by Peter Quinn
Hughes straddled the boy. “What’s your name?”
The boy. tried to stand. Hughes drove a foot into his chest. “You aren’t a savage!” he shouted. “Your parents gave you a name!”
“Toss, me name is Toss Brady.”
Hughes took away his foot and helped him up. “Get out of my sight, Thomas Brady, and don’t let me see you near this animal again.” The boy took the wailing infants by their hands and hurried away. The air was filled with the acrid smell of the horse’s burned hair.
A second Moscow.
He had measured the reaction in the faces of Morris and Harper to those words. Their rat’s noses twitched with fear. They believed he could give the order and it would be done, the Paddies emptying from shebeens and cellars to do his bidding. But these streets contained the truth of the diocese of New York. A mass of people, few of whom knew him by sight, the most wretched of them in loose contact with the Church and the handful of priests he had to tend them. He would never apologize for what their oppressors had made them into. He must goad, push, guide them all. He knew what they were now, destitute, disorganized, and without discipline; but they were flesh of his flesh and he knew what they could become, and he would show the way, clear their path, so that they might be exemplars of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the moral superiors of their Yankee tormentors, the light that would lead America to the True Faith. Let the priests tend them in their particularity, consoling the broken and the doomed, baptizing, forgiving, burying. He would tend them as a flock, thousands upon thousands, use their strength of numbers to see to it that their hunger and exile, their suffering and sacrifices, their mourning and weeping in this vale of tears, weren’t without consequence in this life as well as the life to come.
*
“Your Grace, it’s time,” Corrigan said.
His sister crossed the room, stood beside them, picked the lint off his sleeve, swept his shoulders with her other hand. Saw her in the same mirror as himself. Both in black, birds of a feather, more crows than scarecrows.
Took Corrigan’s arm. Flabby, without muscle.
A few days before, Father Kavanaugh had stood in this very spot, tears in his eyes. Went on about the treatment of the Negroes. “What is being visited upon these people is shameful be-yond words.”
Sent him away. The cheek of him. What other priest had ever worked beside them in the fields, shared the same cup of water? Or written a poem as he had, in their defense, a poem that was published years ago in a newspaper in a small town above the Maryland border called Gettysburg?
Wipe from thy code, Columbia, wipe the stain;
Be free as the air, but yet be kind as free;
And chase foul bondage from thy southern plain;
Oh, let Afric’s son feel what it is—to be.
Youthful dreams. Let freedom be. In America, things were taken, not bestowed. Shove your way in, shoulder against the door. The Negro had his friends. Let them help him. He would speak for his own people. Before the children of Africa were conquered and enslaved, hadn’t the Saxons plundered the kingdom of Ireland? And though slavery rescued the African from his pagan superstitions and gave him the light of Christianity, hadn’t Ireland’s conquerors tried to extinguish the Faith, to uproot the foundations of northern Europe’s oldest Catholic realm? And though the Yankees wept and ranted over the sin of slavery, what tears had they shed over Ireland’s oppression, the exodus and mass starvation of her children, the destitute women and children left to die in ditches or to beg some small sustenance? What abolitionist had offered them a single crust of bread? What true friend of humanity had extended them a hand? Or had anything in his heart for them save derision, ridicule, disdain?
Let nobody lecture him about the Negro or the war.
What bishop had done more than he?.
He had preached the war and the draft from the pulpit: “For my own part, if I had a voice in the councils of the nation, I would say, ‘Let volunteers continue and the draft be made!’ This is not cruelty; this is mercy; this is humanity—anything that will put an end to this spilling of human blood across the whole surface of the country.”
Gone to Europe at the behest of Seward and Lincoln, to press the country’s cause with the French Emperor and the Pope. “You speak their language,” Seward said.
