by John Enright
It was a delightful meal. The wine was fine. Ms. Arnold continued her monologue from the night before about the famous historic rogues and idiots, scoundrels and scandals of New Jerusalem. Chronology meant nothing to her. The story of an eighteenth century minister caught in bestiality would be followed by an account of a recent city councilman arrested for shooting his mistress’s pimp. History was just a dateless porridge of human frailty and fuckups. Dominick found it charming. He seldom had to say a word, just laugh, and she would go on, a Baedeker of broken commandments.
The waiter had cleared and they were awaiting their coffee and cognacs when a wiry, gray-haired man approached their table and Ms. Arnold introduced Lord Witherspoon to her cousin Carlos. Dominick cleared his throat and grunted a hello. He was craving a cigar with his coffee and cognac—an impossibility that especially irked him after so fine a meal. But no, that would, of course, be committing a crime. Carlos had an irritating voice—nasal and whiny. He was complaining about something to his cousin. “Do you believe that? Claimed he never heard of it!”
“That man and the truth are sworn enemies, Carlos. I don’t know why you deal with him. By the way, I don’t know what your plans are, but Lord Witherspoon here has expressed an interest in purchasing my portion of the general’s letters. Perhaps he may be interested in your portion as well.”
Carlos looked at Dominick and Dominick looked at Ms. Arnold, like passing a question mark.
“Don’t you think that might be best? Their ending up quietly back in England?” Ms. Arnold asked. “Without any messy auction and publicity here?”
Carlos was now looking back and forth from Ms. Arnold to Lord Witherspoon like one of those bobblehead dolls only much larger. The waiter returned with their after-dinner drinks, and Carlos had to step aside.
“But now is not the time to discuss such things, is it? Ta-ta, Carlos. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
They had both sampled their coffee and cognacs before Dominick asked, “Your portion of the general’s letters?”
“Oh, Carlos has been pestering me for months now to sell him the letters that I have, so that he could have them all. But I don’t want to. We’ve kept them a secret thus far. I want you to have them and take them back to England and do whatever you want with them. They will only become more valuable with time.”
“But we had not discussed it.”
“Hadn’t we? I thought we had. I’ve gone over our conversation several times in my mind. But the offer still stands. I will sell the letters to you rather than Carlos, and I think you should purchase his as well, put an end to this whole unfortunate mess, take it all away with you and make a nice profit on it later.” Ms. Arnold reached across the table to put her hand on top of Dominick’s. “When you arrived last night, Lord Witherspoon, you were like a prayer answered, my humble knight in hiding come to save me.”
Dominick paid the fat check with a credit card.
Ms. Arnold allowed Lord Witherspoon his occasional cigar only if he stood by an open window. It didn’t seem to matter if the breeze wafted the smoke back into the house, just that he be by an open window. It was a cold October night when they got back from dinner. Rather than chill out her parlor, Dominick smoked his Romeo y Juliet Churchill outside the closed front door. He took a snifter of single malt with him. The cold did not bother him, but there was nowhere to sit down on the stone stoop, and he disliked standing when he smoked. He made the best of it. Inside, Ms. Arnold was fetching the letters she wanted him to buy so that he could examine them. As if he knew anything about old letters. He only half-finished his cigar before going back in. He was not enjoying it properly, not giving it his undivided attention.
Ms. Arnold had the letters displayed on her dining room table. The lace tablecloth beneath them was a nice touch. The letters were old. The once-folded pages were yellow and dry, the ink turned sepia. There were maybe twenty of them, each of multiple pages, written in an open cursive with what must have been a quill pen, judging from the occasional blots and uneven ink density. Most were accompanied by their original postal envelopes. The first page of each letter bore a date in its upper right-hand corner, all from the 1790s. The last page of each letter bore the bold, backward-slanting signature of Benedict Arnold.
“They were only discovered four years ago,” Ms. Arnold said. “I can give you all the details, their provenience and authentication. It was my aunt, Carlos’s mother, who came across them. She was dying, going through her attic. She secretly gave them to me—there were twice as many then—because she didn’t trust Carlos to do the right thing by them.”
