A Separate Country

by Robert Hicks

  “I found his letter. It doesn’t matter what it said. Except I should say, he wasn’t nearly the lover I would have imagined. He was very formal and yet very clumsy. Cold. I was angry. You can imagine. I was made for anger, bred for it. But there was also a child growing in her, whose she did not know. When she told me this I was so angry and so afraid I would do something terrible, I left and slept in Jackson Square. I had a job the next few days, and I stayed away. My quarry suffered for my anguish. He was a man who had beaten his wife to death and yet had not been tried in a court. I had been hired by her brother. I asked him, What did she do? and when he said he’d been drunk and didn’t remember, I cut off his nose. I asked him again, and he said she had been a nagging, frigid cunt. I cut the rest of his ears off and laid them on the ground where he could see them. Finally, when he knew he’d be dead soon, he said, She didn’t love me, and I slit his throat.

  “When I returned home I was surprised to find Danielle still there, waiting for me. The children played in the little yard out back and on the furniture. The boys argued over the role of Lafitte in their pirate games. They had no idea that anything had happened. They were happy to see me. I played with them and allowed myself to be forced off the plank a dozen times before I went in to see Danielle. She was shaking, but I could see in her face she was ready for whatever would happen. And so, I decided, nothing would happen. I asked her if she loved Paschal, and she said yes. I asked her if she loved me, and she said yes. I told her that the child was mine and she agreed. Whatever had happened, the child was mine. I told her she must not see him again, and she agreed. She said she had not heard from him since she told him about the baby. I was not surprised. As far as I was concerned, he was gone forever and thank the Lord.

  “How easy it would have been to kill him! That was my calling in life, that was my craft! If I had set out to kill the man, believe me, I would not have done it in front of a hundred witnesses with the help of drunk buffoons by such a clumsy means as hanging. Believe me, had I meant for him to die, he would have died quickly in an alley on a dark night and been found by the pigs the next morning. He would have disappeared from the earth without sign, unless the pigs left something of him behind. A bone and a mystery. That was how I killed.

  “But then, the ball. I went as the guest of a man who thought he needed protection, a weak man who talked too much and yet feared the duel. I despised such men, but they are often rich, and this one paid well. It was his sister that Paschal danced across that ballroom floor, spinning and sliding and turning, so beautiful. He was a satyr. He was flesh and blood! This is what is so awfully amusing about Hood’s little book here. He and his friends thought Paschal was somehow above such things, above the satisfaction of flesh, above the devouring of virgins. Danielle had thought that, though I’m not sure why, since she knew his unblemished flesh quite well, his cock. Hell, even I thought that, having seen him around the neighborhood, helping his cousin with their garden and bestowing his lovely and pure smile on all the old women. But at that ball, in the instant I saw his face leering behind the back of his partner, I knew what he was. He was a man of the flesh. Not the man Danielle spoke of in her sleep, not the man she had fallen in love with, not the man I knew she missed dreadfully. He’d broken her heart and I was trying to fix it, and here was this man harvesting more women as if they were all his. It was then that I told my client that the man with his sister was a nigger. And you know the rest, or most of it.

  “I lied to Hood when he found me in the swamp. I had meant to kill Paschal in the most painful way possible. I tied that noose tight. I tied it so he would strangle to death, not die instantly. I am very sorry that branch broke and he survived, such as he did. And the rest of what I told Hood? That I admired him? It was a lie. Or, not a lie, because I have grown to admire him, but not the correct explanation. I was a jealous husband angered by the way I had been cuckolded, and how my wife had been trifled with by a prancing fop. Paschal had treated my wife as something that could be thrown away. It was too much to take. I attacked a man for the most ancient of reasons. Such a simple reason.

  “But I killed him, up there in that attic, for better reasons, the same reasons I gave Hood, the reasons he reports here in this book. Those were not lies. I was responsible for the monstrous existence of Paschal, for his death in life. The job had to be finished. It was cruel otherwise, and I had learned to avoid unnecessary cruelty. Unnecessary. Cruelty has its place. Sometimes a man’s nose needs to be cut off. So I suffocated him with his pillow, and I left a sign for Hood to find. I believe I wanted to die, then. I was tired of being Sebastien.

