The journalist took his time, which was exactly what Theodore wanted. The first picture that seemed to interest him was entitled Hudson River. It showed a New York street, and had a grainy, dusty feel to it. A couple of blocks away the street ended and beyond was a great emptiness which was clearly the Hudson, although you couldn’t actually see the water.
“Draft riots?”
“That’s right. The third day. Wednesday.”
“Why call it Hudson River? The river’s hardly visible.”
“Because that’s the name of the man you see.”
There was only one man in the picture. A blackened bundle hanging from a tree. Blackened because he had been burned after he was lynched. Burned almost to a cinder.
“He was called Hudson River?”
“Yes. He worked in a saloon, for Sean O’Donnell.”
“I know him.”
“O’Donnell had hidden him in the cellar. Didn’t even know he’d got out. Reckons he could have been drinking down there, or maybe he just couldn’t stand the boredom any more—he’d been down there three days. Whatever the reason, young Hudson River sneaked outside. Must have wandered round Battery Park and started up the West Side. That’s where they caught him. They were catching a lot of black men that day. Strung him up on that tree and set fire to him.”
Horace Slim said nothing, and moved on.
“That’s a strange one,” he remarked by another photograph. “What is it?”
“An experiment, technically,” Theodore said. “I was with General Grant’s army at the time. The camera is looking through a magnifying lens that has been placed in front of the object, and you can actually see the magnified image of the object.”
“I see. But what is it?”
“It’s a lead slug. A bullet. But I have cut the slug open, so that you can see its internal construction better. You’ll notice that instead of being of a consistency throughout, the slug has a cavity at its base. Invention of a Frenchman named Minié originally—that’s why they call it a Minié ball. As you’ll know, the old smooth-bore musket was never accurate except at short range. But the rifle, with its spiral grooves inside the barrel, causes the bullet to spin, so that it becomes far more deadly over longer ranges.”
“And the cavity in the slug?”
“Under the pressure of firing, the open bottom of the slug expands outward, pushes it against the walls of the barrel so that it takes the rifling. That little cavity has brought death to thousands.”
“Ingenious. The photograph, I mean.” He moved on. “And this pair of broken-down shoes?”
“General Grant himself showed them to me—in disgust. They came from New York, too. You’d think they were years old, to disintegrate like that, but they’re not a week old.”
“I see. Shoddy goods.”
It had been one of the greatest scandals of the war. Profiteers, not a few of them from New York, had got contracts to supply the army and sent them shoddy goods—uniforms that fell apart and, worst of all, boots that seemed to be made of leather, but whose soles were actually compressed cardboard. At the first shower of rain they disintegrated.
“This may interest you,” Theodore remarked, leading the journalist across to another picture, which consisted of two posters. “I picked ’em up, in different locations, then put them side by side on a wall.” Each advertised the rates being offered for joining the Union army. “You’ll recall the reluctance of our own state to accept any black men into the army at all. But, of course, the black regiments came to be some of the best in the Union by the end of the war.”
The posters were quite straightforward. A white private was offered $13 a month, and a $3.50 clothing allowance. The black private was offered $10 and $3 for clothing.
“And what point are you making?” the journalist asked. “Are you aiming to shock?”
“No,” said Theodore, “it’s just a little irony. A reminder, if you like. I dare say plenty of white soldier boys reckoned that difference was fair—after all, the white man’s family would need more, because they lived better.”
“Not everybody’s going to like you,” said Slim.
“I know. That’s why my good friends told me not to show this part of the work. But I told ’em—in a friendly way of course—to go to hell. The record is the record, Mr. Slim. It is for you, as a journalist. And it is for me. If we don’t tell the truth as we see it, we have nothing.” He smiled. “Let me show you a landscape.”
It was the only landscape in the Civil War section—actually three landscapes pasted together to make a wide panorama. And under it, the title: Marching Through Georgia.
“In the fall of ’64, I’d gone back to New York. Grant was stuck in Virginia at that time, and the war so unpopular again that most people reckoned Lincoln would lose the election that year, and the Democrats would make peace with the South so the Confederates could have pretty much declared a victory. But then Sherman took Atlanta, and everything changed. The Union cause was up again, Lincoln would be re-elected, and Sherman would make his great march from Atlanta to the sea. A fine photographer I knew, named George Barnard, went down to join General Sherman there, and I went with him. That’s how this picture came to be taken.”
“Marching Through Georgia,” Horace Slim remarked. “Fine song.”
“Yes. You know who hates it? Sherman himself. Can’t bear the sound of it.”
“They play it wherever he appears.”
“I know.” Theodore shook his head. “Think of the lyrics of that song, sir.” He sang them softly: “‘Hurrah, Hurrah, we bring the jubilee! Hurrah, Hurrah, the flag that makes you free!’” He looked at the journalist. “It has a joyous ring, don’t it? That’s what makes it so contemptible, to those of us that were there.”
“Well, the slaves were glad enough to see you, surely?”
