The door opened. A Black woman stood before them, her eyes downcast.
“Miz Larner or Miz Smith or whatever name she’s using, Margaret anyway, she’s expecting to meet us downstairs,” said Calvin.
Wordlessly the Black woman backed away to let them come in. Honoré stopped in the doorway, took the woman by the chin, and lifted her head till their eyes met. “What do you want? In the whole world, what do you want most?”
For a moment the woman looked at him in terror. Her eyes darted left, right. Honoré knew she wanted to look down again, to get back to the safe and orderly world, but she did not dare to turn her face away from him as long as he held her chin, for fear he would denounce her as insolent. And then she stopped trying to look away, but rather locked her gaze on his eyes, as if she could see into him and recognized that he meant her no harm, but only wanted to understand her.
“What do you want?” he asked again.
Her lips moved.
“You can tell me,” he said.
“A name,” she whispered.
Then she tore herself away and fled the room.
Honoré looked after her, bemused. “What do you suppose she meant by that?” he asked. “Surely she has a name—how else would her master call her when he wanted her?”
“You’ll have to ask Margaret,” said Calvin. “She’s the one who sees what’s going on inside everybody’s head.”
They sat on the porch, watching bees and hummingbirds raid the flowers in the garden. Soon Calvin began to amuse himself by making the bees’ wings stop flapping. He’d point to a bee and then it would drop like a stone. A moment later, dazed and annoyed, it would start to buzz again and rise into the air. By then Calvin would be pointing to another bee and making it fall. Honoré laughed because it was funny to see them fall, to imagine their confusion. “Please don’t do it to the hummingbirds,” Honoré said.
He regretted at once that he had said such a foolish thing. For of course that was exactly what Calvin had to do. He pointed. The hummingbird’s wings stopped. It plummeted to the ground. But it did not buzz and rise back into the sky. Instead it struggled there, flapping one wing while the other lay useless in the dirt.
“Why would you break such a beautiful creature?” said Honoré.
“Who makes the rules?” said Calvin. “Why is it funny to do it to bees but not to birds?”
“Because it doesn’t hurt the bee,” said Honoré. “Because hummingbirds don’t sting. Because there are millions of bees but hummingbirds are as rare as angels.”
“Not around here,” said Calvin.
“You mean there are many angels in Camelot?”
“I meant there are thousands of hummingbirds. They’re like squirrels they’re so common.”
“So it is all right to break this one’s wing and let it die?”
“What is it, God watches the sparrows and you’re in charge of hummingbirds?”
“If you can’t fix it,” said Honoré, “you shouldn’t break it.”
Calvin glowered, then pushed himself out of his chair, vaulted the railing, and knelt down by the hummingbird. He fiddled with the wing, trying to straighten it. The bird kept struggling in his grasp.
“Hold still, dammit.”
Calvin held the broken wing straight, closed his eyes, concentrated. But the fluttering of the bird kept annoying him. He made an exasperated gesture, as if he were shaking a child, and the bones of the wing crumbled in his fingers. He took his hands away and looked at the ruined wing, a sick expression on his face.
“Is this a game?” asked Honoré. “See how many times can you break the same hummingbird wing?”
Calvin looked at him in fury. “Shut your damn mouth.”
“The bird is in pain, Monsieur le Maker.”
Calvin leapt to his feet and stomped down hard on the bird. “Now it’s not.”
“Calvin the healer,” said Honoré. Despite the jesting tone he was sick at heart. It was his goading that had killed the bird. Not that there was any hope for it. It was doomed to die as soon as Calvin made it fall from the air. But even that had been partly Honoré’s fault for having asked Calvin not to do it. He knew, or should have known, that would be a goad to him.
“You made me do it,” said Calvin. He couldn’t meet Honoré’s gaze. This worried Honoré more than a defiant glare would have. Calvin felt shamed in front of his friend. That did not bode well for that friend’s future.
