Because of all this I realized the Grand Army was in a position to play a much more important part than any similar illegal organization in another country.
Just how it was using its opportunity was something of which I became only gradually aware.
IV
Among customers to whom I frequently delivered parcels of books there was a Monsieur René Enfandin who lived on Eighth Street, not far from Fifth Avenue. M. Enfandin was Consul for the Republic of Haiti; the house he occupied was distinguished from its otherwise equally drab neighbors by a large red and blue escutcheon over the doorway. He did not, however, use the entire dwelling himself, reserving only the parlor floor for the office of the consulate and living quarters; the rest was let to other tenants.
He had an arrangement with Tyss whereby he turned back most of the books he bought for credit on others. I soon saw that if he hadn’t, his library would shortly have dispossessed him; as it was, books covered all the space not taken by the essential paraphernalia of his office and bedroom with the exception of a bit of bare wall on which hung a large crucifix. He seemed always to have a volume in his large, dark brown hand, politely closed over his thumb, or open for eager sampling.
Enfandin was tall and strong-featured, notable in any company. In the United States, where a black man was an irritating reminder of a disastrously lost war and Mr. Lincoln’s ill-advised proclamation of emancipation, he was the permanent target of rowdy boys and adult hoodlums. Even the diplomatic immunity of his post was poor protection, for it was believed—not without justification—that Haiti, the only American republic south of the Mason-Dixon line to preserve its independence, was disrupting the official if sporadically executed United States policy of deporting Negroes to Africa by encouraging their emigration to its shores or—what was more annoying—assisting persecuted blacks to flee westward to the hospitality of the unconquered Indians of Dakotah and Montana.
Although I was somewhat shy of him at the first, I was drawn to him more and more. Nor was this entirely because he was as avid for reading as myself or because his excursions into learning were more systematic and disciplined. He had a quick and penetrating sympathy that was at times almost telepathic. Beginning with perfunctory interchanges when I delivered his books, our conversations grew longer and more friendly; soon he was advising me and I was learning from him with an eagerness I had never felt for Tyss’s proffered erudition.
“History, but certainly, Hodge,” he had no discernible accent but sometimes his English was uncolloquial, “it is a noble study. But what is history? How is it written? How is it read? Is it a dispassionate chronicle of events scientifically determined and set down? Or is it the transmutation of the ordinary to the celebrated?”
“It seems to me that the facts are primary and the interpretations secondary,” I answered. “If we can find out the facts we can form our own opinions on them.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps. But take what is for me the central fact of all history.” He pointed sweepingly at the crucifix. “As a Catholic the facts are plain to me; I believe what is written in the Gospels to be literally true: that the Son of Man died for me on that cross. But what are the facts for a contemporary Roman statesman? That an obscure local agitator threatened the stability of an uneasy province and was promptly executed in the approved Roman fashion, as a warning to others. And for a contemporary fellow countryman? That no such person existed. You think these facts are mutually exclusive? Yet you know that no two people see exactly the same thing, too many honest witnesses have contradicted each other. Even the Gospels must be reconciled.”
“You are saying that truth is relative.”
“Am I? Then I shall have my tongue examined, or my head. Because I mean to say no such thing. Truth is absolute and for all time. But one man cannot envisage all of truth; the best he can do is see one aspect of it whole. That is why I say to you, be a skeptic, Hodge. Always be the skeptic.”
“Ay?” I was finding the admonition a little difficult to harmonize with his previous confession of faith.
“For the believer skepticism is essential. How else is he to know false gods from true except by doubting both? One of the most pernicious of folk-sayings is, ‘I cannot believe my eyes!’ Why particularly should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Believe your mind, your intuition, your reason, your emotion if you like—but not your eyes unaided by any of these interpreters. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, as easily as the actual scenery. Your eyes will tell you nothing exists but matter—”
“Not only my eyes but my boss.” I told him of Tyss’s mechanistic creed.
“God have mercy on his soul,” muttered Enfandin. “Poor creature. He has liberated himself from the superstitions of religion in order to fall into superstition so abject no Christian can conceive it. Imagine it to yourself”—he began to pace the floor—“time is circular, man is automaton, we are doomed to repeat the identical gestures over and over, forever. Oh, I say to you, Hodge, this is monstrous.”
I nodded. “Yes. But what is the answer? Limitless space, limitless time? They are almost as horrifying, because they are inconceivable.”
“And why should the inconceivable be horrible? But you are right. This is not the answer. The answer is that all—time, space, matter—all is illusion. All but the good God. Nothing exists but Him. We are creatures of His fancy, figments of His imagination…”
“Then where does free will come in?”
“As a gift, of course—how else? The greatest gift and the greatest responsibility.”
I can’t say I was entirely satisfied with Enfandin’s exposition, though it was more to my taste than Tyss’s. I returned to the conversation at intervals, both in my thoughts and when I saw him, but in the end all I really accepted was his original adjuration to be skeptical, which I doubt I always applied in the way he meant me to.
Frequently he became so interested in our talk, which ranged widely, for he thought it no frivolity to touch on any subject engaging either of us whether it might be considered trivial or not, that he walked back to the bookstore with me, leaving a note on the door of the consulate to say he would be back in ten minutes—a promise I’m afraid seldom fulfilled.
More and more as I came to know him better I felt I ought to tell him of Tyss’s connection with the Grand Army, an organization strongly prejudiced against Negroes. Timidity and selfishness combined to keep me quiet; I feared he might buy his books elsewhere and I should lose the benefit of his companionship.
I suppose I had known Enfandin for perhaps a year when I became better acquainted with some of the activities of the Grand Army. It began the day a customer called himself to my attention with a self-conscious clearing of his throat.
“Yes sir—can I help you?”
He was a fat little man with palpably false teeth, and hair that hung down behind over his collar. However, the sum of his appearance was in no way ludicrous; rather he gave the impression of ease and authority, and an assurance so strong there was no necessity to buttress it.
“Why, I was looking for…” he began, and then looked at me sharply. “Say, ain’t you the young fella I saw walking with a Nigra? Big black buck?”
I felt myself reddening. “There’s no law against it, is there?”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t know about your damyankee laws, boy. For myself I’d say there’s no harm in it, no harm in it at all. Always did like to be around Nigras myself—but then, I was rared among um. Most damyankees seem to think Nigras ain’t fitten company. Only goes to show how narrerminded and bigoted you folks can be. Present company excepted.”