“She didn’t treat us very well; told us to abandon her kitchen.”
Lincoln laughs. “You know, I can’t help thinking sometimes that the rich are retarded. That Swille couldn’t go to the bathroom, I’ll bet, without an escort or someone showing him the way. And do you know what he subsists on?”
“What, sir?”
“Slave mothers’ milk.”
“What?”
“It’s supposed to reverse the aging process. Said he got the idea from some fellow named Tennyson. Sir Baron Lord Tennyson. Sounds like one of those fellows we used to beat up and take lunch money from back in Springfield. Anyway, Swille says he got the solution from the hormone of a reptile, and that this Tennyson fellow wrote a poem about it. One depressing work, if you’d ask my opinion. All about immortality and ennui. These people down here don’t seem to do nothin but despair. This Tennyson guy was talking about flowers a lot. Do you know of him? Is he all right? And who is this ennui feller?”
“Ennui means … well … it’s like a languor, a general discontent concerning the contemporary milieu. Tennyson, he’s an aesthete, Mr. President.”
“Well, I’ll be as dull as a Kansas moon. You say he’s what?”
“An aesthete. He knows about flowers, reads poetry aloud lying on French Impressionist picnic grass. Visits the lofts of painters. Attends all of the openings. Is charming and fascinating with the women.”
“Well, I don’t think that this Swille fellow’s got all of his potatoes. He said something about a town named Camelot. Where is this town, aide? How far away is this town Camelot? Is it a train stop? Is it in Virginia?”
“Camelot is the mythical city of the Arthurian legend, Mr. Lincoln.”
“Well, I’ll be a flying fish on a worm tree. This Swille kept talking about the place and about how a king was going to rule America. I think he was trying to buy me off. That’s my last dealings with him. His kind make you feel like … what’s the name of the character in Mrs. Stowe’s novel?”
“Uncle Tom, sir?”
“That’s it. They have you tommy to them. The man started to talk strange, a lot of scimble-skamble, about knighthood and the ‘days that were’ … Hey, what the hell’s going on down here, anyway? Did you hear all that screaming back there? Nobody even noticed. I didn’t say nothin cause I figured if nobody noticed it, then I must be hearing things. Did you notice it, aide, all that screaming going on back there?”
Lincoln rested his head against the window and looked out into the Virginia night, the blackest night in the South. There was an old folk art cemetery with leaning tombstones behind an ornate black wrought-iron fence. A woman in white floated across the cemetery. A wolf howled. Bats flew into the dark red sun.
“Aide, did you see that?”
“I can’t see anything for the fog, sir. But I think I did hear some screaming. As soon as we entered Virginia we heard the screaming. First a little screaming and then a whole lot. As soon as the sun goes up out here you hear the screaming until the moon goes down, I hear tell, Mr. Lincoln.”
“Like hell.”
“What’s that, Mr. President?”
“The screaming, it reminds you of hell. This man Swille was talking about whips and said something about people being humiliated. Is that some kind of code?”
“Grant said it was decadent down here, Mr. Lincoln. Said it was ignoble. Others call it ‘immoral.’ William Wells Brown, the brown writer, called it that.”
“Grant said ignoble?” Lincoln laughs. “Swille offered me a barony. What’s that all about?”
“I heard talk, Mr. President. The proceedings from the Montgomery Convention where the slaveholders met to map the Confederacy have never been released, but there are rumors that somebody offered Napoleon III the Confederate Crown, and he said he’d think about it. It was in The New York Times, August—”
“The Crown!”
“But Nappy Three said that slavery was an anachronism.”
“Hey!” Lincoln said, snapping his fingers. “I got it! Of course.”
“What’s that, Mr. President?”
“Look, it’s common sense. Why, I’ll be a jitterbug in a hogcreek. Aide, when we return to Washington, I want you to return Swille’s gold. We don’t need it.”
“But, Mr. President, we just risked our lives coming through Confederate lines to get the gold. Now you don’t want it? I don’t understand.”
“We change the issues, don’t you see? Instead of making this some kind of oratorical minuet about States’ Rights versus the Union, what we do is make it so that you can’t be for the South without being for slavery! I want you to get that portrait painter feller Denis Carter to come into the office, where he’ll show me signing the … the Emancipation Proclamation. That’s it. The Emancipation Proclamation. Call in the press. Get the Capitol calligrapher who’s good at letterin to come in and draw this Proclamation. Phone the networks. We’ll put an end to this Fairy Kingdom nonsense. Guenevere, Lancelot, Arthur and the whole dang-blasted genteel crew.”
“A brilliant idea, Mr. President. A brilliant idea.”
“And I want you to clear the White House of those office seekers and others pestering me all day. Wanting to shake my hand. Do you know what some bird asked me the other day?”
“What, Mr. President?”
“The jackass called me long-distance collect when the rates are at their peak and wanted me to do something about a cow he’d bought that had been pumped full of water so’s to make it look like the critter weighed more than it did. Well, I called the fellow he bought it from and the fellow said that if the farmer produced a bill of sale he’d return the money. Well, I called the farmer and told him what the other fellow said and then the farmer said he couldn’t find the bill of sale and wanted me to take the first train out of Washington to help him look for it. Said he needed someone to watch the cow, who was some high-strung critter. Well, I don’t think we can tie up the federal machinery on business like that, aide. And another thing, Swille seems to know more about the government’s business than I do. I want you to investigate the leaks. Did you send Major Corbett away?”
“We put Major Corbett on active duty, Mr. President.”
“Good. Invite Mrs. Corbett to review the troops with me and General Hooker tomorrow. Tell her afterwards we’ll take tea. Give my boots a little lick of grease and go to the drugstore and get me some of that Golden Fluid hair slick.”
“But what will I do about Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. President? The press will be there. Suppose they take a picture?”
“Oh, tell Mother … tell her that I was detained. I don’t know which one’s going to be the death of me, Mother or the niggers.”
“How much gold did Mr. Swille give you, Mr. President?”
Lincoln counts. “He was supposed to give me five, but I only count four.”
“What could have happened, sir? The nigger?”
“I doubt it. Poor submissive creature. You should have seen him shuffle about the place. Yessirring and nosirring. Maybe he didn’t intend to give me but four. I’m tired. Can’t you make this thing go faster?”
“Yessir,” the aide says. “Right away, sir.”
He leans out of the window and instructs the coachman to go faster. Lincoln opens his purse and examines the five-dollar Confederate bill. Bookie odds favored the Union, but you could never tell when you might need carfare.
7
CATO THE GRAFFADO OVERSEER, sandy hair, freckles, “aquiline” nose, rushes into Arthur Swille’s office.