Aimé had stolen fruit stashed in his satchel and wore a loosely knotted scarf. His shoulder leaned against the post, gently testing its strength, and he liked the feel and sound of the creaking wood over and above the tumult of hollers and cries. There were raised voices all around but none addressed him. Passersby pushed and cursed with a zeal that quickened the pace of human interaction. Along the boulevard, people came and went and carts zigzagged in every direction, missing pedestrians by a hair.
On a stand beside Aimé, huge keen-eyed fish were laid out on crushed ice. The fishmonger called out prices and made propositions, paying Aimé no mind as he crunched his apple while, across the street, she alighted from the tram and stepped delicately onto the road’s dirty shoulder. In her wake came a gaggle of children, some very young and some not far from her in age. Aimé numbered them at five, not counting her; she was already in a class of her own.
She placed first one foot on the ground, and then the other, with a firm grip on the metal bar of the tram, which had stopped on the corner of Sainte-Catherine. The colourful troupe of kids encircled her, holding hands. She adjusted her hat, crossed the street to the store, and walked in without looking Aimé in the eye, where she might have discerned something of importance, something they could share for a fraction of a second and cherish to the end of their days. Caught in the middle of this din, Aimé dropped his apple and hurried over to the front window to observe her reflection.
Even from behind, and in spite of her modest dress, she was resplendent in the dusty store. Aimé had never seen anything so beautiful. Her brown dress reached the floor, hiding the elegant shoes with visible stitching he’d glimpsed earlier. He even saw a sliver of petticoat when she approached the counter, and one of the kids, a small girl, leaned over to fix a fold. Aimé figured it must be her sister, and the four boys her brothers. From what little he had seen of her face, mostly in profile as she walked toward him, he believed they were related. The oldest, who seemed almost her same age, looked impatient. He hung back. Maybe deep down he longed to take the reins of this family outing, address the merchants as the family patriarch. But Aimé could tell she was the eldest and in charge of the group. After giving the shopkeeper her order, without a backward glance, she placed a gloved, authoritative hand on the wrist of her brother, whose breathing slowed as he stared at the ground..
At a glance Aimé guessed sixteen. He wasn’t wrong: she was born in 1846, the first in a family whose children would number ten when the last one came into the world. The little girl turned around and almost caught Aimé spying on them, but he hid behind a protruding wall. Aimé dried his moist hands on his pants and wondered what her name could be. From there, he would have guessed Marie or Angéline. He pictured names in a baptistery, pretty as slowly polished pearls or expertly blown glass beads. The excitement in the street was palpable, and it was rubbing off on him, he could feel it in his chest and down into his boots. He walked at a steady, natural pace past the window and glanced inside, as if it were nothing, as if he were ambling down the Main from store to store, on his way to buy (or steal) a round of pastrami from the Jew at the bottom of the hill. For a second, after stopping on the other side, he wondered whether he shouldn’t simply have followed her in, waited for her to finish, and then placed an order of his own, for anything or nothing, just to hear the sound of her voice, listen to her tell her brother off and maybe see her turn around to face him when the doorbell rang. She would turn and, at the exact same moment, they would both understand one and the same thing. And for the rest of their lives they would tell themselves the story of this moment, though when she died he would still look like a man in his prime, only just beginning to age and to stoop. He’d long been aware of his unnaturally slow metabolism. No one had ever explained it to him, and he never talked about it, not even to himself, not much at any rate, though it defined and explained his incongruous presence wherever he went. It was as much a part of him as everything else, his tastes and his memory, his frustrations and his transitory anger. He was a nice man, an agreeable man, people liked him. He had had an incredibly long time to develop his charm. His last job had been loading barrels and crates onto Europe-bound ships. He stole gleefully and without compunction. No prison had found a way to keep him more than a day or two; no one ever remembered him once he was gone.
Aimé observed the inside of the store, the shopkeeper behind the counter with a large slab of salt pork and other provisions in a basket, and for the first time in his life thought of heading to Europe himself. With her, why not? He had no particular interest in crossing the ocean, there was so much to discover on this continent, to the north and south, but if she were to ask he wouldn’t think twice.
