The Spirit Photographer

by Jon Michael Varese

  They were baptized—saved souls. And yet the bishops sold them to pay debts.

  One of them had helped Joseph. She was the first, after Father Thomas. The first of many on that path up the river to St. Louis, and then on to—

  Her name was Tilly, and she was a kitchen maid. She was the one who had caught Father Thomas sneaking Joseph into the residence. It had been dark, and Father Thomas did not have a plan. Only later did the priest reveal how terrified he had been.

  Father Thomas O’Shaughnessy, the man who had appeared like a vision: a tall, black-clad, unearthly vision that stood before Joseph in the street. Joseph was fleeing from the levee after a great explosion. The steamship that was to transport him upriver had exploded.

  Such accidents were common in those days—the boilers exploding—and survival oftentimes depended on one’s distance from the boiler room. Of course, as with any accident, survival also depended on luck. The trader in charge of Joseph’s coffle had been unlucky.

  Joseph was chained to five others—there were six of them total—all held together by a long string of iron. The padlock at one end secured the entire group together. Strangely, it was their captivity—their immobility—that had saved them. Had they been coming down the staircase, they too would have been killed. In an instant the explosion had devoured a number of moving men.

  The trader had the key, and he now lay on the splintered deck. Blood covered his clothes, and the broken banister pierced his neck.

  Joseph and his chained companions pulled themselves toward the dead man. The key was somewhere inside the bloodied waistcoat—they had all seen the man place it there. Joseph fumbled through the pockets and felt nothing at first. And then at last, the key was in his fingers.

  It was a fine key—silver—much finer than the keys he was used to seeing. Similarly, the lock it would open was not the kind of thing normally used for the coffles. This lock and this key … they did not belong on a chain. Rather, one might have expected to find them guarding the trunks on a fancy carriage. In Joseph’s rough hand the key looked an odd specimen, its surface bashfully mirroring the bright flames from the explosion.

  Beyond the flames and the smoke and the eviscerated boat, the levee was a chaotic scene of panic and confusion. For the towers of cotton bales still waiting to board the steamers had been drenched in a shower of the explosion’s fiery debris. When Joseph jumped from the boat, a metropolis of cotton bales greeted him … its lanes and tunnels afire, but beckoning. Offering him places to hide.

  But there was no time to hide … there was only time to move. And Joseph moved, burrowing through the bales, like some blind but determined creature. He jumped from one group of bales to the next, inching himself away from the steamboats. There were gunshots—measured gunshots. Someone was firing. But that endless maze of cotton bales was his path to freedom.

  At Levee Street, the horses and mules had grown frantic, and everywhere people rushed to and from the waterfront. In the confusion, Joseph was able to travel a short distance up another street, hugging the walls of the buildings, trying to make himself one with the shadows.

  And that was when he saw him—when the vision of Father Thomas first appeared.

  Their eyes locked, and Joseph could see that he had been discovered. Father Thomas knew at once what Joseph was—and what he had done.

  But luck was with Joseph, for on that street, in the darkness, he had come across one of the few white men in New Orleans whose conscience was conflicted. One block to the left, or even half a block to the right, Joseph surely would have encountered a planter—or worse, a trader. But on that walled, empty street, not two blocks from the levee, a sympathetic spirit had miraculously come into being.

  The priest eyed the runaway. He had only a moment to decide.

  “In here, quickly,” he said.

  And he opened a narrow gate. That gate was there, in the wall, hiding like a sly observer.

  That was how it all began—Joseph’s journey toward freedom. An accident, some luck, and the appearance of fortuitous spirits. When Tilly, the kitchen maid, caught Father Thomas smuggling Joseph in through the refectory, her knowing glare paralyzed the guilty priest in his place. Father Thomas was not a man who had done anything like this before, and the look of terror in his eyes revealed his inexperience. But Tilly was no stranger to the wrong turns made by hapless runaways. The girl had seen it all before, and knew what needed to be done.

  She had rushed Joseph into a storage room, then a sick room, and finally into the room once used as the orphans’ dormitory. With Tilly’s help, Father Thomas had been able to keep Joseph out of sight for two days. Then the day came for Father Thomas to travel upriver, and he boarded the steamboat with a manservant. Joseph’s new clothes had been plucked from the laundry, which Tilly also oversaw.

  It wasn’t until they had reached the boat that Joseph realized he had failed to thank her. She had opened the gate, shoved him out, and then shut it. There had been no time for thank yous or goodbyes.

  “TILLY,” JOSEPH SAID, for the name had seized upon him. “After the war … do you know what became of her?”

  “Sadly, I do not,” the priest replied. “The bishop sold her after the epidemic—not long after you left here. The fever brought great losses.”

  “Tilly,” Joseph repeated. “One of the many souls who saved me.”

  “And me,” Father Thomas said. “She could have shouted—given us both up. I’ve never been so afraid. But God was with us in that moment, Joseph. God was guiding us both through that darkness.”

