The Handsome Road

by Gwen Bristow

  Down in the depths of sleep she began to hear noise. It was not definitely identifiable as any particular kind, it was just noise, stabbing pitilessly into the unconsciousness that had come to rest her after her avalanche of pain. As she felt herself being forced awake the baby woke too and began to cry. Instinctively Ann reached for it and tried to soothe its little wails. There was such a racket, banging doors, heavy footsteps, the shouts of men’s voices. Between the drawn curtains was a line of sunlight. Ann glanced at the floor and by the position of the sun on the rug knew she had been asleep only an hour or two. Oh, why couldn’t they be quiet, whoever they were, when she was so tired? Mammy should stop them, or Cynthia or Napoleon or somebody. Who were they, anyway?

  She tried to raise up and fell back, her forehead damp with the effort. The door burst open. She saw a soldier in a blue uniform shove mammy aside, paying no attention to her protests, and then suddenly the room was full of them. Nobody seemed to notice her. One of the men picked up a candlestick, exclaiming, “Say, this looks like silver,” and another one stumbled against the empty cradle and knocked it over. Two of them threw open the doors of her armoire and then her clothes were all over the floor, being examined and kicked around as though they were dividing her dresses in such haste they had no time even to care whether or not they stepped on them. Ann lay quivering with helpless rage, her arms around the baby as though in spite of her own weakness she could somehow protect it. She was not protesting; she was simply crying, softly and weakly, into the pillow. Suddenly cutting through the hubbub she heard Cynthia’s sharp voice at the door.

  “I tell you, go into that room and make them stop! They’ll kill her—aren’t you even human?”

  A man in a captain’s uniform elbowed his way through the mob in the room. He took one look at the bed and turned around.

  “Get out,” he ordered. “Can’t you see that girl was telling the truth? Get out.”

  The other soldiers began to drop the articles they had picked up. He spoke to them again. Unwillingly and resentfully they began to file out of the room. The captain stood by Ann’s bed.

  “When was that child born?” he asked her.

  She tried to stop the tears that were spilling over her face, and gathered her voice. “About an hour ago.”

  She heard him take a quick breath. For an instant he stood there uncertainly. He laid his hand on her arm. “I’m very sorry, madam,” he said.

  Ann could not answer. All she could do was keep on shedding those weak silly tears. Shoving a petticoat aside with his foot the officer made his way to the door. He went out and closed it. Left alone, Ann put her hand over her eyes and tried to stop crying. She was not thinking at all; she was simply angry and exhausted, and very glad nothing had happened to her baby. She did not know how long it was, but the noises that had wakened her began to subside, and at length Cynthia came in. Taking one look around the tumbled room she burst out, “Oh, the brutes!” and dropped on her knees by the bed. “Ann, did they hurt you?

  “No,” Ann murmured. After a moment she managed to ask, “What were they doing here?”

  “They just appeared,” said Cynthia. “I was playing with little Denis in the front, so he wouldn’t disturb you. They just poured down the avenue—it was almost as if they’d sprung up out of the ground. I don’t know all they did. They drove off most of the mules and they took lots of hams and chickens and got all over the house. I tried to tell them about you. I said the shock might kill you. They wouldn’t believe me. Finally I dragged that captain up here. When he saw you he got them out.”

  “Are they gone?”

  “Yes. Don’t bother any more. Go back to sleep.”

  “Where’s little Denis?”

  “Mammy has him.”

  “You’re sure he’s all right?”

  “Yes, honey. Please go to sleep again.”

  “Bring Denis up here so I can see he’s all right.”

  Cynthia obeyed her. But when she brought little Denis Ann saw with relief that he was not only unhurt, he was crowing with delight and his dress was sticky with jam. One of the soldiers had given him a piece of chocolate and another had opened some preserves-jars and let Denis regale himself on all he could eat.

  Cynthia assured her the men had not reached the vault, though they had got as far as the wine-closet and were happily stuffing bottles into their pockets when the captain ordered them to leave the house. She leaned over the bed and whispered, “You were smart to insist on burying the silver.”

  Ann nodded. With a great effort she murmured, “Please leave me alone.”

  She dropped off to sleep again with her next breath.

  The weeks after that she remembered only as a bewildering daze. Items of information drifted past her ears without making much impression on her mind. Dalroy was under martial law. Nobody could walk down the street without a military pass. All the servants were gone but mammy and Napoleon and Bertha, and Bertha’s little boy Jimmy, born just before little Denis. “I don’t care,” Ann repeated. “I don’t care about anything. I just want you to leave me alone.”

  Her recovery was slow, but at last they said she was strong enough to come downstairs. She came carrying the baby in her arms. Ann had named her Virginia, because it had always been her favorite name, the one she had most frequently as a little girl given her dolls. She sat down near the bottom of the stairs, looking around the hall.

  “Cynthia, where are the portraits?”

  “In the back attic. I had Napoleon hide them there. Some of them are valuable.”

