Julian Comstock

by Robert Charles Wilson

  Aria: What shines on that far hill? A cross!

  The Act concluded with Eula’s astonished glimpse of one of the many clerics who had assembled in this virtuous town to join in the work of defending its piety: none other than Boone, her former intended husband.

  The curtain closed on this breathless discovery.

  This time the three of us adjourned to the lobby during the intermission. While attending to human necessity I discovered yet another of the unanticipated luxuries of the Eupatridian class: indoor plumbing so immaculate that the enameled receptacles for gentlemen gleamed as if freshly polished, and were scented with lemon. Amazing, what subtle easements human ingenuity can contrive!

  I made my way back to my seat in time for Act III.

  Act III was that portion of the movie in which a Choice, prominent in the title, was set before poor Eula. That would provide great opportunities for the actresses portraying her (both voice and on film) to exert themselves; but first we saw Foster facing a dilemma of his own. His plantation, not far from the pious town where he and Eula had taken refuge, was in a shambles. The wheat crop had been trampled by hungry refugees, and what remained could not be harvested for lack of help. Meanwhile refugees crowded into town on a daily basis, hoping to be fed. Clearly the solution was to use landless vagrants as field-hands—but he couldn’t hire any, in the classic sense, because he had no money with which to pay them. In any case farm work (which guaranteed a daily meal) was so desirable that the mob would have fought for it. Therefore Foster worked out an ingenious solution:

  Aria: All that may be sold generosity may buy,

  he sang, accepting pledges of lifelong indenture from men willing to forego daily wages.* To enforce the arrangement, and to make a success of it, he required the assistance of the clergy in general, and Pastor Boone in particular.

  Thus Eula was treated to the sight of her contending suitors united in the creation of that new and more pious America which would grow from the ruins of the old. Foster was ignorant of Boone’s prior relation to Eula; but Boone was introduced to Eula at a social gathering and recognized her at once. Quickly discerning the nature of her intimacy with Foster, Boone pretended ignorance,† and Eula played along. This culminated in a walk by Boone through a moonlit meadow, where he performed his melancholy

  Aria: I give to God that which the Earth denies,

  renouncing terrestrial love in favor of the more dependable heavenly variety. Eula, listening from a place among the trees, wept almost as copiously as the ladies in the theater.*

  Foster proposed to her in a scene of the following day. Eula did not accept his proposal at once, but went to see Boone for advice. She approached him as a penitent to a pastor—neither of them acknowledging their prior acquaintance, though both were painfully conscious of it—and told him the story of everything that had happened to her since the Fall of the Cities, culminating in Foster’s proposal. She had seen her former betrothed, she said, whom she had believed dead; and she still loved him authentically; but she loved Foster as well, and her mind was all in a confusion.

  Boone, overcome with feeling, eventually spoke. “Many things have changed since the end of the old world,” he said, the voice actor giving this speech all the quirks and quavers of suppressed emotion while synchronizing his words precisely with the vocal movements of the actor on the screen. “We’re embarked on a new relationship with the sacred. It’s the twilight of an old way of life, and the dawn of a new. Vows from prior times are not broken but annulled. Your marriage if you make it will surely be blessed—[a long choked pause]—despite, despite what came before.”

  Eula turned her brimming eyes to his. “Thank you, Pastor,” she said; and if she said anything else it was drowned out by the sniffling in the audience.

  Eula’s return to Foster was bittersweet. She accepted his attentions with an

  Aria: I pledge to thee,

  followed by scenes of a spectacular Wedding, with many poignant glances cast between Eula and the noble Pastor, and at last a lengthy

  Ensemble/Medley:

  The hand of God, not gentle

  What shines on that far hill?

  I pledge to thee,

  the cast being joined by a Chorus, with much ringing of bells, and exclamations by the trumpet section, and a triumphant final refrain over a distant image of that Christian town, its wheatfields plowed by contented indentured folk, and the Sixty Stars and Thirteen Stripes waving optimistically over it all.†

  There was protracted applause as the curtain fell. I applauded at least as vigorously as anyone else—perhaps more so. I had not known that the Cinematic Illusion could exist on such an exalted scale, sustained by the painstaking efforts of so many skilled performers working in close concert. It was as much a revelation to me as the plumbing in the Gentlemen’s Room.