  “I would have died, too, if not for the priest, Father Mike. He had no love for me, but he is a priest, and priests preach love and life and forgiveness. He is no hypocrite. And I know he heard Paschal’s confessions as his priest. He admitted as much to me and Hood. Hood didn’t write this, perhaps he didn’t hear it the way I heard it. I’m still Catholic after all. Father Mike said, Paschal has been reconciled through me to the Church. It was the only explanation for Father Mike’s presence there at what should have been my execution. Paschal had confessed, and Father Mike knew our history, and he would not allow his friend Hood to commit a mortal sin out of ignorance. What had happened to Paschal was not as simple as Hood thought. Hood might act differently if he knew the whole truth. I wonder why he didn’t tell him the truth right then. Perhaps it hurt him to say it aloud, about his friend, that his friend was no angel. I do not know. Whatever the reason, I was already damned, and he would not let his friend be damned with me. And maybe that’s what I thought I wanted: I wanted to bring Hood down with me, I wanted again to see the Hood of Texas, the Indian hunter, the murderer, and I wanted the two of us to go twisting down to Hell together. Father Mike saved him from that and, no small thing, gave me my own time to struggle with God. I do not know if I am damned, I’m not sure I even understand damnation, but I know that I love Danielle and the children selflessly, and I know that’s what God wants, even if I do not know God. That must count, though it doesn’t with your vicious little friend, Rintrah. After the ball I slept all over the city, sneaking into the house only once every few days, when the moon dimmed. He harassed Danielle and the children but he did not touch them, and for that I am grateful. I am also grateful for Hood, now that I know why Rintrah stopped looking for me. I have been dead these last two years! It should have been obvious.

  “But now, I think, it is time for me to give it up. We have to return to the city now. You and me.”

  I had been mesmerized by his voice, so absorbed that I hadn’t realized that Danielle had slipped out of the house and was standing behind me, crying silently.

  “Why do we have to go back?” Did I like this man, the damned monster? I believe I did for a moment.

  “Because I know what happened to your Father Mike, and I am in debt to him. I must see Rintrah.”

  “He will kill you.”

  “He won’t when I make my proposal.”

  Danielle let out one long wail, and then gathered herself. She wiped her eyes and walked over to Sebastien. She gave him a hard kiss on the lips, picked up little Paschal, and went inside. He watched her go as if she were disappearing into a dark and unfathomable hole. She shut the door and we both watched it for a minute. It never opened again. I could hear the sound of the children inside, sniffling and whining and asking their mother questions. I heard her cooing and shushing. Shhhhhhh, mon ami. After another moment Sebastien shook his head and stood up with Hood’s book in his hand.

  “Why, Mr. Eli Griffin, why would Hood think anyone would be interested in reading this thing?” He let it flap over in his hand, and some of the pages wavered in the heat coming up out of the cookstove. Of course he would burn it, I thought.

  “Dunno.”

  “He writes as if he was the first man to love a woman.”

  “Yes.”

  “But perhaps that is true. We are always the first men to fall in love, no? No one else knows
how it feels, not like we do. And when you have lived most of your life hard and grim and merciless, when you finally fall in love it must, must, be unlike anything else on this earth, unlike anything anyone else knows. Otherwise love carries the despair of all that you have misunderstood in the world and all that you have failed to see. Too painful, it’s much better to think that it is one of a kind.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Anna Marie Hood

  I do not know what I am supposed to say to a daughter who will soon be motherless. There is too much to tell you about this life, I cannot not begin. Remember when you were happy. Remember when we were happy, remember this last year. Remember what we had, and what we didn’t need anymore. Love your brothers and sisters, they will need you. You are the oldest, you have responsibilities. Teach them to be lovely and kind and strong. You are, I know you are, Lydia. Teach them how you became that way. It is a great gift. And whatever happens, stay close to your brothers and sisters. Do not let them grow up and disappear to places unknown. Keep them close.

