the time I procrastinated and hesitated as though I had eternity in
which to make decisions. I was, as Tyss had said, the spectator type,
waiting to be acted upon, waiting for events to push me where they
would.
_16._ _OF VARIED SUBJECTS_
“I can’t think of anything more futile,” said Kimi, “than to be an
architect at this time in the United States.”
Her husband grinned. “You forgot to add, ‘of Oriental extraction.’”
Catty said, “Ive never understood. Of course I don’t remember too
well, but it seems to me Spanish people don’t have the same racial
fanaticism. Certainly the Portuguese, French and Dutch don’t. Even the
English are not quite so certain of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Only the
Americans, in the United States and the Confederate States too, judge
everything by color.”
“The case of the Confederacy is reasonably simple,” I said. “There are
about fifty million Confederate citizens and two hundred and fifty
million subjects. If white supremacy wasnt the cornerstone of Southron
policy a visitor couldnt tell the ruling class at a glance. Even as
it is he sometimes has a hard time, what with sunburn. It’s more
complicated here. Remember, we lost a war, the most important war in
our history, which was not unconnected with skin color.”
“In Japan,” said Hiro, “the lighter colored people, the Ainu, used to
be looked down on. Just as the Christians were once driven underground
at exactly the same time they themselves drove the Jews underground in
Spain and Portugal.”
“The Jews,” murmured Catty vaguely; “are there still Jews?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “Several millions in Uganda-Eretz which the British
made a self-governing dominion back in 1933 under the first Labour
cabinet. And numbers most everywhere else, except in the German Union
since the massacres of 1905-1913.”
“Which were much more thorough than the anti-Oriental massacres in the
United States,” supplied Hiro.
“Much more thorough,” I agreed. “After all, scattered handfuls of
Asians were left alive here.”
“My parents and Kimi’s grandparents among them. How lucky they were to
be American Japanese instead of European Jews.”
“There are Jews in the United States,” announced Kimi. “I met one once.
She was a theosophist and told me I ought to learn the wisdom of the
East.”
“Very few of them. There were about two hundred thousand at the close
of the War of Southron Independence on both sides of the border. After
the election of 1872, General Grant’s Order Number Ten, expelling all
Jews from the Department of the Missouri, which had been rescinded
immediately by President Lincoln, was retroactively re-enacted by
President Butler, in spite of the fact that the United States no longer
controlled that territory. Henceforth Jews were treated like all other
colored peoples, Negroes, Orientals, Indians and South Sea Islanders:
as undesirables to be bribed to leave or to be driven out of the
country.”
“This is very dull stuff,” said Hiro. “Let me tell you about a hydrogen
reaction—”
“No, please,” begged Catty. “Let me listen to Hodge.”
“Good heavens,” exclaimed Kimi, “when do you ever do anything else? I’d
think you’d be tired by now.”
“She will marry him one of these days,” predicted Hiro; “then the poor
fellow will never be allowed to disguise a lecture as a conversation
again.”
Catty blushed, a deep red blush. I laughed to cover some constraint.
Kimi said, “Go-betweens are out of fashion; youre a century behind
times, Hiro. I suppose you think a woman ought to walk two paces
respectfully behind her husband. Actually, it’s only in the United
States women can’t vote or serve on juries.”
“Except in the state of Deseret,” I reminded her.
“That’s just bait; the Mormons gave us equality because they were
running short of women.”
“Not the way I heard it. The Latter Day Saints have been the nearest
thing to a prosperous group in the country. Women have been moving
there for years, it’s so easy to get married. All the grumbling about
polygamy has come from men who can’t stand the competition.”
Catty glanced at me, then looked away.
Had she, I wondered afterward, been thinking how Barbara would have
rejected my observation furiously? Or about that day in the spring? Or
about Hiro’s earlier comment? I thought about it, briefly, myself.
I also thought of how easily Catty fitted in with the Agatis and
contrasted it with the tension everyone would have felt if Barbara had
been there. One could love Barbara, or hate her or dislike her or even,
I supposed, be indifferent to her; the one thing impossible was to be
comfortable with her.
