The Condor's Head

by Ferdinand Mount

  Harnessing up old Beetle took less than five minutes the way Simmon reckoned it. He claimed he could be at the Landing within half an hour of receiving an errand and no sweating. Straight down Walnut Street, past Independence Hall, or the State House as older Philly people still called it, and you had a clear run. Mrs Suard always sent Simmon because he could write a fair hand, and the other yard boy, George, could barely scratch his mark and someone had to sign off the bill.

  Simmon had always been the brightest of the brood. That, after all, was why he was a free man holding down a position of trust in the big city, while his brothers and sisters were still back in Georgia. How had he gotten all the way up here? That was something of a mystery and even Mrs Suard, who was dandy at asking questions, had not got to the bottom of it. The most that Simmon had vouchsafed was that there was a minister in the next parish, the one who had been willing to christen him by this heathen name and who was notorious for his advanced views (Simmon had put it differently but nigger-loving was not a word that Mrs Suard cared to use to Mr Short, even in oratio obliqua) and would sometimes take on a bright houseboy and teach him the rudiments, which the older planters didn’t hold with at all because once they could read and write, where would we all be and we should hearken to Parson Malthus over in England who said that literacy among the lower orders was the gateway to perdition. Anyway, that would explain how Simmon could read and write but not how he had managed to travel all those miles crossing five state lines without being caught, not to mention the Savannah, the James, the Potomac and goodness knows how many other rivers. There was a suggestion that the minister’s services might not have been confined to the instilling of literacy, but Simmon clammed up on the subject. Perhaps he was not quite sure of the details himself or perhaps he preferred to forget.

  ‘Simmon, Simmon, wait, boy.’ He was turning out of the side lane into Walnut Street when a middle-aged man burst out of Mrs Suard’s front door, gasping for breath.

  ‘Why, g’morning, Mr Short, how are you today?’

  ‘I must come with you.’

  ‘Lordy, Mr Short, I don’t need no help. They know me down at the Landing. My name’s good for most anything there.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ said the middle-aged gentleman hopping up on the wagon with some nimbleness and settling himself beside Simmon. ‘But I wish to make sure of the package and convey my thanks to Captain Hillard in person.’

  ‘Ain’t right for you to be sitting up in this old cart. I’d have had George sweep it out if I’d known you was coming with me. Or we could have harnessed up the carriage.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve travelled in worse tumbrils than this, Persimmon, my boy.’

  The middle-aged gent was sandy-haired and slight of build, though beginning to run to fat a fraction (it would have been an insult to Mrs Suard’s cooking not to). He was wearing a high-collared velveteen coat that matched pretty close his mop of hair. There was an uncomfortable alert sort of look in his eye, as though he had an idea of what you were up to and didn’t much like the sound of it, and when his face relaxed his mouth had a sad turndown, though he was always cheerfulness itself to Simmon. He had come out in some haste and he was still tying his snowy stock as he sat down on the old plank seat.

  ‘Walk on, Beetle. Tell him to walk on, we can’t wait all day. I have business with the Chesapeake Canal people at noon. I shall probably be late, well, no matter,’ he said all in much the same breath, digging out his gold watch from the fob pocket of his blue waistcoat and glaring at it as at some acquaintance who was in the habit of giving him trouble.

  ‘Must be a mighty important package to keep the Chesapeake Canal waiting.’

  ‘It is, Simmon, you’re right.’

  Persimmon Williams cocked his head in Mr Short’s direction in the expectation of further particulars. But Mr Short just smiled and said nothing.

  After a pause: ‘Worth a few dollars I dare say, massa.’

  ‘Worth a lot to me. And don’t call me massa if you please. We’re not in Georgia now.’

  ‘Yes, suh,’ Simmon replied smartly.

  ‘And easy with that whip, boy. This isn’t a chariot race.’

  ‘Yes, suh.’

  The dogwood was not quite out yet. Even so the pink and white blossom was clustered so thick on the branches that you could scarcely make out the library and the Philosophical Hall behind – all in that dignified red brick that made Philadelphia the finest city any place in Simmon’s humble opinion, and he had heard Mr Short express the same opinion too.