In Paris, the Emperor hardly said a word. Sipped brandy and watched the Empress as she leaned toward Hughes and pointed to a small scar next to her eye, a tiny crease in her milk-white skin. “Here, Bishop Hughes, here is a souvenir of the Republicans, something I have to remember them by, a sliver of iron from one of their bombs. They came close, but they forgot that it is not the gendarmerie who protects the Emperor, but God!”
“The Republicans in American don’t throw bombs,” Hughes said. “Our President upholds order, he does not subvert it.”
“Not throw bombs! Mr. Lincoln not throw bombs!” The Empress’s cheeks turned red. “Why, I wonder what Monsieur Davis and the good people of Virginia would think of your assertion! And tell me, Your Grace, is it a love of order that brings Mr. Lincoln to support Juarez and his Republicans in Mexico? They butcher priests and nuns, expropriate private property, and run out on the country’s debts, but I suppose from your point of view, Juarez has the interests of the Church at heart.”
In Rome, Cardinal Antonelli swiveled slightly in his chair and turned his profile toward Hughes. The image of Mother Seton jumped into his head, a memory from long ago, her severe profile behind a screen, image of a virgin martyr. Antonelli’s face was the other side of the coin. Imperial nose and forehead, the smooth features of a Roman emperor: a maker of martyrs.
The Cardinal folded his hands together in front of his face, the index fingers joined together and pointed upward. He leaned back in his chair and glanced toward the dark and distant recesses of the ceiling. “Pardon me, but I am perhaps a little confused,” he said. He unfolded his hands and held out his left palm. “On the one hand, you are a true supporter of the cause of the Holy See, which no one can doubt. But on the other, you travel on the business of President Lincoln, a friend to the Holy Father’s enemies, and you take it upon yourself to visit the Emperor, to insult both him and his wife, and in so doing to endanger the very future of the Church.” Antonelli moved each hand up and down as if it were part of a scale unable to come into balance. “Where is the true weight of one’s loyalty?”
“I insulted no one. I conveyed to the Emperor the President’s wish that we avoid war between our two countries. And who dares accuse me of disloyalty to the Holy Father?”
A cold smile from the Cardinal. The face of a gombeen-man, a scheming seminarian who had mastered the papal books and, without being ordained, fixed it so that the Pope couldn’t buy a pair of socks without his approval.
“My friend, you are loved and respected in this city, but, well, because of the great distance between Rome and America, a certain confusion has been allowed to arise, and essential matters have become obscured and blurred. It is regrettable but not incurable, I assure you. The time is coming when the Holy Father will dispel all doubt, when he will clarify his authority for the educated and uneducated alike, and there shall be no trying to disguise error as truth, and disloyalty will be expunged.”
“Who is it who says I am disloyal? Give me one name!”
“Please, Your Grace, we must go. We have placed a chair on the balcony.” Corrigan again. Pudgy folds of the neck protruding around the starched and immaculate collar, a nun’s labor.
Outside, a Roman sun, pitiless. Across the way, houses shuttered against the rioters, against the sun, perhaps against him. He sat, felt the humiliation of it as soon as he did. Gripped the balustrade, tried to pull himself up. No strength in his arms. This would have to do.
Cheering from below.
“They call you rioters, but I can’t see a rioter’s face among you …”
Christ, it was all a jumble, words, ideas, past, present. “If I could have met you anywhere, I should
have gone. But I could not go. My limbs are weaker than my lungs …”
The pulpit in the cathedral would be as high as this balcony. A marble perch. It would face a great rose window in the western facade, a circle of light, the eye of God, the unblinking Judge.
O Christ, what sin was so great that You should turn away Your face and abandon Your servant like this?
JULY 30, 1863
How we joyed when we met, and griev’d to part,
How we sighed when night came on;
How I longed for thee in my dreaming heart,
Till the first fair coming of the dawn.
