the hot and humid summer of a faraway land, but near the place where she had disappeared from sight, so love does move mountains. Then he met Josef in Matamoros, and Josef told Cyril, and Cyril told the sergeant. By then Mother Toupelik had died. The turpentine forests were burning. After that, Cyril too vanished in the tropical shade of war — Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados
.

He heard Stejskal’s voice making introductions: “Jake Duty. The one who laid the mine at Petersburg. They made him a first lieutenant for that.” The whisky rose to the sergeant’s head.

“I looked it over through a crack in the palisade,” said the diminutive man with the big moustache, “and I said to myself, if we tunnel under the parapet and pack a big enough charge inside, we can blow up the whole damned fortress, leave a big hole like pulling a giant’s tooth.” He sniggered. “We were going to do something like that, only smaller, at Vicksburg, but the Rebs got the same idea. There we were, digging a shaft; I stopped for a nap and what did I hear — a shovel scraping. I look around, all our crew are taking a snooze —” The little guy tipped up his beer stein, took a huge swallow, and began to choke.

Ruzena pounded his back with her fist, but Stejskal shook his head. “It’s no use, his lungs are full of dust from working in the mines.” The little fellow was desperately gasping for breath. “Come on, Jake,” said Stejskal, helping him to his feet. They all watched as Stejskal took his friend towards the room marked “Gentlemen”.

“All the same, colonel,” Shake piped up, “if the cook and her son were so close —”

“They had a disagreement,” Mr. Ohrenzug interrupted, his face reddening.

“What about?”

“She —” Mr. Ohrenzug turned a shade darker. “She wanted him to marry Bee. He could be living in a consulate in Haiti today, if —”