FSF, January-February 2010 Read online

  “Who?”

  A lawyer, he had left his wife and children to resettle in the Caribbean, first in the Virgin Islands and then in San Juan. He'd won cases and concessions for the Garment and Handicrafts Union, until he was disbarred in the 1950s. Subsequently he'd planted citrus trees in a mountain ravine outside of Maricao. His name was Robert W. Claiborne.

  In my office, I put my hand on the locked dispatch case, and then moved down the line. In 1904, his father, my great-grandfather, had published a memoir called Seventy-Five Years in Old Virginia. Now I picked up what looked like the original manuscript, red-lined by the editor at Neale Publishing, and with extensive marginal notes.

  Years before I'd read the book, or parts of it. Dr. John Herbert Claiborne had been director of the military hospital in Petersburg during the siege, and subsequently the last surgeon-general of the Army of Northern Virginia, during the retreat to Appomattox. A little of his prose, I remembered, went a long way:

  We would not rob the gallant Captain or his brave North Carolinians of one feather from their plume. Where there were North Carolinians, there were brave men always, and none who ever saw them in a fight, or noted the return of their casualties after a fight, will gainsay that; but there were other brave men, of the infantry and of the artillery,—men whom we have mentioned,—who rallied promptly, and who shared with our Captain and his game crew that generous rain of metal so abundantly poured out upon their devoted heads.

  Or:

  We were descendents of the cavalier elements that settled in that State and wrested it from the savage by their prowess, introducing a leaven in the body politic, which not only bred a high order of civilization at home, but spread throughout the Southern and Western States, as the Virginian, moved by love of adventure or desire of preferment, migrated into the new and adjoining territories. And from this sneered-at stock was bred the six millions of Southrons who for four long years maintained unequal war with thirty millions of Northern hybrids, backed by a hireling soldiery brought from the whole world to put down constitutional liberty—an unequal war, in which the same Southron stock struck undaunted for honor and the right, until its cohorts of starved and ragged heroes perished in their own annihilation....

  Or even:

  But how many of our little band, twenty years afterward, rode with Fitz Lee, and with Stuart, and with Rosser—rode upon the serried squares of alien marauders on their homes and their country,—I know not. As the war waged I would meet one of them sometimes, with the same firm seat in the saddle, the same spirit of dash and deviltry—but how many were left to tell to their children the story of battle and of bivouac is not recorded. I only know that I can not recall a single living one to-day. As far as I can learn, every one has responded to the last Long Roll, and every one has answered adsum—here—to the black sergeant—Death.

  In other words, what you might call an unreconstructed Southerner, gnawing at old bones from the Civil War. I glanced up at a copy of the finished book on the shelf above my desk. And I could guess immediately that the typescript underneath my hand was longer. Leafing through it, I could see whole chapters were crossed out.

  For example, in the section that describes the siege of Petersburg, there is an odd addendum to an account of the Battle of the Crater, which took place on the night and early morning of July 30, 1864:

  But now at certain nights during the year, between Christmas Night and New Year's Day, or else sometimes during the Ember Days, I find myself again on the Jerusalem Plank Road, or else re-treading in the footsteps of Mahone's doughty veterans, as they came up along the continuous ravine to the east of the Cameron house, and on to near the present location of the water works. From there I find myself in full view of the captured salient, and the fortifications that had been exploded by the mine, where Pegram's Battery had stood. On these moon-lit nights, I see the tortured chasm in the earth, the crater as it was,—two hundred feet long, sixty feet wide, and thirty feet deep. To my old eyes it is an abyss as profound as Hell itself, and beyond I see the dark, massed flags of the enemy, as they were on that fatal morning,—eleven flags in fewer than one hundred yards,—showing the disorder of his advance. Yet he comes in great strength. As before, because of the power of the exploded mine, and because of the awful destruction of the Eighteenth and Twenty-Second South Carolina Regiments, the way lies open to Cemetery Hill, and then onward to the gates of the doomed city, rising but two hundred yards beyond its crest. As before and as always, the Federals advance into the gap, ten thousand, twelve thousand strong. But on the shattered lip of the Crater, where Mahone brought up his spirited brigade, there is no one but myself, a gaunt and ancient man, holding in his hand neither musket nor bayonet, but instead a tender stalk of maize. Weary, I draw back, because I have fought this battle before, in other circumstances. As I do so, as before, I see that I am not alone, and in the pearly dawn that there are others who have come down from the hill, old veterans like myself, and boys also, and even ladies in their long gowns, as if come immediately from one of our ‘starvation balls,’ in the winter of ‘64, and each carrying her frail sprig of barley, or wheat, or straw. On these nights, over and again, we must defend the hearths and houses of the town, the kine in their fields, the horses in their stalls. Over and again, we must obey the silent trumpet's call. Nor in this battle without end can we expect or hope for the relief of Col. Wright's proud Georgians, or Saunders's gallant heroes from Alabama, who, though out-numbered ten to one, stopped the Federals’ charge and poured down such a storm of fire upon their heads, that they were obliged to pile up barricades of slaughtered men, trapped as they were in that terrible pit, which was such as might be fitly portrayed by the pencil of Dante after he had trod ‘nine-circled Hell,’ where the very air seemed darkened by the flying of human limbs. Then the tempest came down on Ledlie's men like the rain of Norman arrows at Hastings, until the white handkerchief was displayed from the end of a ramrod or bayonet—there is no hope for that again, for even such a momentary victory. This is not Burnsides's Corps, but in its place an army of the dead, commanded by a fearsome figure many times his superior in skill and fortitude, a figure which I see upon the ridge, her shaggy mount trembling beneath her weight....

