by Parry, Owen
Of a sudden, the young woman rose from her crouch. Just long enough to hurl herself at my feet. A gold cross on a chain slipped from her bodice, brushing my toes. She clutched at my ankles, then at my calves, and finally at my knees. Staring up with a tear-swept face no man would accuse of beauty.
She looked to have colored blood, but was no African. Her face put me in mind of India’s servant girls, the sort a wise mother chooses to avoid tempting her sons. But for the tawny color of her skin, she might have been a mill-girl in the North, hoping to marry him that would have her soonest. Young she was, but without the bloom of youth. Her eyes were green and she smelled of worn clothes.
As a Methodist I must admit that I am a man no better than the others. Had she been a beauty, I might have conducted myself with greater kindness, toothache or no. The handsome face asks handsome manners, while plain meets a plain response. It is not fair, this world of ours. We see the golden hair and miss the golden heart.
She raved in opaque words, her terror impenetrable.
A fist addressed the door. Captain Bolt’s voice, dull even when excited, called, “Major Jones? You coming along now?”
He shouted to be heard through the wood, drawing the world’s attention to my predicament.
I could not employ the chamberpot in the presence of a woman, no matter her color or plainness. My loins seemed about to burst with the past night’s coffee. My tooth raged. And General Banks was furious. All the while, yesterday’s troubles perched upon my shoulders.
I fear that calm reflection was beyond me.
“I do not understand you,” I repeated to the lass. “I do not know what you are saying.”
Clearly, there was a service the young woman wished of me. She seemed to have made no mistake in her choice of rooms. Although she never hinted at my name.
I could only assume the lass wanted protection. But why, then, come to me? I had barely managed to keep myself alive.
How did she intend to share her story?
My curiosity had to be shelved. General Banks was waiting. I did not even have time to scrape my whiskers.
“Wait here,” I told her, which was silly of me. I could not think of another thing to say. Not that she would have understood me, anyway. “Wait here. I will come back.”
I freed myself, not easily, from her grip.
The best for which I might hope would be the appearance of Mr. Barnaby, who seemed to have an ear for the local dialects. Perhaps he could translate the woman’s pleas and make some sense of her presence.
I left the lass with dread upon her face.
“IF I HAD the authority,” General Banks said, “I’d rip those boards off your shoulders, Jones. You’re the kind of officer who disgusts me.”
Too furious to look at me, he glared out through the window. The wharves below were crowded with steamers and barks, with high-masted schooners and gunboats.
“A damned whoremonger,” he continued. “Destroying public property. Brawling in the streets.” He folded his arms across the chest of his neatly fitted uniform. “And wrecking a fancy cathouse.” He grimaced. “You make me want to puke in a bucket.”
“General Banks, I—”
“Shut your mouth. Unless I ask you a question.” He thought for a moment. “Are you sober enough to answer questions?”
“I never even—”
“Why were you chasing a colored mammy through the streets?”
“I did not realize—”
“You didn’t realize? Who were the men you were fighting on that roof?”
“I cannot say exactly, but—”
“Why did you start that fire?”
“I did not—”
“What were you doing in a whorehouse in the middle of the afternoon?”
“I was—”
“And who pulled that prank of walling you up in a crypt? Not that you didn’t deserve it.”
“I cannot say, but—”
His face narrowed in accusation. “What about the murder of that bath attendant?”
“If I could—”
“Who’s that nigger trollop in your room?” He looked on the verge of spitting. “You can’t even pick whores, Jones.”
“I do not know her, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me, you insolent little bastard. I don’t care how many letters you have from Lincoln. This city’s under martial law. I’m in command here.” He pulled a face, as if smelling an unpleasantness. “Who are you, anyway? You bribe your way into a commission? Or was it political pull? I’ve never seen anyone look less like an officer in all my—”
I had taken advantage of a communal water closet before leaving the hotel, so my temper was not as brittle as it might have been. But my tooth remained confounding. Nor had General Banks, of all people, grounds to question my aptitude as a soldier. He was a Massachusetts politician, made a general for unmilitary reasons. He had been trounced in Virginia, with many a lad’s life lost. And I am vain about my soldiering past. May the Lord forgive me.