In his head he was busy hatching a plan to lay hands on tickets to England or France, on a sumptuous liner with dazzling chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, cut with precious gemstones, when out she came with the children in tow. The smallest, who had turned around, looked Aimé in the eye and he smiled at her, gratefully, as if she were already his accomplice, as if their exchange of glances contained the love story of Aimé and this beautiful young woman, ripe for the picking, ready to begin.
He learned her name a few seconds later when the five children cried out as one, at the top of their lungs, to save her life: “Jeanne!” A split second longer and the four-horse milk wagon would have run her over. Aimé was mentally rehearsing how he might fleece the Royal Steamships’ purser when he felt a visceral reflex to run toward her. He raised his arm and only stayed it at the last minute. The temperature somehow rose a few degrees; sweat ran down frightened faces. The driver didn’t stop or even slow down. The clatter of sixteen horseshoes was lost in the ambient hubbub, and each child picked an item from their order off the ground. The youngest, barely old enough to walk, took the loaf of bread and gave it a quick wipe with spittle-wet hands. Jeanne’s pulse slowed. Her brow was still furrowed, anxious and stupefied, but her heart rate dropped at the same time as Aimé’s, and they agreed on a shared rhythm.
A hundred yards south of the store, the small troupe took its place to wait for the tram. It soon appeared, full as ever, announcing its arrival with the ringing of a bell. The kids cleared a path through the crowd, still holding hands, while Jeanne carried the basket. Aimé followed them, unnoticed by the busybodies and the merchants, who went right on touting the freshness of their produce. In a single fluid motion he climbed onto the back of the tram and grasped the metal pole. Half his body was left hanging over the emptiness, his leg suspended in the air.
Aimé was wearing patchwork trousers with suspenders criss-crossed behind his back and a puffy shirt that had once been white. The artificial breeze from the tram’s motion wafted in through his open collar, whipping his scarf. Other men wore jackets and hats they would be loath to remove for anything in the world, even on a day as hot as this. They sat sweating it out with dignity, pressed up against each other, shoulders curled in, and several stood to offer Jeanne and her sister their seats. To the south you could begin to see the river poking through, glints of sun on the mirror-like surface of the water. The street sloped steeply, the tram gathered speed. As they approached the port, the soundscape changed. A powerful smell of flour and molasses colonized the air, along with a huge cloud of grey smoke that immediately turned to vapour.
At Rue Notre-Dame they got off the tram and waited for a westbound car. Jeanne and the others watched the crowds bound for Champ-de-Mars. Women and men travelled together in small, chatty groups. Some were using parasols they’d brought along. It made the kids laugh, from a distance, especially the youngest. You could also use umbrellas to make shade, Jeanne explained. You could bring your own shade, in a sense, it kept things cooler, and they came to see her point, it was a good idea, they supposed. The smallest one smiled at Aimé, she had a sparkle in her eyes, as if this repurposing of a familiar object made her so happy she could burst. Her big sister held her hand as she squirmed and smiled, full of wo
nder. Aimé was hidden but longed to go see them and pay for their trip, no big deal, no reason to make them uncomfortable. He wanted to go with them. With Jeanne, really, but he could live with the others as chaperones. He was still far away from them, in position at the back of the scene, but he was good with distances, knew the tram would pull up soon, like a second chance.
Without hesitation he walked a few yards over past them and hailed the conductor with an upraised hand, a hand raised up so high you couldn’t miss it. With his other hand he placed his fingers on his tongue, pressed his lips together, and whistled. The horses stopped right in front of them, showing discipline, and the conductor winked, in on the story taking shape here, and turned to them with a polite bow, inviting them to board, and Aimé knew Jeanne was finally looking at him. It only lasted a moment, he felt her eyes on him, on his scalp, on his blushing cheeks, lending him ballast and sudden purpose, but also asking him to do no more for the time being, to take care not to wreck this.