Dominick was carefully picking up pages, examining them, and setting them aside. It occurred to him that he ought to be wearing gloves of some archival sort. He stopped.
“They have all been copied and transcribed. The transcriptions are here,” Ms. Arnold said, picking up a ring binder, ‘along with the experts’ authentication certificates.
They are letters the general sent secretly to his family back here in New England after he moved on to London.”
“And you want to sell them?” was all Dominick could think to say.
“After the old lady died, Carlos raised a stink about my having the letters. It was holding up the probate, so I agreed to give him half of them. I’m afraid my half-wit cousin Carlos and his white-trash wife are going to auction off his letters a piece and a parcel at a time, destroying their integrity and just feeding the anti-Arnold forces.”
“And you want to . . . ?” Dominick retreated from the table and its letters to a sideboard where he had left his snifter.
“Why, keep them altogether and protected and properly cared for.”
“And hidden somewhere in England.”
“General Arnold’s story is much, much more complex and intriguing and sympathetic to him than American historic demonology has allowed. Don’t you see, Lord Witherspoon? If you agree to purchase my set of letters, Carlos would readily settle to sell you his as well, not for any altruistic or family loyalty reasons but because he needs—he always needs—the ready cash.”
Dominick took a sip of scotch and made a several-syllable affirmative sound in his throat.
“And I will sell you my half of the letters for a fraction of their appraised value—I don’t need the money—thereby setting the price for Carlos’s parcel.”
“A win-win situation, as they say. Except for Carlos.”
“Carlos and those profiteers at the auction houses and those so-called scholars eager to misconstrue anything in order to further demean the general’s character. There are people out there, Lord Witherspoon, who deserve to lose.”
Dominick took the ring binder of transcriptions and papers to bed. He found the letters quite boring, which, he surmised, was testimony to their authenticity. Parts of the letters were in a yet unbroken cipher code, which a footnote explained was common practice for international business correspondence at the time, when transoceanic correspondence was almost as likely to end up in a competitor’s or enemy’s hands as its intended recipient’s. More proof of their authenticity. There were references to payments for the education of a minor child in St. Johns, New Brunswick, whom historians had reason to believe and this would prove—another footnote—was Arnold’s illegitimate child. A handwriting expert had matched the letter signatures to those on other official documents. But nowhere was there the hint of a human being behind the letters. No one emerged, not even a mask. And if the documents had been appraised, there was no figure mentioned anywhere. Not that it mattered, as Dominick had no intention of Lord Witherspoon even pretending to have an interest in purchasing them.
Dominick slept late as usual. He preferred rising during those quiet hours of late morning after everyone else in the house had already rushed off on their daily business and neighborhood children were safely caged in school. The housewife’s soap opera hours, every homestayer’s secret sweet spot in the day. He was determined to head home that day, but Ms. Arnold was not about when he cam
e downstairs, and he really could not leave without a proper farewell and a response to her offer. Dominick was wearing his own clothes again. He had hung the gangster suit back in the closet. He had decided that he would thank Ms. Arnold for her offer to sell him the letters, but inform her that a family injunction precluded him from expending any estate money on antique art or documents—the family had been burned too many times before—and really all he had to spend was estate money.
Dominick finally lost patience waiting and was writing a note at the dining room table when he heard the front door open. It was Ms. Arnold with her cousin Carlos in tow. Or was he pursuing her? They were in mid-conversation. “. . . has nothing to do with it,” Carlos was saying, “and neither does she. It’s you.”
“Oh, it’s me, is it?” Ms. Arnold answered him, then she called out, “Yoo-hoo, Lord Witherspoon, are you up and about?”
They met in the hallway. Dominick was crumpling up his note.
“Witherspoon, I can’t let you take those letters out of the family and out of the country.” Cousin Carlos was wasting no time on pleasantries. “I have offered Martha what I think is a decent and fair sum for them, and I would appreciate it if you could respect our family peace and patriotism enough to let that be the end of the matter.” He paused as if waiting to find out what else he might have to say, thought of nothing. “Thank-you.”