Inspired by pride and my toothache, I turned on the fellow.
“General Banks,” I said, favoring my better leg and the easier side of my mouth, “you are wrong, sir. And you are unfair. And you are ignorant. And you are ungentlemanly. You may draw a fool’s conclusions if you will, but you will not blame your foolishness on me. Look you. I have no more wish to be in your city than Moses had love of Egypt. But I have been ordered to see to a task, and see to it I will. No, sir. You will listen now. And you may talk of courts-martial when I am done. But you do not know the half of what has happened under your nose. Nor will you find out by shouting at the heavens.”
I drew out the letter Mr. Nicolay had given to me in Washington. General Banks had scanned it upon my arrival, but needed reminding.
“You are to give me every assistance,” I told him. “Mr. Lincoln’s signature grants me the authority to call on you for troops, or to call on the Navy for a vessel, or to imprison any man, in uniform or not, who interferes with me. You may write your letters to Nebuchadnezzar, Zachariah and Absalom, but until the president’s order is countermanded, you are in mutiny, General Banks.”
My reaction startled him. He stood behind his desk, hand in mid-air and mouth open, staring at me. So it is with the powerful. They grow so used to treating the rest of us as their pack of hounds that they do not know what to do when a dog barks back.
“What is more,” I continued, “I am a Christian man and have taken the Pledge. No drop of liquor has passed my lips in this city. Nor will it. Nor do I break the vows of holy wedlock. And I have done my soldiering in the field. Not behind a politician’s desk. So I will have no more of your insults, General Banks. I suggest you go about your proper business, and let me go about mine. Or we can both write letters to President Lincoln. Whom I have served on more than one occasion,” I added all too proudly. “And I will tell him that you do not know what goes on in this city a hundred yards from the comfort of your office. And that you do not wish to know.”
“You insolent little bastard. I’ll lock you up.”
“That you will not do. For you are pleased that you have relieved General Butler. But General Butler is not without great friends. And I hear that he would like to return to New Orleans. If my sense of Washington holds true, he would be glad to learn that you had prevented the president’s agent from investigating a Union citizen’s murder. And General Butler brings the president as many votes as you do, I believe. Not to speak of the father of Miss Peabody, who delivers Albany. Along with Mr. Seward, of course. Who I believe stood godparent to the dead lass. Sorry that would be, General Banks, to have your reputation damaged by your enemies … while you are serving our flag in Louisiana.”
His face abandoned shock in favor of outrage. “You’re blackmailing me!”
“No, General Banks, I am advising you. Against taking a decision before you are in possession of the facts. I hope you will maintain the best credit in Washington. Where every general wishes a good account
.”
He cast aside his haughtiness with a smirk. He was, after all, a successful politician and was not deeply troubled by convictions. His military service was but an interlude.
“Listen,” he said, reducing the distance between us. “The last thing any good Union man should want is for Ben Butler to get his greedy paws on this city again. He’s done more damage with his corruption and caprice than any twenty—”
“I did not say I wished General Butler’s return. Only that he wishes it. And there are those in the North who think of him highly. For his advocacy of raising negro regiments. And he is favored by the press, who believed his sternness proper.”
“Oh, that’s enough, damn it. You can stop your cant now, Jones.” He rolled his handsome head back over his shoulders, exhaling dramatically. “Don’t you see, man? I’m trying to fix the damage Butler did. And he did plenty. I can’t have the local population stirred up again.” He tossed up his hands. “I’m not saying Ben Butler did no good, either. He cleaned up their streets, for one thing. He brought a certain measure of law and order. I’ll credit him with that much. But the man didn’t obey the law himself. And his brother … that man lived up to every charge of scandalous behavior the Rebels ever leveled against us. Look here, Jones. All we want the people of this city to do is to be quiet and go about their business. So we can get on with the war. So I can push upriver. While that drunkard Grant sits in Memphis, doing nothing. And that lunatic Sherman throws his men away.” He shook his head in disgust. “They’ll never take Vicksburg. Or anything else worth taking. West Point men are worthless. You must know that. It’s up to men like us to win this war.”
