Nostalgia

by Dennis McFarland

  He sits up straight again and adds, “You know there’s no keener advocate of union than me—I grasp, probably more than most, how democracy profits from a meshing of conflicts and contradictions … a play of cross-purposes. But shall we preserve it at a cost of five white corpses for each black slave freed? Ten for each? Twenty? Twenty-five? Where shall we draw the line?”

  “I’ve heard he’s a good deal drunk, Grant,” says Burroughs, “though I doubt that distinguishes him among generals.”

  Hayes detects in Walt’s face a hint of disappointment at Burroughs’s response, which has sought to join sides with him while neglecting his question. Burroughs, apparently detecting the same, says, “The world’s turned on its head nowadays, Walt—an effect that’s been a long time coming.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind that,” says Walt, waving away Burroughs’s notion with one hand. “I even like to think myself a modest contributor. But look to the future. Our youth and our nation are the same thing—what we do to them we do to it. Seeing them—and by extension it—dismembered, disemboweled, cut down and left to rot in the open air … buried in an unmarked grave … that’s what troubles me.”

  Burroughs appears to be contriving an addendum to his previous remark when Walt turns to Hayes and says, “Won’t you try the barred owl for us, my friend? I bet you could whistle it if you only tried. It would make me such a lovely birthday gift. Demonstrate it again, please, John.”

  Hayes quickly shakes his head, overwhelmed by the confounding clamor in the ward; thinking infinite store, he imagines himself liquefied and poured through Major Cross’s knothole beneath the bed. When he turns his head to the side, the sunken-eyed Raugh, strangely awake, casts him a knowing smile, which he cannot interpret and which causes him to shudder. He thinks of his ornery and garrulous bunkmate, Truman Leggett, and how, at the end of the first day of fighting in the Wilderness, he’d sought him in the woods and sat next to him on the ground for hours, under starlight, and of how neither of them had said a word.

  “Never mind, my boy,” he hears Walt say now. “We don’t mean to upset you.”

  The fetid smell of the canal wafts in through the nearest window, and Burroughs groans and covers his nose and mouth with a handkerchief. Walt looks at Hayes with eyes blurred by tears but immediately seems to shake himself.

  “Do you know,” he says, a bit too blithely, “we saw no fewer than three dead cats floating in the canal on our way over here? It’s ghastly beyond words. We were nearly run over in the street half a dozen times, splattered with mud, and accosted by a crazy woman who took us for her father and brother. She delayed us considerably, and then we arrive to learn we’ve only just missed seeing Mr. Lincoln.”

  He turns to Burroughs and adds, “It’s not fair, is it, my darling Bertie?”

  “No, my sweet papa,” answers Burroughs. “Not at all fair.”

  “That’s what the crazy woman kept calling us,” says Walt to Hayes, “darling Bertie and sweet papa.”

  He sighs and continues, “I suppose fate means to deprive me of ever meeting Mr. Lincoln … only to come near but never to meet. We nod to each other from opposite sides of a road, lock eyes across a grand portico, wave as he passes aboard a carriage … but alas, I expect we shall never exchange a word. A cosmic omission if you ask me.”

  Hayes peers again at Raugh, who is so clearly sound asleep it makes him think he only imagined the chilling smile. Beyond, a few beds away, a man with a grotesquely swollen face and protruding tongue weeps as he catches in a tin the river of saliva that flows from his mouth. Hayes wishes he could ask Walt what illness could cause such a hideous symptom.

  “It’s probably just as well,” says Burroughs, pulling a watch from his vest pocket and checking the time. “With all your reverence, Walt, meeting him would likely be a letdown.”

  “How do you know my reverence mightn’t be deepened?” asks Walt.

  “First, I don’t think that’s possible,” says Burroughs, laughing. “And second, I believe most of our heroes benefit from a polite distance.”

  “Yes, well, you also believe Shakespeare’s plays were written by Francis Bacon.”

  “I believe no such thing,” says Burroughs. “You confuse me with your friend O’Connor!”

  “Oh, yes, yes, foolish me,” says Walt. “Sorry.”

  “Walt, are you all right?”

  “Obviously not,” says Walt. “I imagine it’s the bad air at my new accommodations, my moldy boardinghouse.”

