“Ain't English funny?” said Calvin.
“The longer I know you, the less sure I am that what you speak is English.”
“Well, hell, that's the glory of English. You can speak it ten thousand different ways, and it's still OK.”
“That barbarous expression! '0.K.' What does this mean?”
“Oll Korrect,” said Calvin. “Making fun of people who care too much about how words get writ down.”
“Now, writing down, that makes sense. The ink flows down. The pen points down. Your hideous mixture should be called 'stirred-down.'”
The butter-and-molasses mess was bubbling now. “Nice and hot,” said Calvin. “Want some?”
“Only to ward off imminent death.”
“This cures not just hunger but the French disease and cholera too, not to mention making mad dogs whimper and run away.”
“In France we call it the English disease.”
“That bunch of Puritans? How could they catch a disease of coition?”
«They may be pure in doctrine, but they hump like bunnies,» said Honor‚. «Nine children to a family, or it's a sign God hates them.»
“I'm a-feared I done taught you to talk substandard English, my friend.” Calvin tasted the stirred-up. It was good. The chickpeas were a little hard, and Calvin suspected that in the darkness he had inadvertently added some fresh insect flesh to the mix, but he'd had enough to drink that he cared less than he might have sober. “Polite people don't say 'hump.'”
“I thought that was a euphemism.”
“But it's a coarse one. We're supposed to get into fine homes here, but we'll never do it if you talk like that.” Calvin proffered the spoon.
Honor‚ winced at the smell, then tasted it. It burned his tongue. Panting, he fanned his open mouth.
“Careful,” said Calvin. “It's hot.”
«Thank God the Inquisition didn't know about you,» said Honor‚.
“Tastes good, though, don't it?”
Honor‚ crunched up some chickpeas in his mouth. Sweet and buttery. «In a crude, primitive, savage way, yes.»
“Crude, primitive, and savage are the best features of America,” said Calvin.
«Sadly so,» said Honor‚. «Unlike Rousseau, I do not find savages to be noble.»
“But they hump like bunnies!” said Calvin. In his drunken state, this was indescribably funny. He laughed until he wheezed. Then he puked into the pan of stirred-up.
«Is this part of the recipe?» asked Honor‚. «The pi‚ce de r‚sistance?»
“It wasn't the stirred-up made me splash,” said Calvin. “It was that vinegar you made us drink.”
“I promise you it was the best wine in the house.”
“That's cause fellows don't go there for wine. Corn likker is more what they specialize in.”
«I would rather regurgitate than let the corn alcohol make me blind,» said Honor‚. «Those seem to have been the two choices.»
“It was the only saloon open on the waterfront.”
“The only one that hadn't already thrown us out, you mean.”
“Are you getting fussy now? I thought you liked adventure.”
“I do. But I believe I have now gathered all the material I need about the lowest dregs of American society.”
“Then go home, you frog-eating stump-licker.”
«Stump-licker?» asked Honor‚.
“What about it?”
“You are very, very drunk.”
“At least my coat isn't on fire.”
Honor‚ slowly looked down at his coattail, which was indeed smoldering at the edge of the stove fire. He carefully lifted the fabric for closer inspection. «I don't think this can be laundered out.»
“Wait till I'm awake,” said Calvin. “I can fix it.” He giggled. “I'm a Maker.”
“If I throw up, will I feel as good as you?”
“I feel like hammered horse pucky,” said Calvin.
«That is exactly the improvement I want.» Honor‚ retched, but he missed the pan. His vomit sizzled on the stovetop.
«Behold the man of education and refinement,» said Honor‚.
“That's kind of an unattractive smell,” said Calvin.
«I need to go to bed,» said Honor‚. «I don't feel well.»
They made it to the bushes along the garden wall before they realized that they weren't heading for the house. Giggling, they collapsed under the greenery and in moments they were both asleep.