“Nonsense,” said Honoré cheerfully. “It was your own wise choice. Do not kill bees, for they make honey! But what does a humming bird make? A splash of color in the air, and then it dies, and voilà! A splash of color on the ground. And where is color more needed? The air is full of bright color. The ground never has enough of it. You have made the world more beautiful.”
“Someday I’ll be sick of you and your sick jokes,” said Calvin.
“What’s taking you so long? I’m already sick of me.”
“But you like your jokes,” said Calvin.
“I never know whether I will like them until I hear myself say them,” said Honoré.
He heard footsteps inside the house, coming to the door. He turned. Margaret Smith was a stern-looking woman, but not unattractive. Au contraire, she was noticeably attractive. Perhaps some might think her too tall for Honoré’s comfort, but like most short men, Honoré had long since had to settle for the idea of admiring taller women; any other choice would curtail too sharply the pool of available ladies.
Not that this one was available. She raised one eyebrow very slightly, as if to let Honoré know that she recognized his admiration of her and thought it sweet but stupid of him. Then she turned her attention to Calvin.
“I remember once,” she said, “I saw Alvin heal a broken animal.”
Honoré winced and stole a glance at Calvin. To his surprise, instead of exploding with wrath, Calvin only smiled at the lady. “Nice to meet you, Margaret,” he said.
“Let’s get one thing straight from the start,” said Margaret. “I know every nasty little thing you’ve ever done. I know how much you hate and envy my husband. I know the rage you feel for me at this moment and how you long to humiliate me. Let’s have no pretenses between us.”
“All right,” said Calvin, smiling. “I want to make love to you. I want to make you pregnant with my baby instead of Alvin’s.”
“The only thing you want is to make me angry and afraid,” said Margaret. “You want me to wonder if you’ll use your powers to harm the baby inside my womb and then to seduce me the way you did with another poor woman. So let me put your mind at rest. The hexes that protect my baby were made by Alvin himself, and you don’t have the skill to penetrate them.”
“Do you think not?” said Calvin.
“I know you don’t,” said Margaret, “because you’ve already tried and failed and you don’t even begin to understand why. As for wanting to seduce me—save those efforts for someone who doesn’t see through your pretenses. Now, are we going to dinner or not?”
“I’m hungry,” said Honoré, desperate to turn the conversation away from the dangerous hostility with which it had begun. Didn’t this woman know what kind of madman Calvin was? “Where shall we eat?”
“Since I’m expected to pay,” said Margaret, “it will have to be in a restaurant I can afford.”
“Excellent,” said Honoré. “I am ill at the thought of eating at the kind of restaurant I can afford.”
That earned him a tiny hint of a smile from the stern Mrs. Smith. “Give me your arm, Monsieur de Balzac. Let’s not tell my brother-in-law where we’re going.”
“Very funny,” said Calvin, climbing over the railing and back onto the porch. The edge of fury was out of his voice. Honoré was relieved. This woman, this torch, she must truly understand Calvin better than Honoré did, for Calvin seemed to be calming down even though she had goaded him so dangerously. Of course, if she was protected by hexes that might give her more confidence.
Or was it hexes
she was counting on? She was married to the Maker that Calvin longed to be—maybe she simply counted on Calvin’s knowledge that if he harmed her or her baby, he would have to face the wrath of his brother at long last, and he knew he was no match for Alvin Maker. Someday he would have it out with him, but he wasn’t ready, and so Calvin would not harm Alvin’s wife or unborn baby.
Certainly that was the way a rational man would see it.
Calvin tried to keep himself from getting angry during the meal. What good would it do him? She could see everything he felt; yet she would also see that he was suppressing his anger, so even that would do no good. He hated the whole idea of her existence—someone who thought she knew the truth of his soul just because she could see into his secret desires. Well, everyone had secret desires, didn’t they? They couldn’t be condemned for the fancies that passed through their mind, could they? It was only what they acted on that counted.
