The Widow of the South

by Robert Hicks

  He was mumbling about the war. The man had invaded my house because of the war. I had to see him, to know who would dare bring that filthy business into my house, even if he was a Confederate. I straightened my dress, smoothing out the wrinkles where my lap had been, and looked in the mirror. I refused to acknowledge the face looking out at me. I looked out the window again and noticed that most of the men had dismounted and one of them was walking fast up the path toward the house, presumably to join his commander. I went to the door, unlocked it, and walked out.

  In the passage the sunbeams from my doorway seemed solid, and the glowing and swirling dust was as substantial as anything I could imagine. I passed out of the light into the brief darkness of the hall and then turned into the spare bedroom the man had just clomped through. Long glass curtains flapped slowly in the window, which was almost as large as a door. I was shocked to discover that the air outside smelled fresh and sweet. I walked to the window to spy on the man without being seen.

  Around the corner of the windowpane a tall and sour-looking man bent over the porch rail, leaning his head out and staring at Franklin in the distance. He pursed cracked lips and rubbed his hand over greasy hair. Before him stretched many acres of grove and farmland, a rolling sea of brown punctuated by an occasional stand of trees, a little creek running into the little river. He held that position and was almost motionless. I thought he might fall over if he were not careful. He wore big black boots that bore the remnants of mud and macadam. He rocked back and forth. Behind him, so close I could almost touch her, stood Mariah.

  The man’s voice was startling.

  “How big is this house?”

  Too big, I thought. Bigger than the whole world sometimes.

  “It got eight main rooms, some hallways, and the old wing where the family livin’ now. The rest of us, we in those cabins over there.”

  She pointed at the lattice wall at the end of the porch. I looked about me as if I, too, were a stranger. Yellowing white linen still hung from every doorway and mirror, marking the death of the children who had once lived within. My children, so weak and pure and trusting. At night the drapes looked like ghosts, moving around in the drafts that broke through the walls and under the doors. Mariah had wanted to take them away years before, but I had forbidden her.

  “They got water close by?”

  I noticed how he referred to “they,” as if Mariah didn’t live here. There was something funny about the man, about the way he looked at Mariah through half-closed eyes. He looked like he was waiting for something to impress him, I thought, and that Mariah had somehow failed. I resented him and his people and wherever he came from. He looked like the kind of man who figured he knew everything about you, and about whom you could never know a thing, not really. I was afraid for Mariah.

  I remembered a conversation I’d once had with her when we were children back in Louisiana, long before we’d come here. My great-great-grandfather prayed for me a long time before I was born, Mariah had said, a long time before I was nigh on a thought in my mama’s mind. And my mama, she already doing the same for my children, and I ain’t even kissed a boy yet. This was the way Mariah’s family made sure that their children’s children came into the world with the proper protection of God, Mariah said.

  I had wondered aloud if my own grandparents had ever prayed for me like that. Mariah said that she had a hard time imagining those white people in the paintings on the wall of the house getting down on their knees and praying for someone who didn’t even exist, who might not ever exist. I had known she was right. Too impractical, too superstitious, too much like the niggers, I heard them saying.

  Now I wondered if this was the problem. Maybe I had been forgotten in prayer, and perhaps this explained why I became lost to the world. It wasn’t as if I was the only one who had ever lost a child. Mariah was someone who believed she had been blessed by the long dead, so she was not fearful of men like the one standing in front of her, I knew. Until I get the keys to the Kingdom, Lord, I ain’t giving up, Mariah liked to say.

  I was more skeptical, and this had the odd effect, at that moment, of making me want to pray for Mariah.

  “They’s water nearby,” Mariah was saying. “They’s a cistern out the side door and a little creek nearby.”

  Mariah met my eyes, as if trying to tell me something, but I only stared at her and twisted my fingers in the billowing curtain.

  “Do any of you know how to bind wounds?”

  “They only a few of us left, but I do believe we know how to take care a bumps and cuts.”