* * *
The sun was shining brightly and Calvin was a mass of sweat when he finally came to. He could feel bugs crawling on him and his first impulse was to leap to his feet and brush them off. But his body did not respond at all. He just lay there. He couldn't even open his eyes.
A faint breeze stirred the air. The bugs moved again on his face. Oh. Not bugs at all. Leaves. He was lying in shrubbery.
“Sometimes I just wish we could build a wall around the Crown Colonies and keep all those meddlesome foreigners out.”
A woman's voice. Footsteps on the brick sidewalk.
“Did you hear that the Queen is going to grant an audience to that busybody bluestocking abolitionist schoolteacher?”
“No, that's too much to believe.”
“I agree, but with Lady Ashworth as her sponsor–”
“Lady Ashworth!”
The ladies stopped their ambulation only a few steps away from where Calvin lay.
“To think that Lady Ashworth won't even invite you to her soirees–”
“I beg your pardon, but I have declined her invitations.”
“And yet she'll present this Peggy person–”
“I thought her name was Margaret–”
“But her people call her Peggy, as if she were a horse.”
“And where is her husband? If she has one.”
“Oh, she has one. Tried and acquitted of slave-stealing, but we all know a slaveholder can't get justice in those abolitionist courts.”
“How do you find out these things?”
“Do you think the King's agents don't investigate foreigners who come here to stir up trouble?”
“Instead of investigating, why don't they just keep them out?”
“Oh!”
The exclamation of surprise told Calvin that he had just been spotted. Even though some control was returning, he decided that keeping his eyes closed and lying very still was the better part of valor. Besides, with his face covered by leaves, he would not be recognizable later; if he moved, they might see his face.
“My laws, this boardinghouse should be closed down. It brings entirely the wrong element into a respectable part of town.”
“Look. He has fouled his trousers.”
“This is intolerable. I'm going to have to complain to the magistrate.”
“How can you?”
“How can I not?”
“But your testimony before the court– how could you possibly describe this wretched man's condition, while remaining a lady?”
“Dear me.”
“No, we simply did not see him.”
“Oh!”
The second exclamation told Calvin that they had found Honor‚ de Balzac. It was comforting to know he was not alone in his humiliation.
“Worse and worse.”
“Clearly he is no gentleman. But to be out-of-doors without trousers at all!”
“Can you… can you see his…”
Calvin felt that this had gone far enough. Without opening his eyes, he spoke in a thick Spanish accent, imitating the slavers he had heard on the docks. «Se¤oritas, this tiny White man is nothing compared to the naked Black men in my warehouse on the Spanish dock!»
Shrieking softly, the ladies bustled away. Calvin lay there shaking with silent laughter.
Honor‚'s voice emerged from the bushes not far away. «Shame on you. A writer of novels has a brilliant chance to hear the way women really talk to each other, and you scare them away.»
Calvin didn't care. Honor‚ could pretend to
be a writer, but Calvin didn't believe he would ever write anything. «How did you lose your pants?»
“I took them off when I got up to void my bladder, and then I couldn't find them.”
“Were we drunk last night?”
«I hope so,» said Honor‚. «It is the only honorable way I can think of for us to end up sleeping together under a hedge.»
By now they had both rolled out from under the bushes. Squinting, Honor‚ was staggering here and there, searching for his trousers. He paused to look Calvin up and down. «I may be a little bit nude, but at least I did not wet my trousers.»
Calvin found them, hanging on the hedge, wet and stained. Calvin pointed and laughed. “You took them off and then you peed on them!”
Honor‚ looked at his trousers mournfully. «It was dark.»
Holding his dirty laundry in front of him, Honor‚ followed Calvin toward the house. As they passed the kitchen shed, they caught a glare from the tiny old Black woman who supervised the cooking. But that was as much of a rebuke as they would ever hear from a slave. They went in through the ground floor, where Honor‚ handed his wet trousers to the laundress. «I'll need these tonight before dinner,» he said.
Keeping her head averted, the slave woman murmured her assent and started to move away.
«Wait!» cried Honor‚. «Calvin's got some just as bad off as mine.»
