The Spy on the Tennessee Walker

by Linda Lee Peterson

  “Glad Michael’s going with you,” said Hoyt. “How’s the domestic-bliss quotient Chez Fiori?”

  “Is that code for something? Like am I behaving like the Whore of Babylon again?”

  Hoyt patted my hand. “I believe that she was a metaphorical lady of easy virtue. Not a literal one.”

  “Biblically speaking, I am a pearl of great price these days. And besides, I’m too exhausted to get into any serious trouble. What with raising two boys, and being a captain of industry, and catering to every whim of Michael Fiori, tax superstar, constant reader of The Leopard, in Italian, I might add, and master of the kitchen.”

  “Cheer up,” said Hoyt. “At least you’re not married to one of those nitwit Southern gentlemen.”

  “Oh, no. No one ever called Michael a nitwit. That would be a dangerously foolish assumption. I mean it — what shall I bring you from Oxford?”

  “Surprise me,” said Hoyt.

  CHAPTER 7

  MAGGIE

  OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI

  “I love a road trip,” I said to Michael.

  He glanced over at me and grinned. “Me, too. Especially in a big-deal American car, no squabbling kids in the backseat, and an entire weekend of hearing Uncle Beau introduce me as ‘Now, here’s Maggie’s Eye-Talian husband, all the way from California.’”

  Michael’s a changed man when it comes time to rent a car. Generally, he doesn’t seem to care one way or another about automobiles, and in fact has promoted the purchase of matching Volvos every ten years or so, just to take one more shopping expedition off the agenda. Volvo dies? Buy another. But when he has the opportunity to rent something silly or outlandish, some primeval male energy seems to rear its priapic head. He looks for big cars with cushy backseats and retro brands — Cadillacs, Buicks, Oldsmobiles. “You know we don’t have to resort to the backseat to make out anymore,” I protest as I climb into a ginormous Lincoln and sink into the frontseat.

  “Those were the days,” he answered. “Just buckle up and let me know I’m going to get lucky tonight.”

  We had left the Memphis airport in early afternoon, made a slight detour to the venerable Corky’s for barbecue and artery-clogging, and now were winding south along Highway 55. The road took us past Hernando, Senatobia, Sardis (pop. 2,038 and home to the haunted hospital in North Panola County), and then a sharp left to turn east at Batesville to make our way to Oxford. When I was a kid, we’d stop in northern Mississippi to visit relatives in Water Valley, where generations of farmers, black and white, grow the sweetest watermelons on earth. When the boys are with us, we always have to stop and crack one open. I can still remember sitting on the folded-out tailgate when I was a kid with a lineup of cousins, all of us leaning out so we could spit seeds into the dirt at the side of the road.

  “Seedless watermelons,” I said. “What a dumb idea. Half the fun is spitting seeds.”

  “Well, I’m sure your uppity little heirloom nursery can find you a vintage watermelon that will come replete with seeds,” said Michael. “That way you can share your excellent spitting technique with the boys.”

  “Are you sorry they’re not along?”

  “Honestly? Not a bit. We pick the music, we pick the conversation topics, and we all get a little vacation from each other. Raising two boys is not always unmitigated pleasure. Besides, it gives Anya something to do.” Anya, who had been our au pair when the boys were younger, had returned to Oakland to help out, now that she was in graduate school at Berkeley. Helping out, I feared, mostly meant indulging Zach and giving Josh way-too-good advice about being a hit with the ladies.

  I felt my eyes fill. Michael glanced over at me. “Oh, cut it out, Maggie. You can’t possibly start in on the ‘one day they’ll be gone away to school and we’ll regret every minute we didn’t have with them.’ Think about dinner at City Grocery without having to mine the menu for something the little burger-and-sushi-heads will eat.”

  “I am not sentimental. I embrace the idea of dinner out with grown-ups. It’s just.…”

  Michael sighed. “Don’t think it escapes me that you pursued that whole innocent-guy-on-death-row thing because you were over-identifying with his mother and were envious of her jazz club.”

