by Dara Horn
Outside the mess hall was a large wall of boards where, Jacob remembered from another life, men used to post notices of card games and stolen socks. Now someone had almost entirely covered it with tacked-up pages torn from a newspaper. Jacob had seen his share of casualty lists, but this one was much longer than any he had ever seen before: pages upon pages from a full-sized newspaper, with names by the thousands in the tiniest of print. He proceeded toward it in a trance, the words on the pages sliding into focus as if under a lens. The headlines had been ripped away, but at the top of the first page, someone had scrawled the words ANTIETAM LIST. Regiments followed in order below it. He traced a finger along the columns until he found the 18th New York.
The battle had taken place the previous week, it seemed, while he was trapped in the basement room. Jacob read through the names and recognized almost all of them. An entire world had disappeared. Halfway down the list, he saw the name that made him stop reading:
Mendoza, Sgt. Abraham. 22 years old, New York City.
He read the words again, unsurprised, and stricken. After six generations in America, Mendoza had been the last. But Jacob was the first, and now there would be a second. For that, he wished he could thank Abraham Mendoza.
JACOB BOARDED THE train the following morning. Many of the people on the train were in uniform, and almost everyone on board, civilians and soldiers alike, smiled at him as he found his way to his seat. But their smiles passed through him, as though the other passengers were merely figures in a strange and vivid dream. He settled down on a wicker seat beside a window, rudely ignoring the elderly man who sat down beside him. Instead he turned to the window, watching trees and meadows and farms blur before his eyes.
As he watched the smear of the world race by, he became more and more convinced that everything would be resolved for the best in some way he couldn’t yet fathom, that he would somehow see Jeannie again. Jeannie, after all, was someone to whom the rules of reality had never applied. He reminded himself that the war might end soon, in a matter of months or even weeks; when it did, he imagined, she and he would return to one another as if they both had been wiped clean of all their sins. He was already thinking of names, dreaming that the baby would be a boy.
An hour later, the train reached the first stop, and the old man seated beside Jacob disembarked. As the man made his way out of the car, Jacob saw that he had left a newspaper on the seat, the Washington Daily Chronicle from that very morning. Jacob picked it up and began to read.
He avoided even glancing at the front page; war news no longer interested him. Instead he flipped through the paper in a perfect imitation of a man without a care, hoping to find some irrelevant story to stimulate idle thoughts. But then he saw a short article on the second page, just below the paper’s masthead:
REBEL LADY SPIES CAPTURED!
Hebrew Sisters Sold Secrets to Jackson, Lee
YANKEE PLOT SUCCEEDS:
HEBREW AGENT OFFERS
“MARRIAGE OF INCONVENIENCE”
YOUNGER SPY SISTER DIES IN PRISON
PINKERTON CLAIMS “PROVIDENCE”
Jacob read the fourth headline over and over. It had to be a mistake. For a moment he thought of putting down the paper, pretending he had never seen it; he imagined that if he had never seen the headline, it might be even less likely to be true. Then he decided that if he read the article, he might be able to confirm that it was a mistake. Perhaps there was some other pair of captured Hebrew sister spies somewhere, a parallel world whose similarities to his own situation were merely coincidental. He read on:
Two young lady Rebel spies were captured by Federal cavalrymen this past Friday in New Babylon, Virginia. The Secret Service announced that the sisters, Miss Charlotte and Miss Eugenia Levy, had been selling information concerning Federal troop movements to Gens. Jackson and Lee for more than nine months, commencing last winter when the city was held by Federal forces. The ladies were incarcerated in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, where the younger of the two, Miss Eugenia Levy, suffered an apoplectic stroke and perished.
The lady spies were captured after a most unusual Yankee plot. A Hebrew agent from New York City, whose name the Secret Service has declined to disclose, was sent to live as a boarder at the home of the Levys, Hebrews with whom he had been acquainted through business liaisons prior to the war. According to Secret Service Chief George Pinkerton, his mission was to marry Miss Eugenia Levy, whom the Secret Service suspected as the head of a ring of Rebel spies, and then to report on her activities. “Surely it was an enviable mission for any young man,” Mr. Pinkerton said. “For the young lady, however, it can only be described as a marriage of inconvenience.”