  “Going to be a lot more than bumps and cuts, if I got this battlefield read right. What about Mrs. McGavock?”

  “She indisposed.”

  “I mean, she know how to take care of wounds?”

  “I reckon she’s seen her share of blood.”

  The man chuckled, as if he was warming to her. “You a smart nigra, ain’t you?”

  “I’s smart enough, thank you.”

  “You know what’s coming today?”

  “No.”

  “The whole goddamn Army of the Tennessee is comin’, that’s what. Where’s Mrs. McGavock?”

  “She not feeling well.”

  I knew that by repeating herself Mariah had meant to reprove the man, but even I could tell that this was a man on whom nothing was lost. His good humor disappeared. His eyes grew narrow and black.

  “You’re smart, but I’ll still punch you in the mouth you keep talking like that. Mrs. McGavock’s goin’ to have to get out of that bed or wherever she is no matter what you think or what she want to do. When that army comes, I reckon there’ll be dead and dying and wounded all over this goddamn town who’ll need taking care of. And you goin’ to do some of it.”

  I was about to reproach the man, but as I opened my mouth to speak, I noted that Mariah was not scared. She stood up straighter. Mariah could hold her own.

  “Colonel McGavock will want to speak with you ’bout that, sir. May I get you something while you wait?”

  Mariah motioned as if she was going to lead him off the porch and down to the sitting room. The man shook his head.

  “I won’t be waitin’ on pretend colonels, nigra.”

  A voice behind me: “I was looking for General Forrest, ma’am.”

  I let out a little shriek and covered my mouth as I turned to face the man behind me, in the doorway of the spare bedroom. He was dirty like his commander, but his voice sounded Irish. He was also short, thin, and a little twitchy. He cleared his throat, dusted his pant legs with his slouch hat, and peered intently at me.

  So that’s who the man is, I thought. A general. There was nowhere to retreat, and so I stood up straight and struggled to smile, but yawned instead. I was so very nervous.

  “The gentleman is out on the porch. Right through here.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  The man walked past me, but General Forrest seemed to ignore him. He turned toward the window.

  “Mrs. McGavock? I’d like a word with you, ma’am.”

  I had come to the window intending to confront the invader, but something about him and his voice had stopped me. He had cowed me. I hadn’t realized how isolated I had become these last couple years, how few people had come to visit me, how thin my connection to the larger world had really become. Who was the pastor at the church now? I did not know. Whose boy was the latest among the dead? I did not know that, either. From this back porch I had sometimes watched funeral wagons move up the pike toward town, and the only thing that I could remember of them were the most primitive impressions—the shapes of the wheels, the tilt of the men’s hats, the sound of the caisson crunching on the road, the color of the coffin laid out and polished like something they should all cherish. The faces . . . there were no faces. But there must have been faces! I could not recall a one.

  This man stood before me now, and my mind emptied. I had no idea who he was or even what he was. He was a creature risen from swamps I’d nev
er seen, molded by forces and events I could not name.

  I had spent hours in John’s office bent over his globe, tracing its lines and squiggles and unnatural shapes. I spent some time memorizing the points of my own boundaries—here is Natchez, Mobile, humpbacked Kentucky, and Wilmington. There is Nashville. I spent hours whispering to myself the names of places on the other side of the world and wondering how they had been named and how their lines had been drawn and what forces conspired to make them stay put. I wondered if they really did stay put and, if they didn’t, why men bothered to draw them upon globes. I spent much time considering the border between Europe and Asia, which marked the boundary, apparently, between existence and nothingness. To the left, on the western side of “The Euxine (or Black Sea),” the map was full, dense with names rendered in a spidery typescript, and mountain ranges, and colors. Hungary, Moldavia, Little Tartary, The Krim, Dalmatia, Gallipoli, Bagnaluk. To the east the map went white and flat, broken only by the words “Anatolia (or Asia Minor).” Could it be that there was really nothing there in Anatolia? It was an extraordinary idea, one that made me nervous in my stomach. I also thought it strange that the mapmakers couldn’t decide what things were supposed to be called, and had decided not to choose. It had been difficult naming my own children, too.