Standing face to face like that they seemed to be the same age, and to have shared the same experiences in the same places: two young people coming of age in a big city, slowly growing into independence, casting aside old-fashioned conventions to find ways to live more happily than their forbears. Jeanne’s tight braids bespoke a sense of discipline and respectable upbringing, but that didn’t stop Aimé from seeing in them a suggestion of curves and winding roads, the ones that lead to fortuitous events. He hadn’t paid their fares, had understood that it was time to fade into the background again, but he had paid his own, for the first time ever, five cents. He took a seat at the rear, already forgotten, already invisible. For the entire ride, as banks gave way to factories and then to farmers’ fields, he continued the work of inventing this young woman in his imagination, of making this meeting the beginning of the story they would share. In a few weeks, once they’d formally met, he would find that his intuitions had been accurate: it was as if they already knew each other. Everything made sense. In a few weeks, once they had started spending time together, meeting up in secret places chosen by her or by him and written on little scraps of paper clandestinely exchanged, he would learn all he needed to know to love her. Her way of pointing her finger at sounds, as if they consisted in a specific place, just beside them, right next to their ears. Her fears about her and her family’s immediate future. The sometimes-morbid anger of her younger brother, who constantly undermined her authority, and who she feared might finally decide to wrest control of the family and ship her off to a convent. Her way of shielding the oil lamp’s flame, even once they were in the barn, where no wind could penetrate the walls, to make sure no spark leaped out and set fire to the hay bales where Aimé lay waiting. How she managed to forget her troubles, for a while, in his arms.
He could see it already: it was going to happen a certain way, and he would never cease to be amazed at how prescient his fantasies would prove to be. Here on the tram he was experiencing it as he dreamed it, and later he would dream it as he experienced it. In his head, immersed in their love, they were silent; Jeanne didn’t say a thing, neither did he, the hours slipped gently by as, all around, the world violently churned or languorously crumbled.
He was too excited. He closed his eyes, had to take a moment; for the first time in his long and often boring and at times eccentric existence, it felt good to remember that he was in no hurry.
The tram stopped. People got off. Aimé leaned back in his seat. Jeanne wasn’t thinking about him, not yet. For the hundredth time she stopped to do a head count of her brothers and sisters, making sure she hadn’t lost one. The conductor yelled, a whip cracked, and the horses clopped off toward the Village des Tanneries.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JULY 1893
PHILADELPHIA, PA
Aimé had replied by pneumatic post to a discreet ad in the back of the Ledger and he found himself at the door of a second-floor studio in the heart of Southwark, with his collection of still-vivid memories in the garish colours of anachronistic paintings. At the building’s entrance an open-mouthed, wild-eyed child sat starving on the steps. He didn’t ask for anything, seemed to be waiting for someone to show up and cart him off to greener pastures where he would meet exotic animals and savour a bouquet of spices. Aimé didn’t take in every detail, as we did, just brushed by without paying the young urchin any mind. He’d seen others who had it worse, especially in the border towns and mountains west of Piedmont, kids with soot from the mines’ dynamite smudged all over their faces, chiselling out wrinkles and clogging their airways. He’d seen a nine-year-old hack up his lungs and then hawk a black loogie while looking him square in the eye: What, got something to say about it? This kid on the stairs had a clean face and trembling hands. A little brown dog slumbered at his side, but its ears pricked up at the slightest sound and the boy’s every sniffle.
He didn’t ask the boy his name or age, didn’t toss him a coin, just climbed the front stairs two at a time, holding his coattails. You could see the chain of a watch fob and a certain refinement in his every move and the cut of his suit, even as he rushed, even in this heat. There was something contagious in the rectitude of his bearing. His presence seemed to somehow make the dark orange brick of the walls lie straighter. Through a suite of windows you could glimpse the life inside, hear the laughter, see the clothes and bed sheets hanging on lines above the street.