The agent performed his task in a superior fashion, marrying Miss Levy according to the Hebrew rite and quickly entering into the confidence of both his wife and his sister-in-law, Miss Charlotte Levy. He was soon able to intercept communications that the ladies had directed to Gen. Jackson’s headquarters. The ladies’ capture by Union cavalry forces swiftly followed suit, along with the safe return of the Hebrew agent home.
Miss Eugenia Levy suffered a severe attack of hysteria within hours of her imprisonment, followed by a fatal stroke of apoplexy. Attendant doctors declared the young lady deceased.
Mr. Pinkerton was adamant in his belief that the younger Miss Levy’s demise expresses the justice of the Union cause. “One cannot but see the hand of Providence in the fate of the lady spy,” Mr. Pinkerton said. “As it is written in Scripture, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”
Jacob read the article once, then twice, and then fifteen times more. Each time he read it he told himself that it had to be a mistake; each time he read it he knew that it wasn’t. After an eternity of pressing his forehead against the glass that separated him from the smear of horror that had become the world, he recited the prayer for the dead.
PART FIVE
THE WITCH OF HOLLY SPRINGS
1.
JACOB DID NOT KILL HIMSELF ONCE HE ARRIVED IN TENNESSEE, but that wasn’t for lack of trying. Assigned to join the 23rd Ohio as they trudged their way south from Grand Junction to somewhere in Mississippi called Holly Springs, he put his own pistol to his head almost every night. But each night he decided that being forced to remain alive was a much truer punishment than death would have been, closer to what he deserved. He avoided speaking to anyone except to give and receive commands—ostensibly in obedience to his orders not to discuss the missions he had served, but really because he could not bear to face his fellow men. Along with his new post, he had also been given a new name, Sergeant Jacob Samuels, that everyone but the higher officers believed to be real; often enough, when someone addressed him, he didn’t recognize it and failed to respond. Among his fellow soldiers he quickly acquired the nickname “the Hebrew Ghost.”
It came about quite innocently. When the train that brought him to Tennessee stopped in Cincinnati, Jacob had bought himself a Hebrew prayer book from a Jewish book peddler there. Once he arrived at his new post, he began reading it regularly, not because he had suddenly become devout, but rather the opposite: it was a way of occupying himself with something supposedly lofty so as to avoid his fellow soldiers. It worked, at first.
Since he had been imported from the east, rumors about him abounded, and his silence reinforced them. In the evening hours, after Jacob retired early to face down the barrel of his gun, he often heard the men joking outside the tents about how Sergeant Samuels had actually died at Antietam Creek after personally disemboweling hundreds of Rebels; according to the most popular legend, his victims’ comrades had subsequently captured him and flayed him alive. His ghost had then returned and relocated to Grant’s campaign, as a warning to anyone arrogant enough to believe that real victory was within sight. The men saw Jacob reading his little leatherbound book and assumed it to be the Gospels; soon they were referring to him as Lazarus. And Lazarus he remained until one cool October evening in a forest in northern Missis
sippi—officially Grant’s territory, in the Federal Department of the Tennessee—when Elijah Dodge, an eighteen-year-old private, approached him with a question and noticed the letters on the book’s binding. That night Jacob listened from inside the tent as Dodge lounged with about a dozen other soldiers around a fire outdoors, spitting tobacco into the woods. Jacob was conducting yet another pantomime with the barrel of his gun when he heard Dodge mention his new name.
“Sergeant Samuels isn’t just any ghost,” Dodge said, to what Jacob guessed to be about a dozen men sitting outside. “He’s a Hebrew ghost.”
“I thought he might be,” replied another voice. Jacob recognized it as Edwin McAllister, a sergeant like himself, though a popular one who socialized easily with the men. He was a twenty-two-year-old bookbinder from Cincinnati and, even Jacob had noticed, a comedian of the kind every regiment hopes for, the sort of person who turns the worst boredom into a stage for his own entertaining act. Most nights he recruited his fellow soldiers to perform in outrageous impromptu skits that he made up himself, mocking whomever in the regiment most deserved it. But that night he was lazy, at least at first. “It’s a good sign for us,” McAllister added.