  We followed the crowd outside. The movie had generated in my mind a sort of Patriotic Glow, which was compounded by the glow of the city. It was the last quarter of the nightly four-hour Illumination of Manhattan, and artificial lights glittered along Broadway like legions of fireflies all in harness. Even the skeletal remains of the antique Sky-Scrapers seemed infused with an electric liveliness. Coaches and taxis passed in great profusion, and scarlet Banners of the Cross, draped from eaves and lintels in anticipation of Independence Day, fluttered in the pleasant breeze. I told Julian how impressed I was, and asked him to forgive me for doubting all his boasts about New York City and the movies.

  “Yes, it was a tolerably good show,” he said, “a very pleasant evening out, all in all.”

  “Tolerably good! Are there better?”

  “I’ve seen a few that topped it.”

  “Good?” Calyxa asked skeptically. “And you notorious for your agnosticism? Pretty as it might be, isn’t Eula an insult to your profoundest beliefs?”

  “Thank you for asking,” Julian said, “but no, I don’t feel particularly insulted by it. If I am an agnostic, Calyxa, it’s because I’m also a realist.”

  “There was no realism in the film that I could discern—just a simple-minded version of what they print in the Dominion readers.”

  “Well, yes—considered as history it was feeble and propagandistic—but it could hardly be anything else. You saw the Dominion stamp at the beginning of it. No film-maker can proceed without submitting his script to the Dominion’s cultural committees. Realistically, these matters are exempted from art, since they’re beyond the artist’s control. But in structure, pacing, dialogue, photography, harmony between the screen and the voice performances—everything over which the film-makers did exercise a shaping influence—it was above reproach.”

  “Above reproach, then,” Calyxa said, “in everything except what matters.”

  “Do you mean to say the singing didn’t matter?”

  “Well … the singing was fine, admittedly … and the singers didn’t write the script …”

  “My point exactly.”

  “So it was a beautiful, stupid thing. Wouldn’t it be even more beautiful if it were slightly less stupid?”

  “I don’t disagree. I would love to make a movie that wasn’t just beautiful but also thoughtful and true. I’ve thought about it often. But the world isn’t rigged to allow such a thing. I doubt anyone on Earth has the power to overrule the Dominion in these matters, except possibly the President himself.” Then Julian, as if startled by his own thought, blinked and smiled. “Of course that’s not something we can expect of Deklan Comstock.”

  “No,” Calyxa said, searching his face. “No, certainly not of Deklan Comstock.”

  Come morning I let Calyxa sleep late, and took myself off to visit the publisher of the Spark and of The Adventures of Captain Commongold, Youthful Hero of the Saguenay.

  I was equipped with nothing more lethal than my smoldering indignation, fueled by the scenes of courage and sacrifice I had witnessed in the movie the night before. I would confront the thieves, I thought, and the self-evident justice of my case would
cause them to crumble before me. I don’t know why I expected such extravagant results from the application of mere justice. That kind of calculation is seldom borne out by worldly events.

  My first trial was in finding the office I wanted. I had no trouble locating the building in which the Spark was published, since its address was printed in every issue: it turned out to be a vast stonepile near the Lexington Canal. Most of its huge space was devoted to printing, binding, warehousing, and distributing the company’s papers and pamphlets, however, and I was reduced to asking my way of a grimy press-operator who told me, “Oh, you want Editorial.”

  “Editorial” was a suite of rooms at the top of a flight of stairs on the fourth floor. All the heat of the building (and it was a warm June day) had collected in that airless warren, and so had the smells of ink and solvent and machine oil. I did not know precisely to whom I ought to speak, but further inquiries led me to the door of the Editor and Publisher, a man named John Hungerford. Apparently Mr. Hungerford wasn’t accustomed to meeting visitors who hadn’t scheduled appointments; but I was firm in my entreaties to his secretary, and eventually I was allowed into his office.