  I sat up straight. “I was not over-identifying; I just happened to like Ivory. Plus, who wouldn’t be envious of owning a jazz club? Even the name of the club was cool — the Devil’s Interval. I kept thinking one day Ivory might invite me to sing at the Devil’s Interval.”

  “That would be interesting. I didn’t think you sang outside the shower and the whole canon of ‘Itsy-Bitsy Spider’ and ‘One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.’”

  “Well, okay, not sing. But maybe I could just get on a slinky dress and lounge on the piano.”

  Michael reached over to pat my knee. “We all need a dream, cara.”

  CHAPTER 8

  MAGGIE

  OXFORD

  William Faulkner lived here. When I was a kid coming to visit my mom’s family in Oxford, my literature-loving parents, Isabella and Fred, would take us out to Rowan Oak to see Mr. Faulkner’s Greek Revival house. Because my parents didn’t believe in censoring anything we wanted to read, I remember puzzling through As I Lay Dying at about age ten, trying to figure out where the punctuation went and why. “Sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned or loved or feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forget the words,” I declaimed.

  “Here we go,” said Michael. “Faulkner, right? I always feel as if he’s the uninvited guest in the car on this drive.”

  “I invite him! You know, he knew my grandmother, Alma.”

  “I know,” said Michael. “He admired her red hair.”

  I laughed. “So you do listen to these stories from time to time.”

  “Indeed I do.”

  And there just before us was the square. “I’m assuming,” said Michael, driving slowly past Neilson’s department store, Square Books, a bronze William Faulkner, pipe in hand, contemplating the city square, and City Grocery, where last time we dined, two of the famous Manning gentlemen — Archie and Eli — were sitting at the next table, “that we’ll go directly to Phoebe and Beau’s?”

  “I guess so,” I said, looking longingly at Square Books, the storybook version of an independent American bookstore, opened by Richard and Lisa Howorth in 1979 and still the platinum standard for true book lovers. Wood floors, strong coffee, and an upstairs balcony when you’ve found your book and just need to sit down and dive right in.

  “Earth to Maggie,” called Michael. “Next stop, Phoebe and Beau’s and a tall, cold Abita. We’ll walk over to the bookstore later.”

  In the way of small towns, Oxford didn’t exactly embrace Mr. Faulkner in his lifetime. “Count No-Count,” they called him, since he felt little but contempt for a salaryman’s life. Now, of course, Oxford has bragging rights about its status as keeper of the not-too-shabby Mississippi literary flame, from Eudora Welty and Walker Percy on through to Willie Morris, Donna Tartt, and, yep, a pretty good storyteller, John Grisham. But Mr. Faulkner, now, he trumps them all.

  CHAPTER 9

  VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 1863

  “Stranger! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me?/And why should I not speak to you?”

  — Walt Whitman

  Walter paid me a high compliment this evening. “Miss Victoria,” he said to his Quaker friend Levi Coffin, known to his admirers as the President of the Underground Railroad, “is a secret-keeper. You can trust her word. We met on a train from Washington, DC, to Richmond, Virginia, and have been friends ever since.

  “As you know,” he added, “I do not hold with this nonsense of people needing to be introduced. Miss Victoria and I kept each other in high spirits on a tedious journey.”

  I find it amusing that Walter pays attention to secret-keeping among others. He surely cannot have many secrets left to tell, because he talks and talks an
d talks about every thought and then pours those thoughts directly onto the page and then ceaselessly arranges and rearranges them. Hence, his masterwork — Leaves of Grass — is as changeable as the weather. Of course, Walter is correct: I do keep information to myself. I like to think of myself as a brave woman, but I am not a brave fool.

  “Miss Victoria,” said Mr. Coffin, “I wish we had your discretion and your talent during the height of our Underground Railroad days.” He sighed. “Pretty young women were among our most successful conductors and stationmasters.”

  “Ah, now,” said Walter, “I am not sure I would settle on so poor a word as ‘pretty’ for our Victoria.”

  I felt my cheeks color. “Walter,” I said, “I will accept Mr. Coffin’s compliment with thanks and put an end to that discussion. Instead, let us talk of more interesting things. I would welcome the opportunity to learn more about how the railroad worked. It seems like magic to me, transforming enslaved human beings into free men and women.”