  It was the first time they had spoken of Joseph’s escape since that night, for the letters to and from Canada had remained purposefully innocent of the past. Before the war, the policies of the archdiocese had aligned with those of the southern states, and anyone involved in abolitionist activity would have been branded a criminal. The archbishop would have excommunicated Father Thomas for what he had done. Even after the war had ended, neither Joseph nor Father Thomas dared refer to their experience in writing.

  “I am sorry, Joseph,” Father Thomas said. “I am sorry that I could not go farther with you. It might have—”

  “You have nothing to apologize for,” Joseph replied. “You took me as far as St. Louis. Had you accompanied me any farther, you would have put yourself in even more peril. The railroad took me in then, and you see …”

  The priest nodded. But something in his face said that the guilt was still there.

  “I advanced in those years—after you were gone. First chaplain to the Ursulines. Then Diocesan Chancellor. And finally, the Vicar General you see before you now. But through all that time, though I never spoke or wrote of it, I could not suppress the memory of that journey we took together. How every moment of that journey was a step toward cleansing my soul. When I returned from St. Louis, I was forever a changed man. It took everything in my power to keep my beliefs a secret.”

  “Those were dangerous times,” Joseph said. “For all of us.”

  “But the others,” the priest said, “the thousands and thousands of others—”

  “Millions,” Joseph said. “There was no way for you to save them.”

  The priest lowered his head.

  “And we will forever be atoning for that sin.”

  Moody stirred. The groan was loud … louder than any sound Moody had made that day. Joseph moved closer to the bed, and placed his hand on Moody’s arm.

  “Edward,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”

  Then Father Thomas stepped forward, and touched the top of Moody’s head.

  “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus—” he began.

  But the gentle words seemed to have a sudden effect, for Moody opened his eyes, threw off the bedclothes, and leapt to his feet. He stood there before them, his arms outstretched, as if he had gained the strength of a thousand men.

  “I know what I must do!” he cried. “I have seen everything, and I know!”

  “Edward!” Joseph exclaim
ed. “You are badly hurt. You must not—”

  “Curse the wound, Joseph!” Moody said. “Here it is, and what of it? I am no madman—I remember everything. I looked into his eyes … looked into those eyes of evil, before the fist thrust out to strike me. I know what it is that we face, and I am not afraid of it. In that darkness, I received the most beautiful gift. I saw everything, Joseph, and there is only one thing left for me to do—”

  “Edward, you must do nothing right now. You must—”

  But Father Thomas touched Joseph to quiet him.

  “I’ve seen everything,” Moody said. “She was hidden away, where no one could find her … where no one would ever be able to know her for what she was.”

  “Isabelle—” Joseph whispered.

  “She has been guiding me,” Moody said, “just as you have always suspected. How long have I been here? There is no time to waste. We must go. I must bring her back!”

  Moody was pacing, his cheeks colored bright red. His life had returned to him, and he had reawakened with a mission. He understood that the priest had saved him, and that Joseph, too, had been guarding his soul, but there was one thing that had become undeniable in the face of so much doubt:

  Only he, Edward Moody, the spirit photographer, had the power to raise the dead.

  XXVII

  “AND YOU SAY you do not know where he’s gone off to?” Dovehouse asked her.

  “I do not,” Elizabeth replied. “Perhaps he is down at the coffeehouse.”

  Dovehouse looked inquisitive. He was sitting in her drawing room. He had begged for but a moment of her time, and now she sat before him, his prisoner.

  “James has been spending many hours down there of late,” she added.

  Dovehouse smiled slightly, taking in her explanation. Had she not been in the front hall when he rang, she never would have answered the door.

  “Since we have this moment,” Dovehouse said, “I was wondering if I might—”

  “Yes?” she said.

  She knew what he was up to. It was important to preempt him.

  “It seems …” Dovehouse said, “that my friend has been—”

  And he paused, searching her face for stray hints of anticipation.

  “Not quite himself these past ten days.”

  “No …” Elizabeth said.

  “Ah, you take my meaning then?”

  “It has been a difficult time,” she said.

  “But it all seems to have been brought on by this damned business with the photograph.”

  He was watching her closely. He wanted the word to upset her.

  “The photograph has thrown him out of sorts,” Dovehouse said.

  For more than twenty years, Benjamin Dovehouse had been observing her—through her courtship with Garrett, through the early days of her marriage, through the death of her child, and through the worst days of the war. He had been collecting notes on her reactions and behaviors for two decades, and filing them away in his repository of knowledge.

  But she knew him too, and she would not give him what he wanted.

  “These changes have been somewhat disconcerting to me,” Dovehouse went on. “Surely they’ve been troubling to you as well?”

  Elizabeth did not offer him a response.

  “Aren’t you concerned?” Dovehouse said.

  “Concerned?” she repeated.

  “Yes, about your husband.”

  And he enunciated the word, as if trying to communicate with an idiot.

  “I am concerned with a great many things,” Elizabeth said. “James does carry the weight of the nation on his shoulders.”

  “You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” Dovehouse said.

  Elizabeth winced—an understandable break in her resolve. It was that tone—the same tone he used whenever he believed someone was trying to deceive him. For the most part he had respected her over the years, but she had also seen what his brutality could do to people.