“Well,” I said, with my voice gentled, “I do not wish to interfere with matters of strategy.”
“I won’t have trouble in the streets. I can’t have it.”
“And I will not hunt trouble. In the streets, or elsewhere. But I cannot promise that trouble will not hunt me. For I will tell you: More there is to the murder of Miss Peabody than any of us thought. What it is about, I cannot say. I have more questions than you have, General Banks. But there is a rottenness I can smell from here.” I touched my cheek unwillingly, yearning to calm my tooth. The flesh was hot. “Parties I do not know have tried to discourage me. But they have done the opposite …”
He did not look at me, but inspected the floor. Which wanted a proper cleaning. Past visitors had sometimes missed the cuspidor.
“Just go,” he said, in a voice that established a truce between the two of us. “Get out of here. And try to do as little damage as possible.”
I WENT OUT through the hill of blue ants the Customs House had become, holding my palm to my jaw and scowling helplessly. The day before, my toothache had been an annoyance. Now it was a misery, thanks to my indulgence at Mr. Champlain’s house. But I like a sweet. And virtue must have some reward.
Positioned to the rear of my mouth, the offending tooth seemed to swell in all directions. It wanted a remedy soon. But even the thought of dentists makes me squeamish, for they are cruel. A battle is but half the trial we face in the dentist’s chair.
Nor would I apply whisky, which some fellows do.
On my way down the last corridor of our headquarters, I overheard a captain complain that he had been sent to run the city workhouse, but could not keep the inmates at their labors for lack of material. What was he to do? A plump civilian promised a colonel a lovely supper at Galpin’s, while a clerk worried over a troop of negro laborers. The darkies had disappeared with a ditch unfinished, leaving a cesspit fouled at Jackson Barracks. Before his host could contain him, a cotton factor bellowed that he would not pay the same bribe twice.
That, too, was war, but not the sort we chronicle.
A better Christian than myself would have rushed back to the hotel and that frightened young woman. But I wandered the city, searching for a dentist. Even as I tried to avoid finding one. My walk was a crooked scuttle, for I had not had a chance to replace my cane. From head to toe, my person was awry. Nor would my thoughts come straight, for all my trying. I walked the pavements and crossed the mucky streets, with my ears as cold as they would have been back home. Imagining my face the size of a melon.
The city was in a queer state that January. Our occupation had opened the port to trade again and the shops were overflowing. But the men and women who crowded the streets could not afford to buy. They are as proud as peacocks, the creoles, but you saw at a glance that last year’s wardrobe had not been refreshed and a lady’s skirts had been hemmed with mismatched ribbon.
Just off Customhouse Street, in the Rue Chartres, Madame Olympe announced new Paris fashions. Her windows drew a crowd, but the shop stayed empty. On the corner of Canal and Royal, S. N. Moody’s advertised the finest in Gentlemen’s Furnishing Goods. Idle clerks minded the counters, while fellows afraid to try their credit strolled by. Men of fifty years looked sad as children as they passed the merchant’s door in their frayed cuffs. Hardly a fellow went by that shop without tugging down his coat sleeves or sneaking a glance at his shoes. New Orleans was a fancy ball that woke to a threadbare morning.
And then I saw a fearsome sight before me. I had made a circle, coming back toward the Customs House again. I never will forget the least detail. The address was 194 Canal Street. His name was Dr. Fielding. The sign, well worn, promised PAINLESS TOOTH EXTRACTION.
Indeed.