The final choice (was it final? I don’t know. I shall never know now)
hardened when I had been nearly six years at Haggershaven. It had been
“on” between Barbara and me for the longest stretch I could recall and
I had even begun to wonder if some paradoxical equilibrium had not been
established which would allow me to be her lover without vexation and
at the same time innocently enjoy a bond with Catty.
As always when the hostility between us slackened, Barbara spoke of
her work. In spite of such occasional confidences it was still not her
habit to talk of it with me. That intimacy was obviously reserved for
Ace, and I didnt begrudge him it, for after all he understood what it
was all about and I didnt. This time she was so full of the subject she
could not hold back, even from one who could hardly distinguish between
thermodynamics and kinesthetics.
“Hodge,” she said, gray eyes greenish with excitement, “I’m not going
to write a book.”
“That’s nice,” I answered idly. “New, too. Saves time, paper,
ink. Sets a different standard; from now on scholars will be known
as ‘Jones, who didnt write _The Theory of Tidal Waves’_,‘Smith,
unauthor of _Gas and Its Properties_,’ or ‘Backmaker, non-recorder of
_Gettysburg And After_.’”
“Silly. I only meant it’s become customary to spend a lifetime
formulating principles; then someone else comes along and puts your
principles into practice. It seems more sensible for me to demonstrate
my own conclusions instead of writing about them.”
“Yes, sure. Youre going to demonstrate ... uh ...?”
“Cosmic entity, of course. What do you think Ive been talking about?”
I tried to remember what she had said about cosmic entity. “You mean
youre going to try to turn matter into space or something like that?”
“Something like that. I intend to translate matter-energy into terms of
space-time.”
“Oh,” I said, “equations and symbols and all that.”
“I just said I wasnt going to write a book.”
“But how—” I started up as the impact struck me. “Youre going to ...” I
groped for words. “Youre going to build a ... an engine which will move
through time?”
“Putting it crudely. But close enough for a layman.”
“You once told me your work was theoretical. That you were no vulgar
mechanic.”
“I’ll become one.”
“Barbara, youre crazy! As a philosophical abstraction this theory of
yours is interesting—”
“Thank you. It’s always nice to know one has amused the yokelry.”
“Barbara, listen to me. Midbin—”
“I havent the faintest interest in Oliver’s stodgy fantasies.”
“He has in yours though, and so have I. Don’t you see, this
determination of yours is based on the fantasy of going back through
time to—uh—injure your mother—”
“Oliver Midbin is a coarse, stupid, insensate lout. He has taught the
dumb to speak, but he’s too much of a fool to understand anyone of
normal intelligence. He has a set of idiotic theories about diseased
emotions and he fits all facts into them even if it means chopping them
up to do it or inventing new ones to piece them out. Injure my mother
indeed! I have no more interest in her than she ever had in me.”
“Ah, Barbara—”
“‘Ah Barbara,’” she mimicked. “Run along to your pompous windbag of a
Midbin or your oh-so-willing cow-eyed Spanish doxy—”
“Barbara, I’m talking as a friend. Leave Midbin and Catty and
personalities out of it and just look at it this way. Don’t you see
the difference between promulgating a theory and trying a practical
demonstration which will certainly appear to the world as going over
the borderline into charlatanism? Like a spiritualist medium or—”
“That’s enough! ‘Charlatan’! You unspeakable guttersnipe. What do you
know of anything beyond the seduction of cretins? Go back to your
trade, you errand boy!”
I seemed to remember that once before an incident had ended precisely
this way. “Barbara—”
Her hand caught me across my mouth. Then she strode away.
The fellows of Haggershaven were not enthusiastic for her project.
Even as she outlined it to them in more sober language than she had
to me it still sounded outlandish, like the recurrent idea of a
telegraph without wires or a rocket to the moon. Besides, 1950 was a
bad year. The war was coming closer; at the least, what was left of
the independence of the United States was likely to be extinguished.
Our energies had to be directed toward survival rather than new and
expensive ventures. Still, Barbara Haggerwells was a famous figure
commanding great respect, and she had cost them little so far, beyond
paper and pencils. Reluctantly the fellows voted an appropriation.
An old barn, not utilized for years, but still sound, was turned over
to Barbara, and Kimi was delighted to plan, design and supervise the
necessary changes. Ace and a group of the fellows attacked the job
vigorously, sawing and hammering, bolting iron beams together, piping
in gas for reflecting lights to enable them to work at night as well.
