Cursed by Christ

by Matthew Warner

  Yet Obie stumbled getting out of his chair, which provoked more laughter from the other men. Alice was confused. He obviously wasn’t drunk. Could this have anything to do with the way his hands had been convulsing? Perhaps it was only a case of nerves.

  “Where is that boy?” Collins said he neared the door.

  Alice pointed to the aide. “Here.”

  The young man groaned in response.

  In the threshold between study and foyer, Collins turned on his heel, nearly striking his head on the door frame. To Obie, he said, “Give my regards to that little missus of yours. I’m sorry I didn’t meet her.”

  Alice was dumbfounded. What missus? Obie was a Sodomite and didn’t care for women.

  “I will,” Obie said. He avoided Alice’s stare.

  Collins and Thorne moved toward the front door.

  “Up, boy, up!” Collins said to his aide.

  As the young man rose to stagger out into the cold, Collins winked at Alice. He swatted her ass.

  She gasped with offense. “Why, I never!”

  Crossing her arms protectively, she retreated from Collins’s hoarse laugh. She looked to Thorne for support.

  But her husband didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he rushed back into the study and returned with something he kept at his side, away from Alice’s view. He followed Collins outside, where the guests were unhitching their horses from the porch railings.

  “Don’t forget this,” he said.

  Alice hesitated, and then pulled her collar tight and stepped outside. Thorne now stood on the path, waving at the officers, who were already riding away.

  Collins waved at Alice. “Goodbye, my dear lady!”

  She strained to see what Thorne had given him, but it was too dark. Thorne saw her looking and hopped onto the porch, as if to corral her back inside.

  Obie stumbled into Alice from behind. “Excuse me.” He continued in the direction of his own house. “I have a headache.”

  Thorne clapped Obie’s shoulder as he walked past. “Congratulations.” Then to Alice: “Come on. Inside.”

  They stepped in, closing the door against the night. She searched his face, but Thorne started up the stairs without looking at her.

  To his back, she said, “Did they deputize Obie?”

  He paused, and then gestured toward the study with the back of his hand. “Take care of that mess in there.”

  At the top of the stairs, he made a left for his bedroom.

  She watched him go, too tired to get angry. He always treated her like this, so what did it matter?

  At least there wasn’t really a “mess,” just the four tumblers and empty bottles. The newspaper Thorne had been reading lay on the hearth, covered with black dots where the fire had sparked onto it. Stupid men. They were lucky not to have burnt the house down. She gathered the paper and stacked it on Thorne’s desk.

  She stopped short. Where was the money satchel from Bedford? It was missing from the corner of the desk. Thorne would not have misplaced such a thing.

  She looked everywhere, not finding it. She even took a key from its hiding place in the desk drawer and unlocked the money box Thorne stored high on the bookcase and which he thought was a secret. The money wasn’t in there either, and besides, it wouldn’t have explained the disappearance of the leather satchel. But it had to be here. The men hadn’t left the room all day.

  Unless …

  Alice stepped to the window. She wished she could still see or telepathically detect Major Collins—and any saddle bags he might have recently acquired.

  Chapter 12

  Almost three months later, at the end of February 1868, Alice bid Jonah to bring the mule cart around, and they went to visit Constable Obie Redger at his new office in town.

  There was no snow on the ground—the rare Georgian snowfall never lingered for long—but her breath still clouded into the morning sky. They passed the general store, the blacksmithy, and the ramshackle Gangplow Lodge, which had changed ownership three times since its establishment last year. The ruins of the Rockford Baptist still lay in a neat, charred square where some of Sherman’s forces, while spending the night in 1864, had accidentally burnt it down. The incineration of one of Christ’s houses—and resultant death of its minister—warmed Alice’s heart at the time, but she now wondered if the event had been part of Christ’s grand scheme to persecute her. After all, the town’s lack of a church was the cause of her present problem.