  Hungerford sat behind an oaken desk, in one of the few rooms on the floor that possessed an open window, though it looked out on a brick wall. He was a man of fifty years or thereabout, stern and peremptory in his manner. He asked without preamble what I wanted from him.

  I said I was a writer. I had hardly pronounced that word when he interrupted me: “I can’t give you a job, if that’s what you want. We have all the writers we need—they’re thick on the ground at the moment.”

  “It’s not a job I want, it’s justice! I’m a sorry to say that a man connected with your firm has robbed me, and he has done it with your collaboration.”

  That silenced him for a moment. His eyebrows inched up, and he looked me over. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Adam Hazzard.”

  “Means nothing to me.”

  “I don’t expect it would. But the thief is Mr. Theodore Dornwood—maybe you know that name.”

  He evinced less surprise than I expected. “And what do you claim Dornwood stole from you? A watch, a wallet, a woman’s affections?”

  “Words. Twenty thousand of them, roughly.” I had made an estimate of the length in words of The Adventures of Julian Commongold. A word is a small thing; but twenty thousand of anything is a ponderable number. “May I explain?”

  “Be my guest.”

  I told him the story of the work I had done for Dornwood in Montreal, and what Dornwood in turn had done with my work.

  Mr. Hungerford said nothing but asked his secretary to send for Dornwood, who apparently had an office in the building. In a moment or two that villain arrived.

  Dornwood in Manhattan was not quite the hemp-scented drunkard I had last espied near Montreal. The success of Captain Commongold had improved his clothing, his tonsure, and his skin tone. Unfortunately it also seemed to have damaged his memory. He looked at me blankly, or pretended to, until Mr. Hungerford made an introduction.

  “Oh, yes!—Mr. Hazzard—Private Hazzard, wasn’t it? I’m pleased to see you survived your tour of duty. I’m sorry I didn’t know you out of uniform.”

  “Well, I know you,” I said, “uniform or not.”

  “This young man has a grievance against you,” Hungerford said, and he proceeded to repeat in fair detail what I had told him. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Theodore Dornwood shrugged and looked vaguely hurt. “Well, what can I say? I suppose there’s some truth in it. I do recall Private Hazzard coming to me for lessons in writing. And I did agree to peruse a few pages for him.”

  “You admit it!” I cried.

  “Admit to consulting you, yes. I think you misunderstand the nature of journalism, Private Hazzard. But I don’t blame you, for a boreal lease-boy could hardly know any better. A journalist draws on many sources. You and I talked about Julian Commongold, yes—you may even have shown me some written notes—but I discussed the subject with a great number of infantrymen and officers, of which you were only one. In so far as I did employ your notes as a partial source (and I admit I may have), it was in exchange for my advice on writing … such advice as I could supply to a poorly-schooled Westerner. No formal bargain existed, of course; but if ever there was an informal one, surely it was fulfilled.”

  I stared at him. “I made no bargain at all!”

  Mr. Hungerford looked up sharply from his desk. “If you made no bargain, Mr. Hazzard, then there was no bargain to be broken, was there? I’m afraid Mr. Dornwood has the better of you on all counts.”

  “Except that every word printed in Captain Commongold is mine, exactly as I wrote it!—apart from the misplacement of the commas.”

  Dornwood, who was proving to be a smooth and efficient liar, threw his hands up and gave his employer a beseeching look. “He accuses me of plagiarism. Must I stoop to deny it?”

  “Look, Mr. Hazzard,” Hungerford said, “you’re not the first individual to blow in here claiming some pamphlet was based on an idea of his, somehow ‘stolen.’ It happens with every successful piece we publish. I don’t mean to call you a liar—and Dornwood generously admits that he used you as one source among hundreds—but you present no evidence that what you say is true, and every indication that it’s simply a painful misunderstanding on your part.”

  “I’m glad you don’t mean to call me a liar, for I’m not one—though you might find one close to hand!”