—Stephen Collins Foster,
“Our Bright Summer Days Are Gone”
I
MARGARET WOKE TO A BLACK SKY, suffocating heat. In the east, over Brooklyn, a low streak of red signaled day. There was no wind. From below came the noise of wagons and drays, the city’s day already begun before the first light. Across the rooftop, other bodies began to stir, people rising up and becoming silhouettes against the dawn. She gathered up her bedding and went downstairs to Mrs. O’Sullivan’s, where she had been staying since the destruction of the Bedford house. The air was thick and stale and feverish. Mrs. O’Sullivan stirred but did not wake. Margaret grabbed a pitcher and went down into the yard. She pumped it full of water, took it back upstairs, and sponged herself. Her hair had come undone. Pieces of hair hung down her back. She would have to brush it and braid it again. She sat at the table by the stove.
She had spent that night after he rescued them in his room. He lived in a hotel. She wanted him to ask her there, and he did. Next day he took her to Mrs. O’Sullivan’s. Said he would call on her in the next few days. Two weeks had gone by. She had heard nothing. Never believed that story about him being with the gas company, at least not after that first day he had come to see the pipes. Miss Kerrigan was right. He was up to something. Maybe he had come to spy on Mr. Bedford, who had been acting most peculiar in recent times. Maybe he was intent on the shenanigans Miss Kerrigan accused him of, on burglary, but no common thief would have rescued them the way he had. Whatever he was, she didn’t care anymore. Just wanted to see him again.
She thought she was pregnant. Felt it from the first minute. Wouldn’t be absolutely sure for another week. But her flow was already late. Hadn’t worried about it at first. Told herself he would come back, they would get married, no one would ever know. Mrs. O’Sullivan saw the change in her mood. “Look, dearie,” she said, “if you’re puttin’ any faith in ever seein’ that one again, you’re invitin’ a terrible heartbreak.”
Margaret lay her head against the wall. In the corner of the ceiling, almost directly above, a spider worked intently on her web. Her front legs flashed in quick, certain motions. She moved back and forth, up and down, spinning the silken thread out of her stomach, weaving a crisscross pattern of self-created wire. She worked furiously, laying wire atop of wire, until Margaret realized it wasn’t just a web that she was constructing but a cocoon, a nest in which to hatch her eggs.
Margaret dressed quickly. She was working as a day servant now. Easiest work to get since the riot, and so many employers not wanting to have the Irish living under the same roof. Still, they couldn’t do without the help. Support herself till she became too big to work. What then? How desperate would she become? What help was there? Out of her stomach, life. But, Mother of Mercy, where was the web to sustain it? She went downstairs. At six-thirty, Dolan would slow his cart at the corner but not stop, and she and Maureen and Sheila would jump on for the trip uptown, save three cents each over what the horsecars charged. Be at work at seven and begin the cleaning right away.
They were there on time but Dolan was late. Maureen and Sheila chatted away. She didn’t hear what they were saying. She stared at the corner, praying for Dolan to appear. Can’t afford to lose this job. And then, instead of seeing Dolan, she saw him walking up the street, slowly, looking about suspiciously, hands in his pockets, so serious and, God, so handsome.
II
CATHERINE STREET SHOWED LITTLE TRACE of the riot. Brooks Brothers’ windows were nailed shut, pine boards hammered in place of the iron shutters the mob had ripped away. The glass in Mike Manning’s front window and the door had been replaced. A newly painted sign hung above: GERAGHTY’S SALOON. Dunne looked in. Nobody to be seen. Geraghty apparently didn’t have his predecessor’s ambition that this be the first place opened on the waterfront each morning, whiskey-baited pot laid on the sea bottom to snare those denizens who couldn’t crawl from bed to work without a glass or two.
Dunne stood in the gloom of the doorway. A few laborers appeared out of the morning mist and hurried toward the docks. They glanced around warily. Dunne stepped out and crossed the street. He turned and looked behind. Never knew, not after what had transpired during the riot and its aftermath. The booly dogs were still trying to catch the scent of those who had played a part or stashed some loot. Notices of reward posted everywhere. Troops still pulling people in. He hurried past Brooks Brothers, north on Cherry.
