“M’sieu Enfandin is consul of the Republic of Haiti,” I said; “he’s a scholar and a gentleman.” As soon as the words were out I was bitterly sorry for their condescension and patronage. I felt ashamed, as if I had betrayed him by offering credentials to justify my friendship with him and implying that it took special qualities to overcome the handicap of his color.
“A mussoo, huh? Furrin and educated Nigra? Well, guess they’re all right.” His tone, still hearty, was slightly dubious. “Ben working here long?”
“Over three years.”
“Kind of dull work, ain’t it?”
“Oh no—I like to read, and there are plenty of books around here.”
Without apparent effort or management he drew from me the story of my ambitions and misadventures since leaving Wappinger Falls.
“Going to be a professional historian, hay? Little out of my line, but I don’t suppose they’s many of um up north here.”
“Not unless you count a handful of college instructors who dabble at it.”
He shook his head. “A young fella with your aims could do a lot better down South, I’d think.”
“Oh yes. Why, some of the most interesting research is going on right now in Leesburg, Washington-Baltimore and the University of Lima. You are a Confederate yourself, sir?”
“Southron, yes sir, I am that, and mighty proud of it. Now look a-here, boy: I’ll lay all my cards on the table, face up. You’re a free man, not indented, you said, and you ain’t getting any pay here. Now, how’d you like to do a little job for me? They’s good money in it—and I imagine I’d be able to fix up one of those deals—what do they call them? scholarships—at the University of Leesburg, after.”
A scholarship at Leesburg! Where the Department of History was engaged on a monumental project—nothing less than a compilation of all known source material on the War of Southron Independence! It was only with the strongest effort that I refrained from agreeing blindly.
“It sounds fine, Mr.—?”
“Colonel Tolliburr. Jest call me cunnel.”
There wasn’t anything remotely military in his bearing. “It sounds good to me, Colonel. What is the job?”
He clicked his too regular teeth thoughtfully. “Hardly anything at all, m’boy. I just want you to keep a list for me. List of the people that come in here regular. Especially the ones that don’t seem to buy anything, but want to talk to your boss. Their names if you know um—but that ain’t real important—and a sort of rough description, like five foot nine, blue eyes, dark hair, busted nose, scar on right eyebrow. And so on. Nothing real detailed. And a list of deliveries.”
Was I tempted? I don’t really know. “I’m sorry, Colonel. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“Not even for that scholarship and say, $100 in real money?”
I shook my head.
“They’s no harm in it, boy. Likely nothing’ll come of it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Two hundred?”
“It’s not a matter of money, Colonel Tolliburr.”
He looked at me shrewdly. “Think it over, boy—no use being hasty. Any time you change your mind, come and see me or send me a telegram.” He handed me a card.
“SUPPOSE,” I ASKED Enfandin, “one were placed in position of being an involuntary assistant in a—to a…” I was at loss for words which would describe the situation without being too specific. I could not tell Enfandin about Tolliburr and my problem of whether to tell Tyss of the colonel’s espionage without revealing Tyss’s connection with the Grand Army, and were I to say anything about the Grand Army he would be quite right in condemning my deceit in not warning him earlier. Whatever I said or failed to say, I was somehow culpable.
Enfandin waited patiently while I groped, trying to formulate a question which was no longer a question. “You can’t do evil that good may come of it,” I burst out at last.
He nodded. “Quite so. But are you not perhaps putting the problem too abstractly? Is it not maybe that your situation—your hypothetical situation—is one of being accessory to wrong rather than face an alternative which means personal misery?”
Again I struggled for words. He had formulated one aspect of my dilemma regarding the Grand Army, but… “Yes,” I said at last.
“It would be very nice if there were no drawbacks ever attached to the virtuous choice. Then the only ones who would elect to do wrong would be those of twisted minds, the perverse, the insane. No normal man would prefer the devious course if the straight one were just as easy. No, no, my dear Hodge, one cannot escape the responsibility for his choice simply because the other way means inconvenience or hardship or unhappiness.”
I said nothing. Was it pettiness which made me contrast his position as an official of a small yet fairly secure power, well enough paid to live comfortably, with mine where a break with Tyss would mean destitution and no further chance of fulfilling the ambition every day more important to me? Did circumstances alter cases, and was it easy for Enfandin to talk as he did, unconfronted with harsh alternatives?
“You know, Hodge,” he said, as though changing the subject, “I am what is called a career man, which merely means I have no money except my salary. This might seem much to you, but it is really little, especially since protocol insists I spend more than necessary. For the honor of my country. At home I have an establishment to keep up where my wife and children live—”
I had wondered about his apparent bachelorhood.
“—because, to be rudely frank, I do not think, on account of their color, they would be happy or safe in the United States. Besides these expenses I make personal contributions for the assistance of black men who are—how shall we say it?—unhappily circumstanced in your country, because I have found the official allotment is never enough. (Now I have been indiscreet—you know government secrets.) Why do I tell you this? Because, my friend, I should like to help you. Alas, I cannot offer you money. But this I can do, if it will not offend your pride: I suggest you live here—it will be no more uncomfortable than the arrangements you have described in the store—and go to one of the colleges in the city. A medal or an order from the Haitian government judiciously conferred on an eminent educator will undoubtedly get you free tuition. What do you say?”
What could I say? Tell him I had not been open with him? That his generosity deserved a more worthy recipient? I protested, I muttered my thanks, not too coherently, I lapsed again into brooding silence. But the newly opened prospect was too exciting for moodiness; in a moment we were both rapidly sketching plans and supplementing each other’s designs with revisions of our own.
After some discussion we decided I was to give Tyss two weeks’ notice despite our original agreement making such nicety superfluous. Enfandin meanwhile took it upon himself to discuss my matriculation with several professors whom he knew.
My employer raised a quizzical eyebrow at my information as we were eating our breakfast of bread and half raw meat near the printing press. “Ah, Hodgins, you see how neatly the script works out. Nothing left to chance or choice. If you hadn’t been relieved of your trifling capital by a man of enterprise whose methods were more successful than subtle, you might have fumbled at the edge of the academic world for four years and then, having substituted a wad of unrelated facts for common sense and whatever ability to think you might have possessed, fumbled for the rest of your life at the edge of the economic world. You wouldn’t have met George Pondible or gotten here where you could discover your own mind without adjustment to a professorial iron maiden.”