“Lord Witherspoon, I am so sorry. I told Carlos that you hadn’t even named a sum yet.”
“I’ll match it,” Carlos said with a nod of his head and a firm lip.
“I had no idea of the . . . eh . . . deep family concerns here,” Dominick said.
“Do you have any idea, sir, can you imagine, sir, if your surname was the national synonym for traitor?” Cousin Carlos took a step closer. “These letters can only refresh those ugly elements again. They must be suppressed, and I am willing to make any sacrifice to see that they do not leave New Jerusalem.”
“Well, I . . .” Dominick felt compelled to say something, but what?
“Carlos.” Ms. Arnold turned on her cousin. “How dare you impugn Lord Witherspoon’s intentions with the suggestion that this is anything more than a simple business exchange.”
“There you go again, Martha. I’m not impugning anything.” And they went off on an argument about their relative purity of motive, or something. Their voices grew quickly louder and overlaid one another. It was an ancient argument in which Dominick had no part. He walked off toward the kitchen, unmissed. He was putting some water on to boil for tea when he heard Carlos leave with a final loud “You know where I stand.”
When Ms. Arnold came into the kitchen, Dominick asked, “Where do you keep your tea?”
“You mustn’t pay too much attention to Carlos,” Ms. Arnold said as she pulled a can of Earl Grey down from a cupboard. “He gets excited easily.” She spooned loose tea into a Chinese teapot. “Are you interested in the letters, Lord Witherspoon? Carlos’s remonstrations mean nothing.”
Dominick explained to her his familial restrictions against his buying anything besides real estate. “I had an uncle who managed to lose a large portion of the family fortune through foolish purchases and scams. Hence the estate prohibits any investments save property. And I myself make a point of not collecting anything. Thanks for the offer, though. Sorry.”
“No harm done, my lord. It was just an offer. Even without a real bidding war between you and Carlos, his offer is quite acceptable. I’ll take it.”
Dominick was watching the tea kettle not boil. “You will take it? But I thought . . .”
“Oh, your interest put quite the scare into Carlos, along with my willingness to sell an Englishman some of our dirty family linen. He won’t do anything with them. He’ll hide them. Maybe he will even burn them.” The kettle was now whistling, and Ms. Arnold poured the steaming water into the Chinese teapot. “It doesn’t matter.”
“So, you’re not afraid of . . . ?” What was it she had been afraid of? “What do you mean, it does not matter?”
“Oh, the letters and the authentication papers are all fakes, forgeries. Good enough to fool Carlos but not any reputable auction house expert. They’re worthless, really, all of them, including the half, the bait, I’d already given Carlos.”
“But you were willing to sell them to me as real?”
“Oh, yes. You’re an outsider. And if you had bought Carlos’s letters as well, then we both would have made out fine. But no matter, I’ll take Carlos’s money and be done with it. He’ll probably never find out the truth.” Ms. Arnold was setting out teacups and saucers for them. “Cream and sugar, Lord Witherspoon?”
Chapter 3
It was just fucking cold and there was nowhere to go to get warm. Their eighteen-foot aluminum dory rose and fell and bounced on the dirty-dishwater-colored waves. Every ninety seconds a foghorn sounded off to their right. Sometimes the fog cleared enough so that they could see the next oncoming wave and prepare, sometimes not. Atticus was crouched in the stern over the currently dysfunctional outboard motor—something about the carburetion. Dominick sat on the center seat, his back to the prow, just able with his six-foot-plus wingspan to grasp simultaneously both the port and starboard gunwales. Although all of him was cold, his sneakered feet were coldest, awash in the frigid seawater that sloshed back and forth in the bottom of the boat.
The soiled and worn yellow foul-weather gear that Atticus had found for Dominick to wear was several sizes too small for him. The sleeves ended on his forearms. The pants were a laugh. But Dominick was not laughing. “Where are all the other boats?” he yelled as calmly as he could, trying to sound as if all this were just foreplay for a larger adventure.