“Why?” someone else asked. It sounded like Charles Hoff—nineteen, a farmer from just outside Cincinnati, and in fast competition with McAllister for the role of company comedian, though unlikely ever to win.
Someone spat a wad of tobacco on the ground before McAllister replied. “Living Hebrews are good luck,” he said. “They’re evidence of the kingdom of the Lord on earth.”
Jacob assumed this was some sort of joke. He waited for the punchline, but none came. The others waited with him, until finally Hoff snorted. “Says who?”
McAllister didn’t have a chance to offer a retort before Dodge butted in. “It’s true,” Dodge said. “My father’s a pastor. He says that living Hebrews are messengers of God.”
Jacob had never heard that before. The other men were as skeptical as he was. He listened as they laughed. “In that case, dead Hebrews are definitely bad luck,” Hoff grunted. “And Samuels is a dead messenger at best.”
“Like the original Samuel,” Dodge said.
“Like who?” someone else asked.
“The ghost of the prophet Samuel, from Scripture,” Dodge volunteered, then took a breath, apparently about to launch into a lecture. “Don’t you remember? The Israelite King Saul was meeting the Philistines in battle, and he wanted advice from the prophet who had died. So he asked a lady who could raise the dead—a witch, the Witch of Endor—to call up the dead prophet Samuel to advise him. It was a bit hypocritical, I suppose, since King Saul himself had outlawed witches in his kingdom, so I suppose one has to imagine how terrible things must have already been for him to have to inquire of a witch. But I suppose King Saul was never a particularly admirable sort, and I suppose one has to imagine that at this point he was a bit mentally disturbed as well. So of course he went to find the Witch of Endor, and then the witch summoned up the prophet Samuel’s ghost, and then the ghost of the prophet told him that he was doomed, doomed, absolutely doomed, and I suppose one has to imagine what poor King Saul must have felt when he had gone and broken his own laws just to learn that his entire kingdom was doomed, though I suppose that one also has to imagine that—”
“Dodge, you’re boring everyone to tears,” McAllister interrupted. “Let’s give them a contemporary version. Instead of King Saul, I’ll be General Grant, and Hoff will be the Witch of Holly Springs. And Dodge, you can be the dead prophet Samuels. Now let’s show them all how it goes.”
The nightly McAllister pageant was about to begin, though such productions had never before featured Jacob as a character. This was significantly more interesting than the barrel of his gun. Jacob was sitting near a loose tent flap, and he gently lifted it until he could duck beneath it. The men’s backs were to him; everyone’s attention was focused on the three men who had just secreted themselves behind a clump of pines beyond the fire. Jacob took a seat along the edge of the tent, well behind the group, still holding his pistol in his lap. No one noticed him as McAllister and Hoff emerged from behind the trees.
McAllister had draped his jacket over his shoulders like a cape, and wore a crown of brambles on his head. He staggered out of the woods as if drunk, swilling imaginary liquor from his canteen. Hoff, meanwhile, had covered his own hair with a wig of dangling ferns. He was wearing his shirt as a skirt tied around his legs, his trousers apparently rolled up beneath it, exposing his bare feet in the mud. He had stuffed his socks into his exposed undershirt as makeshift breasts. The audience roared.
“Pray help me, dearest Witch of Holly Springs, for I am in utter despair,” McAllister groaned, then mock-swigged from his canteen, belching aloud.
“O noble King Grant, wherefore despaireth thou?” Hoff squeaked. “Thou hast every pair of testicles in the Union conscripted to thy service!”
McAllister waited for the laughter to die down before answering. “Nay, the testicles at my disposal are insufficient for my needs,” he huffed. “Recall, dear witch, that each one of these sorry testicles must be rolled through two hundred miles of swamp, and then shot out of cannons at the Rebel citadel until it falls. Dear witch, I need your help!”
“Your majesty, such largesse is beyond my means,” Hoff squeaked.