  The constable’s office and its tiny holding cell took up the back quarter of the town hall. The building also served as the town assembly’s meeting chambers and as the courthouse to adjudge infringements of town ordinances. Major judicial proceedings, however, were still conducted in Depot by the occupying army, now under the command of General Meade.

  The first thing Alice noticed about the constable’s office other than the smell of dank rot—gracious, didn’t municipal buildings have maids?—was clutter. A blanket of paper covered every surface, collecting in knee-deep drifts of old tax forms, newspapers, meeting minutes, and forgotten correspondence—the effluvia of sixty-six years of government business, collected in one room. It was as if Norwicktown hadn’t needed a constable since the Name Riot of ’13 and had used this room as its waste bin.

  Some of these papers were piled too close to a potbellied stove. Obie Redger, mug in hand, stood near that stove, looking puzzledly at the coffee kettle upon it. He appeared startled when Alice knocked.

  “Miz Alice,” he said.

  She stood in the doorway, waiting for him to invite her in, but he said no more.

  Refusing to feel unwelcome, if that’s what Obie was trying to do to her, she entered and took off her overcoat. “Hello, Obie. It’s been quite awhile.”

  He remained frozen a moment longer, and then blinked and shook his head. “I stood up for something, but now I can’t remember what for.”

  “Were you going to pour some coffee?”

  “Oh yes, that’s it.” He reached for the pot.

  Alice frowned as she removed papers from a chair and sat. She marveled at the decline of manners in the modern man. he didn’t even offer her a cup. “Perhaps I should say to what you owe the unexpected pleasure of my visit.”

  “Yes—yes, of course. May I offer you some coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The constable stumbled on the way back to his chair, spilling hot coffee over his hand. He swore.

  Feeling uneasy, Alice said, “I was in town to deliver some dresses to the tailor, and realized I hadn’t seen your new office.”

  She paused, waiting in vain for him to jump in. He looked at everything but her face.

  The angel’s wings—always like fickle ears listening to the echoes of distant winds—heard Obie wishing to hell and back that crazy ole’ Miz Alice hadn’t shown up like this. Something about how it wasn’t part of the “plan.”

  What plan? Clearly more small talk was needed before she got down to business. “Did you see the newspaper today about President Johnson?”

  “The president.” He looked confused. “Oh—oh yes, the president. What a shame.”

  “I thought when he got off in December that that was the end of it.”

  “Uh huh.”

  She waited, but Obie was tracing his finger through the layer of dust and pipe ash covering his desk.

  Something wasn’t right here. This wasn’t the man she’d known for almost eight years—the fastidious overseer who’d scream at the cleaning woman for allowing dust to collect in his house. The day Thorne left for the War, Obie had complained to her about the security of the store room, yet the bars of the constable’s holding cell here looked so rusted-out and old that even she could probably force them aside. The Obie she’d known would have cleared all the trash from his office. The Obie she’d known would have taken the topic of President Johnson’s renewed impeachment and run with it in a ten-minute diatribe about the evils of the Republican Party.

  What’s more, she n
ow saw, there were no weapons in this room. This was not what one would expect in a constable’s office, nor from the paranoid overseer who’d walked around with a whip on his belt, complaining about impending slave insurrections.

  “What’s wrong?” Obie said, as if she were the one acting abnormal.

  She sighed and looked at her hands. “It’s this business about rebuilding the Rockford Baptist.”

  “Wonderful idea, is it not?”

  “Perhaps. But I do not believe it should be reconstructed in my house.”

  “But Miz Alice, Mister Thorne needs the money. Having a chapel in your basement is an ingenious way to contribute to the main house’s upkeep. With Thorne collecting offertories from parishioners—”

  “That’s almost word-for-word the defense I got from him, so you’re obviously colluding. ‘An ingenious way to keep up the house.’ I believe the British word for such talk is ‘rubbish.’”