  General Forrest, standing before me now, was as alien as a platypus. Perhaps he was from Anatolia or one of those vast places on the globe labeled simply “Desert.” What could I say to such a man? He looked like a skeleton, a tree, a gnarled piece of metal. Did he even speak my language?

  It was too late to worry about such things.

  “Yes. I am Mrs. McGavock.”

  I stepped out onto the porch and stood before him, my eyes clear and watery, my hands clasped before me.

  He watched me closely, as if I might at any moment crumple into dust.

  “Ma’am, my name is General Nathan Forrest. I’m sorry to make a fuss while you tryin’ to rest, but it can’t be helped. I wish to God it could. We’s using your porch to inspect the field before the fighting begins. Goin’ to be a fight around here later, no mistake. If I was guessin’, I’d say the fighting ain’t goin’ to happen right here, but it goin’ to be close by, maybe from around the river to the town. That’s where the enemy has his works. There goin’ to be men passing through this way, and the fighting may come this far.”

  “Why here?”

  I surprised myself. I hadn’t meant to engage the man in conversation, this General Forrest, but the idea had worked its way up and out of my mouth before I thought much about it. I looked past Forrest to my garden, where magpies were picking at stems and seeds with their black bills. I moved gently back a step, not wanting to have Forrest approach too close.

  “This is where the Yankees at today. Tomorrow, maybe they’ll be some other place. But today they right here.”

  “What do they want with us? It’s such a little town.”

  “They probably don’t want nothing. They want us to go away and die, I reckon. They goin’ to be many men hurt today. We need a field hospital. Your house would work well.”

  I thought he was talking hypothetically, simply making an observation. I warmed to him. I liked the thought of someone else seeing something of value in our old crazy house.

  “I suppose it would, General Forrest.”

  “Then you would agree.”

  Now I was confused.

  “I’m sorry. I do believe I’ve misunderstood you.”

  Forrest’s face set hard, and I saw color rise in his sharp cheeks.

  “We may need your house for a hospital. I’m sorry to be in a hurry, ma’am, but I need to know if you’ll agree, right now.”

  A hospital? This was no hospital. Every creaking floorboard, every repetition of curve and line in the wallpaper, every mildewy smell wafting down from the attic—they weren’t to be disturbed. Couldn’t he see that?

  “I don’t know how we could possibly be a hospital.”

  “Your floor and your roof make it possible, ma’am. Nice and comfortable in here.”

  I could not imagine what war would look like and what the wounded and dying would sound like. Where would we put them? This place has never been a good hospital. Everything dies. I knew this man on the porch was strong. I could see in the way he stood—straddle-legged and solid—that he wasn’t used to being told no.

  “Ma’am, I don’t want to be rude. Your house is in a good spot. It’s close enough to the battlefield, but it ain’t too close. You can see it from miles off. If I decide so, it’s goin’ to be a hospital today, and we’re goin’ to send our wounded to this place. Now, I understand that your man ain’t here and that this might be coming as a shock to you, so I will ride around to see if I can find us another house that might work for us. I will send word to you either way. But if I decide it’s goin’ to be your house, you got to get ready.”

  I wished I’d never come out of Martha’s room. I wished I had locked the door and stayed behind it. How dare he come into my home and order me around? I looked straight into his eyes, trying to divine the meaning of this burden he was proposing to lift onto me. I saw a man who knew more than he was telling. His eyes pleaded while the rest of his body straightened to its full height and shaded me from the sun. I wondered why he even bothered to ask my permission.

  “Then I suppose we will have to make do if it comes to that. I will tell my husband when he returns.”

  Forrest looked like he was going to say something else, but stopped.

  “Expect a messenger from me shortly. Probably Lieutenant Cowan right there. If the hospital goin’ to be at your house, then he will stay to help with arrangements and organization.”