Just before his meeting Aimé had visited Independence Hall. For decades he’d felt like an American, and there he worked his way through the crowd of pilgrims, upstanding citizens, and young pickpockets to the glass case displaying an original copy of the Constitution of the United States of America. He gathered his thoughts, which he kept to himself; he scrutinized each signature, the ink that had seeped into the warp and woof of the old parchment. It was his first time in Philadelphia. He had an appointment with a reporter, a poet who had come from New York to do research in the City of Brotherly Love.
CALLING ALL VETERANS – WANTED: True information and eye-witness accounts of fighting in Tennessee, West Virginia, and Georgia; Grant, Hancock, and Hooker campaigns; 1863–1865. Preference to privates, infantrymen, lieutenants, and standard-bearers. First-hand combat experience a must. For the purpose of a written narrative in the form of a True Historical Account. NOT A NOVEL. Homage to nobility and bravery of the men who fought. Friendly encounter; confidentiality guaranteed. All persons answering above criteria contact STEPHEN J. CRANE c/o the Public Ledger, 6 Chestnut Street.
He was almost thirty-four, with only a few patches of grey, a prominent jawbone, and a strongly arched brow. The young man who opened the door was sceptical. Aimé smiled into the peephole and spoke politely.
“I know what you’re thinking, but I just look young. I’m actually much older than you think.”
The other man visibly continued to doubt him. There was just no way this man could have fought in the Civil War. He’d expected dozens of replies, especially in Philadelphia where, if a spate of recent articles were to be believed, veterans had retired in great numbers. Only one man had come forward. Here he stood, a dandy, scarcely older than himself. A slender, carefully trimmed moustache. No visible signs of age, save perhaps a certain depth in the pupils, and what exactly did that mean anyway? The door was half open, half closed; he wasn’t sure he wanted to let this man into his apartment, didn’t feel like wasting his time on some crackpot. Two weeks earlier, getting off the train, he’d been accosted on the platform by a bearded man with a wooden leg who’d held him captive by the sleeve while he went on a rant. The government was denying him his pension, the government had never recognized his service. He was considering taking revenge, taking control. But when the young man asked whether he’d fought on the Union or Confederate side the old man looked offended and puffed up his chest. Don’t you recognize me? I’m Stonewall Jackson. Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson, they shot at me at Chancellorsville, the sons of bitches. That man had slipped off without
taking leave. Crane was in no mood for more of that rigmarole today.
“How old did you say you were?”
“Forty-seven.”
“You’re forty-seven? And how old were you when you enrolled?”
“Sixteen. May I come in?”
“And your name is William Van Ness, correct?”
“That’s right. I know what you’re thinking, it’s not what you think. Don’t worry. I’m, well, you might say I’m well preserved. I’ve been lucky.”
“It’s just that —”
“I’m not here to waste your time. If you want to know about the war, I’m your man. I was there. I saw it all. I pretty much saw it all.”
The young man inside the doorway was scarcely twenty, you could see it by the colour of his cheeks and his fair hair as fine as cornsilk in the mid-July sun. A few hairs floated in the air, which was alive with static electricity. He wore a moustache which he liked to stroke, it was an affectation and a nervous habit. Aimé remained friendly, stood straight as the walls around him in the grim hallway, waiting for Stephen J. Crane to formally invite him inside. Crane was sizing him up, trying to square this fellow’s incongruous appearance with the claim that he had seen it all. Giving in to curiosity, he backed into the room and opened the door wide, beckoning Aimé inside.
Mr. Van Ness was welcome. Have a seat, just a moment, Crane would be back in a second. He had bourbon, would fetch glasses, there was cocaine powder on the table if Van Ness wanted. Don’t worry about the state of the apartment, Crane was borrowing it, from a good friend, for the length of his sojourn. He lived in New York but had grown up on the other side of the Hudson, in Newark and Hoboken. Crane liked Philadelphia, liked that the idea he had formed of Philadelphia matched the reality of Philadelphia, if Van Ness took his meaning. His talk was casual like that. He went to get the glasses.
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