  But Walter was not to be distracted. “Handsome,” he said. “Striking, with all that glorious mass of red — no, not red, say, rather, blood-red, carmine, copper, russet, deep mahogany.” He stopped, and looked up at the ceiling, puffing on his pipe and contemplating the low, smoke-darkened ceiling of the inn.

  Mr. Coffin and I exchanged glances. “Walter, my friend,” said Mr. Coffin, “you are embarrassing this innocent young woman.”

  Walter looked astonished. “Embarrassing her? She is fearless, she is outspoken — believe me sir, you do not want to get on her bad side. She can be a heartless but very effective nurse, I have seen this with my own eyes. She will wheedle and cajole and lecture and threaten some poor wounded soul, imprisoned in his hospital bed, until he begins making the progress Miss Victoria wishes to see.”

  “Nonetheless,” said Mr. Coffin, “I would like to know a little more about Miss Cardworthy.”

  “I, for one, am weary of this subject, sir,” I said. “But I am happy to answer your questions, if I am able.”

  “Well, then, let us start with the most obvious question: How is it that a lovely young Southern woman is tending wounded Yankees?”

  “I am agnostic on the topic of color,” I said. “Wounded men are wounded men, in blue or in gray.”

  “It took Victoria some time to share this information with me,” said Walter. “But she began her work as a nurse at Chimborazo, that great, sprawling hospital that takes in the Confederates. And then —” Walter paused for dramatic effect “— she crossed over. She put herself on the train from Richmond to Washington and is now a stalwart at the Armory and other Union hospitals. And,” he added, miming the tip of a hat, “she does what many are not willing to do. She cares for the Union’s dark soldiers as well.”

  Mr. Coffin surveyed me with new interest. “Negro soldiers?” he said.

  “As I said, sir, I do not see color as a differentiator of great interest.”

  Mr. Coffin shook his head, “Oh, my dear. That is why I am an abolitionist. Sadly, color is a shocking, murderous differentiator.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I understand what you are saying. And I commend and admire you for your work. But we are so very far away from the day when color is not the first thing people observe. So, in the meantime, my small part is simply not seeing it at all.”

  “May I ask,” said Mr. Coffin, “how you came to have such independent ideas? Perhaps your parents were free-thinkers or Transcendentalists, like Walter’s friend Ralph Waldo Emerson?”

  “Ha!” said Walter. “You’re on the wrong path, my friend.”

  “My parents are kind and generous people,” I said. “And my father, in particular, did want me to understand the wider world. When I was still a girl, he took me to New York to hear Elizabeth Blackwell speak. She was a wonder to me, speaking frankly about how she had earned a medical degree, even though no other woman had ever been admitted to an American medical school. It was very difficult to listen to her and not think — ‘why can’t I be useful as well?’”

  “Ah, Dr. Blackwell,” said Mr. Coffin. “She helped gather many of us together at the Cooper Institute in New York just as this terrible war began. So compelling was her leadership that men and women alike worked together with one goal, to form the Women’s Central Relief Association so that the work of many smaller groups could coalesce and be more effective.”

  “More to admire,” I said. “I know that her work turned into the United States Sanitary Commission, caring for sick and injured soldiers. It is a group whose work I respect very much.”

  Walter stood to stir up the fire, poking vigorously at the disappearing logs, so that a wave of wood smoke drifted our way.

  “Easy, my friend,” said Mr. Coffin. “You will choke the very breath out of all of us.”

  “Now,” said Walter, “there is more to Miss Victoria’s extreme notions. She is also, like many of your seditious comrades, an advocate for the rights of women.”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Coffin. “She should meet our mutual friend Lucretia Mott.”

  “I have had the privilege of hearing Miss Mott speak,” I said. “She stirs the soul as vigorously as Walter stirs the fire.”

  Mr. Coffin threw back his head and laughed. “But there’s a difference, Miss Victoria — Walter clouds the air with smoke and soot, and I would say that Miss Mott seeks simply to clear the air.”