I believe I took no more interest than was inescapable as a fellow
of Haggershaven. I had no doubt that the money and labor were being
wasted, and I foresaw a terrible disappointment for Barbara when she
realized the impossibility of her project. For myself I did not think
she would play any further part of importance in my life.
We had not spoken since the quarrel, nor was there inclination on
either side toward coming together again. I could not guess at
Barbara’s feelings; mine were those of relief, unmixed with regret.
I would not have erased all there had been between us, but I was
satisfied to have it in the past. The raging desire vanished, gradually
replaced by an affection of sorts; I wanted no more of that tempestuous
passion, instead I felt aloofly protective and understanding.
For at last I was absorbed with Catty. The raw hunger of the moment
when I first realized I wanted her came back with renewed force, but
now other, more diffused feelings were equally part of my emotion. I
knew she could make me jealous as Barbara could not; at the same time I
could see tranquillity beyond turbulent wanting, a tranquillity never
possible with Barbara.
But my belated realization of what Catty meant to me was no reaction to
Barbara or connected with the breaking of that tie. The need for Catty
was engendered by Catty alone, and for Catty apart from anything I had
ever felt for another. It was in some ways an entirely new hunger,
as the man’s need transcends the youth’s. I understood now what her
question in the woodlot meant and at last I could truthfully answer.
She kissed me back, freely and strongly. “I love you, Hodge,” she said;
“I have loved you even through the bad dream of not being able to
speak.”
“When I was so unfeeling.”
“I loved you even when you were impatient; I tried to make myself
prettier for you. You know you have never said I was pretty.”
“You arent, Catty. Youre extraordinarily beautiful.”
“I think I would rather be pretty. Beauty sounds forbidding. Oh, Hodge,
if I did not love you so much I would not have stopped you that day.”
“I’m not sure I understand that.”
“No? Well, it is not necessary now. Sometimes I wondered if I had been
right after all, or if you would think it was because of Barbara.”
“Wasnt it?”
“No. I was never jealous of her. We Garcías are supposed to have
Morisco blood; perhaps I have the harem outlook of my dark Muslim
ancestors. Would you like me to be your black concubine?”
“No,” I said. “I’d like you to be my wife. In any colors you have.”
“Spoken with real gallantry; you will be a courtier yet, Hodge. But
that was a proposal, wasnt it?”
“Yes,” I answered grimly; “if you will consider one from me. I can’t
think of any good reason why you should.”
She put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “I don’t
know what reason has to do with it. It is what I always intended; that
was why I blushed so when Hiro Agati blurted out what everyone could
see.”
Later I said, “Catty, can you ever forgive me for the wasted years? You
say you werent jealous of Barbara, but surely if she and I—that is ...
anyway, forgive me.”
“Dear Hodge, there’s nothing to forgive. Love is not a business
transaction, nor a case at law in which justice is sought, nor a reward
for having good qualities. I understand you, Hodge, better I think than
you understand yourself. You are not satisfied with what is readily
obtained, otherwise you would have been content back in—what is the
name?—Wappinger Falls. I have known this for a long time and I could,
I think—you must excuse my vanity—have interested you at any moment by
pretending fickleness. Just as I could have held you if I had given in
that day. Besides, I think you will make a better husband for realizing
you could not deal with Barbara.”
I can’t say I entirely enjoyed this speech. I felt, in fact, rather
humiliated, or at least healthily humbled. Which was no doubt what she
intended, and as it should be. I never had the idea she was frail or
insipid.
Nor did Catty’s explanation of a harem outlook satisfactorily account
for the sudden friendliness of the two women after the engagement was
announced. That Barbara should soften so toward a successful rival was
incomprehensible and also disturbing.
Because both were fully occupied they actually spent little time
together, but Catty visited the workshop, as they called the converted
barn, whenever she had the chance and her real admiration for Barbara
grew so that I heard too often of her genius, courage and imagination.
I could hardly ask Catty to forego society I had so recently found
enchanting nor establish a taboo against mention of a name I had lately
whispered with ardor; still I felt a little foolish, and not quite as
important as I might otherwise have thought myself.