  ‘That dogwood smells mighty fine,’ Simmon remarked a few blocks further on.

  ‘Not dogwood, Simmon, azalea – canadense if I’m not mistaken. Mr Jefferson had those plants sent up from Monticello when they weren’t above eighteen inches tall.’

  They were passing the site of the Pennsylvania Savings Bank, which was building at the corner of 3rd Street in a cloud of white dust. The workmen were sawing great chunks of stone for the pillars, in the Greek style of course, everything had to be Greek in the new Athens. Most of the masons had tied cloth kerchiefs round their heads to keep the dust off their hair. They gave a raucous cheer as the cart went by and one of them shouted something Simmon could not quite catch. Well, it was an oddity to see a middle-aged gentleman in a velveteen coat sitting in a common grocery cart with a Negro boy who looked as if he had been pulled through a briar patch backwards. But Mr Short did not pay much heed to what other folks thought, that was what Simmon liked about him.

  Beetle trotted over the little rise and all at once they could see the Delaware river spread out before them and the low hills of New Jersey beyond, and on the shining expanse of water a great mass of ships that jostled around the quays like flies around a rotten squash.

  ‘Mark-ee’s berthed on the south quay, Mrs Suard say, captain name of Hillhead’.

  ‘Hillard,’ Mr Short corrected, ‘and the ticket’s marked S.H.I.’

  ‘Yes, suh.’

  But Captain Hillard was not on board for them to pay their respects to. In fact, the entire company seemed to have abandoned ship in favour of the quayside taverns. Only a couple of coloured hands were to be seen gloomily swabbing the decks. These two remnants agreed with some reluctance to conduct them down the companionway, which smelled horrible of cheese and leather and vinegar and another nastier odour, and it was a relief when they found S.H.I. almost immediately.

  It was a big square crate, some four and a half feet high, wrapped in travel-stained burlap and secured with greasy cords to the central pillar to stop it sliding. And heavy too.

  God, how heavy it was. It took all four of them to push it across the hold to a position below the open hatch from which they could winch it up on deck.

  ‘Reckon it weighs a ton at least,’ one of the hands said, wheezing and purple in the face from the effort.

  Even with the winch the crate came up painfully slowly and they had the devil of a job to lift it over the ship’s side and let it down into the waiting cart, which gave an alarming creak as it took the full weight.

  ‘Don’t you dare drive back the way you came, Simmon, or you’ll shake this old cart to pieces.’

  ‘Sure thing, suh, I’ll take her back as slow as if we were taking a poor body to the graveyard.’

  He was as good as his word and they proceeded back up Walnut Street at a pace that would have made a funeral procession look frisky. Even so the cart continued to give out ghastly creaks and to judder from side to side, and they had to stop to tie the ropes tighter to the pegs to prevent it from sliding about. Beetle could barely manage the last upward incline, gentle though it was, and to lessen the weight Mr Short got out and walked alongside the cart until they reached the Savings Bank again. His walking alongside enhanced the funereal impression, and a couple of the ghostly masons bowed their heads and folded their hands on the handles of their bandsaws in mock reverence, chuckling mightily the while.

  At the top of the rise Mr Short remounted, but they maintained t
his sedate pace until they reached the corner of the lane by No. 70, where Beetle, delighted to be close to home after this gruelling excursion, pricked his mangy old ears and on the slight downward slope picked up speed to something approaching a trot, and the crate strained horribly at the ropes and Mr Short threatened to be obliterated by it, the cords rubbing fiercely against his blue vest and the corner of the burlap inflicting severe damage on his left toe.

  ‘We had better unpack it out here in the yard,’ Mr Short said after he had regained his composure. ‘I understand there are several items inside and if we break them up into separate loads we can carry them up without killing ourselves.’

  Simmon summoned little George to give assistance or rather to give orders to. And with the aid of little George’s pocket knife they soon had the cords cut and the burlap stitches unpicked, and the shroud fell away to reveal the sturdy firwood bars of the crate and the straw densely packed inside.

  ‘Is it an animal?’ George enquired.