Atticus did not answer. He did not have his hearing aid in, so even if he did hear he would not have to answer. The motor came briefly to life then died. The foghorn moaned again, sounding even closer. Atticus was whistling now, something that sounded frighteningly like a sea chantey, and a wave hit them broadside, spilling more sea into the boat. “You might bail,” Atticus said. Crouched down in the stern, he was up to his asshole in water. Dominick went back to bailing with one hand, never letting go of the boat with the other.
Occasionally, being a houseguest entailed making huge mistakes. It was essential not to have or express any political ideas at all. They were the proper property of those who owned real property and paid real taxes, like your hosts. Transients did not deserve the vote, or even an opinion. Local and party politics—like religion—were topics to be avoided. They only led sooner or later to dysfunction and departure. Dominick knew the rules—do not take a position, do not get involved. So, how had he gotten himself here, adrift in an open boat on a wintery sea as part of a demonstration in protest against something he did not understand? A huge mistake, and he had his host Atticus to thank for it. He stopped bailing to try and blow some warmth into his fingers. The motor started up again, belched out a cloud of blue smoke, then stayed alive, running rough but steady.
“We’ll head back,” Atticus said; although how he could tell which way was back escaped Dominick.
Dominick had once joked that the reason New Englanders liked boating so much was that then they could enjoy being wet, cold, and uncomfortable all year long. That was not funny now. Atticus was in his element here. His face was lit up as if there were a fire burning inside him. His eyes sparked with life. He was whistling again, just softly, badly, but contentedly to himself. Dominick couldn’t stand watching and turned around to face forward. As the boat got up speed the prow rose up and all the bilge washed backward around Atticus’s happy, snuggly sea-booted feet. Damn the ancient mariner and all his causes, Dominick thought. He still could see nothing beyond twenty feet in front of them.
Supposedly out there with them on the bay was a flotilla of similarly protesting private vessels. But who knew? Who could tell in the fog? It had not been long after leaving the marina that the other small boats that left with them vanished from sight and then sound. “We have to spr
ead out,” Atticus told him, “form a curtain they can’t get through.” Atticus set off on his own course, without compass or chart, toward the mouth of the bay. Dominick said something about never liking the alternative connotations of the term “dead reckoning.” But Atticus assured him, “Don’t worry. This bay has been my backyard since I was just a kid in a skiff.”
Dominick was not quite sure what it was they all were forming an impermeable—albeit invisible—curtain against. This lack of a seemingly important fact arose from his professional practice of ignoring all news of the day. That morning Atticus had asked him if he would mind giving him a hand moving a boat. The boat was already up on a trailer. All they had to do was get it to the water and put it in. “But I thought everyone was taking their boats out of the water,” Dominick said. “Oh, she’s just going in for the day. Then we’ll take her back out,” Atticus answered.
This made so little sense to Dominick that he refused to pursue it. How bad could it be, putting a boat in the water then taking it out? It was a balmy late autumn day with a hazy egg-yolk sun in the sky. He went off to put on some outdoor clothes, never asking what the point was of putting a boat in the water and then immediately taking it out. New England seasonal customs. He wondered if they still planted corn with a dead fish for fertilizer the way the original natives taught them.
The boat was borrowed. The last of Atticus’s vessels had gone with the estate. He was, after all, supposed to be in a Florida retirement condo by now. The boat was up on its trailer parked in someone’s backyard. The owner—in an incongruous Red Sox sweatshirt and Yankees cap—was loaning them his pickup truck as well to haul the trailer. “I’m with you on this one, Mr. Jameson,” he said to Atticus. “A hundred percent behind you. I wish I could go with you, but you can have her for the day.” The boat was a battered but sturdy-looking aluminum-hulled working dory, mounted with a large if also well-used-looking outboard engine. The pickup truck was newer, an F-150. Atticus drove, looking like a little kid behind the wheel.