I told myself that I had no choice but to enter those awful premises. The pain was such that I could not eat, and that would never do. I hoped the fellow might offer a simple solution, allaying my fears that pulling had become necessary. But my hackles went up as I climbed the narrow staircase. It should have told me something that the fellow’s office was one flight above a woodworker’s shop that sold coffins.
And it should have warned me off that the fellow’s office was empty and dark. The door stood open, revealing an antechamber furnished with a church pew and two chairs. A bright-smiled beauty, recorded in a posture of innocent joy, advertised Groton’s Perfect Tooth Powder, which was GOOD FOR THE GUMS, AS WELL.
“Hello?” I tried.
That got me no reply. Twas almost excuse enough to take me right back down those stairs. But I am stubborn, if not always wise.
“Hello? Dr. Fielding?”
Again, I got no answer.
Turning to flee, I heard a response at last, from another room. Twas a groan that might have swelled from the lair of a beast disturbed in its slumbers.
A moment later, an inner door creaked open. A fellow too large for the premises, with a blacksmith’s shoulders and several days’ growth of beard, revealed himself in the foul light of the waiting room. He rubbed his eyes, yawned mightily, then fixed his eyes on my uniform, not my face.
“Hmmmph,” he said, blowing his nose in a rag that wanted a wash.
“Dr. Fielding?” I asked doubtfully. His dress evoked a bankrupt gambler, not a medical man. And his waistcoat was undone.
Yet, he had a look of strength, which is a dentist’s most important quality.
“Tooth?” he muttered.
I lowered my hand from my rebellious jaw. “It has become a bother. Mayhaps it is nothing at all.”
“Have a look,” he said. Gesturing with his thumb toward the room where he had been lurking.
I do not cut and run. I refuse to play the coward. Advancing slowly and cautiously, as if looking out for an ambush, I followed the fellow back into his surgery.
The light within was dreary. It hardly seemed sufficient for his trade.
“Sit,” he told me.
There was but a single chair in the room, of the sort employed by barbers, although this example had straps for the patient’s forearms.
I took my place and told him, “No need of belts, Dr. Fielding. I can hold my position, see.”
Oh, pride of man!
His surgical tools did not look especially clean. But Mick Tyrone’s concern with sanitary effects is not widespread in the medical professions.
“Really,” I told him, as he fixed a strap over my forearm, “that is not needful.”
“Hmmmph,” he said, pulling the belt tight. He moved to the other wrist.
“Really, I—”
“Leverage,” he grunted. As he cinched the straps I smelled him rather more closely than I wished.
“Open,” he said.
The instant I parted my lips, he shoved my head backward. Lowering his bewhiskered face as if he meant to fit it into my mouth.
“Bad,” he told me.
I wished to request some further detail, but a fat thumb jammed down my tongue and approached my windpipe.
Of a sudden, he grew loquacious. “Ought to take ’em all out. Get it over with.”
“Juth un, juth un,” I insisted.
“Take ’em all out and your breath won’t stink so bad. Get yourself a nice new set made up.”
“Juth un,” I pleaded.
“Well, which one?”
“Bat un.”
“Which one of the bad ones?”
“Bat un.”
He shoved a metal instrument into my maw. Its tip collided noisily with a tooth.
I fear I made a sound that was unmanly.
“That one?” He stabbed the appliance into a crevice. Twas then I understood the need of those belts.
“Unh,” I assured him.
“All right. But you’re a damn fool not to take ’em all out and be done with it.”
He removed his thumb and fiddled with his tools. Then he bent to a cabinet and produced a nearly empty bottle of whisky. He held it up to the bit of light that seeped through the dirty window.
“I have taken the Pledge, sir,” I told him, not without a certain regret.
He fortified himself with a swig from the bottle. Then took a second one.
“Open,” he said again, bending over my person. The smell of sweat and whisky was a punishment.
I opened.
He inserted yet another tool and tapped it on my tooth. Had I not been restrained, I might have leapt from the window.
“That one?” he asked, as if he had forgotten.
“Unh,” I agreed.