  ‘Is you an idiot?’ Simmon riposted. ‘How would an animal breathe inside that canvas and anyways you ever heard of an animal that didn’t have no smell?’

  George took this reproof in silence and began hammering at the bars with a vehemence that provoked Mr Short to tell him to go gently.

  It was not long all the same before George had freed up one side of the crate and they began pulling out the straw in handfuls. Mr Short had taken off his coat and laid it on the bench at the end of the yard by the door to the stable. There was a light glistening of sweat on his forehead as he smoothed away the wisps of straw and pulled out a parcel wrapped in rough cloth.

  ‘Books,’ snorted George as Mr Short unwrapped half a dozen finely bound volumes.

  ‘Just cos you can’t read, there’s no cause to be so high-toned,’ said Simmon.

  Mr Short took out a little grey cloth notebook and began to check the volumes against a list he appeared to have handy for the occasion. ‘Three volumes by Monsieur de Chateaubriand, four volumes of Humboldt’s essays, ah, and these must be the letters of poor blind Madame du Deffand. What a woman, she was before my time, of course, but they say an hour in her company surpassed any other pleasure in Paris.’

  He was caught on the edge of a reverie, squatting by the gillyflowers, holding the books up to the sunlight, seeming almost unconscious of his helpers. George, making up for his earlier disdain, carefully took the books from Mr Short and began dusting them with his sleeve before laying them down on the cloth they had been wrapped in, although they did not really need much attention, being in remarkably good condition after their long sea voyage.

  Simmon had meanwhile been pulling out the rest of the straw and the remaining contents of the crate were exposed to view.

  ‘Lordy,’ exclaimed George, ‘he’s an ugly great crittur, aint he?’

  The three of them peered at the marble bust, gleaming white amid the cracked and dusty straw. It was a little larger than life and its beaky face gazed back at them from the broken bars of the crate with something of the disdain of a wild animal kept in a menagerie for public amusement. The gaze was ironic, sidelong, uncannily lifelike, but above all it was scornful. One of the onlookers might have just made a remark that the bust thought utterly contemptible. The bust had a wig on it streaked with highly incised and subtly planed locks that looked as if they had been dressed and powdered five minutes earlier. A series of drill holes defined the shadowy recesses of the wig’s roll over the ears and down the neck. As they gently levered him out of the broken crate, they could see a long queue tied with a broad and heavy bow such as in Philadelphia only a lady would wear. This luxuriant mane flowed down the back all the way to where the carving stopped. In front, the negligent lapels of his coat opened to reveal a crumpled waistcoat and a froth of fine cravat. But it was the expression that stayed with you. How cold it was, more frigid than the marble it was carved in, with that half-smile on the lips that was more contemptuous than any scowl.

  ‘Who is he?’ George asked, awestruck.

  ‘Got his name here on his arm, any fool can see that,’ Simmon said with some scorn. ‘Mr Hoodun Fakit, that’s his moniker.’

  ‘No, no, Simmon, that’s the signature of the man who carved it, Monsieur Houdon.’

  ‘Why’s it say he faked it then?’

  ‘Fecit is Latin for made it,’ Mr Short said, stepping to one side to admire the bust from a different angle, so taken up with the contemplation of it that he seemed unaware his fine black boots were trampling the flowerbed.

  ‘Come on, boys,’ he said when he had done, ‘let’s take it inside and put it in the parlour.’

  Simmon, who was quick to notice such things, noticed that Mr Short’s voice had gone thick somehow as if he had a frog down his throat. And it was as much out of kindness as curiosity that he persisted in asking so who was the marble gentleman if he weren’t Mr Fakit.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr Short, still sounding thick in the throat though a little recovered, ‘it’s the Condor.’

  ‘The Condor?’ Why did none of these people have plain ordinary names like Persimmon Williams?

  ‘D’Alembert called him that, le Condor. It’s a species of vulture. You find them in California, and the Andes too. Look, see how hunched he is, how his neck goes back into his shoulders, and look at his great beak.’

  But Mr Hoodun Fakit had done his faking so admirably that the two boys could see nothing but a marble gentleman with a sniffy sort of smile on his face.