Not that Catty didnt have proper respect and enthusiasm for my
fortunes. I had completed my notes for _Chancellorsville to the
End_—that is, I had a mass of clues, guideposts, keys, ideas, and
emphases which would serve as skeleton for a work which might take
years to write—and Catty was the audience to whom I explained and
expounded and used as a prototype of the reader I might reach. Volume
one was roughly drafted, and we were to be married as soon as it
was finished, shortly after my thirtieth and Catty’s twenty-fourth
birthday. There was little doubt the book would bring an offer from one
of the great Confederate universities, but Catty was firm for a cottage
like the Agatis’, and I could not conceive of being foolish enough to
leave Haggershaven.
From Catty’s talk I knew Barbara was running into increasing
difficulties now the workshop was complete and actual construction
begun of what was referred to, with unnecessary crypticism I thought,
as HX-1. The impending war created scarcities, particularly of
such materials as steel and copper, of which latter metal HX-1
seemed inordinately greedy. I was not surprised when the fellows
apologetically refused Barbara a new appropriation.
Next day Catty said, “Hodge, you know the haven wouldnt take my money.”
“And quite right too. Let the rest of us put in what we get; we owe it
to the haven anyway. But the debt is the other way round in your case
and you should keep your independence.”
“Hodge, I’m going to give it all to Barbara for her HX-1.”
“What? Oh, nonsense!”
“Is it any more nonsensical for me to put in money I didnt do anything
to get than for her and Ace to put in time and knowledge and labor?”
“Yes, because she’s got a crazy idea and Ace has never been quite sane
where she’s concerned. If you go ahead and do this you’ll be as crazy
as they are.”
When Catty laughed I remembered with a pang the long months when that
lovely sound had been strangled by terror inside her. I also thought
with shame of my own failure; had I appreciated her when her need was
greatest I might have eased the long, painful ordeal of restoring her
voice.
“Perhaps I am crazy. Do you think the haven would make me a fellow on
that basis? Anyway, I believe in Barbara even if the rest of you don’t.
Not that I’m criticizing; you were right to be cautious. You have more
to consider than demonstration of the truth of a theory which can’t
conceivably have a material value; I don’t have to take any such long
view. Anyway I believe in her. Or perhaps I feel I owe her something.
With my money she can finish her project. I only tell you this because
you may not want to marry me under the circumstances.”
“You think I’m marrying you for your money?”
She smiled. “Dear Hodge. You are in some ways so young; I hear the
wounded dignity in your voice. No, I know very well you arent marrying
me for money, that it never occurred to you it might be a good idea.
That would be too practical, too grown up, too un-Hodgelike. I think
you might not want to marry a woman who’d give all her money away.
Especially to Barbara Haggerwells.”
“Catty, are you doing this absurd thing to get rid of me? Or to test
me?”
This time she again laughed loud. “Now I’m sure you will marry me after
all and turn out to be a puzzled but amenable husband. You are my true
Hodge, who studies a war because he can’t understand anything simpler
or subtler.”
She wasnt to be dissuaded from the quixotic gesture. I might not
understand subtleties but I was sure I understood Barbara well enough.
Foreseeing her request for more funds would be turned down, she must
have cultivated Catty deliberately in order to use her. Now she’d
gotten what she wanted I confidently expected her to drop Catty or
revert to her accustomed virulence.
She did neither. If anything the amity grew. Catty’s vocabulary added
words like “magnet,” “coil,” “induction,” “particle,” “light-year,”
“continuum” and many others either incomprehensible or uninteresting to
me. Breathlessly she described the strange, asymmetric structure taking
shape in the workshop, while my mind was busy with Ewell’s Corps and
parrott guns and the weather chart of southern Pennsylvania for July,
1863.
The great publishing firm of Ticknor, Harcourt & Knopf contracted for
my book—there was no publisher in the United States equipped to handle
it—and sent me a sizable advance in Confederate dollars which became
even more sizable converted into our money. I read the proofs of volume
one in a state of semiconsciousness, sent the inevitable telegram
changing a footnote on page 99, and waited for the infuriating mails to
bring me my complimentary copies. The day after they arrived (with a
horrifying typographical error right in the middle of page 12), Catty
and I were married.
Dear Catty. Dear, dear Catty.