Then he remembered the dead hummingbird. Lady Ashworth naked in bed. He stopped himself before he remembered every act that others had criticized—no reason to list the catalogue of them for Margaret’s watchful eye. For her to report to Alvin with, no doubt, the worst possible interpretation. Alvin’s spy—
No, keep the anger under control. She couldn’t help what her knack was, any more than Calvin could, or anybody else. She wasn’t a spy.
A judge, though. She was clearly judging him, she had said as much. She judged everybody. That’s why she was here in the Crown Colonies—because she had judged and condemned them for practicing slavery, even though the whole world had always practiced slavery until just lately, and it was hardly fair to condemn these people when the idea of emancipation was really just some fancy new trend from Puritan England and a few French philosophers.
And he didn’t want to be judged by what he did, either. That was wrong, too. People made mistakes. Found out later that a choice was wrong. You couldn’t hold that against them forever, could you?
No, people should be judged by what they meant to do in the long run. By the overarching purpose they meant to accomplish. Calvin was going to help Alvin build the Crystal City. That was why he had gone to France and England, wasn’t it? To learn how people were gathered to one purpose and governed in the real world. None of this feeble teaching that Alvin did back in Vigor Church, trying to turn people into what they were not and never could be. No, Alvin would get nowhere that way. Calvin was the one who would figure it all out and come back and show Alvin the way. Calvin would be the teacher, and together the brothers would build the great city and the whole world would be ruled from that place, and even Napoleon would come and bow to them, and then all of Calvin’s mistakes and bad thoughts would be forgotten in the honor and glory that would come to him.
And even if he never succeeded, it was his purpose that counted. That’s who Calvin really was, and that was how Margaret should judge him.
Come to think of it, she had no business judging him at all. That’s what Jesus said, wasn’t it? Judge not lest ye be judged. Jesus forgave everybody. Margaret should take a lesson from Jesus and forgive Calvin instead of condemning him. If the world had a little more forgiveness in it, it would be a better place. Everybody sinned. What was Calvin’s little fling with Lady Ashworth compared to Alvin killing that Slave Finder? What was a dead hummingbird compared to a dead man? Margaret could forgive Alvin, but never Calvin, no, because he wasn’t one of the favored ones.
People are such hypocrites. It made him sick, the way they were always pretending to be soooo righteous....
Except Balzac. He never pretended at all. He was just himself. And he didn’t judge Calvin. Just accepted him for the man he was. Didn’t compare him with Alvin, either. How could he? They had never met.
The meal was almost over. Calvin had been so busy brooding that he hadn’t noticed that he was almost completely silent. But what could he say, when Margaret thought she already knew everything about him anyway?
Balzac was talking to her about the slavegirl who opened the door for them at the boardinghouse. “I asked her what she wanted most in all the world, and she told me what she wanted was a name. I thought people named their slaves.”
Margaret looked at him in surprise, and it took a moment for her to respond. “The girl you talked to has two names,” she finally said. “But she hates them both.”
“Is that what she meant?” asked Balzac. “That she didn’t like her name? But that’s not the same as wishing she had one.”
Again Margaret looked contemplative for a few moments.
“I think you’ve uncovered something that I was having trouble understanding. She hates her name, and then she tells you she wishes she had one. I can’t decipher it.”
Balzac leaned over the table and rested his hand on Margaret’s. “You must tell me what you are really thinking, madame.”
“I am really thinking you should take your hand off mine,” said Margaret mildly. “That may work with the women of France, but uninvited intimacies do not work well with me.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“And I did tell you what I really thought,” said Margaret.
“But that is not true,” said Balzac.
Calvin almost laughed out loud, to hear him front her so bold.
“Is it not?” asked Margaret. “If so, I am not aware of what the truth might be.”
“You got a look in your eyes. Very thoughtful. Then you reached a conclusion. And yet you told me that you can’t decipher this girl’s wish for a name.”