  ‘So it’s a nickname then, not his real one?’ Simmon persisted.

  ‘Of course. Permit me to introduce you to the Marquis de Condorcet, the finest mathematician of his age and the most daring philosopher, perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences, a loyal friend to Mr Jefferson and to your humble servant.’ Mr Short made a humorous little bow. He had recovered his voice now but Simmon saw that there were tears on his weathered cheek.

  ‘So he sent you this statue all the way from France as a keepsake?’

  ‘No, he’s long dead, Simmon, more than twenty years back. He killed himself, took poison.’

  ‘What did he do that for?’

  ‘Well, they had arrested him and he was in jail and he knew he would be sent to the guillotine.’

  ‘There weren’t much point to it then, poisoning himself if he were going to have his head chopped off anyway.’

  ‘I suppose he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction, preferred to do it by his own hand.’

  ‘My,’ said Simmon. George said nothing but stood there squinting at the bust, then rubbed his eyes because the bust was so dazzling white in the sunlight that it hurt him to look at it too long.

  ‘I’m very glad to have it,’ Mr Short said ruminatively, ‘but I had forgotten how large it was. I really don’t believe it will fit into my modest quarters here. I had best give it to Philosophical Hall, that would surely be the most fitting place for it in any case. He was such a friend to our country, he was one of “les Américains” as they called them, but oh dear.’ He began to look sorrowful again, but this time he shook himself and said quite tartly, ‘Now then, look sharp. I want to have it sitting in the parlour by the time Mrs Suard comes back from Locust Street. I mean to give her a little surprise.’

  Gingerly they hefted the great marble along the brick path and up the back steps, and through the pleasant gloom of the hallway. The shutters were still drawn to in the French fashion to keep the rooms cool, as Madame Suard insisted, and the parlour was especially murky. Mr Short smoothed a square of burlap on the round table so as not to spoil the veneer and very carefully the boys lowered the bust on to it. The three of them stood back for one last look.

  In the murk the bland noble aspect of the bust had disappeared. Instead, the head looked hunched, menacing, poised to strike. The flappy lapels of the coat suggested furled wings, which might be going to unfurl the next minute.

  ‘Yeah, I reckon that’s a vulture all right,’ said Simmon.

  ‘Thank you,
boys, thank you,’ said Mr Short, already turning back into the hallway as he fumbled for a coin to give them. ‘I must make haste or I shall be late for the canal business.’

  The boys went their separate ways, Persimmon down below to finish up the silver and George off into the garden to begin a little desultory hoeing of the flowerbeds. Most of the other gentlemen boarders being at their bureaux, 70 Walnut Street returned to its usual slumbrous calm.

  It must have been nearly an hour later that Mrs Suard came back from her business at the drapers – replacing all the table napkins and a quantity of the bedlinen too, a matter involving considerable expense and therefore prolonged negotiation with Mr Macmanus, the tightfisted manager of the store. She was tired and a little out of breath as she came through the parlour on the way to the study, unpinning her hat as she went, as she was in the habit of doing.

  At first Simmon thought the cry came from the street. Was it the tail end of some hawker’s yell, the earlier part of it obscured by the rumble of the cart? Yet it seemed to come from directly above his head, just where he had heard Mrs Suard’s heavy footsteps only a few seconds before he heard the cry. Anyway, he was sure it was a woman’s scream.

  He found her in the parlour, lying half on the floor but with her head lolling against the upright settle, which she had pushed sideways in her fall. Her hat lay crushed beneath her black skirt. She was just about conscious now and she was mumbling words he couldn’t get the hang of, but it was clear enough she had fainted, clean away was his guess. Well, women did faint, he knew that, and she was an old lady and it was a warm day especially when you hadn’t gotten used to the heat, it being the first days of spring, but he blamed the marble gentleman because there was something about the marble gentleman that was damnably spookish. It was the marble gentleman who had made the tears run down Mr Short’s cheeks, and now he had given Mrs Suard a seizure. It was Simmon’s view that the quicker he harnessed up Beetle again and took the marble gentleman down to Philosophical Hall, the sooner this house would be a place fit for decent folks to live in again.