“Yes—‘How the darkies shouted when they heard the joyful sound,’ as the words of the song go. The slaves greeted Sherman as a liberator, it’s true. And though when he set out, he hadn’t been that interested in them, he came to believe in their cause and did much for them. But consider the lines that follow—‘How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found; How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground.’”
“Poetic license.”
“Hogwash, sir. We took every provision we could use from that fine land, most certainly. We raped it. But anything that was left after that, we destroyed. It was deliberate, it was cruel, and the scale of it had to be seen to be believed. That was Sherman’s intent. He believed it was necessary. ‘The hard way,’ he called it. I don’t say he was wrong. But there was no joy in that land, I assure you. We destroyed every farm, burned every field and orchard, so that the people of the South should starve.” He paused. “Can you quote me the words of the song that describe it?”
“‘So we made a thoroughfare for freedom and her train; Sixty miles of latitude, three hundred to the main.’”
“That’s right. A great swathe of total desolation, a blackened wasteland. Utter ruination. Sixty miles wide, sir, and three hundred miles long. That’s what we did to the South. I do not believe anything more terrible was ever done in the history of war.” He paused. “And some damn contemptible fool has made it into a popular song.” He pointed to the landscape. “That’s what it looked like.”
The landscape in the photograph was wide indeed. You could see for miles. And it stretched to a distant horizon. In the foreground were the charred remains of a farmstead. And everywhere else, as far as the eye could see, was an empty, blackened wasteland.
There was one more room to visit. It was the smallest, and it contained pictures that were not united by any theme. The first to catch the journalist’s eye was Theodore’s picture of the black men walking up the railway tracks beside the gleaming river.
“I like that,” he said.
“Ah.” Theodore was genuinely pleased. “It’s an early one, but I’m still quite proud of it.”
There were some smal
l studies of family and friends, including a fine one of his cousin Hans, the piano-maker, sitting at the keyboard, the fine lines of his face caught by the soft light coming from an unseen window.
On one wall were three views of Niagara Falls, commissioned by Frank Master. They were wonderfully striking, the long exposure adding a complexity to the billowing sprays rising from the base, and a dazzling clear sky making the whole scene almost unearthly, like a painting.
“Hmm,” said Horace Slim. “You’ll do well with those.”
Theodore grinned. “Pays the rent, Mr. Slim. They are technically excellent, by the way.”
There were a few scenes of New York, including one of the reservoir on Fifth Avenue. Hetty Master had commissioned it.
And that pretty much seemed to wrap the exhibition up. Except for one small, rather dark picture in a corner. Horace Slim walked over and took a quick look at it. The photograph had a title: Moonlight Sonata.
It took a few seconds to decipher what was in there. The scene had required a very long exposure, because it was taken by the light of a full moon. You could make out a trench line, and a sentry standing near a field gun, whose long barrel shone softly in the moonlight. There were tents and a little stricken tree.
“Civil War?”
“Yes. But it didn’t seem to go in the other room, somehow. It’s more a personal photograph, I guess. I may take it down.”
The journalist with the sad eyes nodded, folded up his notebook and put it in his pocket.
“Well, I guess I’m done, then.”
“Thank you. You’ll give me a notice?”
“Yes. Don’t know how long—that’ll depend on the editor—but I have all I need.”
They began to walk out together.
“Just out of interest, not for the piece, what was the story of the little dark picture?”
Theodore paused.
“Well, it was the night before an engagement. In Virginia. Our Union boys were in their trenches, and the Confederates in theirs, not more than a couple of stone’s throw away. It was quite silent. The moonlight, as you saw, was falling on the scene. There must’ve been all ages, I suppose, between those trenches. Men well into middle years. And plenty who were little more than boys. There were women in the camp, too, of course. Wives, and others.
“I supposed they would soon fall asleep. But then, over in the Confederate trenches, some fellow started singing ‘Dixie.’ And soon they were all joining in, right along the line. So they sang ‘Dixie’ at us for a while, then stopped.
“Well, sure enough, our boys weren’t going to let it go at that. So a group of ’em started up ‘John Brown’s Body.’ And in no time the whole of our trenches were giving them that. Fine voices too, I may say.
“And when they’d done, there was another silence. Then over in the Confederate trench, we heard a single voice. A young fellow by the sound of it. And he started singing a psalm. The twenty-third psalm it was. I’ll never forget that.
“As you know, in the South, with the shape-note singing, every congregation is well practiced in the singing of psalms. So again, all along the line, they joined in. Kind of soft. Sweet and low. And maybe it was the moonlight, but I have to say it was the most beautiful sound I ever heard.
“But I’d forgotten that many of our boys were accustomed to singing the psalms too. When you consider the profanities you hear spoken every day in camp, you might forget that; but it is so. And to my surprise, our boys began to sing with them. And in a short while, all along the lines, those two armies sang together, free for a moment of their circumstances, as if they were a single congregation of brothers in the moonlight. And then they sang another psalm, and then the twenty-third again. And after that, there was silence, for the rest of the night.