  This entire section is crossed out by an editor's pen, and then further qualified by a note in the margin—"Are we intended to accept this as a literal account of your actual experience?” And later, “Your tone here cannot be successfully reconciled.”

  Needless to say, I disagreed with the editors’ assessments. In my opinion they might have published these excised sections and forgotten all the rest. I was especially interested in the following paragraph, marked with a double question mark in the margin:

  Combined with unconsciousness, it is a condition that is characterized by an extreme muscular rigidity, particularly in the sinews of the upper body. But the sensation is difficult to describe. [...] Now the grass grows green. In the mornings, the good citizens of the town bring out their hampers. But through the hours after mid-night I must find a different landscape as, neck stiff, hands frozen into claws, I make my way from my warm bed, in secret. Nor have I once seen any living soul along the way, unless one might count that single, odd, bird-like, Yankee ‘carpet-bagger’ from his ‘atelier,’ trudging through the gloom, all his cases and contraptions over his shoulders, including his diabolical long flares of phosphorus....

  * * * *

  4. A UFO in Preston

  Benjamin Cowell had made his exposures on sheets of glass covered with a silver emulsion. There were none of his photographs in Edwin Avery Park's leather valise. Instead I found daguerreotypes and tintypes from the 1850s and earlier. And as I dug farther into the recesses of the musty bag, I found other images—a framed silhouette of Hannah Avery, and then, as I pushed back into the eighteenth century, pen and pencil sketches of other faces, coarser and coarser and worse-and-worse drawn, increasingly cartoonish and indistinct, the lines lighter and lighter, the paper darker and darker.
>
  The sketch of the Reverend Paul Parke is particularly crude, less a portrait than a child's scribble: spidery silver lines on a spotted yellow card: bald pate, round eyes, comically seraphic smile, suggesting the death's head on an ancient grave. It was in an envelope with another artifact, a little handwritten booklet about three by six inches, sewn together and covered in rough brown paper. The booklet contained the text of a sermon preached at the Preston Separate Church on July 15, 1797, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Rev. Parke's public ministry. Because of its valedictory nature—he was at the time almost eighty years old—the sermon includes an unusual admixture of personal reflection and reminiscence. Immensely long, it is not interesting in its totality, and I could not but admire the stamina of the Preston Separatists, dozing, as I imagined, in their hot, uncomfortable pews.

  For the Reverend Parke, the most powerful and astonishing changes of his lifetime had been spiritual in nature, the various schisms and revivals we refer to as the Great Awakening. Independence, and the rebellion of the American Colonies, seemed almost an afterthought to him, a distant social echo of a more profound and significant rebellion against established doctrine, which had resulted in the manifest defeat of the Anti-Christ, and the final destruction of Babylon.

  Moving through the sermon, at first I thought I imagined an appealing sense of modesty and doubt:

  ...it wood not Do to trust in my knowledge: or doings or anything of men of means that sentered in Selfishness: and tried to avoid Self Seeking: but in this I was baffled for while I was Giting out of Self in one Shap I should find I was Giting into another and whilst I endeavored not to trust in one thing I found I was trusting in Something else: and they Sem all to be but refuges of lies as when I fled from a lion I met a fox or went to lean on the wall a Serpent wood bite me and my own hart dyed and my every way I Could take and when I could find no way to escape and as I thought no Divine assistance or favour: I found Dreadful or it was my hart murmuring in emity against God himself that others found mercy and were Safe and happy: whilst I that had Sought as much was Denied of help and was perishing. I knew this timper was blasphmonthy wicked and Deserved Damnation: and it appeared to be of Such a malignant nature that the pains of hell wood not allow or make me any bettor thoug I Greatly feared it wood be my portion: but this Soon Subsided and other Subjects drew my sight.

  As is so often the case, these subjects were, and now became, the problems of other people. Nor did the Reverend Parke's self-doubt translate automatically into compassion:

  ...if any one was known to err in principle or practisee or Did Not walk everly there was Strickt Disapline attended according to rule, bee the sin private and publick, as the Case required: and the offender recovered or admenished that theire Condition be all ways plaine, their Soberiety and Zeal for virtue and piety was Such theire Common language and manners was plaine and innocent Carefully avoiding Jesting rude or profain Communications with all Gamblings and Gamings: excessive festevity frolicking Drinking Dressing and even all fashenable Divertions that appeared Dangerous to Virtue: and observed the Stricktest rules of prudence and economy in Common life and to have no felloship with the unfruitful works of Darkness but reprove them.