  It is tiring writing such platitudes. I suppose it is impossible to try to write down advice for a child without stating the obvious so generally it couldn’t possibly be useful. The urge itself, to prepare such advice, feels strange now. I face death, and a future in death, and it is difficult for me to turn my attention to the past, my past, and find anything instructive in it or even interesting anymore. I want to die well. I am prepared for this. I wonder if that’s all that you really need to know, the greatest comfort I can present you: the knowledge that I was prepared to die and that I was not afraid. Everything that has happened to us of late, all that I’ve written in these pages, has prepared me for this moment. If you’ve read this far, you understand why I feel that my life hasn’t been wasted, and that I’ve overcome regret.

  Take care of your father. Go to church. Leave me fresh flowers. I think that’s all I can say. I feel very sleepy. I hope someone comes in to look after Anna Gertrude, because I can barely hold this pen and my eyes feel heavy. She is asleep, twisted up in her sheets, her little mouth open and vibrating with her breath. The soft sheets, the pillow, I feel the exhaustion settling in, I only want to sleep.

  Is my death sudden? Yes, I suppose. But it doesn’t feel sudden. I have had a long life. God bless you. I believe in you, and in your father, and in your brothers and sisters. I believe in Rintrah, and Father Mike, and Paschal. I believe in the resurrection of the body. I believe in the communion of saints. I believe in life everlasting.

  I wish John had…

  CHAPTER 26

  Eli Griffin

  Good Lord, the man would not stop talking. I didn’t give one good goddamn for his opinions on love, all I cared about was what he would do with that book in his hands. I frowned, and he saw me looking at the pages flapping above the cookstove.

  “So, the book.” He looked down at his hand, waved the pages from side to side. “What will I do with it?”

  “The question is, What will I do with it, Lemerle? All you have to do is to answer Hood’s question.”

  “Do you really think he cares about my answer now?”

  “That wasn’t the point. It’s a matter of honor.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “I gave my word.”

  “Yes, your word. Hood was always very fond of the rules of honor, did he teach you those? They could be made to explain everything he did, and so he never did wrong. Do you realize that?”

  “The book.”

  “Was he a changed man? Was he still marked by the Devil?”

  “Just an answer, that’s all I need.”

  He held up his hand to me, begging me to wait, and walked around the back of the house and out of sight. I heard him cursing and slapping, and then the jangle of loose tack. Soon he appeared astride a crotchety old mule. He held up the book so I could see it. Then he slipped it into his saddlebag.

  “This is not the work of a man marked by the Devil. Just a common sinner like most of you. I myself am not a common sinner, so I know what I’m talking about. I see it more clearly.”

  I felt great relief. I felt tears welling up, but blinked them away. I knew I would not die that day. I had no idea what would happen next, but I would not die. The first thing I thought was, I will see M. again. It was all the talk of love. I did not love her. I did not.

  “Get your gear, Eli, and get your horse.”

  “I could use my rifle.”

  “You won’t need it.” He opened the flap on his saddlebag and inside I saw an array of knives and little pistols. He handed one of the pistols to me and I stuck it in my pocket. He put his hands on his knees and bent toward me, sizing me up.

  “You will take me to Rintrah?”

  “Not if you’re going to use those knives on him.”

  “They are not for him.”

  “Who then?”

  “They are for the man who killed your friend. The man who killed Father Mike. And, possibly, for the man who hired him.”

  “How do you know that the killer was hired?”

  He waved his hand impatiently toward my horse. I went over and mounted, I looked vainly into the underbrush for the pieces of my rifle, but no luck. Soon we were on the path out to the trace together, his mule in the lead. My horse nipped at his mule and we trotted on at a good clip. When we reached the turn at the black hat and the doll, I asked the question again.

  “What do you know, Sebastien?”