  “The photograph,” Dovehouse continued. “There is much more to this photograph than—”

  “Forgive me,” Elizabeth said, “but would you mind telling me … how is it that you’ve come to be involved with our photograph?”

  “My understanding is that it is your photograph,” Dovehouse said.

  And at once Elizabeth realized the error of her inquiry.

  “Again, I must apologize,” Dovehouse said. “I know that the matter is delicate. It takes all of us back … back to that time …”

  “You were here,” Elizabeth said. “You know how it tore James apart.”

  “And you,” Dovehouse said. “Let’s not forget you, my dear.”

  That voice. Even when low and whispering, that voice resounded like iron.

  “It is true,” she said. “The spirit photography has … revived things. I know you think such matters silly, but there are—”

  “Say nothing of what I think is silly, and what is not,” Dovehouse said. “I am many things, but I cannot claim to be all-knowing.”

  It sounded ridiculous—disingenuous—coming from the likes of that man.

  Then Dovehouse fixed upon her.

  “He told me that the photograph was your idea.”

  Of course it had been her idea, but what had Garrett told him? Was Garrett now the one who needed her protection?

  “It was,” she said. “It was entirely my idea.”

  “Entirely?” Dovehouse asked.

  “Yes, entirely,” she said. “In fact, I went through a great deal of trouble—to convince him to sit for the photograph.”

  “And he agreed for your sake?”

  “I suppose,” Elizabeth said.

  “You suppose? You do not know?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I do not know what James may or may not believe with regard to these things. He is very quiet about such matters. You better than anyone must understand the sensitivity around the subject, given who he is, and what he represents.”

  “I understand exactly what he represents,” Dovehouse said. “But … what do you believe, Mrs. Garrett?”

  This was an old trick of Dovehouse’s—the pointed question to which there could be no correct answer.

  “I believe that there are many things we cannot explain,” Elizabeth said.

  Dovehouse grinned.

  “This is true,” he said. “But I am curious … if the photograph was your idea, why did James need to be involved with it at all? I’ve seen plenty of these—”

  And he paused again.

  “—photographs,” he said. “Of widows alone with husbands, of mothers with their dead children …”

  He was trying to wear her down.

  “I am curious,” Elizabeth responded, “as to why you are not discussing the photograph with James yourself?”

  “Ah, my dear,” Dovehouse said. “My apologies, my apologies. I do not mean to be so intrusive. But James has been somewhat reticent on the matter, as you might expect. Our good senator has many enemies, waiting for him around every corner. My concern is primarily for his—and your—well-being.”

  “To be sure,” Elizabeth replied. “Your concern is greatly appreciated.”

  And she smoothed her skirt, hoping to bring an end to the conversation.

  “But what is it?” Dovehouse pressed.

  “What is what?” Elizabeth said.

  “The photograph—what is it about the photograph?”

  “I’m not sure I understand you.”

  Dovehouse was growing impatient.

  “The photograph!” he exclaimed. “I know my friend. I have watched him these past ten days. I have never seen him so distraught over something in all his life!”

  The outburst was so unmeasured, but Elizabeth was careful not to reveal her surprise.

  “It is important that he retrieve the photograph,” she said. “The photograph could ruin him.”

  “But it confuses me,” Dovehouse said. “We have dealt with nonsense worse than this before. He has been saying things—doin
g things. He has been so unlike himself.”

  “James carries great burdens—always. You know that.”

  “I am not talking about his burdens,” Dovehouse intoned. “I am talking about this burden.”

  His voice was calm but his face was terrible. She had seen Dovehouse restraining his frustration in the past, but never had it defied him quite like this.

  Then a strange, milky pall descended over his eyes. He grew quiet, his face motionless.

  “I may be able to help,” he said.

  “You have always been a great help to James,” she replied.

  And she smiled at him. He could not win.

  Then his anger returned, like the sharp strike of a match. But his voice remained low and steady.

  “I know you,” he said. “And I have known you from the first.”

  His insolence was astonishing. Elizabeth stared back at him calmly.

  “Thank you for inquiring after James,” she said, “but I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.”

  Dovehouse rose from his chair and stepped hurriedly out of the room. He had challenged her, and she had gone beyond standing her ground. She remained seated until she heard the front door close. Now there was no turning back.

  XXVIII

  SENATOR GARRETT SAT in the window of his neighborhood coffeehouse, watching the lines of people pass by. Outside, a light drizzle was falling upon Charles Street, and the stone curbs were beginning to shine. Garrett gazed through the window, the crowd oblivious to his company. His own reflection was little more than a faded face amongst the many.

  The day had seized him—or rather, something else had seized him—and he had felt compelled to escape from the house. The house was full of whispers. Remembrances, visions. And he felt bound there, and unable to breathe. Yes—since the negative, his breathing had been changing; barely noticeable at first, but requiring more effort in the last few days. The breaths were slower now—heavier—as if a great weight lay upon his chest. And Jenny’s concerned looks told him that his difficulties were not invisible.