The sun began to burn away the mist. More people were about. Draymen hauled the day’s first load from the docks. Newsboys trotted toward the ferry-houses, hands and clothing smeared black from the freshly printed papers beneath their arms. Dunne looked behind again. Getting to be a habit. He had checked out of the New England the day after Mulcahey had run amok and smashed up the hotel bar, demanding to know where his girl, Eliza, had gone. She had left the hotel the morning the news of Squirt’s murder was brought by a stagehand from Brownlee’s. The stagehand said he was taking up a collection to give the colored boy a Christian burial, and when Eliza asked if he had seen Jack, he said, Sure, Jack is safe and sound, holed up in a saloon on Grand. She went out the door, pushed aside those who tried to stop her, without a word to anyone. But when Mulcahey showed up, he couldn’t be convinced she hadn’t told someone where she was headed. The Metropolitans had to be called in to subdue him. They clubbed him to the ground and hauled him away. Weren’t taking any chances these days. A few of them stayed behind and poked around the lobby, stopping people, asking questions.
Dunne left the next morning. Moved into a sailor’s hotel on Pike Street, a rickety, flea-ridden whore’s paradise, but it had already been raided and searched by troopers and seemed safe for now. Dunne knew he should be planning another job, a quick and easy piece, but he hadn’t been able to bring his mind to it.
A squad of Metropolitans passed down Scammel Street on their way to the waterfront. Never saw a booly dog alone these days. Didn’t go anywhere unless as a pack. Dunne slowed his step until they went past. He had traveled this same route every day, promising himself if he didn’t see her this time, he would never come back. Same broken promise every day. Margaret had agreed to come back to his room that day he got them safely out of Bedford’s. Left the old man and the Metropolitan with the neighbors. The cook looked at Margaret and him with the same mixture of contempt and suspicion. Didn’t seem impressed with the rescue Dunne had just performed. “What was it brought a gasman back to our door at such a time?” she asked. Dunne didn’t answer. Margaret didn’t seem to care. When they were alone, he held her so tight he surprised himself, almost as if he were clinging, and later, when they lay down on the bed in his room, she cried for a moment, and he kissed her as gently as he could, and she took the pins from her hair and it spread across the pillow like a shawl. They made love once, the first time for her. She rose and washed herself from the basin on the bureau, and they made love again. She fell asleep. He listened to the whisper of her breathing and lay awake till dawn.
He was glad she left the next day without a fuss. He walked her to the bottom of Jackson Street, said good-bye, some words about seeing her again, but was happy to be free once more. Had to get back into business now that Capshaw’s scheme was bust. She went up the street, stepped into an alleyway, and disappeared from sight. But she hadn’t gone away. She was still there, in his head, all the time. He hadn’t found a wa
y to get her out.
He knew where she was living. He could go and knock. But he couldn’t. How to put a kind face on a trade like his? He was sure that the truth would drive her away, unless he didn’t try to explain, said nothing save that he had left his job and planned to join the Army, and if she were willing, they could get hitched, take the bounty he got for signing up and add it to what he already had. Be enough to see her through. Once the war was over, they could start fresh.
He was thinking all these things, same as a hundred times before, when he came around the corner of Jackson and saw her standing with the other girls. He was startled. He thought at first that she was waiting for him. But in an instant the cartman arrived. The two other girls got on. She stood on the pavement watching him.
“Margaret, for Chrissake, get on!” the cartman yelled.
Dunne tried to force himself to approach her at a slow, de-liberate pace, to remember all the words he planned to say.
“Hello, Jimmy,” she said.
He had his hands in his pockets, eyes on the gray paving stones. He felt the girls in the cart staring down at him. “I’ve things I must talk to you about,” he said.
“Leave or stay, Margaret,” the cartman said. “But tell me which it is.”
“I can’t talk now,” she said. She took hold of the rail. Dunne took her other hand and helped her up. She stood in the back of the cart, the green eyes above him now, looking down. He tried to read what was in them but couldn’t.