  “Oh,” Ann said with relief. She wanted them back in the light. She wanted to look up at those pictured faces and remind herself of the great folk who had created the greatness of her people, the legend her children must grow up in and renew. Heretofore she had thought lightly of tradition, but now that it was all she had left, she understood and thanked heaven for it. And she wanted visible symbols to remind her. She glanced down and kissed the baby’s head, and as she did so her eyes fell on a mark on the bottom step. “Why Cynthia, what’s that?” she exclaimed, pointing. “It looks like a horseshoe.”

  “It is,” Cynthia returned crisply. “One of our guests that day rode his horse into the hall.”

  Ann looked up at the staircase. Life must move in a spiral, even if the spiral had the hoofprint of an invading army.

  But her determination was hard to keep before her. For the war went on and on and on, as if there never had been anything but the war, there never would be anything but the war. Ann rarely talked about it. She was becoming by habit very silent. She simply went about doing what had to be done, taking care of her baby and trying to get Bertha to teach her to do housework, for three servants could not even keep the house dusted. Her clumsiness was annoying to Bertha and disgusting to herself. “What a helpless fool I am,” she said to herself over and over. But she did not even say this out loud, any more than she talked about the desolation and the smoking ruins. At least somebody in the house had to pretend to have courage. If it would only end! But it went on, draining men out of the country; they killed and killed till she thought the continent must tremble under their fury.

  The others praised her for her bravery. She let them think she was brave. She never confessed to anyone that she had nightmares where she saw pieces of men flung about with all their crazy killing, and those ditches running with blood at Shiloh. Nobody knew how often she woke up in the middle of the night and sat up in bed with her hands pressed over her temples, crying out in the dark, “Oh please, please, God, make them stop! Give them anything they want, but only please make them stop!”

  Chapter Nine

  1

  Corrie May stood on the wharf, eating a banana she had filched from the back of an army wagon and feeling the heat of the sun on her head. After this long time in jail the sun was good, and the tumult of the river was good, and so were the sun-warmed boar
ds of the wharf under her bare feet and the river-wind brushing her hair. She felt strong, and though her clothes were falling apart and she had to slip a banana off a wagon in order to eat, she was not frightened. The war was over and everything was going to be different, and though she could not see ahead she welcomed whatever was coming.

  The time in jail had been awful. The food they shoved at you was garbage and the women they put in there were a strange bunch, mostly drunks and prostitutes picked up for soliciting. Still, once they sobered up they weren’t so bad to talk to. They had a vast encompassing sympathy. Yes, they said, the world was a tough place, but you might as well get along the best you could and not bother about it. They listened to Corrie May’s story about how the army men had shot Budge and they always cried about it. She had never known any women who could cry so easily and so lavishly. But they were not moved to anger by it. They were just sorry.

  Corrie May could not understand how anybody could reach such a bland attitude of acceptance. She had no intention of accepting anything. The news of Budge’s death had pierced her numbness with a shock that was at first grief, then anger, then bitter resolution: when she got out of this place she was going to start over, and she wasn’t going to be caught walking the wharfs, either. So when a blue soldier appeared one day and said sharply, “You girls clear out of here—we need this place for a hospital,” she scampered out without asking him any questions.

  Tossing the banana-skin into the river Corrie May turned and started toward the square to see about getting a job. What was going on these days she didn’t know, but the square had always been the center of town. Maybe she could get some work cleaning in the courthouse.

  The streets were full of blue soldiers. Corrie May made her way along till she neared the courthouse. But the lawn in front of the courthouse was packed with Negroes, overflowing till they packed the street too. They were cheering a man in a black suit, who stood on the courthouse steps making a speech. His words began to drift toward Corrie May.

  “… the gr-r-reat eagle, my dear-r friends, who like Moses has led you from this land of bondage and who now spr-r-reads his protecting wings about you… .”

  He waved his arms toward heaven and the Negroes shouted, “Yay boss!”

  “… that noble eagle, my friends, who guar-r-rds the flag of freedom… .”

  Corrie May followed his gesture upward, but though she saw the flag she didn’t see any eagle. The only place she had ever seen an eagle was on the back of money. Thinking of money reminded her she was looking for a job, so she started pushing her way among the Negroes.

  “You quit dat shovin’, white girl!” a big black man exclaimed to her.

  “Huh?” asked Corrie May.

  “… free under the flag!” bawled the man on the steps. “Free and equal… .”

  “Yay, hooray!” shouted the Negroes.

  “You quit dat shovin’,” the black man repeated to Corrie May. “Don’t you know we’s free ’n’ equal? Free as you and good as you?”

  “Well, that ain’t saying much,” Corrie May retorted. “Why don’t you let me get by?”

  He glared down upon her. “Den you walk in de big road. Sidewalks is foh cullud gen’l’men dese days.”

  “Colored gentlemen?” said Corrie May. “My lawsy me.”

  But she turned around and walked in the big road. She was angry, but at the moment she had no time to bother about it. He was bigger than she was, and she had been beaten up once already in a street fight; besides, she had set her mind to getting a job. You had to eat before you could concern yourself with your right to use the sidewalk.