  Something lightened in that very moment in Walter’s cluttered, anything-but-tidy attic room at 456 Sixth Street West. We had all spoken our minds without fear. It was as if we were peers, speaking safely in that dimly lit circle around the fire.

  Mr. Coffin picked up his jar of lemonade and took a hearty swallow.

  “What do you think of that refreshment, dear Levi?” Walter asked.

  “Like all your refreshments, my friend, it is quite dreadful, but I appreciate the hospitality nonetheless. Now how is it, Miss Victoria, that you have come to have such advanced views on race, considering your upbringing in our Southern states?”

  “Although slavery first set its evil roots in the South,” I said, “there is precious little difference in the attitudes of Southerners and Northerners. The great majority of Northerners fear, subjugate, and exploit the darker races in nearly precisely the way our Southern friends do. I have no doubt that if a Grand Prince of India landed on our shores, he would have a lonely time of it finding welcome in Charlotte or Chicago.”

  “Yes, but —”

  I raised my hand to silence Mr. Coffin. “We have no need of argument, Mr. Coffin. I believe we share the same values. Human beings should be free souls — to make their way in the world, to raise their families, to do God’s work.”

  “Whoever She may be!” announced Walter. Mr. Coffin chuckled.

  “I do not yet believe that it is possible God is a woman,” I said, and there was ice in my voice. “No woman would allow the forcible separation of husband and wife, or parent and child.”

  The room grew quiet. I saw Walter and Mr. Coffin exchange glances. I had seen such glances before. They thought we were having a cordial, lively conversation, and I had spoilt the milk by responding so fiercely. I stood. “I will bid you good evening, gentlemen. I am sorry I have taken the bloom off this pleasant gathering.”

  Mr. Coffin leapt to his feet. “No, no, my dear. We did not mean to take what you are saying lightly. And I assure you that you have friends in the world who share your point of view about the rights of women. It’s just that.…”

  I looked him in the eye. “It’s just that we can only fight one battle at a time. Is that not right? And abolition must come first.”

  Walter shook his head. “I am a poet and a nurse, my dear. We agree on so much. But slavery is anathema to this great nation of ours. And this is the battle we must win immediately. You, of all people, have seen what combat can do to the beautiful human form and human spirit.”

  He reached out his hand to me. I looked at this very odd, completely fearless, no-longer-young man, and I had to rele
nt. “You are right, sir. We have our priorities. We are friends and we must allow for differences of opinion.”

  We shook hands all around, and settled back into our places. “But…” I said, and Mr. Coffin and Walter began to laugh.

  “Once more into the fray,” said Walter.

  “But,” I said, raising my voice, “when it is time to fight for the rights of our sisters, and not just our brothers, I will look to you for support and advocacy.”

  And there, in that dim room, they agreed. In later years, Walter swore I had bound him with a devil’s pact, one he could not escape. I could not help but laugh, but I, too, felt that we had made an unbreakable promise to each another.

  I walked home alone, despite their protests, back to the rooming-house where we ladies of questionable repute took refuge. Nurses were little better than fallen women. We had seen and touched the bodies of men. We had washed unspeakable things from the skin of perfect strangers. We had heard their secrets and their confessions. We had seen them weep and beg for death.

  No one should see such things, least of all those fragile creatures known as women.

  The gaslights lit my path from Walter’s room at the inn back to the rooming-house Mrs. Marshall kept. She, too, kept her own counsel, but she claimed to admire the work we nurses undertook, and she regularly walked over to Campbell Hospital when her peaches and plums ripened, delivering fresh fruit to the hospital. She would never come in. She would simply leave her sacks of sweet fruit on the front step and hurry away.

  When I reached her door, I knocked for entry. Her houseman, Raphael, let me in. “Welcome home, Miss Victoria,” he said. “You had a caller this evening, but I told him I thought you might be late coming home.”

  “Did you get his name, Raphael?” I asked, untying my bonnet ribbons and tidying my hair.

  He shook his head. “No, and he did not leave a card. But he said he would call tomorrow.” He hesitated. “And he said one more thing. He mentioned that he was looking forward to seeing your scarlet curls and hearing your conversation.”