As if to underscore that, a couple of Confederate soldiers came out of Mr. Jacobs' shoemaker's shop across the street, one of them holding a pair of marching boots, the other shiny black cavalry boots. The fellow with the cavalry boots must have told a joke, for the other Reb laughed and made as if to throw half his own footgear at him.
Nellie ducked back inside the coffeehouse and said, "I'm going over to Mr. Jacobs' for a few minutes, Edna."
"All right, Ma," her daughter answered from behind the counter. The place was busy — too busy, Nellie hoped, for Edna to get into any mischief while she was gone. Nicholas Kincaid wasn't in there soaking up coffee and mooning over Edna, which Nellie took for a good sign.
She had to hurry across the street to keep a big truck from running her down. The colored man at the wheel of the truck laughed because he'd made her scramble. She glared at him till the truck turned a corner and went out of sight. She was a white woman. She deserved better treatment from a Negro. But, she reminded herself sadly, she was also a damnyankee, and so deserving of no respect from Confederates, even black ones.
The bell above the shoemaker's door jingled as Nellie went inside. She'd thought Jacobs was alone, but he was in there talking with another gray-haired, nondescript man. They both fell silent, quite abruptly. Then Mr. Jacobs smiled. "Hello, Widow Semphroch," he said smoothly. "Don't be shy-this is my friend, Mr. Pfeiffer. Lou, Widow Semphroch runs the coffee house across the street. She is one of the nicest ladies I know."
"Pleased to meet you, ma'am," Lou Pfeiffer said.
"And you, Mr. Pfeiffer, I'm sure." Nellie glanced over at the shoemaker. "Since you have your friend here, Mr. Jacobs, I'll come back another time."
"Don't hurry off," Jacobs said. "Mr. Pfeiffer — Lou-was telling me some thing very interesting. You might even want to hear it yourself. If you're not too busy, why don't you stay?"
"Well, all right," Nellie said, a little surprised. She'd intended giving Mr. Jacobs some of the dirt she'd gleaned from the coffeehouse, and he had to know that. He wouldn't have wanted her to do it while anyone else was around. So why keep her here when she couldn't speak of what really mat tered? She shrugged. "Go ahead, Mr. Pfeiffer."
"I was just telling Hal here what a nuisance it is to try and keep pigeons in Washington these days," Pfeiffer said. Hal — Nellie raised an eyebrow. Years across the street from Mr. Jacobs, and she'd never known his first name. His friend went on, "The Rebs don't want anybody having birds these days. Pi geons aren't just pigeons, not to them. A pigeon can carry a message, too, so they've confiscated all the birds they could find."
"But they haven't found all of them, eh, Lou?" Jacobs said.
Pfeiffer shook his head. He had a sly look to him that had nothing to do with his rather doughy features — more the glint in his eye, the angle at which he cocked his head. "Not all of 'em, no. Not mine, for instance. Not some other people's, too. We've got an underground, you might say. We keep birds, but the Rebs don't know it. Makes life exciting, so to speak." He set a finger by the side of his nose and winked.
A few months before, Nellie would have taken his jaunty talk at face value and not even thought to look below the surface. Now — Now she was convinced everything had unplumbed depths. "That is interesting, Mr. Pfeiffer," she said. She looked at him, then at Mr. Jacobs: a silent question.
Ever so slightly, the shoemaker nodded. He turned to Pfeiffer and started to laugh. "You see, Lou? Not just a nice lady, but a clever one, too."
"I see," Pfeiffer said agreeably. "I've thought so, from what you've said about her every now and then."
That cleared up the last small doubt Nellie had had. "Can I tell you some interesting things I've heard in the coffeehouse, Mr. Pfeiffer, or would you rather have me wait and tell Mr. Jacobs so he can tell you?"
"She is a clever lady," Pfeiffer said, and then, to Nellie, "You can tell me — eliminate the middleman." He and Jacobs both wheezed laughter.
So Nellie, as if casually gossiping, told of the troop movements and other interesting bits of news she'd heard in the coffeehouse over the past couple of days. She got interrupted once, when a colored servant brought in a Confeder ate officer's boots for resoling. The Negro paid no attention to anything but his business, and was soon gone. Nellie finished her — report was the right word for it, she thought.
"Well, well," Lou Pfeiffer said. "Yes, I am glad I still keep pigeons, that I am. Thank you, Widow Semphroch."
"Nellie, isn't it?" Mr. Jacobs said suddenly.
"That's right — Hal," she answered, smiling at him. He smiled back. They'd knocked down a barrier, one they'd taken for granted but one that had been there for a long time. She smiled at Mr. Pfeiffer, too, partly for being what he was, partly for his help in making that barrier fall. "Gentlemen, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back across the street and keep the Rebs in or der at the coffeehouse. A pleasure to have met you, Mr. Pfeiffer."
"And you, Widow Semphroch," Pfeiffer said as she went out the door.
When she got back into the coffeehouse, Edna discreetly beckoned her over. She went, curious to see what could make her daughter circumspect. In a low voice, Edna said, "There was a man came in here askin' after you, Ma, and I didn't fancy his looks even a little, if you know what I mean."
Fear leaped up and bit Nellie. The Rebs would have people hunting U.S. spies. "What did he look like?" she asked, forcing herself to speak quietly, too.
"Old and ugly," Edna answered with the callousness of youth. "Either he ought to shave or else he ought to let his whiskers grow, one way or the other. Said his name was Bill or Phil or Pill or something like that." She shrugged. It hadn't been important to her.
A chill ran through Nellie. That sounded altogether too much like Bill Reach to suit her. "If he ever comes back, tell him I don't want his business here. If he doesn't like that, throw him out. I'm sure some of our customers would be delighted to help you do anything you ask."
"Yeah, probably," Edna said; she enjoyed being attractive to the Rebs. Her gaze sharpened. "He's known you for a long time, this fellow, whoever he is, hasn't he?"
"Why do you say that?" Nellie asked, at the same time as she was think ing, Longer than you've been alive.
Edna gave back some of that thought: "He said I looked just like you did when you were my age, maybe even younger. Did he know you way back then, Ma? That's a long time ago now."
Don't I know it. Nellie made her shrug quiet, casual, easygoing. "I knew a lot of men when I was a young lady." And even more when I wasn't being a lady. "I don't remember anybody named Phil or Pill, though." She hoped her smile was disarming.
It wasn't disarming enough. "How about somebody named Bill?" Edna said.
"A lot of Bills back then." Nellie tried a small joke: "Always a lot of bills, never enough money to pay 'em."
"You're giving me the runaround, Ma." Edna didn't raise her voice, but sounded very certain. She had a right to sound that way; a lifetime with her mother had made Nellie transparent to her. "How well did you know this fel low, anyways? Did you…?" She wouldn't say it, but she was thinking it.
"None of your business," Nellie hissed, and then, louder, "Go serve that man there, would you? He wants himself filled up again."
Edna glared at her, but went over to give the Confederate lieutenant an other cup of coffee. "There you go, Toby," she said, smiling a smile very close to the ones Nellie had once had to paste onto her own face.
"Thank you, Miss Edna," Toby said. She put a little extra wiggle into her walk, too; the Reb's eyes followed her every inch of the way back behind the counter. Nellie wanted to grab her daughter and shake her or, better yet, pour a pitcher of iced coffee over her head.