  “See here,” said Dornwood.

  “The discussion is closed,” Hungerford said, abruptly standing. “And I want to go to lunch. I’m sorry we can’t do anything to accommodate you, Mr. Hazzard.”

  “I don’t want to be accommodated, I want to be paid! I’ll have you before a court, if necessary!”

  “So you say. For your sake I hope you won’t pursue the matter. If you insist, you can come back this afternoon and speak to me in the presence of my lawyer. He stops by the office about three o’clock. Perhaps he can convince you the case is hopeless, if I can’t. Goodbye, Mr. Hazzard—you know where the door is.”

  Dornwood smiled at me, maddeningly.

  I went home disconsolate. Calyxa, as it turned out, had gone off with Mrs. Comstock to buy clothing for the Independence Day celebration at the Executive Palace. Julian—who had stayed out late after the movie, meeting friends among the showpeople and aesthetes of Broadway—had just rolled out of bed. I passed him on the way to the kitchen; he asked me if I had had my breakfast yet.

  “Breakfast hours ago, and it’s already late for lunch,” I said irritably.

  “Fine—I’d rather eat lunch than breakfast. Why don’t we go out and have a decent meal? No offense to the kitchen staff.”

  “I’m not sure but that I wouldn’t rather spend the afternoon reading.”

  “Not on a day as fine as this!”

  “How would you know what sort of day it is? I’m sure you haven’t even looked out a window yet.”

  “The fineness of it seeps under the doors. I smell sunshine. Don’t be a fossil, Adam. Join me for lunch.”

  I could hardly resist his invitation without citing the morning’s events, which I preferred to keep to myself. We dined at a restaurant not far distant, which served ox-tongue cobblers and lozenged pork of a refined quality, and I tried to smile and make small talk. But I hardly tasted the food; and I was such glum company that Julian repeatedly asked about my state of mind.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “Maybe indigestion.”

  “Maybe nothing of the kind. Have you had an argument with Calyxa?”

  “No—”

  “Are you worried about Independence Day?”

  “No—”

  “What, then? Come on, Adam, confess.”

  He refused to be put off the scent; so I relented, and described my visit to the Spark.

  Julian listened to my account without interrupting. Coffee and cakes were produced by an atte
ntive waiter. I ignored them. I could hardly meet Julian’s eyes. But when I finally fell silent and Julian spoke, it was only to say, “The cakes really are excellent, Adam. Try one.”

  “I’m not concerned with cakes,” I exclaimed. “Aren’t you going to chide me for my naÏveté, or some such thing?”

  “Not at all. I admire what you did. Standing up for yourself, I mean. The justice is all on your side—no doubt about that. The problem lies in your methodology.”

  “I don’t know that I have any.”

  “Clearly you don’t. I’ll tell you what: Why don’t we go back to Hungerford’s offices this very afternoon, as he suggested?”

  I was astonished at the suggestion. “What for? So that he can have his lawyer hang me up and beat the dust out of me?” My threat to take Hungerford to court had been empty. I couldn’t produce any evidence to support my side, and the New York courts had no reputation for impartiality. “I would sooner not, I thank you.”

  “This time the outcome might be different.”

  “I don’t see how. Hungerford is determined not to admit liability, and Dornwood is a professional liar.”

  “Trust me,” Julian said.

  This was all very embarrassing, but I could not see my way out of it; and so I made the journey back to Hungerford’s office with Julian at my side.

  If Mr. Hungerford was surprised to see me back again, he didn’t let on. He had told the truth about his lawyer. The three of them were sitting together in Hungerford’s office—Hungerford, Theodore Dornwood, and a fat man with greased hair, soon introduced as Buck Lingley, Attorney at Law—when I entered.

  Julian, dismayingly, chose to wait in the outer office. He had instructed me to summon him if the publisher didn’t relent.

  That seemed an inescapable outcome.

  Mr. Hungerford invited me to sit down. Before I could say anything Hungerford’s lawyer asked whether I had proceeded with legal action—filed a complaint, or anything of that sort.