  “As you wish.”

  I wondered what we would use for bandages, for supplies. Surgery.

  5

  NOVEMBER 30, 1864: MIDMORNING

  Forrest had second thoughts. He worried about his plan for the woman and the nigra, fearing they might not be capable. He had no idea what exactly had happened to the woman shrouded in black standing there on the porch, but he knew that something was clinging to her and wringing her dry. He had seen such haunted faces in Mississippi, western Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, widows and orphans chopping at the soil with broken hoes or running ahead of the invasion in their fancy carriages. Same face. There was a time when he’d brought relief to such people, or at least hope, and their faces had cracked open and smiled. But now he knew he only brought more fear. He had the stink of death on him, and it was too late to do anything about it. But this woman who stood in front of him, with her long, heavy bombazine dress and necklace of black beads and her large, clear eyes and chalky skin, with her cramped smile which suggested she expected the worst—this woman made him think of his own wife in Mississippi and how he had neglected her during the years of chasing Yankees. He wondered if she looked as worn out as this one, who couldn’t be much older than thirty. He wanted to go home more than anything at that moment, to run away from such women. He swallowed that thought and tried to forget it. There was no running.

  He removed his hat and nodded at the lieutenant as he passed toward the end of the porch to look at the battlefield. Take a look at that shit and come up with a plan, for once, he thought. He glared at him and turned to the young woman. She made him wish he had a cleaner shirt.

  She resisted his plan for her house and tried to engage him in a conversation about war and battle. How many such conversations had he suffered through? Thousands maybe. He had no more time for it. He might someday have to flap his gums again about the war, but at the moment he was too busy fighting it. He’d already spent too much time at the house. There was something attractive about the place that had made him linger. In another time he might have stayed awhile, but who knew when such a thing would be possible again? He had to move on.

  Lieutenant Cowan returned to stand by Forrest, visibly pale and wild-eyed. Forrest smiled the briefest smile, knowing what the man had seen and appreciating his discomf
ort. He had seen the Federal works and Fort Granger and the remains of a grove and cleared fields strewn at the feet of the battlements for miles around. Open country. His army might as well just shoot themselves, Forrest thought. The two of them walked off the porch, through the bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door. It wasn’t until they reached the horses that the lieutenant said a word.

  “Damn.”

  The troop mounted up and rode off. They’d ridden for about a mile before Forrest turned to Cowan. He’d put his slouch hat back on, and this time it was pulled down so tight his eyes disappeared in the darkness. He talked low so the others wouldn’t hear.

  “Now, what I want you to do, Cowan, is ride out to Hood’s headquarters and get the word passed that this here house, Carnton or whatever the hell they want to call it, that it’s goin’ to be a hospital. I reckon we goin’ to need too many hospitals today, but this one’ll get us started. Make sure they send out messengers with the word, don’t just tell his shitheel staff. Then I want you to ride back to that house and tell the woman that General Forrest, upon much reckoning and reflecting and what all—you make it fancy—that General Forrest has decided that the house will be used as a field hospital for the good of the cause. You make sure that goddamn place is a hospital where a man can go to die comfortable. And if it ain’t like that, I’ma come for you. You hear me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, git.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  All the while Cowan rode, and all the time he was talking with Hood’s people, he wondered why Forrest had chosen to spare him for hospital duty. For surely they were going to die that day. The old man wants a nice comfortable hospital because he sees himself ending up there today, Cowan thought. He mistrusted the motives of most men, but toward Forrest he could never muster too much animosity. The general had saved their necks any number of times, and they all owed him that. But Cowan simply liked Forrest, liked that the man could make every word out of his mouth sound homely, profound, and vaguely threatening all at once. He wouldn’t begrudge Forrest a warm place to die. And he vowed never to forget that he himself had been spared, and by whom. Lieutenant Cowan was not a courageous man, and he did not care to be. He preferred to be alive, whatever the circumstances.