  Scowling, Obie got up and placed his mug on the stove. He picked up the kettle to pour himself coffee, saw that his mug was still full, and put the kettle back down. Sheepishly, he glanced at Alice and returned to his desk.

  “If you leave that mug on your stove, it’ll get too hot to touch.”

  “Oh. Yes.” He went back for his mug. He stumbled on the way there, so Alice jumped up to catch him. “I’m all right.” He waved her off. “If you could just hand me my cane over there, that’ll steady me.”

  Alice nearly stumbled herself with astonishment. Cane? He was only in his mid-thirties. Some men carried them to look sophisticated, but that clearly wasn’t the purpose here.

  “Obie, what’s wrong with you? Are you getting sick again?”

  Wrong question. His face clouded.

  “If I am, then it’s none of your business.” Sucking in his lip, he placed his mug on the desk and sat down. “Ma’am, I appreciate the visit, but I believe our business here is concluded.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry to have offended you.”

  “And you can forget about soliciting my support on the matter of your basement chapel. I’m getting married there in two weeks, and I am not—”

  “Married? Obediah Redger, what the devil has gotten into you? First I hear my overseer has been granted an office he by all rights shouldn’t have, but that’s fine since you’re better than a damn Yankee. But then I come down here to find you working in a pig sty and acting like a senile old man, no explanations offered. And then I find you’re colluding with my husband to violate the sanctity of my house with a miniature church. Now a marriage ceremony? Last I heard, you were still showing your johnson to the Parker boys.”

  Shoulders drawn up to his ears, he had closed his eyes and turned his head. He sank into his chair as Alice stood over him. “I met her when I went to Macon with Thorne. Her name’s Mariann, and she’s going to give me respectability.”

  “Oh, Mariann, is it? Who is she? Why haven’t I met her? You should show more respect to the mistress of your plantation.”

  “I only live there now. You’re not my mistress. You can’t talk to me this way. I am the constable of this town, and—”

  “A job no doubt to gain more ‘respectability.’ You don’t like women any more than I care for Jesus, yet we’re both now entering circumstances detrimental to our health. Is this the woman Major Collins alluded to?”

  He nodded.

  “I had thought it was a lie of propriety.”

  Obie picked up his mug with a shaking hand. “Mariann is propriety. The most distinguished men of the South are going to attend the ceremony.”

  “Is that so? Like who?”

  “Lots of people. And I won’t give it up just because you’re a Jew.”

  Oh! He really was the most ignorant person at times. “I am not. How dare you.”

  “Well, even so, the house is the only good place for the chapel.”

  “I was at Parker’s two weeks ago and saw he has an empty barn. It would be perfect for a church. It’s larger and closer to town. And it’s not in someone’s private residence.”

  “Parker plans to fill that barn with chickens this spring or lease it to a negro. Or at least that’s what his boys told me while they were looking at my johnson.”

  Alice huffed but knew she’d lost the argument. “I’ll be sure to shower the bride … with something.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Jesus Christ, also known as the Lord of All Creation, King of Kings and Nations, but in actuality the true Prince of Darkness—for Alice felt that He was surely responsible for this unfortunate turn of events—sculpted the following two weeks into a gauntlet of hell.

  Using additional personal funds heretofore unknown to Alice—no doubt another gift from Bedford Forrest—Thorne proceeded to build a chapel in the manor house’s basement. He did so as President Johnson’s trial began in the U.S. Senate and as the Georgia Convention submitted a ridiculous new state constitution for ratification—events, like circling vulture’s shadows, that tinged life with dread. Interestingly, this lent an air of urgency to Thorne’s actions, as if the chapel’s construction and current events were related.