McAllister swilled more water from the canteen, which he spat at Hoff. “Alas, then I must content myself with the advice of withered remains. Witch, I implore you, bring me a desiccated corpse!”
“Whose flaccid form shall I raise up on thy behalf?” inquired Hoff, with an obscene gesture. The performance, Jacob reflected, was amusing only if one were extremely bored, or somewhat drunk. Fortunately the audience was both.
“Resurrect the deceased Sergeant Samuels, the Holy Martyr of Antietam,” McAllister bellowed. “I implore you, raise up his dry bones!”
“Yes, sir!” Hoff squealed, then turned toward the woods. “SAMUELS!” he yodeled. “Raise up thy flaccid form, in honor of the King!” He reached into his shirt, pulled out one of his balled breast-socks, and threw it into the trees behind him, to the delight of the crowd. Then Dodge emerged from the woods.
His face was catatonic, slack-jawed, and he had striped his skin with thick layers of black soot. He stood still for a moment between the trees, gazing into space, and then stepped in a strict march toward McAllister, raising his rifle. At first he leveled it at McAllister, who shrieked and swooned. Then, as if noticing an error, he turned it toward his own face, his bulging eyes peering down the barrel of his own gun. Jacob swallowed a gasp; they had seen him. Dodge paused for an inordinately long time, peering down the barrel as if searching for something, while the crowd laughed harder and harder. Then, with a shrug, he dropped the gun to the ground. The audience guffawed.
“Grant,” he roared, “how dare you raise me from my slumber?”
McAllister tripped over his own feet, then fell to his knees, pressing his face to the ground just before Dodge’s boots. “O, great Hebrew prophet of yore!” he proclaimed. “My attempts to rout the Rebel citadel at Vicksburg hath failed mightily of late. Tell me, O prophet, what size balls will be required in order for my men to win?”
Dodge stared into space for a long time as the laughter continued, until Hoff threw his other breast at him. Then he jolted, and spoke. “Your majesty,” he intoned, “having been flayed alive myself, I must inform you that no balls in the world are large enough for your needs.” The audience laughed once more. Dodge paused, wiping some of the soot from his face, and spoke again, his voice low and deep. “Hurl thousands of men into the flames, and you just may succeed. Then your entire nation shall become like me, a withered husk walking the earth.”
The laughter faded, and Jacob watched the men before him shift uncomfortably in their seats on the muddy ground, waiting for a joke that didn’t come. No one was expecting this rather serious turn in the burlesque. McAllister and Hoff quickly tried to set things right. Hoff,
all out of breasts, took the fern wig off his head and set it on Dodge’s. “Thank you, my dear,” he crooned, and kissed Dodge loudly on the cheek. “Your optimism will inspire us all. And now, please feel free to go to hell.”
McAllister scrambled to his feet and swallowed another swig from his canteen. “There’s nothing like a dead Hebrew to make one appreciate the finer spirits,” he announced, before turning back to Dodge. “If you ever require assistance with your weapons, I should be pleased to provide it.”
The crowd began to laugh again, with uneasy relief, as Dodge started backing himself into the woods. Then Dodge’s eye caught Jacob’s. McAllister and Hoff followed his gaze until all three of them were looking at him. The crowd turned around, until every man present was staring.
“Sergeant Samuels,” McAllister stuttered.
Jacob looked at him, then at the others, watching as the blood drained from each of their faces. Then he slowly rose, turned around and retreated to the tent, leaving behind a silent quorum of withered husks of men.
LATE THAT NIGHT, after the others had gone to sleep, Jacob went outside to smoke, using a cheap corncob pipe that his parents would have been ashamed to see between his lips. He sat down on a tree stump outside the tent and watched the stars. It occurred to him that many people look up at the stars and believe that they are witnessing the divine presence, or remnants of the past, or prophecies of the future. When he looked up, he saw nothing but a cold night sky.
“I owe you a drink, Samuels.”
Jacob looked down from the stars and saw McAllister standing beside him. McAllister squatted to sit on the dirt beside the stump, a supplicant at Jacob’s knees. “I do mean it,” he said as he sat down. “I hope you will accept.”