  “Most unfortunate, your having to move,” says Burroughs. “Sixth Street was altogether better for you … and farther from the canal. I say, what is that incessant caterwauling?”

  “Why, that’s the Songbird of the Washington City Hospitals,” answers Walt. “Our treasure, Mrs. Duffy. The Source of All Things Annoying.”

  Walt now smiles at Hayes benevolently, as if he would remind him of their short sweet history, and with this smart appraisal of Mrs. Duffy, bind them together once and for all. The hammer-and-nails of the rain on the roof stops sharply, causing Hayes to catch his breath. A fresh and genuine desire hatches in his mind, fancifully assuming the mental image of a silver-blue fish that wriggles at the end of a line, spokes of sunlight flashing from its scales. He looks first at Burroughs, then at Walt, and says, “Is there any way you can make her shut up?”

  Letters

  Dearest Sarah, these will likely be the last words you have from me, for I can see no road that takes me back to you alive. I confess that I am weak in mind & body. For a long time I have been a patient at a military hospital in Washington City. As foreseen, I survived the battlefield in the month of May, but I cannot discern God’s design in my survival.

  I regret the air of self-pity.

  I cannot see God’s design in my survival unless it is punishment. Now that the whitewashers have removed the oil lamp from over my bed—a measure, I believe, meant to undo me further—I have found this new device to be steadying in a similar way—mentally composing letters to you that will never be written down or sent. Sometimes, as now, as another dawn approaches & I’m unable to sleep, I think of you at home & long to see you.

  I am quite wasted, from a persistent lack of appetite.

  I consume a bare minimum of food & drink, for food & drink here—I am convinced—are the agents of poison & debilitating drugs. As a result, I am wasted, I fear, beyond easy recognition. In Virginia—oh, so long ago—Dr. Speck said that if I should find myself in a hospital, I should avoid drugs to the degree possible. I count among my modest achievements here that I have managed to avoid any that have not either been forced upon me or administered covertly.

  My dear Sarah, these will likely be the last words you have from me, for I cannot see my way back to Hicks Street. Every day brings a new danger.

  Down toward the wardmaster’s room, somebody whispers with the night watcher at his small table. Clouds of tobacco smoke surround the two figures. Across the way, there is a flag with a crooked hem—on the wall above the window some sort of pastoral scene in a triangular frame, & a brown stain upon the plaster the size & shape of a horse’s head.

  In the Wilderness, I saw a horse, struck by a bullet—its front legs buckled, & its rider (a lieutenant colonel I didn’t know) rolled headfirst over the poll. Leaves, propelled by the fallen animal’s breath, skittered across the ground.

  I have lost the ability to speak. Though my tongue is uninjured, there seems to be a defect in the nerves. I have spoken a single sentence since my arrival here, a question, & so shocking it was that Walt collapsed upon the floor—by my count, nearly three weeks ago, on the occasion of his birthday.

  Walt stood—evidently thrilled & stunned to hear me speak—laughed heartily, & fainted dead away—in truth, not the effect of my speaking, but of the illness that provokes the doctors to urge him home. I regret to say that I’ve seen less of him since then, & each time he has come lately, looking pale & played-out, I wonder if it won’t be the last. Due to overcrowding, the guard no
w turns away many visitors at the door. I cannot tell how they determine whom to allow in & whom to turn away.

  Tents have been erected outdoors to accommodate the ever-mounting number of sick & wounded arriving from Virginia. If I could get myself transferred to a bed in one of these tents, an escape might be more manageable. The question is, Escape to what?

  Walt’s friend Burroughs has come by a couple of times on his own, bearing gifts from Walt for Casper & me. I find Burroughs a bit inscrutable (one of Papa’s favorite words, do you remember?). While he’s affable enough, I’ve come to think he exercises some supernatural control over my nerves—it was he who caused me to speak that first & only time, he who prevents me from speaking further now. How utterly cracked … supernatural control! If I do indeed end up in the asylum, it will be no wonder.