With the approval of the fellows we used part of the publisher’s
advance for a honeymoon. We spent it—that part of it in which we
had time for anything except being alone together—going over nearby
battlefields of the last year of the War of Southron Independence.
It was Catty’s first excursion away from Haggershaven since the
night I brought her there. Looking at the world outside through
her perceptions, at once insulated and made hypersensitive by her
new status, I was shocked afresh at the harsh indifference, the
dull poverty, the fear, brutality, frenzy and cynicism highlighting
the strange resignation to impending fate which characterized our
civilization. It was not a case of eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow
we die; rather it was, let us live meanly and trust to luck—tomorrow’s
luck is bound to be worse.
We settled down in the autumn of 1951 in a cottage designed by
Kimi and built by the fellows during our absence. It gave on the
Agatis’ cherished garden and we were both moved by this evidence of
love, particularly after what we had seen and heard on our trip. Mr
Haggerwells made a speech, filled with classical allusions, welcoming
us back as though we had been gone for years; Midbin looked anxiously
into Catty’s face as though to assure himself I had not, in my new role
as husband, treated her so ill as to bring on a new emotional upset;
and the other fellows made appropriate gestures. Even Barbara stopped
by long enough to comment that the house was ridiculously small, but
she supposed Kimi’s movable partitions helped.
I immediately began working on volume two and Catty took up her sewing
again. She also resumed her visits to Barbara’s workshop; again I heard
detailed accounts of my former sweetheart’s progress. HX-1 was to be
completed in the late spring, or early summer. I was not surprised at
Barbara’s faith surviving actual construction of the thing, but that
such otherwise level-headed people as Ace and Catty could envisage
breathlessly the miracles about to happen was beyond me. Ace, even
after all these years, was still bemused—but Catty ...?
Just before the turn of the year I got the following letter:
LEE & WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Department of History
Leesburg, District of Calhounia, CSA.
December 19, 1951
Mr. Hodgins M. Backmaker
“Haggershaven”
York,
Pennsylvania, USA.
_Sir_:
_On page 407 of_ Chancellorsville to the End, _volume I_, Turning
Tides, _you write, “Chronology and topography—timing and the use of
space—were to be the decisive factors, rather than population and
industry. Stuart’s detachment, which might have proved disastrous,
turned out extraordinarily fortunate for Lee, as we shall see in the
next volume. Of course the absence of cavalry might have been decisive
if the Round Tops had not been occupied by the Southrons on July
1....”_
_Now, sir, evidently in your forthcoming analysis of Gettysburg you
hold (as I presume most Yankees do) to the theory of fortuitousness.
We Southrons naturally ascribe the victory to the supreme genius of
General Lee, regarding the factors of time and space not as forces in
themselves but as opportunities for the display of his talents._
_Needless to say, I hardly expect you to change your opinions, rooted
as they must be in national pride. I only ask that before you commit
them, and the conclusions shaped by them, to print, you satisfy
yourself as an historian, of their validity in this particular case.
In other words, sir, as one of your readers (and may I add, one who
has enjoyed your work), I should like to be assured that you have
studied this classic battle as carefully as you have the engagements
described in volume I._
_With earnest wishes for your success,
I remain, sir
Cordially yours,
Jefferson Davis Polk_
This letter from Dr Polk, the foremost historian of our day, author
of the monumental biography, _The Great Lee_, produced a crisis in
my life. Had the Confederate professor pointed out flaws in my work,
or even reproached me for undertaking it at all without adequate
equipment I would, I trust, have acknowledged the reproof and continued
to the best of my ability. But this letter was an accolade. Without
condescension Dr Polk admitted me to the ranks of serious historians,
only asking me to consider the depth of my evaluation.
Truth is, I was not without increasing doubts of my own. Doubts I had
not allowed to rise to the surface of my mind and disturb my plans.
Polk’s letter brought them into the open.
I had read everything available. I had been over the ground between the
Maryland line, South Mountain, Carlisle and the haven until I could
draw a detail map from memory. I had turned up diaries, letters and
accounts which had not only never been published, but which were not
known to exist until I hunted them down. I had so steeped myself in
the period I was writing about that sometimes the two worlds seemed
interchangeable and I could live partly in one, partly in the other.