  And while Thorne may have worried about national politics, he seemed unconcerned with common-sense ones, such as the likely necessity for official church sanction, seeking out a new minister, or even gathering a congregation. Further, he was overly mindful of obtaining the chapel’s outward appearances: he pressured a carpenter to complete the pews and the cross decoration for the walk-in entrance; he fretted over the stained glass being rushed to completion by a local artisan; he cajoled a minister of a neighboring town into donating a half dozen Bibles and Protestant hymnals; he pressured the widow Libby Hughes to part with her gold-plated altar cross, a family heirloom; and he placed newspaper advertisements announcing that the House of Norwick was now a House of Christ, respectable and entitled to all of a religious sanctuary’s legitimacies, its grounds sacred and incorruptible.

  Well, the world could think what it liked about outward appearances, but to Alice this was unprecedented lunacy. And coming from her husband, who knew she had a strong aversion to Christ, it was incomprehensively disrespectful. No, it was more than that.

  It was rape.

  And the gall of him—the utter gall—to see her crying and to say, “Oh, don’t overreact, for Chrissake.”

  The angel’s wings, no doubt sensing the proximity of Heaven’s presence, constantly stirred within their mental cage like a penned bird hearing the call of its flock. They obliged her to avoid other people when possible, spending more time isolated in her room, as she had during the War, refusing conversation lest the wings take flight upon the thought breezes of others’ words.

  But avoiding people—including even the Teferas, who dutifully brought meals to her room, only to be turned away—could not prevent the sense of intrusion she felt. The chapel encroached her space like a hunk of shrapnel lodged in a soldier’s leg.

  She wanted to escape, but the old, unanswerable questions prevented her: where would she go? How would she support herself? She couldn’t just ride in any direction and be assured of locating food and lodging. She wasn’t a man, who conceivably could find work anywhere. And even if she could, Jesus and the curse would simply follow her. She was trapped here by circumstance and common sense, and Jesus knew it. If she were to be punished for having celestial powers or relieved of the same, then she had to face her problems here.

  As she stewed over this one afternoon, Thorne entered her room without knocking. He looked haggard, and his coat was covered with grime from working on the chapel.

  “I wish you’d come out and help around here. The cooks are talking about you.”

  The angel’s wings, hypersensitive with emotion, told her Thorne was actually worried this antisocial behavior would persist when all his old friends, including Bedford, came for Obie’s wedding. This brought back unpleasant memories of her father being worried about the same kinds of things on the eve of their long-ago family reunion.

&nb
sp; “Yes, I know you’re consumed with appearances these days,” she said. “God forbid our cooks should talk about their mistress, as I know it damages your social standing so.”

  She saw it in his mind, behind his purpling face: the urge to smack her. A step forward, there he goes. No, he was changing his mind. He’d pull the dress she was making from the valet and rip it apart. Complex undercurrents: something about his suspicion of her friendliness with the cooks, which was why he was never completely honest with her.

  Surprisingly, Thorne neither hit her nor destroyed the dress. His fists clenched at his sides. “Be a child, if that’s what you want. The adult in this room has enormous pressures upon him. I’m trying to complete an important public work while our very society—” he glanced at the dress-in-making, “rips apart at the seams.”

  “Tell me, do you see yourself as its wearer or its tailor?”

  Thorne seemed more confused than insulted. “You mean, do I see myself as a contributing member of society? Of course I do. And I care about the country. Why else do you think I’m upset about the impeachment trial and that constitution?”

  “Answer me this, Thorne: why do you care more about the country than me?”

  This time he did hit her—but only lightly, a firm but slow palm to the cheek that turned her head.

  “I told you before. The chapel is going in, despite what you feel about it. It’s your salvation, too.”

  After he left, his words lodged in the corners of Alice’s eyes, where they burned until she cried. Her “salvation”? Was this some sanctimonious reference to the “savior” of mankind, Jesus Christ? How dare he! It was as if the day Thorne had found her being raped by Reverend Forney, upon a church altar table, had never happened—and the same for her parents’ preceding murders by Forney. That is, unless Thorne meant something else by the word “salvation,” but she thought it unlikely. No, his words’ presumption flowed from the same wellspring of arrogance as the chapel’s construction.