  A commission of surgeons & officers has come through, determining the various fates of us in the beds. By their prescript, I’m to be removed to the Asylum for the Insane until I’m improved, though I’ve the distinct impression that people do not improve at the Asylum for the Insane. I’ve no idea how long it will be before this prescript is enforced, but I am hoping to gain back my power of speech—or at the very least my ability to hold a pencil … then make my case for returning to the front. I don’t see why muteness should disqualify me. Except for my being wasted, a condition that could be remedied with generous portions of untainted food, I’m fit in every other way. Still, seeing how I’m perceived by the staff here, I suspect that even if I were to explain the real circumstances that brought me here—recount my being abandoned in the field on orders of a drunken sergeant—no one will believe me. As you can see, my dear Sarah, it’s a muddle. I hope this letter finds you disposed favorably toward me in general. I must say I think it was unworthy of you to use our mother’s feelings against me as you did those last days in Brooklyn.

  HE HEARS a low rumble of laughter, turns his head to the side, and sees Raugh through the two layers of mosquito curtain. Raugh looks back at him, grinning, eyes wet and shiny in the dim light of near dawn.

  “I’m defeated,” says Raugh, softly, “defeated, see?”

  He holds Hayes’s undoubtedly baffled gaze for a moment and laughs again. He points toward the end of the bed and repeats, “De … feated.”

  The ward is sweltering and still, pervaded by tobacco smoke. Hayes cannot think what Raugh means—they are each of them in some way defeated, after all, and surely there’s nothing amusing about it. He looks over at the man again, who eyes him as before and points toward the end of the bed.

  “De … feated,” he says, and Hayes, seeing the abrupt curve of Raugh’s stumps beneath the bedsheet, understands at last. He manages a smile, even as a wave of nausea heaves through him.

  Raugh grins and nods, his eyes brimming with tears; he sighs and rights his head on the pillow, looking up into the rafters. “Poor Randall Abner Raugh,” he whispers. “De-feeted at Spotsylvania Court House.”

  Here’s a riddle you will like from our chaplain’s little gazette: Why is the pupil of the eye to be pitied? Because it is continually under the lash!

  Casper’s raving has become so intolerable they keep him now in a drug-stupor night & day. The man down the way who sometimes wept as he endeavored to catch the river of saliva that poured from his mouth has been removed at last to the deadhouse. Most of his hair & teeth had fallen out. Three days before the man passed, Burroughs was here with Walt, & observing the sorry spectacle of the poor man with his tin cup, Burroughs said to Walt, You see, that’s what comes of stubborn doctors & their heroic dosing. His remark seemed to carry a warning & indeed Walt replied, Don’t worry, John, I’m not taking any calomel. Burroughs, quite disgusted, went on to say he knew for a fact that the Surgeon General had banned this drug last year & he, John, couldn’t see why it was still allowed. I know nothing of the calomel or its uses, but I pray that none has been slipped into my food or water.

  There is so much I have not told you—nothing of battle (I have spared you that), nothing of my improbable journey through the Virginia forest. I cannot tell where God is in all this. I fear that in our recklessness we have repelled Him.

  Casper has been mumbling angrily in his sleep about a certain “Millerite.” I wonder if you’ve heard of it? I wonder what it means?

  My perceptions cannot entirely be trusted, but everything about the hospital—its sights & sounds & smells, its atmosphere—strikes me as a kind of limbo, somewhere between life & death.

  I imagine it lacks the concrete of Heaven, too, if there should be anything like concrete there. I have been thinking of the “fire that does not consume,” for frequently I witness out of the corner of my eye flames & smoke, even when there are none actually there. I would think it a premonition of catastrophe, but somehow it feels to issue more from the past, not the future.

  Captain Gracie smiles now when he passes the foot of my bed, a smile sweet with malice & secret knowledge. I believe he’s unhappy with my impending transfer to the Asylum for the Insane & that he still contrives to see me court-martialed as a deserter. I believe that before all is said & done, he will succeed.

  My wounds have been entirely neglected. It is clearer to me every day that the hospital is keeping me sick & if only I can escape it I’ll regain my health & be fit to fight again.

  They are only figments of my imagination, I know, I know, but still they terrify me when they appear. If you had asked me before the war whether or not I believed in ghosts, I would have said no. (Surely, if ghosts existed, our own parents would have returned to bid us farewell.) Always at the end of my bed, always at night, first Leggett, then Billy Swift. Of course I dare not cry out. I wonder if they mean to remind me that they are dead, for I do often forget. If they must appear, I wish they would appear friendlier. I believe we loved one another in the condensed way of comrades. I cannot think of any harm I did either of them.