“She can come up and get them later,” said Calvin.
«Take them off now,» said Honor‚. «She will not look at your hairy white legs.»
Calvin turned his back, stripped off his pants, and handed them to her. She scurried away.
«You are so silly to be shy,» said Honor‚. «It does not matter what servants see. It is like being naked in front of trees or cats.»
“I just don't like going up to our room without trousers.”
“In trousers wet with urine, you will be disgusting. But if we are both naked, everyone will pretend not to have seen us. We are invisible.”
“Does that mean you plan to use the front stairs?”
«Of course not,» said Honor‚. «And I must lead the way, for if I have to climb three flights of stairs looking at your buttocks I will lose the ability to write of beauty for at least a month.»
“Why do you think the cook glared at us?” asked Calvin.
«I have no idea, my friend,» said Honor‚. «But does she need a reason? Of course all the Black people in this place hate all the White people.»
“But usually they don't show it,” said Calvin.
«Usually the White men wear trousers,» said Honor‚. «I am quite certain that the slaves all knew we were asleep under the hedge long before we woke up. But they did not cover us or waken us– that is how they show their hatred. By not doing things that no one commanded them to do.»
Calvin chuckled.
«Tell me what's funny?» Honor‚ demanded.
“I was just thinking– maybe it wasn't you what peed on your trousers.”
Honor‚ pondered this for a few moments. «For that matter, my friend, maybe it wasn't you who peed on yours.»
Calvin groaned. «You are an evil man, Honor‚, with an evil imagination.»
“It is my knack.”
Not till they got to their room and were changing clothes had Calvin's head cleared enough for him to realize the significance of what the ladies were talking about by the hedge. “A schoolteacher abolitionist named Peggy? That's got to be Miz Larner, the schoolteacher Alvin married.”
“Oh, my poor Calvin. You went three days without mentioning your brother, and now you have relapsed.”
“I been thinking about him ever since we got that letter from Mother telling about the wedding and how the curse was lifted and all. I wonder if he plans on having seven sons.” Calvin cackled with laughter.
«If he has such a plan we must find him and stop him,» said Honor‚. «Two Makers is more than the world needs already. We have no need for three.»
“What I'm thinking is we ought to look up this bluestocking abolitionist Peggy and make her acquaintance.”
“Calvin, what kind of trouble are you planning to make?”
“No trouble at all,” said Calvin, annoyed. “Why do you think I want to cause trouble?”
“Because you are awake.”
“She's going to have an audience with the Queen. Maybe we can slip in with her. Meet some royalty.”
“Why will she help you? If she is married to Alvin, she must know your reputation.”
«What reputation?» Calvin didn't like the direction Honor‚'s comments were tending. «What do you know about my reputation? I don't even have a reputation.»
“I have been with you continuously for months, my friend. It is impossible you do not have a reputation with your family and your neighbors. This is the reputation that your brother's wife would know.”
“My reputation is that I was a cute little kid when anybody bothered to notice that I existed.”
“Oh no, Calvin. I am quite sure your reputation is that you are envious, spiteful, prone to outbursts of rage, and incapable of admitting an error. Your family and neighbors could not have missed these traits.”
After all these months, to discover that Honor‚ had such an opinion of him was unbearable. Calvin felt fury rise up inside him, and he would have lashed out at Honor‚ had the little Frenchman not looked so utterly cheerful and open-faced. Was it possible he had not meant to offend?
«You see what I mean?» said Honor‚. «You are angry even now, and you resent me. But why? I mean no harm by these observations. I am a novelist. I study life. You are alive, so I study you. I find you endlessly fascinating. A man with both the ambition and the ability to be great, who is so little in control of his impulses that he pisses away his greatness. You are a tiger studying to be a mouse. This is how the world is kept safe from you. This is why you will never be a Napoleon.»
Calvin roared in fury, but could not bring himself to strike Honor‚ himself, who was, after all, the only friend he had ever had. So he smashed the flat of his hand against the wall.