“I said I can’t decipher it,” said Margaret. “I meant that I can’t find her real name.”
“Ah. So that means you have deciphered something.”
“I’ve never thought to look for this before. But it seems that the two names I had for her—the name her mother called her, which was awful, and her household name, which is hardly better; they call her ‘Fishy’—neither of those is her true name. But she thinks they are. Or rather, she knows of no other name, and yet she knows there must be another name, and so she wishes for that true name, and—well, as you can see, I haven’t deciphered anything.”
“Your decipherment is not up to your own standard of understanding maybe,” said Balzac, “but it is enough to leave me breathless.”
On they blathered, Balzac and Mrs. Smith, trading compliments. Calvin thought about names. About how much easier his life might have been if his own name had not been shared with Alvin, save one letter. About how Alvin resisted using the name Maker even though he had earned it. Alvin Smith indeed. And then Margaret—why did she decide to stop being Peggy? What pretension was she nursing? Or was Margaret the true name and Peggy the disguise?
Chatter chatter. Oh, shut up, both of you. “Here’s a question,” Calvin asked, interrupting them. “Which comes first, the name or the soul?”
“What do you mean?” asked Balzac.
“I mean is the soul the same, no matter what you name it? Or if you change names do you change souls?”
“What do names have to do with...” Margaret’s voice trailed off. She looked off into the distance.
“I think decipherment happens before our eyes,” said Balzac.
Calvin was annoyed. She wasn’t supposed to take this seriously. “I just asked a question, I wasn’t trying to plumb the secrets of the universe.”
Margaret looked at him with disinterest. “You were going to make some foolish joke about giving Alvin the C from your name and you could be the one that everybody likes.”
“Was not,” said Calvin.
She ignored him. “The slaves have names,” she said, “but they don’t, because the names their masters give them aren’t real. Don’t you see? It’s a way of staying free.”
“Doesn’t compare with actual freedom,” said Calvin.
“Of course it doesn’t,” said Margaret. “But still, it’s more than just a matter of the name itself. Because when they hide their names, they hide something else.”
Calvin thought of what
he had said to start this stupid discussion. “Their souls?”
“Their heartfires,” she said. “I know you understand what I’m talking about. You don’t see into them the way I do, but you know where they are. Haven’t you noticed that the slaves don’t have them?”
“Yes, they do,” said Calvin.
“What are you talking about?” said Balzac.
“Souls,” said Calvin.
“Heartfires,” said Margaret. “I don’t know if they’re the same thing.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Calvin. “The French don’t have either one.”
“Now he insults me and my whole country,” said Balzac, “but you see that I do not kill him.”
“That’s because you’ve got short arms and you drink too much to aim a gun,” said Calvin.
“It is because I am civilized and I disdain violence.”
“Don’t either of you care,” said Margaret, “that the slaves have found a way to hide their souls from their masters? Are they so invisible to you, Calvin, that you haven’t ever bothered to notice that their heartfires are missing?”
“They still got a spark in them,” said Calvin.
“But it’s tiny, it has no depth,” said Margaret. “It’s the memory of a heartfire, not the fire itself. I can’t see anything in them.”
“Seems to me that they’ve found a way to hide their souls from you” said Calvin.
“Doesn’t he ever listen to anybody?” Margaret asked Balzac.
“He does,” said Balzac. “He hears, but he doesn’t care.”
“What am I supposed to be caring about that I’m not?” asked Calvin.
“What the Black girl said she wished for,” said Balzac. “A name. She has hidden away her name and her soul, but now she wants them back and she doesn’t know how.”
“When did you two figure this out?” asked Calvin.
“It was obvious once Madame Smith made the connection,” said Balzac. “But you are the most knowledgeable people I know of, when it comes to hidden powers. How could you not know of this?”
“I don’t do souls,” said Calvin.
Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume V Page 12