  … quite deteriorated, the drugs … the whirring in my ears has come back, put there by Burroughs, I think …

  The happy thing about letters such as these is that I needn’t weigh repercussions. No need to worry about increasing your concern, no need to spare you certain details.

  A mute man can kill as competently as any other, perhaps even better—think how blind people hear more keenly than those with sight.

  Among the advantages of the battlefield … here, I cannot tell friend from enemy even though they stand before me visible. My mind hurls possibilities & I’m helpless to distinguish what’s true or false. What even is Walt? I cannot even discern the man’s category!

  At times I wonder: Have I concocted the story of the sergeant on his horse, fabricated “Leave him … I’ve no time to play nursemaid,” fabricated “Take his weapon”? If so, was it not to cover the fact of my desertion? Desertion, after all, is what best explains my having no documentation of any discharge (no matter how informal it may have been). What I must admit to, finally, is the deeply flawed—no, I should say, depraved—nature of my character …

  … deeply depraved character of my nature …

  Yes, it’s a depraved nature that brought me to this place & likewise drove me from Hicks Street, away from your love & companionship, drove me into the abyss of battle, & if I am indeed a deserter drove me to that as well. I find myself robbed, dear Sarah, of all …

  … horrible, horrible nightmares … I dare not cry out …

  My dear Sarah, these will likely be the last words you have from me. I shall be candid here, for nobody can read what has not been written down.

  I cannot explain how it is that the urging in the pit of my stomach (hunger), combined with a certain hollowed-out feeling, keeps me settled on Earth. Otherwise I fear I might disappear.

  It was a group of men, perhaps as many as a dozen. They asked all the usual questions. I believe I tore at my clothing in their presence, because of the sudden & profuse bleeding of my wounds. Now, when the bell rings outdoors, it’s as if it rings inside my skull. The clank & clan
g of the trains, the sundry calls & whistles, the clattering of wheels & clopping of hooves are like a grand Death-chorus. The stench of the canal sanctifies the air in preparation for …

  Evidently, what began as a steadying device no longer steadies. I love you, my dear one—no, I will not call you sister here, not now—I love you, with all my heart. You twirled your parasol at the front of the boat, smiled down at me as if you knew me better than any other person on Earth, knew me better than I knew myself. You said, Why, Summerfield, you’re an athlete & a poet. The calamity in Ireland, the loss of Mommy & Papa, only pushed us together closer than we were already.

  Nobody can read what has not been written down.

  What began as a steadying device no longer steadies.

  My dear Sarah, I was wounded & abandoned in the Wilderness. When the army moved out of the Wilderness, they left me behind. I have no papers to prove it, as I wasn’t formally discharged.

  In the dream, Walt brings a bulging haversack & lays it on my bed. When he opens it, it’s everything I’m missing: my uniform, intact; my forage cap; my weapon (though it’s broken into many parts, I’m sure I can reassemble it); my canteen, which has a bullet hole in it; my red novel, my Dickens, given me by you; the base ball, given me by the chaplain, varnished & inscribed, 25 April 1864, Bachelors 24, Twighoppers 21; my shoes; & a packet of letters from you. I hadn’t realized you’d written me so often. What happened to the letters I carried with me in the forest, I couldn’t recall (nor can I recall it now). I am awakened by a man’s crying out in pain, Casper, I think at first, but it turns out to be a nurse who has stubbed his toe on the iron leg of a bed. It’s just dawn & I feel more clear-headed than I’ve felt for days. All this time I’ve been imagining my return to Brooklyn—humiliated, compromised in any number of ways … & now I see that fighting’s my true fate, if only it can be managed. I long to be back with my friends, my comrades, Leggett & Billy Swift & Vesey & Rosamel & the others. I sense, even as I imagine this, that there’s an insurmountable problem, though I cannot name it. I do understand I’ll need to make sure my wounds have healed properly, which I believe they will. The whirring inside my ears will cease, I’m confident of that, for it has ceased before. My speech will return. I’ll be all right. When the war is won, when victory comes, I’ll be a part of it … & it will be part of me.