Georges made a show of looking under the table. "Where does such a scrawny fellow put it all?" he asked.
"I have a secret pocket, like a kangaroo," O'Doull answered gravely. Georges blinked, unused to getting as good as he gave.
When supper was done and the womenfolk went off to wash and dry, the American handed cigars to Lucien and Charles and Georges. Lucien poured more apple brandy for them all. "Salut," he said, raising his glass, and then, experimentally, before drinking, "Je me souviens."
I will remember: the motto of Quebec in the face of many difficult times, this one more than most. He was not surprised to see that Leonard O'Doull understood not only the words but also the meaning behind them. The American doctor drank the toast, then said, "I understand how hard this is for you, and I thank you again for being so hospitable to an outsider."
Galtier had had enough applejack by then to loosen his tongue a little. He said, "How can you understand, down deep and truly? You are an American, an occupier, not one of the occupied."
"My homeland is also occupied," O'Doull answered. "England has done more and worse for longer to the Irish than she ever did to Quebec." He spoke now with absolute seriousness. "My grandfather was a starving boy when he came to the United States because all the potatoes died and the English landowners sold the wheat in the fields abroad instead of feeding the people with it. We are paying back the debt."
"The Irish rebellion has not thrown out the English," Galtier said.
"No, but it goes on, and ties down their men," O'Doull replied. "It would be better if the U.S. Navy could bring more arms to them, but boats do put in at little beaches every now and then, in spite of what the British fleet can do to stop them, and machine guns aren't so big and bulky."
"You say this here, to a country that might rise in revolt against the United States as Ireland has against England?" Even with applejack in him, Lucien would have spoken so openly to few men on such brief acquaintance: fewer still among the occupiers. But while the doctor might disagree, Lucien did not believe he would betray him to the authorities.
O'Doull said, "You will be freer with the United States than you ever were in Canada. It has proved true for the Irish; it will prove true for you as well. This I believe with all my heart."
Charles, who usually kept his own counsel, said, "Few countries invade their neighbors for the purpose of making them free."
"We came into Canada to beat the British Empire," O'Doull answered, blowing a smoke ring. "They and the Rebels stabbed us in the back twice. But I think, truly, you will be better off outside the Empire than you were in it."
"If we left Canada, if we left the British Empire, of our own will, then it could be you are right," Lucien said. "Anyone who forces something on someone and then says he will be better for it-you will, I hope, understand me when I say this is difficult to appreciate."
"It could be you said the same thing when your mother gave you medicine when you were small," O'Doull replied.
"Yes, it could be," Lucien said. With dignity, he continued, "But, monsieur le docteur, you are not my mother, and the United States are not Quebec's mother. If any country is, it is France."
"All right. I can see how you would feel that way, M. Galtier." O'Doull got to his feet. "I do thank you and your wife and your enchanting family for the fine supper, and for your company as well. Is it possible that I might come back again one day, drink some more of this excellent applejack, and talk about the world again? And we might even talk of other things as well. If you will pardon me one moment, I would like also to say good-bye to Nicole."
She was one of the other things the American would want to talk about, Galtier knew. He felt the pressure of his sons' eyes on him. Almost to his own surprise, he heard himself saying, "Yes, this could be. Next week, perhaps, or the week after that." Until the words were out of his mouth, he hadn't fully realized he approved of the doctor in spite of his country and his ideas. Well, he thought, the arguments will be amusing.
" 'Nother day done. Praise de lord," Jonah said when the shift-changing whistle blew. "I see you in de mornin', Nero."
"See you then," Scipio agreed. He was very used to his alias these days, sometimes even thinking of himself by it. He wiped his sweaty forehead on the coarse cotton canvas of his shirt. Another day done indeed, and a long one, too. The white foreman stuck his card in the time clock to punch him out of work. He trudged from the factory onto the streets of Columbia, a free man.
Even after three months or so at the munitions plant, he had trouble getting used to that idea. His time was his own till he had to get back to work in the morning. He'd never known such liberty, not in his entire life. As house servant and later as butler at Marshlands, he'd been at the white folks' beck and call every hour of the day or night. As a member of the governing council of the Congaree Socialist Republic, he'd been at Cassius' beck and call no less than at Miss Anne's before. Now…
Now he could do as he pleased. If he wanted to go to a saloon and get drunk, he could. If he wanted to chase women, he could do that. If he wanted to go to a park and watch the stars come out, he could do that, too-though Columbia still had a ten o'clock curfew for blacks. And if he wanted to go back to his apartment and read a book, he could also do that, and not have to worry about getting called away in the middle of a chapter.
He walked into a restaurant not far from the factory, ordered fried chicken and fried okra and cornbread, washed it down with chicory-laced coffee, and came out full and happy. Nobody knew who he was. Nobody cared who he was. Oh, every now and then he still saw wanted posters for the uncaptured leaders of the Congaree Socialist Republic, and his name-his true name-still appeared among them, but that hardly seemed to matter. It might have happened a lifetime before, to someone else altogether.
Had Cassius understood that desire to escape the revolutionary past, it probably would have been enough for him to want to liquidate Scipio. Out in the swamps by the Congaree, Cassius and his diehards kept up a guerrilla war against Confederate authority even yet. Every so often, the newspapers complained of some outrage or another the rebels-the papers commonly called them bandits-had perpetrated.
But the papers talked much more about the bill to arm Negroes under debate up in Richmond. People talked about it, too, both white and black. The talk had only intensified once it cleared the House and got into the Senate. More than half of the black men Scipio knew were for it. As best he could judge, fewer than half the whites in Columbia were. How much his judgment was worth, he had trouble gauging.
When he got back to his apartment building, he let out a heartfelt sigh of relief. Now that he no longer had to pay half his salary to the white clerk who'd hired him, he could afford something better than the dismal flophouse where he'd endured his first nights in Columbia. The place was shabby but clean, with gas lights and a bathroom at the end of the hall. It had cockroaches, but not too many, and his own astringently neat habits gave them little sustenance.
Coming up the corridor from the bathroom, the mulatto woman who had the apartment across the hall from his smiled. "Evenin', Nero," she said.
"Evenin', Miss Sempronia," he answered. He thought she was a widow, but he wasn't sure. He didn't pry into the business of others, not least because he couldn't afford to have anyone prying into his. That smile, though, and others he'd got from her, made him think he wouldn't have to run very fast if he decided to chase her.