  “Many things. What do you want to know?” He rode with the easy rhythm of a man accustomed to long distances on dusty tracks.

  “About Father Mike.”

  “I know that I was hired to kill Father Mike.”

  He had taken the job, he said, and vowed to himself that he wouldn’t do it. That way, he thought, he’d save Father Mike’s life and then they would be square. He should have warned the priest, he said, but he was afraid of him and of Rintrah. He should have guessed they would hire someone else also, someone to make sure it was done. He should have protected the priest.

  “Who hired you?”

  He wouldn’t say. It was for Rintrah to hear first, not me. “What I know keeps me alive, no?” He looked back at me and grinned, a mouthful of crooked and small teeth. Sharp. “And we have plans to make. You have to finish the command of the General, correct? Get the other book back from the General Beauregard? That will not be easy, mon frère. He has devilish friends.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Yes you do.”

  I felt the late afternoon sun bearing down on the back of my neck. It had been more than a day since I’d left town. Rintrah would be looking for me, I was sure of it.

  “And, anyway, I have some business to conduct on behalf of Michel, Father Mike.”

  I was so tired, I barely heard him. I grunted and tried to find a comfortable spot on the saddle. He looked back at me again.

  “It’s why I brought the knives. I’ve got a good use for them now, at the last.”

  We arrived in the city around midnight. Sebastien could disappear into the darkness, and sometimes I thought I’d lost him, but it was only the trick of light and shadow. Every once in a while he would reach into his bag and pull out a knife, hold it to the light, and look at it curiously, before finding a different hiding place for it. In his sock, in his belt, in the pocket of his coat, in a hidden pocket of his sleeve. As the night had worn on and the road became longer and the limbs of the live oaks flexed their clawing fingers toward us, I had become very glad to be the companion of that murderer, that devil. His knives gave me confidence. At times, as my mind wandered, I imagined us a knight and his squire. A black knight, sure enough, but a knight girding himself for battle. Were we the two creations of Hood, as the General had said? It was impossible that I had anything in common with the man, and yet he was familiar to me, it did not feel strange to be riding with him.

  When we entered the city by the River Road, I took note of every bend, every stray dog, every liquor shack, every scent: of flo
wers, standing water, coal smoke, melting sugar. At first I was only trying to scan the road for Rintrah’s men, who I was sure would shanghai us if we weren’t careful. I thought I saw them creeping behind every tree. They never appeared, and soon I realized I was memorizing everything I saw and smelled and heard and felt. It crossed my mind that I might not ever enter that city again, and that I might soon leave it. There are moments when you know in your gut that near everything would change, and that there would be no returning, and that night was one of them. The moon was clearer, St. Charles Avenue was wider and emptier, the lights in the top of St. Louis’s were sharper.

  Sebastien didn’t seem to notice. He looked relaxed, and even more with every knife he stowed away. It was only when we turned up toward the Bayou St. John and then down through Treme that I noticed that he had begun to grip his reins so tightly his hands glowed white in the dark. He didn’t look scared. He looked to be punishing himself, trying to hurt himself. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth drew tight. But it was just a moment. Soon we had ridden up to a small house with bright light shooting through the cracks in its tight shutters. I heard music, shouts. He dismounted and told me to wait. He was relaxed again.

  When he emerged through the bright doorway of the colored saloon, he was accompanied by three negroes who he pulled aside around the corner of the house. The heavy leaves of a banana tree hid them from sight. Sebastien talked directly to the oldest, a tall bald man with a gray beard. He bowed his head as he spoke, and finally the old man put his cracked and powerful hand on his shoulder as if to reassure him. It was all a mystery to me, but it weren’t my business and I didn’t get in the middle of it. When they were done talking the old man and the two others—a short, dark, powerful man with his sleeves rolled up nearly to his shoulders, and a dandy in a green suit who carried a cane—went off into the dark in three separate directions. Sebastien stood there for a moment watching them, took a big breath, and then returned to his mule. We rode on over to Esplanade and then down toward the Quarter, toward Rintrah’s house.