  Making her way around the black throng she got to the side of the courthouse steps and paused to look up at the shouting speaker. He was lean and tough-looking, with a red face. His mouth was wide and thin and he had little mean eyes. He was lowclass, because his suit needed an ironing and his hair was too long; and he came from up North as you could tell by the way he talked through his nose and grabbed hold of a final r and curled it around the word like a tail. But he was smart; he was beating the air with his fists and flapping his coat-tails and putting on a fine performance for the darkies. Reminded her of the way pa used to preach. She wondered where pa was. And ma. She hadn’t heard of either of them for a long time. Her ideas about time had got all jumbled while she was in jail, but probably it was at least a year since the last time ma came to see her. That fellow sure reminded her of pa. He had the same way of rolling syllables, the same memory for lines out of the Bible, the same violent attraction for a crowd. And the folks listening believed every word he said. “Yes Lawd,” the Negroes shouted. “Sho is true. Amen, boss!”

  He was promising them milk and honey, corn and wine. Next thing you knew he’d be promising them great white thrones. Just like pa, only this fellow wasn’t telling them the Lord was going to provide these luxuries; it was the flag and the eagle and the government. But about how one was to start getting them he was as vague as pa. Only, like pa, he thrilled them with his sweeping arms and rolling words, and they shouted amens, forgetting to ask questions.

  “I wonder what he wants from them,” Corrie May asked in her mind. When pa carried on like this he wound up by passing the hat for a collection. This guy wasn’t doing that, but you could see he had a head on him; whatever it was he wanted of these poor believing Negroes he was mighty likely to get it. Corrie May burst out laughing.

  But again recalling what she was here for she went on around the courthouse to the back door. The soldier on guard there told her if she wanted a job she’d have to see Mr. Gilday.

  “Thank you kindly,” said Corrie May. “Where’s he to be found?”

  “Front office on the left of the corridor.” The soldier leaned sideways against the wall. “What you want a job for?” he inquired conversationally.

  “What for you reckon?” she retorted. “I got a habit of eating.”

  “Well, you needn’t be so snappish about it,” he said back at her. “I got it myself.” He grinned slowly. “You’re kind of skinny, though. Looks like you ain’t been keeping up the habit.”

  “I ain’t been fed nothing fit for a pig in quite a time,” said Corrie May. “Take your hand off my arm.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean nothing,” said the soldier. But as he obeyed and turned aside from her she saw that his left sleeve was empty.

  Corrie May felt remorseful. “I’m sorry myself, mister,” she apologized. “Er—that arm of yourn—it’s a shame. Was it in the war?”

  He nodded. “Mansfield.”

  She began to observe him. He was not tall, but he was thickly built, with muscles in his remaining arm that bulged under his blue coat, and a thick black beard creeping through his face. “I’m sorry I talked mean to you,” said Corrie May.

  “Ah, shut up,” he returned without rancor. “It’s all right.”

  “They should have sent you home,” she said.

  He shrugged his good shoulder. “For what?”

  “Why, so you could go back to doing whatever it was you did before the war.”

  “Fine chance,” he responded dryly. “I was a blacksmith.”

  Corrie May sighed. “This here war sure was a mess.”

  “Yeah.” Then recalling his uniform he added, “But well, the Union is saved and the niggers are free.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Corrie May. But she looked up with a fresh interest. The Union was none of her concern but she had been wanting to inquire about the slaves. “The niggers is really free then?” she asked. “Free sho ’nough, for good and all?”

  “Why sure,” said the soldier, giving her a look of wondering condescension. “Where you been?”

  “None of your business. But tell me—they’ll have to work for wages from now on?”

  “They’ll have the privilege of working for wages,” he corrected her patriotically; “They’re free. T
hey got the priceless blessing of liberty.”

  Corrie May chuckled. “Say, mister, you don’t have to read me no speech. I know what you mean.”

  “But you better get it right in your head,” he told her, “you and all the rebels. The niggers are free.”

  “Well, I ain’t got no complaints,” she replied. “I’m glad of it.”

  “Glad?” He stared. “Ain’t you a rebel girl?”

  “If you mean was I born in these parts, sure. But I expect I’m a Yankee in my mind. I don’t reckon you’d understand what I mean. But—” she hesitated and looked down, stroking the floor with her toes. “I—I don’t just know how to say it—”

  He smiled at seeing her blush. “Go right ahead, miss.”

  “Well,” said Corrie May, “I’m sorry you lost your arm and all, but I think it was mighty fine of all you Northern gentlemen to join the army and come down here and set the niggers loose—I mean anyway, thank you.”

  She started to run into the corridor, embarrassed, but he put out his arm to detain her. “Well say, miss, that’s kind of you,” he said. He sounded not only surprised, but wistful, as if he had been wanting somebody to talk to. She paused and looked up at him. “Er—there ain’t—” he floundered too. “I expect you’re the first rebel girl that’s spoke to me pleasant since I been here.”

  Corrie May glanced at his empty sleeve and glanced away again quickly. “You mean they act stuck-up?”

  “Yes, though I guess you can’t exactly blame them, can you? Still, it makes it awful lonesome.”

  “I reckon so,” said Corrie May.

  “I’d kind of enjoy seeing you again,” he suggested bashfully. “What’s your name? I ain’t meaning nothing wrong.”

  “My name’s Corrie May Upjohn,” she acquiesced.