  Even though my office window was open, the heat was still oppressive. I sat back, listening to the buzz of the big mowers sweeping close across the lawn. This last paragraph seemed full of redirected misery, and it occurred to me to understand why, having given me my ancestor's name, my parents had never actually used it, preferring to call me by a nickname from a 1950s comic strip. I slouched in my chair, letting my eyes drift down the page until I found some other point of entry. But after a few lines I was encouraged, and imagined also a sudden, mild stir of interest, moving through the ancient congregation like a breeze:

  ...in Embr Weeke, this was pasd the middle of the night when I went out thoug my wife would not Sweare otherwise but that I had not shifted from my bed. But in Darkness I betoke myself amongst the hils of maise and having broken of a staff of it I cam out from the verge and into the plouged field wher I saw others in the sam stile. Amongst them were that sam Jonas Devenport and his woman that we had still Givn mercyfull Punishment and whipd as I have menshoned on that publick ocation befor the entire congregation. But on this night when I had come out with the rest: not them but others to that we had similarly Discomforted. So I saw an army of Sinners that incluyded Jho Whitside Alice Hster and myself come from the maise with ears and tasills in our hands. I was one amongst them So Convinced in my own Depravity and the Deceitfullness of my own Hart of Sin the body of Death and ungodlyness that always lyes in wait to Deceive. On that bar ground of my unopned mind these ours wood apear as like a Morning without ligt of Gospill truth and all was fals Clouds and scret Darkness. Theire I saw printed on the earth the hoof of mine enimy: a deep print up on the ground. In the dark I could still perceive her horns and her fowl wind. Nor thougt I we could hold her of with our weak armes. But together lnking hands we strugld upward up the hill by Preston Grang nto the appel trees led by that enimy common to al who movd befor us like a hornd beast togther with her armee of walking corses of dead men. Nor could I think she was not leding us to slaghter by the ruind hutts of the Pecuods theire: exsept When I saw a Greate Ligt at the top of the hill coming throug the trees as lik a cold fire and a vessel or a shipe com down from heavn theire and burning our fases as we knelt and prayd. Those hutts bursd afire and a Great Ligt and a vessill on stakes or joyntd legs was come for our delivrance: with Angels coming down the laddr with theire Greate Heads and Eys. Nor could I Scersely refrain my Mouth from laughter and my tongue from Singing: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth: or singing like Israel at the Red Sea: the hors and his rider he has thrown into the Sea: or say with Debarah he rode in the heavens for our help, the heavens Droped the Clouds Droped Down Water: the Stars in theire Courses fought against Ceera: who was deliverd into the Hand and slain by a woman: with a Sinful weapon. If any man doubt it theire is stil now upon that hill the remnts of that battel. Or I have writ a copy of that Shipe that otherwse did flie away and leving ondly this scrape of scin ript from man's enimny in that hour of Tryumph....

  In my office, in the late afternoon, I sat back. The diagram was there, separately drawn on a small, stiff card, the lines so light I could hardly make them out. But I saw a small sphere atop three jointed legs.

  Then I unwrapped the piece of skin, which was tied up in a shred of leather. It was hard as coal and blackish-green, perhaps two inches by three, the scales like goose-bumps.

  I looked up at my grandfather's painting above my desk, “Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance.” I had examined it many times. The ghosts are like pentagrams, five-pointed stars, misty and transparent. They are bowing to each other in a circle, clutching the oranges in their hands. In the misty landscape, under the light of what must be the full moon behind the clouds, there are cabinets and chests of drawers where other ghosts lie folded up.

  But now I noticed an odd detail for the first time. The furniture is littered across a half-plowed field. And in the background, against a row of faux-gothic windows, there are men and women hiding, peering out from a row of corn placed incongruously along the front. Their faces glint silver in the moonlight. Their eyes are hollow, their cheeks pinched and thin.

  I got up to examine the painting more closely. I unhooked it from the wall and held it up close to my nose. Then I laid it among the piles of paper on my desk.

  These similarities, these correspondences between my mother's family and my father's—I give the impression they are obvious and clear. But that is the privilege of the memoirist or the historian, searching for patterns, choosing what to emphasize: a matter of a few lines here and there, sprinkled over thousands of pages. Turning away, I wandered around my office for a little while, noticing with despair the boxes of old books and artifacts, the shelves of specimens, disordered and chaotic. A rolled-up map had fallen across the door. How had everything gotten to be like this? Soon
, I thought, I'd need a shovel just to dig myself out.

  But through the open window I could smell cut grass. I turned toward the screen again, searching for a way to calm myself and to arrange in my mind these disparate narratives. Because of my training as a literary scholar, I found it easy to identify some similarities, especially the repeating motif of the corn stalk, and the conception of a small number of unworthy people, obliged to protect their world or their community from an awful power. And even in the scene of triumph described by the Reverend Parke—achieved, apparently, through some type of extraterrestrial intervention—was I wrong to catch an odor of futility? This was no final victory, after all. These struggles were nightly, or else at certain intervals of the year. The enemy was too strong, the stakes too high. Our weapons are fragile and bizarre, our allies uncertain and unlike ourselves—no one we would have chosen for so desperate a trial.