“During which time, I took that photograph.
“The next morning there was a battle. And before noon, Mr. Slim, I regret to say, there was scarcely a man from either of those trenches left. They had killed each other. Dead, sir, almost every one.”
And, caught unawares, Theodore Keller suddenly stopped speaking, and was not able to continue for a minute or two.
Snow
1888
THREE OF THEM sat down at the table in Delmonico’s. Frank Master was nervous. He hadn’t wanted to come—indeed, he’d been most surprised when Sean O’Donnell had asked him to meet Gabriel Love.
“What the devil does he want with me?” he’d said. Gabriel Love might be a well-known figure, but he and Master moved in different circles and Frank had no desire to do business with such a man.
“Just come and meet him,” Sean had asked. “As a kindness to me.” So, since he owed O’Donnell quite a few favors, Frank had reluctantly agreed.
Delmonico’s restaurant, at least, had been a good choice. It used to be further downtown, but now it was at Twenty-sixth and Fifth, looking across Madison Park to Leonard Jerome’s old mansion. Frank liked Delmonico’s.
But before he walked in the door, he turned to Sean and said firmly: “Remember, O’Donnell, anything illegal, and I’m leaving.”
“It’s all right,” said Sean. “Trust me.”
Sean O’Donnell, these days, was a very elegant man. His face was clean-shaven; his hair was still thick, but silver. He was wearing a perfectly cut pearl-gray suit. The knot of his silk bow tie was tied to perfection, and the studs down his shirt front were neatly set diamonds. His shoes were so highly polished, it was hard to imagine their owner had ever stepped near a gutter in his life. He looked like a banker. True, he still owned the saloon, and looked in there from time to time, but he hadn’t lived there for almost twenty years. Since then he’d owned a house on lower Fifth Avenue—not a great mansion, but as big as Master’s house in Gramercy Park. Sean O’Donnell was a rich man.
How had he done it? Master had a pretty good idea. While Fernando Wood had known how to extort money from New York City, and his successor, the great Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall, had turned the business into an art form, O’Donnell had managed to be close to both men in turn, and he’d benefited hugely. He’d been able to develop scores of properties in the ever growing city, renting and selling at huge profit. “I never had any of the padded contracts,” Sean had told him. Tweed had fleeced the city of millions with those. “But he did let me invest $10,000 in his printing company.” Tweed had then pushed all the city’s printing through the company, at inflated prices. “I got a dividend of $75,000 a year from a $10,000 investment,” Sean had confessed.
And when Tweed had been exposed, and his inner circle had been disgraced, O’Donnell had been one of many who, having profited discreetly in those years, had been able to cover their tracks and continue quietly with their business.
And then there had been the dealings with Wall Street.
That had been the province of men like Gabriel Love.
Gabriel Love was large. He sat opposite Frank Master, and his watery blue eyes rested mildly upon Frank’s face, while his big white beard flowed like a benign waterfall onto the broad expanse of his stomach, which caressed the edge of the table.
Everyone knew Mr. Gabriel Love. He looked like Santa Claus, and his gifts to local charities were legendary. He loved attending church, where he sang the hymns in a high, almost falsetto tenor. His pockets were always full of candies for children. “Daddy Love,” people often called him. Unless, of course, they had been the victim of one of his devastating financial operations. Then they called him “The Bear.”
Gabriel Love greeted Master politely. When the waiters brought the food, he announced that he would say grace, which he did in a voice of great reverence. Then he let Sean provide most of the conversation until he had finished eating an entire chicken. Only then did he turn to Frank and inquire of him: “Are you a betting man, Mr. Master?”
“Once in a while,” said Master, guardedly.
“The way I see it,” said Gabriel Love, “a Wall Street man is a betting man. I’ve seen men bet all afternoon on which raindrop on a
window is goin’ to reach the bottom first.” He nodded thoughtfully. “A Wall Street man is greedy, too. No harm in that. Without greed, I always say, there’d be no civilization. But the Wall Street man doesn’t have the patience to till the soil or manufacture things. He’s clever, but he’s not deep. He invests in companies, but he doesn’t much care what they are, or what they do. What he wants is to bet on them. Wall Street will always be full of young men, betting.”
“Young men?” Sean said. “What about older men, Gabriel?”
“Ah. Well now, as a young man gets older, he raises a family, takes on responsibilities. And then he changes—it’s only human nature. You see it on the street all the time. The man with responsibilities does not bet in the same way. His operations are different.”
“How different?”
Gabriel Love gazed at them both, and suddenly his pale blue eyes seemed to grow harder.
“He stacks the odds,” he said sharply.
He knew it. As Frank stared at the great, white, deceptive beard of Gabriel Love, every instinct told him it was time to leave.
Sean O’Donnell was one thing. Sean might kill you, but not if you were on his side. For some time, fate had linked them through Mary, and in other ways since. Sean he could trust. But Gabriel Love was another matter. Did he really want to get involved with him, at his time of life?
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