«But look,» said Honor‚. «It is the wall you hit, and not my face. So I was not entirely right. You do have some self-control. You are able to respect another man's opinion.»
“I am not a mouse,” said Calvin.
“No no, you did not understand. I said you are studying to be a mouse, not that you have passed your examinations and are now living on cheese. When I hear you go, squeak squeak squeak, I think, What an odd noise to come from a tiger. I have known few tigers in my life. Many mice, but few tigers. So you are precious to me, my friend. I am sad to hear this squeaking. And your sister-in-law, I think all she knows of you is the squeak, that is what I was saying before. That is why I doubt that she will be glad to see you.”
“I can roar if I need to,” said Calvin.
«Look at how angry you are. What would you do, hit me? That, my dear friend, would be a squeak.» Honor‚ looked at his own naked body. «I am filthy like a wallowing pig. I will order up a bath. You may use the water when I'm done.»
Calvin did not answer. Instead he sent his doodlebug over the surface of his own body, ejecting all the dirt and grime, the dried-on urine and sweat, the dust and ashes in his hair. It took only moments, for once he had shown his doodlebug what to do, it could finish on its own without his directing it, just as his hand could keep sawing without him thinking of the saw, or his fingers tie a knot without him even looking at the string.
Honor‚'s eyes grew wide. «Why have you made your underwear disappear?»
Only then did Calvin realize that every foreign object had been pulverized and ejected from his body. “Who cares? I'm cleaner right now than you'll ever be.”
“While you are using your powers to beautify yourself, why not change your odor? To a flower, perhaps. Not a nasturtium– those already smell like unwashed feet. What about a lilac? Or a rose?”
“Why don't I change your nose to a cauliflower? Oops, too late, someo
ne already did.”
«Aha, you are insulting me with cabbages.» Honor‚ pulled the string that would ring a bell in the servants' quarters.
Calvin pulled on some clean clothes– cleanish, anyway– and was just leaving the room when a slave arrived in response to Honor‚'s Summons. Honor‚ was buck naked now, without even shirttails to conceal nature's modest endowment, but he seemed utterly unaware; and, for that matter, the slave might not have seen him, for her gaze never seemed to leave the floor. Honor‚ was still specifying exactly how many kettles of hot water he wanted in his tub when Calvin started down the stairs and could hear the Frenchman's voice no more.
* * *
Lady Ashworth's door was opened by a wiry old slave in close-fitting livery. “Howdy,” said Calvin. “I heard tell that my sister-in-law Peggy Smith was visiting here and–”
The slave walked away and left him standing at the door. But the door was still open, so Calvin stepped inside onto the porch. By habit he sent his doodlebug through the house. He could see from the heartfires where everybody was; unlike Peggy, though, he couldn't see a thing in the heartfires, and couldn't recognize anyone in particular. All he knew was a living soul was there, and by the brightness of it, whether it was human or not.
He could guess, though. The heartfire moving slowly up the back stairs must be the slave who had opened the door for him. The heartfire on the porch above Calvin, toward which the slave was moving, had to be Lady Ashworth. Or Lord Ashworth, perhaps– but no, he was likely to be as close as possible to the King.
He set his doodlebug into the floor of the upstairs porch, feeling the vibration caused by their talking. With a little concentration, it turned into sound. The slave sure didn't say much. “Gentleman at the door.”
“I'm expecting no callers.”
“Say he sister be Peggy Smith.”
“I don't know anyone by such a… oh, perhaps Margaret Larner– but she isn't here. Tell him she isn't here.”
The slave immediately walked away from Lady Ashworth. Stupid woman, thought Calvin. I never thought she'd be here, I need to know where she is. Don't they teach common civility to folks in Camelot? Or maybe she's so high up in the King's court that she didn't need to show decent manners to common folk.
Well, thought Calvin, let's see what your manners turn into when I'm through with you.
Heartfire ttoam-5 Page 7